SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
" said, Hitherto shalt thou come but no further, and here 
" shall thy proud waves be stayed ?" 
Beyond the point of the Tyger berg the isthmus becomes 
more elevated, less sandy, and is better covered with shrubby 
plants. A few farms are here and there seen in the hollov/s, 
where the rills of water trickle in the bottom of deep glens 
in a northerly direction. On the dry and naked ridges, where 
the soil consists of a mixture of sand and a yellowish clay, 
are thrown up many thousands of those cellular masses of 
earth, the manufacture of a small insect of the ant tribe, to 
which naturalists have given thename of termes, different how- 
ever from, and much less destructive than, that species of 
which a curious description has been given by Mr. Smeath- 
man in the Philosophical Transactions. The ant-hills in this 
part of Africa seldom exceed the height of three feet. On the 
lower parts of the isthmus where the soil under the sand is of 
a boggy nature, they take the consistence of a hard black 
turf, and are used as fuel. 
This plain to the eastward, at a dozen miles beyond Stick- 
land, is terminated by two mountains, between which the 
road leads into a valley better cultivated and more populous 
than any part between it and the Cape. Simonsberg, on 
the right, is among the highest of the mountains that are 
seen from the Cape. Its forked Parnassian summit is fre- 
quently, in winter, covered with snow, and in the south-east 
winds of summer is generally buried in the clouds. It also 
has its Helicon trickling down its sides, as yet a virgin spring 
untasted by the Muses. It held out more charms, it seems, 
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