288 
THE DESERT. — TASTE AND BEAUTY DEFINED. 5— 7 Sept. 
evening with several pack-oxen loaded with the meat of five Quakkas. 
Immediately there commenced a general broiling and feasting, in 
which not only their fellow-travellers, but also their friends from 
Klaarwater, lent their most hearty assistance. 
By the altitude of the sun when on the meridian, I calculated 
the latitude o{ Partridge Fountain to be 31° 23' 23" S. * 
6th. Our course lay over a hard, even, bare, and open country, 
the surface of which was here and there relieved from its monotony, 
by a broad, and far-extended undulation. The train of waggons, 
steadily following each other at equal distances, drew a lengthened 
perspective line over the wide landscape, that presented the only 
object on which the eye could fix. While the van was advancing 
over the highest swell, the rear was still far out of sight in the 
hollow. Waggon behind waggon, slowly rose to view ; and oft at 
intervals, the loud clapping of the whip, or the jolting of the wheel, 
disturbed the silence of the atmosphere, rolling its sound in a half 
echo along the surface of the sun-baked earth. Not a green herb 
enticed the eye ; not a bird winged through the air : the creation 
here, was nought but earth and sky ; the azure vault of heaven, 
expanded into the boundless aerial space, seemed lifted further from 
the globe. 
There is always a pleasure in novelty ; and even the desert may 
be found at some times, to afford the traveller both the one and the 
other. The painter who viewed these scenes, might, if he knew it 
not before, feel a conviction that the truest definition of Taste, 
Beauty^ the Picturesque, may be found in that of the word Nature. 
In one part of this day's journey, the low uniformity of the 
horizon, was broken by a distant flat mountain, which, by some of 
our party, was called the Spionberg (Spy-mountain.) Of this, and 
of the train of waggons, I made two sketches, f 
* 6th Sept. At Patrys Fontein, the observed mer. alt. of the sun's upper limb, 'was 
52' 9' 27". 
f As we travelled on, I picked up — 
Aristida ? piligejm, B. Cat. Geog. 1521. pilis verticillatis. Panicula simplex. 
Folia subulata rigida brevia. Cul- Arista intermedia plumosa. 
mus spithameus uninodis; geniculo, 
