CHAPTER XXXII.

PALMAM QUI NON MERUIT.

All North Aston rang with the story of little Fina's peril,

Josephine's admirable devotion and Leam's shameful neglect--so

shameful as to be almost criminal. It was the apportionment of

judgment usual with the world. The one who had incurred no kind of

risk, and had done only what was pleasant to her, received unbounded

praise, while the one who was of practical use got for her personal

peril and discomfort universal blame. They said she had allowed the

child to run into danger by her own carelessness, and then had done

nothing to save her: and they wondered beneath their breath if she had

really wished the little one to be drowned. She was an odd girl, you

know, they whispered from each to each--moody, uncomfortable, and

unlike any one else; and though she had certainly behaved admirably to

little Fina, so far as they could see, yet it was not quite out of the

nature of things that she should wish to get rid of the child, who,

after all, was the child of no one knows whom, and very likely spoilt

and tiresome enough.

But no one said this aloud. They only whispered it to each other,

their comments making no more noise than the gliding of snakes through

the evening grass.

As for Fina, she suffered mainly from a fit of indigestion consequent

on the shower of sweetmeats which fell on her from all hands as the

best consolation for her willful little ducking known to sane men and

women presumably acquainted with the elements of physiology. She was

made restless, too, from excitement by reason of the multiplicity of

toys which every one thought it incumbent on him and her to bestow;

for it was quite a matter for public rejoicing that she had not been

drowned, and Josephine, as her reputed savior, leapt at a bound to the

highest pinnacle of popular favor.

It made not the slightest difference in the estimation of these clumsy

thinkers that the thing for which Josephine was praised was a pure

fiction, just as the thing for which Leam was condemned was a pure

fiction. Society at North Aston had the need of hero-worship on it at

this moment, and a mythic heroine did quite as well for the occasion

as a real one.

No one was so lavish of her praise as Adelaide. It was really

delightful to note the generosity with which she eulogized her friend

Joseph, and the pleasure that she had in dwelling on her heroism;

Josephine deprecating her praises in that weak, conscious, and

blushing way which seems to accept while disclaiming.

She invariably said, "No, Adelaide, I do not deserve the credit of it:

it was Leam who saved the child;" but she said it in that voice and

manner which every one takes to mean more modesty than truth, and

which therefore no one believes as it is given; the upshot being that

it simply brings additional grist to the mill whence popularity is

ground out.

Her disclaimers were put down to her good-natured desire to screen

Leam: she had always been good to that extraordinary young person,

they said. But then Josephine Harrowby was good to every one, and if

she had a fault it was the generalized character of her benevolence,

which made her praise of no value, you see, because she praised every

one alike, and took all that glittered for gold. Hence, her assurances

that Leam had really and truly put herself into (the appearance of)

actual danger to save Fina from drowning, while she herself had done

nothing more heroic than take the dripping pair of them home when all

was over--she forgot to add, sit in the carriage and scream--went for

nothing, and the popular delusion for all. She was still the

heroine of the day, and <ipalmam qui non meruit_ the motto which the

unconscious satirists bestowed on her.

She did not mean it to be so--quite the contrary--but wrong comes

about from good intentions to the full as often as from evil ones.

Her design was simply to be truthful, as so much conscientious

self-respect, in the first instance, and to do justice to Leam in

the second; but between her good-natured advocacy and Adelaide's

undisguised hostility maybe the former did Leam the most harm.

The child's past danger was quite sufficient reason why Josephine

should come more frequently than usual to Ford House. It was only

natural that she should wish to know how the little one went on. The

cold, sore throat, rheumatic fever, measles that never came, might

yet be always on the way, and the woman's fond fears were only to be

quieted by the comforting assurance of her daily observation. Leam

did get a cold, and a severe one, but then Leam was grown up and

could take care of herself. Fina was the natural charge of universal

womanhood, and no one who was a woman at all could fail to be

interested in such a pretty, caressing little creature. And then

Sebastian Dundas loved best the child which was not his own; and

that, too, had its weight with Josephine, who somehow seemed to

have forgotten by now that little Fina was madame's child--false and

faithless madame--and was not part and parcel of the man she loved,

as also in some strange sense her own. Madame's initial dedication had

touched her deeply both at the time and ever after; the likeness of

name was again another tie; and that subtle resemblance to herself

which every one saw and spoke of seemed to round off all into an

harmonious whole, and give her a right which even Mrs. Birkett did not

possess.

It was about a week after the accident when Josephine went one

morning, as usual, to ask after Fina, and be convinced by personal

inspection that the pretty little featherhead, the child of many

loves, was well. She was met in the drawing-room by Mr. Dundas, who

when he greeted her took both her hands in his in a more effusive

manner than he had ever permitted himself to show since Pepita's

death, save once before he had decided on madame and when Josephine

had one day touched an old chord tenderly.

Holding her thus, he led her to the sofa with a certain look of

purpose in his face, of loving proprietorship in his bearing, that

made poor fond Josephine's foolish heart knock loudly against her

ribs.

Was it then coming at last, that reward of constancy for which she

had borne so much suspense, so many delays, such long dull days and

tearful nights? Was the rickety idol of her whole life's worship

really about to bless her with his smiles?

She cast down her eyes, trembling, blushing. She was thirty-five years

of age, but she was only a great girl still, and her love had the

freshness which belongs to the cherished sentiment of girlhood ripened

into the confessed, patient, unchanging love of maturity.

"You have been always good to me, Josephine," began Mr. Dundas, still

holding her hand.

Josephine did not answer, save through the crimson of her telltale

cheeks and the smile akin to tears about her quivering mouth.

"I think you have always liked me," he went on to say, looking down

into her face.

Josephine closed her hand over his more warmly and glanced up swiftly,

bashfully. Was there much doubt of it? had there ever been any doubt

of it?

"And I have always liked you," he added; and then he paused.

She looked up again, this time a certain tender reproach and surprise

lying behind her evident delight and love.

"Had not my darling Virginie come between us you would have been my

wife long ago," said Mr. Dundas, the certainty of her acceptance at

any time of their acquaintance as positive to him as that the famished

hound would accept food, the closed pimpernel expand in the sunlight.

"I was always fond of you, even in poor Pepita's time, though of

course, as a man of honor, I could neither encourage nor show my

affection. But Virginie--she took me away from the whole world, and I

lost you, as well as herself, for that one brief month of happiness."

His eyes filled up with tears. Though he was wooing his third bride,

he did not conceal his regret for his second.

By an effort of maidenly reserve over feminine sympathy Josephine

refrained from throwing her arms round his neck and weeping on his

shoulder for pity at his past sorrow. She had none of the vice of

jealousy, and she could honestly and tenderly pity the man whom she

loved for his grief at the loss of the woman whom he had preferred to

herself. She did, however, refrain, and Sebastian could only guess at

her impulse. But he made a tolerably accurate guess, though he seemed

to see nothing. He knew that his way was smooth before him, and that

he need not give himself a moment's trouble about the ending. And

though, as a rule, a man likes the excitement of doubt and the

sentiment of difficulties to be overcome, still there are times when,

if he is either very weary or too self-complacent to care to strive,

he is glad to be assured that he has won before he has wooed, and has

only to claim the love that is waiting for him. Which was what Mr.

Dundas felt now when he noted the simplicity with which Josephine

showed her heart while believing she was hiding it so absolutely, and

knew that he had only to speak to have the whole thing concluded.

"And now I have only half a heart to offer you," he said plaintively:

"the other half is in the grave with my beloved. But if you care to

ally yourself to one who has been the sport of sorrow as I have, if

you care to make the last years of my life happy, and will be content

with the ashes rather than the fires, I will do my best to make you

feel that you have not sacrificed yourself in vain. Will it be

a sacrifice, Josephine?" he asked in a lower tone, and with the

exquisite sweetness which love and pleading give to even a commonplace

voice.

"I have loved you all my life," said Josephine simply; and then

dissolving into happy tears she hid her face in his breast and felt

that heaven was sometimes very near to earth.

Sebastian passed his arms round her ample comely form and pressed her

to his heart, tenderly and without affectation. It was pleasant to him

to see her devotion, to feel her love; and though he disliked tears,

as a man should, still tears of joy were a tribute which he did not

despise in essence if the method might have been more congenial.

"Dear Josephine!" he said. "I always knew what a good soul you were."

This was the way in which Sebastian Dundas wooed and won an

honest-hearted English lady who loved him, and who, virtue for virtue,

was infinitely his superior--a wooing in striking contrast with the

methods which he had employed to gain the person of a low-class,

half-savage Spanish girl, whom he had loved for her beauty and who

took him for her pleasure; also in striking contrast with those

he employed to gain Madame de Montfort, a clever adventuress, who

balanced him, in hand, against her bird in the bush, and decided that

to make sure of the less was better than to wait for the chance of the

greater. But Josephine felt nothing humiliating in his lordliness. She

loved him, she was a woman devoid of self-esteem; hence humiliation

from his hand was impossible.

Just then pretty little Fina came running to the window from the

garden, where she was playing.

"Come here, poppet," said Mr. Dundas, holding out his left hand, his

right round comely Josephine.

She came through the open window and ran up to him. "Nice papa!" she

lisped, stroking his hand.

He took her on his knee, "I have I given you a new mamma, Fina," he

said, kissing her; and then he kissed Josephine for emphasis. "Will

you be good to her and love her very much? This is your mamma.".

"Will you love me, little Fina?" asked Josephine in a voice full of

emotion, taking the child's fair head between her hands. "Will you

like me to be your mamma?"

"Yes," cried Fina, clapping her hands. "I shall like a nice new mamma

instead of Learn. I hate Leam: she is cross and has big eyes."

"Oh, we must not hate poor Leam," remonstrated Josephine tenderly.

"I cannot understand the child's aversion," said Mr. Dundas in a

half-musing, half-suspicious way. "Leam seems to be all that is good

and kind to her, but nothing that she does can soften the little

creature's dislike. It must be natural instinct," he added in a lower

voice.

"Yes, perhaps it is," assented Josephine, who would have answered,

"Yes, perhaps it is," to anything else that her lover might have said.

"Where is Leam, my little Fina? Do you know?" asked Sebastian of the

child.

"In the garden. She is coming in," answered Fina; and at the word Leam

passed before the window as Fina had done.

"Leam, my child, come in: I want to speak to you," said her father,

with unwonted kindness; and Leam, too, as Fina had done before her,

passed through the open window and came in.

The two middle-aged lovers were still sitting side by side and close

together on the sofa. Fina was on her stepfather's knee, caressing his

hand and Josephine's, which were clasped together on her little lap,

while his other arm encircled the substantial waist of his promised

bride, whose disengaged hand rested on his shoulder.

"Leam," said the father, "I have given you--"

He stopped. The name which he was about to utter, with all its

passionate memories, was left unsaid. He remembered in time Leam's

former renunciation of the new mamma whom he had once before proposed.

"I have asked Josephine Harrowby to be my wife," he said after a short

pause. "She has consented, and made me very happy. Let me hope that it

will make you happy too."

He spoke with forced calmness and something of sternness under his

apparent serenity. In heart he was troubled, remembering the past and

half fearing the future. How would she bear herself? Would she accept

his relations pleasantly, or defy and reject as before?

Leam looked at the triad gravely. It was a family group with which she

felt that she had no concern. She was outside it--as much alone as in

a strange country. She knew in that deepest self which does not palm

and lie to us that all her efforts to put herself in harmony with

her life were in vain. Race, education and that fearful memory stood

between her and her surroundings, and she never lost the perception of

her loneliness save when she was with Edgar. At this moment she looked

on as at a picture of love and gladness with which she had nothing

in common; nevertheless, she accepted what she saw, and if not

expansive--which was not her way--was, as her father said afterward,

"perfectly satisfactory." She went up to the sofa slowly and held out

her hand. "You are welcome," she said gravely to Josephine, but the

contempt which she had always had for her father, though she had tried

so hard of late to wear it down, surged up afresh, and she could

not turn her eyes his way. What a despicable thing that must be, she

thought--that thing he called his heart--to shift from one to

the other so easily! To her, the keynote of whose character was

single-hearted devotion, this facile, fluid love, which could be

poured out with equal warmth on every one alike, was no love at

all. It was a degraded kind of self-indulgence for which she had no

respect; and though she did not feel for Josephine as she had felt for

madame--as her mother's enemy--she despised her father even more now

than before.

Also a rapid thought crossed her mind, bringing with it a deadly

trouble. "If Josephine was her stepmother, would Major Harrowby be her

stepfather?" They were brother and sister, and she had an idea that

the family followed the relations of its members. She did not know

why, but she would rather not have Major Harrowby for her stepfather

or for any relation by law. She preferred that he should be wholly

unconnected with her--just her friend unrelated: that was all.

"Thank you, dear Leam!" said Josephine gratefully; and Leam, looking

at her with large mournful eyes, said in a soft but surprised tone of

voice, "Thank me!--why?"

"That you accept me as your stepmother so sweetly, and do not hate me

for it," said Josephine.

Leam glanced with a pained look at Fina. "I have done with hate," she

answered. "It is not my business what papa likes to do."

"Sensible at last!" cried Mr. Dundas with a half-mocking, half-kindly

triumph in his voice.

Leam turned pale. "But you must not think that _I_ forget mamma as you

do," she said with emphasis, her lip quivering.

"No, dear Leam, I would be the last to wish that you should forget

your own mamma for me," said Josephine humbly. "Only try to love me

a little for myself, as your friend, and I will be satisfied. Love

always your own mamma, but me too a little."

"You are good," said Leam softly, her eyes filling with tears. "I do

like you very much; but mamma--there is only one mother for me. None

of papa's wives could ever be mamma to me."

"But friend?" said Josephine, half sobbing.

"Friend? yes," returned Leam; and for the first time in her life she

bent her proud little head and kissed Josephine on her cheek. "And I

will be good to you," she said quietly, "for you are good." She did

not add, "And Edgar's sister."

The families approved of this marriage. Every one said it was what

ought to have been when Pepita died, and that Mr. Dundas had missed

his way and lost his time by taking that doubtful madame meanwhile.

Adelaide and her mother were especially congratulatory; but, though

the rector said he was glad for the sake of poor Josephine, who had

always been a favorite of his, yet he could not find terms of too

great severity for Sebastian. For a man to marry three times--it was

scarcely moral; and he wondered at the Harrowbys for allowing one of

their own to be the third venture. And then, though Josephine was a

good girl enough, she was but a weak sister at the best; and to

think of any man in his senses taking her as the successor of that

delightful and superior madame!

Mrs. Birkett dissented from these views, and said it would keep the

house together and be such a nice thing for Fina and Leam: both

would be the better for a woman's influence and superintendence, and

Josephine was very good.

"Yes," said the rector with his martial air--"good enough, I admit,

but confoundedly slow."

To Edgar, Adelaide expressed herself with delightful enthusiasm.

She was not often stirred to such a display of feeling. "It is _the_

marriage of the county," she said with her prettiest smile--"the very

thing for every one."

"Think so?" was his reply, made by no means enthusiastically. "If

Joseph likes it, that is all that need be said; but it is a marvel

to me how she can--such an unmanly creature as he is! such a muff all

through!"

"Well, I own he would not have been my choice exactly," said Adelaide

with a nice little look. "I like something stronger and more decided

in a man; but it is just as well that we all do not like the same

person; and then, you see, there are Leam and the child to be

considered. Lean is such an utterly unfit person to bring up Fina:

she is ruining her, indeed, as it is, with her capricious temper and

variable moods; and dear Josephine's quiet amiability and good sense

will be so valuable among them. I think we ought to be glad, as

Christians, that such a chance is offered them."

"Whatever else you may be, at least you are no hypocrite," said Edgar

with a forced smile that did not look much like approbation.

She chose to accept it simply. "No," she answered quite tranquilly, "I

am not a hypocrite."

"At all events, you do not disguise your dislike to Leam Dundas," he

said.

"No: why should I? I confess it honestly, I do not like her. The

daughter of such a woman as her mother was; up to fifteen years of age

a perfect savage; a heathen with a temper that makes me shudder when I

think of it; capable of any crime. No, don't look shocked, Edgar: I am

sure of it. That girl could commit murder; and I verily believe that

she did push Fina into the water, as the child says, and that if

Josephine had not got there in time she would have let her drown. And

if I think all this, how can I like her?"

"No, if you think all this, as you say, you cannot like her," replied

Edgar coldly. "I don't happen to agree with you, however, and I think

your assumptions monstrous."

"You are not the first man blinded by a pair of dark eyes, Edgar,"

said Adelaide with becoming mournfulness. "It makes me sorry to see

such a mind as yours dazzled out of its better sense, but you will

perhaps come right in time. At all events, Josephine's marriage with

Mr. Dundas will give you a kind of fatherly relation with Leam that

may show you the truth of what I say."

"Fatherly relation! what rubbish!" cried Edgar, irritated out of his

politeness.

Adelaide smiled. "Well, you would be rather a young father for her,"

she answered. "Still, the character of the relation will be, as I say,

fatherly."

Edgar laughed impatiently.

"Society will accept it in that light," said Adelaide gravely, glad to

erect even this barrier of shadows between the man of her choice and

the girl whom she both dreaded and disliked.

And she was right in her supposition. Brother and sister marrying

daughter and father would not be well received in a narrow society

like North Aston, where the restrictions of law and elemental morality

were supplemented by an adventitious code of denial which put Nature

into a strait waistcoat and shackled freedom of action and opinion

with chains and bands of iron. Perhaps it was some such thought as

this on his own part that made Edgar profess himself disgusted with

this marriage, and declare loudly that Sebastian Dundas was not worthy

of such a girl as Josephine. His hearers smiled in their sleeves when

he said so, and thought that Josephine Harrowby, thirty-five years of

age, fat and freckled, was not so far out in her running to have got

at last--they always put in "at last"--the owner of Ford House. It was

more than she might have expected, looking at things all round; and

Edgar was as unreasonable as proud men always are. With the redundancy

of women as we have it in England, happy the head of the house who can

get rid of his superfluous petticoats anyhow in honor and sufficiency.

This was the verdict of society on the affair--the two extremities of

the line wherefrom the same fact was viewed.

As for Josephine herself, dear soul! she was supremely happy. It was

almost worth while to have waited so long, she thought, to have such

an exquisite reward at last. She went back ten years in her life, and

grew quite girlish and fresh-looking, and what was wanting in romance

on Sebastian's part was made up in devotion and adoration on hers.

Sebastian himself took pleasure in her happiness, her adoration, the

supreme content of her rewarded love. It made him glad to think that

he had given so good a creature so much happiness; and he warmed his

soul at his rekindled ashes as a philosophic widower generally knows

how.

Only Leam began to look pitifully mournful and desolate, and to shrink

back into a solitude which Edgar never invaded, and whence even Alick

was banished; and Edgar was irritable, unpleasant, moody, would

take no interest in the approaching marriage, and, save that his

settlements on Josephine were liberal, seemed to hold himself

personally aggrieved by her choice, and conducted himself altogether

as if he had been injured somehow thereby, and his wishes disregarded.

He was very disagreeable, and caused Joseph many bitter hours, till

at last he took a sudden resolution, and to the relief of every one

at the Hill went off to London, promising to be back in time for

"that little fool's wedding with her sentimental muff," as he

disrespectfully called his sister and Sebastian Dundas, but giving no

reason why he went, and taking leave of no one--not even of Adelaide,

nor yet of Leam.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

THE SING-SONG OF MALY COE.[1]

In he city of Whampo'

Live Joss-pidgin-man[2] name Coe:

Mister Coe he missionaly,[3]

Catchee one cow-chilo,[4] Maly.

Father-man he leadee[5] book,

Maly talkee with the cook:

Good olo[6] father talkee Josh,[7]

But China-woman talkee bosh.

Bym'by Maly gettee so

She only Pidgin-English know,[8]

And father-man he solly[9] see

She thinkee leason[10] like Chinee.

One day some flin[11] flom[12] Boston come

And askee, "Mister Coe at home?"

He servant go to opee door,

But Maly lun[13] chop-chop[14] before.

An' stlanger[15] say when in he come,

"Is Mister Coe, my dear, at home?"

And Maly answer velly tlue,

"My thinkee this tim no can do."[16]

He olo father, still as mouse,

Chin-chin Joss topsidey house:[17]

Allo tim he make Joss-pidgin,[18]

What you Fan-kwai[19] callee 'ligion.

He gentleum much stare galow[20]

To hearee girley talkee so;

And say, "Dear child, may I inquire

Which form of faith you most admire?"

And Maly answer he request:

"My like Chinee Joss-pidgin best:

My love Kwan-wán[21] with chilo neat,

And Joss-stick[22] smellee velly sweet."

"Afóng, our olo cook down stairs,

Make teachee Maly Chinee players:[23]

Say, if my chin-chin Fô[24]--oh joy!--

Nex time my born, my bornee boy!"[25]

"An' then my gettee nicey-new

A ittle dacket[26]--towsers too--And

And lun about with allo[27] boys,

In bu'ful boots that makee noise."

Tear come in he gentleum eyes,

And then he anger 'gin to lise:[28]

He wailo[29] scoldee Mister Coe

For 'glectin' little Maly so.

An' Mister Coe feel velly sore,

So go an' scoldy comprador;

An' comprador, with hollor[30] shook,

Lun[31] downy stairs and beatee cook.

And worsey állo-állo pain,

Maly go Boston homo 'gain:

No filee-clackers[32] any more,

Nor talk with cook and comprador.

MORAL PIDGIN.

If Boston girley be let go,

She sartin sure to b'lieve in Fô,

And the next piecee of her plan

Is to lun lound[33] and act like man.

So, little chilos,[34] mind you look,

And nevee talkee with the cook:

You make so-fashion, first you know

You catchee sclape,[35] like Maly Coe.

CHARLES G. LELAND.

[Footnote 1: "The Ballad of Mary Coe."]

[Footnote 2: _Joss-pidgin-man_, clergyman.]

[Footnote 3: Missionary.]

[Footnote 4: Had a female child.]

[Footnote 5: _Leadee_ or _leedee_, read.]

[Footnote 6: _Olo_, old.]

[Footnote 7: _Talkee Josh_ (or Joss), converses on religion.]

[Footnote 8: _Pidgin-English_, the patois spoken in China,

meaning business-English, _pigeon_ being the ordinary Chinese

pronunciation of English.]

[Footnote 9: _Solly_, sorry.]

[Footnote 10: _Leason_, reason.]

[Footnote 11: _Flin_, friend.]

[Footnote 12: _Flom_, from.]

[Footnote 13: _Lun_, run.]

[Footnote 14: _Chop-chop_, fast.]

[Footnote 15: _Stlanger_, stranger.]

[Footnote 16: "I think it can't be done"--i.e., "You cannot see him."]

[Footnote 17: _Chin-chin Joss top-sidey house_, he is praying up

stairs.]

[Footnote 18: Devotion.]

[Footnote 19: _Fan-kwai_, foreigner; lit. "foreign devil."]

[Footnote 20: _Galów, galáw_ or _galá_, a meaningless word, but much

used.]

[Footnote 21: _Kwan-wán_, a Chinese female divinity represented with a

babe in her arms.]

[Footnote 22: _Joss-stick_, a stick composed of fragrant gum, etc.,

burnt as incense.]

[Footnote 23: Prayers.]

[Footnote 24: _Chin-chin Fô_, worship Buddha.]

[Footnote 25: Chinese women believe that by frequent repetition of

a prayer to Fô they can secure the privilege of being born again as

males.]

[Footnote 26: _Dacket_, jacket.]

[Footnote 27: _Allo_, all.]

[Footnote 28: _Lise_, rise.]

[Footnote 29: _Wailo_, run, go.]

[Footnote 30: Horror.]

[Footnote 31: Run.]

[Footnote 32: Fire-crackers.]

[Footnote 33: Run round.]

[Footnote 34: Children.]

[Footnote 35: Scrape.]

LETTERS FROM SOUTH AFRICA.

BY LADY BARKER.

MARITZBURG. November, 1875.

The weather at the beginning of this month was lovely and the climate

perfection, but now (I am writing on its last day) it is getting very

hot and trying. If ever people might stand excused for talking about

the weather when they meet, it is we Natalians, for, especially at

this time of year, it varies from hour to hour. All along the coast

one hears of terrible buffeting and knocking about among the shipping

in the open roadsteads which have to do duty for harbors in these

parts; and it was only a few days ago that the lifeboat, with the

English mail on board, capsized in crossing the bar at D'Urban. The

telegram was--as telegrams always are--terrifying in its vagueness,

and spoke of the mail-bags as "floating about." When one remembers the

vast size of the breakers on which this floating would take place, it

sounded hopeless for our letters. They turned up, however, a few days

later--in a pulpy state, it is true, but quite readable, though

the envelopes were curiously blended and engrafted upon the letters

inside--so much so that they required to be taken together, for it

was impossible to separate them. I had recourse to the expedient

of spreading my letters on a dry towel and draining them before

attempting to dissever the leaves. Still, we were all only too

thankful to get our correspondence in any shape or form, for precious

beyond the power of words to express are home-letters to us, so far

away from home.

But to return to our weather. At first it was simply perfect. Bright

hot days--not too hot, for a light breeze tempered even the midday

heat--and crisp, bracing nights succeeded each other during the first

fortnight. The country looked exquisitely green in its luxuriant

spring tints over hill and dale, and the rich red clay soil made a

splendid contrast on road and track with the brilliant green on either

hand. Still, people looked anxiously for more rain, declaring that not

half enough had fallen to fill tanks or "shuits" (as the ditches are

called), and it took four days of continuous downpour to satisfy these

thirsty souls even for the moment. Toward the middle of the month the

atmosphere became more oppressive and clouds began to come up in thick

masses all round the horizon, and gradually spread themselves over the

whole sky. The day before the heaviest rain, though not particularly

oppressive, was remarkable for the way in which all manner of animals

tried to get under shelter at nightfall. The verandah was full of big

frogs: if a door remained open for a moment they hopped in, and then

cried like trapped birds when they found themselves in a corner. As

for the winged creatures, it was something wonderful the numbers in

which they flew in at the windows wherever a light attracted them.

I was busy writing English letters that evening: I declare the

cockroaches fairly drove me away from the table by the mad way in

which they flung themselves into my ink-bottle, whilst the smell of

singed moths at the other lamp was quite overpowering. Well, after

this came rain indeed--not rain according to English ideas, but a

tropical deluge, as many inches falling in a few hours as would fill

your rain-gauges for months. I believe my conduct was very absurd that

first rainy night. The little house had just been newly papered, and

as the ceiling was not one to inspire confidence, consisting as it did

merely of boards roughly joined together and painted white, through

which and through the tiles beyond the sky could be seen quite

plainly, I suffered the gravest doubts about the water getting in and

spoiling my pretty new paper. Accordingly, whenever any burst of rain

came heavier than its immediate predecessor, I jumped out of bed in a

perfect agony of mind, and roamed, candle in hand, all over the

house to see if I could not detect a leak anywhere. But the

unpromising-looking roof and ceiling stood the test bravely, and not a

drop of all that descending downpour found its way to my new walls.

By the way, I must describe the house to you, remarking, first of all,

that architecture, so far as my observation extends, is at its lowest

ebb in South Africa. I have not seen a single pretty building of any

sort or kind since I arrived, although in these small houses it would

be so easy to break by gable and porch the severe simplicity of the

unvarying straight line in which they are built. Whitewashed outer

walls with a zinc roof are not uncommon, and they make a bald and

hideous combination until kindly, luxuriant Nature has had time to

step in and cover up man's ugly handiwork with her festoons of roses

and passion-flowers. Most of the houses have, fortunately, red-tiled

roofs, which are not so ugly, and mine is among the number. It is so

squat and square, however, that, as our landlord happens to be

the chief baker of Maritzburg, it has been proposed to christen it

"Cottage Loaf," but this idea requires consideration on account of the

baker's feelings. In the mean time, it is known briefly as "Smith's,"

that being the landlord's name. It has, as all the houses here have, a

broad projecting roof extending over a wide verandah. Within are four

small rooms, two on either side of a narrow passage which runs from

one end to the other. By a happy afterthought, a kitchen has been

added beyond this extremely simple ground-plan, and on the

opposite side a corresponding projection which closely resembles a

packing-case, and which has been painted a bright blue inside and out.

This is the dining-room, and evidently requires to be severely handled

before its present crude and glaring tints can be at all toned down.

At a little distance stands the stable, saddle-room, etc., and a good

bedroom for English servants, and beyond that, again, among large

clumps of rose-bushes, a native hut. It came up here half built--that

is, the frame was partly put together elsewhere--and it resembled a

huge crinoline more than anything else in its original state. Since

that, however, it has been made more secure by extra pales of bamboo,

each tied in its place with infinite trouble and patience by a knot

every inch or two. The final stage consisted of careful thatching

with thick bundles of grass laid on the framework, and secured by

long ropes of grass binding the whole together. The door is the very

smallest opening imaginable, and inside it is of course pitch dark.

All this labor was performed by stalwart Kafir women, one of whom, a

fearfully repulsive female, informed my cook that she had just been

bought back by her original husband. Stress of circumstances had

obliged him to sell her, and she had been bought by three other

husband-masters since then, but was now resold, a bargain, to her

first owner, whom, she declared, she preferred to any of the others.

But few as are these rooms, they yet are watertight--which is a great

point out here--and the house, being built of large, awkward blocks

of stone, is cool and shady. When I have arranged things a little, it

will be quite comfortable and pretty; and I defy any one to wish for a

more exquisite view than can be seen from any corner of the verandah.

We are on the brow of a hill which slopes gently down to the hollow

wherein nestles the picturesque little town, or rather village, of

Maritzburg. The intervening distance of a mile or so conceals the

real ugliness and monotony of its straight streets, and hides all

architectural shortcomings. The clock-tower, for instance, is quite a

feature in the landscape, and from here one cannot perceive that the

clock does not go. Nothing can be prettier than the effect of the

red-tiled roofs and white walls peeping out from among thick clumps

of trees, whilst beyond the ground rises again to low hills with deep

purple fissures and clefts in their green sides. It is only a couple

of years since this little house was built and the garden laid out,

and yet the shrubs and trees are as big as if half a dozen years had

passed over their leafy heads. As for the roses, I never saw anything

like the way they flourish at their own sweet will. Scarcely a leaf is

to be seen on the ugly straggling tree--nothing but masses of roses of

every tint and kind and old-fashioned variety. The utmost I can do

in the way of gathering daily basketsful appears only in the light of

judicious pruning, and next day a dozen blossoms have burst forth to

supply the place of each theft of mine. And there is such a variety

of trees! Oaks and bamboos, blue gums and deodars, seem to flourish

equally well within a yard or two of each other, and the more distant

flower-beds are filled with an odd mixture of dahlias and daturas,

white fleur-de-lis and bushy geraniums, scarlet euphorbias and

verbenas. But the weeds! They are a chronic eyesore and grief to every

gardener. On path and grass-plat, flower-bed and border, they flaunt

and flourish. "Jack," the Zulu refugee, wages a feeble and totally

inadequate warfare against them with a crooked hoe, but he is only a

quarter in earnest, and stops to groan and take snuff so often that

the result is that our garden is precisely in the condition of the

garden of the sluggard, gate and all. This hingeless condition of the

gate, however, is, I must in fairness state, neither Jack's nor our

fault. It is a new gate, but no one will come out from the town to

hang it. That is my standing grievance. Because we live about a mile

from the town it is next to impossible to get anything done. The town

itself is one of the shabbiest assemblages of dwellings I have

ever seen in a colony. It is not to be named on the same day with

Christchurch, the capital of Canterbury, New Zealand, which ten years

ago was decently paved and well lighted by gas. Poor sleepy Maritzburg

consists now, at more than forty years of age (Christchurch is not

twenty-five yet), of a few straight, wide, grass-grown streets, which

are only picturesque at a little distance on account of their having

trees on each side. On particularly dark nights a dozen oil-lamps

standing at long intervals apart are lighted, but when it is even

moderately starlight these aids to finding one's way about are

prudently dispensed with. There is not a single handsome and hardly a

decent building in the whole place. The streets, as I saw them after

rain, are veritable sloughs of despond, but they are capable of being

changed by dry weather into deserts of dust. It is true, I have only

been as yet twice down to the town, but on both visits it reminded me

more of the sleepy villages in Washington Irving's stories than of a

smart, modern, go-ahead colonial "city." There are some fairly good

shops, but they make no show outside, and within the prices of most of

the articles sold are nearly double the same things would bring either

at Melbourne or at Christchurch. As D'Urban is barely a month away

from London in point of communication, and New Zealand (when I knew

it) nearly treble the distance and time, this is a great puzzle to me.

A certain air of quaint interest and life is given to the otherwise

desolate streets by the groups of Kafirs and the teams of wagons which

bring fuel and forage into the town every day. Twenty bullocks drag

these ponderous contrivances--bullocks so lean that one wonders how

they have strength to carry their wide-spreading horns aloft; bullocks

of a stupidity and obstinacy unparalleled in the natural history of

horned beasts. At their head walks a Kafir lad called a "forelooper,"

who tugs at a rope fastened to the horns of the leading oxen, and in

moments of general confusion invariably seems to pull the wrong string

and get the whole team into an inextricable tangle of horns and yokes.

Sometimes of a quiet Sunday morning these teams and wagons I see

"out-spanned" on the green slopes around Maritzburg, making a

picturesque addition to the sylvan scenery. Near each wagon a light

wreath of smoke steals up into the summer air, marking where some

preparation of "mealies" is on foot, and the groups of grazing

oxen--"spans," as each team is called--give the animation of animal

life which I miss so sadly at every turn in this part of the world.

In Maritzburg itself I only noticed two buildings which made the least

effect. One is the government house, standing in a nice garden and

boasting of a rather pretty porch, but otherwise reminding one--except

for the sentinel on duty--of a quiet country rectory: the other is a

small block comprising the public offices. The original idea of this

square building must have come from a model dairy. But the crowning

absurdity of the place is the office of the colonial secretary,

which stands nearly opposite. I am told that inside it is tolerably

comfortable, being the remains of an old Dutch building: outside, it

can only be compared to a dilapidated barn on a bankrupt farm,

and when it was first pointed out to me I had great difficulty,

remembering similar buildings in other colonies, in believing it was a

public office.

The native police look very smart and shiny in their white suits, and

must be objects of envy to their black brethren on account of their

"knobkerries," the knobbed sticks which they alone are permitted to

carry officially in their hands. The native loves a stick, and as he

is forbidden to carry either an assegai--which is a very formidable

weapon indeed--or even a knobkerry, only one degree less dangerous,

he consoles himself with a wand or switch in case of coming across

a snake. You never see a Kafir without something of the sort in his

hand: if he is not twirling a light stick, then he has a sort of rude

reed pipe from which he extracts sharp and tuneless sounds. As a race,

the Kafirs make the effect of possessing a fine _physique_: they walk

with an erect bearing and a light step, but in true leisurely savage

fashion. I have seen the black race in four different quarters of the

globe, and I never saw one single individual move quickly of his

own free will. We must bear in mind, however, that it is a new and

altogether revolutionary idea to a Kafir that he should do any work at

all. Work is for women--war or idleness for men; consequently, their

fixed idea is to do as little as they can; and no Kafir will work

after he has earned money enough to buy a sufficient number of wives

who will work for him. "Charlie," our groom--who is, by the way, a

very fine gentleman and speaks "Ingeliss" after a strange fashion

of his own--only condescends to work until he can purchase a wife.

Unfortunately, the damsel whom he prefers is a costly article, and her

parents demand a cow, a kettle and a native hut as the price of her

hand--or hands, rather--so Charlie grunts and groans through about

as much daily work as an English boy of twelve years old could manage

easily. He is a very amusing character, being exceedingly proud,

and will only obey his own master, whom he calls his great inkosi

or chief. He is always lamenting the advent of the inkosi-casa, or

chieftainess, and the piccaninnies and their following, especially the

"vaiter," whom he detests. In his way, Charlie is a wag, and it is as

good as a play to see his pretence of stupidity when the "vaiter"

or French butler desires him to go and eat "sa paniche." Charlie

understands perfectly that he is told to go and get his breakfast of

mealy porridge, but he won't admit that it is to be called "paniche,"

preferring his own word "scoff;" so he shakes his head violently and

says, "Nay, nay, paniche." Then, with many nods, "Scoff, ja;" and

so in this strange gibberish of three languages he and the Frenchman

carry on quite a pretty quarrel. Charlie also "mocks himself" of the

other servants, I am informed, and asserts that he is the "indema"

or headman. He freely boxes the ears of Jack, the Zulu refugee--poor

Jack, who fled from his own country, next door, the other day, and

arrived here clad in only a short flap made of three bucks' tails.

That is only a month ago, and "Jack" is already quite a _petit maître_

about his clothes. He ordinarily wears a suit of knickerbockers and

a shirt of blue check bound with red, and a string of beads round his

neck, but he cries like a baby if he tears his clothes, or still worse

if the color of the red braid washes out. At first he hated civilized

garments, even when they were only two in number, and begged to be

allowed to assume a sack with holes for the arms, which is the Kafir

compromise when near a town between clothes and flaps made of the

tails of wild beasts or strips of hide. But he soon came to delight in

them, and is now always begging for "something to wear."

I confess I am sorry for Jack. He is the kitchen-boy, and is learning

with much pains and difficulty the _wrong language_. My cook is

also French, and, naturally, all that Jack learns is French, and

not English. Imagine poor Jack's dismay when, after his three years'

apprenticeship to us is ended, he seeks perhaps to better himself,

and finds that no one except madame can understand him! Most of

their dialogues are carried on by pantomime and the incessant use,

in differing tones of voice, of the word "Ja." Jack is a big,

loutish young man, but very ugly and feeble, and apparently under the

impression that he is perpetually "wanted" to answer for the little

indiscretion, whatever it was, on account of which he was forced to

flee over the border. He is timid and scared to the last degree, and

abjectly anxious to please if it does not entail too much exertion.

He is, as it were, apprenticed to us for three years. We are bound to

feed and clothe and doctor him, and he is to work for us, in his own

lazy fashion, for small wages. The first time Jack broke a plate his

terror and despair were quite edifying to behold. Madame called him

a "maladroit" on the spot. Jack learned this word, and after his work

was over seated himself gravely on the ground with the fragments of

the plate, which he tried to join together, but gave up the attempt at

last, announcing in his own tongue that it was "dead." After a little

consideration he said slowly, several times, "Maldraw, ja," and hit

himself a good thump at each "ja." _Now_, I grieve to say, Jack

breaks plates, dishes and cups with a perfectly easy and unembarrassed

conscience, and is already far too civilized to care in the least for

his misfortunes in that line. Whenever a fowl is killed--and I came

upon Jack slowly putting one to death the other day with a pair of

nail-scissors--he possesses himself of a small store of feathers,

which he wears tastefully placed over his left ear. A gay ribbon, worn

like a bandeau across the forehead, is what he really loves. Jack

is very proud of a tawdry ribbon of many colors with a golden ground

which I found for him the other day, only he never can make up his

mind where to wear it; and I often come upon him sitting in the shade

with the ribbon in his hands, gravely considering the question.

The Pickle and plague of the establishment, however, is the boy Tom,

a grinning young savage fresh from his kraal, up to any amount

of mischief, who in an evil hour has been engaged as the baby's

body-servant. I cannot trust him with the child out of my sight for a

moment, for he "snuffs" enormously, and smokes coarse tobacco out of

a cow's horn, and is anxious to teach the baby both these

accomplishments. Tom wears his snuff-box--which is a brass cylinder

a couple of inches long--in either ear impartially, there being huge

slits in the cartilage for the purpose, and the baby never rests till

he gets possession of it and sneezes himself nearly into fits. Tom

likes nursing Baby immensely, and croons to him in a strange buzzing

way which lulls him to sleep invariably. He is very anxious, however,

to acquire some words of English, and I was much startled the other

day to hear in the verandah my own voice saying, "What is it, dear?"

over and over again. This phrase proceeded from Tom, who kept on

repeating it, parrot-fashion--an exact imitation, but with no idea of

its meaning. I had heard the baby whimpering a little time before, and

Tom had remarked that these four words produced the happiest effect in

restoring good-humor; so he learned them, accent and all, on the spot,

and used them as a spell or charm on the next opportunity. I think

even the poor baby was puzzled. But one cannot feel sure of what

Tom will do next. A few evenings ago I trusted him to wheel the

perambulator about the garden-paths, but, becoming anxious in a very

few minutes to know what he was about, I went to look for him. I found

him grinning in high glee, watching the baby's efforts at cutting his

teeth on a live young bird. Master Tom had spied a nest, climbed the

tree, and brought down the poor little bird, which he presented to

the child, who instantly put it into his mouth. When I arrived on the

scene Baby's mouth was full of feathers, over which he was making a

very disgusted face, and the unhappy bird was nearly dead of fright

and squeezing, whilst Tom was in such convulsions of laughter that

I nearly boxed his ears. He showed me by signs how Baby insisted on

sucking the bird's head, and conveyed his intense amusement at the

idea. I made Master Tom climb the tree instantly and put the poor

little half-dead creature back into its nest, and sent for Charlie to

explain to him he should have no sugar--the only punishment Tom cares

about--for two days. I often think, however, that I must try and

find another penalty, for when Tom's allowance of sugar is stopped he

"requisitions" that of every one else, and so gets rather more

than usual. He is immensely proud of the brass chin-strap of an old

artillery bushy which has been given to him. He used to wear it across

his forehead in the favorite Kafir fashion, but as the baby always

made it his first business to pull this shining strap down over Tom's

eyes, and eventually over Tom's mouth, it has been transferred to his

neck.

These Kafir-lads make excellent nurse-boys generally, and English

children are very fond of them. Nurse-girls are rare, as the Kafir

women begin their lives of toil so early that they are never very

handy or gentle in a house, and boys are easier to train as servants.

I heard to-day, however, of an excellent Kafir nurse-maid who was

the daughter of a chief, and whose only drawback was the size of

her family. She was actually and truly one of _eighty_ brothers and

sisters, her father being a rich man with twenty-five wives. That

simply means that he had twenty-five devoted slaves, who worked

morning, noon and night for him in field and mealy-patch without

wages. Jack the Zulu wanted to be nurse-boy dreadfully, and used to

follow Nurse about with a towel rolled up into a bundle, and another

towel arranged as drapery, dandling an imaginary baby on his arm,

saying plaintively, "Piccaninny, piccaninny!" This Nurse translated

to mean that he was an experienced nurse-boy, and had taken care of a

baby in his own country, but as I had no confidence in maladroit Jack,

who chanced to be very deaf besides, he was ruthlessly relegated to

his pots and pans.

It is very curious to see the cast-off clothes of all the armies of

Europe finding their way hither. The natives of South Africa prefer an

old uniform coat or tunic to any other covering, and the effect of a

short scarlet garment when worn with bare legs is irresistibly droll.

The apparently inexhaustible supply of old-fashioned English coatees

with their worsted epaulettes is just coming to an end, and being

succeeded by ragged red tunics, franc-tireurs' brownish-green jackets

and much-worn Prussian gray coats. Kafir-Land may be looked upon as

the old-clothes shop of all the fighting world, for sooner or later

every cast-off scrap of soldier's clothing drifts toward it. Charlie

prides himself much upon the possession of an old gray great-coat, so

patched and faded that it may well have been one of those which toiled

up the slopes of Inkerman that rainy Sunday morning twenty years ago;

whilst scampish Tom got well chaffed the other day for suddenly making

his appearance clad in a stained red tunic with buff collar and cuffs,

and the number of the old "dirty Half-hundred" in tarnished metal on

the shoulder-scales. "Sir Garnet," cried Charlie the witty,

whilst Jack affected to prostrate himself before the grinning imp,

exclaiming, "O great inkosi!"

Charlie is angry with me just now, and looks most reproachfully my way

on all occasions. The cause is that he was sweeping away sundry huge

spiders' webs from the roof of the verandah (the work of a single

night) when I heard him coughing frightfully. I gave him some

lozenges, saying, "Do your cough good, Charlie." Charlie received them

in both hands held like a cup, the highest form of Kafir gratitude,

and gulped them all down on the spot. Next day I heard the same

dreadful cough, and told F---- to give him some more lozenges. But

Charlie would have none of them, alleging he "eats plenty to-morrow's

yesterday, and dey no good at all;" and he evidently despises me and

my remedies.

If only there were no hot winds! But the constant changes are so

trying and so sudden. Sometimes we have a hot, scorching gale all day,

drying and parching one's very skin up, and shriveling one's lovely

roses like the blast from a furnace: then in the afternoon a dark

cloud sails suddenly up from behind the hills to the west. It is over

the house before one knows it is coming: a loud clap of thunder shakes

the very ground beneath one's feet, others follow rapidly, and a

thunderstorm bewilders one for some ten minutes or so. A few drops of

cold rain fall to the sound of the distant thunder, now rolling away

eastward, which yet "struggles and howls at fits." It is not always

distant, but we have not yet seen a real thunderstorm; only a few of

these short, sudden electrical disturbances, which come and go

more like explosions than anything else. A few days ago there was a

duststorm which had a very curious effect as we looked down upon it

from this hill. All along the roads one could watch the dust being

caught up, as it were, and whirled along in dense clouds, whilst the

poor little town itself was absolutely blotted out by the blinding

masses of fine powder. For half an hour or so we could afford to

watch and smile at our neighbors' plight, but soon we had to flee

for shelter ourselves within the house, for a furious hot gale drove

heavily up behind the dust and nearly blew us away altogether. Still,

there was no thunderstorm, though we quite wished for one to cool

the air and refresh the parched and burnt-up grass and flowers. Such

afternoons are generally pretty sure to be succeeded by a cold night,

and perhaps a cold, damp morning; and one can already understand

that these alternations during the summer months are apt to produce

dysentery among young children. I hear just now of a good many such

cases among babies.

I have been so exceedingly busy this month packing, arranging and

settling that there has been but little time for going about and

seeing the rather pretty environs of Maritzburg; besides which, the

weather is dead against excursions, changing as it does to rain or

threatening thunderstorms nearly every afternoon. One evening we

ventured out for a walk in spite of growlings and spittings up above

among the crass-looking clouds. Natal is not a nice country, for women

at all events, to walk in. You have to keep religiously to the road

or track, for woe betide the rash person who ventures on the grass,

though from repeated burnings all about these hills it is quite short.

There is a risk of your treading on a snake, and a certainty of your

treading on a frog. You will soon find your legs covered with small

and pertinacious ticks, who have apparently taken a "header" into your

flesh and made up their minds to die sooner than let go. They must

be the bull-dogs of the insect tribe, these ticks, for a sharp needle

will scarcely dislodge them. At the last extremity of extraction

they only burrow their heads deeper into the skin, and will lose this

important part of their tiny bodies sooner than yield to the gentlest

leverage. Then there are myriads of burs which cling to you in green

and brown scales of roughness, and fringe your petticoats with their

sticky little lumps. As for the poor petticoats themselves, however

short you may kilt them, you bring them back from a walk deeply

flounced with the red clay of the roads; and as the people who wash do

not seem to consider this a disadvantage, and take but little pains to

remove the earth-stains, one's garments gradually acquire, even when

clean, a uniform bordering of dingy red. All the water at this time

of year is red too, as the rivers are stirred up by the heavy summer

rains, and resemble angry muddy ditches more than fresh-water streams.

I miss at every turn the abundance of clear, clean, sparkling water

in the creeks and rivers of my dear New Zealand, and it is only after

heavy rain, when every bath and large vessel has been turned into a

receptacle during the downpour, that one can compass the luxury of

an inviting-looking bath or glass of drinking-water. Of course this

turbid water renders it pretty difficult to get one's clothes properly

washed, and the substitute for a mangle is an active Kafir, who makes

the roughly-dried clothes up into a neat parcel, places them on a

stone and dances up and down upon them for as long or short a time as

he pleases. Fuel is so enormously dear that the cost of having clothes

ironed is something astounding, and altogether washing is one of

the many costly items of Natalian housekeeping. When I remember the

frantic state of indignation and alarm we were all in in England three

years ago when coals rose to £2 10s. a ton, and think how cheap I

should consider that price for fuel here, I can't help a melancholy

smile. Nine solid sovereigns purchase you a tolerable-sized load of

wood, about equal for cooking purposes to a ton of coal; but whereas

the coal is at all events some comfort and convenience to use, the

wood is only a source of additional trouble and expense. It has to be

cut up and dried, and finally coaxed and cajoled by incessant use of

the bellows into burning. Besides the price of fuel, provisions of all

sorts seem to me to be dear and bad. Milk is sold by the quart bottle:

it is now fourpence per bottle, but rises to sixpence during the

winter. Meat is eightpence a pound, but it is so thin and bony, and

of such indifferent quality, that there is very little saving in that

respect. I have not tasted any really good butter since we arrived,

and we pay two shillings a pound for cheesy, rancid stuff. I hear that

"mealies," the crushed maize, are also very dear, and so is forage for

the horses. Instead of the horses being left out on the run night and

day, summer and winter, as they used to be in New Zealand, with an

occasional feed of oats for a treat, they need to be carefully housed

at night and well fed with oaten straw and mealies to give them a

chance against the mysterious and fatal "horse-sickness," which

kills them in a few hours. Altogether, so far as my very limited

experience--of only a few weeks, remember--goes, I should say that

Natal was an expensive place to live in, owing to the scarcity and

dearness of the necessaries of life. I am told that far up in the

country food and fuel are cheap and good, and that it is the dearness

and difficulty of transport which forces Maritzburg to depend for

its supplies entirely on what is grown in its own immediate vicinity,

where there is not very much land under cultivation; so we must look

to the coming railway to remedy all that.

If only one could eat flowers, or if wheat and other cereals grew as

freely and luxuriously as flowers grow, how nice it would be! On the

open grassy downs about here the blossoms are lovely--beautiful lilies

in scarlet and white clusters, several sorts of periwinkles, heaths,

cinnerarias, both purple and white, and golden bushes of citisus or

Cape broom, load the air with fragrance. By the side of every "spruit"

or brook one sees clumps of tall arum lilies filling every little

water-washed hollow in the brook, and the ferns which make each ditch

and water-course green and plumy have a separate shady beauty of their

own. This is all in Nature's own free, open garden, and when the least

cultivation or care is added to her bounteous luxuriance a magnificent

garden for fruit, vegetables and flowers is the result; always

supposing you are fortunate enough to be able to induce these lazy

Kafirs to dig the ground for you.

About a fortnight ago I braved the dirt and disagreeables of a

cross-country walk in showery weather--for we have not been able to

meet with a horse to suit us yet--and went to see a beautiful garden

a couple of miles away. It was approached by a long double avenue of

blue gum trees, planted only nine years ago, but tall and stately as

though a century had passed over their lofty, pointed heads, and with

a broad red clay road running between the parallel lines of trees. The

ordinary practice of clearing away the grass as much as possible round

a house strikes an English eye as bare and odd, but when one hears

that it is done to avoid snakes, it becomes a necessary and harmonious

adjunct to the rest of the scene. In this instance I found these

broad smooth walks, with their deep rich red color, a very

beautiful contrast to the glow of brilliant blossoms in the enormous

flower-beds. For this garden was not at all like an ordinary garden,

still less like a prim English parterre. The beds were as large as

small fields, slightly raised and bordered by a thick line of violets.

Large shrubs of beautiful semitropical plants made tangled heaps of

purple, scarlet and white blossoms on every side; the large creamy

bells of the datura drooped toward the reddish earth; thorny shrubs of

that odd bluish-green peculiar to Australian foliage grew side by side

with the sombre-leaved myrtle. Every plant grew in the most liberal

fashion; green things which we are accustomed to see in England in

small pots shoot up here to the height of laurel bushes; a screen of

scarlet euphorbia made a brilliant line against a background formed by

a hedge of shell-like cluster-roses, and each pillar of the verandah

of the little house had its own magnificent creeper. Up one standard

an ipomea twined closely; another pillar was hidden by the luxuriance

of a trumpet-honeysuckle; whilst a third was thickly covered by an

immense passion-flower. In shady, damp places grew many varieties

of ferns and blue hydrangeas, whilst other beds were filled by gay

patches of verbenas of every hue and shade. The sweet-scented verbena

is one of the commonest and most successful shrubs in a Natal garden,

and just now the large bushes of it which one sees in every direction

are covered by tapering spikes of its tiny white blossoms. But the

feature of this garden was roses--roses on each side whichever way you

turned, and I should think of at least a hundred different sorts.

Not the stiff standard rose tree of an English garden, with its few

precious blossoms, to be looked at from a distance and admired with

respectful gravity. No: in this garden the roses grow as they might

have grown in Eden--untrained, unpruned, in enormous bushes covered

entirely by magnificent blossoms, each bloom of which would have won

a prize at a rose-show. There was one cloth-of-gold rose bush that

I shall never forget--its size, its fragrance, its wealth of

creamy-yellowish blossoms. A few yards off stood a still bigger and

more luxuriant pyramid, some ten feet high, covered with the large,

delicate and regular pink bloom of the souvenir de Malmaison. When I

talk of _a_ bush I only mean one especial bush which caught my eye. I

suppose there were fifty cloth-of-gold and fifty souvenir rose bushes

in that garden. Red roses, white roses, tea roses, blush-roses, moss

roses, and, last not least, the dear old-fashioned, homely cabbage

rose, sweetest and most sturdy of all. You could wander for acres and

acres among fruit trees and plantations of oaks and willows and

other trees, but you never got away from the roses. There they were,

beautiful, delicious things at every turn--hedges of them, screens of

them and giant bushes of them on either hand. As I have said before,

though kept free from weeds by some half dozen scantily-clad but

stalwart Kafirs with their awkward hoes, it was not a bit like a trim

English garden. It was like a garden in which Lalla Rookh might have

wandered by moonlight talking sentimental philosophy with her minstrel

prince under old Fadladeen's chaperonage, or a garden that Boccaccio

might have peopled with his Arcadian fine ladies and gentlemen. It was

emphatically a poet's or a painter's garden, not a gardener's garden.

Then, as though nothing should be wanting to make the scene lovely,

one could hear through the fragrant silence the tinkling of the little

"spruit" or brook at the bottom of the garden, and the sweet song of

the Cape canary, the same sort of greenish finch which is the parent

stock of all our canaries, and whose acquaintance I first made in

Madeira. A very sweet warbler it is, and the clear, flute-like notes

sounded prettily among the roses. From blossom to blossom lovely

butterflies flitted, perching quite fearlessly on the red clay walk

just before me, folding and unfolding their big painted wings. Every

day I see a new kind of butterfly, and the moths which one comes upon

hidden away under the leaves of the creepers during the bright noisy

day are lovely beyond the power of words. One little fellow is a great

pet of mine. He wears pure white wings, with vermilion stripes drawn

in regular horizontal lines across his back, and between the lines are

shorter, broken streaks of black, which is at once neat and uncommon;

but he is always in the last stage of sleepiness when I see him.

I am so glad little G---- is not old enough to want to catch them all

and impale them upon corks in a glass case; so the pretty creatures

live out their brief and happy life in the sunshine, without let or

hinderance from him.

The subject of which my mind is most full just now is the purchase of

a horse. F---- has a fairly good chestnut cob of his own; G----

has become possessed, to his intense delight, of an aged and

long-suffering Basuto pony, whom he fidgets to death during the day

by driving him all over the place, declaring he is "only showing

him where the nicest grass grows;" and I want a steed to draw my

pony-carriage and to carry me. F---- and I are at dagger's drawn on

this question. He wants to buy me a young, handsome, showy horse of

whom his admirers predict that "he will steady down presently," whilst

my affections are firmly fixed on an aged screw who would not turn

his head if an Armstrong gun were fired behind him. His owner says

Scotsman is "rising eleven:" F---- declares Scotsman will never see

his twentieth birthday again. F---- points out to me that Scotsman has

had rough times of it, apparently, in his distant youth, and that he

is strangely battered about the head, and has a large notch out of one

ear. I retaliate by reminding him how sagely the old horse picked his

way, with a precision of judgment which only years can give, through

the morass which lies at the foot of the hill, and which must be

crossed every time I go into town (and there is nowhere else to go).

That morass is a bog in summer and a honey-comb of deep ruts and

holes in winter, which, you must bear in mind, is the dry season here.

Besides his tact in the matter of the morass, did I not drive Scotsman

the other day to the park, and did he not comport himself in the

most delightfully sedate fashion? You require experience to be on the

lookout for the perils of Maritzburg streets, it seems, for all

their sleepy, deserted, tumble-down air. First of all, there are the

transport-wagons, with their long span of oxen straggling all across

the road, and a nervous bullock precipitating himself under your

horse's nose. The driver, too, invariably takes the opportunity of a

lady passing him to crack his whip violently, enough to startle any

horse except Scotsman. Then when you have passed the place where the

wagons most do congregate, and think you are tolerably safe and

need only look out for ruts and holes in the street, lo! a furious

galloping behind you, and some half dozen of the "gilded youth" of

Maritzburg dash past you, stop, wheel round and gallop past again,

until you are almost blinded with dust or smothered with mud,

according to the season. This peril occurred several times during

my drive to and from the park, and I can only remark that dear old

Scotsman kept his temper better than I did: perhaps he was more

accustomed to Maritzburg manners.

When the park was reached at last, across a frail and uncertain wooden

bridge shaded by large weeping willows, I found it the most

creditable thing I had yet seen. It is admirably laid out, the natural

undulations of the ground being made the most of, and exceedingly well

kept. This in itself is a difficult matter where all vegetation runs

up like Jack's famous beanstalk, and where the old proverb about the

steed starving whilst his grass is growing falls completely to the

ground. There are numerous drives, made level by a coating of smooth

black shale, and bordered by a double line of syringas and oaks,

with hedges of myrtle or pomegranate. In some places the roads run

alongside the little river--a very muddy torrent when I saw it--and

then the oaks give way to great drooping willows, beneath whose

trailing branches the river swirled angrily. On fine Saturday

afternoons the band of the regiment stationed here plays on a clear

space under some shady trees--for you can never sit or stand on the

grass in Natal, and even croquet is played on bare leveled earth--and

everybody rides or walks or drives about. When I saw the park there

was not a living creature in it, for it was, as most of our summer

afternoons are, wet and cold and drizzling; but, considering that

there was no thunderstorm likely to break over our heads that day, I

felt that I could afford to despise a silent Scotch mist. We varied

our afternoon weather last week by a hailstorm, of which the stones

were as big as large marbles. I was scoffed at for remarking this, and

assured it was "nothing, absolutely nothing," to _the_ great hailstorm

of two years ago, which broke nearly every tile and pane of glass in

Maritzburg, and left the town looking precisely as though it had been

bombarded. I have seen photographs of some of the ruined houses, and

it is certainly difficult to believe that hail could have done so much

mischief. Then, again, stories reach me of a certain thunderstorm one

Sunday evening just before I arrived in which the lightning struck a

room in which a family was assembled at evening prayers, killing the

poor old father with the Bible in his hand, and knocking over every

member of the little congregation. My informant said, "I assure you

it seemed as though the lightning were poured out of heaven in a jug.

There were no distinct flashes: the heavens appeared to split open and

pour down a flood of blazing violet light." I have seen nothing like

this yet, but can quite realize what such a storm must be like, for I

have observed already how different the color of the lightning is. The

flashes I have seen were exactly of the lilac color he described, and

they followed each other with a rapidity of succession unknown in

less electric regions. And yet my last English letters were full of

complaints of the wet weather in London, and much self-pity for the

long imprisonment in-doors. Why, those very people don't know what

weather inconveniences are. If London streets are muddy, at all events

there are no dangerous morasses in them. No matter how much it rains,

people get their comfortable meals three times a day. _Here_, rain

means a risk of starvation (if the little wooden bridge between us and

the town were to be swept away) and a certainty of short commons.

A wet morning means damp bread for breakfast and a thousand other

disagreeables. No, I have no patience with the pampered Londoners,

who want perpetual sunshine in addition to their other blessings, for

saying one word about discomfort. They are all much too civilized and

luxurious, and their lives are made altogether too smooth for them.

Let them come out here and try to keep house on the top of a hill

with servants whose language they don't understand, a couple of

noisy children and a small income, and then, as dear Mark Twain says,

"they'll know something about woe."

DINNER IN A STATE PRISON.

An invitation to take dinner with a friend in the State's prison

was something new and exciting to a quiet little body like me, and I

re-read Ruth Denham's kindly-worded note to that effect, and thought

how odd it was that we should meet again in this way after ten years'

separation and all the changes that had intervened in both our lives.

We had parted last on the night of our grand closing-school party,

after having been friends and fellow-pupils for five years. She was

then fifteen, and the prettiest, brightest and cleverest girl at

Lynnhope. I was younger, and felt distinguished by her friendship, and

heart-broken at the idea of losing her, for she was going abroad with

her family, while I remained to complete my studies at the institute.

I had plenty of letters the first year, but then her father died, and

with him went his reputed fortune. A painful change occurred in the

position of the Welfords in consequence, and Ruth became a teacher, as

I heard, until she met and married a young man from the West, whither

she returned with him immediately after the ceremony. She had written

to me once after becoming Ruth Denham, and her letter was kind and

cordial as her old self, but the correspondence thus renewed soon

ceased. I was also an orphan, but a close attendant at the couch of

my invalid aunt; and Ruth's new strange life was too crowded with

pressing duties to permit her to write regularly to her girlhood's

companion, whom she had not seen for years. My aunt had now recovered

so far as to indulge a taste for travel. We were on our way by the

great railroad to the Pacific coast, and we stopped at the small

capital of one of the newest States to discover that Ruth Denham was

a resident there, the wife of the lieutenant-governor, who was

consequently the warden of the State prison. The note I held in my

hand was in answer to one I had despatched to her an hour before

by the hands of a Chinaman from the hotel, and it was as glad and

affectionate as I could wish:

"My husband is quite ill with sciatica, which completely

lames him, as well as causing him intense pain. I am his only

attendant, or I would fly to you at once, my dearest Jenny. I

am so sorry you leave by the midnight train for San Francisco

to-morrow, but must be content to see you as much of the

day as you can spare us, and hope for a longer visit on your

return. We dine at four: may I not send the carriage for you

as early as two o'clock?

"Your loving friend,

"RUTH DENHAM."

I had my aunt's permission to leave her, and was ready at the

appointed hour to find the carriage there to the minute; and a very

comfortable, easy conveyance it proved over one of the worst roads I

ever traveled on.

The prison was about a mile from the outskirts of the straggling town,

which boasted two or three fine State buildings, in strong contrast

with its scattering and mostly mean and shambling dwellings. Some

hot springs had been discovered near the site, and over them had been

erected a wooden hotel and baths of the simplest order of architecture

and on the barest possible plan of ornament or comfort. Just beyond

this edifice was the prison, situated at the rise of one hill and

under the shadow of another and more considerable one. It was built of

a softish, light-colored stone dug from a neighboring quarry, as the

driver told me, and looking even at a cursory glance too destructible

and crumbling to secure such desperate and determined inmates.

"They used to keep 'em in a sort o' wooden shed," said my driver,

alluding to the prisoners, "until they got this shebang fixed up.

Pretty smart lot of chaps they were, for they built it themselves

mostly, and made good time on it, too."

It was surrounded by a high wooden fence, within which a stone wall of

the same material as the building was in course of construction.

"If it wasn't Sunday," said my companion as we drove through the

guarded gate, "you could see 'em at work, for they're putting up their

defences, and doing it first-rate, too."

I had only time for a glance at the inside of the enclosure. We were

already at the principal entrance, which was a wide door opening into

a hall, with a staircase leading up to the second floor. On the right

hand was a strongly-grated iron door opening into the main corridor

between the cells: the other side seemed to be devoted to offices and

quarters for the guards. I saw knots of men about, but only the two

at the entrance appeared to be armed, and they had that lounging, easy

air, that belongs to security and the absence of thought. It was in

every respect opposite to my preconceived idea of a penitentiary, and

all recollection of its first design fled when I saw Ruth's cheery

face, bright and handsome as ever, beaming on me from the first

landing, and felt her warm, firm arms clasping me in an embrace of

affectionate welcome. It was my friend's home, and nothing else, from

that moment, and a very pretty, daintily-ordered home it was. She had

five rooms on the second floor, with a kitchen below: this was her

parlor in front, a bright, well-furnished room, tastefully ornamented

with pictures, some of which I recognized as her own paintings in our

school-days; and here was her dining-room to the left, with a small

guest-chamber that she hoped I would occupy when I returned. The other

rooms on the west of the parlor were hers and Nellie's--Oh, I had not

seen Nellie, her five-year-old, nor her dear husband, who was so much

better to-day, though he could not rise without difficulty; and would

I therefore come and see him?

As Ruth gave me thus a passing glance at her household arrangements,

I saw through the open door of an apartment back of the dining-room a

light shower of plaster fall to the ground, marking the oilcloth that

covered the floor, and for one instant sending out into the hall a

puff of whitish dust.

"Oh, that is one of the effects of our terribly dry climate," said

Ruth, following my glance and noticing the dust: "every little while

portions of our walls crumble and fall in like that. There is no

doubt a sad litter in Mr. Foster the clerk's room, where that shower

occurred: he has gone to the city for the day, however, and it can be

cleared before his return. Here is my husband, Jenny."

In a recess by the parlor window, on a lounge, Mr. Denham was trying

to disguise the necessity for keeping his tortured limb extended by an

appearance of smiling ease. He was a handsome, frank-faced man, with

a firm, fearless eye and a gentle, kindly mouth, and I could readily

understand my friend's look of sweet content when I saw him and her

child Nellie, who was hanging over her papa with the fond protecting

air of a precocious nurse. I sat down quickly beside them to prevent

my host's attempting to rise, and the hour that elapsed before dinner

flew by in interesting conversation.

"I am so sorry I had to go for a little while," said Ruth, returning

to announce that meal, "but my good Wang-Ho is sick to-day, and I had

to help him a little."

"Where is Lester, Ruth?" asked her husband.

"Oh, he is kind and helpful as ever, but he does not understand making

dessert, you know, Edward."

"That's true, and Miss Jane will excuse you, I am sure, for she and

I have been reviewing the principal features of pioneer-life, and she

professes herself rather in love with it than otherwise."

"It is all so fresh and enjoyable, despite its discomforts and

inconveniences," I said; "and need I quote a stronger argument in its

favor than yourself, my dear Ruth? You seem perfectly happy, and I

really cannot see why you should not be so."

She had her golden-haired little girl in one arm, and she laid the

other hand caressingly on her husband's shoulder, "There is none:

I _am_ happy," she said in a low, earnest tone; and then added

laughingly, "or I shall be as soon as Edward gets well of sciatica and

Wang-Ho recovers from his chills."

Mr. Denham begged us to go before him, and his wife led the way to the

dining-room.

"Poor fellow!" she whispered, "he suffers horribly when he moves, and

I tried to persuade him to have his dinner sent into the parlor, but

in honor of your presence he will come, and he doesn't want us to see

him wince and writhe under the effort."