UITENHAGE  , a

town of the Cape province, South Africa, in the valley of the Zwartkops river, 270 ft. above the sea, 21 M. by rail N.N.W. of Port Elizabeth . Pop . (1904), 12,193, of whom 668o were whites . It was founded in 1804 by De Mist, the Batavian commissioner, who took over Cape Colony from the British in 1803 . Many natives find employment in the mills along the Zwartkops, where vast quantities of wool from the sheep farms of the eastern part of the province are cleansed and forwarded for shipment at Port Elizabeth . Extensive railway works are established here . There are in addition large flower and fruit nurseries . The town is laid out in rectangular blocks, and contains a handsome town-hall, court-house and public offices .