of Table b a y ; but before they had remained long they contrived,
by means of a boat made of dried skins, to escape to
the continent, and to fly into thaxountry of the Booshuanas,
where the elder brother was trodden to death by an elephant ;
and the present man had been living among the savages on
the skirts of the colony, an outlaw and a vagabond, for
nearly twenty years. Informed of his situation, the party
had carried with them a conditional pardon from the Court
of Justice at the Cape, to which his long sufferings and his
willing services on the present occasion amply entitled
him.
Having at this place, beside the above-mentioned persons,
added twelve Kora Hottentots to the strength of the expedition,
and procured forty-eight head of draught oxen in lieu
of seventy-six already worn out with fatigue, the party proceeded
on the 12th | and, after separating in the dark and
losing their way on the desert, the whole fortunately rejoined
at a spring of water on the evening of the 15th. The next
day they were accosted by six naked Bosjesmans craving, as
usual, a little food. This night they halted at the Makatanie
or Duck-spring, near which their attention was attracted by
a singular cone-shaped hill, where they discovered a deep
cavern occupied by whole flocks of turtle doves, whose nests
loaded the bushes that nearly choaked up its mouth. The
bottom of the cavern was strewed over with a reddish brown
ochraceous earth, abounding with mica, which is used both
by the Koras who are brown, and the Booshuanas who are
black, for painting their bodies, after which the skin has a
glossy appearance not unlike the surface of a bronze statue.
A little beyond this hill they came to the Magaaga fontein or
the Spring of the Iron Mountain, the name of which induced
some of the party to ascend the heights and examine the
rocks and stones on the surface, taking with them a pocket
compass. The masses of rock were composed generally of a
ponderous stone, which evidently abounded with iron ; and
they found that the compass was very materially affected.
By placing the needle on some of the iron-stones it appeared
completely to have lost its polarity, pointing differently on
different stones, sometimes in an opposite direction, vibrating
at one time with great violence, and again whirling entirely
round ; from which they concluded that the mountain
contained native iron, or other substances that were impregnated
with magnetic matter. I t does not appear, however,
that they discovered any specimens which could be considered
as containing iron in its native state.
After chasing in these mountains, and in the passes through
which their route led them, a variety of the larger kind of
game, as hartebeests, springboks, and ostriches, the travellers
came in the dusk of the evening to the banks of a lake
called the Koussie, whose extent was several thousand feet in
circumference. A belt of tall reeds surrounded its margin,
in several parts, of which were growing very beautiful knots
of the Karroo mimosa. Near the brink of the water they
observed'a number of holes that had been made by the Bos-
jesmans, with a view to entrap the wild beasts of the desert
coming thither to quench their thirst ; and in one of them
they found a dead steenbok, which had apparently fallen in;
3 n