74 TRAVELS IN 
ticular to engage his attention, he is glad of an excufe to ride 
to the diftance of eiglit or ten days, whether it be to a church or 
to a vendue, to hunt elephants or to plunder the Kaffers. 
In juftice, however, to the farmers of the Plettenberg Bay 
dlflrid, they are the only clafs of people, in the whole colony, 
that deferve the name of being induftrious. To fell the large 
trees, that are now only to be procured in deep glens, and then 
to drag them out, is a work of labour and toil ; and their pro- 
fits are fo trifling, that few of them are enabled to purchafe 
flaves, and of courfe are reduced to the neceffity of working 
themfelves. 
The vaft foreft, commencing oppofite Moffel Bay, and run- 
ning along the feet of the mountains, on the fouth fide, almoft 
to Algca Bay, naturally excites an inquiry into the caufes that 
have promoted the growth of trees in this particular fpot, when 
all the reft of the country, in comparifon to this trad of 
land, may be confidered as a barren defert. The fame caufe, 
by which I endeavoured to account for the abundance, and for 
the fcarcity of fprings, namely, the fituation of the granitic bafe 
of the mountains, will perhaps explain alfo the growth of thefe 
forefts. At the diftance of every two or three miles, a current 
of water burfts out of this chain of mountains, whofe banks are 
covered with trees, in fome places down to the fea-fhore. In like 
manner, the foot of the Table Mountain at the Cape was fkirted 
with a foreft, of which, at prefent, not a veftige remains, on the 
fide next the town ; but, in the deep glens behind the moun- 
tain, and on the fide next to the ifthmus, there are ftill exten- 
fivc 
