4 TRAVELS IN 
is termed in the colony, of ten or twelve oxen. Each day's 
journey is called a skoff ; and its length is generally regulated 
by local circumstances, being from five to fifteen or twenty 
hours. It is customary also to travel more in the night than 
the day, that the cattle may have the advantage of the latter 
to graze, or rather to brouse, among the shrubbery ; for many 
parts of the country, particularly after a series of dry wea- 
ther, produce not a single blade of grass. The bitter,, sour, 
and saline plants, than which the arid soil of an African desert 
produces nothing better, constitute ofttimes their only food 
for weeks together ; and to the use of these may probably be 
owing the offensive breath that the ox of the colony is gene- 
rally observed to have. In Europe, the sweetness of the breath 
of horned cattle is almost proverbial. In Africa, it is remarked 
to be altogether as nauseous. The bad quality of the water, 
which in the desert plains is seldom met with pure, or free 
from impregnations of saline or earthy matter, may also con- 
tribute in producing this effect. The speed of an ox in the 
■waggon, where the country is tolerably level, and the surface 
hard, is full three miles an hour, at which rate he will con- 
tinue for ten or twelve hours without halting. 
The first day of July was fixed upon for our departure from 
the Cape ; and the preceding month was employed in making 
the necessary preparations, in fitting up three waggons, and 
procuring draught oxen, which at this season of the year, after 
the long drought of summer, were scarce and extremely lean. 
Bastaards and Hottentots to serve as waggoners, to lead the 
foremost pair in the team, and some others to take care of the 
relays, were very difficult to be procured, but indispensably 
