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A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD.
1772.
November.
Sparrman and the learned Dr.
Thunberg[1] have gathered above a thousand species entirely unknown before. The animal kingdom is proportionably rich in the variety of its productions. The greatest quadrupeds, the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the giraffe or camelopard, inhabit this extremity of Africa; the two first were formerly found within fifty miles of the Cape, but have been so much pursued and hunted, that they are rarely seen at present within many days journey. The rhinoceros particularly is so scarce, that the government have issued an order to prevent its being entirely extirpated. The hippopotamus, there called a sea-cow, which formerly used to come as far as Saldanha bay, is likewise so seldom seen at present, that none must be killed within a considerable distance of the Cape. Its meat is eaten here, and reckoned a great dainty: the taste in my opinion is that of coarse beef, but the fat rather resembles marrow. This animal feeds entirely on vegetables, and we were told can only dive a
- ↑ An eminent disciple of Linné, who after arranging and classing Dr. Burmann's herbals at Leyden, studied botany during three years at the Cape, and having made immense acquisitions to science, was sent to Batavia, at the expence of the Dutch East-India company, in order to proceed to Japan in 1775. The same gentleman was so obliging, at Dr. Sparrman's request, to take with him, on one of his excursions, Francis Masson, employed in the Royal garden at Kew, who had been sent to the Cape on board the Resolution, in order to collect live plants and seeds for the botanical garden. Under Dr. Thunberg's kind guidance, who pointed out to him what was worthy of notice, he has made and brought home an ample collection.
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