SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
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eattle are obliged to feed in their passage through 
this desert, appears to Mr Barrow the chief cause 
of the bad quality of animal food at the Cape. 
Their course lay between the two great ranges of 
the Zwarte Berg, and Niewweldt, both of which 
were then covered with snow. The latter, so far 
as could be judged, appeared not less than ten 
thousand feet in height, On the Sion river, they 
found, in an opening of the Zwarte Berg, a farm- 
house, with a few habitations, which formed a spe^ 
cies of oasis. Here having stopped to refresh them- 
selves, they again launched into the desert, and, in 
seven days more, arrived at the village of Graaf 
Reynet, which borders immediately on Caffreland. 
Graaf Reynet is 500 miles from the Cape. It 
is an assemblage of mud huts, and exhibits an ap- 
pearance more miserable than the poorest village 
in England. The walls and floors are in a great 
measure undermined by the termites. There is a 
jail, but so little tenable, that an English desert- 
er being confined in it, went out the first night 
through the thatch. Although the country is fer- 
tile, the indolence of the inhabitants is such, that 
the most common necessaries can scarcely be pro- 
cured. There is neither milk, butter, nor cheese ; 
neither butcher, chandler, grocer, nor bake**. The 
whole district, with the neighbouring one ot Brunt- 
jeshoogte, breathed then nothing but war against 
the Caffres. This last people seemed, indeed, to 
