3 24 TRAV*ELS IN 
are converted into small sacks and other articles of household 
use, and employed as clothing for the slaves and Hottentots, 
and are still worn by the farmers themselves, after a rude 
kind of dressing, as pantaloons. . In the Cape they are some- 
what better prepared, and are used for clothing of slaves, for 
gloves, and other purposes. Few of them are exported. 
Skins of the wild antelopes and of the leopard are brought 
occasionally to the Cape market, but the quantity is so small 
as scarcely to deserve mentioning as articles of export. 
The same may be observed with regard to ostrich feathers, 
the value of which, exported annually, amounts to a mere 
trifle. The boors, very imprudently, rob every nest of this 
bird that falls in their way ; preferring the immediate benefit 
of the eggs to the encouragement of a future source of profit. 
The boors, indeed, derive little advantage from ostrich 
feathers, being presents generally expected by the butchers* 
servants, who go round the country to purchase cattle and 
sheep for the Cape market. The whole value of one year's 
exportation of this article does not exceed JOOO rixdollars ; 
of hides and skins of every denomination not more than 500Q 
or 6000 rixdollars. 
WHALE OIL AND BONE. 
The vast number of black whales that constantly fre- 
quented Table Bay induced a company of merchants at the 
Cape to establish a whale fishery, to be confined solely to 
Table Bay, in order to avoid the great expence of purchasing 
any other kind of craft than a few common whale boats-.. 
