Page 113

Cook's Descriptions of Places

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Cape of Good Hope (continued) taken up in small Plantation consisting ^of Vineyards, Orchards, Kitchen Gardens &Ca, hardly any two lay together, but are despers’d at some distance one from another. If we may Judge from circumstances the Interior parts of this Country is not more fertile, that is the fertile land bears a very small proportion to the whole; we were told that they have settlements 28 days Journey inland which is computed at 900 English Miles, and thus far they bring provisions to the Cape ^by land Carriage  it is also said that the Dutch farmers are so despers’d about the Country that some have no neighbours with^in four or five days Journey of them; admiting these to be facts and it will at once appear that the Country in general cannot be very fertile, for it would be absurd to suppose that they would raise provisions at such an emence distance, where the trouble and expence of bringing them to market must increase in proportion, could it be done nearer   The Dutch assign another reason for being oblige’d to extend their scater’d settlements so far inland, which is that they never disturb the original Natives but always leave them in peaceable posession of whatever lands they may have approbated to their own use, which in some places is pretty extensive and that probably none of the worst, by which good policy the new settlers very seldom if ever meet with any disturbance from the natives; on the Contraory many of them become their servants and mix among them and are usefull members to Society. Notwithstanding Voyaging Accounts © Transcribed from National Library of Australia Manuscript 1 page 365, 2004 Published by South Seas To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/cook_remarks-113