So thought Jones, a thirsty Cockney, who shared the buggy with Mr Cole. The "pikeman" grinned as they paid the toll and inquired the way to the renowned vineyards. "He hoped," he said, "they'd look as well when they comed back." A demand for an explanation was met by the deprecatory reply, "that he meant no offence, but had see'd many look very different arter swallowing the sweet stuff up there--that's all." Whereupon Jones, indignant, savagely whipped the hired nag, and they soon reached Great Constantia. "We visited the vineyards, which are kept beautifully neat and trim; and we then went to the storehouses, which are models of cleanliness. Here we tasted a dozen varieties of the delicious wine; and I began to have an exact idea of the pikeman's observation. Nothing can be more seductively delicious than the purest and best Constantia. I may remark, however, that I have never tasted a perfect specimen of it in England. The greater quantity of so-called Constantia, sold in London, is sweet Pontac, a very inferior wine, grown all over the Cape colony--at least, wherever there are wine farms. "We afterwards visited the other two farms, and found everything equally handsome, liberal, clean, and well-ordered; and we tasted all the varieties of each of these also. I now began to have a _very_ clear idea of the pikeman's meaning." So did Jones, perhaps, when, with fishy eyes and uncertain gait, he climbed the buggy, assumed the reins, and drove homewards, shaving every gate he passed through and corner that he turned. At a certain distance from the vineyard he informed his companion that the sweet wine was "stunning," and, having expressed that opinion, astounded him by the announcement that he had ordered three butts of the best to be sent to his (Cole's) lodgings, which consisted of two very minute rooms. Besides the difficulty of stowing so large a store of liquor, Mr Cole made no doubt it would be booked to him, and was equally certain he should have to pay for it, Jones being a shipwrecked passenger, and copperless Cockney, already in his debt. His first impulse was to pitch Jones out of the gig; his second, to countermarch and countermand. But Jones, positively refusing to return, drove valiantly onwards.