On this day ...
14 April 1771
Endeavour Voyage Maps
James Cook's Journal Ms 1, National Library of Australia
Transcript of Cook's Journal
Joseph Banks's Journal
Sydney Parkinson's Journal
Cape of Good Hope, Saint Helena and Return to England
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Notwithstanding all that has been said to the contrary, no country that we saw during the voyage makes a more forlorn appearance, or is in reality a more sterile desart. The land over the Cape, Which constitutes the peninsula formed by Table Bay on the north, and False Bay on the south, consists of high mountains, altogether naked and desolate: the land behind these to the east, which may be considered as the isthmus, is a plain of vast extent, consisting almost wholly of a light kind of sea sand, which produces nothing but heath, and is utterly incapable of cultivation. All the spots that will admit of improvement, which together bear about the same proportion to the whole as one to one thousand, are laid out in vineyards, orchards, and kitchen grounds; and most of these little spots lie at a considerable distance from each other. There is also the greatest reason to believe, that in the interior parts of this country, that which is capable of cultivation does not bear a greater proportion to that which is incorrigibly barren; for the Dutch told us, that they had settlements eight and twenty days journey up the country, a distance equal to at least: nine hundred miles, from which they bring provisions to the Cape by land; so that it seems reasonable to conclude that provisions are not to be had within a less compass. While we were at the Cape, a farmer came thither from the country, at the distance of fifteen days journey, and brought his young children with him. We were surprised at this, and asked him, if it would not have been better to have left them with his next neighhour: Neighbour! said the man, I have no neighbour within less than five days journey of me. Surely the country must be deplorably barren in which those who settle only to raise provisions for a market, are dispersed at such distances from each other. That the country is every where destitute of wood appears to demonstration; for timber and planks are imported from Batavia, and fuel is almost as dear as food. We saw no tree, except in plantations near the town, that was six feet high; and the stems, that were not thicker than a man’s thumb, had roots as thick as an arm or a leg, such is the influence of the winds here to the disadvantage of vegetation, setting the sterility of the soil out of the question.
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Vols. II-III of the London 1773 edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, pages 785 - 786, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
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