Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/491

Rh name of Tafel or Table. It has of late years very much increased in size, and consists of about a thousand houses, neatly built of brick, and in general whitened over. The streets in general are broad and commodious, all crossing each other at right angles. In the chief of them is a canal, on each side of which is a row of oak trees, which flourish tolerably well, and yield an agreeable shade to walkers. Besides this there is another canal running through the town, but the slope of the ground is so great that both have to be furnished with sluices, at intervals of little more than fifty yards.

In houses the same poverty of inventions exists here as at Batavia. They are almost universally built upon one and the same plan, whether small or large. In general they are low, and universally covered with thatch; precautions said to be necessary against the violence of the S.E. winds, which at some seasons of the year came down from the Table Mountain with incredible violence.

Of the inhabitants, a far larger proportion are real Dutch than of those of Batavia; but as the whole town is in a manner supported by entertaining and supplying strangers, each man in some degree imitates the manners and customs of the nation with which he is chiefly concerned. The ladies, however, do not follow their husbands in this particular, but so true are they to the customs of the fatherland, that scarcely one of them will stir without a sooterkin or chauffette ready to place under her feet, whenever she shall sit down. The younger ones, though, do not in general put any fire in them, but seem to use them merely for show. In general they are handsome, with clear skins and high complexions, and when married (no reflections upon my country-women) are the best housekeepers imaginable, and great child-bearers. Had I been inclined for a wife, I think this is the place of all others I have seen, where I could have best suited myself.

Their servants are in general Malay slaves, who are brought here from Batavia; to these they behave much better than the Batavians, in consequence of which these