64 MEMOIR OF DR. HARVEY. 



first ? As usual I looked to the ground, to see what I trampled 

 on. " Ha," said I, " is this my old friend Coronopus didyma. 

 What brings you here ?" I stooped down to pluck and smell 

 it, but I gathered a stranger. I am yet ignorant what it 

 was. ... M. having left me, I wandered about by myself, and 

 poked about here and there. I strolled toward one of the 

 batteries. The ditch was dry, or nearly so, and into it I de- 

 scended. Here were lots of Arum plants (Calla Ethiopica) just 

 coming into flower, and it was truly pleasant to see them in 

 statu quo. Moreover I found a vast abundance of a lovely 

 yellow Oxalis, several kinds of Seneeio, a beautiful upright blue 

 Anagallis, and a number of other things of whose names I am 

 still ignorant. On the walls of the fort I found a moss quite 

 new to me, but still too young to be examined. This is my 

 first botanizing trip, only a quarter of an hour, yet full of 

 novelty and interest. What a charming field is about to open ! 

 May I be thankful for an opportunity of visiting it ! 



To Br. Fisher. 



Cape Town, Sept. 21, 1835. 

 I have little to say about our voyage. We left Portsmouth 

 12th July, and landed here 17th inst. I kept a journal, which 

 my sister may show you when you go to Dublin ; but it is a 

 heavy production, not worth your perusal — a tissue of adventure- 

 less days, filled up with musing and listlessness. 



If the domiciles we have entered into are not so comfortable 

 as Summerville and Ashbourne, they are better than worse, and 

 this at least is a comfort. I was greatly pleased with my first 

 view of Cape Town ; and notwithstanding the absence of many 

 English refinements, my pleasure has risen in proportion the 

 longer I have been on shore. Oh, Cape dust ! or rather red 

 sand blown about like dust. It is sad ; but there are abundant 

 pleasures to be thrown into the opposite scale, the chief of 

 which are plants. Numerous are the beauties of the vege- 

 table kingdom here, and I have already made some discoveries. 



But I must tell you of our landing. How droll ! When we 

 reached the jetty it was crowded with " coolies " (porters) of 

 every shade of colour, from the deepest jet to the lightest brown, 

 and of all shades of beauty from Adonis to Thersites. Caffre, 



