43^ ^ JOURNEY IN 
to grasp the pole -axe, a method will not be resorted to whose 
only recommendation is that of reducing an animal by in- 
tense pain into a helpless condition, for the greater con- 
venience of taking away its life which, in fact, is all they 
pretend to accomplish by this method at the Cape of Good 
Hope ; for though all slaughtered oxen there are brought to 
the ground by dividing the spinal marrow, yet none are 
killed by it. 
The party having travelled sixteen days along the river, 
sometimes close to its bank, and at other times several miles 
distant from it, over a rough and almost impassable country, 
on the 27th they struck off to the southward, and on the 29th 
fell into their old track at the Komdtoo spring, situated on 
the edoe of the great Karroo which extends from hence to 
the skirts of the Roggeveld. On these desert plains few sup- 
plies of provisions are to be expected, not even of the most 
common and plentiful sort of game peculiar to Southern 
Africa ; and a few straggling Bosjesmans which may chance 
to be crossing it, roving about in quest of food, are the only 
human creatures likely to be met w^ith. About half a dozen 
of these wretches were seen in the whole journey, from two of 
whom the party received a very seasonable supply of delicious 
honey in exchange for some tobacco. It was contained in a 
bag made of the skin of a small antelope. 
Little that is worthy of remark occurred on these dreary 
plains of Africa where, to use the words of Dr. Johnson, " the 
*' night and the day are equally solitary and equally safe." The 
4 
