248 
A LARGE FAMILY. 
3 Aug. 
of such an occurrence may seem trifling to those who have never 
travelled in a wild or desert country, they were far from being so to 
us. We found it impossible to witness little accidents of this 
kind, with the same indifference with which they may be viewed by 
those who journey in countries where, with money, such losses may 
be immediately rectified. 
Snyman overtook us on horseback, and went forward to Gerrit 
Fischer s, to order the relays to be in readiness as soon as we arrived, 
and where, having travelled eight miles over a dry open country, we 
halted about two hours afterwards. 
This place is a permanent residence, and consequently pos- 
sesses a better house than the temporary cattle-places we had 
hitherto seen in the Karro. An excellent garden, stocked with fruit 
trees and vegetables, and a constant supply of water, gladden the 
eye of the traveller, after passing the dreary waste. 
Vischer stood ready at the door, to welcome me into the house, 
where, as soon as I was seated, coffee was brought in. There was some- 
thing in the appearance and manners of this colonist and his family, 
that pleased me much. Both the parents, and their thirteen children, 
were remarkably tall, and one of the daughters was really a giantess, 
without being unwieldy or clumsy. The weather being a little 
chilly, the mother, in the true colonial style, observed that, down in 
the Karro, it was only a stuyver cold, but that we should find it a 
ducatoon cold, up in the Roggeveld. No rain had fallen at Vischer's 
place since the last day of May. I purchased some fine lemons, out 
of his garden, at the rate of a hundred for a rix dollar. 
Field-cornet Gerrit Maritz, apprised of my arrival at Vischer's, 
came for the purpose of giving his assistance, if wanted : having 
provided voorspans to meet us at the foot of the mountain. He 
begged me to take charge of a letter which he had written officially 
to the missionaries at Klaarwater. The contents, he told me, were a 
requisition to deliver up and send to Cape Town, certain runaway 
slaves and Hottentots who had taken refuge at that settlement. He 
complained much, that an establishment of that kind, beyond the 
boundary, composed mostly of men who had once resided in the 
