SOUTHERN AFRICA. 107 
town, and more especially the smiths and cartwrights, impose 
not on the country boors in the prices of utensils necessary 
for carrying on the business of agriculture. They are to re- 
port such crimes, trespasses, and misdemeanors, as come 
within their knowledge, to the Fiscal, who is the Chief 
Magistrate of the police, and Attorney-General of the 
colony. 
It would be in vain to expect that such various and im- 
portant duties should be faithfully fulfilled for a number of 
years without any consideration of profit or hope of reward ; 
or that every advantage would not be taken which the situa- 
tion might offer. Some of the members of the Burgher Senate 
send their old and infirm slaves to work at the public roads» 
and receive for them the same -wages as are paid to able- 
bodied men : others have teams of horses and waggons that 
never want employ. These things are trifling in them- 
selves, but the public business suffers by them. When the 
English took the place, the streets were in so ruinous a con- 
dition as scarcely to be passable with safetv. A small addi- 
tional assessment was laid upon the inhabitants, and in the 
course of five years they had nearly completed a thorough 
repair of the streets, to the great improvement of the town. 
It has been the remark of most visitors, that the young ladies 
of the Cape are pretty, lively, and good-humoured ; possessing 
little of that plilegmatic temper which is a principal ti-ait m 
the national character of the Dutch. The difference indeed in 
the manners and appearance of the young men and the young 
women, in the same family, is inconceivably great. The 
p 2 
