Letters from the Cape Part 2

28_th_ _Oct._-Since I wrote, we have had more really cold weather, but yesterday the summer seems to have begun. The air is as light and clear as if _there were none_, and the sun hot; but I walk in it, and do not find it oppressive. All the household groans and perspires, but I am very comfortable.

Yesterday I sat in the full broil for an hour or more, in the hot dust of the Malay burial-ground. They buried the head butcher of the Mussulmans, and a most strange poetical scene it was. The burial-ground is on the side of the Lion Mountain-on the Lion's rump-and overlooks the whole bay, part of the town, and the most superb mountain panorama beyond. I never saw a view within miles of it for beauty and grandeur. Far down, a fussy English steamer came puffing and popping into the deep blue bay, and the 'Hansom's' cabs went tearing down to the landing place; and round me sat a crowd of grave brown men chanting 'Allah il Allah' to the most monotonous but musical air, and with the most perfect voices. The chant seemed to swell, and then fade, like the wind in the trees.

I went in after the procession, which consisted of a bier covered with three common Paisley shawls of gay colours; no one looked at me; and when they got near the grave, I kept at a distance, and sat down when they did. But a man came up and said, 'You are welcome.' So I went close, and saw the whole ceremony. They took the corpse, wrapped in a sheet, out of the bier, and lifted it into the grave, where two men received it; then a sheet was held over the grave till they had placed the dead man; and then flowers and earth were thrown in by all present, the grave filled in, watered out of a bra.s.s kettle, and decked with flowers. Then a fat old man, in printed calico s.h.i.+rt sleeves, and a plaid waistcoat and corduroy trousers, pulled off his shoes, squatted on the grave, and recited endless 'Koran', many reciting after him. Then they chanted 'Allah-il-Allah' for twenty minutes, I think: then prayers, with 'Ameens'

and 'Allah il-Allahs' again. Then all jumped up and walked off. There were eighty or a hundred men, no women, and five or six 'Hadjis', draped in beautiful Eastern dresses, and looking very supercilious. The whole party made less noise in moving and talking than two Englishmen.

A white-complexioned man spoke to me in excellent English (which few of them speak), and was very communicative and civil. He told me the dead man was his brother-in-law, and he himself the barber. I hoped I had not taken a liberty. 'Oh, no; poor Malays were proud when n.o.ble 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 G.o.d!' I had already heard that Prince Alfred is quite the darling of the Malays. He insisted on accepting their _fete_, which the Capetown people had snubbed. I have a friends.h.i.+p with one Abdul Jemaalee and his wife Betsy, a couple of old folks who were slaves to Dutch owners, and now keep a fruit-shop of a rough sort, with 'Betsy, fruiterer,' painted on the back of an old tin tray, and hung up by the door of the house. Abdul first bought himself, and then his wife Betsy, whose 'missus' generously threw in her bed-ridden mother. He is a fine handsome old man, and has confided to me that 5,000 would not buy what he is worth now. I have also read the letters written by his, son, young Abdul Rachman, now a student at Cairo, who has been away five years-four at Mecca. The young theologian writes to his '_hoog eerbare moeder_' a fond request for money, and promises to return soon. I am invited to the feast wherewith he will be welcomed. Old Abdul Jemaalee thinks it will divert my mind, and prove to me that Allah will take me home safe to my children, about whom he and his wife asked many questions. Moreover, he compelled me to drink herb tea, compounded by a Malay doctor for my cough. I declined at first, and the poor old man looked hurt, gravely a.s.sured me that it was not true that Malays always poisoned Christians, and drank some himself. Thereupon I was obliged, of course, to drink up the rest; it certainly did me good, and I have drunk it since with good effect; it is intensely bitter and rather sticky. The white servants and the Dutch landlady where I lodge shake their heads ominously, and hope it mayn't poison me a year hence. 'Them nasty Malays can make it work months after you take it.' They also possess the evil eye, and a talent for love potions. As the men are very handsome and neat, I incline to believe that part of it.

_Rathfelder's Halfway House_, 6_th_ _November_.-I drove out here yesterday in Captain T-'s drag, which he kindly brought into Capetown for me. He and his wife and children came for a change of air for whooping cough, and advised me to come too, as my cough continues, though less troublesome. It is a lovely spot, six miles from Constantia, ten from Capetown, and twelve from Simon's Bay. I intend to stay here a little while, and then to go to Kalk Bay, six miles from hence. This inn was excellent, I hear, 'in the old Dutch times'. Now it is kept by a young Englishman, Cape-born, and his wife, and is dirty and disorderly. I pay twelve s.h.i.+llings a day for S- and self, without a sitting-room, and my bed is a straw pailla.s.se; but the food is plentiful, and not very bad.

That is the cheapest rate of living possible here, and every trifle costs double what it would in England, except wine, which is very fair at fivepence a bottle-a kind of hock. The landlord pays 1 a day rent for this house, which is the great resort of the Capetown people for Sundays, and for change of air, &c.-a rude kind of Richmond. His cook gets 3 10_s._ a month, besides food for himself and wife, and beer and sugar.

The two (white) housemaids get 1 15_s._ and 1 10_s._ respectively (everything by the month). Fresh b.u.t.ter is 3_s._ 6_d._ a pound, mutton 7_d._; was.h.i.+ng very dear; cabbages my host sells at 3_d._ a piece, and pumpkins 8_d._ He has a fine garden, and pays a gardener 3_s._ 6_d._ a day, and black labourers 2_s._ _They_ work three days a week; then they buy rice and a coa.r.s.e fish, and lie in the sun till it is eaten; while their darling little fat black babies play in the dust, and their black wives make battues in the covers in their woolly heads. But the little black girl who cleans my room is far the best servant, and smiles and speaks like Lalage herself, ugly as the poor drudge is. The voice and smile of the negroes here is bewitching, though they are hideous; and neither S- nor I have yet heard a black child cry, or seen one naughty or quarrelsome. You would want to lay out a fortune in woolly babies.

Yesterday I had a dreadful heartache after my darling, on her little birthday, and even the lovely ranges of distant mountains, coloured like opals in the sunset, did not delight me. This is a dreary place for strangers. Abdul Jemaalee's tisanne, and a banana which he gave me each time I went to his shop, are the sole offer of 'Won't you take something?' or even the sole attempt at a civility that I have received, except from the J-s, who, are very civil and kind.

When I have done my visit to Simon's Bay, I will go 'up country', to Stellenbosch, Paarl and Worcester, perhaps. If I can find people going in a bullock-waggon, I will join them; it costs 1 a day, and goes twenty miles. If money were no object, I would hire one with Caffres to hunt, as well as outspan and drive, and take a saddle-horse. There is plenty of pleasure to be had in travelling here, if you can afford it. The scenery is quite beyond anything you can imagine in beauty. I went to a country house at Rondebosch with the J-s, and I never saw so lovely a spot. The possessor had done his best to spoil it, and to destroy the handsome Dutch house and fountains and aqueducts; but Nature was too much for him, and the place lovely in neglect and shabbiness.

Now I will tell you my impressions of the state of society here, as far as I have been able to make out by playing the inquisitive traveller. I dare say the statements are exaggerated, but I do not think they are wholly devoid of truth. The Dutch round Capetown (I don't know anything of 'up country') are sulky and dispirited; they regret the slave days, and can't bear to pay wages; they have sold all their fine houses in town to merchants, &c., and let their handsome country places go to pieces, and their land lie fallow, rather than hire the men they used to own.

They hate the Malays, who were their slaves, and whose 'insolent prosperity' annoys them, and they don't like the vulgar, bustling English. The English complain that the Dutch won't die, and that they are the curse of the colony (a statement for which they can never give a reason). But they, too, curse the emanc.i.p.ation, long to flog the n.i.g.g.e.rs, and hate the Malays, who work harder and don't drink, and who are the only masons, tailors, &c., and earn from 4_s._ 6_d._ to 10_s._ a day. The Malays also have almost a monopoly of cart-hiring and horse-keeping; an Englishman charges 4 10_s._ or 5 for a carriage to do what a Malay will do quicker in a light cart for 30_s._ S- says, 'The English here think the coloured people ought to do the work, and they to get the wages. Nothing less would satisfy them.' Servants' wages are high, but other wages not much higher than in England; yet industrious people invariably make fortunes, or at least competencies, even when they begin with nothing. But few of the English will do anything but lounge; while they abuse the Dutch as lazy, and the Malays as thieves, and feel their fingers itch to be at the blacks. The Africanders (Dutch and negro mixed in various proportions) are more or less lazy, dirty, and dressy, and the beautiful girls wear pork-pie hats, and look very winning and rather fierce; but to them the philanthropists at home have provided formidable rivals, by emptying a s.h.i.+pload of young ladies from a 'Reformatory' into the streets of Capetown.

I am puzzled what to think of the climate here for invalids. The air is dry and clear beyond conception, and light, but the sun is scorching; while the south-east wind blows an icy hurricane, and the dust obscures the sky. These winds last all the summer, till February or March. I am told when they don't blow it is heavenly, though still cold in the mornings and evenings. No one must be out at, or after sunset, the chill is so sudden. Many of the people here declare that it is death to weak lungs, and send their _poitrinaires_ to Madeira, or the south of France.

They also swear the climate is enervating, but their looks, and above all the blowsy cheeks and hearty play of the English children, disprove that; and those who come here consumptive get well in spite of the doctors, who won't allow it possible. I believe it is a climate which requires great care from invalids, but that, with care, it is good, because it is bracing as well as warm and dry. It is not nearly so warm as I expected; the southern icebergs are at no great distance, and they ice the south-east wind for us. If it were not so violent, it would be delicious; and there are no unhealthy winds-nothing like our east wind.

The people here grumble at the north-wester, which sometimes brings rain, and call it damp, which, as they don't know what damp is, is excusable; it feels like a _dry_ south-wester in England. It is, however, quite a delusion to think of living out of doors, here; the south-easters keep one in nearly, if not quite, half one's time, and in summer they say the sun is too hot to be out except morning and evening. But I doubt that, for they make an outcry about heat as soon as it is not cold. The transitions are so sudden, that, with the thermometer at 76, you must not go out without taking a thick warm cloak; you may walk into a south-easter round the first spur of the mountain, and be cut in two. In short, the air is cold and bracing, and the sun blazing hot; those whom that suits, will do well. I should like a softer air, but I may be wrong; when there is only a moderate wind, it is delicious. You walk in the hot sun, which makes you perspire a very little; but you dry as you go, the air is so dry; and you come in untired. I speak of slow walking.

There are no hot-climate diseases; no dysentery, fever, &c.

_Simon's Bay_, 18_th_ _Nov._-I came on here in a cart, as I felt ill from the return of the cold weather. While at Rathfelder we had a superb day, and the J-s drove me over to Constantia, which deserves all its reputation for beauty. What a divine spot!-such kloofs, with silver rills running down them! It is useless to describe scenery. It was a sort of glorified Scotland, with suns.h.i.+ne, flowers, and orange-groves.

We got home hungry and tired, but in great spirits. Alas! next day came the south-easter-blacker, colder, more cutting, than ever-and lasted a week.

The Walkers came over on horseback, and pressed me to go to them. They are most kind and agreeable people. The drive to Simon's Bay was lovely, along the coast and across five beaches of snow-white sand, which look like winter landscapes; and the mountains and bay are lovely.

Living is very dear, and was.h.i.+ng, travelling, chemist's bills-all enormous. Thirty s.h.i.+llings a cart and horse from Rathfelder here-twelve miles; and then the young English host wanted me to hire another cart for one box and one bath! But I would not, and my obstinacy was stoutest.

If I want cart or waggon again, I'll deal with a Malay, only the fellows drive with forty Jehu-power up and down the mountains.

A Madagascar woman offered to give me her orphan grandchild, a sweet brown fairy, six years old, with long silky black hair, and gorgeous eyes. The child hung about me incessantly all the time I was at Rathfelder, and I had a great mind to her. She used to laugh like baby, and was like her altogether, only prettier, and very brown; and when I told her she was like my own little child, she danced about, and laughed like mad at the idea that she could look like 'pretty white Missy'. She was mighty proud of her needlework and A B C performances.

It is such a luxury to sleep on a real mattra.s.s-not stuffed with dirty straw; to eat clean food, and live in a nice room. But my cough is very bad, and the cruel wind blows on and on. I saw the doctor of the Naval Hospital here to-day. If I don't mend, I will try his advice, and go northward for warmth. If you can find an old Mulready envelope, send it here to Miss Walker, who collects stamps and has not got it, and write and thank dear good Lady Walker for her kindness to me.

You will get this about the new year. G.o.d bless you all, and send us better days in 1862.

LETTER IV JOURNEY TO CALEDON

Caledon, Dec. 10th.

I DID not feel at all well at Simon's Bay, which is a land of hurricanes.

We had a 'south-easter' for fourteen days, without an hour's lull; even the flag-s.h.i.+p had no communication with the sh.o.r.e for eight days. The good old naval surgeon there ordered me to start off for this high 'up-country' district, and arranged my departure for the first _possible_ day. He made a bargain for me with a Dutchman, for a light Malay cart (a capital vehicle with two wheels) and four horses, for 30_s._ a day-three days to Caledon from Simon's Bay, about a hundred miles or so, and one day of back fare to his home in Capetown.

Luckily, on Sat.u.r.day the wind dropped, and we started at nine o'clock, drove to a place about four miles from Capetown, when we turned off on the 'country road', and outspanned at a post-house kept by a nice old German with a Dutch wife. Once well out of Capetown, people are civil, but inquisitive; I was strictly cross-questioned, and proved so satisfactory, that the old man wished to give me some English porter gratis. We then jogged along again at a very good pace to another wayside public, where we outspanned again and ate, and were again questioned, and again made much of. By six o'clock we got to the Eerste River, having gone forty miles or so in the day. It was a beautiful day, and very pleasant travelling. We had three good little half-Arab bays, and one brute of a grey as off-wheeler, who fell down continually; but a Malay driver works miracles, and no harm came of it. The cart is small, with a permanent tilt at top, and moveable curtains of waterproof all round; harness of raw leather, very prettily put together by Malay workmen. We sat behind, and our brown coachman, with his mushroom hat, in front, with my bath and box, and a miniature of himself about seven years old-a nephew,-so small and handy that he would be worth his weight in jewels as a tiger. At Eerste River we slept in a pretty old Dutch house, kept by an English woman, and called the Fox and Hound, 'to sound like home, my lady.' Very nice and comfortable it was.

I started next day at ten; and never shall I forget that day's journey.

The beauty of the country exceeds all description. Ranges of mountains beyond belief fantastic in shape, and between them a rolling country, desolate and wild, and covered with gorgeous flowers among the 'scrub'.

First we came to Hottentot's Holland (now called Somerset West), the loveliest little old Dutch village, with trees and little ca.n.a.ls of bright clear mountain water, and groves of orange and pomegranate, and white houses, with incredible gable ends. We tried to stop here; but forage was ninepence a bundle, and the true Malay would rather die than pay more than he can help. So we pushed on to the foot of the mountains, and bought forage (forage is oats _au natural_, straw and all, the only feed known here, where there is no gra.s.s or hay) at a farm kept by English people, who all talked Dutch together; only one girl of the family could speak English. They were very civil, asked us in, and gave us unripe apricots, and the girl came down with seven flounces, to talk with us. Forage was still ninepence-half a dollar a bundle-and Choslullah Jaamee groaned over it, and said the horses must have less forage and 'more plenty roll' (a roll in the dust is often the only refreshment offered to the beasts, and seems to do great good).

We got to Caledon at eleven, and drove to the place the Doctor recommended-formerly a country house of the Dutch Governor. It is in a lovely spot; but do you remember the Schloss in Immermann's Neuer Munchausen? Well, it is that. A ruin;-windows half broken and boarded up, the handsome steps in front fallen in, and all _en suite_. The rooms I saw were large and airy; but mud floors, white-washed walls, one chair, one stump bedstead, and _praeterea nihil_. It has a sort of wild, romantic look; I hear, too, it is wonderfully healthy, and not so bad as it looks. The long corridor is like the entrance to a great stable, or some such thing; earth floors and open to all winds. But you can't imagine it, however I may describe; it is so huge and strange, and ruinous. Finding that the mistress of the house was ill, and nothing ready for our reception, I drove on to the inn. Rain, like a Scotch mist, came on just as we arrived, and it is damp and chilly, to the delight of all the dwellers in the land, who love bad weather. It makes me cough a little more; but they say it is quite unheard of, and can't last. Altogether, I suppose this summer here is as that of '60 was in England.

I forgot, in describing my journey, the regal-looking Caffre housemaid at Eerste River. 'Such a dear, good creature,' the landlady said; and, oh, such a 'n.o.ble savage'!-with a cotton handkerchief folded tight like a cravat and tied round her head with a bow behind, and the short curly wool sticking up in the middle;-it looked like a royal diadem on her solemn brow; she stepped like Juno, with a huge tub full to the brim, and holding several pailfuls, on her head, and a pailful in each hand, bringing water for the stables from the river, across a large field.

There is nothing like a Caffre for power and grace; and the face, though very African, has a sort of grandeur which makes it utterly unlike that of the negro. That woman's bust and waist were beauty itself. The Caffres are also very clean and very clever as servants, I hear, learning cookery, &c., in a wonderfully short time. When they have saved money enough to buy cattle in Kaffraria, off they go, cast aside civilization and clothes, and enjoy life in naked luxury.

I can't tell you how I longed for you in my journey. You would have been so delighted with the country and the queer turn-out-the wild little horses, and the polite and delicately-clean Moslem driver. His description of his sufferings from 'louses', when he slept in a Dutch farm, were pathetic, and ever since, he sleeps in his cart, with the little boy; and they bathe in the nearest river, and eat their lawful food and drink their water out of doors. They declined beer, or meat which had been unlawfully killed. In Capetown _all_ meat is killed by Malays, and has the proper prayer spoken over it, and they will eat no other. I was offered a fowl at a farm, but Choslullah thought it 'too much money for Missus', and only accepted some eggs. He was gratified at my recognising the propriety of his saying 'Bismillah' over any animal killed for food. Some drink beer, and drink a good deal, but Choslullah thought it 'very wrong for Malay people, and not good for Christian people, to be drunk beasties;-little wine or beer good for Christians, but not too plenty much.' I gave him ten s.h.i.+llings for himself, at which he was enchanted, and again begged me to write to his master for him when I wanted to leave Caledon, and to be sure to say, 'Mind send same coachman.' He planned to drive me back through Worcester, Burnt Vley, Paarl, and Stellenbosch-a longer round; but he could do it in three days well, so as 'not cost Missus more money', and see a different country.

This place is curiously like Rochefort in the Ardennes, only the hills are mountains, and the sun is far hotter; not so the air, which is fresh and pleasant. I am in a very nice inn, kept by an English ex-officer, who went through the Caffre war, and found his pay insufficient for the wants of a numerous family. I quite admire his wife, who cooks, cleans, nurses her babes, gives singing and music lessons,-all as merrily as if she liked it. I dine with them at two o'clock, and Captain D- has a _table d'hote_ at seven for travellers. I pay only 10_s._ 6_d._ a day for myself and S-; this includes all but wine or beer. The air is very clear and fine, and my cough is already much better. I shall stay here as long as it suits me and does me good, and then I am to send for Choslullah again, and go back by the road he proposed. It rains here now and then, and blows a good deal, but the wind has lost its bitter chill, and depressing quality. I hope soon to ride a little and see the country, which is beautiful.

The water-line is all red from the iron stone, and there are hot chalybeate springs up the mountain which are very good for rheumatism, and very strengthening, I am told. The boots here is a Mantatee, very black, and called Kleenboy, because he is so little; he is the only sleek black I have seen here, but looks heavy and downcast. One maid is Irish (they make the best servants here), a very nice clean girl, and the other, a brown girl of fifteen, whose father is English, and married to her mother. Food here is scarce, all but bread and mutton, both good.

b.u.t.ter is 3_s._ a pound; fruit and vegetables only to be had by chance.

I miss the oranges and lemons sadly. Poultry and milk uncertain. The bread is good everywhere, from the fine wheat: in the country it is brownish and sweet. The wine here is execrable; this is owing to the prevailing indolence, for there is excellent wine made from the Rhenish grape, rather like Sauterne, with a _soupcon_ of Manzanilla flavour. The sweet Constantia is also very good indeed; not the expensive sort, which is made from grapes half dried, and is a liqueur, but a light, sweet, straw-coloured wine, which even I liked. We drank nothing else at the Admiral's. The kind old sailor has given me a dozen of wine, which is coming up here in a waggon, and will be most welcome. I can't tell you how kind he and Lady Walker were; I was there three weeks, and hope to go again when the south-easter season is over and I can get out a little. I could not leave the house at all; and even Lady Walker and the girls, who are very energetic, got out but little. They are a charming family.

I have no doubt that Dr. Shea was right, and that one must leave the coast to get a fine climate. Here it seems to me nearly perfect-too windy for my pleasure, but then the sun would be overpowering without a fresh breeze. Every one agrees in saying that the winter in Capetown is delicious-like a fine English summer. In November the south-easters begin, and they are 'fiendish'; this year they began in September. The mornings here are always fresh, not to say cold; the afternoons, from one to three, broiling; then delightful till sunset, which is deadly cold for three-quarters of an hour; the night is lovely. The wind rises and falls with the sun. That is the general course of things. Now and then it rains, and this year there is a little south-easter, which is quite unusual, and not odious, as it is near the sea; and there is seldom a hot wind from the north. I am promised that on or about Christmas-day; then doors and windows are shut, and you gasp. Hitherto we have had nothing nearly so hot as Paris in summer, or as the summer of 1859 in England; and they say it is no hotter, except when the hot wind blows, which is very rare. Up here, snow sometimes lies, in winter, on the mountain tops; but ice is unknown, and Table Mountain is never covered with snow.

The flies are pestilent-incredibly noisy, intrusive, and disgusting-and oh, such swarms! Fleas and bugs not half so bad as in France, as far as my experience goes, and I have poked about in queer places.

I get up at half-past five, and walk in the early morning, before the sun and wind begin to be oppressive; it is then dry, calm, and beautiful; then I sleep like a Dutchman in the middle of the day. At present it tires me, but I shall get used to it soon. The Dutch doctor here advised me to do so, to avoid the wind.

When all was settled, we climbed the Hottentot's mountains by Sir Lowry's Pa.s.s, 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 pa.s.s we turned a sharp corner into a scene like the crater of a volcano, only reaching miles away all round; and we descended a very little and drove on along great rolling waves of country, with the mountain tops, all crags and ruins, to our left. At three we reached Palmiet River, full of palmettos and bamboos, and there the horses had 'a little roll', and Choslullah and his miniature washed in the river and prayed, and ate dry bread, and drank their tepid water out of a bottle with great good breeding and cheerfulness. Three bullock-waggons had outspanned, and the Dutch boers and Bastaards (half Hottentots) were all drunk. We went into a neat little 'public', and had porter and ham sandwiches, for which I paid 4_s._ 6_d._ to a miserable-looking English woman, who was afraid of her tipsy customers. We got to Houw Hoek, a pretty valley at the entrance of a mountain gorge, about half-past five, and drove up to a mud cottage, half inn, half farm, kept by a German and his wife. It looked mighty queer, but Choslullah said the host was a good old man, and all clean. So we cheered up, and asked for food.

While the neat old woman was cooking it, up galloped five fine lads and two pretty flaxen-haired girls, with real German faces, on wild little horses; and one girl tucked up her habit, and waited at table, while another waved a green bough to drive off the swarms of flies. The chops were excellent, ditto bread and b.u.t.ter, and the tea tolerable. The parlour was a tiny room with a mud floor, half-hatch door into the front, and the two bedrooms still tinier and darker, each with two huge beds which filled them entirely. But Choslullah was right; they were perfectly clean, with heaps of beautiful pillows; and not only none of the creatures of which he spoke with infinite terror, but even no fleas.

The man was delighted to talk to me. His wife had almost forgotten German, and the children did not know a word of it, but spoke Dutch and English. A fine, healthy, happy family. It was a pretty picture of emigrant life. Cattle, pigs, sheep, and poultry, and pigeons innumerable, all picked up their own living, and cost nothing; and vegetables and fruit grow in rank abundance where there is water. I asked for a book in the evening, and the man gave me a volume of Schiller. A good breakfast,-and we paid ninepence for all.

This morning we started before eight, as it looked gloomy, and came through a superb mountain defile, out on to a rich hillocky country, covered with miles of corn, all being cut as far as the eye could reach, and we pa.s.sed several circular thres.h.i.+ng-floors, where the horses tread out the grain. Each had a few mud hovels near it, for the farmers and men to live in during harvest. Altogether, I was most lucky, had two beautiful days, and enjoyed the journey immensely. It was most '_abentheuerlich_'; the light two-wheeled cart, with four wild little horses, and the marvellous brown driver, who seemed to be always going to perdition, but made the horses do apparently impossible things with absolute certainty; and the pretty tiny boy who came to help his uncle, and was so clever, and so preternaturally quiet, and so very small: then the road through the mountain pa.s.ses, seven or eight feet wide, with a precipice above and below, up which the little horses scrambled; while big lizards, with green heads and chocolate bodies, looked pertly at us, and a big bright amber-coloured cobra, as handsome as he is deadly, wriggled across into a hole.

Nearly all the people in this village are Dutch. There is one Malay tailor here, but he is obliged to be a Christian at Caledon, though Choslullah told me with a grin, he was a very good Malay when he went to Capetown. He did not seem much shocked at this double religion, staunch Mussulman as he was himself. I suppose the blacks 'up country' are what Dutch slavery made them-mere animals-cunning and sulky. The real Hottentot is extinct, I believe, in the Colony; what one now sees are all 'Bastaards', the Dutch name for their own descendants by Hottentot women.

These mongrel Hottentots, who do all the work, are an affliction to behold-debased and _shrivelled_ with drink, and drunk all day long; sullen wretched creatures-so unlike the bright Malays and cheery pleasant blacks and browns of Capetown, who never pa.s.s you without a kind word and sunny smile or broad African grin, _selon_ their colour and shape of face. I look back fondly to the gracious soft-looking Malaga.s.se woman who used to give me a chair under the big tree near Rathfelders, and a cup of 'bosjesthee' (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 emanc.i.p.ation were felt at Capetown sooner than in the country, and the Malay population there furnishes a strong element of sobriety and respectability, which sets an example to the other coloured people.

Harvest is now going on, and the so-called Hottentots are earning 2_s._ 6_d._ a day, with rations and wine. But all the money goes at the 'canteen' in drink, and the poor wretched men and women look wasted and degraded. The children are pretty, and a few of them are half-breed girls, who do very well, unless a white man admires them; and then they think it quite an honour to have a whitey-brown child, which happens at about fifteen, by which age they look full twenty.

We had very good snipe and wild duck the other day, which Capt. D- brought home from a shooting party. I have got the moth-like wings of a golden snipe for R-'s hat, and those of a beautiful moor-hen. They got no 'boks', because of the violent south-easter which blew where they were. The game is fast decreasing, but still very abundant. I saw plenty of partridges on the road, but was not early enough to see boks, who only show at dawn; neither have I seen baboons. I will try to bring home some cages of birds-Cape canaries and 'roode bekjes' (red bills), darling little things. The sugar-birds, which are the humming-birds of Africa, could not be fed; but Caffre finks, which weave the pendent nests, are hardy and easily fed.

To-day the post for England leaves Caledon, so I must conclude this yarn.

I wish R- could have seen the 'klip springer', the mountain deer of South Africa, which Capt. D- brought in to show me. Such a lovely little beast, as big as a small kid, with eyes and ears like a hare, and a nose so small and dainty. It was quite tame and saucy, and belonged to some man _en route_ for Capetown.

LETTER V CALEDON

Caledon, Dec. 29th.

I AM beginning now really to feel better: I think my cough is less, and I eat a great deal more. They cook nice clean food here, and have some good claret, which I have been extravagant enough to drink, much to my advantage. The Cape wine is all so fiery. The climate is improving too.

The glorious African sun blazes and roasts one, and the cool fresh breezes prevent one from feeling languid. I walk from six till eight or nine, breakfast at ten, and dine at three; in the afternoon it is generally practicable to saunter again, now the weather is warmer. I sleep from twelve till two. On Christmas-eve it was so warm that I lay in bed with the window wide open, and the stars blazing in. Such stars!