CHAP. Till. APPROACH TO THE ORANGE RIVER. 213 forty in one day. He said they were very destructive, and that, though by strict watching they might be kept from the crops during the day, they could not be kept off by night, and sometimes devoured the whole of the grain, and every other green thing. Our conversation then turned upon colonial affairs, and afterwards on the war in Europe, the alliance between England and France, with the politics and literature of England. Our host told us his name was Gdlfillan, and asked if I knew whether the author of the “ Bards of the Bible ” was from Selkirk. On learning that I expected soon to return to England, he said he should like to visit the old country again, but supposed he never should. I wanted to look over his garden, but the time had passed so rapidly in this un looked-for oasis, that we felt obliged to bid our friends a hasty farewell and depart. The place is called Wonder Hill, from a singular conical mountain rising near the house. Passing along, after our departure, over the same treeless region we reached, in the afternoon of the 24th of February, the frontier village of Colesberg. There we spent a pleasant Sabbath with M. De Kok, and on Monday afternoon pursued our way towards the Orange River, twenty miles distant, where we arrived the same evening. On approaching the river, we found it impassable. A number of families, with their waggons, were waiting on both sides for the subsiding of the swollen waters. The man in charge of the ferry told us it had not been passed since Saturday, and that it was uncertain when the flood would subside. We walked to the side of the stream, but the violence and noise with which the turbid waters rolled along afforded little hope of a speedy passage to the opposite shore. The scene along the banks presented a curious spectacle. We seemed to be in the midst of a wide encampment. Gipsy fires gleamed in every direction along the borders of the v 3
