HOME LIFE OF THE AFRICAN. 101 



situated across the river Nile, about five miles from the city, at the 

 very edge of the Great Sahara Desert. Magnificent hotels abound 

 in Cairo and accommodate the great influx of tourists from Europe 

 and America. 



Cairo is called the "lazv man's" city, because the winter climate 

 is so mild and pleasant that it attracts people of leisure. The popu- 

 lation is 375,000, 21,650 of which are foreigners, principally 

 Europeans. 



Cape Town, capital of the Cape Colony, South Africa, at the 

 head of Table Bay, thirty miles from the Cape of Good Hope. It 

 is regularly laid out and furnished with most of the institutions and 

 conveniences of a European town, has a fine public library (40,000 

 vols.) and museum, a Roman Catholic and an Anglican cathedral, 

 new and handsome houses of parliament, government offices, a uni- 

 versity, a botanic garden, an observatory, town-house, exchange, 

 railwav station, etc. 



The port has a breakwater 2,000 feet long, two docks 16 acres 

 in area, and a large graving-dock. Besides the railway going inland, 

 a railway connects the town with Simon's Town on False Bay. 



CAPE TOWN FIRST OWNED BY THE PORTUGUESE. 



Cape Town was first owned by the Portuguese as a port of 

 call. The British took possession in 1795 by conquest from the 

 Dutch. By treaty it went back to the Dutch in 1802. The British 

 again took control in 1806 and the settlement has made steady 

 progress since. Population of Cape Town, including suburbs, 

 83,718. 



A celebrated promontory near the southern extremity of 

 Africa, at the termination of a small peninsula extending south from 

 Table Mountain, which overlooks Cape Town. This peninsula 

 forms the west side of False Bay, and on its inner coast is Simon's 

 Bay and Simon's Town, where there is a safe anchorage and a 

 British naval station. Bartolommeo Diaz, who discovered the Cape 

 in 1487, called it Cape of Storms; but John II. of Portugal changed 

 this to its present designation. It was first doubled by Vasco de 

 Gama in 1497. 



