The following is said to be the most extraordinary fact on record

In the appendix to the Rev. John Campbell's Travels in South Africa, is recorded one of the strangest occurrences in the moral annals of mankind. It will be recollected, that some years ago the Grosvenor, East India man, was wrecked off the coast of Caffraria, (a district divided from the country of the Hottentots by the Great Fish River,) and that nearly the whole of the passengers and crew perished on the occasion. It was, however, discovered, that two young ladies had survived the miseries of this dreadful event, and were resident in the interior of a country uninhabited by Europeans. Mr. Campbell does not relate this occurrence from personal evidence, but we cannot doubt the extraordinary fact.

The Landdrost of Graaf Ragrel had been deputed by the British government to pay a visit to the king of Caffraria, for the purpose of ascertaining whether there were any survivors from the wreck of the Grosvenor. Finding there were two females, he succeeded in procuring an introduction to them. He saw them habited like Caffre women; their bodies were painted after the fashion of the native inhabitants; and their manners and appearance were altogether anti-European. The Landdrost, however, sought to obtain their confidence by a liberal offer of his best services to restore them to their country and friends. But they were unmoved by his solicitations. They stated that they had fallen into the hands of the natives after they had been cast ashore from the wreck; that their companions had been murdered, and that they had been compelled to give themselves in marriage; that having affectionate husbands, children, and grand-children, their attachments were bounded by their actual enjoyments. Upon being repeatedly urged to depart with the Landdrost, they replied, that probably at their return to England they might find themselves without connections or friends, and that their acquired habits ill fitted them to mingle with polished society; in short, that they would not quit Carffraria.

Such, then, is the powerful influence of habit! Two young ladies, highly educated and in all probability lovely in their persons, are taught by habit to forget those scenes of gaiety they were so well calculated to ornament, and the anticipated enjoyments of high matrimonial connections; to forget their parents, their relations, the accomplished companions of thei youth, and all the refinements of life ! Among a savage people, they acquire congenial feelings, and their vitiated nature ceases to repine: they love the untutored husbands given to them by fate; they rear their children in the stupidity of Hottentot faith; they designate their wretched hovel with the sacred name of Home; they expel memory from their occupations; and regret no longer mingles with their routine of barbarous pleasures. Is this, in reality, a picture of the human mind, with all its boasted attributes, its delicacies, its refinements, its civilized superiority? Yes! for custom is a second nature.

This fact is also related by Vaillant, in his Travels in the interior parts of Africa. He says, volume i. page 286, "I was told, almost six weeks prior to my visiting that coast, that an English vessel had been wrecked on these barbarous shores; that being driven on the sands, a part of the crew had fallen into the hands of the Caffres, who had put them all to death, except a few women, whom they had cruelly reserved."