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diff --git a/old/lddfg10h.htm b/old/lddfg10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..67885a4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/lddfg10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3621 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Letters from the Cape</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Letters from the Cape, by Lady Duff Gordon</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Letters from the Cape, by Lady Duff Gordon + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Letters from the Cape + +Author: Lady Duff Gordon + +Release Date: April, 1997 [EBook #886] +[This file was first posted on April 24, 1997] +[Most recently updated: May 11, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1921 edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk. Second proof by Margaret Price.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h1>LETTERS FROM THE CAPE</h1> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h2>LETTER I—THE VOYAGE</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Wednesday, 24th July.<br />Off the Scilly Isles, 6 P.M.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Life is thus:- Avery—my cuddy boy—brings tea for S-, +and milk for me, at six. S- turns out; when she is dressed, I +turn out, and sing out for Avery, who takes down my cot, and brings +a bucket of salt water, in which I wash with vast danger and difficulty; +get dressed, and go on deck at eight. Ladies not allowed there +earlier. Breakfast solidly at nine. Deck again; gossip; +pretend to read. Beer and biscuit at twelve. The faithful +Avery brings mine on deck. Dinner at four. Do a little carpentering +in cabin, all the outfitters’ work having broken loose. +I am now in the captain’s cabin, writing. We have the wind +as ever, dead against us; and as soon as we get unpleasantly near Scilly, +we shall tack and stand back to the French coast, where we were last +night. Three soldiers able to answer roll-call, all the rest utterly +sick; three middies helpless. Several of crew, ditto. Passengers +very fairly plucky; but only I and one other woman, who never was at +sea before, well. The food on board our ship is good as to meat, +bread, and beer; everything else bad. Port and sherry of British +manufacture, and the water with an incredible <i>borachio</i>, essence +of tar; so that tea and coffee are but derisive names.</p> +<p>To-day, the air is quite saturated with wet, and I put on my clothes +damp when I dressed, and have felt so ever since. I am so glad +I was not persuaded out of my cot; it is the whole difference between +rest, and holding on for life. No one in a bunk slept at all on +Monday night; but then it blew as heavy a gale as it can blow, and we +had the Cornish coast under our lee. So we tacked and tumbled +all night. The ship being new, too, has the rigging all wrong; +and the confusion and disorder are beyond description. The ship’s +officers are very good fellows. The mizen is entirely worked by +the ‘young gentlemen’; so we never see the sailors, and, +at present, are not allowed to go forward. All lights are put +out at half-past ten, and no food allowed in the cabin; but the latter +article my friend Avery makes light of, and brings me anything when +I am laid up. The young soldier-officers bawl for him with expletives; +but he says, with a snigger, to me, ‘They’ll just wait till +their betters, the ladies, is looked to.’ I will write again +some day soon, and take the chance of meeting a ship; you may be amused +by a little scrawl, though it will probably be very stupid and ill-written, +for it is not easy to see or to guide a pen while I hold on to the table +with both legs and one arm, and am first on my back and then on my nose. +Adieu, till next time. I have had a good taste of the humours +of the Channel.</p> +<p>29th 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.</p> +<p>The children swarm on board, and cry unceasingly. A passenger-ship +is no place for children. Our poor ship will lose her character +by the weather, as she cannot fetch up ten days’ lost time. +But she is evidently a race-horse. We overhaul everything we see, +at a wonderful rate, and the speed is exciting and pleasant; but the +next long voyage I make, I’ll try for a good wholesome old ‘monthly’ +tub, which will roll along on the top of the water, instead of cutting +through it, with the waves curling in at the cuddy skylights. +We tried to signal a barque yesterday, and send home word ‘all +well’; but the brutes understood nothing but Russian, and excited +our indignation by talking ‘gibberish ‘ to us; which we +resented with true British spirit, as became us.</p> +<p>It is now blowing hard again, and we have just been taken right aback. +Luckily, I had lashed my desk to my washing-stand, or that would have +flown off, as I did off my chair. I don’t think I shall +know what to make of solid ground under my feet. The rolling and +pitching of a ship of this size, with such tall masts, is quite unlike +the little niggling sort of work on a steamer—it is the difference +between grinding along a bad road in a four-wheeler, and riding well +to hounds in a close country on a good hunter. I was horribly +tired for about five days, but now I rather like it, and never know +whether it blows or not in the night, I sleep so soundly. The +noise is beyond all belief; the creaking, trampling, shouting, clattering; +it is an incessant storm. We have not yet got our masts quite +safe; the new wire-rigging stretches more than was anticipated (of course), +and our main-topmast is shaky. The crew have very hard work, as +incessant tacking is added to all the extra work incident to a new ship. +On Saturday morning, everybody was shouting for the carpenter. +My cabin was flooded by a leak, and I superintended the baling and swabbing +from my cot, and dressed sitting on my big box. However, I got +the leak stopped and cabin dried, and no harm done, as I had put everything +up off the floor the night before, suspicious of a dribble which came +in. Then my cot frame was broken by my cuddy boy and I lurching +over against S-’s bunk, in taking it down. The carpenter +has given me his own, and takes my broken one for himself. Board +ship is a famous place for tempers. Being easily satisfied, I +get all I want, and plenty of attention and kindness; but I cannot prevail +on my cuddy boy to refrain from violent tambourine-playing with a tin +tray just at the ear of a lady who worries him. The young soldier-officers, +too, I hear mentioned as ‘them lazy gunners’, and they struggle +for water and tea in the morning long after mine has come. We +have now been ten days at sea, and only three on which we could eat +without the ‘fiddles’ (transverse pieces of wood to prevent +the dishes from falling off). Smooth water will seem quite strange +to me. I fear the poor people in the forecastle must be very wet +and miserable, as the sea is constantly over it, not in spray, but in +tons of green water.</p> +<p>3d 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.</p> +<p>Last night we got all right, and spread out immense studding-sails. +We are now bowling along, wind right aft, dipping our studding-sail +booms into the water at every roll. The weather is still surprisingly +cold, though very fine, and I have to come below quite early, out of +the evening air. The sun sets before seven o’clock. +I still cough a good deal, and the bad food and drink are trying. +But the life is very enjoyable; and as I have the run of the charts, +and ask all sorts of questions, I get plenty of amusement. S- +is an excellent traveller; no grumbling, and no gossiping, which, on +board a ship like ours, is a great merit, for there is <i>ad nauseam</i> +of both.</p> +<p>Mr.—is writing a charade, in which I have agreed to take a +part, to prevent squabbling. He wanted to start a daily paper, +but the captain wisely forbade it, as it must have led to personalities +and quarrels, and suggested a play instead. My little white Maltese +goat is very well, and gives plenty of milk, which is a great resource, +as the tea and coffee are abominable. Avery brings it me at six, +in a tin pannikin, and again in the evening. The chief officer +is well-bred and agreeable, and, indeed, all the young gentlemen are +wonderfully good specimens of their class. The captain is a burly +foremast man in manner, with a heart of wax and every feeling of a gentleman. +He was in California, ‘<i>hide droghing</i>’ with Dana, +and he says every line of <i>Two Years</i> <i>before the Mast</i> is +true. He went through it all himself. He says that I am +a great help to him, as a pattern of discipline and punctuality. +People are much inclined to miss meals, and then want things at odd +hours, and make the work quite impossible to the cook and servants. +Of course, I get all I want in double-quick time, as I try to save my +man trouble; and the carpenter leaves my scuttle open when no one else +gets it, quite willing to get up in his time of sleep to close it, if +it comes on to blow. A maid is really a superfluity on board ship, +as the men rather like being ‘<i>aux petits soins</i>’. +The boatswain came the other day to say that he had a nice carpet and +a good pillow; did I want anything of the sort? He would be proud +that I should use anything of his. You would delight in Avery, +my cuddy man, who is as quick as ‘greased lightning’, and +full of fun. His misery is my want of appetite, and his efforts +to cram me are very droll. The days seem to slip away, one can’t +tell how. I sit on deck from breakfast at nine, till dinner at +four, and then again till it gets cold, and then to bed. We are +now about 100 miles from Madeira, and shall have to run inside it, as +we were thrown so far out of our course by the foul weather.</p> +<p>9th Aug.—Becalmed, under a vertical sun. Lat. 17 degrees, +or thereabouts. We saw Madeira at a distance like a cloud; since +then, we had about four days trade wind, and then failing or contrary +breezes. We have sailed so near the African shore that we get +little good out of the trades, and suffer much from the African climate. +Fancy a sky like a pale February sky in London, no sun to be seen, and +a heat coming, one can’t tell from whence. To-day, the sun +is vertical and invisible, the sea glassy and heaving. I have +been ill again, and obliged to lie still yesterday and the day before +in the captain’s cabin; to-day in my own, as we have the ports +open, and the maindeck is cooler than the upper. The men have +just been holystoning here, singing away lustily in chorus. Last +night I got leave to sling my cot under the main hatchway, as my cabin +must have killed me from suffocation when shut up. Most of the +men stayed on deck, but that is dangerous after sunset on this African +coast, on account of the heavy dew and fever. They tell me that +the open sea is quite different; certainly, nothing can look duller +and dimmer than this specimen of the tropics. The few days of +trade wind were beautiful and cold, with sparkling sea, and fresh air +and bright sun; and we galloped along merrily.</p> +<p>We are now close to the Cape de Verd Islands, and shall go inside +them. About lat. 4 degrees N. we expect to catch the S.E. trade +wind, when it will be cold again. In lat. 24 degrees, the day +before we entered the tropics, I sat on deck in a coat and cloak; the +heat is quite sudden, and only lasts a week or so. The sea to-day +is littered all round the ship with our floating rubbish, so we have +not moved at all.</p> +<p>I constantly long for you to be here, though I am not sure you would +like the life as well as I do. All your ideas of it are wrong; +the confinement to the poop and the stringent regulations would bore +you. But then, sitting on deck in fine weather is pleasure enough, +without anything else. In a Queen’s ship, a yacht, or a +merchantman with fewer passengers, it must be a delightful existence.</p> +<p>17th 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’.</p> +<p>Next day we got light wind S.W. (which ought to be the S.E. trades), +and the weather has been, beyond all description, lovely ever since. +Cool, but soft, sunny and bright—in short, perfect; only the sky +is so pale. Last night the sunset was a vision of loveliness, +a sort of Pompadour paradise; the sky seemed full of rose-crowned <i>amorini</i>, +and the moon wore a rose-coloured veil of bright pink cloud, all so +light, so airy, so brilliant, and so fleeting, that it was a kind of +intoxication. It is far less grand than northern colour, but so +lovely, so shiny. Then the flying fish skimmed like silver swallows +over the blue water. Such a sight! Also, I saw a whale spout +like a very tiny garden fountain. The Southern Cross is a delusion, +and the tropical moon no better than a Parisian one, at present. +We are now in lat. 31 degrees about, and have been driven halfway to +Rio by this sweet southern breeze. I have never yet sat on deck +without a cloth jacket or shawl, and the evenings are chilly. +I no longer believe in tropical heat at sea. Even during the calm +it was not so hot as I have often felt it in England—and that, +under a vertical sun. The ship that nearly ran us and herself +down, must have kept no look-out, and refused to answer our hail. +She is supposed to be from Glasgow by her looks. We may speak +a ship and send letters on board; so excuse scrawl and confusion, it +is so difficult to write at all.</p> +<p>30th August.—About 25 degrees S. lat. and very much to the +west. We have had all sorts of weather—some beautiful, some +very rough, but always contrary winds—and got within 200 miles +of the coast of South America. We now have a milder breeze from +the <i>soft</i> N.E., after a <i>bitter</i> S.W., with Cape pigeons +and mollymawks (a small albatross), not to compare with our gulls. +We had private theatricals last night—ill acted, but beautifully +got up as far as the sailors were concerned. I did not act, as +I did not feel well enough, but I put a bit for Neptune into the Prologue +and made the boatswain’s mate speak it, to make up for the absence +of any shaving at the Line, which the captain prohibited altogether; +I thought it hard the men should not get their ‘tips’. +The boatswain’s mate dressed and spoke it admirably; and the old +carpenter sang a famous comic song, dressed to perfection as a ploughboy.</p> +<p>I am disappointed in the tropics as to warmth. Our thermometer +stood at 82 degrees one day only, under the vertical sun, N. of the +Line; <i>on</i> the Line at 74 degrees; and at sea it <i>feels</i> 10 +degrees colder than it is. I have never been hot, except for two +days 4 degrees N. of the Line, and now it is very cold, but it is very +invigorating. All day long it looks and feels like early morning; +the sky is pale blue, with light broken clouds; the sea an inconceivably +pure opaque blue—lapis lazuli, but far brighter. I saw a +lovely dolphin three days ago; his body five feet long (some said more) +is of a <i>fiery</i> blue-green, and his huge tail golden bronze. +I was glad he scorned the bait and escaped the hook; he was so beautiful. +This is the sea from which Venus rose in her youthful glory. All +is young, fresh, serene, beautiful, and cheerful.</p> +<p>We have not seen a sail for weeks. But the life at sea makes +amends for anything, to my mind. I am never tired of the calms, +and I enjoy a stiff gale like a Mother Carey’s chicken, so long +as I can be on deck or in the captain’s cabin. Between decks +it is very close and suffocating in rough weather, as all is shut up. +We shall be still three weeks before we reach the Cape; and now the +sun sets with a sudden plunge before six, and the evenings are growing +too cold again for me to go on deck after dinner. As long as I +could, I spent fourteen hours out of the twenty-four in my quiet corner +by the wheel, basking in the tropical sun. Never again will I +believe in the tales of a burning sun; the vertical sun just kept me +warm—no more. In two days we shall be bitterly cold again.</p> +<p>Immediately after writing the above it began to blow a gale (favourable, +indeed, but more furious than the captain had ever known in these seas),—about +lat. 34 degrees S. and long. 25 degrees. For three days we ran +under close-reefed (four reefs) topsails, before a sea. The gale +in the Bay of Biscay was a little shaking up in a puddle (a dirty one) +compared to that glorious South Atlantic in all its majestic fury. +The intense blue waves, crowned with fantastic crests of bright emeralds +and with the spray blowing about like wild dishevelled hair, came after +us to swallow us up at a mouthful, but took us up on their backs, and +hurried us along as if our ship were a cork. Then the gale slackened, +and we had a dead calm, during which the waves banged us about frightfully, +and our masts were in much jeopardy. Then a foul wind, S.E., increased +into a gale, lasting five days, during which orders were given in dumb +show, as no one’s voice could be heard; through it we fought and +laboured and dipped under water, and I only had my dry corner by the +wheel, where the kind pleasant little third officer lashed me tight. +It was far more formidable than the first gale, but less beautiful; +and we made so much lee-way that we lost ten days, and only arrived +here yesterday. I recommend a fortnight’s heavy gale in +the South Atlantic as a cure for a <i>blasé</i> state of mind. +It cannot be described; the sound, the sense of being hurled along without +the smallest regard to ‘this side uppermost’; the beauty +of the whole scene, and the occasional crack and bear-away of sails +and spars; the officer trying to ‘sing out’, quite in vain, +and the boatswain’s whistle scarcely audible. I remained +near the wheel every day for as long as I could bear it, and was enchanted.</p> +<p>Then the mortal perils of eating, drinking, moving, sitting, lying; +standing can’t be done, even by the sailors, without holding on. +<i>The</i> night of the gale, my cot twice touched the beams of the +ship above me. I asked the captain if I had dreamt it, but he +said it was quite possible; he had never seen a ship so completely on +her beam ends come up all right, masts and yards all sound.</p> +<p>There is a middy about half M-’s size, a very tiny ten-year-older, +who has been my delight; he is so completely ‘the officer and +the gentleman’. My maternal entrails turned like old Alvarez, +when that baby lay out on the very end of the cross-jack yard to reef, +in the gale; it was quite voluntary, and the other newcomers all declined. +I always called him ‘Mr. -, sir’, and asked his leave gravely, +or, on occasions, his protection and assistance; and his little dignity +was lovely. He is polite to the ladies, and slightly distant to +the passenger-boys, bigger than himself, whom he orders off dangerous +places; ‘Children, come out of that; you’ll be overboard.’</p> +<p>A few days before landing I caught a bad cold, and kept my bed. +I caught this cold by ‘sleeping with a damp man in my cabin’, +as some one said. During the last gale, the cabin opposite mine +was utterly swamped, and I found the Irish soldier-servant of a little +officer of eighteen in despair; the poor lad had got ague, and eight +inches of water in his bed, and two feet in the cabin. I looked +in and said, ‘He can’t stay there—carry him into my +cabin, and lay him in the bunk’; which he did, with tears running +down his honest old face. So we got the boy into S-’s bed, +and cured his fever and ague, caught under canvas in Romney Marsh. +Meantime S- had to sleep in a chair and to undress in the boy’s +wet cabin. As a token of gratitude, he sent me a poodle pup, born +on board, very handsome. The artillery officers were generally +well-behaved; the men, deserters and ruffians, sent out as drivers. +We have had five courts-martial and two floggings in eight weeks, among +seventy men. They were pampered with food and porter, and would +not pull a rope, or get up at six to air their quarters. The sailors +are an excellent set of men. When we parted, the first lieutenant +said to me, ‘Weel, ye’ve a wonderful idee of discipline +for a leddy, I will say. You’ve never been reported but +once, and that was on sick leave, for your light, and all in order.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Cape Town, Sept. 18.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>We anchored yesterday morning, and Captain J-, the Port Captain, +came off with a most kind letter from Sir Baldwin Walker, his gig, and +a boat and crew for S- and the baggage. So I was whipped over +the ship’s side in a chair, and have come to a boarding house +where the J-s live. I was tired and dizzy and landsick, and lay +down and went to sleep. After an hour or so I woke, hearing a +little <i>gazouillement</i>, like that of chimney swallows. On +opening my eyes I beheld four demons, ‘sons of the obedient Jinn’, +each bearing an article of furniture, and holding converse over me in +the language of Nephelecoecygia. Why has no one ever mentioned +the curious little soft voices of these coolies?—you can’t +hear them with the naked ear, three feet off. The most hideous +demon (whose complexion had not only the colour, but the precise metallic +lustre of an ill black-leaded stove) at last chirruped a wish for orders, +which I gave. I asked the pert, active, cockney housemaid what +I ought to pay them, as, being a stranger, they might overcharge me. +Her scorn was sublime, ‘Them nasty blacks never asks more than +their regular charge.’ So I asked the black-lead demon, +who demanded ‘two shilling each horse in waggon’, and a +dollar each ‘coolie man’. He then glided with fiendish +noiselessness about the room, arranged the furniture to his own taste, +and finally said, ‘Poor missus sick’; then more chirruping +among themselves, and finally a fearful gesture of incantation, accompanied +by ‘God bless poor missus. Soon well now’. The +wrath of the cockney housemaid became majestic: ‘There, ma’am; +you see how saucy they have grown—a nasty black heathen Mohamedan +a blessing of a white Christian!’</p> +<p>These men are the Auvergnats of Africa. I was assured that +bankers entrust them with large sums in gold, which they carry some +hundred and twenty miles, by unknown tracks, for a small gratuity. +The pretty, graceful Malays are no honester than ourselves, but are +excellent workmen.</p> +<p>To-morrow, my linen will go to a ravine in the giant mountain at +my back, and there be scoured in a clear spring by brown women, bleached +on the mountain top, and carried back all those long miles on their +heads, as it went up.</p> +<p>My landlady is Dutch; the waiter is an Africander, half Dutch, half +Malay, very handsome, and exactly like a French gentleman, and as civil.</p> +<p>Enter ‘Africander’ lad with a nosegay; only one flower +that I know—heliotrope. The vegetation is lovely; the freshness +of spring and the richness of summer. The leaves on the trees +are in all the beauty of spring. Mrs. R- brought me a plate of +oranges, ‘just gathered’, as soon as I entered the house—and, +oh! how good they were! better even than the Maltese. They are +going out, and <i>dear</i> now—two a penny, very large and delicious. +I am wild to get out and see the glorious scenery and the hideous people. +To-day the wind has been a cold south-wester, and I have not been out. +My windows look N. and E. so I get all the sun and warmth. The +beauty of Table Bay is astounding. Fancy the Undercliff in the +Isle of Wight magnified a hundred-fold, with clouds floating halfway +up the mountain. The Hottentot mountains in the distance have +a fantastic jagged outline, which hardly looks real. The town +is like those in the south of Europe; flat roofs, and all unfinished; +roads are simply non-existent. At the doors sat brown women with +black hair that shone like metal, very handsome; they are Malays, and +their men wear conical hats a-top of turbans, and are the chief artisans. +At the end of the pier sat a Mozambique woman in white drapery and the +most majestic attitude, like a Roman matron; her features large and +strong and harsh, but fine; and her skin blacker than night.</p> +<p>I have got a couple of Cape pigeons (the storm-bird of the South +Atlantic) for J-’s hat. They followed us several thousand +miles, and were hooked for their pains. The albatrosses did not +come within hail.</p> +<p>The little Maltese goat gave a pint of milk night and morning, and +was a great comfort to the cow. She did not like the land or the +grass at first, and is to be thrown out of milk now. She is much +admired and petted by the young Africander. My room is at least +eighteen feet high, and contains exactly a bedstead, one straw mattrass, +one rickety table, one wash-table, two chairs, and broken looking-glass; +no carpet, and a hiatus of three inches between the floor and the door, +but all very clean; and excellent food. I have not made a bargain +yet, but I dare say I shall stay here.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>LETTER II</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Cape Town, Oct. 3.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Yesterday, the wind went to the south-east; the blessed sun shone +out, and the weather was lovely at once. The mountain threw off +his cloak of cloud, and all was bright and warm. I got up and +sat in the verandah over the stoep (a kind of terrace in front of every +house here). They brought me a tortoise as big as half a crown +and as lively as a cricket to look at, and a chameleon like a fairy +dragon—a green fellow, five inches long, with no claws on his +feet, but suckers like a fly—the most engaging little beast. +He sat on my finger, and caught flies with great delight and dexterity, +and I longed to send him to M-. To-day, I went a long drive with +Captain and Mrs. J-: we went to Rondebosch and Wynberg—lovely +country; rather like Herefordshire; red earth and oak-trees. Miles +of the road were like Gainsborough-lane, on a large scale, and looked +quite English; only here and there a hedge of prickly pear, or the big +white aruns in the ditches, told a different tale; and the scarlet geraniums +and myrtles growing wild puzzled one.</p> +<p>And then came rattling along a light, rough, but well-poised cart, +with an Arab screw driven by a Malay, in a great hat on his kerchiefed +head, and his wife, with her neat dress, glossy black hair, and great +gold earrings. They were coming with fish, which he had just caught +at Kalk Bay, and was going to sell for the dinners of the Capetown folk. +You pass neat villas, with pretty gardens and stoeps, gay with flowers, +and at the doors of several, neat Malay girls are lounging. They +are the best servants here, for the emigrants mostly drink. Then +you see a group of children at play, some as black as coals, some brown +and very pretty. A little black girl, about R-’s age, has +carefully tied what little petticoat she has, in a tight coil round +her waist, and displays the most darling little round legs and behind, +which it would be a real pleasure to slap; it is so shiny and round, +and she runs and stands so strongly and gracefully.</p> +<p>Here comes another Malay, with a pair of baskets hanging from a stick +across his shoulder, like those in Chinese pictures, which his hat also +resembles. Another cart full of working men, with a Malay driver; +and inside are jumbled some red-haired, rosy-cheeked English navvies, +with the ugliest Mozambiques, blacker than Erebus, and with faces all +knobs and corners, like a crusty loaf. As we drive home we see +a span of sixteen noble oxen in the marketplace, and on the ground squats +the Hottentot driver. His face no words can describe—his +cheek-bones are up under his hat, and his meagre-pointed chin halfway +down to his waist; his eyes have the dull look of a viper’s, and +his skin is dirty and sallow, but not darker than a dirty European’s.</p> +<p>Capetown is rather pretty, but beyond words untidy and out of repair. +As it is neither drained nor paved, it won’t do in hot weather; +and I shall migrate ‘up country’ to a Dutch village. +Mrs. J-, who is Dutch herself, tells me that one may board in a Dutch +farm-house very cheaply, and with great comfort (of course eating with +the family), and that they will drive you about the country and tend +your horses for nothing, if you are friendly, and don’t treat +them with <i>Engelsche hoog-moedigheid.</i></p> +<p>Oct. 19th.—The packet came in last night, but just in time +to save the fine of 50<i>l</i>. per diem, and I got your welcome letter +this morning. I have been coughing all this time, but I hope I +shall improve. I came out at the very worst time of year, and +the weather has been (of course) ‘unprecedentedly’ bad and +changeable. But when it <i>is</i> fine it is quite celestial; +so clear, so dry, so light. Then comes a cloud over Table Mountain, +like the sugar on a wedding-cake, which tumbles down in splendid waterfalls, +and vanishes unaccountably halfway; and then you run indoors and shut +doors and windows, or it portends a ‘south-easter’, i.e. +a hurricane, and Capetown disappears in impenetrable clouds of dust. +But this wind coming off the hills and fields of ice, is the Cape doctor, +and keeps away cholera, fever of every sort, and all malignant or infectious +diseases. Most of them are unknown here. Never was so healthy +a place; but the remedy is of the heroic nature, and very disagreeable. +The stones rattle against the windows, and omnibuses are blown over +on the Rondebosch road.</p> +<p>A few days ago, I drove to Mr. V-’s farm. Imagine St. +George’s Hill, and the most beautiful bits of it, sloping gently +up to Table Mountain, with its grey precipices, and intersected with +Scotch burns, which water it all the year round, as they come from the +living rock; and sprinkled with oranges, pomegranates, and camelias +in abundance. You drive through a mile or two as described, and +arrive at a square, planted with rows of fine oaks close together; at +the upper end stands the house, all on the ground-floor, but on a high +stoep: rooms eighteen feet high; the old slave quarters on each side; +stables, &c., opposite; the square as big as Belgrave Square, and +the buildings in the old French style.</p> +<p>We then went on to Newlands, a still more beautiful place. +Immense trenching and draining going on—the foreman a Caffre, +black as ink, six feet three inches high, and broad in proportion, with +a staid, dignified air, and Englishmen working under him! At the +streamlets there are the inevitable groups of Malay women washing clothes, +and brown babies sprawling about. Yesterday, I should have bought +a black woman for her beauty, had it been still possible. She +was carrying an immense weight on her head, and was far gone with child; +but such stupendous physical perfection I never even imagined. +Her jet black face was like the Sphynx, with the same mysterious smile; +her shape and walk were goddess-like, and the lustre of her skin, teeth, +and eyes, showed the fulness of health;—Caffre of course. +I walked after her as far as her swift pace would let me, in envy and +admiration of such stately humanity.</p> +<p>The ordinary blacks, or Mozambiques, as they call them, are hideous. +Malay here seems equivalent to Mohammedan. They were originally +Malays, but now they include every shade, from the blackest nigger to +the most blooming English woman. Yes, indeed, the emigrant-girls +have been known to turn ‘Malays’, and get thereby husbands +who know not billiards and brandy—the two diseases of Capetown. +They risked a plurality of wives, and professed Islam, but they got +fine clothes and industrious husbands. They wear a very pretty +dress, and all have a great air of independence and self-respect; and +the real Malays are very handsome. I am going to see one of the +Mollahs soon, and to look at their schools and mosque; which, to the +distraction of the Scotch, they call their ‘Kerk.’</p> +<p>I asked a Malay if he would drive me in his cart with the six or +eight mules, which he agreed to do for thirty shillings and his dinner +(i.e. a share of my dinner) on the road. When I asked how long +it would take, he said, ‘Allah is groot’, which meant, I +found, that it depended on the state of the beach—the only road +for half the way.</p> +<p>The sun, moon, and stars are different beings from those we look +upon. Not only are they so large and bright, but you <i>see</i> +that the moon and stars are <i>balls</i>, and that the sky is endless +beyond them. On the other hand, the clear, dry air dwarfs Table +Mountain, as you seem to see every detail of it to the very top.</p> +<p>Capetown is very picturesque. The old Dutch buildings are very +handsome and peculiar, but are falling to decay and dirt in the hands +of their present possessors. The few Dutch ladies I have seen +are very pleasing. They are gentle and simple, and naturally well-bred. +Some of the Malay women are very handsome, and the little children are +darlings. A little parti-coloured group of every shade, from ebony +to golden hair and blue eyes, were at play in the street yesterday, +and the majority were pretty, especially the half-castes. Most +of the Caffres I have seen look like the perfection of human physical +nature, and seem to have no diseases. Two days ago I saw a Hottentot +girl of seventeen, a housemaid here. You would be enchanted by +her superfluity of flesh; the face was very queer and ugly, and yet +pleasing, from the sweet smile and the rosy cheeks which please one +much, in contrast to all the pale yellow faces—handsome as some +of them are.</p> +<p>I wish I could send the six chameleons which a good-natured parson +brought me in his hat, and a queer lizard in his pocket. The chameleons +are charming, so monkey-like and so ‘<i>caressants</i>’. +They sit on my breakfast tray and catch flies, and hang in a bunch by +their tails, and reach out after my hand.</p> +<p>I have had a very kind letter from Lady Walker, and shall go and +stay with them at Simon’s Bay as soon as I feel up to the twenty-two +miles along the beaches and bad roads in the mail-cart with three horses. +The teams of mules (I beg pardon, spans) would delight you—eight, +ten, twelve, even sixteen sleek, handsome beasts; and oh, such oxen! +noble beasts with humps; and hump is very good to eat too.</p> +<p>Oct. 21st.—The mail goes out to-morrow, so I must finish this +letter. I feel better to-day than I have yet felt, in spite of +the south-easter.</p> +<p>Yours, &c.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>LETTER III</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>28th 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 <i>there were none</i>, and the sun hot; but I walk +in it, and do not find it oppressive. All the household groans +and perspires, but I am very comfortable.</p> +<p>Yesterday I sat in the full broil for an hour or more, in the hot +dust of the Malay burial-ground. They buried the head butcher +of the Mussulmans, and a most strange poetical scene it was. The +burial-ground is on the side of the Lion Mountain—on the Lion’s +rump—and overlooks the whole bay, part of the town, and the most +superb mountain panorama beyond. I never saw a view within miles +of it for beauty and grandeur. Far down, a fussy English steamer +came puffing and popping into the deep blue bay, and the ‘Hansom’s’ +cabs went tearing down to the landing place; and round me sat a crowd +of grave brown men chanting ‘Allah il Allah’ to the most +monotonous but musical air, and with the most perfect voices. +The chant seemed to swell, and then fade, like the wind in the trees.</p> +<p>I went in after the procession, which consisted of a bier covered +with three common Paisley shawls of gay colours; no one looked at me; +and when they got near the grave, I kept at a distance, and sat down +when they did. But a man came up and said, ‘You are welcome.’ +So I went close, and saw the whole ceremony. They took the corpse, +wrapped in a sheet, out of the bier, and lifted it into the grave, where +two men received it; then a sheet was held over the grave till they +had placed the dead man; and then flowers and earth were thrown in by +all present, the grave filled in, watered out of a brass kettle, and +decked with flowers. Then a fat old man, in printed calico shirt +sleeves, and a plaid waistcoat and corduroy trousers, pulled off his +shoes, squatted on the grave, and recited endless ‘Koran’, +many reciting after him. Then they chanted ‘Allah-il-Allah’ +for twenty minutes, I think: then prayers, with ‘Ameens’ +and ‘Allah il-Allahs’ again. Then all jumped up and +walked off. There were eighty or a hundred men, no women, and +five or six ‘Hadjis’, draped in beautiful Eastern dresses, +and looking very supercilious. The whole party made less noise +in moving and talking than two Englishmen.</p> +<p>A white-complexioned man spoke to me in excellent English (which +few of them speak), and was very communicative and civil. He told +me the dead man was his brother-in-law, and he himself the barber. +I hoped I had not taken a liberty. ‘Oh, no; poor Malays +were proud when noble English persons showed such respect to their religion. +The young Prince had done so too, and Allah would not forget to protect +him. He also did not laugh at their prayers, praise be to God!’ +I had already heard that Prince Alfred is quite the darling of the Malays. +He insisted on accepting their <i>fête</i>, which the Capetown +people had snubbed. I have a friendship with one Abdul Jemaalee +and his wife Betsy, a couple of old folks who were slaves to Dutch owners, +and now keep a fruit-shop of a rough sort, with ‘Betsy, fruiterer,’ +painted on the back of an old tin tray, and hung up by the door of the +house. Abdul first bought himself, and then his wife Betsy, whose +‘missus’ generously threw in her bed-ridden mother. +He is a fine handsome old man, and has confided to me that £5,000 +would not buy what he is worth now. I have also read the letters +written by his, son, young Abdul Rachman, now a student at Cairo, who +has been away five years—four at Mecca. The young theologian +writes to his ‘<i>hoog</i> <i>eerbare moeder</i>’ a fond +request for money, and promises to return soon. I am invited to +the feast wherewith he will be welcomed. Old Abdul Jemaalee thinks +it will divert my mind, and prove to me that Allah will take me home +safe to my children, about whom he and his wife asked many questions. +Moreover, he compelled me to drink herb tea, compounded by a Malay doctor +for my cough. I declined at first, and the poor old man looked +hurt, gravely assured me that it was not true that Malays always poisoned +Christians, and drank some himself. Thereupon I was obliged, of +course, to drink up the rest; it certainly did me good, and I have drunk +it since with good effect; it is intensely bitter and rather sticky. +The white servants and the Dutch landlady where I lodge shake their +heads ominously, and hope it mayn’t poison me a year hence. +‘Them nasty Malays can make it work months after you take it.’ +They also possess the evil eye, and a talent for love potions. +As the men are very handsome and neat, I incline to believe that part +of it.</p> +<p>Rathfelder’s Halfway House, 6th 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<i>s</i>. a month, besides food for himself +and wife, and beer and sugar. The two (white) housemaids get £1 +15<i>s</i>. and £1 10<i>s</i>. respectively (everything by the +month). Fresh butter is 3<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>. a pound, mutton +7<i>d</i>.; washing very dear; cabbages my host sells at 3<i>d</i>. +a piece, and pumpkins 8<i>d</i>. He has a fine garden, and pays +a gardener 3<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>. a day, and black labourers 2<i>s</i>. +<i>They</i> work three days a week; then they buy rice and a coarse +fish, and lie in the sun till it is eaten; while their darling little +fat black babies play in the dust, and their black wives make battues +in the covers in their woolly heads. But the little black girl +who cleans my room is far the best servant, and smiles and speaks like +Lalage herself, ugly as the poor drudge is. The voice and smile +of the negroes here is bewitching, though they are hideous; and neither +S- nor I have yet heard a black child cry, or seen one naughty or quarrelsome. +You would want to lay out a fortune in woolly babies. Yesterday +I had a dreadful heartache after my darling, on her little birthday, +and even the lovely ranges of distant mountains, coloured like opals +in the sunset, did not delight me. This is a dreary place for +strangers. Abdul Jemaalee’s tisanne, and a banana which +he gave me each time I went to his shop, are the sole offer of ‘Won’t +you take something?’ or even the sole attempt at a civility that +I have received, except from the J-s, who, are very civil and kind.</p> +<p>When I have done my visit to Simon’s Bay, I will go ‘up +country’, to Stellenbosch, Paarl and Worcester, perhaps. +If I can find people going in a bullock-waggon, I will join them; it +costs £1 a day, and goes twenty miles. If money were no +object, I would hire one with Caffres to hunt, as well as outspan and +drive, and take a saddle-horse. There is plenty of pleasure to +be had in travelling here, if you can afford it. The scenery is +quite beyond anything you can imagine in beauty. I went to a country +house at Rondebosch with the J-s, and I never saw so lovely a spot. +The possessor had done his best to spoil it, and to destroy the handsome +Dutch house and fountains and aqueducts; but Nature was too much for +him, and the place lovely in neglect and shabbiness.</p> +<p>Now I will tell you my impressions of the state of society here, +as far as I have been able to make out by playing the inquisitive traveller. +I dare say the statements are exaggerated, but I do not think they are +wholly devoid of truth. The Dutch round Capetown (I don’t +know anything of ‘up country’) are sulky and dispirited; +they regret the slave days, and can’t bear to pay wages; they +have sold all their fine houses in town to merchants, &c., and let +their handsome country places go to pieces, and their land lie fallow, +rather than hire the men they used to own. They hate the Malays, +who were their slaves, and whose ‘insolent prosperity’ annoys +them, and they don’t like the vulgar, bustling English. +The English complain that the Dutch won’t die, and that they are +the curse of the colony (a statement for which they can never give a +reason). But they, too, curse the emancipation, long to flog the +niggers, and hate the Malays, who work harder and don’t drink, +and who are the only masons, tailors, &c., and earn from 4<i>s</i>. +6<i>d</i>. to 10<i>s</i>. a day. The Malays also have almost a +monopoly of cart-hiring and horse-keeping; an Englishman charges £4 +10<i>s</i>. or £5 for a carriage to do what a Malay will do quicker +in a light cart for 30<i>s</i>. S- says, ‘The English here +think the coloured people ought to do the work, and they to get the +wages. Nothing less would satisfy them.’ Servants’ +wages are high, but other wages not much higher than in England; yet +industrious people invariably make fortunes, or at least competencies, +even when they begin with nothing. But few of the English will +do anything but lounge; while they abuse the Dutch as lazy, and the +Malays as thieves, and feel their fingers itch to be at the blacks. +The Africanders (Dutch and negro mixed in various proportions) are more +or less lazy, dirty, and dressy, and the beautiful girls wear pork-pie +hats, and look very winning and rather fierce; but to them the philanthropists +at home have provided formidable rivals, by emptying a shipload of young +ladies from a ‘Reformatory’ into the streets of Capetown.</p> +<p>I am puzzled what to think of the climate here for invalids. +The air is dry and clear beyond conception, and light, but the sun is +scorching; while the south-east wind blows an icy hurricane, and the +dust obscures the sky. These winds last all the summer, till February +or March. I am told when they don’t blow it is heavenly, +though still cold in the mornings and evenings. No one must be +out at, or after sunset, the chill is so sudden. Many of the people +here declare that it is death to weak lungs, and send their <i>poitrinaires</i> +to Madeira, or the south of France. They also swear the climate +is enervating, but their looks, and above all the blowsy cheeks and +hearty play of the English children, disprove that; and those who come +here consumptive get well in spite of the doctors, who won’t allow +it possible. I believe it is a climate which requires great care +from invalids, but that, with care, it is good, because it is bracing +as well as warm and dry. It is not nearly so warm as I expected; +the southern icebergs are at no great distance, and they ice the south-east +wind for us. If it were not so violent, it would be delicious; +and there are no unhealthy winds—nothing like our east wind. +The people here grumble at the north-wester, which sometimes brings +rain, and call it damp, which, as they don’t know what damp is, +is excusable; it feels like a <i>dry</i> south-wester in England. +It is, however, quite a delusion to think of living out of doors, here; +the south-easters keep one in nearly, if not quite, half one’s +time, and in summer they say the sun is too hot to be out except morning +and evening. But I doubt that, for they make an outcry about heat +as soon as it is not cold. The transitions are so sudden, that, +with the thermometer at 76 degrees, you must not go out without taking +a thick warm cloak; you may walk into a south-easter round the first +spur of the mountain, and be cut in two. In short, the air is +cold and bracing, and the sun blazing hot; those whom that suits, will +do well. I should like a softer air, but I may be wrong; when +there is only a moderate wind, it is delicious. You walk in the +hot sun, which makes you perspire a very little; but you dry as you +go, the air is so dry; and you come in untired. I speak of slow +walking. There are no hot-climate diseases; no dysentery, fever, +&c.</p> +<p>Simon’s Bay, 18th 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.</p> +<p>The Walkers came over on horseback, and pressed me to go to them. +They are most kind and agreeable people. The drive to Simon’s +Bay was lovely, along the coast and across five beaches of snow-white +sand, which look like winter landscapes; and the mountains and bay are +lovely.</p> +<p>Living is very dear, and washing, travelling, chemist’s bills—all +enormous. Thirty shillings a cart and horse from Rathfelder here—twelve +miles; and then the young English host wanted me to hire another cart +for one box and one bath! But I would not, and my obstinacy was +stoutest. If I want cart or waggon again, I’ll deal with +a Malay, only the fellows drive with forty Jehu-power up and down the +mountains.</p> +<p>A Madagascar woman offered to give me her orphan grandchild, a sweet +brown fairy, six years old, with long silky black hair, and gorgeous +eyes. The child hung about me incessantly all the time I was at +Rathfelder, and I had a great mind to her. She used to laugh like +baby, and was like her altogether, only prettier, and very brown; and +when I told her she was like my own little child, she danced about, +and laughed like mad at the idea that she could look like ‘pretty +white Missy’. She was mighty proud of her needlework and +A B C performances.</p> +<p>It is such a luxury to sleep on a real mattrass—not stuffed +with dirty straw; to eat clean food, and live in a nice room. +But my cough is very bad, and the cruel wind blows on and on. +I saw the doctor of the Naval Hospital here to-day. If I don’t +mend, I will try his advice, and go northward for warmth. If you +can find an old Mulready envelope, send it here to Miss Walker, who +collects stamps and has not got it, and write and thank dear good Lady +Walker for her kindness to me.</p> +<p>You will get this about the new year. God bless you all, and +send us better days in 1862.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>LETTER IV—JOURNEY TO CALEDON</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Caledon, Dec. 10th.</p> +<p>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 <i>possible</i> day. He +made a bargain for me with a Dutchman, for a light Malay cart (a capital +vehicle with two wheels) and four horses, for 30<i>s</i>. a day—three +days to Caledon from Simon’s Bay, about a hundred miles or so, +and one day of back fare to his home in Capetown.</p> +<p>Luckily, on Saturday the wind dropped, and we started at nine o’clock, +drove to a place about four miles from Capetown, when we turned off +on the ‘country road’, and outspanned at a post-house kept +by a nice old German with a Dutch wife. Once well out of Capetown, +people are civil, but inquisitive; I was strictly cross-questioned, +and proved so satisfactory, that the old man wished to give me some +English porter gratis. We then jogged along again at a very good +pace to another wayside public, where we outspanned again and ate, and +were again questioned, and again made much of. By six o’clock +we got to the Eerste River, having gone forty miles or so in the day. +It was a beautiful day, and very pleasant travelling. We had three +good little half-Arab bays, and one brute of a grey as off-wheeler, +who fell down continually; but a Malay driver works miracles, and no +harm came of it. The cart is small, with a permanent tilt at top, +and moveable curtains of waterproof all round; harness of raw leather, +very prettily put together by Malay workmen. We sat behind, and +our brown coachman, with his mushroom hat, in front, with my bath and +box, and a miniature of himself about seven years old—a nephew,—so +small and handy that he would be worth his weight in jewels as a tiger. +At Eerste River we slept in a pretty old Dutch house, kept by an English +woman, and called the Fox and Hound, ‘to sound like home, my lady.’ +Very nice and comfortable it was.</p> +<p>I started next day at ten; and never shall I forget that day’s +journey. The beauty of the country exceeds all description. +Ranges of mountains beyond belief fantastic in shape, and between them +a rolling country, desolate and wild, and covered with gorgeous flowers +among the ‘scrub’. First we came to Hottentot’s +Holland (now called Somerset West), the loveliest little old Dutch village, +with trees and little canals of bright clear mountain water, and groves +of orange and pomegranate, and white houses, with incredible gable ends. +We tried to stop here; but forage was ninepence a bundle, and the true +Malay would rather die than pay more than he can help. So we pushed +on to the foot of the mountains, and bought forage (forage is oats <i>au +natural</i>, straw and all, the only feed known here, where there is +no grass or hay) at a farm kept by English people, who all talked Dutch +together; only one girl of the family could speak English. They +were very civil, asked us in, and gave us unripe apricots, and the girl +came down with seven flounces, to talk with us. Forage was still +ninepence—half a dollar a bundle—and Choslullah Jaamee groaned +over it, and said the horses must have less forage and ‘more plenty +roll’ (a roll in the dust is often the only refreshment offered +to the beasts, and seems to do great good).</p> +<p>We got to Caledon at eleven, and drove to the place the Doctor recommended—formerly +a country house of the Dutch Governor. It is in a lovely spot; +but do you remember the Schloss in Immermann’s Neuer Münchausen? +Well, it is that. A ruin;—windows half broken and boarded +up, the handsome steps in front fallen in, and all <i>en suite</i>. +The rooms I saw were large and airy; but mud floors, white-washed walls, +one chair, one stump bedstead, and <i>praeterea nihil</i>. It +has a sort of wild, romantic look; I hear, too, it is wonderfully healthy, +and not so bad as it looks. The long corridor is like the entrance +to a great stable, or some such thing; earth floors and open to all +winds. But you can’t imagine it, however I may describe; +it is so huge and strange, and ruinous. Finding that the mistress +of the house was ill, and nothing ready for our reception, I drove on +to the inn. Rain, like a Scotch mist, came on just as we arrived, +and it is damp and chilly, to the delight of all the dwellers in the +land, who love bad weather. It makes me cough a little more; but +they say it is quite unheard of, and can’t last. Altogether, +I suppose this summer here is as that of ‘60 was in England.</p> +<p>I forgot, in describing my journey, the regal-looking Caffre housemaid +at Eerste River. ‘Such a dear, good creature,’ the +landlady said; and, oh, such a ‘noble savage’!—with +a cotton handkerchief folded tight like a cravat and tied round her +head with a bow behind, and the short curly wool sticking up in the +middle;—it looked like a royal diadem on her solemn brow; she +stepped like Juno, with a huge tub full to the brim, and holding several +pailfuls, on her head, and a pailful in each hand, bringing water for +the stables from the river, across a large field. There is nothing +like a Caffre for power and grace; and the face, though very African, +has a sort of grandeur which makes it utterly unlike that of the negro. +That woman’s bust and waist were beauty itself. The Caffres +are also very clean and very clever as servants, I hear, learning cookery, +&c., in a wonderfully short time. When they have saved money +enough to buy cattle in Kaffraria, off they go, cast aside civilization +and clothes, and enjoy life in naked luxury.</p> +<p>I can’t tell you how I longed for you in my journey. +You would have been so delighted with the country and the queer turn-out—the +wild little horses, and the polite and delicately-clean Moslem driver. +His description of his sufferings from ‘louses’, when he +slept in a Dutch farm, were pathetic, and ever since, he sleeps in his +cart, with the little boy; and they bathe in the nearest river, and +eat their lawful food and drink their water out of doors. They +declined beer, or meat which had been unlawfully killed. In Capetown +<i>all</i> meat is killed by Malays, and has the proper prayer spoken +over it, and they will eat no other. I was offered a fowl at a +farm, but Choslullah thought it ‘too much money for Missus’, +and only accepted some eggs. He was gratified at my recognising +the propriety of his saying ‘Bismillah’ over any animal +killed for food. Some drink beer, and drink a good deal, but Choslullah +thought it ‘very wrong for Malay people, and not good for Christian +people, to be drunk beasties;—little wine or beer good for Christians, +but not too plenty much.’ I gave him ten shillings for himself, +at which he was enchanted, and again begged me to write to his master +for him when I wanted to leave Caledon, and to be sure to say, ‘Mind +send same coachman.’ He planned to drive me back through +Worcester, Burnt Vley, Paarl, and Stellenbosch—a longer round; +but he could do it in three days well, so as ‘not cost Missus +more money’, and see a different country.</p> +<p>This place is curiously like Rochefort in the Ardennes, only the +hills are mountains, and the sun is far hotter; not so the air, which +is fresh and pleasant. I am in a very nice inn, kept by an English +ex-officer, who went through the Caffre war, and found his pay insufficient +for the wants of a numerous family. I quite admire his wife, who +cooks, cleans, nurses her babes, gives singing and music lessons,—all +as merrily as if she liked it. I dine with them at two o’clock, +and Captain D- has a <i>table d’hôte</i> at seven for travellers. +I pay only 10<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>. a day for myself and S-; this includes +all but wine or beer. The air is very clear and fine, and my cough +is already much better. I shall stay here as long as it suits +me and does me good, and then I am to send for Choslullah again, and +go back by the road he proposed. It rains here now and then, and +blows a good deal, but the wind has lost its bitter chill, and depressing +quality. I hope soon to ride a little and see the country, which +is beautiful.</p> +<p>The water-line is all red from the iron stone, and there are hot +chalybeate springs up the mountain which are very good for rheumatism, +and very strengthening, I am told. The boots here is a Mantatee, +very black, and called Kleenboy, because he is so little; he is the +only sleek black I have seen here, but looks heavy and downcast. +One maid is Irish (they make the best servants here), a very nice clean +girl, and the other, a brown girl of fifteen, whose father is English, +and married to her mother. Food here is scarce, all but bread +and mutton, both good. Butter is 3<i>s</i>. a pound; fruit and +vegetables only to be had by chance. I miss the oranges and lemons +sadly. Poultry and milk uncertain. The bread is good everywhere, +from the fine wheat: in the country it is brownish and sweet. +The wine here is execrable; this is owing to the prevailing indolence, +for there is excellent wine made from the Rhenish grape, rather like +Sauterne, with a <i>soupçon</i> of Manzanilla flavour. +The sweet Constantia is also very good indeed; not the expensive sort, +which is made from grapes half dried, and is a liqueur, but a light, +sweet, straw-coloured wine, which even I liked. We drank nothing +else at the Admiral’s. The kind old sailor has given me +a dozen of wine, which is coming up here in a waggon, and will be most +welcome. I can’t tell you how kind he and Lady Walker were; +I was there three weeks, and hope to go again when the south-easter +season is over and I can get out a little. I could not leave the +house at all; and even Lady Walker and the girls, who are very energetic, +got out but little. They are a charming family.</p> +<p>I have no doubt that Dr. Shea was right, and that one must leave +the coast to get a fine climate. Here it seems to me nearly perfect—too +windy for my pleasure, but then the sun would be overpowering without +a fresh breeze. Every one agrees in saying that the winter in +Capetown is delicious—like a fine English summer. In November +the southeasters begin, and they are ‘fiendish’; this year +they began in September. The mornings here are always fresh, not +to say cold; the afternoons, from one to three, broiling; then delightful +till sunset, which is deadly cold for three-quarters of an hour; the +night is lovely. The wind rises and falls with the sun. +That is the general course of things. Now and then it rains, and +this year there is a little south-easter, which is quite unusual, and +not odious, as it is near the sea; and there is seldom a hot wind from +the north. I am promised that on or about Christmas-day; then +doors and windows are shut, and you gasp. Hitherto we have had +nothing nearly so hot as Paris in summer, or as the summer of 1859 in +England; and they say it is no hotter, except when the hot wind blows, +which is very rare. Up here, snow sometimes lies, in winter, on +the mountain tops; but ice is unknown, and Table Mountain is never covered +with snow. The flies are pestilent—incredibly noisy, intrusive, +and disgusting—and oh, such swarms! Fleas and bugs not half +so bad as in France, as far as my experience goes, and I have poked +about in queer places.</p> +<p>I get up at half-past five, and walk in the early morning, before +the sun and wind begin to be oppressive; it is then dry, calm, and beautiful; +then I sleep like a Dutchman in the middle of the day. At present +it tires me, but I shall get used to it soon. The Dutch doctor +here advised me to do so, to avoid the wind.</p> +<p>When all was settled, we climbed the Hottentot’s mountains +by Sir Lowry’s Pass, a long curve round two hill-sides; and what +a view! Simon’s Bay opening out far below, and range upon +range of crags on one side, with a wide fertile plain, in which lies +Hottentot’s Holland, at one’s feet. The road is just +wide enough for one waggon, i.e. very narrow. Where the smooth +rock came through, Choslullah gave a little grunt, and the three bays +went off like hippogriffs, dragging the grey with them. By this +time my confidence in his driving was boundless, or I should have expected +to find myself in atoms at the bottom of the precipice. At the +top of the pass we turned a sharp corner into a scene like the crater +of a volcano, only reaching miles away all round; and we descended a +very little and drove on along great rolling waves of country, with +the mountain tops, all crags and ruins, to our left. At three +we reached Palmiet River, full of palmettos and bamboos, and there the +horses had ‘a little roll’, and Choslullah and his miniature +washed in the river and prayed, and ate dry bread, and drank their tepid +water out of a bottle with great good breeding and cheerfulness. +Three bullock-waggons had outspanned, and the Dutch boers and Bastaards +(half Hottentots) were all drunk. We went into a neat little ‘public’, +and had porter and ham sandwiches, for which I paid 4<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>. +to a miserable-looking English woman, who was afraid of her tipsy customers. +We got to Houw Hoek, a pretty valley at the entrance of a mountain gorge, +about half-past five, and drove up to a mud cottage, half inn, half +farm, kept by a German and his wife. It looked mighty queer, but +Choslullah said the host was a good old man, and all clean. So +we cheered up, and asked for food. While the neat old woman was +cooking it, up galloped five fine lads and two pretty flaxen-haired +girls, with real German faces, on wild little horses; and one girl tucked +up her habit, and waited at table, while another waved a green bough +to drive off the swarms of flies. The chops were excellent, ditto +bread and butter, and the tea tolerable. The parlour was a tiny +room with a mud floor, half-hatch door into the front, and the two bedrooms +still tinier and darker, each with two huge beds which filled them entirely. +But Choslullah was right; they were perfectly clean, with heaps of beautiful +pillows; and not only none of the creatures of which he spoke with infinite +terror, but even no fleas. The man was delighted to talk to me. +His wife had almost forgotten German, and the children did not know +a word of it, but spoke Dutch and English. A fine, healthy, happy +family. It was a pretty picture of emigrant life. Cattle, +pigs, sheep, and poultry, and pigeons innumerable, all picked up their +own living, and cost nothing; and vegetables and fruit grow in rank +abundance where there is water. I asked for a book in the evening, +and the man gave me a volume of Schiller. A good breakfast,—and +we paid ninepence for all.</p> +<p>This morning we started before eight, as it looked gloomy, and came +through a superb mountain defile, out on to a rich hillocky country, +covered with miles of corn, all being cut as far as the eye could reach, +and we passed several circular threshing-floors, where the horses tread +out the grain. Each had a few mud hovels near it, for the farmers +and men to live in during harvest. Altogether, I was most lucky, +had two beautiful days, and enjoyed the journey immensely. It +was most ‘<i>abentheuerlich</i>’; the light two-wheeled +cart, with four wild little horses, and the marvellous brown driver, +who seemed to be always going to perdition, but made the horses do apparently +impossible things with absolute certainty; and the pretty tiny boy who +came to help his uncle, and was so clever, and so preternaturally quiet, +and so very small: then the road through the mountain passes, seven +or eight feet wide, with a precipice above and below, up which the little +horses scrambled; while big lizards, with green heads and chocolate +bodies, looked pertly at us, and a big bright amber-coloured cobra, +as handsome as he is deadly, wriggled across into a hole.</p> +<p>Nearly all the people in this village are Dutch. There is one +Malay tailor here, but he is obliged to be a Christian at Caledon, though +Choslullah told me with a grin, he was a very good Malay when he went +to Capetown. He did not seem much shocked at this double religion, +staunch Mussulman as he was himself. I suppose the blacks ‘up +country’ are what Dutch slavery made them—mere animals—cunning +and sulky. The real Hottentot is extinct, I believe, in the Colony; +what one now sees are all ‘Bastaards’, the Dutch name for +their own descendants by Hottentot women. These mongrel Hottentots, +who do all the work, are an affliction to behold—debased and <i>shrivelled</i> +with drink, and drunk all day long; sullen wretched creatures—so +unlike the bright Malays and cheery pleasant blacks and browns of Capetown, +who never pass you without a kind word and sunny smile or broad African +grin, <i>selon</i> their colour and shape of face. I look back +fondly to the gracious soft-looking Malagasse woman who used to give +me a chair under the big tree near Rathfelders, and a cup of ‘bosjesthée’ +(herb tea), and talk so prettily in her soft voice;—it is such +a contrast to these poor animals, who glower at one quite unpleasantly. +All the hovels I was in at Capetown were very fairly clean, and I went +into numbers. They almost all contained a handsome bed, with, +at least, eight pillows. If you only look at the door with a friendly +glance, you are implored to come in and sit down, and usually offered +a ‘coppj’ (cup) of herb tea, which they are quite grateful +to one for drinking. I never saw or heard a hint of ‘backsheesh’, +nor did I ever give it, on principle and I was always recognised and +invited to come again with the greatest eagerness. ‘An indulgence +of talk’ from an English ‘Missis’ seemed the height +of gratification, and the pride and pleasure of giving hospitality a +sufficient reward. But here it is quite different. I suppose +the benefits of the emancipation were felt at Capetown sooner than in +the country, and the Malay population there furnishes a strong element +of sobriety and respectability, which sets an example to the other coloured +people.</p> +<p>Harvest is now going on, and the so-called Hottentots are earning +2<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>. a day, with rations and wine. But all the +money goes at the ‘canteen’ in drink, and the poor wretched +men and women look wasted and degraded. The children are pretty, +and a few of them are half-breed girls, who do very well, unless a white +man admires them; and then they think it quite an honour to have a whitey-brown +child, which happens at about fifteen, by which age they look full twenty.</p> +<p>We had very good snipe and wild duck the other day, which Capt. D- +brought home from a shooting party. I have got the moth-like wings +of a golden snipe for R-’s hat, and those of a beautiful moor-hen. +They got no ‘boks’, because of the violent south-easter +which blew where they were. The game is fast decreasing, but still +very abundant. I saw plenty of partridges on the road, but was +not early enough to see boks, who only show at dawn; neither have I +seen baboons. I will try to bring home some cages of birds—Cape +canaries and ‘roode bekjes’ (red bills), darling little +things. The sugar-birds, which are the humming-birds of Africa, +could not be fed; but Caffre finks, which weave the pendent nests, are +hardy and easily fed.</p> +<p>To-day the post for England leaves Caledon, so I must conclude this +yarn. I wish R- could have seen the ‘klip springer’, +the mountain deer of South Africa, which Capt. D- brought in to show +me. Such a lovely little beast, as big as a small kid, with eyes +and ears like a hare, and a nose so small and dainty. It was quite +tame and saucy, and belonged to some man <i>en route</i> for Capetown.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>LETTER V—CALEDON</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Caledon, Dec. 29th.</p> +<p>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 <i>hot</i> day we have had—and I could not make it out +at all, or fancy you all cold at home.</p> +<p>I wish you were here to see the curious ways and new aspect of everything. +This village, which, as I have said, is very like Rochefort, but hardly +so large, is the <i>chef lieu</i> of a district the size of one-third +of England. A civil commander resides here, a sort of <i>préfet</i>; +and there is an embryo market-place, with a bell hanging in a brick +arch. When a waggon arrives with goods, it draws up there, they +ring the bell, everybody goes to see what is for sale, and the goods +are sold by auction. My host bought potatoes and brandy the other +day, and is looking out for ostrich feathers for me, out of the men’s +hats.</p> +<p>The other day, while we sat at dinner, all the bells began to ring +furiously, and Capt. D- jumped up and shouted ‘<i>Brand</i>!’ +(fire), rushed off for a stout leather hat, and ran down the street. +Out came all the population, black, white, and brown, awfully excited, +for it was blowing a furious north-wester, right up the town, and the +fire was at the bottom; and as every house is thatched with a dry brown +thatch, we might all have to turn out and see the place in ashes in +less than an hour. Luckily, it was put out directly. It +is supposed to have been set on fire by a Hottentot girl, who has done +the same thing once before, on being scolded. There is no water +but what runs down the streets in the <i>sloot</i>, a paved channel, +which brings the water from the mountain and supplies the houses and +gardens. A garden is impossible without irrigation, of course, +as it never rains; but with it, you may have everything, all the year +round. The people, however, are too careless to grow fruit and +vegetables.</p> +<p>How the cattle live is a standing marvel to me. The whole <i>veld</i> +(common), which extends all over the country (just dotted with a few +square miles of corn here and there), is covered with a low thin scrub, +about eighteen inches high, called <i>rhenoster-bosch—</i>looking +like meagre arbor vitae or pale juniper. The cattle and sheep +will not touch this nor the juicy Hottentot fig; but under each little +bush, I fancy, they crop a few blades of grass, and on this they keep +in very good condition. The noble oxen, with their huge horns +(nine or ten feet from tip to tip), are never fed, though they work +hard, nor are the sheep. The horses get a little forage (oats, +straw and all). I should like you to see eight or ten of these +swift wiry little horses harnessed to a waggon,—a mere flat platform +on wheels. In front stands a wild-looking Hottentot, all patches +and feathers, and drives them best pace, all ‘in hand’, +using a whip like a fishing-rod, with which he touches them, not savagely, +but with a skill which would make an old stage-coachman burst with envy +to behold. This morning, out on the veld, I watched the process +of breaking-in a couple of colts, who were harnessed, after many struggles, +second and fourth in a team of ten. In front stood a tiny foal +cuddling its mother, one of the leaders. When they started, the +foal had its neck through the bridle, and I hallooed in a fright; but +the Hottentot only laughed, and in a minute it had disengaged itself +quite coolly and capered alongside. The colts tried to plunge, +but were whisked along, and couldn’t, and then they stuck out +all four feet and <i>skidded</i> along a bit; but the rhenoster bushes +tripped them up (people drive regardless of roads), and they shook their +heads and trotted along quite subdued, without a blow or a word, for +the drivers never speak to the horses, only to the oxen. Colts +here get no other breaking, and therefore have no paces or action to +the eye, but their speed and endurance are wonderful. There is +no such thing as a cock-tail in the country, and the waggon teams of +wiry little thoroughbreds, half Arab, look very strange to our eyes, +going full tilt. There is a terrible murrain, called the lung-sickness, +among horses and oxen here, every four or five years, but it never touches +those that are stabled, however exposed to wet or wind on the roads.</p> +<p>I must describe the house I inhabit, as all are much alike. +It is whitewashed, with a door in the middle and two windows on each +side; those on the left are Mrs. D-’s bed and sitting rooms. +On the right is a large room, which is mine; in the middle of the house +is a spacious hall, with doors into other rooms on each side, and into +the kitchen, &c. There is a yard behind, and a staircase up +to the <i>zolder</i> or loft, under the thatch, with partitions, where +the servants and children, and sometimes guests, sleep. There +are no ceilings; the floor of the zolder is made of yellow wood, and, +resting on beams, forms the ceiling of my room, and the thatch alone +covers that. No moss ever grows on the thatch, which is brown, +with white ridges. In front is a stoep, with ‘blue gums’ +(Australian gum-trees) in front of it, where I sit till twelve, when +the sun comes on it. These trees prevail here greatly, as they +want neither water nor anything else, and grow with incredible rapidity.</p> +<p>We have got a new ‘boy’ (all coloured servants are ‘boys,’—a +remnant of slavery), and he is the type of the nigger slave. A +thief, a liar, a glutton, a drunkard—but you can’t resent +it; he has a <i>naïf</i>, half-foolish, half-knavish buffoonery, +a total want of self-respect, which disarms you. I sent him to +the post to inquire for letters, and the postmaster had been tipsy over-night +and was not awake. Jack came back spluttering threats against +‘dat domned Dutchman. Me no <i>want</i> (like) him; me go +and kick up dom’d row. What for he no give Missis letter?’ +&c. I begged him to be patient; on which he bonneted himself +in a violent way, and started off at a pantomime walk. Jack is +the product of slavery: he pretends to be a simpleton in order to do +less work and eat and drink and sleep more than a reasonable being, +and he knows his buffoonery will get him out of scrapes. Withal, +thoroughly good-natured and obliging, and perfectly honest, except where +food and drink are concerned, which he pilfers like a monkey. +He worships S-, and won’t allow her to carry anything, or to dirty +her hands, if he is in the way to do it. Some one suggested to +him to kiss her, but he declined with terror, and said he should be +hanged by my orders if he did. He is a hideous little negro, with +a monstrous-shaped head, every colour of the rainbow on his clothes, +and a power of making faces which would enchant a schoolboy. The +height of his ambition would be to go to England with me.</p> +<p>An old ‘bastaard’ woman, married to the Malay tailor +here, explained to me my popularity with the coloured people, as set +forth by ‘dat Malay boy’, my driver. He told them +he was sure I was a ‘very great Missis’, because of my ‘plenty +good behaviour’; that I spoke to him just as to a white gentleman, +and did not ‘laugh and talk nonsense talk’. ‘Never +say “Here, you black fellow”, dat Misses.’ The +English, when they mean to be good-natured, are generally offensively +familiar, and ‘talk nonsense talk’, i.e. imitate the Dutch +English of the Malays and blacks; the latter feel it the greatest compliment +to be treated <i>au sérieux</i>, and spoken to in good English. +Choslullah’s theory was that I must be related to the Queen, in +consequence of my not ‘knowing bad behaviour’. The +Malays, who are intelligent and proud, of course feel the annoyance +of vulgar familiarity more than the blacks, who are rather awe-struck +by civility, though they like and admire it.</p> +<p>Mrs. D- tells me that the coloured servant-girls, with all their +faults, are immaculately honest in these parts; and, indeed, as every +door and window is always left open, even when every soul is out, and +nothing locked up, there must be no thieves. Captain D- told me +he had been in remote Dutch farmhouses, where rouleaux of gold were +ranged under the thatch on the top of the low wall, the doors being +always left open; and everywhere the Dutch boers keep their money by +them, in coin.</p> +<p>Jan. 3d.—We have had tremendous festivities here—a ball +on New Year’s-eve, and another on the 1st of January—and +the shooting for Prince Alfred’s rifle yesterday. The difficulty +of music for the ball was solved by the arrival of two Malay bricklayers +to build the new parsonage, and I heard with my own ears the proof of +what I had been told as to their extraordinary musical gifts. +When I went into the hall, a Dutchman was <i>screeching</i> a concertina +hideously. Presently in walked a yellow Malay, with a blue cotton +handkerchief on his head, and a half-bred of negro blood (very dark +brown), with a red handkerchief, and holding a rough tambourine. +The handsome yellow man took the concertina which seemed so discordant, +and the touch of his dainty fingers transformed it to harmony. +He played dances with a precision and feeling quite unequalled, except +by Strauss’s band, and a variety which seemed endless. I +asked him if he could read music, at which he laughed heartily, and +said, music came into the ears, not the eyes. He had picked it +all up from the bands in Capetown, or elsewhere.</p> +<p>It was a strange sight,—the picturesque group, and the contrast +between the quiet manners of the true Malay and the grotesque fun of +the half-negro. The latter made his tambourine do duty as a drum, +rattled the bits of brass so as to produce an indescribable effect, +nodded and grinned in wild excitement, and drank beer while his comrade +took water. The dancing was uninteresting enough. The Dutchmen +danced badly, and said not a word, but plodded on so as to get all the +dancing they could for their money. I went to bed at half-past +eleven, but the ball went on till four.</p> +<p>Next night there was genteeler company, and I did not go in, but +lay in bed listening to the Malay’s playing. He had quite +a fresh set of tunes, of which several were from the ‘Traviata’!</p> +<p>Yesterday was a real African summer’s day. The D-s had +a tent and an awning, one for food and the other for drink, on the ground +where the shooting took place. At twelve o’clock Mrs. D- +went down to sell cold chickens, &c., and I went with her, and sat +under a tree in the bed of the little stream, now nearly dry. +The sun was such as in any other climate would strike you down, but +here <i>coup de</i> <i>soleil</i> is unknown. It broils you till +your shoulders ache and your lips crack, but it does not make you feel +the least languid, and you perspire very little; nor does it tan the +skin as you would expect. The light of the sun is by no means +‘golden’—it is pure white—and the slightest +shade of a tree or bush affords a delicious temperature, so light and +fresh is the air. They said the thermometer was at about 130 degrees +where I was walking yesterday, but (barring the scorch) I could not +have believed it.</p> +<p>It was a very amusing day. The great tall Dutchmen came in +to shoot, and did but moderately, I thought. The longest range +was five hundred yards, and at that they shot well; at shorter ranges, +poorly enough. The best man made ten points. But oh! what +figures were there of negroes and coloured people! I longed for +a photographer. Some coloured lads were exquisitely graceful, +and composed beautiful <i>tableaux vivants</i>, after Murillo’s +beggar-boys.</p> +<p>A poor little, very old Bosjesman crept up, and was jeered and bullied. +I scolded the lad who abused him for being rude to an old man, whereupon +the poor little old creature squatted on the ground close by (for which +he would have been kicked but for me), took off his ragged hat, and +sat staring and nodding his small grey woolly head at me, and jabbering +some little soliloquy very <i>sotto voce</i>. There was something +shocking in the timidity with which he took the plate of food I gave +him, and in the way in which he ate it, with the <i>wrong</i> side of +his little yellow hand, like a monkey. A black, who had helped +to fetch the hamper, suggested to me to give him wine instead of meat +and bread, and make him drunk <i>for fun</i> (the blacks and Hottentots +copy the white man’s manners <i>to them</i>, when they get hold +of a Bosjesman to practise upon); but upon this a handsome West Indian +black, who had been cooking pies, fired up, and told him he was a ‘nasty +black rascal, and a Dutchman to boot’, to insult a lady and an +old man at once. If you could see the difference between one negro +and another, you would be quite convinced that education (i.e. circumstances) +makes the race. It was hardly conceivable that the hideous, dirty, +bandy-legged, ragged creature, who looked down on the Bosjesman, and +the well-made, smart fellow, with his fine eyes, jaunty red cap, and +snow-white shirt and trousers, alert as the best German Kellner, were +of the same blood; nothing but the colour was alike.</p> +<p>Then came a Dutchman, and asked for six penn’orth of ‘brood +en kaas’, and haggled for beer; and Englishmen, who bought chickens +and champagne without asking the price. One rich old boer got +three lunches, and then ‘trekked’ (made off) without paying +at all. Then came a Hottentot, stupidly drunk, with a fiddle, +and was beaten by a little red-haired Scotchman, and his fiddle smashed. +The Hottentot hit at his aggressor, who then declared he <i>had been</i> +a policeman, and insisted on taking him into custody and to the ‘Tronk’ +(prison) on his own authority, but was in turn sent flying by a gigantic +Irishman, who ‘wouldn’t see the poor baste abused’. +The Irishman was a farmer; I never saw such a Hercules—and beaming +with fun and good nature. He was very civil, and answered my questions, +and talked like an intelligent man; but when Captain D- asked him with +an air of some anxiety, if he was coming to the hotel, he replied, ‘No, +sir, no; I wouldn’t be guilty of such a misdemeanour. I +am aware that I was a disgrace and opprobrium to your house, sir, last +time I was there, sir. No, sir, I shall sleep in my cart, and +not come into the presence of ladies.’ Hereupon he departed, +and I was informed that he had been drunk for seventeen days, <i>sans</i> +<i>désemparer</i>, on his last visit to Caledon. However, +he kept quite sober on this occasion, and amused himself by making the +little blackies scramble for halfpence in the pools left in the bed +of the river. Among our customers was a very handsome black man, +with high straight nose, deep-set eyes, and a small mouth, smartly dressed +in a white felt hat, paletot, and trousers. He is the shoemaker, +and is making a pair of ‘Veldschoen’ for you, which you +will delight in. They are what the rough boers and Hottentots +wear, buff-hide barbarously tanned and shaped, and as soft as woollen +socks. The Othello-looking shoemaker’s name is Moor, and +his father told him he came of a ‘good breed’; that was +all he knew.</p> +<p>A very pleasing English farmer, who had been educated in Belgium, +came and ordered a bottle of champagne, and shyly begged me to drink +a glass, whereupon we talked of crops and the like; and an excellent +specimen of a colonist he appeared: very gentle and unaffected, with +homely good sense, and real good breeding—such a contrast to the +pert airs and vulgarity of Capetown and of the people in (colonial) +high places. Finding we had no carriage, he posted off and borrowed +a cart of one man and harness of another, and put his and his son’s +riding horses to it, to take Mrs. D- and me home. As it was still +early, he took us a ‘little drive’; and oh, ye gods! what +a terrific and dislocating pleasure was that! At a hard gallop, +Mr. M- (with the mildest and steadiest air and with perfect safety) +took us right across country. It is true there were no fences; +but over bushes, ditches, lumps of rock, watercourses, we jumped, flew, +and bounded, and up every hill we went racing pace. I arrived +at home much bewildered, and feeling more like Bürger’s Lenore +than anything else, till I saw Mr. M-’s steady, pleasant face +quite undisturbed, and was informed that such was the way of driving +of Cape farmers.</p> +<p>We found the luckless Jack in such a state of furious drunkenness +that he had to be dismissed on the spot, not without threats of the +‘Tronk’, and once more Kleenboy fills the office of boots. +He returned in a ludicrous state of penitence and emaciation, frankly +admitting that it was better to work hard and get ‘plenty grub’, +than to work less and get none;—still, however, protesting against +work at all.</p> +<p>January 7th.—For the last four days it has again been blowing +a wintry hurricane. Every one says that the continuance of these +winds so late into the summer (this answers to July) is unheard of, +and <i>must</i> cease soon. In Table Bay, I hear a good deal of +mischief has been done to the shipping.</p> +<p>I hope my long yarns won’t bore you. I put down what +seems new and amusing to me at the moment, but by the time it reaches +you, it will seem very dull and commonplace. I hear that the Scotchman +who attacked poor Aria, the crazy Hottentot, is a ‘revival lecturer’, +and was ‘simply exhorting him to break his fiddle and come to +Christ’ (the phrase is a clergyman’s, I beg to observe); +and the saints are indignant that, after executing the pious purpose +as far as the fiddle went, he was prevented by the chief constable from +dragging him to the Tronk. The ‘revival’ mania has +broken out rather violently in some places; the infection was brought +from St. Helena, I am told. At Capetown, old Abdool Jemaalee told +me that English Christians were getting more like Malays, and had begun +to hold ‘Kalifahs’ at Simon’s Bay. These are +festivals in which Mussulman fanatics run knives into their flesh, go +into convulsions, &c, to the sound of music, like the Arab described +by Houdin. Of course the poor blacks go quite demented.</p> +<p>I intend to stay here another two or three weeks, and then to go +to Worcester—stay a bit; Paarl, ditto; Stellenbosch, ditto—and +go to Capetown early in March, and in April to embark for home.</p> +<p>January 15th.—No mail in yet. We have had beautiful weather +the last three days. Captain D- has been in Capetown, and bought +a horse, which he rode home seventy-five miles in a day and a half,—the +beast none the worse nor tired. I am to ride him, and so shall +see the country if the vile cold winds keep off.</p> +<p>This morning I walked on the Veld, and met a young black shepherd +leading his sheep and goats, and playing on a guitar composed of an +old tin mug covered with a bit of sheepskin and a handle of rough wood, +with pegs, and three strings of sheep-gut. I asked him to sing, +and he flung himself at my feet in an attitude that would make Watts +crazy with delight, and <i>crooned</i> queer little mournful ditties. +I gave him sixpence, and told him not to get drunk. He said, ‘Oh +no; I will buy bread enough to make my belly stiff—I almost never +had my belly stiff.’ He likewise informed me he had just +been in the Tronk (prison), and on my asking why, replied: ‘Oh, +for fighting, and telling lies;’ Die liebe Unschuld! (Dear +innocence!)</p> +<p>Hottentot figs are rather nice—a green fig-shaped thing, containing +about a spoonful of <i>salt-sweet</i> insipid glue, which you suck out. +This does not sound nice, but it is. The plant has a thick, succulent, +triangular leaf, creeping on the ground, and growing anywhere, without +earth or water. Figs proper are common here, but tasteless; and +the people pick all their fruit green, and eat it so too. The +children are all crunching hard peaches and plums just now, particularly +some little half-breeds near here, who are frightfully ugly. Fancy +the children of a black woman and a red-haired man; the little monsters +are as black as the mother, and have <i>red</i> wool—you never +saw so diabolical an appearance. Some of the coloured people are +very pretty; for example, a coal-black girl of seventeen, and my washerwoman, +who is brown. They are wonderfully slender and agile, and quite +old hard-working women have waists you could span. They never +grow thick and square, like Europeans.</p> +<p>I could write a volume on Cape horses. Such valiant little +beasts, and so composed in temper, I never saw. They are nearly +all bays—a few very dark grey, which are esteemed; <i>very</i> +few white or light grey. I have seen no black, and only one dark +chestnut. They are not cobs, and look ‘very little of them’, +and have no beauty; but one of these little brutes, ungroomed, half-fed, +seldom stabled, will carry a six-and-a-half-foot Dutchman sixty miles +a day, day after day, at a shuffling easy canter, six miles an hour. +You ‘off saddle’ every three hours, and let him roll; you +also let him drink all he can get; his coat shines and his eye is bright, +and unsoundness is very rare. They are never properly broke, and +the soft-mouthed colts are sometimes made vicious by the cruel bits +and heavy hands; but by nature their temper is perfect.</p> +<p>Every morning all the horses in the village are turned loose, and +a general gallop takes place to the water tank, where they drink and +lounge a little; and the young ones are fetched home by their niggers, +while the old stagers know they will be wanted, and saunter off by themselves. +I often attend the Houyhnhnm <i>conversazione</i> at the tank, at about +seven o’clock, and am amused by their behaviour; and I continually +wish I could see Ned’s face on witnessing many equine proceedings +here. To see a farmer outspan and turn the team of active little +beasts loose on the boundless veld to amuse themselves for an hour or +two, sure that they will all be there, would astonish him a little; +and then to offer a horse nothing but a roll in the dust to refresh +himself withal!</p> +<p>One unpleasant sight here is the skeletons of horses and oxen along +the roadside; or at times a fresh carcase surrounded by a convocation +of huge serious-looking carrion crows, with neat white neck-cloths. +The skeletons look like wrecks, and make you feel very lonely on the +wide veld. In this district, and in most, I believe, the roads +are mere tracks over the hard, level earth, and very good they are. +When one gets rutty, you drive parallel to it, till the bush is worn +out and a new track is formed.</p> +<p>January 17th.—Lovely weather all the week. Summer well +set in.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>LETTER VI—CALEDON</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Caledon, January 19th.</p> +<p>Dearest Mother,</p> +<p>Till this last week, the weather was pertinaciously cold and windy; +and I had resolved to go to Worcester, which lies in a ‘Kessel’, +and is really hot. But now the glorious African summer is come, +and I believe this is the weather of Paradise. I got up at four +this morning, when the Dutchmen who had slept here were starting in +their carts and waggons. It was quite light; but the moon shone +brilliantly still, and had put on a bright rose-coloured veil, borrowed +from the rising sun on the opposite horizon. The freshness (without +a shadow of cold or damp) of the air was indescribable—no dew +was on the ground. I went up the hill-side, along the ‘Sloot’ +(channel, which supplies all our water), into the ‘Kloof’ +between the mountains, and clambered up to the ‘Venster Klip’, +from which natural window the view is very fine. The flowers are +all gone and the grass all dead. Rhenoster boschjes and Hottentot +fig are green everywhere, and among the rocks all manner of shrubs, +and far too much ‘Wacht een beetje’ <i>(Wait a bit</i>), +a sort of series of natural fish-hooks, which try the robustest patience. +Between seven and eight, the sun gets rather hot, and I came in and +<i>tubbed</i>, and sat on the stoep (a sort of terrace, in front of +every house in South Africa). I breakfast at nine, sit on the +stoep again till the sun comes round, and then retreat behind closed +shutters from the stinging sun. The <i>air</i> is fresh and light +all day, though the sun is tremendous; but one has no languid feeling +or desire to lie about, unless one is sleepy. We dine at two or +half-past, and at four or five the heat is over, and one puts on a shawl +to go out in the afternoon breeze. The nights are cool, so as +always to want one blanket. I still have a cough; but it is getting +better, so that I can always eat and walk. Mine host has just +bought a horse, which he is going to try with a petticoat to-day, and +if he goes well I shall ride.</p> +<p>I like this inn-life, because I see all the ‘neighbourhood’—farmers +and traders—whom I like far better than the <i>gentility</i> of +Capetown. I have given letters to England to a ‘boer’, +who is ‘going home’, i.e. to Europe, the <i>first of his +race since the revocation</i> <i>of the Edict of Nantes</i>, when some +poor refugees were inveigled hither by the Dutch Governor, and oppressed +worse than the Hottentots. M. de Villiers has had no education +<i>at all</i>, and has worked, and traded, and farmed,—but the +breed tells; he is a pure and thorough Frenchman, unable to speak a +word of French. When I went in to dinner, he rose and gave me +a chair with a bow which, with his appearance, made me ask, <i>‘Monsieur +vient d’arriver</i>?’ This at once put him out and +pleased him. He is very unlike a Dutchman. If you think +that any of the French will feel as I felt to this far-distant brother +of theirs, pray give him a few letters; but remember that he can speak +only English and Dutch, and a little German. Here his name is +<i>called</i> ‘Filljee’, but I told him to drop that barbarism +in Europe; De Villiers ought to speak for itself. He says they +came from the neighbourhood of Bordeaux.</p> +<p>The postmaster, Heer Klein, and his old Pylades, Heer Ley, are great +cronies of mine—stout old greybeards, toddling down the hill together. +I sometimes go and sit on the stoep with the two old bachelors, and +they take it as a great compliment; and Heer Klein gave me my letters +all decked with flowers, and wished ‘Vrolyke tydings, Mevrouw,’ +most heartily. He has also made his tributary mail-cart Hottentots +bring from various higher mountain ranges the beautiful everlasting +flowers, which will make pretty wreaths for J-. When I went to +his house to thank him, I found a handsome Malay, with a basket of ‘Klipkaus’, +a shell-fish much esteemed here. Old Klein told me they were sent +him by a Malay who was born in his father’s house, a slave, and +had been <i>his ‘boy</i>’ and play-fellow. Now, the +slave is far richer than the old young master, and no waggon comes without +a little gift—oranges, fish, &c.—for ‘Wilhem’. +When Klein goes to Capetown, the old Malay seats him in a grand chair +and sits on a little wooden stool at his feet; Klein begs him, as ‘Huisheer’, +to sit properly; but, ‘Neen Wilhem, Ik zal niet; ik kan niet vergeten.’ +‘Good boy!’ said old Klein; ‘good people the Malays.’ +It is a relief, after the horrors one has heard of Dutch cruelty, to +see such an ‘idyllisches Verhältniss’. I have +heard other instances of the same fidelity from Malays, but they were +utterly unappreciated, and only told to prove the excellence of slavery, +and ‘how well the rascals must have been off’.</p> +<p>I have fallen in love with a Hottentot baby here. Her mother +is all black, with a broad face and soft spaniel eyes, and the father +is Bastaard; but the baby (a girl, nine months old), has walked out +of one of Leonardo da Vinci’s pictures. I never saw so beautiful +a child. She has huge eyes with the spiritual look he gives to +them, and is exquisite in every way. When the Hottentot blood +is handsome, it is beautiful; there is a delicacy and softness about +some of the women which is very pretty, and the eyes are those of a +<i>good</i> dog. Most of them are hideous, and nearly all drink; +but they are very clean and honest. Their cottages are far superior +in cleanliness to anything out of England, except in picked places, +like some parts of Belgium; and they wash as much as they can, with +the bad water-supply, and the English outcry if they strip out of doors +to bathe. Compared to French peasants, they are very clean indeed, +and even the children are far more decent and cleanly in their habits +than those of France. The woman who comes here to clean and scour +is a model of neatness in her work and her person (quite black), but +she gets helplessly drunk as soon as she has a penny to buy a glass +of wine; for a penny, a half-pint tumbler of very strong and remarkably +nasty wine is sold at the canteens.</p> +<p>I have many more ‘humours’ to tell, but A- can show you +all the long story I have written. I hope it does not seem very +stale and <i>decies repetita</i>. All being new and curious to +the eye here, one becomes long-winded about mere trifles.</p> +<p>One small thing more. The first few shillings that a coloured +woman has to spend on her cottage go in—what do you think?—A +grand toilet table of worked muslin over pink, all set out with little +‘<i>objets’</i>—such as they are: if there is nothing +else, there is that here, as at Capetown, and all along to Simon’s +Bay. Now, what is the use or comfort of a <i>duchesse</i> to a +Hottentot family? I shall never see those toilets again without +thinking of Hottentots—what a baroque association of ideas! +I intend, in a day or two, to go over to ‘Gnadenthal’, the +Moravian missionary station, founded in 1736—the ‘blühende +Gemeinde von Hottentoten’. How little did I think to see +it, when we smiled at the phrase in old Mr. Steinkopf’s sermon +years ago in London! The <i>missionarized</i> Hottentots are not, +as it is said, thought well of—being even tipsier than the rest; +but I may see a full-blood one, and even a true Bosjesman, which is +worth a couple of hours’ drive; and the place is said to be beautiful.</p> +<p>This climate is evidently a styptic of great power, I shall write +a few lines to the <i>Lancet</i> about Caledon and its hot baths—‘Bad +Caledon’, as the Germans at Houw Hoek call it. The baths +do not concern me, as they are chalybeate; but they seem very effectual +in many cases. Yet English people never come here; they stay at +Capetown, which must be a furnace now, or at Wynberg, which is damp +and chill (comparatively); at most, they get to Stellenbosch. +I mean visitors, not settlers; <i>they</i> are everywhere. I look +the colour of a Hottentot. Now I <i>must</i> leave off.</p> +<p>Your most affectionate</p> +<p>L. D. G.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>LETTER VII—GNADENTHAL</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Caledon, Jan. 28th.</p> +<p>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 <i>galloping +out</i> the grain, or men were winnowing it by tossing it up with wooden +shovels to let the wind blow away the chaff. We did the twenty-four +miles up and down the mountain roads in two hours and a half, with our +valiant little pair of horses; it is incredible how they go. We +stopped at a nice cottage on the hillside belonging to a <i>ci-devant</i> +slave, one Christian Rietz, a <i>white</i> man, with brown woolly hair, +sharp features, grey eyes, and <i>not</i> woolly moustaches. He +said he was a ‘Scotch bastaard’, and ‘le bon sang +parlait—très-haut même’, for a more thriving, +shrewd, sensible fellow I never saw. His <i>father</i> and master +had had to let him go when all slaves were emancipated, and he had come +to Gnadenthal. He keeps a little inn in the village, and a shop +and a fine garden. The cottage we lodged in was on the mountain +side, and had been built for his son, who was dead; and his adopted +daughter, a pretty coloured girl, exactly like a southern Frenchwoman, +waited on us, assisted by about six or seven other women, who came chiefly +to stare. Vrouw Rietz was as black as a coal, but <i>so</i> pretty!—a +dear, soft, sleek, old lady, with beautiful eyes, and the kind pleasant +ways which belong to nice blacks; and, though old and fat, still graceful +and lovely in face, hands, and arms. The cottage was thus:- One +large hall; my bedroom on the right, S-’s on the left; the kitchen +behind me; Miss Rietz behind S-; mud floors daintily washed over with +fresh cow-dung; ceiling of big rafters, just as they had grown, on which +rested bamboo canes close together <i>across</i> the rafters, and bound +together between each, with transverse bamboo—a pretty <i>beehivey</i> +effect; at top, mud again, and then a high thatched roof and a loft +or zolder for forage, &c.; the walls of course mud, very thick and +whitewashed. The bedrooms tiny; beds, clean sweet melies (maize) +straw, with clean sheets, and eight good pillows on each; glass windows +(a great distinction), exquisite cleanliness, and hearty civility; good +food, well cooked; horrid tea and coffee, and hardly any milk; no end +of fruit. In all the gardens it hung on the trees thicker than +the leaves. Never did I behold such a profusion of fruit and vegetables.</p> +<p>But first I must tell what struck me most, I asked one of the Herrenhut +brethren whether there were any <i>real</i> Hottentots, and he said, +‘Yes, one;’ and next morning, as I sat waiting for early +prayers under the big oak-trees in the Plaats (square), he came up, +followed by a tiny old man hobbling along with a long stick to support +him. ‘Here’, said he, ‘is the <i>last</i> Hottentot; +he is a hundred and seven years old, and lives all alone.’ +I looked on the little, wizened, yellow face, and was shocked that he +should be dragged up like a wild beast to be stared at. A feeling +of pity which felt like remorse fell upon me, and my eyes filled as +I rose and stood before him, so tall and like a tyrant and oppressor, +while he uncovered his poor little old snow-white head, and peered up +in my face. I led him to the seat, and helped him to sit down, +and said in Dutch, ‘Father, I hope you are not tired; you are +old.’ He saw and heard as well as ever, and spoke good Dutch +in a firm voice. ‘Yes, I am above a hundred years old, and +alone—quite alone.’ I sat beside him, and he put his +head on one side, and looked curiously up at me with his faded, but +still piercing little wild eyes. Perhaps he had a perception of +what I felt—yet I hardly think so; perhaps he thought I was in +trouble, for he crept close up to me, and put one tiny brown paw into +my hand, which he stroked with the other, and asked (like most coloured +people) if I had children. I said, ‘Yes, at home in England;’ +and he patted my hand again, and said, ‘God bless them!’ +It was a relief to feel that he was pleased, for I should have felt +like a murderer if my curiosity had added a moment’s pain to so +tragic a fate.</p> +<p>This may sound like sentimentalism; but you cannot conceive the effect +of looking on the last of a race once the owners of all this land, and +now utterly gone. His look was not quite human, physically speaking;—a +good head, small wild-beast eyes, piercing and restless; cheek-bones +strangely high and prominent, nose <i>quite</i> flat, mouth rather wide; +thin shapeless lips, and an indescribably small, long, pointed chin, +with just a very little soft white woolly beard; his head covered with +extremely short close white wool, which ended round the poll in little +ringlets. Hands and feet like an English child of seven or eight, +and person about the size of a child of eleven. He had all his +teeth, and though shrunk to nothing, was very little wrinkled in the +face, and not at all in the hands, which were dark brown, while his +face was yellow. His manner, and way of speaking were like those +of an old peasant in England, only his voice was clearer and stronger, +and his perceptions not blunted by age. He had travelled with +one of the missionaries in the year 1790, or thereabouts, and remained +with them ever since.</p> +<p>I went into the church—a large, clean, rather handsome building, +consecrated in 1800—and heard a very good sort of Litany, mixed +with such singing as only black voices can produce. The organ +was beautifully played by a Bastaard lad. The Herrenhuters use +very fine chants, and the perfect ear and heavenly voices of a large +congregation, about six hundred, all coloured people, made music more +beautiful than any chorus-singing I ever heard.</p> +<p>Prayers lasted half an hour; then the congregation turned out of +doors, and the windows were opened. Some of the people went away, +and others waited for the ‘allgemeine Predigt’. In +a quarter of an hour a much larger congregation than the first assembled, +the girls all with net-handkerchiefs tied round their heads so as to +look exactly like the ancient Greek head-dress with a double fillet—the +very prettiest and neatest coiffure I ever saw. The gowns were +made like those of English girls of the same class, but far smarter, +cleaner, and gayer in colour—pink, and green, and yellow, and +bright blue; several were all in white, with white gloves. The +men and women sit separate, and the women’s side was a bed of +tulips. The young fellows were very smart indeed, with muslin +or gauze, either white, pink, or blue, rolled round their hats (that +is universal here, on account of the sun). The Hottentots, as +they are called—that is, those of mixed Dutch and Hottentot origin +(correctly, ‘bastaards’)—have a sort of blackguard +elegance in their gait and figure which is peculiar to them; a mixture +of negro or Mozambique blood alters it altogether. The girls have +the elegance without the blackguard look; <i>all</i> are slender, most +are tall; all graceful, all have good hands and feet; some few are handsome +in the face and many very interesting-looking. The complexion +is a pale olive-yellow, and the hair more or less woolly, face flat, +and cheekbones high, eyes small and bright. These are by far the +most intelligent—equal, indeed, to whites. A mixture of +black blood often gives real beauty, but takes off from the ‘air’, +and generally from the talent; but then the blacks are so pleasant, +and the Hottentots are taciturn and reserved. The old women of +this breed are the grandest hags I ever saw; they are clean and well +dressed, and tie up their old faces in white handkerchiefs like corpses,—faces +like those of Andrea del Sarto’s old women; they are splendid. +Also, they are very clean people, addicted to tubbing more than any +others. The maid-of-all-work, who lounges about your breakfast +table in rags and dishevelled hair, has been in the river before you +were awake, or, if that was too far off, in a tub. They are also +far cleaner in their huts than any but the <i>very best</i> English +poor.</p> +<p>The ‘Predigt’ was delivered, after more singing, by a +missionary cabinet-maker, in Dutch, very ranting, and not very wise; +the congregation was singularly decorous and attentive, but did not +seem at all excited or impressed—just like a well-bred West-end +audience, only rather more attentive. The service lasted three-quarters +of an hour, including a short prayer and two hymns. The people +came out and filed off in total silence, and very quickly, the tall +graceful girls draping their gay silk shawls beautifully. There +are seven missionaries, all in orders but one, the blacksmith, and all +married, except the resident director of the boys’ boarding-school; +there is a doctor, a carpenter, a cabinet-maker, a shoe-maker, and a +storekeeper—a very agreeable man, who had been missionary in Greenland +and Labrador, and interpreter to MacClure. There is one ‘Studirter +Theolog’. All are Germans, and so are their wives. +My friend the storekeeper married without having ever beheld his wife +before they met at the altar, and came on board ship at once with her. +He said it was as good a way of marrying as any other, and that they +were happy together. She was lying in, so I did not see her. +At eight years old, their children are all sent home to Germany to be +educated, and they seldom see them again. On each side of the +church are schools, and next to them the missionaries’ houses +on one side of the square, and on the other a row of workshops, where +the Hottentots are taught all manner of trades. I have got a couple +of knives, made at Gnadenthal, for the children. The girls occupy +the school in the morning, and the boys in the afternoon; half a day +is found quite enough of lessons in this climate. The infant school +was of both sexes, but a different set morning and afternoon. +The missionaries’ children were in the infant school; and behind +the little blonde German ‘Mädels’ three jet black niggerlings +rolled over each other like pointer-pups, and grinned, and didn’t +care a straw for the spelling; while the dingy yellow little bastaards +were straining their black eyes out, with eagerness to answer the master’s +questions. He and the mistress were both Bastaards, and he seemed +an excellent teacher. The girls were learning writing from a master, +and Bible history from a mistress, also people of colour; and the stupid +set (mostly black) were having spelling hammered into their thick skulls +by another yellow mistress, in another room. At the boarding school +were twenty lads, from thirteen up to twenty, in training for school-teachers +at different stations. Gnadenthal supplies the Church of England +with them, as well as their own stations. There were Caffres, +Fingoes, a Mantatee, one boy evidently of some Oriental blood, with +glossy, smooth hair and a copper skin—and the rest Bastaards of +various hues, some mixed with black, probably Mozambique. The +Caffre lads were splendid young Hercules’. They had just +printed the first book in the Caffre language (I’ve got it for +Dr. Hawtrey,)—extracts from the New Testament,—and I made +them read the sheets they were going to bind; it is a beautiful language, +like Spanish in tone, only with a queer ‘click’ in it. +The boys drew, like Chinese, from ‘copies’, and wrote like +copper-plate; they sang some of Mendelssohn’s choruses from ‘St. +Paul’ splendidly, the Caffres rolling out soft rich bass voices, +like melodious thunder. They are clever at handicrafts, and fond +of geography and natural history, incapable of mathematics, quick at +languages, utterly incurious about other nations, and would all rather +work in the fields than learn anything but music; good boys, honest, +but ‘<i>trotzig</i>’. So much for Caffres, Fingoes, +&c. The Bastaards are as clever as whites, and more docile—so +the ‘rector’ told me. The boy who played the organ +sang the ‘Lorelei’ like an angel, and played us a number +of waltzes and other things on the piano, but he was too shy to talk; +while the Caffres crowded round me, and chattered away merrily. +The Mantatees, whom I cannot distinguish from Caffres, are scattered +all over the colony, and rival the English as workmen and labourers—fine +stalwart, industrious fellows. Our little ‘boy’ Kleenboy +hires a room for fifteen shillings a month, and takes in his compatriots +as lodgers at half a crown a week—the usurious little rogue! +His chief, one James, is a bricklayer here, and looks and behaves like +a prince. It is fine to see his black arms, ornamented with silver +bracelets, hurling huge stones about.</p> +<p>All Gnadenthal is wonderfully fruitful, being well watered, but it +is not healthy for whites; I imagine, too hot and damp. There +are three or four thousand coloured people there, under the control +of the missionaries, who allow no canteens at all. The people +may have what they please at home, but no public drinking-place is allowed, +and we had to take our own beer and wine for the three days. The +gardens and burial-ground are beautiful, and the square is entirely +shaded by about ten or twelve superb oaks; nothing prettier can be conceived. +It is not popular in the neighbourhood. ‘You see it makes +the d-d niggers cheeky’ to have homes of their own—and the +girls are said to be immoral. As to that, there are no so-called +‘morals’ among the coloured people, and how or why should +there? It is an honour to one of these girls to have a child by +a white man, and it is a degradation to him to marry a dark girl. +A pious stiff old Dutchwoman who came here the other day for the Sacrament +(which takes place twice a year), had one girl with her, big with child +by her son, who also came for the Sacrament, and two in the straw at +home by the other son; this caused her exactly as much emotion as I +feel when my cat kittens. No one takes any notice, either to blame +or to nurse the poor things—they scramble through it as pussy +does. The English are almost equally contemptuous; but there is +one great difference. My host, for instance, always calls a black +‘a d-d nigger’; but if that nigger is wronged or oppressed +he fights for him, or bails him out of the Tronk, and an English jury +gives a just verdict; while a Dutch one simply finds for a Dutchman, +against any one else, and <i>always</i> against a dark man. I +believe this to be true, from what I have seen and heard; and certainly +the coloured people have a great preference for the English.</p> +<p>I am persecuted by the ugliest and blackest Mozambiquer I have yet +seen, a bricklayer’s labourer, who can speak English, and says +he was servant to an English Captain—‘Oh, a good fellow +he was, only he’s dead!’ He now insists on my taking +him as a servant. ‘I dessay your man at home is a good chap, +and I’ll be a good boy, and cook very nice.’ He is +thick-set and short and strong. Nature has adorned him with a +cock eye and a yard of mouth, and art, with a prodigiously tall white +chimney-pot hat with the crown out, a cotton nightcap, and a wondrous +congeries of rags. He professes to be cook, groom, and ‘walley’, +and is sure you would be pleased with his attentions.</p> +<p>Well, to go back to Gnadenthal. I wandered all over the village +on Sunday afternoon, and peeped into the cottages. All were neat +and clean, with good dressers of crockery, the <i>very</i> poorest, +like the worst in Weybridge sandpits; but they had no glass windows, +only a wooden shutter, and no doors; a calico curtain, or a sort of +hurdle supplying its place. The people nodded and said ‘Good +day!’ but took no further notice of me, except the poor old Hottentot, +who was seated on a doorstep. He rose and hobbled up to meet me +and take my hand again. He seemed to enjoy being helped along +and seated down carefully, and shook and patted my hand repeatedly when +I took leave of him. At this the people stared a good deal, and +one woman came to talk to me.</p> +<p>In the evening I sat on a bench in the square, and saw the people +go in to ‘Abendsegen’. The church was lighted, and +as I sat there and heard the lovely singing, I thought it was impossible +to conceive a more romantic scene. On Monday I saw all the schools, +and then looked at the great strong Caffre lads playing in the square. +One of them stood to be pelted by five or six others, and as the stones +came, he twisted and turned and jumped, and was hardly ever hit, and +when he was, he didn’t care, though the others hurled like catapults. +It was the most wonderful display of activity and grace, and quite incredible +that such a huge fellow should be so quick and light. When I found +how comfortable dear old Mrs. Rietz made me, I was sorry I had hired +the cart and kept it to take me home, for I would gladly have stayed +longer, and the heat did me no harm; but I did not like to throw away +a pound or two, and drove back that evening. Mrs. Rietz, told +me her mother was a Mozambiquer. ‘And your father?’ +said I. ‘Oh, I don’t know. <i>My mother was +only a slave</i>.’ She, too, was a slave, but said she ‘never +knew it’, her ‘missus’ was so good; a Dutch lady, +at a farm I had passed, on the road, who had a hundred and fifty slaves. +I liked my Hottentot hut amazingly, and the sweet brown bread, and the +dinner cooked so cleanly on the bricks in the kitchen. The walls +were whitewashed and adorned with wreaths of everlasting flowers and +some quaint old prints from Loutherburg—pastoral subjects, not +exactly edifying.</p> +<p>Well, I have prosed unconscionably, so adieu for the present.</p> +<p>February 3d.—Many happy returns of your birthday, dear -. +I had a bottle of champagne to drink your health, and partly to swell +the bill, which these good people make so moderate, that I am half ashamed. +I get everything that Caledon can furnish for myself and S- for 15<i>l</i>. +a month.</p> +<p>On Saturday we got the sad news of Prince Albert’s death, and +it created real consternation here. What a thoroughly unexpected +calamity! Every one is already dressed in deep mourning. +It is more general than in a village of the same size at home—(how +I have caught the colonial trick of always saying ‘home’ +for England! Dutchmen who can barely speak English, and never +did or will see England, equally talk of ‘news from home’). +It also seems, by the papers of the 24th of December, which came by +a steamer the other day, that war is imminent. I shall have to +wait for convoy, I suppose, as I object to walking the plank from a +Yankee privateer. I shall wait here for the next mail, and then +go back to Capetown, stopping by the way, so as to get there early in +March, and arrange for my voyage. The weather had a relapse into +cold, and an attempt at rain. Pity it failed, for the drought +is dreadful this year, chiefly owing to the unusual quantity of sharp +drying winds—a most unlucky summer for the country and for me.</p> +<p>My old friend Klein, who told me several instances of the kindness +and gratitude of former slaves, poured out to me the misery he had undergone +from the ‘ingratitude’ of a certain Rosina, a slave-girl +of his. She was in her youth handsome, clever, the best horsebreaker, +bullock-trainer and driver, and hardest worker in the district. +She had two children by Klein, then a young fellow; six by another white +man, and a few more by two husbands of her own race! But she was +of a rebellious spirit, and took to drink. After the emancipation, +she used to go in front of Klein’s windows and read the statute +in a loud voice on every anniversary of the day; and as if that did +not enrage him enough, she pertinaciously (whenever she was a little +drunk) kissed him by main force every time she met him in the street, +exclaiming, ‘Aha! when I young and pretty slave-girl you make +kiss me then; now I ugly, drunk, dirty old devil and free woman, I kiss +you!’ Frightful retributive justice! I struggled hard +to keep my countenance, but the fat old fellow’s good-humoured, +rueful face was too much for me. His tormentor is dead, but he +retains a painful impression of her ‘ingratitude ‘.</p> +<p>Our little Mantatee ‘Kleenboy’ has again, like Jeshurun, +‘waxed fat and kicked’, as soon as he had eaten enough to +be once more plump and shiny. After his hungry period, he took +to squatting on the stoep, just in front of the hall-door, and altogether +declining to do anything; so he is superseded by an equally ugly little +red-headed Englishman. The Irish housemaid has married the German +baker (a fine match for her!), and a dour little Scotch Presbyterian +has come up from Capetown in her place. Such are the vicissitudes +of colonial house-keeping! The only ‘permanency’ is +the old soldier of Captain D-’s regiment, who is barman in the +canteen, and not likely to leave ‘his honour’, and the coloured +girl, who improves on acquaintance. She wants to ingratiate herself +with me, and get taken to England. Her father is an Englishman, +and of course the brown mother and her large family always live in the +fear of his ‘going home’ and ignoring their existence; a +<i>marriage</i> with the mother of his children would be too much degradation +for him to submit to. Few of the coloured people are ever married, +but they don’t separate oftener than <i>really</i> married folks. +Bill, the handsome West Indian black, married my pretty washerwoman +Rosalind, and was thought rather assuming because he was asked in church +and lawfully married; and she wore a handsome lilac silk gown and a +white wreath and veil, and very well she looked in them. She had +a child of two years old, which did not at all disconcert Bill; but +he continues to be dignified, and won’t let her go and wash clothes +in the river, because the hot sun makes her ill, and it is not fit work +for women.</p> +<p>Sunday, 9th.—Last night a dance took place in a house next +door to this, and a party of boers attempted to go in, but were repulsed +by a sortie of the young men within. Some of the more peaceable +boers came in here and wanted ale, which was refused, as they were already +very <i>vinous</i>; so they imbibed ginger-beer, whereof one drank thirty-four +bottles to his own share! Inspired by this drink, they began to +quarrel, and were summarily turned out. They spent the whole night, +till five this morning, scuffling and vociferating in the street. +The constables discreetly stayed in bed, displaying the true Dogberry +spirit, which leads them to take up Hottentots, drunk or sober, to show +their zeal, but carefully to avoid meddling with stalwart boers, from +six to six and a half feet high and strong in proportion. The +jabbering of Dutch brings to mind Demosthenes trying to outroar a stormy +sea with his mouth full of pebbles. The hardest blows are those +given with the tongue, though much pulling of hair and scuffling takes +place. ‘Verdomde Schmeerlap!’—‘Donder +and Bliksem! am I a verdomde Schmeerlap?’—‘Ja, u is,’ +&c., &c. I could not help laughing heartily as I lay in +bed, at hearing the gambols of these Titan cubs; for this is a boer’s +notion of enjoying himself. This morning, I hear, the street was +strewn with the hair they had pulled out of each other’s heads. +All who come here make love to S-; not by describing their tender feelings, +but by enumerating the oxen, sheep, horses, land, money, &c., of +which they are possessed, and whereof, by the law of this colony, she +would become half-owner on marriage. There is a fine handsome +Van Steen, who is very persevering; but S- does not seem to fancy becoming +Mevrouw at all. The demand for English girls as wives is wonderful +here. The nasty cross little ugly Scotch maid has had three offers +already, in one fortnight!</p> +<p>February 18th.—I expect to receive the letters by the English +mail to-morrow morning, and to go to Worcester on Thursday. On +Saturday the young doctor—good-humoured, jolly, big, young Dutchman—drove +me, with his pretty little greys, over to two farms; at one I ate half +a huge melon, and at the other, uncounted grapes. We poor Europeans +don’t know what fruit <i>can be</i>, I must admit. The melon +was a foretaste of paradise, and the grapes made one’s fingers +as sticky as honey, and had a muscat fragrance quite inconceivable. +They looked like amber eggs. The best of it is, too, that in this +climate stomach-aches are not. We all eat grapes, peaches, and +figs, all day long. Old Klein sends me, for my own daily consumption, +about thirty peaches, three pounds of grapes, and apples, pears, and +figs besides—‘just a little taste of fruits’; only +here they will pick it all unripe.</p> +<p>February 19th.—The post came in late last night, and old Klein +kindly sent me my letters at near midnight. The post goes out +this evening, and the hot wind is blowing, so I can only write to you, +and a line to my mother. I feel really better now. I think +the constant eating of grapes has done me much good.</p> +<p>The Dutch cart-owner was so extortionate, that I am going to wait +a few days, and write to my dear Malay to come up and drive me back. +It is better than having to fight the Dutch monopolist in every village, +and getting drunken drivers and bad carts after all. I shall go +round all the same. The weather has been beautiful; to-day there +is a wind, which comes about two or three times in the year: it is not +depressing, but hot, and a bore, because one must shut every window +or be stifled with dust.</p> +<p>The people are burning the veld all about, and the lurid smoke by +day and flaming hill-sides by night are very striking. The ashes +of the Bosh serve as manure for the young grass, which will sprout in +the autumn rains. Such nights! Such a moon! I walk +out after dark when it is mild and clear, and can read any print by +the moonlight, and see the distant landscape as well as by day.</p> +<p>Old Klein has just sent me a haunch of bok, and the skin and hoofs, +which are pretty.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>LETTER VIII</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Caledon, Sunday.</p> +<p>You must have fallen into second childhood to think of <i>printing</i> +such rambling hasty scrawls as I write. I never could write a +good letter; and unless I gallop as hard as I can, and don’t stop +to think, I can say nothing; so all is confused and unconnected: only +I fancy <i>you</i> will be amused by some of my ‘impressions’. +I have written to my mother an accurate account of my health. +I am dressed and out of doors never later than six, now the weather +makes it possible. It is surprising how little sleep one wants. +I go to bed at ten and often am up at four.</p> +<p>I made friends here the other day with a lively dried-up little old +Irishman, who came out at seven years old a pauper-boy. He has +made a fortune by ‘going on <i>Togt’ (German, Tausch</i>), +as thus; he charters two waggons, twelve oxen each, and two Hottentots +to each waggon, leader and driver. The waggons he fills with cotton, +hardware, &c., &c.—an ambulatory village ‘shop’,—and +goes about fifteen miles a day, on and on, into the far interior, swapping +baftas (calico), punjums (loose trowsers), and voerschitz (cotton gownpieces), +pronounced ‘foossy’, against oxen and sheep. When +all is gone he swaps his waggons against more oxen and a horse, and +he and his four ‘totties’ drive home the spoil; and he has +doubled or trebled his venture. <i>En route</i> home, each day +they kill a sheep, and eat it <i>all</i>. ‘What!’ +says I; ‘the whole?’ ‘Every bit. I always +take one leg and the liver for myself, and the totties roast the rest, +and melt all the fat and entrails down in an iron pot and eat it with +a wooden spoon.’ <i>Je n’en revenais pas</i>. +‘What! the whole leg and liver at one meal?’ ‘Every +bit; ay, and you’d do the same, ma’am, if you were there.’ +No bread, no salt, no nothing—mutton and water. The old +fellow was quite poetic and heroic in describing the joys and perils +of Togt. I said I should like to go too; and he bewailed having +settled a year ago in a store at Swellendam, ‘else he’d +ha’ fitted up a waggon all nice and snug for me, and shown me +what going on togt was like. Nothing like it for the health, ma’am; +and beautiful shooting.’ My friend had 700<i>l</i>. in gold +in a carpet bag, without a lock, lying about on the stoep. ‘All +right; nobody steals money or such like here. I’m going +to pay bills in Capetown.’</p> +<p>Tell my mother that a man would get from 2<i>l</i>. to 4<i>l</i>. +a month wages, with board, lodging, &c., all found, and his wife +from 1<i>l</i>. 10<i>s</i>. to 2<i>l</i>. a month and everything found, +according to abilities and testimonials. Wages are enormous, and +servants at famine price; emigrant ships are <i>cleared off</i> in three +days, and every ragged Irish girl in place somewhere. Four pounds +a month, and food for self, husband, and children, is no uncommon pay +for a good cook; and after all her cookery may be poor enough. +My landlady at Capetown gave that. The housemaid had <i>only</i> +1<i>l</i>. 5<i>s</i>. a month, but told me herself she had taken 8<i>l</i>. +in one week in ‘tips’. She was an excellent servant. +Up country here the wages are less, but the comfort greater, and the +chances of ‘getting on’ much increased. But I believe +Algoa Bay or Grahamstown are by far the best fields for new colonists, +and (I am assured) the best climate for lung diseases. The wealthy +English merchants of Port Elizabeth (Algoa Bay) pay best. It seems +to me, as far as I can learn, that every really <i>working</i> man or +woman can thrive here.</p> +<p>My German host at Houw Hoek came out twenty-three years ago, he told +me, without a ‘heller’, and is now the owner of cattle and +land and horses to a large amount. But then the Germans work, +while the Dutch dawdle and the English drink. ‘New wine’ +is a penny a glass (half a pint), enough to blow your head off, and +‘Cape smoke’ (brandy, like vitriol) ninepence a bottle—that +is the real calamity. If the Cape had the grape disease as badly +as Madeira, it would be the making of the colony.</p> +<p>I received a message from my Malay friends, Abdool Jemaalee and Betsy, +anxious to know ‘if the Misses had good news of her children, +for bad news would make her sick’. Old Betsy and I used +to prose about young Abdurrachman and his studies at Mecca, and about +my children, with more real heartiness than you can fancy. We +were not afraid of boring each other; and pious old Abdool sat and nodded +and said, ‘May Allah protect them all!’ as a refrain;—‘Allah, +il Allah!’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>LETTER IX</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Caledon, Feb. 21st.</p> +<p>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 ‘<i>vidanges’</i> +are more barbarous even than in Paris. Without the south-easter +(or ‘Cape doctor’) they must have fevers, &c.; and though +too rough a practitioner for me, he benefits the general health. +Next month the winds abate, but last week an omnibus was blown over +on the Rondebosch road, which is the most sheltered spot, and inhabited +by Capetown merchants. I have received all the <i>Saturday Reviews</i> +quite safe, likewise the books, Mendelssohn’s letters, and the +novel. I have written for my dear Choslullah to fetch me. +The Dutch farmers don’t know how to charge enough; moreover, the +Hottentot drivers get drunk, and for two lone women that is not the +thing. I pay my gentle Malay thirty shillings a day, which, for +a cart and four and such a jewel of a driver, is not outrageous; and +I had better pay that for the few days I wait on the road, than risk +bad carts, tipsy Hottentots, and extortionate boers.</p> +<p>This intermediate country between the ‘Central African wilderness’ +and Capetown has been little frequented. I went to the Church +Mission School with the English clergyman yesterday. You know +I don’t believe in every kind of missionaries, but I do believe +that, in these districts, kind, judicious English clergymen are of great +value. The Dutch pastors still remember the distinction between +‘Christenmenschen’ and ‘Hottentoten’; but the +Church Mission Schools teach the Anglican Catechism to every child that +will learn, and the congregation is as piebald as Harlequin’s +jacket. A pretty, coloured lad, about eleven years old, answered +my questions in geography with great quickness and some wit. I +said, ‘Show me the country you belong to.’ He pointed +to England, and when I laughed, to the cape. ‘This is where +we are, but that is the country I <i>belong to</i>.’ I asked +him how we were governed, and he answered quite right. ‘How +is the Cape governed?’ ‘Oh, we have a Parliament too, +and Mr. Silberbauer is the man <i>we</i> send.’ Boys and +girls of all ages were mixed, but no blacks. I don’t think +they will learn, except on compulsion, as at Gnadenthal.</p> +<p>I regret to say that Bill’s wife has broken his head with a +bottle, at the end of the honeymoon. I fear the innovation of +being <i>married at church</i> has not had a good effect, and that his +neighbours may quote Mr. Peachum.</p> +<p>I was offered a young lion yesterday, but I hardly think it would +be an agreeable addition to the household at Esher.</p> +<p>I hear that Worcester, Paarl, and Stellenbosch are beautiful, and +the road very desolate and grand: one mountain pass takes six hours +to cross. I should not return to Capetown so early, but poor Captain +J- has had his leg smashed and amputated, so I must look out for myself +in the matter of ships. Whenever it is hot, I am well, for the +heat here is so <i>light</i> and dry. The wind tries me, but we +have little here compared to the coast. I hope that the voyage +home will do me still more good; but I will not sail till April, so +as to arrive in June. May, in the Channel, would not do.</p> +<p>How I wish I could send you the fruit now on my table—amber-coloured +grapes, yellow waxen apples streaked with vermillion in fine little +lines, huge peaches, and tiny green figs! I must send dear old +Klein a little present from England, to show that I don’t forget +my Dutch adorer. I wish I could bring you the ‘Biltong ‘ +he sent me—beef or bok dried in the sun in strips, and slightly +salted; you may carry enough in your pocket to live on for a fortnight, +and it is very good as a little ‘relish’. The partridges +also have been welcome, and we shall eat the tiny haunch of bok to-day.</p> +<p>Mrs. D- is gone to Capetown to get servants (the Scotch girl having +carried on her amours too flagrantly), and will return in my cart. +S- is still keeping house meanwhile, much perturbed by the placid indolence +of the brown girl. The stableman cooks, and very well too. +This is colonial life—a series of makeshifts and difficulties; +but the climate is fine, people feel well and make money, and I think +it is not an unhappy life. I have been most fortunate in my abode, +and can say, without speaking cynically, that I have found ‘my +warmest welcome at an inn’. Mine host is a rough soldier, +but the very soul of good nature and good feeling; and his wife is a +very nice person—so cheerful, clever, and kindhearted.</p> +<p>I should like to bring home the little Madagascar girl from Rathfelders, +or a dear little mulatto who nurses a brown baby here, and is so clean +and careful and ‘pretty behaved’,—but it would be +a great risk. The brown babies are ravishing—so fat and +jolly and funny.</p> +<p>One great charm of the people here is, that no one expects money +or gifts, and that all civility is gratis. Many a time I finger +small coin secretly in my pocket, and refrain from giving it, for fear +of spoiling this innocence. I have not once seen a <i>look</i> +implying ‘backsheesh’, and begging is unknown. But +the people are reserved and silent, and have not the attractive manners +of the darkies of Capetown and the neighbourhood.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>LETTER X</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Caledon, Feb. 22d.</p> +<p>Yesterday Captain D- gave me a very nice caross of blessbok skins, +which he got from some travelling trader. The excellence of the +Caffre skin-dressing and sewing is, I fancy, unequalled; the bok-skins +are as soft as a kid glove, and have no smell at all.</p> +<p>In the afternoon the young doctor drove me, in his little gig-cart +and pair (the lightest and swiftest of conveyances), to see a wine-farm. +The people were not at work, but we saw the tubs and vats, and drank +‘most’. The grapes are simply trodden by a Hottentot, +in a tub with a sort of strainer at the bottom, and then thrown—skins, +stalks, and all—into vats, where the juice ferments for twice +twenty-four hours; after which it is run into casks, which are left +with the bung out for eight days; then the wine is drawn off into another +cask, a little sulphur and brandy are added to it, and it is bunged +down. Nothing can be conceived so barbarous. I have promised +Mr. M- to procure and send him an exact account of the process in Spain. +It might be a real service to a most worthy and amiable man. Dr. +M- also would be glad of a copy. They literally know nothing about +wine-making here, and with such matchless grapes I am sure it ought +to be good. Altogether, ‘der alte Schlendrian’ prevails +at the Cape to an incredible degree.</p> +<p>If two ‘Heeren M-’ call on you, please be civil to them. +I don’t know them personally, but their brother is the doctor +here, and the most good-natured young fellow I ever saw. If I +were returning by Somerset instead of Worcester, I might put up at their +parents’ house and be sure of a welcome; and I can tell you civility +to strangers is by no means of course here. I don’t wonder +at it; for the old Dutch families <i>are gentlefolks</i> of the good +dull old school, and the English colonists can scarcely suit them. +In the few instances in which I have succeeded in <i>thawing</i> a Dutchman, +I have found him wonderfully good-natured; and the different manner +in which I was greeted when in company with the young doctor showed +the feeling at once. The dirt of a Dutch house is not to be conceived. +I have had sights in bedrooms in very respectable houses which I dare +not describe. The coloured people are just as clean. The +young doctor (who is much Anglicised) tells me that, in illness, he +has to break the windows in the farmhouses—they are built not +to open! The boers are below the English in manners and intelligence, +and hate them for their ‘go-ahead’ ways, though <i>they</i> +seem slow enough to me. As to drink, I fancy it is six of one +and half a dozen of the other; but the English are more given to eternal +drams, and the Dutch to solemn drinking bouts. I can’t understand +either, in this climate, which is so stimulating, that I more often +drink ginger-beer or water than wine—a bottle of sherry lasted +me a fortnight, though I was ordered to drink it; somehow, I had no +mind to it.</p> +<p>27th.—The cart could not be got till the day before yesterday, +and yesterday Mrs. D- arrived in it with two new Irish maids; it saved +her 3<i>l</i>., and I must have paid equally. The horses were +very tired, having been hard at work carrying Malays all the week to +Constantia and back, on a pilgrimage to the tomb of a Mussulman saint; +so to-day they rest, and to-morrow I go to Villiersdorp. Choslullah +has been appointed driver of a post-cart; he tried hard to be allowed +to pay a <i>remplaçant</i>, and to fetch ‘his missis’, +but was refused leave; and so a smaller and blacker Malay has come, +whom Choslullah threatened to curse heavily if he failed to take great +care of ‘my missis’ and be a ‘good boy’. +Ramadan begins on Sunday, and my poor driver can’t even prepare +for it by a good feast, as no fowls are to be had here just now, and +he can’t eat profanely-killed meat. Some pious Christian +has tried to burn a Mussulman martyr’s tomb at Eerste River, and +there were fears the Malays might indulge in a little revenge; but they +keep quiet. I am to go with my driver to eat some of the feast +(of Bairam, is it not?) at his priest’s when Ramadan ends, if +I am in Capetown, and also am asked to a wedding at a relation of Choslullah’s. +It was quite a pleasure to hear the kindly Mussulman talk, after these +silent Hottentots. The Malays have such agreeable manners; so +civil, without the least cringing or Indian obsequiousness. I +dare say they can be very ‘insolent’ on provocation; but +I have always found among them manners like old-fashioned French ones, +but quieter; and they have an affectionate way of saying ‘<i>my</i> +missis’ when they know one, which is very nice to hear. +It is getting quite chilly here already; <i>cold</i> night and morning; +and I shall be glad to descend off this plateau into the warmer regions +of Worcester, &c. I have just bought <i>eight</i> splendid +ostrich feathers for 1<i>l</i>. of my old Togthandler friend. +In England they would cost from eighteen to twenty-five shillings each. +I have got a reebok and a klipspringer skin for you; the latter makes +a saddle-cloth which defies sore backs; they were given me by Klein +and a farmer at Palmiet River. The flesh was poor stuff, white +and papery. The Hottentots can’t ‘bray’ the +skins as the Caffres do; and the woman who did mine asked me for a trifle +beforehand, and got so drunk that she let them dry halfway in the process, +consequently they don’t look so well.</p> +<p>Worcester, Sunday, March 2d.</p> +<p>Oh, such a journey! Such country! Pearly mountains and +deep blue sky, and an impassable pass to walk down, and baboons, and +secretary birds, and tortoises! I couldn’t sleep for it +all last night, tired as I was with the unutterably bad road, or track +rather.</p> +<p>Well, we left Caledon on Friday, at ten o’clock, and though +the weather had been cold and unpleasant for two days, I had a lovely +morning, and away we went to Villiersdorp (pronounced Filjeesdorp). +It is quite a tiny village, in a sort of Rasselas-looking valley. +We were four hours on the road, winding along the side of a mountain +ridge, which we finally crossed, with a splendid view of the sea at +the far-distant end of a huge amphitheatre formed by two ridges of mountains, +and on the other side the descent into Filjeesdorp. The whole +way we saw no human being or habitation, except one shepherd, from the +time we passed Buntje’s kraal, about two miles out of Caledon. +The little drinking-shop would not hold travellers, so I went to the +house of the storekeeper (as the clergyman of Caledon had told me I +might), and found a most kind reception. Our host was English, +an old man-of-war’s man, with a gentle, kindly Dutch wife, and +the best-mannered children I have seen in the colony. They gave +us clean comfortable beds and a good dinner, and wine ten years in the +cellar; in short, the best of hospitality. I made an effort to +pay for the entertainment next morning, when, after a good breakfast, +we started loaded with fruit, but the kind people would not hear of +it, and bid me good-bye like old friends. At the end of the valley +we went a little up-hill, and then found ourselves at the top of a pass +down into the level below. S- and I burst out with one voice, +‘How beautiful!’ Sabaal, our driver, thought the exclamation +was an ironical remark on the road, which, indeed, appeared to be exclusively +intended for goats. I suggested walking down, to which, for a +wonder, the Malay agreed. I was really curious to see him get +down with two wheels and four horses, where I had to lay hold from time +to time in walking. The track was excessively steep, barely wide +enough, and as slippery as a flagstone pavement, being the naked mountain-top, +which is bare rock. However, all went perfectly right.</p> +<p>How shall I describe the view from that pass? In front was +a long, long level valley, perhaps three to five miles broad (I can’t +judge distance in this atmosphere; a house that looks a quarter of a +mile off is two miles distant). At the extreme end, in a little +gap between two low brown hills that crossed each other, one could just +see Worcester—five hours’ drive off. Behind it, and +on each side the plain, mountains of every conceivable shape and colour; +the strangest cliffs and peaks and crags toppling every way, and tinged +with all the colours of opal; chiefly delicate, pale lilac and peach +colour, but varied with red brown and Titian green. In spite of +the drought, water sparkled on the mountain-sides in little glittering +threads, and here and there in the plain; and pretty farms were dotted +on either side at the very bottom of the slopes toward the mountain-foot. +The sky of such a blue! (it is deeper now by far than earlier in the +year). In short, I never did see anything so beautiful. +It even surpassed Hottentot’s Holland. On we went, straight +along the valley, crossing drift after drift;—a drift is the bed +of a stream more or less dry; in which sometimes you are drowned, sometimes +only <i>pounded</i>, as was our hap. The track was incredibly +bad, except for short bits, where ironstone prevailed. However, +all went well, and on the road I chased and captured a pair of remarkably +swift and handsome little ‘Schelpats’. That you may +duly appreciate such a feat of valour and activity, I will inform you +that their English name is ‘tortoise’. On the strength +of this effort, we drank a bottle of beer, as it was very hot and sandy; +and our Malay was a <i>wet</i> enough Mussulman to take his full share +in a modest way, though he declined wine or ‘Cape smoke Soopjes’ +(drams) with aversion. No sooner had we got under weigh again, +than Sabaal pulled up and said, ‘There <i>are</i> the Baviäans +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 <i>route</i> to rob a garden close to them, and +had sent a great stout fellow ahead to reconnoitre. ‘He +see Missis, and feel sure she not got a gun; if man come on horseback, +you see ‘em run like devil.’ We had not that pleasure, +and left them, on felonious thoughts intent.</p> +<p>The road got more and more beautiful as we neared Worcester, and +the mountains grew higher and craggier. Presently, a huge bird, +like a stork on the wing, pounced down close by us. He was a secretary-bird, +and had caught sight of a snake. We passed ‘Brant Vley’ +(<i>burnt</i> or hot spring), where sulphur-water bubbles up in a basin +some thirty feet across and ten or twelve deep. The water is clear +as crystal, and is hot enough just <i>not</i> to boil an egg, I was +told. At last, one reaches the little gap between the brown hills +which one has seen for four hours, and drives through it into a wide, +wide flat, with still craggier and higher mountains all round, and Worcester +in front at the foot of a towering cliff. The town is not so pretty, +to my taste, as the little villages. The streets are too wide, +and the market-place too large, which always looks dreary, but the houses +and gardens individually are charming. Our inn is a very nice +handsome old Dutch house; but we have got back to ‘civilization’, +and the horrid attempts at ‘style’ which belong to Capetown. +The landlord and lady are too genteel to appear at all, and the Hottentots, +who are disguised, according to their sexes, in pantry jacket and flounced +petticoat, don’t understand a word of English or of real Dutch. +At Gnadenthal they understood Dutch, and spoke it tolerably; but here, +as in most places, it is three-parts Hottentot; and then they affect +to understand English, and bring everything wrong, and are sulky: but +the rooms are very comfortable. The change of climate is complete—the +summer was over at Caledon, and here we are into it again—the +most delicious air one can conceive; it must have been a perfect oven +six weeks ago. The birds are singing away merrily still; the approach +of autumn does not silence them here. The canaries have a very +pretty song, like our linnet, only sweeter; the rest are very inferior +to ours. The sugar-bird is delicious when close by, but his pipe +is too soft to be heard at any distance.</p> +<p>To those who think voyages and travels tiresome, my delight in the +new birds and beasts and people must seem very stupid. I can’t +help it if it does, and am not ashamed to confess that I feel the old +sort of enchanted wonder with which I used to read Cook’s voyages, +and the like, as a child. It is very coarse and unintellectual +of me; but I would rather see this now, at my age, than Italy; the fresh, +new, beautiful nature is a second youth—or <i>childhood—si +vous voulez</i>. To-morrow we shall cross the highest pass I have +yet crossed, and sleep at Paarl—then Stellenbosch, then Capetown. +For any one <i>out</i> of health, and <i>in</i> pocket, I should certainly +prescribe the purchase of a waggon and team of six horses, and a long, +slow progress in South Africa. One cannot walk in the midday sun, +but driving with a very light roof over one’s head is quite delicious. +When I looked back upon my dreary, lonely prison at Ventnor, I wondered +I had survived it at all.</p> +<p>Capetown, March 7th.</p> +<p>After writing last, we drove out, on Sunday afternoon, to a deep +alpine valley, to see a <i>new bridge—</i>a great marvel apparently. +The old Spanish Joe Miller about selling the bridge to buy water occurred +to me, and made Sabaal laugh immensely. The Dutch farmers were +tearing home from Kerk, in their carts—well-dressed, prosperous-looking +folks, with capital horses. Such lovely farms, snugly nestled +in orange and pomegranate groves! It is of no use to describe +this scenery; it is always mountains, and always beautiful opal mountains; +quite without the gloom of European mountain scenery. The atmosphere +must make the charm. I hear that an English traveller went the +same journey and found all barren from Dan to Beersheba. I’m +sorry for him.</p> +<p>In the morning of Sunday, early, I walked along the road with Sabaal, +and saw a picture I shall never forget. A little Malabar girl +had just been bathing in the Sloot, and had put her scanty shift on +her lovely little wet brown body; she stood in the water with the drops +glittering on her brown skin and black, satin hair, the perfection of +youthful loveliness—a naiad of ten years old. When the shape +and features are <i>perfect</i>, as hers were, the coffee-brown shows +it better than our colour, on account of its perfect <i>evenness</i>—like +the dead white of marble. I shall never forget her as she stood +playing with the leaves of the gum-tree which hung over her, and gazing +with her glorious eyes so placidly.</p> +<p>On Monday morning, I walked off early to the old <i>Drosdy</i> (Landdrost’s +house), found an old gentleman, who turned out to be the owner, and +who asked me my name and all the rest of the Dutch ‘litanei’ +of questions, and showed me the pretty old Dutch garden and the house—a +very handsome one. I walked back to breakfast, and thought Worcester +the prettiest place I had ever seen. We then started for Paarl, +and drove through ‘Bain’s Kloof’, a splendid mountain-pass, +four hours’ long, constant driving. It was glorious, but +more like what one had seen in pictures—a deep, narrow gorge, +almost dark in places, and, to my mind, lacked the <i>beauty</i> of +the yesterday’s drive, though it is, perhaps, grander; but the +view which bursts on one at the top, and the descent, winding down the +open mountain-side, is too fine to describe. Table Mountain, like +a giant’s stronghold, seen far distant, with an immense plain, +half fertile, half white sand; to the left, Wagenmaker’s Vley; +and further on, the Paarl lying scattered on the slope of a mountain +topped with two <i>domes</i>, just the shape of the cup which Lais (wasn’t +it?) presented to the temple of Venus, moulded on her breast. +The horses were tired, so we stopped at Waggon-maker’s Valley +(or Wellington, as the English try to get it called), and found ourselves +in a true Flemish village, and under the roof of a jolly Dutch hostess, +who gave us divine coffee and bread-and-butter, which seemed ambrosia +after being deprived of those luxuries for almost three months. +Also new milk in abundance, besides fruit of all kinds in vast heaps, +and pomegranates off the tree. I asked her to buy me a few to +take in the cart, and got a ‘muid’, the third of a sack, +for a shilling, with a bill, ‘U bekomt 1 muid 28 granaeten dat +Kostet 1<i>s</i>.’ The old lady would walk out with me and +take me into the shops, to show the ‘vrow uit Engelland’ +to her friends. It was a lovely place, intensely hot, all glowing +with sunshine. Then the sun went down, and the high mountains +behind us were precisely the colour of a Venice ruby glass—really, +truly, and literally;—not purple, not crimson, but glowing ruby-red—and +the quince-hedges and orange-trees below looked <i>intensely</i> green, +and the houses snow-white. It was a transfiguration—no less.</p> +<p>I saw Hottentots again, four of them, from some remote corner, so +the race is not quite extinct. These were youngish, two men and +two women, quite light yellow, not darker than Europeans, and with little +tiny black knots of wool scattered over their heads at intervals. +They are hideous in face, but exquisitely shaped—very, very small +though. One of the men was drunk, poor wretch, and looked the +picture of misery. You can see the fineness of their senses by +the way in which they dart their glances and prick their ears. +Every one agrees that, when tamed, they make the best of servants—gentle, +clever, and honest; but the penny-a-glass wine they can’t resist, +unless when caught and tamed young. They work in the fields, or +did so as long as any were left; but even here, I was told, it was a +wonder to see them.</p> +<p>We went on through the Paarl, a sweet pretty place, reminding one +vaguely of Bonchurch, and still through fine mountains, with Scotch +firs growing like Italian stone pines, and farms, and vineyard upon +vineyard. At Stellenbosch we stopped. I had been told it +was the prettiest town in the colony, and it <i>is</i> very pretty, +with oak-trees all along the street, like those at Paarl and Wagenmakkers +Vley; but I was disappointed. It was less beautiful than what +I had seen. Besides, the evening was dull and cold. The +south-easter greeted us here, and I could not go out all the afternoon. +The inn was called ‘Railway Hotel’, and kept by low coarse +English people, who gave us a filthy dinner, dirty sheets, and an atrocious +breakfast, and charged 1<i>l</i>. 3<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>. for the same +meals and time as old Vrow Langfeldt had charged 12<i>s</i>. for, and +had given civility, cleanliness, and abundance of excellent food;—besides +which, she fed Sabaal gratis, and these people fleeced him as they did +me. So, next morning, we set off, less pleasantly disposed, for +Capetown, over the flat, which is dreary enough, and had a horrid south-easter. +We started early, and got in before the wind became a hurricane, which +it did later. We were warmly welcomed by Mrs. R-; and here I am +in my old room, looking over the beautiful bay, quite at home again. +It blew all yesterday, and having rather a sore-throat I stayed in bed, +and to-day is all bright and beautiful. But Capetown looks murky +after Caledon and Worcester; there is, to my eyes, quite a haze over +the mountains, and they look far off and indistinct. All is comparative +in this world, even African skies. At Caledon, the most distant +mountains, as far as your eye can reach, look as clear in every detail +as the map on your table—an appearance utterly new to European +eyes.</p> +<p>I gave Sabaal 1<i>l</i>. for his eight days’ service as driver, +as a Drinkgelt, and the worthy fellow was in ecstasies of gratitude. +Next morning early, he appeared with a present of bananas, and his little +girl dressed from head to foot in brand-new clothes, bought out of my +money, with her wool screwed up extremely tight in little knots on her +black little head (evidently her mother is the blackest of Caffres or +Mozambiques). The child looked like a Caffre, and her father considers +her quite a pearl. I had her in, and admired the little thing +loud enough for him to hear outside, as I lay in bed. You see, +I too was to have my share in the pleasure of the new clothes. +This readiness to believe that one will sympathize with them, is very +pleasing in the Malays.</p> +<p>March 15.</p> +<p>I went to see my old Malay friends and to buy a water-melon. +They were in all the misery of Ramadan. Betsy and pretty Nassirah +very thin and miserable, and the pious old Abdool sitting on a little +barrel waiting for ‘gun-fire’—i.e. sunset, to fall +to on the supper which old Betsy was setting out. He was silent, +and the corners of his mouth were drawn down just like -’s at +an evening party.</p> +<p>I shall go to-morrow to bid the T-s good-bye, at Wynberg. I +was to have spent a few days there, but Wynberg is cold at night and +dampish, so I declined that. She is a nice woman—Irish, +and so innocent and frank and well-bred. She has been at Cold +Bokke Veld, and shocked her puritanical host by admiring the naked Caffres +who worked on his farm. He wanted them to wear clothes.</p> +<p>We have been amused by the airs of a naval captain and his wife, +who are just come here. They complained that the merchant-service +officers spoke <i>familiarly</i> to their children on board. <i>Quel +audace</i>! When I think of the excellent, modest, manly young +fellows who talked very familiarly and pleasantly to me on board the +<i>St. Lawrence</i>, I long to reprimand these foolish people.</p> +<p>Friday, 21st.—I am just come from prayer, at the Mosque in +Chiappini Street, on the outskirts of the town. A most striking +sight. A large room, like a county ball-room, with glass chandeliers, +carpeted with common carpet, all but a space at the entrance, railed +off for shoes; the Caaba and pulpit at one end; over the niche, a crescent +painted; and over the entrance door a crescent, an Arabic inscription, +and the royal arms of England! A fat jolly Mollah looked amazed +as I ascended the steps; but when I touched my forehead and said, ‘Salaam +Aleikoom’, he laughed and said, ‘Salaam, Salaam, come in, +come in.’ The faithful poured in, all neatly dressed in +their loose drab trousers, blue jackets, and red handkerchiefs on their +heads; they left their wooden clogs in company, with my shoes, and proceeded, +as it appeared, to strip. Off went jackets, waistcoats, and trousers, +with the dexterity of a pantomime transformation; the red handkerchief +was replaced by a white skullcap, and a long large white shirt and full +white drawers flowed around them. How it had all been stuffed +into the trim jacket and trousers, one could not conceive. Gay +sashes and scarves were pulled out of a little bundle in a clean silk +handkerchief, and a towel served as prayer-carpet. In a moment +the whole scene was as oriental as if the Hansom cab I had come in existed +no more. Women suckled their children, and boys played among the +clogs and shoes all the time, and I sat on the floor in a remote corner. +The chanting was very fine, and the whole ceremony very decorous and +solemn. It lasted an hour; and then the little heaps of garments +were put on, and the congregation dispersed, each man first laying a +penny on a very curious little old Dutch-looking, heavy, iron-bound +chest, which stood in the middle of the room.</p> +<p>I have just heard that the post closes to-night and must say farewell—<i>a +rivederci.</i></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>LETTER XI</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Capetown, March 20th.</p> +<p>Dearest mother,</p> +<p>Dr. Shea says he fears I must not winter in England yet, but that +I am greatly improved—as, indeed, I could tell him. He is +another of the kind ‘sea doctors’ I have met with; he came +all the way from Simon’s Bay to see me, and then said, ‘What +nonsense is that?’ when I offered him a fee. This is a very +nice place up in the ‘gardens’, quite out of the town and +very comfortable. But I regret Caledon. A- will show you +my account of my beautiful journey back. Worcester is a fairy-land; +and then to catch tortoises walking about, and to see ‘baviäans’, +and snakes and secretary birds eating them! and then people have the +impudence to think I must have been ‘very dull!’ <i>Sie +merken’s nicht</i>, that it is <i>they</i> who are dull.</p> +<p>Dear Dr. Hawtrey! he must have died just as I was packing up the +first Caffre Testament for him! I felt his death very much, in +connexion with my father; their regard for each other was an honour +to both. I have the letter he wrote me on J-’s marriage, +and a charming one it is.</p> +<p>I took Mrs. A- a drive in a Hansom cab to-day out to Wynberg, to +see my friends Captain and Mrs. T-, who have a cottage under Table Mountain +in a spot like the best of St. George’s Hill. Very dull +too; but as she is really a lady, it suits her, and Capetown does not. +I was to have stayed with them, but Wynberg is cold at night. +Poor B-’s wife is very ill and won’t leave Capetown for +a day. The people here are <i>wunderlich</i> for that. A +lady born here, and with 7,000<i>l</i>. a year, has never been further +than Stellenbosch, about twenty miles. I am asked how I lived +and what I ate during my little excursion, as if I had been to Lake +Ngami. If only I had known how easy it all is, I would have gone +by sea to East London and seen the Knysna and George district, and the +primaeval African forest, the yellow wood, and other giant trees. +However, ‘For what I have received,’ &c., &c. +No one can conceive what it is, after two years of prison and utter +languor, to stand on the top of a mountain pass, and enjoy physical +existence for a few hours at a time. I felt as if it was quite +selfish to enjoy anything so much when you were all so anxious about +me at home; but as that is the best symptom of all, I do not repent.</p> +<p>S- has been an excellent travelling servant, and really a better +companion than many more educated people; for she is always amused and +curious, and is friendly with the coloured people. She is quite +recovered. It is a wonderful climate—<i>sans que celà +paraisse</i>. It feels chilly and it blows horridly, and does +not seem genial, but it gives new life.</p> +<p>To-morrow I am going with old Abdool Jemaalee to prayers at the Mosque, +and shall see a school kept by a Malay priest. It is now Ramadan,. +and my Muslim friends are very thin and look glum. Choslullah +sent a message to ask, ‘Might he see the Missis once more? +He should pray all the time she was on the sea.’ Some pious +Christians here would expect such horrors to sink the ship. I +can’t think why Mussulmans are always gentlemen; the Malay coolies +have a grave courtesy which contrasts most strikingly with both European +vulgarity and negro jollity. It is very curious, for they only +speak Dutch, and know nothing of oriental manners. I fear I shall +not see the Walkers again. Simon’s Bay is too far to go +and come in a day, as one cannot go out before ten or eleven, and must +be in by five or half-past. Those hours are gloriously bright +and hot, but morning and night are cold.</p> +<p>I am so happy in the thought of sailing now so very soon and seeing +you all again, that I can settle to nothing for five minutes. +I now feel how anxious and uneasy I have been, and how I shall rejoice +to get home. I shall leave a letter for A-, to go in April, and +tell him and you what ship I am in. I shall choose the <i>slowest</i>, +so as not to reach England and face the Channel before June, if possible. +So don’t be alarmed if I do not arrive till late in June. +Till then good-bye, and God bless you, dearest mother—<i>Auf frohes +Wiedersehn.</i></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>LETTER XII</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Capetown, Sunday, March 23d.</p> +<p>It has been a <i>real</i> hot day, and threatened an earthquake and +a thunderstorm; but nothing has come of it beyond sheet lightning to-night, +which is splendid over the bay, and looks as if repeated in a grand +bush-fire on the hills opposite. The sunset was glorious. +That rarest of insects, the praying mantis, has just dropped upon my +paper. I am thankful that, not being an entomologist, I am dispensed +from the sacred duty of impaling the lovely green creature who sits +there, looking quite wise and human. Fussy little brown beetles, +as big as two lady-birds, keep flying into my eyes, and the musquitoes +are rejoicing loudly in the prospect of a feast. You will understand +by this that both windows are wide open into the great verandah,—very +unusual in this land of cold nights.</p> +<p>April 4th.—I have been trying in vain to get a passage home. +The <i>Camperdown</i> has not come. In short, I am waiting for +a chance vessel, and shall pack up now and be ready to go on board at +a day’s notice.</p> +<p>I went on the last evening of Ramadan to the Mosque, having heard +there was a grand ‘function’; but there were only little +boys lying about on the floor, some on their stomachs, some on their +backs, higgledy-piggledy (if it be not profane to apply the phrase to +young Islam), all shouting their prayers <i>à tue tête</i>. +Priests, men, women, and English crowded in and out in the exterior +division. The English behaved <i>à l’Anglaise—</i>pushed +each other, laughed, sneered, and made a disgusting display of themselves. +I asked a stately priest, in a red turban, to explain the affair to +me, and in a few minutes found myself supplied by one Mollah with a +chair, and by another with a cup of tea—was, in short, in the +midst of a Malay <i>soirée</i>. They spoke English very +little, but made up for it by their usual good breeding and intelligence. +On Monday, I am going to see the school which the priest keeps at his +house, and to ‘honour his house by my presence’. The +delight they show at any friendly interest taken in them is wonderful. +Of course, I am supposed to be poisoned. A clergyman’s widow +here gravely asserts that her husband went mad <i>three years</i> after +drinking a cup of coffee handed to him by a Malay!—and in consequence +of drinking it! It is exactly like the mediaeval feeling about +the Jews. I saw that it was quite a <i>demonstration</i> that +I drank up the tea unhesitatingly. Considering that the Malays +drank it themselves, my courage deserves less admiration. But +it was a quaint sensation to sit in a Mosque, behaving as if at an evening +party, in a little circle of poor Moslim priests.</p> +<p>I am going to have a photograph of my cart done. I was to have +gone to the place to-day, but when Choslullah (whom I sent for to complete +the picture) found out what I wanted, he implored me to put it off till +Monday, that he might be better dressed, and was so unhappy at the notion +of being immortalized in an old jacket, that I agreed to the delay. +Such a handsome fellow may be allowed a little vanity.</p> +<p>The colony is torn with dissensions as to Sunday trains. Some +of the Dutch clergy are even more absurd than our own on that point. +A certain Van der Lingen, at Stellenbosch, calls Europe ‘one vast +Sodom’, and so forth. There is altogether a nice kettle +of religious hatred brewing here. The English Bishop of Capetown +appoints all the English clergy, and is absolute monarch of all he surveys; +and he and his clergy are carrying matters with a high hand. The +Bishop’s chaplain told Mrs. J- that she could not hope for salvation +in the Dutch Church, since her clergy were not ordained by any bishop, +and therefore they could only administer the sacrament ‘<i>unto +damnation</i>’. All the physicians in a body, English as +well as Dutch, have withdrawn from the Dispensary, because it was used +as a means of pressure to draw the coloured people from the Dutch to +the English Church.</p> +<p>This High-Church tyranny cannot go on long. Catholics there +are few, but their bishop plays the same game; and it is a losing one. +The Irish maid at the Caledon inn was driven by her bishop to be married +at the Lutheran church, just as a young Englishman I know (though a +fervent Puseyite) was driven to be married at the Scotch kirk. +The colonial bishops are despots in their own churches, and there is +no escape from their tyranny but by dissent. The Admiral and his +family have been anathematized for going to a fancy bazaar given by +the Wesleyans for their chapel.</p> +<p>April 8th.—Yesterday, I failed about my cart photograph. +First, the owner had sent away the cart, and when Choslullah came dressed +in all his best clothes, with a lovely blue handkerchief setting off +his beautiful orange-tawny face, he had to rush off to try to borrow +another cart. As ill luck would have it, he met a ‘serious +young man’, with no front teeth, and a hideous wen on his eyebrow, +who informed the priest of Choslullah’s impious purpose, and came +with him to see that he did <i>not</i> sit for his portrait. I +believe it was half envy; for my handsome driver was as pleased, and +then as disappointed, as a young lady about her first ball, and obviously +had no religious scruples of his own on the subject. The weather +is very delightful now—hot, but beautiful; and the south-easters, +though violent, are short, and not cold. As in all other countries, +autumn is the best time of year.</p> +<p>April 15th.—Your letters arrived yesterday, to my great delight. +I have been worrying about a ship, and was very near sailing to-day +by the <i>Queen of the South</i> at twenty-four hours’ notice, +but I have resolved to wait for the <i>Camperdown</i>. The <i>Queen +of the South</i> is a steamer,—which is odious, for they pitch +the coal all over the lower deck, so that you breathe coal-dust for +the first ten days; then she was crammed—only one cabin vacant, +and that small, and on the lower deck—and fifty-two children on +board. Moreover, she will probably get to England too soon, so +I resign myself to wait. The <i>Camperdown</i> has only upper-deck +cabins, and I shall have fresh air. I am not as well as I was +at Caledon, so I am all the more anxious to have a voyage likely to +do me good instead of harm.</p> +<p>I got my cart and Choslullah photographed after all. Choslullah +came next day (having got rid of his pious friend), quite resolved that +‘the Missis’ should take his portrait, so I will send or +bring a few copies of my beloved cart. After the photograph was +done, we drove round the Kloof, between Table and Lion Mountain. +The road is cut on the side of Lion Mountain, and overhangs the sea +at a great height. Camp Bay, which lies on the further side of +the ‘Lion’s Head’, is most lovely; never was sea so +deeply blue, rocks so warmly brown, or sand and foam so glittering white; +and down at the mountain-foot the bright green of the orange and pomegranate +trees throws it all out in greater relief. But the atmosphere +here won’t do after that of the ‘Ruggings’, as the +Caledon line of country is called. I shall never lose the impression +of the view I had when Dr. Morkel drove me out on a hill-side, where +the view seemed endless and without a vestige of life; and yet in every +valley there were farms; but it looked a vast, utter solitude, and without +the least haze. You don’t know what that utter clearness +means—the distinctness is quite awful. Here it is always +slightly hazy; very pretty and warm, but it takes off from the grandeur. +It is the difference between a pretty Pompadour beauty and a Greek statue. +Those pale opal mountains, as distinct in every detail as the map on +your table, are so cheerful and serene; no melodramatic effects of clouds +and gloom. I suppose it is not really so beautiful as it seemed +to me, for other people say it is bare and desolate, and certainly it +is; but it seemed to me anything but dreary.</p> +<p>I am persuaded that Capetown is not healthy; indeed, the town can’t +be, from its stench and dirt; but I believe the whole seashore is more +or less bad, compared to the upper plateaux, of which I know only the +first. I should have gone back to Paarl, only that ships come +and go within twenty-four hours, so one has the pleasure of living in +constant expectation, with packed trunks, wondering when one shall get +away. A clever Mr. M-, who has lived <i>all over</i> India, and +is going back to Singapore, with his wife and child, are now in the +house; and some very pleasant Jews, bound for British Caffraria—one +of them has a lovely little wife and three children. She is very +full of Prince Albert’s death, and says there was not a dry eye +in the synagogues in London, which were all hung with black on the day +of his funeral, and prayer went on the whole day. ‘<i>The +people</i> mourned for him as much as for Hezekiah; and, indeed, he +deserved it a great deal better,’ was her rather unorthodox conclusion. +These colonial Jews are a new ‘Erscheinung’ to me. +They have the features of their race, but many of their peculiarities +are gone. Mr. L-, who is very handsome and gentlemanly, eats ham +and patronises a good breed of pigs on the ‘model farm’ +on which he spends his money. He is (he says) a thorough Jew in +faith, and evidently in charitable works; but he wants to say his prayers +in English and not to ‘dress himself up’ in a veil and phylacteries +for the purpose; and he and his wife talk of England as ‘home’, +and care as much for Jerusalem as their neighbours. They have +not forgotten the old persecutions, and are civil to the coloured people, +and speak of them in quite a different tone from other English colonists. +Moreover, they are far better mannered, and more ‘<i>human’</i>, +in the German sense of the word, in all respects;—in short, less +‘colonial’.</p> +<p>I have bought some Cape ‘confeyt’; apricots, salted and +then sugared, called ‘mebos’—delicious! Also +pickled peaches, ‘chistnee’, and quince jelly. I have +a notion of some Cherupiga wine for ourselves. I will inquire +the cost of bottling, packing, &c.; it is about one shilling and +fourpence a bottle here, sweet red wine, unlike any other I ever drank, +and I think very good. It is very tempting to bring a few things +so unknown in England. I have a glorious ‘Velcombers’ +for you, a blanket of nine Damara sheepskins, sewn by the Damaras, and +dressed so that moths and fleas won’t stay near them. It +will make a grand railway rug and ‘outside car’ covering. +The hunters use them for sleeping out of doors. I have bought +three, and a springbok caross for somebody.</p> +<p>April 17th.—The winter has set in to-day. It rains steadily, +at the rate of the heaviest bit of the heaviest shower in England, and +is as cold as a bad day early in September. One can just sit without +a fire. Presently, all will be green and gay; for winter is here +the season of flowers, and the heaths will cover the country with a +vast Turkey carpet. Already the green is appearing where all was +brown yesterday. To-day is Good Friday; and if Christmas seemed +odd at Midsummer, Easter in autumn seems positively unnatural. +Our Jewish party made their exodus to-day, by the little coasting steamer, +to Algoa Bay. I rather condoled with the pretty little woman about +her long rough journey, with three babies; but she laughed, and said +they had had time to get used to it ever since the days of Moses. +All she grieved over was not being able to keep Passover, and she described +their domestic ceremonies quite poetically. We heard from our +former housemaid, Annie, the other day, announcing her marriage and +her sister’s. She wrote such a pretty, merry letter to S-, +saying ‘the more she tried not to like him, the better she loved +him, and had to say, “Aha, Annie, you’re caught at last.”’ +A year and a half is a long time to remain single in this country.</p> +<p>Monday, April 21st, 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 <i>fine</i> English April, or October, only brighter than +anything in Europe. There is properly, no autumn or spring here; +only hot, dry, brown summer, with its cold wind at times, and fresh +green winter, all fragrance and flowers, and much less wind. Mr. +M-, of whom I told you, has been in every corner of the far East—Java, +Sumatra, everywhere—and is extremely amusing. He has brought +his wife here for her health, and is as glad to talk as I am. +The conversation of an educated, clever person, is quite a new and delightful +sensation to me now. He appears to have held high posts under +the East India Company, is learned in Oriental languages, and was last +resident at Singapore. He says that no doubt Java is Paradise, +it is so lovely, and such a climate; but he does not look as if it had +agreed with him. I feel quite heart-sick at seeing these letters +go off before me, instead of leaving them behind, as I had hoped.</p> +<p>Well, I must say good-bye—or rather, ‘<i>auf Wiedersehn</i>’—and +God knows how glad I shall be when that day comes!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>LETTER XIII</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Capetown, April 19th.</p> +<p>Dearest mother,</p> +<p>Here I am, waiting for a ship; the steamer was too horrid: and I +look so much to the good to be gained by the voyage that I did not like +to throw away the chance of two months at sea at this favourable time +of year, and under favourable circumstances; so I made up my mind to +see you all a month later. The sea just off the Cape is very, +very cold; less so now than in spring, I dare say. The weather +to-day is just like <i>very</i> warm April at home—showery, sunshiny, +and fragrant; most lovely. It is so odd to see an autumn without +dead leaves: only the oaks lose theirs, the old ones drop without turning +brown, and the trees bud again at once. The rest put on a darker +green dress for winter, and now the flowers will begin. I have +got a picture for you of my ‘cart and four’, with sedate +Choslullah and dear little Mohammed. The former wants to go with +me, ‘anywhere’, as he placidly said, ‘to be the missis’ +servant’. What a sensation his thatchlike hat and handsome +orange-tawny face would make at Esher! Such a stalwart henchman +would be very creditable. I shall grieve to think I shall never +see my Malay friends again; they are the only people here who are really +interesting. I think they must be like the Turks in manner, as +they have all the eastern gentlemanly ‘Gelassenheit’ (ease) +and politeness, and no eastern ‘Geschmeidigkeit’ (obsequiousness), +and no idea of Baksheesh; withal frugal, industrious, and money-making, +to an astonishing degree. The priest is a bit of a proselytiser, +and amused me much with an account of how he had converted English girls +from their evil courses and made them good <i>Mussulwomen</i>. +I never heard a <i>naïf</i> and sincere account of conversions +<i>from</i> Christianity before, and I must own it was much milder than +the Exeter Hall style.</p> +<p>I have heard a great many expressions of sorrow for the Queen from +the Malays, and always with the ‘hope the people will take much +care of her, now she is alone’. Of course Prince Albert +was only the Queen’s husband to them, and all their feeling is +about her. It is very difficult to see anything of them, for they +want nothing of you, and expect nothing but dislike and contempt. +It would take a long time to make many friends, as they are naturally +distrustful. I found that eating or drinking anything, if they +offer it, made most way, as they know they are accused of poisoning +all Christians indiscriminately. Of course, therefore, they are +shy of offering things. I drank tea in the Mosque at the end of +Ramadan, and was surrounded by delighted faces as I sipped. The +little boy who waits in this house here had followed us, and was horrified: +he is still waiting to see the poison work.</p> +<p>No one can conceive what has become of all the ships that usually +touch here about this time. I was promised my choice of Green’s +and Smith’s, and now only the heavy old <i>Camperdown</i> is expected +with rice from Moulmein. A lady now here, who has been Heaven +only knows <i>where not</i>, praises Alexandria above all other places, +after Suez. Her lungs are bad, and she swears by Suez, which she +says is the dreariest and healthiest (for lungs) place in the world. +You can’t think how soon one learns to ‘annihilate space’, +if not time, in one’s thoughts, by daily reading advertisements +for every port in India, America, Australia, &c., &c., and conversing +with people who have just come from the ‘ends of the earth’. +Meanwhile, I fear I shall have to fly from next winter again, and certainly +will go with J- to Egypt, which seems to me like next door.</p> +<p>I have run on, and not thanked you for your letter and M. Mignet’s +beautiful <i>éloge</i> of Mr. Hallam, which pleased me greatly. +I wish Englishmen could learn to speak with the same good taste and +<i>mésure</i>.</p> +<p>Mr. Wodehouse, who has been very civil to me, kindly tried to get +me a passage home in a French frigate lying here, but in vain. +I am now sorry I let the Jack tars here persuade me not to go in the +little barque; but they talked so much of the heat and damp of such +tiny cabins in an iron vessel, that I gave her up, though I liked the +idea of a good tossing in such a tiny cockboat. I will leave a +letter for the May mail, unless I sail within a week of to-morrow, or +go by the <i>Jason</i>, which would be home far sooner than the mail. +I only hope you and A- won’t be uneasy; the worst that can happen +is delay, and the long voyage will be all gain to health, which would +not be the case in a steamer.</p> +<p>All I hear of R- makes me wild to see her again. The little +darkies are the only pleasing children here, and a fat black toddling +thing is ‘allerliebst’. I know a boy of four, literally +jet black, whom I long to steal as he follows his mother up to the mountain +to wash. Little Malays are lovely, but <i>too</i> well-behaved +and quiet. I tried to get a real ‘<i>tottie’</i>, +or ‘Hotentotje’, but the people were too drunk to remember +where they had left their child. <i>C’est assez dire</i>, +that I should have had no scruple in buying it for a bottle of ‘smoke’ +(the spirit made from grape husks). They are clever and affectionate +when they have a chance, poor things,—and so strange to look at.</p> +<p>By the bye, a Bonn man, Dr. Bleek, called here with ‘Grüsse’ +from our old friends, Professor Mendelssohn and his wife. He is +devoting himself to Hottentot and aboriginal literature!—and has +actually mastered the Caffre <i>click</i>, which I vainly practised +under Kleenboy’s tuition. He wanted to teach me to say ‘Tkorkha’, +which means ‘you lie’, or ‘you have missed’ +(in shooting or throwing a stone, &c.)—a curious combination +of meanings. He taught me to throw stones or a stick at him, which +he always avoided, however close they fell, and cried ‘Tkorkha!’ +The Caffres ask for a present, ‘Tkzeelah Tabak’, ‘a +gift for tobacco’.</p> +<p>The Farnese Hercules is a living <i>truth</i>. I saw him in +the street two days ago, and he was a Caffre coolie. The proportions +of the head and throat were more wonderful in flesh, or muscle rather, +than in marble. I know a Caffre girl of thirteen, who is a noble +model of strength and beauty; such an arm—larger than any white +woman’s—with such a dimple in her elbow, and a wrist and +hand which no glove is small enough to fit—and a noble countenance +too. She is ‘apprenticed’, a name for temporary slavery, +and is highly spoken of as a servant, as the Caffres always are. +They are a majestic race, but with just the stupid conceit of a certain +sort of Englishmen; the women and girls seem charming.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>I must say good-bye, as the mail closes to-morrow morning. +Easter in autumn is preposterous, only the autumn looks like spring. +The consumptive young girl whom I packed off to the Cape, and her sister, +are about to be married—of course. Annie has had a touch +of Algoa Bay fever, a mild kind of ague, but no sign of chest disease, +or even delicacy. My ‘hurrying her off’, which some +people thought so cruel, has saved her. Whoever comes <i>soon +enough</i> recovers, but for people far gone it is too bracing.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>LETTER XIV</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Capetown, Saturday, May 3d.</p> +<p>Dearest mother,</p> +<p>After five weeks of waiting and worry, I have, at last, sent my goods +on board the ship <i>Camperdown</i>, now discharging her cargo, and +about to take a small party of passengers from the Cape. I offered +to take a cabin in a Swedish ship, bound for Falmouth; but the captain +could not decide whether he would take a passenger; and while he hesitated +the old <i>Camperdown</i> came in. I have the best cabin after +the stern cabins, which are occupied by the captain and his wife and +the Attorney-General of Capetown, who is much liked. The other +passengers are quiet people, and few of them, and the captain has a +high character; so I may hope for a comfortable, though slow passage. +I will let you know the day I sail, and leave this letter to go by post. +I may be looked for three weeks or so after this letter. I am +crazy to get home now; after the period was over for which I had made +up my mind, home-sickness began.</p> +<p>Mrs. R- has offered me a darling tiny monkey, which loves me; but +I fear A- would send me away again if I returned with her in my pocket. +Nassirah, old Abdool’s pretty granddaughter, brought me a pair +of Malay shoes or clogs as a parting gift, to-day. Mr. M-, the +resident at Singapore, tells me that his secretary’s wife, a Malay +lady, has made an excellent translation of the <i>Arabian Nights</i>, +from Arabic into Malay. Her husband is an Indian Mussulman, who, +Mr. M- said, was one of the ablest men he ever knew. Curious!</p> +<p>I sat, yesterday, for an hour, in the stall of a poor German basket-maker +who had been long in Caffre-land. His wife, a Berlinerin, was +very intelligent, and her account of her life here most entertaining, +as showing the different <i>Ansicht</i> natural to Germans. ‘I +had never’, she said, ‘been out of the city of Berlin, and +<i>knew nothing</i>.’ (Compare with London cockney, or genuine +Parisian.) Thence her fear, on landing at Algoa Bay and seeing +swarms of naked black men, that she had come to a country where no clothes +were to be had; and what should she do when hers were worn out? +They had a grant of land at Fort Peddie, and she dug while her husband +made baskets of cane, and carried them hundreds of miles for sale; sleeping +and eating in Caffre huts. ‘Yes, they are good, honest people, +and very well-bred (<i>anständig</i>), though they go as naked +as God made them. The girls are pretty and very delicate (<i>fein</i>), +and they think no harm of it, the dear innocents.’ If their +cattle strayed, it was always brought back; and they received every +sort of kindness. ‘Yes, madam, it is shocking how people +here treat the blacks. They call quite an old man ‘Boy’, +and speak so scornfully, and yet the blacks have very nice manners, +I assure you.’ When I looked at the poor little wizened, +pale, sickly Berliner, and fancied him a guest in a Caffre hut, it seemed +an odd picture. But he spoke as coolly of his long, lonely journeys +as possible, and seemed to think black friends quite as good as white +ones. The use of the words <i>anständig</i> and <i>fein</i> +by a woman who spoke very good German were characteristic. She +could recognise an <i>‘Anständigkeit’ not</i> of Berlin. +I need not say that the Germans are generally liked by the coloured +people. Choslullah was astonished and Pleased at my talking German; +he evidently had a preference for Germans, and put up, wherever he could, +at German inns and ‘publics’.</p> +<p>I went on to bid Mrs. Wodehouse good-bye. We talked of our +dear old Cornish friends. The Governor and Mrs. Wodehouse have +been very kind to me. I dined there twice; last time, with all +the dear good Walkers. I missed seeing the opening of the colonial +parliament by a mistake about a ticket, which I am sorry for.</p> +<p>If I could have dreamed of waiting here so long, I would have run +up to Algoa Bay or East London by sea, and had a glimpse of Caffreland. +Capetown makes me very languid—there is something depressing in +the air—but my cough is much better. I can’t walk +here without feeling knocked-up; and cab-hire is so dear; and somehow, +nothing is worth while, when one is waiting from day to day. So +I have spent more money than when I was most amused, in being bored.</p> +<p>Mr. J- drove me to the Capetown races, at Green Point, on Friday. +As races, they were <i>nichts</i>, but a queer-looking little Cape farmer’s +horse, ridden by a Hottentot, beat the English crack racer, ridden by +a first-rate English jockey, in an unaccountable way, twice over. +The Malays are passionately fond of horse-racing, and the crowd was +fully half Malay: there were dozens of carts crowded with the bright-eyed +women, in petticoats of every most brilliant colour, white muslin jackets, +and gold daggers in their great coils of shining black hair. All +most ‘anständig’, as they always are. Their pleasure +is driving about <i>en famille</i>; the men have no separate amusements. +Every spare corner in the cart is filled by the little soft round faces +of the intelligent-looking quiet children, who seem amused and happy, +and never make a noise or have the fidgets. I cannot make out +why they are so well behaved. It favours A-’s theory of +the expediency of utter spoiling, for one never hears any educational +process going on. Tiny Mohammed never spoke but when he was spoken +to, and was always happy and alert. I observed that his uncle +spoke to him like a grown man, and never ordered him about, or rebuked +him in the least. I like to go up the hill and meet the black +women coming home in troops from the washing place, most of them with +a fat black baby hanging to their backs asleep, and a few rather older +trotting alongside, and if small, holding on by the mother’s gown. +She, poor soul, carries a bundle on her head, which few men could lift. +If I admire the babies, the poor women are enchanted;—<i>du reste</i>, +if you look at blacks of any age or sex, they <i>must</i> grin and nod, +as a good-natured dog must wag his tail; they can’t help it. +The blacks here (except a very few Caffres) are from the Mozambique—a +short, thick-set, ugly race, with wool in huge masses; but here and +there one sees a very pretty face among the women. The men are +beyond belief hideous. There are all possible crosses—Dutch, +Mozambique, Hottentot and English, ‘alles durcheinander’; +then here and there you see that a Chinese or a Bengalee <i>a passé +par là</i>. The Malays are also a mixed race, like the +Turks—i.e. they marry women of all sorts and colours, provided +they will embrace Islam. A very nice old fellow who waits here +occasionally is married to an Englishwoman, <i>ci-devant</i> lady’s-maid +to a Governor’s wife. I fancy, too, they brought some Chinese +blood with them from Java. I think the population of Capetown +must be the most motley crew in the world.</p> +<p>Thursday, May 8th.—I sail on Saturday, and go on board to-morrow, +so as not to be hurried off in the early fog. How glad I am to +be ‘homeward bound’ at last, I cannot say. I am very +well, and have every prospect of a pleasant voyage. We are sure +to be well found, as the Attorney-General is on board, and is a very +great man, ‘inspiring terror and respect’ here.</p> +<p>S- says we certainly <i>shall</i> put in at St. Helena, so make up +your minds not to see me till I don’t know when. She has +been on board fitting up the cabin to-day. I have <i>such</i> +a rug for J-! a mosaic of skins as fine as marqueterie, done by Damara +women, and really beautiful; and a sheep-skin blanket for you, the essence +of warmth and softness. I shall sleep in mine, and dream of African +hill-sides wrapt in a ‘Veld combas’. The poor little +water-tortoises have been killed by drought, and I can’t get any, +but I have the two of my own catching for M-.</p> +<p>Good-bye, dearest mother.</p> +<p>You would have been moved by poor old Abdool Jemaalee’s solemn +benediction when I took leave to-day. He accompanied it with a +gross of oranges and lemons.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>LETTER XV</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Capetown, Thursday, May 8th.</p> +<p>At last, after no end of ‘casus’ and ‘discrimina +rerum’, I shall sail on Saturday the 10th, per ship <i>Camperdown</i>, +for East India Docks.</p> +<p>These weary six weeks have cost no end of money and temper. +I have been eating my heart out at the delay, but it was utterly impossible +to go by any of the Indian ships. They say there have never been +so few ships sailing from the Cape as this year, yet crowds were expected +on account of the Exhibition. The Attorney-General goes by our +ship, so we are sure of good usage; and I hear he is very agreeable. +I have the best cabin next to the stern cabin, in both senses of <i>next</i>. +S- has come back from the ship, where she has spent the day with the +carpenter; and I am to go on board to-morrow. Will you ask R- +to cause inquiries to be made among the Mollahs of Cairo for a Hadji, +by name Abdool Rachman, the son of Abdool Jemaalee, of Capetown, and, +if possible, to get the inclosed letter sent him? The poor people +are in sad anxiety for their son, of whom they have not heard for four +months, and that from an old letter. Henry will thus have a part +of all the blessings which were solemnly invoked on me by poor old Abdool, +who is getting very infirm, but toddled up and cracked his old fingers +over my head, and invoked the protection of Allah with all form; besides +that Betsy sent me twelve dozen oranges and lemons. Abdool Rachman +is about twenty-six, a Malay of Capetown, speaks Dutch and English, +and is supposed to be studying theology at Cairo. The letter is +written by the prettiest Malay girl in Capetown.</p> +<p>I won’t enter upon my longings to be home again, and to see +you all. I must now see to my last commissions and things, and +send this to go by next mail.</p> +<p>God bless you all, and kiss my darlings, all three.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>LETTER XVI</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Friday, May 16th.</p> +<p>On board the good ship <i>Camperdown</i>, 500 miles North-west of +Table-Bay.</p> +<p>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, <i>quorum pars maxima fuit</i>; i.e. Colonel. It +was quite what the Yankees call an ‘ovation’. The +ship was all decked with flags, and altogether there was <i>le diable +à quatre</i>. The consequence was, that three signals went +adrift in the scuffle; and when a Frenchman signalled us, we had to +pass for <i>brutaux</i> <i>Anglais</i>, because we could not reply. +I found means to supply the deficiency by the lining of that very ancient +anonymous cloak, which did the red, while a bandanna handkerchief of +the Captain’s furnished the yellow, to the sailmaker’s immense +amusement. On him I bestowed the blue outside of the cloak for +a pair of dungaree trowsers, and in signalling now it is, ‘up +go 2.41, and my lady’s cloak, which is 7.’</p> +<p>We have had lovely weather, and on Sunday such a glorious farewell +sight of Table Mountain and my dear old Hottentot Hills, and of Kaap +Goed Hoop itself. There was little enough wind till yesterday, +when a fair southerly breeze sprang up, and we are rolling along merrily; +and the fat old <i>Camperdown</i> <i>does</i> roll like an honest old +‘wholesome’ tub as she is. It is quite a <i>bonne +fortune</i> for me to have been forced to wait for her, for we have +had a wonderful spell of fine weather, and the ship is the <i>ne plus +ultra</i> of comfort. We are only twelve first-class upper-deck +passengers. The captain is a delightful fellow, with a very charming +young wife. There is only one child (a great comfort), a capital +cook, and universal civility and quietness. It is like a private +house compared to a railway hotel. Six of the passengers are invalids, +more or less. Mr. Porter, over-worked, going home for health to +Ireland; two men, both with delicate chests, and one poor young fellow +from Capetown in a consumption, who, I fear, will not outlive the voyage. +The doctor is very civil, and very kind to the sick; but I stick to +the cook, and am quite greedy over the good fare, after the atrocious +food of the Cape. Said cook is a Portuguese, a distinguished artist, +and a great bird-fancier. One can wander all over the ship here, +instead of being a prisoner on the poop; and I even have paid my footing +on the forecastle. S- clambers up like a lively youngster. +You may fancy what the weather is, that I have only closed my cabin-window +once during half of a very damp night; but no one else is so airy. +The little goat was as rejoiced to be afloat again as her mistress, +and is a regular pet on board, with the run of the quarter-deck. +She still gives milk—a perfect Amalthaea. The butcher, who +has the care of her, cockers her up with dainties, and she begs biscuit +of the cook. I pay nothing for her fare. M-’s tortoises +are in my cabin, and seem very happy. Poor Mr. Porter is very +sick, and so are the two or three coloured passengers, who won’t +‘make an effort’ at all. Mrs. H- (the captain’s +wife), a young Cape lady, and I are the only ‘female ladies’ +of the party. The other day we saw a shoal of porpoises, amounting +to many hundreds, if not some thousands, who came frisking round the +ship. When we first saw them they looked like a line of breakers; +they made such a splash, and they jumped right out of the water three +feet in height, and ten or twelve in distance, glittering green and +bronze in the sun. Such a pretty, merry set of fellows!</p> +<p>We shall touch at St. Helena, where I shall leave this letter to +go by the mail steamer, that you may know a few weeks before I arrive +how comfortably my voyage has begun.</p> +<p>We see no Cape pigeons; they only visit outward ships—is not +that strange?—but, <i>en revanche</i>, many more albatrosses than +in coming; and we also enjoy the advantage of seeing all the homeward-bound +ships, as they all <i>pass</i> us—a humiliating fact. The +captain laughed heartily because I said, ‘Oh, all right; I shall +have the more sea for my money’,—when the prospect of a +slow voyage was discussed. It is very provoking to be so much +longer separated from you all than I had hoped, but I really believe +that the bad air and discomfort of the other ships would have done me +serious injury; while here I have every chance of benefiting to the +utmost, and having mild weather the whole way, besides the utmost amount +of comfort possible on board ship. There are some cockroaches, +indeed, but that is the only drawback. The <i>Camperdown</i> is +fourteen years old, and was the crack ship to India in her day. +Now she takes cargo and poop-passengers only, and, of course, only gets +invalids and people who care more for comfort than speed.</p> +<p>Monday Evening, May 26th.—Here we are, working away still to +reach St. Helena. We got the tail of a terrific gale and a tremendous +sea all night in our teeth, which broke up the south-east trades for +a week. Now it is all smooth and fair, with a light breeze again +right aft; the old trade again. Yesterday a large shark paid us +a visit, with his suite of three pretty little pilot-fish, striped like +zebras, who swam just over his back. He tried on a sailor’s +cap which fell overboard, tossed it away contemptuously, snuffed at +the fat pork with which a hook was baited, and would none of it, and +finally ate the fresh sheep-skin which the butcher had in tow to clean +it, previous to putting it away as a perquisite. It is a beautiful +fish in shape and very graceful in motion.</p> +<p>To-day a barque from Algoa Bay came close to us, and talked with +the speaking trumpet. She was a pretty, clipper-built, sharp-looking +craft, but had made a slower run even than ourselves. I dare say +we shall have her company for a long time, as she is bound for St. Helena +and London. My poor goat died suddenly the other day, to the general +grief of the ship; also one of the tortoises. The poor consumptive +lad is wonderfully better. But all the passengers were very sick +during the rough weather, except S- and I, who are quite old salts. +Last week we saw a young whale, a baby, about thirty feet long, and +had a good view of him as he played round the ship. We shall probably +be at St. Helena on Wednesday, but I cannot write from thence, as, if +there is time, I shall get a run on shore while the ship takes in water. +But this letter will tell you of my well-being so far, and in about +six weeks after the date of it I hope to be with you. I hope you +won’t expect too much in the way of improvement in my health. +I look forward, oh, so eagerly, to be with you again, and with my brats, +big and little. God bless you all.</p> +<p>Yours ever,</p> +<p>L. D. G.</p> +<p>Wednesday, 28th.—Early morning, off St. Helena, James Town.</p> +<p>Such a lovely <i>unreal</i> view of the bold rocks and baby-house +forts on them! Ship close in. Washer-woman come on board, +and all hurry.</p> +<p><i>Au revoir.</i></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LETTERS FROM THE CAPE ***</p> +<pre> + +******This file should be named lddfg10h.htm or lddfg10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, lddfg11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, lddfg10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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