270 
TRAVELS IN 
fequence of this information we remained ftill at our encamp- 
ment the whole day, and at night proceeded towards the place 
where the fires had been feen. Previous to this movement the 
colonifts prepared themfelves for the enterprife by finging three 
or four hymns out of William Sluiter, and drinking each a 
glafs of brandy. 
Travelling flowly along, and without noife, till about one 
o'clock, we halted the waggons, and, taking the other hymn 
and glafs of brandy, mounted horfe and advanced towards the 
hill, where the reft of the reconnoitring party lay concealed, in 
order to obferve the motions of the Bosjefmans. In a country 
/ where there is little variety of furface, where no beaten roads 
exift, and hill after hill occurs nearly alike, it would be no eafy 
matter for a ftranger to return upon the fame track for a conti- 
nuance of twenty or thirty miles which he had but once before 
gone over, and that in the night. A Dutch peafant, though 
fufEciently expert at this fort of fervice, always depends more 
upon his Hottentot than himfelf. The hill, however, that the 
reconnoitring party had chofen was fo very remarkable that it 
could not eafily be miftaken. It ftood quite alone on the mid- 
dle of a plain ; was vifible for more than twenty miles from 
every point of the compafs ; prefented the form of a truncated 
cone from whatfoever fituation it was feen ; and the third tier 
of fand-ftone ftrata that capped its fummit appeared as a mafs of 
mafonry, a fortification on an eminence that could not be lefs 
than a thoufand feet high. As a diftindlion we gave it the 
name of Tower-berg^ becaufe this mountain, 
*' above 
