channel with angry waters, that carry ruin and destruction far and wide. The great bridge that spanned the river at the town was in 1874 swept right away by the violence of the flood, the solid ironwork being washed off the piles, which were themselves upheaved. The new bridge was erected at a securer altitude, being about six feet higher.
On the second day after leaving Cradock we reached the town of Colesberg. Our travelling was so rapid that I had scarcely time properly to take in the character of the scenery; but seven years later, on my return in a bullock-waggon, and when progress was especially slow on account of the drought, I had a fairer opportunity of examining, at least partially, the geological structure of the district, and of gaining some interesting information about the adjoining country.
Towards Colesberg the isolated, flattened eminences gradually decrease both in number and in magnitude, the country becoming a high table-land. One of the prettiest parts is Newport, a pass in which is seen the watershed between the southerly-flowing streams, and the affluents of the Orange River. The heights in the district are haunted by herds of baboons, by several of the smaller kinds of antelopes, and by some of the lesser beasts of prey of the cat kind, principally leopards. On the tableland itself are to be counted upwards of fifty quaggas, belonging to the true species, the only one I believe to be met with in South Africa. I was delighted to find that latterly they had been spared by the
