r * TRAVELS LN AFRICA, 
1777- rain prevented' my feeing any part of the country; and to- 
wards the end of the month, the hills, near the Cape, were 
covered with fnow for feveral days. During the winter, there¬ 
fore, I was only able to^ Indulge myfeif in Ihort excurlions 
from the Cape town ; while I made more ample preparations 
for a journey into the country when the feafon might be more 
favourable. 
I was particularly fortunate in meeting with a gentleman. 
Captain Gordon, (now Colonel) who had travelled in this 
country fome years before, (about 1774) and was lately re¬ 
turned from Holland, as fecond in command, and appointed 
to fucceed Colonel Du Phren, who was then commander in 
chief. Colonel Gordon is a gentleman of extenlive informa¬ 
tion m moft branches of natural hiftory ; and, I believe, is the 
only perfon who has any confiderable knowledge of that coun¬ 
try, being acquainted with the interior parts for near one 
thoufand five hundred miles from the Cape. He had acquired 
the language of the Hottentots, which, together with his 
perfePc acquaintance with the Dutch language, gave him an 
advantage over moil: other travellers. 
As Mr. Mafon, in his letter to the Royal Society, has de- 
fcribed the country about the Cape, it is unneceffary for me 
to enter into a geographical defcription, or to fay any thing 
of this tra£l of territory, except what came immediately under 
my own obfervation. 
The period which I had propofed for my long journey was 
the beginning of Oftober, when a fettled Rate of the atmofphere 
