Simon's Bay, Cape of Good Hope. March 29, 1840.
My dear Sisters, Supposing that you are still snugly ensconced with Mrs Teed, I direct to you both for the last time, as, by the time our ship will have arrived at Van Diemen's Land, Bessy*1 will have, no doubt, returned home, and I shall address to little Mary*2 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, and a few new ones supplied in their place, which do not impale themselves, (like beetles on pins) to the memory of the departed hero; as the former ones are said by romantic writers to have done. The town of St Helena is quite English, and the whole island defended by guns on all points. The bay is always full of shipping; but the landing is very bad. Everything is shockingly dear, even the very necessaries 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 the ships of the Royal Navy come, from the Dockyards and Naval establishment being situated here. The bay is small and surrounded by high barren hills, at the foot of which is a wretched straggling village of white houses inhabited by artificers, a few grocers, and the like.

The bay is full of slavers, captured during the last month, to the amount of five ships and 1600 human creatures from different parts of the coast, who will thus be freed. The prize-money made by some of the officers will be very considerable; but the dreadful climate of the E[ast] and W[est] coasts of Africa will more than counterbalance the pecuniary advantages of the station:- for instance, a ship of war came in with only a Commander and Mate, out of all her officers; three Lieutenants, Surgeon, Master, Purser, Mates, &c. &c., to the amount of 11 or 12, having fallen victims to the climate in one whort[sic] cruise. The village is full of little black, curly-pated girls and boys, who all seem exceedingly happy and contented with whatever turns up for them. A large line of battle ship, the Melville 74, generally lies here as Flag-ship, belonging to Admiral Elliott, the Commander on the African station. Her position is within a quarter of a mile from ours, and we hear her band play at dinnertime and before 9a.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 and Boors, half-cast 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 and bulbs ornamenting the plains, and the woods being composed of large oaks, firs, and silver-leaved Proteas. The

vineyard of Groot Constantia is the largest and oldest; we visited it, and were shown every attention by the proprietor, who lives in a very handsome house on the estate, built and 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 and other European flowers and shrubs. A large terrace leads down to the vineyard, a space of 37 acres, covered with what appeared to me currant bushes; for the vines here are not trained on trellises, like the Madeira ones, but all kept quite short, and so pruned that only four or five twigs, about 4 feet high arise from each root: they are planted in perfectly regular order, 4 feet apart, and are of the same height and appearance. Each vine bears about 12 large bunches of grapes, about the size of our hot-house grapes; they are very sweet and juicy, and left to hang until they begin to wither, when they are gathered by little blacks, in large baskets, and taken to the press. Five kinds of grapes are cultivated in this manner, producing two kinds of Constantia, red and white, Frontignac, Pontac and Stein wine. Of these, the two former are what we find in England; the two latter are very rare and dear; the last, Stein wine, is a common sort, very cheap. The refuse of the grape husks are distilled to make Cape brandy, the worst kind of which is, from its atrocious character, called Cape smoke. The Pontac grape is a very remarkable one, being small, deep blue-black, and very dry, quite as dry as a raisin; its leaves are of a blood red, and its fruit stains the mouth like our old friends, the Blaeberries[sic]. The Pontac wine is made by

mixing the Pontac grape with the Frontignac wine; it is as thick as oil, and so fruity and luscious that it clogs the mouth; abundance of these were given us to taste, until we were almost sick of them. The wines were made in a very large long room, perhaps 100 feet long, very cool; here the grapes, each according to its sort, are put into large vats, where they are pressed, and 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 and 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 and others foaming out at their bung-holes. The heat of the weather determines the proper duration of the fermentation: four days is the average time. When the process goes on to excess, a curious method of checking it is resorted to, which is, to light a stick of sulphur, throw it into the cask, bung it up, and shake it for a long time, by which means a chemical process checks the fermentation. About 30 - 40 pipes of wine are annually made on this estate, the average price of which is £90 per pipe, and is kept 6 years before being fit for use. Our stock of animals, intended to colonize Kerguelen's Land, has gradually diminished; they consisted of a very hardy kind of cock and hen, which have been exterminating one another, fighting and pecking their messmates, till the poor animals used to lie down on the deck under the tropics, and not choosing to shelter themselves from the heat, died in the sun. The sailors, too, got some of them and 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 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, and has got on tolerably well; it was given to the Captain on sailing, but has taken to our mess, sleeping on the lockers and 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, and 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 Phan-tom, after a beautiful new ship lying at 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 and Constantia, both in the same direction, are the only pretty places, and they certainly are very pretty, the roads being lined with avenues of beautiful oaks, firs, &c. The houses are quite modern, and are country-seats of the Cape Town merchants and government officers. Until coming to Wynberg, the road from Simon's Bay to the town, 22 miles, is very dreary; nothing but desert wastes of sand, and bare hills covered with stones and a few trees, are to be seen, varied now and then with a huge waggon drawn by a team of from 10 - 20 oxen, huge beasts with bunches behind their necks and tremendous horns, who toil

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

I have written to my father and grandfather, and as you, of course, will see their letters, I shall expatiate no more. You will, I know, write to me at V[an] D[iemens] 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.