SOUTHERN AFRICA, 
21 
attention to cleanliness ; and the pelican is shot for the sake 
of the fine soft down Avhich lies under his plumage. Tliat 
large unwieldy animal the Hippopotamus, is said at one time 
to have been an inhabitant of this lake. 
A few miles from Vogel valley brouglit us to the entrance 
of Roode Sand Kloef, or the red sandy, pass over the great 
chain of mountains. Here the strata of which they are com- 
posed, though still of the same nature as those of Draken- 
stein, are not horizontal, but dip to the south-eastward, mak- 
ing with the horizon an angle of about twenty degrees. The 
ascent of the Kloef is not steep, but very rugged ; and a small 
river that meanders down it must be crossed several times. 
The plants, sheltered by the large fragments of rock that 
have rolled down the mountains, are uncommonly luxuriant. 
Of these the different species of protea were the most con- 
spicuous ; that species of riciniis called the palma Christi, 
>vhich affords the castor oil, was very plentiful ; and the two 
species of the melianthus grew in every part of the Kloef. 
The calla Ethiopica was every where abundant on the margin 
of the brook, and in full flower. The baboons, from their 
concealed dens in the sides of the mountain, laughed, screamed, 
and uttered such horrible noises, the whole time that the 
waggons were ascending the pass, that to the ears of a stranger, 
unconscious from whence they proceeded, the harsh yell ex- 
cited no small degree of surprise. 
. From the upper part of the Kloef there is no descent to the 
land of Waveren, or, as the division is now called, Roode Sand, 
'I he surfapc of this vale is four or five hundred feet higher than 
