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 tlie Reysand Kloof, joins the Great 

 Berg River, and their united sti'eam discharges itself into the 

 Atlantic. The banks of the Breede River are garnished with 

 a broad belt of the Metrosideros angustijoliai 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 



