At the head of the centre walks
stands a menagerie, on which, as well as the garden, many pompous
eulogiums have been passed, though in my own judgment, considering the
local advantages possessed by the Company, it is poorly furnished
both with animals and birds; a tyger, a zebra, some fine ostriches, a
cassowary, and the lovely crown-fowl, are among the most remarkable.
The table land, which stands at the back of the town, is a black dreary
looking mountain, apparently flat at top, and of more than eleven
hundred yards in height. The gusts of wind which blow from it are
violent to an excess, and have a very unpleasant effect, by raising
the dust in such clouds, as to render stirring out of doors next to
impossible. Nor can any precaution prevent the inhabitants from being
annoyed by it, as much within doors as without.
At length the wished-for day, on which the next effort for reaching the
place of our destination was to be made, appeared. The morning was calm,
but the land wind getting up about noon, on the 12th of November we
weighed anchor, and soon left far behind every scene of civilization and
humanized manners, to explore a remote and barbarous land; and plant in
it those happy arts, which alone constitute the pre-eminence and dignity
of other countries.
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