Mrs. D— is gone to Capetown to get servants (the Scotch girl having carried on her amours too flagrantly), and will return in my cart. S— is still keeping house meanwhile, much perturbed by the placid indolence of the brown girl. The stableman cooks, and very well too. This is colonial life—a series of makeshifts and difficulties; but the climate is fine, people feel well and make money, and I think it is not an unhappy life. I have been most fortunate in my abode, and can say, without speaking cynically, that I have found ‘my warmest welcome at an inn’. Mine host is a rough soldier, but the very soul of good nature and good feeling; and his wife is a very nice person—so cheerful, clever, and kindhearted. I should like to bring home the little Madagascar girl from Rathfelders, or a dear little mulatto who nurses a brown baby here, and is so clean and careful and ‘pretty behaved’,—but it would be a great risk. The brown babies are ravishing—so fat and jolly and funny. One great charm of the people here is, that no one expects money or gifts, and that all civility is gratis. Many a time I finger small coin secretly in my pocket, and refrain from giving it, for fear of spoiling this innocence. I have not once seen a _look_ implying ‘backsheesh’, and begging is unknown. But the people are reserved and silent, and have not the attractive manners of the darkies of Capetown and the neighbourhood. LETTER X Caledon, Feb. 22d. Yesterday Captain D— gave me a very nice caross of blessbok skins, which he got from some travelling trader. The excellence of the Caffre skin-dressing and sewing is, I fancy, unequalled; the bok-skins are as soft as a kid glove, and have no smell at all. In the afternoon the young doctor drove me, in his little gig-cart and pair (the lightest and swiftest of conveyances), to see a wine-farm. The people were not at work, but we saw the tubs and vats, and drank ‘most’. The grapes are simply trodden by a Hottentot, in a tub with a sort of strainer at the bottom, and then thrown—skins, stalks, and all—into vats, where the juice ferments for twice twenty-four hours; after which it is run into casks, which are left with the bung out for eight days; then the wine is drawn off into another cask, a little sulphur and brandy are added to it, and it is bunged down. Nothing can be conceived so barbarous. I have promised Mr. M— to procure and send him an exact account of the process in Spain. It might be a real service to a most worthy and amiable man. Dr. M— also would be glad of a copy. They literally know nothing about wine-making here, and with such matchless grapes I am sure it ought to be good. Altogether, ‘der alte Schlendrian’ prevails at the Cape to an incredible degree.