540 Retro[pect of Domeftic Literature...Voyages, Travels, and Tours. 
than could poffibly have been anticipated 
from a prifoner of war, who was prohi- 
bited from entering into either of the pro- 
vinces, Cadiz or Seville. It was in the 
year 1780 that Captain Croker, with his 
regiment, failed fer Jamaica on board the 
Morant, a merchant fhip, with fixty or 
feventy other veffels, efcorted by his ma- 
Jefty’s ‘fhip the Ree and was taken, 
together with nearly the whole convoy, by 
the combined fleets of France and Spain. 
The governor of Cadiz, the Condé 
OReilly, would not fuffer any of the 
" Officers toventer that city : they were con- 
duéted to Keres, and thence to Arcos, a 
town in the interior of Andalufia, where 
lodgings were provided for them among 
the inhabitants, who are reprefented as 
particularly hofpitable and kind.—Arcos 
was feleéted by the Condé as the place ot 
refidence for the Englith, left the afficers 
foould injure ikemfelves by EXWAVALANCE 5 
and Captain Croker fays, that the gover- 
nor fhowed infinite judgment in his felec- 
tion, for if any fpot in Spain could incul- 
cate temperance, it certainly muft be Ar- 
cos: here are neither taverns, coffee- 
houfes, nor places of public entertainment 
of any kind. Beef, fays he, is the colour 
of mahogany, not quite fo hard; but as 
the bullock has nothing to feed on but 
firaw and barley, the meat is incredibly 
tovgh. It wiilnot excite furprife that the 
Englith were confidered as a luxurious 
people, when Captain Croker tells us 
that he never f2w a Spaniard drink more 
than a fingle glafsof wine, and that the 
common beverage of the natives is water, 
cooled with ice from the Ronda, a lofty 
range of mountains between Arcos and 
Gibraltar. The Condé O’Reilly is faid 
to have declared that the Englilh in An- 
dalufia, about one hundred perfons, ate 
more beef, and drank more wime, than 
the camp at San Roque ; and [I verily be- 
lieve, fays Captain Croker, it is true ! 
Captain COLNETT has publifhed a nar- 
rative of his Voyage to thgSouth Allantic, 
end round Cape Horn tic the Pacific 
Ocean, for the Purpoje of extending the 
Spermacett Whale-Fifbery, and other Objeéts 
of Commerce,” &c. &c. Captain Colnett, 
in confequence of a nomination for that 
purpofe py the admiralty, failed on the 
4th of January 1793 in the Rattler, a 
floop of war of 374 tons burthen, having 
a crew of 25 perfons, men and boys, 
and a whaling-mafter, on board. He dou- 
bied Cape Horn on the rith of April, 
and is of opinion that the beginning of 
winter, or winter itfelf, is the beft feafon 
Sor paffing the Cape, There is an ifland 
to the eaft of it, Staten-land, where he 
thinks that a fettlement would enable us 
to carry on the black whaie fifhery in the 
higheft fouthern latitudes : he recommends 
Staten-land as a rendezvous both for men 
of war and merchant toes On the 10th 
of July, fpermaceti whales were feen in 
the ifland La Plata: towards the end of 
Auguft, in latitude 16° 13/, he faw feve- 
ral more, and killed three of them: 
‘* Thefe whales were very poor, having 
“ fcarce blubber enough to float them on 
“the furface of the water; and when 
“¢ flinched, that is, deprived of their fat, 
‘“‘ their carcafes funk like a fione. They 
- yielded altogether but fifteen barrels of 
“ oil.” Captain C. was difappointed in 
his expectation of meeting with fperma- 
ceti whales off the fouthern parts of Cali- 
fornia; he fell in with feveral, and killed 
four tee ees Cape Dolce aod Quito, at 
which latter place he touched, and found 
ftill the huts flanding which are mentioned 
in Ludlinfon’s voyage. The general rendez- 
vous for thefe whales he conceives to be 
off Albemarle ifle (one of the Galapagos), 
where he faw great numbers of them, 
and killed four. Captain Colnet fuppofes 
that they come hither from the coafts of 
Mexico and Peru, and the gulf of Pa- 
nama, in order ‘to calve; and he advifes 
all whalers to cruife between the fouth- 
end of Narborough ifle and the rock Ko- 
dondo. Captain Colnet was twerty-twe 
months on his voyage, during which pe- 
riod he loft but one man, and that man by’. 
an accident, out of his whole erew, not- 
withftanding every individual, at one 
time, was more or lefs affcéted ma that 
dreadful diforder, the yellaw fever: a 
circumftance which 1s in the higheft de- 
gree prefumptive of the captain’s care 
and attention. This work is, in many re- 
{pects, a valuable publication ; ; and it is 
with regret we mention that it is dif- 
graced with numerous grammatical inac- 
curacies. In the journal of a fea-officer 
we do not look for the precifion of a phi= 
lologift; but inaccuracies, which any lite- 
rary friend would have correéted, are 
juftly confidered by the public as an af- 
ront. 
Mr. Munco Park, the abftraé&t of 
whofe travels into Africa, printed by the 
African Affociation, we mentioned at fome 
length in our laft Retrofpeét, has now 
pudlithed thofe Travels in a fingle quarto 
volume. The editor of that abftract, 
however, made fo very judicious a Ge 
tion from the original minutes of Mr. 
Park, that but little additional matter is 
to be found in the prefent publication. It 
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