CLIMATE—FRUITS.
The climate of Cape Town is unquestionably very healthy, and not surpassed in equability and in the agreeableness of its temperature. In fact, the transition from heat to cold is very inconsiderable, in comparison with many other climates. It seems, from a meteorological table, kept for several years, that the mean temperature of Cape Town, was at 67¼° of Fahrenheit; the mean temperature, for the coldest winter month, was 57°, the hottest, 79°, and the least heat during summer was 63. Although the proportion of deaths is more than double that of Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, yet this number is greatly augmented by invalids from India, who there find their graves; but in the other districts it is about in the same ratio as Portsmouth, averaging about one and a half per centum. It was truly refreshing, to see the rosy-cheeked children, and the healthy appearance of the inhabitants generally, after having spent many months among the pale, sallow complexioned and dying East Indians. Here an Indian may renovate his exhausted frame, and be cured (if it be possible) of that never-ending source of complaint, a diseased liver. There are good roads, pleasant country-seats, fine horses, and good carriages; and he must be very fastidious in his taste, who cannot be suited in his viands, for here are fish, flesh, and fowl, in great variety. As to fruit, the quality is excellent; the prices are very low, and the variety is certainly extraordinary—for in January there are plums, apricots, peaches, almonds, strawberries, mulberries, grapes, apples, oranges, lemons, figs, muskmelons, and watermelons. In February the same. In March the same, adding thereto lemons and pomegranates. In April, add pears, limes, and quinces. In May, medlars, jambos or rose-apple, loquats, a Chinese fruit, &c. In June, add shaddocks and citron, with various kinds of apples and pears. In July, August, and September, the same, adding oranges to the last month. In October, adding guavas, &c. In November, early figs, strawberries, green almonds, and the fruits of September and October. In December the same. And as to vegetables, they are in every variety, almost at all seasons of the year. And who could be so devoid of taste, as not to be gratified with the sight of the immense variety of flowers, shrubs, and parasitical plants which greet the eye at every step? It may, therefore, truly be called Florida, or the Land of Flowers. The luxuries of Europe, of America, of India, of China, and Australia—in short, of the world, are here; and as to the inhabitants, so far as I had the pleasure of being acquainted with the English part of them, they deserve every commendation it is in my power to bestow, for their hospitality and unwearied kindness—more particularly the acting-governor, Lieutenant-Colonel Wade, the Honourable Mr. Justice Menzies, A. Oliphant, Esq., the attorney-general, J. B. Edwards, Captain Bance, and the officers of the seventy-second Highlanders; Captain Stevens, the commander, and the officers of the ninety-eighth regiment.
The articles of export of the most importance, are aloes, oil, raisins, and other dried fruits; salt, tallow, and wool. There is exported also excellent salted beef and butter, and bread, but no pork. The following prices were paid for sundry articles, purchased by Mr. Stockton, the purser, for the Peacock:—ale, two Spanish dollars per dozen, (Cape made;) geese, one dollar; sheep, two dollars; fowls, fifteen rix dollars; per dozen; flour, averages generally from ten to eleven dollars, it is rarely as low as eight dollars fifty cents, frequently at twelve Spanish dollars per barrel, of one hundred and ninety-six pounds; hams and bacon, from Europe, twenty-three to thirty-five cents per pound; butter, (Cape,) thirty-one and a quarter cents, including keg; potatoes, six dollars per barrel, including barrel; pork, (Irish,) twenty-five dollars; salt beef, (Cape,) eleven dollars per barrel, two hundred pounds, including barrel, or four and a quarter cents per pound without; beef, (fresh,) five cents; biscuit, five cents, including bags; bread, (soft,) four cents; cheese, (Dutch,) twenty-one cents; brandy, (Cape,) including pipe, which costs ten dollars, sixty cents per gallon; Cape Madeira wine is from five to eighteen pounds sterling per pipe of one hundred and ten gallons, according to quality and ripeness; cordage, sixty shillings per one hundred English pounds; ratline and spunyarn, fifty-four shillings; Stockholm tar, fifty-four shillings per barrel; blocks eight-pence per inch; sperm oil, seven and sixpence per gallon; linseed oil, seven shillings; nails, ninepence sterling per pound; fir-plank, four-pence halfpenny per foot; carpenters, six shillings per day; spirits of turpentine, seven shillings and sixpence per gallon; pump-leather, five shillings per pound; three and a half sides, tanned leather, cost sixty shillings sterling; houseline, seven shillings and sixpence per dozen. The four kinds of the celebrated Constantia are sold as follows:—
PRICES OF WINES.
| £ | s. | d. | |
| Frontignac, per half aum of 19 gallons | 13 | 2 | 6 |
| White ditto ditto | 11 | 5 | 0 |
| Red ditto ditto | 9 | 7 | 6 |
| Pontac, the richest, ditto ditto | 22 | 10 | 0 |
The last costing nearly six dollars per gallon. There will probably be added to the list of exports in a few years, olive-oil, cocoa, figs, almonds, nuts, dried, pickled and smoked fish, raw silk, cotton, tobacco, grapes and currants. If the British government would impose a reasonable duty on cape produce at home, the quantity of wine, brandy, dried fruits, &c., would be vastly increased, and many a barren field and neglected hill would blossom like the rose, and pour forth riches inexhaustible. That any duty at all should be paid, seems most strange and unnatural to an American, but that it should amount to a prohibition (as on wine) is unbearable. At their own sister-colonies, they are obliged to pay as follows; at Mauritius, six per cent. at New South Wales, five, and at Hobart town, Van Diemen’s land, fifteen per cent.: whereas in Brazil they pay only the latter duty. What would seem more strange to an American planter in Louisiana, than to have his produce most extravagantly taxed, or taxed at all in the state of Maine, but most fortunately it is prohibited by the constitution of the United States. No less a duty than two shillings and six pence sterling per gallon is paid on cape wine in England, and dried fruits are extravagantly taxed. Taxation without representation was one of the causes of revolution, and the stamp act was another, with both of which their colonies are burdened. It matters not whether they tax their colonists, on the spot where there domicil is, or whether it is done in England on their produce. The duty on imports and exports is the most important branch of the revenue of the cape. Great Britain requires the colony to pay the whole expense of her establishments, except the army and navy, and yet all important offices are filled by the crown. As it respects the local taxes they are almost innumerable. Among these enumerated, I find every male or female, bond or free, who has arrived at the age of sixteen, pays an annual tax of six shillings sterling each, and ten shillings more on every servant, besides a tax on horses and carriages, on the productions of the farm, wine, brandy, &c., &c. In reference to household expenses, meat, fish and bread are cheap, but wood is extravagantly high, and ever will be, as no coal has ever yet been found in this, or in any other part of Africa; it is frequently as high as six to seven pounds ten shilling sterling per chaldron. Sydney can furnish it at a much cheaper rate, and it will probably soon be brought altogether from that quarter. Servants’ wages are higher here than in any other country, and house rent is at about the same rate as in New York. It seems almost incredible, yet it is unquestionably true, that the contract price for fresh beef and mutton (for 1833) to supply the garrison at the cape, should be at a fraction less than a penny per pound, and that bread should be furnished at a penny per pound; but I presume it is made of barley and oats, and probably a proportion of beans, as it is frequently in England, for it cannot be made of wheat for three times the price. This information is derived from Governor Wade. It is most surprising, that not a single whale-ship belongs to the cape, when whales are so abundant, even within sight of their harbours. There are two small boat-whaling establishments in False bay, one at Cape Town, one in Algoa, and one in Plettenberg’s bay. The boats are mostly of a bad construction, and too small; they fish only for cow whale, when they come into still water to calve, and cleanse themselves with sand; but this kind of fishery is very destructive to the species, and they have greatly diminished in numbers, so that the business is scarcely worth following. Neither do they dry, pickle or smoke fish for exportation, and yet the bays swarm with them, and there is a mine of wealth yet untouched on the bank of Agulhas. The Brazil and La Plata, the Mauritius, &c., would furnish good markets, and a fine hardy set of seamen would be raised for commercial and other purposes. The fishing on the bank is not so hazardous as that of Newfoundland, and they save a tedious voyage, in going and returning; in fact, it may be said they may be always in sight of their own homes. Salt is abundant, and the weather never cold, they can make their own lines and leads, lead being found in the colony, and they can raise cotton and make their sails and cordage, and there is a plenty of timber on the east and northeast coast. There are but eleven vessels belonging to the cape, of all descriptions, which are principally employed in coasting voyages to Port Elizabeth; they are from forty to one hundred and seventy tons, and their united tonnage is but one thousand one hundred and four tons. The colony has been represented to me, by many gentlemen, who have visited all the districts, as being poor, the soil generally very light and thin, and very deficient in water, the rivers being deep seated, which drains off the moisture from the surrounding country, subject to long and destructive droughts, and cursed with locusts and grasshoppers, and the karras or plains being very extensive, and totally unfit for cultivation, and withal very mountainous. But still, I am convinced, that abundance of grain can be raised to advantage, and wool, raw silk, wine, dried fruits, beef, &c., &c., besides the products of the ocean, can be exported to a large amount, but Saxony or Merino wool must become the most prominent article among the exports. The farmers are wisely rooting out the wire-haired, big-tailed cape sheep, and substituting those which have wool on their backs. It is not an article of luxury like wine, subject to fluctuations from mere change of fashion. If his late majesty, George the fourth, had taken a fancy to cape, instead of xeres, (sherry,) as he did a few years since, it would have been a fortunate circumstance for the colony: the hills would have been clothed with vines, instead of a green patch, here and there, dotting the surface like the oases in a desert.
CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.
The cape of Good Hope, from its fine geographical position, being placed on the highway between the world’s nations, must become a place of great importance, when the India and China trade is left free and unrestricted, as it ought and must be. It is a most convenient stopping place for the interchange of commodities, or to touch for supplies, or to obtain information; all they now want is an unshackled commerce, and a moderate duty laid on their produce in the parent-country, and by their sister-colonies. Without this reasonable aid, their agriculture, fisheries and commerce, will make but slow progress, and if the colony does not become a burden, it can never be of much advantage to England, excepting to draw off a part of her surplus population, or in case of a war. But the commerce of the Cape has latterly increased, notwithstanding burdens and the neglect of the parent-country. The number of foreign arrivals in Table bay (which was in every month in the year) from December seventeenth, 1831, to thirtieth November, 1832, was one hundred and ninety-seven; and at Simon’s bay thirty-six, including ships-of-war. At the time the Dutch held the Cape, no vessels lay in Table bay during the winter months, but now I am informed, no difference is made in the premium of insurance, between the winter and summer months. Hempen cables of an extreme size (and anchors of course in proportion) are always preferable to chain cables in any roadstead, where there is a heavy swell and violent gales from the ocean; but the first few fathoms from the anchor, should be chain to guard against rocks and other obstructions and anchors, and it can readily be secured to the hempen one. But still no cable is equal to coir, having three valuable properties, being strong, buoyant and exceedingly elastic. In the La Plata and elsewhere, it has been found, that riding by two or more hemp cables in one string, in a violent gale and heavy sea, enables the ship to rise with buoyancy, but if a great length of chain is veered out, it lies upon the bottom and operates against the rise of the vessel, and she therefore feels the full force of the sea, which causes her to plunge deeply, or the sea to break over her, and consequently there is more danger of foundering.