We found the Cape Colony suffering from the long continuance of the Caffre war. As a natural consequence, the price of everything had risen, and there was little specie left in Cape Town. All the troops had been sent to the frontier; a party of bluejackets from the flagship at one time performed garrison duty at Cape Town; the emergency was so great that even some detachments of troops on their way back to England after long service in India, having put in at the Cape for refreshments, were detained and sent to Algoa Bay. We were all heartily tired of Simon's Bay long before leaving it; not the less so from having this all engrossing Caffre war dinned into our ears from morning to night as an excuse for high prices, and sometimes for extortions, which I had before supposed to be peculiar to new colonies. On April 10th we left Simon's Bay for Mauritius. Our passage of twenty-four days presented little remarkable. We experienced every gradation between a calm and a heavy north-east gale; during the continuance of one of the latter, we passed near the Slot Van Capel bank of the old charts, the existence of which it was of importance to verify; * but the heavy confused sea, such as one would expect to find on a bank during a gale, rendered it dangerous to heave-to to try for soundings. (*Footnote. I have since learned that H.M.S. Meander, Captain the Honourable H. Keppel, struck soundings on this bank, but have not been able to procure the particulars.) OBSERVATIONS ON THE WAVES. During this passage some important observations were made by Captain Stanley and Lieutenant Dayman to determine the height, length, and velocity of the waves. The results will be apparent from the following tabular view.* COLUMN 1: DATE 1847. COLUMN 2: NUMBER OF OBSERVATIONS. COLUMN 3: FORCE OF WIND NUMBER. COLUMN 4: SPEED OF SHIP IN KNOTS. COLUMN 5: HEIGHT OF WAVE IN FEET. COLUMN 6: LENGTH OF WAVE IN FATHOMS. COLUMN 7: SPEED OF WAVE IN MILES. COLUMN 8: REMARKS. April 21 : - : 5 : 7.2 : 22 : 55 : 27.0 : Ship before the wind with a heavy following sea. April 23 : 8 : 5 : 6 : 20 : 43 : 24.5 : Ship before the wind with a heavy following sea. April 24 : 6 : 4 : 6 : 20 : 50 : 24 : Ship before the wind with a heavy following sea. April 25 : 9 : 4 : 5 : - : 37 : 22.1 : Ship before the wind with a heavy following sea. April 26 : - : 4 : 6 : - : 33 : 22.1 : Ship before the wind with a heavy following sea. May 2 : 6 : 4 and 5 : 7 : 22 : 57 : 26.2 : Sea irregular, observations not very good. May 3 : 7 : 5 : 7 and 8 : 17 : 35 : 22.0 : Wind and sea on port quarter.