118 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



After the weather cleared up, we proceeded to Graham s 

 Town, situated on the eastern slope of the same mountain 

 range, and exposed to many disadvantages, by the influence 

 of those mountains. Violent bursts of wind, often accom- 

 panied by thunder and lightning, with fatal consequences, 

 are the general annoyances of this little country town. It 

 is surrounded by less high hills towards the east and north- 

 east, thinly covered with Acacia trees, under which grow 

 luxuriantly many kinds of useful herbs and grasses, so that 

 large and fine flocks of sheep are kept at the neighbour- 

 ing farms. We halted to purchase some fresh provi- 

 sions, only a short time here, for fear our men should 

 smuggle brandy to the waggons, which they often clever- 

 ly manage to do, and afterwards become insolent and 

 quarrelsome. They showed already symptoms for getting 

 "kicker,'' an expression in the Dutch language in general 

 use amongst these depraved people ; they tell with great 

 delight one another the feeling of being " kkker ;" it 1S 

 scarcely possible for a person, who understands the real 

 meaning of it, to translate it in any way better and more 

 positive than with " duke comenta," and many a one would, 

 if he could, stimulate that sentiment till all feeling is gone. 



After travelling for some hours over a rugged country, 

 with the same appearance as the countrv about Adow and 

 the Bushman River, we arrived at the summit of a high 

 embankment, called the Fish River Hill. A similar mighty wall 

 nearly 1000 feet high rises opposite, and both form an extensive 

 valley, at the bottom of which the Great Fish River finds in a 

 serpentine line its way to the ocean. The slopes of that 

 mighty gulf are for the most part covered with thickets 

 of trees, like those about the vicinity of Uitenhage ; but the 

 tree-like sorts of Aloe seem to be more abundant here 

 than on the latter place. The Loranthus Dreg'd, a ^ ne 

 parasitical plant, occurred for the first time ; it grows chiefly 

 on Rhus longispina, and other species of the same genus; 

 many Acanthaceous plants of the gei\eva.Hypoestes, Gendarussa, 



