1698.] CAPE Tow^^ 275 



rison. In it the Governor and all the Officers of the Com- 

 pany live.' 



About seven or eight hundred Paces from the Fort, and 

 near the Sea, there is a little Town with about 300 Houses 

 in it. The Streets are strait, and drawn by Line ; the Houses 

 are built with white Stones, and at a distance it promises 

 much more than you find v/lien you come near, nevertlieless 

 it has vv'herewithal to content any body, and you observe the 

 Holland neatness enough in it. Ttere are a great many Inns 

 which furnish what Provisions you have occasion for. 



Hard by is the Company's principal Garden^: It is about 

 1,500 Paces long, and 250 broad, but to deal ingenuously, I 

 did not find it so Magnificent, as I have seen it describ'd. 

 'Tis true, you see there most charming Walks of Orange and 

 Citron-Trees of all kinds, which reach to the end. It is also 

 furnish'd with Pear-Trees, Apple-Trees, Pomgranate-Trees, 

 Fig-Trees, Peach-Trees, Quince-Trees, and all other Fruit- 

 Trees, as well European as Indian ; but all these grow low 

 without being Dwarfs, yet they thrive as well as one could 



1 Herr Simon van der Stel was the Gouverneur en Extruonlinaar Raad 

 at the Cape at this date {vide supra, p. 32) ; and Olof Berg was the 

 MiUtaire Hoofd, in command of the troops, with Jan Baptista Duber- 

 tino as his Lieutenant. (Valeutyn, I. c., p. 41.) 



2 " One of the most beautiful things here in Table Bay, which must 

 be mentioned, is the incomparable garden of the East India Company. 

 All that the ancients wrote about the gardens of the Hesperides with 

 its pure golden apples, of the gardens of Alciuous, of Adonis, of 

 Epicurus, the hanging gardens of Babel, about those of Lucullus, 

 Sallust, Cicero, and others, all their wonderful descriptions of these 

 can hardly approach, in the slightest degree, the matchless gardens at 

 the Cape." (Valentyn, I. c, p. 17.) The botanist, Oldenland, who was 

 superintendent of the gardens when Leguat visited the Cape, iai 

 formed an extensive collection of native and exotic plants which 

 deserved higher praise than Leguat was disposed to accord. Valentyn 

 who was a clergyman, called at the Cape in 1685, 1695, 1705, and 1714. 

 He has given an admirable description of the Cape Colony in his 

 great work on the Dutch Colonies. (Cf. Cape Quarterly Revieiv, vol. i 

 p. 411.) 



T 2 



