78 
TRAVELS IN 
fupply, it would be neceflary to procure a new race of inhabit- 
ants, or to change the nature of the old ones. 
It is no eafy matter to convey, by any defcription, an ade- 
quate idea of the condition of the peafantry of the Cape of 
Good Hope j fo inconceivably different is it from that of the 
fame clafs in Europe, or indeed in any other part of the world. 
The farmers in the back-fettlements of North America are en- 
abled.^ by hard labour, to raife a fuperfluity of provifions beyond 
their own confumption, chiefly, however, in the article of 
grain ; of animal food they have no redundancy. The pea- 
fantry of Europe labour fix days in the week, the greater part 
of whom can barely earn a fcanty fubfiftence for themfelves 
and their families. But a boor of the Cape neither knows the 
corroding pain of an empty ftomach, nor hears his children 
cry for a morfel of bread, — of meat I ought to fay, for bread 
they rarely tafte. A traveller, on entering their miferable 
hovels, needs never defpair of finding their tenants unprovided. 
Salted beef, or flefh of the larger kinds of game, he will generally 
find hanging in the chimney, and it is an equal chance that the 
whole or greater part of a flaughtered fheep fhould be fuf- 
pended from the roof. A Cape boor never works. Every day 
throughout the whole year is to him a holiday. The greateft 
exertion he ever makes, and which has pleafure for its object 
as well as profit, is the killing of game. Nor is the exercife 
he takes on fuch occafions to be meafured by the adlivity, 
energy, or the fatigue that an European fportfman muft fome- 
times undergo. A Dutch boor, in the firft inftance, never 
traverfes 
