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.
If two 'Heeren M-' call on you, please be civil to them. I don't
know them personally, but their brother is the doctor here, and the
most good-natured young fellow I ever saw. If I were returning by
Somerset instead of Worcester, I might put up at their parents'
house and be sure of a welcome; and I can tell you civility to
strangers is by no means of course here. I don't wonder at it; for
the old Dutch families ARE GENTLEFOLKS of the good dull old school,
and the English colonists can scarcely suit them. In the few
instances in which I have succeeded in thawing a Dutchman, I have
found him wonderfully good-natured; and the different manner in
which I was greeted when in company with the young doctor showed
the feeling at once. The dirt of a Dutch house is not to be
conceived. I have had sights in bedrooms in very respectable
houses which I dare not describe. The coloured people are just as
clean. The young doctor (who is much Anglicised) tells me that, in
illness, he has to break the windows in the farmhouses - they are
built not to open! The boers are below the English in manners and
intelligence, and hate them for their 'go-ahead' ways, though THEY
seem slow enough to me. As to drink, I fancy it is six of one and
half a dozen of the other; but the English are more given to
eternal drams, and the Dutch to solemn drinking bouts. I can't
understand either, in this climate, which is so stimulating, that I
more often drink ginger-beer or water than wine - a bottle of sherry
lasted me a fortnight, though I was ordered to drink it; somehow, I
had no mind to it.
27th. - The cart could not be got till the day before yesterday, and
yesterday Mrs. D- arrived in it with two new Irish maids; it saved
her 3l., and I must have paid equally. The horses were very tired,
having been hard at work carrying Malays all the week to Constantia
and back, on a pilgrimage to the tomb of a Mussulman saint; so to-
day they rest, and to-morrow I go to Villiersdorp. Choslullah has
been appointed driver of a post-cart; he tried hard to be allowed
to pay a remplacant, and to fetch 'his missis', but was refused
leave; and so a smaller and blacker Malay has come, whom Choslullah
threatened to curse heavily if he failed to take great care of 'my
missis' and be a 'good boy'.
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