English very well. This divine is a man of great piety and benevolence, of excellent sense, and is truly liberal in all his opinions. He takes great delight in a fine garden, which he cultivates himself with great skill. At the foot of it runs a little river, perfectly clear, and always murmuring over its stony channel. The banks of this stream are covered with a fine grove of trees, planted by Mr. Borcherd's own hand. He has made a little arbour, which is always shady and cool, surrounded by myrtles and wild flowers, and trees overrun with the passion-flower, which here grows with a stem of the thickness of my arm. Here he has placed seats, on which he sits and chats with your brother by the hour; they neither of them being romantic enough to be interrupted by the turtle doves and other birds, which are singing in the branches over their heads. This same good man has several pretty and lively daughters ; but it is not to be supposed that they make any part of the attraction which draws so grave a person as your brother so often to the parsonage.

"His mode of passing his time is as regular as it was at home. He gets up pretty early in the morning for a walk before breakfast; then reads a little or writes a little, till eleven or twelve; then pays a visit to Mr. Borchard's, and gets a walk or a ride before dinner. In the afternoon he walks or rides again; and after passing a quiet evening, always at home, goes to bed at ten. He is generally quite cheerful and contented; but it is said that there are some moments, when he is thinking of

home and the best and most beloved of friends, in which he has a little of that sickness of heart which hope deferred will sometimes give. But this is momentary; for he must be the most ungrateful of men to distrust that good Providence which has so signally protected him, so much improved his health, so smoothed the path of his wanderings, raised him up friends wherever he has been, and crowned him with loving kindness and tender mercy.

"Thus, my dear sister, I have endeavoured to give you an idea of where and how I am. It is now nearly six months since I have received a line from home; a long, long interval to one who places so much of his earthly happiness there. I do not attribute this however to the negligence of my friends, but to the distance at which I am removed from them. I anticipate with delight the period when this distance will begin to lessen. After the first of April I hope to embark for England, and to be permitted to reach home by the beginning of autumn. With this hope I will solace myself. Adieu, My prayers never cease to ascend for your happiness here and hereafter.

"Your affectionate brother,

"SAMUEL C. THACHER.”

The other letter is addressed to a lady of his society, It is written from the same village, and bears the date of the 1st of March.

"I fear I must have seemed very ungrateful to my most constant and excellent friend, in suffering so long an interval to pass without thanking her for her letter. And yet I have been so long accustomed to have the kindest constructions put upon my actions at your house, that I am not without hope that my silence has been imputed to what is indeed its true cause, my inability to do better. The time I passed in London was full of solicitude and hurry, which scarcely left me leisure for my indispensable duties. On arriving at the Cape, I was immediately obliged to fly from the sirocco winds of the town to this little village, where we hear from the bay only once a week. Opportunities of writing have often occurred and passed without my knowledge; and I now begin this letter without knowing when it will be sent. And if with all these reasons there was mingled something of the self-indulgence of a spoiled valetudinarian, you well know where I learned to claim such privileges; and I also know where there is charity enough to forgive me.

"I wish I could find any thing around me interesting enough to repay you for the pleasure I received from your letter. But the truth is, there is scarcely a spot on the globe more barren, both in a moral and physical view, than all I have yet seen of this part of South Afriса. There is nothing classical, no monuments of antiquity, no model of the fine arts, and so little of letters, that a book shop is a thing unknown throughout the colony. Man, too, is here found in his most degraded form. Some of my speculations on the dignity of our species

have never received so severe a rebuke, as when I look in the face of a Hottentot or a Bosjesman. Not that I do not find means to get over this difficulty; for he must be but a poor theorist-I think I hear your father say it-who abandons his fancies for so trifling a cause as mere matters of fact.

"There is nothing interesting here but the appearances of nature; and these are just what it is impossible to convey any idea of in a letter. Apparently, this is one of the confines of the solid globe; and the mountains, which are thrown up as bulwarks against the ocean, are immense masses of rock, cast in the most abrupt and rugged forms. There is no such thing in any part of the country that I have seen, as what we should call in New England a beautiful landscape. You may sometimes find in the vallies a few verdant and fertile spots, which afford a refreshing contrast to the bare summits and sterile sides of the mountains which surround them. A botanist would find a perpetual feast; but, unfortunately, I with my blind eyes am none. I am struck however with seeing many shrubs, which at home are raised with difficulty and care, growing here spontaneously in the open air. The habits of these plants are in other respects different from those of the cultivated ones. A geranium, which at home will scarcely bear the touch, I should find it difficult to crush here with a strong blow of my foot; and the myrtle, so delicate with us, is here growing in lofty hedges so strong as to be impenetrable to cattle. Their flowers however are not nearly so beau

tiful nor so fragrant as they are in a state of cultivation; just as it is with the mind, which shoots more vigourously when left to itself, but loses in delicacy and refinement, what it gains in hardihood and force.

"The Cape is a great resort for invalids from India, many of whom I see, and find several of them very intelligent and agreeable. I never before was so impressed with the value and magnitude of the British empire there. How much shall I delight to ask your father some questions on this subject; if the inestimable privilege is accorded me of again making one of your domestic circle. The Count Las Cases, the friend of Bonaparte, is here. His constant theme is his master, whom he represents as the most amiable of men, instead of that monster of cruelty he has commonly been taken for. The Count, you will probably have heard, was sent from St. Helena for attempting to send to Europe a letter in cipher. It may be news to you that the British have taken possession of the Island of Tristan d' Acunha, and fortified it, with the avowed purpose of preventing our vessels from using it in another war. So it seems agreed on all hands that we must look forward to future contests."

This letter was the last, I believe, which Mr. Thacher wrote from the Cape. It is stated in some of his subsequent ones, that his health did not improve so much during the latter part of his residence there, as his feelings at an earlier period had led him to expect; and this is

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