450 CAPE OF GOOD HOPE TO ENGLAND CH. xix 



hundred miles from the place of its rest. It appears, indeed, 

 far more difficult to account for the passage of one individual, 

 than to believe the destruction of all that may ever have 

 been by their ill fate hurried into such an attempt. 



Money of all nations passes here according to its real 

 intrinsic European value ; there is therefore no kind of 

 trouble on that head, as in all the Dutch settlements. 



4tth. Sailed after dinner in company with twelve India- 

 men and His Majesty's ship Portland. We resolved to steer 

 homewards with all expedition, in order (if possible) to 

 bring the first news of our voyage, as we found that many 

 particulars of it had transpired, and particularly that a copy 

 of the latitudes and longitudes of most or all the principal 

 places we had been at had been taken by the captain's 

 clerk from the captain's own journals, and given or sold to 

 one of the India captains. War we had no longer the least 

 suspicion of ; the Indiamen being ordered to sail immediately 

 without waiting for the few who had not yet arrived was a 

 sufficient proof that our friends at home were not at all ap- 

 prehensive of it. 



IQth. This day we saw the Island of Ascension, which is 

 tolerably high land : our captain, however, did not choose 

 to anchor,. unwilling to give the fleet so much start of him. 

 Those who have been ashore upon this island say that it is little 

 more than a heap of cinders, the remains of a volcano ever 

 since the discovery of the Indies. Osbeck, who was ashore 

 on it, found only five species of plants ; but I am much in- 

 clined to believe that there are others which escaped his 

 notice, as he certainly was not on the side of the island 

 where the French land, in which place I have been informed 

 is a pretty wide plain covered with herbage, among which 

 grows Cactus opuntia, a plant not seen by that gentleman. 



11th. Saw Holothuria physalis, which our seamen call 

 Portuguese man-of-war, for the first time since we left these 

 seas in going out. 



23rd Dined on board the Portland with Captain Elliot: 



