INTERIOR OF SOUTHERN AFRICA. 327 
night, from whence the course of the Sand River could be seen already 
at a considerable distance, running below in a W.N.W. direction 
through a wide valley of green meadows, the end of which was seem- 
ingly limited to our sight by the vapours of a far-distant gloomy hori- 
zon. We rambled about during the limited space of daylight towards 
sunset, in search of botanical objects about the spot of our night- 
quarters; the field was however very much exhausted of its vegetable 
growth, by the great number of various kinds of game on the hills in 
every direction, so that it was difficult to find suitable specimens of 
plants; the only thing worth mentioning was a kind of Polygonum, 
No. 1452, an aquatic plant, growing in periodical pools of water; 
its purple-looking flower-spikes rising over the surface of the water, 
giving a cheerful look to those little ponds; flowering specimens of 
Limosella, likewise aquatic plants, were growing on the banks of these 
water-pools. We started early the next morning; our course was de- 
seending for several miles before we reached the banks of the Sand 
River, which we found exceedingly difficult in fording, on account of 
its steep banks and the great masses of drifting sand; our teams had 
a hard pull to extricate the waggons, and to bring them on the opposite 
banks, Although there was now only a small stream of water running 
in its channel, the high and abruptly-broken steep banks of that river 
showed evidently that at some periods it had been a formidable gulf, 
and a barrier arresting the proceedings of travellers, admitting neither 
fording with waggons nor on horseback. As there is scarcely any kind 
of trees to be seen, its banks have a dreary appearance in comparison 
to many other rivers in South Africa. Close on its abrupt sides were 
just flowering the prickly shrub of Melolobium calycinum, Benth., No. 
394, and Oxygonum? No. 1451, an annual creeper. The right bank of 
the Sand River about here, where we forded it, is girded for a consi- 
derable length by moderate hills, which we ascended, and afterwards 
made our way over a tolerably level table-land; the north-westerly — 
limits we reached towards evening, when we descended again, and took — 
our night-quarters near to the temporary mansion of an emigrant family, 
Which we left the next morning, and shaped our course in a north- 
westerly direction towards an obtuse conical hill, rising over the ele- 
vated ridge of a plain, being a table-land, and lying between the Sand 
River and the Falsrivier. The emigrants baptized this hill again 
“ Dornkop," on account of its woody appearance, standing quite iso- 
