SOUTHERN AFRICA. 373 
The banks of the river, where we crofled it, afforded feveral 
very excellent farms. The rice that was produced here was a 
large heavy grain, and white as fnow. The multitude of birds 
attracted by this grain, requires a number of people to guard- 
it from them. The fmall Loxia AJlrlld is particularly trouble- 
fome. The immenfe flocks of this fpecies of Grofsbeak may in 
fome degree be conceived, from the circumftance of three-and- 
fixty having been fhot at one difcharge of a fmall fowling-piece. 
On the twenty-firft I attempted, with fixteen frefh oxen in 
the waggon, to crofs the great chain of mountains ; which was 
effected in about eight hours. The pafTage had not been made 
at this place for a length of time by any waggon, yet as the 
ufual circuitous road would have occafioned the lofs of a whole 
day, I confidered it as an object worth the trial. 
This part of the chain of mountains was exceedingly grand 
and lofty, and the road that ferpentized through the lower 
pafles, between the high points, was dreadfully fteep and rocky. 
On approaching the fummlt, the fame kind of pyramidal re- 
mains made their appearance, in the midft of a furface of fand 
and fragments of rock. Thefe peaks were fome of them a thou- 
fand feet high, and of fuch vaft bulk, that each might be con^ 
fidered as a feparate mountain. They form the very higheft 
ridge of the great chain, but the general fummit to be pafTed 
over, in the approach to them, was at leaft five miles in width. 
The grotefque manner in which the refifting fragments grew out 
of this furface, or, rolling from the upper ridges, had tumbled 
on 
