But Africa begins and ends with Table Mountain, and,
as the grand old rock speeds one forth on the home-
ward way, and one gazes sadly and for the last time at
its familiar outline, it seems to murmur: 'You have
dwelt beneath my shadow, and the land I guard haa



THE HUMOURS OF SOUTH AFRICAN TRAVEL 443

become dear to you. Some day you will return, for all
return who love me.'

Five centuries ago the Portuguese, who were the
first comers in South Africa, regarded with horror the
savage headland they named the Cape of Storms. It
seemed to their distracted imaginations that devils and
evil enchantments provoked the wild gales and furious
seas which prevailed in this quarter of the globe. South
Africa was to them a land of terror, to be shunned and
dreaded accordingly. They affirmed that this cape
was the most dangerous cape in the world, and one to
be avoided by all mariners. Sir Francis Drake, who
passed it on his journey round the world, thought
otherwise, for he writes: 'We ran hard aboard the
Cape, finding the report of the Portuguese to be most
false. This Cape is a most stately thing, and the finest
Cape we saw in the whole circumference of the earth.'
Others shared, apparently, Sir Francis Drake's opinion,
for in course of time the menacing name of the Cape
of Storms was changed, and the land became the Land
of Good Hope.
