CHAPTER IX.
ROBERTSON, SWELLENDAM, AND SOUTHEY'S PASS.
From Worcester we went on to a little town called Robertson,
which is also the capital of an electoral division. The
country here is altogether a country of mountains, varying
from three to seven thousand feet high. The valleys
between them are broad, so as to give ample space for
agriculture,—if only agriculture can be made to pay.
Having heard much of the continual plains of South Africa
I had imagined that every thing beyond the hills immediately
surrounding Capetown would be flat; but in lieu of
that I found myself travelling through a country in which
one series of mountains succeeds another for hundreds of
miles. The Cape Colony is very large,—especially the
Western Province, which extends almost from the 28th to
much below the 34th degree of latitude S., and from the
17th to the 23rd of longitude E. Of this immense area I
was able to see comparatively only a small part;—but in
what I did see I was never out of the neighbourhood of
mountains. The highest mountain in South Africa is
Cathkin Peak, in Natal, and that is over 10,000 feet. In
the districts belonging to the Cape Colony the highest is in
Basuto, and is the Mont aux Sources. The highest in the
