SOUTHERN AFRICA. 333 
cially in the district of Zwellendam, at do great distance from 
Mossel Bay. In this part of the country the farmers rear 
few cattle or sheep, their stock consisting chiefly of horses ; 
and they formerly cultivated a certain quantity of corn, 
which they delivered at a small fixed price, for the use of the 
Dutch East India Company, at Mossel Bay ; but since this 
practice has been discontinued, they find it more advan- 
tageous to bring to Cape Town a load of aloes than a load 
of corn ; the former being worth from 18/. to 20/., the latter 
only from 8/. to 10/. The labor employed in collecting and 
inspissating the juice is ill repaid by the price it bears in Cape 
Town, which is seldom more than threepence a pound ; but 
it is usually performed at a time of the year when the slaves 
have little else to do ; and the whole strength of the family, 
slaves, Hottentots, and children, are employed in picking off,, 
and carrying together, the leaves of the aloes. Three or four 
pounds, I understand, are as much as each person can collect 
and prepare in a day. 
This drug, it seems, has of late years been much employed 
in the porter breweries of London, which occasioned an in- 
creased demand, and which may one day be extended almost 
to an indefinite amount, if the partial experiments of the in- 
genious Sigr. Fabroni on the juice of this plant can be realized 
on the great scale ; experiments that promise a no less va- 
luable acquisition to the arts than a coloring substance which 
may be used, with advantage, as a substitute for cochineal. 
The quantity of inspissated juice brought to the Cape mar- 
ket was eagerly bought up by the English merchants, and 
