40 
TRAVELS IN 
iiig on a fishery in Table Bay. They run in general from 
fifty to sixty feet in length, and produce from six to ten tons 
of oil each. The bone of such small fish is not very valuable. 
It is remarked that all those which have yet been caught 
were females ; and it is supposed that they resort to the bays 
as places of shelter to deposit their young. Seals were once 
plentiful on the rocky islands of False bay, as is still that 
curious animal the penguin, forming the link of connection 
between the feathered and the finny tribe. 
Insects of almost every description abound in the summer 
months, and particularly a species of locust which infests the 
gardens, devouring, if not kept under, every green thing that 
comes in its way. Musquitoes are less troublesome here than 
in most warm climates, nor does -their bite cause much in- 
flammation ; but a small sand fly, so minute as scarcely to be 
visible, is a great torment to those who may have occasion 
to cross among the shrubbery of the sandy isthmus. Lizards 
of various kinds, among which is the cameleon, are very 
abundant ; and small land-turtles are every where crawling 
about in the high roads and on thejiaked plains. Scorpions, 
s.colopendras, and large black spiders, are among the noxious 
insects of the Cape ; and almost all the snakes of the country 
are venomous. 
The first appearance of so stupendous a mass of naked 
rock as the Table Mountain cannot fail to arrest, for a time, 
the attention of the most indifferent observer of nature from 
all inferior objects, and must particularly interest that of 
die mineralogist. As a description of this mountain will, 
