Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/496

438 the country in general, that the mere supply of food should make it necessary for men to spread themselves over such an immense tract of country, in order to find fertile spots capable of producing it. How far distant such spots are from each other may be concluded from what one farmer told us while there. On being asked why he brought his young children with him to the Cape, from whence he lived fifteen days' journey, and told that he had better have left them with his next neighbour: "neighbour," said he, "my nearest neighbour lives five days' journey from me."

Nor does the country in the immediate neighbourhood of the Cape give any reason to contradict the idea of immense barrenness which must be formed from what I have said. The country in general is either bare rock, shifting sand, or grounds covered with heath, etc., like the moors of Derbyshire and Yorkshire, except the very banks of the few rivulets, where are a few plantations chiefly utilised, if well sheltered, for raising garden stuff, and if rather less sheltered as vineyards; but if exposed nothing can stand the violence of the wind, which blows here through the whole summer or dry season. During my whole stay I did not see a tree in its native soil as tall as myself; indeed housekeepers complain of the dearness of firewood, as almost equal to that of provisions, nothing being burnt here but roots, which must be dug out of the ground. What, indeed, proves the influence of the wind in prejudice to vegetation is that a stem not thicker than my thumb (and thicker they never are) will have a root as thick as my arm or leg.

As their distant settlements are directly inland, and the whole coast either is, or is thought to be, totally destitute of harbours, their whole communication is carried on by land carriage. Waggons drawn by oxen are employed in that service: they are, however, very light, and the cattle so much more nimble than ours in Europe, that they assured us that they sometimes travelled at the rate of eight miles an hour. Travelling is also very cheap. As there are no inns upon the roads, every one must carry his own provisions with him, and the oxen must live upon the heath or ling