188 EXPEDITION INTO 



Althoug'h 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 g-reat as mig-ht be expected. 

 From one point which we ascended, the extraordinary refrac- 

 tion of the atmosphere enabled us to obtain a g'limpse, in 

 the dii'ection of Delag'oa, of a very distant rang*e stretching- 

 north and south, and said to form the boundary of Mosele- 

 katse's conquests in that direction, during" his prog"ress from 

 the Zooloo country to that which he at present occupies. 

 It is in this tract of country, to the eastward of the beau- 

 tiful 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 larg-e 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 existence were broug-ht to the colony by Robert Scoon, 

 the trader to whose name I have before alluded. Comino* 

 accidentally upon it whilst hunting* elephants, he followed 

 the banks for several days without being- able to discover 

 a ford, and such is the slug-g-ish character of the stream, 

 that it was some time before he could even determine the 

 course; pieces of wood which were thrown in remaining- 

 almost stationary on the surface. An exploring" party of 

 the emig"rants, under a boor named Bronkhorst, subsequent- 

 ly visited this water fi-om Triechard's camp, and described 

 its breadth to be more than a mile, from which circumstance, 

 combined with its proximity to the head of the Vaal River, 

 it is probably merely a lag-oon.* 



* In Isaac's Travels in Eastern Africa, vol. i. p. 219, the author, speaking 

 of a party of Chaka's warriors who had just returned from a foray, says, " In 

 this expedition the Zooloos penetrated north-west of Delagoa Bay. They 

 arrived at an immense river, or lake, and travelled on its banks for a fortnight, in 



