^8 



be something disreputable in receiving strangers indiscri- 

 minately into their houses ; and will conform to the practice 

 of those whom they look up to as more enlightened than 

 themselves. There is reason, therefore, to apprehend that 

 the Colonists are in a fair way of forfeiting their claim to the 

 only virtue that has not yet been grudged to them. 



" After beating about the Four-and-twenty Rivers for several 

 days to little purpose, we turned our face towards Capetown, 

 where we arrived by the route of the Green Kloof and 

 Zwartland, after an absence of about a month. With the 

 exceptions already noticed, the weather was always dry and 

 oppressively hot. In the room in which we slept at Tulbagh, 

 the thermometer stood one day at 109°. A ride of fifty 

 miles, exposed to the direct rays of such a sun, and to their 

 more ardent reflection from a sandy road, without a breeze 

 to fan us, but what was created by our own motion, such a 

 ride we had from the Bavians Kloof to the Branaa Valley ; 

 from De Witt's to the Burgher's Drift; and from thence to 

 Capetown. They must indeed be keen sportsmen whom a 

 month of such weather, and a few rides of such length, would 

 not satiate with the country amusements of the Cape. Our 

 party flagged in their activity from day to day ; and it was easy 

 to perceive, that, long before our leave of absence had expired, 

 a proposal to return home would have been eagerly embraced, 

 if any of them had ventured to be the first to make it : but 

 the point of honour kept them dumb. 



" The country over which we travelled is the least interest- 

 ing to an admirer of natural scenery that can be imagined : 

 a remark which I feel no hesitation in extending to every 

 part of the Colony that I have seen. No country in the 

 world, perhaps, unites so much boldness of outline with such 

 unvaried tameness of detail. This tameness, arising from the 

 disposition of the surface, becomes the more fatiguing to the 

 eye from the total want of wood. In the whole course of our 

 travels, we did not see a single tree of nature's planting, nor 

 a shi'ub much taller than one of ourselves. In the mountain 

 ravines, you sometimes meet with stumps which show that trees 

 of a considerable size did formerly grow there ; but nothing 



