Page 112

Cook's Descriptions of Places

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Description of the Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope hath been so often discrib’d by Authors and is so well known to Europeans that any discriptions I can give of it may appear unnecessary. However I cannot help observing that most Authors, particularly the Author of MrByrons Voyage, have heighten’d the picture to a very great degree above what it will bear, so that a stranger is at once struck with surprise and disapointment, for no Country we have seen this Voyage affords so barren a prospect as this, and not only so in appearence but in reallity. The land over the Cape which constitutes the Peninsula form’d by Table Bay on the north and False Bay on the South consists of high barren Mountains, behind these to the East or what may be call’d the Isthmus is a vast extensive Plain, not one thousand part of which either is or can be cultivated. The soil consists mostly of a light kind of Sea Sand and produceth produceing hardly any thing but heath, every Inch of ground that will bear cultivation is Voyaging Accounts © Transcribed from National Library of Australia Manuscript 1 page 365, 2004 Published by South Seas To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/cook_remarks-112