The world is showing itself now, but all looks cowed and dominated by the fury of the wind. A mad game this—wind and clouds in league, making a sun-proof roof, with only the noise of the gale, the splash of the driven waters in the dams below, and the bells of the goats walking round the house in the fog.
A SUNSET ON THE LION'S HEAD: EFFECT OF SOUTH-EAST WIND
The Fir-woods at Disa Head.
I have seen the kingdoms of the world, and am satisfied—a wondrous state of mind and body! I have sat on a ledge of crassula-covered rock and looked down upon Cape Town—Lion's Head far below us, the green slopes scarred by innumerable red roads, the bay clear and calm beneath us, and a gentle south-east breeze with the coolness of water behind us. To the north, line upon line of low hills swimming in blue haze, the farms of Malmesbury showing up like little white beacons in the plains; to our left the Platt Klip Gorge, like a great rent in the grey mountain. My guide, who is a philosopher, started a story—at least, I thought it was a fairy-tale—of a sanatorium on the flat top and a railway. 'Cape Town has got that up its sleeve'—I realized that he really was speaking sense. It will happen, of course, in the natural order of things; and it will bring the believers and the unbelievers—those who see and those 'who pick blackberries to stain their faces'—the cool gorges will echo with their voices, the Disa will be hedged round with regulations stronger than barbed wire, and the swampy ground which now grows shiny white pebbles will grow potatoes and lettuce for the multitude.
In the old journal we have the first record of the climbing of Table Mountain:
'Sunday, September 29, 1652.
'Fine day. Our assistants and two others ascended Table Mountain with the Ottento, who speaks a little English; saw the fires lit by them; ascent difficult; top of mountain flat—as broad and three times as long as the Dam of Amsterdam, with some pools of fresh water.'
The present pool has very little water; but then, it is summer, and we took the rain gauge for the month and poured back on to the earth three large drops of water!