To The Gold Coast for Gold: A Personal Narrative. Vol. IBurton, Richard Francis, Sir
History
To The Gold Coast for Gold: A Personal Narrative. Vol. I
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Ghana -- Description and travel; Gold mines and mining -- Ghana
'Canary' possessed its own especial charác-ter, as Jonathan says. If it
developed none of the highest qualities of its successful rivals, it
became, after eight to twelve years' keeping, a tolerable wine, which
many in England have drunk, paying for good madeira. The shorter period
sufficed to mature it, and it was usually shipped when three to four
years old. It kept to advantage in wood for a quarter of a century, and
in bottle it improved faster. My belief is that the properest use of
Tenerife was to 'lengthen out' the finer growths. I found Canary bearing
the same relation to madeira as marsala bears to sherry: the best
specimens almost equalled the second- or third-rate madeiras. Moreover,
these wines are even more heady and spirituous than those of the
northern island; and there will be greater difficulty in converting them
to the category _vino de pasto_, a light dinner-wine.
Before 1810 Tenerife exported her wines not from Santa Cruz, but from
Orotava, the centre of commerce. Here, since the days of Charles II.,
there was an English Factory with thirty to forty British subjects,
Protestants, under the protection of the Captain-General; and their
cemetery lay at the west end of El Puerto, whose palmy days were in
1812-15. The trade was then transferred to the modern capital, where
there are, and have been for years, only two English wine-shipping
firms, Messieurs Hamilton and Messieurs Davidson. The seniors of both
families have all passed away; but their sons and grandsons still
inhabit the picturesque old houses on the 'Marina.' In 1812-15 the
annual export of wine was 8,000 to 11,000 pipes. The Peace of 1815 was a
severe blow to the trade. Between 1830 and 1840, however, the vintage of
the seven chief islands averaged upwards of 46,000; of these Tenerife
supplied between 4,000 and 5,000, equivalent to the total produce since
the days of the oïdium. In 1852 Admiral Robinson reduced the number of
pipes to 20,000, worth 200,000_l_. In 1860-65 I saw the grape in a
piteous plight: the huge bunches were composed of dwarfed and wilted
berries, furred and cobwebbed with the foul mycelium. The produce fell
to 100-150 pipes, and at present only some 200 to 300 are exported. The
Peninsula and the West African coast take the bulk; England and Germany
ranking next, and lastly Spain, which used the import largely in
making-up wines. The islanders now mostly drink the harsh, coarse
Catalonians; they still, however, make for home consumption a cheap
white wine, which improves with age. It is regretable that fears of the
oïdium and the phylloxera prevent the revival of the industry, for which
the Islands are admirably fitted. Potatoes and other produce have also
suffered; but that is no obstacle to their being replanted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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