1811. 
THE KARREEBERGEN. 
295 
friendly tribe, and belonging to a family or party of twelve, who had 
come from a neighbouring kraal to pay us a visit. What they said 
to me as I advanced towards them, I was unable to guess, being 
alone, and understanding nothing of their language. I felt, however, 
so much confidence in their good intentions, that I sat myself down 
on one of the large stones, and made a sketch of the spot, in which 
I inserted them exactly in the attitudes and situation in which they 
were at the time ; and was pleased at finding ready before my pencil 
such picturesque appendages to the landscape. This scene is repre- 
sented in thejifth Plate. 
While thus employed, the time slipped away unperceived : the 
oxen had all been yoked to, and the waggons were already in motion, 
before it was known that I was missing. One of the party came in 
search of me, and we hastened to overtake the caravan. 
The country becoming more hilly as we advanced, showed that 
we had entered the mountainous belt of the Karreeher^en. The 
word Karree, in the Hottentot language, signifies drt/, or arid, and 
is, in this case, applied with peculiar propriety. Always winding 
between the mountains, we had no very steep ascent or descent ; 
sometimes an enclosed plain, of considerable extent, intervened. 
In this dry unpromising district, grows one of the most beauti- 
ful little shrubs of the Bushman country. It was a Mahernia *, not 
more than a foot in height, covered with large scarlet bell-shaped 
flowers, elegantly turned downwards ; the emblem of modesty united 
* Mahernia oxalidiflora. B. Cat. Geog. 1536. Fruticulus pedalis erectus ramosis- 
simus. Folia nuda incisa et inciso-pinnatifida. Calyx, pedunculusque viscosi. Corolla 
maxima. 
It much resembles M. grandiflora, which was not found till a year afterwards, and 
in a very different part of the continent; but from this it may be easily distinguished by 
its deeply cut, almost inciso-piiinate, leaves. 
Excepting this, scarcely any thing remarkable was seen this day : the aridity of the 
soil being so unfavorable to vegetation, that nothing more was added to my list than — 
Two Calendulce A minute Pelargonium 
A Chrysocoma And a Leysera. 
Three Seneciones 
