walk, or one mile and a half, was considered as comprised in the grant. If possible, he would take care to include in the boundaries so much of some water-course, as to leave a neighbour no temptation to encroach upon him; and it was one of the regulations of the Compapy,-additionally tending to scatter the population, that if the interval left between the contiguous lines of two farms of this description was less than an hour's walk, no new comer should be allowed to take possession of the neutral ground. Hence the term neighbour acquired, and still possesses, in South Africa, a construction quite unlike that which is given to it in other civilized countries; there being, in what are considered the occupied sections, not unfrequently a distance of five or six miles between the nearest limits of these immense estates, and sometimes of a whole day's journey. It is related of one corn-boor,- for all these people may be said to come under one of the three classes of grain-growers, wine-makers, or wool-raisers, that when, upon a certain occasion, an enterprising Englishman benevolently proposed to lead the water of two neighbouring springs by an artificial process to his grounds, on condition of his sowing them with grain, Mynheer shrugged up his shoulders, and very composedly remarked, that, "it was hardly worth while, since he could just as well purchase what flour he wanted of his neighbour, who lived only five days' journey off.” * This incident is a true indication of the agricultural syswhich if such management deserves that name, the old Dutch boors have universally pursued. "What," said one of them, within two days' journey of the Cape, to Mr. Latrobe, "what would you have us do? Our only concern is to eat enough, to get good clothes and houses, and be waited upon by our slaves; and as to our tillage, building, or planting, our forefathers did so and so, and were satisfied; and why should not we do the same?" The English, added this shrewd reasoner, their ploughs, and so on, but we like our old things best." tem, 66 want us to use The plough here alluded to is a utensil, which, if we rightly comprehend its construction, requires some ten or a dozen oxen to work, and therein may be considered a tolerably fair exemplification of both the ingenuity and economy of * London Quarterly Review. the enlightened proprietor of the team. One writer describes the instrument as "a couple of heavy boards nailed together," and the harrow as simply "a few brambles." The wagons of the boors, used chiefly for travelling, are drawn by sixteen, and sometimes twenty oxen. Winnowing is performed by tossing the grain in the air with shovels, it having been previously beat out, or trampled out, as the phrase is, after the antique fashion recorded in Deuteronomy, by spreading the sheaves on a floor kept for the purpose, and turning in upon them the farmer's whole posse of horses, colts and all, who are kept dancing and frisking about, by a Hottentot armed with a long whip, till the grain is separated from the ear. The writer just cited, states that he saw, on one of the best farms in the Kolburg District, eighty horses employed in this manner, working by relays of forty. Fourteen men were also engaged, and the quantity of grain thus trampled and winnowed in a day was about one hundred and twenty bushels. It is well remarked, that a threshing-machine of four-horse power, would accomplish this work in the same time, with eight hands, without mixture of sand or dust, and without loss of animal life, which in the case just mentioned amounted to the sum of £60. And yet the unwillingness to introduce new machinery is so strong, that when a threshing-machine was set up on one occasion by an Englishman, in what is called Hottentot Holland, it was well nigh destroyed by obstructions secretly thrust into it by the petty malice of his oldfashioned neighbours.* Its operations, too, excited probably much the same sort of superstitious consternation as that with which the Virginian Indians regarded, in Captain Smith's time, the discharge of a blunderbuss. From the statement above quoted in regard to the force employed in treading out grain, it will be conjectured that horses are not particularly a desideratum, in some parts of the Colony; and it may be added, that they are generally of a serviceable breed. Cattle and sheep are owned in great numbers by the graziers. Dr. Lichtenstein, in his Travels, mentions one boor who was the owner of 690 head of cattle, and 1470 sheep, besides 80 horses; and another who had 300 horses and 1600 sheep. Twenty-two families *Notes on the Cape. London. 1821. in one district shared among them 80,000 sheep, with a proper proportion of other stock; and in another, thirty-six families had 100,000. Mr. Kay somewhere remarks, that owing to the mildness of the climate, (which makes it unnecessary to provide any winter subsistence for these vast herds and flocks, additional to what the equally vast domains of the owners supply in their pasturage,) four thousand head of cattle may probably be kept with no greater expense than ten would occasion in the cold latitudes of North America. - has The progress which the Albany settlement, founded on the eastern frontier about fifteen years since, by emigrants from England, under the charge of the Government, already made in the grazing business, is another indication. of the importance which may be reasonably attached to it as a principal source of revenue and prosperity to all those sections of the Colony which are similarly situated. Here, over an area of 2,408 square miles, considerable portions of which are too sandy and too near the sea to be favorable to this sort of grazing, there were found to be, three years since, about 80,000 Cape and 10,000 Spanish sheep, besides 15,000 goats, and large numbers of horses and horned cattle. The district is said to be capable of supporting 300,000 sheep; and, therefore, it will doubtless be considered an object worthy of some attention, not only to increase the number, but to improve the breed of the animal by the introduction of the merino, Saxony, and other species. The native animal is described by the author of "Notes on the Cape," as a wretched beast, with wool that might be taken for frizzly hair, and fit only for stuffing cushions, while, in a culinary point of view, they are rendered as little desirable by a long-legged lankness which qualifies them, in our author's opinion, much better for the racing-ground than for the spit. That something has been done for the improvement of this breed we infer, not only from the Reports of the Cape Agricultural Society (which may be seen in the Cape Town newspapers), but from the statements of Mr. Kay and others. That gentleman speaks of an Albany farmer who estimated the value of his next shearing, from a flock of 4,600 sheep, at £625 sterling, calculating at a price actually offered. The 90,000 sheep in the whole district, at the same VOL. XVII. N. S. VOL. XII. NO. III. 51 rate, had they been of the same breed (mixed merino and native), would have produced £12,500; instead of which we find, by reference to official returns of the exports from Algoa Bay, published in the Cape Town Commercial Advertiser of the last winter, that the wool sent off amounted, in six months of 1833, to only £1,374, while the value of their hides exported to Great Britain alone was nearly £16,000, their tallow nearly £6,000, and even their "curiosities," £896. The returns of the exports from Table Bay, for the months of October, November, and December, of the same year, give for the amount of wool £745, out of a total of between £40,000 and £50,000. It is remarkable, that the sheep-skins amounted to £1,785 during the same period, and even the "sheep-tail" (using the official phraseology) to £248. This latter term means, we suppose, that species of fat which the Cape sheep have the singular faculty of accumulating in the part of the body indicated by the name, in quantities almost exceeding belief. The author of the "Notes" says, "The tail of a sheep, which was driven near 200 miles from the interior, was known to weigh twenty-five pounds," and the average is understood to be over six pounds. Whether this article can be rendered sufficiently available in any other part of the civilized world, to make it a commercial substitute for good wool, may well be doubted;-it would probably be better used by the boors, as it generally has been, to answer the purpose of butter. In leaving this part of our subject, we must not forget the hospitable old farmer, mentioned by Thompson, who was the owner of 13,000 sheep, besides 2,000 horned cattle, horses, corn, &c., and whose extensive domestic establishment enabled him to accommodate twenty-eight other guests, at the same time with the traveller who tells the story, without the slightest apparent inconvenience. One shearing of such a patriarchal flock, if the wool were worth any thing, ought to make a boor's fortune for his life-time. Between £5,000 and £6,000 worth of flour and grain of different kinds, appears among the returns of the exports from Table Bay, and these articles, together with wool and wine, have been considered the great staples of the Colony. How far either or all of them may be rendered available commercially, must depend, independently of the capacity of the country, which indeed is not very ex tensive, on the success of the efforts made by the English to introduce an improved agricultural system. We do not imagine, however, that the value of the Colony in this respect can ever be so augmented as to give much cause for envy to other nations. Excellent wheat may be raised there, but not on a very considerable surface of the soil. The other grains are rather inferior to the English, and the same is true of most of the vegetables and fruits, though doubtless the flavor of all may be improved by increased attention to the culture. Good samples of tea have been produced in the Colony, and some calculations made upon its becoming a source of profit; but there seems to be no good reason for such a belief. Silk may perhaps do better; and we see it stated in the Cape Town papers, that in one or two instances it has repaid the care of the cultivator with returns quite as encouraging as could be desired. Premiums have been lately offered by the Agricultural Society for tobacco, but not apparently with much success. Olives of good quality may be raised, but probably not in such quantity as to be named among exportable articles; and the same may be said of the orange, lemon, pomegranate, apricot, and other tropical fruits which flourish on this soil. The result of the labors of the late emigrants to Southern Africa, perhaps sufficiently proves, not indeed that the Cape is a place to which the ignorant poor of the mother country should be indiscriminately advised and aided to emigrate, but rather that there is scarcely any portion of the globe's surface so destitute of natural resources, but that necessity, enterprise, and energy, were they less prominently developed than in the present condition and character of the British government and people, may avail to render it suitable and even comfortable in some decent degree. The Dutch, it is true, have not distinguished themselves in the Colony by the qualities characteristic of their countrymen at home, a diversity easily explainable by the circumstances under which they first occupied the soil, and by which they are still surrounded. The late English emigrants have, on the whole, done themselves credit by their perseverance, and by the degree of success attending their efforts. Albany District, though but fifteen years old, is now considered the most flourishing region within the colonial limits. The population, two years since, was 6,309, |