24 
where the naturalist may gratify his scientific curiosity with 
the sight of a couple of lions, a wild ass, an ostrich, and 
two or three flamingoes. 
* The Table Valley is watered by a variety of streamlets, 
which descend from the mountains, and are turned in all 
directions, to irrigate the numerous gardens and vineyards 
which adorn their banks. Neat and commodious houses, 
embosomed among Oak, Pine, and Silver-trees, and rising in 
successive stages behind each other, render the back ground 
of Capetown uncommonly picturesque; while the stupendous 
outline of the Table Mountain, impending over it, gives to the 
whole scene an imposing air of grandeur, which few land- 
scapes can boast. 
* The face of the Table Mountain has been compared to 
the ruins of a fortification. From the bay, it has the ap- 
pearance of two enormous bastions, supported by buttresses, 
flanking an intermediate curtain. The upper region of the 
mountain, about fifteen hundred feet in perpendicular height, 
comprehending the mural precipice, consists of sandstone, 
arranged in horizontal strata, and reposing on a base of 
granite. Over the broken edges of these strata, the water, con- 
densed from the atmosphere, is continually distilling in large 
drops, which reflect the rays of the sun in all the colours of 
the rainbow. In some parts it escapes in a continued stream, 
and affords a most refreshing draught to those adventurers 
whom curiosity prompts to explore the * cloud-capped sum- 
mit” of the Tableland. 
“ From the bottom of the precipice to the depth of five or 
six hundred feet, the mountain consists of granite, the surface 
laid bare, along the channel of one of the mountain streams. 
Here it abuts against the vertically stratified clayslate, which 
forms the base of the mountain, and of the valley beyond. At 
the point of junction, numerous veins, ramifying in a thousand 
ways, pass from the body of the granite into the schist, and 
both of them are traversed by large veins of Basalt. 
* Along the line that joins the Curtain to the West Bastion, 
there runs a deep chasm, through which is the only path to 
the top of the mountain on the side of Capetown. From the 
