BARROW. 
8SS 
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 imper- 
fectly taught J even those who employ a school- 
master, cannot carry the division of labour so far 
as to allot that for his sole function ; he must 
make himself serviceable 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 another. He enters without 
ceremony, salutes the family, 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, 
driving a large herd of sheep and cattle for the 
Gape market. The sour and acrid plants on which 
these cattle are obliged to feed in their passage 
through this desert, appear to Mr Barrow the 
chief cause of the bad quality of animal food at 
the Cape. Their course lay between the two 
