To Anreith is
due the splendid sculptured pediment over the Constantia wine-house
illustrating the story of Ganymede, and all Thibault's buildings have
great distinction; but still, being where they are, they are a
perpetual surprise, for in a new country one does not expect such a
high level of artistic achievement.
Many of the fine old Colonial homesteads are grouped together in what
are now the Rhodes Fruit Farms in the Drakenstein. So attractive are
they that I do not wonder that a very near relative of mine has bought
one of them for his son; and I envy my great-nephew who will one day
sit under the shadow of his own vines and fig trees at Lormarins,
amongst groves of peaches, apricots and plums. I cherish pleasant
recollections of a visit to Boschendaal, also in the Fruit Farm
district, a delightful old house, standing over a jungle of a garden
where a brook babbles through thickets of orange and lemon trees, and
amongst great tangles of bougainvillaa and pink oleanders, and in
whose shady dining-hall I was hospitably entertained by a Dutch farmer
on an omelette of ostrich's egg (one egg is enough for six people), on
"most-bolajie" (bread made with sweet new wine instead of with water),
and other local delicacies, including "mabos," or alternate slices of
dry salted peaches and dry sweetened apricots.
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