SOUTHERN AFRICA. 115 
On the banks of this river we were disturbed in the night, 
for the first time, by a troop of elephants that had intended to 
quench their thirst near the place where we were encamped ; 
but, finding the ground already occupied, they turned quietly 
away without molesting us. The following morning we pur- 
sued them by the track of their feet into an extensive 
thicket, in the depths of which several of these huge 
animals made their appearance at a distance ; but we were 
not lucky enough, after a chace of many hours, to kill any of 
them. 
The following day we travelled near thirty miles over a wild 
uninhabited part of the country, covered chiefly with shrubby 
plants of the same nature as those that grew so abundantly 
between Graaff Reynet and Zwart-kop's river, but in general 
taller, and of more luxuriant growth. We crossed in fact an 
arm of the same forest, through which a road had been cut 
just wide enough to admit the waggons. Beyond this forest 
the face of the country was beautifully marked with knolls 
and dells, finely chequered with clumps of evergreen trees 
and patches of shrubbery. Between the swells were level 
meadows covered with grass of a coarse rushy nature, and en- 
riched with copious springs of good water. .In the evening 
we encamped on the Bo!ijesma?is river, and the next day pro- 
ceeded easterly to the Hassagai-bosc/i river, whose source is 
in a small hanging forest on the declivity of the Rietberg. 
This long range of hills began here to (Spread o.nd divide itself 
into a number of inferior elevations that conthiued to the 
eastern extremity of the colony, where they lo^c themselves in 
the high banks of the Great Fish-river. 
Q 2 
