Karroo or arid desert, uninhabited by a human creature. This desert, making the third step or terrace of Southern Africa, is greatly elevated above the second; is near 300 miles in length from east to west, and eighty in breadth; is scarcely ever moistened by a shower of rain; exhibits a surface of clay, thinly sprinkled over with sand, out of which a few shrivelled and parched plants here and there meet the eye, faintly extending their half withered fibres along the ground, and struggling, as it were, to preserve their existence against the excessive heat of one season of the year, and the severe frosts of the other.

The country likewise ascends from the western coast towards the interior in successive terraces, of which the most elevated, called the Roggeveld, falls in with the last-mentioned chain of mountains, the Nieuwveldt. The whole tract of country to the northward of the Cape is much more sandy, barren, and thinly inhabited, than to the eastward, in which direction it increases in beauty and fertility with the distance.

Such is the general outline of the territory that is comprehended under the name of the Cape of Good Hope. It is divided into four districts, over each of which is placed a civil magistrate called a Landrost, who, with six Hemraaden, or a council of country burghers, is vested with powers to regulate the police of his district, superintend the affairs of government, adjust litigations, and determine petty causes. Their decisions, however, are subject to an appeal to the Court of Justice in Cape Town. The four districts are; that of the Cape; of Stellenbosch and Drakensteen; of Zwellendam; and of Graaff Reynet; and they were successively colonized in the order here mentioned.

The Cape district is chiefly composed of that mountainous peninsula whose southern extremity was first called by Portugueze navigators Cabo dos Tormentos, or, Cape of Storms, on account of the very tempestuous weather often and long experienced by them in their attempts to double it, which, when effected, they changed to that of Cape of Good Hope. The Table Mountain, flanked by the Devil's Hill on the east, and the Lion's Head on the west, forms the northern extremity of the same peninsula. The length from north to south is about 36, and breadth 8, miles. It is composed, properly speaking, of one mountain, broken indeed into several masses more or less connected by inferior gorges. Some of these masses have horizontal summits; others peaked or cone-shaped; some consist of naked fragments of rock, others are clothed with verdure. This peninsula is connected with the continent by a low flat isthmus, with few irregularities of surface, except such as are made by ridges of sand that seem to have been adventitiously brought thither by the strong south-east winds from the shores of False Bay, a large arm of the sea inclosed between the Cape Promontory and a chain of high mountains on the continent to the east ward of it.

False Bay, and Table Bay, the one washing the southern, and the other the northern, shore of the isthmus, are the usual places of resort for shipping trading to, or calling for refreshments at, the Cape of Good Hope. During the summer season, when the south-east winds are predominant, which may be reckoned in general from September till May, Table Bay affords the most secure shelter; and Simon's Bay, a cove or indent on the western shore of False Bay, for the rest of the year, when the northerly and north-westerly winds are strongest. In

neither of them is there any sort of security or convenience for heaving down and repairing shipping, nor do they appear to admit of any contrivance for such purposes at a moderate expense. The latitude of Table Bay is 33° 55' south; longitude 18° 30′ east. Of Simon's Bay the latitude is 34° 9′ south, and longitude 18° 32′ east.

There are also two small bays on the west side of the peninsula, one called Hout or Wood Bay, and the other Chapman's Bay. The latter is exposed to the west and north-west, but the former is sheltered from all winds. The confined anchorage, which is said to admit of, at the utmost, ten ships only, and the eddy winds from the surrounding high mountains, which make it diffiult for ships to enter and get out, are the objections that have been stated against the use of Hout Bay.

All these bays, the passes of the mountains, and indeed every part of the peninsula, are capable of being maintained, if properly garrisoned, against any attack that will probably be ever made against them. Most of the works, batteries, and lines, have undergone a complete repair, with many improvements; and others have been judiciously added, by the British engineers. The pass at the foot of Müisenberg, a steep high mountain, washed by False Bay, and the only road of communication between Simon's Bay and the Cape, may now be considered as impregnable, though the Dutch suffered themselves very easily to be driven out of it. It is the Thermopyle of the Cape; and from the several breast-works, lately constructed along the heights, a chosen band of three hundred riflemen ought to stop the progress of an army.

Cape Town, the capital, and indeed the only assemblage of houses that deserves the name of a town in the colony, is pleasantly situated at the head of Table Bay, on a sloping plain that rises with an easy ascent to the feet of the Devil's Hill, the Table Mountain, and the Lion's Head, before mentioned; the last, stretching to the northward, in a long unbroken hill of moderate height, is King James's Mount (the Lion's Rump of the Dutch) and affords shelter against the westerly winds to ships in Table Bay. It most completely commands every part of the town and the castle to the north-east of it: and this, with the Amsterdam and Chavonne batteries, command the anchorage in the bay. The town, consisting of about eleven hundred houses, built with regularity and kept in neat order, is disposed into straight and parallel streets, intersecting each other at right angles. Many of the streets are open and airy, with canals of water running through them, walled in, and planted on each side with oaks; others are narrow and ill paved. Three or four squares give an openness to the town. In one is held the public market; another is the common resort of the peasantry with their waggons from the remote districts of the colony; and a third, near the shore of the bay, and between the town and the castle, serves as a parade for exercising the troops. This is an open, airy and extensive plain, perfectly level, composed of a bed of firm clay, covered with small hard gravel. It is surrounded by canals, or ditches, that receive the waters of the town and convey them into the bay. Two of its sides are completely built up with large and handsome houses. The barracks, originally intended for an hospital, for corn magazines, and wine cellars, is a large, well-designed, regular building, which, with its two wings, occupies part of one of the sides of the great

square. The upper part of this building is sufficiently spacious to contain 4000 men. The castle affords barracks for 1000 men, and lodgings for all the officers of one regiment; magazines for artillery stores and ammunition; and most of the public offices of government are within its walls. The other public buildings are a Calvinist and a Lutheran church; a guard-house, in which the Burgher Senate, or the council of burghers, meet for transacting business relative to the interior police of the town; a large building in which the government slaves, to the number of 330, are lodged; the court of justice, where civil and criminal causes are heard and determined. The basis of all the proceedings of this court is the Roman or civil law, tempered or corrected by local circumstances and unforeseen occurrences, as the nature of the cases may seem to require, and which are generally provided for in the code drawn up under the name of " Statutes of India," for the supreme court of Batavia and the other inferior settlements of the Dutch East India Company. A full court is composed of seven judges, by a majority of whose votes all causes are decided; subject, however, to an appeal to a court composed of the governor and lieutenant-governor, and from their decision to the King in council. The fiscal, or chief acting magistrate,is also the public accuser and attorneygeneral to prosecute, in all criminal cases, for the sovereign. The judges are none of them professional men, but are chosen out of the burghers of the

town.

The Lombard Bank, to which is committed the management of a capital of about 600,000 rix dollars, lent by the old government in paper money to the subjects on mortgages of their lands and houses, or on moveable property, at an interest of 5 per cent.