drawn up for His Excellency's approval by Mr. H. Rennie, of Stamford Street, Blackfriars, together with copy of the reply which His Excellency has directed to be given to Mr. Rennie on this subject.

You will observe on inspection of these Papers that it is His Excellency's intention to carry this object into effect as speedily as possible, and that His Excellency means to remit to you the sums of Money necessary for defraying such part of the expence as must necessarily be incurred in England.

For this purpose, at the end of Next Month, His Excellency proposes remitting to you £6000 in Government Bills, and a like sum as soon as the receipt thereof shall have been acknowledged, by which time the probable balance will have been tolerably correctly ascertained, which will then be forwarded to you.

It will be a most desirable relief to the funds of this Colony if the Transport Board would apportion a part of such Vessels as they are occasionally sending out here for the reception of the Pipes, and His Excellency requests that you may be pleased to apply to His Majesty's Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs on this subject, and urge His Lordship to give directions therein. Should you be so successful as to obtain from Lord Liverpool that the whole of the Pipes are thus forwarded to our Colony, you will be pleased to apprize Mr. Rennie thereof, but should it so happen that only a part thereof can be sent out by these means, His Excellency must trouble you to take up freight for the remainder in Such Merchant Vessels as may be coming to this Port, upon the most economical terms you can. It will be also desirable if a passage can be obtained for the Superintendent of the Works by Means of the Transport Office; but as his early arrival here is much to be wished, His Excellency begs that such a passage may not be waited for, but that you may be so kind as to urge Mr. Rennie to send him out by the earliest opportunity.

Should Mr. Alexander not have left England before this Letter reaches you, His Excellency begs to refer you to him for such further information as you may require on this subject. have etc.

I

[Copy.]

Letter from MAJOR C. BIRD to J. RENNIE, ESQRE.

CASTLE OF GOOD HOPE, 20 November 1810.

SIR, Mr. Barrow has been so good as to forward by the Barbadoes Frigate, which arrived about a fortnight since, your plan and Estimate for supplying the respective dwellings of this Town with Water, and I have not failed to lay them before His Excellency Earl Caledon.

His Lordship, approving highly both of the Plan itself and of your general reasoning upon the subject, has desired me to express to you his anxiety to have it carried into execution with as little delay as possible. The short stay I made in England, and the consequent hurry I was in during that time, prevented me from making myself Master of the mode in which the ulterior arrangements were to be directed, but I presume I am right in addressing myself to you on that head. The first object that appears to be Necessary is to Secure a proper person to superintend the work and to have the permanent management thereof after it is executed. You are so good as to say that you can find such a one, and the Governor has authorized me to acquaint you that he will grant him a permanent Salary of £400 Sterling, payable out of the Colonial Revenues.

The Money necessary for defraying the Expence of the Pipes and such other incidental charges as may occur on Your side of the Water will be remitted by degrees to the Honorable C. B. Agar, who is agent for this Settlement, and whose address may be learnt at the Secretary of State's Office for Colonial Affairs, Downing Street.

It does not appear that your estimate is charged with the leaden Pipes which will be necessary for conveying the Water into each dwelling, and a considerable part of the Town, not built when the plan was drawn from which you have made your calculations, is consequently not included therein. His Excellency is, however, provided for the additional expence which will be thereby incurred.

The distance from the head of the Spring at Breda's to the Pump at Heuting's where your calculation commences, is 1550 Rynland feet, the fall very precipitate. Upon examination I find the Water

divided at its Source. The water is collected at the source into a very small bason, and is discharged from that through two tubes, one of 15 inches diameter, the other of 6; the former supplies the Town with Drinkwater in the manner you are already aware of, the greater part of it running to waste for want of a Reservoir to receive it, the latter tube discharges the supply from which the gardens in and at the back of the Town are watered. This I presume could not be interfered with. Your proposal for a tank could not be conveniently executed except at Heuting's close to the Pump, at which place there is waste Land sufficient for this purpose.

A principal difficulty in effecting the object in question is the freight of the Pipes, as Merchant Vessels would probably not choose to take a large quantity of such dead weight on board, and consequently it will be some time before the whole of the Pipes can be brought here. Mr. Agar will be requested to apply for some aid for this purpose to the Transport Board, and this difficulty (if it be one) must at any rate be surmounted in England. I have etc. C. BIRD.

(Signed)

[Copy.]

Letter from M. C. GIE, ESQRE., to DEPUTY SECRETARY BIRD.

CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 23rd November, 1810.

SIR,-In order to reply as correctly as possible to the different points His Excellency the Governor has been pleased to demand from me by your letter of the 13th last, I scrutinized the old books of my Office (named formerly Wildschutte Boeken) several very imperfect, also with your permission the old records and diagrams respecting the same, to obtain therefrom that information that could lead to give a full account of the origin of Loan Places, &c., on which I have likewise consulted with old inhabitants, but have been unable to discover anything further respecting the same than what I shall have the honor to submit.

From the oldest book commencing with the year 1687 I find that the name Loan Place originated from a grant given to the inhabitants of the Town (on ordonnantie) which is a permission to

shoot game for the space of 8 and 14 days. Sometimes this has been extended for a longer period, in order to provide and partly maintain their families; this has caused the name of Wildschutte Boeken; the grants being duly registered in the same, and leads to suppose that in proportion as the Town increased with inhabitants the ground for grazing the cattle near the Town became insufficient, besides unwilling to trust to the then neighbouring Hottentots for the exchange of cattle, which appears to have been the custom, it became of moment to encourage the breeding of cattle and to give grants to the inhabitants so inclined and had chosen spots of land to that effect, with an order to keep at some distance from each other, not only to prevent daily quarrels and vexations but also that they should not wander through the country.

Other inhabitants had spots of land noted at the Secretary's office, when found not to be too near or detrimental to those already possessed of, a lease was made of the same by the Governor's verbal permission, none of which are previous to the year 1703, when grants were given for the space of 3, 6, or 12 months on different conditions (viz. annexures 1, 2, and 3) some expressing for cultivation others not, without that it appears that they paid for the same or were restricted to extent of ground, but always with that clausule not to be of hindrance of each other. It appears from grants of the year 1705 that they have sold to one another the premises thereon, called Opstallen. Orders were given in April 1714 to bring to the Government magazine the tithe of their grain. In the month of July 1714 it appears that one Rix dollar per month was paid beforehand besides the tithe, (viz. annexures 4 and 5, to which agreeable annexure No. 6 has been added in June 1715 the condition to renew the lease one month after the expiration of the same, under the penalty of Rds. 15 for the first omission, Rds. 20 for the second, and Rds. 30 for the third.

Government was pleased in the year 1728 to take cattle at the rate of 8 Rds. per ox in payment, to be delivered to the different Overseers of the outposts, when grants were given for the space of two years, the consequence of this was that by an order of Council dated the 28th February 1732 the loan hire was increased to 2 Rds. per month, and the ordonnanties continued on the same footing until July 1793, when the form was altered by the Com

missioners Nederburgh and Frykenius. From all Leases and papers respecting to the same which have been duly examined, I can't trace why Loan Places have obtained the right of half an hour's extent each way from a certain placed Beacon, which seems to have become an adopted custom, to place on a certain spot when new lands were petitioned for. When disputes arise between possessors of old Loanplaces where Beacon cannot be found or is purposely concealed, which sometimes happens, generally the hut or house is taken for such, and half an hour is given each way. There are instances that Buildings have been removed to a better or more convenient spot, but not without the consent of the Landdrosts of their Districts, provided the first Beacon be not taken from the place the half hour was measured from. This custom of giving a half hour each way has been followed for many years and serves as a limit, and now become a surreptitious custom, of which no Law exists, but from the time elapsed can be considered as a tacit acquiescence of the same, as many decisions of Lånddrost and Heemraden and of Commissioners of the Court of Justice in case of disputes between two farmers have rested upon this point, and accordingly been decided in favor of one of the parties.

When the Commission on which Messrs. Vos and Wernich were appointed by order of the late Batavian Government in 1805 to examine the Lands that could be given to different petitioners, it appears that they have particularly observed that each Loan place should have half an hour each way. There are several cases where the petitioner could not obtain the full extent of an hour's ground in circumference, that the grant of the lease has been refused to him, and on the other hand places which had not the extent of half an hour each way have been given on paying 24 Rdols. for the same, the cause of this I attribute that either a river, sea, or hill on one side deprived them of the full extent. Several leases were likewise easily obtained in the late Government notwithstanding the places were destitute of the full half hour, as when the person who had chosen a spot of land could produce certificates from the adjacent neighbours that they had no objection of him becoming the possessor of the same.

This usurped custom has also further been acquiesced in by the late Batavian Government in the 267th Article of their instructions to Field Cornets how to proceed in walking the half hour for new petitioned loan lands. From the above mentioned acquiescence of