366 TRAVELS IN 
which late experiments have fhewn to be the kind of aliment 
moft congenial to the nature of plants. 
Notwithftanding the fertility of the ground, and the facility of 
tillage, a very inconfiderable quantity of grain is produced, 
owing to the diftance and heavy roads to the only market in the 
colony. Draught oxen are fcarce and dear in the neighbour- 
hood of the Cape, and vaft numbers are annually deftroyed, in 
tranfporting the articles of neceffary confumption to Cape 
Town. There is a curious paragraph in the Minutes of the 
Proceedings in the government of Van Riebeck, the founder of 
the colony, which fhews the extreme fcarcity of cattle in the 
early ftages of the fettlement, before fome daring adventurers 
penetrated beyond the great ranges of mountains. It ftates, that 
the captains of four Englifli fliips having arrived in the bay 
and prefented the governor and council with pipes, glafles, 
brandy, and other acceptable articles, the governor in council 
refolved, in order to fhew that the Hollanders were not wanting 
in gratitude and civility, that the ox belonging to the Company, 
which had died, not of difeafe, but from hunger, fliould be 
divided into four quarters, and that one fhould be fent to the* 
captain of each fhip. 
The bay of St. Helena is about fifteen miles, over a fandy 
flip of land, to the northward of Hootjes bay. It refembles 
Table bay, than which it is a little more open and expofed to 
the northerly and north-wefterly winds, but has much clearer 
anchorage. There is a fmall fpring of frefh water at the point 
of the hilly peninfula that runs along the coaft from Saldanha 
bay. 
