COLES-BERG. 167 



district, in order that he may afford Christian edifi- 

 cation to the many, who would otherwise, from the 

 untoward circumstances inseparable from their iso- 

 lated position, but too probably sink into a state of 

 total indifference to those momentous interests which 

 concern their immortal destinies. 



I was informed that, at the last quarterly meeting, 

 more than two hundred and thirty waggons assem- 

 bled on the occasion, many of the boors having come 

 forty, fifty, and even a hundred miles to hear the 

 words of eternal life. It was expected that there 

 would have been a greater number of persons at the 

 present meeting; but in consequence of the land 

 being overrun with immense swarms of locusts, — that 

 dreadful scourge of this unfortunate country, — the 

 greater part of the inhabitants were detained at home, 

 endeavouring to preserve their corn, then fast ripen- 

 ing for the harvest, from the devastating inroads of 

 these destructive insects. 



In consequence of the vast extent of Graaff-Rei- 

 net, this part of the country had recently been sepa- 

 rated, with an allotment of rich pasture-land, forming 

 a new district, which in compliment to his Excel- 

 lency Sir Lowry Cole, then Governor of the Colony, 

 was designated Cole's Berg. It is situated twelve 

 miles from the Orange River, and about forty- 

 seven leagues N. E. of Graaff-Reinet, in a narrow 

 and somewhat contracted valley, enclosed by barren 

 and rocky hills, along the sides of which huge granite 



