'He found the forest so closely grown from the one point to the other that no opening could be found than the wagon road, which might be easily closed with a bar. No cattle could pass through this wood, even if thousands of Hottentots were driving them. It is about two hours distant from the fort, as far as Visagie's dwelling and brewery below the foot of the Bosheuvel, where the Commander one morning showed Commander Van Goens, when they were walking over the Bosheuvel (with a Hottentot who did not wish that land should be cultivated there), a spot on which to build a small redoubt or watch-house, to protect the lands in the neighbourhood, and to which spot the River Liesbeek could be made navigable for small boats from the fort and through the Salt River. But as the Liesbeek is thickly studded with reeds, etc., 1½ and 2 feet high, it will be necessary to make a clearing on the sides, in order to examine the whole more carefully.' 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: