72 ~ TRAVELS IN 
Having passed the kloof, or poort, we crossed a plain of 
six or seven miles in width, and encamped on the Wolga fon- 
teyn at the feet of another range of hills parallel to the Riet- 
berg, and still more thickly covered with frutescent plants. 
Here we started a herd of fourteen large buffaloes that had 
been rolling in the spring. They were very shy, and scam- 
pered away at a great rate into the thickets which covered the 
sides of the hills. For three days' journey from this place the 
road lay over a country that was finely marked with bold 
hills, plains, gradual swells, and hollows ; but it was wholly 
covered with a forest of shrubbery. Sometimes, for the dis- 
tance of ten or twelve miles, there was not the least opening 
to allow of our turning a yard out of the path either to the 
right or to the left ; and from the heights, where the bushes 
were less tall, the eye could discern only an uninterrupted 
forest. Nothing could be more beautiful nor more interest- 
ing than these grand and extensive coppice woods appeared to 
us for the greatest part of the first day's journey ; but the in- 
convenience they occasioned towards the evening, when we 
wished to halt, was seriously felt. There was not a suflScient 
space of clear ground for the tent and waggons, nor to make fast 
the oxen ; and, what was the worst of all, not a drop of water. 
The weather had been very sultry, the thermometer fluctuating 
generally from 75° to 80° in the shade during the day; yet the 
cattle had only tasted water once in three days. The two nights 
when they were unyoked it was necessary to bind them fast 
to the waggons, that they might not stray into the thicket, 
where they would infallibly have been lost, or devoured by 
lions. The prints of the feet of this destructive animal were 
every where fresh on the road, and every night we heard 
