there can be little doubt as to the success of the latter; it is the more astonishing that this tree has not been introduced, since no vegetable oil, fit for culinary uses, has yet been discovered in the colony. For this purpose the sesamum would prove an useful grain. In most of the sandy flats are found in great abundance two varieties of the Myrica cerifera, or wax plant, from the berries of which is procurable, by simple boiling, a firm pure wax; and the honey bee is every where wild on the heathy sides of the hills; but the culture of the plant and of the insect have hitherto been equally neglected.

Timber of all kinds for building is an exceeding scarce and expensive article at the Cape, yet little pains have yet been taken to rear it near the town. Avenues of oak trees, plantations of the white poplar, and of the stone pine, are to be seen near most of the country houses not very distant from the Cape, and have been found to thrive most rapidly; but the timber they produce is generally shaken and unsound. The oak that has been introduced into the colony appears to be that variety of the Quercus Robur known in England by the name of Durmast oak, much of which grows in the New Forest, and is but of little estimation among ship builders. It is distinguished by the acorns growing in clusters, and each having a long foot stalk The larch, whose growth in Europe is rapid, and yet the timber as good or better than any of the pine tribe, would be an acquisition and an ornament to the present naked hills of the Cape; and the beech would no doubt thrive in those places where the poplar does so well.

Of native plants, that which is the most cultivated, in the vicinity of the town, is the silver tree above

mentioned. Whole woods of it stretch along the feet of the eastern side of the Table Mountain, planted solely for fuel. The Conocarpa, another species of Protea, the Kreupel boom of the Dutch, is also planted along the sides of the hills: its bark is employed in tanning leather, and the branches for fire-wood. The grandiflora, speciosa and mellifera, different species of the same genus, grow every where in wild luxuriance, and are collected for fuel, as are also the larger kinds of Ericas or heaths, phyllicas, Brunias, polygalas, the Olea Capensis, Euclea racemosa, Sophora, and many other arboreous plants, that grow in great abundance both on the hills of the peninsula, and on the sandy isthmus that connects it with the continent. The article of fuel is so scarce, that a small cart load of these plants sells in the town from five to seven dollars, or twenty to eight-and-twenty shillings. In most families a slave is kept expressly for collecting firewood. He goes out in the morning, ascends the steep mountains of the peninsula, where waggons cannot approach, and returns at night with two small bundles of faggots, the produce of six or eight hours hard labour, swinging at the two ends of a bamboo carried across the shoulder. Some families have two and even three slaves, whose sole employment consists in climbing the mountains in search of fuel. The expense of a few faggots, whether thus collected or purchased by the load, for preparing victuals only, as the kitchen alone has any fire place, amounts, in a moderate family, to forty or fifty pounds a-year.

The addition to the inhabitants of five thousand troops, and a large fleet stationed at the Cape, has increased the demand for fuel to such a degree, that serious apprehensions have been entertained of some

deficiency shortly happening in the supply of this necessary article. Under this idea the attention of the English has been, for some time past, directed towards finding out a substitute for wood. The appearance of all the mountains in Southern Africa, being particularly favourable to the supposition that fossil coal might be found in the bowels of most of those inferior hills connected with, and interposed between, them and the sea, His Excellency the Earl of Macartney, well knowing how valuable an acquisition such a discovery would prove to the colony, directed a search to be made. Boring rods were prepared, and men from the regiments, who had laboured in the collieries of England, were selected to make the experiment. Wynberg, a tongue of land projecting from the Table Mountain, was the spot fixed on, and the rods were put down there through hard clay, pipe-clay, iron-stone and sandstone, in successive strata, to the depth of twentythree feet. The operation of boring was then discontinued by the discovery of actual coal coming out, as miners express it, to day, along the banks of a deep rivulet flowing out of the Tygerberg, a hill that terminates the isthmus to the eastward. The stratum of coaly matter appeared to lie nearly horizontal. Immediately above it was pipe-clay and white sand-stone; and it rested on a bed of indurated clay. It ran from ten inches to two feet in thickness; differed in its nature in different parts: in some places were dug out large ligneous blocks, in which the traces of the bark, knots and grain were distinctly visible; and in the very middle of these were imbedded pieces of iron pyrites, running through them in crooked veins, or lying in irregular lumps. Other parts of the stratum consisted of laminated coal of the nature of turf, such as by naturalists would be called Lithanthrax, and pieces

occurred that seemed to differ in nothing from that species known in England by the name of Bovey coal. The ligneous part burned with a clear flame, without much smell, and left a residuum of light white ashes like those of dried wood. The more compact earthy and stoney parts burned less clear, gave out a sulphureous smell, and left behind a slaty caulk, that soon contracted on the surface a deep brown ochraceous crust. The borer being put down in several places in hopes of meeting with the main bed of coal, the general result was as follows:

Bluish soapy clay

Feel.

2

5

22

21

14

31

Striated sand, red and white, containing clay 33

128

Here the operation was discontinued for the pre

sent.

Most of the European, and several of the tropical, fruits have already been introduced into the colony, and cultivated with success. In every month of the year the table may be supplied with at least ten different sorts of fruit, green and dry. Oranges of two kinds, the common China and the small Mandarin, figs, grapes and guavas, are all very good; peaches and apricots not bad. These, when in season, are sold at the rate of one shilling for 100. Ap

ples, pears, pomegranates, quinces, and medlars, thrive well and bear plentifully, but are not very good. Few indeed are at the pains of grafting even the trees, but suffer them to grow up from the seed. Plums and cherries that are produced in the colony, are of an indifferent quality. Gooseberries and currants are said to have been tried, but without success. The nectarine has not yet been introduced. Raspberries are tolerably good, but scarce: and strawberries are brought to market every month of the year. There are no filberts nor common hazel nuts, but almonds, walnuts and chesnuts, all of good quality, are plentiful, as are also mulberries of a large size and excellent flavour.

The market is likewise tolerably well supplied with most of the European vegetables for the table, from the farms that lie scattered along the eastern side of the peninsula, in number about forty or fifty. On some of these farms are vineyards also of considerable extent, producing, besides the supply of the market with green and ripe grapes and prepared raisins, about seven hundred leaguers or pipes of wine a-year, each containing 154 gallons. Of these from fifty to a hundred consist of a sweet luscious wine, well known in England by the name of Constantia, the produce of two farms lying close under the mountains, about mid-way between the two bays. The grape is the Muscatel, and the rich quality of the wine is in part owing to the situation and soil, and partly to the care taken in the manufacture. No fruit but such as is full ripe, no stalks are suffered to go under the press; precautions seldom taken by the other farmers of the Cape.

The vineyards, gardens and fruiteries are divided into small squares, and inclosed by cut hedges of