My German host at Houw Hoek came out twenty-three years ago, he told me, without a ‘heller’, and is now the owner of cattle and land and horses to a large amount. But then the Germans work, while the Dutch dawdle and the English drink. ‘New wine’ is a penny a glass (half a pint), enough to blow your head off, and ‘Cape smoke’ (brandy, like vitriol) ninepence a bottle—that is the real calamity. If the Cape had the grape disease as badly as Madeira, it would be the making of the colony. I received a message from my Malay friends, Abdool Jemaalee and Betsy, anxious to know ‘if the Misses had good news of her children, for bad news would make her sick’. Old Betsy and I used to prose about young Abdurrachman and his studies at Mecca, and about my children, with more real heartiness than you can fancy. We were not afraid of boring each other; and pious old Abdool sat and nodded and said, ‘May Allah protect them all!’ as a refrain;—‘Allah, il Allah!’ LETTER IX Caledon, Feb. 21st. THIS morning’s post brought your packet, and the announcement of an extra mail to-night—so I can send you a P.S. I hear that Capetown has been pestilential, and as hot as Calcutta. It is totally undrained, and the Mozambiquers are beginning to object to acting as scavengers to each separate house. The ‘_vidanges_’ are more barbarous even than in Paris. Without the south-easter (or ‘Cape doctor’) they must have fevers, &c.; and though too rough a practitioner for me, he benefits the general health. Next month the winds abate, but last week an omnibus was blown over on the Rondebosch road, which is the most sheltered spot, and inhabited by Capetown merchants. I have received all the _Saturday Reviews_ quite safe, likewise the books, Mendelssohn’s letters, and the novel. I have written for my dear Choslullah to fetch me. The Dutch farmers don’t know how to charge enough; moreover, the Hottentot drivers get drunk, and for two lone women that is not the thing. I pay my gentle Malay thirty shillings a day, which, for a cart and four and such a jewel of a driver, is not outrageous; and I had better pay that for the few days I wait on the road, than risk bad carts, tipsy Hottentots, and extortionate boers.