28 
pierced with loop-holes. If the engineer who superintended 
the erection of this battery meant these loop-holes for the 
service of its defenders, he strangely mistook his object, as 
they are fully seven feet above the internal area of the works, 
and an enemy, once in possession of the rampart could destroy 
every man in the battery, by firing through the loop-holes, 
without running the smallest risk themselves. 
* The first thing which arrests the attention of a stranger, 
on his arrival at Capetown, is the wonderful diversity in the 
features, colour, and costume of the various descriptions of 
people who crowd the streets. He feels amazed at finding 
himself in a sort of Noah's Ark, where he meets with more 
varieties of one species than the Patriarch had under his 
charge of the whole animal creation. Here he may see the 
pure spotless robe of the Hindoo rubbing against.the painted 
kaross of the Caffre and the soot-stained sheepskin of the 
Hottentot: here the barefooted boor from the snow moun- 
tain stares at the polished boots of the London cockney: 
here he may contrast the crop of the Pennsylvanian with the 
pendent crown-lock of the Chinese: here the Brazilian may 
shake hands with the Malay, and the Guinea Negro with his 
brother from Madagascar. In the midst of this motley 
groupe, Europzeans of every description, either as traders or 
prisoners of war, pass in review before him. The geogra- 
phical position of the colony will account, in some measure, 
for the concurrence of these heterogeneous elements of popu- 
lation. The peculiar circumstances under which it was 
originally established, facilitate the emigration of people from 
all parts of Germany and the North of Europe. The revo- 
cation of the Edict of Nantz drove numbers of French Pro- 
testant families here for refuge; the practice of discharging 
soldiers in the settlement, after a certain period of service, 
few of whom ever returned to Europe; the extensive com- 
munication between Europe and India, in the course of 
which numberless adventurers were induced by hope, or 
forced by distress, to relinquish their prospects in the East, 
and settle in the colony; and, finally, the salubrity of the 
climate, inviting the martyrs to tropical diseases to repair 
