Sea Point lies, white-roofed and aloe-hedged, under the sanctified Lion's Head Mountain; sanctified, because of a great white cross scarred into the bare rock by a nation to whom crosses and scars were almost inseparable. Da Gama's gigantic cross on the Lion's Head is one of the many to be found round the coast; but here begins and ends every trace of Portuguese possession or atmosphere in the Cape Peninsula. [Illustration: ON THE VICTORIA ROAD, NEAR OUDE KRAAL] Old Sea Point savours of ancient Dutch régime, but is hedged in on every side, hidden, almost lost, by Cape Town Commerce _chez eux_. But along the Beach Road, running from the old Downs, or Common, to the Queen's Hotel, are houses with names which are historical: flat-roofed, whitewashed houses, with high stoeps and stucco fountains, syringa-trees, cactus plants, and hedges of flaming red aloes behind their white garden walls; old-fashioned gardens with box and myrtle hedges, lichens and gaudy mesembryanthemums crawling like giant starfish over the walls. Edging the road and hiding the beach from travellers are thick hedges of kei-apple, a prickly red berry, and of a low shrub whose leaves furnished correct food for the imported French snails, whose descendants are purely a pest and have no justification. But the French-lavender hedges and pink Huguenot roses can still say 'Bonjour' to the snails. It is the only French word any of them remember; it is prettier than the 'Dag,' which the prickly-pear, gorgeous with orange and carmine flower, grunts across the road to the hedge of wax berries; it is prettier, too, than the 'Morgen,' which is the large white 'Frau Karl Druschki's' morning greeting; just a little daintier than 'Saka bona,' from the purple jacaranda and scarlet kaffir-boom; but far, far more charming than the chorus of 'Hullo! hullo!' from the cheerful English trees and plants in this white-walled garden. And then there is the sea--not the wind-swept sea of False Bay, but a cosmopolitan sea; a highroad, where ships of many flags sail past the rocks, bound for the world.