Anchor in Simons Bay. 195 



and intelligence that a number of letters were waiting for us. 

 Our impatience became stronger when towards evening the 

 light breeze entirely ceased, and we thereby were forced 

 to bring up at a distance of a mile and a half from the 

 actual anchorage. About the same time an officer arrived 

 from the British line-of-battle-ship Boscawen^ under the flag of 

 Rear- Admiral Grey, in order to serve as a guide should no 

 pilot have boarded us. 



On the 2nd of October, at 7 a.m., the anchor was let go 

 in Simon's Bay, a spacious but gloomy-looking sheet of water. 

 Here ships ride much more secure than in Table Bay, from 

 which, in a stiff westerly or north-westerly breeze, vessels are 

 often forced to run out to sea to avoid beino- driven on shore. 

 The communication with the land is thus sometimes inter- 

 rupted for days. From Simon's Bay to Table Bay, round the 

 Cape the distance is forty miles, whilst by land the journey to 

 the capital of the colony is, with good horses, performed in 

 three hours. 



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