fociety; "without wife or child, relation or friend, and any
human being to converfe with or confide in, except the old
Hottentot and the Have, who were his only inmates, and a tribe
of Hottentots in ftraw huts without. With the appearance of
wretchednefs and extreme poverty, he poifeifed immenfe herds
o f fheep and cattle, and had feveral large fums of money placed
out at intereft. He was literally what the world has properly
called a mifer. In juftice, however, to the old man, he was
one of the civilleft creatures imaginable. On our return We
were much indebted to him for the affiilance of his cattle, which
he very obligingly fent forward to fall in with our waggons on
the midft of the Karroo defert.
It is Angular enough, that a brother and a filler o f this man,
both old, and both unmarried, fliould each have their habitations
in feparate and diftant corners of thefe mountains, and
live, like him, entirely in the fociety o f Hottentots; they are
nearly related to one of the richeil men in the-Cape.
On the twenty-ninth we croffed a chain of mountains to the
well, and proceeding to the northward between it. and another
much higher, we came at night to the head o f the defile, where
it was found impra&icable for the waggons to make any farther
progrefsi We therefore encamped near a clear and copious
fpring o f water, called the Fleuris fonteyn. The mountains,
within the defiles o f which we now were, are called in the
Namaaqua language, the Khamies, fignifying the duller or
aggregate. That which headed the feveral palfes, or where as
a center they all terminated, was a very high peak, not lefs
than
than four thoufand feet above the plain, on the wellern fide, that
Hoped gently to the fea-lhore. Thefe mountains, in their nature
and compofition, differed from all others in the colony. Except
the high point jull mentioned, they were neither peaked, nor
tabular, nor ftratified, but were compofed of large rounded malfes
of granite, a whole mountain fometimes confilling only o f one
naked rock. To two of this fort, from their fimilarity to thofe
remarkable ftones already noticed under the names of the Pearl
and the Diamond, but ten times their fize, as a point of diilinction
in the chart, I gave the name o f thè Namaaqua Pearls.
The loofe fragments of Hone on the fides of the Khamies berg,,
whether detached pieces of granite, or greafy quartz, or flinty
pebbles, had almoll invariably that fide which lay next the
ground, tinged of a blue or green color, moll frequently the
latter. The veins that ran through the mountainous malfes of
granite, were generally filled with femi-tranfparent quartz, among
which were both metallic chryllallizations and arborizations.
In feveral places were curious flat rocks, colored red and yellow,
which might be taken up in fuch large flags, and were fo eafily
cut with a knife, that they had obtained the name o f plank-llone.
In the veins of this Hone were alfo metallic plates o f a pyramidal
form, and a greenilh color. All thefe appearances indicated the
exiftence of abundance o f copper in the Khamies berg. In fail,
this is the commencement of what are called the Copper
mountains, from the quantity of Malachite that is faid to be
ftrewed over their furface. In thefe mountains is alfo found, in
large blocks, that fpecies of Hone j to which mineralogills in
Europe have given the name of Prehnite. It poifefles moll of
3D the