*6 VOTAGE IN SEARCIf 



gage. For an interpreter we had a young negro* 

 who fcarcely knew a word of French. 



A paflport, with which we were obliged to be 

 provided, was fent to me by M. Berg, one of 

 the moll: amiable and beft informed men in the 

 colony. 



Colonel Gordon, the commander of the troops 

 at the Cape, had given me letters of introduction 

 to fcveral of the inhabitants. 



Colonel Gordon is the celebrated traveller* 

 who gave Bufibn the firft juft ideas refpecting 

 the giraffe, or camelopard, an animal till then 

 little known. This officer, excited by the defire 

 of making difcovcries in natural hiftory, pene- 

 trated into the interior of Africa, as far as the 

 2 1 ft degree of fouth latitude. He repeatedly 

 told me, that he made at that dittance, of more 

 than 1 2 north of the Cape, barometrical obfer- 

 vations, which proved to him, that the ground 

 was upwards of two kilometers in perpendicular 

 elevation above the level of the fea, without 

 his being able to perceive in his progrefs any 

 fcnfiblc rife in the ground ; but, on the con- 

 trary, he thought himfclf in a fomewhat elevated 

 plain. Thefc obfervations, which he repeated 

 fevcral days after, feem to indicate, that the 

 ground riles by an imperceptible acclivity to a 

 height which is not elfewhcre found in the 

 hi^hqft mountains. 



I leave 





