After another application to obtain an increase to the corps already under his orders, by having the 8th regiment added to the force, the expedition sailed, stopping at Madeira and St. Salvador to obtain water and provisions. Nothing of moment occurred in the voyage to South America; the passage was tedious, and an Indiaman and transport ran on a low sandy island, called the Roccas, and were totally lost. Fortunately, the men on board and twelve chests of dollars were saved from the wreck. Only three individuals perished; of these, General Yorke, in command of the artillery, was one, and Major Spicer, the next in seniority, succeeded him. While staying at St. Salvador, the regiments were landed and inspected, a remount of fifty horses obtained for the cavalry, and, all arrangements being completed, the expedition sailed for its final destination on the 28th of November, and made the African coast, a little to the northward of the Cape, on the 4th of January, 1806. Table Bay, on the shore, and almost in the centre of which Cape Town stands, receives its name from that extraordinary eminence called Table Mountain, which rises about three thousand six hundred and eighty-seven feet above the level of the sea, and which terminates in a perfectly flat surface at that height, where the face of the rock on the side of Cape Town descends almost perpendicularly. To the eastward of the mountain, separated from it by a chasm, is Charles’s Mount, more generally called the Devil’s Tower; and on the westward, a round hill rises on the right hand of the bay, called the Lion’s Head, from which a ridge of high land, terminating in another smaller hill, called the Lion’s Rump, stretches towards the sea. The town itself is handsome and extensive; and the streets, intersecting each other at right angles, are broad and airy, generally built with stone, and with terraces in front. The Company’s gardens, walks, parade, and castle, all add to the beauty of the place, and render it superior to any colonial city in the possession of Great Britain. The coast is everywhere dangerous--landing, excepting in the bays, and that, too, in favourable weather, almost impracticable--and hence, a very inferior force on shore, if the surf were at all up, might successfully resist any attempt at the disembarkation of an army. The troops in garrison consisted of a detachment of Batavian artillery, the 22nd Dutch regiment of the line, a German regiment of Waldecks, and a native corps, which acted as light infantry. To these, an auxiliary battalion, formed from the seamen and marines of a frigate and corvette which had been wrecked upon the coast, were added; while a number of irregulars, mounted and dismounted, comprised of the boors, and armed with guns of enormous length of barrel, completed the force of General Janssens, who was then commandant at the Cape.