292 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 



" This is Mr. Barrow's opinion, but though I visited Table Tay several 

 times, and rode on horseback to the summit of the " Table," I could not see 

 the resemblance alluded to. The ascent on horseback I was induced to attempt 

 from hearing so much of the difficulty of the enterprise. Owing (under Pro- 

 vidence) to the kindness of a Dutch gentleman, who lent me one of his best- 

 trained horses and accompanied me, I safely accomplished the undertaking. 

 Sometimes the road or path wound round a shelving mountain, or along the 

 verge of a precipice where there was not room for two animals to pass, and 

 down whose fearful chasms I durst not look. At other times it lay across 

 huge loose rocks, adown and up whose steep and slippery sides my noble steed 

 trod with the steadiness and security of a chamois. Frequently was I obliged 

 to grasp his neck when clambering up these dangerous precipices, where a 

 false step would have hurled horse and rider to the bottom of yawning ravines, 

 if parchance they had not been intercepted mid-way by some impending rock, 

 and dashed to atoms in descending from ledge to ledge. But when I gained 

 the summit, and sat astride on my horse nearly 4,000 feet above Cape Town, 

 the perils of the ascent were forgotten ; well might I exclaim with the im- 

 mortal bard, 



"How fearful 



And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low ! 

 The fishermen, that walk upon the beach, 

 Appear like mice ; and yon tall anchoring bark 

 Diminish'd to her cock. 



The murmuring surge, 



That on the unnumbered idle pebbles chafes, 

 Cannot be heard so high." 



" In fact the fishermen did not appear so large as mice ; they were mere black 

 dots on the minute tracery of lines which Cape Town exhibited. The 

 descent was more perilous than the ascent, as the " table cloth" was spread- 

 ing rapidly. Ladies have ascended to the top of the mountain from the cleft 

 or gorge at Cape Town. 



" The bold face of Table Mountain is supported by a number of projecting 

 buttresses that rise out of the plains, and fall in with the front a little higher 

 than midway from the base. The east side is the most elevated, and some 

 points are estimated at 4,000 feet ; the west side, along the sea shore, is rent 

 into deep chasms topped by many pointed masses. About four miles to the 

 southward, the elevation of the mountain is diminished by terraces, the 

 lowest of which communicates with the chain that extends the whole length 

 of the peninsula. 



" On first viewing this singular-looking mountain from the bay, it appears 

 like the ruined walls of a gigantic fortress the front divided into three sec- 

 tions, a curtain flanked by two bastions ; the former is separated from the left 

 bastion by a deep chasm, which is about three quarters of a mile in length ; 

 the perpendicular cheeks at the foot 1,000 feet high, and the angle of descent 

 forty-five degrees. At the entrance the chasm is about eighty feet wide ; but 

 it gradually converges until it is not more than a few feet at the portal, which 

 opens on the extensive flat summit. 



" Cape Town, built immediately at the foot of Table Mountain, along the 

 shores of Table Bay, on a plain which rises with an easy ascent towards the 

 mountain, is regularly constructed, with straight and parallel streets intersect- 

 ing each other at right angles, and shaded with elm or oak trees ; the houses 

 chiefly of red brick or stone, of a good size, and generally with a stoup, or ter- 

 race, before the door, shaded with trees, beneath which the English as well as 

 Dutch inhabitants delight to lounge by day, sheltered from the fervid rays of 

 the sun, or to inhale the freshness of the evening breeze. 



" The population of the metropolis of South Africa is at present more than 

 20,000, of whom upwards of 10,000 are white inhabitants the majority 

 being Dutch, or of Dutch descent. With the exception of Sydney, New South 



