English language. We cannot help regretting that this important point is most unwisely overlooked in all our conquests; yet it might easily be effected, and without any violence to the feelings of the conquered: let but all official documents, all registers, title-deeds, instruments for conveying and securing property, be made in the English language, and the next generation will become Englishmen.

There are, however, two evils in the colony, which are not merely ideal,--the monopoly of the East India Company, and the depreciation of the paper currency.

The East India Company have, from the first, shewn themselves unfriendly towards this settlement, because (as it is supposed) the government refused to transfer the sovereignty of it to them; yet it has been of infinite importance to their boundless possessions in India, and may ultimately be the safety of them. The Company have the exclusive privilege of supplying the colony with India and China goods, which are doled out in monthly sales by an agent stationed at Cape Town, who takes especial care not to glut the market. The removal of this restriction, and placing the Cape on a footing with the British plantations in North America, would materially tend to raise it to an opulent colony, and to one of the first commercial stations in the universe.

The depreciated paper currency of the Cape is a very serious evil, which presses hard on all the colonists, but more especially on those in public situations with fixed salaries; and is deeply felt by all who are concerned in trade, and mercantile transactions. For some years past it has fluctuated from 80 to 130 per cent. discount, so that no one can be certain for six months together of the real state of his property. As the greater part of this paper was issued by the British government, it seems but reasonable that every possible means should be taken, in order to bring it back to its original value of five rix-dollars to the pound sterling. This will no doubt happen whenever the value of the exports shall exceed that of the imports; but while the merchant lies under the necessity of purchasing bills for remittances, the evil will continue to be felt. It might tend in some degree to alleviate the evil, if the money to be repaid to the emigrants by the government were issued in bills on his Majesty's trea

sury.

Having thus noticed the principal objections, real and imaginary, to the colonization of the Cape, it only remains for us to describe briefly the district in which it is proposed to place the emigrants; and to inquire to what extent the colony is capable of receiving an additional population.

The spot intended for them, in the first instance, is called by

the

the Dutch, the Zuureveld, or sour-grass plains, but by the English, Albany. It lies between the Sunday and the Great Fish Rivers, nearly 500 miles to the eastward of the Cape peninsula, and stretches about 70 miles along the line of the seacoast, by 30 inland, containing about 2000 square miles, or 1,280,000 acres, of which 280,000 may perhaps, at this time, be occupied by 30 or 60 families: the remaining million will be disposable; and of this the greater portion is convertible to useful purposes; the rugged summits of the hills lie favourably for sheep and cattle; their gently sloping sides for vineyards; and the plains and valleys for grain, pulse, artificial grasses, and culinary vegetables. The surface of this district is beautifully variegated by hill and dale, and, what is rarely met with in other parts of the colony, it is tolerably well covered with a thick coarse grass, which, being suffered to wither on the ground from year to year, springs up with that rankness which has given name to the district. When the Caffres were in possession of these plains, their custom was to set fire to the grass, which spreading over several square miles, made the whole surface, when the rains came, wear the appearance of a field of young corn.

The plains of Albany are interspersed with fine clumps of vigorous brushwood, mixed with trees of a considerable size, having all the appearance of a gentleman's park in England; and the deep ravines near the sea-coast are choked up with forests of a superior growth. The whole district is intersected by several streams of water flowing from north to south, besides a number of streamlets and springs which have never been opened, or prevented from running to waste.

The nearest bay to the settlement is that of Zwart-Kops, or Algoa, which though open to the south-east or summer winds, affords good and safe anchorage; the only inconvenience being the almost perpetual surf which rolls upon the beach during their continuance. The bar of Zwart-Kops is alternately open and closed, but the river, within the bar, is navigable by small vessels for several miles. Near its bank has recently been established a new town, called Uitenhage, which is also the name of the whole district, formerly a part of Graaf Reynet. Here is the residence of the local magistrate or landrost. For the present, therefore, this place will be the general mart for the new settlers; but as population multiplies, and the surplus produce increases, some of the rivers will no doubt be made accessible, and fishing towns or villages be established along the shore of Albany. The coasts of the colony every where abound with a variety of good esculent fish, which, except in the bays near the Cape, have never been molested. So little indeed do either the Hottentots or the Caffres NOL. XXII. NO. XLIII.

♦

know

know or care about fish, that they have not a single embarkation of any kind, not even a canoe, from the Cape Point to Delagoa Bay. The boor sometimes, but very rarely, makes a party of pleasure to fish near the mouths of the rivers, and ill furnished as he is with fishing tackle, he is always successful. It is to be hoped, therefore, that among the families about to proceed, will be found a few fishermen by profession. Besides the certainty of an abundant supply, they will have the advantage of obtaining salt in any quantity from the salt-pans of Uitenhage, or indeed with great facility by the mere evaporation of sea-water.

The rivers that flow through Albany into the sea are the Sunday, the Bosjeman, the Kareeka, the Kasowka, the Kowie, and the Great Fish River, or Rio d'Infante of the Portugueze. The last is perhaps the only one that will admit vessels of burden. Within, it is of sufficient depth and capacity for the largest ships of war; but, like all the rivers on this coast, its mouth is crossed by a bar of sand. We doubt, however, whether it has been examined since the colony came into our hands: the presumption is, that vessels of considerable burden may pass, otherwise the Portugueze would scarcely have erected a fort at its entrance for their protection. Should this prove to be the case, it will be of infinite advantage to the settlers of Albany, as a harbour from which they will at all times be able to export their produce, and to open a trade with Mozambique, the Isle of France, and Madagascar, whence cattle may be imported in any quantity at a very trifling expense.

Besides these rivers and their several branches, numerous springs of water are met with in all the finely wooded dells, which still remain, as the boors found them, in a state of nature. Within land, on the northward, Albany is skirted by thickets of luxuriant growth, abounding with aloes, euphorbias, and other succulent plants, and extending, with few interruptions, thirty or forty miles in depth; not one foot of which has ever been cleared-because, as the boors alleged, the milky euphorbias put out the fire whenever they attempted to burn the thickets.* The few elephants that yet remain take shelter in these coppices, in which are also found the various beasts of prey peculiar to this part of Africa. Not many years ago the plains of Albany literally swarmed with game of all kinds; but the number of troops which have of late been stationed there, the incursions of the Caffres, and above all, the Hottentots collected at a missionary establishment on the lower part of the Kasowka, have very considerably thinned them. From the general view which we have taken, it is evident that

* Barrow's Travels in Southern Africa.

the

the colony affords ample scope for an extended cultivation. Including Albany, there are not less than seven millions of acres of unoccupied and cultivable lands, besides three times that amount of an inferior quality-an extent of territory capable of affording an affluent provision for seventy thousand industrious and agricultural families. The loan-farms, in present occupation, amount in number to nearly 2300; in quantity to eleven millions of acres. If, under a better system, these farms were parcelled out, and each made to support but one-tenth part of the number of persons residing at Gnadenthal, itself once a loan-farm, they would give employment and maintenance to a population of 270,000 souls, instead of 20,000, the utmost number residing on them at present, including slaves and Hottentots: and if to the numbers employed in agriculture, we add the tradesmen and artificers in the towns, those occupied in the fisheries, and the coasting-trade, we may safely conclude, that the colony is capable of supporting a population little short of a million of souls.

That many of the neglected and wholly uncultivated loanfarms, now in the possession of Dutch boots, will fall into the hands of more active aud industrious proprietors, can scarcely be a matter of doubt, or regret. Hemmed in on every side, and all his old habits broken in upon, the boor, finding that neither he nor his cattle can any longer take their accustomed range, nor Hottentots be procured to attend his flocks and herds, will be too happy to dispose of his interest in the land, and betake himself behind the Snowy Mountains, to that delightful retreat, among the Bosjesmans, recommended by Mr. Burchell.

To those British farmers, aud others, who, having small capitals to carry with them, may proceed on their own account, and select their own situation in the colony, either by purchase or grant, we would particularly recommend some of the following positions as most likely to meet their purpose. To the northward, Zwartland, Twenty-four Rivers, and Picquetberg, all excellent for the cultivation of corn and wine, and in the neighbourhood of Saint Helena and Saldanha bays-To the eastward, the banks of the Breede river, and the plain, through which it flows from Waveren to the sea-coast, both well adapted for the culture of grain, which can be transported to St. Sebastian's bay, by the said river, just now, for the first time, discovered to be navigable by vessels of considerable burden, thirty or forty miles into the interior!-On the same coast, in the neighbourhood of Mossel, Plettenberg and Algoa bays, where the soil is fit for any species of culture-and lastly, the shores of the Knysna harbour, situate about twenty miles on the Cape side of Plettenberg's bay, in the immediate vicinity of the only forests of timber in the whole co

lony,

lony. The entrance into this secure harbour is about two hundred and eighty yards in width, the depth of water twenty-one feet, and it deepens and widens within to a spacious lake, communicating by a river with the best part of the forest, and surrounded by a beautiful and fertile country, occupied at present by two persons, one of whom is an Englishman, who, in possession of another Mount Edgecombe, with his black wife, and three or four dingy daughters, has adopted all the slovenly habits of a Dutch boor. A place so situated, and so admirably adapted for a dockyard, or ship-building establishment, for the coast fishery, and, above all, as a central mart for the coasting trade, cannot long remain in its present state.

We shall mention but one spot more, and that chiefly with a view to shew how much this neglected colony is open to improvement, and how little its advantages appear to be understood. On the coast of the Cape peninsula, within ten miles of the capital, is an excellent harbour, completely land-locked, and perfectly secure at all seasons of the year, (the bottom sandy, with good anchorage,) and capable of holding at least twenty sail of the line. Such is Hout bay! It abounds with a great variety of good fish, and numerous rills from the wooded ravines on either side uniting in the middle, flow in a clear and copious stream down a beautiful valley, containing at the least 3000 acres; the whole of which is in the possession of one man, whose house, situated near the margin of the bay, is surrounded by a few roods of corn-land and vineyards; the rest being a complete wilderness, overgrown with what in India would be called jungle. Thirty industrious English families, with a hundred acres apportioned to each, would, in the course of a very few years, convert this unprofitable desert into a perfect paradise.

It would be a waste of words to dwell on the political and commercial importance of a colony so happily situated as that of the Cape, commanding, by its position, a ready communication with every part of the civilized world, and which, if deemed advisable, might be made the great entrepot of the eastern and western hemispheres. But we cannot pass in silence, one of the beneficial results which we anticipate from the extended colonization of the Cape, namely, that of the improved condition of the bordering Caffres. The example of an industrious population of Europeans will not, we are persuaded, be thrown away on this well disposed and fine race of men; on the contrary, we augur that, when they shall have adjusted their disputes among themselves, they will cheerfully set about the cultivation of a grateful soil, not with coarse millet and bitter gourds, as heretofore, but with productions of a more useful and salutary nature. These people, being. entirely