TRAVELS IN 
Hills, at an elevation of twenty feet, at lead, above the general 
furface of the ifthmus, when the workmen were driving a level 
in fearch of coal, a copious ftream of water was collected within 
it, in the month of February, which is the very dryeft feafoa 
of the year. And on boring, for the fame purpofe, on Wyn- 
berg, they came to a rill of water at the depth of twenty feet 
below the furface. 
I have already noticed, in my journey to the Namaaqua 
country, that clear fubterraneous ftreams were every where to 
be found, in that diftri6t, under the fandy beds of the rivers. 
Water in abundance has always been found by digging wells in 
Cape Town. Indeed it would be an abfurdity to fuppofe that, 
in a country where mountains abound, and thofe mountains 
for more than two-thirds of the year hid in denfe clouds, there 
could be any fcarcity of water. Peculiar circumftances, relating 
to fituation or furface, may conceal that water, but it will al- 
ways be difcovered at or near the fea-coaft. 
When the late Admiral Sir Hugh Chriftian ordered a well to 
be funk at Saldanha Bay, by direding his attention rather to 
the convenience of conveying the water to the fliipping, than to 
the certainty of obtaining it, he was led into an error in fixing 
upon the fpot for the experiment, which was fo high above the 
level of the bay, and where the ground was one folid mafs of 
compad granite, that, after boring and blowing up with gun- 
powder, for feveral months with little or no profpedt of fuc-^ 
cefs, the Operation was obliged to be abandoned. On the 
oppofite fide of the bay, where thq fliore is little elevated above 
the 
