impossible to ascertain the number of houses, on account of the irregularity of the streets, and lowness of the buildings, but concluded they must amount somewhere between two and three thousand, of the same kind, but not so large, as that of the chief. The whole population, including men, women, and children, we considered to be from ten to fifteen thousand souls. Tracing cur route from the last place in the Roggeveld, upon Mr. Barrow's map, and continuing the same scale, we calculated the situation of Leetakoo to be in latitude 26° 30′ south, and longitude 27° 00′ east from Greenwich." "The commissioners, from whose report I have above quoted, were informed at Leetakoo that another powerful tribe of the same nation, called the Baroloos, dwelt at the distance of eight or ten days' journey farther to the northward. Reckoning the average of a day's journey to be twenty miles, we shall Find the Baroloos inhabiting the country under the southern tropic; and we may conclade, from the following information which Mr. Truter received of this people, that they are not the last to the northward. He was told, That they were of a kind and friendly disposition; that their town was so extensive, that if a person set out in the morning from one extremity, and travelled to the other, he would not be able to return before the following day; that this town contained many thousand inhabitants; that the people were very ingenious in carving of wood, and that they had furnaces for smelting both copper and iron; that they were exceedingly rich in cattle; their gardens and lands were better cultivated, and their dwellings much superior to those of Leetakoo.' The Damaras also, whom I mentioned in my former travels to be in possession of the art of smelting copper from the ore, as well as I could colleet from report, are inhabitants of the tropic; and they are complete Kaffers, differing in nothing from those on the eastern coast. I should suppose, therefore, that a line drawn from the 24th parallel of latitude on the east coast, to the 20th on the west, may mark the boundary, or nearly so, between the Kaffers and the negroes." Of this interesting expedition we are encouraged to expect an account from Mr. Somerville. The Kaffers seldom taste animal food, curdled milk is their chief diet; to this they sometimes add a few gramineous roots, berries of various kinds, the seeds of the Sirelitzia Regina, and the pith of a large palm to which botanists have given the name of Zamia. Yet they are a tall and strong race, affording, says the author, a clear proof that animal food is by no means necessary to promote the growth of the human species, or to add strength of fibre to the mus cular parts of the body. The Dutch boors, who gorge themselves with animal food, are indeed enormously corpu lent, but possess neither strength nor activity: on the contrary, the peasantry of the north-west coast of Ireland, a tall, and strong, and brawny people, subsist on butter milk and potatoes. It is fairly inferred from their example, and from the Kaffers, "that difference of climate has no power to alter the general principle, and that the same cause produces the same effect in the northern parts of Europe, and in the southern corner of Africa." We have dwelt the more at length upon this interesting chapter, and the topics connected with it which occur in the other parts of the volume, as this is the part which most corresponds to the title of the work. The political chapters may be more briefly summed up, though matter so important is not to be lightly hurried over. Mr. Barrow proceeds to consider the importance of the Cape of Good Hope, as a military and naval station, in a commercial point of view, and as a depôt for the southern whale fishery. The cession of this conquest is not so much to be imputed to Mr. Addington, as to the directors of the East Indian company: he only followed the example of his predecessors in consulting the interest and inclination of Leadenhall and Threadneedle streets, instead of, or in opposition to, the public. To prove that the retention was of no use whatever to their commerce or their concerns in India, they forbade the commanders of all the ships in their employ, in the most positive terms, to touch at the Cape, either in their outward or in their homeward passages; except such as, on the return voyage, were destined to supply the settlement with Indian goods. English seamen could bear this; but in war time the Lascars frequently constitute more than two thirds of the crew; their chief sustenance is rice, oil, and vegetables, and they are ill calculated to suffer a long privation of their usual diet, and still less to bear the cold of the southern ocean, especially in the winter season: the Cape was the half-way house to which they looked on for fresh supplies,-the resting place where a few days were to recruit their health and spirits. "And the event proved that such a half-way house, to such people, was indispensably necessary; for the direc tors were obliged to countermand their order, as far as it regarded those ships that were navigated by the black natives of India. There occurred also one memorable instance of the importance of this resting place to European troops. The 22d and 34th regiments arrived there in a very sickly state. The same ships, after being properly washed, scour ed, and fumigated, and the crews completely refreshed, carried on other troops to their destination, without the loss of a single man; and those regiments, which on their arrival had excited the pity of every one who saw them, became in the course of two years very fine regiments, fit for service in any part of the world. Upwards of two thousand men were shipped from the Cape at a few days' notice, to join the army of India against Tippoo; they took the field the day after their landing, and contributed very materially towards the conquest of Seringapatam. Twelve hundred men were sent to accompany sir Home l'opham's expedition to the Red Sea; they also were embarked almost at a moment's warning, and were all landed at Cossir fit for immediate service. Ten years ago the East India company had it in contemplation to establish a depêt for their recruits. "The principal_regulations proposed for such depositary of troops, as contained in Historic View of Plans for British India,' were the following That the age of the company's recruits should be from twelve to fifteen or twenty, because at this period of life, the constitution was found to accommodate itself more easily to the different variations of climate. That the officers of the police should be empowered to transfer to the depôt all such helpless and indigent youths as might be found guilty of misdemeanours and irregularities approaching to crimes that the said officers of police, and others, should be authorized to engage destitute and helpless young men in a service, where they would have a comfortable subsistence, and an honourable employment-that the young men so procured should be retained in Great Britain, at a depôt, for a certain time, in order to be instructed in such branches of education as would qualify for the duty of a non-commissioned officer, and in those military exercises which form them for immediate service in the regiments in India. Now of all the places on the surface of the globe, for the establishment of such a depôt, the Cape of Good Hope is preeminently distinguished. In the first place, there would be no difficulty in conveying them thither. In every month of the year, the outward-bound ships of the company, private traders, or whalers, sail from England, and the fewer that each ship carried, the greater the probability would be that none died on the passage. And there is, perhaps, no place on the face of the earth in every respect so suitable as the Cape for forming them into soldiers. It possesses, among other advantages, three that are invaluable healthiness of climate, cheapness of subsistence, and a favourable situation for speedy intercourse with most parts of the world, and particularly with India." The Cape is the only military station that we have possessed of late years, where government was enabled to make a saving by feeding the soldier; that is, where the ration, or settled proportion of victuals, could be furnished for a sum of money less than that which is stopped out of his pay in consideration of it. The averaged annual expence of the military force there, during the seven years which we maintained it, amounted to 255,5971. 7. But, says Mr. Barrow, it would be the height of absurdity to say, that even this sum, moderate as it is, was an additional expence to government in consequence of the capture of this settlement; since it is not only composed of the expences of maintaining the garrison, and the contingencies and extraordinaries of the army, but it includes likewise the pay, the subsistence, and the clothing of an army of five thousand men, who must have been fed, clothed, and paid in any other place. Even in peace, the half pay of the commissioned officers would alone have amounted to from 100,000l. to 150,000l. In peace, 25 or 30,000l. would be the extent of the contingent and extraordinary expences of the Cape, and if that sum could not be defrayed out of the expence of the colony, that colony indeed must be most miserably misgoverned. Mr. Barrow proves, from the receipts under lord Macartney, that we might reckon upon a net annual revenue of 100,000. currency. In the next chapter it is considered as a naval station: first, as a port for refreshing and refitting the ships of the East India company; secondly, as a station for ships of war, commanding the entrance into the Indian seas; thirdly, as affording, by its geographical position, a ready communication with every part of the globe. On points so apparently self-evident it would be needless to enlarge; nor need we enter minutely into the inquiry to what extent the Cape might have been rendered advantageous to the interests of the British empire, as an emporium of eastern produce; as furnishing articles of export for consumption in Europe and the West Indies; and as taking in exchange for colonial produce, articles of British growth and manufacture. Mr. Barrow argues, and upon good grounds, that the company could supply their emporium at the Cape with the produce and manufactures of Great Britain, at so cheap a rate as to undersell any other nation; the Americans then, finding no longer a market there for their lumber cargoes, or notions, as they call them, would confine their export trade to articles of peltry and ginseng, which they might be induced to bring in exchange for tea, nankeen cloth, and muslins, at a moderate advanced price, such as would not make it worth their while to proceed to India and China, with which countries the company would then secure an exclusive trade. South America also offers a tempting market. "I observed in Rio de Janeiro a whole street, consisting of shops, and every shop filled with Indian muslins and Manchester goods, which, having come through Lisbon, were offered, of course, at enormous high prices. The trade, it is true, that subsists between England and Portugal, night render it prudent not materially to interfere with the Portugueze settlements; but the case is very different with regard to those of Spain. The mother country, more intent upon drawing specie from the mine, than in promoting the happiness of its subjects in this part of the world, by encouraging trade and honest industry, suffers them to remain frequently without any supply of European produce and manufacture. It is no uncommon thing, I understand, to see the inhabitants of Spanish America with silver buckles, clasps and buttons, silver stirrups and bits to their bri'dles, whilst the whole of their clothing is not worth a single shilling. The whalers who intend to make the coasts of Lima and Peru, are well acquainted with this circumstance, and generally carry out with them a quantity of ready made second-hand clothing, which they dispose of at a high rate in exchange for Spanish dollars. All this branch of trade might, with great advantage to both parties, be carried on from the Cape of Good Hope." Cape Madeira might be sold to the West Indies at less than one fourth of the expence of real Madeira; and a trade opened with New South Wales, exporting wine and clothing in exchange for coals. The following facts evince that a whale fishery might advantage. ously be established there. "The vast number of black whales that constantly frequented Table Bay, induced a company of merchants at the Cape to establish a whale fishery, to be confined solely to Table Bay, in order to avoid the great expence of purchasing any other kind of craft than a few common whale boats. With these alone they caught as many whales as they could wish for; filling, in a short space of time, all the casks and cisterns with oil. although whale-oil was to be procured to Having gone thus far, they perceived that, almost any amount at a small expence, they were still likely to be considerable losers by the concern. The consumption of the colony in this article was trifling; they had no ships of their own to send it to Europe, nor casks to put it on board others for freight. Their oil, therefore, continued to lie as a mim of bills on England induced some of dead stock in their cisterns, till the high prethe British merchants to purchase, and make their remittances in this article. The price at the Cape was about forty rix dollars the legger, or ten-pence sterling per gallon. Sometimes, indeed, ships from the southern whale fishery took a few casks to complete their cargoes, but in general they preferred to be at the trouble of taking the fish themselves, in or near some of the bays within the limits of the colony, where they are so plentiful, and so easily caught, as to ensure their success. It is remarked that all the whales which have been caught in the bays, are females; of a small size, generally from thirty to fifty feet in length, and yielding from six to ten tons of oil each. The bone is very small, and, on that account, of no great value. "The whale-fishing company, finding there was little probability of their disposing of the oil without a loss, thought of the experiment of converting it into soap. The great quantity of sea-weed, the fucus maximus, or buccinalis, so called from its resemblance to a trumpet, which grows on the western shore of Table Bay, suggested itself as an abundant source for supplying them with kelp or barilla and from the specification of a patent obtained in London, for freeing animal oils of their impurities, and the strong and offensive smell that train-oil in particular acquires, they endeavoured to reduce to practice this important discovery. The experiment, however, failed; for though they succeeded in making soap, whose quality in the most essential points might, perhaps, Le fully as good as was desired, yet the smell chase it. Unluckily for them there came in, was so disgusting that nobody would puralso, just at that tiine, a cargo of prize soap, which was not only more agreeable to the smell, but was sold at a rate Tower dan the company could afford to manufacture theirs of train oil. Being thus thwarted in all their views, they sold the whole concern to an English merchant, who was supposed to be turning it to a tolerable good account, when it was signified to him, by the present Dutch government, that the exclusive privilege of fishing on the coasts of Africa, within the limits of the colony, was granted to a company of merchants residing in Amster dam; and, therefore, that he could not be allowed to continue the concern." The Dutch themselves were not anxious that the Cape should be restored to them; Mr. Barrow tells us on good authority, that it was their intention, had peace continued, to have given it a fair trial of ten or twelve years, and if it should not then produce a surplus for the use of the state, to consider how to dispose of it to the best advantage. The French attempted, at the treaty of A miens, to make it a free port, a measure which would be the most effectual injury to the concerns of the company. The directors, however, we are told, have seen their error in undervaluing so important a possession; and the means of reconquering it are pointed out in this work, and of improving it, when we shall have reconquered and resolved to retain it. As one of the most effectual measures of improvement, he recommends that ten thousand Chinese should be introduced, a race of men industrious and useful in every situation; nor would there be any difficulty in prevailing upon that, or a greater, number to leave a country where the pressure of want is so frequently and so severely felt; neither is the government of China so strict in preventing emigration as is usually supposed. That prevention was politic when it was enforced as a state maxim; but the practice of the government has changed with the circumstances, and emigrations take place every year to Manilla, Batavia, Prince of Wales's Island, and to other parts of the eastern world, Another and easier method of increasing the quantity of productive industry, is by collecting together the Hottentots, as the Moravians have done at Bavian's Kloof, and encouraging them to settle upon the waste lands. The drought to which the colony is subject, might be materially lessened by compelling the boors to enclose their estates, as by their original grants they were bound to do: hedge rows and trees would shelter the ground, and attract moisture from the atmosphere. A fa mily or two might be procured from Madeira, to improve the process of making wine. A Dutch merchant, on the restoration of the colony, obtained a grant of the whole district of Plettenberg's Bay, on condition of paying a certain annual rent. This district he meant to divide into an hundred parcels, and apportion out to as many industrious families, Dutch or German, who were to be sent over with stock, utensils, implements of husbandry, and every other article requisite to carry on the useful trades, and to till the ground. None of them was to be allowed a single slave; but it was recommended to encourage the Hottentots to every kind of useful labour. This plan, which would have proved so beneficial to the settlement at large, Mr. Barrow says, there is every reason to suppose would have succeeded to the height of the wishes of him who projected it. For such plans, adventurers enough might be procured in England among those who would willingly remove from hard winters in a cold country, and frequent scarcities; it would be quite as prudent to tempt the Irish there, as to make a present of them to the king of Prussia, for the eventual advantage of the French armies; and emigrants of a far better character are yearly driven from those estates in the Highlands, which their fathers had possessed before them from times beyond the memory of man, because the lairds find that their mutton can be brought to market, and their tenants cannot. We are in want of such colonies as might assist in alleviating the burthen of our poor rates, and the miseries of the poor. There is no room for our emigrants in the East, the West Indies are pestilential, Canada too cold, and at Botany Bay it must be confessed that the society is bad. Our swarms, therefore, are hived by America. With respect to the boors, though, as Mr. Barrow says, it will indeed require a long time before any effectual steps can be adopted for their own improvement, they may immediately be prevented from impeding the amelioration of the Hottentots. Without gunpowder they would be at the mercy of the oppressed; and as it is in the power of go. vernment, by the small military post at Algoa Bay, completely to deprive them of this article, which is necessary to their very existence, they might be kept in order by supplying them according to their good behaviour. An importaLon of hangmen, for their especial benefit, would also be attended with especial advantage. While the fear of the gallows was operating what it seems. the fear of God will not, they might gradually be improved by the establishment of fairs, or markets, at fixed and rather frequent periods; for which Mr. Earrow points out Algoa Bay, Plettenbergs Bay, Mossel Bay, and Saldanha Bay, as fit stations. Then also the Kaffers, feeling their personal safety, would willingly bring their ivory, and leopard and antelope skins, in exchange for iron, beads, and tobacco, and perhaps coarse cloth, provided they were allowed to take the advantage of a fair and open market; and here the Hottentots would barter the honey which they collect in the woods. At these meeting-places villages would immediately grow, and towns at no distant period; and here schools should be established. In a few generations English might be made the language of the settlement, and the African boor might be reduced to the shape of man, and exalted to the character of a civilized being and a Chris tian. "If any of the hints," says Mr. Barrow, "thrown out in this volume should prove beneficial to my country, by sug gesting such measures as may avert the evils which now threaten our trade and settlements in the East, I shall consider the labour and application of three months not to have been bestowed in vain!" Three months is a time surprisingly short for the composition of a large quarto volume; we are far, however, from accusing this gentleman of hurrying into the world a crude mass of materials. The present volume is not so much designed for the amusement and information of literary men in their leisure, as for the instruction of statesmen, who are thereby to be influenced to action. It is in fact a political treatise, and delay might have disappointed its ob ject. An odd blunder occurs incidentally in the course of the work: it is said that the Portuguese admiral, Rio de Infante, gave his own name to the river so called; but Rio means a river, and Infante's name was Joam. This reminds us of two errors of the same kind, far less pardonable, as they occur in writers whose business it was to have been better informed. The one in a quarto volume respecting Por tugal informs us, that there is a manu factory of oil, azeita, at the town of Chitar; whereas the fact is, that it is a manufactory of chintzes, chitar, at the town of Axeitam. In like manner the bulky historian of maritime discovery tells us, that there is a village called Aldea in Africa, forgetting that aldea is the Portuguese word for village. Before we quit this interesting volume, we quote one extract more, as containing a curious fact for the consideration of the Neptunists. "But the strong argument advanced in favour of the Cape isthmus having, at no great period of time, been covered with the sea, rests on the sea-shells that have been discovered in the sand that is accumulated on its surface. Such shells may exist, though I never saw them, except on the shores of the bays; but, as I have before observed, whole strata of these may be found buried in the sides of the Lion's Hill, many hundred feet above the level of the sea. These shells have not been brought into that situation by the waves of the ocean, but by in the sides of the mountains, that rise imbirds. There is scarcely a sheltered cavern mediately from the sea, were living shellfish may not be found any day in the year. Crows even, and vultures, as well as aquatic birds, detach the shell-fish from the rocks, and mount with them in their beaks into the air; shells, thus carried, are said to be frequently found on the very summit even of the Table Mountain. In one cavern, as I Mossel Bay, I disturbed some thousands of have already observed, at the entrance of birds, and found as many thousands of living shell-fish scattered on the surface of a heap of shells that, for aught I know, would have filled as many thousand waggons. presence of shells, therefore, in my opinion, is no argument for the presence of the sea." The thanks to this very able author for the We have now only to express our information which he has afforded to the country, and cur hopes that the country may be profited by it, |