SOUTHERN AFRICA. 65 
of street. At the upper end stands the house of the landrost, 
built also of mud, and a few miserable hovels that were 
intended as offices for the transaction of public business : most 
of these had tumbled in ; and the rest Avere in so ruinous a 
condition as not to be habitable. The jail is composed of 
mud walls, and roofed with thatch; and so little tenable, 
that an English deserter, who had been shut up in it as a sus- 
picious character for having amused the country people with 
an account of a conversation he had held with some French 
officer, made his escape the first night through the thatch. 
The mud walls of all the buildings are excavated, and the 
floors undermined by a species of termes or white ant, which 
destroys evei-y thing that falls in its way except wood ; and 
the bats that lodge in the thatch come forth at nights in sucb 
numbers as to extinguish the candles, and make it almost im-^ 
possible to remain in a room where there is a light. 
The village is chiefly inhabited by mechanics, and such as 
hold some petty employment under the landrost. Its appear- 
ance is as miserable as that of the poorest village in England* 
The necessaries of life are with difficulty procured in it; 
for, though there be plenty of arable land, few are found in- 
dustrious enough to cultivate it. Neither milk, nor butter, 
nor cheese, nor vegetables of an}' kind, are to be had upon 
any terms. There is neither butcher, nor chandler, nor grocer, 
nor baker. Every one must provide for himself as well as he 
can. They have neither wine nor beer ; and the chief beve- 
rage of the inhabitants is the water of the Sunday river, which, 
in the summer season, is strongly impregnated with salt. It 
would be difficult to say what the motives could have been 
