A MOST APPROPRIATE NAME, 
33 
mast-head to overlook quite an extensive section of the 
southern point of Africa, and see natural shrubs and un- 
dergrowth in abundance, I much doubt if the eye could 
have rested upon a dozen trees which had not been trans- 
planted. 
Some of the shore mechanics, however, who were work- 
ing on board, told us that there was no lack of timber 
farther down the coast, and that it existed in considerable 
variety. The kind most esteemed by them for working 
into vessels is something between the teak of India and 
tlie live oak of Georgia and Florida; but there is a wide 
diftcrcnce in one respect, L e, in the smell, which places 
it entirely out of the power of even the most superlieial 
observer to confound it -with either. When moist, this 
smell is absolutely sickening; and, if you attempt to burn 
it while in that condition, the fumes drive all, even the 
most seasoned noses, from the immediate vicinity of the 
tire. I can give no idea of that odour, unless it be by 
comparing it to a combination of sulphur and assafoetida, 
and even that does not do it justice. 
On account of this peculiar property, the early settlors 
indorsed it with a name which will not bear translation 
into the English of the present day, but which, a hundred 
years since, when people were not so particular, would 
have been called “ye stinke-woode;” and this I regard as 
tlic most appropriate of names, inasmuch as it gives you 
a better idea of the wood than could otherwise be ob- 
tained, except through the medium of the sense of smell, 
— a soui'ce of information to which no one has ever been 
known to apply twice. 
The Mandarin orange of China, as well as the well- 
3 
