SOUTHERN AFRICA. 15 
the Dutch,) and affords fhelter aga'mft the wefterly winds to 
Ihlps in Table Bay. It moft completely commands every part of 
the town and the caftle to the north-eaft of it : and this, with 
the Amfterdam and Chavonne batteries, command the anchor- 
age in the bay. The town, confiding of about eleven hundred 
houfes, built with regularity and kept in neat order, is difpofed 
into ftraight and parallel ftreets, interfering each other at right 
angles. Many of the ftreets are open and airy, with canals of 
water running through them, walled in, and planted on each 
fide with oaks ; others are narrow and ill paved. Three or 
four fquares give an opennefs to the town. In one is held 
the public market ; another is the common refort of the 
peafantry with their waggons from the remote diftrids of the 
colony ; and a third, near the fliore of the bay, and between 
the town and the caftle, ferves as a parade for exercifing the 
troops. This is an open, airy and extenfive plain, perfedlly 
level, compofed of a bed of firm clay, covered with fmall hard 
gravel. It is furrounded by canals, or ditches, that receive 
the waters of the town and convey them into the bay. Two 
of its fides are completely built up with large and handfome 
houfes. The barracks, originally intended for an hofpital, for 
corn magazines, and wine cellars, is a large, well-dellgned, 
regular building, which, with its two wings, occupies part of 
one of the fides of the great fquare. The upper part of this 
bmilding is fufficiently fpacious to contain 4000 men. The 
caftle affords barracks for 1 000 men, and lodgings for all the 
officers of one regiment ; magazines for artillery ftores and 
ammunition ; and moft of the public offices of government are 
within its walls. The other public buildings are a Calvinift and 
a Lutheran 
