Ach 
it became comparatively moderate. It is seldom, indeed, 
known to blow with much violence beyond the first chain of 
mountains. The country on the other side is high, barren, 
and covered with hard rushy plants, among which the genus 
Restio predominates. A few miles beyond the Kloof, we 
crossed a branch of the Palmiet River, and keeping to the 
left, followed a path recently made over the Nieuberg, which 
led us to the farm of Stephanus Leroex, where we proposed . 
to halt for some days. This farm is situated in a fine 
amphitheatre, enclosed on one side by a bend of the great 
chain of mountains that commences at Hangklip Point, and 
on the other by the Nieuberg. The area is about ten miles 
across, and forms a gentle slope from the circumference to 
the centre, with a smooth verdant surface, regularly undu- 
lated, and watered by numerous mountain-streamlets, which 
meet in the middle of the valley, and form the swampy 
source of the River Sonderend. The channel of this river, 
as well as its tributary streams, is encumbered with the 
Palmiet, a gigantic species of bog-rush, (Juncus serratus,) 
that spreads and interlaces its creeping stem over the surface, 
forming a strong elastic net-work, upon which a man may walk _ 
without the least risk of sinking. The leaves of this plant bear 
a strong resemblance in figure and disposition to those of the 
smaller species of Pandanus. The stems, stripped of the foliage, 
are used by the wine-farmers as padding to fix the leggers 
against the sides of the waggons, when they send their wine _ 
to the market. After serving this purpose, they are flung — 
out on the streets, and being of a black colour, very heavy; 
and much of the same size, gave rise to the ludicrous mis- 
take of a certain English traveller, who has informed the pub- _ 
lic that the streets of Capetown are paved with bullocks' tails. 
.* Though the surface of the ground here, as well as in — 
most other parts of the Colony, appears at a distance abun- _ 
dantly verdant, the produce is mostly of an useless, if not — 
noxious quality, such as cattle invariably reject. A few — 
straggling tufts of Aristida, Holcus, Ehrharta, and Anthistirets — 
spring up here and there among a profusion of bulbous 
rooted plants, and Syngenesious shrubs. ln the vicinity of the — 
