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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The only town which the Dutch have built here is, from its situation, called Cape Town, and consists of about a thousand houses, neatly built of brick, and in general whited on the outside; they are however covered only with thatch, for the violence of the south east winds would render any other roof inconvenient and dangerous. The streets are broad and commodious, all crossing each other at right angles. In the principal street there is a canal, on each side of which is planted a row of oaks, that have flourished tolerably well, and yield an agreeable shade: there is a canal also in one other part of the town, but the slope of the ground in the course of both is so great, that they are furnished with floodgates, or locks, at intervals of little more than fifty yards.
A much greater proportion of the inhabitants are Dutch in this place than in Batavia; and as the town is supported principally by entertaining strangers, and supplying them with necessaries, every man, to a certain degree, imitates the manners and customs of the nation with which he is chiefly concerned. The ladies however are so faithful to the mode of their country, that not one of them will stir without a chaudpied or chauffet, which is carried by a servant that it may be ready to place under her feet whenever she shall sit down. This practice is the more remarkable, as very few of these chauffets have fire in them, which indeed the climate renders unnecessary.
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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 786 - 787, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv23/786.html