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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:16:00 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:16:00 -0700 |
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diff --git a/886-h/886-h.htm b/886-h/886-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f0de220 --- /dev/null +++ b/886-h/886-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4433 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Letters from the Cape, by Lady Duff Gordon</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Letters from the Cape, by Lady Duff Gordon, +Edited by John Purves + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Letters from the Cape + + +Author: Lady Duff Gordon + +Editor: John Purves + +Release Date: March 11, 2013 [eBook #886] +[This file was first posted on April 24, 1997] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS FROM THE CAPE*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1921 Humphrey Milford edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org. Second proof by Margaret +Price.</p> +<h1>LETTERS<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">FROM THE</span><br /> +CAPE</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">BY</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">LADY DUFF GORDON</p> +<p style="text-align: center">Edited by</p> +<p style="text-align: center">JOHN PURVES</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">LONDON</p> +<p style="text-align: center">HUMPHREY MILFORD</p> +<p style="text-align: center">1921</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">PRINTED IN ENGLAND<br /> +AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS</p> +<h2><a name="pageiii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +iii</span>EDITOR’S FOREWORD</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">If</span> Lady Duff Gordon’s +‘Letters from the Cape’ are less familiar to the +present generation of readers than those of the Lady Anne +Barnard, the neglect is due in great part to the circumstances of +their publication. After appearing in a now-forgotten +miscellany of Victorian travel, Galton’s <i>Vacation +Tourists</i>, third series (1864), where their simplicity and +delicate unprofessional candour gave them a brief hour of public +esteem, they were first issued separately as a supplement to Lady +Duff Gordon’s <i>Last Letters from Egypt</i>, occupying the +latter portion of a volume to which the writer’s daughter, +Mrs. Ross, contributed a short but vivid memoir, which touched +but lightly on her South African experiences; and they have never +appeared, we believe, in any other form. Yet they are +inferior in nothing but political interest to those of the +authoress of ‘Auld Robin Gray’. Indeed, in her +intellectual equipment, her temperament, and her gift of style, +Lady Duff Gordon was a far rarer creature than the jovial and +managing Scotswoman who was the correspondent of Dundas. +And in human sympathy—the quality that has kept Lady Anne +Barnard’s letters alive—Lady Duff Gordon shows a +still wider range and a yet keener sensibility. Her letters +are the fine flower of the English epistolary literature of <a +name="pageiv"></a><span class="pagenum">p. iv</span>the +Cape. Few books of their class have better deserved +reprinting.</p> +<p>The daughter of John and Sarah Austin ran every risk of +growing up a blue-stocking. Yet she escaped every danger of +the kind—the proximity of Bentham, her childish friendships +with Henry Reeve and the Mills, and the formidable presence of +the learned friends of both her parents—by the force of a +triumphant naturalness and humour which remained with her to the +end of her life. Although her schooling was in Germany and +her sympathy with German character was remarkable, her own +personality was rather French in its grace and gaiety. It +was characteristic of her, then, to defend as she did ‘la +vieille gaieté française’ against Heine on +his death-bed. But the truth is that her sympathies were +nearly perfect. She was one of those rare characters that +see the best in every nationality without aping cosmopolitanism, +simply because they are content everywhere to be human. +Convention and prejudice vex them as little as pedantry +can. Their clear eyes look out each morning on a fresh +world, and their experiences are a perpetual school of sympathy +and never the sad routine of disillusionment.</p> +<p>When Lady Duff Gordon came to the Cape in search of health in +1861, she brought with her, young though she was, a wealth of +recollection and experience such as perhaps no other observer of +South Africa has known. She had been the friend <a +name="pagev"></a><span class="pagenum">p. v</span>of nearly every +prominent man-of-letters from Rogers to Tennyson. She was +intimate with half the intellectual world of England and Germany, +and admired for her beauty and grace of character in the salons +of Paris as much as in the drawing-rooms of London. And she +had shown the quality of her womanly sympathy in the most famous +of her literary friendships, that with Heinrich Heine, when she +visited the poet and soothed him in his last sad days in +Paris—an episode perhaps better known to present-day +readers from Mr. Zangwill’s story of <i>A Mattrass +Grave</i> than in the moving narrative of Lady Duff Gordon +herself, on which the story is based.</p> +<p>It was into the little world of Caledon and Simonstown and +Worcester, drowsy, sun-steeped villages of the old +colony—for Cape Town had little attraction for her and the +climate proved unsuitable—that this rare and exquisite +being descended. But the test of the true letter-writer, +the letter-writer of genius, is the skill and ease with which he +brings variety out of seeming monotony. The letters of Lady +Duff Gordon answer this test. She had not been many days in +the country before she had discovered (if she required to +discover) the excellent principle: ‘Avoid <i>engelsche +hoogmoedigheid</i> in dealing with the Dutch’; and by the +time she reaches Caledon she is on the best of terms with her new +friends. ‘The postmaster, Heer Klein, and his old +Pylades, Heer Ley, are great cronies of mine’—she +writes—‘stout old grey-beards, toddling <a +name="pagevi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. vi</span>down the hill +together. I sometimes go and sit on the stoep with the two +old bachelors and they take it as a great compliment; and Heer +Klein gave me my letters all decked with flowers, and wished +“vrolyke tydings, Mevrouw”, most +heartily.’ She has a keen eye for the fine shades of +national character, and the modifications that spring from +differences of upbringing: the English farmer, ‘educated in +Belgium’, the young Dutch doctor with English manners, the +German basket-maker’s wife in Cape Town. A whole +chapter might be written on her friendship with the Malays, whose +hearts she won as completely as she afterwards did those of their +Mohammedan brothers in Egypt. Mr. Ian Colvin has since +opened up afresh the field she was here almost the first to +survey. In another direction, in her remarks on the Eastern +Province Jew of 1860, Lady Duff Gordon has given us some notes +which are of distinct value for social history. The +following passage, for example, deserves to be quoted as a +‘point de repère’ in the evolution of a +type. ‘These Colonial Jews’—says the +writer—‘are a new <i>Erscheinung</i> to me. +They have the features of their race, but many of their +peculiarities are gone. Mr. L—, who is very handsome +and gentlemanly, eats ham and patronises a good breed of pigs on +the “model farm” on which he spends his money. +He is (he says) a thorough Jew in faith, and evidently in +charitable works; but he wants to say his prayers in English and +not to <a name="pagevii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +vii</span>“dress himself up” in a veil and +phylacteries for the purpose; and he and his wife talk of England +as “home”, and care as much for Jerusalem as their +neighbours. They have not forgotten the old persecutions, +and are civil to the coloured people, and speak of them in quite +a different tone from other English colonists. Moreover, +they are far better mannered and more ‘human’, in the +German sense of the word, in all respects; in short, less +“colonial”.’ It was a lady of this party +who described Prince Albert’s funeral to Lady Duff +Gordon. ‘The people mourned for him’—she +said—‘as much as for Hezekiah; and, indeed, he +deserved it a great deal better.’</p> +<p>There is not much attempt to describe scenery in Lady Duff +Gordon’s Letters, but just enough to show that her eye was +as sensitive to landscape as to the shades of racial character +and feeling. She indicates delicately yet effectively the +difference between the atmosphere at the coast and that +inland. ‘It is the difference between a pretty +pompadour beauty and a Greek statue. Those pale opal +mountains as distinct in every detail as the map on your table +and so cheerful and serene; no melodramatic effects of clouds and +gloom.’ But, as a rule, it is the human pageant that +engrosses her, and here her sense of values is extraordinarily +keen. There is no better instance than the portrait of the +German basket-maker’s wife, who confided to the writer her +timidity on landing in Africa. <a name="pageviii"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. viii</span>‘I had never—she +said—been out of the city of Berlin and knew +nothing.’ She spoke of the natives as well-bred +(<i>anständig</i>), and Lady Duff Gordon’s comment is: +‘The use of the word was characteristic. She could +recognize an <i>Anständigkeit</i> not of +Berlin.’ But one might quote from every second page +of these letters. Lady Duff Gordon was less than a year in +South Africa; but in that time she brought more happiness to +those around her than many have done in a lifetime. And her +bounties live after her.</p> +<p>A last remark may not be out of place here, although it will +doubtless occur to every reader who approaches these letters with +sympathy and discretion. They must be read as true letters +and the spontaneous delineation of a personality, and not as a +considered contribution to South African history. Freer +even than Stevenson himself from ‘le romantisme des +poitrinaires’, and singularly clear-sighted in all that +comes under her personal observation, Lady Duff Gordon does not +wholly escape the nemesis which overtakes the traveller who +accepts his history from hearsay. And in South Africa, as +we know, such nemesis is well-nigh unfailing. Few, however, +have been the travellers, as the following pages will show, who +could meet such a charge with so great evidence of candour, +disinterestedness, and love of human nature in its simplest and +most innocent forms.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">J. P.</p> +<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +1</span>INTRODUCTORY</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> following letters were written, +as the reader will readily perceive, without the remotest view to +publication. They convey in the most unreserved manner the +fresh and vivid impressions of the moment, to the two persons +with whom, of all others, the writer felt the least necessity for +reserve in the expression of her thoughts, or care about the form +in which those thoughts were conveyed.</p> +<p>Such letters cannot be expected to be free from +mistakes. The writer is misinformed; or her imagination, +powerfully acted upon by new and strange objects, colours and +magnifies, to a certain extent, what she sees. If these are +valid objections, they are equally so to every description of a +country that has not been corrected by long experience.</p> +<p>It has been thought, however, that their obvious and absolute +genuineness, and a certain frank and high-toned originality, +hardly to be found in what is written for the public, would +recommend them to the taste of many.</p> +<p>But this was not the strongest motive to their +publication.</p> +<p>The tone of English travellers is too frequently <a +name="page2"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 2</span>arrogant and +contemptuous, even towards peoples whose pretensions on the score +of civilization are little inferior to their own. When they +come in contact with communities or races inferior to them in +natural organization or in acquired advantages, the feeling of a +common humanity often seems entirely to disappear. No +attempt is made to search out, under external differences, the +proofs of a common nature; no attempt to trace the streams of +human affections in their course through channels unlike those +marked out among ourselves; no attempt to discover what there may +be of good mingled with obvious evil, or concealed under +appearances which excite our surprise and antipathy.</p> +<p>It is the entire absence of the exclusive and supercilious +spirit which characterizes dominant races; the rare power of +entering into new trains of thought, and sympathizing with +unaccustomed feelings; the tender pity for the feeble and +subject, and the courteous respect for their prejudices; the +large and purely human sympathies;—these, far more than any +literary or graphic merits, are the qualities which have induced +the possessors of the few following letters to give them to the +public.</p> +<p>They show, what a series of letters from Egypt, since received +from the same writer, prove yet more conclusively; that even +among so-called barbarians <a name="page3"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 3</span>are to be found hearts that open to +every touch of kindness, and respond to every expression of +respect and sympathy.</p> +<p>If they should awaken any sentiments like those which inspired +them, on behalf of races of men who come in contact with +civilization only to feel its resistless force and its haughty +indifference or contempt, it will be some consolation to those +who are enduring the bitterness of the separation to which they +owe their existence.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Sarah +Austin</span>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Weybridge</span>,<br /> + <i>Feb.</i> 24, 1864.</p> +<h2><a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 4</span>LETTER +I<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">THE VOYAGE</span></h2> +<p style="text-align: right">Wednesday, 24th July.<br /> +Off the Scilly Isles, 6 <span class="GutSmall">P.M.</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">When</span> I wrote last Sunday, we put +our pilot on shore, and went down Channel. It soon came on +to blow, and all night was squally and rough. Captain on +deck all night. Monday, I went on deck at eight. +Lovely weather, but the ship pitching as you never saw a ship +pitch—bowsprit under water. By two o’clock a +gale came on; all ordered below. Captain left dinner, and, +about six, a sea struck us on the weather side, and washed a good +many unconsidered trifles overboard, and stove in three windows +on the poop; nurse and four children in fits; Mrs. T— and +babies afloat, but good-humoured as usual. Army-surgeon and +I picked up children and bullied nurse, and helped to bale +cabin. Cuddy window stove in, and we were wetted. +Went to bed at nine; could not undress, it pitched so, and had to +call doctor to help me into cot; slept sound. The gale +continues. My cabin is water-tight as to big splashes, but +damp and dribbling. I am almost ashamed to like such +miseries so much. The forecastle is under water with every +lurch, and the motion quite incredible to one only acquainted +with steamers. If one can sit this ship, which bounds like +a tiger, one should sit a leap over a haystack. Evidently, +I can never be sea-sick; but holding on is hard work, and writing +harder.</p> +<p>Life is thus:—Avery—my cuddy boy—brings tea +for S—, and milk for me, at six. S— turns out; +when she is dressed, I turn out, and sing out for Avery, who +takes down my cot, and brings a bucket of salt water, in which I +wash with vast danger and difficulty; get dressed, and go on deck +at eight. Ladies not allowed there earlier. Breakfast +solidly at nine. Deck again; gossip; pretend to read. +Beer and biscuit at twelve. The faithful Avery brings mine +on deck. Dinner at four. Do a little carpentering in +cabin, all the outfitters’ work having broken loose. +I am now in the captain’s cabin, writing. We have the +wind as ever, dead against us; and as soon as we get unpleasantly +near Scilly, we shall tack and stand back to the French coast, +where we were last night. Three soldiers able to answer +roll-call, all the rest utterly sick; three middies +helpless. Several of crew, ditto. Passengers very +fairly plucky; but only I and one other woman, who never was at +sea before, well. The food on board our ship is good as to +meat, bread, and beer; everything else bad. Port and sherry +of British manufacture, and the water with an incredible +<i>borachio</i>, essence of tar; so that tea and coffee are but +derisive names.</p> +<p>To-day, the air is quite saturated with wet, and I put on my +clothes damp when I dressed, and have felt so ever since. I +am so glad I was not persuaded out of my cot; it is the whole +difference between rest, and holding on for life. No one in +a bunk slept at all on Monday night; but then it blew as heavy a +gale as it can blow, and we had the Cornish coast under our +lee. So we tacked and tumbled all night. The ship +being new, too, has the rigging all wrong; and the confusion and +disorder are beyond description. The ship’s officers +are very good fellows. The mizen is entirely worked by the +‘young gentlemen’; so we never see the sailors, and, +at present, are not allowed to go forward. All lights are +put out at half-past ten, and no food allowed in the cabin; but +the latter article my friend Avery makes light of, and brings me +anything when I am laid up. The young soldier-officers bawl +for him with expletives; but he says, with a snigger, to me, +‘They’ll just wait till their betters, the ladies, is +looked to.’ I will write again some day soon, and +take the chance of meeting a ship; you may be amused by a little +scrawl, though it will probably be very stupid and ill-written, +for it is not easy to see or to guide a pen while I hold on to +the table with both legs and one arm, and am first on my back and +then on my nose. Adieu, till next time. I have had a +good taste of the humours of the Channel.</p> +<p>29<i>th</i> <i>July</i>, 4 <i>Bells</i>, i.e. 2 +<i>o’clock</i>, <i>p.m.</i>—When I wrote last, I +thought we had had our share of contrary winds and foul +weather. Ever since, we have beaten about the bay with the +variety of a favourable gale one night for a few hours, and a +dead calm yesterday, in which we almost rolled our masts out of +the ship. However, the sun was hot, and I sat and basked on +deck, and we had morning service. It was a striking sight, +with the sailors seated on oars and buckets, covered with signal +flags, and with their clean frocks and faces. To-day is so +cold that I dare not go on deck, and am writing in my black-hole +of a cabin, in a green light, with the sun blinking through the +waves as they rush over my port and scuttle. The captain is +much vexed at the loss of time. I persist in thinking it a +very pleasant, but utterly lazy life. I sleep a great deal, +but don’t eat much, and my cough has been bad; but, +considering the real hardship of the life—damp, cold, queer +food, and bad drink—I think I am better. When we can +get past Finisterre, I shall do very well, I doubt not.</p> +<p>The children swarm on board, and cry unceasingly. A +passenger-ship is no place for children. Our poor ship will +lose her character by the weather, as she cannot fetch up ten +days’ lost time. But she is evidently a +race-horse. We overhaul everything we see, at a wonderful +rate, and the speed is exciting and pleasant; but the next long +voyage I make, I’ll try for a good wholesome old +‘monthly’ tub, which will roll along on the top of +the water, instead of cutting through it, with the waves curling +in at the cuddy skylights. We tried to signal a barque +yesterday, and send home word ‘all well’; but the +brutes understood nothing but Russian, and excited our +indignation by talking ‘gibberish ‘ to us; which we +resented with true British spirit, as became us.</p> +<p>It is now blowing hard again, and we have just been taken +right aback. Luckily, I had lashed my desk to my +washing-stand, or that would have flown off, as I did off my +chair. I don’t think I shall know what to make of +solid ground under my feet. The rolling and pitching of a +ship of this size, with such tall masts, is quite unlike the +little niggling sort of work on a steamer—it is the +difference between grinding along a bad road in a four-wheeler, +and riding well to hounds in a close country on a good +hunter. I was horribly tired for about five days, but now I +rather like it, and never know whether it blows or not in the +night, I sleep so soundly. The noise is beyond all belief; +the creaking, trampling, shouting, clattering; it is an incessant +storm. We have not yet got our masts quite safe; the new +wire-rigging stretches more than was anticipated (of course), and +our main-topmast is shaky. The crew have very hard work, as +incessant tacking is added to all the extra work incident to a +new ship. On Saturday morning, everybody was shouting for +the carpenter. My cabin was flooded by a leak, and I +superintended the baling and swabbing from my cot, and dressed +sitting on my big box. However, I got the leak stopped and +cabin dried, and no harm done, as I had put everything up off the +floor the night before, suspicious of a dribble which came +in. Then my cot frame was broken by my cuddy boy and I +lurching over against S—’s bunk, in taking it +down. The carpenter has given me his own, and takes my +broken one for himself. Board ship is a famous place for +tempers. Being easily satisfied, I get all I want, and +plenty of attention and kindness; but I cannot prevail on my +cuddy boy to refrain from violent tambourine-playing with a tin +tray just at the ear of a lady who worries him. The young +soldier-officers, too, I hear mentioned as ‘them lazy +gunners’, and they struggle for water and tea in the +morning long after mine has come. We have now been ten days +at sea, and only three on which we could eat without the +‘fiddles’ (transverse pieces of wood to prevent the +dishes from falling off). Smooth water will seem quite +strange to me. I fear the poor people in the forecastle +must be very wet and miserable, as the sea is constantly over it, +not in spray, but in tons of green water.</p> +<p>3<i>d</i> <i>Aug.</i>—We had two days of dead calm, then +one or two of a very light, favourable breeze, and yesterday we +ran 175 miles with the wind right aft. We saw several +ships, which signalled us, but we would not answer, as we had our +spars down for repairs and looked like a wreck, and fancied it +would be a pity to frighten you all with a report to that +effect.</p> +<p>Last night we got all right, and spread out immense +studding-sails. We are now bowling along, wind right aft, +dipping our studding-sail booms into the water at every +roll. The weather is still surprisingly cold, though very +fine, and I have to come below quite early, out of the evening +air. The sun sets before seven o’clock. I still +cough a good deal, and the bad food and drink are trying. +But the life is very enjoyable; and as I have the run of the +charts, and ask all sorts of questions, I get plenty of +amusement. S— is an excellent traveller; no +grumbling, and no gossiping, which, on board a ship like ours, is +a great merit, for there is <i>ad nauseam</i> of both.</p> +<p>Mr. — is writing a charade, in which I have agreed to +take a part, to prevent squabbling. He wanted to start a +daily paper, but the captain wisely forbade it, as it must have +led to personalities and quarrels, and suggested a play +instead. My little white Maltese goat is very well, and +gives plenty of milk, which is a great resource, as the tea and +coffee are abominable. Avery brings it me at six, in a tin +pannikin, and again in the evening. The chief officer is +well-bred and agreeable, and, indeed, all the young gentlemen are +wonderfully good specimens of their class. The captain is a +burly foremast man in manner, with a heart of wax and every +feeling of a gentleman. He was in California, +‘<i>hide droghing</i>’ with Dana, and he says every +line of <i>Two Years before the Mast</i> is true. He went +through it all himself. He says that I am a great help to +him, as a pattern of discipline and punctuality. People are +much inclined to miss meals, and then want things at odd hours, +and make the work quite impossible to the cook and +servants. Of course, I get all I want in double-quick time, +as I try to save my man trouble; and the carpenter leaves my +scuttle open when no one else gets it, quite willing to get up in +his time of sleep to close it, if it comes on to blow. A +maid is really a superfluity on board ship, as the men rather +like being ‘<i>aux petits soins</i>’. The +boatswain came the other day to say that he had a nice carpet and +a good pillow; did I want anything of the sort? He would be +proud that I should use anything of his. You would delight +in Avery, my cuddy man, who is as quick as ‘greased +lightning’, and full of fun. His misery is my want of +appetite, and his efforts to cram me are very droll. The +days seem to slip away, one can’t tell how. I sit on +deck from breakfast at nine, till dinner at four, and then again +till it gets cold, and then to bed. We are now about 100 +miles from Madeira, and shall have to run inside it, as we were +thrown so far out of our course by the foul weather.</p> +<p>9<i>th</i> <i>Aug.</i>—Becalmed, under a vertical +sun. Lat. 17°, or thereabouts. We saw Madeira at +a distance like a cloud; since then, we had about four days trade +wind, and then failing or contrary breezes. We have sailed +so near the African shore that we get little good out of the +trades, and suffer much from the African climate. Fancy a +sky like a pale February sky in London, no sun to be seen, and a +heat coming, one can’t tell from whence. To-day, the +sun is vertical and invisible, the sea glassy and heaving. +I have been ill again, and obliged to lie still yesterday and the +day before in the captain’s cabin; to-day in my own, as we +have the ports open, and the maindeck is cooler than the +upper. The men have just been holystoning here, singing +away lustily in chorus. Last night I got leave to sling my +cot under the main hatchway, as my cabin must have killed me from +suffocation when shut up. Most of the men stayed on deck, +but that is dangerous after sunset on this African coast, on +account of the heavy dew and fever. They tell me that the +open sea is quite different; certainly, nothing can look duller +and dimmer than this specimen of the tropics. The few days +of trade wind were beautiful and cold, with sparkling sea, and +fresh air and bright sun; and we galloped along merrily.</p> +<p>We are now close to the Cape de Verd Islands, and shall go +inside them. About lat. 4° N. we expect to catch the +S.E. trade wind, when it will be cold again. In lat. +24°, the day before we entered the tropics, I sat on deck in +a coat and cloak; the heat is quite sudden, and only lasts a week +or so. The sea to-day is littered all round the ship with +our floating rubbish, so we have not moved at all.</p> +<p>I constantly long for you to be here, though I am not sure you +would like the life as well as I do. All your ideas of it +are wrong; the confinement to the poop and the stringent +regulations would bore you. But then, sitting on deck in +fine weather is pleasure enough, without anything else. In +a Queen’s ship, a yacht, or a merchantman with fewer +passengers, it must be a delightful existence.</p> +<p>17<i>th</i> <i>Aug.</i>—Since I wrote last, we got into +the south-west monsoon for one day, and I sat up by the steersman +in intense enjoyment—a bright sun and glittering blue sea; +and we tore along, pitching and tossing the water up like +mad. It was glorious. At night, I was calmly reposing +in my cot, in the middle of the steerage, just behind the main +hatchway, when I heard a crashing of rigging and a violent noise +and confusion on deck. The captain screamed out orders +which informed me that we were in the thick of a +collision—of course I lay still, and waited till the row, +or the ship, went down. I found myself next day looked upon +as no better than a heathen by all the women, because I had been +cool, and declined to get up and make a noise. Presently +the officers came and told me that a big ship had borne down on +us—we were on the starboard tack, and all +right—carried off our flying jib-boom and whisker (the sort +of yard to the bowsprit). The captain says he was never in +such imminent danger in his life, as she threatened to swing +round and to crush into our waist, which would have been certain +destruction. The little dandy soldier-officer behaved +capitally; he turned his men up in no time, and had them all +ready. He said, ‘Why, you know, I must see that my +fellows go down decently.’ S— was as cool as an +icicle, offered me my pea-jacket, &c., which I declined, as +it would be of no use for me to go off in boats, even supposing +there were time, and I preferred going down comfortably in my +cot. Finding she was of no use to me, she took a yelling +maid in custody, and was thought a brute for begging her to hold +her noise. The first lieutenant, who looks on passengers as +odious cargo, has utterly mollified to me since this +adventure. I heard him report to the captain that I was +‘among ’em all, and never sung out, nor asked a +question the while’. This he called +‘beautiful’.</p> +<p>Next day we got light wind S.W. (which ought to be the S.E. +trades), and the weather has been, beyond all description, lovely +ever since. Cool, but soft, sunny and bright—in +short, perfect; only the sky is so pale. Last night the +sunset was a vision of loveliness, a sort of Pompadour paradise; +the sky seemed full of rose-crowned <i>amorini</i>, and the moon +wore a rose-coloured veil of bright pink cloud, all so light, so +airy, so brilliant, and so fleeting, that it was a kind of +intoxication. It is far less grand than northern colour, +but so lovely, so shiny. Then the flying fish skimmed like +silver swallows over the blue water. Such a sight! +Also, I saw a whale spout like a very tiny garden fountain. +The Southern Cross is a delusion, and the tropical moon no better +than a Parisian one, at present. We are now in lat. 31° +about, and have been driven halfway to Rio by this sweet southern +breeze. I have never yet sat on deck without a cloth jacket +or shawl, and the evenings are chilly. I no longer believe +in tropical heat at sea. Even during the calm it was not so +hot as I have often felt it in England—and that, under a +vertical sun. The ship that nearly ran us and herself down, +must have kept no look-out, and refused to answer our hail. +She is supposed to be from Glasgow by her looks. We may +speak a ship and send letters on board; so excuse scrawl and +confusion, it is so difficult to write at all.</p> +<p>30<i>th</i> <i>August</i>.—About 25° S. lat. and +very much to the west. We have had all sorts of +weather—some beautiful, some very rough, but always +contrary winds—and got within 200 miles of the coast of +South America. We now have a milder breeze from the +<i>soft</i> N.E., after a <i>bitter</i> S.W., with Cape pigeons +and mollymawks (a small albatross), not to compare with our +gulls. We had private theatricals last night—ill +acted, but beautifully got up as far as the sailors were +concerned. I did not act, as I did not feel well enough, +but I put a bit for Neptune into the Prologue and made the +boatswain’s mate speak it, to make up for the absence of +any shaving at the Line, which the captain prohibited altogether; +I thought it hard the men should not get their +‘tips’. The boatswain’s mate dressed and +spoke it admirably; and the old carpenter sang a famous comic +song, dressed to perfection as a ploughboy.</p> +<p>I am disappointed in the tropics as to warmth. Our +thermometer stood at 82° one day only, under the vertical +sun, N. of the Line; <i>on</i> the Line at 74°; and at sea it +<i>feels</i> 10° colder than it is. I have never been +hot, except for two days 4° N. of the Line, and now it is +very cold, but it is very invigorating. All day long it +looks and feels like early morning; the sky is pale blue, with +light broken clouds; the sea an inconceivably pure opaque +blue—lapis lazuli, but far brighter. I saw a lovely +dolphin three days ago; his body five feet long (some said more) +is of a <i>fiery</i> blue-green, and his huge tail golden +bronze. I was glad he scorned the bait and escaped the +hook; he was so beautiful. This is the sea from which Venus +rose in her youthful glory. All is young, fresh, serene, +beautiful, and cheerful.</p> +<p>We have not seen a sail for weeks. But the life at sea +makes amends for anything, to my mind. I am never tired of +the calms, and I enjoy a stiff gale like a Mother Carey’s +chicken, so long as I can be on deck or in the captain’s +cabin. Between decks it is very close and suffocating in +rough weather, as all is shut up. We shall be still three +weeks before we reach the Cape; and now the sun sets with a +sudden plunge before six, and the evenings are growing too cold +again for me to go on deck after dinner. As long as I +could, I spent fourteen hours out of the twenty-four in my quiet +corner by the wheel, basking in the tropical sun. Never +again will I believe in the tales of a burning sun; the vertical +sun just kept me warm—no more. In two days we shall +be bitterly cold again.</p> +<p>Immediately after writing the above it began to blow a gale +(favourable, indeed, but more furious than the captain had ever +known in these seas),—about lat. 34° S. and long. +25°. For three days we ran under close-reefed (four +reefs) topsails, before a sea. The gale in the Bay of +Biscay was a little shaking up in a puddle (a dirty one) compared +to that glorious South Atlantic in all its majestic fury. +The intense blue waves, crowned with fantastic crests of bright +emeralds and with the spray blowing about like wild dishevelled +hair, came after us to swallow us up at a mouthful, but took us +up on their backs, and hurried us along as if our ship were a +cork. Then the gale slackened, and we had a dead calm, +during which the waves banged us about frightfully, and our masts +were in much jeopardy. Then a foul wind, S.E., increased +into a gale, lasting five days, during which orders were given in +dumb show, as no one’s voice could be heard; through it we +fought and laboured and dipped under water, and I only had my dry +corner by the wheel, where the kind pleasant little third officer +lashed me tight. It was far more formidable than the first +gale, but less beautiful; and we made so much lee-way that we +lost ten days, and only arrived here yesterday. I recommend +a fortnight’s heavy gale in the South Atlantic as a cure +for a <i>blasé</i> state of mind. It cannot be +described; the sound, the sense of being hurled along without the +smallest regard to ‘this side uppermost’; the beauty +of the whole scene, and the occasional crack and bear-away of +sails and spars; the officer trying to ‘sing out’, +quite in vain, and the boatswain’s whistle scarcely +audible. I remained near the wheel every day for as long as +I could bear it, and was enchanted.</p> +<p>Then the mortal perils of eating, drinking, moving, sitting, +lying; standing can’t be done, even by the sailors, without +holding on. <i>The</i> night of the gale, my cot twice +touched the beams of the ship above me. I asked the captain +if I had dreamt it, but he said it was quite possible; he had +never seen a ship so completely on her beam ends come up all +right, masts and yards all sound.</p> +<p>There is a middy about half M—’s size, a very tiny +ten-year-older, who has been my delight; he is so completely +‘the officer and the gentleman’. My maternal +entrails turned like old Alvarez, when that baby lay out on the +very end of the cross-jack yard to reef, in the gale; it was +quite voluntary, and the other newcomers all declined. I +always called him ‘Mr. —, sir’, and asked his +leave gravely, or, on occasions, his protection and assistance; +and his little dignity was lovely. He is polite to the +ladies, and slightly distant to the passenger-boys, bigger than +himself, whom he orders off dangerous places; ‘Children, +come out of that; you’ll be overboard.’</p> +<p>A few days before landing I caught a bad cold, and kept my +bed. I caught this cold by ‘sleeping with a damp man +in my cabin’, as some one said. During the last gale, +the cabin opposite mine was utterly swamped, and I found the +Irish soldier-servant of a little officer of eighteen in despair; +the poor lad had got ague, and eight inches of water in his bed, +and two feet in the cabin. I looked in and said, ‘He +can’t stay there—carry him into my cabin, and lay him +in the bunk’; which he did, with tears running down his +honest old face. So we got the boy into S—’s +bed, and cured his fever and ague, caught under canvas in Romney +Marsh. Meantime S— had to sleep in a chair and to +undress in the boy’s wet cabin. As a token of +gratitude, he sent me a poodle pup, born on board, very +handsome. The artillery officers were generally +well-behaved; the men, deserters and ruffians, sent out as +drivers. We have had five courts-martial and two floggings +in eight weeks, among seventy men. They were pampered with +food and porter, and would not pull a rope, or get up at six to +air their quarters. The sailors are an excellent set of +men. When we parted, the first lieutenant said to me, +‘Weel, ye’ve a wonderful idee of discipline for a +leddy, I will say. You’ve never been reported but +once, and that was on sick leave, for your light, and all in +order.’</p> +<p style="text-align: right">Cape Town, Sept. 18.</p> +<p>We anchored yesterday morning, and Captain J—, the Port +Captain, came off with a most kind letter from Sir Baldwin +Walker, his gig, and a boat and crew for S— and the +baggage. So I was whipped over the ship’s side in a +chair, and have come to a boarding house where the J—s +live. I was tired and dizzy and landsick, and lay down and +went to sleep. After an hour or so I woke, hearing a little +<i>gazouillement</i>, like that of chimney swallows. On +opening my eyes I beheld four demons, ‘sons of the obedient +Jinn’, each bearing an article of furniture, and holding +converse over me in the language of Nephelecoecygia. Why +has no one ever mentioned the curious little soft voices of these +coolies?—you can’t hear them with the naked ear, +three feet off. The most hideous demon (whose complexion +had not only the colour, but the precise metallic lustre of an +ill black-leaded stove) at last chirruped a wish for orders, +which I gave. I asked the pert, active, cockney housemaid +what I ought to pay them, as, being a stranger, they might +overcharge me. Her scorn was sublime, ‘Them nasty +blacks never asks more than their regular charge.’ So +I asked the black-lead demon, who demanded ‘two shilling +each horse in waggon’, and a dollar each ‘coolie +man’. He then glided with fiendish noiselessness +about the room, arranged the furniture to his own taste, and +finally said, ‘Poor missus sick’; then more +chirruping among themselves, and finally a fearful gesture of +incantation, accompanied by ‘God bless poor missus. +Soon well now’. The wrath of the cockney housemaid +became majestic: ‘There, ma’am; you see how saucy +they have grown—a nasty black heathen Mohamedan a blessing +of a white Christian!’</p> +<p>These men are the Auvergnats of Africa. I was assured +that bankers entrust them with large sums in gold, which they +carry some hundred and twenty miles, by unknown tracks, for a +small gratuity. The pretty, graceful Malays are no honester +than ourselves, but are excellent workmen.</p> +<p>To-morrow, my linen will go to a ravine in the giant mountain +at my back, and there be scoured in a clear spring by brown +women, bleached on the mountain top, and carried back all those +long miles on their heads, as it went up.</p> +<p>My landlady is Dutch; the waiter is an Africander, half Dutch, +half Malay, very handsome, and exactly like a French gentleman, +and as civil.</p> +<p>Enter ‘Africander’ lad with a nosegay; only one +flower that I know—heliotrope. The vegetation is +lovely; the freshness of spring and the richness of summer. +The leaves on the trees are in all the beauty of spring. +Mrs. R— brought me a plate of oranges, ‘just +gathered’, as soon as I entered the house—and, oh! +how good they were! better even than the Maltese. They are +going out, and <i>dear</i> now—two a penny, very large and +delicious. I am wild to get out and see the glorious +scenery and the hideous people. To-day the wind has been a +cold south-wester, and I have not been out. My windows look +N. and E. so I get all the sun and warmth. The beauty of +Table Bay is astounding. Fancy the Undercliff in the Isle +of Wight magnified a hundred-fold, with clouds floating halfway +up the mountain. The Hottentot mountains in the distance +have a fantastic jagged outline, which hardly looks real. +The town is like those in the south of Europe; flat roofs, and +all unfinished; roads are simply non-existent. At the doors +sat brown women with black hair that shone like metal, very +handsome; they are Malays, and their men wear conical hats a-top +of turbans, and are the chief artisans. At the end of the +pier sat a Mozambique woman in white drapery and the most +majestic attitude, like a Roman matron; her features large and +strong and harsh, but fine; and her skin blacker than night.</p> +<p>I have got a couple of Cape pigeons (the storm-bird of the +South Atlantic) for J—’s hat. They followed us +several thousand miles, and were hooked for their pains. +The albatrosses did not come within hail.</p> +<p>The little Maltese goat gave a pint of milk night and morning, +and was a great comfort to the cow. She did not like the +land or the grass at first, and is to be thrown out of milk +now. She is much admired and petted by the young +Africander. My room is at least eighteen feet high, and +contains exactly a bedstead, one straw mattrass, one rickety +table, one wash-table, two chairs, and broken looking-glass; no +carpet, and a hiatus of three inches between the floor and the +door, but all very clean; and excellent food. I have not +made a bargain yet, but I dare say I shall stay here.</p> +<p><i>Friday</i>.—I have just received your letter; where +it has been hiding, I can’t conceive. To-day is cold +and foggy, like a baddish day in June with you; no colder, if so +cold. Still, I did not venture out, the fog rolls so +heavily over the mountain. Well, I must send off this yarn, +which is as interminable as the ‘sinnet’ and +‘foxes’ which I twisted with the mids.</p> +<h2><a name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 26</span>LETTER +II</h2> +<p style="text-align: right">Cape Town, Oct. 3.</p> +<p>I <span class="smcap">came</span> on shore on a very fine day, +but the weather changed, and we had a fortnight of cold and damp +and S.W. wind (equivalent to our east wind), such as the +‘oldest inhabitant’ never experienced; and I have had +as bad an attack of bronchitis as ever I remember, having been in +bed till yesterday. I had a very good doctor, half Italian, +half Dane, born at the Cape of Good Hope, and educated at +Edinburgh, named Chiappini. He has a son studying medicine +in London, whose mother is Dutch; such is the mixture of bloods +here.</p> +<p>Yesterday, the wind went to the south-east; the blessed sun +shone out, and the weather was lovely at once. The mountain +threw off his cloak of cloud, and all was bright and warm. +I got up and sat in the verandah over the stoep (a kind of +terrace in front of every house here). They brought me a +tortoise as big as half a crown and as lively as a cricket to +look at, and a chameleon like a fairy dragon—a green +fellow, five inches long, with no claws on his feet, but suckers +like a fly—the most engaging little beast. He sat on +my finger, and caught flies with great delight and dexterity, and +I longed to send him to M—. To-day, I went a long +drive with Captain and Mrs. J—: we went to Rondebosch and +Wynberg—lovely country; rather like Herefordshire; red +earth and oak-trees. Miles of the road were like +Gainsborough-lane, <a name="citation27"></a><a href="#footnote27" +class="citation">[27]</a> on a large scale, and looked quite +English; only here and there a hedge of prickly pear, or the big +white aruns in the ditches, told a different tale; and the +scarlet geraniums and myrtles growing wild puzzled one.</p> +<p>And then came rattling along a light, rough, but well-poised +cart, with an Arab screw driven by a Malay, in a great hat on his +kerchiefed head, and his wife, with her neat dress, glossy black +hair, and great gold earrings. They were coming with fish, +which he had just caught at Kalk Bay, and was going to sell for +the dinners of the Capetown folk. You pass neat villas, +with pretty gardens and stoeps, gay with flowers, and at the +doors of several, neat Malay girls are lounging. They are +the best servants here, for the emigrants mostly drink. +Then you see a group of children at play, some as black as coals, +some brown and very pretty. A little black girl, about +R—’s age, has carefully tied what little petticoat +she has, in a tight coil round her waist, and displays the most +darling little round legs and behind, which it would be a real +pleasure to slap; it is so shiny and round, and she runs and +stands so strongly and gracefully.</p> +<p>Here comes another Malay, with a pair of baskets hanging from +a stick across his shoulder, like those in Chinese pictures, +which his hat also resembles. Another cart full of working +men, with a Malay driver; and inside are jumbled some red-haired, +rosy-cheeked English navvies, with the ugliest Mozambiques, +blacker than Erebus, and with faces all knobs and corners, like a +crusty loaf. As we drive home we see a span of sixteen +noble oxen in the market-place, and on the ground squats the +Hottentot driver. His face no words can describe—his +cheek-bones are up under his hat, and his meagre-pointed chin +halfway down to his waist; his eyes have the dull look of a +viper’s, and his skin is dirty and sallow, but not darker +than a dirty European’s.</p> +<p>Capetown is rather pretty, but beyond words untidy and out of +repair. As it is neither drained nor paved, it won’t +do in hot weather; and I shall migrate ‘up country’ +to a Dutch village. Mrs. J—, who is Dutch herself, +tells me that one may board in a Dutch farm-house very cheaply, +and with great comfort (of course eating with the family), and +that they will drive you about the country and tend your horses +for nothing, if you are friendly, and don’t treat them with +<i>Engelsche hoog-moedigheid</i>.</p> +<p><i>Oct.</i> 19<i>th</i>.—The packet came in last night, +but just in time to save the fine of 50<i>l.</i> per diem, and I +got your welcome letter this morning. I have been coughing +all this time, but I hope I shall improve. I came out at +the very worst time of year, and the weather has been (of course) +‘unprecedentedly’ bad and changeable. But when +it <i>is</i> fine it is quite celestial; so clear, so dry, so +light. Then comes a cloud over Table Mountain, like the +sugar on a wedding-cake, which tumbles down in splendid +waterfalls, and vanishes unaccountably halfway; and then you run +indoors and shut doors and windows, or it portends a +‘south-easter’, i.e. a hurricane, and Capetown +disappears in impenetrable clouds of dust. But this wind +coming off the hills and fields of ice, is the Cape doctor, and +keeps away cholera, fever of every sort, and all malignant or +infectious diseases. Most of them are unknown here. +Never was so healthy a place; but the remedy is of the heroic +nature, and very disagreeable. The stones rattle against +the windows, and omnibuses are blown over on the Rondebosch +road.</p> +<p>A few days ago, I drove to Mr. V—’s farm. +Imagine St. George’s Hill, <a name="citation30"></a><a +href="#footnote30" class="citation">[30]</a> and the most +beautiful bits of it, sloping gently up to Table Mountain, with +its grey precipices, and intersected with Scotch burns, which +water it all the year round, as they come from the living rock; +and sprinkled with oranges, pomegranates, and camelias in +abundance. You drive through a mile or two as described, +and arrive at a square, planted with rows of fine oaks close +together; at the upper end stands the house, all on the +ground-floor, but on a high stoep: rooms eighteen feet high; the +old slave quarters on each side; stables, &c., opposite; the +square as big as Belgrave Square, and the buildings in the old +French style.</p> +<p>We then went on to Newlands, a still more beautiful +place. Immense trenching and draining going on—the +foreman a Caffre, black as ink, six feet three inches high, and +broad in proportion, with a staid, dignified air, and Englishmen +working under him! At the streamlets there are the +inevitable groups of Malay women washing clothes, and brown +babies sprawling about. Yesterday, I should have bought a +black woman for her beauty, had it been still possible. She +was carrying an immense weight on her head, and was far gone with +child; but such stupendous physical perfection I never even +imagined. Her jet black face was like the Sphynx, with the +same mysterious smile; her shape and walk were goddess-like, and +the lustre of her skin, teeth, and eyes, showed the fulness of +health;—Caffre of course. I walked after her as far +as her swift pace would let me, in envy and admiration of such +stately humanity.</p> +<p>The ordinary blacks, or Mozambiques, as they call them, are +hideous. Malay here seems equivalent to Mohammedan. +They were originally Malays, but now they include every shade, +from the blackest nigger to the most blooming English +woman. Yes, indeed, the emigrant-girls have been known to +turn ‘Malays’, and get thereby husbands who know not +billiards and brandy—the two diseases of Capetown. +They risked a plurality of wives, and professed Islam, but they +got fine clothes and industrious husbands. They wear a very +pretty dress, and all have a great air of independence and +self-respect; and the real Malays are very handsome. I am +going to see one of the Mollahs soon, and to look at their +schools and mosque; which, to the distraction of the Scotch, they +call their ‘Kerk.’</p> +<p>I asked a Malay if he would drive me in his cart with the six +or eight mules, which he agreed to do for thirty shillings and +his dinner (i.e. a share of my dinner) on the road. When I +asked how long it would take, he said, ‘Allah is +groot’, which meant, I found, that it depended on the state +of the beach—the only road for half the way.</p> +<p>The sun, moon, and stars are different beings from those we +look upon. Not only are they so large and bright, but you +<i>see</i> that the moon and stars are <i>balls</i>, and that the +sky is endless beyond them. On the other hand, the clear, +dry air dwarfs Table Mountain, as you seem to see every detail of +it to the very top.</p> +<p>Capetown is very picturesque. The old Dutch buildings +are very handsome and peculiar, but are falling to decay and dirt +in the hands of their present possessors. The few Dutch +ladies I have seen are very pleasing. They are gentle and +simple, and naturally well-bred. Some of the Malay women +are very handsome, and the little children are darlings. A +little parti-coloured group of every shade, from ebony to golden +hair and blue eyes, were at play in the street yesterday, and the +majority were pretty, especially the half-castes. Most of +the Caffres I have seen look like the perfection of human +physical nature, and seem to have no diseases. Two days ago +I saw a Hottentot girl of seventeen, a housemaid here. You +would be enchanted by her superfluity of flesh; the face was very +queer and ugly, and yet pleasing, from the sweet smile and the +rosy cheeks which please one much, in contrast to all the pale +yellow faces—handsome as some of them are.</p> +<p>I wish I could send the six chameleons which a good-natured +parson brought me in his hat, and a queer lizard in his +pocket. The chameleons are charming, so monkey-like and so +‘<i>caressants</i>’. They sit on my breakfast +tray and catch flies, and hang in a bunch by their tails, and +reach out after my hand.</p> +<p>I have had a very kind letter from Lady Walker, and shall go +and stay with them at Simon’s Bay as soon as I feel up to +the twenty-two miles along the beaches and bad roads in the +mail-cart with three horses. The teams of mules (I beg +pardon, spans) would delight you—eight, ten, twelve, even +sixteen sleek, handsome beasts; and oh, such oxen! noble beasts +with humps; and hump is very good to eat too.</p> +<p><i>Oct.</i> 21<i>st.</i>—The mail goes out to-morrow, so +I must finish this letter. I feel better to-day than I have +yet felt, in spite of the south-easter.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">Yours, &c.</p> +<h2><a name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>LETTER +III</h2> +<p>28<i>th</i> <i>Oct.</i>—Since I wrote, we have had more +really cold weather, but yesterday the summer seems to have +begun. The air is as light and clear as if <i>there were +none</i>, and the sun hot; but I walk in it, and do not find it +oppressive. All the household groans and perspires, but I +am very comfortable.</p> +<p>Yesterday I sat in the full broil for an hour or more, in the +hot dust of the Malay burial-ground. They buried the head +butcher of the Mussulmans, and a most strange poetical scene it +was. The burial-ground is on the side of the Lion +Mountain—on the Lion’s rump—and overlooks the +whole bay, part of the town, and the most superb mountain +panorama beyond. I never saw a view within miles of it for +beauty and grandeur. Far down, a fussy English steamer came +puffing and popping into the deep blue bay, and the +‘Hansom’s’ cabs went tearing down to the +landing place; and round me sat a crowd of grave brown men +chanting ‘Allah il Allah’ to the most monotonous but +musical air, and with the most perfect voices. The chant +seemed to swell, and then fade, like the wind in the trees.</p> +<p>I went in after the procession, which consisted of a bier +covered with three common Paisley shawls of gay colours; no one +looked at me; and when they got near the grave, I kept at a +distance, and sat down when they did. But a man came up and +said, ‘You are welcome.’ So I went close, and +saw the whole ceremony. They took the corpse, wrapped in a +sheet, out of the bier, and lifted it into the grave, where two +men received it; then a sheet was held over the grave till they +had placed the dead man; and then flowers and earth were thrown +in by all present, the grave filled in, watered out of a brass +kettle, and decked with flowers. Then a fat old man, in +printed calico shirt sleeves, and a plaid waistcoat and corduroy +trousers, pulled off his shoes, squatted on the grave, and +recited endless ‘Koran’, many reciting after +him. Then they chanted ‘Allah-il-Allah’ for +twenty minutes, I think: then prayers, with ‘Ameens’ +and ‘Allah il-Allahs’ again. Then all jumped up +and walked off. There were eighty or a hundred men, no +women, and five or six ‘Hadjis’, draped in beautiful +Eastern dresses, and looking very supercilious. The whole +party made less noise in moving and talking than two +Englishmen.</p> +<p>A white-complexioned man spoke to me in excellent English +(which few of them speak), and was very communicative and +civil. He told me the dead man was his brother-in-law, and +he himself the barber. I hoped I had not taken a +liberty. ‘Oh, no; poor Malays were proud when noble +English persons showed such respect to their religion. The +young Prince had done so too, and Allah would not forget to +protect him. He also did not laugh at their prayers, praise +be to God!’ I had already heard that Prince Alfred is +quite the darling of the Malays. He insisted on accepting +their <i>fête</i>, which the Capetown people had +snubbed. I have a friendship with one Abdul Jemaalee and +his wife Betsy, a couple of old folks who were slaves to Dutch +owners, and now keep a fruit-shop of a rough sort, with +‘Betsy, fruiterer,’ painted on the back of an old tin +tray, and hung up by the door of the house. Abdul first +bought himself, and then his wife Betsy, whose +‘missus’ generously threw in her bed-ridden +mother. He is a fine handsome old man, and has confided to +me that £5,000 would not buy what he is worth now. I +have also read the letters written by his, son, young Abdul +Rachman, now a student at Cairo, who has been away five +years—four at Mecca. The young theologian writes to +his ‘<i>hoog eerbare moeder</i>’ a fond request for +money, and promises to return soon. I am invited to the +feast wherewith he will be welcomed. Old Abdul Jemaalee +thinks it will divert my mind, and prove to me that Allah will +take me home safe to my children, about whom he and his wife +asked many questions. Moreover, he compelled me to drink +herb tea, compounded by a Malay doctor for my cough. I +declined at first, and the poor old man looked hurt, gravely +assured me that it was not true that Malays always poisoned +Christians, and drank some himself. Thereupon I was +obliged, of course, to drink up the rest; it certainly did me +good, and I have drunk it since with good effect; it is intensely +bitter and rather sticky. The white servants and the Dutch +landlady where I lodge shake their heads ominously, and hope it +mayn’t poison me a year hence. ‘Them nasty +Malays can make it work months after you take it.’ +They also possess the evil eye, and a talent for love +potions. As the men are very handsome and neat, I incline +to believe that part of it.</p> +<p><i>Rathfelder’s Halfway House</i>, 6<i>th</i> +<i>November</i>.—I drove out here yesterday in Captain +T—’s drag, which he kindly brought into Capetown for +me. He and his wife and children came for a change of air +for whooping cough, and advised me to come too, as my cough +continues, though less troublesome. It is a lovely spot, +six miles from Constantia, ten from Capetown, and twelve from +Simon’s Bay. I intend to stay here a little while, +and then to go to Kalk Bay, six miles from hence. This inn +was excellent, I hear, ‘in the old Dutch +times’. Now it is kept by a young Englishman, +Cape-born, and his wife, and is dirty and disorderly. I pay +twelve shillings a day for S— and self, without a +sitting-room, and my bed is a straw paillasse; but the food is +plentiful, and not very bad. That is the cheapest rate of +living possible here, and every trifle costs double what it would +in England, except wine, which is very fair at fivepence a +bottle—a kind of hock. The landlord pays £1 a +day rent for this house, which is the great resort of the +Capetown people for Sundays, and for change of air, +&c.—a rude kind of Richmond. His cook gets +£3 10<i>s.</i> a month, besides food for himself and wife, +and beer and sugar. The two (white) housemaids get £1 +15<i>s.</i> and £1 10<i>s.</i> respectively (everything by +the month). Fresh butter is 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a pound, +mutton 7<i>d.</i>; washing very dear; cabbages my host sells at +3<i>d.</i> a piece, and pumpkins 8<i>d.</i> He has a fine +garden, and pays a gardener 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a day, and +black labourers 2<i>s.</i> <i>They</i> work three days a +week; then they buy rice and a coarse fish, and lie in the sun +till it is eaten; while their darling little fat black babies +play in the dust, and their black wives make battues in the +covers in their woolly heads. But the little black girl who +cleans my room is far the best servant, and smiles and speaks +like Lalage herself, ugly as the poor drudge is. The voice +and smile of the negroes here is bewitching, though they are +hideous; and neither S— nor I have yet heard a black child +cry, or seen one naughty or quarrelsome. You would want to +lay out a fortune in woolly babies. Yesterday I had a +dreadful heartache after my darling, on her little birthday, and +even the lovely ranges of distant mountains, coloured like opals +in the sunset, did not delight me. This is a dreary place +for strangers. Abdul Jemaalee’s tisanne, and a banana +which he gave me each time I went to his shop, are the sole offer +of ‘Won’t you take something?’ or even the sole +attempt at a civility that I have received, except from the +J—s, who, are very civil and kind.</p> +<p>When I have done my visit to Simon’s Bay, I will go +‘up country’, to Stellenbosch, Paarl and Worcester, +perhaps. If I can find people going in a bullock-waggon, I +will join them; it costs £1 a day, and goes twenty +miles. If money were no object, I would hire one with +Caffres to hunt, as well as outspan and drive, and take a +saddle-horse. There is plenty of pleasure to be had in +travelling here, if you can afford it. The scenery is quite +beyond anything you can imagine in beauty. I went to a +country house at Rondebosch with the J—s, and I never saw +so lovely a spot. The possessor had done his best to spoil +it, and to destroy the handsome Dutch house and fountains and +aqueducts; but Nature was too much for him, and the place lovely +in neglect and shabbiness.</p> +<p>Now I will tell you my impressions of the state of society +here, as far as I have been able to make out by playing the +inquisitive traveller. I dare say the statements are +exaggerated, but I do not think they are wholly devoid of +truth. The Dutch round Capetown (I don’t know +anything of ‘up country’) are sulky and dispirited; +they regret the slave days, and can’t bear to pay wages; +they have sold all their fine houses in town to merchants, +&c., and let their handsome country places go to pieces, and +their land lie fallow, rather than hire the men they used to +own. They hate the Malays, who were their slaves, and whose +‘insolent prosperity’ annoys them, and they +don’t like the vulgar, bustling English. The English +complain that the Dutch won’t die, and that they are the +curse of the colony (a statement for which they can never give a +reason). But they, too, curse the emancipation, long to +flog the niggers, and hate the Malays, who work harder and +don’t drink, and who are the only masons, tailors, &c., +and earn from 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> to 10<i>s.</i> a day. +The Malays also have almost a monopoly of cart-hiring and +horse-keeping; an Englishman charges £4 10<i>s.</i> or +£5 for a carriage to do what a Malay will do quicker in a +light cart for 30<i>s.</i> S— says, ‘The +English here think the coloured people ought to do the work, and +they to get the wages. Nothing less would satisfy +them.’ Servants’ wages are high, but other +wages not much higher than in England; yet industrious people +invariably make fortunes, or at least competencies, even when +they begin with nothing. But few of the English will do +anything but lounge; while they abuse the Dutch as lazy, and the +Malays as thieves, and feel their fingers itch to be at the +blacks. The Africanders (Dutch and negro mixed in various +proportions) are more or less lazy, dirty, and dressy, and the +beautiful girls wear pork-pie hats, and look very winning and +rather fierce; but to them the philanthropists at home have +provided formidable rivals, by emptying a shipload of young +ladies from a ‘Reformatory’ into the streets of +Capetown.</p> +<p>I am puzzled what to think of the climate here for +invalids. The air is dry and clear beyond conception, and +light, but the sun is scorching; while the south-east wind blows +an icy hurricane, and the dust obscures the sky. These +winds last all the summer, till February or March. I am +told when they don’t blow it is heavenly, though still cold +in the mornings and evenings. No one must be out at, or +after sunset, the chill is so sudden. Many of the people +here declare that it is death to weak lungs, and send their +<i>poitrinaires</i> to Madeira, or the south of France. +They also swear the climate is enervating, but their looks, and +above all the blowsy cheeks and hearty play of the English +children, disprove that; and those who come here consumptive get +well in spite of the doctors, who won’t allow it +possible. I believe it is a climate which requires great +care from invalids, but that, with care, it is good, because it +is bracing as well as warm and dry. It is not nearly so +warm as I expected; the southern icebergs are at no great +distance, and they ice the south-east wind for us. If it +were not so violent, it would be delicious; and there are no +unhealthy winds—nothing like our east wind. The +people here grumble at the north-wester, which sometimes brings +rain, and call it damp, which, as they don’t know what damp +is, is excusable; it feels like a <i>dry</i> south-wester in +England. It is, however, quite a delusion to think of +living out of doors, here; the south-easters keep one in nearly, +if not quite, half one’s time, and in summer they say the +sun is too hot to be out except morning and evening. But I +doubt that, for they make an outcry about heat as soon as it is +not cold. The transitions are so sudden, that, with the +thermometer at 76°, you must not go out without taking a +thick warm cloak; you may walk into a south-easter round the +first spur of the mountain, and be cut in two. In short, +the air is cold and bracing, and the sun blazing hot; those whom +that suits, will do well. I should like a softer air, but I +may be wrong; when there is only a moderate wind, it is +delicious. You walk in the hot sun, which makes you +perspire a very little; but you dry as you go, the air is so dry; +and you come in untired. I speak of slow walking. +There are no hot-climate diseases; no dysentery, fever, +&c.</p> +<p><i>Simon’s Bay</i>, 18<i>th</i> <i>Nov.</i>—I came +on here in a cart, as I felt ill from the return of the cold +weather. While at Rathfelder we had a superb day, and the +J—s drove me over to Constantia, which deserves all its +reputation for beauty. What a divine spot!—such +kloofs, with silver rills running down them! It is useless +to describe scenery. It was a sort of glorified Scotland, +with sunshine, flowers, and orange-groves. We got home +hungry and tired, but in great spirits. Alas! next day came +the south-easter—blacker, colder, more cutting, than +ever—and lasted a week.</p> +<p>The Walkers came over on horseback, and pressed me to go to +them. They are most kind and agreeable people. The +drive to Simon’s Bay was lovely, along the coast and across +five beaches of snow-white sand, which look like winter +landscapes; and the mountains and bay are lovely.</p> +<p>Living is very dear, and washing, travelling, chemist’s +bills—all enormous. Thirty shillings a cart and horse +from Rathfelder here—twelve miles; and then the young +English host wanted me to hire another cart for one box and one +bath! But I would not, and my obstinacy was stoutest. +If I want cart or waggon again, I’ll deal with a Malay, +only the fellows drive with forty Jehu-power up and down the +mountains.</p> +<p>A Madagascar woman offered to give me her orphan grandchild, a +sweet brown fairy, six years old, with long silky black hair, and +gorgeous eyes. The child hung about me incessantly all the +time I was at Rathfelder, and I had a great mind to her. +She used to laugh like baby, and was like her altogether, only +prettier, and very brown; and when I told her she was like my own +little child, she danced about, and laughed like mad at the idea +that she could look like ‘pretty white Missy’. +She was mighty proud of her needlework and A B C +performances.</p> +<p>It is such a luxury to sleep on a real mattrass—not +stuffed with dirty straw; to eat clean food, and live in a nice +room. But my cough is very bad, and the cruel wind blows on +and on. I saw the doctor of the Naval Hospital here +to-day. If I don’t mend, I will try his advice, and +go northward for warmth. If you can find an old Mulready +envelope, send it here to Miss Walker, who collects stamps and +has not got it, and write and thank dear good Lady Walker for her +kindness to me.</p> +<p>You will get this about the new year. God bless you all, +and send us better days in 1862.</p> +<h2><a name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 46</span>LETTER +IV<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">JOURNEY TO CALEDON</span></h2> +<p style="text-align: right">Caledon, Dec. 10th.</p> +<p>I <span class="smcap">did</span> not feel at all well at +Simon’s Bay, which is a land of hurricanes. We had a +‘south-easter’ for fourteen days, without an +hour’s lull; even the flag-ship had no communication with +the shore for eight days. The good old naval surgeon there +ordered me to start off for this high ‘up-country’ +district, and arranged my departure for the first <i>possible</i> +day. He made a bargain for me with a Dutchman, for a light +Malay cart (a capital vehicle with two wheels) and four horses, +for 30<i>s.</i> a day—three days to Caledon from +Simon’s Bay, about a hundred miles or so, and one day of +back fare to his home in Capetown.</p> +<p>Luckily, on Saturday the wind dropped, and we started at nine +o’clock, drove to a place about four miles from Capetown, +when we turned off on the ‘country road’, and +outspanned at a post-house kept by a nice old German with a Dutch +wife. Once well out of Capetown, people are civil, but +inquisitive; I was strictly cross-questioned, and proved so +satisfactory, that the old man wished to give me some English +porter gratis. We then jogged along again at a very good +pace to another wayside public, where we outspanned again and +ate, and were again questioned, and again made much of. By +six o’clock we got to the Eerste River, having gone forty +miles or so in the day. It was a beautiful day, and very +pleasant travelling. We had three good little half-Arab +bays, and one brute of a grey as off-wheeler, who fell down +continually; but a Malay driver works miracles, and no harm came +of it. The cart is small, with a permanent tilt at top, and +moveable curtains of waterproof all round; harness of raw +leather, very prettily put together by Malay workmen. We +sat behind, and our brown coachman, with his mushroom hat, in +front, with my bath and box, and a miniature of himself about +seven years old—a nephew,—so small and handy that he +would be worth his weight in jewels as a tiger. At Eerste +River we slept in a pretty old Dutch house, kept by an English +woman, and called the Fox and Hound, ‘to sound like home, +my lady.’ Very nice and comfortable it was.</p> +<p>I started next day at ten; and never shall I forget that +day’s journey. The beauty of the country exceeds all +description. Ranges of mountains beyond belief fantastic in +shape, and between them a rolling country, desolate and wild, and +covered with gorgeous flowers among the +‘scrub’. First we came to Hottentot’s +Holland (now called Somerset West), the loveliest little old +Dutch village, with trees and little canals of bright clear +mountain water, and groves of orange and pomegranate, and white +houses, with incredible gable ends. We tried to stop here; +but forage was ninepence a bundle, and the true Malay would +rather die than pay more than he can help. So we pushed on +to the foot of the mountains, and bought forage (forage is oats +<i>au natural</i>, straw and all, the only feed known here, where +there is no grass or hay) at a farm kept by English people, who +all talked Dutch together; only one girl of the family could +speak English. They were very civil, asked us in, and gave +us unripe apricots, and the girl came down with seven flounces, +to talk with us. Forage was still ninepence—half a +dollar a bundle—and Choslullah Jaamee groaned over it, and +said the horses must have less forage and ‘more plenty +roll’ (a roll in the dust is often the only refreshment +offered to the beasts, and seems to do great good).</p> +<p>We got to Caledon at eleven, and drove to the place the Doctor +recommended—formerly a country house of the Dutch +Governor. It is in a lovely spot; but do you remember the +Schloss in Immermann’s Neuer Münchausen? Well, +it is that. A ruin;—windows half broken and boarded +up, the handsome steps in front fallen in, and all <i>en +suite</i>. The rooms I saw were large and airy; but mud +floors, white-washed walls, one chair, one stump bedstead, and +<i>præterea nihil</i>. It has a sort of wild, +romantic look; I hear, too, it is wonderfully healthy, and not so +bad as it looks. The long corridor is like the entrance to +a great stable, or some such thing; earth floors and open to all +winds. But you can’t imagine it, however I may +describe; it is so huge and strange, and ruinous. Finding +that the mistress of the house was ill, and nothing ready for our +reception, I drove on to the inn. Rain, like a Scotch mist, +came on just as we arrived, and it is damp and chilly, to the +delight of all the dwellers in the land, who love bad +weather. It makes me cough a little more; but they say it +is quite unheard of, and can’t last. Altogether, I +suppose this summer here is as that of ’60 was in +England.</p> +<p>I forgot, in describing my journey, the regal-looking Caffre +housemaid at Eerste River. ‘Such a dear, good +creature,’ the landlady said; and, oh, such a ‘noble +savage’!—with a cotton handkerchief folded tight like +a cravat and tied round her head with a bow behind, and the short +curly wool sticking up in the middle;—it looked like a +royal diadem on her solemn brow; she stepped like Juno, with a +huge tub full to the brim, and holding several pailfuls, on her +head, and a pailful in each hand, bringing water for the stables +from the river, across a large field. There is nothing like +a Caffre for power and grace; and the face, though very African, +has a sort of grandeur which makes it utterly unlike that of the +negro. That woman’s bust and waist were beauty +itself. The Caffres are also very clean and very clever as +servants, I hear, learning cookery, &c., in a wonderfully +short time. When they have saved money enough to buy cattle +in Kaffraria, off they go, cast aside civilization and clothes, +and enjoy life in naked luxury.</p> +<p>I can’t tell you how I longed for you in my +journey. You would have been so delighted with the country +and the queer turn-out—the wild little horses, and the +polite and delicately-clean Moslem driver. His description +of his sufferings from ‘louses’, when he slept in a +Dutch farm, were pathetic, and ever since, he sleeps in his cart, +with the little boy; and they bathe in the nearest river, and eat +their lawful food and drink their water out of doors. They +declined beer, or meat which had been unlawfully killed. In +Capetown <i>all</i> meat is killed by Malays, and has the proper +prayer spoken over it, and they will eat no other. I was +offered a fowl at a farm, but Choslullah thought it ‘too +much money for Missus’, and only accepted some eggs. +He was gratified at my recognising the propriety of his saying +‘Bismillah’ over any animal killed for food. +Some drink beer, and drink a good deal, but Choslullah thought it +‘very wrong for Malay people, and not good for Christian +people, to be drunk beasties;—little wine or beer good for +Christians, but not too plenty much.’ I gave him ten +shillings for himself, at which he was enchanted, and again +begged me to write to his master for him when I wanted to leave +Caledon, and to be sure to say, ‘Mind send same +coachman.’ He planned to drive me back through +Worcester, Burnt Vley, Paarl, and Stellenbosch—a longer +round; but he could do it in three days well, so as ‘not +cost Missus more money’, and see a different country.</p> +<p>This place is curiously like Rochefort in the Ardennes, only +the hills are mountains, and the sun is far hotter; not so the +air, which is fresh and pleasant. I am in a very nice inn, +kept by an English ex-officer, who went through the Caffre war, +and found his pay insufficient for the wants of a numerous +family. I quite admire his wife, who cooks, cleans, nurses +her babes, gives singing and music lessons,—all as merrily +as if she liked it. I dine with them at two o’clock, +and Captain D— has a <i>table d’hôte</i> at +seven for travellers. I pay only 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a +day for myself and S—; this includes all but wine or +beer. The air is very clear and fine, and my cough is +already much better. I shall stay here as long as it suits +me and does me good, and then I am to send for Choslullah again, +and go back by the road he proposed. It rains here now and +then, and blows a good deal, but the wind has lost its bitter +chill, and depressing quality. I hope soon to ride a little +and see the country, which is beautiful.</p> +<p>The water-line is all red from the iron stone, and there are +hot chalybeate springs up the mountain which are very good for +rheumatism, and very strengthening, I am told. The boots +here is a Mantatee, very black, and called Kleenboy, because he +is so little; he is the only sleek black I have seen here, but +looks heavy and downcast. One maid is Irish (they make the +best servants here), a very nice clean girl, and the other, a +brown girl of fifteen, whose father is English, and married to +her mother. Food here is scarce, all but bread and mutton, +both good. Butter is 3<i>s.</i> a pound; fruit and +vegetables only to be had by chance. I miss the oranges and +lemons sadly. Poultry and milk uncertain. The bread +is good everywhere, from the fine wheat: in the country it is +brownish and sweet. The wine here is execrable; this is +owing to the prevailing indolence, for there is excellent wine +made from the Rhenish grape, rather like Sauterne, with a +<i>soupçon</i> of Manzanilla flavour. The sweet +Constantia is also very good indeed; not the expensive sort, +which is made from grapes half dried, and is a liqueur, but a +light, sweet, straw-coloured wine, which even I liked. We +drank nothing else at the Admiral’s. The kind old +sailor has given me a dozen of wine, which is coming up here in a +waggon, and will be most welcome. I can’t tell you +how kind he and Lady Walker were; I was there three weeks, and +hope to go again when the south-easter season is over and I can +get out a little. I could not leave the house at all; and +even Lady Walker and the girls, who are very energetic, got out +but little. They are a charming family.</p> +<p>I have no doubt that Dr. Shea was right, and that one must +leave the coast to get a fine climate. Here it seems to me +nearly perfect—too windy for my pleasure, but then the sun +would be overpowering without a fresh breeze. Every one +agrees in saying that the winter in Capetown is +delicious—like a fine English summer. In November the +south-easters begin, and they are ‘fiendish’; this +year they began in September. The mornings here are always +fresh, not to say cold; the afternoons, from one to three, +broiling; then delightful till sunset, which is deadly cold for +three-quarters of an hour; the night is lovely. The wind +rises and falls with the sun. That is the general course of +things. Now and then it rains, and this year there is a +little south-easter, which is quite unusual, and not odious, as +it is near the sea; and there is seldom a hot wind from the +north. I am promised that on or about Christmas-day; then +doors and windows are shut, and you gasp. Hitherto we have +had nothing nearly so hot as Paris in summer, or as the summer of +1859 in England; and they say it is no hotter, except when the +hot wind blows, which is very rare. Up here, snow sometimes +lies, in winter, on the mountain tops; but ice is unknown, and +Table Mountain is never covered with snow. The flies are +pestilent—incredibly noisy, intrusive, and +disgusting—and oh, such swarms! Fleas and bugs not +half so bad as in France, as far as my experience goes, and I +have poked about in queer places.</p> +<p>I get up at half-past five, and walk in the early morning, +before the sun and wind begin to be oppressive; it is then dry, +calm, and beautiful; then I sleep like a Dutchman in the middle +of the day. At present it tires me, but I shall get used to +it soon. The Dutch doctor here advised me to do so, to +avoid the wind.</p> +<p>When all was settled, we climbed the Hottentot’s +mountains by Sir Lowry’s Pass, a long curve round two +hill-sides; and what a view! Simon’s Bay opening out +far below, and range upon range of crags on one side, with a wide +fertile plain, in which lies Hottentot’s Holland, at +one’s feet. The road is just wide enough for one +waggon, i.e. very narrow. Where the smooth rock came +through, Choslullah gave a little grunt, and the three bays went +off like hippogriffs, dragging the grey with them. By this +time my confidence in his driving was boundless, or I should have +expected to find myself in atoms at the bottom of the +precipice. At the top of the pass we turned a sharp corner +into a scene like the crater of a volcano, only reaching miles +away all round; and we descended a very little and drove on along +great rolling waves of country, with the mountain tops, all crags +and ruins, to our left. At three we reached Palmiet River, +full of palmettos and bamboos, and there the horses had ‘a +little roll’, and Choslullah and his miniature washed in +the river and prayed, and ate dry bread, and drank their tepid +water out of a bottle with great good breeding and +cheerfulness. Three bullock-waggons had outspanned, and the +Dutch boers and Bastaards (half Hottentots) were all drunk. +We went into a neat little ‘public’, and had porter +and ham sandwiches, for which I paid 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> to a +miserable-looking English woman, who was afraid of her tipsy +customers. We got to Houw Hoek, a pretty valley at the +entrance of a mountain gorge, about half-past five, and drove up +to a mud cottage, half inn, half farm, kept by a German and his +wife. It looked mighty queer, but Choslullah said the host +was a good old man, and all clean. So we cheered up, and +asked for food. While the neat old woman was cooking it, up +galloped five fine lads and two pretty flaxen-haired girls, with +real German faces, on wild little horses; and one girl tucked up +her habit, and waited at table, while another waved a green bough +to drive off the swarms of flies. The chops were excellent, +ditto bread and butter, and the tea tolerable. The parlour +was a tiny room with a mud floor, half-hatch door into the front, +and the two bedrooms still tinier and darker, each with two huge +beds which filled them entirely. But Choslullah was right; +they were perfectly clean, with heaps of beautiful pillows; and +not only none of the creatures of which he spoke with infinite +terror, but even no fleas. The man was delighted to talk to +me. His wife had almost forgotten German, and the children +did not know a word of it, but spoke Dutch and English. A +fine, healthy, happy family. It was a pretty picture of +emigrant life. Cattle, pigs, sheep, and poultry, and +pigeons innumerable, all picked up their own living, and cost +nothing; and vegetables and fruit grow in rank abundance where +there is water. I asked for a book in the evening, and the +man gave me a volume of Schiller. A good +breakfast,—and we paid ninepence for all.</p> +<p>This morning we started before eight, as it looked gloomy, and +came through a superb mountain defile, out on to a rich hillocky +country, covered with miles of corn, all being cut as far as the +eye could reach, and we passed several circular threshing-floors, +where the horses tread out the grain. Each had a few mud +hovels near it, for the farmers and men to live in during +harvest. Altogether, I was most lucky, had two beautiful +days, and enjoyed the journey immensely. It was most +‘<i>abentheuerlich</i>’; the light two-wheeled cart, +with four wild little horses, and the marvellous brown driver, +who seemed to be always going to perdition, but made the horses +do apparently impossible things with absolute certainty; and the +pretty tiny boy who came to help his uncle, and was so clever, +and so preternaturally quiet, and so very small: then the road +through the mountain passes, seven or eight feet wide, with a +precipice above and below, up which the little horses scrambled; +while big lizards, with green heads and chocolate bodies, looked +pertly at us, and a big bright amber-coloured cobra, as handsome +as he is deadly, wriggled across into a hole.</p> +<p>Nearly all the people in this village are Dutch. There +is one Malay tailor here, but he is obliged to be a Christian at +Caledon, though Choslullah told me with a grin, he was a very +good Malay when he went to Capetown. He did not seem much +shocked at this double religion, staunch Mussulman as he was +himself. I suppose the blacks ‘up country’ are +what Dutch slavery made them—mere animals—cunning and +sulky. The real Hottentot is extinct, I believe, in the +Colony; what one now sees are all ‘Bastaards’, the +Dutch name for their own descendants by Hottentot women. +These mongrel Hottentots, who do all the work, are an affliction +to behold—debased and <i>shrivelled</i> with drink, and +drunk all day long; sullen wretched creatures—so unlike the +bright Malays and cheery pleasant blacks and browns of Capetown, +who never pass you without a kind word and sunny smile or broad +African grin, <i>selon</i> their colour and shape of face. +I look back fondly to the gracious soft-looking Malagasse woman +who used to give me a chair under the big tree near Rathfelders, +and a cup of ‘bosjesthée’ (herb tea), and talk +so prettily in her soft voice;—it is such a contrast to +these poor animals, who glower at one quite unpleasantly. +All the hovels I was in at Capetown were very fairly clean, and I +went into numbers. They almost all contained a handsome +bed, with, at least, eight pillows. If you only look at the +door with a friendly glance, you are implored to come in and sit +down, and usually offered a ‘coppj’ (cup) of herb +tea, which they are quite grateful to one for drinking. I +never saw or heard a hint of ‘backsheesh’, nor did I +ever give it, on principle and I was always recognised and +invited to come again with the greatest eagerness. +‘An indulgence of talk’ from an English +‘Missis’ seemed the height of gratification, and the +pride and pleasure of giving hospitality a sufficient +reward. But here it is quite different. I suppose the +benefits of the emancipation were felt at Capetown sooner than in +the country, and the Malay population there furnishes a strong +element of sobriety and respectability, which sets an example to +the other coloured people.</p> +<p>Harvest is now going on, and the so-called Hottentots are +earning 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a day, with rations and wine. +But all the money goes at the ‘canteen’ in drink, and +the poor wretched men and women look wasted and degraded. +The children are pretty, and a few of them are half-breed girls, +who do very well, unless a white man admires them; and then they +think it quite an honour to have a whitey-brown child, which +happens at about fifteen, by which age they look full twenty.</p> +<p>We had very good snipe and wild duck the other day, which +Capt. D— brought home from a shooting party. I have +got the moth-like wings of a golden snipe for R—’s +hat, and those of a beautiful moor-hen. They got no +‘boks’, because of the violent south-easter which +blew where they were. The game is fast decreasing, but +still very abundant. I saw plenty of partridges on the +road, but was not early enough to see boks, who only show at +dawn; neither have I seen baboons. I will try to bring home +some cages of birds—Cape canaries and ‘roode +bekjes’ (red bills), darling little things. The +sugar-birds, which are the humming-birds of Africa, could not be +fed; but Caffre finks, which weave the pendent nests, are hardy +and easily fed.</p> +<p>To-day the post for England leaves Caledon, so I must conclude +this yarn. I wish R— could have seen the ‘klip +springer’, the mountain deer of South Africa, which Capt. +D— brought in to show me. Such a lovely little beast, +as big as a small kid, with eyes and ears like a hare, and a nose +so small and dainty. It was quite tame and saucy, and +belonged to some man <i>en route</i> for Capetown.</p> +<h2><a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 61</span>LETTER +V<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">CALEDON</span></h2> +<p style="text-align: right">Caledon, Dec. 29th.</p> +<p>I <span class="smcap">am</span> beginning now really to feel +better: I think my cough is less, and I eat a great deal +more. They cook nice clean food here, and have some good +claret, which I have been extravagant enough to drink, much to my +advantage. The Cape wine is all so fiery. The climate +is improving too. The glorious African sun blazes and +roasts one, and the cool fresh breezes prevent one from feeling +languid. I walk from six till eight or nine, breakfast at +ten, and dine at three; in the afternoon it is generally +practicable to saunter again, now the weather is warmer. I +sleep from twelve till two. On Christmas-eve it was so warm +that I lay in bed with the window wide open, and the stars +blazing in. Such stars! they are much brighter than our +moon. The Dutchmen held high jinks in the hall, and danced +and made a great noise. On New Year’s-eve they will +have another ball, and I shall look in. Christmas-day was +the hottest day—indeed, the only <i>hot</i> day we have +had—and I could not make it out at all, or fancy you all +cold at home.</p> +<p>I wish you were here to see the curious ways and new aspect of +everything. This village, which, as I have said, is very +like Rochefort, but hardly so large, is the <i>chef lieu</i> of a +district the size of one-third of England. A civil +commander resides here, a sort of <i>préfet</i>; and there +is an embryo market-place, with a bell hanging in a brick +arch. When a waggon arrives with goods, it draws up there, +they ring the bell, everybody goes to see what is for sale, and +the goods are sold by auction. My host bought potatoes and +brandy the other day, and is looking out for ostrich feathers for +me, out of the men’s hats.</p> +<p>The other day, while we sat at dinner, all the bells began to +ring furiously, and Capt. D— jumped up and shouted +‘<i>Brand</i>!’ (fire), rushed off for a stout +leather hat, and ran down the street. Out came all the +population, black, white, and brown, awfully excited, for it was +blowing a furious north-wester, right up the town, and the fire +was at the bottom; and as every house is thatched with a dry +brown thatch, we might all have to turn out and see the place in +ashes in less than an hour. Luckily, it was put out +directly. It is supposed to have been set on fire by a +Hottentot girl, who has done the same thing once before, on being +scolded. There is no water but what runs down the streets +in the <i>sloot</i>, a paved channel, which brings the water from +the mountain and supplies the houses and gardens. A garden +is impossible without irrigation, of course, as it never rains; +but with it, you may have everything, all the year round. +The people, however, are too careless to grow fruit and +vegetables.</p> +<p>How the cattle live is a standing marvel to me. The +whole <i>veld</i> (common), which extends all over the country +(just dotted with a few square miles of corn here and there), is +covered with a low thin scrub, about eighteen inches high, called +<i>rhenoster-bosch</i>—looking like meagre arbor vitæ +or pale juniper. The cattle and sheep will not touch this +nor the juicy Hottentot fig; but under each little bush, I fancy, +they crop a few blades of grass, and on this they keep in very +good condition. The noble oxen, with their huge horns (nine +or ten feet from tip to tip), are never fed, though they work +hard, nor are the sheep. The horses get a little forage +(oats, straw and all). I should like you to see eight or +ten of these swift wiry little horses harnessed to a +waggon,—a mere flat platform on wheels. In front +stands a wild-looking Hottentot, all patches and feathers, and +drives them best pace, all ‘in hand’, using a whip +like a fishing-rod, with which he touches them, not savagely, but +with a skill which would make an old stage-coachman burst with +envy to behold. This morning, out on the veld, I watched +the process of breaking-in a couple of colts, who were harnessed, +after many struggles, second and fourth in a team of ten. +In front stood a tiny foal cuddling its mother, one of the +leaders. When they started, the foal had its neck through +the bridle, and I hallooed in a fright; but the Hottentot only +laughed, and in a minute it had disengaged itself quite coolly +and capered alongside. The colts tried to plunge, but were +whisked along, and couldn’t, and then they stuck out all +four feet and <i>skidded</i> along a bit; but the rhenoster +bushes tripped them up (people drive regardless of roads), and +they shook their heads and trotted along quite subdued, without a +blow or a word, for the drivers never speak to the horses, only +to the oxen. Colts here get no other breaking, and +therefore have no paces or action to the eye, but their speed and +endurance are wonderful. There is no such thing as a +cock-tail in the country, and the waggon teams of wiry little +thoroughbreds, half Arab, look very strange to our eyes, going +full tilt. There is a terrible murrain, called the +lung-sickness, among horses and oxen here, every four or five +years, but it never touches those that are stabled, however +exposed to wet or wind on the roads.</p> +<p>I must describe the house I inhabit, as all are much +alike. It is whitewashed, with a door in the middle and two +windows on each side; those on the left are Mrs. D—’s +bed and sitting rooms. On the right is a large room, which +is mine; in the middle of the house is a spacious hall, with +doors into other rooms on each side, and into the kitchen, +&c. There is a yard behind, and a staircase up to the +<i>zolder</i> or loft, under the thatch, with partitions, where +the servants and children, and sometimes guests, sleep. +There are no ceilings; the floor of the zolder is made of yellow +wood, and, resting on beams, forms the ceiling of my room, and +the thatch alone covers that. No moss ever grows on the +thatch, which is brown, with white ridges. In front is a +stoep, with ‘blue gums’ (Australian gum-trees) in +front of it, where I sit till twelve, when the sun comes on +it. These trees prevail here greatly, as they want neither +water nor anything else, and grow with incredible rapidity.</p> +<p>We have got a new ‘boy’ (all coloured servants are +‘boys,’—a remnant of slavery), and he is the +type of the nigger slave. A thief, a liar, a glutton, a +drunkard—but you can’t resent it; he has a +<i>naïf</i>, half-foolish, half-knavish buffoonery, a total +want of self-respect, which disarms you. I sent him to the +post to inquire for letters, and the postmaster had been tipsy +over-night and was not awake. Jack came back spluttering +threats against ‘dat domned Dutchman. Me no +<i>want</i> (like) him; me go and kick up dom’d row. +What for he no give Missis letter?’ &c. I begged +him to be patient; on which he bonneted himself in a violent way, +and started off at a pantomime walk. Jack is the product of +slavery: he pretends to be a simpleton in order to do less work +and eat and drink and sleep more than a reasonable being, and he +knows his buffoonery will get him out of scrapes. Withal, +thoroughly good-natured and obliging, and perfectly honest, +except where food and drink are concerned, which he pilfers like +a monkey. He worships S—, and won’t allow her +to carry anything, or to dirty her hands, if he is in the way to +do it. Some one suggested to him to kiss her, but he +declined with terror, and said he should be hanged by my orders +if he did. He is a hideous little negro, with a +monstrous-shaped head, every colour of the rainbow on his +clothes, and a power of making faces which would enchant a +schoolboy. The height of his ambition would be to go to +England with me.</p> +<p>An old ‘bastaard’ woman, married to the Malay +tailor here, explained to me my popularity with the coloured +people, as set forth by ‘dat Malay boy’, my +driver. He told them he was sure I was a ‘very great +Missis’, because of my ‘plenty good behaviour’; +that I spoke to him just as to a white gentleman, and did not +‘laugh and talk nonsense talk’. ‘Never +say “Here, you black fellow”, dat +Misses.’ The English, when they mean to be +good-natured, are generally offensively familiar, and ‘talk +nonsense talk’, i.e. imitate the Dutch English of the +Malays and blacks; the latter feel it the greatest compliment to +be treated <i>au sérieux</i>, and spoken to in good +English. Choslullah’s theory was that I must be +related to the Queen, in consequence of my not ‘knowing bad +behaviour’. The Malays, who are intelligent and +proud, of course feel the annoyance of vulgar familiarity more +than the blacks, who are rather awe-struck by civility, though +they like and admire it.</p> +<p>Mrs. D— tells me that the coloured servant-girls, with +all their faults, are immaculately honest in these parts; and, +indeed, as every door and window is always left open, even when +every soul is out, and nothing locked up, there must be no +thieves. Captain D— told me he had been in remote +Dutch farmhouses, where rouleaux of gold were ranged under the +thatch on the top of the low wall, the doors being always left +open; and everywhere the Dutch boers keep their money by them, in +coin.</p> +<p><i>Jan.</i> 3<i>d.</i>—We have had tremendous +festivities here—a ball on New Year’s-eve, and +another on the 1st of January—and the shooting for Prince +Alfred’s rifle yesterday. The difficulty of music for +the ball was solved by the arrival of two Malay bricklayers to +build the new parsonage, and I heard with my own ears the proof +of what I had been told as to their extraordinary musical +gifts. When I went into the hall, a Dutchman was +<i>screeching</i> a concertina hideously. Presently in +walked a yellow Malay, with a blue cotton handkerchief on his +head, and a half-bred of negro blood (very dark brown), with a +red handkerchief, and holding a rough tambourine. The +handsome yellow man took the concertina which seemed so +discordant, and the touch of his dainty fingers transformed it to +harmony. He played dances with a precision and feeling +quite unequalled, except by Strauss’s band, and a variety +which seemed endless. I asked him if he could read music, +at which he laughed heartily, and said, music came into the ears, +not the eyes. He had picked it all up from the bands in +Capetown, or elsewhere.</p> +<p>It was a strange sight,—the picturesque group, and the +contrast between the quiet manners of the true Malay and the +grotesque fun of the half-negro. The latter made his +tambourine do duty as a drum, rattled the bits of brass so as to +produce an indescribable effect, nodded and grinned in wild +excitement, and drank beer while his comrade took water. +The dancing was uninteresting enough. The Dutchmen danced +badly, and said not a word, but plodded on so as to get all the +dancing they could for their money. I went to bed at +half-past eleven, but the ball went on till four.</p> +<p>Next night there was genteeler company, and I did not go in, +but lay in bed listening to the Malay’s playing. He +had quite a fresh set of tunes, of which several were from the +‘Traviata’!</p> +<p>Yesterday was a real African summer’s day. The +D—s had a tent and an awning, one for food and the other +for drink, on the ground where the shooting took place. At +twelve o’clock Mrs. D— went down to sell cold +chickens, &c., and I went with her, and sat under a tree in +the bed of the little stream, now nearly dry. The sun was +such as in any other climate would strike you down, but here +<i>coup de soleil</i> is unknown. It broils you till your +shoulders ache and your lips crack, but it does not make you feel +the least languid, and you perspire very little; nor does it tan +the skin as you would expect. The light of the sun is by no +means ‘golden’—it is pure white—and the +slightest shade of a tree or bush affords a delicious +temperature, so light and fresh is the air. They said the +thermometer was at about 130° where I was walking yesterday, +but (barring the scorch) I could not have believed it.</p> +<p>It was a very amusing day. The great tall Dutchmen came +in to shoot, and did but moderately, I thought. The longest +range was five hundred yards, and at that they shot well; at +shorter ranges, poorly enough. The best man made ten +points. But oh! what figures were there of negroes and +coloured people! I longed for a photographer. Some +coloured lads were exquisitely graceful, and composed beautiful +<i>tableaux vivants</i>, after Murillo’s beggar-boys.</p> +<p>A poor little, very old Bosjesman crept up, and was jeered and +bullied. I scolded the lad who abused him for being rude to +an old man, whereupon the poor little old creature squatted on +the ground close by (for which he would have been kicked but for +me), took off his ragged hat, and sat staring and nodding his +small grey woolly head at me, and jabbering some little soliloquy +very <i>sotto voce</i>. There was something shocking in the +timidity with which he took the plate of food I gave him, and in +the way in which he ate it, with the <i>wrong</i> side of his +little yellow hand, like a monkey. A black, who had helped +to fetch the hamper, suggested to me to give him wine instead of +meat and bread, and make him drunk <i>for fun</i> (the blacks and +Hottentots copy the white man’s manners <i>to them</i>, +when they get hold of a Bosjesman to practise upon); but upon +this a handsome West Indian black, who had been cooking pies, +fired up, and told him he was a ‘nasty black rascal, and a +Dutchman to boot’, to insult a lady and an old man at +once. If you could see the difference between one negro and +another, you would be quite convinced that education (i.e. +circumstances) makes the race. It was hardly conceivable +that the hideous, dirty, bandy-legged, ragged creature, who +looked down on the Bosjesman, and the well-made, smart fellow, +with his fine eyes, jaunty red cap, and snow-white shirt and +trousers, alert as the best German Kellner, were of the same +blood; nothing but the colour was alike.</p> +<p>Then came a Dutchman, and asked for six penn’orth of +‘brood en kaas’, and haggled for beer; and +Englishmen, who bought chickens and champagne without asking the +price. One rich old boer got three lunches, and then +‘trekked’ (made off) without paying at all. +Then came a Hottentot, stupidly drunk, with a fiddle, and was +beaten by a little red-haired Scotchman, and his fiddle +smashed. The Hottentot hit at his aggressor, who then +declared he <i>had been</i> a policeman, and insisted on taking +him into custody and to the ‘Tronk’ (prison) on his +own authority, but was in turn sent flying by a gigantic +Irishman, who ‘wouldn’t see the poor baste +abused’. The Irishman was a farmer; I never saw such +a Hercules—and beaming with fun and good nature. He +was very civil, and answered my questions, and talked like an +intelligent man; but when Captain D— asked him with an air +of some anxiety, if he was coming to the hotel, he replied, +‘No, sir, no; I wouldn’t be guilty of such a +misdemeanour. I am aware that I was a disgrace and +opprobrium to your house, sir, last time I was there, sir. +No, sir, I shall sleep in my cart, and not come into the presence +of ladies.’ Hereupon he departed, and I was informed +that he had been drunk for seventeen days, <i>sans +désemparer</i>, on his last visit to Caledon. +However, he kept quite sober on this occasion, and amused himself +by making the little blackies scramble for halfpence in the pools +left in the bed of the river. Among our customers was a +very handsome black man, with high straight nose, deep-set eyes, +and a small mouth, smartly dressed in a white felt hat, paletot, +and trousers. He is the shoemaker, and is making a pair of +‘Veldschoen’ for you, which you will delight +in. They are what the rough boers and Hottentots wear, +buff-hide barbarously tanned and shaped, and as soft as woollen +socks. The Othello-looking shoemaker’s name is Moor, +and his father told him he came of a ‘good breed’; +that was all he knew.</p> +<p>A very pleasing English farmer, who had been educated in +Belgium, came and ordered a bottle of champagne, and shyly begged +me to drink a glass, whereupon we talked of crops and the like; +and an excellent specimen of a colonist he appeared: very gentle +and unaffected, with homely good sense, and real good +breeding—such a contrast to the pert airs and vulgarity of +Capetown and of the people in (colonial) high places. +Finding we had no carriage, he posted off and borrowed a cart of +one man and harness of another, and put his and his son’s +riding horses to it, to take Mrs. D— and me home. As +it was still early, he took us a ‘little drive’; and +oh, ye gods! what a terrific and dislocating pleasure was +that! At a hard gallop, Mr. M— (with the mildest and +steadiest air and with perfect safety) took us right across +country. It is true there were no fences; but over bushes, +ditches, lumps of rock, watercourses, we jumped, flew, and +bounded, and up every hill we went racing pace. I arrived +at home much bewildered, and feeling more like +Bürger’s Lenore than anything else, till I saw Mr. +M—’s steady, pleasant face quite undisturbed, and was +informed that such was the way of driving of Cape farmers.</p> +<p>We found the luckless Jack in such a state of furious +drunkenness that he had to be dismissed on the spot, not without +threats of the ‘Tronk’, and once more Kleenboy fills +the office of boots. He returned in a ludicrous state of +penitence and emaciation, frankly admitting that it was better to +work hard and get ‘plenty grub’, than to work less +and get none;—still, however, protesting against work at +all.</p> +<p><i>January</i> 7<i>th</i>.—For the last four days it has +again been blowing a wintry hurricane. Every one says that +the continuance of these winds so late into the summer (this +answers to July) is unheard of, and <i>must</i> cease soon. +In Table Bay, I hear a good deal of mischief has been done to the +shipping.</p> +<p>I hope my long yarns won’t bore you. I put down +what seems new and amusing to me at the moment, but by the time +it reaches you, it will seem very dull and commonplace. I +hear that the Scotchman who attacked poor Aria, the crazy +Hottentot, is a ‘revival lecturer’, and was +‘simply exhorting him to break his fiddle and come to +Christ’ (the phrase is a clergyman’s, I beg to +observe); and the saints are indignant that, after executing the +pious purpose as far as the fiddle went, he was prevented by the +chief constable from dragging him to the Tronk. The +‘revival’ mania has broken out rather violently in +some places; the infection was brought from St. Helena, I am +told. At Capetown, old Abdool Jemaalee told me that English +Christians were getting more like Malays, and had begun to hold +‘Kalifahs’ at Simon’s Bay. These are +festivals in which Mussulman fanatics run knives into their +flesh, go into convulsions, &c, to the sound of music, like +the Arab described by Houdin. Of course the poor blacks go +quite demented.</p> +<p>I intend to stay here another two or three weeks, and then to +go to Worcester—stay a bit; Paarl, ditto; Stellenbosch, +ditto—and go to Capetown early in March, and in April to +embark for home.</p> +<p><i>January</i> 15<i>th</i>.—No mail in yet. We +have had beautiful weather the last three days. Captain +D— has been in Capetown, and bought a horse, which he rode +home seventy-five miles in a day and a half,—the beast none +the worse nor tired. I am to ride him, and so shall see the +country if the vile cold winds keep off.</p> +<p>This morning I walked on the Veld, and met a young black +shepherd leading his sheep and goats, and playing on a guitar +composed of an old tin mug covered with a bit of sheepskin and a +handle of rough wood, with pegs, and three strings of +sheep-gut. I asked him to sing, and he flung himself at my +feet in an attitude that would make Watts crazy with delight, and +<i>crooned</i> queer little mournful ditties. I gave him +sixpence, and told him not to get drunk. He said, ‘Oh +no; I will buy bread enough to make my belly stiff—I almost +never had my belly stiff.’ He likewise informed me he +had just been in the Tronk (prison), and on my asking why, +replied: ‘Oh, for fighting, and telling lies;’ Die +liebe Unschuld! (Dear innocence!)</p> +<p>Hottentot figs are rather nice—a green fig-shaped thing, +containing about a spoonful of <i>salt-sweet</i> insipid glue, +which you suck out. This does not sound nice, but it +is. The plant has a thick, succulent, triangular leaf, +creeping on the ground, and growing anywhere, without earth or +water. Figs proper are common here, but tasteless; and the +people pick all their fruit green, and eat it so too. The +children are all crunching hard peaches and plums just now, +particularly some little half-breeds near here, who are +frightfully ugly. Fancy the children of a black woman and a +red-haired man; the little monsters are as black as the mother, +and have <i>red</i> wool—you never saw so diabolical an +appearance. Some of the coloured people are very pretty; +for example, a coal-black girl of seventeen, and my washerwoman, +who is brown. They are wonderfully slender and agile, and +quite old hard-working women have waists you could span. +They never grow thick and square, like Europeans.</p> +<p>I could write a volume on Cape horses. Such valiant +little beasts, and so composed in temper, I never saw. They +are nearly all bays—a few very dark grey, which are +esteemed; <i>very</i> few white or light grey. I have seen +no black, and only one dark chestnut. They are not cobs, +and look ‘very little of them’, and have no beauty; +but one of these little brutes, ungroomed, half-fed, seldom +stabled, will carry a six-and-a-half-foot Dutchman sixty miles a +day, day after day, at a shuffling easy canter, six miles an +hour. You ‘off saddle’ every three hours, and +let him roll; you also let him drink all he can get; his coat +shines and his eye is bright, and unsoundness is very rare. +They are never properly broke, and the soft-mouthed colts are +sometimes made vicious by the cruel bits and heavy hands; but by +nature their temper is perfect.</p> +<p>Every morning all the horses in the village are turned loose, +and a general gallop takes place to the water tank, where they +drink and lounge a little; and the young ones are fetched home by +their niggers, while the old stagers know they will be wanted, +and saunter off by themselves. I often attend the Houyhnhnm +<i>conversazione</i> at the tank, at about seven o’clock, +and am amused by their behaviour; and I continually wish I could +see Ned’s face on witnessing many equine proceedings +here. To see a farmer outspan and turn the team of active +little beasts loose on the boundless veld to amuse themselves for +an hour or two, sure that they will all be there, would astonish +him a little; and then to offer a horse nothing but a roll in the +dust to refresh himself withal!</p> +<p>One unpleasant sight here is the skeletons of horses and oxen +along the roadside; or at times a fresh carcase surrounded by a +convocation of huge serious-looking carrion crows, with neat +white neck-cloths. The skeletons look like wrecks, and make +you feel very lonely on the wide veld. In this district, +and in most, I believe, the roads are mere tracks over the hard, +level earth, and very good they are. When one gets rutty, +you drive parallel to it, till the bush is worn out and a new +track is formed.</p> +<p><i>January</i> 17<i>th</i>.—Lovely weather all the +week. Summer well set in.</p> +<h2><a name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 79</span>LETTER +VI<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">CALEDON</span></h2> +<p style="text-align: right">Caledon, January 19th.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Dearest Mother</span>,</p> +<p>Till this last week, the weather was pertinaciously cold and +windy; and I had resolved to go to Worcester, which lies in a +‘Kessel’, and is really hot. But now the +glorious African summer is come, and I believe this is the +weather of Paradise. I got up at four this morning, when +the Dutchmen who had slept here were starting in their carts and +waggons. It was quite light; but the moon shone brilliantly +still, and had put on a bright rose-coloured veil, borrowed from +the rising sun on the opposite horizon. The freshness +(without a shadow of cold or damp) of the air was +indescribable—no dew was on the ground. I went up the +hill-side, along the ‘Sloot’ (channel, which supplies +all our water), into the ‘Kloof’ between the +mountains, and clambered up to the ‘Venster Klip’, +from which natural window the view is very fine. The +flowers are all gone and the grass all dead. Rhenoster +boschjes and Hottentot fig are green everywhere, and among the +rocks all manner of shrubs, and far too much ‘Wacht een +beetje’ (<i>Wait a bit</i>), a sort of series of natural +fish-hooks, which try the robustest patience. Between seven +and eight, the sun gets rather hot, and I came in and +<i>tubbed</i>, and sat on the stoep (a sort of terrace, in front +of every house in South Africa). I breakfast at nine, sit +on the stoep again till the sun comes round, and then retreat +behind closed shutters from the stinging sun. The +<i>air</i> is fresh and light all day, though the sun is +tremendous; but one has no languid feeling or desire to lie +about, unless one is sleepy. We dine at two or half-past, +and at four or five the heat is over, and one puts on a shawl to +go out in the afternoon breeze. The nights are cool, so as +always to want one blanket. I still have a cough; but it is +getting better, so that I can always eat and walk. Mine +host has just bought a horse, which he is going to try with a +petticoat to-day, and if he goes well I shall ride.</p> +<p>I like this inn-life, because I see all the +‘neighbourhood’—farmers and traders—whom +I like far better than the <i>gentility</i> of Capetown. I +have given letters to England to a ‘boer’, who is +‘going home’, i.e. to Europe, the <i>first of his +race since the revocation of the Edict of Nantes</i>, when some +poor refugees were inveigled hither by the Dutch Governor, and +oppressed worse than the Hottentots. M. de Villiers has had +no education <i>at all</i>, and has worked, and traded, and +farmed,—but the breed tells; he is a pure and thorough +Frenchman, unable to speak a word of French. When I went in +to dinner, he rose and gave me a chair with a bow which, with his +appearance, made me ask, ‘<i>Monsieur vient +d’arriver</i>?’ This at once put him out and +pleased him. He is very unlike a Dutchman. If you +think that any of the French will feel as I felt to this +far-distant brother of theirs, pray give him a few letters; but +remember that he can speak only English and Dutch, and a little +German. Here his name is <i>called</i> +‘Filljee’, but I told him to drop that barbarism in +Europe; De Villiers ought to speak for itself. He says they +came from the neighbourhood of Bordeaux.</p> +<p>The postmaster, Heer Klein, and his old Pylades, Heer Ley, are +great cronies of mine—stout old greybeards, toddling down +the hill together. I sometimes go and sit on the stoep with +the two old bachelors, and they take it as a great compliment; +and Heer Klein gave me my letters all decked with flowers, and +wished ‘Vrolyke tydings, Mevrouw,’ most +heartily. He has also made his tributary mail-cart +Hottentots bring from various higher mountain ranges the +beautiful everlasting flowers, which will make pretty wreaths for +J—. When I went to his house to thank him, I found a +handsome Malay, with a basket of ‘Klipkaus’, a +shell-fish much esteemed here. Old Klein told me they were +sent him by a Malay who was born in his father’s house, a +slave, and had been <i>his</i> ‘<i>boy</i>’ and +play-fellow. Now, the slave is far richer than the old +young master, and no waggon comes without a little +gift—oranges, fish, &c.—for +‘Wilhem’. When Klein goes to Capetown, the old +Malay seats him in a grand chair and sits on a little wooden +stool at his feet; Klein begs him, as ‘Huisheer’, to +sit properly; but, ‘Neen Wilhem, Ik zal niet; ik kan niet +vergeten.’ ‘Good boy!’ said old Klein; +‘good people the Malays.’ It is a relief, after +the horrors one has heard of Dutch cruelty, to see such an +‘idyllisches Verhältniss’. I have heard +other instances of the same fidelity from Malays, but they were +utterly unappreciated, and only told to prove the excellence of +slavery, and ‘how well the rascals must have been +off’.</p> +<p>I have fallen in love with a Hottentot baby here. Her +mother is all black, with a broad face and soft spaniel eyes, and +the father is Bastaard; but the baby (a girl, nine months old), +has walked out of one of Leonardo da Vinci’s +pictures. I never saw so beautiful a child. She has +huge eyes with the spiritual look he gives to them, and is +exquisite in every way. When the Hottentot blood is +handsome, it is beautiful; there is a delicacy and softness about +some of the women which is very pretty, and the eyes are those of +a <i>good</i> dog. Most of them are hideous, and nearly all +drink; but they are very clean and honest. Their cottages +are far superior in cleanliness to anything out of England, +except in picked places, like some parts of Belgium; and they +wash as much as they can, with the bad water-supply, and the +English outcry if they strip out of doors to bathe. +Compared to French peasants, they are very clean indeed, and even +the children are far more decent and cleanly in their habits than +those of France. The woman who comes here to clean and +scour is a model of neatness in her work and her person (quite +black), but she gets helplessly drunk as soon as she has a penny +to buy a glass of wine; for a penny, a half-pint tumbler of very +strong and remarkably nasty wine is sold at the canteens.</p> +<p>I have many more ‘humours’ to tell, but A— +can show you all the long story I have written. I hope it +does not seem very stale and <i>decies repetita</i>. All +being new and curious to the eye here, one becomes long-winded +about mere trifles.</p> +<p>One small thing more. The first few shillings that a +coloured woman has to spend on her cottage go in—what do +you think?—A grand toilet table of worked muslin over pink, +all set out with little ‘<i>objets</i>’—such as +they are: if there is nothing else, there is that here, as at +Capetown, and all along to Simon’s Bay. Now, what is +the use or comfort of a <i>duchesse</i> to a Hottentot +family? I shall never see those toilets again without +thinking of Hottentots—what a baroque association of +ideas! I intend, in a day or two, to go over to +‘Gnadenthal’, the Moravian missionary station, +founded in 1736—the ‘blühende Gemeinde von +Hottentoten’. How little did I think to see it, when +we smiled at the phrase in old Mr. Steinkopf’s sermon years +ago in London! The <i>missionarized</i> Hottentots are not, +as it is said, thought well of—being even tipsier than the +rest; but I may see a full-blood one, and even a true Bosjesman, +which is worth a couple of hours’ drive; and the place is +said to be beautiful.</p> +<p>This climate is evidently a styptic of great power, I shall +write a few lines to the <i>Lancet</i> about Caledon and its hot +baths—‘Bad Caledon’, as the Germans at Houw +Hoek call it. The baths do not concern me, as they are +chalybeate; but they seem very effectual in many cases. Yet +English people never come here; they stay at Capetown, which must +be a furnace now, or at Wynberg, which is damp and chill +(comparatively); at most, they get to Stellenbosch. I mean +visitors, not settlers; <i>they</i> are everywhere. I look +the colour of a Hottentot. Now I <i>must</i> leave off.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">Your most affectionate<br /> +L. D. G.</p> +<h2><a name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 85</span>LETTER +VII<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">GNADENTHAL</span></h2> +<p style="text-align: right">Caledon, Jan. 28th.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Well</span>, I have been to Gnadenthal, +and seen the ‘blooming parish’, and a lovely spot it +is. A large village nestled in a deep valley, surrounded by +high mountains on three sides, and a lower range in front. +We started early on Saturday, and drove over a mighty queer road, +and through a river. Oh, ye gods! what a shaking and +pounding! We were rattled up like dice in a box. +Nothing but a Cape cart, Cape horses, and a Hottentot driver, +above all, could have accomplished it. Captain D— +rode, and had the best of it. On the road we passed three +or four farms, at all which horses were <i>galloping out</i> the +grain, or men were winnowing it by tossing it up with wooden +shovels to let the wind blow away the chaff. We did the +twenty-four miles up and down the mountain roads in two hours and +a half, with our valiant little pair of horses; it is incredible +how they go. We stopped at a nice cottage on the hillside +belonging to a <i>ci-devant</i> slave, one Christian Rietz, a +<i>white</i> man, with brown woolly hair, sharp features, grey +eyes, and <i>not</i> woolly moustaches. He said he was a +‘Scotch bastaard’, and ‘le bon sang +parlait—très-haut même’, for a more +thriving, shrewd, sensible fellow I never saw. His +<i>father</i> and master had had to let him go when all slaves +were emancipated, and he had come to Gnadenthal. He keeps a +little inn in the village, and a shop and a fine garden. +The cottage we lodged in was on the mountain side, and had been +built for his son, who was dead; and his adopted daughter, a +pretty coloured girl, exactly like a southern Frenchwoman, waited +on us, assisted by about six or seven other women, who came +chiefly to stare. Vrouw Rietz was as black as a coal, but +<i>so</i> pretty!—a dear, soft, sleek, old lady, with +beautiful eyes, and the kind pleasant ways which belong to nice +blacks; and, though old and fat, still graceful and lovely in +face, hands, and arms. The cottage was thus:—One +large hall; my bedroom on the right, S—’s on the +left; the kitchen behind me; Miss Rietz behind S—; mud +floors daintily washed over with fresh cow-dung; ceiling of big +rafters, just as they had grown, on which rested bamboo canes +close together <i>across</i> the rafters, and bound together +between each, with transverse bamboo—a pretty +<i>beehivey</i> effect; at top, mud again, and then a high +thatched roof and a loft or zolder for forage, &c.; the walls +of course mud, very thick and whitewashed. The bedrooms +tiny; beds, clean sweet melies (maize) straw, with clean sheets, +and eight good pillows on each; glass windows (a great +distinction), exquisite cleanliness, and hearty civility; good +food, well cooked; horrid tea and coffee, and hardly any milk; no +end of fruit. In all the gardens it hung on the trees +thicker than the leaves. Never did I behold such a +profusion of fruit and vegetables.</p> +<p>But first I must tell what struck me most, I asked one of the +Herrenhut brethren whether there were any <i>real</i> Hottentots, +and he said, ‘Yes, one;’ and next morning, as I sat +waiting for early prayers under the big oak-trees in the Plaats +(square), he came up, followed by a tiny old man hobbling along +with a long stick to support him. ‘Here’, said +he, ‘is the <i>last</i> Hottentot; he is a hundred and +seven years old, and lives all alone.’ I looked on +the little, wizened, yellow face, and was shocked that he should +be dragged up like a wild beast to be stared at. A feeling +of pity which felt like remorse fell upon me, and my eyes filled +as I rose and stood before him, so tall and like a tyrant and +oppressor, while he uncovered his poor little old snow-white +head, and peered up in my face. I led him to the seat, and +helped him to sit down, and said in Dutch, ‘Father, I hope +you are not tired; you are old.’ He saw and heard as +well as ever, and spoke good Dutch in a firm voice. +‘Yes, I am above a hundred years old, and alone—quite +alone.’ I sat beside him, and he put his head on one +side, and looked curiously up at me with his faded, but still +piercing little wild eyes. Perhaps he had a perception of +what I felt—yet I hardly think so; perhaps he thought I was +in trouble, for he crept close up to me, and put one tiny brown +paw into my hand, which he stroked with the other, and asked +(like most coloured people) if I had children. I said, +‘Yes, at home in England;’ and he patted my hand +again, and said, ‘God bless them!’ It was a +relief to feel that he was pleased, for I should have felt like a +murderer if my curiosity had added a moment’s pain to so +tragic a fate.</p> +<p>This may sound like sentimentalism; but you cannot conceive +the effect of looking on the last of a race once the owners of +all this land, and now utterly gone. His look was not quite +human, physically speaking;—a good head, small wild-beast +eyes, piercing and restless; cheek-bones strangely high and +prominent, nose <i>quite</i> flat, mouth rather wide; thin +shapeless lips, and an indescribably small, long, pointed chin, +with just a very little soft white woolly beard; his head covered +with extremely short close white wool, which ended round the poll +in little ringlets. Hands and feet like an English child of +seven or eight, and person about the size of a child of +eleven. He had all his teeth, and though shrunk to nothing, +was very little wrinkled in the face, and not at all in the +hands, which were dark brown, while his face was yellow. +His manner, and way of speaking were like those of an old peasant +in England, only his voice was clearer and stronger, and his +perceptions not blunted by age. He had travelled with one +of the missionaries in the year 1790, or thereabouts, and +remained with them ever since.</p> +<p>I went into the church—a large, clean, rather handsome +building, consecrated in 1800—and heard a very good sort of +Litany, mixed with such singing as only black voices can +produce. The organ was beautifully played by a Bastaard +lad. The Herrenhuters use very fine chants, and the perfect +ear and heavenly voices of a large congregation, about six +hundred, all coloured people, made music more beautiful than any +chorus-singing I ever heard.</p> +<p>Prayers lasted half an hour; then the congregation turned out +of doors, and the windows were opened. Some of the people +went away, and others waited for the ‘allgemeine +Predigt’. In a quarter of an hour a much larger +congregation than the first assembled, the girls all with +net-handkerchiefs tied round their heads so as to look exactly +like the ancient Greek head-dress with a double fillet—the +very prettiest and neatest coiffure I ever saw. The gowns +were made like those of English girls of the same class, but far +smarter, cleaner, and gayer in colour—pink, and green, and +yellow, and bright blue; several were all in white, with white +gloves. The men and women sit separate, and the +women’s side was a bed of tulips. The young fellows +were very smart indeed, with muslin or gauze, either white, pink, +or blue, rolled round their hats (that is universal here, on +account of the sun). The Hottentots, as they are +called—that is, those of mixed Dutch and Hottentot origin +(correctly, ‘bastaards’)—have a sort of +blackguard elegance in their gait and figure which is peculiar to +them; a mixture of negro or Mozambique blood alters it +altogether. The girls have the elegance without the +blackguard look; <i>all</i> are slender, most are tall; all +graceful, all have good hands and feet; some few are handsome in +the face and many very interesting-looking. The complexion +is a pale olive-yellow, and the hair more or less woolly, face +flat, and cheekbones high, eyes small and bright. These are +by far the most intelligent—equal, indeed, to whites. +A mixture of black blood often gives real beauty, but takes off +from the ‘air’, and generally from the talent; but +then the blacks are so pleasant, and the Hottentots are taciturn +and reserved. The old women of this breed are the grandest +hags I ever saw; they are clean and well dressed, and tie up +their old faces in white handkerchiefs like corpses,—faces +like those of Andrea del Sarto’s old women; they are +splendid. Also, they are very clean people, addicted to +tubbing more than any others. The maid-of-all-work, who +lounges about your breakfast table in rags and dishevelled hair, +has been in the river before you were awake, or, if that was too +far off, in a tub. They are also far cleaner in their huts +than any but the <i>very best</i> English poor.</p> +<p>The ‘Predigt’ was delivered, after more singing, +by a missionary cabinet-maker, in Dutch, very ranting, and not +very wise; the congregation was singularly decorous and +attentive, but did not seem at all excited or +impressed—just like a well-bred West-end audience, only +rather more attentive. The service lasted three-quarters of +an hour, including a short prayer and two hymns. The people +came out and filed off in total silence, and very quickly, the +tall graceful girls draping their gay silk shawls +beautifully. There are seven missionaries, all in orders +but one, the blacksmith, and all married, except the resident +director of the boys’ boarding-school; there is a doctor, a +carpenter, a cabinet-maker, a shoe-maker, and a +storekeeper—a very agreeable man, who had been missionary +in Greenland and Labrador, and interpreter to MacClure. +There is one ‘Studirter Theolog’. All are +Germans, and so are their wives. My friend the storekeeper +married without having ever beheld his wife before they met at +the altar, and came on board ship at once with her. He said +it was as good a way of marrying as any other, and that they were +happy together. She was lying in, so I did not see +her. At eight years old, their children are all sent home +to Germany to be educated, and they seldom see them again. +On each side of the church are schools, and next to them the +missionaries’ houses on one side of the square, and on the +other a row of workshops, where the Hottentots are taught all +manner of trades. I have got a couple of knives, made at +Gnadenthal, for the children. The girls occupy the school +in the morning, and the boys in the afternoon; half a day is +found quite enough of lessons in this climate. The infant +school was of both sexes, but a different set morning and +afternoon. The missionaries’ children were in the +infant school; and behind the little blonde German +‘Mädels’ three jet black niggerlings rolled over +each other like pointer-pups, and grinned, and didn’t care +a straw for the spelling; while the dingy yellow little bastaards +were straining their black eyes out, with eagerness to answer the +master’s questions. He and the mistress were both +Bastaards, and he seemed an excellent teacher. The girls +were learning writing from a master, and Bible history from a +mistress, also people of colour; and the stupid set (mostly +black) were having spelling hammered into their thick skulls by +another yellow mistress, in another room. At the boarding +school were twenty lads, from thirteen up to twenty, in training +for school-teachers at different stations. Gnadenthal +supplies the Church of England with them, as well as their own +stations. There were Caffres, Fingoes, a Mantatee, one boy +evidently of some Oriental blood, with glossy, smooth hair and a +copper skin—and the rest Bastaards of various hues, some +mixed with black, probably Mozambique. The Caffre lads were +splendid young Hercules’. They had just printed the +first book in the Caffre language (I’ve got it for Dr. +Hawtrey,)—extracts from the New Testament,—and I made +them read the sheets they were going to bind; it is a beautiful +language, like Spanish in tone, only with a queer +‘click’ in it. The boys drew, like Chinese, +from ‘copies’, and wrote like copper-plate; they sang +some of Mendelssohn’s choruses from ‘St. Paul’ +splendidly, the Caffres rolling out soft rich bass voices, like +melodious thunder. They are clever at handicrafts, and fond +of geography and natural history, incapable of mathematics, quick +at languages, utterly incurious about other nations, and would +all rather work in the fields than learn anything but music; good +boys, honest, but ‘<i>trotzig</i>’. So much for +Caffres, Fingoes, &c. The Bastaards are as clever as +whites, and more docile—so the ‘rector’ told +me. The boy who played the organ sang the +‘Lorelei’ like an angel, and played us a number of +waltzes and other things on the piano, but he was too shy to +talk; while the Caffres crowded round me, and chattered away +merrily. The Mantatees, whom I cannot distinguish from +Caffres, are scattered all over the colony, and rival the English +as workmen and labourers—fine stalwart, industrious +fellows. Our little ‘boy’ Kleenboy hires a room +for fifteen shillings a month, and takes in his compatriots as +lodgers at half a crown a week—the usurious little +rogue! His chief, one James, is a bricklayer here, and +looks and behaves like a prince. It is fine to see his +black arms, ornamented with silver bracelets, hurling huge stones +about.</p> +<p>All Gnadenthal is wonderfully fruitful, being well watered, +but it is not healthy for whites; I imagine, too hot and +damp. There are three or four thousand coloured people +there, under the control of the missionaries, who allow no +canteens at all. The people may have what they please at +home, but no public drinking-place is allowed, and we had to take +our own beer and wine for the three days. The gardens and +burial-ground are beautiful, and the square is entirely shaded by +about ten or twelve superb oaks; nothing prettier can be +conceived. It is not popular in the neighbourhood. +‘You see it makes the d-d niggers cheeky’ to have +homes of their own—and the girls are said to be +immoral. As to that, there are no so-called +‘morals’ among the coloured people, and how or why +should there? It is an honour to one of these girls to have +a child by a white man, and it is a degradation to him to marry a +dark girl. A pious stiff old Dutchwoman who came here the +other day for the Sacrament (which takes place twice a year), had +one girl with her, big with child by her son, who also came for +the Sacrament, and two in the straw at home by the other son; +this caused her exactly as much emotion as I feel when my cat +kittens. No one takes any notice, either to blame or to +nurse the poor things—they scramble through it as pussy +does. The English are almost equally contemptuous; but +there is one great difference. My host, for instance, +always calls a black ‘a d-d nigger’; but if that +nigger is wronged or oppressed he fights for him, or bails him +out of the Tronk, and an English jury gives a just verdict; while +a Dutch one simply finds for a Dutchman, against any one else, +and <i>always</i> against a dark man. I believe this to be +true, from what I have seen and heard; and certainly the coloured +people have a great preference for the English.</p> +<p>I am persecuted by the ugliest and blackest Mozambiquer I have +yet seen, a bricklayer’s labourer, who can speak English, +and says he was servant to an English Captain—‘Oh, a +good fellow he was, only he’s dead!’ He now +insists on my taking him as a servant. ‘I dessay your +man at home is a good chap, and I’ll be a good boy, and +cook very nice.’ He is thick-set and short and +strong. Nature has adorned him with a cock eye and a yard +of mouth, and art, with a prodigiously tall white chimney-pot hat +with the crown out, a cotton nightcap, and a wondrous congeries +of rags. He professes to be cook, groom, and +‘walley’, and is sure you would be pleased with his +attentions.</p> +<p>Well, to go back to Gnadenthal. I wandered all over the +village on Sunday afternoon, and peeped into the cottages. +All were neat and clean, with good dressers of crockery, the +<i>very</i> poorest, like the worst in Weybridge sandpits; but +they had no glass windows, only a wooden shutter, and no doors; a +calico curtain, or a sort of hurdle supplying its place. +The people nodded and said ‘Good day!’ but took no +further notice of me, except the poor old Hottentot, who was +seated on a doorstep. He rose and hobbled up to meet me and +take my hand again. He seemed to enjoy being helped along +and seated down carefully, and shook and patted my hand +repeatedly when I took leave of him. At this the people +stared a good deal, and one woman came to talk to me.</p> +<p>In the evening I sat on a bench in the square, and saw the +people go in to ‘Abendsegen’. The church was +lighted, and as I sat there and heard the lovely singing, I +thought it was impossible to conceive a more romantic +scene. On Monday I saw all the schools, and then looked at +the great strong Caffre lads playing in the square. One of +them stood to be pelted by five or six others, and as the stones +came, he twisted and turned and jumped, and was hardly ever hit, +and when he was, he didn’t care, though the others hurled +like catapults. It was the most wonderful display of +activity and grace, and quite incredible that such a huge fellow +should be so quick and light. When I found how comfortable +dear old Mrs. Rietz made me, I was sorry I had hired the cart and +kept it to take me home, for I would gladly have stayed longer, +and the heat did me no harm; but I did not like to throw away a +pound or two, and drove back that evening. Mrs. Rietz, told +me her mother was a Mozambiquer. ‘And your +father?’ said I. ‘Oh, I don’t know. +<i>My mother was only a slave</i>.’ She, too, was a +slave, but said she ‘never knew it’, her +‘missus’ was so good; a Dutch lady, at a farm I had +passed, on the road, who had a hundred and fifty slaves. I +liked my Hottentot hut amazingly, and the sweet brown bread, and +the dinner cooked so cleanly on the bricks in the kitchen. +The walls were whitewashed and adorned with wreaths of +everlasting flowers and some quaint old prints from +Loutherburg—pastoral subjects, not exactly edifying.</p> +<p>Well, I have prosed unconscionably, so adieu for the +present.</p> +<p><i>February</i> 3<i>d</i>.—Many happy returns of your +birthday, dear —. I had a bottle of champagne to +drink your health, and partly to swell the bill, which these good +people make so moderate, that I am half ashamed. I get +everything that Caledon can furnish for myself and S— for +15<i>l.</i> a month.</p> +<p>On Saturday we got the sad news of Prince Albert’s +death, and it created real consternation here. What a +thoroughly unexpected calamity! Every one is already +dressed in deep mourning. It is more general than in a +village of the same size at home—(how I have caught the +colonial trick of always saying ‘home’ for +England! Dutchmen who can barely speak English, and never +did or will see England, equally talk of ‘news from +home’). It also seems, by the papers of the 24th of +December, which came by a steamer the other day, that war is +imminent. I shall have to wait for convoy, I suppose, as I +object to walking the plank from a Yankee privateer. I +shall wait here for the next mail, and then go back to Capetown, +stopping by the way, so as to get there early in March, and +arrange for my voyage. The weather had a relapse into cold, +and an attempt at rain. Pity it failed, for the drought is +dreadful this year, chiefly owing to the unusual quantity of +sharp drying winds—a most unlucky summer for the country +and for me.</p> +<p>My old friend Klein, who told me several instances of the +kindness and gratitude of former slaves, poured out to me the +misery he had undergone from the ‘ingratitude’ of a +certain Rosina, a slave-girl of his. She was in her youth +handsome, clever, the best horsebreaker, bullock-trainer and +driver, and hardest worker in the district. She had two +children by Klein, then a young fellow; six by another white man, +and a few more by two husbands of her own race! But she was +of a rebellious spirit, and took to drink. After the +emancipation, she used to go in front of Klein’s windows +and read the statute in a loud voice on every anniversary of the +day; and as if that did not enrage him enough, she pertinaciously +(whenever she was a little drunk) kissed him by main force every +time she met him in the street, exclaiming, ‘Aha! when I +young and pretty slave-girl you make kiss me then; now I ugly, +drunk, dirty old devil and free woman, I kiss you!’ +Frightful retributive justice! I struggled hard to keep my +countenance, but the fat old fellow’s good-humoured, rueful +face was too much for me. His tormentor is dead, but he +retains a painful impression of her ‘ingratitude +‘.</p> +<p>Our little Mantatee ‘Kleenboy’ has again, like +Jeshurun, ‘waxed fat and kicked’, as soon as he had +eaten enough to be once more plump and shiny. After his +hungry period, he took to squatting on the stoep, just in front +of the hall-door, and altogether declining to do anything; so he +is superseded by an equally ugly little red-headed +Englishman. The Irish housemaid has married the German +baker (a fine match for her!), and a dour little Scotch +Presbyterian has come up from Capetown in her place. Such +are the vicissitudes of colonial house-keeping! The only +‘permanency’ is the old soldier of Captain +D—’s regiment, who is barman in the canteen, and not +likely to leave ‘his honour’, and the coloured girl, +who improves on acquaintance. She wants to ingratiate +herself with me, and get taken to England. Her father is an +Englishman, and of course the brown mother and her large family +always live in the fear of his ‘going home’ and +ignoring their existence; a <i>marriage</i> with the mother of +his children would be too much degradation for him to submit +to. Few of the coloured people are ever married, but they +don’t separate oftener than <i>really</i> married +folks. Bill, the handsome West Indian black, married my +pretty washerwoman Rosalind, and was thought rather assuming +because he was asked in church and lawfully married; and she wore +a handsome lilac silk gown and a white wreath and veil, and very +well she looked in them. She had a child of two years old, +which did not at all disconcert Bill; but he continues to be +dignified, and won’t let her go and wash clothes in the +river, because the hot sun makes her ill, and it is not fit work +for women.</p> +<p><i>Sunday</i>, 9<i>th</i>.—Last night a dance took place +in a house next door to this, and a party of boers attempted to +go in, but were repulsed by a sortie of the young men +within. Some of the more peaceable boers came in here and +wanted ale, which was refused, as they were already very +<i>vinous</i>; so they imbibed ginger-beer, whereof one drank +thirty-four bottles to his own share! Inspired by this +drink, they began to quarrel, and were summarily turned +out. They spent the whole night, till five this morning, +scuffling and vociferating in the street. The constables +discreetly stayed in bed, displaying the true Dogberry spirit, +which leads them to take up Hottentots, drunk or sober, to show +their zeal, but carefully to avoid meddling with stalwart boers, +from six to six and a half feet high and strong in +proportion. The jabbering of Dutch brings to mind +Demosthenes trying to outroar a stormy sea with his mouth full of +pebbles. The hardest blows are those given with the tongue, +though much pulling of hair and scuffling takes place. +‘Verdomde Schmeerlap!’—‘Donder and +Bliksem! am I a verdomde Schmeerlap?’—‘Ja, u +is,’ &c., &c. I could not help laughing +heartily as I lay in bed, at hearing the gambols of these Titan +cubs; for this is a boer’s notion of enjoying +himself. This morning, I hear, the street was strewn with +the hair they had pulled out of each other’s heads. +All who come here make love to S—; not by describing their +tender feelings, but by enumerating the oxen, sheep, horses, +land, money, &c., of which they are possessed, and whereof, +by the law of this colony, she would become half-owner on +marriage. There is a fine handsome Van Steen, who is very +persevering; but S— does not seem to fancy becoming Mevrouw +at all. The demand for English girls as wives is wonderful +here. The nasty cross little ugly Scotch maid has had three +offers already, in one fortnight!</p> +<p><i>February</i> 18<i>th</i>.—I expect to receive the +letters by the English mail to-morrow morning, and to go to +Worcester on Thursday. On Saturday the young +doctor—good-humoured, jolly, big, young +Dutchman—drove me, with his pretty little greys, over to +two farms; at one I ate half a huge melon, and at the other, +uncounted grapes. We poor Europeans don’t know what +fruit <i>can be</i>, I must admit. The melon was a +foretaste of paradise, and the grapes made one’s fingers as +sticky as honey, and had a muscat fragrance quite +inconceivable. They looked like amber eggs. The best +of it is, too, that in this climate stomach-aches are not. +We all eat grapes, peaches, and figs, all day long. Old +Klein sends me, for my own daily consumption, about thirty +peaches, three pounds of grapes, and apples, pears, and figs +besides—‘just a little taste of fruits’; only +here they will pick it all unripe.</p> +<p><i>February</i> 19<i>th</i>.—The post came in late last +night, and old Klein kindly sent me my letters at near +midnight. The post goes out this evening, and the hot wind +is blowing, so I can only write to you, and a line to my +mother. I feel really better now. I think the +constant eating of grapes has done me much good.</p> +<p>The Dutch cart-owner was so extortionate, that I am going to +wait a few days, and write to my dear Malay to come up and drive +me back. It is better than having to fight the Dutch +monopolist in every village, and getting drunken drivers and bad +carts after all. I shall go round all the same. The +weather has been beautiful; to-day there is a wind, which comes +about two or three times in the year: it is not depressing, but +hot, and a bore, because one must shut every window or be stifled +with dust.</p> +<p>The people are burning the veld all about, and the lurid smoke +by day and flaming hill-sides by night are very striking. +The ashes of the Bosh serve as manure for the young grass, which +will sprout in the autumn rains. Such nights! Such a +moon! I walk out after dark when it is mild and clear, and +can read any print by the moonlight, and see the distant +landscape as well as by day.</p> +<p>Old Klein has just sent me a haunch of bok, and the skin and +hoofs, which are pretty.</p> +<h2><a name="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +105</span>LETTER VIII</h2> +<p style="text-align: right">Caledon, Sunday.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">You</span> must have fallen into second +childhood to think of <i>printing</i> such rambling hasty scrawls +as I write. I never could write a good letter; and unless I +gallop as hard as I can, and don’t stop to think, I can say +nothing; so all is confused and unconnected: only I fancy +<i>you</i> will be amused by some of my +‘impressions’. I have written to my mother an +accurate account of my health. I am dressed and out of +doors never later than six, now the weather makes it +possible. It is surprising how little sleep one +wants. I go to bed at ten and often am up at four.</p> +<p>I made friends here the other day with a lively dried-up +little old Irishman, who came out at seven years old a +pauper-boy. He has made a fortune by ‘going on +<i>Togt</i>’ (<i>German</i>, <i>Tausch</i>), as thus; he +charters two waggons, twelve oxen each, and two Hottentots to +each waggon, leader and driver. The waggons he fills with +cotton, hardware, &c., &c.—an ambulatory village +‘shop’,—and goes about fifteen miles a day, on +and on, into the far interior, swapping baftas (calico), punjums +(loose trowsers), and voerschitz (cotton gownpieces), pronounced +‘foossy’, against oxen and sheep. When all is +gone he swaps his waggons against more oxen and a horse, and he +and his four ‘totties’ drive home the spoil; and he +has doubled or trebled his venture. <i>En route</i> home, +each day they kill a sheep, and eat it <i>all</i>. +‘What!’ says I; ‘the whole?’ +‘Every bit. I always take one leg and the liver for +myself, and the totties roast the rest, and melt all the fat and +entrails down in an iron pot and eat it with a wooden +spoon.’ <i>Je n’en revenais pas</i>. +‘What! the whole leg and liver at one meal?’ +‘Every bit; ay, and you’d do the same, ma’am, +if you were there.’ No bread, no salt, no +nothing—mutton and water. The old fellow was quite +poetic and heroic in describing the joys and perils of +Togt. I said I should like to go too; and he bewailed +having settled a year ago in a store at Swellendam, ‘else +he’d ha’ fitted up a waggon all nice and snug for me, +and shown me what going on togt was like. Nothing like it +for the health, ma’am; and beautiful shooting.’ +My friend had 700<i>l.</i> in gold in a carpet bag, without a +lock, lying about on the stoep. ‘All right; nobody +steals money or such like here. I’m going to pay +bills in Capetown.’</p> +<p>Tell my mother that a man would get from 2<i>l.</i> to +4<i>l.</i> a month wages, with board, lodging, &c., all +found, and his wife from 1<i>l.</i> 10<i>s.</i> to 2<i>l.</i> a +month and everything found, according to abilities and +testimonials. Wages are enormous, and servants at famine +price; emigrant ships are <i>cleared off</i> in three days, and +every ragged Irish girl in place somewhere. Four pounds a +month, and food for self, husband, and children, is no uncommon +pay for a good cook; and after all her cookery may be poor +enough. My landlady at Capetown gave that. The +housemaid had <i>only</i> 1<i>l.</i> 5<i>s.</i> a month, but told +me herself she had taken 8<i>l.</i> in one week in +‘tips’. She was an excellent servant. Up +country here the wages are less, but the comfort greater, and the +chances of ‘getting on’ much increased. But I +believe Algoa Bay or Grahamstown are by far the best fields for +new colonists, and (I am assured) the best climate for lung +diseases. The wealthy English merchants of Port Elizabeth +(Algoa Bay) pay best. It seems to me, as far as I can +learn, that every really <i>working</i> man or woman can thrive +here.</p> +<p>My German host at Houw Hoek came out twenty-three years ago, +he told me, without a ‘heller’, and is now the owner +of cattle and land and horses to a large amount. But then +the Germans work, while the Dutch dawdle and the English +drink. ‘New wine’ is a penny a glass (half a +pint), enough to blow your head off, and ‘Cape smoke’ +(brandy, like vitriol) ninepence a bottle—that is the real +calamity. If the Cape had the grape disease as badly as +Madeira, it would be the making of the colony.</p> +<p>I received a message from my Malay friends, Abdool Jemaalee +and Betsy, anxious to know ‘if the Misses had good news of +her children, for bad news would make her sick’. Old +Betsy and I used to prose about young Abdurrachman and his +studies at Mecca, and about my children, with more real +heartiness than you can fancy. We were not afraid of boring +each other; and pious old Abdool sat and nodded and said, +‘May Allah protect them all!’ as a +refrain;—‘Allah, il Allah!’</p> +<h2><a name="page109"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +109</span>LETTER IX</h2> +<p style="text-align: right">Caledon, Feb. 21st.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">This</span> morning’s post brought +your packet, and the announcement of an extra mail +to-night—so I can send you a P.S. I hear that +Capetown has been pestilential, and as hot as Calcutta. It +is totally undrained, and the Mozambiquers are beginning to +object to acting as scavengers to each separate house. The +‘<i>vidanges</i>’ are more barbarous even than in +Paris. Without the south-easter (or ‘Cape +doctor’) they must have fevers, &c.; and though too +rough a practitioner for me, he benefits the general +health. Next month the winds abate, but last week an +omnibus was blown over on the Rondebosch road, which is the most +sheltered spot, and inhabited by Capetown merchants. I have +received all the <i>Saturday Reviews</i> quite safe, likewise the +books, Mendelssohn’s letters, and the novel. I have +written for my dear Choslullah to fetch me. The Dutch +farmers don’t know how to charge enough; moreover, the +Hottentot drivers get drunk, and for two lone women that is not +the thing. I pay my gentle Malay thirty shillings a day, +which, for a cart and four and such a jewel of a driver, is not +outrageous; and I had better pay that for the few days I wait on +the road, than risk bad carts, tipsy Hottentots, and extortionate +boers.</p> +<p>This intermediate country between the ‘Central African +wilderness’ and Capetown has been little frequented. +I went to the Church Mission School with the English clergyman +yesterday. You know I don’t believe in every kind of +missionaries, but I do believe that, in these districts, kind, +judicious English clergymen are of great value. The Dutch +pastors still remember the distinction between +‘Christenmenschen’ and ‘Hottentoten’; but +the Church Mission Schools teach the Anglican Catechism to every +child that will learn, and the congregation is as piebald as +Harlequin’s jacket. A pretty, coloured lad, about +eleven years old, answered my questions in geography with great +quickness and some wit. I said, ‘Show me the country +you belong to.’ He pointed to England, and when I +laughed, to the cape. ‘This is where we are, but that +is the country I <i>belong to</i>.’ I asked him how +we were governed, and he answered quite right. ‘How +is the Cape governed?’ ‘Oh, we have a +Parliament too, and Mr. Silberbauer is the man <i>we</i> +send.’ Boys and girls of all ages were mixed, but no +blacks. I don’t think they will learn, except on +compulsion, as at Gnadenthal.</p> +<p>I regret to say that Bill’s wife has broken his head +with a bottle, at the end of the honeymoon. I fear the +innovation of being <i>married at church</i> has not had a good +effect, and that his neighbours may quote Mr. Peachum.</p> +<p>I was offered a young lion yesterday, but I hardly think it +would be an agreeable addition to the household at Esher.</p> +<p>I hear that Worcester, Paarl, and Stellenbosch are beautiful, +and the road very desolate and grand: one mountain pass takes six +hours to cross. I should not return to Capetown so early, +but poor Captain J— has had his leg smashed and amputated, +so I must look out for myself in the matter of ships. +Whenever it is hot, I am well, for the heat here is so +<i>light</i> and dry. The wind tries me, but we have little +here compared to the coast. I hope that the voyage home +will do me still more good; but I will not sail till April, so as +to arrive in June. May, in the Channel, would not do.</p> +<p>How I wish I could send you the fruit now on my +table—amber-coloured grapes, yellow waxen apples streaked +with vermillion in fine little lines, huge peaches, and tiny +green figs! I must send dear old Klein a little present +from England, to show that I don’t forget my Dutch +adorer. I wish I could bring you the ‘Biltong ‘ +he sent me—beef or bok dried in the sun in strips, and +slightly salted; you may carry enough in your pocket to live on +for a fortnight, and it is very good as a little +‘relish’. The partridges also have been +welcome, and we shall eat the tiny haunch of bok to-day.</p> +<p>Mrs. D— is gone to Capetown to get servants (the Scotch +girl having carried on her amours too flagrantly), and will +return in my cart. S— is still keeping house +meanwhile, much perturbed by the placid indolence of the brown +girl. The stableman cooks, and very well too. This is +colonial life—a series of makeshifts and difficulties; but +the climate is fine, people feel well and make money, and I think +it is not an unhappy life. I have been most fortunate in my +abode, and can say, without speaking cynically, that I have found +‘my warmest welcome at an inn’. Mine host is a +rough soldier, but the very soul of good nature and good feeling; +and his wife is a very nice person—so cheerful, clever, and +kindhearted.</p> +<p>I should like to bring home the little Madagascar girl from +Rathfelders, or a dear little mulatto who nurses a brown baby +here, and is so clean and careful and ‘pretty +behaved’,—but it would be a great risk. The +brown babies are ravishing—so fat and jolly and funny.</p> +<p>One great charm of the people here is, that no one expects +money or gifts, and that all civility is gratis. Many a +time I finger small coin secretly in my pocket, and refrain from +giving it, for fear of spoiling this innocence. I have not +once seen a <i>look</i> implying ‘backsheesh’, and +begging is unknown. But the people are reserved and silent, +and have not the attractive manners of the darkies of Capetown +and the neighbourhood.</p> +<h2><a name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +114</span>LETTER X</h2> +<p style="text-align: right">Caledon, Feb. 22d.</p> +<p>Yesterday Captain D— gave me a very nice caross of +blessbok skins, which he got from some travelling trader. +The excellence of the Caffre skin-dressing and sewing is, I +fancy, unequalled; the bok-skins are as soft as a kid glove, and +have no smell at all.</p> +<p>In the afternoon the young doctor drove me, in his little +gig-cart and pair (the lightest and swiftest of conveyances), to +see a wine-farm. The people were not at work, but we saw +the tubs and vats, and drank ‘most’. The grapes +are simply trodden by a Hottentot, in a tub with a sort of +strainer at the bottom, and then thrown—skins, stalks, and +all—into vats, where the juice ferments for twice +twenty-four hours; after which it is run into casks, which are +left with the bung out for eight days; then the wine is drawn off +into another cask, a little sulphur and brandy are added to it, +and it is bunged down. Nothing can be conceived so +barbarous. I have promised Mr. M— to procure and send +him an exact account of the process in Spain. It might be a +real service to a most worthy and amiable man. Dr. M— +also would be glad of a copy. They literally know nothing +about wine-making here, and with such matchless grapes I am sure +it ought to be good. Altogether, ‘der alte +Schlendrian’ prevails at the Cape to an incredible +degree.</p> +<p>If two ‘Heeren M—’ call on you, please be +civil to them. I don’t know them personally, but +their brother is the doctor here, and the most good-natured young +fellow I ever saw. If I were returning by Somerset instead +of Worcester, I might put up at their parents’ house and be +sure of a welcome; and I can tell you civility to strangers is by +no means of course here. I don’t wonder at it; for +the old Dutch families <i>are gentlefolks</i> of the good dull +old school, and the English colonists can scarcely suit +them. In the few instances in which I have succeeded in +<i>thawing</i> a Dutchman, I have found him wonderfully +good-natured; and the different manner in which I was greeted +when in company with the young doctor showed the feeling at +once. The dirt of a Dutch house is not to be +conceived. I have had sights in bedrooms in very +respectable houses which I dare not describe. The coloured +people are just as clean. The young doctor (who is much +Anglicised) tells me that, in illness, he has to break the +windows in the farmhouses—they are built not to open! +The boers are below the English in manners and intelligence, and +hate them for their ‘go-ahead’ ways, though +<i>they</i> seem slow enough to me. As to drink, I fancy it +is six of one and half a dozen of the other; but the English are +more given to eternal drams, and the Dutch to solemn drinking +bouts. I can’t understand either, in this climate, +which is so stimulating, that I more often drink ginger-beer or +water than wine—a bottle of sherry lasted me a fortnight, +though I was ordered to drink it; somehow, I had no mind to +it.</p> +<p>27<i>th</i>.—The cart could not be got till the day +before yesterday, and yesterday Mrs. D— arrived in it with +two new Irish maids; it saved her 3<i>l.</i>, and I must have +paid equally. The horses were very tired, having been hard +at work carrying Malays all the week to Constantia and back, on a +pilgrimage to the tomb of a Mussulman saint; so to-day they rest, +and to-morrow I go to Villiersdorp. Choslullah has been +appointed driver of a post-cart; he tried hard to be allowed to +pay a <i>remplaçant</i>, and to fetch ‘his +missis’, but was refused leave; and so a smaller and +blacker Malay has come, whom Choslullah threatened to curse +heavily if he failed to take great care of ‘my +missis’ and be a ‘good boy’. Ramadan +begins on Sunday, and my poor driver can’t even prepare for +it by a good feast, as no fowls are to be had here just now, and +he can’t eat profanely-killed meat. Some pious +Christian has tried to burn a Mussulman martyr’s tomb at +Eerste River, and there were fears the Malays might indulge in a +little revenge; but they keep quiet. I am to go with my +driver to eat some of the feast (of Bairam, is it not?) at his +priest’s when Ramadan ends, if I am in Capetown, and also +am asked to a wedding at a relation of Choslullah’s. +It was quite a pleasure to hear the kindly Mussulman talk, after +these silent Hottentots. The Malays have such agreeable +manners; so civil, without the least cringing or Indian +obsequiousness. I dare say they can be very +‘insolent’ on provocation; but I have always found +among them manners like old-fashioned French ones, but quieter; +and they have an affectionate way of saying ‘<i>my</i> +missis’ when they know one, which is very nice to +hear. It is getting quite chilly here already; <i>cold</i> +night and morning; and I shall be glad to descend off this +plateau into the warmer regions of Worcester, &c. I +have just bought <i>eight</i> splendid ostrich feathers for +1<i>l.</i> of my old Togthandler friend. In England they +would cost from eighteen to twenty-five shillings each. I +have got a reebok and a klipspringer skin for you; the latter +makes a saddle-cloth which defies sore backs; they were given me +by Klein and a farmer at Palmiet River. The flesh was poor +stuff, white and papery. The Hottentots can’t +‘bray’ the skins as the Caffres do; and the woman who +did mine asked me for a trifle beforehand, and got so drunk that +she let them dry halfway in the process, consequently they +don’t look so well.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">Worcester, Sunday, March 2d.</p> +<p>Oh, such a journey! Such country! Pearly mountains +and deep blue sky, and an impassable pass to walk down, and +baboons, and secretary birds, and tortoises! I +couldn’t sleep for it all last night, tired as I was with +the unutterably bad road, or track rather.</p> +<p>Well, we left Caledon on Friday, at ten o’clock, and +though the weather had been cold and unpleasant for two days, I +had a lovely morning, and away we went to Villiersdorp +(pronounced Filjeesdorp). It is quite a tiny village, in a +sort of Rasselas-looking valley. We were four hours on the +road, winding along the side of a mountain ridge, which we +finally crossed, with a splendid view of the sea at the +far-distant end of a huge amphitheatre formed by two ridges of +mountains, and on the other side the descent into +Filjeesdorp. The whole way we saw no human being or +habitation, except one shepherd, from the time we passed +Buntje’s kraal, about two miles out of Caledon. The +little drinking-shop would not hold travellers, so I went to the +house of the storekeeper (as the clergyman of Caledon had told me +I might), and found a most kind reception. Our host was +English, an old man-of-war’s man, with a gentle, kindly +Dutch wife, and the best-mannered children I have seen in the +colony. They gave us clean comfortable beds and a good +dinner, and wine ten years in the cellar; in short, the best of +hospitality. I made an effort to pay for the entertainment +next morning, when, after a good breakfast, we started loaded +with fruit, but the kind people would not hear of it, and bid me +good-bye like old friends. At the end of the valley we went +a little up-hill, and then found ourselves at the top of a pass +down into the level below. S— and I burst out with +one voice, ‘How beautiful!’ Sabaal, our driver, +thought the exclamation was an ironical remark on the road, +which, indeed, appeared to be exclusively intended for +goats. I suggested walking down, to which, for a wonder, +the Malay agreed. I was really curious to see him get down +with two wheels and four horses, where I had to lay hold from +time to time in walking. The track was excessively steep, +barely wide enough, and as slippery as a flagstone pavement, +being the naked mountain-top, which is bare rock. However, +all went perfectly right.</p> +<p>How shall I describe the view from that pass? In front +was a long, long level valley, perhaps three to five miles broad +(I can’t judge distance in this atmosphere; a house that +looks a quarter of a mile off is two miles distant). At the +extreme end, in a little gap between two low brown hills that +crossed each other, one could just see Worcester—five +hours’ drive off. Behind it, and on each side the +plain, mountains of every conceivable shape and colour; the +strangest cliffs and peaks and crags toppling every way, and +tinged with all the colours of opal; chiefly delicate, pale lilac +and peach colour, but varied with red brown and Titian +green. In spite of the drought, water sparkled on the +mountain-sides in little glittering threads, and here and there +in the plain; and pretty farms were dotted on either side at the +very bottom of the slopes toward the mountain-foot. The sky +of such a blue! (it is deeper now by far than earlier in the +year). In short, I never did see anything so +beautiful. It even surpassed Hottentot’s +Holland. On we went, straight along the valley, crossing +drift after drift;—a drift is the bed of a stream more or +less dry; in which sometimes you are drowned, sometimes only +<i>pounded</i>, as was our hap. The track was incredibly +bad, except for short bits, where ironstone prevailed. +However, all went well, and on the road I chased and captured a +pair of remarkably swift and handsome little +‘Schelpats’. That you may duly appreciate such +a feat of valour and activity, I will inform you that their +English name is ‘tortoise’. On the strength of +this effort, we drank a bottle of beer, as it was very hot and +sandy; and our Malay was a <i>wet</i> enough Mussulman to take +his full share in a modest way, though he declined wine or +‘Cape smoke Soopjes’ (drams) with aversion. No +sooner had we got under weigh again, than Sabaal pulled up and +said, ‘There <i>are</i> the Baviāans Missis want to +see!’ and so they were. At some distance by the river +was a great brute, bigger than a Newfoundland dog, stalking along +with the hideous baboon walk, and tail vehemently cocked up; a +troop followed at a distance, hiding and dodging among the +palmiets. They were evidently <i>en route</i> to rob a +garden close to them, and had sent a great stout fellow ahead to +reconnoitre. ‘He see Missis, and feel sure she not +got a gun; if man come on horseback, you see ’em run like +devil.’ We had not that pleasure, and left them, on +felonious thoughts intent.</p> +<p>The road got more and more beautiful as we neared Worcester, +and the mountains grew higher and craggier. Presently, a +huge bird, like a stork on the wing, pounced down close by +us. He was a secretary-bird, and had caught sight of a +snake. We passed ‘Brant Vley’ (<i>burnt</i> or +hot spring), where sulphur-water bubbles up in a basin some +thirty feet across and ten or twelve deep. The water is +clear as crystal, and is hot enough just <i>not</i> to boil an +egg, I was told. At last, one reaches the little gap +between the brown hills which one has seen for four hours, and +drives through it into a wide, wide flat, with still craggier and +higher mountains all round, and Worcester in front at the foot of +a towering cliff. The town is not so pretty, to my taste, +as the little villages. The streets are too wide, and the +market-place too large, which always looks dreary, but the houses +and gardens individually are charming. Our inn is a very +nice handsome old Dutch house; but we have got back to +‘civilization’, and the horrid attempts at +‘style’ which belong to Capetown. The landlord +and lady are too genteel to appear at all, and the Hottentots, +who are disguised, according to their sexes, in pantry jacket and +flounced petticoat, don’t understand a word of English or +of real Dutch. At Gnadenthal they understood Dutch, and +spoke it tolerably; but here, as in most places, it is +three-parts Hottentot; and then they affect to understand +English, and bring everything wrong, and are sulky: but the rooms +are very comfortable. The change of climate is +complete—the summer was over at Caledon, and here we are +into it again—the most delicious air one can conceive; it +must have been a perfect oven six weeks ago. The birds are +singing away merrily still; the approach of autumn does not +silence them here. The canaries have a very pretty song, +like our linnet, only sweeter; the rest are very inferior to +ours. The sugar-bird is delicious when close by, but his +pipe is too soft to be heard at any distance.</p> +<p>To those who think voyages and travels tiresome, my delight in +the new birds and beasts and people must seem very stupid. +I can’t help it if it does, and am not ashamed to confess +that I feel the old sort of enchanted wonder with which I used to +read Cook’s voyages, and the like, as a child. It is +very coarse and unintellectual of me; but I would rather see this +now, at my age, than Italy; the fresh, new, beautiful nature is a +second youth—or <i>childhood</i>—<i>si vous +voulez</i>. To-morrow we shall cross the highest pass I +have yet crossed, and sleep at Paarl—then Stellenbosch, +then Capetown. For any one <i>out</i> of health, and +<i>in</i> pocket, I should certainly prescribe the purchase of a +waggon and team of six horses, and a long, slow progress in South +Africa. One cannot walk in the midday sun, but driving with +a very light roof over one’s head is quite delicious. +When I looked back upon my dreary, lonely prison at Ventnor, I +wondered I had survived it at all.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">Capetown, March 7th.</p> +<p>After writing last, we drove out, on Sunday afternoon, to a +deep alpine valley, to see a <i>new bridge</i>—a great +marvel apparently. The old Spanish Joe Miller about selling +the bridge to buy water occurred to me, and made Sabaal laugh +immensely. The Dutch farmers were tearing home from Kerk, +in their carts—well-dressed, prosperous-looking folks, with +capital horses. Such lovely farms, snugly nestled in orange +and pomegranate groves! It is of no use to describe this +scenery; it is always mountains, and always beautiful opal +mountains; quite without the gloom of European mountain +scenery. The atmosphere must make the charm. I hear +that an English traveller went the same journey and found all +barren from Dan to Beersheba. I’m sorry for him.</p> +<p>In the morning of Sunday, early, I walked along the road with +Sabaal, and saw a picture I shall never forget. A little +Malabar girl had just been bathing in the Sloot, and had put her +scanty shift on her lovely little wet brown body; she stood in +the water with the drops glittering on her brown skin and black, +satin hair, the perfection of youthful loveliness—a naiad +of ten years old. When the shape and features are +<i>perfect</i>, as hers were, the coffee-brown shows it better +than our colour, on account of its perfect +<i>evenness</i>—like the dead white of marble. I +shall never forget her as she stood playing with the leaves of +the gum-tree which hung over her, and gazing with her glorious +eyes so placidly.</p> +<p>On Monday morning, I walked off early to the old <i>Drosdy</i> +(Landdrost’s house), found an old gentleman, who turned out +to be the owner, and who asked me my name and all the rest of the +Dutch ‘litanei’ of questions, and showed me the +pretty old Dutch garden and the house—a very handsome +one. I walked back to breakfast, and thought Worcester the +prettiest place I had ever seen. We then started for Paarl, +and drove through ‘Bain’s Kloof’, a splendid +mountain-pass, four hours’ long, constant driving. It +was glorious, but more like what one had seen in pictures—a +deep, narrow gorge, almost dark in places, and, to my mind, +lacked the <i>beauty</i> of the yesterday’s drive, though +it is, perhaps, grander; but the view which bursts on one at the +top, and the descent, winding down the open mountain-side, is too +fine to describe. Table Mountain, like a giant’s +stronghold, seen far distant, with an immense plain, half +fertile, half white sand; to the left, Wagenmaker’s Vley; +and further on, the Paarl lying scattered on the slope of a +mountain topped with two <i>domes</i>, just the shape of the cup +which Lais (wasn’t it?) presented to the temple of Venus, +moulded on her breast. The horses were tired, so we stopped +at Waggon-maker’s Valley (or Wellington, as the English try +to get it called), and found ourselves in a true Flemish village, +and under the roof of a jolly Dutch hostess, who gave us divine +coffee and bread-and-butter, which seemed ambrosia after being +deprived of those luxuries for almost three months. Also +new milk in abundance, besides fruit of all kinds in vast heaps, +and pomegranates off the tree. I asked her to buy me a few +to take in the cart, and got a ‘muid’, the third of a +sack, for a shilling, with a bill, ‘U bekomt 1 muid 28 +granaeten dat Kostet 1<i>s.</i>’ The old lady would +walk out with me and take me into the shops, to show the +‘vrow uit Engelland’ to her friends. It was a +lovely place, intensely hot, all glowing with sunshine. +Then the sun went down, and the high mountains behind us were +precisely the colour of a Venice ruby glass—really, truly, +and literally;—not purple, not crimson, but glowing +ruby-red—and the quince-hedges and orange-trees below +looked <i>intensely</i> green, and the houses snow-white. +It was a transfiguration—no less.</p> +<p>I saw Hottentots again, four of them, from some remote corner, +so the race is not quite extinct. These were youngish, two +men and two women, quite light yellow, not darker than Europeans, +and with little tiny black knots of wool scattered over their +heads at intervals. They are hideous in face, but +exquisitely shaped—very, very small though. One of +the men was drunk, poor wretch, and looked the picture of +misery. You can see the fineness of their senses by the way +in which they dart their glances and prick their ears. +Every one agrees that, when tamed, they make the best of +servants—gentle, clever, and honest; but the penny-a-glass +wine they can’t resist, unless when caught and tamed +young. They work in the fields, or did so as long as any +were left; but even here, I was told, it was a wonder to see +them.</p> +<p>We went on through the Paarl, a sweet pretty place, reminding +one vaguely of Bonchurch, and still through fine mountains, with +Scotch firs growing like Italian stone pines, and farms, and +vineyard upon vineyard. At Stellenbosch we stopped. I +had been told it was the prettiest town in the colony, and it +<i>is</i> very pretty, with oak-trees all along the street, like +those at Paarl and Wagenmakkers Vley; but I was +disappointed. It was less beautiful than what I had +seen. Besides, the evening was dull and cold. The +south-easter greeted us here, and I could not go out all the +afternoon. The inn was called ‘Railway Hotel’, +and kept by low coarse English people, who gave us a filthy +dinner, dirty sheets, and an atrocious breakfast, and charged +1<i>l.</i> 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> for the same meals and time as +old Vrow Langfeldt had charged 12<i>s.</i> for, and had given +civility, cleanliness, and abundance of excellent +food;—besides which, she fed Sabaal gratis, and these +people fleeced him as they did me. So, next morning, we set +off, less pleasantly disposed, for Capetown, over the flat, which +is dreary enough, and had a horrid south-easter. We started +early, and got in before the wind became a hurricane, which it +did later. We were warmly welcomed by Mrs. R—; and +here I am in my old room, looking over the beautiful bay, quite +at home again. It blew all yesterday, and having rather a +sore-throat I stayed in bed, and to-day is all bright and +beautiful. But Capetown looks murky after Caledon and +Worcester; there is, to my eyes, quite a haze over the mountains, +and they look far off and indistinct. All is comparative in +this world, even African skies. At Caledon, the most +distant mountains, as far as your eye can reach, look as clear in +every detail as the map on your table—an appearance utterly +new to European eyes.</p> +<p>I gave Sabaal 1<i>l.</i> for his eight days’ service as +driver, as a Drinkgelt, and the worthy fellow was in ecstasies of +gratitude. Next morning early, he appeared with a present +of bananas, and his little girl dressed from head to foot in +brand-new clothes, bought out of my money, with her wool screwed +up extremely tight in little knots on her black little head +(evidently her mother is the blackest of Caffres or +Mozambiques). The child looked like a Caffre, and her +father considers her quite a pearl. I had her in, and +admired the little thing loud enough for him to hear outside, as +I lay in bed. You see, I too was to have my share in the +pleasure of the new clothes. This readiness to believe that +one will sympathize with them, is very pleasing in the +Malays.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">March 15.</p> +<p>I went to see my old Malay friends and to buy a +water-melon. They were in all the misery of Ramadan. +Betsy and pretty Nassirah very thin and miserable, and the pious +old Abdool sitting on a little barrel waiting for +‘gun-fire’—i.e. sunset, to fall to on the +supper which old Betsy was setting out. He was silent, and +the corners of his mouth were drawn down just like +—’s at an evening party.</p> +<p>I shall go to-morrow to bid the T—s good-bye, at +Wynberg. I was to have spent a few days there, but Wynberg +is cold at night and dampish, so I declined that. She is a +nice woman—Irish, and so innocent and frank and +well-bred. She has been at Cold Bokke Veld, and shocked her +puritanical host by admiring the naked Caffres who worked on his +farm. He wanted them to wear clothes.</p> +<p>We have been amused by the airs of a naval captain and his +wife, who are just come here. They complained that the +merchant-service officers spoke <i>familiarly</i> to their +children on board. <i>Quel audace</i>! When I think +of the excellent, modest, manly young fellows who talked very +familiarly and pleasantly to me on board the <i>St. Lawrence</i>, +I long to reprimand these foolish people.</p> +<p><i>Friday</i>, 21<i>st</i>.—I am just come from prayer, +at the Mosque in Chiappini Street, on the outskirts of the +town. A most striking sight. A large room, like a +county ball-room, with glass chandeliers, carpeted with common +carpet, all but a space at the entrance, railed off for shoes; +the Caaba and pulpit at one end; over the niche, a crescent +painted; and over the entrance door a crescent, an Arabic +inscription, and the royal arms of England! A fat jolly +Mollah looked amazed as I ascended the steps; but when I touched +my forehead and said, ‘Salaam Aleikoom’, he laughed +and said, ‘Salaam, Salaam, come in, come in.’ +The faithful poured in, all neatly dressed in their loose drab +trousers, blue jackets, and red handkerchiefs on their heads; +they left their wooden clogs in company, with my shoes, and +proceeded, as it appeared, to strip. Off went jackets, +waistcoats, and trousers, with the dexterity of a pantomime +transformation; the red handkerchief was replaced by a white +skullcap, and a long large white shirt and full white drawers +flowed around them. How it had all been stuffed into the +trim jacket and trousers, one could not conceive. Gay +sashes and scarves were pulled out of a little bundle in a clean +silk handkerchief, and a towel served as prayer-carpet. In +a moment the whole scene was as oriental as if the Hansom cab I +had come in existed no more. Women suckled their children, +and boys played among the clogs and shoes all the time, and I sat +on the floor in a remote corner. The chanting was very +fine, and the whole ceremony very decorous and solemn. It +lasted an hour; and then the little heaps of garments were put +on, and the congregation dispersed, each man first laying a penny +on a very curious little old Dutch-looking, heavy, iron-bound +chest, which stood in the middle of the room.</p> +<p>I have just heard that the post closes to-night and must say +farewell—<i>a rivederci</i>.</p> +<h2><a name="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +132</span>LETTER XI</h2> +<p style="text-align: right">Capetown, March 20th.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Dearest Mother</span>,</p> +<p>Dr. Shea says he fears I must not winter in England yet, but +that I am greatly improved—as, indeed, I could tell +him. He is another of the kind ‘sea doctors’ I +have met with; he came all the way from Simon’s Bay to see +me, and then said, ‘What nonsense is that?’ when I +offered him a fee. This is a very nice place up in the +‘gardens’, quite out of the town and very +comfortable. But I regret Caledon. A— will show +you my account of my beautiful journey back. Worcester is a +fairy-land; and then to catch tortoises walking about, and to see +‘baviāans’, and snakes and secretary birds +eating them! and then people have the impudence to think I must +have been ‘very dull!’ <i>Sie merken’s +nicht</i>, that it is <i>they</i> who are dull.</p> +<p>Dear Dr. Hawtrey! he must have died just as I was packing up +the first Caffre Testament for him! I felt his death very +much, in connexion with my father; their regard for each other +was an honour to both. I have the letter he wrote me on +J—’s marriage, and a charming one it is.</p> +<p>I took Mrs. A— a drive in a Hansom cab to-day out to +Wynberg, to see my friends Captain and Mrs. T—, who have a +cottage under Table Mountain in a spot like the best of St. +George’s Hill. Very dull too; but as she is really a +lady, it suits her, and Capetown does not. I was to have +stayed with them, but Wynberg is cold at night. Poor +B—’s wife is very ill and won’t leave Capetown +for a day. The people here are <i>wunderlich</i> for +that. A lady born here, and with 7,000<i>l.</i> a year, has +never been further than Stellenbosch, about twenty miles. I +am asked how I lived and what I ate during my little excursion, +as if I had been to Lake Ngami. If only I had known how +easy it all is, I would have gone by sea to East London and seen +the Knysna and George district, and the primæval African +forest, the yellow wood, and other giant trees. However, +‘For what I have received,’ &c., &c. No +one can conceive what it is, after two years of prison and utter +languor, to stand on the top of a mountain pass, and enjoy +physical existence for a few hours at a time. I felt as if +it was quite selfish to enjoy anything so much when you were all +so anxious about me at home; but as that is the best symptom of +all, I do not repent.</p> +<p>S— has been an excellent travelling servant, and really +a better companion than many more educated people; for she is +always amused and curious, and is friendly with the coloured +people. She is quite recovered. It is a wonderful +climate—<i>sans que celà paraisse</i>. It +feels chilly and it blows horridly, and does not seem genial, but +it gives new life.</p> +<p>To-morrow I am going with old Abdool Jemaalee to prayers at +the Mosque, and shall see a school kept by a Malay priest. +It is now Ramadan, and my Muslim friends are very thin and look +glum. Choslullah sent a message to ask, ‘Might he see +the Missis once more? He should pray all the time she was +on the sea.’ Some pious Christians here would expect +such horrors to sink the ship. I can’t think why +Mussulmans are always gentlemen; the Malay coolies have a grave +courtesy which contrasts most strikingly with both European +vulgarity and negro jollity. It is very curious, for they +only speak Dutch, and know nothing of oriental manners. I +fear I shall not see the Walkers again. Simon’s Bay +is too far to go and come in a day, as one cannot go out before +ten or eleven, and must be in by five or half-past. Those +hours are gloriously bright and hot, but morning and night are +cold.</p> +<p>I am so happy in the thought of sailing now so very soon and +seeing you all again, that I can settle to nothing for five +minutes. I now feel how anxious and uneasy I have been, and +how I shall rejoice to get home. I shall leave a letter for +A—, to go in April, and tell him and you what ship I am +in. I shall choose the <i>slowest</i>, so as not to reach +England and face the Channel before June, if possible. So +don’t be alarmed if I do not arrive till late in +June. Till then good-bye, and God bless you, dearest +mother—<i>Auf frohes Wiedersehn</i>.</p> +<h2><a name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +136</span>LETTER XII</h2> +<p style="text-align: right">Capetown, Sunday, March 23d.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> has been a <i>real</i> hot day, +and threatened an earthquake and a thunderstorm; but nothing has +come of it beyond sheet lightning to-night, which is splendid +over the bay, and looks as if repeated in a grand bush-fire on +the hills opposite. The sunset was glorious. That +rarest of insects, the praying mantis, has just dropped upon my +paper. I am thankful that, not being an entomologist, I am +dispensed from the sacred duty of impaling the lovely green +creature who sits there, looking quite wise and human. +Fussy little brown beetles, as big as two lady-birds, keep flying +into my eyes, and the musquitoes are rejoicing loudly in the +prospect of a feast. You will understand by this that both +windows are wide open into the great verandah,—very unusual +in this land of cold nights.</p> +<p><i>April</i> 4<i>th</i>.—I have been trying in vain to +get a passage home. The <i>Camperdown</i> has not +come. In short, I am waiting for a chance vessel, and shall +pack up now and be ready to go on board at a day’s +notice.</p> +<p>I went on the last evening of Ramadan to the Mosque, having +heard there was a grand ‘function’; but there were +only little boys lying about on the floor, some on their +stomachs, some on their backs, higgledy-piggledy (if it be not +profane to apply the phrase to young Islam), all shouting their +prayers <i>à tue tête</i>. Priests, men, +women, and English crowded in and out in the exterior +division. The English behaved <i>à +l’Anglaise</i>—pushed each other, laughed, sneered, +and made a disgusting display of themselves. I asked a +stately priest, in a red turban, to explain the affair to me, and +in a few minutes found myself supplied by one Mollah with a +chair, and by another with a cup of tea—was, in short, in +the midst of a Malay <i>soirée</i>. They spoke +English very little, but made up for it by their usual good +breeding and intelligence. On Monday, I am going to see the +school which the priest keeps at his house, and to ‘honour +his house by my presence’. The delight they show at +any friendly interest taken in them is wonderful. Of +course, I am supposed to be poisoned. A clergyman’s +widow here gravely asserts that her husband went mad <i>three +years</i> after drinking a cup of coffee handed to him by a +Malay!—and in consequence of drinking it! It is +exactly like the mediæval feeling about the Jews. I +saw that it was quite a <i>demonstration</i> that I drank up the +tea unhesitatingly. Considering that the Malays drank it +themselves, my courage deserves less admiration. But it was +a quaint sensation to sit in a Mosque, behaving as if at an +evening party, in a little circle of poor Moslim priests.</p> +<p>I am going to have a photograph of my cart done. I was +to have gone to the place to-day, but when Choslullah (whom I +sent for to complete the picture) found out what I wanted, he +implored me to put it off till Monday, that he might be better +dressed, and was so unhappy at the notion of being immortalized +in an old jacket, that I agreed to the delay. Such a +handsome fellow may be allowed a little vanity.</p> +<p>The colony is torn with dissensions as to Sunday trains. +Some of the Dutch clergy are even more absurd than our own on +that point. A certain Van der Lingen, at Stellenbosch, +calls Europe ‘one vast Sodom’, and so forth. +There is altogether a nice kettle of religious hatred brewing +here. The English Bishop of Capetown appoints all the +English clergy, and is absolute monarch of all he surveys; and he +and his clergy are carrying matters with a high hand. The +Bishop’s chaplain told Mrs. J— that she could not +hope for salvation in the Dutch Church, since her clergy were not +ordained by any bishop, and therefore they could only administer +the sacrament ‘<i>unto damnation</i>’. All the +physicians in a body, English as well as Dutch, have withdrawn +from the Dispensary, because it was used as a means of pressure +to draw the coloured people from the Dutch to the English +Church.</p> +<p>This High-Church tyranny cannot go on long. Catholics +there are few, but their bishop plays the same game; and it is a +losing one. The Irish maid at the Caledon inn was driven by +her bishop to be married at the Lutheran church, just as a young +Englishman I know (though a fervent Puseyite) was driven to be +married at the Scotch kirk. The colonial bishops are +despots in their own churches, and there is no escape from their +tyranny but by dissent. The Admiral and his family have +been anathematized for going to a fancy bazaar given by the +Wesleyans for their chapel.</p> +<p><i>April</i> 8<i>th</i>.—Yesterday, I failed about my +cart photograph. First, the owner had sent away the cart, +and when Choslullah came dressed in all his best clothes, with a +lovely blue handkerchief setting off his beautiful orange-tawny +face, he had to rush off to try to borrow another cart. As +ill luck would have it, he met a ‘serious young man’, +with no front teeth, and a hideous wen on his eyebrow, who +informed the priest of Choslullah’s impious purpose, and +came with him to see that he did <i>not</i> sit for his +portrait. I believe it was half envy; for my handsome +driver was as pleased, and then as disappointed, as a young lady +about her first ball, and obviously had no religious scruples of +his own on the subject. The weather is very delightful +now—hot, but beautiful; and the south-easters, though +violent, are short, and not cold. As in all other +countries, autumn is the best time of year.</p> +<p><i>April</i> 15<i>th</i>.—Your letters arrived +yesterday, to my great delight. I have been worrying about +a ship, and was very near sailing to-day by the <i>Queen of the +South</i> at twenty-four hours’ notice, but I have resolved +to wait for the <i>Camperdown</i>. The <i>Queen of the +South</i> is a steamer,—which is odious, for they pitch the +coal all over the lower deck, so that you breathe coal-dust for +the first ten days; then she was crammed—only one cabin +vacant, and that small, and on the lower deck—and fifty-two +children on board. Moreover, she will probably get to +England too soon, so I resign myself to wait. The +<i>Camperdown</i> has only upper-deck cabins, and I shall have +fresh air. I am not as well as I was at Caledon, so I am +all the more anxious to have a voyage likely to do me good +instead of harm.</p> +<p>I got my cart and Choslullah photographed after all. +Choslullah came next day (having got rid of his pious friend), +quite resolved that ‘the Missis’ should take his +portrait, so I will send or bring a few copies of my beloved +cart. After the photograph was done, we drove round the +Kloof, between Table and Lion Mountain. The road is cut on +the side of Lion Mountain, and overhangs the sea at a great +height. Camp Bay, which lies on the further side of the +‘Lion’s Head’, is most lovely; never was sea so +deeply blue, rocks so warmly brown, or sand and foam so +glittering white; and down at the mountain-foot the bright green +of the orange and pomegranate trees throws it all out in greater +relief. But the atmosphere here won’t do after that +of the ‘Ruggings’, as the Caledon line of country is +called. I shall never lose the impression of the view I had +when Dr. Morkel drove me out on a hill-side, where the view +seemed endless and without a vestige of life; and yet in every +valley there were farms; but it looked a vast, utter solitude, +and without the least haze. You don’t know what that +utter clearness means—the distinctness is quite +awful. Here it is always slightly hazy; very pretty and +warm, but it takes off from the grandeur. It is the +difference between a pretty Pompadour beauty and a Greek +statue. Those pale opal mountains, as distinct in every +detail as the map on your table, are so cheerful and serene; no +melodramatic effects of clouds and gloom. I suppose it is +not really so beautiful as it seemed to me, for other people say +it is bare and desolate, and certainly it is; but it seemed to me +anything but dreary.</p> +<p>I am persuaded that Capetown is not healthy; indeed, the town +can’t be, from its stench and dirt; but I believe the whole +seashore is more or less bad, compared to the upper plateaux, of +which I know only the first. I should have gone back to +Paarl, only that ships come and go within twenty-four hours, so +one has the pleasure of living in constant expectation, with +packed trunks, wondering when one shall get away. A clever +Mr. M—, who has lived <i>all over</i> India, and is going +back to Singapore, with his wife and child, are now in the house; +and some very pleasant Jews, bound for British +Caffraria—one of them has a lovely little wife and three +children. She is very full of Prince Albert’s death, +and says there was not a dry eye in the synagogues in London, +which were all hung with black on the day of his funeral, and +prayer went on the whole day. ‘<i>The people</i> +mourned for him as much as for Hezekiah; and, indeed, he deserved +it a great deal better,’ was her rather unorthodox +conclusion. These colonial Jews are a new +‘Erscheinung’ to me. They have the features of +their race, but many of their peculiarities are gone. Mr. +L—, who is very handsome and gentlemanly, eats ham and +patronises a good breed of pigs on the ‘model farm’ +on which he spends his money. He is (he says) a thorough +Jew in faith, and evidently in charitable works; but he wants to +say his prayers in English and not to ‘dress himself +up’ in a veil and phylacteries for the purpose; and he and +his wife talk of England as ‘home’, and care as much +for Jerusalem as their neighbours. They have not forgotten +the old persecutions, and are civil to the coloured people, and +speak of them in quite a different tone from other English +colonists. Moreover, they are far better mannered, and more +‘<i>human</i>’, in the German sense of the word, in +all respects;—in short, less ‘colonial’.</p> +<p>I have bought some Cape ‘confeyt’; apricots, +salted and then sugared, called +‘mebos’—delicious! Also pickled peaches, +‘chistnee’, and quince jelly. I have a notion +of some Cherupiga wine for ourselves. I will inquire the +cost of bottling, packing, &c.; it is about one shilling and +fourpence a bottle here, sweet red wine, unlike any other I ever +drank, and I think very good. It is very tempting to bring +a few things so unknown in England. I have a glorious +‘Velcombers’ for you, a blanket of nine Damara +sheepskins, sewn by the Damaras, and dressed so that moths and +fleas won’t stay near them. It will make a grand +railway rug and ‘outside car’ covering. The +hunters use them for sleeping out of doors. I have bought +three, and a springbok caross for somebody.</p> +<p><i>April</i> 17<i>th</i>.—The winter has set in +to-day. It rains steadily, at the rate of the heaviest bit +of the heaviest shower in England, and is as cold as a bad day +early in September. One can just sit without a fire. +Presently, all will be green and gay; for winter is here the +season of flowers, and the heaths will cover the country with a +vast Turkey carpet. Already the green is appearing where +all was brown yesterday. To-day is Good Friday; and if +Christmas seemed odd at Midsummer, Easter in autumn seems +positively unnatural. Our Jewish party made their exodus +to-day, by the little coasting steamer, to Algoa Bay. I +rather condoled with the pretty little woman about her long rough +journey, with three babies; but she laughed, and said they had +had time to get used to it ever since the days of Moses. +All she grieved over was not being able to keep Passover, and she +described their domestic ceremonies quite poetically. We +heard from our former housemaid, Annie, the other day, announcing +her marriage and her sister’s. She wrote such a +pretty, merry letter to S—, saying ‘the more she +tried not to like him, the better she loved him, and had to say, +“Aha, Annie, you’re caught at +last.”’ A year and a half is a long time to +remain single in this country.</p> +<p><i>Monday</i>, <i>April</i> 21<i>st</i>, <i>Easter +Monday</i>.—The mail goes out in an hour, so I will just +add, good-bye. The winter is now fairly set in, and I long +to be off. I fear I shall have a desperately cold week or +so at first sailing, till we catch the south-east trades. +This weather is beautiful in itself, but I feel it from the +suddenness of the change. We passed in one night from hot +summer to winter, which is like <i>fine</i> English April, or +October, only brighter than anything in Europe. There is +properly, no autumn or spring here; only hot, dry, brown summer, +with its cold wind at times, and fresh green winter, all +fragrance and flowers, and much less wind. Mr. M—, of +whom I told you, has been in every corner of the far +East—Java, Sumatra, everywhere—and is extremely +amusing. He has brought his wife here for her health, and +is as glad to talk as I am. The conversation of an +educated, clever person, is quite a new and delightful sensation +to me now. He appears to have held high posts under the +East India Company, is learned in Oriental languages, and was +last resident at Singapore. He says that no doubt Java is +Paradise, it is so lovely, and such a climate; but he does not +look as if it had agreed with him. I feel quite heart-sick +at seeing these letters go off before me, instead of leaving them +behind, as I had hoped.</p> +<p>Well, I must say good-bye—or rather, ‘<i>auf +Wiedersehn</i>’—and God knows how glad I shall be +when that day comes!</p> +<h2><a name="page147"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +147</span>LETTER XIII</h2> +<p style="text-align: right">Capetown, April 19th.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Dearest Mother</span>,</p> +<p>Here I am, waiting for a ship; the steamer was too horrid: and +I look so much to the good to be gained by the voyage that I did +not like to throw away the chance of two months at sea at this +favourable time of year, and under favourable circumstances; so I +made up my mind to see you all a month later. The sea just +off the Cape is very, very cold; less so now than in spring, I +dare say. The weather to-day is just like <i>very</i> warm +April at home—showery, sunshiny, and fragrant; most +lovely. It is so odd to see an autumn without dead leaves: +only the oaks lose theirs, the old ones drop without turning +brown, and the trees bud again at once. The rest put on a +darker green dress for winter, and now the flowers will +begin. I have got a picture for you of my ‘cart and +four’, with sedate Choslullah and dear little +Mohammed. The former wants to go with me, +‘anywhere’, as he placidly said, ‘to be the +missis’ servant’. What a sensation his +thatchlike hat and handsome orange-tawny face would make at +Esher! Such a stalwart henchman would be very +creditable. I shall grieve to think I shall never see my +Malay friends again; they are the only people here who are really +interesting. I think they must be like the Turks in manner, +as they have all the eastern gentlemanly +‘Gelassenheit’ (ease) and politeness, and no eastern +‘Geschmeidigkeit’ (obsequiousness), and no idea of +Baksheesh; withal frugal, industrious, and money-making, to an +astonishing degree. The priest is a bit of a proselytiser, +and amused me much with an account of how he had converted +English girls from their evil courses and made them good +<i>Mussulwomen</i>. I never heard a <i>naïf</i> and +sincere account of conversions <i>from</i> Christianity before, +and I must own it was much milder than the Exeter Hall style.</p> +<p>I have heard a great many expressions of sorrow for the Queen +from the Malays, and always with the ‘hope the people will +take much care of her, now she is alone’. Of course +Prince Albert was only the Queen’s husband to them, and all +their feeling is about her. It is very difficult to see +anything of them, for they want nothing of you, and expect +nothing but dislike and contempt. It would take a long time +to make many friends, as they are naturally distrustful. I +found that eating or drinking anything, if they offer it, made +most way, as they know they are accused of poisoning all +Christians indiscriminately. Of course, therefore, they are +shy of offering things. I drank tea in the Mosque at the +end of Ramadan, and was surrounded by delighted faces as I +sipped. The little boy who waits in this house here had +followed us, and was horrified: he is still waiting to see the +poison work.</p> +<p>No one can conceive what has become of all the ships that +usually touch here about this time. I was promised my +choice of Green’s and Smith’s, and now only the heavy +old <i>Camperdown</i> is expected with rice from Moulmein. +A lady now here, who has been Heaven only knows <i>where not</i>, +praises Alexandria above all other places, after Suez. Her +lungs are bad, and she swears by Suez, which she says is the +dreariest and healthiest (for lungs) place in the world. +You can’t think how soon one learns to ‘annihilate +space’, if not time, in one’s thoughts, by daily +reading advertisements for every port in India, America, +Australia, &c., &c., and conversing with people who have +just come from the ‘ends of the earth’. +Meanwhile, I fear I shall have to fly from next winter again, and +certainly will go with J— to Egypt, which seems to me like +next door.</p> +<p>I have run on, and not thanked you for your letter and M. +Mignet’s beautiful <i>éloge</i> of Mr. Hallam, which +pleased me greatly. I wish Englishmen could learn to speak +with the same good taste and <i>mésure</i>.</p> +<p>Mr. Wodehouse, who has been very civil to me, kindly tried to +get me a passage home in a French frigate lying here, but in +vain. I am now sorry I let the Jack tars here persuade me +not to go in the little barque; but they talked so much of the +heat and damp of such tiny cabins in an iron vessel, that I gave +her up, though I liked the idea of a good tossing in such a tiny +cockboat. I will leave a letter for the May mail, unless I +sail within a week of to-morrow, or go by the <i>Jason</i>, which +would be home far sooner than the mail. I only hope you and +A— won’t be uneasy; the worst that can happen is +delay, and the long voyage will be all gain to health, which +would not be the case in a steamer.</p> +<p>All I hear of R— makes me wild to see her again. +The little darkies are the only pleasing children here, and a fat +black toddling thing is ‘allerliebst’. I know a +boy of four, literally jet black, whom I long to steal as he +follows his mother up to the mountain to wash. Little +Malays are lovely, but <i>too</i> well-behaved and quiet. I +tried to get a real ‘<i>tottie</i>’, or +‘Hotentotje’, but the people were too drunk to +remember where they had left their child. <i>C’est +assez dire</i>, that I should have had no scruple in buying it +for a bottle of ‘smoke’ (the spirit made from grape +husks). They are clever and affectionate when they have a +chance, poor things,—and so strange to look at.</p> +<p>By the bye, a Bonn man, Dr. Bleek, called here with +‘Grüsse’ from our old friends, Professor +Mendelssohn and his wife. He is devoting himself to +Hottentot and aboriginal literature!—and has actually +mastered the Caffre <i>click</i>, which I vainly practised under +Kleenboy’s tuition. He wanted to teach me to say +‘Tkorkha’, which means ‘you lie’, or +‘you have missed’ (in shooting or throwing a stone, +&c.)—a curious combination of meanings. He taught +me to throw stones or a stick at him, which he always avoided, +however close they fell, and cried ‘Tkorkha!’ +The Caffres ask for a present, ‘Tkzeelah Tabak’, +‘a gift for tobacco’.</p> +<p>The Farnese Hercules is a living <i>truth</i>. I saw him +in the street two days ago, and he was a Caffre coolie. The +proportions of the head and throat were more wonderful in flesh, +or muscle rather, than in marble. I know a Caffre girl of +thirteen, who is a noble model of strength and beauty; such an +arm—larger than any white woman’s—with such a +dimple in her elbow, and a wrist and hand which no glove is small +enough to fit—and a noble countenance too. She is +‘apprenticed’, a name for temporary slavery, and is +highly spoken of as a servant, as the Caffres always are. +They are a majestic race, but with just the stupid conceit of a +certain sort of Englishmen; the women and girls seem +charming.</p> +<p><i>Easter Sunday</i>.—The weather continues beautifully +clear and bright, like the finest European spring. It seems +so strange for the floral season to be the winter. But as +the wind blows the air is quite cold to-day; nevertheless, I feel +much better the last two days. The brewing of the rain made +the air very oppressive and heavy for three weeks, but now it is +as light as possible.</p> +<p>I must say good-bye, as the mail closes to-morrow +morning. Easter in autumn is preposterous, only the autumn +looks like spring. The consumptive young girl whom I packed +off to the Cape, and her sister, are about to be married—of +course. Annie has had a touch of Algoa Bay fever, a mild +kind of ague, but no sign of chest disease, or even +delicacy. My ‘hurrying her off’, which some +people thought so cruel, has saved her. Whoever comes +<i>soon enough</i> recovers, but for people far gone it is too +bracing.</p> +<h2><a name="page153"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +153</span>LETTER XIV</h2> +<p style="text-align: right">Capetown, Saturday, May 3d.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Dearest Mother</span>,</p> +<p>After five weeks of waiting and worry, I have, at last, sent +my goods on board the ship <i>Camperdown</i>, now discharging her +cargo, and about to take a small party of passengers from the +Cape. I offered to take a cabin in a Swedish ship, bound +for Falmouth; but the captain could not decide whether he would +take a passenger; and while he hesitated the old +<i>Camperdown</i> came in. I have the best cabin after the +stern cabins, which are occupied by the captain and his wife and +the Attorney-General of Capetown, who is much liked. The +other passengers are quiet people, and few of them, and the +captain has a high character; so I may hope for a comfortable, +though slow passage. I will let you know the day I sail, +and leave this letter to go by post. I may be looked for +three weeks or so after this letter. I am crazy to get home +now; after the period was over for which I had made up my mind, +home-sickness began.</p> +<p>Mrs. R— has offered me a darling tiny monkey, which +loves me; but I fear A— would send me away again if I +returned with her in my pocket. Nassirah, old +Abdool’s pretty granddaughter, brought me a pair of Malay +shoes or clogs as a parting gift, to-day. Mr. M—, the +resident at Singapore, tells me that his secretary’s wife, +a Malay lady, has made an excellent translation of the <i>Arabian +Nights</i>, from Arabic into Malay. Her husband is an +Indian Mussulman, who, Mr. M— said, was one of the ablest +men he ever knew. Curious!</p> +<p>I sat, yesterday, for an hour, in the stall of a poor German +basket-maker who had been long in Caffre-land. His wife, a +Berlinerin, was very intelligent, and her account of her life +here most entertaining, as showing the different <i>Ansicht</i> +natural to Germans. ‘I had never’, she said, +‘been out of the city of Berlin, and <i>knew +nothing</i>.’ (Compare with London cockney, or +genuine Parisian.) Thence her fear, on landing at Algoa Bay +and seeing swarms of naked black men, that she had come to a +country where no clothes were to be had; and what should she do +when hers were worn out? They had a grant of land at Fort +Peddie, and she dug while her husband made baskets of cane, and +carried them hundreds of miles for sale; sleeping and eating in +Caffre huts. ‘Yes, they are good, honest people, and +very well-bred (<i>anständig</i>), though they go as naked +as God made them. The girls are pretty and very delicate +(<i>fein</i>), and they think no harm of it, the dear +innocents.’ If their cattle strayed, it was always +brought back; and they received every sort of kindness. +‘Yes, madam, it is shocking how people here treat the +blacks. They call quite an old man ‘Boy’, and +speak so scornfully, and yet the blacks have very nice manners, I +assure you.’ When I looked at the poor little +wizened, pale, sickly Berliner, and fancied him a guest in a +Caffre hut, it seemed an odd picture. But he spoke as +coolly of his long, lonely journeys as possible, and seemed to +think black friends quite as good as white ones. The use of +the words <i>anständig</i> and <i>fein</i> by a woman who +spoke very good German were characteristic. She could +recognise an ‘<i>Anständigkeit</i>’ <i>not</i> +of Berlin. I need not say that the Germans are generally +liked by the coloured people. Choslullah was astonished and +Pleased at my talking German; he evidently had a preference for +Germans, and put up, wherever he could, at German inns and +‘publics’.</p> +<p>I went on to bid Mrs. Wodehouse good-bye. We talked of +our dear old Cornish friends. The Governor and Mrs. +Wodehouse have been very kind to me. I dined there twice; +last time, with all the dear good Walkers. I missed seeing +the opening of the colonial parliament by a mistake about a +ticket, which I am sorry for.</p> +<p>If I could have dreamed of waiting here so long, I would have +run up to Algoa Bay or East London by sea, and had a glimpse of +Caffreland. Capetown makes me very languid—there is +something depressing in the air—but my cough is much +better. I can’t walk here without feeling knocked-up; +and cab-hire is so dear; and somehow, nothing is worth while, +when one is waiting from day to day. So I have spent more +money than when I was most amused, in being bored.</p> +<p>Mr. J— drove me to the Capetown races, at Green Point, +on Friday. As races, they were <i>nichts</i>, but a +queer-looking little Cape farmer’s horse, ridden by a +Hottentot, beat the English crack racer, ridden by a first-rate +English jockey, in an unaccountable way, twice over. The +Malays are passionately fond of horse-racing, and the crowd was +fully half Malay: there were dozens of carts crowded with the +bright-eyed women, in petticoats of every most brilliant colour, +white muslin jackets, and gold daggers in their great coils of +shining black hair. All most ‘anständig’, +as they always are. Their pleasure is driving about <i>en +famille</i>; the men have no separate amusements. Every +spare corner in the cart is filled by the little soft round faces +of the intelligent-looking quiet children, who seem amused and +happy, and never make a noise or have the fidgets. I cannot +make out why they are so well behaved. It favours +A—’s theory of the expediency of utter spoiling, for +one never hears any educational process going on. Tiny +Mohammed never spoke but when he was spoken to, and was always +happy and alert. I observed that his uncle spoke to him +like a grown man, and never ordered him about, or rebuked him in +the least. I like to go up the hill and meet the black +women coming home in troops from the washing place, most of them +with a fat black baby hanging to their backs asleep, and a few +rather older trotting alongside, and if small, holding on by the +mother’s gown. She, poor soul, carries a bundle on +her head, which few men could lift. If I admire the babies, +the poor women are enchanted;—<i>du reste</i>, if you look +at blacks of any age or sex, they <i>must</i> grin and nod, as a +good-natured dog must wag his tail; they can’t help +it. The blacks here (except a very few Caffres) are from +the Mozambique—a short, thick-set, ugly race, with wool in +huge masses; but here and there one sees a very pretty face among +the women. The men are beyond belief hideous. There +are all possible crosses—Dutch, Mozambique, Hottentot and +English, ‘alles durcheinander’; then here and there +you see that a Chinese or a Bengalee <i>a passé par +là</i>. The Malays are also a mixed race, like the +Turks—i.e. they marry women of all sorts and colours, +provided they will embrace Islam. A very nice old fellow +who waits here occasionally is married to an Englishwoman, +<i>ci-devant</i> lady’s-maid to a Governor’s +wife. I fancy, too, they brought some Chinese blood with +them from Java. I think the population of Capetown must be +the most motley crew in the world.</p> +<p><i>Thursday</i>, May 8<i>th</i>.—I sail on Saturday, and +go on board to-morrow, so as not to be hurried off in the early +fog. How glad I am to be ‘homeward bound’ at +last, I cannot say. I am very well, and have every prospect +of a pleasant voyage. We are sure to be well found, as the +Attorney-General is on board, and is a very great man, +‘inspiring terror and respect’ here.</p> +<p>S— says we certainly <i>shall</i> put in at St. Helena, +so make up your minds not to see me till I don’t know +when. She has been on board fitting up the cabin +to-day. I have <i>such</i> a rug for J—! a mosaic of +skins as fine as marqueterie, done by Damara women, and really +beautiful; and a sheep-skin blanket for you, the essence of +warmth and softness. I shall sleep in mine, and dream of +African hill-sides wrapt in a ‘Veld combas’. +The poor little water-tortoises have been killed by drought, and +I can’t get any, but I have the two of my own catching for +M—.</p> +<p>Good-bye, dearest mother.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>You would have been moved by poor old Abdool Jemaalee’s +solemn benediction when I took leave to-day. He accompanied +it with a gross of oranges and lemons.</p> +<h2><a name="page160"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +160</span>LETTER XV</h2> +<p style="text-align: right">Capetown, Thursday, May 8th.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">At</span> last, after no end of +‘casus’ and ‘discrimina rerum’, I shall +sail on Saturday the 10th, per ship <i>Camperdown</i>, for East +India Docks.</p> +<p>These weary six weeks have cost no end of money and +temper. I have been eating my heart out at the delay, but +it was utterly impossible to go by any of the Indian ships. +They say there have never been so few ships sailing from the Cape +as this year, yet crowds were expected on account of the +Exhibition. The Attorney-General goes by our ship, so we +are sure of good usage; and I hear he is very agreeable. I +have the best cabin next to the stern cabin, in both senses of +<i>next</i>. S— has come back from the ship, where +she has spent the day with the carpenter; and I am to go on board +to-morrow. Will you ask R— to cause inquiries to be +made among the Mollahs of Cairo for a Hadji, by name Abdool +Rachman, the son of Abdool Jemaalee, of Capetown, and, if +possible, to get the inclosed letter sent him? The poor +people are in sad anxiety for their son, of whom they have not +heard for four months, and that from an old letter. Henry +will thus have a part of all the blessings which were solemnly +invoked on me by poor old Abdool, who is getting very infirm, but +toddled up and cracked his old fingers over my head, and invoked +the protection of Allah with all form; besides that Betsy sent me +twelve dozen oranges and lemons. Abdool Rachman is about +twenty-six, a Malay of Capetown, speaks Dutch and English, and is +supposed to be studying theology at Cairo. The letter is +written by the prettiest Malay girl in Capetown.</p> +<p>I won’t enter upon my longings to be home again, and to +see you all. I must now see to my last commissions and +things, and send this to go by next mail.</p> +<p>God bless you all, and kiss my darlings, all three.</p> +<h2><a name="page162"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +162</span>LETTER XVI</h2> +<p style="text-align: right">Friday, May 16th.<br /> +On board the good ship <i>Camperdown</i>,<br /> +500 miles North-west of Table-Bay.</p> +<p>I <span class="smcap">embarked</span> this day week, and found +a good airy cabin, and all very comfortable. Next day I got +the carpenter’s services, by being on board before all the +rest, and relashed and cleeted everything, which the +‘Timmerman’, of course, had left so as to get adrift +the first breeze. At two o’clock the +Attorney-General, Mr. Porter, came on board, escorted by bands of +music and all the volunteers of Capetown, <i>quorum pars maxima +fuit</i>; i.e. Colonel. It was quite what the Yankees call +an ‘ovation’. The ship was all decked with +flags, and altogether there was <i>le diable à +quatre</i>. The consequence was, that three signals went +adrift in the scuffle; and when a Frenchman signalled us, we had +to pass for <i>brutaux Anglais</i>, because we could not +reply. I found means to supply the deficiency by the lining +of that very ancient anonymous cloak, which did the red, while a +bandanna handkerchief of the Captain’s furnished the +yellow, to the sailmaker’s immense amusement. On him +I bestowed the blue outside of the cloak for a pair of dungaree +trowsers, and in signalling now it is, ‘up go 2.41, and my +lady’s cloak, which is 7.’</p> +<p>We have had lovely weather, and on Sunday such a glorious +farewell sight of Table Mountain and my dear old Hottentot Hills, +and of Kaap Goed Hoop itself. There was little enough wind +till yesterday, when a fair southerly breeze sprang up, and we +are rolling along merrily; and the fat old <i>Camperdown does</i> +roll like an honest old ‘wholesome’ tub as she +is. It is quite a <i>bonne fortune</i> for me to have been +forced to wait for her, for we have had a wonderful spell of fine +weather, and the ship is the <i>ne plus ultra</i> of +comfort. We are only twelve first-class upper-deck +passengers. The captain is a delightful fellow, with a very +charming young wife. There is only one child (a great +comfort), a capital cook, and universal civility and +quietness. It is like a private house compared to a railway +hotel. Six of the passengers are invalids, more or +less. Mr. Porter, over-worked, going home for health to +Ireland; two men, both with delicate chests, and one poor young +fellow from Capetown in a consumption, who, I fear, will not +outlive the voyage. The doctor is very civil, and very kind +to the sick; but I stick to the cook, and am quite greedy over +the good fare, after the atrocious food of the Cape. Said +cook is a Portuguese, a distinguished artist, and a great +bird-fancier. One can wander all over the ship here, +instead of being a prisoner on the poop; and I even have paid my +footing on the forecastle. S— clambers up like a +lively youngster. You may fancy what the weather is, that I +have only closed my cabin-window once during half of a very damp +night; but no one else is so airy. The little goat was as +rejoiced to be afloat again as her mistress, and is a regular pet +on board, with the run of the quarter-deck. She still gives +milk—a perfect Amalthæa. The butcher, who has +the care of her, cockers her up with dainties, and she begs +biscuit of the cook. I pay nothing for her fare. +M—’s tortoises are in my cabin, and seem very +happy. Poor Mr. Porter is very sick, and so are the two or +three coloured passengers, who won’t ‘make an +effort’ at all. Mrs. H— (the captain’s +wife), a young Cape lady, and I are the only ‘female +ladies’ of the party. The other day we saw a shoal of +porpoises, amounting to many hundreds, if not some thousands, who +came frisking round the ship. When we first saw them they +looked like a line of breakers; they made such a splash, and they +jumped right out of the water three feet in height, and ten or +twelve in distance, glittering green and bronze in the sun. +Such a pretty, merry set of fellows!</p> +<p>We shall touch at St. Helena, where I shall leave this letter +to go by the mail steamer, that you may know a few weeks before I +arrive how comfortably my voyage has begun.</p> +<p>We see no Cape pigeons; they only visit outward ships—is +not that strange?—but, <i>en revanche</i>, many more +albatrosses than in coming; and we also enjoy the advantage of +seeing all the homeward-bound ships, as they all <i>pass</i> +us—a humiliating fact. The captain laughed heartily +because I said, ‘Oh, all right; I shall have the more sea +for my money’,—when the prospect of a slow voyage was +discussed. It is very provoking to be so much longer +separated from you all than I had hoped, but I really believe +that the bad air and discomfort of the other ships would have +done me serious injury; while here I have every chance of +benefiting to the utmost, and having mild weather the whole way, +besides the utmost amount of comfort possible on board +ship. There are some cockroaches, indeed, but that is the +only drawback. The <i>Camperdown</i> is fourteen years old, +and was the crack ship to India in her day. Now she takes +cargo and poop-passengers only, and, of course, only gets +invalids and people who care more for comfort than speed.</p> +<p><i>Monday Evening</i>, May 26<i>th</i>.—Here we are, +working away still to reach St. Helena. We got the tail of +a terrific gale and a tremendous sea all night in our teeth, +which broke up the south-east trades for a week. Now it is +all smooth and fair, with a light breeze again right aft; the old +trade again. Yesterday a large shark paid us a visit, with +his suite of three pretty little pilot-fish, striped like zebras, +who swam just over his back. He tried on a sailor’s +cap which fell overboard, tossed it away contemptuously, snuffed +at the fat pork with which a hook was baited, and would none of +it, and finally ate the fresh sheep-skin which the butcher had in +tow to clean it, previous to putting it away as a +perquisite. It is a beautiful fish in shape and very +graceful in motion.</p> +<p>To-day a barque from Algoa Bay came close to us, and talked +with the speaking trumpet. She was a pretty, clipper-built, +sharp-looking craft, but had made a slower run even than +ourselves. I dare say we shall have her company for a long +time, as she is bound for St. Helena and London. My poor +goat died suddenly the other day, to the general grief of the +ship; also one of the tortoises. The poor consumptive lad +is wonderfully better. But all the passengers were very +sick during the rough weather, except S— and I, who are +quite old salts. Last week we saw a young whale, a baby, +about thirty feet long, and had a good view of him as he played +round the ship. We shall probably be at St. Helena on +Wednesday, but I cannot write from thence, as, if there is time, +I shall get a run on shore while the ship takes in water. +But this letter will tell you of my well-being so far, and in +about six weeks after the date of it I hope to be with you. +I hope you won’t expect too much in the way of improvement +in my health. I look forward, oh, so eagerly, to be with +you again, and with my brats, big and little. God bless you +all.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">Yours ever,<br /> +L. D. G.</p> +<p><i>Wednesday</i>, 28<i>th</i>.—Early morning, off St. +Helena, James Town.</p> +<p>Such a lovely <i>unreal</i> view of the bold rocks and +baby-house forts on them! Ship close in. Washer-woman +come on board, and all hurry.</p> +<p><i>Au revoir</i>.</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> +<p><a name="footnote27"></a><a href="#citation27" +class="footnote">[27]</a> A lane near Esher.</p> +<p><a name="footnote30"></a><a href="#citation30" +class="footnote">[30]</a> Near Walton-on-Thames.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS FROM THE CAPE***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 886-h.htm or 886-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/8/8/886 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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