IN SOUTH AFRICA. 19 
‘the soil of all this tract is a very hard ironstone gravel; 
the road execrably rugged, in spite of the goodness of the 
material, for no care whatever is bestowed on it, and as it is 
generally on a slope, the rain water from the higher ground 
cuts furrows across it, which are deepened by every succeed- 
ing winter. 'The jolting occasioned by travelling in a horse 
waggon on such roads, is beyond all description; I despair of 
giving an idea of it to those who have never experienced the 
like; suffice it to say, that at the end of this second day's 
journey I ached in every joint and muscle from the shaking, 
and felt pretty much as Don Quixote is described as feeling 
after his adventure with the carriers. It is in crossing the 
deep gullies and dry torrent-beds, which are very numerous, 
that the jolting is most severe: the descent into these is 
almost always excessively steep and rough; arriving at the 
brink, the drivers put their horses to their speed, thunder 
down headlong into the ravine, and dash up the other side at 
the same pace with a prodigious uproar. In spite of the ex- 
cessive discomfort of this mode of travelling, it is impossible 
not to admire the skill with which the Dutch farmers drive 
eight or ten horses in a team, at a smart trot and not unfre- 
quently at a gallop. 'The office of coachman, however, is 
divided between two: the more important personage brand- 
ishes the immense bamboo-handled whip, near twenty feet 
long, which is the principal instrument of guidance; the 
other, usually a Hottentot, holds the reins. 
What I have said of the roads and the jolting will apply d 
many of the succeeding days' journies, although this was, 
perhaps, the worst of all. Having enlarged on the subject in 
this place, I may avoid a repetition of the same remarks, so 
that it must not be supposed that the road was good Dern ME 
the contrary is not expressly stated. 
Caledon is a neat village, situated at the foot of a rugged | 
black mountain, and near it are hot springs, of considerable — 
celebrity in the colony, issuing out of beds of brown iron- . 
stone. This, however, was not our aha i a 4he -— 
governor, who rode at a pace which — the f armers, 
[reo E 3 
