Fourth Journey (MS 107/3/1-2)
25th September 1779
transcription
[25th September 1779]
25 Saturdag
gepasseerde nagt warm stil schoon weer term meest door den nagt 65. maneschyn.
desen morgen schoon weer het selfde als gisteren de lugt wat met dampen beset. hoogte op de vlakte 2265. voet.
[in margin:] s'avonds om 5 uren volle maan
| gr | 28 | min van 't zenith | 23 |
| brete | 0 | zuider declin: | 53 |
| 29 | 16 |
sagen nog beoosten ons cameeldorens en een struis en steenbok anders geen wild of menschen. schoon men my seide hier omtrent bosjemans te leggen. peilde onse verdere coers o:n:o: op.
aan een klein heuveltje. vlak hard veld, vele kwarts en keitjes die als diamanten by de maan glimden, alles vlak so ver het oog kon dragen even heuvelig in het noordoosten tamelyke hoge gebroken heuvels van het zuidwesten tot noordoosten, wierd swaar sanderig na 5 uur rydens, spanden na 8¾ uur uit. by een graaf water ćamma sous dit is ook een graaf water dus is hier niet als met regentyd door te trekken, in dese gansche droge streek, dondert het ook dog niet veel regen in Caapse droge z:o: tydt. en sneeuwt het in de winter.
vonden hier een klein bosjemans craaltje van 16 so mans vrouwen als kinderen die schoon [annotated in margin:] in den nagt enigen ten eersten by ons kwamen sy hadden 10 stuks vee, waar onder een melkkoei die zy van de kleine namacquas genomen hadden levende met deselven in vyandschap.
translation
[25th September 1779]
25 Saturday
Hot last night, calm. Fine weather. The thermometer was mostly at 65 degrees through the night. Moonlight. Fine weather this morning, the same as yesterday. There is a fair amount of moisture in the air. Height on the plain 2265 feet. Full moon in the evening at about 5 o’clock.
| degrees | 28 | minutes from the Zenith | 23 |
| Latitude | 0 | Southerly declination: | 53 |
| 29 | 16 |
To the east of us we still saw camelthorns as well as an ostrich and a steenbuck, otherwise no game or people although I am told that there are bushmen living around here. Plotted our course ahead: east-north-east to a small hill. Hard, flat country. Much quartz and pebbles that glistened in the moonlight like diamonds. Flat everywhere as far as the eye can reach, though it is slightly hilly in the north east; fairly high broken hills from the south-west to the north-east. After five hours’ travel it became heavily sandy. Outspanned after eight and three-quarter hours at an excavated spring, Camasauws. This is also a dug-out well, thus one cannot travel through this whole dry region except in the rainy season. There is thunder as well but not much rain at the time of the dry Cape south-easter. It also snows in the winter.
We found here a small kraal of Bushmen, sixteen of them, men and women as well as children, although only a few came to see us in the night. They had twenty head of cattle of which one was a milch-cow they had taken from the Klein Namaquas, as they are living in enmity with the same.