282 TRAVELS IN 
suffer them to run more freely. If, indeed, we consider for 
a moment the situation of this low sandy belt of land, stretch- 
ing along the northern coast, common sense must convince 
us that there is plenty of water at no great distance below 
the surface. It is bounded on the east, at the distance only 
of seventy miles, by a chain of mountains, whose summits are 
from two to nearly five thousand feet high ; and all the waters, 
from both sides of these mountains, fall upon this narrow 
plain. A great part of them, it is true, sink into the Berg 
River, but the Berg River itself is on a level with Saldanha 
Bay, into which, indeed, the whole body of it might, with 
great ease, be carried. 
This was, in fact, a favorite subject of conversation with 
the late Colonel Gordon, and some other Dutch gentlemen, 
by which would not only be furnished a plentiful supply of 
water for a town, garrison, and shipping but, at the same time, 
a navigation would be opened into the interior of the country, 
particularly into Zwartland, the granary of the colony. Such 
a scheme would, no doubt, be practicable, though that part 
of it which regards the supply of a fleet and town with fresh 
water would perhaps fail to answer the purpose, for the fol- 
lowing reasons : That part of the Berg River, where it would 
be the most practicable to turn its course, is within a mile or 
two of the place to which the high spring tides flow, and 
about twenty miles from the present mouth of the river in 
St. Helena Bay. The distance from the same place, along 
the line in which the new channel would be carried to Sal- 
danha Bay, is about five and twenty or perhaps thirty miles. 
Allowing for the circuitous course of the river in its present 
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