own. Behind it is the range which
connects the hills of Simon's Bay with Table Mountain; its declivities
are at this point covered with the graceful silver-tree, whose
glistening foliage shines brighter than that of the European olive.
Beneath the farmhouse are the vineyards which produce the famous sweet
wine that bears the name of Constantia, sloping gently towards the
waters of False Bay, whose farther side is guarded by a wall of
frowning peaks, while the deep blue misty ocean opens in the distance.
It is a landscape unlike anything one can see in Europe, and though the
light in sea and sky is brilliant, the brilliance is on this coast soft
and mellow, unlike the clear sharp radiance of the arid interior.

No one who cares for natural scenery quits Cape Town without ascending
Table Mountain, whose summit affords not only a very beautiful and
extensive prospect over the surrounding country, but a striking ocean
view. Looking down the narrow gullies that descend from the top, one
sees the intensely blue sea closing them below, framed between their
jutting crags, while on the other side the busy streets and wharves of
Cape Town lie directly under the eye, and one can discover the vehicles
in the streets and the trees in the Governor's garden. The heaths and
other flowers and shrubs that grow profusely over the wide top, which is
not flat, as he who looks at it from the sea fancies, but cut up by
glens, with here and there lake reservoirs in the hollows, are very
lovely, and give a novel and peculiar charm to this ascent.[42] Nor is
the excursion to Cape Point, the real Cape of Storms of Bartholomew
Diaz, and the Cape of Good Hope of Vasco da Gama, less beautiful. An
hour in the railway brings one to Simon's Bay, the station of the
British naval squadron, a small but fairly well sheltered inlet under
high hills. From this one drives for four hours over a very rough track
through a lonely and silent country, sometimes sandy, sometimes thick
with brushwood, but everywhere decked with brilliant flowers, to the
Cape, a magnificent headland rising almost vertically from the ocean to
a height of 800 feet. Long, heavy surges are always foaming on the
rocks below and nowhere, even on this troubled coast, where the hot
Mozambique current meets a stream of cold Antarctic water, do gales more
often howl and shriek than round these rocky pinnacles. One can well
understand the terror with which the Portuguese sailors five centuries