Through the kind attention of sir Roger Curtis, the commander in chief, the state of the ship and our provisions and stores were as complete as when leaving Spithead.  The ship’s company had been regularly served with fresh meat every day, beef and mutton alternately; vegetables were not to be purchased, but we several times received small quantities, with oranges and lemons, from the naval hospital in Cape Town; and a proportion of these for a week, with a few days fresh meat, were carried to sea.  Two of my ship’s company, whose dispositions required more severity in reducing to good order than I wished to exercise in a service of this nature, were exchanged by the vice-admiral; as also two others, who from want of sufficient strength, were not proper for so long a voyage.  In lieu of these, I received four men of good character from the flag ship, who made pressing application to go upon a voyage of discovery.  Mr. Nathaniel Bell, one of the young gentlemen of the quarter deck, having expressed a wish to return to England, he was discharged; and Mr. Denis Lacey, midshipman of the Lancaster, received in his place.

Simon’s Bay is known to be a large and well-sheltered cove, in the north-western part of the sound, called False Bay.  Since the loss of the Sceptre in Table Bay, it has been more frequented than formerly; and I found it to be a prevailing sentiment, that were it not for the advantages of Cape Town, Simon’s Bay would, in every respect, be preferable for the royal dockyard, and the equipment of His Majesty’s ships.  It was remarked to me by an officer of discernment, captain of the flag ship, that instances of vessels being driven from their anchors by winds blowing into Simon’s Bay, were exceedingly rare.  He had observed that the strain upon the cables with these winds, was much less than with those of equal strength blowing off the land; and he accounted for it from the water thrown into the bay by sea winds, rebounding from the shore and forming what is called an under-tow, which tended to keep a ship up to her anchors.  This takes place in Simon’s Bay, with the south-east winds, but not in Table Bay with those from the north-west, which blow into it; owing, in part, to the distance at which ships there ride from the land, and apparently, also, from the under-tow passing out on the eastern side of the bay, clear of the anchoring ground.

The Cape of Good Hope cannot now be supposed to furnish much of novelty in the department of natural history, especially to transient visitors; but it still continues to afford much amusement and instruction to English botanists.  It did so to our gentlemen, who were almost constantly on shore upon the search; and their collections, intended for examination on the next passage, were tolerably ample.  They were sufficiently orthodox to walk many miles for the purpose of botanising upon the celebrated Table Mountain; for what disciple of Linnaeus could otherwise conscientiously quit the Cape of Good Hope?  In taking so early a departure, though it were to proceed to the almost untrodden, and not less ample field of botany, New Holland, I had to engage with the counter wishes of my scientific associates; so much were they delighted to find the richest treasures of the English green house, profusely scattered over the sides and summits of these barren hills.