Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- Description and travel
The water-line is all red from the iron stone, and there are hot
chalybeate springs up the mountain which are very good for rheumatism,
and very strengthening, I am told. The boots here is a Mantatee, very
black, and called Kleenboy, because he is so little; he is the only sleek
black I have seen here, but looks heavy and downcast. One maid is Irish
(they make the best servants here), a very nice clean girl, and the
other, a brown girl of fifteen, whose father is English, and married to
her mother. Food here is scarce, all but bread and mutton, both good.
Butter is 3_s._ a pound; fruit and vegetables only to be had by chance.
I miss the oranges and lemons sadly. Poultry and milk uncertain. The
bread is good everywhere, from the fine wheat: in the country it is
brownish and sweet. The wine here is execrable; this is owing to the
prevailing indolence, for there is excellent wine made from the Rhenish
grape, rather like Sauterne, with a _soupçon_ of Manzanilla flavour. The
sweet Constantia is also very good indeed; not the expensive sort, which
is made from grapes half dried, and is a liqueur, but a light, sweet,
straw-coloured wine, which even I liked. We drank nothing else at the
Admiral’s. The kind old sailor has given me a dozen of wine, which is
coming up here in a waggon, and will be most welcome. I can’t tell you
how kind he and Lady Walker were; I was there three weeks, and hope to go
again when the south-easter season is over and I can get out a little. I
could not leave the house at all; and even Lady Walker and the girls, who
are very energetic, got out but little. They are a charming family.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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