Although it was the first winter month, in M. Van Renen's orange grove at Constantia, the trees were so laden with the Hesperian fruit, that their limbs were bent to the ground and many broken. Saw there also, pomegranates, liquots, rose apples, and a variety of tropical fruits, some ready to pluck, others in different stages of ripening.
Up betimes the next morning for a walk through Cape Town. Streets wide and clean, principally paved or macadamized. No banquettes; porches project in front of the houses, covering the trottoir, and pedestrians are forced into the middle of the street. That Hibernian must have been an emigrant to Cape Town, who remarked that "the middle of the street was the best side of the way."
The houses, however, present a fine appearance externally; they are usually about three stories in height, and being stuccoed, are painted in imitation of free-stone. Their tops are flat, to which their occupants repair to spend the remainder of the evening after their late dinners. There is a freshness about the place which is quite reviving after many days at sea, and was particularly pleasant to us, who had seen nothing but filthy Chinese towns for two years and upwards; Hong-Kong having been the nearest approach to a civilized community we had visited during the cruise, and even there the "long-tailed pig-eyed Celestial" predominated.
The parade ground is an extensive oblong space running along the strand, with a ditch dividing it from Strand-street. It has a border of a double row of fine flowering trees, and must be a delightful place for a stroll on a summer evening.
The Commercial Exchange and Library rooms are upon it, fronting the principal street; and back of the Exchange is a rough brick and mortar pillar to mark the spot where Sir J. Herschell, the astronomer, made his observations.
Near the parade ground, and facing it, are the barracks, manned at that time by women, their husbands, the soldiers, having been shipped off to Kaffir land. By the way; a terrible accident had occurred a few weeks before our arrival, to her Britannic Majesty's steamer Berkenhead, employed in transporting troops up the coast, to the war. She struck upon "Point Danger," and going down almost immediately, four out of five hundred of those on board were drowned.
I was told that only about eighty men had been left to garrison the town, and that a panic had lately been gotten up, from fears of a rising of the colored population. The lazy negroes, whom England, in her mistaken philanthropy, had liberated, not being compelled to work, chose to rob and steal.
The Custom-house, an unpretending building, with the letters and numerals G. IV. R. over its portals, is also on Strand-street, fronting the "Parade."
Early on the last morning ashore took a walk to the new market on the outskirts of the town, where the wholesale farmers bring their produce by teams drawn by from ten to fifteen yoke of oxen. These animals are the most suitable beasts for draught I have ever seen. With their long legs they get over the ground nearly as fast as a horse, in a walk, and, when required, go off in a fine, easy, and not ungraceful trot. They bring in immense loads, and come a great distance, over mountainous ways. The wagons they draw resemble those known as the Conestoga, on many of which noticed a projection astern something like a poop, serving as a sleeping cabin for the owners and drivers. In meeting these teams on the road, one at first imagines them to be a drove of beeves, but is soon undeceived by the crack of the lash—"long as the maintop-bowline"—striking against the side of a lagging bullock.
The new market is walled in, with gateways at either side to admit these teams, which, when they enter, and the wagon has been placed in a line with others, are outspanned, that is, detached; and form an immense herd in front of the wagons, the line of which, with the wall of the market place, make a complete corral.