86 
HOTTENTOT-HOLLAND PASS. 
9 April, 
the north-eastern angle of False Bay, whence it is readily supplied 
with excellent fish. 
9th. After an early breakfast, we mounted our horses, and 
almost immediately commenced the ascent which leads to the pass 
called Hottentot-Holland Kloof. At the first part of it, the road is not 
very steep, but as soon as the traveller enters the hollow way of 
the Roode Hoogte* (the Red Heights,) the difficulty of the ascent 
begins. This is a lower hill forming the foot of the mountain, and 
composed of a hard, barren, reddish, clayey, ferruginous earth, into 
which the road, towards its summit, is cut down to the depth of, 
perhaps, twenty feet. After this he has to climb the rocky mountain 
itself, and will not, without some suprise, behold loaded waggons as- 
cending and descending so steep and frightful a road ; nor will he, 
without a compassionate feeling for the oxen, witness their toil and 
labor, carried to the very utmost of their strength : sometimes en- 
couraged by good words, at other times terrified into exertion by the 
blows of the shambok, the loud crack of the whip, the smart of its 
lash, or the whoop and noisy clamour of the boor and his Hotten- 
tots. All this cannot be entirely avoided ; and it is alone the peril- 
ous nature of such passes, which reduces the boor to the necessity 
. of acting with harshness towards these useful animals : in general, 
the farmer knows too well the value of his oxen, wantonly to ill- 
treat them. The danger in which both oxen and waggon are placed 
while passing the mountains, renders the utmost care and vigilance 
indispensable. For, should they become restive, and deviate from the 
proper road, or obstinately refuse to draw, the waggon would be 
thrown down the precipice, dragging them, and perhaps the driver 
also, along with it to inevitable destruction. We met several wag- 
gons coming down, all of which were heavily laden. 
The shambok, here mentioned, is a strip, three feet or more 
in length, of the hide either of a hippopotamus or of a rhinoceros, 
* Which words are, according to the Cape dialect, pronounced as an Englishman 
would read Roey HoagJder. 
