.78 A V O Y A C E t o t h e S E € T. V; Refidence at Alphen, after the Author's return from Paarl. 1772. April. HI IN one of my excurfions I had the good fortune to meet with Mr. Hemming, the fub-governor, on his farm, in the diitridt of Conftantia; who, though he thought highly o f the fcience of botany, was yet aftonifhed that my enthu- iiafm for it fhould have carried me fo far about in the fpace o f fix days, viz. from the Cape over T’iger-ierg through Paarl, Botlary, and fo in a circle home again, and this by no means by the neareit way. Mr. Hemming’s garden was one o f the heft in the dif- tridt; he had taken pains to procure grafts o f orange and lemon-trees, and layers o f the pomegranate from Spain, from which he promifed himfelf fruit equal to the Spanifh, as what grows at the Cape at prefent is not quite fo good. Divers lorts o f cherry-trees, that grow here, fcarcely produced a fingle cherry,though various trials had been made with them in different fpots. The beft method he had found of rooting out a uniola, which was overrunning his kitchen-garden, was to fow it with cabbage for a year, as he had obferved,that this weed never throve on land where cabbages had been fown. Th epifang was to be met with in his garden lift C A P E o f G O O D M O P E . 7g garden o f a luxuriant growth} but was faid not to produce 1772. fruit o f fo high a flavour as it does in its native country. f fH j A fpecies o f this grows wild in the Houtniquas country, a diitridt fomewhat to the eaft of Mufcle-bay; though I could never'find it there myfelf. I continued at the farm at Alpben till about the middle o f November. Entirely taken up with the Cape plants, I did not feldom revolve in my mind, how I fhould go on with them for months and years enfuing; but fate had ordered it otherwife,. In fadt, it was.ordained, that I fhould fuddenly change the continent o f Africa, its delightful fum- mer-climate, and its beautiful flowers, for a bleak cold ocean, blocked up with mountains of ice. C H A P .
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