SOUTHERN AFRICA. 79 
traverfes the heath on foot, but generally fires from the faddle. 
He confiders the labour even of carrying his mufquet to be 
too fatiguing, and, therefore, has a Hottentot boy trained to 
ride or to run after him as his armour-bearer, an office not 
likely in this country ever to be produdive of rank or emo- 
lument. 
Such, however, are the mifiaken notions imbibed by liften- 
ing to perfcns who are either really ignorant, or interefted to 
millead, that the peafantry of the Cape have been reprefented 
as a poor and diflreffed people, overwhelmed with debt, bur- 
dened with taxes, and opprefled by the government in a variety 
of ways. How far fuch ftatements are founded in truth, will 
beft be fliewn in our ftatiRical fketch of the fettlement. In 
the mean time I fhall juft obferve, as a pofition to be proved 
hereafter, that the peafantry of the Cape are better fed, more 
indolent, more ignorant, and more brutal, than any fet of men, 
bearing the reputation of being civilized, upon the face of the 
whole earth. 
I have frequently had occafion to notice the abundance of 
iron ore in almoft every part of Southern Africa, fome of which 
was fo rich in metal as to contain from feventy to eighty per 
cent., but that the total want of fuel rendered it ufelefs. Here, 
however, in the vicinity of the forefts, that objedion is re- 
moved ; and the ores might, in all probability, be melted to 
advantage, as all kinds of iron work are prodigioufly dear at 
the Cape. We were told that, in the neighbourhood of the 
Knyfna, another large mafs of native iron had been difcovered, 
fimilar 
