SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
67 
The v^hole valley is convertible into excellent arable land ; 
yet very little corn is cultivated except for home confumption. 
The trad: of country that ftretches along the feet of the great 
chain of mountains from the Paarl to Falfe Bay, including the 
two Drakenfteens, Franfche Hoek, the Drofdy of Stellenbofch, 
and Hottentots Holland, is chiefly employed in raifmg wine 
and fruits for the Cape-market. The quantity of the former 
amounts annually to about 6000 leaguers. 
Hitherto there have been few fpeculators among the Dutch 
planters : the fpirit of improvement and experiment never en- 
tered into their minds ; and it may be a matter of doubt, had 
not the French Proteftants, who fought an afylum here from 
the religious perfecutions of their once bigoted countrymen, 
introduced and cultivated the vine, whether at this time the 
whole colony would have produced a fmgle leaguer of wine. 
The fugar-cane grows with health and vigor in feveral parts of 
the colony ; yet none of the planters have yet procured a 
pound of fugar. On afking a farmer, who complained that 
the canes had overrun his garden, why he did not turn them 
to fome account, he replied with that nonchalance which cha- 
ra(flerizes the nation, that it ferved to amufe the women and 
children ; but that he Ihould not be the firft to try it, as long 
as he could buy that article in the Cape for fix fchillings, or 
three Englifh fhillings, a pound. 
Among the thick fhrubbery that covers the uncultivated parts 
of the valley, is an abundance of game, particularly of the Cape 
partridges, which, fearlefs of man, run about nearly as tame as 
K 2 poultry 
