102 
TRAVELS IN 
controul, he cxerclfes the fame feverlty of punifhment that 
his own n'regularities had incurred when he was in the ranks. 
A very confiderable portion of the inhabitants of the town 
is eompofed of people of this defcriptlon. Grown into afflu- 
ence by the general profperity that followed the conqueft of 
the fettlement, ferjeants, and corporals, and trumpeters, are now 
men of the firft confequence, keep their flaves, and horfes, and 
carriages, and wallow in all the luxuries that the colony affords. 
But though they afpire to the rank of gentlemen, they cannot 
difguife the cloven foot. They are grofs in their manners, and 
vulgar in their converfation. Their language, in the prefence 
of women, is fo coarfe and indecent, as would not be tolerated 
among civilized fociety. A fmgle inftance of this will be fufE- 
cient to iiiew to what a low degree of delicacy and refinement 
they are yet advanced. One of this vulgar herd, who is con- 
lidered as a great man in the Cape, took his wife and daughters 
to fee a whale, that had been thrown afhore near Green Point 
It happened to be a female and was lying on its back. The 
burgher being ftruck with the near refemblace of certain parts 
to thofe of the human fpecies, with great exultation, and in the 
moft vulgar and indelicate terms, pointed out his difcovery to 
the ladies, who feemed to relifli all the good jokes the burgher 
laid on this occafion ; and, in prefence of a number of fpedta- 
tors, the old dame adually affifted him in a very clofe, and by 
no means fuperjicial^ examination into this fingular phenomenon 
in natural hiftory, which, among other properties, analogous to 
animals that fuckle their young, determined the great Linnaeus 
to 
