ticular to engage his attention, he is glad of an excufe to ride
to the diftance of eight or ten days, whether it be to a church or
to a vendue, to huntelephants or to plunder the KaiFers.
In juftice, however, to the farmers of the Plettenberg Bay
diftrlit, they are the only clafs of people, in the whole colony,
tha.t deferve the name of being induftrious. To fell the large
trees, that are now only to be procured in deep glens,' and then
to drag them out, is a work of labour and toil; and their profits
are fo trifling, that few of -them are' enabled to purchafe
flaves, and of courfe are reduced to the necefiity o f working
themfelves.
The vaft foreft, commencing oppofite Moflel Bay, and running
along the feet of the mountains, on the fouth fide, almoft
to Algoa Bay, naturally excites an inquiry into the caufes that
have promoted the growth of trees in this particular fpot, when
all the reft of the country, in comparifon to this trail of
land, may be confidered as 'a barren defert. The fame caufe,
by which I endeavoured to account for the abundance, and for
the fcarcity of fprings, namely, the fituation of the granitic bafe
of the mountains, will perhaps explain alfo the growth of thefe
forefts. At the diftance of every two or three miles,'a current
of water burfts out of this chain of mountains, whofe banks are
covered with trees, in fome places down to the fea-ihore. In like
manner, the foot of the Table Mountain at the Cape was fkirted
•with a foreft, of which, at prefent, not a veftige remains, on the
fide next the town; but, in the deep glens behind the mountain,
and on the fide next to the ifthmus, there are ftill extensive