SOUTHERN AFRICA. 331 
t>f sheep, boiled together over a slow fire for four or five days, 
they make a very excellent soap, which generally bears the 
same price as salt butter. Being mostly brought from tne 
distant district of Graaf Reynet at the same time with the 
butter, they rose and fell together according to the quantity 
in the market, and the demand there might happen to be for 
them. The great distance from the market limited the quan- 
tity that was manufactured, and not tlie scantiness of the ma- 
terials. ^ 
This distance is a serious inconvenience to the farmer, and 
a great encouragement to his natural propensity to idleness. 
If he can contrive to get together a waggon load or two of 
butter or soap, to carry with him to Cape Town once a year, 
or once in two years, in exchange for clothing, brandy, coffee, 
a little tea and sugar, and a few other luxuries, which his own 
district has not yet produced, he is perfectly satisfied. The 
consideration of profit is out of the question. A man who goes 
to Cape Town with a single waggon from the Sneuwberg 
must consume, at least, sixty days out and home. He must 
have a double team, or 24 oxen, and two people, at the least, 
besides himself, to look after, to drive, and to lead the oxen 
and the sheep or goats, which it is necessary to take with 
them for their subsistence on the journey. His load, if a 
great one, may consist of fifteen hundred weight of butter 
and soap, for which he is glad to get from the retail dealers 
at the Cape, whom he calls Smaus or Jews, sixpence a pound, 
or just half what they sell the article for again. So that the 
•value of his whole load is not above 37 L 10s. But as he has 
no other way of proceeding to the Cape, except with his 
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