MARITZBURG, February 10, 1876.
In the South African calendar this is set down as the first of the
autumnal months, but the half dozen hours about mid-day are still quite
as close and oppressive as any we have had. I am, however, bound to say
that the nights—at all events, up here—are cooler, and I begin even
to think of a light shawl for my solitary walks in the verandah just
before bedtime. When the moon shines these walks are pleasant enough,
but when only the “common people of the skies” are trying to filter
down their feebler light through the misty atmosphere, I have a lurking
fear and distrust of the reptiles and bugs who may also have a fancy
for promenading at the same time and in the same place. I say nothing
of bats, frogs and toads, mantis or even huge moths: to these we are
quite accustomed. But although I have never seen a live snake in this
country myself, still one hears such unpleasant stories about them that
it is just as well to what the Scotch call “mak siccar” with a candle
before beginning a constitutional in the dark.
It is not a week ago since a lady of my acquaintance, being surprised
at her little dog’s refusal to follow her into her bedroom one night,
instituted a search for the reason of the poor little creature’s
terror and dismay, and discovered a snake coiled up under her chest
of drawers. At this moment, too, the local papers are full of recipes
for the prevention and cure of snake-bites, public attention being
much attracted to the subject on account of an Englishman having been
bitten by a black “mamba” (a very venomous adder) a short time since,
and having died of the wound in a few hours. In his case, poor man!
there does not seem to have been a chance from the first, for he was
obliged to walk some distance to the nearest house, and as they had no
proper remedies there, he had to be taken on a farther journey of some
miles to a hospital. All this exercise and motion caused the poison to
circulate freely through the veins, and was the worst possible thing
for him. The doctors here seem agreed that the treatment of ammonia
and brandy is the safest, and many instances are adduced to show how
successful it has been, though one party of practitioners admits the
ammonia, but denies the brandy. On the other hand, one hears of a child
bitten by a snake and swallowing half a large bottle of raw brandy in
half an hour without its head being at all affected, and, what is more,
recovering from the bite and living happy ever after. I keep quantities
of both remedies close at hand, for three or four venomous snakes
have been killed within a dozen yards of the house, and little G—— is
perpetually exploring the long grass all around or hunting for a stray
cricket-ball or a pegtop in one of those beautiful fern-filled ditches
whose tangle of creepers and plumy ferns is exactly the favorite haunt
of snakes. As yet he has brought back from these forbidden raids
nothing more than a few ticks and millions of burs.
As for the ticks, I am getting over my horror at having to dislodge
them from among the baby’s soft curls by means of a sharp needle, and
even G—— only shouts with laughter at discovering a great swollen
monster hanging on by its forceps to his leg. They torment the poor
horses and dogs dreadfully; and if the said horses were not the very
quietest, meekest, most underbred and depressed animals in the world,
we should certainly hear of more accidents. As it is, they confine
their efforts to get rid of their tormentors to rubbing all the hair
off their tails and sides in patches against the stable walls or the
trunk of a tree. Indeed, the clever way G—— ’s miserable little Basuto
pony actually climbs inside a good-sized bush, and sways himself about
in it with his legs off the ground until the whole thing comes with
a crash to the ground, is edifying to behold to every one except the
owner of the tree. Tom, the Kafir boy, tried hard to persuade me the
other day that the pony was to blame for the destruction of a peach
tree, but as the only broken-down branches were those which had been
laden with fruit, I am inclined to acquit the pony. Carbolic soap is an
excellent thing to wash both dogs and horses with, as it not only keeps
away flies and ticks from the skin, which is constantly rubbed off by
incessant scratching, but helps to heal the tendency to a sore place.
Indeed, nothing frightened me so much as what I heard when I first
arrived about Natal sores and Natal boils. Everybody told me that ever
so slight a cut or abrasion went on slowly festering, and that sores
on children’s faces were quite common. This sounded very dreadful, but
I am beginning to hope it was an exaggeration, for whenever G—— cuts
or knocks himself (which is every day or so), or scratches an insect’s
bite into a bad place, I wash the part with a little carbolic soap
(there are two sorts—one for animals and a more refined preparation for
the human skin), and it is quite well the next day. We have all had a
threatening of those horrid boils, but they have passed off.
In town the mosquitoes are plentiful and lively, devoting their
attentions chiefly to new-comers, but up here—I write as though we were
five thousand feet instead of only fifty above Maritzburg—it is rare
to see one. I think “fillies” are more in our line, and that in spite
of every floor in the house being scrubbed daily with strong soda and
water. “Fillies,” you must know, is our black groom’s (Charlie’s) way
of pronouncing _fleas_, and I find it ever so much prettier. Charlie
and I are having a daily discussion just now touching sundry moneys he
expended during my week’s absence at D’Urban for the kittens’ food.
Charlie calls them the “lil’ catties,” and declares that the two small
animals consumed three shillings and ninepence worth of meat in a week
I laughingly say, “But, Charlie, that would be nearly nine pounds of
meat in six days, and they couldn’t eat that, you know.” Charlie grins
and shows all his beautiful even white teeth: then he bashfully turns
his head aside and says, “I doan know, ma’: I buy six’ meat dree time.”
“Very well, Charlie, that would be one shilling and sixpence.” “I doan
know, ma’;” and we’ve not got any further than that yet.
But G—— and I are picking up many words of Kafir, and it is quite
mortifying to see how much more easily the little monkey learns than
I do. I forget my phrases or confuse them, whereas when he learns two
or three sentences he appears to remember them always. It is a very
melodious and beautiful language, and, except for the clicks, not very
difficult to learn. Almost everybody here speaks it a little, and it is
the first thing necessary for a new-comer to endeavor to acquire; only,
unfortunately, there are no teachers, as in India, and consequently
you pick up a wretched, debased kind of patois, interlarded with
Dutch phrases. Indeed, I am assured there are two words, _el hashi_
(“the horse”), of unmistakable Moorish origin, though no one knows
how they got into the language. Many of the Kafirs about town speak
a little English, and they are exceedingly sharp, when they choose,
about understanding what is meant, even if they do not quite catch the
meaning of the words used. There is one genius of my acquaintance,
called “Sixpence,” who is not only a capital cook, but an accomplished
English scholar, having spent some months in England. Generally, to
Cape Town and back is the extent of their journeyings, for they are
a home-loving people; but Sixpence went to England with his master,
and brought back a shivering recollection of an English winter and a
deep-rooted amazement at the boys of the Shoe Brigade, who wanted to
clean his boots. That astonished him more than anything else, he says.
The Kafirs are very fond of attending their own schools and church
services, of which there are several in the town; and I find one
of my greatest difficulties in living out here consists in getting
Kafirs to come out of town, for by doing so they miss their regular
attendance at chapel and school. A few Sundays ago I went to one of
these Kafir schools, and was much struck by the intently-absorbed air
of the pupils, almost all of whom were youths about twenty years of
age. They were learning to read the Bible in Kafir during my visit,
sitting in couples, and helping each other on with immense diligence
and earnestness. No looking about, no wandering, inattentive glances,
did I see. I might as well have “had the receipt of fern-seed and
walked invisible” for all the attention I excited. Presently the
pupil-teacher, a young black man, who had charge of this class, asked
me if I would like to hear them sing a hymn, and on my assenting he
read out a verse of “Hold the Fort,” and they all stood up and sang it,
or rather its Kafir translation, lustily and with good courage, though
without much tune. The chorus was especially fine, the words “Inkanye
kanye” ringing through the room with great fervor. This is not a
literal translation of the words “Hold the Fort,” but it is difficult,
as the teacher explained to me, for the translator to avail himself
of the usual word for “hold,” as it conveys more the idea of “take
hold,” “seize,” and the young Kafir missionary thoroughly understood
all the nicety of the idiom. There was another class for women and
children, but it was a small one. Certainly, the young men seemed much
in earnest, and the rapt expression of their faces was most striking,
especially during the short prayer which followed the hymn and ended
the school for the afternoon.
I have had constantly impressed upon my mind since my arrival the
advice _not_ to take Christian Kafirs into my service, but I am at a
loss to know in what way the prejudice against them can have arisen.
“Take a Kafir green from his kraal if you wish to have a good servant,”
is what every one tells me. It so happens that we have two of each—two
Christians and two heathens—about the place, and there is no doubt
whatever which is the best. Indeed, I have sometimes conversations
with the one who speaks English, and I can assure you we might all
learn from him with advantage. His simple creed is just what came
from the Saviour’s lips two thousand years ago, and comprises His
teaching of the whole duty of man—to love God, the great “En’ Kos,”
and his neighbor as himself. He speaks always with real delight of
his privileges, and is very anxious to go to Cape Town to attend some
school there of which he talks a great deal, and where he says he
should learn to read the Bible in English. At present he is spelling
it out with great difficulty in Kafir. This man often talks to me in
the most respectful and civil manner imaginable about the customs of
his tribe, and he constantly alludes to the narrow escape he had of
being murdered directly after his birth for the crime of being a twin.
His people have a fixed belief that unless one of a pair of babies be
killed at once, either the father or mother will die within the year;
and they argue that as in any case one child will be sure to die in
its infancy, twins being proverbially difficult to rear, it is only
both kind and natural to kill the weakly one at once. This young man
is very small and quiet and gentle, with an ugly face, but a sweet,
intelligent expression and a very nice manner. I find him and the other
Christian in our employment very trustworthy and reliable. If they tell
me anything which has occurred, I know I can believe their version of
it, and they are absolutely honest. Now, the other lads have very loose
ideas on the subject of sugar, and make shifty excuses for everything,
from the cat breaking a heavy stone filter up to half the marketing
being dropped on the road.
I don’t think I have made it sufficiently clear that besides the
Sunday-schools and services I have mentioned there are night-schools
every evening in the week, which are fully attended by Kafir servants,
and where they are first taught to read their own language, which is
an enormous difficulty to them. They always tell me it is so much
easier to learn to read English than Kafir; and if one studies the
two languages, it is plain to see how much simpler the new tongue must
appear to a learner than the intricate construction, the varying patois
and the necessarily phonetic spelling of a language compounded of so
many dialects as the Zulu-Kafir.
FEBRUARY 12.
In some respects I consider this climate has been rather over-praised.
Of course it is a great deal—a very great deal—better than our English
one, but that, after all, is not saying much in its praise. Then we
must remember that in England we have the fear and dread of the climate
ever before our eyes, and consequently are always, so to speak, on our
guard against it. Here, and in other places where civilization is in
its infancy, we are at the mercy of dust and sun, wind and rain, and
all the eccentric elements which go to make up weather. Consequently,
when the balance of comfort and convenience has to be struck, it is
surprising how small an advantage a really better climate gives when
you take away watering-carts and shady streets for hot weather, and
sheltered railway-stations and hansom cabs for wet weather, and roads
and servants and civility and general convenience everywhere. This
particular climate is both depressing and trying in spite of the sunny
skies we are ever boasting about, because it has a strong tinge of the
tropical element in it; and yet people live in much the same kind of
houses (only that they are very small), and wear much the same sort of
clothes (only that they are very ugly), and lead much the same sort of
lives (only that it is a thousand times duller than the dullest country
village), as they do in England. Some small concession is made to the
thermometer in the matter of puggeries and matted floors, but even
then carpets are used wherever it is practicable, because this matting
never looks clean and nice after the first week it is put down. All
the houses are built on the ground floor, with the utmost economy of
building material and labor, and consequently there are no passages:
every room is, in fact, a passage and leads to its neighbor. So the
perpetually dirty bare feet, or, still worse, boots fresh from the
mud or dust of the streets, soon wear out the matting. Few houses are
at all prettily decorated or furnished, partly from the difficulty of
procuring anything pretty here, the cost and risk of its carriage up
from D’Urban if you send to England for it, and partly from the want of
servants accustomed to anything but the roughest and coarsest articles
of household use. A lady soon begins to take her drawing-room ornaments
_en guignon_ if she has to dust them herself every day in a very dusty
climate. I speak feelingly and with authority, for that is my case at
this moment, and applies to every other part of the house as well.
I must say I like Kafir servants in some respects. They require, I
acknowledge, constant supervision; they require to be told to do the
same thing over and over again every day; and, what is more, besides
telling, you have to stand by and see that they do the thing. They
are also very slow. But still, with all these disadvantages, they
are far better than the generality of European servants out here,
who make their luckless employers’ lives a burden to them by reason
of their tempers and caprices. It is much better, I am convinced, to
face the evil boldly and to make up one’s mind to have none but Kafir
servants. Of course one immediately turns into a sort of overseer
and upper servant one’s self; but at all events you feel master or
mistress of your own house, and you have faithful and good-tempered
domestics, who do their best, however awkwardly, to please you. Where
there are children, then indeed a good English nurse is a great boon;
and in this one respect I am fortunate. Kafirs are also much easier to
manage when the orders come direct from the master or mistress, and
they work far more willingly for them than for white servants. Tom,
the nurse-boy, confided to me yesterday that he hoped to stop in my
employment for forty moons. After that space of time he considered that
he should be in a position to buy plenty of wives, who would work for
him and support him for the rest of his life. But how Tom or Jack,
or any of the boys in fact, are to save money I know not, for every
shilling of their wages, except a small margin for coarse snuff, goes
to their parents, who fleece them without mercy. If they are fined
for breakages or misconduct (the only punishment a Kafir cares for),
they have to account for the deficient money to the stern parents; and
both Tom and Jack went through a most graphic pantomime with a stick
of the consequences to themselves, adding that their father said both
the beating from him and the fine from us served them right for their
carelessness. It seemed so hard they should suffer both ways, and they
were so good-tempered and uncomplaining about it, that I fear I shall
find it very difficult to stop any threepenny pieces out of their
wages in future. A Kafir servant usually gets one pound a month, his
clothes and food. The former consists of a shirt and short trousers of
coarse check cotton, a soldier’s old great-coat for winter, and plenty
of mealy-meal for “scoff.” If he is a good servant and worth making
comfortable, you give him a trifle every week to buy meat. Kafirs are
very fond of going to their kraals, and you have to make them sign an
agreement to remain with you so many months, generally six. By the time
you have just taught them, with infinite pains and trouble, how to do
their work, they depart, and you have to begin it all over again.
I frequently see the chiefs or indunas of chiefs passing here on their
way to some kraals which lie just over the hills. These kraals consist
of half a dozen or more large huts, exactly like so many huge beehives,
on the slope of a hill. There is a rude attempt at sod-fencing round
them; a few head of cattle graze in the neighborhood; lower down, the
hillside is roughly scratched by the women with crooked hoes to form a
mealy-ground. (Cows and mealies are all they require except snuff or
tobacco, which they smoke out of a cow’s horn.) They seem a very gay
and cheerful people, to judge by the laughter and jests I hear from the
groups returning to these kraals every day by the road just outside
our fence. Sometimes one of the party carries an umbrella; and I assure
you the effect of a tall, stalwart Kafir, clad either in nothing at all
or else in a sack, carefully guarding his bare head with a tattered
Gamp, is very ridiculous. Often some one walks along playing upon a
rude pipe, whilst the others jog before and after him, laughing and
capering like boys let loose from school, and all chattering loudly.
You never meet a man carrying a burden unless he is a white settler’s
servant. When a chief or the induna of a kraal passes this way, I see
him, clad in a motley garb of red regimentals with his bare “ringed”
head, riding a sorry nag, only the point of his great toe resting in
his stirrup. He is followed closely and with great _empressement_ by
his “tail,” all “ringed” men also—that is, men of some substance and
weight in the community. They carry bundles of sticks, and keep up with
the ambling nag, and are closely followed by some of his wives bearing
heavy loads on their heads, but stepping out bravely with beautiful
erect carriage, shapely bare arms and legs, and some sort of coarse
drapery worn across their bodies, covering them from shoulder to knee
in folds which would delight an artist’s eye and be the despair of a
sculptor’s chisel. They don’t look either oppressed or discontented.
Happy, healthy and jolly are the words by which they would be most
truthfully described. Still, they are lazy, and slow to appreciate
any benefit from civilization except the money, but then savages
always seem to me as keen and sordid about money as the most civilized
mercantile community anywhere.
FEBRUARY 14.
I am often asked by people who are thinking of coming here, or who want
to send presents to friends here, what to bring or send. Of course it
is difficult to say, because my experience is limited and confined to
one spot at present: therefore I give my opinion very guardedly, and
acknowledge it is derived in great part from the experience of others
who have been here a long time. Amongst other wraps, I brought a
sealskin jacket and muff which I happened to have. These, I am assured,
will be absolutely useless, and already they are a great anxiety to me
on account of the swarms of fish-tail moths which I see scuttling about
in every direction if I move a box or look behind a picture. In fact,
there are destructive moths everywhere, and every drawer is redolent
of camphor. The only things I can venture to recommend as necessaries
are things which no one advised me to bring, and which were only random
shots. One was a light waterproof ulster, and the other was a lot of
those outside blinds for windows which come, I believe, from Japan,
and are made of grass—green, painted with gay figures. I picked up
these latter by the merest accident at the Baker-street bazaar for
a few shillings: they are the comfort of my life, keeping out glare
and dust in the day and moths and insects of all kinds at night. As
for the waterproof, I do not know what I should have done without it;
and little G—— ’s has also been most useful. It is the necessary of
necessaries here—a _real_, good substantial waterproof. A man cannot
do better than get a regular military waterproof which will cover him
from chin to heel on horseback; and even waterproof hats and caps are
a comfort in this treacherous summer season, where a storm bursts over
your head out of a blue dome of sky, and drenches you even whilst the
sun is shining brightly.
A worse climate and country for clothes of every kind and description
cannot be imagined. When I first arrived I thought I had never seen
such ugly toilettes in all my life; and I should have been less
than woman (or more—which is it?) if I had not derived some secret
satisfaction from the possession of at least prettier garments. What I
was vain of in my secret heart was my store of cotton gowns. One can’t
very well wear cotton gowns in London; and, as I am particularly fond
of them, I indemnify myself for going abroad by rushing wildly into
extensive purchases in cambrics and print dresses. They are so pretty
and so cheap, and when charmingly made, as mine _were_ (alas, they are
already things of the past!), nothing can be so satisfactory in the
way of summer country garb. Well, it has been precisely in the matter
of cotton gowns that I have been punished for my vanity. For a day or
two each gown in turn looked charming. Then came a flounce or bordering
of bright red earth on the lower skirt and a general impression of red
dust and dirt all over it. That was after a drive into Maritzburg along
a road ploughed up by ox-wagons. Still, I felt no uneasiness. What is
a cotton gown made for if not to be washed? Away it goes to the wash!
What is this limp, discolored rag which returns to me iron-moulded,
blued until it is nearly black, rough-dried, starched in patches, with
the fringe of red earth only more firmly fixed than before? Behold my
favorite ivory cotton! My white gowns are even in a worse plight, for
there are no two yards of them the same, and the grotesque mixture
of extreme yellowness, extreme blueness and a pervading tinge of the
red mud they have been washed in renders them a piteous example of
misplaced confidence. Other things fare rather better—not much—but
my poor gowns are only hopeless wrecks, and I am reduced to some old
yachting dresses of ticking and serge. The price of washing, as this
spoiling process is pleasantly called, is enormous, and I exhaust my
faculties in devising more economical arrangements. We can’t wash at
home, for the simple reason that we have no water, no proper appliances
of any sort, and to build and buy such would cost a small fortune. But
a tall, white-aproned Kafir, with a badge upon his arm, comes now at
daylight every Monday morning and takes away a huge sackful of linen,
which is placed, with sundry pieces of soap and blue in its mouth, all
ready for him. He brings it back in the afternoon full of clean and dry
linen, for which he receives three shillings and sixpence. But this
is only the first stage. The things to be starched have to be sorted
and sent to one woman, and those to be mangled to another, and both
lots have to be fetched home again by Tom and Jack. (I have forgotten
to tell you that Jack’s real name, elicited with great difficulty, as
there is a click somewhere in it, is “Umpashongwana,” whilst the pickle
Tom is known among his own people as “Umkabangwana.” You will admit
that our substitutes for these five-syllabled appellations are easier
to pronounce in a hurry. Jack is a favorite name: I know half a dozen
black Jacks myself.) To return, however, to the washing. I spend my
time in this uncertain weather watching the clouds on the days when
the clothes are to come home, for it would be altogether _too_ great
a trial if one’s starched garments, borne aloft on Jack’s head, were
to be caught in a thunder-shower. If the washerwoman takes pains with
anything, it is with gentlemen’s shirts, though even then she insists
on ironing the collars into strange and fearful shapes.
Let not men think, however, that they have it all their own way in the
matter of clothes. White jackets and trousers are commonly worn here
in summer, and it is very soothing, I am told, to try to put them on
in a hurry when the arms and legs are firmly glued together by several
pounds of starch. Then as to boots and shoes: they get so mildewed
if laid aside for even a few days as to be absolutely offensive; and
these, with hats, wear out at the most astonishing rate. The sun and
dust and rain finish up the hats in less than no time.
But I have not done with my clothes yet. A lady must keep a warm dress
and jacket close at hand all through the most broiling summer weather,
for a couple of hours will bring the thermometer down ten or twenty
degrees, and I have often been gasping in a white dressing-gown at noon
and shivering in a serge dress at three o’clock on the same day. I am
making up my mind that serge and ticking are likely to be the most
useful material for dresses, and, as one must have something very cool
for these burning months, tussore or foulard, which get themselves
better washed than my poor dear cottons. Silks are next to useless—too
smart, too hot, too entirely out of place in such a life as this,
except perhaps one or two of tried principles, which won’t spot or
fade or misbehave themselves in any way. One goes out of a warm, dry
afternoon with a tulle veil on to keep off the flies, or a feather in
one’s hat, and returns with the one a limp, wet rag and the other quite
out of curl. I only wish any milliner could see my feathers now! All
straight, rigidly straight as a carpenter’s rule, and tinged with red
dust besides. As for tulle or crêpe-lisse frilling, or any of those
soft pretty adjuncts to a simple toilette, they are five minutes’
wear—no more, I solemnly declare.
I love telling a story against myself, and here is one. In spite of
repeated experiences of the injurious effect of alternate damp and dust
upon finery, the old Eve is occasionally too strong for my prudence,
and I can’t resist, on the rare occasions which offer themselves,
the temptation of wearing pretty things. Especially weak am I in the
matter of caps, and this is what befell me. Imagine a lovely, soft
summer evening, broad daylight, though it is half-past seven (it will
be dark directly, however): a dinner-party to be reached a couple of
miles away. The little open carriage is at the door, and into this I
step, swathing my gown carefully up in a huge shawl. This precaution
is especially necessary, for during the afternoon there has been a
terrific thunderstorm and a sudden sharp deluge of rain. Besides a
swamp or two to be ploughed through as best we may, there are those two
miles of deep red muddy road full of ruts and big stones and pitfalls
of all sorts. The drive home in the dark will be nervous work, but
now in daylight let us enjoy whilst we may. Of course I _ought_ to
have taken my cap in a box or bag, or something of the sort; but that
seemed too much trouble, especially as it was so small it needed to be
firmly pinned on in its place. It consisted of a centre or crown of
white crêpe, a little frill of the same, and a close-fitting wreath of
deep red feathers all round. Very neat and tidy it looked as I took
my last glance at it whilst I hastily knotted a light black lace veil
over my head by way of protection during my drive. When I got to my
destination there was no looking-glass to be seen anywhere, no maid, no
anything or anybody to warn me. Into the dining-room I marched in happy
unconsciousness that the extreme dampness of the evening had flattened
the crown of my cap, and that it and its frill were mere unconsidered
limp rags, whilst the unpretending circlet of feathers had started
into undue prominence, and struck straight out like a red nimbus all
round my unconscious head. How my fellow-guests managed to keep their
countenances I cannot tell. I am certain _I_ never could have sat
opposite to any one with such an Ojibbeway Indian’s head-dress on
without giggling. But no one gave me the least hint of my misfortune,
and it only burst upon me suddenly when I returned to my own room and
my own glass. Still, there was a ray of hope left: it _might_ have been
the dampness of the drive home which had worked me this woe. I rushed
into F—— ’s dressing-room and demanded quite fiercely whether my cap
had been like that all the time.
“Why, yes,” F—— admitted; adding by way of consolation, “In fact, it is
a good deal subdued now: it was very wild all dinner-time. I can’t say
I admired it, but I supposed it was all right.”
Did ever any one hear such shocking apathy? In answer to my reproaches
for not telling me, he only said, “Why, what could you have done with
it if you _had_ known? Taken it off and put it in your pocket, or what?”
I don’t know, but anything would have been better than sitting at table
with a thing only fit for a May-Day sweep on one’s head. It makes me
hot and angry with myself even to think of it now.
F—— ’s clothes could also relate some curious experiences which they
have had to go through, not only at the hands of his washerwoman, but
at those of his temporary valet, Jack (I beg his pardon, Umpashongwana)
the Zulu, whose zeal exceeds anything one can imagine. For instance,
when he sets to work to brush F—— ’s clothes of a morning he is by no
means content to brush the cloth clothes. Oh dear, no! He brushes the
socks, putting each carefully on his hand like a glove and brushing
vigorously away. As they are necessarily very thin socks for this hot
weather, they are apt to melt away entirely under the process. I say
nothing of his blacking the boots inside as well as out, or of his
laboriously scrubbing holes in a serge coat with a scrubbing-brush,
for these are errors of judgment dictated by a kindly heart. But when
Jack puts a saucepan on the fire without any water and burns holes in
it, or tries whether plates and dishes can support their own weight
in the air without a table beneath them, then, I confess, my patience
runs short. But Jack is so imperturbable, so perfectly and genuinely
astonished at the untoward result of his experiments, and so grieved
that the _inkosacasa_ (I have not an idea how the word ought to be
spelt) should be vexed, that I am obliged to leave off shaking my head
at him, which is the only way I have of expressing my displeasure. He
keeps on saying, “Ja, oui, yaas,” alternately, all the time, and I have
to go away to laugh.
FEBRUARY 16.
I was much amused the other day at receiving a letter of introduction
from a mutual friend in England, warmly recommending a newly-arrived
bride and bridegroom to my acquaintance, and especially begging me
to take pains to introduce the new-comers into the “best society.”
To appreciate the joke thoroughly you must understand that there
is no society here at all—absolutely none. We are not proud, we
Maritzburgians, nor are we inhospitable, nor exclusive, nor unsociable.
Not a bit. We are as anxious as any community can be to have society or
sociable gatherings, or whatever you like to call the way people manage
to meet together; but circumstances are altogether too strong for
us, and we all in turn are forced to abandon the attempt in despair.
First of all, the weather is against us. It is maddeningly uncertain,
and the best-arranged entertainment cannot be considered a success
if the guests have to struggle through rain and tempest and streets
ankle-deep in water and pitchy darkness to assist at it. People are
hardly likely to make themselves pleasant at a party when their return
home through storm and darkness is on their minds all the time: at
least, I know _I_ cannot do so. But the weather is only one of the
lets and hinderances to society in Natal. We are all exceedingly poor,
and necessary food is very dear: luxuries are enormously expensive,
but they are generally not to be had at all, so one is not tempted by
them. Servants, particularly cooks, are few and far between, and I
doubt if even any one calling himself a cook could send up what would
be considered a fairly good dish elsewhere. Kafirs can be taught to
do one or two things pretty well, but even then they could not be
trusted to do them for a party. In fact, if I stated that there were no
good servants—in the ordinary acceptation of the word—here at all, I
should not be guilty of exaggeration. If there are, all I can say is,
I have neither heard of nor seen them. On the contrary, I have been
overwhelmed by lamentations on that score in which I can heartily join.
Besides the want of means of conveyance (for there are no cabs, and
very few _remises_) and good food and attendance, any one wanting to
entertain would almost need to build a house, so impossible is it to
collect more than half a dozen people inside an ordinary-sized house
here. For my part, my verandah is the comfort of my life. When more
than four or five people at a time chance to come to afternoon tea,
we overflow into the verandah. It runs round three sides of the four
rooms called a house, and is at once my day-nursery, my lumber-room,
my summer-parlor, my place of exercise—everything, in fact. And it is
an incessant occupation to train the creepers and wage war against the
legions of brilliantly-colored grasshoppers which infest and devour
the honeysuckles and roses. Never was there such a place for insects!
They eat up everything in the kitchen-garden, devour every leaf off my
peach and orange trees, scarring and spoiling the fruit as well. It is
no comfort whatever that they are wonderfully beautiful creatures,
striped and ringed with a thousand colors in a thousand various ways:
one has only to see the riddled appearance of every leaf and flower
to harden one’s heart. Just now they have cleared off every blossom
out of the garden except my zinnias, which grow magnificently and
make the devastated flower-bed still gay with every hue and tint a
zinnia can put on—salmon-color, rose, scarlet, pink, maroon, and fifty
shades besides. On the veldt too the flowers have passed by, but their
place is taken by the grasses, which are all in seed. People say the
grass is rank and poor, and of not much account as food for stock,
but it has an astonishing variety of beautiful seeds. In one patch
it is like miniature pampas-grass, only a couple of inches long each
seed-pod, but white and fluffy. Again, there will be tall stems laden
with rich purple grains or delicate tufts of rose-colored seed. One
of the prettiest, however, is like wee green harebells hanging all
down a tall and slender stalk, and hiding within their cups the seed.
Unfortunately, the weeds and burs seed just as freely, and there is
one especial torment to the garden in the shape of an innocent-looking
little plant something like an alpine strawberry in leaf and blossom,
bearing a most aggravating tuft of little black spines which lose
no opportunity of sticking to one’s petticoats in myriads. They are
familiarly known as “blackjacks,” and can hold their own as pests with
any weed of my acquaintance.
But the most beautiful tree I have seen in Natal was an _Acacia
flamboyante_. I saw it at D’Urban, and I shall never forget the
contrast of its vivid green, bright as the spring foliage of a young
oak, and the crown of rich crimson flowers on its topmost branches,
tossing their brilliant blossoms against a background of gleaming
sea and sky. It was really splendid, like a bit of Italian coloring
among the sombre tangle of tropical verdure. It is too cold up here
for this glorious tree, which properly belongs to a far more tropical
temperature than even D’Urban can mount up to.
I am looking forward to next month and the following ones to make
some little excursions into the country, or to go “trekking,” as the
local expression is. I hear on all sides how much that is interesting
lies a little way beyond the reach of a ride, but it is difficult
for the mistress—who is at the same time the general servant—of an
establishment out here to get away from home for even a few days,
especially when there is a couple of small children to be left behind.
No one travels now who can possibly help it, for the sudden violent
rains which come down nearly every afternoon swell the rivers and make
even the spruits impassable; so a traveler may be detained for days
within a few miles of his destination. Now, in winter the roads will be
hard, and dust will be the only inconvenience. At least, that is what I
am promised.
[Illustration: Decoration]