that paifionate regard for truth, which firft infpired the undertaking. In- the defcriptioos of- animals he is.aqcu-.' rate to a .degree ; infomuch that it is to be feared, that fome of his readers; who aye npt fufficiently apprized o f theip general utility, may think him tedious: but in de-r fcribing fcenes and fituations, whether partaking of the fublime, the beautiful, or the ridiculous, he is no longer an author, he is. a painter :- and, quitting his pen for the pencil, fets every object before us in colours equally vivid with thofe o f nature herfelf. Phyfician, naturalift, and philofopher, neither human manners, nor civil inftitutions, rural ceconomy, nor police, nothing, in fine, efcapes the keennefs of his obfervation. Never relying on the rela-^ tions of others, except when it is impofiible for him to do otherwife, he fees every thing with his own eyes, arid traits only to the report of his own fenfes : and at the fame time knows perfectly well (whieh is never the cafe with the ignorant traveller) both how to fee and what, to look for. Hence we have fo many accurate defcriptions and drawings of animals never before feen, or elfe ftrange- ly mifreprefented by his predecefibrs. In fa£t, the account given by him o f the whole face of the country, may be confidered, in a great meafure, as new.: though (befides fuch navigators as have occasionally touched at the Cape, from whom, indeed, much information could not polfibly be experited) feveral others, the 6 chief chief of whom are K o lbe and de l a C a il l e , have either refided in this part of the world for feveral years, or made expeditions into the country previously to our author. It might appear invidious in us to expatiate on their demerits, or to enquire into the caufes of their failure in their re- fpedtive undertakings. We will therefore rather confine ourfelves to that which is tire fubjedt of the following; Sheets. Our author, together with a fpirit of obfervation not feen in -every traveller, had, as we are informed by his friend Mr. G eorge F orster, admittance into the houfes of the firft families at the Cape- This advantage he feems to have been very foOicitous to turn to the heft account;, and to it we, perhaps, in a great meafure,, owe the annexed map o f the country, which is certainly no fmall acquisition to geographical fcience.—Before he had attained the State .of manhood, he had prepared himfelf for an expedition -of sthis nature, by a voyage which., he made under his ikinfman, the Chevalier E k e b er g ; and the Atnoe- nitaies Academioee, published under the infpeftion of the great Lxnnjeus, -exhibited divers proofs that he had not made the voyage in vain. On his return to Up/a/, he applied to the ftudy o f phyfic ;. hut his attention was principally engroiied by the fcience of botany,, which he purfued with the greateft.ardeurunder its celebrated reSforer, and became oneiefinsifiaivaurite .difcjples. With an education of this kind,.
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