2BS TRAVELS IN 
Sunday and Camdeboo, so much swelled with the rains as 
scarcely to be fordable. At the port also of Camdeboo, which 
opens upon the desert, the small river there was running with 
a copious and rapid stream ; a circumstance that nearly re- 
moved every doubt, and scarcely suffered an idea to exist of 
the probability even of experiencing any want of water on 
this side of De Beer valley. We soon however found, by 
fatal experience, that the extent of the rains had been very 
limited. In fact they had reached only a few miles beyond 
the Poort. Still we had hopes that the Hottentot's river, a 
day's journey farther, would contain some water ; or, should 
this fail, that the Karooka, whose source was in the moun- 
tains of Camdeboo, must undoubtedly be full from the late 
rains that were perceived to fall in those mountains. 
On the eleventh, therefore, we left the Poort, and the 
farther we proceeded upon the desert, the fainter became the 
traces of the rain that had fallen, till at length they totally 
disappeared. The face of the country very soon presented only 
one continued plain of uniform aridity and barrenness. The 
few saline plants, thinly scattered over a surface of white 
clay sprinkled with reddish sand, were shrivelled up, crack- 
ling under the feet like so many bundles of rotten sticks. 
The rays of the sun playing upon the naked surface were 
painful to behold, and their dazzling light highly injurious 
to the eye. 
About the middle of the day a melancholy object pre- 
sented itself before us, near the side of the road. It was a 
horse at his last gasp, for want of water. He was known by 
