SOUTHERN AFRICA. 47 
their guard. Tliey were not, Iiowever, Bosjesmons, but three 
runaway slaves, and three. Hottentots, one of the Jatter of 
which was a girl about twelve years of age. This party had 
lived for some time upon the desert entirely on animal food, 
which they had procured by leaking near the usual halting- 
places of butchers and farmers, and driving off in the night- 
time a few sheep. Tired of such a mode of life, they were 
very glad to escape from it by entering into the list of our 
attendants. 
On the seventeenth we proceeded about twenty-four miles 
over a rising country, finely marked by hill and dale, but al- 
together barren, except that here and there were straggling 
over the surface a few species of the mesembryanthemum, or 
fig marygold, among which v/ere large patches of the curious 
and elegant ice-plant. At night the thermometer was down 
to the freezing point, and the following morning it bad de- 
scended to 30°. The Black Mountains, about fifteen miles 
to the southward, had lost that part of their character to 
which perhaps they owed their name, and were covered with 
deep snow. The nights had been so intensely cold and pier- 
cing, since we entered upon the desert, that our horses, beino- 
accustomed to the stable, immediately grew sick and low- 
spirited, and two of them this day died under the severity 
of the weather. A third had a very narrow escape. We 
lost several of our oxen ; but these died rather for want of 
food than from the coldness of the nights. 
On the eighteenth we crossed the Dun/ka, or Rhinoceros 
river, and encamped on its banks. The bed of the river was a 
7 
