1 34 TRAVELS IN 
fage, and obliged me to make long an dwearU 
fome turnings, the leaft inconvenience of whicli 
was a mortifying lofs of time. 
My journey, however, was at length hap- 
pily accompliflied. But it is not here that I 
ftiall give the refult of it. The excurfion which 
I made afterwards, as far as the tropic, enabled 
me to become acquainted with other circum- 
ftances of a fimilar nature, and to convince 
myfelf, that not only the fouthern point of 
Africa, but alfo its interior mountains at a great 
diftance within the land, have in part been co- 
vered by the fea. At fome future period i 
lhall publifh my remarks and refledions upon 
this fubject ; at prefent I fhall content myfelf 
with obferving, that the ideas I have here lug- 
gefted become fp evident, upon vifiting the 
coafts of the colony, that they have ftruck ever^ 
the Hottentots themfelves ; and it is probable 
that the Table, as well as the two neighbouring 
mountains, and all thofe which form the chain 
extending to the promontory, were formerly 
an ifland, feparated from the continent by ar^ 
arm of the fea, which reached from Table tq 
Falfe Bay, and formed a jundion between 
|:hem. It is hardly poffible to refufe to this 
con« 
