122 CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 



Salisbury Plain over the door, and some Latin verse, and 

 inside some quaint old prints illustrating coarsely the Life of 

 the Prodigal Son. Here it is the custom to stop and take 

 stimulants, and a peculiar drink of milk, eggs, and brandy is 

 made, and is highly recommended for anyone coming down 

 with a bad head after a dissipation at Cape Town. 



The road after this leaves the head of the bay behind and 

 stretches over part of the flats, and passing at a distance High 

 and Low Constantia, where the celebrated wine is made, reaches 

 Wynberg. Wynberg is by far the most beautiful spot about 

 Cape Town, and almost as beautiful as any village I have seen ; 

 but then nearly all its beauties are imported, not indigenous, 

 and arise from the fact that it is situate in the midst of thick 

 pine groves and plantations of other trees. Here one sees 

 growing together the European pines, the oak, poplars, and the 

 gnarled and contorted South American Cactus {Cereus), and 

 numerous Australian gum-trees and acacias. 



The road at Wynberg leads through a grove of pines for a 

 mile or more, the pines meeting overhead and forming a 

 delicious shade, and shutting in the road on either hand with 

 their closely set stems. No doubt the very trying heat and 

 glare of the open sand-flat over which one drives before reach- 

 ing the Wynberg grove, makes one exaggerate the beauty of its 

 refreshing shade. Even amongst the grove the brick-red dusty 

 soil stains the trunks of the trees, and after long absence of rain 

 turns the very foliage brick-red. At Wynberg is the cricket 

 ground where the Army plays the Navy, the Army the Cape 

 Town Club, and so on, and also a most excellent hotel, known 

 as "Cogill's," after the proprietor. 



Above Wynberg are the talus slopes and debris mounds of 

 Table Mountain, covered with the wonderful Silver-tree, whose 

 leaves shine like burnished metal, and which is found nowhere 

 else in the world but about the slopes of this mountain and its 

 immediate neighbourhood. It does not even grow at Snnons 

 Bay. Nowhere on the earth but just round this one mountain. 



The Silver-tree {Leiecadendron argenteuni) is one of the 

 Froteacece, which natural order is characteristic of the flora 

 of the Cape and South Australia, the genera being nearly 

 equally divided between the two regions, and found scarcely 

 anywhere else. A few only are found in tropical Australia, in 

 New Zealand, South America, and equatorial Asia. Another 

 group of plants, the RestiacecE^ serve further to connect the Cape 

 with Australia, and there are other marked alliances. 



The wide difference between the West and East Australian 

 flora has been treated of by Sir Joseph Hooker, and the 

 greater resemblances of the Western Australian flora to that of 



