>775- vermin they were covered with from fpreading any far- ther, we obliged them to throw them away entirely.. On the fame day on which they arrived at Bruntjes .Hoogte, where they expended to meet with a number of fmart girls of their own nation, they painted their nofes, their cheeks, and the middle of their foreheads, with foot. A young Bofhies-man, the only young man amongft all thofe whom I engaged in my fervice at Zondags-rwier, fet off his perfon in the fame manner. Excepting this, I could not obferve that they even took any pains to infinuate them- felves into the good graces o f the other fe x ; but am rather inclined to fufpe<S, that the firft advances in the way of courtfhip, moftly came from the woman’s fide. This day, while we were bulled in running after infedts, botanizing and wafhing, feveral o f our Hottentots went a hunting; and in the courfe of their fport, had come within fifty or fixty paces of two lions, that were lying on the ground, but they had the prudence not to fire at them. The lions, Kkewife, as fcon as they perceived the Hottentots, had ftolen away as foftly as they. The height of the thermometer, at noon, was 84 degrees. In the evening we took our departure., and in our way met with and hunted a confider-able number o f buffaloes; one of them, which was wounded in the breaft by a ball, efcaped from us though clofely purfued; but a female which was fhot in the cheek, quite through a large vein, fell at laft, after having ran to fome diffance. This day my friend had an opportunity of feeing an amorous combat between two tiger-cats, and one o f our „ Hotten- Hottentots caught four oftrich chicks alive, which we fed ,77;. for feveral days with fucculent plants, till they died in con- fequence of the jolting of the waggon. That fame evening we got to Hevy, and there baited all night. It was merely a rocky vale, in which there were feveral pits of ftagnating and brackiih water. From the flat fummit of a mountain there dripped a little frefh water, of which we could hardly colledt a quantity fufficient to quench our own third. All the plants round about (except the fucculent ones) were dried up like hay. On the 17 th, at five in the morning, the thermometer was at 60, and at two. in the afternoon at 80 degrees. Towards evening we departed, and got before night to Quafnrnedacka Well. This place is fituated at the diffance of two hours (uurs) from that which we had juft quitted. A boggy pool of prater, which at that time was partly dried up, from twenty to twenty-five feet acrofs, was the only 'watering-place to be found in a tradt of country of confiderable extent; upon which account this was fo much the more reforted to by wild beafts, and fmelt fo ftrong and rank o f the buffaloes, rhinocerofes, and other animals that wallowed in it, that, at the diffance of feveral feet, our cattle, and particularly our horfes, perfedtly iRuddered at it. Their thirft, neverthelefs, compelled them at laft to fip a little of what was colledted in the prints made by the feet of the larger kind of game. On a plot of ground a little higher than this bog, we difco- vered traces o f a water-fpring gently trickling down, and dug round about it.- From hence we got, it is true, ibme water not quite fo rank as the former, though it ftill retained a V ol . II. M perfectly
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