South Africa -- Description and travel; South Africa -- History -- 1836-1909; South Africa -- History -- To 1836
I would fain give as far as it may be possible an idea to any intending
emigrant of what may be the cost of living in Pretoria. Houses are very
dear,--if hired; cheap enough if bought. When I was there in September,
1877, the annexation being then four months old, a decent cottage might
be bought for seven or eight hundred pounds, for which a rental of seven
or eight pounds a month would be demanded. A good four-roomed house with
kitchen &c. might be built, land included, for a thousand pounds, the
rent demanded for which would be from £150 to £175 a year. Meat was
about 6d. a pound, beef being cheaper and I think better than mutton.
Butter, quite uneatable, was 2s. a pound. Eggs a shilling a dozen. Fowls
1s. 6d. each. Turkeys, very good, 7s. 6d. to 9s. 6d. each. Coals 10s. a
half hundredweight,--and wood for fuel about £2 for a load of two and a
half tons. These prices for fuel would add considerably to the cost of
living were it not that fires are rarely necessary except for the
purpose of cooking. Bread is quoted at 1s. a loaf of two pounds, but was
I think cheaper when I was there. Potatoes were very dear indeed, the
price depending altogether on the period of the year and on the season.
I doubt whether other vegetables were to be bought in the market, unless
it might be pumpkins. Potatoes and green vegetables the inhabitant of
Pretoria should grow for himself. And he should be prepared to live
without butter. Why the butter of South Africa should be almost always
uneatable, culminating into an acme of filth at Pretoria, I cannot
say;--but such was my experience. After all men and women can live
without butter if other things be in plenty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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