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. 
4th. 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. 
10th. 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 : 
