1811. 
KANNA-BUSH. — AFRICAN PASTURES. 
419 
ding than my watch-coat. In respect to the latter, I was inclined to 
try how the customs of a Bushman would suit me ; that is, without any 
other bedding than the clothes on my back, or other shelter than 
a bush. 
Taking Philip as driver, and leaving Gert in charge of the great 
waggon, I set out a little after seven in the morning, with the 
Hottentot messenger for our guide, and having in company a 
wasson which was aoino; on the same business as mine, a little 
way up the river, to Captain Dam, who had shot another Hippopo- 
tamus. The country over which we travelled was a wild trackless 
level, here and there broken with a few horizontal-topped hills. To 
the south-south-eastward, a little table-mountain, at the distance of a 
day and a half's journey, is remarkable, and may be seen, as I after- 
wards remarked, a great way off in different directions. It was said 
to be situated not more than eight or nine miles eastward from the 
Salt-pan which lies on the eastern side of the Nugariep. 
The surface of the land was in general sprinkled over with small 
scrubby bushes * ; and in many places grew abundance of Kanna- 
bosch (Kanna-bush) "f, which I had now learnt to consider as an 
indication of a good soil of some depth, though not always free from 
a brackish quality. In some parts of the plain the Bushmen had 
burnt away the old grass, for the purpose of attracting the game by 
the young herbage which subsequently springs up. At this time it 
had already begun to sprout, and had given to many extensive 
patches the beautiful verdure of a field of wheat. In places which 
had not been in this manner cleared by burning, the green blades 
were concealed by the old withered grass ; a circumstance which 
ever gives to the plains of Africa a more pale and arid appearance 
than they would present if the wild animals were able to graze off 
the yearly crop as closely as the cattle do in the pastures of Europe. 
* I added to my herbarium a very singular ligneous species of Aizoon ; a Talinum 
and another remarkable plant of the same order. 
f Salsola aphylla, L. or Caroxylon Salsola, Th. The ashes of this shrub are much 
used by the Colonists, as an alkali, in making soap. 
3 H 2 
