SOUTHERN AFRICA. 69 
ventured through at the ford, and pafled it with the lofs only 
of two (heep that were worth at leaft four times the amount of 
the toll. The road beyond the ferry is excellent, being a level 
bed of hard clay ; but the country is very thinly inhabited. In 
advancing to the northward the furface has fewer inequalities, 
and becomes fandy. Nothing, however, like drifts or beds of 
fand, meets the eye ; but, on the contrary, it wanders over an 
uninterrupted foreft of verdure arifing from a variety of fruit- 
efcent plants, among which the tribes of proteas, of heaths, and 
two fpecies of feriphium^ called here the rhinofceros-bulh, pre- 
dominate. In thofe places where the ground is leaft covered, 
the hillocks thrown up by the termites moft abound. Here 
alfo, towards the clofe of the day, a multitude of fmall land 
tortoifes, \ht tejludo pufilla and the. geometrica of Linnseus, were 
crawling flowly off the road towards the bullies, having bafked 
themfelves in the open funOiine during the day. The howling 
wolf and the yelping jackall began their hideous cries fhortly 
after the fetting of the fun, and feemed to follow us in the 
night, keeping at no great diftance from the waggons. It was 
near the middle of the night before we arrived at a folitary 
habitation, fituated in a wild, bleak, open country, and on the 
borders of a lake called the Vogel Valley or the Bird Lake. The 
word valley^ in the colony, implies either a lake or a fwamp : at 
this time the place in queftion was the latter; but it abounded 
with ducks, geefe, and teal, and alfo with the great white peli- 
can, the onocratidiis^ and the rofe-colored flamingo. The wings 
of the latter are converted into fans for flapping av/ay the flies 
that, in incredible multitudes, fwarm in the houfes of the pea- 
fantry for want of a proper attention to cleanlinefs ; and the 
pelican 
