We traced one day the old boundary-line, the Liesbeek River, from its mouth near the Salt River to its sources in the woods of Paradise and Bishopscourt.

In some of the old record-books I found this entry, which will do as a prologue to the chapter:

This well-watered ground round Bishopscourt and Newlands became the Company's forest lands.

In 1656, when the Commander went on another tree-hunting expedition, there is another entry:

The Commander grew to love the forests, and land was granted him on the banks of the Liesbeek (where Bishopscourt now stands) in an almost dangerous situation, for day and night a watch was kept on the Hottentots lurking in the bushes of the Hen and Chickens Hill, or secretly striving to drive their cattle across the river into the Company's grazing-ground. The river, the watch-houses reported, was fordable, and cattle were constantly stolen. And as we were now pushing our way through the bushes and brambles along the overgrown banks, so in 1658 did Van Riebeek ride out with Van Goens 'all through the reeds, shrubs, lilies, and marshes.'

The old Diary goes on:

Then started a great labour, and many seamen were busy for months clearing the river, until, with much triumph, it was written in the journal that in 'some places it was found to be the depth of a pike.'

The river as far as Rondebosch is not interesting, and often impossible to follow, as it runs through private grounds and is very overgrown by oaks and poplars. At the extreme end of Rondebosch it becomes wider. At Westerford, or the West Ford, the main road crosses it on a bridge, and the old history is perpetuated in the name given to a shaded road running past the brewery—Boundary Road.

At Westerford is one of the old, fast-disappearing Outspan places—a big, bare spot under the oaks, with the white walls and thatch outhouses of the homestead which once belonged to Mostaert, 'living on the other side of the Schuur.' Here we saw, as we rode past, some wagons outspanned, the small black boys busy watering the mules and oxen in the river below, farmers lying about wreathed in tobacco smoke—the old days seem so quaintly characteristic, in spite of the near proximity of a wine-store and a forage-loft. A scene of busy lethargy—if such a paradox is permitted. I imagined how much more it meant in the olden days, when the hard-grown corn, and flax, and hemp, and tobacco were brought in from the brave little colony in the Groeneveld; how they rushed through the deep ford to this outspan of safety on the right side of the river.

The river runs through a lovely wood at the bottom of Government House, Newlands, and on its steep opposite bank is 'The Vineyard,' which little place—lately belonging to the Manuel family—was designed and built by the Barnards, when the angel with the flaming sword, in the guise of a new Governor—decrepit, weak old Sir George Younge, with his debts and dissipations—turned them out of 'Paradise.'

Anne writes to Melville from 'The Vineyard' on March 14, 1800:

'The Vineyard,' which is in due order the correct place to fly to when one has lost 'Paradise,' must have been a great refuge to the Barnards. Those were troublous times of social intrigue—the old order and the new—the Barnards weeping over the departure of the poor Governor Macartney, wary, well-bred and witty, all crippled with gout; old Younge, arriving with his sycophants; the General, Dundas, busy fighting the natives and courting the rather dull lady who came out to marry him; the entire gang eyeing poor Anne in her comfortable stronghold in the Castle, and (one may gather) keeping no judicious guard over their tongues. Anne rose to the occasion, offered her Castle home to the General and his Cummings gave a good party for the ladies of the staff, and retired to watch the dÉnouement from the comforting distance at 'The Vineyard,' and to write philosophical letters on the political situation, which, in the district of Graff-Reinet, was of an inky blackness.

The long oak avenues of Newlands House on the opposite bank gave us Canaletto-like perspectives of the low white house and twisted chimneys, the green lawns and deer-park, and the intensest blue hydrangeas. I have seen a drawing of the house as it was in the time of Lord Charles Somerset, with oval verandah, otherwise very much the same. It ultimately became the property of an old Van der Pool, who left it to the famous Hiddingh family, who have for years leased it to the Government. A namesake of his was an amusing character, living in semi-darkness and dirt, hoarding up his unprofitable wealth. An old black woman who was once his cook told a very good story of this old miser. Van der Pool was noted for having in his cellars the best wine at the Cape—no one ever tasted it. He hated spinach, but spinach grew in the garden, and therefore must not be wasted. In the dark dining-room, with an old gazette serving for a tablecloth, sat old man Van der Pool waiting for his dinner. Up came the dinner, 'Saartje' with a big dish of spinach rotten with long keeping. Old man Van der Pool cursed Saartje and spinach in best Dutch, and 'made a plan.' '"Saartje," say ole Bass, very gentle, soft like, "go fetch me from die cellar a best big bottle of ole Pontac." I run fetch ole Pontac; ole Bass, he put die bottle jus so, in front of him. "Now," he say, "Saartje, you trek." I trek out not farder dan die door keyhole. I see ole Bass pour out best old Pontac and put die spinach in front too. "Now," he say, "Hendrick, you see dis fine, werry, werry fine ole Pontac, you eat dis verdommte spinach first, den you drink dis wine, wot's been standin, Hendrickie, Kerl, for werry many years." Ole Bass, he eat, eat fast as I nebber seen him before; den, when all spinach done, ole Bass he pour die wine back in die bottle. He laf, laf, and he say, putting his finger to his nose, "Hi! Hendrick, I fool you dis time, I tink, fool you pretty well."'

We left the river for a time and got up a side avenue into the big Newlands Avenue, near Montebello and the brewery. All this estate, once called the Palmboom, or Brewery Estate, belonged to old Dirk Van Rheenen, or Van RhÉnen, Anne Barnard's friend, the most hospitable man in all the Peninsula. Dirk got the Government beer contract and built a wonderful mansion, designed with all its white stateliness and Doric pillars by a Frenchman who came out to build the Amsterdam Battery—at least, Marinus says so. But I have another story which is as well told. Anne Barnard is my authority, and she says she considers the Van Rheenen house possessed the air of a European mansion, it being erected by his own slaves from an Italian drawing he happened to meet with. There is a quaint description of how the Barnards' party went a-dining with Mynheer Van Rheenen:

'The family received us all with open countenances of gladness and hospitality, but the openest countenance and the most resolute smile, amounting to a grin, was borne by a calf's head, nearly as large as that of an ox, which was boiled entire and served up with the ears whole and a pair of gallant horns. The teeth were more perfect than dentist ever made, and no white satin was so pure as the skin of the countenance. This melancholy merry smiler and a tureen of bird's-nest soup were the most distinguished plats in the entertainment. The soup was a mass of the most aromatic nastiness I ever tasted, somewhat resembling macaroni perfumed with different scents; it is a Chinese dish, and was formerly so highly valued in India that five-and-twenty guineas was the price of a tureenful of it. The "springer"[4] also made its appearance, boiled in large slices—admirable! It is a fish which would make the fortune of anyone who could carry it by spawn to England. The party was good, the game abundant, but ill-cooked, the beef bad, the mutton by no means superior, the poultry remarkably good, and the venison of the highest flavour, but without fat; this, however, was supplied by its being larded very thickly—all sorts of fruits in great perfection, pines excepted, of which there are not many at the Cape. Mynheer carried us off after dinner to see his bloom of tulips and other flowers; the tulips are very fine, and the carnations beautiful; all were sheltered from the winds by myrtle hedges. Our gentlemen returned delighted with the day they had spent, and very glad to have the prospect of another such.'