live in pretty cottages up the hill side. There is nothing squalid or even untidy at The Paarl. For eight miles you are driven through a boskey broad well-shaded street with houses on each side at easy intervals, at every one of which you are tempted to think that you would like to live.
What do the people do? That is of course the first question. It was evident from the great number of places of worship that they all went to church very often;—and from the number of schools that they were highly educated. Taking the population generally, they are all Dutch, and are mostly farmers. But their farming is very unlike our farming,—and still more unlike that of the Dutch Boers up the country,—the main work of each individual farmer being confined to a very small space, though the tract of adjacent land belonging to him may extend to one or two or three thousand acres. The land on which they really live and whereby they make their money is used chiefly for the growth of grapes,—and after that for oranges and ostriches. The district is essentially wine making,—though at the time of my visit the low price of wine had forced men to look to other productions to supplement their vines.
I was taken to the house of one gentleman,—a Dutchman of course,—whose homestead in the middle of the town was bosomed amidst oaks. His vineyard was a miracle of neatness, and covered perhaps a dozen acres;—but his ostriches were his pride. Wine was then no more than £3 the "ligger,"—the ligger, or leaguer, being a pipe containing 126 gallons. This certainly is very cheap for wine,—so cheap that I was driven to think that if I lived at The Paarl
