J8 
STELLENBOSCH, 
[1812. 
repeated, and every thing shook. Oh ! said I, it is an 
earthquake : come all out of the house into the garden. 
We felt as if there had been no life in us, as the scrip- 
ture expresses it. There was then a third shock, which 
was inferior to the former two. The noise was not 
only awful, because of its loudness, but also from the 
nature of the sound — it was a kind of melancholy 
groan or howl. The dogs and birds shewed, by their 
noise, that they were terrified, which added to the 
horror of that night. The night was very still ; there 
was no wind, but I observed a great number of little 
fiery meteors. I noticed some little clouds, in different 
directions, like thunder-clouds, but they had something 
new in their aspect. The people came all flocking to 
me in the garden, much alarmed. I said what I could 
to support their minds. At length we ventured again 
into our house, when we tried to get a little sleep to 
refresh us, but we tried in vain." 
December 23. Went to Cape-town, to obtain in- 
formation respecting the island of Madagascar, to 
which the Society are anxious to send a mission. I 
got considerable information from Messrs. Oncruydt 
ftnd Truter, who had both been there; the former 
twice, the latter once. Mr. Oncruydt, among other 
things, related the following anecdote. 
A French ship had been stranded on the west coast 
of Madagascar about twelve months before the arrival 
of Mr. Oncruydt. The captain, officers, and men, 
had resided all that time with the natives. On seeing 
