society that we have:-no: my description of the amusements may have been triste, but our politics would be even more trifling. I will spare you that " puddle in a storm."

LETTER II.

The Cape Flats.-Fransche-Hoek, a Settlement of French Huguenots.-Ravine.-Description of the Valley.-Interior of a Cape Wine Farm.-Its filthy state.-Cape Wines.-Method of killing the Tiger.-The Slave-Girl.-Conduct of Masters towards their Slaves. The Hottentots. Curious Adventure.-Instinct of the Horse.-Early Recollections.

WHEN tired of all that I have described in my last letter, and unfit to be a trifler amid triflers; when I find "no music in the song, no smartness in the jest," I turn my horse's head from Cape Town, and, fixing my eye on a distant hill, move over the weary waste called the Cape Flats, mounting sand-hill after sand-hill, like the wild waves of a trackless ocean; while nothing meets the eye save the land tortoise, the large footprint of the wolf, or the trail of the serpent. For miles it is a scene of barren desolation; the bushes, which the birds flit

silently among, are withered with the heat; the very stones seem parched, through which the poison-snake winds its shining length. This sandy flat is bounded by a range of mountains, in whose valleys there are many beautiful spots; green, well-watered, sheltered nooks, in which the Dutch wine-farmers have settled and built good houses, that peep out from among their rich green oaks.

In one of these houses I have been lately staying, in the valley of the Fransche-Hoek, which is a settlement of French Hugonots situated about fifty miles from Cape Town. The inhabitants are now Dutch, however, in every thing but name; they speak no French, have no French customs, and not even a religious book in that language is to be found among them: the only distinction I could discover between them and other boors was their greater fondness for psalm-singing, and their aversion to dancing. That it is far easier to retrograde than advance is known; but that these people, settling as they did, remote from

the Dutch, should yet have lost every national distinction, surprises me.

Near the valley is a ravine called the Fransche

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Hoek Kloof, one of the passes through the mountain barrier, that must be crossed at some point in order to penetrate into the interior of the colony. The road through it is nearly seven miles in length, ascending from the near gorge, that opens into the valley, gradually to the summit, and descending on the other side in the same manner; and in both cases running along the face of one of the steep mountains which form the boundaries of the ravine. This road is itself well worth examining, on account of the difficulty of its execution, and the immense labour bestowed upon it: many parts are cut out of the solid rock, whose high grey crags tower above it; while a parapet wall only separates the travellers from a precipice in whose shadowy depth a stream winds its way far

Kloof, in the country round the Cape, generally means a pass among the hills and mountains: in Albany, a deep wooded hollow, frequently the retreat of savage animals.

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below, through the rocky defile,-so low, that even its roar, when the torrents pour down the steep sides of the ravine, swelling the brown rush of its turbid waters, cannot be heard.

I have been among higher mountains than those of this wild pass; but under some effects of light and shade, I know not that I ever saw a scene more gloomily impressive.

I have ridden through it when the sun stood high in the heavens, and I looked around in vain for shelter from its tremendous power, when objects seemed to waver before the eyes in the bright and sultry stillness; and my horse, with drooping ears, and feeble step and frequent halt, slowly and painfully toiled up the steep ascent; while all nature, animate and inanimate, seemed to yield to the scorching influence: when the stunted shrubs and geraniums that clothe the face of the mountain were parched, and the various proteas that shoot out from the fissures of the rocks, were twisted and wreathed into strange fantastic forms, and black as from the effects of fire.