44 
REMARKABLE RIDGES, &c. [1820. 
been collecting from their youth. They did not 
paint their bodies, and were all of diminutive size. 
Some of our Hottentots saw at their kraal eight 
children belonging to one family, who all looked 
healthy and fat. With good living most of the 
natives fatten in a few weeks, like cattle when 
translated from barren heaths to good pasturage. 
The morning being fine, after the cattle had 
been allowed time to graze, we left Hankey 
Fountain at nine a.m. In consequence of the 
information of the men who had followed the 
oxen yesterday to the N.W., that there was 
nothing in that direction, except a frightfully 
naked plain, we shaped our course nearly due 
west, still travelling over the same rocky surface ; 
happily for the oxen we found some grass rising 
up between the stones. 
At ten A.M. we crossed two ridges, resembling 
the ruinous foundations of Roman walls; separated 
from each other about fifty feet, and running to 
a considerable distance in a parallel direction. 
A little farther on, the ground became so regu- 
larly paved with square stones, that it instantly 
reminded me of the floor of a cathedral. At noon 
many clumps of trees were in sight. The soil 
-was composed of sand and red earth ; at one p. m. 
we came to a plain, destitute of tree or bush, but 
