1811. IN BRAND VALLEY. 125 
hill, from the foot of which it issues, has no remarkable appearance ; 
at least, there is none of that black, ponderous, earth or iron ore 
noticed at the Zwarteberg baths. 
At the distance of about three hundred yards from the source, 
two bath-houses have been built over the stream, the heat of which, 
even here, is almost greater than can be born by a person not 
gradually inured to it. These little buildings, being public pro- 
perty, were much neglected and dilapidated ; and nothing could 
be in a more wretched, dirty, and ruinous state, than the huts 
which were meant to accommodate those who use the bath. At 
this time, a slave and a Hottentot, who had been sent here for the 
benefit of the water, occupied two of them ; but their miserable 
lodging hardly afforded protection from the weather. I could not 
learn that this bath has any other medicinal virtues than what it 
derives from the mere heat of the water. 
Between the spring and the bath, where the stream has run 
a sufficient distance in the open air to allow it time to become a few 
degrees cooler, the bottom of the rivulet is covered with a beautiful 
sea-green Conferva, waving gracefully beneath the water, like long 
tresses of hair. In the days of mythology, this circumstance would 
have furnished the poets with the hint for a history of some lovely 
nymph metamorphosed into this rivulet, where her flowing locks 
still remain to attest the truth of the story — 
" Conticuere undee ; quarum Dea sustulit alto 
Fonte caput, viridesque manu siccata capillos, 
veteres narravit amores. 
15tJi. At eight o'clock in the morning, we departed from this 
remarkable spring, having before us a long ride to the village of 
Tulbagh. Taking a more westerly course in rounding the mountain 
which forms the head of Brand Valley, we entered the district or 
valley of Roodezand (Red-sand), formerly called Waveren. It is 
about forty miles long in a direct line, and several miles broad : its 
surface is flat, and but thinly sprinkled over with houses, although, 
