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VII L — Hints regarding the Cape of Good Hope. 



The following letter, with which we have been furnished 

 by an intelligent friend who has recently returned from 

 the Cape of Good Hope, will afford much useful informa- 

 tion to such of our readers as may have intentions of 

 visiting that Colony. 



" My Dear — , 

 a Tn sending you the following hints, for a family going 

 from Madras to the Cape of Good Hope, I speak feelingly when 

 I say that I have no doubt they may be the means, if at- 

 tended to, of adding materially to comfort, and of saving 

 Rupees. 



" You have been at sea before, but, it may be, not of late 

 years, or with a family ; a few general suggestions may not 

 prove valueless. 



" Have all your trunks well corded, to prevent their being 

 rolled over in the hold ; marked with your name, and num- 

 bered in paint: cards would do, were they not liable to 

 destruction by cockroaches. Let every thing in your cabin, 

 be snugly stowed, lashed and cleated, before you take your 

 family on board ; beds made, lamp trimmed, a small hand 

 lanthorn ready to convey a light in, and a couple of candles, 

 ready to burn all night if need be. Do not trust to being in 

 time when you embark to set your cabin to rights, or to 

 the carpenter's assistance in making all fast ! for, in all 

 probability, others will do so too, and, as he cannot help every 

 body, some will go to sea, with cots, trunks, &c. adrift, and 

 you will have a wretched first night of it. A portable kitch- 

 en will prove a useful thing, both for that purpose, and as 

 a night lamp ; have a supply of hooks, for lamps, log or 



tainly clear th.it if a single prop had to support a free weight on the 

 Earth's surface, as a block of stone, it must be placed upright, or in a 

 line tending to the centre of the Earth. And, as this is a plain principle, 

 there seems no good reason why it should not hold good in principle, 

 whether the prop has to support a weight on the surface of the Earth, or 

 at some distance below its surface. As said before, there may be good 

 reason for practice differing : the question " which is the best posi- 

 tion for the prop" may refer to practice as well as to principle 5 if our 

 correspondents continue the discussion it may perhaps be well to bear 

 this distinction in mind.— J. B. 



