months: musquitoes are less troublesome than in most warm climates: but a small sand fly, almost invisible, is the cause of great torment.--Almost all the snakes of the country are venomous.The fatal diseases, which prevail among the natives, Mr. Barrow attributes to their habits of life, rather than to the climate; in support of which opinion, he remarks that the English troops enjoy uncommonly good health in this colony.

Of the inhabitants of the Cape, and of their situation under the English governments, Mr. Barrow thus writes:

The education of youth has hitherto been very much neglected. The government never hit upon any successful plan for the establishment of public schools; and the individual had no other ambition but that of qualifying his sons, by writing and accounts, to become servants of the company. This body of merchants had a number of persons in their employ who were very ill paid. Their salaries indeed were insufficient to afford them a bare subsistence; but it tacitly allowed them to negociate for themselves. The consequence of such a conduct was, that each became a kind of petty dealer. Each had his little private shop in some corner of his house. The most paltry articles were in the list of their commodities for sale; and those who ranked high in the government, and assumed a string of full-sounding epithets to their names, felt no sort of indignity in retailing the produce of their gardens; not indeed avowedly, but through the medium of their slaves. fact, the minds of every class, the governor, the clergy, the fiscal, and the secretary of state excepted, were wholly bent on trade. Koopman or merchant was a title that conferred rank at the Cape, to which the military even aspired. On this subject the ideas of the Dutch differ widely from those of the Chinese, who have degraded the merchant into the very lowest order of their society.

In

That portion of the day, not employed in the concerns of trade, is usually devoted to the gratification of the sensual appetites. Few have any taste for reading, and none for the cultivation of the fine arts. They have no kind of public amusements except occasional balls; nor is there much social

intercourse but by family parties, which usually consist of card-playing or dancing. Money-matters and merchandize engross their whole conversation; yet none are opulent, though many are in easy circumstances. There are no beggars in the whole colony; and but a few who are the objects of public charity. The subsistence of these is derived from the interest of a fund established out of the church superfluities, from alms, donations, and from collections made after divine service, and not from any tax laid upon the public. Except, indeed, a few colonial assessments for the repairs of the streets and public works, the inhabitants of the Cape have little drawback on their profits or the produce of their labour.

It has been the remark of most travellers that the ladies of the Cape are pretty, lively, and good-humoured; possessing little of that phlegmatic temper which is a principal trait in the national character of the Dutch. The difference in the manners and appearance of the young men and the young women, in the same family, is inconceivably great. The former are clumsy in their shape, aukward in their carriage, and of an unsociable disposition; whilst the latter are generally of a small delicate form, below the middle size, of easy and unaffected manners, well dressed, and fond of social intercourse, an indulgence in which they are seldom restrained by their parents, and which they as seldom turn to abuse. They are here indeed less dependant on, and less subject to, the caprice of parents than elsewhere. Primogeniture entitles to no advantages; but all the children, male and female, share alike in the family property. No parent can disinherit a child without assigning, on proof, one at least of the 14 reasons enumerated in the Justinian code. By the law of the colony, a community of all property, both real and personal, is supposed to take place on the marriage of two persons, unless the contrary should be particularly provided against by solemu contract made before marriage. Where no such contract exists, the children, on the death of either parent, are entitled to that half of the joint property which was supposed to belong to the deceased, and which cannot be withheld on application after they are come of age.

It is but justice to the young females of the Cape to remark, that many of them have profited much more than could be expected from the limited means of education that the place affords. In the better families, most of them are taught music, and some have acquired a tolerable degree of execution. Many understand the French language, and some have made great proficiency in the English. They are expert at the nee dle, at all kinds of lace, knotting, and tambour work, and in general make up their own dresses, following the prevailing fashions of England brought from time to time by the female passengers bound to India, from whom they may be said to

Catch the manners living as they rise.'

Neither are the other sex, while boys, deficient in vivacity or talent; but for want of the means of a proper education, to open their minds and excite in them a desire of knowledge, they soon degenerate into the common routine of eating, smoaking, and sleeping. Few of the male inhabitants associate with the English, except such as hold employments under the government. This backwardness may be owing in part to the different habits of the two nations, and partly, perhaps, to the reluctance that a vanquished people must always feel in mixing with the conquerors. No real cause, however, of complaint or disaffection could possibly be alledged against the English government at the Cape. No new taxes have been imposed since the conquest; but, on the contrary, some of the old ones have been diminished, and others modified. The demand and value of every production of the colony have very considerably increased, while the articles of import have fallen, in their prices. More than 200,000 rix-dollars of arrears in rent of land have been remitted to the inhabitants by the British government, as well as 180,000 rix-dollars of dubious debts. They have preserved their laws and their religion, both of which continue to be administered by their own people. They enjoy as great a share of rational liberty as men, bound to each other, and to the whole, by the ties that a state of society necessarily imposes, could possibly expect, and much VOL. III.

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greater than under their former government. Property has been secure in every instance, and has been raised to double its former value: and none has the loss of life of any friend or relation to lament at the time of, or since, the capture. Their paper currency, fabricated by the government in order to get get over a temporary distress, but which it had never been able to take out of circulation, bore a depreciation of 40 per cent, and a silver dollar was scarcely to be seen. The former is now at par with specie, and not less than 2,000,000 of the latter have been sent from England and thrown into circulation. - Every person enjoys his share of the general prosperity. The proprietor of houses in town has more than doubled his rent; and the farmer in the country, where formerly he received a rix-dollar for each of his sheep, now receives three. Four years of increasing prosperity, of uninterrupted peace and domestic tranquillity, have been the happy lot of the inhabitants of the Cape of Good Hope.

The Malay slaves are said to be active and docile, faithful and honest, but dangerous on account of their impetuosity and -revengeful temper. Mr. Barrow relates an instance of refinement of revenge in one of these people, which we can scarcely credit: perhaps the story has lost much of its original truth, and has gained some false embellishments. It is thus told:

'A Malay conceiving that he not only had served his master sufficiently long, and with great fidelity, but had also paid him several sums of money, he was tempted to demand his liberty, and met with a refusal. The following morning the Malay murdered his fellow-slave. On being taken and brought up for examination before a commission of the court of justice, he acknowledged that the boy be had murdered was his friend; but he had considered that the most effectual way to be revenged of his master was, not by taking away his life, but by robbing him of the value of 1,000 rix-dollars, by the loss of the boy, and another 1,000 by bringing himself, in so doing, to the gallows; the recollection of which would prey upon his avaricious mind for the remainder of his life."

The carriages of pleasure, which are here maintained at a very trifling expence, are open, and capable of containing four

or six persons; these, however, are only used for short excursions, as journies are usually performed in a light machine, similar to a waggon, that is sufficiently spacious to accommo date a whole family with provisions, apparel, &c. and are sheltered from the weather, by a covering of sail-cloth. The drivers, who are usually of a mixed breed, between a Hottentot and a European, or a female Hottentot and a slave, are extremely dexterous in their avocation, and will either turn abruptly, or gallop through the most dangerous avenues, with eight in hand, with the greatest facility imaginable.

Mr. Barrow's departure from Cape Town was appointed for the 1st of July, 1797, and the preceding month was passed in making the necessary preparations, fitting up three spans, or teams; and providing a sufficient number of draught oxen, which, after the recent drought, were ill conditioned, and extremely scarce; these, however, were procured, with drivers and Hottentots to lead the relays, and on the evening of the above-mentioned day, all things were in readiness, and the waggons quitted the town.

Though the rainy season usually sets in about the beginning of May, the entire month of June was one series of fine weather in this year, by which the husbandmen were materially injured, and the cattle so debilitated, that two of them dropped under the yokes, before our traveller had proceeded three miles, and were consequently obliged to be left behind.

After a tedious progress of seven hours, in which they had merely travelled 13 miles, they came to a place, called Strickland, which is considered a very important station, in case of a powerful attack, and is therefore supplied with extensive stabling for dragoons, and suitable accommodations for the officers and soldiers.

Strickland is situated on the south point of the Tiger mountain, terminating on this side the Sandy isthmus. A variety of gardens, fruiteries, vineyards, and corn fields, dotted with several pleasant farms, wind round the feet of the mountain, and enrich the circumjacent vallies.

The plain, that extends to the eastward from this spot, is more frequently clothed with plants and shrubs, than the isth