brought to the market at Plettenberg’s Bay, where the great
plenty of timber might alfo lead to a very extenfive commerce
and furniih employment for numbers of this race of natives,
who require only proper encouragement to become valuable
members of fociety. An eftabliihment of Moravian miffionaries
at this bay would prove of infinite benefit to the colony. It
would be difficult to perfuade the boor of this, and nothing
would convince him of the truth of it, but the circumftance of
his being able to procure as good a waggon for 15,0 or 200 rix.
dollars as he muft now purchafe at the rate of 40a dollars in
Cape Town.
It would be no fmall advantage to the boors, who dwell fome
hundred miles from the fea-coaft, to carry back in their wag-
gonsa quantity of falted fiffi, which might be prepared to any
extent at all the bays ; this article would not only furniih them
with an agreeable variety to their prefent unremitting confump-
tion of fiefh meat three times a day, but would ferve alfo, according
to their own ideas, as a corrective to the fuperabundance
of bile which the exehifive ufe of butchers’ meat is fuppofed
to engender. To cultivate the fiffieries on the coaft of Africa
would afford the means of employment and an ample fource of
provifion for a great number of Hottentot families.
At Moffel Bay, befides the fiffieries, there are two articles,
the natural produce of the country, in the colledion and preparation
of which the Hottentots might very advantageoufly be
employed, both to themfelves and to the community. Thefe
are aloes and barilla, the plant that produces the firft growing
in every part of the diftrid that furrounds the bay, and that
from the affies of which the other is procured being equally
abundant in the plain through which the Olifant River flows at
no great diftance from the bay. Here too the cultivation of
grain and pulfe might be greatly extended.
If the introdudion of Chinefe were effeded, the markets of
Cape Town and Saldanha Bay Could not fail to be moft abundantly
fupplied with wine, grain, pulfe, fruit, and vegetables;
probably to fuch a degree as not to be excelled in the world,
either for price, quality, or quantity.
The confequenee of fuch a fyftem of .eftabliffiing markets
would be the immediate erection of villages at thefe places.
To«ach village might be allowed a church, with a clergyyman,
who might ad at the fame time as village, fchoolmafter. The
farmers’ children put out to board would contribute to the fpeedy
enlargement of the villages. The farmers would thus be excited
to a fort of emulation, by feeing the produce of each other compared
together, and prices offered for them proportionate to
their quality, inftead of their being delivered to the butcher,
as they now are, good and bad together, at fo much per head.
The good effeds produced by occafionally meeting in fociety
would fpeedily he felt- The languor, the liftleffnefs, and the
heavy and vacant ftare, that eharaderke the African peafant,
would gradually wear o ff The meeting together of the young
people would promote the dance, the fong, and gambols ,on
3 k 2. the