SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
3" 
were almoft ftarving. The numerous herds of fprlngboks 
affifted alfo to bare the ground of its produce. In no part of 
Africa had fuch prodigious numbers of thefe animals been feen 
together as in this divifion. Our party, who were accuftomed 
to judge pretty nearly of the number of flieep in a flock, efti- 
mated one troop of the fpringboks to confift of about five thou- 
fand ; but if the accounts of thefe people might be credited, 
more than ten times that number have been feen together at 
fuch times as they were about to migrate. 
On the fifteenth we made another long excurfion into the 
Tarka mountains, near where they unite with the great chain 
that runs along the upper part of the Kaffer country. Our 
objeft was to find among the drawings, made by the Bosjef- 
mans, the reprefentation of an unicorn. One of the party pro- 
mifed to bring us diredtly to the fpot where he knew fuch a 
drawing flood. We fet oflT at an early hour, and rode through 
feveral defiles along the beds of temporary ftreamleta. In one 
place was a very large and curious cavern formed by a water- 
fall, that from time to time had depofited a vaft mafs of ftaladi- 
tical matter ; many of the ramifications were not lefs than 
forty or fifty feet in length. Some were twifted and knotted 
like the roots of an old tree, and others were cellular and ca- 
vernous. This great mafs, reflefted from a fheet of deep water 
beneath, clear as chryftal, hemmed in by two fteep faces of 
folid rock, and fronted by two old weeping-willows, made as 
fine a piece of wild and romantic fcenery as fancy could defign. 
A little on one fide of the cavern, and under a long projeding 
ridge 
