Hooker, Sir Joseph Dalton
JHC342
HMS 'Erebus', Simon's Bay, Cape of Good Hope, [South Africa],South Africa
JDH/1/3 f.119-128
Hooker, Mary and Elizabeth
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
29-3-1840
© Descendants of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker
Correspondence from Antarctic Expedition
The Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
English
Contemporary MS copy
9 page letter over 5 folios
 
Transcript

always full of shipping; but the landing is very bad. Everything is shockingly dear; even the very necessarys of life, so we did not profit much from our stay there. We are now lying in Simon's Bay, at the head of False Bay, about 22 miles from Cape Town: it is here that all ships of the Royal Navy come, from the docklands & naval establishments being situated here. The bay is small & surrounded by high barren hills, at the foot of which is a wretched straggling village of white houses, inhabited by artificers, a few grocers, & the like. The bay is full of slaves captured during the last month, to the amount of 5 ships & 1600 human creatures from different parts of the coast, who will thus be freed. Theis prize money made by some of the officers will be very considerable; but the dreadful climate of the E[ast] & W[est] coast of Africa will more than counterbalance the pecuniary advantages of the station, for instance, a ship of war came in with only a commander & mate, out of all her officers; 3 lieutenants, surgeon, master, purser, mates, &c. &c, to the amount of 11 or 12, having fallen victims to the climate in one short cruize.

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*1
Simon’s Bay -- Cape of Good Hope
29th March 1840

My Dear Sisters,

Supposing that you are still snugly ensconced with Mrs Teed*2, I direct to you both for the last time; as, by the time our ship will have arrived at Van Diemaen's Land*3, Bessy [Elizabeth Hooker] will have, no doubt, returned home, & then I shall address to little Mary [Mary Harriet Hooker] alone.
St Helena is a place of which I dare say you will like to hear something; from its being the grave of our old enemy, Napoleon. His tomb, however, is such a hackneyed subject that I intend to send you no further account of it, than that it is a very respectable tomb for a General Officer, in a very pretty situation. The old weeping willows are dead, & a few new ones supply their place, which do not impale themselves (like beetles on pins) to the memory of the defeated hero; as the former ones are said by romantic writers to have done[.] The town of St Helena is quite English; & the whole island defended by guns on all points. The bay is

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always full of shipping; but the landing is very bad. Everything is shockingly dear; even the very necessarys of life, so we did not profit much from our stay there. We are now lying in Simon's Bay, at the head of False Bay, about 22 miles from Cape Town: it is here that all ships of the Royal Navy come, from the docklands & naval establishments being situated here. The bay is small & surrounded by high barren hills, at the foot of which is a wretched straggling village of white houses, inhabited by artificers, a few grocers, & the like. The bay is full of slaves captured during the last month, to the amount of 5 ships & 1600 human creatures from different parts of the coast, who will thus be freed. Theis prize money made by some of the officers will be very considerable; but the dreadful climate of the E[ast] & W[est] coast of Africa will more than counterbalance the pecuniary advantages of the station, for instance, a ship of war came in with only a commander & mate, out of all her officers; 3 lieutenants, surgeon, master, purser, mates, &c. &c, to the amount of 11 or 12, having fallen victims to the climate in one short cruize.

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The village is full of little black, curly--pated girls & boys, who all seem exceedingly happy, & contented with whatever turns up for them. A large line of battle ship, Melville 74*4, generally lies here as flagships, belonging to Admiral Elliott, the commander on the African station. Her position is within ¼ of a mile from ours; & we hear her band play at dinner--time & before 9 A.M, which is no small delight to me. Having procured a horse the other day, I started for Cape Town, with two companions who drove a gig: the road runs up the bay near the sea for a long way, over sandy tracts incapable of any cultivation. Houses are very few; chiefly dutch farmers & Boers, half--caste hottentots, &c., which, though particularly clean in their persons, seem to live in great poverty. After proceeding about 12 miles, we turned off to a large valley, to visit Constantia, where the celebrated wines are produced. The country was here quite beautiful: heaths & bulbs ornament the plains, & the woods, being are composed of large oaks, firs, & silvered leaved proteas. The vineyard of Groot Constantia is the largest & oldest: we visited it, & were shewn[sic] every attention by the pro-

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-prietor, who lives in a very handsome house on the estate, built & ornamented in the Dutch style. A large avenue of oak trees leads up to the house, which is situated among orchards of apples, pears, peaches, quinces, &c., amongst which are planted roses & other European shrubs & flowers. A large terrace leads down to the vineyard, a space of 37 acres, covered with what appears to me currant bushes: for the vines here are not trained on trellises, like the Madeira ones, but all kept quite short, & so pruned that only 4 or 5 twigs, about 4 feet high, arise from each root: they are planted in perfectly regular order, 4 feet apart, & are of the same height & appearance. Each one bears about 12 large bunches of grapes, about the size of our hot--house grapes: they are very sweet & juicy, & left to hang till they begin to wither, when they are gathered by little blacks in large baskets, & taken to the press. Five kinds of grapes are cultivated in this manner, producing two kinds of Constantia, red & white, Frontignac, Pontac, & Stein wine. Of these, the two former are what we find in England: the two latter are rare & dear: the last, Stein wine, is a common sort, very cheap. The refuse of grape husks

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are distilled to make Cape brandy, the worse kind of which is, from its atrocious character, called Cape--smoke. The Pontac grape is a very remarkable grape; being small, deep blue black, & very dry, quite as dry as a raison: its leaves are of a blood red; & its fruit stains the mouth like our old friends, the blackberrys. The Pontac wine is made by mixing the Pontac grape with the Frontignan wine: it is as thick as oil, & so fruity & luscious that it clogs the mouth: abundance of these are given us to taste, until we are almost sick of them. The wines are made in a very long large room, perhaps 100 feet long, very cool: here the grapes, each according to its sort, are put into large vats, where they are pressed, & the juices put into separate casks to ferment. The whole fermenting process was very curious: the vats were all placed side by side, covered by swarms of bees, hissing & bubbling away according to the stage they were in: huge casks lined the whole building, lying on their sides with their bungs out; some quietly bubbling, & others foaming out at their bung holes. The heat of the weather determining the proper duration of the fermentation: 4 days is the average time. When the process goes on to excess, a curious

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method of checking it is resorted to, which is to light a stick of sulphur, throw it into the cask, bring it up, & shake it for a long time, by which means a chemical process checks the fermentation. About 30 -- 40 pipes of wine are normally made on this estate, the average price of which is £90 per pipe, & it is kept 6 years before being fit for use.
Our stock of animals intended to colonise Kerguelen's Land has gradually diminished: they consisted of a very hardy kind of cock & hen, which have been exterminating one another, fighting, & pecking their messmates, till the poor animals used to lie down in the deck under the tropics, &, not choosing to shelter themselves from the heat, died in the sun. The sailors too got some of them, & clipped their feathers, transforming them into the most ludicrous creatures you can imagine: some also committed suicide from the Bulwarks, vainly supposing they could fly like the Gulls and the Albatrosses. Two were left at Trinidad, where they may do well, as, where they were left, there was plenty of cockroaches, &c. A cat is our only four-footed companion, & has got on tolerably well: it was given to the Captain on sailing, but has taken to our mess, sleeping on the lockers,

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& taking its meals with us: at first, when we were upon salt provisions, it fared very ill, but soon learned to eat salt junk, pork, rice, & even curried meats: cheese, however, is its favourite. It was given to us as a she, so we called her Fanny; but the Captain afterwards changed its name to Tom, so we christened it Phantom after a beautiful new ship in Chatham when we sailed. Once or twice live-stock have been taken on board; but they required to be killed soon. The neighbourhood of the Cape is for many miles, around, most uninteresting. Wynberg & Constantia, both in the same direction, are the only pretty places; & they certainly are very pretty; the roads being lined with avenues of beautiful oaks, firs, &c. The houses are quite mod​ern, & are country--seats of the Cape Town merchants & government officers. Untill[sic] coming to Wynberg, the road from Simon's Bay to the Town, 22 miles, is very dreary: nothing but desert wastes of sand, & bare hills covered with stones, & a few trees are to be seen; varied now & then with a huge wagon drawn by a team of from 10-20 oxen, huge beasts, with bunches behind their necks & tremendous horns, who toil patiently through the deep sand, accom-

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-panied by a hottentott[sic], or half-caste driver, with a tremendous whip, whose lash some 12 feet long & upwards, he cracks with a report like a musket. Immense whales' jaws & bones are very common along the road; the jaws, forming arches, or, being cut into lengths, are used as sails: much neater palisades, about 4 ft high are made by placing the curved ribs thus, [a sketch of curved lines appears here].
Lizards & a very few small but gorgeously coloured birds are common; as are vultures in large flocks, gulls, & a curious large crow with a handsome white ring around its neck. For some way up False Bay the road runs among the sands of the sea; &, when the tide rises, it sometimes gives unexperienced drivers a good ducking, which my companions experienced in returning from Cape Town at night, when they hampered their gig among some rocks, &, by dint of beating the horse, to drag the vehicle over an un-surmountable rock, caused it to break the splintaer bar: by the time I had come up with my horse they had unsaddled the gig & horse, & the tide had risen, so that the surf washed over all. After a tremendous ducking & 3 hours labour, we extricated the vehicle; & I harnessed it for them in a rude sort of manner, but well enough for,

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the poor horse, who was frightened out of his senses, to drag, the water-sodden gig to Simon's Town. You would have laughed to have seen the unloading at the Hotel of water sodden articles of all kinds, carpet--bags, cigar--boxes, &c, in sorry plight. We never go ashore to any distance without horses & gigs; & scenes are sure to follow. I have written to my father & grandfather; & as you of course will I know, write to me at V[an]. D[iemen's] Land, as I have given up hopes of hearing from home before that, when 12 months will have elapsed since hearing of you.
Your most affectionate brother | Jos.D.Hooker

ENDNOTES

1. This letter is a contemporary 19th century copy written in a hand not that of the original author, JDH. The copy was probably made by JDH's mother or sister so that a version could be circulated amongst family and friends. 2. Hooker's sisters attended Mrs Teed's school at Great Campden House. 3. Van Dieman's Land: the original European name for Tasmania. 4. H.M.S. 'Melville' was a 74 gun third rate ship of the Royal Navy launched in 1817
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