Page:A voyage round the world, in His Britannic Majesty's sloop, Resolution, commanded by Capt. James Cook, during the years 1772, 3, 4, and 5 (IA b30413849 0001).pdf/94

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marshy part has some verdure, but is intermixed with a great deal of sand. The higher grounds, which from the sea side have a parched and dreary appearance, are however covered with an immense variety of plants, amongst which are a prodigious number of shrubs, but scarce one or two species that deserve the name of trees. There are also a few small plantations wherever a little run of water moistens the ground. Abundance of insects of every sort, several species of lizards, land-tortoises, and serpents frequent the dry shrubbery, together with a great variety of small birds. We daily brought home ample collections of vegetables and animals, and were much surprised to find a great number, especially among the latter, entirely unknown to natural historians, though gathered in fields adjacent to a town, from whence the cabinets and repositories of all Europe have been repeatedly supplied with numerous and valuable acquisitions to the science.

One of our excursions was directed to the Table mountain. The ascent was very steep, fatiguing, and difficult, on account of the number of loose stones which rolled away under our feet. About the middle of the mountain we entered a bold grand chasm, whose walls are perpendicular and often impending rocks, piled up in strata. Small rills of water oozed out of crevices, or fell from precipices in drops, giving life to hundreds of plants and low shrubs in the chasm, Another kind of vegetables,