Note: Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive. See
https://archive.org/details/lifeinsouthafric00barkrich
Transcriber’s note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
LIFE IN SOUTH AFRICA.
by
LADY BARKER,
Author of
“Station Life in New Zealand,” “Stories About,” etc., etc.
[Illustration: Colophon]
Philadelphia
J. B. Lippincott & Co.
1877.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by
J. B. Lippincott & Co.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
LIFE IN SOUTH AFRICA.
PART I.
CAPE TOWN, October 16, 1875.
Safe, safe at last, after twenty-four days of nothing but sea and
sky, of white-crested waves—which made no secret of their intention
of coming on board whenever they could or of tossing the good ship
Edinburgh Castle hither and thither like a child’s plaything—and of
more deceitful sluggish rolling billows, looking tolerably calm to
the unseafaring eye, but containing a vast amount of heaving power
beneath their slow, undulating water-hills and valleys. Sometimes sky
and sea have been steeped in dazzling haze of golden glare, sometimes
brightened to blue of a sapphire depth. Again, a sudden change of wind
has driven up serried clouds from the south and east, and all has been
gray and cold and restful to eyes wearied with radiance and glitter of
sun and sparkling water.
Never has there been such exceptional weather, although the weather
of my acquaintance invariably _is_ exceptional. No sooner had the
outlines of Madeira melted and blended into the soft darkness of a
summer night than we appeared to sail straight into tropic heat and a
sluggish vapor, brooding on the water like steam from a giant geyser.
This simmering, oily, exhausting temperature carried us close to the
line. “What is before us,” we asked each other languidly, “if it be
hotter than this? How can mortal man, woman, still less child, endure
existence?” Vain alarms! Yet another shift of the light wind, another
degree passed, and we are all shivering in winter wraps. The line was
crossed in greatcoats and shawls, and the only people whose complexion
did not resemble a purple plum were those lucky ones who had strength
of mind and steadiness of body to lurch up and down the deck all day
enjoying a strange method of movement which they called walking.
The exceptional weather pursued us right into the very dock. Table
Mountain ought to be seen—and very often is seen—seventy miles away. I
am told it looks a fine bold bluff at that distance. Yesterday we had
blown off our last pound of steam and were safe under its lee before
we could tell there was a mountain there at all, still less an almost
perpendicular cliff more than three thousand feet high. Robben Island
looked like a dun-colored hillock as we shot past it within a short
distance, and a more forlorn and discouraging islet I don’t think I
have ever beheld. When I expressed something of this impression to a
cheery fellow-voyager, he could only urge in its defence that there
were a great many rabbits on it. If he had thrown the lighthouse
into the bargain, I think he would have summed up all its attractive
features. Unless Langalibalele is of a singularly unimpressionable
nature, he must have found his sojourn on it somewhat monotonous, but
he always says he was very comfortable there.
And now for the land. We are close alongside of a wharf, and still a
capital and faithful copy of a Scotch mist wraps houses, trees and
sloping uplands in a fibry fantastic veil, and the cold drizzle seems
to curdle the spirits and energies of the few listless Malays and
half-caste boys and men who are lounging about. Here come hansom cabs
rattling up one after the other, all with black drivers in gay and
fantastic head and shoulder gear; but their hearts seem precisely as
the hearts of their London brethren, and they single out new-comers
at a glance, and shout offers to drive them a hundred yards or so for
exorbitant sums, or yell laudatory recommendations of sundry hotels.
You must bear in mind that in a colony every pot-house is a hotel,
and generally rejoices in a name much too imposing to fit across its
frontage. These hansoms are all painted white with the name of some
ship in bright letters on the side, and are a great deal cleaner,
roomier and more comfortable than their London “forbears.” The horses
are small and shabby, but rattle along at a good pace; and soon
each cab has its load of happy home-comers and swings rapidly away
to make room for fresh arrivals hurrying up for fares. Hospitable
suggestions come pouring in, and it is as though it were altogether a
new experience when one steps cautiously on the land, half expecting
it to dip away playfully from under one’s feet. A little boy puts my
thoughts into words when he exclaims, “How steady the ground is!” and
becomes a still more faithful interpreter of a wave-worn voyager’s
sensations when, a couple of hours later, he demands permission to
get _out_ of his delicious little white bed that he may have the
pleasure of getting _into_ it again. The evening is cold and raw
and the new picture is all blurred and soft and indistinct, and
nothing seems plain except the kindly grace of our welcome and the
never-before-sufficiently-appreciated delights of space and silence.
OCTOBER 17.
How pleasant is the process familiarly known as “looking about
one,” particularly when performed under exceptionally favorable
circumstances! A long and happy day commenced with a stroll through the
botanic gardens, parallel with which runs, on one side, a splendid oak
avenue just now in all the vivid freshness of its young spring leaves.
The gardens are beautifully kept, and are valuable as affording a sort
of experimental nursery in which new plants and trees can be brought up
on trial and their adaptability to the soil and climate ascertained.
For instance, the first thing that caught my eye was the gigantic trunk
of an Australian blue-gum tree, which had attained to a girth and
height not often seen in its own land. The flora of the Cape Colony is
exceptionally varied and beautiful, but one peculiarity incidentally
alluded to by my charming guide struck me as very noticeable. It
is that in this dry climate and porous soil all the efforts of
uncultivated nature are devoted to the _stems_ of the vegetation: on
their sap-retaining power depends the life of the plant, so blossom and
leaf, though exquisitely indicated, are fragile and incomplete compared
to the solidity and bulbous appearance of the stalk. Everything is
sacrificed to the practical principle of keeping life together, and
it is not until these stout-stemmed plants are cultivated and duly
sheltered and watered, and can grow, as it were, with confidence,
that they are able to do justice to the inherent beauty of penciled
petal and veined leaf. Then the stem contracts to ordinary dimensions,
and leaf and blossom expand into things which may well be a joy to
the botanist’s eye. A thousand times during that shady saunter did I
envy my companions their scientific acquaintance with the beautiful
green things of earth, and that intimate knowledge of a subject which
enhances one’s appreciation of its charms as much as bringing a lamp
into a darkened picture-gallery. There are the treasures of form and
color, but from ignorant eyes more than half their charms and wonders
are held back.
A few steps beyond the garden stand the library and natural history
museum. The former is truly a credit to the Colony. Spacious,
handsome, rich in literary treasures, it would bear comparison with
similar institutions in far older and wealthier places. But I have
often noticed in colonies how much importance is attached to the
possession of a good public library, and how fond, as a rule, colonists
are of books. In a new settlement other shops may be ill supplied, but
there is always a good bookseller’s, and all books are to be bought
there at pretty nearly the same prices as in England. Here each volume
costs precisely the same as it would in London, and it would puzzle
ever so greedy a reader to name a book which would not be instantly
handed to him.
The museum is well worth a visit of many more hours than we could
afford minutes, and, as might be expected, contains numerous specimens
of the _Bok_ family, whose tapering horns and slender legs are to be
seen at every turn of one’s head. Models are there also of the largest
diamonds, and especially well copied is the famous “Star of South
Africa,” a magnificent brilliant of purest water, sold here originally
for something like twelve thousand pounds, and resold for double that
sum three or four years back. In these few hours I perceive, or think
I perceive, a certain soreness, if one may use the word, on the part
of the Cape Colonists about the unappreciativeness of the English
public toward their produce and possessions. For instance, an enormous
quantity of wine is annually exported, which reaches London by a
devious route and fetches a high price, as it is fairly entitled to do
from its excellence. If that same wine were sent direct to a London
merchant and boldly sold as Cape wine, it is said that the profit on
it would be a very different affair. The same prejudice exists against
Cape diamonds. Of course, as in other things, a large proportion of
inferior stones are forced into the market and serve to give the
diamonds that bad name which we all know is so fatal to a dog. But
it is only necessary to pretend that a really fine Cape diamond has
come from Brazil to ensure its fetching a handsome price, and in that
way even jewelers themselves have been known to buy and give a good
round sum, too, for stones they would otherwise have looked upon with
suspicion. Already I have seen a straw-colored diamond from “Du Zoit’s
pan” in the diamond-fields cut in Amsterdam and set in London, which
could hold its own for purity, radiance and color against any other
stone of the same rare tint, without fear or favor; but of course such
gems are not common, and fairly good diamonds cost as much here as in
any other part of the world.
The light morning mists from that dampness of yesterday have rolled
gradually away as the beautiful sunshine dried the atmosphere, and
by mid-day the table-cloth, as the colonists affectionately call the
white, fleece-like vapor which so often rests on their pet mountain,
has been folded up and laid aside in Cloudland for future use. I don’t
know what picture other people may have made to their own minds of the
shape and size of Table Mountain, but it was quite a surprise and the
least little bit in the world of a disappointment to me to find that
it cuts the sky (and what a beautiful sky it is!) with a perfectly
straight and level line. A gentle, undulating foreground broken into
ravines, where patches of green _velts_ or fields, clumps of trees and
early settlers’ houses nestle cosily down, guides the eye halfway up
the mountain. There the rounder forms abruptly cease, and great granite
cliffs rise, bare and straight, up to the level line stretching ever
so far along. “It is so characteristic,” and “You grow to be so fond
of that mountain,” are observations I have heard made in reply to the
carping criticisms of travelers, and already I begin to understand the
meaning of the phrases. But you need to see the mountain from various
points of view and under different influences of sun and cloud before
you can take in its striking and peculiar charms.
On each side of the straight line which is emphatically Table Mountain,
but actually forming part of it, is a bold headland of the shape
one is usually accustomed to in mountains. The “Devil’s Peak” is
uncompromising enough for any one’s taste, whilst the “Lion’s Head”
charms the eye by its bluff form and deep purple fissures. These grand
promontories are not, however, half so beloved by Cape Colonists as
their own Table Mountain, and it is curious and amusing to notice how
the influence of this odd straight ridge, ever before their eyes,
has unconsciously guided and influenced their architectural tastes.
All the roofs of the houses are straight—straight as the mountain; a
gable is almost unknown, and even the few steeples are dwarfed to an
imperceptible departure from the prevailing straight line. The very
trees which shade the Parade-ground and border the road in places
have their tops blown absolutely straight and flat, as though giant
shears had trimmed them; but I must confess, in spite of a natural
anxiety to carry out my theory, that the violent “sou’-easters” are the
“straighteners” in their case.
Cape Town is so straggling that it is difficult to form any idea of
its real size, but the low houses are neat and the streets are well
kept and look quaint and lively enough to my new eyes this morning.
There are plenty of people moving about with a sociable, business-like
air; lots of different shades of black and brown Malays, with pointed
hats on the men’s heads: the women encircle their dusky, smiling faces
with a gay cotton handkerchief and throw another of a still brighter
hue over their shoulders. When you add to this that they wear a full,
flowing, stiffly-starched cotton gown of a third bright color, you
can perhaps form some idea of how they enliven the streets. Swarms
of children everywhere, romping and laughing and showing their white
teeth in broadest of grins. The white children strike me at once as
looking marvelously well—such chubby cheeks, such sturdy fat legs—and
all, black or white, with that amazing air of independence peculiar to
baby-colonists. Nobody seems to mind them and nothing seems to harm
them. Here are half a dozen tiny boys shouting and laughing at one side
of the road, and half a dozen baby-girls at the other (they all seem to
play separately): they are all driving each other, for “horses” is the
one game here. By the side of a pond sit two toddlers of about three
years old, in one garment apiece and pointed hats: they are very busy
with string and a pin; but who is taking care of them and why don’t
they tumble in? They are as fat as ortolans and grin at us in the most
friendly fashion.
We must remember that this chances to be the very best moment of the
whole year in which to see the Cape and the dwellers thereat. The cold
weather has left its bright roses on the children’s cheeks, and the
winter rains exceptionally having this year made every blade of grass
and leaf of tree to laugh and sing in freshest green. After the dry,
windy summer I am assured there is hardly a leaf and never a blade of
grass to be seen in Cape Town, and only a little straggling verdure
under the shelter of the mountain. The great want of this place is
water. No river, scarcely a brook, refreshes one’s eye for many and
many a league inward. The necessary water for the use of the town is
brought down by pipes from the numerous springs which trickle out of
the granite cliffs of Table Mountain, but there is never a sufficiency
to spare for watering roads or grassplots. This scarcity is a double
loss to residents and visitors, for one misses it both for use and
beauty.
Everybody who comes here rides or drives round the “Kloof.” That may
be; but what I maintain is that very few do it so delightfully as I
did this sunny afternoon with a companion who knew and loved every
turn of the romantic road, who could tell me the name of every bush
or flower, of every distant stretch of hills, and helped me to make a
map in my head of the stretching landscape and curving bay. Ah! how
delicious it was, the winding, climbing road, at whose every angle
a fresh fair landscape fell away from beneath our feet or a shining
stretch of sea, whose transparent green and purple shadows broke in a
fringe of feathery spray at the foot of bold, rocky cliffs, or crept
up to a smooth expanse of silver sand in a soft curling line of foam!
“Kloof” means simply cleft, and is the pass between the Table Mountain
and the Lion’s Head. The road first rises, rises, rises, until one
seems halfway up the great mountain, and the little straight-roofed
white houses, the green velts or fields and the parallel lines of the
vineyards have sunk below one’s feet far, far away. The mountain gains
in grandeur as one approaches it, for the undulating spurs which run
from it down to the sea-shore take away from the height looking upward.
But when these are left beneath, the perpendicular walls of granite,
rising sheer and straight up to the bold sky-line, and the rugged,
massive strength of the buttress-like cliffs, begin to gain something
of their true value to the stranger’s eye. The most beautiful part
of the road, however, to my taste, is the descent, when the shining
expanse of Camp’s Bay lies shimmering in the warm afternoon haze with a
thousand lights and shadows from cloud and cliff touching and passing
over the crisp water-surface. By many a steep zigzag we round the
Lion’s Head, and drop once more on a level road running parallel to
the sea-shore, and so home in the balmy and yet bracing twilight. The
midday sun is hot and scorching even at this time of year, but it is
always cool in the shade, and no sooner do the afternoon shadows grow
to any length than the air freshens into sharpness, and by sundown one
is glad of a good warm shawl.
OCTOBER 18.
Another bright, ideal day, and the morning passed in a delicious
flower-filled room looking over old books and records and listening
to odd, quaint little scraps from the old Dutch records. But directly
after luncheon (and how hungry we all are, and how delicious everything
tastes on shore!) the open break with four capital horses comes to
the door, and we start for a long, lovely drive. Half a mile or so
takes us out on a flat red road with Table Mountain rising straight up
before it, but on the left stretches away a most enchanting panorama.
It is all so soft in coloring and tone, distinct and yet not hard, and
exquisitely beautiful!
The Blue-Berg range of mountains stretch beyond the great bay, which,
unless a “sou’-easter” is tearing over it, lies glowing in tranquil
richness. This afternoon it is colored like an Italian lake. Here are
lines of chrysoprase, green-fringed, white with little waves, and
beyond lie dark, translucent, purple depths, which change with every
passing cloud. Beyond these amethystic shoals again stretches the deep
blue water, and again beyond, and bluer still, rise the five ranges
of “Hottentots’ Holland,” which encircle and complete the landscape,
bringing the eye round again to the nearer cliffs of the Devil’s Peak.
When the Dutch came here some two hundred years ago, they seized upon
this part of the coast and called it Holland, driving the Hottentots
beyond the neighboring range and telling them that was to be their
Holland—a name it keeps to this day. Their consciences must have
troubled them after this arbitrary division of the soil, for up the
highest accessible spurs of their own mountain they took the trouble
to build several queer little square houses called “block-houses,”
from which they could keep a sharp look-out for foes coming over the
hills from Hottentots’ Holland. The foes never came, however, and the
roofs and walls of the block-houses have gradually tumbled in, and the
gun-carriages—for they managed to drag heavy ordnance up the steep
hillside—have rotted away, whilst the old-fashioned cannon lie, grim
and rusty, amid a tangled profusion of wild geranium, heath and lilies.
I scrambled up to one of the nearest block-houses, and found the date
on the dismounted gun to be more than a hundred years old. The view was
beautiful and the air fresh and fragrant with scent of flowers.
But to return to our drive. I could gaze and gaze for ever at this
lovely panorama, but am told this is the ugliest part of the road.
The road itself is certainly not pretty just here, and is cloudy
with a fine red dust, but this view of sea and distant hills is
enchanting. Soon we get under the lee of the great mountain, and then
its sheltering arms show their protective power; for splendid oak
avenues begin to border the road all the way, and miniature forests of
straight-stemmed pines and shimmering belts of the ghostly silver tree
run up all the mountain-clefts. Stem and leaf of the silver tree are
all of purest white; and when one gets a gleam of sunlight on a distant
patch of these trees, the effect is quite indescribable, contrasting,
as they do, with green of field and vineyard. The vines all about here
and towards Constantia, thirteen miles off, are dwarf-plants, and only
grow to the height of gooseberry-bushes. It is a particular species,
which is found to answer best as requiring less labor to train and
cultivate, and is less likely to be blown out of the ground by the
violent “sou’-easters” which come sweeping over the mountain. These
gales are evidently the greatest annoyance which Cape Colonists have to
endure; and although everybody kindly suggests that I _ought_ to see
one, just to understand what it is like, I am profoundly thankful that
I only know it from their description and my own distinct recollection
of the New Zealand “nor’-westers.” Those were hot winds, scorching and
curling up everything, whereas this is rather a cold breeze, although
it blows chiefly in summer. It whirls along clouds of dust from the
red clay roads and fields which penetrates and clings to everything
in the most extraordinary manner. All along the road the stems and
lower branches of the trees are dyed a deep brick-dust color, and I
hear moving and pathetic stories of how it ruins clothes, not only
utterly spoiling black silk dresses, but staining white petticoats and
children’s frocks and pinafores with a border of color exactly like
the ruddle with which sheep are branded. Especially is it the terror
of sailors, rendering the navigation along the coast dangerous and
difficult; for it blends land and water into one indistinct whirl of
vaporous cloud, confusing and blurring everything until one cannot
distinguish shore from sea.
The vineyards of Constantia originally took their pretty name from
the fair daughter of one of the early Dutch governors, but now it has
grown into a generic word, and you see “Cloete’s Constantia,” “Reybeck
Constantia,” written upon great stone gateways leading by long avenues
into the various vine-growing plantations. It was to the former of
these constantias, which was also the farthest off, that we were bound
that pleasant summer afternoon, and from the time we got out of the
carriage until the moment we re-entered it—all too soon, but it is
a long drive back in the short cold twilight—I felt as though I had
stepped through a magic portal into the scene of one of Washington
Irving’s stories. It was all so simple and homely, so quaint and so
inexpressibly picturesque. The house had stood there for a couple of
hundred years, and looks as though it might last for ever, with its air
of cool, leisurely repose and comfort and strength.
In the flagged hall stands a huge stalactite some ten feet high,
brought a hundred years ago from caves far away in the distant ranges.
It is shaped something like a Malay’s hat, only the peak tapers to
a point about eight feet high. The drawing-room—though it seems a
profanation to call that venerable stately room by so flippant and
modern a name—is large, ceiled with great beams of cedar, and lighted
by lofty windows, which must contain many scores of small panes
of glass. There were treasures of rarest old china and delfware,
and curious old carved stands for fragile dishes. A wealth of
swinging-baskets of flowers and ferns and bright girl-faces lighted
up the solemn, shady old room, in which we must not linger, for there
is much to see outside. First to the cellar, as it is called, though
it is far from being under ground, and is, in fact, a spacious stone
building with an elaborately-carved pediment. Here are rows and rows
of giant casks, stretching on either hand into avenues in the black
distance, but these are mere children in the nursery, compared to
those we are going to see. First we must pause in a middle room full
of quaintest odds and ends—crossbows, long whips of hippopotamus hide,
strange rusty old swords and firearms—to look at a map of South Africa
drawn somewhere about 1640. It hangs on the wall and is hardly to be
touched, for the paint and varnish crack and peel off at a breath.
It is a marvel of accurate geographical knowledge, and is far better
filled in than the maps of yesterday. All poor Livingstone’s great
geographical discoveries are marked on it as being—perhaps only from
description—known or guessed at all that long time ago. It was found
impossible to photograph it on account of the dark shade which age has
laid over the original yellow varnish, but a careful tracing has been
made and, I believe, sent home to the Geographical Society. It is in
the long corridor beyond this that the “stuck-vats” live—puncheons
which hold easily some thousand gallons or so, and are of a solemn
rotundity calculated to strike awe into the beholder’s heart. Here
is white constantia, red constantia, young constantia, middle-aged
constantia, and constantia so old as to be a liqueur almost beyond
price. When it has been kept all these years, the sweetness by which
it is distinguished becomes so absorbed and blended as to be hardly
perceptible.
Presently one of the party throws a door suddenly open, and, behold,
we are standing right over a wild wooded glen with a streamlet running
through it, and black washerwomen beating heaps of white clothes on
the strips of shingle. Turtle-doves are cooing, and one might almost
fancy one was back again on the wild Scotch west coast, until some
one else says calmly, “Look at the ostriches!” Here they come, with
a sort of dancing step, twisting their long necks and snake-like
heads from side to side in search of a tempting pebble or trifle of
hardware. Their wings are slightly raised, and the long fringe of white
feathers rustles softly as they trot easily and gracefully past us.
They are young male birds, and in a few months more their plumage,
which now resembles that of a turkey-cock, will be jet black, except
the wing-feathers. A few drops of rain are falling, so we hurry back to
where the carriage is standing under some splendid oak trees, swallow a
sort of stirrup-cup of delicious hot tea, and so home again as fast as
we can go.
OCTOBER 19.
It is decided that I must take a drive in a Cape cart; so directly
after breakfast a smart workman-like-looking vehicle, drawn by a pair
of well-bred iron-gray cobs, dashes up under the portico. There are
capital horses here, but they fetch a good price, and such a pair as
these would easily find purchasers at one hundred and fifty pounds.
The cart itself is very trim and smart, with a framework sort of head,
which falls back at pleasure, and it holds four people easily. It is a
capital vehicle, light and strong and uncommonly comfortable, but I am
warned not to imagine that all Cape carts are as easy as this one. Away
we go at a fine pace through the delicious sparkling morning sunshine
and crisp air, soon turning off the red high-road into a sandy, marshy
flat with a sort of brackish back-water standing in pools here and
there. We are going to call on Langalibalele, and his son, Malambuli,
who are located at Uitvlugt on the Cape downs, about four miles from
the town. It is a sort of farm-residence; and considering that the
chief has hitherto lived in a reed hut, he is not badly off, for he
has plenty of room out of doors as well as a good house over his head.
We bump over some strange and rough bits of sandy road and climb up
and down steep banks in a manner seldom done on wheels. There is a
wealth of lovely flowers blooming around, but I can’t help fixing my
eyes on the pole of the cart, which is sometimes sticking straight up
in the air, its silver hook shining merrily in the sun, or else it has
disappeared altogether, and I can only see the horses’ haunches. That
is when we are going _down_ hill, and I think it is a more terrible
sensation than when we are playfully scrambling up some sandy hillock
as a cat might.
Here is the location at last, thank Heaven! and there is Langalibalele
sitting in the verandah stoep (pronounced “stoup”) on his haunches on
a brick. He looks as comfortable as if he were in an arm-chair, but
it must be a difficult thing to do if you think seriously of it. The
etiquette seems to be to take no notice of him as we pass into the
parlor, where we present our pass and the people in authority satisfy
themselves that we are quite in rule. Then the old chief walks quietly
in, takes off his soft felt hat and sits himself down in a Windsor
arm-chair with grave deliberation. He is uncommonly ugly; but when one
remembers that he is nearly seventy years of age, it is astonishing to
see how young he looks. Langalibalele is not a true Kafir at all: he is
a Fingor, a half-caste tribe contemptuously christened by the Kafirs
“dogs.” His wool grows in distinct and separate clumps like hassocks
of grass all over his head. He is a large and powerful man and looks
the picture of sleek contentment, as well he may. Only one of his sons,
a good-natured, fine young man, black as ebony, is with him, and the
chief’s one expressed grievance is that none of his wives will come to
him. In vain he sends commands and entreaties to these dusky ladies
to come and share his solitude. They return for answer that “they are
working for somebody else;” for, alas! the only reason their presence
is desired is that they may cultivate some of the large extent of
ground placed at the old chief’s disposal. Neither he nor his stalwart
son would dream for a moment of touching spade or hoe; but if the
ladies of the family could only be made to see their duty, an honest
penny might easily be turned by oats or rye. I gave him a large packet
of sugar-plums, which he seized with childish delight and hid away
exactly like the big monkeys at the Zoo.
By way of a joke, Malambuli pretended to want to take them away, and
the chattering and laughing which followed was almost deafening. But
by and by a gentleman of the party presented a big parcel of the
best tobacco, and the chuckling old chief made over at once all my
sweetmeats “jintly” to his son, and proceeded to hide away his new
treasure. He was dressed exactly like a dissenting minister, and
declared through the interpreter he was perfectly comfortable. The
impression here seems to be that he is a restless, intriguing and
mischief-making old man, who may consider himself as having come out of
the hornets’ nest he tried to stir up uncommonly well.
We don’t want to bump up and down the sandy plain again, so a lively
conversation goes on in Dutch about the road between one of my
gentlemen and somebody who looks like a “stuck-vat” upon short legs.
The dialogue is fluent and lively, beginning with “Ja, ja!” and ending
with “All right!” but it leads to our hitting off the right track
exactly, and coming out at a lovely little cottage-villa under the
mountain, where we rest and lunch and then stroll about up the hill
spurs, through myrtle hedges and shady oak avenues. Then, before the
afternoon shadows grow too long, we drive off to “Groote Schuur,” the
ancient granary of the first settlers, which is now turned into a
roomy, comfortable country-house, perfect as a summer residence, and
securely sheltered from the “sou’-easters.” We approach it through a
double avenue of tall Italian pines, and after a little while go out
once more for a ramble up some quaint old brick steps, and so through
a beautiful glen all fringed and feathered with fresh young fronds
of maiden-hair ferns, and masses of hydrangea bushes, which must be
beautiful as a poet’s dream when they are covered with their great
bunches of pale blue blossom. That will not be until Christmas-tide,
and, alas! I shall not be here to see, for already my three halcyon
days of grace are ended and over, and this very evening we must steam
away from a great deal yet unvisited of what is interesting and
picturesque, and from friends who three days ago were strangers, but
who have made every moment since we landed stand out as a bright and
pleasant landmark on life’s highway.