1774 try people had already given me fome, though upon the whole, but little information. Of fome hundred plants that I laid before him pafted in a book, we had fcarcely turned over the third part, before he began every now and then to gape. I therefore thought it high time to give another turn to the converfation, and ceafed to trouble him a n y longer with my enquiries. Inftead of that, I endeavoured to roufe him out of his dream, by communicating to him my thoughts of the virtues o f fuch and fuch an he rb; for what diforders fuch a particular plant might'be tried with fafety and hopes of fuccefs; and this in confe- quence of its affinity and fimilitude to other plants already known, and whofe virtues had undergone the teft of experience, or (as far as one might conclude from hence) from the place it held among the ncittivcil cvdcr$ ^ 8cc. My vifitor all this while was neither polite nor intelligent enough to give his affent to what I faid, but continued yawning and gaping. I therefore left above half the plants untouched, and turned the difcourfe to the fubje£l of commerce and ihipping, upon which the converfation immediately became more lively; an event, which did not at all fur- prize me; for this worthy phyfician’s income depended more upon merchandize, than upon Apollo and the Mufes; and it is much the fame cafe with the reft of the faculty at the Cape, to the great prejudice of the fick in particular, as well as to that of natural knowledge and the art of medicine in general. , Should this journal ever chance to fall into the hands of the phyfician, who was pleafed to yawn over the colle&ion o f ufeful fimples that I had the honour of laying before him, C A P E o f G O © © I f O P E. 49 him, it is to be hoped, he will kindly excufe my having ^reborrowed fo pleafing an original as himfelf, in order to give a more lively idea of the great efteem and credit in which botany ftands with the collei£tive.body o f .¿Efculapius’s fons in Africa. I muft, however, do him the juftice to con- fefs, that he was really, in my opinion, the moft able of the faculty in that part o f the world. I acknowledge with gratitude all the civilities’ he afterwards fhewed me ; but he muft not take amifs my not being able to conceal a truth, which difcovers the reafon o f the fmall progrefs made by the fciences in i tfr'icu, anefi perhaps, iti fome Other patts o f the globe: he Will like wile pardon the freedom f haW taken, in fettirig the whole affair forth in its natural colours, juft as it appeared to me ; as itl* fuch cafe, the reader is enabled to pais fentence o f judgment himfelf, frequently better, perhaps, than couM be done by the relator. H S E C T*
27f 72-1
To see the actual publication please follow the link above