Page:Seven Years in South Africa v1.djvu/255

 wood and canvas; it stood immediately on the Vaal, which here parts itself into several channels, and flows round a number of islands. It is really a picturesque spot, and is called Fourteen Streams. The Hebron heights commence here, and extend down the Vaal as far as Delportshope, having branches that stretch out towards the north, north-west, and north-north-east, in the direction of the Harts River, one ramification terminating in the Spitzkopf already mentioned, others reaching towards Mamusa and the hills that surround Taung, Mankuruane’s residence. All the range is thickly wooded, and it is intersected by the boundary-line between Griqualand West and the Transvaal; it commences about eight miles above Hebron, a former mission-station in the midst of the diamond-diggings. The formation of the hills consists of what is known as Vaal-stone, being greenstone containing almond-like lumps of chalcedony, covered with quartz-rubble and ferruginous and argillaceous sand. The bottom of the channel is so rocky that the river forms numerous rapids, so that the view upwards from Hebron is very charming; a wide panorama lay open before us, and we could see the hills on the horizon far away in Griqualand West and the Orange Free State, as well as the Plat Berg, a hill 800 feet high, with all its streamlets, pastures, and farm-lands.

But if the scenery was exquisite, the roads were execrable. The only pavement that nature had provided was huge blocks of stone, between which