294 TRAVELS IN 
further interruption, through reeds and fhrubbery, and fhallow 
parts of the river, to the very end of the kloof, which we com- 
puted to be about fifteen miles from the entrance, where we 
had left our waggons. Here alfo was the termination of the 
Sea-Cow river ; its tranquil waters formed a confluence with 
another river of prodigious fize, whofe rapid ftream rolled over 
the rocky bed a vaft volume of muddy water. The current of 
this river fet to the north- weft ward. Though there had not 
been a cloud in the £ky fmce we left Graaff Reynet, very 
heavy rain muft have fallen in fome part of the country 
through which it flowed ; for it was evident from the wreck 
of trees, and plants, and grafs, yet green, thrown up near the 
banks of the river, that the water had fubfided twelve or thir- 
teen feet. It was now, at this place, about four hundred yards 
in width, and very deep. The peafantry had no name for it 
but that of the Groot^ or Great river ; but from the magnitude 
and the direction of the current, there could be no doubt of its 
being the fame which empties itfelf on the weftern coaft be- 
tween the two tribes of people called the Great and the Little 
Namaquas, and to which Colonel Gordon there gave the name 
of the Orange river. In point of fize, and bulk of water, all 
the rivers of the colony, taken colledively, would not be equal 
to it. 
The banks were fringed with the Karroo m.imofa, the wil- 
low of Babylon, and the rhus viminalis. Vaft numbers of the 
hippopotamus were fnorting and blowing in every part of the 
river, loud as the torrent that roared among the rocks. Under 
the fhade of the trees, and on the reedy banks near the mouth 
of 
