34 ' TRAVELS IN 
great chafms, into three parts, a curtain flanked by two baf- 
tions, the firft retiring and the others projeding, give to it the 
appearance of the ruined walls of fome gigantic fortrefs. Thefe 
walls rife above the level of Table Bay to the height of 3582 
feet, as determined by Captain Bridges of the royal engineers, 
from a meafured bafe and angles taken with a good theodolite. 
The eaft fide, which runs off at right angles to the front, is 
ftill bolder, and has one point higher by feveral feet. The weft 
fide, along the fea-fhore, is rent into deep chafms, and worn 
away into a number of pointed- malfes. In advancing to the 
fouthward about four miles, the mountain defcends in fteps or 
terraces, the loweft of which communicates by gorges with the 
chain that extends the whole length of the peninfula. The two 
wings of the front, one the Devil's Mountain, and the other 
the Lion's Head, make infant, with the Table, but one mountain. 
The depredations of time and the force of torrents having car- 
ried away the loofer and lefs compad parts, have difunited their 
fummits, but they are ftill joined at a very confiderable eleva- 
tion above the common bafe. The height of the firft is 33 15^ 
and of the latter 2160 feet. The Devil's Mountain is broken 
into irregular points ; but the upper part of the Lion's Head is 
a folid mafs of ftone, rounded and faftiioned like a work of art, 
and refembling very much, from fome points of view, the 
dome of St. Paul's placed upon a high cone-fhaped hill. 
Thefe three mountains are compofed of a multitude of rocky 
ftrata piled on each other in large tabular maffes. Their exad 
horizontal pofition denote the origin of the mafs to be nep- 
tunian and not volcanic ; and that fince its firft formation no 
convulfion 
