Some members of the Expedition also set out on an excursion some thirty nautical miles, to where the peninsula of the Cape stretches out to the real Cape of Good Hope itself--a longer, more difficult, but also more interesting expedition, which gave fresher impressions, and conveyed a pretty accurate and more just idea of the physical features of the Peninsula of the Cape, its vegetation, zoology, and geological structure, than could be obtained by a cursory examination, of the natural features of a large portion of South Africa. For whoever has clambered up the torn, broken, rocky masses of Table Mountain, worn out and eaten away by the atmosphere, and has scrambled among its wild hollows, with its forests of the greyish green _Pratea Gargentea_ at his feet, amid its far extending rocky plateaux, full of stagnant water-pools; whoever has strayed thence among the wine-producing terraced hills of Constantia, with their rich vegetation; over the sandy table-lands backed by rocky ridges, over streams of copper-coloured water, and the boggy tracts that extend to the extreme south-west point, as far as the Sandstone rocks, 800 feet high, which, descending sheer into the tempest-tossed, fearsome, boiling ocean, constitutes the actual Cape of Good Hope--obtains a tolerably just and correct idea of the appearance of Southern Africa for one hundred miles into the interior, and along the coast line, 400 English miles in length, which stretches from St. Helena Bay as far as the River Samtoos, west of Algoa Bay. All is sandstone or clay-slate, with occasional granitic knobs cropping out; no trees, but such as are planted in clumps around the sparsely scattered farms, conspicuous from an immense distance; while, on the other hand, in spring, an indescribable flush of blossoms and flowers, and instead of trees, millions of ant-hills, with their regularly shaped cones from three to four feet high, impart a peculiar character to the landscape of South Africa. But on the so-called Lowlands of Algoa Bay, beyond the River Samtoos, Nature assumes an entirely different character in her forest vegetation. Unfortunately, the original designs of the geologists of the Expedition, of Examining the petrified treasures of this renowned district, fell through, which was all the more to be regretted as this geological Eldorado promised a great accession to our collection. During our stay at Simon's Town, we also experimented with our astronomical instruments, which, at our next station, St. Paul's Island, were to be brought fully into requisition for the first time. On this occasion, as on many others, the unfailing courtesy and kindness of the renowned astronomer and director of the Observatory of Cape Town, Mr. Thomas Maclear, assisted us most materially in the observations for comparison with our own physical instruments. [Illustration: PLATE IV.--FROM THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE TO ST. PAUL'S ISLAND.]