84 
TRAVELS IN 
la addition to the forest-trees, we also met with a great 
variety of small coppice wood; and the whole coast, for more 
than a day's journey to the westward of Zwart-kop's bay, was 
skirted with a belt of thick brusliwood almost down to the 
water's edge. The greater part of the forests of South Africa 
appears to be encumbered with a species of lichen that covers 
nearly the whole foliage, and hangs from the branches in tufts 
of a foot to three feet in length. This lichen was observed par- 
ticularly to be growing upon the geel hout, and evidently im- 
peded the growth of its branches. 
In the midst of all these forests the miserable hovels in which 
the graziers live are the pictures of want and wretchedness. 
Four low mud-walls, with a couple of square holes to admit 
the light, and a door of wicker-work, a few crooked poles to 
support a thatch of rushes, slovenly spread over them, serves 
for the dwelling of many a peasant whose stock consists of se- 
veral thousand sheep and as many hundred heads of cattle. 
The oxen in this particular pasture were not so large nor fat 
as those farther up in the country, nor were the sheep nearly 
so good as those of Camdeboo. One principal article of their 
revenue is butter. An African cow, either from its being of a 
bad breed, or from the nature of its food, or the effects of the 
climate, or perhaps from a combination of these circumstan- 
ces, gives but a very small quantity of poor milk. Four 
quarts a-day is considered as something extraordinary, and 
about half the quantity is the usual average of a cow at the 
very top of her milk. The butter is sometimes tolerably 
good ; but tlie custom of plunging the whole milk into the 
