384 A JOURNEY IN 
of Table bay ; but before thej had remained long they con-- 
trived, by means of a boat made of dried skins, to escape to 
the continent, and to fly into the country of the Booshuafias, 
where the elder brother Avas trodden to death by an elephant ; 
and the present man had been living among the savages on 
the skirts of the colony, an outlaw and a vagabond, for 
nearly twenty 3^ears. Informed of his situation, the party 
had carried with them a conditional pardon from the Court 
of Justice at the Cape, to which his long sufferings and his 
willing services on the present occasion amply entitled 
him. 
Having at this place, beside the above-mentioned persons, 
added t^velve Kora Hottentots to the strength of the expedi- 
tion, and procured forty-eight head of draught oxen in lieu 
of seventy-six already worn out with fatigue, the party pro- 
ceeded on the 12th ; and, after separating in the dark and 
losing their way on the desert, the whole fortunately rejoined 
at a spring of water on the evening of the 15th. The next 
day they were accosted by six naked Bosjesnians cravino-, as 
usual, a little food. This night they halted at the Makatanie 
or Duck-spring, near Avhich their attention was attracted by 
a singular cone-shaped hill, where they discovered a dee[) 
cavern occupied by whole flocks of turtle doves, whose nests 
loaded the bushes that nearly choaked up its mouth. The 
bottom of the cavern was strewed over with a reddish brown 
cchraceous earth, abounding with mica, which is used both 
by the Koras who are brown, and the Booshuanas who are 
black, for painting their bodies, after which the skin has a 
glossy appearance not unlike the surface"^ of a bronze statue. 
