Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/313

 thriving colony of Malay extraction exercise the mechanical arts. Want of hands and labour is the universal complaint; wages are very high, and all articles of colonial produce very expensive. The voyage from Calcutta to the Cape is usually made in six or eight weeks; December, January, or February are the best months in which to sail for it; then the best ships are available,and a passage in a poop cabin may be got for eight hundred rupees; and if a servant be taken, for a hundred more on his account.

There is little inducement to take any conveyance on board ship, as such things may be got at a reasonable rate at the Cape in the event of their being wanted.

Soon after leaving India the weather will be come unpleasantly hot, and continue so, almost to the end of the voyage, so as to render the lower cabins most uncomfortably hot and unpleasant.

5. CAPE TOWN.—On arriving at Cape Town, the stranger will do wisely to leave it as soon as possible. He will find the heat great, the glare of the sun dazzling, the wind and dust most annoying, the mosquitoes tormenting, the hotels most uncomfortable; indeed,he will think he has made but a bad exchange of climate, and fancy he might as well have remained in India.

Let him at once go out to Rondebush or