384 TRAVELS IN 
fociety ; without wife or child, relation or friend, and any 
human being to converfe with or confide in, except the old 
Hottentot and the flave, who were his only inmates^ and a tribe 
of Hottentots in ftraw huts without. With the appearance of 
wretchednefs and extreme poverty, he poflefled immenfe herds 
of fheep and cattle, and had feveral large fums of money placed 
out at intereft. He was literally what the world has properly 
called a mlfer. In juftice, however, to the old man, he was 
one of the civilleft creatures imaginable. On our return we 
were much indebted to him for the afliftance of his cattle, which 
he very obligingly fent forward to fall in with our waggons on 
the midft of the Karroo defert. 
It is fingular enough, that a brother and a fifter of this man, 
both old, and both unmarried, fhould each have their habi- 
tations in feparate and diftant corners of thefe mountains, and 
live, like him, entirely in the fociety of Hottentots j they are 
nearly related to one of the richeft men in the Cape. 
On the twenty-ninth we crofled a chain of mountains to the 
weft, and proceeding to the northward between it and another 
much higher, we came at night to the head of the defile, where 
it was found impradicable for the waggons to make any farther 
progrefs. We therefore encamped near a clear and copious 
fpring of water, called the Fleuris fonteyn. The mountains, 
within the defiles of which we now were, are called in the 
Namaaqua language, the Kham'ies^ fignifying the clufter or 
aggregate. That which headed the feveral pafles, or where as 
a center they all terminated, was a very high peak, not lefs 
than 
