SOUTHERN AFRICA. 299 
It may be observed that tlie sizes marked in the above list 
are, as nearly as could be guessed, such as they run in gene- 
ral, but of both the Geelhouts abundance of trees may be 
met with, from seventy to ninety feet in length, and very 
proper for ships' masts, spars, and other timber used in ship 
building. 
Between the foot of the Duyvil's kop and Plettenberg's 
bay, the latter of which is about fifty miles to the eastward 
of the former, the country is beautifully wooded, and inter- 
sected with numberless rivulets, issuing out of the forests ; 
there are also several broad deep rivers, over which it is ne- 
cessary to pass in boats. Some of these terminate in largo 
&heets of water, forming beautiful lakes, whose margins are 
finely fringed witli wood. One lake is sufficiently curious, 
having neither inlet nor outlet, and the water is greener than 
any part of the ocean, not salt, but so slightly saline as 
scarcely to be perceptibly so to the taste. One of the farmers 
told me^ with great triumph, that he had puzzled the Gover- 
nor Van Plettenberg, with respect to the water of the Green 
lake, by asking him whence the color proceeded. The go- 
vernor had made him for answer, that it came from the sur- 
rounding shrubber}', being green matter washed away by the 
rains. U})on this the peasant shewed him some of it in a 
gla-ss, -where it appeared clear and colorless. There is a tra- 
dition among the Hottentots, that this lake, nov,' six or seven 
miles in circumference, was, no very long lime ago, a beauti- 
ful green meadow, and it is still said to 1)3 increasing in size. 
If the quantity of water thrown in by the rains, and its 
springs, should exceed the quantity that may escape by ab- 
Q Q '3 
