CHAP. viu. SHEEP SHEAEING IN SOUTH AFRICA. 219 



with the Bible, and there was something very pleasing in the 

 simple, unobtrusive piety of the family. After we had retired 

 to rest I heard one of the young people reading the Bible, 

 and all afterwards uniting in their evening hymn ; and again 

 the next morning, before it was fully light, the sound of their 

 morning hymn and Scripture reading was heard. A cup of 

 coffee was soon afterwards provided for us, and our host, who, 

 we had learned, was a descendant of the French refugees, 

 having understood that we were travelling on a religious 

 errand, refused any recompense for the accommodation he 

 had so cheerfully furnished both for us and our horses. 



At a farm-house, where we stopped during the forenoon to 

 procure food for our horses, we were again refreshed with 

 coffee, which seemed to be alwa3^s ready, standing in a brass 

 or copper kettle over a dish of burning charcoal. The good 

 Dutch farmer here made a number of inquiries, which we 

 were unable to satisfy, respecting the price of wool at Port 

 Elizabeth. He told us he possessed 8000 fine-woolled sheep, 

 and that his people were shearing in a sort of barn opposite, 

 on entering which we saw three white men, and as many 

 natives, busily at work. The legs of the animals were tied, 

 and the sheep, whose wool the white men were removing, 

 were laid on a bench, so that the shearers stood upright. 

 The natives had their sheep laid on the floor. The farmer 

 told us a good workman would shear thirty or forty sheep in 

 a day, and that each fleece contained about three pounds of 

 wool. The sheep were unwashed. The master said that at 

 Colsberg he obtained sixpence per pound for unwashed wool, 

 and for that which was clean a shilling ; but observed that he 

 had too many sheep to be able to wash them. 



The weather was rainy and cold during this part of our 

 journey, and provender scarce. On Friday we stopped for 

 the night at the house of an hospitable English family of the 

 name of Trollope, residing at a place called Saltpansdrift. 



