SOUTHERN AFRICA. 51 
Town, the column of marriages are those in the whole colony. 
By comparing the average number of deaths with the popu- 
lation, it will appear that the mortality in the Cape district 
is about 2-^5- in the hundred. Of the slaves the mortality is 
rather more, but less, perhaps, than in any other country 
where slavery is tolerated. The number, as we have seen, in 
the Cape district, is 11,891 ; and the number of deaths, on 
an average of eight years, was 350, which is after the rate of 
three in the hundred. 
With respect to the natural produce of the Cape district, 
what has yet been discovered is of little or no importance, 
except its fisheries. The wax-plant grows abundantly upon 
the sandy isthmus, but the berries are not considered to be 
worth the labour of gathering. The collecting of shells to 
burn into lime, and of heaths and other shrubby plants for 
fuel, furnish constant employment for about one thousand 
slaves. The great destruction of the frutescent plants on the 
Cape peninsula and the isthmus will be very severely felt in the 
course of a few years. The plantations of the silver-tree, on 
that brow of Table Mountain which is next to the isthmus, 
are experiencing the same destruction for the sake of a tem- 
porary profit ; and so thoughtless, or so indolent, are the pro- 
prietors of the land, that little pains are bestowed to keep up 
a succession of young ireea. No further trials have yet been 
made for coal. 
It 2 
