1775- velden, though in thefe latter places the cattle get fatter. S\3 v v T By the Sweet-fields (Zoet-velden) are meant fuch places as do not correfpond to the defcriptions given above of the Zuur and Carrovo-veld. Such fpots i as are low, rather fandy, and lie near the lhore, are given as inftances of the Zoet plains ; as the Zuur again are Honing-klip, Houtni- quas-land, and the greater part o f Lange-kloof and Caffre- land. For the purpofe of feeding iheep, the Carrow is confi- dered as the beit land, and the Zuur-velden the leaft, i f at all, fit. For cattle it has been found to anfwer better, when they could be removed off and on from one of thefe kinds o f land to the other. The conftant and unequivocal experience o f the colonifts, with regard to this point, agrees with the refult of the practice of the Hottentots; though this, in fadl, has its origin almoft entirely in prejudice; for as foon as any o f them, ~or o f their cattle, fall fick and die, or any other misfortune happens to, or even only threatens them, they immediately remove their ftation. This, perhaps, is one o f the principal carries that the cattle of the Hottentots, in fome meafure, keep up to their original ftandard; whilft, on the contrary, thofe of the chriftians degenerate to a fmaller race; and that chiefly in thofe parts which fie nearer to the Cape, and therefore have been longer inhabited and cultivated. . It has likewife been remarked, beyond a ihadow of doubt, that fuch places as before abounded in grafs, and were very fertile in corn and the produce of the kitchen- garden, are now fallen off confiderably; fo that it is feared, that they muff in a ihort time be given up. The rhinocerosceros bnih (a fpecies o f Jloebe) a dry fhrub, which is other- . '775- wife ufed to thrive on barren tradts o f land, now begins to encroach more and more on iuch places as have been thoroughly cleared-and cultivated. When I aiked the country people the reafon o f this, they would lay the blame on their fins. Their confidences, probably, informed them, that there was great reafon for fo doing. One o f their fins which moft merited this puniihment, as having contributed moft to the evil, might, in this cafe, be reckoned their want of knowing how to drefs properly the foil they occupied, and to manage it to the beft advantage. As the grounds that are newly broken up are, in every country, and in all parts o f the world, more fertile than they can be expedted to be after fome time, it is no wonder, that the lands in Africa at prefent require more dreifing and manuring than the colonifts think proper to beftow on them; but which is abfolutely neceflary, in order to keep them up in that degree of heart and ftrength which they have before, during a period o f many ages, had time to acquire. In direit contradiction to the cuftom and example o f the original inhabitants the Hottentots, the colonifts turn their cattle out conftantly into the fame fields, and that too in a much greater quantity than ufed to graze there in the time of the Hottentots; as they keep not only a number fuffi- cient for their own ufe, but likewife enough to fupply the more plentiful tables o f the numerous inhabitants o f Cape Town, as well as for the victualling of the Ihips in their pafiage to and from the Eaft-Ind'ies with freih, and even with falted provifions. In confequence o f the fields be- K, k % fo g
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