Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/55

 Good Hope in a map. Now we are very near, and there is the great Table Mountain, with others ranging beside it, rugged, handsome and dead. Upon one of the hills, where there is a pretty drive from Cape Town, a learned man, who has been at the Cape before, declares you may see the baboons playing about. Only think of seeing a real live baboon.

When I wrote to you before, from Rio, I forgot to communicate the melancholy fact, that our maids saw hundreds of humming-birds flying about, and we never saw one; however, a baboon will do as well: they are so alike. So now we are perfectly acquainted with Europe, America, and Africa: when we have done Asia, we may come home again.

Dec. 16.—I like this place—it is quite what I meant Africa to be—so unlike anything else: when we went twelve miles up the country, yesterday, I felt like Montval in the Travels of Rolando. I have not caught a camelopard yet, but I’m going; in fact we have all been in Africa, and know the sort of thing. There are the stunted trees dyed red by the fine red sand that flies everyhereeverywhere [sic]; and the great flats, covered with most of our finest hot-house plants,