The Passage from the Brazils to the Cape of Good Hope;
with an Account of the Transactions of the Fleet there.
Our passage from Rio de Janeiro to the Cape of Good Hope was equally prosperous
with that which had preceded it. We steered away to the south-east,
and lost sight of the American coast the day after our departure.
From this time until the 13th of October, when we made the Cape, nothing
remarkable occurred, except the loss of a convict in the ship I was on board,
who unfortunately fell into the sea, and perished in spite of our efforts
to save him, by cutting adrift a life buoy and hoisting out a boat.
During the passage, a slight dysentery prevailed in some of the ships,
but was in no instance mortal. We were at first inclined to impute it
to the water we took on board at the Brazils, but as the effect was
very partial, some other cause was more probably the occasion of it.
At seven o'clock in the evening of the 13th of October, we cast anchor
in Table Bay, and found many ships of different nations in the harbour.
Little can be added to the many accounts already published of
the Cape of Good Hope, though, if an opinion on the subject might be risqued,
the descriptions they contain are too flattering. When contrasted with
Rio de Janeiro, it certainly suffers in the comparison. Indeed we arrived
at a time equally unfavourable for judging of the produce of the soil
and the temper of its cultivators, who had suffered considerably from a dearth
that had happened the preceding season, and created a general scarcity.
Nor was the chagrin of these deprivations lessened by the news daily arriving
of the convulsions that shook the republic, which could not fail to make
an impression even on Batavian phlegm.
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