181]. 
SPEELMAN FINDS TWENTY-SIX OSTRICH-EGGS. 
279 
expectation of her accouchement, caused us to remain at this station 
a day longer. This gave me an opportunity of taking an observation 
for the latitude, which I here found to be 3V 40' 0".* 
30th. The season of spring being now advancing, the days sensibly 
increased in warmth, though the niglits still continued chilly. At 
8 o'clock in the morning, the thermometer was only 44° (6*6 C.) , 
but rose to 81° (27*2 C.) , in the middle of the day. 
After about three hours travelling, we entered an opening in a 
range of low mountains, and halted for a quarter of an hour, to allow 
our oxen and sheep to drink at the Dwaal river, which here ran in 
a stream through a romantic rocky pass, called Dwaal Riviers Poort' 
I, in the meantime, climbed a craggy eminence on our left, whence 
I brought down some curious plants, f The plains abounded in 
hares, of which our dogs caught three. 
Speelman, and Maagers, who, in the pursuit of game, had 
deviated from the waggon-road, fell in with an ostricJis nest, con- 
taining within it seventeen eggs, and round the outside nine more. 
This being a number greater than they knew how to carry, and yet 
not enduring the idea of leaving any behind, they at last hit upon a 
strange expedient : they took off their shirts, and by tying them up 
at bottom, converted them into bags. But these not holding more 
than half the number, their trowsers were next stripped off, and, in 
the same manner, the bottom of each leg being closed, they also 
were crammed full of eggs, and, being then secured at the waistband, 
were placed upon their shoulders. The handkerchief which they 
wore round their head, was taken to supply the place of the trowsers. 
As they came towards us, nothing could be more grotesque and 
ridiculous than the figure they cut, with the trowsers thus sitting on 
* 29th. August 1811, at Dwaal river, the observed meridional altitude of the sun's 
upper limb 48" 57' 47". 
f Particularly a thorny Mahernia, and a beautiful Gladiolus {Tritonici) with orange- 
coloured flowers of a most delicate odor. Here, also, between the rocks, grew a fine 
Conium six feet high. 
Mahernia spinosa, C. G. 1484. Fruticulus ramosus erectus glaber. Folia minuta 
cuneata, apice sub-tridentata. Pedunculi demum spinescentes. 
