142 
JOURNAL OF A 
stone, wliich bad followed us from Gnadenthal, the road glistened 
with bright silver-coloured mica, in small fragments of granite. 
The quartz was of a bluish hue, the feldspath brown, and in 
some stones mixed with hornblend and shoerl. On each side of 
the road are deep glens. Down that to the left, a broad brook 
hurried swiftly amidst rocky shores, and impenetrable thickets, 
which rose to the brow of the hill. A smaller stream glided 
more gently down the right-hand deeper glen, in which a con- 
siderable quantity of large timber shaded its dark recesses. The 
descent into it was, in many places, almost perpendicular, with 
rocks richly clothed with beautiful creepers, the crevises afford- 
ing nourishment to their roots, and to those of a vast variety of 
shrubs and trees. Our walk up the hill was rendered extremely 
pleasant, by the view of these natural beauties, and of the hilly 
country we had left behind. 
Having gained the summit, we arrived at an extensive, grassy 
plain, with a distant view of the mountains of George to the 
north and east. The plain is called Groeneland. At a mean 
solitary cottage, we quenched our thirst with some butter-milk, 
and travelled along a smooth road, till an unexpected steep de- 
scent seemed to arrest our progress. A rapid brook, fed by num- 
berless small streams, precipitating themselves in cascades, from 
the steep and rocky banks, rushed wildly through the bottom of 
the glen. 
Having overtaken a waggon with fourteen oxen, with a family 
travelling towards George, and halting near the descent, a consul- 
tation was held, and Leonhard dispatched with a horse to try the 
depth of the ford. The bed of the brook consisted of loose stones, 
over which the water passed furiously, about three feet in depth. 
Being no courtiers, neither party strove to take precedence of the 
other, but each offered to its new friends the honour of a first 
plunge, and as we had arrived last, we submitted to remain spec- 
tators of the extraordinary manner in which their waggon reeled 
from side to side through the flood, when we likewise ventured in, 
