1812. 
ARRIVAL AT THE FIRST COLONIAL DWELLING. 
103 
stone stratum continued a principal feature, and the saw-leaved rhus 
every where decorated our road. We directed our course towards 
the Table Mountain, near which, the Bushmen had told us that we 
should find a boor's habitation. 
When we had travelled through the mountains about fourteen 
miles, we came all at once upon the edge of this elevated tract ; 
whence we had a very extensive view of a large plain below, 
stretching out to the southward, and bounded by distant hills. 
The Bushmen pointed down to the plain, and we there beheld the 
dwelling of a colonist. 
Like sailors who after a long voyage at last make land, but having 
lost their reckoning, know not what coast it is which they behold 
before them, and are anxious to meet a pilot, or some fishing-boat, 
who may inform them of the place at which they have arrived ; so 
we, who knew not what part of the Colony we had entered, were 
hoping to meet some shepherd, or stray Hottentot, of whom we 
might ask the name of the district before us. 
The mountain which had hitherto been the object to which we 
had directed our course, was now close at our right and immediately 
connected with that on which we were standing. While we halted to 
collect the party together, I made a sketch of this, and of our first 
view of the Colony. We then, in a body, descended the steep and 
rocky declivity into the plain ; and in less than a mile farther, arrived 
at the farm-house. 
