the myrmecophaga Capenjis or ant-eater of the Cape, is alfo very-
common, and like the porcupine undermines the ground, fel-
dom quitting its fubterranean abode except in the night. The
thighs of this animal are fometimes falted, and in that ftate con-
fidered as very good hams.
The valley of Roode Sand is about thirty miles in length,
and is inhabited by about forty families. Quitting this divi-
fion, the country becomes wild, and almoft uninhabited.
Bogs, fwamps, and morafs covered with ruihes and four
plants,, large trafts o f naked hard clay, deep fiindy roads,
pools of ftagnant water, and thofe infallible indications of a
barren foil, hillocks of ants, are the chief obj ecjs that meet the
eye of the traveller. For feveral miles together no human
habitation makes its appearance. In this dreary country there
was nothing to engage the attention but the vaft chain of
mountains on the left which we were ihortly to pafs, and
which here began to round off into an eafterly direftiom
This branch was much more wild, lofty, and barren than that
through which the Kloef o f Roode Sand opens a paffage.
They confided o f immenfe columnar maffes of naked fand-
ftone, o f a red ferruginous color palling in places into fteel-
blue. Their corroded and jagged tops, like the battlements of
fo many towers or minarets, leaned from their bafes, and
feemed to owe their only fupport to each other. The ftrata
were here inclined to the eaftward in an angle of about forty
degrees, and feemed as i f ready to Hide down over each other.
Still they were uniform, and had evidently never been dif-
rupted by any fubterraneous eruption or concuffion. On the
qppofite
oppofite fide of the dale,. however, flood a long range. of hills
which had every appearance of volcanic origin. Some were
perfefl: cones; others truncated at the fummit in the manner
of thofe on which craters are generally found. Hills like
thefe,: Handing each on its proper bafe, and fo very different
from any that had yet been feen, were too interefting to pafs.
They were found to be compofed of quartz, fand-ftone, and
iron; not, however, ftratified like the great chains, but. torn and
rent into large fragments. There was no lava ; nor did it appear
that any of the ftones had undergone fufion. There was
no blue flate in their fides, which moft probably would have
been the cafe had they been thrown up by any fubterranean
impulfe, the whole bafe of the plain being compofed of it.
Within thefe hills we came to a valley about three miles in
length and two in width, having a furface as level as that o f
a bowling-green. By a ftrong ftream palling from one end to
the other, the whole might be laid under water, and converted
into moft excellent rice grounds. This ftream was fmoking
hot. The fprings, by which it was fupplied, iffued out of
the ground at the foot of fome hills which formed the head o f
the valley. They threw up the water with great violence, and
with it quantities of fmall whitiih fand mixed with minute
chryftals of quartz. The bed of the refervoir, and the channel
down which the water was carried aerofs the valley, in a ftream
ftrong enough to turn the largeft mill in England, were compofed
of thefe materials. The water was perfeitly clear, and
depofited not the fmalleft degree o f any kind o f fediment,
neither in the pool where the fprings were, nor by the edges
• x. of