profecute a courfe o f experiments on a fubje£t o f fo much importance
and curiofity.
Our cattle being well refreihed on the meadows of De Beer
Valley, we advanced about twenty miles, and encamped for the
night on the banks of Hottentot’s river, in the narrow deep
channel of which were only a few ftagnant pools of muddy
water. Here we were met by fome of the inhabitants of Cam-
deboo, who, being apprifed o f the'' approach o f the landroft,
had come a two days’ journey, and brought with them feveral
teams o f large fat oxen to haften his arrival at the Drofdy,
where he was informed the orderly and well-difpofed part of
the diftricft were anxioully expefiing him.
Gn the twenty-eighth we pitched our tents at the Poort, fo
called from a narrow paifage through a range of hills that
branch out from the mountains of Camdeboo and run acrofs
the defert. The plains were here a little better covered with
Ihrubbery, and abounded with duikers and fteen-boks, whole
herds of fpring-boks, and qua-chas and oftriches.
A heap of Hones, piled upon the bank o f a rivulet, was
pointed out to me as the grave of a Hottentot; and on enquiring
from our people of this nation i f the deceafed had been
fome chief, they informed me that no diftin&ion was conveyed
after death ; and that the lize o f the heap depended entirely
upon the trouble that the furviving friends chofe to give them-
felves. The intention, it feemed, of the pile was very different
from that of the monuments o f a fimilar kind that anciently
were
were erefied in various parts of Europe, though they very probably
might have proceeded, in a more remote antiquity, from
the fame origin, which was that of preventing the wolves, or
jackals, or other ravenous beafts, from tearing up and mangling
the dead carcafe. The progreffive refinement of fociety converted,
at length, the rude heap of ftones, originating in necef-
fity, into the fculptured marble, the ufelefs flatterer of vanity.
Though the Poort may be confidered as the entrance into
Camdeboo, the firft habitation is twelve miles beyond it, and
the fecond ten miles beyond the firft. No others appeared
either to the right or to the left, and the furface of the country
was juft as barren and naked as any part o f the Karroo. The
third farm-houfe we paffed was fifteen or fixteen miles beyond
the fecond; and no other occurred between this and the
Drofty, or the refidence of the landroft, which was about ten
miles farther. It was late in the evening of the thirtieth before
we arrived at this village, at the entrance of which the
landroft was received by a body of farmers on horfeback, who
welcomed him by a difcharge of feveral platoons of mufquetry.