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diff --git a/886-0.txt b/886-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3db9c52 --- /dev/null +++ b/886-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3961 @@ +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: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS FROM THE CAPE*** + + +Transcribed from the 1921 Humphrey Milford edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org. Second proof by Margaret Price. + + + + + + LETTERS + FROM THE + CAPE + + + BY + + LADY DUFF GORDON + + Edited by + + JOHN PURVES + + * * * * * + + LONDON + + HUMPHREY MILFORD + + 1921 + + * * * * * + + PRINTED IN ENGLAND + AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS + + + + +EDITOR’S FOREWORD + + +IF 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 _Vacation Tourists_, 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 _Last Letters from Egypt_, 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 the Cape. Few books of their class +have better deserved reprinting. + +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. + +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 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 _A Mattrass +Grave_ than in the moving narrative of Lady Duff Gordon herself, on which +the story is based. + +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 +_engelsche hoogmoedigheid_ 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 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 _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 ‘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.’ + +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. ‘I had never—she said—been out of the city of +Berlin and knew nothing.’ She spoke of the natives as well-bred +(_anständig_), and Lady Duff Gordon’s comment is: ‘The use of the word +was characteristic. She could recognize an _Anständigkeit_ 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. + +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. + + J. P. + + + + +INTRODUCTORY + + +THE 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. + +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. + +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. + +But this was not the strongest motive to their publication. + +The tone of English travellers is too frequently 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. + +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. + +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 are to be found hearts that open to every touch of kindness, +and respond to every expression of respect and sympathy. + +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. + + SARAH AUSTIN. + +WEYBRIDGE, + _Feb._ 24, 1864. + + + + +LETTER I +THE VOYAGE + + + Wednesday, 24th July. + Off the Scilly Isles, 6 P.M. + +WHEN 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. + +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 _borachio_, essence of tar; so that tea and +coffee are but derisive names. + +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. + +29_th_ _July_, 4 _Bells_, i.e. 2 _o’clock_, _p.m._—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. + +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. + +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. + +3_d_ _Aug._—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. + +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 _ad nauseam_ of both. + +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, ‘_hide +droghing_’ with Dana, and he says every line of _Two Years before the +Mast_ 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 ‘_aux petits soins_’. 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. + +9_th_ _Aug._—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. + +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. + +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. + +17_th_ _Aug._—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’. + +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 _amorini_, 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. + +30_th_ _August_.—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 _soft_ N.E., after a _bitter_ 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. + +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; _on_ the Line +at 74°; and at sea it _feels_ 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 _fiery_ 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. + +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. + +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 +_blasé_ 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. + +Then the mortal perils of eating, drinking, moving, sitting, lying; +standing can’t be done, even by the sailors, without holding on. _The_ +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. + +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.’ + +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.’ + + Cape Town, Sept. 18. + +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 _gazouillement_, 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!’ + +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. + +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. + +My landlady is Dutch; the waiter is an Africander, half Dutch, half +Malay, very handsome, and exactly like a French gentleman, and as civil. + +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 _dear_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +_Friday_.—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. + + + + +LETTER II + + + Cape Town, Oct. 3. + +I CAME 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. + +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, {27} 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _Engelsche hoog-moedigheid_. + +_Oct._ 19_th_.—The packet came in last night, but just in time to save +the fine of 50_l._ 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 _is_ 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. + +A few days ago, I drove to Mr. V—’s farm. Imagine St. George’s Hill, +{30} 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. + +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. + +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.’ + +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. + +The sun, moon, and stars are different beings from those we look upon. +Not only are they so large and bright, but you _see_ that the moon and +stars are _balls_, 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. + +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. + +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 ‘_caressants_’. They sit on my +breakfast tray and catch flies, and hang in a bunch by their tails, and +reach out after my hand. + +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. + +_Oct._ 21_st._—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. + + Yours, &c. + + + + +LETTER III + + +28_th_ _Oct._—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 _there were none_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _fête_, 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 ‘_hoog eerbare +moeder_’ 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. + +_Rathfelder’s Halfway House_, 6_th_ _November_.—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_s._ a month, besides food for himself and wife, and beer and sugar. +The two (white) housemaids get £1 15_s._ and £1 10_s._ respectively +(everything by the month). Fresh butter is 3_s._ 6_d._ a pound, mutton +7_d._; washing very dear; cabbages my host sells at 3_d._ a piece, and +pumpkins 8_d._ He has a fine garden, and pays a gardener 3_s._ 6_d._ a +day, and black labourers 2_s._ _They_ 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. + +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. + +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_s._ 6_d._ to 10_s._ a +day. The Malays also have almost a monopoly of cart-hiring and +horse-keeping; an Englishman charges £4 10_s._ or £5 for a carriage to do +what a Malay will do quicker in a light cart for 30_s._ 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. + +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 _poitrinaires_ 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 _dry_ 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. + +_Simon’s Bay_, 18_th_ _Nov._—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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +You will get this about the new year. God bless you all, and send us +better days in 1862. + + + + +LETTER IV +JOURNEY TO CALEDON + + + Caledon, Dec. 10th. + +I DID 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 _possible_ +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_s._ 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. + +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. + +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 _au natural_, 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). + +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 _en suite_. The rooms +I saw were large and airy; but mud floors, white-washed walls, one chair, +one stump bedstead, and _præterea nihil_. 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. + +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. + +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 _all_ 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. + +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 +_table d’hôte_ at seven for travellers. I pay only 10_s._ 6_d._ 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. + +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_s._ 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 _soupçon_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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_s._ 6_d._ 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. + +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 +‘_abentheuerlich_’; 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. + +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 _shrivelled_ 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, _selon_ 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. + +Harvest is now going on, and the so-called Hottentots are earning 2_s._ +6_d._ 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. + +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. + +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 _en route_ for Capetown. + + + + +LETTER V +CALEDON + + + Caledon, Dec. 29th. + +I AM 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 _hot_ day we have had—and I could not make it out at +all, or fancy you all cold at home. + +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 _chef lieu_ of a district the size of +one-third of England. A civil commander resides here, a sort of +_préfet_; 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. + +The other day, while we sat at dinner, all the bells began to ring +furiously, and Capt. D— jumped up and shouted ‘_Brand_!’ (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 +_sloot_, 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. + +How the cattle live is a standing marvel to me. The whole _veld_ +(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 _rhenoster-bosch_—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 _skidded_ 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. + +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 _zolder_ 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. + +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 _naïf_, +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 _want_ +(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. + +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 _au sérieux_, 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. + +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. + +_Jan._ 3_d._—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 _screeching_ 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. + +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. + +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’! + +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 _coup de soleil_ 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. + +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 _tableaux vivants_, after +Murillo’s beggar-boys. + +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 _sotto voce_. 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 _wrong_ 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 _for fun_ +(the blacks and Hottentots copy the white man’s manners _to them_, 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. + +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 _had been_ 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, _sans désemparer_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +_January_ 7_th_.—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 _must_ +cease soon. In Table Bay, I hear a good deal of mischief has been done +to the shipping. + +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. + +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. + +_January_ 15_th_.—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. + +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 _crooned_ 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!) + +Hottentot figs are rather nice—a green fig-shaped thing, containing about +a spoonful of _salt-sweet_ 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 _red_ 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. + +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; _very_ 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. + +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 _conversazione_ 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! + +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. + +_January_ 17_th_.—Lovely weather all the week. Summer well set in. + + + + +LETTER VI +CALEDON + + + Caledon, January 19th. + +DEAREST MOTHER, + +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’ (_Wait a bit_), 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 _tubbed_, 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 _air_ 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. + +I like this inn-life, because I see all the ‘neighbourhood’—farmers and +traders—whom I like far better than the _gentility_ of Capetown. I have +given letters to England to a ‘boer’, who is ‘going home’, i.e. to +Europe, the _first of his race since the revocation of the Edict of +Nantes_, when some poor refugees were inveigled hither by the Dutch +Governor, and oppressed worse than the Hottentots. M. de Villiers has +had no education _at all_, 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, ‘_Monsieur vient +d’arriver_?’ 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 _called_ ‘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. + +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 _his_ ‘_boy_’ 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’. + +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 _good_ 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. + +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 _decies +repetita_. All being new and curious to the eye here, one becomes +long-winded about mere trifles. + +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 ‘_objets_’—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 +_duchesse_ 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 +_missionarized_ 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. + +This climate is evidently a styptic of great power, I shall write a few +lines to the _Lancet_ 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; _they_ are +everywhere. I look the colour of a Hottentot. Now I _must_ leave off. + + Your most affectionate + L. D. G. + + + + +LETTER VII +GNADENTHAL + + + Caledon, Jan. 28th. + +WELL, 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 _galloping out_ 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 _ci-devant_ slave, one Christian Rietz, a _white_ man, +with brown woolly hair, sharp features, grey eyes, and _not_ 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 _father_ 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 _so_ +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 _across_ the rafters, and bound together +between each, with transverse bamboo—a pretty _beehivey_ 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. + +But first I must tell what struck me most, I asked one of the Herrenhut +brethren whether there were any _real_ 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 _last_ 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. + +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 _quite_ 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. + +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. + +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; _all_ 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 _very +best_ English poor. + +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 ‘_trotzig_’. 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. + +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 _always_ 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. + +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. + +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 _very_ 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. + +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. _My mother was only a slave_.’ +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. + +Well, I have prosed unconscionably, so adieu for the present. + +_February_ 3_d_.—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_l._ a month. + +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. + +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 ‘. + +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 _marriage_ 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 _really_ 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. + +_Sunday_, 9_th_.—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 +_vinous_; 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! + +_February_ 18_th_.—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 _can be_, 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. + +_February_ 19_th_.—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. + +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. + +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. + +Old Klein has just sent me a haunch of bok, and the skin and hoofs, which +are pretty. + + + + +LETTER VIII + + + Caledon, Sunday. + +YOU must have fallen into second childhood to think of _printing_ 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 _you_ 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. + +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 _Togt_’ (_German_, _Tausch_), 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. _En route_ home, each +day they kill a sheep, and eat it _all_. ‘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.’ _Je n’en revenais pas_. ‘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_l._ 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.’ + +Tell my mother that a man would get from 2_l._ to 4_l._ a month wages, +with board, lodging, &c., all found, and his wife from 1_l._ 10_s._ to +2_l._ a month and everything found, according to abilities and +testimonials. Wages are enormous, and servants at famine price; emigrant +ships are _cleared off_ 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 _only_ 1_l._ 5_s._ a month, but told me herself she had taken 8_l._ +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 _working_ man or woman can thrive here. + +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. + +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!’ + + + + +LETTER IX + + + Caledon, Feb. 21st. + +THIS 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 ‘_vidanges_’ 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 _Saturday +Reviews_ 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. + +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 +_belong to_.’ 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 _we_ 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. + +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 _married at +church_ has not had a good effect, and that his neighbours may quote Mr. +Peachum. + +I was offered a young lion yesterday, but I hardly think it would be an +agreeable addition to the household at Esher. + +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 _light_ +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _look_ 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. + + + + +LETTER X + + + Caledon, Feb. 22d. + +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. + +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. + +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 _are +gentlefolks_ of the good dull old school, and the English colonists can +scarcely suit them. In the few instances in which I have succeeded in +_thawing_ 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 _they_ 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. + +27_th_.—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_l._, 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 _remplaçant_, 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 ‘_my_ missis’ when they know one, +which is very nice to hear. It is getting quite chilly here already; +_cold_ night and morning; and I shall be glad to descend off this plateau +into the warmer regions of Worcester, &c. I have just bought _eight_ +splendid ostrich feathers for 1_l._ 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. + + Worcester, Sunday, March 2d. + +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. + +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. + +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 _pounded_, 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 _wet_ 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 _are_ 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 _en +route_ 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. + +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’ (_burnt_ 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 +_not_ 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. + +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 _childhood_—_si vous voulez_. To-morrow we shall cross +the highest pass I have yet crossed, and sleep at Paarl—then +Stellenbosch, then Capetown. For any one _out_ of health, and _in_ +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. + + Capetown, March 7th. + +After writing last, we drove out, on Sunday afternoon, to a deep alpine +valley, to see a _new bridge_—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. + +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 _perfect_, as +hers were, the coffee-brown shows it better than our colour, on account +of its perfect _evenness_—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. + +On Monday morning, I walked off early to the old _Drosdy_ (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 +_beauty_ 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 +_domes_, 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_s._’ 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 +_intensely_ green, and the houses snow-white. It was a +transfiguration—no less. + +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. + +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 _is_ 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_l._ 3_s._ 6_d._ for the same meals and +time as old Vrow Langfeldt had charged 12_s._ 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. + +I gave Sabaal 1_l._ 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. + + March 15. + +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. + +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. + +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 +_familiarly_ to their children on board. _Quel audace_! When I think of +the excellent, modest, manly young fellows who talked very familiarly and +pleasantly to me on board the _St. Lawrence_, I long to reprimand these +foolish people. + +_Friday_, 21_st_.—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. + +I have just heard that the post closes to-night and must say farewell—_a +rivederci_. + + + + +LETTER XI + + + Capetown, March 20th. + +DEAREST MOTHER, + +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!’ _Sie merken’s nicht_, that it is _they_ who are +dull. + +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. + +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 _wunderlich_ for +that. A lady born here, and with 7,000_l._ 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. + +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—_sans que celà paraisse_. It feels +chilly and it blows horridly, and does not seem genial, but it gives new +life. + +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. + +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 _slowest_, 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—_Auf frohes Wiedersehn_. + + + + +LETTER XII + + + Capetown, Sunday, March 23d. + +IT has been a _real_ 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. + +_April_ 4_th_.—I have been trying in vain to get a passage home. The +_Camperdown_ 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. + +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 _à tue tête_. Priests, men, women, and English crowded in +and out in the exterior division. The English behaved _à +l’Anglaise_—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 _soirée_. 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 _three years_ 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 +_demonstration_ 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. + +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. + +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 ‘_unto damnation_’. 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. + +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. + +_April_ 8_th_.—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 _not_ +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. + +_April_ 15_th_.—Your letters arrived yesterday, to my great delight. I +have been worrying about a ship, and was very near sailing to-day by the +_Queen of the South_ at twenty-four hours’ notice, but I have resolved to +wait for the _Camperdown_. The _Queen of the South_ 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 _Camperdown_ 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. + +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. + +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 _all over_ 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. ‘_The people_ 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 ‘_human_’, in the German sense of the word, +in all respects;—in short, less ‘colonial’. + +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. + +_April_ 17_th_.—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. + +_Monday_, _April_ 21_st_, _Easter Monday_.—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 _fine_ +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. + +Well, I must say good-bye—or rather, ‘_auf Wiedersehn_’—and God knows how +glad I shall be when that day comes! + + + + +LETTER XIII + + + Capetown, April 19th. + +DEAREST MOTHER, + +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 _very_ 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 _Mussulwomen_. +I never heard a _naïf_ and sincere account of conversions _from_ +Christianity before, and I must own it was much milder than the Exeter +Hall style. + +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. + +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 _Camperdown_ is expected with rice from +Moulmein. A lady now here, who has been Heaven only knows _where not_, +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. + +I have run on, and not thanked you for your letter and M. Mignet’s +beautiful _éloge_ of Mr. Hallam, which pleased me greatly. I wish +Englishmen could learn to speak with the same good taste and _mésure_. + +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 _Jason_, 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. + +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 _too_ well-behaved and quiet. I tried to get a real +‘_tottie_’, or ‘Hotentotje’, but the people were too drunk to remember +where they had left their child. _C’est assez dire_, 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. + +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 +_click_, 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’. + +The Farnese Hercules is a living _truth_. 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. + +_Easter Sunday_.—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. + +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 _soon enough_ recovers, but for people far gone it is too +bracing. + + + + +LETTER XIV + + + Capetown, Saturday, May 3d. + +DEAREST MOTHER, + +After five weeks of waiting and worry, I have, at last, sent my goods on +board the ship _Camperdown_, 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 +_Camperdown_ 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. + +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 _Arabian Nights_, from Arabic into Malay. +Her husband is an Indian Mussulman, who, Mr. M— said, was one of the +ablest men he ever knew. Curious! + +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 _Ansicht_ natural to Germans. ‘I had never’, she +said, ‘been out of the city of Berlin, and _knew nothing_.’ (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 (_anständig_), though they go as naked +as God made them. The girls are pretty and very delicate (_fein_), 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 _anständig_ and _fein_ by a woman who +spoke very good German were characteristic. She could recognise an +‘_Anständigkeit_’ _not_ 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’. + +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. + +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. + +Mr. J— drove me to the Capetown races, at Green Point, on Friday. As +races, they were _nichts_, 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 _en famille_; 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;—_du reste_, +if you look at blacks of any age or sex, they _must_ 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 +_a passé par là_. 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, _ci-devant_ 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. + +_Thursday_, May 8_th_.—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. + +S— says we certainly _shall_ 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 _such_ 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—. + +Good-bye, dearest mother. + + * * * * * + +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. + + + + +LETTER XV + + + Capetown, Thursday, May 8th. + +AT last, after no end of ‘casus’ and ‘discrimina rerum’, I shall sail on +Saturday the 10th, per ship _Camperdown_, for East India Docks. + +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 _next_. 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. + +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. + +God bless you all, and kiss my darlings, all three. + + + + +LETTER XVI + + + Friday, May 16th. + On board the good ship _Camperdown_, + 500 miles North-west of Table-Bay. + +I EMBARKED 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, _quorum pars maxima +fuit_; i.e. Colonel. It was quite what the Yankees call an ‘ovation’. +The ship was all decked with flags, and altogether there was _le diable à +quatre_. The consequence was, that three signals went adrift in the +scuffle; and when a Frenchman signalled us, we had to pass for _brutaux +Anglais_, 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.’ + +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 _Camperdown does_ roll like an honest old ‘wholesome’ tub as she is. +It is quite a _bonne fortune_ 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 +_ne plus ultra_ 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! + +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. + +We see no Cape pigeons; they only visit outward ships—is not that +strange?—but, _en revanche_, many more albatrosses than in coming; and we +also enjoy the advantage of seeing all the homeward-bound ships, as they +all _pass_ 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 _Camperdown_ 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. + +_Monday Evening_, May 26_th_.—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. + +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. + + Yours ever, + L. D. G. + +_Wednesday_, 28_th_.—Early morning, off St. Helena, James Town. + +Such a lovely _unreal_ view of the bold rocks and baby-house forts on +them! Ship close in. Washer-woman come on board, and all hurry. + +_Au revoir_. + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{27} A lane near Esher. + +{30} Near Walton-on-Thames. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS FROM THE CAPE*** + + +******* This file should be named 886-0.txt or 886-0.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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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