Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/149

] The Commander peruaded me, as the veels were already o much lumbered, to leave the collections of natural hitory, which I had made during our tay at the Cape, in the hands of Gui, agent of the French government. This peron promied to end them to France by the firt opportunity. They, however, never arrived there, and I was informed at the Ile de France, upon my return from the South Sea, that they had been een by the naturalits Macé and Aubert Petit Thouars, depoited in a granary belonging to this agent, long after our departure from the Cape; though he had had plenty of opportunities to end them to France, if his deign had been to fulfil his engagement.

Few pots of the globe o well deerve the attention of a commercial nation, as the Cape of Good Hope. Its ituation has rendered it as an anchoring tation almot indipenably neceary for hips ailing to the Eat Indies. It affords abundance of proviions; but the retrictive regulations daily diminih the number of hips frequenting this harbour, as they now endeavour to reach the place of their detination without touching at the Cape; and ome put into the harbour at St. Helena, where they are able to proviion themelves at an eaier rate.

The pirit of peculation that prevails amongt the