half incline us to retract the severity of our strictures upon his petulant expressions about colonial politics. It is, indeed, due to Mr. Rose, to say, that the general tone of his sentiments is liberal and humane, though occasionally a quizzical or sarcastic vein (acquired, probably, amidst the inanity and gossip of the mess-room,) peeps out amidst his luxuriant descriptions of scenery, like a nettle in a bower of honeysuckles. These specimens of bad taste, however, are not numerous, and the greater part of the volume is written in a pleasing and elegant style, and in a cheerful and benevolent spirit.

On the subject of slavery, it is worthy of remark, that Mr. Rose's observations are perfectly accordant, as regards the Cape, with the opinions expressed by all former travellers of respectability who have adverted particularly to this topic,-as Sparrman, Barrow, Philip, Pringle, and others; while they are directly at issue, in some respects, with the allegations of the Quarterly Review, and of some other works in a similar spirit, that slavery in this colony is almost nominal,-the slaves being, according to these writers, in a more enviable situation than the free peasantry in most countries of Europe. How utterly untrue such representations are, may be gathered from the above extracts; and their falsity will be still more apparent when we mention, upon the authority of Cape papers now before us, of so recent a date as December last, that the slave population is found, from recent enumeration, to have been nearly stationary in numbers (from 30,000, to 35,000 souls) during the last twenty years, although, in that period, the free population of all classes and colours has almost doubled itself. Now, since the emigration from Europe to South Africa has not in that period exceeded 6000 souls, while the free population (including Hottentots) has increased since 1806, from 49,000 to about 90,000, it is obvious, if this statement be correct, that some causes unfriendly even to the animal welfare of human beings must operate, in a state of slavery, to prevent the natural increase of a class of men of robust constitution, and to whom the salubrious climate of the Cape is almost native,many of them having been originally brought from the coasts of Mozambique or Natal, and from tribes of the same race as the Caffers on the eastern frontier. But the deplorable statistics of our West India Islands, where the slave population, as the registry proves, has actually decreased 28,000 in six years, leaves us little to be surprised at on this score. Of the mildness of slavery at the Cape, the amount appears to be, that the system does not effect the destruction of the slaves there at the same wholesale rate as in our sugar islands, and that it even admits of their keeping up their numbers, or slightly augmenting them; whereas, were they emancipated, their numbers

would increase in a ten-fold ratio. But enough of this painful subject for the present.

Three days and a gale of wind carry our traveller to Algoa Bay; and a day's gallop of ninety miles more, sets him down 700 miles from the Cape, at Graham's Town, in the district of Albany, which is the eastern frontier of the colony, bordering on Cafferland. The following is his description of this capital of the eastern province.

Graham's Town, now a large, ugly, ill-built, straggling place, containing, I should think, nearly three thousand inhabitant sand soldiers, was a few years back only a military post; and the mimosa tree stands in the principal street, beneath which, it is said, the first English officer, Colonel Graham, who led a military party there, pitched his tent. Colonel Graham is dead, and the second town in the colony bears his name,--a name that is often mentioned, and always with respect.

Houses have sprung up quickly of every variety of form, and barracks, and a church for the established faith, and chapels for all sectsDissenters, Wesleyans, Anabaptists, Independents, &c., and last, not least, the handsomest building, and the most necessary, is a gaol.

The population is a strange mixture of lounging officers, idle tradesmen, (merchants, I beg their pardon,) drunken soldiers, and still more drunken settlers.

We have high authority for saying, that "your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander, drink, ho! are nothing to your English," and the English of Southern Africa have not degenerated, if fiery visages, sun-scorched and brandy-scorched, may vouch for them.

We have a circulating library and a fashionable tailor, whose shopboard announces that he comes from the Quadrant; piano-forte tuners, a seminary for young ladies, and an artist, who in England was employed to copy Varley's drawings, and who succeeded, by his own account, so well, as to have his copies always mistaken for the originals; but, alas! Africa affords no encouragement to art; he lives in a mudhovel, hawks about his drawings in vain, and his pencil fails to keep him in Cape brandy.

A book of melancholy amusement might be written, contrasting the romantic expectations of the first settlers with the squalid reality of their present state.' pp. 45, 46.

This, and another passage respecting British settlers at page 118, are doubtless sketches from the life; but when given as a general representation of this class of men, they become mere caricatures; and are not only unjust to a body of adventurous men, (a large portion of whom, as the Author ought to have known, are persons of respectable character and of persevering industry, who have encountered long privations and overcome numerous difficulties,) but they convey also false impressions to readers in Europe. It is in this manner and spirit that such exaggerated and, in many respects, unjust impressions have

been given by superficial travellers, of the inhabitants of the United States,-until a feeling of most uncharitable and acrimonious dislike has been generated between us and our transatlantic kinsmen. Leaving, however, the critics of South Africa to deal with Mr. Rose on this point, we proceed with what he much more excels in,-his sketches of natural scenery. The following, though somewhat too diffuse, is pleasing and pastoral.

Graham's Town lies in a hollow, surrounded by high green hills, on which are clearly traceable, to a great extent, the roads branching out like radii from a centre, while along them the heavy ox-waggons are seen slowly labouring. These hills possess no beauty of form, and never rise into magnificence, (at least not for Africa,) but there are many glens of calm pastoral beauty among them, and many abrupt ravines, dark with trees, and rich in every flower that loves the shade; and there are openings, poortes, as they are here called, bounded on either side by high precipices, from which hang the branches of graceful and feathery foliage; while in the hollow flows a stream, now flashing into light over some opposing rock, now lost in the deep shade cast by the magnificent yellow-wood trees.

These poortes are favourite haunts of mine; scenes of such calm seclusion and dreamy stillness, that the foot of man seems an intrusion on the mountain hawk and towering eagle that have chosen them for their homes. There is no sound, save the hawk's shrill cry, as it skims along in the shadow of the cliff.

"Meditation here

May think down hours to moments;"

and I have often lingered in these lone, solitary dells, till the sun had descended too low to reach their depths, and the dim grey tint was stealing over all, blending the green of the foliage with the varied hues of the overhanging cliffs, that seemed to bound the rider's further progress. And I have ascended again among the hills, now bright with the effect of an evening sun, throwing a soft yellow tinge upon every object, and casting shadows from the grey weather-stained rocks, that, jutting above the surface, give shelter to the various proteas with their rich blossoms, and to many other mountain plants. In approaching the town, of which between the hills a glimpse is now and then caught, the scene is enlivened by straggling lines of cattle, which the Hottentot herdsmen are driving home,-now winding along the valleys, now almost hid in the blue shade thrown by a hill or by a passing cloud; and again appearing in the bright sunny lines of light. There is nothing that blends so beautifully with the softness of evening landscape, as cattle returning home; they speak not only to the eye, but to the mind, telling of a season of rest shared by every living thing.' p. 47-49.

The following sketch in the same style, is equally good and equally true to nature;-though it is to be remarked, (as a friend who has visited these regions observes to us,) that the

descriptions of the scenery in Albany, given by Mr. Rose, are selected from nature in its more favourable aspects, while his sketches of society appear to be, on the contrary, taken from the most unfavourable and grotesque groupes that he met with. As regards the civilized, indeed, our Traveller seems to have been habitually rather cynical; but this we can the more readily forgive, since, towards the savage, he is almost uniformly candid and benevolent. The following description applies chiefly to the country near the mouth of the Great Fish River and along the little streams of the Kap, the Kowie, and the Kasouka; all flowing through the British settlement of Albany:

I

The last week has to me been one of delightful excitement. have rode over three hundred and fifty miles, have been amidst new scenes, new trees, new flowers, new animals, and a new people. The country through which we passed, (my companion, myself, and two Hottentot soldiers,) is totally different from that about the Cape, being covered with grass, which is, after rain, of the richest green; and large tracts frequently bear a striking resemblance to English park scenery; wanting, indeed, its forest trees, for the timber in the open country does not rise to any size, but fully atoning for this want by the beauty and variety of its shrubs and flowers; the palm-like euphorbia, with its naked trunk; the mimosa, with its delicate green, rich yellow blossom, and large milk-white thorn; different jasmines, with white clustering flowers, relieved by their dark green foliage; the speckboom, food for the elephant, almost hid by the ivy geraniums rising to its top, and crowning it with purple blossoms; the various parasitical plants; the uncouth aloes, and all those strange, unnatural, snake-like plants that creep along the ground, and are known to your greenhouses. These are a few of the plants forming the thick jungle which covers a very large proportion of the country. Then, the shadowy dimness of the scenery on the river's banks, dark with its giant trees festooned with rope-like creepers, and the high weather-stained rocks, covered with trailing plants, and of strange fantastic forms,

"Like moonlight battlements or towers decayed by time."'

p. 70-72. This is very delightful description;-but we must now turn to his account of the natives, which, to us at least, is still more interesting.

'I do not consider', says Mr. Rose, the Kaffers a cruel or vindictive people. The policy adopted towards them, has been severe; for, when did Europeans respect the rights of the savage? By the Dutch Border-farmers, over whom their Government had little control, they are said to have been slaughtered without mercy,--to have been destroyed as they destroyed the wolf. At no period, I believe, since the English have been in possession, has wanton cruelty been committed; but the natives have at different times been driven back from boundary to boundary, and military posts have been established in the country, from which we have expelled them. Orders too have been issued, that

all Kaffers appearing within the proclaimed line should be shot. Some of the old chiefs now inhabit, with their tribes, tracts a hundred and fifty miles further back than their former lands; and when one of them, St'lamby, who occupied the country near Uitenage, was ordered to quit it, he simply and affectingly said, "that his fathers had eaten the wild honey of those hills, and he saw not why he should leave them."

In 1810, the Great Fish River was proclaimed the eastern limit of the colony. In 1820, Gaika, a powerful chief, whom we had aided in his wars, was obliged to evacuate a rich extent of land lying between that river and the Keiskanna. On this occasion he is said to have remarked, "that though indebted to the English for his existence as a chief, yet, when he looked upon the fine country taken from him, he could not but think his benefactors oppressive."

It is not strange that the savages should be unable to see the justice of all this; that they should be troublesome neighbours to the settlers in a country of which they had been dispossessed. They were so: such instances were exaggerated, and a Commando (an inroad of military and boors) was the frequent consequence. The crimes were individual, but the punishment was general: the duty of the Commando was to destroy, to burn the habitations, and to seize the cattle; and they did their duty.

When these circumstances are considered, it cannot excite surprise, that there should have been acts of sudden and cruel vengeance; though it may, that they should not have been more frequent in a country where they are so easily perpetrated; the thick jungle affording concealment to the ambush, and it being only necessary to drag the body into the bush, and to leave it for the wolves to efface all traces of the death.

I hate the policy that turns the English soldier into the coldblooded butcher of the unresisting native: I hate it even when, by the calculator, it might be considered expedient. But here it is as stupid as it is cruel. The Kaffers are a numerous and a brave people, and were they but united, would prove a most dangerous enemy to our frontier settlements. They once, when driven to despair by a large seizure of cattle, made an attack on Graham's Town, which was obstinately continued, and nearly proved successful. But the period of oppression is now past, never, I trust, to return; for the present policy pursued towards the natives is humane and honourable. pp. 14–77.

These observations, if not altogether new, (for the substance of them, with more of historical detail, may be found in Mr. Thompson's Appendix and in Mr. Pringle's Notes to his "Ephemerides ",) are still highly creditable to the good feeling and the good sense of Mr. Rose, and the more so, inasmuch as they are altogether opposite to the arrogant spirit of military aggression fostered by the frontier policy of the late disgraceful administration of the Cape.

Upon the peculiar customs, mode of life, language, and polity of the Caffers, Mr. Rose gives some cursory observations; but on these subjects, he has contributed no new information of any

VOL. III.-N.S.

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