SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
of the European and tropical fruits are cultivated 
Vvith success, and the market is tolerably supplied 
with vegetables. The chief want is timber, either 
for building or firing. Most families are compel- 
led to keep a slave for the sole purpose of climbing 
the neighbouring mountains in search of faggots. 
To purchase these in sufficient quantity to main- 
tain a fire in the kitchen alone, costs forty or fifty 
pounds a-year. The botanical productions of the 
Cape district surpass, perhaps, in variety and 
beauty, those of any other part of the world. In 
the bulbous rooted plants, particularly, it is quite 
unrivalled. 
The Dutch inhabitants of the Cape display the 
phlegm and apathy of their countrymen in Europe, 
without their persevering industry. They devolve 
all labour upon the slaves, and spend their time in 
eating to excess of high seasoned dishes, drinking 
raw ardent spirits, and smoking tobacco. As they 
carefully avoid every species of bodily exertion, 
their health inevitably suffers, and few exceed 
the age of sixty. The ladies do not share this 
phlegmatic character ; they are pretty, lively, and 
good-humoured, easy in their manners, and fond 
of social intercourse. They are allowed an unu- 
sual degree of freedom, which they seldom abuse. 
The Table mountain, which overhangs the Cape, 
affords a specimen of the general mountain struc- 
ture of this part of Africa. The basis, and the 
