296 
SCHIET FONTEIN. 
9, 10 Sept* 
to beauty : chance having guided my steps to the only spot where it 
grew ; nor was it ever afterwards, during my travels, met with again. 
In the middle of a large plain, covered with low arid bushes, 
and surrounded by moderately high mountains, we found Schiet 
Fontein (Skirmish Fountain*), so named from having been formerly 
the field of an attack on the Bushmen by the Boors. 
As we arrived an hour or two before sunset, I employed the 
time in making some sketches of the scenery, and in examining the 
nature of this station. There was abundance of good water. The' 
spring rose in the midst of a thicket of reeds at the head of a ravine, 
down which it ran for two or three hundred yards, and then was lost 
in the loose earth. A large quantity of a calcareous deposition from 
the water, adhered to the base of the reeds. These, which were in 
their autumnal season, and of a remarkably pale color, were of a 
greater height than hitherto seen ; some being nearly twelve feet 
long. 
The green leaves of a kind of onion, growing here wild, were 
plucked by many of the Hottentots, and boiled with their meat. Fol- 
lowing their example, I found them as good tasted as garden-onions ; 
and made Gert, who acted in capacity of cook, collect a large bundle 
for use, as the stock of potatoes, our only vegetable, was already ex- 
hausted. A great number of Sparrows [Fringilla arcuata) frequented 
the reeds, and kept up a continual noisy chirping, f 
One of the distant hills was very remarkable : its summit had 
some resemblance to a cap or hat ; and many others presented nearly 
the same outline. 
10^/?. This morning the sky was clouded, and the thirsty earth 
was refreshed with a light rain, which, however, ceased before noon. 
* Literally, ' Shoot Fountain.' 
f At Schiet Fontein were gathered specimens of — 
Pteronia F of which the numerous Tritonia 
flowers, with their long purple pap- Anthospermum 
pus, resembled little brushes. Artemisia Afra 
Allium, " Wild onions." Colutea [Sutherlandia) 
Hesperanthera ' And a genus allied to Othonna. 
