Chap. XXVI.] SOUTHERN AFRICA. -27 



ever, being intersected by detached stony hills and 

 mountain chains of barren and forbidding aspect. 

 To the southward it becomes very open and level, 

 with occasional clumps of forest ; but although the 

 black soil continued, the vegetation was becoming 

 visibly less and less abundant. 



Ahhough unquestionably the highest part of 

 southern Africa, if measured from the level of the 

 sea, yet the actual altitude of the Cashan mountains, 

 jutting up as they do, from an elevated base, is not 

 so great as might be expected. From one point 

 which we ascended, the extraordinary refraction of 

 the atmosphere enabled us to obtain a glimpse, in 

 the direction of Delagoa, of a very distant range 

 stretching north and south, and said to form the 

 boundary of Moselekatse's conquests in that direc- 

 tion, during his progress from the Zooloo country 

 to that he at present occupies. It is in this tract 

 of country, to the eastward of the beautiful but 

 unhealthy slopes in which the Vaal river takes its 

 origin, that Louis Triechard, the leader of the first 

 party of colonial emigrants, has long been located, 

 on the banks of what appears to be a very large 

 river, reported by the natives to be tributary to the 

 Limpopo; but of which the source and course 

 remain unexplored. The first accounts of its ex- 

 istence w ere brought to the colony by Robert Scoon, 

 the trader to whose name I have before alluded. 

 Coming accidentally upon it whilst hunting ele- 

 phants, he followed the banks for several days 

 without being able to discover a ford, and such is 



