CUAP. VIII. AN AFRICAN CONGREGATION. 197 kindly, and the next morning I attended public worship in the chapel, a good substantial building. About 500 persons were present, all persons of colour, and many of them Hot tentots. All were clothed in European dresses, the women wearing either a loose cotton bonnet, or a handkerchief on their heads. This was the first African congregation I had seen, and I was struck with the light colour, and peculiarly angular and Tartar-like physiognomy of the Hottentots. The deportment of the people was attentive and serious, and I was much pleased with the fine voices of many of the singers. Their performance was, perhaps, not always scientifically correct, and sometimes the singing was too high; hut the tones of some of the voices, their softness, as well as their compass, were such as are rarely surpassed in ordinary con gregations. On the last day of January we left Zurbraak, and spent the following Sunday at the village of George and the adjacent institution of Pecaltsdorp. Here, as well as at the last station, we had very full conferences with the missionaries and the people respecting the important objects of my visit. On the 6th of February we ascended the celebrated Montague Pass, over the blue mountains. It was in the neighbourhood of George that I first saw the beautiful Tritoma uvaria, now designated Belthymea or Kniphofia, rearing its slender upright stalk surmounted by a large cluster of pendant trumpet-shaped flowers, with yellow centre and scarlet ends. By the sides of the pass I also observed a number of graceful ferns, especially one mass of the very elegantly-growing Gleichenia polypodioides, of which I ga thered a specimen. This plant spread up the side of the pass for three or four yards from the road, entirely covering the face of the rock. Amongst the bulbs was one hearing a dark blue flower, which I dug up and placed in the waggon. There were also great numbers of scarlet amaranthine plants