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 channels of its rivers are wide, but often dry, and when filled by the annual rains, destitute of fish. Animal life in all its tribes is scanty, and that of man is not an exception. In the interior one may travel a hundred miles, and not seemore than two moderate sized villages; twenty or thirty miles and not see more than two or three farm-houses, nor meet with more traffic than a chance waggon or a post-boy. Agriculture is little attended to; wool of very fine staple is the chief product of the farm; yet the sod is so poor that it requires a thousand acres to feed a thousand merinos. Withal, the climate of the Cape is a very fine one, and well calculated to restore the constitution of most people, broken by along residence in India; the fresh clear complexions, the firmness and elasticity in the gait of the fair maids of the Cape, and the bone and muscle and stalwart frames of the men prove that no degeneration has taken place amongst them.

The population of the Cape is principally Dutch, but they have been a good deal Anglicised, and the English language is the chief means of communication. The aborigines, the Hottentots, are in many parts extinct,or are so crossed with other tribes as to have lost their identity. The Mozambique race (emancipated slaves or their descendants,) perform most agricultural and domestic labour, while a large and