y the Company, its officers and
ships, with meat at a certain price, which is fixed at about three
halfpence per pound, although he may have to purchase the cattle at three
or four times that sum; but in return for this exaction, he has the sole
permission of selling to strangers, and at a much higher price, though
even in that instance his demand is not allowed to exceed a certain
quota. Four-pence _per_ pound was the price given for all the meat served
to our ships after we came in.

During our stay here we made frequent visits to the Company's garden,
pleasantly situated in the midst of the town. The ground on each side of
the principal walk, which was from eight to nine hundred paces in length,
was laid out in fruit and kitchen gardens, and at the upper end was a
paddock where we saw three large ostriches, and a few antelopes. Behind
this paddock was a menagerie, which contained nothing very curious--a
vicious zebra, an eagle, a cassowary, a falcon, a crowned falcon, two of
the birds called secretaries, a crane, a tiger, an hyaena, two wolves, a
jackal, and a very large baboon, composed the entire catalogue of its
inhabitants.

In the town are two churches, one for the Calvinists, and another for the
followers of Luther. In the first of these was a handsome organ; four
large plain columns supported the roof, and the walls were ornamented
with escutcheons and armorial quarterings. The body of the church was
filled with chairs for the women, the men sitting in pews round the
sides. By the pulpit stood an hour-glass, which, we were told, regulated
the duration of the minister's admonition to his congregation. In the
churchyards the gravestones, instead of bearing the names of the
deceased, were all numbered, and the names were registered in a book kept
for the purpose.

Weddings were always solemnized on a Sunday at one or other of these
churches, and the parties were habited in sables, a dress surely more
congenial with the sensations felt on the last than on the first day of
such an union.

To the care of an officer belonging to a regiment in India, who was
returning to Europe in a Danish vessel, Captain Phillip committed his
dispatches; and by this ship every officer gladly embraced the last
opportunity of communicating with their friends and connections, until
they should be enabled to renew their correspondence from the new world
to which they were now bound.

Nothing remaining to be done that need detain th