56 
Not that individuals may not be found in this as in other 
countries, to whom some, perhaps all of these epithets 
may be applicable, but we must protest against drawing 
general and sweeping inferences from a few solitary facts. 
No person ever dreamed of holding up the African boor 
as a pattern of all that is amiable and excellent; but he 
will be found at least as far removed from that of absolute 
depravity, to which some travellers would sink him. Au- 
thors lay on their colours so thick, indeed, touch and re- 
touch the picture so often, that the whole has the appear- 
ance of a caricature, and we are instinctively led to doubt 
the accuracy of the resemblance. This doubt is not a little 
strengthened by the eagerness with which they hurry to ex- 
pose the portrait to view. The usual practice with travellers 
is, first to visit and study a people, and then to draw their 
character. Some reverse this order, and, like the ingenious 
Irish historian who tacked the preface to the end of his work, 
describe the character of the boors before they can be pro- 
perly said to have commenced their travels. 
* We left Hugo's on the 20th, and, after a ride of four 
hours, arrived at Tulbagh. "The country through which we 
travelled this day, is overrun with the heath-like shrub called 
the Rhinoster bosch, (Stoebe rhinocerotis,) from under cover 
of which, we started numbers of Duyker antelopes, Koorhaans, 
(Otis Afra,) and Kewits, (Charadrius coronatus.) Within a 
mile of each other, and not far from Tulbagh, we crossed the 
sources of the Breede, and of the Little Berg Rivers; the 
former of which, running in an easterly direction, pours its 
waters into the Indian Ocean; while the latter, taking an 
opposite course, through the Reysand Kloof, joins the Great 
Berg River, and their united stream discharges itself into the 
Atlantic. The banks of the Breede River are garnished with 
a broad belt of the Metrosideros angustifolia, an elegant 
shrub, at this season in full flower. 
* Respecting the village of Tulbagh, I have little to add - 
to what I said on a former occasion. During the intervening 
period of nine years, no improvement whatever appears to 
have taken place. Every thing remains as it was, or is 
