PREFACE. 
of perfection, in their native soil. Tiiey would here behold whole tracts of 
country covered, in the same manner as our heath lands, with one or two 
species within a certain tract, shattered and jagged by the force of the 
winds, shrivelled by the drought, or stubbed by the cattle. Even in the 
boggy grounds, where they grow to a size of which no idea can be formed 
from seeing the same species in England, they are neither so elegant in their 
habit, nor flower so freely, as in their cultivated state. 
Among the principal authors, who have furnished information on the 
subject of the Cape, may be reckoned T zchard, Merklin, and Valentyn, 
none of whom, however, were a day's journey from the town, and must, 
consequently, have drawn up their relations from what they could collect 
from the inhabitants, or written documents out of the offices j the former 
has rarely been found to be correct, and the latter as rarely to be important 
or interesting. The same remark will nearly apply to the work of Kolbe, 
who, although professedly sent out in the character of a naturalist, has de- 
scribed subjects that he never saAv ; retailed idle stories of the peasantry 
that betray his great credulity and imbecility of mind ; and filled his book 
with relations that are calculated to mislead rather than inform. The Abbe 
de la Caille had little opportunity of collecting general information, being 
principally engaged in the arduous undertaking of measuring a base line, 
of thirty-eight thousand eight hundred and two feet, in order to determine 
the length of a degree on the meridian ; and in ascertaining the situations 
of the principal fixed stars in the southern hemisphere. His account of the 
Cape is, therefore, partial and imperfect. Sparrmann, the Swede, was the 
next in succession, and, by his indefatigable labors, supplied a very exten- 
sive and satisfactory account of the natural productions, especially in the 
animal kingdom, of those parts of the settlement over which he travelled ; 
but he was credulous enough to repeat many of the absurd stories told of 
the Hottentots by his predecessor Kolbe^ with the addition of others col- 
lected from the ignorant boors. His map is also so miserably defective, 
and so incorrect in every part, that he must certainly have constructed it 
7 
