a Bo Mr. masson’s Botanical travels. 
ikin; and the precipices were To deep, that we were 
often afrakl to turn our eyes to either fide. Towards 
fun-let, with great labour and anxiety, we got fade to 
the other iide, where we found a miserable cottage be- 
longing to a Dutchman. Being however cold and wet, 
w r e were glad to take refuge under his roof. The hut 
had only one room ; but o ur hod gave us a corner to deep 
in, which was detached by a hanging of reed mats, where 
he and his wife alio dept ; and in the other end lay a 
number of Hottentots promilcuoudy together. 
loth, We eroded the Olyfant’s Rivier, nearly 130 
miles North of the Cape Town, where we entered into a 
plealant valley, bounded on each dde by very high 
mountains ; thofe on the Ead had their fummits covered 
with fnow, it being then their fpring; This country pro- 
duces good corn and European fruit in great plenty, ef- 
pecially oranges and lemons in the greated pro fu lion; 
and the trees grow to a great lize. They have alfo. 
wine, but it is four and unwholefome; which, I think, 
maybe owing to their planting their vines in wet, marlhy 
places. The fruit yields watery juices, which leldom ri- 
pen, but produce good brandy. There is a hot bath 
here, which w r e vifited, ifluing from the dde of a moun- 
tain. The water was nearly boiling hot at the place it 
iffued out of the rock ; and the people who ufed it af- 
firmed, that it was hot enough to boil a piece of meat. 
I obferved an orange tree, which had been either railed 
from a dngle feed, or planted when very young, in a 
feam of the rock where the water boiled out, which, to 
5 my 
