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] to lead the hore that carried our baggage; and a young negro, who hardly knew three words of the French language, erved as our interpreter.

As a paport was neceary, M. Berg, one of the mot amiable and intelligent men of the Company, provided us with one.

Colonel Gordon, Commander the troops at the Cape, had furnihed me with letters of recommendation to everal of the colonits.

This gentleman is the celebrated traveller, who communicated to Buffon the firt authentic accounts he received concerning the Giraffe, an animal till then very little known. Colonel Gordon had penetrated as far as 21° S. lat. into the interior parts of Africa, with a view to making dicoveries in natural hitory. He has often aured me, that at this ditance, more than twelve degrees north of the Cape, his barometrical obervations hewed him, that the urface of this country was more than a hundred toies above the level of the ea; though, in travering it, he had not been enible of any riing of the ground, but had thought he travelled over a plain that was very little elevated. Thee obervations, which he repeated at different times, after intervals of everal days, eem to demontrate that the urface of this country ries, in a gradual acent, to