28 
TRAVELS IN 
winds, fhrivelled by the drought, or flubbed by the cattle. 
Even in the boggy grounds, where they grow to a fize of which 
no idea can be formed from feeing the fame fpecies in England, 
they are neither fo elegant in their habit, nor flower fo freely, 
as in their cultivated ftate. 
Thofe trads, however, on which the fhrubby plants are 
found, barren as they are, may be confidered among the beft 
that the fettlement affords; the mountains generally exhibit 
maffes of naked rock; and the Karroo deferts are wide ex- 
panded beds of compadl clay tinged with iron, and mixed with 
pebbles of quartz and comminuted fand-ftone. A piece of 
Karroo earth is not unlike, in appearance, to that of puzzoli, 
but entirely different in its nature, water which renders the 
latter hard, converting the former into a greafy marl. If thefe 
elevated plains were bleffed with fhowers, which never happen 
in the winter feafon, nor indeed in fummer, unlefs by occa- 
fional thunder florms, they would become the moft fertile 
trads of land In the whole fettlement. If, by any accident, a 
llream of water has paffed over Karroo ground, the productive 
quality of the foil, and the luxuriancy of vegetation, are almoft 
incredible. Experience, in fuch fituations, has fhewn, that, 
without the affiflance of manure, or the labour of fallowing, 
returns of corn have been produced from fixty to eighty fold. 
The fcarclty of water, the reafon of which I fhall endeavour 
to explain in the following chapter, is, in fadt, the grand ob- 
fl:acle to an extended cultivation at the Cape of Good Hope. 
Wherever a flreamlet occurs, a houfe is fure to be ereded, and, 
I were 
I 
