My mind went back with a jerk to the old days of Muizenberg, the Mountain of Mice, its cannon buried in the sand, its battle, its fort and barracks, the Caapmans, who wandered with their herds over the flats and killed sea-cows, or hippo, on the very spot where the enterprising boatman of Lakeside had built his café. 'And elephants roamed,' I quoted; 'and always the reflection of Table Mountain--always the same blue lotus lilies, and the sand-hills, and the blue river flowing across the beach.' We made for Strandfontein, regaining the beach as the tide was going out and we could avoid the quicksands. Strandfontein, a little desolate bay boasting one reed-covered house and a celebrated beach--celebrated for its shells, huge blue mussels, pale pink mussels, daintily carved nautili, and rows and rows of coral and mauve fan shells. [Illustration: SAND DUNES] Again we talked of the old 'Company days,' and the wonderful plan of Commander Van Riebeek to drain the Liesbeek and the Salt Rivers into one big canal which would cut off the peninsula from the mainland, and, like the great Wall of Hadrian, would keep the barbarians out, away from the Company's freemen growing flax, wheat, and disaffection on the swampy flats. Van Riebeek bewails the impracticability in his journal, which, bound in ancient brown leather, and written in heavy Dutch lettering, is carefully preserved in Cape Town. '_February 4, 1656._ 'Dry, calm weather. Riebeeck proceeds to False Bay (roads being favourable), accompanied by a guard of soldiers, to see whether the Canal, proposed by Van Goens, could be made across the Isthmus. Took the river course to see whether it at all approached False Bay. Found that the Sweet River, now Liesbeek, which with the Salt River runs into Table Bay, runs snake-like three or four leagues crosswise over the Isthmus, and at some places appears to be stagnant, forming small lakes, between which low and sandy lands lie, until within a league of certain high sand-hills of False Bay, where it again turns into small streams, which gradually become broader, and form a river of fresh water running further on into a large lake, almost as broad as the Meuse and about two hours on foot in circumference, with deep and brackish water full of sea-cows and sea-horses, and supplied from the downs of False Cape. There was apparently no opening, but the water percolated through the sands. The Lake is still about one and a half hours on foot from the seashore, which is about half an hour's walk broad. The Downs about a league, and so high, that they are almost mountains, twenty or twenty-four behind each other, it would therefore be impossible to cut them through. Besides, there would be lakelets on the Flats, some a quarter, some half a league broad to be cut through.