Particulars concerning the vineyards at Constantia.
Nearly half way between them both is the district of Constantia, which produces the famous wine of that name. This vineyard, where they cultivate the Spanish muscade vines, is very small, but it is not true that it belongs to the company, or that it is surrounded, as people believe here, by walls, and watched. It is distinguished into High and Little Constantia, separated by a hedge, and belonging to two different proprietors. The wine which is made there is nearly alike in quality, though each of the two Constantias has its partisans. In common years they make a hundred and twenty or a hundred and thirty barriques of this wine, of which the company takes a third at a stated price, and the rest is sold to every buyer that offers. The price at present is thirty piastres or dollars the barrel of seventy bottles of white wine, and thirty-five piastres for the same quantity of red wine. My officers and myself went to dine with M. Vanderspie, the proprietor of High Constantia. He treated us in the best manner possible, and we there drank a good deal of his wine, both at dinner, and in tasting the different sorts, in order to make our provision of them.
The soil of Constantia is a sandy gravel, lying on a gentle slope. They cultivate the vines without props, and leave only a small number of buds when they cut them. They make the wine by putting the grapes without their grains into the vessel. The full casks are kept in a cellar level with the ground, in which the air has a free circulation. As we returned from Constantia, we visited two country-houses belonging to the governor. The largest, named Newland, has a garden which is much larger than the company’s, at the Cape. This last we have found much inferior to the reputation it has acquired. Some long walks of very high horn-beams, give it the appearance of a garden for fryars, and it is planted with oaks, which thrive very ill there.
Situation of the Dutch at the Cape.
The Dutch plantations have spread very much on the whole coast, and plenty is every where the consequence of cultivation, because the cultivator is free, subject to the laws only, and sure of his property. There are inhabitants almost a hundred and fifty leagues off the capital; they have no other enemies to fear than the wild beasts; for the Hottentots do not molest them. One of the finest parts of the Cape is the colony, which has been called Little Rochelle. This is a settlement of French, driven out of France by the repeal of the edict of Nantes. It surpasses all the rest in the fertility of the soil, and the industry of the colonists. They have given this adopted mother the name of their old country, which they still love, though it has treated them so hardly.
The government sends caravans, out from time to time to search the interior parts of the country. One was out for eight months in 1763. This detachment advanced to the northward, and made, as I was told, some important discoveries; however, this journey had not the success which one might have expected; discontent and discord got amongst them, and forced the chief to return home, leaving his discoveries imperfect. The Dutch got sight of a yellow nation, with long hair, and seeming very ferocious to them.
On this journey they found a quadruped of seventeen feet high, of which I have given the drawing to M. de Buffon; it was a female suckling a young one, (fawn) which was only seven feet high. They killed the mother, and took the fawn alive, but it died after a few days march. M. de Buffon assured me that this is the animal which naturalists call the giraffe. None of them had been seen after that which was brought to Rome in the time of Cæsar, and shewn there in the amphitheatre. About three years ago they have likewise found and brought to the Cape, a quadruped of great beauty, which is related to the ox, horse, and stag, and of which the genus is entirely new. It only lived two months at the Cape; I have likewise given M. de Buffon an exact drawing of this animal, whose strength and fleetness equal its beauty. It[It] is not without reason that Africa has been named the mother of monsters.
Departure from the Cape.
Being provided with good provisions, wines, and refreshments of all sorts, we set sail from the road of the Cape the 17th in the afternoon. We passed between the isle of Roben and the coast; at six o’clock in the evening, the middle of that isle bore S. by E. ½ E. about four leagues distant, from whence I took my departure in 33° 40′ south latitude, and 15° 48′ east longitude from Paris. I wanted to join M. Carteret, over whom I had certainly a great advantage in sailing; but he was still eleven days before me.
I directed my course so as to get sight of St. Helena, in order to make sure of putting in at Ascension island, an anchorage which I intended to make beneficial to my crew. |Sight of St. Helena.|Indeed we got sight of it the 29th, at two o’clock after noon, and the bearings which we set of it gave us no more than eight or ten leagues difference in our reckoning. |1769. February.| In the night between the 3d to the 4th of February, being in the latitude of Ascension island, and being about eighteen leagues from it by my reckoning, I went only under the two top-sails. At day-break we saw the isle nearly nine leagues distant, and at eleven o’clock we anchored in the north west creek, or Creek of the Mountain of the Cross, in twelve fathoms, bottom of sand and coral. According to the Abbé la Caille’s observations, this anchorage is in 7° 54′ south latitude, and 16° 19′ west longitude from Paris.