SOUTHERN AFRICA. 59 
liad come a journey of two days, and brought with them seve- 
ral teams of large fat oxen to hasten his arrival at the Drosdy, 
where he was informed the orderly and well-disposed part of 
the district were anxiously expecting him. 
On the twenty-eighth we pitched our tents at the Poort, so 
called from a narrow passage through a range of hills that 
branch out from the mountains of Camdeboo and run across 
the desert. The plains were here a little better covered with 
shrubbery, and abounded with duikers and steen-boks, whole 
herds of spring-boks, and qua-chas and ostriches. 
A heap of stones, piled upon the banks of a rivulet, was 
pointed out to me as the grave of a Hottentot ; and on en- 
quiring from our people of this nation if the deceased had been 
some chief, they informed me that with them no distinction was 
conveyed after death ; and that the size of the heap depended 
entirely upon the trouble that the surviving friends chose to 
give themselves. The intention, it seemed, of the pile was 
very different from that of the monuments of a similar kind 
that anciently were erected in various parts of Europe, though 
they very probably might have proceeded, in a more remote 
antiquity, from the same origin, which was that of prevent- 
ing the wolves, or jackals, or other ravenous beasts, from tear- 
ing up and mangling the dead carcase. The progressive re- 
finement of society converted, at length, the rude heap of 
stones, originating in necessity, into the sculptured marble, 
the useless flatterer of vanity. 
Though the Poort may be considered as the entrance into 
Camdeboo, the first habitation is twelve miles beyond itj 
I 2 
