140 
BERG RIVER. — VANDERBYL'S. 
19 April, 
not be fordable ; but found it not yet risen higher than four feet. 
The ford, which had rather the appearance of a lane, led us through 
the tall, thick Palmite, with which the river was, in this part, so 
choked up, that its waters seemed as if struggling to find a passage 
between their stems. It would be very unsafe, without great care, 
for a traveller to ford a river of this kind ; for should he, by the 
force of the stream, be carried into the Palmites, he might find the 
greatest difficulty in extricating himself or his horse from amongst 
their entangled trunks. This ford, by turning obliquely, and in 
different directions, was so lengthened as to occupy us ten minutes 
in passing through. Means for crossing this river, when too deep 
to be forded, have been provided by building a Pont (Ferry-boat), at 
a place a little further up the stream. * 
At three o'clock we arrived at the village of the Paarl, and 
alighted at the house of an opulent wine-farmer, named Vanderbyl^ 
with whom my fellow-traveller had a previous acquaintance, and 
from whose son-in-law, the landdrost of Tulbagh, he was the bearer 
of a letter. 
W e were met by him at the door, and were received and wel- 
comed in the usual form. The pitiless rain had pursued us to the 
end of our journey, and our drenched appearance rendering it unne- 
cessary to ask for a room where we might change our clothes, we 
were immediately shown into an apartment ; but, on opening our 
portmanteaus, we discovered that nearly the whole of our linen was 
wet. We, however, consoled each other in our disappointment, by 
the expectation of dinner; for, having made known that we had 
been riding ever since eight o'clock, we did not suppose there would 
be any further necessity for hinting that some refreshment would be 
acceptable. 
We took our seat at one end of the voorhuis with the master of 
the house, with whom we spent nearly two hours in conversing on 
various topics, but chiefly on the subject of my projected journey 
* See the 24th of June, 1811, and Plate 3. 
