SOUTHERN AFRICA. 27 
and the castle, serves as a parade for exercising the troops. 
This is an open, airy, and extensive plain, perfectly level, com- 
posed of a bed of firm clay, covered with small hard gravel. 
It is surrounded by canals, or ditches, that receive the waters 
of the town and convey them into the h'dy. Two of its sides 
are completely built up with large and handsome houses. 
The barracks, originally intended for an hospital, for corn 
magazines, and Avine cellars, is a large, well-designed, regular 
building, which, with its two wings, occupies part of one of the 
sides of the great square. The upper part of this building is 
sufficiently spacious to contain three or four thousand men„ 
The castle affords barracks for 1000 men, and lodgings sufii- 
cient for all the officers of a complete regiment ; magazines for 
artillery stores and ammunition ; and most of the public offices 
of government are within its >valls. The other public build- 
ings are a Calvinist and a Lutheran church : a guard-house, 
in which the Burgher Senate, or the council of burghers, meet 
for transacting business relative to the interior police of the 
town, a large building, in which the government slaves, to the 
number of 330, are lodged : the court of justice, where civil 
and criminal causes are heard and determined : the Lombard 
bank, and the Chamber of Orphans, both of which are within 
the walls of the Castle. 
Between the town and Table Mountain are scattered over 
the plain a number of neat houses surrounded by plantations 
and gardens. Of these the largest and nearest to the town is 
that in which the government house is erected. It is in 
length near 1000 yards, and contains nl^out forty acres of rich 
