SOUTHERN AFRICA. 265 
best divisions of Graaff Rejiiet for sheep and cattle. At some 
of the deserted farms we found vineyards loaded with grapes, 
peach-trees, almonds, apple and pear trees full of fruit, and 
vegetables of various kinds, thriving well without the assistance 
of water, or any kind of attention. Game-seemed to be scarce, 
except springboks and elands. The only interesting object 
was a flight of the gryllivorous thrush, seemingly in search of 
locusts, that, like a cloud, continued to pass over-head for 
the space of fifteen minutes. 
Quitting the Tarka on the twelfth, we encamped at night 
on the Fish river, so called from the great quantity of fish it 
was said to contain of a species of cyprinus or carp. The 
same river, after flowing some distance to the southward, and 
receiving a number of tributary streams, takes the name of 
the Great Fish river, and from thence becomes, as before 
mentioned, a boundary of the colony. 
On the right bank of the river were two wells of hepatized 
water, easily distinguished by the strong smell they emitted, 
not unlike that of the rinsings of a foul gun-barrel. The 
wells were only a few paces asunder, and differed but one 
degree of Fahrenheit in temperature, the larger being 88° and 
the smaller 8?°. The latter boiled up in an uniform mo- 
tion ; but the former threw up the water by starts. This was 
about three feet deep, and the sides rounded into the shape 
of a pot ; it consisted of a hard crust of cemented rock, formed 
of minute pebbles of various colors, of small quartz crystals 
worn round in their subterranean passage, and ferruginous 
globular pyrites. The cement appeared to be chiefly fine 
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