farms were at twice that diftance from each other. No land
was granted in property except in the vicinity o f the Cape. As
the Dutch advanced, the natives retired ; and thofe that remained
with their herds among the new fettlers were foon reduced to
the neceffity o f becoming their fervants.
No permanent limits to the colony were ever fixed under the
Dutch government. The paftoral life that the peafantry o f the
remote diftridts at all times adopted, required a great extent of
country to feed their numerous herds ; and the imbecility and
eafy temper o f the adjacent tribes o f natives favored their avaricious
views; and the'government was either’"unwilling, or
thought itfelf unable, to reftrain them. Having no kind o f
chart nor furvey, except of fuch diftridts as were contiguous to
the Cape, it poileffed a very limited and imperfedt knowledge
of the geography of the remoter parts, colledted chiefly from the
reports o f the peafantry, fallacious often, through ignorance or
defign, or of thofe who had made excurfions for their profit or
pleafure, or from expeditions fent out by order and at the
expence of government; and the objedt o f thefe, it would
appear, was with the view rather o f carrying on a lucrative trade
with the bordering tribes o f natives, than to fupply ufeful
information refpedting the colony. Attended with the parade
of a military guard, furgeons, land-furveyors, burghers with
waggons, oxen, horfes, and Hottentots without number, not
one o f them has furniihed a fingle fketch even towards aflifting
the knowledge of the geography o f the country. The only
perfons who appear to have travelled with no other view than
that of acquiring ufeful information, were the governor Van
Pletten-
Plettenberg and the late colonel Gordon. Thefe two gentlemen
fixed, upon the fpot, the boundaries of the colony, as they now
Hand, to the eaftward. To complete the line of demarcation,
through the heart of the country to the weftern ihore, was one
of the objedts of the feveral journies that fupplied the materials
of the following pages. The chart that accompanies them was
undertaken and executed by the order of the earl of Macartney
in the years 1797 and 1798, when thefe journies were made.
It was conftrudted entirely from adtual obfervations of latitude
and of bearings, eftimation o f diftances, and frequent angular
interfedtions of remarkable points and objedts.
From this chart it appears that the extent and dimenfions of
the territory compofing the colony of the Cape o f Good Hope,
now permanently fixed, are as follows :
Length from weft to eaft.
Cape Point to Kaffer Land,
River Koulfie to Zuureberg,
Breadth from fouth to north.
580 miles.
520 ------
River Kouflie to Cape Point, - - 3 15 — .—
Nieuwveldt Mountains to Plettenberg’s Bay, 160 ------
Mouth of' the Tuih-river to Plettenberg’s baaken, 225 ------
which gives a parallelogram whofe mean length is 550, and
mean breadth 233, Englilh miles, comprehending an area of
128,150 fquare miles. This great extent of country, dedudting
the population of Cape Town, is peopled by about 15,000
c w h ite