104 TRAVELS IN 
apparent means. Their creditors, I imagine, long before this, 
will best be able to give a satisfactory explanation, since 
British money has ceased to circulate among them. 
It is true, they are neither burthened with taxes nor assess- 
ments. Except on public vendues and transfer of immoveable 
jiroperty, Government has been remarkably tender in imposing 
on them burthens, which, however, they ii)iglit very well 
afford to bear. Their parochial assessments are equally mo- 
derate. At the first establishment of the colonj^ a kind of 
capitation tax was levied under the name of Lion and Tyger 
money. The fund so raised was applied to the encouragement 
of destroying beasts of prc}^, of v. hich these two were con- 
sidered as the most formidable. But as lions and tygers have 
long been as scarce in the neighbourhood of the Cape, as 
wolves are in England, the name of the assessment has been 
changed, though the assessment itself remains, and is applied 
to the repairs of the roads, streets, Avater-courses, and other 
public works. The sum to be raised is fixed by the police, 
and the quota assigned to each is proportioned to the circum- 
stances of the individual ; the limits of the assessment being 
from half a crown to forty shillings. The persons liable must 
be burghers, or such as are above sixteen years of age, and 
enrolled among the burgher inhabitants. The ordinary amount 
is fixed at about 5000 rix dollars a year. 
Another assessment to which heads of families are liable is 
called Chimney and Hearth money. This is, properly speak- 
ing, a house tax, fixed at the rate of eighteenpence a month, 
or 4^ rix dollars a year, for every house or fire-place. This 
