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Show CAPE OF GOOD HOP E. June, 1836. four, six, and eight horses in hand, go trotting abou~ the streets. I have as yet not mentioned the well-known Table Mountain. This great mass of horizontally stratified sandstone rises quite close behind the town to a height of 3500 feet: the upper part forr~s an absolute wall, often reaching into the region of the clouds. I should think so high a mountain, not forming part of an extensive platform, and yet being composed of horizontal strata, must be a rare phenomenon. It certainly gives the. landscape a very peculiar, and from some points of view, a grand character. JuNE 4TH.-I set out on a short excursion to see the neighbouring country, but I saw so very little, that I have scarcely any thing to say. I hired a couple of horses, and a young Hottentot groom to accompany me as a guide. He spoke English very well, and was most tidily dressed; he wore a long coat, beaver hat, and white gloves ! The Hottentots, or Hodmadods as old Dampier calls them, to my eye look like partially bleached negroes. They are of a small stature, and have most singularly-formed heads and faces : the temple and cheek-bones project so much, that the whole face is hidden from a person standing in the same side position in which he would be enabled to see part of the features of a European. Their hair is very short and curly. Our first day's ride was to the village of the Paarl, situated between thirty and forty miles to the N.E. of Cape Town. After leaving the neighbourhood of the town, where white houses stand as if picked out of a street and then by chance dropped on the open country, we had to cross a wide level sandy fiat, totally unfit for cultivation. In the hopes of finding some hard materials for making a road, the sands had been bored along the whole line to the depth of forty feet, but without any success. Leaving the fiat, we crossed a low undulating country, thinly clothed with a slight green vegetation. It was not the flowering season, but even at this time of the year there were some very pretty oxalises and mesembryanthemums, and on the sandy June, 1836. CAPE OF GOOD llOPE. 577 spots fine tufts of heaths. There were also several beat".tiful little birds :-if a person could not find amusemeht in observing the animals and plants, there was very little else during the whole day to interest him: only here and there we passed a solitary farm-house. Directly after arriving at the Paarl, I ascended a singular group of rounded granite hills, which rise close behind the village. From the summit I enjoyed a fine view of the line of mountains which I had to cross on the following morning. Their colours were gray or partly rusty red, and their outlines irregular, but far from picturesque: the general tint of the lower country was a pale brownish green, and the whole entirely destitute of woodland.* From the naked state of the mountains, seen likewise through a very clear atmosphere, I was reminded of Northern Chile; but the rocks there, possess at least a brilliant colouring. Immediately beneath the hill, the long village of the Paarl extended; all the houses were whitewashed, and appeared very comfortable; and there was not a single hovel. Each house had its garden and a few trees planted in straight rows; and there were many vineyards of considerable size, which at this time of year were destitute of leaves. The whole village possessed an air of quiet and respectable comfort. JUNE 5TH.-After riding about three hours, we came near to the French Hoeck pass. This is so called from a number of emigrant protestant Frenchmen, who formerly settled in a flat valley at the foot of the mountain : it is one of the prettiest places I saw in my excursion. The pass is a considerable work, an inclined road having been cut along the steep side ~ When the extreme southern part of Africa was first colonized, rhinoceroses (as I am informed by Dr. Andrew Smith) abounded over the whole of this district, and especially in the wooded valleys at the base of Table Mountain, where Cape Town now stands. I mention this in corroboration of the statement (p. 98), that a luxuriant vegetation is not at all necessary for the support of the larger quadrupeds. Having myself seen this district, which was formerly frequented by the huge rhinoceros, I am fully impressed with the truth of those views. VOL. III. 2 P |