TOL. XXV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ^dQ 



morass, and raised up from sand, broken stones, gravel, and rubbish, to a 

 great height and breadth, being above IQOO yards in compass, and 1 6, 18, and 

 20 yards in breadth : in some places it seems to have been built before the 

 moors became boggy ; for I could never find any way over the moors, by which 

 they could carry those vast quantities of earth, clay, sand and rubbish, to raise 

 that vast rampart. 



As to my rectory of Donington, to which I was presented Anno 1690, I 

 found there as many old people as I did at Kinnardsey, nay more ; and in the 

 two parishes there was only a difference of 3 in the number of the people ; at 

 Kinnardsey there were 135 souls, at Donington 138 : of the 135, I had 23 

 aged 60 and upwards ; of the 138, 24 ; both which numbers multiplied by 6, 

 the one at Kinnardsey was 138, the other at Donington would have been 144. 

 I find nothing very remarkable at Donington, except the royal oak, which 

 stood at Boscobel ; it was a fair spread thriving tree, its boughs all lined and 

 covered with ivy ; here in the thick of these boughs the King sat in the day- 

 time with colonel Carles, and in the night lodged in Boscobel-house ; so that 

 they are strangely mistaken, who judged it an old hollow oak, whereas it was 

 a gay and flourishing tree, surrounded with a great many more. 



The people here live to great ages : I saw in one house three healthy people 

 whose ages numbered together made 278, and I think they lived some years 

 after ; they were the man and his wife, and his wife's brother. I was at 

 Donington about 13 years and some months ; in all which time I buried only 

 27 people ; of which number, 4 came from neighbouring parishes, 4 were 

 young ones ; and, of the remaining 19, the youngest was about 60, and the 

 oldest 96 years of age. 



^n Account of the Cape of Good Hope ; by Mr. John Maxwell. Communicated 

 by the Rev. Dr. John Harris, F. R. S. N° 310, p. 2423. 



The Cape of Good Hope, which is part of Monomotapa, and the southern- 

 most part of Africa, lies in the latitude of 34° 29' south, and 18° 23' east of 

 London It was first it seems discovered by Bartholomew Diaz, A. D. 1493, 

 under John II. king of Portugal. He gave it the name of the Cape of Tem- 

 pests, becaxise of the storms he met with there ; but king John gave it the 

 name of Bona Esperanqa, or of Good Hope, which it still retains ; because, 

 when that Cape was doubled, he had good hopes of finding out a way by sea 

 to the East Indies, about which he was then very solicitous. 



The Hottentots, natives of this place, are a race of men distinct both from 

 negroes and European whites ; for their hair is woolly, short and frizzled, their 

 noses flat, and their lips thick, but yet their skin is naturally as white as ours. 



