AFRICA. 151 
not, with tranfports of joy, have yielded up to 
me every thing he had, for goods in the poifef- 
fion of which he would have found the mod 
neceffary obje£ts, and the moft delicious grati- 
fications with vv^hich he was acquainted? I re- 
peat it then, If I have been thwarted in my 
projeds, they are not men, but the feafons 
that I accufe ; the feafons, whofe unfriendly 
oppofition I began to experience from the mo- 
ment of my departure. 
At every time of the year the roads of the 
Cape are bad : and, if fuch be their ordinary 
ftate, judge what they mufi: be when the rainy 
feafon commences. Scarcely had I proceeded 
a quarter of a mile from the town, when one 
of my carriages was dragged into a hole, and 
overturned in the mud ; nor was it poffible for 
my ten oxen that drew it, nor the exertions of 
my Hottentots, to flop its fall 
In an inftant the accident was known at the 
Cape, and I was foon joined by a crowd of the 
inhabitants, fome attrafted by mere curlofity, 
and others by a defire of being ufeful. I had, 
in reality, need of afTifliance to place the car- 
riage on its wheels again ; for it was not poffible 
to raife it without unloading it, and the boxes 
L 4 were 
