138 



CHAPTER VI. 



CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 



Aspect and Formation of the Country. Simons Bay. Appearance of the 

 Vegetation. The Koad to Cape Town. The Silver Tree. Habits of 

 Baboons. The Eock Rabbit. Habits of Rodent Moles. Kitchen 

 Middens. Burial Places of Natives. Antelopes. An Ostrich Farm. 

 Tracks of Animals in the Sand. Great Variety of Flowering Plants. 

 Clawless Otter. Land Planarians. Chameleon. Jackass Penguins. 

 Bdellostoma. Rare Whale with Long Tusks. Peripatus capensis, the 

 Ancestor of Insects. The Turacou. 



Simons Bay, October 28th to December 11th, 18^3. — We 



anchored at Simons Bay on October 28th, but found ourselves 

 in quarantine because we had had yellow fever on board at 

 Bahia. 



The Cape of Good Hope lies at the end of a long narrow 

 promontory running nearly north and south, and forming 

 between itself and Cape Hangklip on the east, a large bay 

 known as False Bay, whilst at its point of origin from the 

 mainland and on its east side, is Table Bay with Cape Town at 

 its head. 



The promontory has a sort of backbone of mountains, which 

 in some places come right clown steep into the sea, in others 

 are flanked by more or less extensive sand-flats. The moun- 

 tains are highest towards the northern extremity of the ridge 

 which terminates in the far-famed Table Mountain, 3,550 feet 

 in height. Constantia Berg, about one-quarter of the distance 

 from this point to the Cape, is 3,200 feet high; the remaining 

 mountains range from about 2,000 to 1,500 feet. 



The sandy flats are towards the southern part of the pro- 

 montory almost confined to its Western side, the steep slopes of 

 the mountains on the False Bay side, being for the most part 



