BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 339 



the neighbourhood, was (a rare instance in an elevated coun- 

 try like this), densely clothed with the Acacia Capensis, 

 Burch. ; and wood being exceedingly scarce throughout the 

 whole country, from the banks of the Orange River as far as 

 the neighbourhood of the distant Macalis Mountains to the 

 north, with the exception of a few thinly-wooded banks of 

 rivers, the people had chosen this spot for the advantage thus 

 offered them in the abundance of fuel and the materials for 

 making cattle-folds and enclosures for their flocks of sheep, a 

 matter of vast importance in a country like this, infested 

 with numerous animals of prey, of the fiercest description. 



As we were only a few miles distant from that Table 

 Mountain, on which the greater body of horses of the emi- 

 grants had been kept during the horse-sickness, and we were 

 obliged to remain here till the danger of that period was con- 

 sidered to be over, we were anxious to make the best use of 

 our time. A line of detached mountains, at a short dis- 

 tance, being the north-eastern spurs of the Witteberge 

 mountain chain, had gradually diminished in height and 

 in grandeur during its course from the northern boundary 

 of the Tambuki country, and seemed to promise a suc- 

 cessful harvest of objects of natural history. In a few 

 hours we reached the first range, and encamped in a grove of 

 trees, chiefly composed of the Acacia Capensis, and amidst 

 many ruins of deserted Betchuana villages, whose inhabi- 

 tants had lived here peacefully and in wealth, perhaps from 

 time immemorial, till their southern neighbours, of idle and 

 plundering habits, proud in their superiority of fire-arms, 

 Preyed on the possessions and industry of that peaceful race ; 

 who finally were compelled, by the panic caused by the inroad 

 of theZooluh invaders in 1824, to abandon the soil of their 

 ancestors and migrate to a spot safer, although less fertile 

 than their former home. 



As an instance of cruelty, which is still going on in these 

 parts of the country, it may be worth mentioning a fact, 

 which occurred at the time of our short stay here. A 

 tew families of that once opulent race were living only a few 



c c 2 



