SOUTHERN AFRICA, 389 
foot of which the Government house, the wood magazine, 
and other stores are built. The anchoring ground is good, 
and there is not much danger for shipping, well found with 
stores, to take in cargoes of timber at any season of the 
>ear. 
The last bay to the eastward is that called Zwart Kops 
or Algoa. This bay is also open to every point of the com- 
pass from north-east to south-east, and of course aftbrds not 
any shelter against the prevailing winds. The bottom, how- 
ever, is generally fine sand and good holding ground. Ships 
qiay anchor in five fathoms at the distance of a mile from the 
general landing-place, which is on the west side of the bay ; 
but vessels of great burden should keep farther out, on ac- 
count of the very heavy swell that almost perpetually rolls in 
from the eastward. The latitude of the landing-place is 33° 
56' south, and longitude 26° 53' east of Greenwich ; and the 
distance from the Cape, in a direct line, 500 English miles. 
The time of high-water, at full and change of the moon, ap- 
pears to be about three o'clock, and the tide rises between 
six and seven feet. 'J'he extent of the bay, from the western 
point to the eastern extremity, where it rounds oft' into the 
general trending of the coast, is about twenty miles ; and the 
shore, except from the landing-place to the west point, is a 
fine, smooth, sandy beach. The rivers that fall into the bay 
are the Zwart-kops, the Kooka, and the Sunday. The 
mouths of all these rivers are closed up by bars of sand, which 
occasionally break down as the mass of water in the basons 
within them becomes too heavy for the mound of sand to 
support it ; and the first south-east wind again blocks them 
VOL. II. p p 
