mountains, the Nieuwveldt. The whole trail o f country to
the northward of the Cape is much more fandy, barren, and
thinly inhabited, than to the eaftward, in which direction it
increafes in beauty and fertility with the diftance.
Such is the general outline of the territory that is comprehended
under the name o f the Cape of Good Hope. It is
divided into four diftridts, over each o f which is placed a civil
magiftrate called a Landroji, who, with fix Hemraaden, or a
council of country burghers, is veiled with powers to regulate
the police of his diftridt, fuperintend the affairs of government,
adjuft litigations, and determine petty caufes. Their
decifions, however, are fubjedt to an appeal to the Court of
Jufticein Cape Town. The four diftridts are ; that of the Cape;
of Stellenbofch and Drakenfteen ; of Zwellendam ; and of
GraafF Reynet; and they were fuccelfively colonized in the
order here mentioned.
The Cape diftridt is chiefly compofed of that mountainous
peninfula whofe fouthern extremity was firft called by Portu-
gueze navigators Cabo dos Torment os, or, Cape of Storms, on
account of the very tempeftuous weather often and long experienced
by them in their attempts to double it, which, when
effedted, they changed, to that of Cape o f Gobd Hope. The
Table Mountain, flanked by the Devil’s Hill on the eaft, and the
Lion’s Head on the weft, 'forms the northern extremity of the
fame peninfula. The length from north to fouth is about 36,
and breadth 8, miles. It is compofed, properly fpeaking, of
one mountain, broken indeed into feveral maflfes more or lefs
connedted
connedted by inferior gorges. Some of thefe maffes have
horizontal fummits; others peaked or cone-ihaped ; fome
confift of naked fragments of rock; others are clothed with
verdure. This peninfula is connedted with the continent by a
low flat ifthmus, with few irregularities of furface, except fuch
as are made by ridges of fand that feem to have been adventi-
tioufly brought thither by the ftrong fouth-eaft winds from the
Ihores of Falfe Bay, a large arm of the fea enclofed between the
Cape Promontory and a chain of high mountains on the continent
to the eaftward of it.
Falfe Bay, and Table Bay, the one waihing the fouthern,
and the other the northern, ihore o f the ifthmus, are
the ufual places of refort for Ihipping trading to, or calling
for refreihments at, the -Cape of Good Hope. During the
fummer feafon, when the fouth-eaft winds are predominant,
which may be reckoned in general from September till May,
Table Bay affords the moft fecure fhelter ; and Simon’s Bay,
a cove or indent on the weftenr ihore of Falfe Bay, for the
reft o f the year, when the northerly and north-wefterly winds
are ftrongeft. In neither o f them is there any fort of fecurity
or convenience for heaving down and repairing Ihipping, nor
do they appear to admit of any contrivance for fuch purpofes
at a moderate expence. The latitude of Table Bay is 330 55/
fouth : longitude 18° 30' eaft. Of Simon’s Bay the latitude is
34° 9' fouth, and longitude 18° 32' eaft.
There are alfo two fmall bays on the weft fide o f the
peninfula, one called Hout or Wood Bay, and the other Chapman’s