332 * TRAVELS IN 
waste like so many islands. We descended the precipice- 
where it was least steep, and having reached in safety the 
bottom, just before dark, we yoked fresh oxen into the wag- 
gons, and launched forth upon the desert. About midnight 
we halted upon the Thorn river, which unexpectedly ran in a> 
considerable stream, but the water was salt as brine. A 
spring near the river called the Stink fonteyiiy threw out water 
that was saline to the taste, and had a most disgusting fetid 
smell. The thunder storm and heavy rain, that for a whole 
day had continued on the Bokkeveld, had not extended to- 
the Karroo. The surface was dry and dusty, as in the middle 
of summer, and the few shrubby plants that are peculiar to 
this sort of country, generally of the succulent kind^ were so 
parched and shrivelled, that vegetation seemed for a length of 
time to have been suspended. 
We were here visited by a party of Bosjesmans, headed by 
a captain or chief. This man was well known to the com- 
mandant, having been of signal service to him in expeditions 
against his own countrymen, whose marauding way of life he 
had been prevailed upon to quit, with his whole horde, on 
promise of the pardon and protection of the government. It 
is now fifteen years since they had taken up their abode on 
the edge of the Karroo, where they had lived peaceably and 
industrijDusly ever since. He said that, by making pro- 
per overtures to his countrymen, he had no doubt but many 
hordes might be brought to live quietly in the service of the 
farmers, for that their distresses, in their present way of life, 
were great and grievous. 
