Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/398

 place, is in this street: we went there, it was quite full, and the passengers from the "Carnatic" found a difficulty in procuring rooms; from its being the race-week the place was full.

I found my husband residing in the house of a French lady in Roeland-street, close under Table Mountain. This house is reckoned amongst the most respectable houses of the class, and its situation at the farthest end of the town is desirable; you have quiet and fresh air. Had I arrived in the summer season at the Cape I should have preferred a house at Wynberg; during the winter time, Wynberg being damp, the inhabitants generally come into Cape Town. In a boarding-house there are many inconveniences, but you are saved the trouble of house-keeping, which to an Indian is a most vile affair; therefore I was content to remain. The terms at a boarding-house are seven shillings and sixpence a day for each person, which includes one bed-room, food and wine; the food is good; the wine, which is Cape, is only drinkable for those accustomed to it; and the Cape beer I did not venture to taste. House-rent is very cheap, and food also; meat, threepence per pound; an enormous fish costs twopence; a great craw-fish one penny; a fine fowl, thirteen-pence halfpenny; a small cart of fire-wood, seven shillings and sixpence.

The reports I heard in Cape Town respecting house-keeping in the country were not favourable; they say the houses in the country are generally leaky, and the landlords will not repair them; that the servants are thieves and liars, and, moreover, extremely dirty, requiring constant overlooking in the kitchen. The houses in Cape Town are infested with myriads of fleas—and such fleas!—perfect monsters! They have also a fair proportion of bugs.

10th.—I went to the fish market, a square-walled enclosure near the Old Jetty. The scene was curious and animated; Malays, Hottentots, Bushmen, and queer-looking people of all sorts, ages, and tribes, dressed out in their gayest colours, and grinning like so many monkeys, were all huddled together selling or buying fish. Cartloads of the most enormous craw-fish lay on the ground, crawling about and fighting each other; and on