38 TRAVELS IN ^3 
The fifhermen that walk upon the beach 
*' Appear like mice ; and yon tall anchoring bark 
" Diminifh'd to her cock. * # * 
***** The murmuring furge, 
** That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes, 
** Cannot be heard fo high." 
All the objeds on the plain below are, in fad, dwindled 
away to the eye of the fpedator into littlenefs and infignificance. 
The flat-roofed houfes of Cape Town, difpofed into formal 
clumps, appear like thofe paper fabrics which children are 
accuftomed to make with cards. The fhrubbery on the fandy 
ifthmus looks like dots, and the farms and their enclofures as fo 
many lines, and the more-finifhed parts of a plan drawn on 
paper. 
On the fwampy parts of the flat fuuunit, between the malTes 
of rock, are growing feveral forts of handfome flirubs. The 
Cenaa mucronata^ a tall, elegant, fruitefcent plant, is peculiar to 
this fituation ; as is alfo that fpecies of heath called the Phjfodes, 
which, with its clufters of white flowers glazed with a glutinous 
coating, exhibits in the funfliine a very beautiful appearance. 
Many other heaths, common alfo on the plains, feemed to 
thrive equally well on this elevated fituation as in a milder 
temperature. The air on the fummit, in the clear weather of 
winter, and in the fhade, is generally about fifteen degrees of 
Fahrenheit's fcale lower than in Cape Town. In the fummer 
feafon the difference is much greater, when that well-known 
appearance of the fleecy cloud, not inaptly called the Table 
Cloth^ envelopes the fummit of the mountain. 
A fmgle 
