82 
TRAVELS IN 
If the Dutch have been too indolent to doaiesticate the 
quacha and the zebra, it is less a matter of astonishment that 
no attempts have been made on the fierce and powerful buf- 
falo. Any other nation, having possession of the Cape for 
one hundred and fifty years, Avould certainly have effected it. 
A male, if taken very young, and suffered to run among the 
cattle, would in all probability have intercourse with the 
cows ; at least the other species of the bovine tribe» when 
domesticated, have been found to mix together without any 
difficulty. Such a connection would produce a change in 
the present breed of cattle in the colony, and without doubt 
for the better : a worse it could not well be than the com- 
mon long-legged ox of the country. 
On the evening of the eighteenth we arrived at Zwart-kop'sy 
or Algoa-bay, and found his Majesty's brig, the Hope, which 
had been sent expressly by Admiral Pringle to meet us, I'id- 
ing at anchor there. Here we remained for a few days, in 
order to make such observations on the bay, the coast, and 
the circumjacent country, as we deemed to be necessary, and 
the result of which will hereafter be given. 
At the distance of fifteen miles to the westward of the baj^, 
and close to the sea-shore, we were agreeably surprized in 
meeting with a large forest of many thousand acres of ground 
covered completely with trees of various kinds and dimen- 
sions ; the most common was the geel-hout or yellow wood, 
(taxus elongatus) erroneously called by Thunberg the ilex 
crocea. These trees grow to the amazing size of ten feet in 
diameter, and to the height of thirty or forty feet of trunk, 
clear of branches. The wood is serviceable for many pur- 
