1775 \ September. in riding over it, milled the ihalloweft part, and was in danger of being drowned. Drooge and Natte (dry and wet) rhiers were now both dried up. Kafferkuyls- or Palmit-rivier, was frill tolerably broad at the upper ford, and overgrown with palmites. The water, indeed, was dried up in moft places; but, on the other hand, our oxen were obliged to drag the waggon through a mafs of mud, that reached up to their bellies f and we fliould certainly, with our ordinary equipment, have ftuck faft in it, i f a farmer had not lent us his bqftard Have to drive the waggon over. This fellow had fuch an incomparable knack of whipping the oxen up without in- termiifion, that they had not the leaft opportunity to flinch from the buiinefs. Falje-rivier is an infignificant ftream; but the great quantity of butter-milk, which the farmer dwelling on its banks threw out here by pail-fulls, made a ftream o f fome importance* notwithftanding that five or fix large dogs had previoufly drank their fwill of it, not to mention what had been confumed in the family. The farmer at this place was one of the greater farmers called graziers, whofe whole income depended on grazing cattle. The milk was collected together from the milkings of two, three, or more days, and kept in a tub till they had an opportunity of churning it; which they- ufually did every other or every third day, at leaft part of it, in a veflel that would contain between one and two hogiheads. The churn-ftaff was raifed and wrought by no lefs than two, and fometimes four people, in the fame way as the handle of a common pump. ■ 7 In In this colony the people are neither notable enough, nor September. indeed is it much worth their while, to prefs out all the but- ter, which might be feparated from their milk, as they do with u s ; on which account, like wife, I always found their butter-milk greafy and rank in comparifon with ours. Hardly any body here troubles himfelf with fatting hogs, and this is the reafon that they are fo laviih of their butter-milk. Thofe farmers who have a tolerable ihare of pafture ground and cattle, make from one thoufand eight hundred to three thoufand five hundred pounds of butter in a year. This quantity is carried to the Cape in one or two joumies, and is fold -at the rate of from three to fix ftivers a pound. The towns-people, that buy up this butter, fell the greater part of it again to the ihips, at a profit of from twenty to one hundred per cent. The more wealthy farmers derive this farther advantage from their grazing farms, that every other, or every third year, they can difpofe of eight or ten oxen, fome to the butchers,- others to,the people that carry wood between the town and ihore, and others again to other farmers that live nearer to the Cape; and having lefs room for grazing cattle, and a readier vent for their wine and meal, get-their livelihoods entirely by cultivating the earth. Thefe graziers, likewife, derive an income more or lefs confiderable from the fale o f weathers^ A number o f thefe, from twenty to one hundred, they difpofe of yearly, at the rate of from fix fchellings to a dollar the head, Dutch money. With all this, the vender needs not to ftir out of his own houfe; as the butcher’s men go about, buying them up, and afterwards drive them in flocks confifting
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