VISIT TO SOUTH AFRICA. 
91 
and elegance. We took leave of Mr. Linde, with sentiments of 
gratitude and esteem, having obtained from him sufficient infor- 
mation respecting the country I was about to visit, and proceeded to 
Gaense-Kraal, which at some distance appeared very inviting ^^i^h 
groves of lofty oaks and pines. We forded the Sonderend close to 
the farm, but on entering, found the building in a very dilapidated 
state, and the gardens much neglected. Sister Kohrhammer was 
also here unsuccessful, in her endeavours to procure some articles of 
house-keeping, for Gnadenthal. 
We admired the oaks growing on these premises. They are an 
additional proof, that had the first settlers been attentive to the 
growth of timber, both for their own and their children's sake, they 
would now have had timber and fuel sufficient, and not been under 
the necessity of fetching the former from Plettenberg-bay, and the 
Zitzikamma,and of stripping the country of its bushes, to procure the 
latter. 1 am convinced, from the experience made at Gnadenthal, 
and many other places, that whole forests of oak and other useful 
timber, might be reared in a short space of time, wherever the soil 
retains any moisture. But it appears, as if neither the first settlers 
nor their descendants, had the least notion of providing for posterit3^ 
Many answers given to me by boors, otherwise intelligent, proved 
that their only thought is, " What shall we eat? What shall we drink, 
and wherewith shall we be clothed? How shall we increase our 
herds of cattle, and leave to our children a set of fine beasts." 
Mr. Teunis senior, who is one of the most sensible and shrewd 
men I have seen in this country, very ironically described the indo- 
lent life of the common African boors, in answer to some obser- 
vations I made on the possibility of improving the cultivation of 
the country. "What," said he, "would you have us do? We 
" have nothing to do, but to fill our bellies, to get good clothes, 
" and houses ; to say to one slave, do this, and to another, do that, 
" and ourselves to sit idle, and be waited on ; and as to our mode 
" of tillage, or building, or planting, our forefathers, did so and so, 
