18 BOTANICAL EXCURSIONS 
the rocks, shattered, and worn by the weather, exhibit a 
variety of strange fantastic forms, like ruined buildings, 
pillars, and colossal statues. 
From Sir Lowry’s Pass the descent to Palmiet River is 
gradual, the road sandy and bad, traversing wide and open 
moors. Between Palmiet and Bot Rivers, (which last is the 
boundary of the Stellenbosch and Zwellendam districts,) we 
cross another mountain range, or rather another branch of 
the same range, known under the name of the Houw-Hoek. 
The road over this mountain, which may be considered a kind 
of continuation of, or supplement to, Sir Lowry’s Pass, was 
the work of the same officer and the same government, and 
cost no more than £600* It is hardly necessary to add that 
it is very well executed. 
With the exception of this Houw-Hoek Pass, (and even this 
can hardly be called picturesque) the country that we tra- 
versed in this long day’s journey, from the Hottentot Holland 
Mountains to the Zonder-einde (Endless River), was drearily 
monotonous ; wide plains and low round hills, uniformly 
covered with stunted bushes, without trees or cultivation, 
offering nothing either to please the eye or excite the imagina- 
tion. In truth, the same remark might be applied to a great 
part of the country between Cape and the eastern frontier. The 
want of verdure in the scenery of this colony generally, (though 
of course there are exceptions here and there,) is very striking; - 
there is little grass, and most of the shrubs, which make up 
the great mass of the vegetation, have either leaves so 
minute, and of a substance so dry and juiceless, that they 
give no verdant or cheerful effect to the landscape, or else are 
covered with a whitish wool or down, which entirely hides — 
the green. In this latter class is to be ranked the prevailing - 
plant of all this part of the country, the Rhenoster-bosch or — 
Rhinoceros-bush,t which literally covers leagues and leagues 
together in the districts of Zwellendam and George; itis a - 
low, half-shrubby, Brey, cottony plant, in form resembling a . 
miniature cypress or juniper. 
* See the paper already quoted. t Stoebe rhinocerotis. 
