On the 30th of May we left the Isle of Bourbon, and, having passed the Island of Madagascar, encountered a violent storm, which obliged us to put into the Bay of Lagoa, on the southern coast of Africa. As the wind was contrary, we were under the necessity of keeping close in with the land; so that we had continually before our eyes the horrid mountains with which this part of the world is covered. Never did I behold any land, the situation of which is so high, and which at the same time has so wild and dreary an appearance. During the whole day we beheld nothing but immense wastes of sand, or mountains, the summits of which were lost in the clouds, and which, in the night time, threw up smoke and flames. I should have considered these immense patches of sand as fields covered with snow, had I not been undeceived when we entered the before-mentioned bay[251]. These horrid and totally barren districts, where it is rare to see a single blade of grass, except a few melancholy ones here and there on the margin of some small stream which flows into the ocean, appeared to me like the entrance of the infernal regions. We experienced, at the same time, a most penetrating cold. Our apes, parrots and other Indian birds, which were not accustomed to such severe weather, began to be sick, and the most beautiful animals died of the cramp or convulsions. On the 30th of June we passed the Bay of Formosa. On the fifth of August we were off the Bay of St. Sebastian; and on the 10th came to anchor in False Bay at the Cape of Good Hope. This bay is very capacious, and the water in it is strongly impregnated with whale oil, or rather whale-spawn. When it is, therefore, put into a state of violent agitation by the motion of ships, or repeated rowing, these oily particles, by the friction thence occasioned, emit, to the great astonishment of those who are not acquainted with the phenomenon, a dark-blue and yellow light[252].