92 TRAVELS IN 
folution of which, mixed up with the oily fat of the large 
broad tails of the fheep of the colony, and boiled flowly for 
five or fix days, takes the confiftency and the quality of an 
excellent white foap. This falfola grows in almoft every part 
of Southern Africa, but particularly on thofe plains known by 
the name of Karroo, and in fuch abundance that, fuppofmg the 
plant, after being cut down and burnt, to be reproduced in five 
years, the quantity of foda, or barrilla, that might annually be 
made from the afhes would be fufHcient, befide ferving the 
colony, for the whole confumption of Great Britain : and as 
enormous fums of money have always been^ and continue to 
be, drawn from England to pay the imports of this article, it 
may perhaps be confidered as an objed: worthy of further 
inquiry. According to the prefent fyftem, however, of letting 
out the government farms, and the high price of labor, none 
of the country-people would find it worth their confideration 
as an article to bring to market. The Hottentots, indeed, 
might be encouraged to prepare it ; but the great diftance from 
Cape Town, the only market in the colony, and the badnefs of 
the roads, will always operate againft a fupply of the natural 
produds of the country being had there at any reafonable rate. 
Another fhrubby plant with glaucous fpear-fhaped leaves, is 
generally met with growing among the falfola, the aflies of 
which alfo give a ftrong alkaline lie ; but the foap made from 
thefe is faid to have a blueifh color, and to be of a very inferior 
quality to that made from the former. The plant was not in 
flower ; but it appeared to be the atriplex albicans^ a kind of 
orache* 
The 
