1774 to defnondeney,: and commit various adts o f defperatiori j a^nd violence. ■ Divers circutnihinoes and.; CQniitlcvations may, perhaps, concur to induce a wretch in this iituation to exempt his tyrant from the dagger, which he plunges in his own bofom; cpntent with being thus able, to put an end to his rpifery, and at the fame time to difappoint his greedy mafter o f the profits ariiing from the fweat of his brow. A female flave, who had been juft bought at a high price, and rather prematurely treated with feverity by her miftrefs, who lived in the Roods-zatid diftridt, hanged herfelf the fame night out of revenge and defpair, juft at the entrance o f her new miftrefs’s bed- chamber. A young man and woman, who. were flaves at the Gape, and were pafhonately fond of each other, folicited their mafter, in conformity to„ the eftablifhed cuftom, for his confent to their being united in wedlock, though all in vain, as from fome whim, or caprice he was induced abfolutely to forbid it. The confluence was, that the lover was foized with a lingular lit of defpair j and having firft plunged a dagger into the heart of the objedt o f his deareft wiihes, immediately afterwards put an end m jiis own life. But how many hundred inftances,.not lefs dreadful than thefe, might be produced to this purpofe! Thefe, however, may fuffice to create all that abhorrence for the flave- trade, j which fo unnatural a fpecies. of com- merce deferves ; we will, therefore, at prefent difmifs this difagreeable fubjedt. On the i oth we fet off from Hex-rivier, and went by the way of Roode-zand, a tradi of land of the carrow kind, laid out in vineyards, and almoft encircled with very high mountains. mountains. The only road by which it was poffible to go from hence to the Gape, went through a narrow, long, and tedious vale, along which runs part of Klein-berg river. On the 1 2th, having got out o f the diftridt o f Roods* zand, we met with fome farmers from Sneeuw-berg, who had juft been at the Cape. Thefe good people informed us, that a large lake had lately been difcovered a little to the -north of the latter diftridt. Otherwife, there is not another lake to be found in the whole colony.-— As far as I could underftand them, it was o f a fpecies of caEius of a coniiderable fize, that they made at Camdebo and other places in the colony, a kind of brandy, equally good with that which is prepared from grapes or malt. They like- wife informed us, that there was a Swediih ihip in each o f the harbours, 'fable-bay and Falfe-bay, both which were fuppofed to be ready to fail. This piece of intelligence, neceffarily caufed me to make all the hafte I could to get to the end o f my journey. On the 15 th we got back again to the Cape. V o l . II. A P P I N -
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