to lead the horſe that carried our baggage; and a young negro, who hardly knew three words of the French language, ſerved as our interpreter.
As a paſſport was neceſſary, M. Berg, one of the moſt amiable and intelligent men of the Company, provided us with one.
Colonel Gordon, Commander the troops at the Cape, had furniſhed me with letters of recommendation to ſeveral of the coloniſts.
This gentleman is the celebrated traveller, who communicated to Buffon the firſt authentic accounts he received concerning the Giraffe, an animal till then very little known. Colonel Gordon had penetrated as far as 21° S. lat. into the interior parts of Africa, with a view to making diſcoveries in natural hiſtory. He has often aſſured me, that at this diſtance, more than twelve degrees north of the Cape, his barometrical obſervations ſhewed him, that the ſurface of this country was more than a hundred toiſes above the level of the ſea; though, in traverſing it, he had not been ſenſible of any riſing of the ground, but had thought he travelled over a plain that was very little elevated. Theſe obſervations, which he repeated at different times, after intervals of ſeveral days, ſeem to demonſtrate that the ſurface of this country riſes, in a gradual aſcent,
