IN SOUTH AFRICA. 249 
the province of Albany and sweeping it of cattle, which are 
the grand objects of Caffer warfare. But it may very well be 
doubted whether this crafty chief had ever really entertained 
a design so extravagant as that mentioned in the confession. 
April 30.—Leaving Fraser’s Camp, we crossed the Great 
Fish River at Trompeter’s Drift, and proceeded to Fort 
Peddie, which is situated on an elevated grassy plain near 
the little river Chusie or Clusie, about twenty miles from our 
last station. The Fish River Bush is less broad in this part 
than in many others, probably not extending more than six 
miles on each side of the river ; but it is of most intricate and 
formidable character; the hills of very considerable height 
and tremendously steep, but of a remarkable uniformity of 
shape. They might be compared to inverted sarcophagi. 
At Trompeter's Drift there is a small military post, in a 
most burning spot. The officer who commanded here at this 
time had adorned his hut with various spoils of the chase, in 
particular the skull of a hippopotamus, the skin of a leopard, 
heads of baboons and wild boars, horns of the buffalo and of 
several kinds of antelope; all which animals he had killed in 
the neighbouring bush. The Great Fish River, where we 
crossed it, did not appear to me to be wider than the Wye at 
Monmouth, and had but little water in it, except in some 
places where it formed deep pools among the rocks; between 
these hollows its stream was rapid and shallow, with a hard 
rocky bottom ; its banks beautifully fringed with the weeping 
willow (Note B) and other trees of a like graceful character. 
This river is subject, at uncertain times, to violent floods, and 
has been known to rise as much as seventy feet above its 
ordinary level; sometimes, on the contrary, it is so far dried 
up as to become a mere string of pools, without any current 
at all. i 
May 1st.—The next day we rode about six miles farther 
eastward, to a missionary station at the head of the Beeka 
River, where the Caffer chiefs of the tribes Congo and 
Tslambie had assembled to meet the Governor. There were 
