SOUTHERN xlFRlCA. 375 
places near tlie banks of the Orange river, and the party 
picked up what appeared to be a specimen of native gold : 
but mines are of little value in a country where there are no 
materials necessary for working them, no navigable rivers nor 
passable roads, by which their produce can at any reasonable 
expence be ta'ansported to a market. Those who set any 
value on this part of Southern Africa for the mines it con- 
tains know very httle of the nature of the country. 
Some of the men among the Koras were observed to be 
Monorchides ; but whether the defect was in consequence of 
some operation submitted to while J'oung on superstitious 
grounds, or occasioned by accident, or the sport of nature, 
does not appear to have been ascei taincd. 
In swimming across this wide and rapid river, and trans- 
porting at the same time their sheep or other articles, the 
Koras make use of a curious contrivance. They take a log 
of wood from six to eight feet in length, and at the distance 
of a few inches from one of its ends fix a wooden peg. On 
this log the person intending to cross the river stretches him- 
self at full length, and holding fast by the peg with one hand, 
whilst with the other and occasionally with his feet he 
strikes to keep the end of the log in a certain direction (which 
is that of an angle of about 45 degrees witli the stream) tlie 
obliquity of the log opposed to the current causes it, in float- 
ing down the stream, to push gradually over to the opposite 
side in the hypothenusal line of a triangle, whose base is the 
width of the river. 
