Title
A Voyage to the East Indies: Page 43
Description
Austerity of that People. A Conduct establish’d on the Principles of Cruelty, is found to be the only Means of governing them, and as the dutch inherit that Principle from Nature, consequently they are the proper People to possess the Country . . . . . The Country is now civilized for several hundred Miles, & inhabited by the dutch, who plant Vineyards, grow Corn etc. amongst them, of which things the Natives are totally ignorant & probably will ever remain so. One would be almost led to imagine that the Ideas of those miserable Wretches were limited, & incapable of Improvement, for tho’ living amongst a People remarkable for their Industry and Application, they never discover an Inclination to adopt any Plan, that would tend to their public or private Benefit Vines where first planted by a Spaniard, who brought them with him from the Canaries, & finding them flourish, taught the european Inhabitants the Art of Cultivating them, which is now brought to perfection. Of the many Kinds of Wine that are made here they may be reduced to two. The red, and the white, the other arising from the same Stocks, but receiving their Taste and Colour from the Variety of soil, or difference in Making. Their best Wine is call’d Constantia made at a village of that Name, Ten Miles distant from Cape Town. It is of a deeper Colour than the best french Claret is of a rich, sweet, aromatic Taste, so much as resembling Tent-Wine [end page 43]
