this, I may mention that a fellow passenger of
mine was a Frenchman from Champagne.
At the Cape he entered into partnership with
a young Englishman (also a fellow passenger),
and agreed to take a wine farm. The Englishman
was to supply capital—the Frenchman
knowledge. Monsieur had determined to
make "Cape Champagne;" and remarkably
well he succeeded. Often at public and even
at private dinners, when swallowing something
dignified with the name of that right-royal
wine, have I sighed to think how far more
palatable would be a bottle of Monsieur
L——'s vintage.

It perhaps requires a greater outlay of
capital to be a successful wine-grower than
almost anything else in the colony. There are,
in addition to the purchase of land and vines,
the expenses of storehouses, casks, and, above
all, that most difficult commodity to attain—
labour. So great is the want of the latter,
and so uncertain the supply of even that which
is attainable, that he is a bold man who
ventures on wine-farming at the Cape.

The wine-growers are generally wealthy
men, for, in spite of all obstacles, their profits
are very large. Few people who even touch
at the Cape fail to visit the Constantia wine
farms, producing the delicious sweet wine of
that name. It is grown on a mountain named
after the wife of one of the former Governors
of the Cape—whether in compliment to the
lady's sweetness of disposition, or her love for
the wine then produced, I know not. Three
farms monopolise this mountain. Even half a
mile from them, the wine produced is of a very
inferior flavour. They live in excellent style,
these Constantia wine-growers. When first
I visited one of them, a carriage-and-four and
two buggies, conveying a party of Indian
visitors, had just drawn up at the door. A
déjeûner was spread in a long, handsome, and
elegantly-furnished apartment, for the
entertainment of any one who might chance to
come and visit the farm. Two or three
superintendents were ready to show the "lions" of
the place to visitors, and to give them samples
of the wine to taste. There are many varieties
of it. And, oh, how seductive that same
Constantia is! Who can resist it in all its
delicious varieties?

I recollect that as I rode towards the farm
I passed a toll-gate, and looking, I suppose,
extremely like a "griffin" (for I had only been
a week in the colony), the "pikeman" observed,
as he took my twopence, and handed me the
ticket, "Hopes you'll be able to read it as you
comes back, Sir!"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"No offence, Sir," said the man with a grin;
"only I've seed a many as couldn't—that's
all."

The three Constantia wine-growers are
Dutchmen; and so, in fact, are nearly all the
wine-farmers throughout the colony. Englishmen
who go out there generally take to trade
or sheep-farming; and they are right,—for it
requires far less experience, less capital, and
less labour, to follow almost any calling at the
Cape than that of a wine-grower. I think,
however, that a Company might be profitably
established here or in the colony, for
cultivating the vine there and importing its
produce to Europe. For this purpose, they should
send out labourers and superintendents,
carefully selected from the wine districts of France
and Germany; and take care that the Madeira
plan of gathering the grapes be adopted. They
should agitate, too, for a reduction of the duty
on the wine: at present it is far too high.
Perhaps the profits would not at first be
great, for there is a serious obstacle to be
overcome,—a bad name in the market; but
eventually I believe that the speculation
would be a lucrative one, and that it would
in time remove the unfortunate stigma now
affixed to Cape wine.

In these days of railroad travelling, when
twenty miles an hour would be considered
slow enough to justify a letter of complaint
from "Viator" to the editor of the Times, it
may rather astonish my readers to learn that
twenty miles is considered a fair day's journey
at the Cape. Yet so it is.

Unless you amble on horseback, which only
men and young men can undertake, the sole
and universal method of travelling is by an
ox-wagon. Just go and look at the wagon
exhibited by Cumming in his South-African
Exhibition, at Hyde Park corner! Imagine
such a machine, with twelve or fourteen oxen
attached to it by a long rope of plaited hide
(called a treck-tow) attached to the pole, and
to which are fastened the yokes of the oxen.
Then fancy a little Hottentot lad, very much
like one of the Bushmen lately exhibited in
London (but, perhaps, hardly so handsome,)
leading the two front oxen by a strip of hide
fastened to their horns (called a reim), and a
full-grown Hottentot seated on the driving-
seat, in the front of the wagon, with an
enormous whip in his hands formed of a long
bamboo handle and a lash of plaited thongs,
with which he can, from his seat, reach the
leaders of his team; and you have the
"travelling carriage" of South Africa complete
before your eyes.

The same team (or "span" in South-African
phraseology) of oxen take you the whole
journey, whether it be twenty or two hundred
miles; and as they have no other food on the
way, nor indeed at any other time, than the
grass and water on the roadside, you may
imagine that twenty or twenty-five miles a day is
quite work enough for them. The journey is,
however, by no means so tedious or uninteresting
an affair as might be supposed. It is
like so many days of pic-nic-ing, with new
scenery each day, and in a glorious climate.
The wagon is of course well furnished with
tea, sugar, coffee, wine, flour, eggs, fresh and
preserved meat, vegetables, and in fact all
that refreshes and cheers the inward man;