260 
SPEELMAN'S HAT. 
9 Aug. 
prefer nesting in the habitations of man. Three were caught in the 
thatch, where they had taken their night's station. 
9th. The road continued very level, but the face of the country 
began to be more thickly scattered over with eminences ; and 
might be considered as a plain studded with a multitude of hills of 
regular form and horizontal strata, and of various heights from one 
hundred to three hundred feet. They were clothed with abundance 
of shrubby bushes, none being more than two feet in height and as 
much in diameter. The most predominant shrub was a kind of 
Lycium of about four or five feet high, of robust growth and very 
thorny. * Mesemh^yanthemum camjjestre, now in bloom, every 
where decorated the road ; and a kind of Hebenstreitia, whose flowers 
smell like mignionette, was not unfrequent. The surface of the land 
was perfectly destitute of grass; a kind of Fescue-grass being a rare 
and solitary exception. 
Neither men, nor animals of any description, were seen the 
whole day. Our little party were the only moving objects ; amongst 
these Speelmans grotesque figure often made me smile. He had 
lately dragged out of his budget, a military full-dress cocked hat, 
which some of his comrades in Cape Town had given him. And, 
not satisfied with the fashion of it, he had altered it to his own taste, 
by letting the brim half down, so as to give it a wider and more 
formidable appearance : sometimes, for variety's sake, it was let quite 
down like a parasol. With this strange apparatus on his head, his 
short blue jacket, sheepskin breeches, naked legs, his gun on his 
* Very like L. tetrandrum., but is probably the L. liorridum of Thunberg 
Growing amongst a variety of low shrubs, I collected — 
Hebenstreitia integrifolia ? 
Apfosimtan dej^rcssum. C. G. 1354. 
Trichonevia spiralc, C. G. 1356. 
Planta exigua. Folia spiraliter 
contorta. Flos purpureus. 
Heliopliila pectinata, C. G. 1362. 
Alyssum glomeratum 
Scirpus tegetalis, C. G. 13i6. [Schcemis 
inanis, Th. ?) of which the Hot- 
tentots and Bushmen make their 
mats. 
Medeola angmtifolia, Willd. Sp. PI. 
Lappago 
OtJionna 
Leijsera 
lielhania 
Pteroiiia 
Hemimeris. 
