SOUTHERN AFRICA, 365 
rtisliing down its rocky channel no less than seven times) ; 
their passage of the Bokkeveld, and that corner of the Great 
Karroo or desert between it and the Roggeveld, where the 
absence of all human habitations compelled 'them to sleep for 
several nights in their tents and aggons ; their ascent, from 
those plains, up the steep and lofty mountains called the 
Roggeveld : — after surmounting these and many other diffi- 
culties they arrived, on the evening of the 14th, on the south 
bank of the Great Riet river, opposite the Bonteberg, where 
they pitched their tents for the night, the weather being ex- 
tremely cold, boisterous and rainy. In this river they caught 
an abundance of a particular .speci-es of fish, the flavour of 
which was tolerably good ; but the bones being something 
of the same kind as in the herring, and the fish small, made 
it the less acceptable to hungry travellers. Here also, for 
the first time, they observed the fresh prints of the paws of 
a lion. 
Pursuing their journe}^ from hence, after crossing the river 
several times, they halted at a deserted farm house called the 
G anna-Kraal, which place had previously Ijeen appointed as 
the rendezvous for the escort of boors that were summoned 
to attend the expedition, as Avell as for the relays of fresh 
oxen to draw the waowons over tlie desert. But havino- 
waited here for two days without receiving any intelligence 
either of the boors or the oxen, they resolved to proceed 
without them; and accordingly, on the 18th, after crossing 
the Karree river, which is here considered to be the boundary 
of the colony, they made a short day's journey and encamped 
