288 
TRAVELS IN 
is attended with the peculiar advantage of preventing the 
worm from attacking it. 
Plettenberg's Bay is a wide open roadstead, entirely ex- 
posed to the south-east winds. The west point called Roben- 
berg, or Seal Mountain, lies in latitude 34° 6' south, longi- 
tude 23° 48' east; distant from Cape Point 320 English 
miles. The eastern shore of the bay rounds off into the gene- 
ral trending of the coast, which, seen from the landing-place, 
terminates in a very high and regular cone-shaped mountain, 
called in the old Portuguese charts, Pic Formosa, but by the 
more modern Dutch navigators, the Grenadier s Cap. The 
best landing-place is about three miles and a half to the 
northward of the Robenberg, on a sandy beach, about five 
hundred and fifty yards in length, guarded at each extremity 
by rocky points that project into the sea. A heavy rolling 
sea generally sets into the bay, except in northerly and 
north-westerly winds ; when these blow, the water is 
smooth. The south-west winds occasion the greatest swell 
of the sea. 
A considerable river, called the Keerboom, falls into the 
bay, but the mouth is generally choaked up with sand ; and 
the water within the bar, which forms an extensive bason, is 
saltish for several miles up the country. There is another 
small stream that runs down a very beautiful valley, but the 
water of this is also brackish for at least two miles from the 
beach. The only fresh water, a\id it can scarcely be so 
called, issues from a small well on the side of the bill^ at the 
