jw - higheft relifh, an imaginary Conftantia, with which, how- ever, this liquor has nothing in common befides the mere name. It is therefore advifeable, even at the Cape itfelf, to take care, that whilft one has a genuine fample given one to tafte, one is not made to pay for a made-up red Conftantia, which otherwife is in general fold for half the price. When a wine o f this kind has been (as itufually is) meliorated by a voyage, and at the fame time chriften- ed with thè pompous name o f genuine Conftantia, of which it has indeed in fome meafure the flavour, it eafily fells for fuch in Europe. This fummer likewife I vifited dìout-bay. The diredt road to it goes through a narrow vale, from which the harbour is fupplied with frelh water, by means o f a little river or ftream covered with palmites, a kind of acorus with a thick ftem and broad leaves, which grow out from the top, as they do ill the palm-tree, a circumftance from which the plant takes its name. Thefe palmites are found in great abundance in moft rivers and ftreams, which they block up more or lels by means of their items and roots intertwining with each other. On the other hand, this fame Hout-bay has very little title to the name it bears; as, in dire<ft contradiction to the iignification o f it, there is and feems ever to have been, a great deficiency o f timber and brufhwood in that place. Confidered as a harbour, this bay feemed to me to be extremely narrow, and at the fame time too open to the fouth wind. The anchorage, however, was good ; at leaft, I was fo informed by two fiihermen I met with there. ,A heap o f fand is driven up by the fea to the fartheft part of the bay, and 3 there there appeared to form a Ihoal of a confiderable extent, by which means the river above-mentioned is not a little O-yvJ blocked up. - This fand was at that time very loofe at many places, fo that one could not walk upon it without danger o f being drowned in the water that lay under it. In time, perhaps, the apertures will be entirely filled up, fo as to become folid. A nook in a mountain oil the weft fide of the bottom of the bay is entirely covered with fand, which probably has been carried Up from the ftrand by the violence of the wind from the fea. The eaft fide is com- pofed o f a fteep mountain, which reaches to the brink of the water, while the weftern ihore is very much covered with large loofe granites. There are, neverthelefs, very good landing-places here for boats. In other refpedts the harbour is inconvenient, as well in refpedt to the gufts of wind that come from the mountains, as from the want of a convenient watering-place, and a wind to carry the ihips out to fea. A farm with plantations o f vines lay a few ftones throw higher up in the vale. The owner, a European, was the only one in Africa who had ienfe enough to make ufe of afles; being of opinion, that as they were more fervice- able in hilly countries as beafts o f burden, and at the fame time their food, confifting of ihrubs and the coarier kinds o f grafs, was eafier to be procured, they were better adapted to that part o f the world than horfes. I had here a hafty glimpfe of a little black quadruped, in ihape approaching neareft to the otter, which ran and hid itfelf in a heap of ftones. G a The
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