ALGOA BAY, October 23, 1875.
Two days ago we steamed out of Table Bay on just such a gray, drizzling
afternoon as that on which we entered it. But the weather cleared
directly we got out to sea, and since then it has carried us along as
though we had been on a pleasant summer cruise. All yesterday we were
coasting along the low downs which edge the dangerous sea-board for
miles upon miles. From the deck of the Edinburgh Castle the effect is
monotonous enough, although just now everything is brightly green;
and, with their long ribbon fringe of white breaker-foam glinting
in the spring sunshine, the stretches of undulating hillocks looked
their best. This part of the coast is well lighted, and it was always
a matter of felicitation at night when, every eighty miles or so,
the guiding rays of a lighthouse shone out in the soft gloom of the
starlight night. One of these lonely towers stands more than eight
hundred feet above the sea-level, and warns ships off the terrible
Agulhas Bank.
We have dropped our anchor this fresh bright morning a mile or so
from the shore on which Port Elizabeth stands. Algoa Bay is not much
of a shelter, and it is always a chance whether a sudden south-easter
may not come tearing down upon the shipping, necessitating a sudden
tripping of anchors and running out to sea to avoid the fate which is
staring us warningly in the face in the shape of the gaunt ribs or
rusty cylinders of sundry cast-away vessels. To-day the weather is on
its good behavior; the south-easter rests on its
aëry nest
As still as a brooding dove;
and sun and sea are doing their best to show off the queer little
straggling town creeping up the low sandy hills that lie before us. I
am assured that Port Elizabeth is a flourishing mercantile place. From
the deck of our ship I can’t at all perceive that it is flourishing, or
doing anything except basking in the pleasant sunshine. But when I go
on shore an hour or two later I am shown a store which takes away my
breath, and before whose miscellaneous contents the stoutest-hearted
female shopper must needs _baisser son pavilion_. Everything in this
vast emporium looked as neat and orderly as possible, and, though the
building was twice as big as the largest co-operative store in London,
there was no hurry or confusion. Thimbles and ploughs, eau-de-cologne
and mangles, American stoves, cotton dresses of astounding patterns to
suit the taste of Dutch ladies, harmoniums and flat-irons,—all stood
peaceably side by side together. But these were all “unconsidered
trifles” next the more serious business of the establishment, which
was wool—wool in every shape and stage and bale. In this department,
however, although for the sake of the dear old New Zealand days my
heart warms at the sight of the huge packages, I was not supposed to
take any interest; so we pass quickly out into the street again, get
into a large open carriage driven by a black coachman, and make the
best of our way up to a villa on the slope of the sandy hill. Once I
am away from the majestic influence of that store the original feeling
of Port Elizabeth being rather a dreary place comes back upon me;
but we drive all about—to the Park, which may be said to be in its
swaddling-clothes _as_ a park, and to the Botanic Gardens, where the
culture of foreign and colonial flowers and shrubs is carried on under
the chronic difficulties of too much sun and wind and too little water.
Everywhere there is building going on—very modest building, it is true,
with rough-and-ready masonry or timber, and roofs of zinc painted in
strips of light colors, but everywhere there are signs of progress and
growth. People look bored, but healthy, and it does not surprise me in
the least to hear that though there are a good many inhabitants, there
is not much society. A pretty little luncheon and a pleasant hour’s
chat in a cool, shady drawing-room, with plenty of new books and music
and flowers, gave me an agreeable impression to carry back on board
the ship; which, by the way, seemed strangely silent and deserted when
we returned, for most of our fellow-passengers had disembarked here on
their way to different parts of the interior.
As I saunter up and down the clean, smart-looking deck of what has been
our pleasant floating home during these past four weeks, I suddenly
perceive a short, squat pyramid on the shore, standing out oddly enough
among the low-roofed houses. If it had only been red instead of gray,
it might have passed for the model of the label on Bass’s beer-bottles;
but, even as it is, I feel convinced that there is a story connected
with it: and so it proves, for this ugly, most unsentimental-looking
bit of masonry was built long ago by a former governor as a record
of the virtues and perfections of his dead wife, whom, among other
lavish epithets of praise, he declares to have been “the most perfect
of women.” Anyhow, there it stands, on what was once a lonely strip
of sand and sea, a memorial—if one can only believe the stone story,
now nearly a hundred years old—of a great love and a great sorrow; and
one can envy the one and pity the other just as much when looking at
this queer, unsightly monument as when one stands on the pure marble
threshold of the exquisite Taj Mahal at Agra, and reads that it too, in
all its grace and beauty, was reared “in memory of an undying love.”
Although the day has been warm and balmy, the evening air strikes
chill and raw, and our last evening on board the dear old ship has to
be spent under shelter, for it is too cold to sit on deck. With the
first hours of daylight next morning we have to be up and packing, for
by ten o’clock we must be on board the Florence, a small, yacht-like
coasting-steamer which can go much closer into the sand-blocked harbors
scooped by the action of the rivers all along the coast. It is with
a very heavy heart that I, for one, say good-bye to the Edinburgh
Castle, where I have passed so many happy hours and made some pleasant
acquaintances. A ship is a very forcing-house of friendship, and no
one who has not taken a voyage can realize how rapidly an acquaintance
grows and ripens into a friend under the lonely influences of sea
and sky. We have all been so happy together, everything has been so
comfortable, everybody so kind, that one would indeed be cold-hearted
if, when the last moment of our halcyon voyage arrived, it could bring
with it anything short of a regret.
With the same chivalrous goodness and courtesy which has taken thought
for the comfort of our every movement since we left Dartmouth, our
captain insists on seeing us safely on board the Florence (what a
toy-boat she looks after our stately ship!) and satisfying himself that
we can be comfortably settled once more in our doll’s house of a new
cabin. Then there comes a reluctant “Good-bye” to him and all our kind
care-takers of the Edinburgh Castle; and the last glimpse we catch of
her—for the Florence darts out of the bay like a swallow in a hurry—is
her dipping her ensign in courteous farewell to us.
In less than twenty-four hours we had reached another little port,
some hundred and fifty miles or so up the coast, called East London.
Here the harbor is again only an open roadstead, and hardly any vessel
drawing more than three or four feet of water can get in at all near
the shore, for between us and it is a bar of shifting sand, washed
down, day by day, by the strong current of the river Buffalo. All the
cargo has to be transferred to lighters, and a little tug steamer
bustles backward and forward with messages of entreaty to those said
lighters to come out and take away their loads. We had dropped our
anchor by daylight, yet at ten o’clock scarcely a boat had made its
appearance alongside, and every one was fuming and fretting at the
delay and consequent waste of fine weather and daylight. That is to
say, it was a fine bright day overhead, with sunshine and sparkle all
round, but the heavy roll of the sea never ceased for a moment. From
one side to the other, until her ports touched the water, backward
and forward, with slow, monotonous heaving, our little vessel swayed
with the swaying rollers until everybody on board felt sick and sorry.
“This is comparatively a calm day,” I was told: “you can’t possibly
imagine from this what rolling really is.” But I _can_ imagine quite
easily, and do not at all desire a closer acquaintance with this
restless Indian Ocean. Breakfast is a moment of penance: little G——
is absolutely fainting from agonies of sea-sickness, though he has
borne all our South-Atlantic tossings with perfect equanimity; and it
is with real joy, that I hear the lifeboat is alongside, and that the
kind-hearted captain of the Florence (_how_ kind sailors are!) offers
to take babies, nurse and me on shore, so as to escape a long day of
this agonizing rolling. In happy unconsciousness of what landing at
East London, even in a lifeboat, meant when a bar had to be crossed,
we were all tumbled and bundled, more or less unceremoniously, into
the great, roomy boat, and were immediately taken in hand by the busy
little tug. For half a mile or more we made good progress in her wake,
being in a position to set at naught the threatening water-mountains
which came tumbling in furious haste from seaward. It was not until we
seemed close to the shore and all our troubles over that the tug was
obliged to cast us off, owing to the rapidly shoaling water, and we
prepared to make the best of our own way in. Bad was that best, indeed,
though the peril came and went so quickly that it is but a confused
impression I retain of what seemed to me a really terrible moment. One
instant I hear felicitations exchanged between our captain—who sits
protectingly close to me and poor, fainting little G——, who lies like
death in my arms—and the captain of the lifeboat. The next moment,
in spite of sudden panic and presence of danger, I could laugh to
hear the latter sing out in sharpest tones of terror and dismay, “Ah,
you would, would you?” coupled with rapid orders to the stout rowers
and shouts to us of “Look out!” and I _do_ look out, to see on one
side sand which the retreating wave has sucked dry, and in which the
boat seems trying to bury herself as though she were a mole: on the
other hand there towers above us a huge green wave, white-crested and
curled, which is rushing at us like a devouring monster. I glance, as
I think, for the last time, at the pale nurse, on whose lap lies the
baby placidly sucking his bottle. I see a couple of sailors lay hold
of her and the child with one hand each, whilst with the other they
cling desperately to the thwarts. A stout seafaring man flings the
whole weight of his ponderous pilot-coated body upon G—— and me: I
hear a roar of water, and, lo! we are washed right up alongside of the
rude landing-place, still _in_ the boat indeed, but wet and frightened
to the last degree. Looking back on it all, I can distinctly remember
that it was not the sight of the overhanging wave which cost me my
deadliest pang of sickening fright, but the glimpse I caught of the
shining, cruel-looking sand, sucking us in so silently and greedily.
We were all trembling so much that it seemed as impossible to stand
upright on the earth as on the tossing waters, and it was with reeling,
drunken-looking steps that we rolled and staggered through the heavy
sand-street until we reached the shelter of an exceedingly dirty hotel.
Everything in it required courage to touch, and it was with many
qualms that I deposited limp little G—— on a filthy sofa. However, the
mistress of the house looked clean, and so did the cups and saucers she
quickly produced; and by the time we had finished a capital breakfast
we were all quite in good spirits again, and so sharpened up as to be
able to “mock ourselves” of our past perils and present discomforts.
Outside there were strange, beautiful shrubs in flower, tame pigeons
came cooing and bowing in at the door, and above all there was an
enchanting freshness and balminess in the sunny air.
In about an hour “Capting Florence” (as G—— styles our new commander)
calls for us and takes us out sight-seeing. First and foremost, across
the river to the rapidly-growing railway lines, where a brand-new
locomotive was hissing away with full steam up. Here we were met and
welcomed by the energetic superintendent of this iron road, and, to my
intense delight, after explaining to me what a long distance into the
interior the line had to go and how fast it was getting on, considering
the difficulties in the way of doing anything in South Africa, from
washing a pocket-handkerchief up to laying down a railway, he proposed
that we should get _on_ the engine and go as far as the line was open
for anything like safe traveling. Never were such delightful five
minutes as those spent in whizzing along through the park-like country
and cutting fast through the heavenly air. In vain did I smell that my
serge skirts were getting dreadfully singed, in vain did I see most
uncertain bits of rail before me: it was all too perfectly enchanting
to care for danger or disgrace, and I could have found it in my heart
to echo G—— ’s plaintive cry for “More!” when we came to the end and
had to get off. But it consoled us a little to watch the stone-breaking
machine crunching up small rocks as though they had been lumps of
sugar, and after looking at that we set off for the unfinished station,
and could take in, even in its present skeleton state, how commodious
and handsome it will all be some day. You are all so accustomed to be
whisked about the civilized world when and where you choose that it is
difficult to make you understand the enormous boon the first line of
railway is to a new country—not only for the convenience of travelers,
but for the transport of goods, the setting free of hundreds of cattle
and horses and drivers—all sorely needed for other purposes—and
the fast-following effects of opening up the resources of the back
districts. In these regions labor is the great difficulty, and one
needs to hold both patience and temper fast with both one’s hands when
watching either Kafir or Coolie at work. The white man cannot or will
not do much with his hands out here, so the navvies are slim-looking
blacks, who jabber and grunt and sigh a good deal more than they work.
It is a fortunate circumstance that the delicious air keeps us all in
a chronic state of hunger, for it appears in South Africa that one is
expected to eat every half hour or so. And, shamed am I to confess,
we _do_ eat—and eat with a good appetite too—a delicious luncheon at
the superintendent’s, albeit it followed closely on the heels of our
enormous breakfast at the dirty hotel. Such a pretty little bachelor’s
box as it was!—so cool and quiet and neat!—built somewhat after the
fashion of the Pompeian houses, with a small square garden full of
orange trees in the centre, and the house running round this opening
in four corridors. After lunch a couple of nice, light Cape carts came
to the door, and we set off to see a beautiful garden whose owner had
all a true Dutchman’s passion for flowers. Here was fruit as well
as flowers. Pineapples and jasmine, strawberries and honeysuckle,
grew side by side with bordering orange trees, feathery bamboos and
sheltering gum trees. In the midst of the garden stood a sort of double
platform, up whose steep border we all climbed: from this we got a
good idea of the slightly undulating land all about, waving down like
solidified billows to where the deep blue waters sparkled and rolled
restlessly beyond the white line of waves ever breaking on the bar. I
miss animal life sadly in these parts: the dogs I see about the streets
are few in number, and miserably currish specimens of their kind. “Good
dogs don’t answer out here,” I am told: that is to say, they get a
peculiar sort of distemper, or ticks bite them, or they got weak from
loss of blood, or become degenerate in some way. The horses and cattle
are small and poor-looking, and hard-worked, very dear to buy and very
difficult to keep and to feed. I don’t even see many cats, and a pet
bird is a rarity. However, as we stood on the breezy platform I saw a
most beautiful wild bird fly over the rosehedge just below us. It was
about as big as a crow, but with a strange iridescent plumage. When it
flitted into the sunshine its back and wings shone like a rainbow, and
the next moment it looked perfectly black and velvety in the shade. Now
a turquoise-blue tint comes out on its spreading wings, and a slant
in the sunshine turns the blue into a chrysoprase green. Nobody could
tell me its name: our Dutch host spoke exactly like Hans Breitmann,
and declared it was a “bid of a crow,” and so we had to leave it and
the platform and come down to more roses and tea. There was so much
yet to be seen and to be done that we could not stay long, and, laden
with magnificent bouquets of _gloire de Dijon_ roses and honeysuckle,
and divers strange and lovely flowers, we drove off again in our Cape
carts. I observed that instead of saying “Whoa!” or checking the horses
in any way by the reins, the driver always whistles to them—a long,
low whistle—and they stand quite still directly. We bumped up and
down, over extraordinarily rough places, and finally slid down a steep
cutting to the brink of the river Buffalo, over which we were ferried,
all standing, on a big punt, or rather pontoon. A hundred yards or so
of rapid driving then took us to a sort of wharf which projected into
the river, where the important-looking little tug awaited us; and no
sooner were we all safely on board—rather a large party by this time,
for we had gone on picking up stragglers ever since we started, only
three in number, from the hotel—than she sputtered and fizzed herself
off upstream. By this time it was the afternoon, and I almost despair
of making you see the woodland beauty of that broad mere, fringed down
to the water’s edge on one side with shrubs and tangle of roses and
woodbine, with ferns and every lovely green creeping thing. That was on
the bank which was sheltered from the high winds: the other hillside
showed the contrast, for there, though green indeed, only a few
feathery tufts of pliant shrubs had survived the force of some of these
south-eastern gales. We paddled steadily along in mid-stream, and
from the bridge (where little G—— and I had begged “Capting Florence”
to let us stand) one could see the double of each leaf and tendril and
passing cloud mirrored sharp and clear in the crystalline water. The
lengthening shadows from rock and fallen crag were in some places flung
quite across our little boat, and so through the soft, lovely air,
flooded with brightest sunshine, we made our way, up past Picnic Creek,
where another stream joins the Buffalo, and makes miniature green
islands and harbors at its mouth, up as far as the river was navigable
for even so small a steamer as ours. Every one was sorry when it became
time to turn, but there was no choice: the sun-burned, good-looking
captain of the tug held up a warning hand, and round we went with a
wide sweep, under the shadows, out into the sunlight, down the middle
of the stream, all too soon to please us.
Before we left East London, however, there was one more great work to
be glanced at, and accordingly we paid a hasty visit to the office
of the superintendent of the new harbor-works, and saw plans and
drawings of what will indeed be a magnificent achievement when carried
out. Yard by yard, with patient under-sea sweeping, all that waste
of sand brought down by the Buffalo is being cleared away; yard by
yard, two massive arms of solidest masonry are stretching themselves
out beyond those cruel breakers: the river is being forced into so
narrow a channel that the rush of the water must needs carry the sand
far out to sea in future, and scatter it in soundings where it cannot
accumulate into such a barrier as that which now exists. Lighthouses
will guard this safe entrance into a tranquil anchorage, and so, at
some not too far distant day, there is good hope that East London may
be one of the most valuable harbors on this vast coast; and when her
railway has reached even the point to which it is at present projected,
nearly two hundred miles away, it will indeed be a thriving place.
Even now, there is a greater air of movement and life and progress
about the little seaport, what with the railway and the harbor-works,
than at any other place I have yet seen; and each great undertaking is
in the hands of men of first-rate ability and experience, who are as
persevering as they are energetic. After looking well over these most
interesting plans there was nothing left for us to do except to make
a sudden raid on the hotel, pick up our shawls and bags, pay a most
moderate bill of seven shillings and sixpence for breakfast for three
people and luncheon for two, and the use of a room all day, piteously
entreat the mistress of the inn to sell us half a bottle of milk for
G—— ’s breakfast to-morrow—as he will not drink the preserved milk—and
so back again on board the tug. The difficulty about milk and butter
is the first trouble which besets a family traveling in these parts.
Everywhere milk is scarce and poor, and the butter such as no charwoman
would touch in England. In vain does one behold from the sea thousands
of acres of what looks like undulating green pasturage, and inland
the same waving green hillocks stretch as far as the eye can reach:
there is never a sheep or cow to be seen, and one hears that there is
no water, or that the grass is sour, or that there is a great deal of
sickness about among the animals in that locality. Whatever the cause,
the result is the same—namely, that one has to go down on one’s knees
for a cupful of milk, which is but poor, thin stuff at its best, and
that Irish salt butter out of a tub is a costly delicacy.
Having secured this precious quarter of a bottle of milk, for which
I was really as grateful as though it had been the Koh-i-noor, we
hastened back to the wharf and got on board the little tug again. “Now
for the bridge!” cry G—— and I, for has not Captain Florence promised
us a splendid but safe tossing across the bar? And faithfully he and
the bar and the boat keep their word, for we are in no danger, it
seems, and yet we appear to leap like a race-horse across the strip of
sand, receiving a staggering buffet first on one paddle-wheel and then
on the other from the angry guardian breakers, which seem sworn foes
of boats and passengers. Again and again are we knocked aside by huge
billows, as though the poor little tug were a walnut-shell; again and
again do we recover ourselves, and blunder bravely on, sometimes with
but one paddle in the water, sometimes burying our bowsprit in a big
green wave too high to climb, and dashing right through it as fast as
if we shut our eyes and went at everything. The spray flies high over
our heads, G—— and I are drenched over and over again, but we shake
the sparkling water off our coats, for all the world like Newfoundland
dogs, and are all right again in a moment. “Is that the very last?”
asks G—— reluctantly as we take our last breaker like a five-barred
gate, flying, and find ourselves safe and sound, but quivering a good
deal, in what seems comparatively smooth water. Is it smooth, though?
Look at the Florence and all the other vessels. Still at it, seesaw,
backward and forward, roll, roll, roll! How thankful we all are to
have escaped a long day of sickening, monotonous motion! But there is
the getting on board to be accomplished, for the brave little tug dare
not come too near to her big sister steamboat or she would roll over
on her. So we signal for a boat, and quickly the largest which the
Florence possesses is launched and manned—no easy task in such a sea,
but accomplished in the smartest and most seamanlike fashion. The sides
of the tug are low, so it is not very difficult to scramble and tumble
into the boat, which is laden to the water’s edge by new passengers
from East London and their luggage. When, however, we have reached the
rolling Florence it is no easy matter to get out of the said boat and
on board. There is a ladder let down, indeed, from the Florence’s side,
but how are we to use it when one moment half a dozen rungs are buried
deep in the sea, and the next instant ship and ladder and all have
rolled right away from us? It has to be done, however, and what a tower
of strength and encouragement does “Capting Florence” prove himself at
this juncture! We are all to sit perfectly still: no one is to move
until his name is called, and then he is to come unhesitatingly and do
exactly what he is told.
“Pass up the baby!” is the first order which I hear given, and
that astonishing baby is “passed up” accordingly. I use the word
“astonishing” advisedly, for never was an infant so bundled about
uncomplainingly. He is just as often upside down as not; he is
generally handed from one quartermaster to the other by the gathers
of his little blue flannel frock; seas break over his cradle on deck,
but nothing disturbs him. He grins and sleeps and pulls at his bottle
through everything, and grows fatter and browner and more impudent
every day. On this occasion, when—after rivaling Léotard’s most daring
feats on the trapeze in my scramble up the side of a vessel which
was lurching away from me—I at last reached the deck, I found the
ship’s carpenter nursing the baby, who had seized the poor man’s beard
firmly with one hand, and with the finger and thumb of the other was
attempting to pick out one of his merry blue eyes. “Avast there!” cried
the long-suffering sailor, and gladly relinquished the mischievous
bundle to me.
Up with the anchor, and off we go once more into the gathering darkness
of what turns out to be a wet and windy night. Next day the weather
had recovered its temper, and I was called upon deck directly after
breakfast to see the “Gates of St. John,” a really fine pass on the
coast where the river Umzimvubu rushes through great granite cliffs
into the sea. If the exact truth is to be told, I must confess I am
a little disappointed with this coast-scenery. I have heard so much
of its beauty, and as yet, though I have seen it under exceptionally
favorable conditions of calm weather, which has allowed us to stand
in very close to shore, I have not seen anything really fine until
these “Gates” came in view. It has all been monotonous, undulating
downs, here and there dotted with trees, and in some places the ravines
were filled with what we used to call in New Zealand _bush_—_i.e._,
miscellaneous greenery. Here and there a bold cliff or tumbled pile
of red rock makes a landmark for the passing ships, but otherwise the
uniformity is great indeed. The ordinary weather along this coast is
something frightful, and the great reputation of our little Florence
is built on the method in which she rides dry and safe as a duck
among these stormy waters. Now that we are close to “fair Natal,” the
country opens out and improves in beauty. There are still the same
sloping, rolling downs, but higher downs rise behind them, and again
beyond are blue and purpling hills. Here and there, too, are clusters
of fat, dumpy haystacks, which in reality are no haystacks at all,
but Kafir kraals. Just before we pass the cliff and river which marks
where No-Man’s Land ends and Natal begins these little locations are
more frequently to be observed, though what their inhabitants subsist
on is a marvel to me, for we are only a mile or so from shore, and all
the seeing power of all the field-glasses on board fails to discern
a solitary animal. We can see lots of babies crawling about the hole
which serves as door to a Kafir hut, and they are all as fat as little
pigs; but what do they live on? Buttermilk, I am told—that is to
say, sour milk, for the true Kafir palate does not appreciate fresh,
sweet milk—and a sort of porridge made of _mealies_. I used to think
“mealies” was a coined word for potatoes, but it really signifies maize
or Indian corn, which is rudely crushed and ground, and forms the
staple food of man and beast.
In the mean time, we are speeding gayly over the bright waters, never
very calm along this shore. Presently we come to a spot clearly marked
by some odd-colored, tumbled-down cliffs and the remains of a great
iron butt, where, more than a hundred years ago, the Grosvenor, a
splendid clipper ship, was wrecked. The men nearly all perished or were
made away with, but a few women were got on shore and carried off as
prizes to the kraals of the Kafir “inkosis” or chieftains. What sort
of husbands these stalwart warriors made to their reluctant brides
tradition does not say, but it is a fact that almost all the children
were born mad, and their descendants are, many of them, lunatics
or idiots up to the present time. As the afternoon draws on a chill
mist creeps over the hills and provokingly blots out the coast, which
gets more beautiful every league we go. I wanted to remain up and see
the light on the bluff just outside Port d’Urban, but a heavy shower
drove me down to my wee cabin before ten o’clock. Soon after midnight
the rolling of the anchor-chains and the sudden change of motion from
pitching and jumping to the old monotonous roll told us that we were
once more outside a bar, with a heavy sea on, and that there we must
remain until the tug came to fetch us. But, alas! the tug had to make
short work of it next morning, on account of the unaccommodating state
of the tide, and all our hopes of breakfasting on shore were dashed by
a hasty announcement at 5 A.M. that the tug was alongside, the mails
were rapidly being put on board of her, and that she could not wait for
passengers or anything else, because ten minutes later there would not
be water enough to float her over the bar.
“When shall _we_ be able to get over the bar?” I asked dolefully.
“Not until the afternoon,” was the prompt and uncompromising reply,
delivered through my keyhole by the authority in charge of us. And he
proved to be quite right; but I am bound to say the time passed more
quickly than we had dared to hope or expect, for an hour later a bold
little fishing-boat made her way through the breakers and across the
bar in the teeth of wind and rain, bringing F—— on board. He has been
out here these eight months, and looks a walking advertisement of the
climate and temperature of our new home, so absolutely healthy is his
appearance. He is very cheery about liking the place, and particularly
insists on the blooming faces and sturdy limbs I shall see belonging
to the young Natalians. Altogether, he appears thoroughly happy and
contented, liking his work, his position, everything and everybody;
which is all extremely satisfactory to hear. There is so much to
tell and so much to behold that, as G—— declares, “it is afternoon
directly,” and, the signal-flag being up, we trip our anchor once more
and rush at the bar, two quartermasters and an officer at the wheel,
the pilot and captain on the bridge, all hands on deck and on the
alert, for always, under the most favorable circumstances, the next
five minutes hold a peril in every second. “Stand by for spray!” sings
out somebody, and we do stand by, luckily for ourselves, for “spray”
means the top of two or three waves. The dear little Florence is as
plucky as she is pretty, and appears to shut her eyes and lower her
head and go _at_ the bar. Scrape, scrape, scrape! “We’ve stuck! No, we
haven’t! Helm hard down! Over!” and so we are. Among the breakers, it
is true, buffeted hither and thither, knocked first to one side and
then to the other; but we keep right on, and a few more turns of the
screw take us into calm water under the green hills of the bluff. The
breakers are behind us, we have twenty fathoms of water under our keel,
the voyage is ended and over, the captain takes off his straw hat to
mop his curly head, everybody’s face loses the expression of anxiety
and rigidity it has worn these past ten minutes, and boats swarm like
locusts round the ship. The baby is passed over the ship’s side for the
last time, having been well kissed and petted and praised by every one
as he was handed from one to the other, and we row swiftly away to the
low sandy shore of the “Point.”
Only a few warehouses, or rather sheds of warehouses, are to be
seen, and a rude sort of railway-station, which appears to afford
indiscriminate shelter to boats as well as to engines. There are
leisurely trains which saunter into the town of D’Urban, a mile and a
half away, every half hour or so, but one of these “crawlers” had just
started. The sun was very hot, and we voyagers were all sadly weary and
headachy. But the best of the colonies is the prompt, self-sacrificing
kindness of old-comers to new-comers. A gentleman had driven down
in his own nice, comfortable pony-carriage, and without a moment’s
hesitation he insisted on our all getting into it and making the
best of our way to our hotel. It is too good an offer to be refused,
for the sun is hot and the babies are tired to death; so we start,
slowly enough, to plough our way through heavy sand up to the axles.
If the tide had been out we could have driven quickly along the hard,
dry sand; but we comfort ourselves by remembering that there had been
water enough on the bar, and make the best of our way through clouds of
impalpable dust to a better road, of which a couple of hundred yards
land us at our hotel. It looks bare and unfurnished enough, in all
conscience, but it is a new place, and must be furnished by degrees.
At all events, it is tolerably clean and quiet, and we can wash our
sunburned faces and hands, and, as nurse says, “turn ourselves round.”
Coolies swarm in every direction, picturesque fish-and fruit-sellers
throng the verandah of the kitchen a little way off, and everything
looks bright and green and fresh, having been well washed by the recent
rains. There are still, however, several feet of dust in the streets,
for they are _made_ of dust; and my own private impression is, that all
the water in the harbor would not suffice to lay the dust of D’Urban
for more than half an hour. With the restlessness of people who have
been cooped up on board ship for a month, we insist, the moment it is
cool enough, on being taken out for a walk. Fortunately, the public
gardens are close at hand, and we amuse ourselves very well in them for
an hour or two, but we are all thoroughly tired and worn out, and glad
to get to bed, even in gaunt, narrow rooms on hard pallets.
The two following days were spent in looking after and collecting our
cumbrous array of boxes and baskets. Tin baths, wicker chairs and
baskets, all had to be counted and recounted, until one got weary of
the word “luggage;” but that is the penalty of drafting babies about
the world. In the intervals of the serious business of tracing No. 5
or running No. 10 to earth in the corner of a warehouse, I made many
pleasant acquaintances and received kindest words and notes of welcome
from unknown friends. All this warm-hearted, unconventional kindness
goes far to make the stranger forget his “own people and his father’s
house,” and feel at once at home amid strange and unfamiliar scenes.
After all, “home” is portable, luckily, and a welcoming smile and
hand-clasp act as a spell to create it in any place. We also managed,
after business-hours, when it was of no use making expeditions to
wharf or custom-house after recusant carpet-bags, to drive to the
Botanic Gardens. They are extensive and well kept, but seem principally
devoted to shrubs. I was assured that this is the worst time of year
for flowers, as the plants have not yet recovered from the winter
drought. A dry winter and wet summer is the correct atmospheric fashion
here: in winter everything is brown and dusty and dried up, in summer
green and fragrant and well watered. The gardens are in good order,
and I rather regretted not being able to examine them more thoroughly.
Another afternoon we drove to the Berea, a sort of suburban Richmond,
where the rich semi-tropical vegetation is cleared away in patches,
and villas with pretty pleasure-grounds are springing up in every
direction. The road winds up the luxuriantly-clothed slopes, with every
here and there lovely sea-views of the harbor, with the purpling lights
of the Indian Ocean stretching away beyond. Every villa must have an
enchanting prospect from its front door, and one can quite understand
how alluring to the merchants and business-men of D’Urban must be the
idea of getting away after office-hours, and sleeping on such high
ground in so fresh and healthy an atmosphere. And here I must say that
we Maritzburgians (I am only one in prospective) wage a constant and
deadly warfare with the D’Urbanites on the score of the health and
convenience of our respective cities. _We_ are two thousand feet above
the sea and fifty-two miles inland, so we talk in a pitying tone of
the poor D’Urbanites as dwellers in a very hot and unhealthy place.
“Relaxing” is the word we apply to their climate when we want to be
particularly nasty, and they retaliate by reminding us that they are
ever so much older than we are (which is an advantage in a colony),
and that they are on the coast, and can grow all manner of nice things
which we cannot compass, to say nothing of their climate being more
equable than ours, and their thunderstorms, though longer in duration,
mere flashes in the pan compared to what we in our amphitheatre of
hills have to undergo at the hands of the electric current. We never
can find answer to that taunt, and if the D’Urbanites only follow up
their victory by allusions to their abounding bananas and other fruits,
their vicinity to the shipping, and consequent facility of getting
almost anything quite easily, we are completely silenced, and it is a
wonder if we retain presence of mind enough to murmur “Flies.” On the
score of dust we are about equal, but I must in fairness confess that
D’Urban is a more lively and a better-looking town than Maritzburg when
you are in it, though the effect from a distance is not so good. It
is very odd how unevenly the necessaries of existence are distributed
in this country. Here at D’Urban anything hard in the way of stone is
a treasure: everything is soft and friable: sand and finest shingle,
so fine as to be mere dust, are all the available material for
road-making. I am told that later on I shall find that a cartload of
sand in Maritzburg is indeed a rare and costly thing: there we are all
rock, a sort of flaky, slaty rock underlying every place.
Our last day, or rather half day, in D’Urban was very full of
sightseeing and work. F—— was extremely anxious for me to see the sun
rise from the signal-station on the bluff, and accordingly he, G—-
and I started with the earliest dawn. We drove through the sand again
in a hired and springless Cape cart down to the Point, got into the
port-captain’s boat and rowed across a little strip of sand at the
foot of a winding path cut out of the dense vegetation which makes the
bluff such a refreshingly green headland to eyes of wave-worn voyagers.
A stalwart Kafir carried our picnic basket, with tea and milk, bread
and butter and eggs, up the hill, and it was delightful to follow the
windings of the path through beautiful bushes bearing strange and
lovely flowers, and knit together in patches in a green tangle by the
tendrils of a convolvulus or clematis, or sort of wild passion-flower,
whose blossoms were opening to the fresh morning air. It was a cool
but misty morning, and though we got to our destination in ample
time, there was never any sunrise at all to be seen. In fact, the sun
steadily declined to get up the whole day, so far as I knew, for the
sea looked gray and solemn and sleepy, and the land kept its drowsy
mantle of haze over its flat shore; which haze thickened and deepened
into a Scotch mist as the morning wore on. We returned by the leisurely
railway—a railway so calm and stately in its method of progression
that it is not at all unusual to see a passenger step calmly out of
the train when it is at its fullest speed of crawl, and wave his hand
to his companions as he disappears down the by-path leading to his
little home. The passengers are conveyed at a uniform rate of sixpence
a head, which sixpence is collected promiscuously by a small boy at odd
moments during the journey. There are no nice distinctions of class,
either, for we all travel amicably together in compartments which are
a judicious mixture of a third-class carriage and a cattle-truck. Of
course, wood is the only fuel used, and that but sparingly, for it is
exceedingly costly.
There was still much to be done by the afternoon—many visitors to
receive, notes to write and packages to arrange, for our traveling of
these fifty-two miles spreads itself over a good many hours, as you
will see. About three o’clock the government mule-wagon came to the
door. It may truly and literally be described as “stopping the way,”
for not only is the wagon itself a huge and cumbrous machine, but it
is drawn by eight mules in pairs, and driven by a couple of black
drivers. I say “driven by a couple of drivers,” because the driving was
evidently an affair of copartnership: one held the reins—such elaborate
reins as they were! a confused tangle of leather—and the other had the
care of two or three whips of differing lengths. The drivers were both
jet black—not Kafirs, but Cape blacks—descendants of the old slaves
taken by the Dutch. They appeared to be great friends, these two, and
took earnest counsel together at every rut and drain and steep pinch of
the road, which stretched away, over hill and dale, before us, a broad
red track, with high green hedges on either hand. Although the rain had
not yet fallen long or heavily, the ditches were all running freely
with red, muddy water, and the dust had already begun to cake itself
into a sticky, pasty red clay. The wagon was shut in by curtains at the
back and sides, and could hold eight passengers easily. Luckily for
the poor mules, however, we were only five grown-up people, including
the drivers. The road was extremely pretty, and the town looked very
picturesque as we gradually rose above it and looked down on it and the
harbor together. Of a fine, clear afternoon it would have been still
nicer, though I was much congratulated on the falling rain on account
of the absence of its alternative—dust. Still, it was possible to have
too much of a good thing, and by the time we reached Pine Town, only
fourteen miles away, the heavy roads were beginning to tell on the poor
mules, and the chill damp of the closing evening made us all only too
thankful to get under the shelter of a roadside inn (or hotel, as they
are called here), which was snug and bright and comfortable enough to
be a credit to any colony. It seemed the most natural thing in the
world to be told that this inn was not only a favorite place for people
to come out to from D’Urban to spend their holiday time in fine weather
(there is a pretty little church in the village hard by), but also
that it was quite _de rigueur_ for all honeymoons to be spent amid its
pretty scenery.
A steady downpour of rain all through the night made our early start
next day an affair of doubt and discouragement and dismal prophecy;
but we persevered, and accomplished another long stage through a cold
persistent drizzle before reaching an inn, where we enjoyed simply the
best breakfast I ever tasted, or at all events the best I have tasted
in Natal. The mules were also unharnessed, and after taking, each,
a good roll on the damp grass, turned out in the drizzling rain for
a rest and a nibble until their more substantial repast was ready.
The rain cleared up from time to time, but an occasional heavy shower
warned us that the weather was still sulky. It was in much better
heart and spirits, however, that we made a second start about eleven
o’clock, and struggled on through heavy roads up and down weary hills,
slipping here, sliding there, and threatening to stick everywhere.
Our next stage was to a place where the only available shelter was a
filthy inn, at which we lingered as short a time as practicable—only
long enough, in fact, to feed the mules—and then, with every prospect
of a finer afternoon, set out once more on the last and longest stage
of our journey. All the way the road has been very beautiful, in spite
of the shrouding mist, especially at the Inchanga Pass, where round
the shoulder of the hill as fair a prospect of curved green hills,
dotted with clusters of timber exactly like an English park, of distant
ranges rising in softly-rounded outlines, with deep violet shadows in
the clefts and pale green lights on the slopes, stretches before you
as the heart of painter could desire. Nestling out of sight amid this
rich pasture-land are the kraals of a large Kafir location, and no one
can say that these, the children of the soil, have not secured one of
the most favored spots. To me it all looked like a fair mirage. I am
already sick of beholding all this lovely country lying around, and yet
of being told that food and fuel are almost at famine-prices. People
say, “Oh, but you should see it in winter. _Now_ it is green, and there
is plenty of feed on it, but three months ago no grass-eating creature
could have picked up a living on all the country-side. It is all as
brown and bare as parchment for half the year. _This_ is the spring.”
Can you not imagine how provoking it is to hear such statements made by
old settlers, who know the place only too well, and to find out that
all the radiant beauty which greets the traveler’s eye is illusive,
for in many places there are miles and miles without a drop of water
for the flock and herds; consequently, there are no means of transport
for all this fuel until the days of railways? Besides which, through
Natal lies the great highway to the Diamond Fields, the Transvaal and
the Free States, and all the opening-up country beyond; so it is more
profitable to drive a wagon than to till a farm. Every beast with four
legs is wanted to drag building materials or provisions. The supply of
beef becomes daily more precarious and costly, for the oxen are all
“treking,” and one hears of nothing but diseases among animals—“horse
sickness,” pleuro-pneumonia, fowl sickness (I feel it an impertinence
for the poultry to presume to be ill), and even dogs set up a peculiar
and fatal sort of distemper among themselves.
But to return to the last hours of our journey. The mules struggle
bravely along, though their ears are beginning to flap about any way,
instead of being held straight and sharply pricked forward, and the
encouraging cries of “Pull up, Capting! now then, Blue-bok, hi!”
become more and more frequent: the driver in charge of the whips
is less nice in his choice of a scourge with which to urge on the
patient animals, and whacks them soundly with whichever comes first.
The children have long ago wearied of the confinement and darkness of
the back seats of the hooded vehicle; we are all black and blue from
jolting in and out of deep holes hidden by mud which occur at every
yard; but still our flagging spirits keep pretty good, for _our_ little
Table Mountain has been left behind, whilst before us, leaning up in
one corner of an amphitheatre of hills, are the trees which mark where
Maritzburg nestles. The mules see it too, and, sniffing their stables
afar off, jog along faster. Only one more rise to pull up: we turn a
little off the high-road, and there, amid a young plantation of trees,
with roses, honeysuckle and passion-flowers climbing up the posts of
the wide verandah, a fair and enchanting prospect lying at our feet,
stands our new home, with its broad red tiled roof stretching out a
friendly welcome to the tired, belated travelers.
[Illustration: Decoration]