CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 
39 
those growing in the front of the Landroost's house. They grow 
here rapidly, and will bear to be transplanted at a very large size; 
but the timber is indifferent, and by no means equal to the worst 
produced in northern climes. 
October 2,9. — The horses having been continually \\orked since 
they left Cape Town, we yesterday gave them a respite. This 
morning was rainy, yet we determined to visit the cascade at French 
Hoek. That we might have the pleasure of Wollferum's and his 
daughter's company, we took both the waggons. The weather con- 
tinued intolerably bad, till we arrived at the house of Jacob de 
Villiers, where we intended to dine. I was the more mortified by 
the inclemency of the day, as the country was evidently more 
beautiful than any we had yet passed through, particularly in the 
vicinity of a Mr. Rousseau, a relative of the celebrated Jean Jacques. 
At dinner Villiers produced some excellent red wine, of which 
Old Wolfferum immediately purchased one cask, and I another, to 
be delivered at the Cape, for fifty-five rix dollars. We proceeded 
through the rain to visit the cascade, De Villiers acting as guide. 
The waggon road made it four miles, though we had been told it 
was only one. I procured at another farm-house a horse and a little 
boy to show the path to the bottom of the cascade, after it should 
be necessary to quit the waggon. Most fortunately it cleared up as 
we approached, and the clouds rising, gradually discovered a scene 
truly magnificent. Through a cleft of the mountain fell a considerable 
volume of water, above 1 70 feet perpendicular, and then rolled over 
immense rocks, with brushwood overhanging them, till it reached 
the vale below. Several smaller cascades, caused only by the rain, 
broke over different parts of the mountain. Mr. Salt took the ac- 
companying view of it, in defiance of the cold ; but the whole of 
