SOUTHERN AFRICA. 335 
sandy beds of the rivers of the Namaaqua counti^, I am in- 
clined to think, that subterranean streams of water pass un- 
der most of them in this part of Africa. 
Near this river was situated a Kraal or horde of Namaaqua 
Hottentots. Their flocks of sheep, which were brought in 
towards the evening, might perhaps amount to three thousand. 
They possessed also a few cattle, and a herd of small hand- 
some goats, that were spotted like the leopard. The sheep 
were totally different from the breed usually met with in the 
colony. Instead of the short, broad, and curhng tails of these, 
those of the Namaaquas were long and round like the com- 
mon English sheep. The rams had small straight horns. The 
covering was a sort of hair, short, straight, shining, and spot- 
ted, and mostly bay and white. These, in all probabilit}^ 
were the indigenous sheep of the country, the broad-tailed 
ones having been brought into the colony from the northward. 
The assertion of Monsieur Vaillant is without any kind of 
foundation, when he says, that broad-tailed sheep trans- 
planted into the Namaaqua country lose that part of their 
character, and obtain long round tails. There are Dutch pea- 
sants who have lived in this country thirty years, yet have not 
a long-tailed sheep in their whole flock. I could not hold 
any conversation with these people through the means of my 
Hottentots, the language spoken by the one being perfectly 
unintelligible to the other ; nor could they speak or under- 
stand a word of Dutch. 
Our next encampment was at the house or hovel of a Dutch 
peasant, situated at the entrance of a narrow defde between 
