Si (jilt Table Mountain. 191 



feathers and the down of the bird. What is most remark- 

 able as regards these birds is the numerous parasites that 

 live upon their bodies. It is most extraordinary how certain 

 of these birds (as for instance, the Puffins and Procellarice) 

 arc infested by insects, their plumage sometimes swarming 

 with small specimens of Crustacecs. 



On the SOth of September, the famous Table Mountain 

 of the Cape w^as visible, after we had, the evening previous, 

 at a distance of fourteen miles, sighted the lighthouse of 

 Table Bay. 



The twenty-six days of our voyage hither had flown 

 quickly past, and we were still able vividly to recal the im- 

 pressions made by Brazil, and the scenes we had gone through 

 in mid-ocean, as the southernmost point of Africa came in 

 sight with its characteristic hills, and our eyes and our 

 thoughts were directed to another quarter of the globe. On 

 the one hand, excited with the prospect of new scenery, and on 

 the other, anxious to complete our elaborate observations upon 

 Brazil, so as to be able to send them home from the Cape, we 

 found ourselves in a frame of mind which kept us alternately 

 hard at the desk, or drove us on deck to admire the remarkable 

 outline of Cape Colony. We did not, at the present season, 

 think it advisable to run right into the bay, so as to anchor 

 near Cape Town, but resolved to double the Cape, and proceed 

 to Simon's Bay, the usual anchorage for ships-of-war. We 

 were, however, sadly disappointed in the hope of soon reach- 

 ing it, as the south-east wind freshened so much that on the 



