6 
TRAVELS IN 
Cape settlement by this scale, it would be pronounced among 
the poorest, in the known world ; for I may safely venture to 
say, that seven parts in ten of the above mentioned surface 
are, for the greater part of the year, and some of them at all 
times, destitute of the least appearance of verdure. The up- 
per regions of all the chains of mountains are naked masses 
of sandstone; the valleys at their feet are clothed with grass, 
with thickets, and sometimes with impenetrable forests. The 
inferior hills or knolls, whose surfaces are generally composed 
of loose fragments of sandstone, as well as the wide sandy 
plains that connect them, are thinly strewed over with heaths 
and other shrubby plants, exhibiting to the eye an uniform 
and dreary appearance. In the lowest parts of these plains, 
where the waters subside and, filtering through the sand, break - 
out in springs upon the surface, vegetation is somewhat more 
luxuriant. In such situations the farm-houses are generally 
placed ; and the patches of cultivated ground contiguous to 
them, like the Oases in the sandy deserts, may be considered 
as so many verdant islands in the midst of a boundless waste ; 
serving to make the surrounding wilderness more dreary by 
comparison. Of such plains and knolls is the belt of land 
composed that lies between the first chain of mountains and 
the sea-coasts. 
The soils, in general, on this tract of country, are either of 
stiff clay, into which there is no possibility of entering with a 
plough till well soaked by heavy rains, or of a light and sandy 
nature, commonly of a reddish tinge, and abounding with small 
round quartzose pebbles. Seldom any free black vegetable 
mould appears, except in the small patches of garden ground, 
