CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, an extensive European settle ment on the southern extremity of the African continent, lies between 29° 55', and 34° 47' S. Lat., and between 17° 36', and 28° 17' E. Long. It is bounded on the west and south by the ocean, on the east by the Great Fish River, and Caffreland ; and on the north by the river Koussie, and the country of the Bosjesmans. Its mean length is nearly 550, and mean breadth 233 English miles, and it comprehends an area of about 123,150 square miles. These boundaries are, in a great measure, imaginary ; and to the northward especially, might be extended very far beyond what is now accounted the limit, without en croaching upon the territory of any nation ; while on the eastern side of the province, the Caffres have for many years been systematically pressing in upon the line of de marcation stipulated between them and the Dutch ; and they actually held possession of a large tract of the most productive part of the province, to the westward of the Great Fish River, until a very few months ago, when they became more bold in their aggressions, and murder ed the land-droost, or chief magistrate of Graaf Rcynet, the district contiguous to their country, with all his family, with the design of driving in the colonists, and adding to their encroachments. Colonel Graham was sent by the governor with an adequate force, and vigor ously pushed into the part of the country they inhabited, louted them, and drove them within their limits. The Caffres have been classed amongst savages ; but their steady perseverance in pursuing a uniform design for so Lon;; a p' Hod, Would do credit to the policy of an Euro state. Their system of espionage is no less com plete than their success in concealing their own circum stances from their neighbours : the British troops were, on the late occasion, astonished to find a very considera ble extent of land in a state of high cultivation, at a very small distance from the residence of the magistrate.
We are not to estimate, however, the value of this settlement by its extent of surface. The greater part of it is covered with naked mountains, or sterile and un profitable plains, many of which are totally incapable of any kind of culture, and even without a plant or shrub fitted for the support of animal life ; while others are, in the season, covered with verdure, and frequented by an telopes. These mountains generally run in the direction of east and west, except those in the Cape peninsula and the chain, which, beginning at False Bay, stretches along the western coast to the northward, as far as the mouth of Elephant's river, and is about 210 miles in length. The most southern range extends along the coast, at between 20 and 60 miles distance fl mn the sea; the central range, called ZWarteberg, or Black Mountain, runs parallel to it, is more lofty and rugged, and in many places is composed of double and sometimes treble chains ; and the northern range, or Nieuwveld moun tains, which are still higher, (supposed to be about 10,000 feet above the level of the sea,) have their sum mits sometimes covered with snow during the. severity of the winter season. The chain which extends from the extremity of the Cape peninsula northwards, is ter mina! ed by the Table Mountain, and its two wings, the Devil's Hill, and Lion's I lead. These three may he al most considered as one mountain, for though their sum wilts arc disunited, yet they are all joined at a considera ble elevation above the common base. The north side of the Table Mountain, which faces the town, presents a bold and almost perpendicular front, extending nearly two miles in length, and broke n hito three divisions by two immense chasms, which give it the appearance of a mighty ruin. Its height is 3582 feet above the level of Table Bay, that of Devil's ilill is 3315, and the Lion's Dead is 2160. The mountains of this country, according to I\ 1r Barrow," at a distance, possess neither the sublime nor the beautiful ; but 'the approach to their bases, and the ',loot's, (or passages by which the mountains are asandA,) are awfully grand and terrific ; sometimes their naked points of solid rock rise. almost perpendicu larly, like a wall of masonry, to the height of three, Jim., and even five thousand feu, resembling the Table Mountain sometimes the inclination of the strata is so great, that the whole mass of mountain appears to have its centre of gravity falling without the base, and as if it momentarily threatened to strew the plain with its vene rable ruins ; in other places, where the looser fragments have given way, they are irregularly peaked, and broken into a variety of fantastic shapes." We arc also inform ed, by the same traveller, that the component parts of those mountains consist of sandstone, resting upon a base of granite. This base, however, is in some moun tains considerably elevated above the general surface of the country, and, in others, its summit is sunk far be neath it.' In the Table Mountain, the granite base ter minates only at about 500 feet above the level of the sea. From that commences a horizontal stratum of siliceous sandstone, of a dirty yellow colour, which is covered by a deep brown sandstone, containing calciform ores of iron, and veins of hematite, and is surmounted by a mass of a whitish grey shining granular quartz, about 1000 feet in height. The rocks on the summit, which have
entirely passed into sandstone, are surrounded with my riads of oval shaped and rounded pebbles of semitrans parent quartz, which were formerly imbedded in them ; but no shells, petrefactions of fishes, or impressions of plants, arc to be found, as some travellers have asserted. The composition of the other mountains is nearly similar to that of the Table Mountain ; and the stratification of the whole colony is also much the same as that of the Cape peninsula. Blue compact schistus, generally placed in parallel ridges, in the direction of north-west and south-east, but frequently interrupted by large masses of a hard flinty rock, of the same colour, belong ing to that class of aggregated stones, called, by Mr Kirwan, granitelles, forms the substratum. This is co vered with a body of strong clay, which is coloured with iron, and abounds with brown foliated mica ; and in which arc imbedded immense blocks of granite, so loosely ce mented together that the constituent parts can easily be separated by the hand. The mica, the sand, and indeed the whole bed of clay, is supposed, by Mr Barrow, to have been formed by the decomposition of the granite. Large masses of these aggregated stones are found lying entirely exposed between the Lion's head and the sea. They arc mostly rent, and arc falling asunder from their ow n weight, and sonic of them arc so completely exca vated that nothing but the crust or shell remains. Such hollow blocks are very common on the hills of Africa, and arc frequently converted into habitations by runaway slaves. " There is wither a volcano, nor a volcanic product," says Mr Barrow, " in the southern extremity of Africa, at least in any of those parts where I have been, nor any substances that seem to have undergone the action of lire, except masses of iron-stone, found generally among the boggy earth, in the neighbourhood of some of the hot springs, and which appear like the scorix of furnaces. Pieces of pumice-stone have been picked up on the shore of Robben-island, (or Seal Island, in the mouth of Table Ba),) and on the coast near Algoa bay, which must have been wafted thither by the waves, as the whole basis of this island is a hard and compact blue schistus, with veins of quartz running through it ; and, of the eastern coast, iron stone and granite." The rivers, which intersect this extensive colony, are of very little advantage to it, either for the purposes of agriculture or navigation. Many of them are merely pen iodical torrents, which continue to flow during the rainy season, but which, during the summer, leave their deep sunk beds almost completely dry ; and the rivulets, which are supplied by the mountain springs, have scarce ly escaped from the lofty sources, before they are either absorbed or evaporated. The permanent rivers, some of which contain sufficient water for the navigation of small craft, for several miles up the country, are all, ex cept the Knysna, rendered inaccessible, by a bed of sand, or a reef of rocks across the mouth : The principal of these, on the west coast, arc, Oliphant, or Elephant's river, which runs in a northerly direction along the foot of the western chain of mountains, and falls into the Atlantic in S. Lat. 31° 3U; and the Berg, or Mountain river, which has its source in the mountains which in close the vale of Drakenstein, and discharges itself into St Helena bar. Those on the south coast arc, Broad river, which falls into St Sebastian's bay, and at its mouth is nearly a mile broad. Ganritz river collects its waters from the Black Mountains and Karroo plains, and during the rains is the most rapid and dangerous in the colony ; Canztoos river, which is supplied f-om the same part of the cou'.try, but more easterly, empties itself into a bay of the Same name, and, within the bar, is deep enough to float a ship of the line ; Sunday river, which rises in the Snewberg, or Snow mountains, and falls into Zwart Kop's bay ; and Great Fish River, called Rio Infante by the Portuguese, which taking its rise far towards the north, about 200 miles from its mouth, collects in its long course a multitude of tributary streams, and forms the eastern boundary of the colony. Besides these are Zwart Kop's river, Keurboom river, and Knysna ; and numerous strcamlets on the southern coast. which con tinue their feeble course throughout the whole year, but whose channels are so deep, that little benefit can be de rived from their waters to the lands in the vicinity. All these rivers are well stored with perch, eels, and small turtle ; and the neighbouring shores abound with every kind of fish peculiar to these seas. The principal bays on this coast, besides those which have been already men tioned, arc Plettenbcrg's bay, Mossel bay, False bay, Simon's bay, Haute or Wood bay, Table bar, and Sai d:min. hay. Of these, Saldanha bay is the most commo dious, and affords at all seasoni, very excellent shelter and anchorage. It is about 15 miles long, in the direc Lion of north and south, and its entrance, which is through a ridge of granite hills, is only between two and three miles broad : the scarcity of wood and water, however, in its neighbourhood, must always prevent it from be coming a place of general rendezvous for a fleet.