Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

1771. January.

tongue, is Lala; Tangan, the hand, is Tang; and Tanna, the ground, is Taan.

appears.

From the fimilitude between the language of the Eaftern Indies, and the islands of the South Sea, conjectures may be formed with respect to the peopling those countries, which cannot easily be referred to Madagascar. The inhabitants of Java and Madagascar appear to be a different race; the Javánese is of an olive complexion, and has long hair; the native of Madagascar is black, and his head is not covered with hair, but wool; and yet perhaps this will not conclude against their having common ancestors so strongly as at first It does not feem lefs difficult to account for the perfonal difference between a native of England and France, as an effect of mere local fituation, than for the difference between the natives of Java and Madagascar; yet it has never been supposed, that England and France were not peopled from common ancestors. If two natives of England marry in their own country, and afterwards remove to our settlements in the West Indies, the children that are conceived and born there will have the complexion and cast of countenance that distinguish the Creole; if they return, the children conceived and born afterwards, will have no fuch characteristics. If it be faid that the mother's mind being impressed with different external objects, impreffes correfponding features and complexion upon the child during her pregnancy, it will be as difficult to refer the effect into this caufe, upon mere physical principles, as into the other; for it can no more be shewn how a mere idea, conceived in the mother's imagination, can change the corporeal form of her infant, than how its form can be changed by mere local fituation. We know that people within the fmall circle of Great Britain and Ireland, who are born at the distance of two or three hundred miles from each other, will be distinguished by the Scotch

face,

face, the Welsh face, and the Irish face; may we not then
reasonably suppose, that there are in nature qualities which
act powerfully as efficient causes, and yet are not cognizable
by any
of the five modes of perception which we call' senses?
A deaf man, who fees the ftring of a harpfichord vibrate,
when a corresponding tone is produced by blowing into a
flute at a distance, will fee an effect of which he can no more
conceive the cause to exist in the blowing air into the flute,
than we can conceive the cause of the personal difference of
the various inhabitants of the globe to exift in mere local
fituation ; nor can he any more form an idea of the cause it-
self, in one case, than we can in the other: what happens to
him then, in confequence of having but four senses instead
of five, may, with respect to many phænomena of nature,
happen to us, in confequence of having but five senses in-
stead of fix, or any greater number.

Poffibly, however, the learning of ancient Egypt might run in two courfes, one through Africa, and the other through Afia, diffeminating the fame words in each, especially terms of number, which might thus become part of the language of people who never had any communication with each other.

We now made the best of our way for the Cape of Good Hope, but the feeds of disease which we had received at Batavia began to appear with the most threatening symptoms in dyfenteries and flow fevers. Left the water which we had taken in at Prince's Ifland fhould have had any share in our fickness, we purified it with lime, and we washed all parts of the ship between decks with vinegar, as a remedy against infection. Mr. Banks was among the fick, and for some time there was no hope of his life. We were very foon in a most deplorable fituation; the ship was nothing better than 5 G 2

an

1771. January.

1771. January.

an hofpital, in which those that were able to go about, were too few to attend the fick, who were confined to their hammocks; and we had almost every night a dead body to commit to the fea. In the courfe of about fix weeks, we buried Mr. Sporing, a gentleman who was in Mr. Banks's retinue, Mr. Parkinson, his natural hiftory painter, Mr. Green the aftronomer, the boatfwain, the carpenter and his mate, Mr. Monkhouse the midshipman, who had fothered the ship after fhe had been ftranded on the coaft of New Holland, our old jolly fail-maker and his affiftant, the fhip's cook, the corporal of the marines, two of the carpenter's crew, a midfhipman, and nine feamen; in all three and twenty perfons, befides the feven that we buried at Batavia.

СНАР.

CHA P. XVI.

Our Arrival at the Cape of Good Hope; fome Remarks on the Run from Java Head to that Place; a Defcription of the Cape, and of Saint Helena: With fome Account of the Hottentots, and the Return of the Ship to England.

ON

1771.

March.

N Friday the 15th of March, about ten o'clock in the morning, we anchored off the Cape of Good Hope, in feven fathom with an ouzey bottom. The weft point of the Friday 15.. bay, called the Lion's Tail, bore W. N. W. and the caftle S. W. distant about a mile and a half. I immediately waited upon the Governor, who told me that I fhould have every thing the country afforded. My firft care was to provide a proper place ashore for the fick, which were not a few; and a house was foon found, where it was agreed they fhould be lodged and boarded at the rate of two fhillings a head per day.

Our run from Java head, to this place, afforded very few fubjects of remark that can be of ufe to future navigators; fuch as occurred, however, I fhall fet down. We had left. Java Head eleven days before we got the general south east trade-wind, during which time, we did not advance above 5° to the fouthward, and 3° to the weft, having variablelight airs, interrupted by calms, with fultry weather, and an unwholesome air, occafioned probably by the load of va pours which the eastern trade-wind, and wefterly monfoons, bring into thefe latitudes, both which blow in there feas at. the time of year when we happened to be there. The east

1771. March.

Friday 15.

erly wind prevails as far as 10 or 12° S. and the wefterly as far as 6 or 8o; in the intermediate space the winds are variable, and the air, I believe, always unwholefome; it certainly aggravated the diseases which we brought with us from Batavia, and particularly the flux, which was not in the leaft degree checked by any medicine, fo that whoever was feized with it, confidered himself as a dead man; but we had no fooner got into the trade-wind, than we began to feel its falutary effects: we buried indeed several of our people afterwards, but they were such as had been taken on board in a state fo low and feeble that there was fcarcely a poffibility of their recovery. At first we fufpected that this dreadful diforder might have been brought upon us by the water that we took on board at Prince's Ifland, or even by the turtle that we bought there; but there is not the leaft reafon to believe that this fufpicion was well grounded, for all the fhips that came from Batavia at the same season, suffered in the fame degree, and fome of them even more feverely, though none of them touched at Prince's Ifland in their way.

A few days after we left Java, we saw boobies about the fhip for feveral nights fucceffively, and as thefe birds are known to rooft every night on fhore, we thought them an indication that fome ifland was not far diftant; perhaps it might be the island of Selam, which, in different charts, is very differently laid down both in name and fituation.

The variation of the compass off the west coast of Java is about 3° W. and fo it continued without any fenfible variation, in the common track of ships to the longitude of 288° W. latitude 22 S. after which it increased apace, fo that in longitude 295°, latitude 23°, the variation was 10° 20′ W.: in feven degrees more of longitude, and one of latitude, it increafed

=

« ZurückWeiter »