This is the first appearance of Forster’s volumes. For a modern edition and further transcripts, see the Hakluyt Society edition below.
Volume I:
p. 73-74, at Cape Town, November 1772: They have no great opportunities of acquiring knowledge, there being no public schools of note at the Cape; their young men are therefore commonly sent to Holland for improvement and their female education is too much neglected. A kind of dislike to reading, and the wantof public amusements, make their conversation uninteresting and too frequently turn it upon scandal, which is commonly crie to a degree of inveteracy peculiar to little towns… . There are howevr among the principal inhabitants, perhaps of both sexes, whose whole deportment, extensive reading, and well-cultivated understanding would be admired and distinguished even in Europe.
p. 80, while at Cape Town: We have had an occasion to observe several facts alledged by [Peter] Kolben, and we likewise find them mentioned in Lieutenant Cook’s voyage…. The Abbé de la Cailie, an astronomer, in the account of his voyage, which was published soon after his death, has endeavoured to ruin the credit of Kolben’s book, without giving us any thing better in its stead. We should not have ventured to mention so superficial a performance, as that of the Abbé, were it not necessary to vindicate from his aspersions, the character of Kolben, as a faithful and accurate observer.
p. 100: The risks to which the voyager is exposed at sea are very numerous, and danger often arises where it is least expected. Neither can we trace the care of Providence more evidently in storms among hidden rocks and shoals, and where water or fire threaten destruction, than in these little circumstances, which the traveler and reader are both too apt to forget or pass lightly over, if them come to a favourable issue.
p. 464-65, on the pilfering habits of the Tahitians, after shots were fired at a thief: Notwithstanding this severity, the good-nature of the people was such, that they did not forsake the trading place, or take umbrage at our proceeding, but heard with unconcern the balls whistling about their ears. A few hours afterwards, one of them was equally nimble on board our ship, and luckily slipping into the master’s cabin stole from thence several mathematical books, a sword, a ruler, and a number of trifles of which he could never make the least use.
Volume II: not found yet