‘INTERIOR OF SOUTHERN AFRICA. 363 
numerous kinds of birds near its banks, we bivouacked for the night 
close to it, on the opposite side, after having crossed that little perma- 
nent stream. The next morning offered ample chances for sporting; 
large coveys of Plerocles gutturalis, Smith, a kind of a Namaqua par- 
tridge, and the genuine P. Namaquana, being the principal partridges 
about here, and roaming over the fields adjacent to that river, came in- 
stinctively at a fixed hour in the morning to have a drink, of which we 
secured a vast number, as well for the collection, as for eating. Seve- - 
ral kinds of herons, ducks, and geese inhabited the jungles of sedges, 
with which the banks of that river are girt. 
We passed several farmhouses as we went on, lying on both sides of 
the road, up along the river, towards the new town “ Mooyerivier,” 
named from the river on whose banks it has been erected. Consider- 
able tracts of ground on both sides of the little stream showed in their 
ample traces of the ploughshare, that the industrious white man had 
put his hand already into the soil of the wilderness, to demand tribute 
Í Of her; and surely she paid abundantly to her new masters, in the 
granaries, filled up with corn. This tract having been only a few years 
previous within the dominions of Masilicatse, has been most likely very 
often a silent witness of carnage and cruelty, executed s the warriors 
of that despot. 
Following the advice of the inhabitants, to provide ourselves with a 
considerable quantity of flour ere leaving the village, as it was unlikely : 
to get any more of that necessary article after we left that place, we —— 
bought several muids of corn from the inhabitants, and waited for an 
opportunity of grinding it, at the only mill of the village,—rambling — — 
meanwhile over the neighbouring hills and dales in search for new ob- — — 
jects of natural curiosity ; the result thereof however was unsatisfactory, 
as we soon found out that the frost had killed many a plant; although — 
they were already in seed, would have been even then a new acquisi- - 
tion to the botanical collections. There was many a new form of — 
plants, which having grown luxuriantly during the summer months, 
bore witness now of the powerful effect of frost, especially those her- 
baceous plants belonging to a warmer and equally temperate climate; —— 
many of them were only stragglers, occurring — here; as be- — 
ing their most southerly limit. ee 
- As the country about here is scotia daii; the falling of - 
snow would be no rare occurrence; but as the atmosphere contains very _ 
