2 
TRAVELS IN 
And, if from the mouth of the Great Fish River a line 
be drawn in the direction of north-north-west, to the dis- 
tance of two hundred and twenty-five miles, to a point behind 
the Snowy mountains called Fleitenberg's Landmark ; and 
from thence be continued in a circular sweep inwards to tlie 
mouth of the River Koussie, upwards of five hundred miles; 
these lines will' circumscribe the tract of country which con- 
stitutes the colony of the Cape of Good Hope. 
By reducing this irregular figure to a parallelogram, it will 
be found to comprehend an area of at least one hundred and 
twenty thousand square miles. And as it appears that the 
whole population of whites, blacks, and Hottentots, within 
this area, amounts only to about sixty thousand souls, though 
it cannot boast that 
" Every rood of ground maintains Its man,** 
yet every two square miles may be said to have at least 
one human creature allotted to it. If, therefore, the Dutch 
at home occupy one of the most populous countries in Europe, 
they possess abroad the most desert colony that is certainly to 
be met with upon the face of the globe. But as this is less 
owing to the natural defects of the country, than to the regu- 
lations under which it has been governed, the comparative 
population with the extent of surface ought not to be taken 
as the test of the intrinsic value of the settlement, as the po- 
pulation of any country, under a moderate climate, will, in 
the natural course of things, always rise to a level with the 
means of subsistence, A very great portion, however, of this 
