TRAVELS IN 
^VJNE AND BllAND-r. 
These two articles, with those above mentioned, may be 
considered as the staple commodities of the Cape of Good 
Hope. Grapes grow with the greatest kixuriancy in every 
part of this extensive colony ; but the cultivation of the vine 
is little understood, or, to speak more properly, is not at- 
tended to with that diligence which in other countries i& 
bestowed upon it. Hence the wines are susceptible of great 
improvement-^ and the quantity of being increased inde- 
finitely. 
Ten or twelve distinct kinds of wine are manufactured at 
the Cape, and each of those has a difterent flavour and 
quality at the different farms on which they are produced. 
From difference of soil, from situation, and management, 
scarcel}^ any two vineyards, of the same kind of grape, give 
the same wine. By throwing under the press the ripe and 
imripe grapes, together Avith the stalk', most of the wines 
have eitlier a thinness and a slight acidity, or, for want of a 
proper degree of fermentation, and from being pressed when 
over ripe, acquire a sickly saccharine taste. An instance of 
the former is perceptible in that called Steen, which resembles 
the Rhenish wines; and of the latter, in that which is known 
by the name of Conatantia. It is generally supposed that 
this wine is the produce of two farms only, of that name ^ 
whereas, the same grape, the muscadel, grows at every 
farm ; and at some of them in Drakenstein the wine pressed 
