which late experiments have fliewn to be the kind of aliment
moft congenial to the nature of plants.
Notwithftanding the fertility of the ground, and the facility of
tillage, a very inconfiderable quantity of grain is produced,
owing to the diftanee and heavy roads to the only market in the
qolony. Draught oxen are fcarce and dear in the neighbourhood
of the Cape, and vaft numbers are annually deftroyed, in
tranfporting the articles of neceifary confumption to Cape
Town. There is a curious paragraph in the Minutes o f the
Proceedings in the government of Van Riebeck, the founder of
the colony, which ihews the extreme fcarcity o f cattle in the
early ftages o f the fettlement, before fome daring adventurers
penetrated beyond the great ranges o f mountains. It Rates, that
the captains o f four Englilh ihips having arrived in the bay
and prefented the governor and council with pipes, glaffes,
brandy, and other acceptable articles, the governor in council
refolved, in order to fliew that the Hollanders were not wanting
in gratitude and civility, that the ox belonging to the Company,
which had died, not of difeafe, but from hunger, ihould be
divided into four quarters, and that one Ihould be fent to the
captain of each fhip.
The bay o f St. Helena is about fifteen miles, over a fandy
flip of land, to the northward of Hootjes bay. It refembles
Table bay, than which it is a little more open and expofed to
the northerly and north-wefteriy winds, but has much clearer
anchorage. There is a fmall Ipring o f frelh water at the point
o f the hilly peninfula that runs along the coaft from Saldanha
bay.
bay. The Berg river, though an immenfe mafs o f water, is fo
fanded up at the mouth, that boats can enter it only at high
water. There ftill remain a few Hippopotami towards the
lower part o f this river, but they are very ihy, and come up at
nights only, to the place where the water begins to be frefli.
The Dutch government, in order to preferve this animal in the
colony, impofed a fine of a thoufand guilders on any perfon that
ihould put one of them to death. Game o f every kind is very
plentiful towards the mouth of the river. The two large antelopes,
the hartebeeft, and the gemibok, are occafional vifitors
o f this part o f the country.
At the diftanee of fifteen miles from the mouth o f the river, I
crofted it in a boat, and floated over the waggon with a caik.
The road on the oppofite fide was fo heavy, and fo great the extent
of country uninhabited, on account o f the deep fandy fur-
face, and fcarcity of water, that it was dark before the waggon
could arrive at the place where it was propofed to halt for the
night. The driver, though an inhabitant of the country, loft his
way over the uniform furface of fand and bullies, and we were
three hours dragging backwards and forwards before the houfe
could be difcovered, though clofe upon it the whole time. It
was a wretched hovel of ruihes, Handing in the midft of a fandy
plain. The night was very cold, and there was neither food nor
Ihelter for the horfes, nor water for the cattle. The lhifting of
the iand-drifts had choaked up the briny ipring, and the inhabitants
had been obliged for fome time to fetch their water from
the Berg river, a diftanee at leaft of twelve miles. At the
hazard, therefore, of lofing our way a fecond time, I determined