S26 SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
each occupies a farm several miles square, at the) 
rate of a farthing an acre, no two neighbours can 
agree about the limits of their respective pos- 
sessions. This dissension is much promoted by the 
system of measuring the fields, according to the 
length of time spent in walking across them. 
There is indeed an officer, whose express function 
it is to pace the territory ; but it is often alleged, 
that the extent of his strides is modified by his 
good or evil inclination to the tenant of the ground. 
Reading and writing are very imperfectly taught ; 
even those who employ a schoolmaster, cannot car- 
ry the division of labour so far as to allot that for 
his sole function ; he must make himself service- 
able in other capacities. Our traveller saw one, 
who was driving a plough, which a Hottentot was 
guiding. Hospitality, however, is a virtue which 
they eminently possess. With the exception of 
his next neighbour, with whom he is probably at 
variance, no farmer ever passes the house of ano- 
ther. He enters without ceremony, salutes the fa- 
mily, and seats himself, as if the house were his. 
own. * 
The party now entered the Karroo, or great 
desert, through which they travelled eastward for 
nine days without meeting a human habitation. 
They only met a grazier from the Sneuwberg, driv- 
ing a large herd of sheep and cattle for the Cape 
market. The sour and acrid plants on which these 
