192 TRAVELS IN 
dusk of the evening. The wind blew fresh, and the thermo- 
meter had descended to forty-five degrees. On the preced- 
ing d-dy, at Graaff Reynet, it stood at eighty-five in the shade 
till near sun-set, and at seventy-six during the night ; and in 
the course of this day's journey it was at eighty-three. The 
sudden change was probably occasioned, not so much by the 
difference of elevation, which in a Dutch manuscript journal 
is estimated, by a barometrical observation, at 4800 feet, as 
by the sudden evaporation of the moisture caused by a heavy 
fall of rain that had here continued during the preceding day 
and night. An extraordinary decrease of temperature is 
always the consequence of continued rain in Southern 
Africa. 
The following day brought us to JVaai/ Hoek, or Windy- 
Corner, the habitation of the late provisional landrost of 
Graaff Reynet, who had signified an inclination to accom- 
pany us on our intended expedition. He had attended the 
Governor Van Plettenberg on his journey northwards, and 
had since been commandant for many years on expeditions 
against the Bosjesmans, which had given him an opportunity 
of being acquainted not only with the different parts within, 
but also with much of the country beyond, the limits of the 
colony. Having prepared himself for the journey, we re- 
mained with him only for the night ; and on the following 
morning sent forward the waggons, while we made an excur- 
sion into the mountains on our left in search of Bosjesmans. 
A large party of these people had carried off a number of 
cattle but two days before, and another was supposed to be 
still hovering about in this neighbourhood. Their usual 
