New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1866-03-16
The south of Africa.
'EREsrIsa Stretch 81 \ NAVAL OFFICER.
IRON the Springfield NO, Patriot y l,.3l

from the Springfield tsioa Patriot i n ii4 i
Ia today s paper will be found very pleasant
and interesting letter from the coast of Africa
written BY Mr.. Fred. 4, Sheppard who is at
present cruising that coast on the United States
mansof-war Hartford. It was not intended for
publication, but containing, as IT does, both beau
tifll and interesting descriptions of the country
and peoplejgwe were allowed to use it. Mr.. Shep-
pard is young man not yetout of his s.teens,',
and gives promise, we should say, of making a
mark in the future. We know bis friends in our
community will read his letter with pleasure, and
we are prond to know that Southwest Missouri is
SO ably represented in foreign lands 84}l.A A s
IS js Cape Town, South Africa, Nov. ~ 1866 4
y ss 81 Yoh see that your naval representative
has made his debut in Africa. From his first hours
/ shiYe riag attempt to- see the Table Mountain
through the dense white clouds blowing over it,
he Was unable to discover how A. Ward managed
TO make anything funny out Of his " Sixty Minutes
in Africa" y. imp essions were perfectly dis
NAL. Now that 4 have had two days liberty in
good weather, II think much better Of the whole
affair." f53 III n 3S55s3 III 4 I'm S53A Ut
ri wrote to you from Rio. The day afterward we
LETT the haEbor, Several days Of rough weather
followed. The ship pitched, bows under, coca.
sionally. Spray Il pretty to look at, and makes
rainboWs when the sun is shining, but when ii
comes on board 40 quantities sufficient to drown
one, ne would Willingly dispense with it. We were
mot sorry when the wind and sea moderated and
fair winds and pleasant weather again favored Us.
We saw the bird Of which Coleridge mystically
sdiseouTses in the 4 Ancient Mariner''--t the lone
and hungry albatross- 1T flies like our Missouri
turkey buzzard, but with more boldness and swift
ness. It's wings are sometimes sixteen feet from
tip to tip. Besides we had Cape Pigeons Molly
hawks. Mother Carey Chickens, and other strange
birds, lowering about the ship. The skies are
vastly different from those at home. The Southern
Cross, the Centauri Campus and the Magellan
clouds are al strange TO me- Old Orion's brilliant
light shows that his bands are not yet loosed and
Jupiter beams on US as Of old. &
We arrived in sight Of the light on the Cape of
Good Hope, on the night of the 14th. AS the wind
was high and the coast bad one, We hove to and
& wished for the day. AT day-hreak we nan in
and anchored two miles from Cape Town. The
town does not look like much OF place from the
harbor, but improves on close acquaintance. The
people speak English, which sounds oddly enough
after the Portuguese gable at Rio.
Day before yesterday / got ashore and had a
good time. I visited the Botanical Gardens. Such
ferns, fnchsias, lilies, verbenas, roses. geraniums
and heliotropes never beheld before. The latter
flower grows in bushes, three or four feet high. !
saw roses trimmed into trees ferns six feet high,
lchsias almost black in their intense purple, thick
nedssef delicious mign0nette, patches of hearts,
ease with some strange African bush In the center
making decided contrast, and strange flowers of
many kinds had never seen before. Think OF
bananas and lemons growing beside eabbages and
lnseets or at least Ia the same grounds, and good
MISSOURI oaks ffouYshing In the same tiaicket with
queer African nondescripts, i was almost be,
lwIllderea with the quantity and contrast of the
plants and flowers. I'll f
i ter seeing these things till was weary, i got
Z NJ, morse and took q ride seven or eight miles
safough hescpuntry, and back into town. Every.
; 81 wlld flowers were in profasion. iwanted
t9 Ret seeds TO try at home butt is too early in
w season, December being the first summer
II here. The road we drove on led around
~ mountain side, hundreds OF feet above the
m9aafsng itself 10 circumstances That Ii, it went
aFonna bonlders twenty feet high instead of going