62 ADVENTURES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



Our march on the following day lay through a mount, 

 ainous country abounding with rich pasture, covered 

 in many places with picturesque thorny mimosa trees, 

 detached and in groups, imparting to the country the 

 appearance of an English park. In the forenoon we 

 halted for a couple of hours in a broad, well-wooded 

 hollow, where I found abundance of bustard. Guinea- 

 fowl, black koran, partridge, and quail. At sundown 

 we encamped at a place calbd Daka-Boer's Neck, on 

 high ground, where the road crosses a bold, precipitous 

 mountain range. The mountain road, along which we 

 trekked the following morning, was extremely steep 

 and rugged: on my right, high above me, I observed 

 a herd of upward of a hundred horses, consisting chiefly 

 of brood-mares and their foals, pasturing on the hill side. 

 Three more marches brought us to the village of Cra- 

 dook, which we reached at dawn of day on Saturday 

 morning the 2d of October, having twice again had 

 occasion to cross the Great Fish River. 



The country through which we passed was bold, 

 mountainous, and barren, excepting along the banks of 

 the river, which were adorned with groves of mimosa, 

 willow, and white thorn, clad with a profusion of rich 

 yellow blossoms yielding a powerful and fragrant per- 

 fume. It was now the spring of the year, and, this 

 season having been peculiarly favored with rains, a ver- 

 nal freshness robed these sometimes arid regions, and I 

 consider that I first saw them under very favorable cir- 

 cumstances. On the northern bank, at one of the drifts 

 where we crossed the Fish River, I observed the dry 

 . dung in an old sheep-kraal burning. It was .smolder- 

 ing away after the manner of Scotch peat ; and on my 

 return from the interior about eighteen months after, on 

 my way to Grahamstown, the dunghill was still burn- 



