The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay: With an Account of the Establishment of the Colonies of Port Jackson and Norfolk Island (1789)Phillip, Arthur
History
The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay: With an Account of the Establishment of the Colonies of Port Jackson and Norfolk Island (1789)
Phillip, Arthur
Natural history -- Australia -- New South Wales; New South Wales -- Discovery and exploration; Norfolk Island
False Bay, on the south-east side of the Cape, is more secure than Table
Bay, during the prevalence of the north-west winds, but still less so in
strong gales from the south-east. It is however less frequented, being
twenty-four miles of very heavy road distant from Cape Town, whence
almost all necessaries must be procured. The most sheltered part of False
Bay is a recess on the west side, called Simon's Bay.
The Cape of Good Hope, though popularly called, and perhaps pretty
generally esteemed so, is not in truth the most southern point of Africa.
The land which projects furthest to the south is a point to the east of
it, called by the English Cape Lagullus; a name corrupted from the
original Portugueze das Agulhas, which, as well as the French appellation
des Aiguilles, is descriptive of its form, and would rightly be
translated Needle Cape. Three eminences, divided by very narrow passes,
and appearing in a distant view like three summits of the same mountain,
stand at the head of Table Bay.--They are however of different heights, by
which difference, as well as by that of their shape, they may be
distinguished. Table Mountain is so called from its appearance, as it
terminates in a flat horizontal surface, from which the face of the rock
descends almost perpendicularly. This mountain rises to about 3567 feet
above the level of the sea. Devil's Head, called also Charles mountain,
is situated to the east of the former, and is not above 3368 feet in
height; and on the west side of Table Mountain, Lion's Head, whose name
is also meant to be descriptive, does not exceed 2764 feet. In the
neighbourhood of the latter lies Constantia, a district consisting of two
farms, wherein the famous wines of that name are produced.
Our voyagers found provisions less plentiful and less reasonable in price
at Cape Town than they had been taught to expect. Board and lodging,
which are to be had only in private houses, stood the officers in two
rix-dollars a day, which is near nine shillings sterling. This town, the
only place in the whole colony to which that title can be applied with
propriety, is of no great extent; it does not in any part exceed two
miles: and the country, colonized here by the Dutch, is in general so
unfavourable to cultivation, that it is not without some astonishment
that we find them able to raise provisions from it in sufficient
abundance to supply themselves, and the ships of so many nations which
constantly resort to the Cape.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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