SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
If then fuch be the effeils produced on feafoned troops, on. 
2l fea-voyage of moderate length, they mufl: be doubly fek by 
young recruits unaccuftoraed to the necefl'ary precautions for 
preferving their health. In faft, a raw recruit, put on board a 
fliip in England, totally unformed and undifciplined, will be 
much farther from being a foldier, when he arrives in India, 
than when he firft ftepped on board. The odds are great that 
he dies upon the paflage, or that he arrives under incurable 
difeafe. And, indeed, of thofe who may chance to arrive in 
tolerable health, a great proportion dies in the feafoning, from 
the debilitating efFe£ls of a hot climate. India is, perhaps, the 
worft place in the whole world for forming an European recruit 
into a foldier. Unable to bear the fatigue of being- esercifed, 
his fpirits are moreover deprefTed by obfcrving how little exer- 
tion men of the fame rank and condition as himfelf are accuf- 
tomed to make. It cannot, therefore, be denied that, as long 
as it fhall be found neceiTary to recruit our large armies in India 
with European troops, it would be a raoft dehrable objeft to be 
in po'ifefTion of fome middle ftation to break the length of the 
fea-voyage ; a ftation which at the fame time enjoyed a middle 
temperature of climate, between the extremes of heat and cold, 
to feafon the body and adapt it to fuftain an increafed quantity of 
the one or the other. 
The Cape of Good Flope eminently points out fuch a flation. 
Its geographical pofition on the globe is fo commanding a fea- 
ture, that the bare infpedion of a map, without any otlier in- 
formation, muft at once obtrude its importance and value in 
this as well as many other refpeds. Its diftance from the coaft 
VOL. II, y of 
