MARITZBURG, June 3, 1876.
Dust and the bazaar! These are the topics of the month. Perhaps I
ought to put the bazaar first, for it is past and over, to the intense
thankfulness of everybody, buyers and sellers included, whereas the
dust abides with us for ever, and increases in volume and density and
restlessness more and more. It certainly seems to me a severe penalty
to pay for these three months of fine and agreeable weather to have
no milk, hardly any butter, very little water, and to be smothered by
dust into the bargain. But still, here is a little bit of bracing,
healthy weather, and far be it from me to depreciate it. We enjoy every
moment of it, and congratulate each other upon it, and boast once more
to new-comers that we possess “the finest climate in the world.” This
remark died out in the summer, but is again to be heard on all sides;
and I am not strong-minded enough to take up lance and casque and tilt
against it. Besides which, it would really be very pleasant if only
the tanks were not dry, the cows giving but a teacupful of milk a day
for want of grass, whilst butter is half a crown a pound, and of a
rancid cheesiness trying to the consumer. Still, the weather is bright
and sunny and fresh all day—too hot, indeed, in the sun, and generally
bitterly cold in the evening and night. About once a week, however,
we have a burning hot wind, and are obliged still to keep our summer
clothes close at hand. The rapidity with which cold succeeds this hot
wind is hardly to be believed. Our “season” is just over. It lasts
as nearly as possible one week, and all the gayety and festivity of
the year is crowded into it. During this time of revelry I drove down
the hill to a garden-party one sunny afternoon, and found a muslin
scarf absolutely unbearable, so intensely hot was the air. That was
about three o’clock, and by five I was driving home in the darkening
twilight, dusty as a miller and shivering in a seal-skin jacket. It
is no wonder that most of us, Kafirs and all, have fearful colds and
coughs, or that croup is both common and dangerous among the little
ones. Still, we must never lose sight of the fact that it is “the
finest climate in the world,” and exceptionally favorable, or so they
say, to consumptive patients.
I am more thankful than words can express that we live out of the
town, though the pretty green slopes around are sere and yellow now,
with here and there patches of black where the fires rage night and
day among the tall grass. About this season prudent people burn strips
around their fences and trees to check any vagrant fire, for there is
so little timber that the few green trees are precious things, not
to be shriveled up in an hour by fast-traveling flames for want of
precautions. The spruits or brooks run low in their beds, the ditches
are dry, the wells have only a bucketful of muddy water and a good many
frogs in them, and the tanks are failing one after another. Yet this
is only the beginning of winter, and I am told that I don’t yet know
what dust and drought mean. I begin to think affectionately of those
nice heavy thunder-showers every evening, and to long to see again the
familiar bank of cloud peeping up over that high hill to the west,
precursor of a deluge. Well! well! there is no satisfying some people.
I am ready to swallow my share of dust as uncomplainingly as may be,
but I confess to horrible anxiety as to what we are all to do for
milk for the babies presently. Every two or three days I get a polite
note from whoever is supplying me with milk to say they are extremely
sorry to state they shall be obliged to discontinue doing so, as their
cows don’t give a pint a day amongst them all. The little which is
to be had is naturally enormously dear. F—— steadily declines to buy
a cow, because he says he knows it will be just like all the rest,
but I think if only I had a cow I should contrive to find food for it
somewhere. I see those horrid tins of preserved milk drawing nearer and
nearer day by day.
It is very wrong to pass over our great bazaar with so little notice. I
dare say you who read this think that you know something about bazaars,
but I assure you you do not—not about such a bazaar as this, at all
events. We have been preparing for it, working for it, worrying for it,
advertising it, building it, decorating it, and generally slaving at it
for a year and more. When I arrived the first words I heard were about
the bazaar. When I tried to get some one to help me with my stall, I
was laughed at: all the young ladies in the place had been secured
months before as saleswomen. I don’t know what I should have done if
a very charming lady had not arrived soon after I did. No sooner had
she set foot on shore than I rushed at her and snapped her up before
any one else knew that she had come, for I was quite desperate, and
felt it was my only chance. However, luck was on my side, and my fair
A. D. C. made up in energy and devotion to the cause for half a dozen
less enthusiastic assistants. All this time I have never told you what
the bazaar was for, or why we all threw ourselves into it with so
much ardor. It was for the Natal Literary Society, which has been in
existence some little time, struggling to form the nucleus of a public
library and reading-room, giving lectures and so forth to provide some
sort of elevating and refining influences for the more thoughtful
among the Maritzburgians. It has been very up-hill work, and there
is no doubt that the promoters and supporters deserve a good deal of
credit. They had met with the usual fate of such pioneers of progress:
they had been overwhelmed with prophecies of all kinds of disaster,
but they can turn the tables now on their tormentors. The building did
_not_ take fire, nor was it robbed; there were no riots; all the boxes
arrived in time; everybody was in the sweetest temper; no one died for
want of fresh air (these were among the most encouraging prognostics);
and last, not least, after paying all expenses two thousand guineas
stand at the bank to the credit of the society. I must say I was
astonished at the financial result, but delighted too, for it is an
excellent undertaking, and one in which I feel the warmest interest.
It will be an immense boon to the public, and cannot fail to elevate
the tone of thought and feeling in the town. This sum, large as it is
for our slender resources, will only barely build a place suitable for
a library and reading-room, and the nucleus of a museum. We want gifts
of books and maps and prints, and nice things of all kinds; and I only
wish any one who reads these lines, and could help us in this way,
would kindly do so, for it will be a long time before we can buy such
things for ourselves, and yet they are indispensable to the carrying
out of the scheme.
Everybody from far and near came to the bazaar and bought liberally.
The things provided were selected with a view to the wants of a
community which has not a large margin for luxuries, and although they
were very pretty, there was a strong element of practical usefulness
in everything. It must have been a perfect carnival for the little
ones. Such blowing of whistles and trumpets, such beating of drums
and tossing of gay balls in the air, as were to be seen all around!
Little girls walked about hugging newly-acquired dolls with an air
of bewildered maternal happiness, whilst on every side you heard
boys comparing notes as to the prices of cricket-bats (for your
true colonial boy has always a keen sense of the value of money) or
the merits of carpenters’ tools. A wheelwright gave half a dozen
exquisitely-finished wheelbarrows to the bazaar, made of the woods of
the colony, and useful as well as exceedingly pretty. The price was
high, but I shut my economical eyes tight and bought one, to the joy
and delight of the boys, big and little. There were heaps of similar
things, besides contributions from London and Paris, from Italy and
Austria, from India and Australia, to say nothing of Kafir weapons
and wooden utensils, of live-stock, vegetables and flowers. Everybody
responded to our entreaties, and helped us liberally and kindly; and
this is the result with which we are all immensely delighted.
Some of our best customers were funny old Dutchmen from far up country,
who had come down to the races and the agricultural show, which
were all going on at the same time. They bought recklessly the most
astounding things, but wisely made it a condition of purchase that they
should not be required to take away the goods. In fact, they hit upon
the expedient of presenting to one stall what they bought at another;
and one worthy, who looked for all the world as if he had sat for his
portrait in dear old Geoffrey Crayon’s _Sketch-books_, brought us at
our stall a large wax doll dressed as a bride, and implored us to
accept it, and so rid him of its companionship. An immense glass vase
was bestowed on us in a similar fashion later on in the evening, and
at last we quite came to hail the sight of those huge beaver hats with
their broad brims and peaked crowns as an omen of good fortune. But
what I most wanted to see all the time were the heroes of the rocket
practice. You do not know perhaps that delicious and veritable South
African story; so I must tell it to you, only you ought to see my dear
boers or emigrant farmers to appreciate it thoroughly.
A little time ago the dwellers in a certain small settlement far away
on the frontier took alarm at the threatening attitude of their black
neighbors. I need not go into the rights—or rather the wrongs—of the
story here, but skip all preliminary details and start fair one fine
morning when a _commando_ was about to march. Now, a commando means a
small expedition armed to the teeth, which sets forth to do as much
retaliatory mischief as it can. It had occurred to the chiefs of this
warlike force that a rocket apparatus would be a very fine thing, and
likely to strike awe into savage tribes, and so would a small, light
cannon. The necessary funds were forthcoming, and some kind friend in
England sent them out a beautiful little rocket-tube, all complete,
and the most knowing and destructive of light field-pieces. They
reached their destination in the very nick of time—the eve, in fact, of
the departure of this valiant commando. It was deemed advisable to make
trial of these new weapons before starting, and an order was issued
for the commando to assemble a little earlier in the market-square
and learn to handle their artillery pieces before marching. Not
only did the militia assemble, but all the townsfolk, men, women
and children, and clustered like bees round the rocket-tube, which
had been placed near the powder magazine, so as to be handy to the
ammunition. The first difficulty consisted in finding anybody who had
ever seen a cannon before: as for a rocket-tube, that was indeed a new
invention. The most careful search only succeeded in producing a boer
who had many, many years ago made a voyage in an old tea-ship which
carried a couple of small guns for firing signals, etc. This valiant
artilleryman was at once elected commander-in-chief of the rocket-tube
and the little cannon, whilst everybody stood by to see some smart
practice. The tube was duly hung on its tripod, and the reluctant
fellow-passenger of the two old cannon proceeded to load, and attempted
to fire it. The loading was comparatively easy, but the firing! I only
wish I understood the technical terms of rocket-firing, but, although
they have been minutely explained to me half a dozen times, I don’t
feel strong enough on the subject to venture to use them. The results
were, that some connecting cord or other having been severed contrary
to the method generally pursued by experts in letting off a rocket,
_half_ of the projectile took fire, could not escape from the tube on
account of the other half blocking up the passage, and there was an
awful internal commotion instead of an explosion. The tripod gyrated
rapidly, the whizzing and fizzing became more pronounced every moment,
and at last, with a whish and a bang, out rushed the ill-treated and
imprisoned rocket. But there was no clear space for it. It ricochetted
among the trees, zigzagging here and there, opening out a line for
itself with lightning speed among the terrified and flustered crowd.
There seemed no end to the progress of that blazing stick. A wild cry
arose, “The powder magazine!” but before the stick could reach so far,
it brought up all standing in a wagon, and made one final leap among
the oxen, killing two of them and breaking the leg of a third. This was
an unfortunate beginning for the new captain, but he excused himself on
the ground that, after all, rockets were not guns: with those he was
perfectly familiar, having smoked his pipe often and often on board
the tea-ship long ago with those two cannon full in view. Yet the
peaceablest cannons have a nasty trick of running back and treading on
the toes of the bystanders; and to guard against such well-known habits
it seemed advisable to plant the _trail_ of this little fellow securely
in the ground, so that he must perforce keep steady. “Volunteers to the
front with spades!” was the cry, and a good-sized grave was made for
the trail of the gun, which was then lightly covered up with earth.
There was now no fear in loading him, and instead of one, two charges
of powder were carefully rammed home, and two shells put in. There
was some hitch also about applying the fuse to this weapon, fuses
not having been known on board the tea-ship; but at last something
was ignited, and out jumped _one_ shell right into the middle of the
market-square, and buried itself in the ground. But, alas and alas!
the cannon now behaved in a wholly unexpected manner. It turned itself
deliberately over on its back, with its muzzle pointing full among the
groups of gaping Dutchmen in its rear, its wheels spun round at the
rate of a thousand miles an hour, and a fearful growling and sputtering
could be heard inside it. The recollection of the second shell now
obtruded itself vividly on all minds, and caused a furious stampede
among the spectators. The fat Dutchmen looked as if they were playing
some child’s game. One ran behind another, putting his hands on his
shoulders, but no sooner did any person find himself the first of
a file than he shook off the detaining hands of the man behind him
and fled to the rear to hold on to his neighbor. However ludicrous
this may have looked, it was still very natural with the muzzle of a
half-loaded cannon pointing full toward you, and one is thankful to
know that with such dangerous weapons around no serious harm was done.
If you could only see the fellow-countrymen of these heroes, you would
appreciate the story better—their wonderful diversity of height, their
equally marvelous diversity of breadth, of garb and equipment. One
man will be over six feet high, a giant in form and build, mounted
on a splendid saddle fresh from the store, spick and span in all
details. His neighbor in the ranks will be five feet nothing, and an
absolute circle as to shape: he will have rolled with difficulty on
to the back of a gaunt steed, and his horse furniture will consist
of two old saddle-flaps sewn together with a strip of bullock-hide,
and with a sheepskin thrown over all. You may imagine that a regiment
thus turned out would look somewhat droll to the eyes of a martinet in
such matters, even without the addition of a cannon lying on its back
kicking, or a twirling rocket-tube sputtering and fizzing.
JUNE 7.
Let me see what we have been doing since I last wrote. I have had
a Kafir princess to tea with me, and we have killed a snake in the
baby’s nursery. That is to say, Jack killed the snake. Jack does
everything in the house, and is at once the most amiable and the
cleverest servant I ever had. Not Zulu Jack. _He_ is so deaf, poor
boy! he is not of much use except to clean saucepans and wash up pots
and pans. He seems to have no sense of smell either, because I have
to keep a strict watch over him that he does not introduce a flavor
of kerosene oil into everything by his partiality for wiping cups and
plates with dirty lamp-cloths instead of his own nice clean dusters.
But he is very civil and quiet, leisurely in all he does, and a strict
conservative in his notions of work, resenting the least change of
employment. No: the other Jack is a tiny little man, also a Zulu,
but he speaks English well, and it is his pride and delight to dress
as an English “boy”—that is what he calls it—even to the wearing of
agonizingly tight boots on his big feet. Jack learns all I can teach
him of cooking with perfect ease, and gives us capital meals. He is the
bravest of the establishment, and is always to the fore in a scrimmage,
generally dealing the _coup de grace_ in all combats with snakes. In
this instance my first thought was to call Jack. I had tried to open
the nursery-door one sunny midday to see if the baby was still asleep,
and could not imagine what it was pressing so hard against the door
and preventing my opening it. I determined to see, and lo! round the
edge darted the head of a large snake, held well up in air, with the
forked tongue out. He must have been trying to get out of the room, but
I shut the door in his face and called for Jack, arming myself with my
riding-whip. Jack came running up instantly, but declined all offers of
walking-sticks from the hall, having no confidence in English sticks,
and preferring to trust only to his own light strong staff. Cautiously
we opened the door again, but the snake was drawn up in battle-array,
coiled in a corner difficult to get at, and with outstretched neck
and darting head. Jack advanced boldly, and fenced a little with the
creature, pretending to strike it, but when he saw a good moment he
dealt one shrewd blow which proved sufficient. Then I suddenly became
very courageous (after Jack had cried with a grin of modest pride,
“Him dead now, inkosa-casa”) and hit him several cuts with my whip,
just to show my indignation at his having dared to invade the nursery
and to drink up a cup of milk left for the baby. Baby woke up, and was
delighted with the scrimmage, being extremely anxious to examine the
dead snake, now dangling across Jack’s stick. We all went about with
fear and suspicion after that for some days, as the rooms all open on
to the verandah, and the snakes are very fond of finding a warm, quiet
corner to hibernate in. There is now a strict search instituted into
all recesses—into cupboards, behind curtains, and especially into F——
’s tall riding-boots—but although several snakes have been seen and
killed quite close to the house, I am bound to say this is the only one
which has come in-doors. Frogs hop in whenever they can, and frighten
us out of our lives by jumping out upon us in the dark, as we always
think it is a snake and not a frog which startles us. It requires a
certain amount of persuasion and remonstrance now to induce any of us
to go into a room first in the dark, and there have been many false
alarms and needless shrieks caused by the lash of one of G—— ’s many
whips, or even a boot-lace, getting trodden upon in the dark.
My Kafir princess listened courteously to a highly dramatic narrative
of this snake adventure as conveyed to her through the medium of Maria.
But then she listened courteously to everything, and was altogether
as perfect a specimen of a well-bred young lady as you would wish to
see anywhere. Dignified and self-possessed, without the slightest
self-assumption or consciousness, with the walk of an empress and the
smile of a child, such was Mazikali, a young widow about twenty years
of age, whose husband (I can neither spell nor pronounce his name)
had been chief of the Putili tribe, whose location is far away to the
north-west of us, by Bushman’s River, right under the shadow of the
great range of the Drakensberg. This tribe came to grief in the late
disturbances apropos of Langalibalele, and lost all their cattle,
and what Mr. Wemmick would call their “portable property,” in some
unexplained way. We evidently consider that it was what the Scotch call
“our blame,” for every year there is a grant of money from our colonial
exchequer to purchase this tribe ploughs and hoes, blankets and
mealies, and so forth, but whilst the crops are growing it is rather
hard times for them, and their pretty chieftainess occasionally comes
down to Maritzburg to represent some particular case of suffering or
hardship to their kind friend the minister for native affairs, who is
always the man they fly to for help in all their troubles. Poor girl!
she is going through an anxious time keeping the clanship open for her
only son, a boy five years old, whom she proudly speaks of as “Captain
Lucas,” but whose real name is Luke.
I was drinking my afternoon tea as usual in the verandah one cold
Sunday afternoon lately when Mazikali paid me this visit, so I had a
good view of her as she walked up the drive attended by her maid of
honor (one of whose duties is to remove stones and other obstructions
from her lady’s path), and closely followed by about a dozen elderly,
grave “ringed” men, who never leave her, and are, as it were, her
body-guard. There was something very pretty and pathetic, to any one
knowing how a Kafir woman is despised by her lords and masters, in the
devotion and anxious care and respect which these tall warriors and
councilors paid to this gentle-eyed, grave-faced girl. Their pride and
delight in my reception of her were the most touching things in the
world. I went to meet her as she walked at the head of her followers
with her graceful carriage and queenly gait. She gave me her hand,
smiling charmingly, and I led her up the verandah steps and placed
her in a large arm-chair, and two or three gentlemen who chanced to
be there raised their hats to her. The delight of her people at all
this knew no bounds: their keen dusky faces glowed with pride, and
they raised their right hands in salutation before sitting down on the
edge of the verandah, all facing their mistress, and hardly taking
their eyes off her for a moment. Maria came to interpret for us, which
she did very prettily, smiling sweetly; but the great success of the
affair came from the baby, who toddled round the corner, and seeing
this brightly-draped figure in a big chair, threw up his little hand
and cried “Bayete!” It was quite a happy thought, and was rapturously
received by the indunas with loud shouts of “Inkosi! inkosi!” whilst
even the princess looked pleased in her composed manner. I offered her
some tea, which she took without milk, managing her cup and saucer,
and even spoon, as if she had been used to it all her life, though I
confess to a slight feeling of nervousness, remembering the brittle
nature of china as compared to calabashes or to Kafir wooden bowls. F——
gave each of her retinue a cigar, which they immediately crumbled up
and took in the form of snuff with many grateful grunts of satisfaction.
Now, there is nothing in the world which palls so soon as compliments,
and our conversation, being chiefly of this nature, began to languish
dreadfully. Maria had conveyed to the princess several times my
pleasure in receiving her, and my hope that she and her people would
get over this difficult time and prosper everlastingly. To this the
princess had answered that her heart rejoiced at having had its own
way, and directed her up the hill which led to my house, and that even
after she had descended the path again, it would eternally remember the
white lady. This was indeed a figure of speech, for by dint of living
in the verandah, rushing out after the children, and my generally gypsy
habits, Mazikali is not very much darker than I am. All this time the
little maid of honor had sat shivering close by, munching a large slice
of cake and staring with her big eyes at my English nurse. She now
broke silence by a fearfully distinct inquiry as to whether that other
white woman was not a secondary or subsidiary wife. This question set
Maria off into such fits of laughter, and covered poor little Nanna
with so much confusion, that as a diversion I brought forward my gifts
to the princess, consisting of a large crystal cross and a pair of
ear-rings. The reason I gave her these ornaments was because I heard
she had parted with everything of that sort she possessed in the world
to relieve the distresses of her people. The cross hung upon a bright
ribbon which I tied round her throat. All her followers sprang to
their feet, waved their sticks and cried, “Hail to the chieftainess!”
But, alas! there was a professional beggar attached to the party, who
evidently considered the opportunity as too good to be lost, and drew
Maria aside, suggesting that as the white lady was evidently enormously
rich and very foolish, it would be as well to mention that the princess
had only skins of wild beasts to wear (she had on a petticoat or kilt
of lynx-skins, and her shoulders were wrapped in a gay striped blanket,
which fell in graceful folds nearly to her feet), and suffered horribly
from cold. He added that there never was such a tiresome girl, for she
never _would_ ask for anything; and how was she to get it without?
Besides which, if she had such a dislike to asking for herself, she
surely might speak about things for them: an old coat, now, or a hat,
would be highly acceptable to himself, and so would a little money. But
Mazikali turned quite fiercely on him, ordering him to hold his tongue,
and demanding if that was the way to receive kindness, by asking for
more?
The beggar’s remark, however, had the effect of drawing my attention
to the princess’s scanty garb. I have said it was a bitterly cold
evening, and so the maid of honor pronounced it, shivering; so Nurse
and I went to our boxes and had a good hunt, returning with a warm
knitted petticoat, a shawl and two sets of flannel bathing-dresses.
One was perfectly new, of crimson flannel trimmed with a profusion
of white braid. Of course this was for the princess, and she and her
maiden retired to Maria’s room and equipped themselves, finding much
difficulty, however, in getting into the bathing-suits, and marveling
much at the perplexing fashion in which white women made their clothes.
The maid of honor was careful to hang her solitary decorations, two
small round bits of looking-glass, outside her skeleton suit of blue
serge, and we found her an old woolen table-cover which she arranged
into graceful shawl-folds with one clever twist of her skinny little
arm. Just as they turned to leave the room, Maria told me, this
damsel said, “Now, ma’am, if we only had a little red earth to color
our foreheads, and a few brass rings, we should look very nice;” but
the princess rejoined, “Whatever you do, don’t ask for anything;”
which, I must say, I thought very nice. So I led her back again to her
watchful followers, who hailed her improved appearance with loud shouts
of delight. She then took her leave with many simple and graceful
protestations of gratitude, but I confess it gave me a pang when she
said with a sigh, “Ah, if all white inkosa-casas were like you, and
kind to us Kafir-women!” I could not help thinking how little I had
really done, and how much more we might all do.
I must mention that, by way of amusing Mazikali, I had shown her some
large photographs of the queen and the royal family, explaining to her
very carefully who they all were. She looked very attentively at Her
Majesty’s portrait, and then held it up to her followers, who rose of
their own accord and saluted it with the royal greeting of “Bayete!”
and as Mazikali laid it down again she remarked pensively, “I am very
glad the great white chieftainess has such a kind face. I should not be
at all afraid of going to tell her any of my troubles: I am sure she is
a kind and good lady.” Mazikali herself admired the princess of Wales’
portrait immensely, and gazed at it for a long time, but I am sorry to
say her followers persisted in declaring it was _only_ a very pretty
girl, and reserved all their grunts and shouts of respectful admiration
for a portrait of the duke of Cambridge in full uniform. “Oh! the great
fighting inkosi! Look at his sword and the feathers in that beautiful
hat! How the hearts of his foes must melt away before his terrible
and splendid face!” But indeed on each portrait they had some shrewd
remark to make, tracing family likenesses with great quickness, and
asking minute questions about relationship, succession, etc. They took
a special interest in hearing about the prince of Wales going to India,
and immediately wished His Royal Highness would come here and shoot
buffalo and harte-beeste.
JUNE 15.
We had such a nice Cockney family picnic ten days ago, on Whit-Monday!
F—— had been bewailing himself about this holiday beforehand,
declaring he should not know what to do with himself, and regretting
that holidays had ever been invented, and so on, until I felt that it
was absolutely necessary to provide him with some out-door occupation
for the day. There was no anxiety about the weather, for it is only
too “set fair” all round, and the water shrinks away and the dust
increases upon us day by day. But there was an anxiety about where to
go and how to get to any place. “Such a bad road!” was the objection
raised to every place I proposed, or else it was voted too far. At last
all difficulties were met by a suggestion of spending a “happy day” at
the falls of the lower Umgeni, only a dozen miles away, and the use of
the mule-wagon. Everything was propitious, even to the materials for a
cold dinner being handy, and we bundled in ever so many boys, Nurse and
myself, and Maria in her brightest cotton frock and literally beaming
with smiles, which every now and then broke out into a joyous, childish
laugh of pure delight at nothing at all. _She_ came to carry the baby,
who loves her better than any one, and who understands Kafir better
than English. The great thing was, that everybody had the companions
they liked: as I have said, Baby had his Maria, F—— had secured a
pleasant friend to ride with him, so as to be independent of the wagon,
G—— had his two favorite little schoolfellows, and I—well, I had the
luncheon-basket, and that was quite enough for me to think of. I kept
remembering spasmodically divers omissions made in the hurry of packing
it up; for, like all pleasant parties, it was quite _à l’imprévu_, and
that made me rather anxious. It was really a delicious morning, sunny
and yet cool, with everything around looking bright and glowing under
the beautiful light. The near hills seemed to fold the little quiet
town in soft round curves melting and blending into each other, whilst
the ever-rising and more distant outlines showed exquisite indigo
shadows and bold relief of purple and brown. The greenery of spring
and summer is all parched and dried away now, but the red African
soil takes in the distance warm hues and tints which make up for the
delicate coloring of young grass. Here and there, as it glows beneath
the sun and a slow-sailing cloud casts a shadow, it changes from its
own rich indescribable color to the purple of a heather-covered Scotch
moor, but while one looks the cloud has passed away, the violet tints
die out, and it is again a bare red hillside which lies before you. A
steep hillside, too, for the poor mules, but they breast it bravely at
a jog trot, with their jangling bells and patient bowed heads, and we
are soon at the top, looking down on the clouds of our own dust. The
wind—or rather the soft air, for it is hardly a wind—blows straight
in our faces as we trot on toward the south-west, and it drives the
mass of finely-powdered dust raised by the heels of the six mules far
behind us, to our great contentment and comfort. The two gentlemen
on horseback are fain to keep clear of us and our dust, and to take
a short cut whenever they can get off the highroad, which in this
case and at this time of year is really a very good one. Inside the
wagon, under the high hood, it is deliciously cool, but the boys are
in such tearing spirits that I don’t know what to do with them. Every
now and then, when we are going up hill, they jump out of the wagon
and search the hillside for a yellow flower, a sort of everlasting,
out of the petals of which they extemporize shrill whistles; and when
their invention in this line falls short, Maria steps in with a fresh
suggestion. They make fearful pipes of reeds, they chirp like the
grasshoppers, they all chatter and laugh together like so many magpies.
When I am quite at my wits’ end I produce buns, and these keep them
quiet for full five minutes, but not longer.
At last, after two hours’ steady up-hill pulling on the part of the
mules, we have reached the great plateau from which the Umgeni takes
its second leap, the first being at Howick. There, the sight of the
great river rolling wide and swift between its high banks keeps the
boys quiet with surprise and delight for a short space, and before
they have found their tongues again the wagon has noisily crossed a
resounding wooden bridge and drawn up at the door of an inn. Here
the mules find rest and shelter, as well as their Hottentot drivers,
whilst we are only beginning our day’s work. As for the boys, their
whole souls are absorbed in their fishing-rods: they grudge the idea of
wasting time in eating dinner, and stipulate earnestly that they may
be allowed to “eat fast.” We find and charter a couple of tall Kafirs
to carry the provision-baskets; F—— and his companion take careful and
tender charge each of a bottle of beer; Maria shoulders the baby; I
cling to my little teapot; Nurse seizes a bottle of milk, and away we
all go down the dusty road again, over the bridge (the boys don’t want
to go a yard farther, for they see some Kafirs fishing below), across
a burnt-up meadow, through scrub of terrible thorniness, and so on,
guided by the rush and roar of the falling water, to our dining-room
among the great boulders beneath the shade of the chief cascade. Unlike
the one grand, concentrated leap of the river we saw at Howick, _here_
it tumbles in a dozen places over a wide semicircular ledge of basalt.
It is no joke to any one except the boys—who seem to enjoy tumbling
about and grazing their elbows and chins—getting over the wet, slippery
rocks which have to be crossed to get to the place we want. I tremble
for the milk and the beer, and the teapot and I slip down repeatedly,
but I am under no apprehension about Maria and the baby, for she plants
her broad, big, bare feet firmly on the rocks, and steps over their
wet, slippery surface with the ease and grace of a stout gazelle. Once,
and once only, is she in danger, but it is because she is laughing so
immoderately at the baby’s suggestion, made in lisping Kafir when he
first caught sight of the waterfall, that we should all have a bath
there and then.
The falls are not in their fullest splendor to-day, for this is the dry
season, and even the great Umgeni acknowledges the drain of burning
sunshine day after day, and is rather more economical in her display
of tumbling water and iridescent spray. Still, all is very beautiful,
and in spite of our hunger—for we are all wellnigh ravenous—we climb
various rocks of vantage to see the fine semicircle of cascades
gleaming white among tufts of green scrub and massive boulders. In the
wet season, of course, much that we see now of rock and tree is hidden
by the greater volume of water, but they add greatly to the sylvan
beauty of the fair scene. It is quite cold in the shade, but we have
no choice, for where the sun shines invitingly there is not a foot of
level rock and not an inch of soft white sand like the floor of our
dining-room. Such an indignant twitter as the birds raise, hardly to be
pacified by crumbs and scraps of the rapidly-vanishing bread and meat,
salad and pudding! But the days are so short now that we cannot spare
ourselves half the time we want either to eat or rest, or to linger
and listen to the great monotonous roar of falling water, so agitating
at first, so soothing after a little while. The boys have bolted their
dinner, plunged their heads and hands under a tiny tricklet close by,
and are off to the shallows beneath the bridge, where the river runs
wide and low, where geese are cackling on the boulders, fish leaping
in the pools, and Kafir lads laughing and splashing on the brink. We
leave Baby and his nurse in charge of the birds’ dinner until the
men return for the lightened baskets, and we three “grown-ups” start
for a sharp scramble up the face of the cliff, over the bed of a dry
watercourse, to look at the wonderful expanse of the great river coming
down from the purple hills on the horizon, sweeping across the vast,
almost level, plain in a magnificent tranquil curve, wide as an inland
lake, until it falls abruptly over the precipice before it. Scarcely
a ripple on the calm surface, scarcely a quickening of its steady,
tranquil flow, and yet it has gone, dropped clean out of sight, and
that monotonous roar is the noise of its fall. I should like to see it
in summer, when its stately progress is quickened and its limpid waters
stained by the overflow of countless lesser streams into its broad
bosom, and when its banks are fringed with tufts of tall white arum
lilies—now only green folded leaves, shrunken as close to the water’s
edge as they can get—and when the carpet of violets beneath our feet
is a sheet of blossom flecked with gayer flowers all over this great
spreading veldt. To-day the wish of my heart, of all our hearts, is for
a canoe apiece. Oh for the days of fairy thievery, to be able to swoop
down upon Mr. Searle’s yard and snatch up three perfect little canoes,
paddles, sails, waterproof aprons and all, and put them down over there
by that clump of lilies and crimson bushes! What a race we could have
for clear eight miles up that shining reach, between banks which are
never nearer than sixty or seventy feet to each other, and where the
river is as smooth as glass, and free from let or hindrance to a canoe
for all that distance! But, alas! there are neither roguish fairies
nor stolen canoes to be seen—nothing except one’s rough-and-ready
fishing-rod and the everlasting mealie-meal worked into a paste for
bait. We are too impatient to give it a fair trial, although the fish
are leaping all around, for already the sun is traveling fast toward
those high western hills, and when once he gets behind the tallest of
the peaks darkness will be upon us in five minutes. We should be much
more careful of our minutes even, did there not chance to be an early
moon, already a silver disk in yonder bright blue sky. The homeward
path is longer and easier, and leads us more circuitously back to the
bridge, beneath which I am horrified to find G—— and his friends, their
fishing-rods and one small fish on the bank, disporting themselves in
the water, with nothing on save their hats. G—— is not at all dismayed
at my shrill reproaches to him from the high bridge above, but suggests
that I should throw him down my pocket handkerchief for a towel, and
promises to dress and come up to the house directly. So I, with the
thoughts of my tea in my mind—for we have not been able to have a fire
at the falls—hurry up to the inn, and have time for a look round before
the boys are ready. It is all so odd—such a strange jumble, such a
thorough example of the queer upside-down fashion of colonizing which
reigns here—that I cannot help describing it. A fairly good, straggling
house with sufficiently good furniture, and plenty of it, and an
apparent abundance of good glass and crockery. A sort of bar also, with
substantial array of bottles and tins of biscuits and preserved meats
and pickles of all sorts and kinds. But what I want you to bear in mind
is, that all this came from England, and has finally been brought up
here, nearly seventy miles from the coast, at an enormous trouble and
expense. There are several young white people about the place, but a
person of that class in Natal is too fine to work, and in five minutes
I hear fifty complaints of want of labor and of the idleness of the
Kafirs. There is no garden, no poultry-yard, no dairy. Here, with the
means of irrigation at their very doors, with the possibility of food
for cattle all the year round at the cost of a little personal trouble,
there is neither a drop of milk nor an ounce of butter to be had. Nor
an egg: “The fowls don’t do so very well.” I should think not, with
such accommodation as they have in the way of water and food. For more
than twenty years that house has stood there, a generation has grown
up around it and in it, and yet it might as well have been built last
year for all the signs of a homestead about it. There is somewhere a
mealie-patch, and perhaps a few acres of green forage, and that is all.
Now, in Australia or New Zealand, in a more rigorous climate, under
far greater disadvantages, the dwellers in that house would have had
farmyard and grain-fields, garden and poultry-yard, about them in five
years, and all the necessary labor would have been performed by the
master and mistress and their sons and daughters. Here they all sit
in-doors, listless and discontented, grumbling because the Kafirs won’t
come and work for them. I can’t make it out, and I confess I long to
give all this sort of colonists a good shaking, and take away every
single Kafir from them. I am sure they would get on a thousand times
better. The only thing is, it is too late to shake energy and thrift
into elderly or already grown-up people. They get on very well as it
is, they say, and make money, which is all they care for, having no
pride in neatness or order, and setting no value on the good opinion
of others. They can sell their beer and pickles and tins of meat and
milk at double and treble what they cost; and that is less fatiguing
than digging and fencing and churning. So the tea has no milk and the
bread no butter where twenty years ago cows were somewhere about five
shillings apiece, and we get on as well as we can without them; but I
long, up to the very last, to shake them all round, especially the fat,
pallid young people. Fortunately for Her Majesty’s peace, I refrain
from this expression of my opinion, and get myself and all my boys into
the mule-wagon, and so off again, jogging homeward before the sun has
dipped behind that great blue hill. Long ere we have gone halfway the
daylight has all died away, and the boys find fresh cause for shouts of
delight at the fantastic shadows the moon casts as she glides in and
out of her cloud-palaces.
It would have been an enchanting drive home, wrapped up to the chin as
we all were, except for the dust. What air there was came from behind
us, from the same point as it had blown in the morning, but now we
carried the dust along with us, and were powdered snow-white by it.
Every hundred yards or so the drivers put on the brake and whistled to
the mules to stop. They did not mind losing sight altogether of the
leaders in a dense cloud of dust, nor even of the next pair, but when
the wheelers were completely blotted out by the thick stirred-up mass
of fine dust, then they thought it high time to pause and let it blow
past us. But all this stopping made the return journey rather long and
tedious, and all the curly little heads were nodding on our shoulders,
only rousing up with a flicker of the day’s animation when we came to
where a grass-fire was sweeping over the veldt, and our road a dusty
but wide and safe barrier against the sheets of crackling flame. All
along the horizon these blazing belts showed brightly against the deep
twilight sky, sometimes racing up the hills, again lighting up the
valleys with yellow belt and circle of smoke and fire, but everywhere
weird and picturesque beyond the power of words to tell.
I noticed during that drive what I have so often observed out here
before—the curious layers of cold air. Sometimes we felt our wraps
quite oppressive: generally, this was when we were at the top of a
hill, or even climbing up it: then, when we were crossing a valley or
a narrow ravine, we seemed to drive into an ice-cold region where we
shivered beneath our furs; and then again in five minutes the air would
once more be soft and balmy—crisp and bracing indeed, but many degrees
warmer than those narrow arctic belts here and there.
[Illustration: Decoration]