CHAPTER VL 
RIDE FROM GENADENDAL TO THE HOT SPRING IN BRAND VALLEY; AND VISIT 
TO TULBAGH. 
Having lingered till the sun had passed the meridian nearly two 
hours, we were compelled to hasten our pace. Following, upwards, 
the course of the river, along the Vale of the Zondereinde, we 
forded many little streams. These we found deeper than any 
we had hitherto passed ; but their waters were clear and limpid ; 
and I remarked, that none of the rivers which we crossed in the 
succeeding part of this excursion, exhibited the brown color noticed 
at the Palmiet river. A solitary farm-house was the only dwelling 
we saw : the face of the country was shrubby ; but not a single tree 
of any magnitude was to be seen, although many large and decayed 
trunks were observed along the banks of the Zondereinde. Fire- 
wood is an article generally very scarce in the vicinity of a Hottentot 
settlement ; and, in all the grazing parts of the colony, it is rendered 
much more so by the wasteful and destructive practice of annually 
