214 VISITS TO IMADAGASCAR. ciiap. vui. 



stream, throwing their strong but flickering light upon the 

 groups of swarthy figures employed in cooking the evening 

 meal, strongly contrasting with the white tents or canvas 

 coverings of the different vehicles. Cattle in abundance lay 

 chewing the cud, or sleeping around the waggons of their 

 owners, and a number of children were playing on the broad 

 sands between these and the edge of the water, mingling 

 their shouts and laughter with the occasional barking of the 

 dogs and the voices of the men. We added our fire to the 

 number already burning ; and, after drinking tea by moon- 

 light, spread our beds in the waggon and lay down to rest. 



The next morning disclosed little if any diminution of the 

 stream, which appeared to be about three hundred yards 

 Avide, though on our side it had subsided more than fifty 

 yards from the line which at one time it had reached. 

 Some of the mimosa trees, which generally grow ten or 

 twelve feet high, were more than half covered ; and trees of 

 Salix Gariepiana, the weeping willow peculiar to the banks of 

 the Gariep or Orange Kiver, growing several yards nearer the 

 centre of the stream, exhibited only their tops, their trunks 

 and lower branches being still under water. Piles of drift- 

 wood on the opposite side, as well as marks on the rocky 

 banks to the eastward, showed that the water had recently 

 been many feet higher than at present. One of the boers 

 informed us that the flood had washed down two men, one 

 of them a Caffre, with eight horses, two cows, and a gnu, all 

 dead. We afterwards saw a dead spring-bok floating down 

 the middle of the stream. 



Turning from the river, a new and singular scene presented 

 itself. A level space, thinly overspread with mimosa bushes, 

 extended about one hundred yards towards high, steep, and 

 sometimes overhanging basaltic rocks. On the left, two 

 caverns, the entrances of which were screened by a mat, or 

 piece of cloth hung across a stick, constituted the dwelling- 



