206 VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. chap. viii. 



in by a meeting for prayer at sunrise. At the forenoon ser- 

 vice many more attended than could gain admission to the 

 chapel ; and about two hundred communicants afterwards 

 united in partaking of the Lord's Supper. Their serious and 

 earnest attention during the services of the day afforded me 

 much satisfaction. In the afternoon we proceeded to Dysals- 

 dorp, eighteen miles distant, where a large congregation met 

 for public worship in the evening. 



On Monday the 12th, after an important meeting with the 

 people of the place, Mr. Thompson and I took leave of Mr. 

 Anderson and his sister, grateful for the hospitality and kind- 

 ness we had received. We next directed our course towards 

 the Karroo, or desert, which we had to pass before reaching 

 Grraaf-Keinet. In order to relieve our horses as much as pos- 

 sible we sent them on three days' journey, that they might be 

 better prepared for the most difficult part of the route. Fol- 

 lowing with oxen we reached the place where they had been 

 waiting on Wednesday night, and on Thursday morning, after 

 ascending a sort of defile, called De Beers Port, we entered 

 the Karroo. About noon we came to a pool of muddy water, 

 near a solitary house, where we halted to rest, and to give our 

 horses water ; the last we expected to obtain for them until 

 the desert was passed. A Dutch New Testament was received 

 with expressions of thankfulness by the mistress of this soli- 

 tary dwelling, who refused any pajrment for the water for our 

 horses, or milk for ourselves. In about an hour we departed, 

 and were now traversing the desert, bordered on the side by 

 which we had entered by low barren hills, but stretching 

 away to the eastward and northward, as far as the eye could 

 reach, in one dreary, treeless waste, with only here and there 

 a very distant hill looming in the horizon. 



The soil of this desert is hard-baked reddish earth, level 

 rock, or gritty sand and loose stones. The only vegetation 

 was a sparse prickly sort of stunted bush, seldom a foot high. 



