678 GOO 
Clirift. It is obferved on the TviAny m holy or pajpon 
week ; and it is called, by way of eminence, good, be- 
caule of the blelfcd eifedts of our Saviour’s futferings, 
whicli were a propitiatory or expiating facrifice for the 
fins ot the world. The commemoration of our Savi* 
our’s fufterings has been kept from the very firfl ages of 
Chriftianity, and v/as always obferved as a day of the 
ftridteli fading and humiliation. Among the Saxons it 
was called Long-Friday ; on account of the long fadings 
and prayers then ufed. 
GOOD HEN'RY, _/i in botany. SeeCHENOPODiuM. 
GOOD HOPE, a valuable fettlement or colony plant¬ 
ed by the Dutch, on that peninfula or neck of land, 
which forms the mod fouthern part of Africa, and which, 
according to Mr. Barrow’s liatiftical account publiflied in 
1804, contains upwards of 120,000 fquare miles; and 
yet the population of the whole colony is faid to amount 
to uo luore than 60,000 perfons ! a mod driking indance 
ot bad policy and internal mifmanagement ; fince, 
though the land is in many places barren and arid, yet 
food is in great abundance, and many parts of the inte¬ 
rior highly capable of improvement for objefts of com. 
merce. The whole extent of this fettlement has been 
ulually confounded under the general name of the Cape 
of Good Hope-, but the Cape itfelf is only the lofty pro¬ 
montory or elevated point of land, ufually called the 
mod foutherly extremity of Africa; though it is not 
truly lo ; for there is a point of land to the eadward of 
it, called the Needle Cape, which certainly projefts dill 
i.nore to the fouthward. Cape Town is the capital of 
.this fettlement, fecured on a bold dtore about thirty 
miles within the Cape, at the entrance of a rich v’ale. 
The mod remarkable eminences which drike the eye 
on a near approach to thefe fiiores, are, fird, the Table 
mountain, fo called becaufe it terminates at the top in 
a flat horizontal furfuce, like a table, from which the 
face of the rock defeends almod perpendicularly. Second, 
the Lion mountain ; which is divided into the lion’s 
head, and lion’s rump ; for when a view is taken of the 
xvhole, it very much refembles that animal with the 
head ereft. Third, the Devil mountain, or devil’s head, 
feparated by a fmall chafm, to the eadward of the Ta¬ 
ble motintain; and thus named, becaufe the violent and 
litdden gods of wind which occafionally pervade this 
iettlement, were luppofed to id’ue from it, and which 
uniformly fet in from the eadward. At a fmall didance 
from the declivity or foot of the Table and Lion moun¬ 
tains Cape Town is fituated, extending in aline from 
the one tov/ards the other; its feite occupying the fouth- 
ead angle of Table bay. 
The promontory or cape v;as fird difeovered in 1487, 
by Bartholomew Diaz, a Portuguefe ; who, though he 
did not venture to land, was an officer of didinguifhed 
fagacity and fortitude ; and lie called it, on account of 
the violence of the tempeds which he encountered in 
rhofe leas, Cabo Tormentoja, the Stormy Cape; but John 
II. king of Portugal, conceiving that Diaz had at lad 
found out the long-defired route to India, gave it a name 
of better omen, viz. “ The Cape of Good Hope.” In 
5497, Emanuel king of Portugal, inheriting the enter- 
priiing genius of his predecelfor, and perfiding in the 
grand Icheme of opening a palTage to the Ead Indies by 
the Cape, equipped three veifels for this important voy¬ 
age, and gave the command of it to the celebrated 
fafeo de Gama. Accordingly Gama fet fail from Lif- 
bdn on the 9th of July, and, after draggling for four 
months with contrary winds, reached the Cape on the 
20th of November. During an interval of calm wea¬ 
ther I'.e doubled the promontory, which had fo long 
been the boundary of the European navigation; and, 
after touching at fcveral parts along the ealtern African 
coad, he terminated his voyage at Calicut on the coad 
of Malabar. De Gama, hov/ever, made :io attempt to 
form a fettlement at the Cape. Next to him was the 
I’oriuguefe admiral Rio d’Infante, who, in his voyage 
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to India in 1498, went afiiore at fome didance from the 
Cape; and, on his return, drongly recommended to his 
government the edablifhment of a colony on the fouth¬ 
ern continent of Africa; and he fixed upon a fpot for 
that purpofe, to which was given his own name ; but it 
is now called the “ Great Fifh River.” Some other at. 
tempts, by different Portuguefe navigators, were made 
to colonize the Cape, but they all proved abortive. 
After thefe events, the Engliflt and Dutch, equally 
adroit in the purfuit of Afiatic luxuries, frequently vi- 
fited the bays of the Cape; and, in their voyages to 
and from the Ead Indies, called here as at a half-way- 
houfe, to take in water and provlfions, and to land and 
air their fick and infirm, as the cafe might happen to 
require ; and to whom the native Hottentots endeavoured 
to adminider every comfort and afildance that was in 
their power to give. The Englifli, in their outward- 
bound voyages, had a cudom of burying their difpatches 
for the diredtors under fome large flone laid on a parti¬ 
cular fpot ; and the Dutch ufed in like manner to bury 
a regider of the date of their vefTels and cargoes out¬ 
ward-bound, which the next fhips-in coming home took 
up and carried to England and Holland for the informa¬ 
tion of the diredtors. In this manner the Englifli, tlie 
Dutch, and the Portuguefe, continued, for more than 
a century, to refrefh at the Cape, without any defign 
on the part of the two former of appropriating the foil, 
until the year 1620, wdien the commanders of two fleets 
ot Englifh fliips, bound for Surat and Bantam, took a 
formal pofTelTion of the foil, for, and in the name of, 
king James of Great-Britain, becaufe they difeovered 
that the Dutch intended to edablifli a colony there in 
the following year. It w'as not, h.owever, until more 
than thirty years had expired after this event, that any 
fettlement was really attempted to be made at the Cape. 
But at length, John Van Riebeck, who had previoufly 
made this voyage, and had conciliated the friendfliip of 
fome of the natives, was lent out wdth four fliips, and 
a numerous colony, by the Dutch Eafl-India company ; 
and on their arrival in 1653, they laid the foundation of 
Cape Town, and took every puudent meafure to fortify 
themfelves againfl: any hafty or unforefeen attack from 
the interior country. Like an able politician, Riebeck 
inftantly employed every method to win upon the un- 
fufpedting natives, and to bind them fecurely to his in- 
tereft. But this proved a fatal epoch to the independ¬ 
ence of the Hottentots. Beguiled by brandy and to¬ 
bacco, the fpecious deluder cov'cred with honey the 
edge of the poifoned bowl, and thus gained oveu to all 
his views thefe harmlefs lavages, till then the unre- 
ftrained mailers of all this part^f Africa; but who did 
not perceive how many of their rights, and how much 
authority and happinefs, this guilty profanation would 
deprive them of. Indolent by nature, and little ad- 
ditded to agriculture, they were not uneafy that ftrangers 
fliould feize on a fmall corner of their land, which was 
moflly uninhabited. They thought that whether a little 
farther, or a little nearer, it was of no importance where 
their flocks, the only riches worthy of engaging their 
attention, fought for their food, provided they could 
find it. The avaricious policy of the Dutch had a view 
of great hopes from fo peaceful a beginning; and as it 
knew how to embrace the advantages olt'ered it by for¬ 
tune, fo it did not fail completely to realize them. 
From that moment thefe unhappy favagesbade adieu to 
that liberty which mankind inherit from nature ; while 
the colony, infenlibly increafing, and acquiring more 
fireagth, that formidable power, which now didfated 
laws to all this part of Africa, and removed to a great 
diftance every thing that attempted to oppofe its eager 
ambition, was feen to rife on foundations that could no 
longer be fliaken. The fame of its profperity wasfoon 
fpread, and drew thither every day a number of new 
fettlers. It may be eafily judged, that, according to 
She uAfal practice, founded upon a logic which dellroys 
