_ >.775- ta Zwellendam. Here I likewife few, for the firft time, a December. ' ~ » i. V w fmall kind of onion, with fpiral leaves; caught an amphif- bozna; and drew up the defcyiption of a cleome juncea, which I have inferted in the A6ta Societ, Upfal. Vol. Ill, page 192. The farmers here, ag well as fome others, who were going to the Cape before me, were fo obliging, as, at my requeft, to take with them the packet of herbs I had already collected; otherwife, I fhoujd. not have had- room enough in my waggon for all my collection. The tide was very viiible in this river. The wind blew ftrong from S. S. W. At noon the thermometer was 71 in the fhade, and in the evening, after the moon was up, at 64. On the 7th, at half paft five in the morning, the thermometer was at 5 2. We now proceeded on our journey, going northwards* and in our way, a good mile and. a half from the. river* we met with the capital Zout-pan, or Salt-pan. By this, name thole places are diftinguiihed, where there is a quantity o f culinary felt produced. This falt-pan was an extenfive plain, covered over with a level and continued cruft o f fait, upon which, in feveral places, there flood a little water; fo that there could not be a more'natural refemblance o f a frozen lake than thisi, This, by confequence, being- contrafted with, the warmth; o f the weather and furrounding trees and flowers; would: certainly at firft fight have ftruck me with, the greateft amazement, had I not been, previoufly informed o f the real; caiife of the. phaenomenon. Towards the lides the cruft o f felt was thin.an d; jidl;there one might perceive; that it 2 - was was diffufed over a loamy and clayey foil. But a little D ' 77J^et farther towards the middle, I found it was above two feet deep, without being able to difcover the bottom of it, or any water underneath it. The colonifts who worked here with poles, imagine that the cruft of felt extends many fathoms below the furface. This felt-pan was about three miles in circumference, and of an oblong ihape. After there have been feveral warm days together, there is formed in different places on, the cruft, a hoar froft, as it were, which is the fineft and ftrongeft felt, and is with great reafon fuppofed by the co- lonifts to exceed that o f Lunenburgh. Indeed, the whole o f it feems to be quite fine and pure : and it appears to me, and is allowed by others, to give a better tafte to the butter and meat that is preferred in it, than any that comes from the other falt-pams to he met with in Africa; as Saldanka-bay, between Zoet-melk and Gawrits rivets, and in certain places behind the Sneemvbergs, or fnowy mountains; My Hottentots were occupied in collecling a flock o f the fineft felt, as much as I thought we fhould want' for the purpofe of felting our meat, and1 fuch ikins of animals as I might wiih to preferve. In the mean time, I myfeif made a rich capture o f many reptiles and infedls hitherto unknown ; fome of which were ftuck fall and dried up in the cryftals of felt, while others were dying, or had jnft expired, in confequence o f the vifcid feline matter with which they were in contail. Many infecfts were likewife drown-- ed in the clear water or briny liquid, which; after it had rained, was colledled in certain places in die incruftation o f
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