At Healdtown I found something less than 50 resident Kafir boys and

young men, six of whom were in training as students for the Wesleyan

Ministry. Thirteen Kafir girls were being trained as teachers, and two

hundred day scholars attended from the native huts in the

neighbourhood,--one of whom took her place on the school benches with

her own little baby on her back. She did not seem to be in the least

inconvenienced by the appendage. I was not lucky in my hours at

Healdtown as I arrived late in the evening, and the tuition did not

begin till half-past nine in the morning, at which time I was obliged to

leave the place. But I had three opportunities of hearing the whole

Kafir establishment sing their hymns. The singing of hymns is a

thoroughly Kafir accomplishment and the Kafir words are soft and

melodious. Hymns are very good, and the singing of hymns, if it be well

done, is gratifying. But I remember feeling in the West Indies that they

who devoted their lives to the instruction of the young negroes thought

too much of this pleasant and easy religious exercise, and were hardly

enough alive to the expediency of connecting conduct with religion. The

black singers of Healdtown were, I was assured, a very moral and

orderly set of people; and if so the hymns will not do them any harm.

For the erudition of such of my readers as have not hitherto made

themselves acquainted with the religious literature of Kafirland I here

give the words of a hymn which I think to be peculiarly mellifluous in

its sounds. I will not annex a translation, as I cannot myself venture

upon versifying it, and a prose version would sound bald and almost

irreverent. I will merely say that it is in praise of the Redeemer,

which name is signified by the oft-repeated word Umkululi.

ICULO 38.

_Elamashumi matatu anesibozo._

Ungu-Tixo Umkululi,

Wenza into zonke;

Ungu-Tixo Umkululi,

Ungopezu konke.

Waba ngumntu Umkululi,

Ngezizono zetu;

Waba ngumntu Umkululi,

Wafa ngenxa yetu.

Unosizi Umkululi

Ngabasetyaleni;

Unosizi Umkululi

Ngabasekufeni.

Unxamile Umkululi

Ukusiguqula;

Unxamile Umkululi

Ukusikulula.

Unamandla Umkululi

Ukusisindisa;

Unamandla Umkululi

Ukusonwabisa.

Unotando Umkululi,

Unofefe kuti;

Unotando Umkululi,

Masimfune futi.

If the lover of sweet sounds will read the lines aloud, merely adding a

half pronounced U at the beginning of those words which are commenced

with an otherwise unpronounceable ng, so as to make a semi-elided

syllable, I think he will understand the nature of the sweetness of

sound which Kafirs produce in their singing. When he finds that nearly

all the lines and more than half the words begin with the same letter he

will of course be aware that their singing is monotonous.

I was glad to find that the Kafir-scholars at Healdtown among them paid

£200 per annum towards the expense of the Institution. The Government

grants £700, and the other moiety of the total cost--which amounts to

£1,800,--is defrayed by the Wesleyan missionary establishment at home.

As the Kafir contribution is altogether voluntary, such payment shews an

anxiety on the part of the parents that their children should be

educated. As far as I remember nothing was done at Healdtown to teach

the children any trade. It is altogether a Wesleyan missionary

establishment, combining a general school in which religious education

is perhaps kept uppermost, with a training college for native teachers

and ministers. I cannot doubt but that its effect is salutary. It has

been built on a sweet healthy spot up among the hills, and nothing is

more certain than the sincerity and true philanthropy of those who are

engaged upon its work.

My friend who had carried me off from Fort Beaufort kept his word like a

true man the next morning, in allowing me to start at the time named,

and himself drove me over a high mountain to Lovedale. How we ever got

up and down those hill sides with a pair of horses and a vehicle, I

cannot even yet imagine;--but it was done. There was a way round, but

the minister seemed to think that a straight line to any place or any

object must be the best way, and over the mountain we went. Some other

Wesleyan minister before his days, he said, had done it constantly and

had never thought anything about it. The horses did go up and did go

down; which was only additional evidence to me that things of this kind

are done in the Colonies which would not be attempted in England.

On my going down the hill towards Lovedale, when we had got well out of

the Healdtown district, an argument arose between me and my companion as

to the general effect of education on Kafir life. He was of opinion that

the Kafirs in that locality were really educated, whereas I was quite

willing to elicit from him the sparks of his enthusiasm by suggesting

that all their learning faded is soon as they left school. “Drive up to

that hut,” I said, picking out the best looking in the village, “and let

us see whether there be pens, ink and paper in it.” It was hardly a fair

test, because such accommodation would not be found in the cottage of

many educated Englishmen. But again, on the other side, in my desire to

be fair I had selected something better than a normal hut. We got out of

our vehicle, undid the latch of the door,--which was something half way

between a Christian doorway and the ordinary low hole through which the

ordinary Kafir creeps in and out,--and found the habitation without its

owners. But an old woman in the kraal had seen us, and had hurried

across to exercise hospitality on behalf of her absent neighbours. Our

desire was explained to her and she at once found pens and ink. With the

pens and ink there was probably paper, on which she was unable to lay

her hand. I took up, however, an old ragged quarto edition of St. Paul’s

epistles,--with very long notes. The test as far as it was carried

certainly supported my friend’s view.

Lovedale is a place which has had and is having very great success. It

has been established under Presbyterian auspices but is in truth

altogether undenominational in the tuition which it gives. I do not say

that religion is neglected, but religious teaching does not strike the

visitors as the one great object of the Institution. The schools are

conducted very much like English schools,--with this exception, that no

classes are held after the one o’clock dinner. The Kafir mind has by

that time received as much as it can digest. There are various masters

for the different classes, some classical, some mathematical, and some

devoted to English literature. When I was there there were eight

teachers, independent of Mr. Buchanan who was the acting Head or

President of the whole Institution. Dr. Stewart, who is the permanent

Head, was absent in central Africa. At Lovedale, both with the boys and

girls black and white are mixed when in school without any respect of

colour. At one o’clock I dined in hall with the establishment, and then

the coloured boys sat below the Europeans. This is justified on the plea

that the Europeans pay more than the Kafirs and are entitled to a more

generous fare,--which is true. The European boys would not come were

they called upon to eat the coarser food which suffices for the Kafirs.

But in truth neither would the Europeans frequent the schools if they

were required to eat at the same table with the natives. That feeling as

to eating and drinking is the same in British Kafraria as it was with

Shylock in Venice. The European domestic servant will always refuse to

eat with the Kafir servant. Sitting at the high table,--that is the

table with the bigger of the European boys, I had a very good dinner.

At Lovedale there are altogether nearly 400 scholars, of whom about 70

are European. Of this number about 300 live on the premises and are what

we call boarders. The others are European day scholars from the adjacent

town of Alice who have gradually joined the establishment because the

education is much better than anything else that can be had in the

neighbourhood. There are among the boarders thirty European boys. The

European girls were all day scholars from the neighbourhood. The

coloured boarders pay £6 per annum, for which everything is supplied to

them in the way of food and education. The lads are expected to supply

themselves with mattresses, pillows, sheets, and towels. I was taken

through the dormitories, and the beds are neat enough with their rug

coverings. I did not like to search further by displacing them. The

white boarders pay £40 per annum. The Kafir day scholars pay but 30s.,

and the European day scholars 60s. per annum. In this way £2,650 is

collected. Added to this is an allowance of £2,000 per annum from the

Government. These two sources comprise the certain income of the school,

but the Institution owns and farms a large tract of land. It has 3,000

acres, of which 400 are cultivated, and the remainder stocked with

sheep. Lovedale at present owns a flock numbering 2,000. The native lads

are called upon to work two hours each afternoon. They cut dams and make

roads, and take care of the garden. Added to the school are workshops in

which young Kafirs are apprenticed. The carpenters’ department is by far

the most popular, and certainly the most useful. Here they make much of

the furniture used upon the place, and repair the breakages. The

waggon makers come next to the carpenters in number; and then,

at a long interval, the blacksmiths. Two other trades are also

represented,--printing namely, and bookbinding. There were in all 27

carpenters with four furniture makers, 16 waggon makers, 8 blacksmiths,

5 printers, and 2 book-binders;--all of whom seemed to be making

efficient way in their trades.

This direction of practical work seems to be the best which such an

Institution can take. I asked what became of these apprentices and was

told that many among them established themselves in their own country as

master tradesmen in a small way, and could make a good living among

their Kafir neighbours. But I was told also that they could not often

find employment in the workshops of the country unless the employers

used nothing but Kafir labour. The white man will not work along with

the Kafir on equal terms. When he is placed with Kafirs he expects to be

“boss,” or master, and gradually learns to think that it is his duty to

look on and superintend, while it is the Kafir’s duty to work under his

dictation. The white bricklayer may continue to lay his bricks while

they are carried for him by a black hodsman, but he will not lay a brick

at one end of the wall while a Kafir is laying an equal brick at the

other.

But in this matter of trades the skill when once acquired will of course

make itself available to the general comfort and improvement of the

Kafir world around. I was at first inclined to doubt the wisdom of the

printing and bookbinding, as being premature; but the numbers engaged in

these exceptional trades are not greater perhaps than Lovedale itself

can use. I do not imagine that a Kafir printing press will for many

years be set up by Kafir capital and conducted by Kafir enterprise. It

will come probably, but the Kafir tables and chairs and the Kafir

waggons should come first. At present there is a “Lovedale News,”

published about twice a month. “It is issued,” says the Lovedale printed

Report, “for circulation at Lovedale and chiefly about Lovedale matters.

The design of this publication was to create a taste for reading among

the native pupils.” It has been carried on through twelve numbers, says

the report, “with a fair prospect of success and rather more than a fair

share of difficulties.” The difficulties I can well imagine, which

generally amount to this in the establishment of a newspaper,--that the

ambitious attempt so often costs more than it produces. Mr. Theal is one

of the masters of Lovedale, and his History of South Africa was here

printed;--but not perhaps with so good a pecuniary result as if it had

been printed elsewhere. I was told by the European foreman in the

printing establishment that the Kafirs learned the art of composition

very readily, but that they could not be got to pull off the sheets

fairly and straightly. As to the bookbinding, I am in possession of one

specimen which is fair enough. The work is in two volumes and it was

given to me at Capetown;--but unfortunately the two volumes are of

different colours.

In the younger classes among the scholars the Kafirs were very

efficient. None of them, I think, had reached the dignity of Greek or

Natural Philosophy, but some few had ascended to algebra and geometry.

When I asked what became of all this in after life there was a doubt.

Even at Lovedale it was acknowledged that after a time it “fell

off,”--or in other words that much that was taught was afterwards lost.

Out in the world, as I have said before, among the Europeans who regard

the Kafir simply as a Savage to whom pigeon-English has to be talked, it

is asserted broadly that all this education leads to no good

results,--that the Kafir who has sung hymns and learned to do sums is a

savage to whose natural and native savagery additional iniquities have

been added by the ingenuity of the white philanthropist. To this opinion

I will not accede. That such a place as Lovedale should do evil rather

than good is to my thinking impossible.

To see a lot of Kafir lads and lasses at school is of course more

interesting than to inspect a seminary of white pupils. It is something

as though one should visit a lion tamer with a group of young lions

around him. The Kafir has been regarded at home as a bitter and almost

terrible enemy who, since we first became acquainted with him in South

Africa, has worked us infinite woe. I remember when a Kafir was regarded

as a dusky demon and there was a doubt whether he could ever be got

under and made subject to British rule;--whether in fact he would not in

the long run be too much for the Britons. The Kafir warrior with his

assegai and his red clay, and his courageous hatred, was a terrible

fellow to see. And he is still much more of a Savage than the ordinary

negro to whom we have become accustomed in other parts of the world. It

was very interesting to see him with a slate and pencil, wearing his

coarse clothing with a jaunty happy air, and doing a sum in subtraction.

I do not know whether an appearance of good humour and self-satisfaction

combined does not strike the European more than any other Kafir

characteristic. He never seems to assert that he is as good as a white

man,--as the usual negro will do whenever the opportunity is given to

him,--but that though he be inferior there is no reason why he should

not be as jolly as circumstances will admit. The Kafir girl is the same

when seen in the schools. Her aspect no doubt will be much altered for

the worse when she follows the steps of her Kafir husband as his wife

and slave. But at Lovedale she is comparatively smart, and gay-looking.

Many of these pupils while still at school reach the age at which young

people fall in love with each other. I was told that the young men and

young women were kept strictly apart; but nevertheless, marriages

between them on their leaving school are not uncommon,--nor unpopular

with the authorities. It is probable that a young man who has been some

years at Lovedale will treat his wife with something of Christian

forbearance.

I find from the printed report of the seminary that the four following

young ladies got the prizes in 1877 at Lovedale for the different

virtues appended to their names. I insert the short list here not only

that due honour may be given to the ladies themselves, but also that my

readers may see something of Kafir female nomenclature.

GIRLS.

GENERAL PRIZES.

_Bible._ _Good Conduct._

Victoria Kwankwa. Ntame Magazi.

_Tidiness in Dress._ _For best kept room._

Ntombenthle Njikelana. Sarah Ann Bobi.

Sarah Ann Bobi.

Miss Kwankwa and Miss Bobi had I suppose Christian names given to them

early in life. The other two are in possession of thoroughly Kafir

appellations,--especially the young lady who has excelled in tidiness,

and who no doubt will have become a bride before these lines are read in

England.

I was taken out from King Williamstown to Peeltown to see another

educational Kafir establishment. At Peeltown the Rev. Mr. Birt presides

over a large Kafir congregation, and has an excellent church capable of

holding 500, which has been built almost exclusively by Kafir

contributions. The boys’ school was empty, but I was taken to see the

girls who lived together under the charge of an English lady. I wished

that I might have been introduced to the presence of the girls at once,

so as to find how they occupied themselves when not in school. But this

was not to be. I was kept waiting for a few moments, and then was

ushered into a room where I found about twenty of them sitting in a row

hemming linen. They were silent, well behaved and very demure while I

saw them,--and then before I left they sang a hymn.

If I had an Institution of my own to exhibit I feel sure that I should

want to put my best foot forward,--and the best foot among Kafir female

pupils is perhaps the singing of hymns and the hemming of linen.

CHAPTER III.

CONDITION OF THE CAPE COLONY.

Later on in my journey, when I was returning to Capetown, I came back

through some of the towns I have mentioned in the last chapter or two,

and also through other places belonging to the Western Province. On that

occasion I took my place by coach from Bloemfontein, the capital of the

little Orange Free State or Republic to Port Elizabeth,--or to the

railway station between Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth,--and in this way

passed through the Stormberg and Catberg mountains. Any traveller

visiting South Africa with an eye to scenery should see these passes.

For the mere sake of scenery no traveller does as yet visit South

Africa, and therefore but little is thought about it. I was, however,

specially cautioned by all who gave me advice on the subject, not to

omit the Catberg in my journey. I may add also that this route from the

Diamond Fields to Capetown is by far the easiest, and for those

travelling by public conveyances is the only one that is certain as to

time and not so wearisome as to cause excruciating torment. When

travelling with a friend in our own conveyance I had enjoyed our

independence,--especially our breakfasts in the veld; but I had become

weary of sick and dying horses, and of surrounding myself with horse

provender. I was therefore glad to be able to throw all the

responsibility of the road on to the shoulders of the proprietor of the

coach, especially when I found that I was not to be called on to travel

by night. A mail cart runs through from the Diamond Fields to Capetown,

three times a week;--but it goes day and night and has no provision for

meals. The journey so made is frightful, and is fit only for a very

young man who is altogether regardless of his life. There is also a

decent waggon;--but it runs only occasionally. Families, to whom time is

not a great object, make the journey with ox-waggons, travelling perhaps

24 miles a day, sleeping in their waggons and carrying with them all

that they want. Ladies who have tried it have told me that they did not

look back upon the time so spent as the happiest moments of their

existence. The coach was tiresome enough, taking seven days from the

Diamond Fields to Port Elizabeth. Between Bloemfontein and Grahamstown,

a trip of five days, it travels about fourteen hours a day. But at night

there was always ten hours for supper and rest, and the accommodation on

the whole was good. The beds were clean and the people along the road

always civil. I was greatly taken with one little dinner which was given

to us in the middle of the day at a small pretty Inn under the Catberg

Mountain. The landlord, an old man, was peculiarly courteous, opening

our soda water for us and handing us the brandy bottle with a grace that

was all his own. Then he joined us on the coach and travelled along the

road with us, and it turned out that he had been a member of the old

Capetown Parliament, and had been very hot in debate in the time of the

Kafir wars. He became equally hot in debate now, declaring to us that

everything was going to the dogs because the Kafirs were not made to

work. I liked his politics less than his leg of mutton,--which had been

excellent. The drive through the Stormberg is very fine;--but the

mountains are without timber or water. It is the bleak wildness of the

place which gives it its sublimity. Between the Stormberg and the

Catberg lies Queenstown,--a picturesque little town with two or three

hotels. The one at which the coach stopped was very good. It was a

marvel to me that the Inns should be so good, as the traffic is small.

We sat down to a table d’hôte dinner, at which the host with all his

family joined us, that would have done credit to a first class Swiss

hotel. I don’t know that a Swiss hotel could produce such a turkey. When

the landlord told his youngest child, who had modestly asked for boiled

beef, that she might have turkey in spite of the number at table, I

don’t know whether I admired most, the kind father, the abstemious

daughter, or the capacious turkey.

I think that South Africa generally is prouder of the road over the

Catberg than of any other detail among its grand scenery. I had been

told so often that whatever I did I must go over the Catberg! I did go

over the Catberg, walking up the bleak side from the North, and

travelling down in the coach, or Cape cart which we had got there, among

the wooded ravines to the South. It certainly is very fine,--but not

nearly so grand in my opinion as Montague Pass or Southey’s Pass in the

Western Province. From the foot of the Catberg we ran into Fort

Beaufort, to which town I carried my reader in a previous chapter. It

was over this road that I had poured into my ears the political harangue

of that late member of the Legislature. He belonged to a school of

politicians which is common in South Africa, but which became very

distasteful to me. The professors of it are to be found chiefly in the

Eastern Province of the Cape Colony, in which I was then travelling,

though the West is by no means without them. Their grand doctrine is

that the Kafirs should be “ruled with a rod of iron.” That phrase of the

rod of iron had become odious to me before I left the country.

“Thieves!” such a professor will say. “They are all thieves. Their only

idea is to steal cattle.” Such an one never can be made to understand

that as we who are not Savages have taken the land, it is hardly

unnatural that men who are Savages should think themselves entitled to

help themselves to the cattle we have put on the land we have taken from

them. The stealing of cattle must of course be stopped, and there are

laws for the purpose; but this appealing to a “rod of iron” because men

do just that which is to be expected from men so placed was always

received by me as an ebullition of impotent and useless anger. A farmer

who has cattle in a Kafir country, on land which has perhaps cost him

10s. or 5s., or perhaps nothing, an acre for the freehold of it, can

hardly expect the same security which a tenant enjoys in England, who

pays probably 20s. an acre for the mere use of his land.

As I have now finished the account of my travels in the two Provinces

and am about to go on to Natal, I will say a few words first as to the

produce of the Cape Colony.

In the Cape Colony, as in Australia, wool has been for many years the

staple of the country;--and, as in Australia the importance or seeming

importance of the staple produce has been cast into the shade by the

great wealth of the gold which has been found there, so in South Africa

has the same been done by the finding of diamonds. Up to the present

time, however, the diamond district has not in truth belonged to the

Cape Colony. Soon after these pages will have been printed it will

probably be annexed. But the actual political possession of the land in

which the diamonds or gold have been found has had little to do with the

wealth which has flowed into the different Colonies from the finding of

the treasures. That in each case has come from the greatly increased

consumption created by the finders. Men finding gold and diamonds eat

and drink a great deal. The persons who sell such articles are

enriched,--and the articles are subject to taxation, and so a public

revenue is raised. It is hence that the wealth comes rather than from

the gold and diamonds themselves. Had it been possible that the

possession of the land round the Kimberley mines should have been left

in the hands of the native tribes, there would have been but little

difference in the money result. The flour, the meat, the brandy, and the

imported coats and boots would still have been carried up to Kimberley

from the Cape Colony.

But of the Colony itself wool has been the staple,--and among its

produce the next most interesting are its wheat, its vines, and its

ostriches. In regard to wool I find that the number of wooled sheep in

the Cape Colony has considerably increased during the last ten years. I

say wooled sheep, because there is a kind of sheep in the Colony, native

to the land, which bear no wool and are known by their fat tails and lob

ears. As they produce only mutton I take no reckoning of them here. In

1875 there were 9,986,240 wooled sheep in the Colony producing

28,316,181 pounds of wool, whereas in 1865 there were only 8,370,179

sheep giving 18,905,936 pounds of wool. This increase in ten years would

seem to imply a fair progress,--especially as it applies not only to the

number of sheep in the Colony, but also to the amount of wool given by

each sheep; but I regret to say that during the latter part of that

period of ten years there has been a very manifest falling off. I cannot

give the figures as to the Cape Colony itself, as I have done with the

numbers for 1865 and 1875;--but from the ports of the Cape Colony there

were exported--

In 1871, 46,279,639 pounds of wool, value £2,191,233

In 1872, 48,822,562 ” ” £3,275,150

In 1873, 40,393,746 ” ” £2,710,481

In 1874, 42,620,481 ” ” £2,948,571

In 1875, 40,339,674 ” ” £2,855,899

In 1876, 34,861,339 ” ” £2,278,942

These figures not only fail to shew that ratio of increase without which

a colonial trade cannot be said to be in a healthy condition; but they

exhibit also a very great decrease,--the falling off in the value of

wool from 1872 to 1876 being no less than £1,048,208, or nearly a third

of the whole. They whom I have asked as to the reason of this, have

generally said that it is due to the very remunerative nature of the

trade in ostrich feathers, and have intimated that farmers have gone out

of wool in order that they might go into feathers. To find how far this

may be a valid excuse we must enquire what has been the result of

ostrich farming during the period. What was the export of ostrich

feathers for each of the ten executive years, I have no means of saying.

In 1865 there were but 80 tame ostriches kept by farmers in the Colony,

though no doubt a large amount of feathers from wild ostriches was

exported. In 1875, 21,751 ostriches were kept, and the total value of

feathers exported was £306,867, the whole amount coming from ostriches

thus being less by £700,000 than the falling off in the wool. Had the

Colony been really progressing, a new trade might well have been

developed to the amount above stated without any falling off in the

staple produce of the country. The most interesting circumstance in

reference to the wool and sheep of the country is the fact that the

Kafirs own 1,109,346 sheep, and that they produced in 1875 2,249,000

pounds of wool.

It is certainly the case that the wools of the Cape Colony are very

inferior to those of Australia. I find from the Prices Current as

published by a large woolbroker in London for the year 1877, that the

average prices through the year realized by what is called medium washed

wool were for Australian wools,--taking all the Australian Colonies

together,--something over 1s. 6d. a pound, whereas the average price for

the same class of wool from the Cape Colony was only something over 1s.

1d. a pound. There has been a difference of quite 5d. a pound; or about

40 per cent. in favour of the Australian article. “There is no doubt,”

says my friend who furnished me with this information, “that valuable

and useful as are Cape wools they are altogether distanced by the fine

Australian. Breeding has to do with this. So has climate and country.”

For what is called Superior washed wool, the Victorian prices are fully

a shilling a pound higher than those obtained by the growers of the

Cape, the average prices for the best of the class being 2s. 6d. for

Victorian, and 1s. 6d. a pound for Cape Colony wool.

Perhaps the fairest standard by which to test the prosperity of a new

country is its capability of producing corn,--especially wheat. It is by

its richness in this respect that the United States have risen so high

in the world. Australia has not prospered so quickly, and will never

probably prosper so greatly, because on a large portion of her soil

wheat has not been grown profitably. The first great question is whether

a young country can feed herself with bread. The Cape Colony has

obtained a great reputation for its wheat, and does I believe produce

flour which is not to be beaten anywhere on the earth. But she is not

able to feed herself. In 1875, she imported wheat and flour to the

value, including the duty charged on it, of £126,654. In reaching this

amount I have deducted £2,800 the value of a small amount which was

exported. This is more than 10s. per annum for each white inhabitant of

the country, the total white population being 236,783. The deficiency is

not very large; but in a Colony the climate of which is in so many

respects adapted to wheat there should be no deficiency. The truth is

that it is altogether a question of artificial irrigation. If the waters

from the mountains can be stored and utilized, the Cape will run over

with wheat.

I find that in the whole Colony there were in 1875 about 80,000,000

acres of land in private hands;--that being the amount of land which has

been partly or wholly alienated by Government. I give the number of

acres in approximate figures because in the official return it is stated

in morgen. The morgen is a Dutch measure of land and comprises a very

little more, but still little more than two acres. Out of this large

area only 550,000 acres or less than 1-14th are cultivated. It is

interesting to know that more than a quarter of this, or 150,000 acres

are in the hands of the native races and are cultivated by

them;--cultivated by them as owners and not as servants. In 1875 there

were 28,416 ploughs in the Cape Colony and of these 9,179, nearly a

third, belonged to the Kafirs or Hottentots.

In 1855 there were 55,300,025 vines in the Colony, and in 1875 this

number had increased to 69,910,215. The increase in the production of

wine was about in the same proportion. The increase in the distilling of

brandy was more than proportionate. The wine had risen from 3,237,428

gallons to 4,485,665, and the brandy from 430,955 to 1,067,832 gallons.

I was surprised to find how very small was the exportation of brandy,

the total amount sent away, and noted by the Custom House as exported

being 2,910 gallons. No doubt a comparatively large quantity is sent to

the other districts of South Africa by inland carriage, so that the

Custom House knows nothing about it. But the bulk of this enormous

increase in brandy has been consumed in the Colony, and must therefore

have had its evil as well as its good results. Of the brandy exported by

sea by far the greatest part is consumed in South Africa, the Portuguese

at Delagoa Bay taking nearly half. Great Britain, a country which is

fond of brandy, imports only 695 gallons from her own brandy-making

Colony. As the Cape brandy is undoubtedly made from grapes, and as the

preference for grape-made brandy is equally certain, the fact I fear

tells badly for the Cape manufacture. It cannot be but that they might

make their brandy better. Of wine made in the Colony 60,973 gallons were

exported in 1875, or less than 1-7th of the amount produced. This is a

very poor result, seeing that the Cape Colony is particularly productive

in grapes and seems to indicate that the makers of wine have as yet been

hardly more successful in their manufacture, than the makers of brandy.

Much no doubt is due to the fact that the merchants have not as yet

found it worth their while to store their wines for any lengthened

period.

At the time of my visit ostrich feathers were the popular produce of the

Colony. Farmers seemed to be tired of sheep,--tired at least of the

constant care which sheep require, to be diffident of wheat, and

down-hearted as to the present prices of wine. It seemed to me that in

regard to all these articles there was room for increased energy. As to

irrigation, which every one in the Colony feels to be essential to

agricultural success in the greater part not only of the Colony but of

South Africa generally, the first steps must I think be taken by the

governments of the different districts.

The total population of the Colony is 720,984. Of these less than a

third, 209,136, are represented as living on agriculture which in such a

Colony should support more than half the people. The numbers given

include of course men women and children. Of this latter number, less

than a third again, or 60,458, are represented as being of white

blood,--or Dutch and English combined. I believe about two-thirds of

these to be Dutch,--though as to that I can only give an opinion. From

this it would result that the residue, perhaps about 20,000 who are of

English descent, consists of the farmers themselves and their families.

Taking four to a family, this would give only 5,000 English occupiers of

land. There is evidently no place for an English agricultural labourer

in a Colony which shows such a result after seventy years of English

occupation. And indeed there is much other evidence proving the same

fact. Let the traveller go where he will he will see no English-born

agricultural labourer in receipt of wages. The work, if not done by the

farmer or his family, is with but few exceptions done by native hands.

Should an Englishman be seen here or there in such a position he will be

one who has fallen abnormally in the scale, and will, as an exception,

only prove the rule. If a man have a little money to commence as a

farmer he may thrive in the Cape Colony,--providing that he can

accommodate himself to the peculiarities of the climate. As a navvy he

may earn good wages on the railways, or as a miner at the copper mines.

But, intending to be an agricultural labourer, he should not emigrate

to South Africa. In South Africa the Natives are the labourers and they

will remain so, both because they can live cheaper than the white man,

and because the white man will not work along side of them on equal

terms. Though an Englishman on leaving his own country might assure

himself that he had no objection to such society, he would find that the

ways of the Colony would be too strong for him. In Australia, in Canada,

in New Zealand, or the United States, he may earn wages as an

agriculturist;--but he will not do so in South Africa with content and

happiness to himself. The paucity of the English population which has

settled here since we owned the country is in itself sufficient proof of

the truth of my assertion.

It is stated in the Blue Book of the Colony for 1876,--which no doubt

may be trusted implicitly,--that the average daily hire for an

agricultural labourer in the Colony is 3s. for a white man, and 2s. for

a coloured man, with diet besides. But I observe also that in some of

the best corn-districts,--especially in Malmsbury,--no entry is made as

to the wages of European agricultural labourers. Where such wages are

paid, it will be found that they are paid to Dutchmen. There are no

doubt instances of this sufficient in most districts to afford an

average. A single instance would do so.

Taking the whole of the Colony I find that the wages of carpenters,

masons, tailors, shoemakers and smiths average 9s. a day for white men

and 6s. for coloured men. This is for town and country throughout. In

some places wages as high as 15s. a day has been paid for white

workmen, and as high as 8s.--9s.--and even 10s. for coloured. The

European artizan is no doubt at present more efficient than the native,

and when working with the native, works as his superintendent or Boss.

For tradesmen such as these,--men who know their trades and can eschew

drink,--there is a fair opening in South Africa, as there is in almost

all the British Colonies.

The price of living for a working man is, as well as I can make a

calculation on the subject, nearly the same as in England, but with a

slight turn in favour of the Colony on account of the lower price of

meat. Meat is about 6d. a pound; bacon 1s. 5d. Bread is 4d. a pound; tea

3s. 10d., coffee 1s. 4d. Butter, fresh 1s. 10d.; salt 1s. 6d. Ordinary

wine per gallon,--than which a workman can drink no more wholesome

liquor,--is 6s. In the parts of the Colony adjacent to Capetown it may

be bought for 2s. and 3s. a gallon. The colonial beer is 5s. a gallon.

Whether it be good or bad I omitted to enable myself to form an opinion.

Clothing, which is imported from England, is I think cheaper than in

England. This I have found to be the case in the larger Colonies

generally, and I must leave those who are learned in the ways of

Commerce to account for the phenomenon. I will give the list, as I found

it in the Blue Book of the Cape Colony, for labourers’ clothing. Shirts

30s. 5d. per dozen. Shoes 10s. per pair. Jackets 15s. each. Waistcoats

7s. each. Trowsers 11s. 6d. per pair. Hats 5s. 6d. each. In these

articles so much depends on quality that it is hard to make a

comparison. In South Africa I was forced to buy two hats, and I got

them very much cheaper than my London hatmaker would have sold me the

same articles. House-rent, taking the Colony through, is a little dearer

than in England. Domestic service is dearer;--but the class of whom I am

speaking would probably not be affected by this. The rate of wages for

house servants as given in the Blue Book is as follows:--

Male domestic servants--European--£2 10s. a month, with board and lodging.

” ” Coloured--£1 8s. ” ”

Female ” European--£1 7s. ” ”

” ” Coloured--16s. ” ”

I profess the greatest possible respect for the Cape Colony Blue Book

and for its compilers. I feel when trusting to it that I am standing

upon a rock against which waves of statistical criticism may dash

themselves in vain. Such at least is my faith as to 968 out of the 969

folio pages which the last published volume contains. But I would put it

to the compilers of that valuable volume, I would put it to my

particular friend Captain Mills himself, whether they, whether he, can

get a European man-servant for £30 a year, or a European damsel for £16

4s.! Double the money would not do it. Let them, let him, look at the

book;--Section v. page 3;--and have the little error corrected, lest

English families should rush out to the Cape Colony thinking that they

would be nicely waited upon by white fingers at these easy but fabulous

rates. The truth is that European domestic servants can hardly be had

for any money.

NATAL.

CHAPTER XIV.

NATAL.--HISTORY OF THE COLONY.

The little Colony of Natal has a special history of its own quite

distinct from that of the Cape Colony which cannot be said to be its

parent. In Australia, Queensland and Victoria were, in compliance with

their own demands, separated from New South Wales. In South Africa the

Transvaal Republic,--now again under British rule,--and the Orange Free

State were sent into the world to shift for themselves by the Mother

Country. In these cases there is something akin to the not unnatural

severance of the adult son from the home and the hands of his father.

But Natal did not spring into existence after this fashion and has owed

nothing to the fostering care of the Cape Colony. I will quote here the

commencing words of a pamphlet on the political condition of Natal

published in 1869, because they convey incidentally a true statement of

the causes which led to its colonization. “The motives which induced the

Imperial Government to claim Natal from the Dutch African emigrants were

not merely philanthropic. The Dutch in their occupation of the country

had been involved in serious struggles with the Zulus. The apprehension

that these struggles might be renewed and that the wave of disturbance

might be carried towards the Eastern frontier of the Cape influenced to

some extent the resolution to colonize Natal. But whatever may have been

the prudential considerations that entered into their counsels, the

Government were deeply impressed with the wish to protect the Natives

and to raise them in the scale of humanity.”[14] From this the reader

will learn that the British took up the country from the Dutch who had

on occupying it been involved in difficulties with the Natives, and that

the English had stepped in to give a government to the country, partly

in defence of the Dutch against the Natives,--but partly also, and

chiefly in defence of the Natives against the Dutch. This was, in truth,

the case. The difficulties which the Dutch wanderers had encountered

were awful, tragic, heartrending. They had almost been annihilated.

Dingaan, the then chief of the Zulus, had resolved to annihilate them,

and had gone nearer to success than the Indians of Mexico or Peru had

ever done with Cortez or Pizarro. But they had stood their ground,--and

were not inclined to be gentle in their dealings with the Zulus,--as the

congregation of tribes was called with which they had come in contact.

Natal received its name four centuries ago. In 1497 it was visited,--or

at any rate seen,--by Vasco da Gama on Christmas day and was then called

Terra Natalis from that cause. It is now called Na-tal, with the

emphasis sharp on the last syllable. I remember when we simply

translated the Latin word into plain English and called the place Port

Natal in the ordinary way,--as may be remembered by the following stanza

from Tom Hood’s “Miss Kelmansegg”:--

Into this world we come like ships,

Launched from the docks and stocks and slips,

For future fair or fatal.

And one little craft is cast away

On its very first trip to Babbicombe Bay,

While another rides safe at Port Natal.

After that no more was known of the coast for more than a hundred and

fifty years. In the latter part of the eighteenth century the Dutch seem

to have had a settlement there,--not the Dutch coming overland as they

did afterwards, but the Dutch trading along the coast. It did not,

however, come to much, and we hear no more of the country till

1823,--only fifty-five years ago,--when an English officer of the name

of Farewell, with a few of his countrymen, settled himself on the land

where the town of D’Urban now stands. At that time King Chaka of the

Zulus, of whom I shall speak in a following chapter, had well-nigh

exterminated the natives of the coast, so that there was no one to

oppose Mr. Farewell and his companions. There they remained, with more

or less of trouble from Chaka’s successor and from invading Zulus, till

1835, when the British of the Cape Colony took so much notice of the

place as to call the settlement Durban, after Sir Benjamin D’Urban, its

then Governor.

Then began the real history of Natal which like so many other parts of

South Africa,--like the greater part of that South Africa which we now

govern,--was first occupied by Dutchmen trekking away from the to them

odious rule of British Governors, British officers, British laws,--and

what seemed to them to be mawkish British philanthropy. The time is so

recent that I myself have been able to hear the story told by the lips

of those who were themselves among the number of indignant

emigrants,--of those who had barely escaped when their brethren and

friends had been killed around them by the natives. “Why did you leave

your old home?” I asked one old Dutch farmer whom I found still in

Natal. With the urbanity which seemed always to characterize the Dutch

he would say nothing to me derogatory to the English. “He says that

there was not land enough for their wants,” explained the gentleman who

was acting as interpreter between us. But it meant the same thing. The

English were pressing on the heels of the Dutchmen.

The whole theory of life was different between the two people and

remains so to the present day. The Englishman likes to have a neighbour

near him; the Dutchman cannot bear to see the smoke of another man’s

chimney from his own front door. The Englishman would fain grow wheat;

the Dutchman is fond of flocks and herds. The Englishman is of his

nature democratic;--the Dutchman is patriarchal. The Englishman loves to

have his finger in every pie around him. The Dutchman wishes to have his

own family, his own lands, above all his own servants and dependants,

altogether within his own grasp, and cares for little beyond that.

There had come various laws in the Cape Colony altogether antagonistic

to the feelings of the Dutch farmer, and at last in 1834, came the

emancipation act which was to set free all the slaves in 1838. Although

the Dutch had first explored Natal before that act came into

operation,--it had perhaps more to do with the final exodus of the

future Natalians than any other cause. The Dutchman of South Africa

could not endure the interference with his old domestic habits which

English laws were threatening and creating.

In 1834 the first Dutch party made their way from Uitenhage in the

Eastern Province of the Cape Colony, by land, across the South Eastern

corner of South Africa over the Drakenberg mountains to the Natal coast.

Here they fraternised with the few English they found there, examined

the country and seemed to have made themselves merry,--till news reached

them of the Kafir wars then raging. They gallantly hurried back to their

friends, postponing their idea of permanent emigration till this new

trouble should be over. It was probably the feeling induced by Lord

Glenelg’s wonderful despatch of Dec. 1835,--in which he declared that

the English and Dutch had been all wrong and the Kafirs all right in the

late wars,--which at last produced the exodus. There were personal

grievances to boot, all of which sprang from impatience of the Dutch to

the English law; and towards the end of 1836 two hundred Dutchmen

started under Hendrik Potgieter. A more numerous party followed under

Gerrit Maritz. They crossed the Orange river, to which the Cape Colony

was then extended, and still travelling on, making their waggons their

homes as they went, they came to the Vaal, leaving a portion of their

numbers behind them in what is now the Orange Free State. We have no

written account of the mode of life of these people as they trekked on,

but we can conceive it. No Dutchman in South Africa is ever without a

waggon big enough to make a home for his family and to carry many of his

goods, or without a span or team of oxen numerous enough to drag it.

They took their flocks and horses with them, remaining here and there as

water and grass would suit them. And here and there they would sow their

seeds and wait for a crop, and then if the crop was good and the water

pleasant, and if the Natives had either not quarrelled with them or had

been subdued, they would stay for another season till the waggon would

at last give place to a house, and then, as others came after them, they

would move on again, jealous of neighbourhood even among their own

people. So they went northwards till they crossed the Vaal river and

came into hostile contact with the fierce tribes of the Matabeles which

then occupied the Transvaal.

What took place then belongs rather to the history of the Transvaal than

to that of Natal; but the Dutch pioneers who had gone thus far were

forced back over the Vaal; and though they succeeded in recovering by

renewed raids many of the oxen and waggons of which they had been

deprived by a great Chief of the Matabele tribe named Mazulekatze, they

acknowledged that they must carry their present fortunes elsewhere, and

they remembered the pleasant valleys which some of them had seen a few

years earlier on the Natal coast. With great difficulty they found a

track pervious to wheels through the Drakenbergs, and made their way

down to the coast. There had been disagreements among the Dutch

themselves after their return back over the Vaal river, and they did not

all go forth into Natal. Pieter Retief, who had now joined them from the

old Colony and who had had his own reasons for quarrelling with the

British authorities in the Cape, was chosen the Chief of those who made

their way eastwards into Natal, and he also, on reaching the coast,

fraternised with the English there who at that time acknowledged no

obedience to the British Government at Capetown. It seems that Retief

and the few English at Durban had some idea of a joint Republic;--but

the Dutchman took the lead and finding that the natives were apparently

amenable, he entertained the idea of obtaining a cession of the land

from Dingaan, who had murdered and succeeded his brother Chaka as King

of the Zulus.

Dingaan made his terms, which Retief executed. A quantity of cattle

which another tribe had taken was to be returned to Dingaan. The cattle

were obtained and given up to the Zulu Chief. In the meantime Dutchman

after Dutchman swarmed into the new country with their waggons and herds

through the passes which had been found. We are told that by the end of

1837 a thousand waggons had made their way into this district now called

Natal and had occupied the northern portion of it. Probably not a single

waggon was owned by an Englishman,--though Natal is now specially an

English and not a Dutch Colony. There was hardly a Native to be seen,

the country having been desolated by the King of the Zulus. It was the

very place for the Dutch,--fertile, without interference, and with space

for every one.

Early in 1838 Retief with a party of picked men started for the head

quarters of Dingaan, the Zulu King, with the recovered cattle which he

was to give up as the price of the wide lands assigned to him. Then

there was a festival and rejoicings among the Zulus in which the

Dutchmen joined. A deed of cession was signed, of which Dingaan, the

King, understood probably but little. But he did understand that these

were white men coming to take away his land and at the moment in which

the ceremonies were being completed,--he contrived to murder them all.

That was the end of Pieter Retief, whose name in conjunction with that

of his friend and colleague Gerrit Maritz still lives in the singular

appellation found for the capital of Natal,--Pieter Maritzburg.

Then Dingaan, with a spirit which I cannot reprobate as I find it

reprobated by other writers, determined to sally forth and drive the

Dutch out of the land. It seems to me of all things the most natural for

a king of Natives to do,--unless the contemplation of such a feat were

beyond his intelligence or its attempt beyond his courage. It may be

acknowledged that it is the business of us Europeans first to subjugate

and then to civilize the savage races--but that the Savage shall object

to be subjugated is surely natural. To abuse a Savage for being

treacherous and cruel is to abuse him for being a Savage, which is

irrational. Dingaan failed neither in intelligence or courage, and went

forth to annihilate the Dutch in those northern portions of the present

Colony which are now called Klip-River and Weenen. The latter word is

Dutch for wailing and arose from the sufferings which Dingaan then

inflicted. He first came across a party of women and children at the

Blue Krans river,--in the district now called Weenen,--and killed them

all. Various separated parties were destroyed in the same way, till at

last an entrenchment of waggons was formed,--a “laager” as it is called

in Dutch,--and from thence a battle was fought as from a besieged city

against the besiegers. The old man who told me that he had trekked

because land in the Colony was insufficient had been one of the

besieged, and his old wife, who sat by and added a word now and then to

the tale, had been inside the laager with him and had held her baby with

one hand while she supplied ammunition to her husband with the other. It

was thus that the Dutch always defended themselves, linking their huge

waggons together into a circle within which were collected their wives

and children, while their cattle were brought into a circle on the

outside. It must be remembered that they, few in number, were armed with

rifles while the Savages around were attacking them with their pointed

spears which they call assegais.

By far the greater number of Dutch who had thus made their way over into

Natal were killed,--but a remnant remained sufficient to establish

itself. In these contests the white man always comes off as conqueror at

last. Dingaan, however, carried on the battle for a long time, and

though driven out of Natal was never thoroughly worsted on his own Zulu

territory. Both Dutch and English attacked him in his own stronghold,

but of those who went over the Buffalo or Tugela river in Dingaan’s time

with hostile intentions but few lived to return and tell the tale. There

was one raid across the river in which it is said that 3,000 Zulus were

killed, and that Dingaan was obliged to burn his head kraal or capital,

and fly; but even in this last of their attacks on Zulu land the Dutch

were at first nearly destroyed.

At last these battles with Dingaan were brought to an end by a quarrel

which the emigrants fostered between Dingaan and his brother Panda,--who

was also his heir. I should hardly interest my readers if I were to go

into the details of this family feud. It seems however that in spite of

the excessive superstitious reverence felt by these Savages for their

acknowledged Chief, they were unable to endure the prolonged cruelties

of their tyrant. Panda himself was not a warrior, having been kept by

Dingaan in the back-ground in order that he might not become the leader

of an insurrection against him; but he was put forward as the new king;

and the new king’s party having allied themselves with the Europeans,

Dingaan was driven into banishment and seems to have been murdered by

those among whom he fell. That was the end of Dingaan and has really

been the end, up to this time, of all fighting between the Zulus and the

white occupiers of Natal. From the death of Dingaan the ascendancy of

the white man seems to have been acknowledged in the districts south

and west of the Tugela and Buffalo rivers.

The next phase in the history of Natal is that which has reference to

the quarrels between the Dutch and the English. There is I think no

doubt that during the first occupation of the land by the Dutch the

English Government refused to have anything to do with the territory. It

was then the same as it has been since when we gave up first the

Transvaal, and afterwards the Orange Free State, or “Sovereignty” as it

used to be called. A people foreign to us in habits and language, which

had become subject to us, would not endure our rule,--would go further

and still further away when our rule followed them. It was manifest that

we could not stop them without the grossest tyranny;--but were we bound

to go after them and take care of them? The question has been answered

in the negative even when it has been asked as to wandering Englishmen

who have settled themselves on strange shores,--but though answered in

the negative it has always turned out that when the Englishmen have

reached a number too great to be ignored the establishment of a new

Colony has been inevitable. Was it necessary that Downing Street should

run after the Dutch? Downing Street declared that she would do nothing

of the kind. Lord Glenelg had disclaimed “any intention on the part of

Her Majesty’s Government to assert any authority over any part of this

territory.” But Downing Street was impotent to resist. The Queen’s

subjects had settled themselves in a new country, and after some

shilly-shallying on the part of the Cape authorities, after the coming

and going of a small body of troops, these subjects declared their

intention of establishing themselves as a Republic--and begged Her

Majesty to acknowledge their independent existence. This was in January

1841, when Sir George Napier was Governor. In the meantime the Dutch had

had further contests with remaining natives,--contests in which they had

been the tyrants and in which they shewed a strong intention of driving

the black tribes altogether away from any lands which they might want

themselves. This, and probably a conviction that there were not

sufficient elements of rule among the Dutch farmers to form a

government,--a conviction for which the doings of the young Volksraad of

Natalia gave ample reason,--at last caused our Colonial Office to decide

that Natal was still British territory. Sir George Napier on 2nd Dec.

1841 issued a proclamation stating, “That whereas the Council of

emigrant farmers now residing at Port Natal and the territory adjacent

thereto had informed His Excellency that they had ceased to be British

subjects,” &c. &c.; the whole proclamation is not necessary here;--“his

Excellency announced his intention of resuming military occupation of

Port Natal by sending thither without delay a detachment of Her

Majesty’s forces.” And so the war was declared.[15]

The war at first went very much in favour of the Dutch. A small

detachment of British troops,--about 300 men,--was marched overland to

Durban, and two little vessels of war were sent round with provisions

and ammunition. The proceedings of this force were so unfortunate that

a part of it was taken and marched up to prison at Pieter Maritzburg and

the remainder besieged in its own camp where it was nearly starved to

death. The story of the whole affair is made romantic by the remarkable

ride made by one Mr. King, during six days and nights, along the coast

and through the Kafir country, into the Cape Colony, bearing the sad

news and demanding assistance. As Great Britain had now begun the

campaign, Great Britain was of course obliged to end it successfully. A

larger force with better appurtenances was sent, and on 5th July, 1842,

a deed of submission was signed on behalf of the Dutch owning the

sovereignty of Queen Victoria. That is the date on which in fact Natal

did first become a British possession. But a contest was still carried

on for more that a twelvemonth longer through which the Dutch farmers

strove to regain their independence, and it was not till the 8th of

August, 1843, that the twenty-four members of the still existing

Volksraad declared Her Majesty’s Government to be supreme in Port Natal.

But the Dutchmen could hardly even yet be said to be beaten. They

certainly were not contented to remain as British subjects. Very many of

them passed again back over the Drakenberg mountains determined to free

themselves from the British yoke, and located themselves in the

districts either to the North or South of the Vaal river,--although they

did so far away from the ocean which is the only highway for bringing to

them stores from other countries, and although they were leaving good

low-lying fertile lands for a high arid veld the most of which was only

fit for pastoral purposes. But they would there be, if not free from

British rule,--for the Republics were not yet established,--far at any

rate from British interference. If any people ever fought and bled for a

land, they had fought and bled for Natal. But when they found they could

not do what they liked with it, they “trekked” back and left it. And yet

this people have shewn themselves to be generally ill-adapted for self

government,--as I shall endeavour to shew when I come to speak of the

Transvaal Republic,--and altogether in want of some external force to

manage for them their public affairs. Nothing perhaps is harder than to

set a new Government successfully afloat, and the Dutch certainly have

shewn no aptitude for the task either in Natal or in the Transvaal.

It is not to be supposed that all the Dutch went, or that they went all

at once. In some parts of the Colony they are still to be found

prospering on their lands,--and some of the old names remain. But the

country strikes the stranger as being peculiarly English, in opposition

to much of the Cape Colony which is peculiarly Dutch. In one district of

Natal I came across a congregation of Germans, with a German minister

and a German church service, and German farmers around, an emigration

from Hanover having been made to the spot. But I heard of no exclusively

Dutch district. The traveller feels certain that he will not require the

Dutch language as he moves about, and he recognises the Dutchman as a

foreigner in the land when he encounters him. In the Transvaal, in the

Orange Free State, and in many parts of the Western districts of the

Cape Colony,--even in Capetown itself,--he feels himself to be among a

Dutch people. He knows as a fact that the Dutch in South Africa are more

numerous than the English. But in Natal he is on English soil, among

English people,--with no more savour of Holland than he has in London

when he chances to meet a Dutchman there. And yet over the whole South

African continent there is no portion of the land for which the Dutchman

has fought and bled and dared and suffered as he has done for Natal. As

one reads the story one is tempted to wish that he had been allowed to

found his Natalia, down by the sea shore, in pleasant lands, where he

would not have been severed by distance and difficulties of carriage

from the comforts of life,--from timber for instance with which to floor

his rooms, and wood to burn his bricks, and iron with which to make his

ploughs.

But the Dutch who went did not go at once, nor did the English who came

come at once. It is impossible not to confess that what with the Home

Government in Downing Street and what with the Governors who succeeded

each other at the Cape there was shilly-shallying as to adopting the new

Colony. The province was taken up in the manner described in 1843, but

no Governor was appointed till 1845. Major Smith, who as Captain Smith

had suffered so much with his little army, was the military commander

during the interval, and the Dutch Volksraad continued to sit. Questions

as to the tenure of land naturally occupied the minds of all who

remained. If a Boer chose to stay would he or would he not be allowed to

occupy permanently the farm, probably of 6,000 acres which he had

assumed to himself? And then, during this time, the tribes who had fled

in fear of the Dutch or who had been scattered by the Zulu King, flocked

in vast hordes into the country when they had been taught to feel that

they would be safe under British protection. It is said that in 1843

there were not above 3,000 natives in all Natal, but that within three

or four years 80,000 had crowded in. Now the numbers amount to 320,000.

Of course they spread themselves over the lands which the Dutch had

called their own, and the Dutch were unable to stop them. In December

1845 Mr. West was appointed the first Governor of Natal, and attempts

were made to arrange matters between the remaining Boers and the Zulus.

A commission was appointed to settle claims, but it could do but

little,--or nothing. Native locations were arranged;--that is large

tracts of land were given over to the Natives. But this to the Boers was

poison. To them the Natives were as wild beasts,--and wild beasts whom

they with their blood and energy had succeeded in expelling. Now the

wild beasts were to be brought back under the auspices of the British

Government!

In 1847 Andrias Pretorius was the dominant leader of the Natal Boers and

he went on a pilgrimage to Sir Henry Pottinger who was then Governor in

the Cape Colony. Sir Henry Pottinger would not see him,--required him to

put down what he had to say in writing, which is perhaps the most

heartbreaking thing which any official man can do to an applicant. What

if our Cabinet Ministers were to desire deputations to put down their

complaints in writing? Pretorius, who afterwards became a great rebel

against British authority and the first President of the Transvaal

Republic, returned furious to Pieter Maritzburg,--having however first

put down “what he had to say” in very strong writing. Sir Henry was then

leaving the Colony and answered by referring the matter to his

successor. Pretorius flew to the public press and endeavoured to

instigate his fellow subjects to mutiny by the indignant vehemence of

his language. When the news of his failure with Sir Henry Pottinger

reached the Boers in Natal, they determined upon a further wholesale and

new expatriation. They would all “trek” and they did trek, on this

occasion into the district between the Orange and the Vaal,--where we

shall have to follow them in speaking of the origin of the two Dutch

Republics. In this way Natal was nearly cleared of Dutchmen in the year

1848.

It all happened so short a time ago that many of the actors in those

early days of Natal are still alive, and some of my readers will

probably remember dimly something of the incidents as they passed;--how

Sir Harry Smith, who succeeded Sir Henry Pottinger as Governor of the

Cape, became a South African hero, and somewhat tarnished his heroism by

the absurdity of his words. The story of Retief hardly became known to

us in England with all its tragic horrors, but I myself can well

remember how unwilling we were to have Natal, and how at last it was

borne in upon us that Natal had to be taken up by us,--perhaps as a

fourth rate Colony, with many regrets, much as the Fiji islands have

been taken up since. The Transvaal, inferior as it is in advantages and

good gifts, has just now been accepted with very much greater favour.

The salary awarded to a Governor may perhaps best attest the importance

of a new Colony. The Transvaal has begun with £3,000 a year. A poor

£2,500 is even still considered sufficient for the much older Colony of

Natal.

Since 1848 Natal has had its history, but not one that has peculiarly

endeared it to the Mother Country. In 1849 a body of English emigrants

went out there who have certainly been successful as farmers, and who

came chiefly I think from the County of York. I do not know that there

has since that been any one peculiar influx of English, though of course

from time to time Englishmen have settled there,--some as farmers, more

probably as traders, small or large. In 1850 Mr. Pine succeeded Mr. West

as second Governor,--a gentleman who has again been Governor of the same

Colony as Sir Benjamin Pine, and who has had to encounter,--somewhat

unfairly, as I think,--the opprobrium incident to the irrational

sympathy of a certain class at home in the little understood matter of

Langalibalele. Langalibalele has, however, been so interesting a South

African personage that I must dedicate a separate chapter to his

history. In 1853 Dr. Colenso was appointed Bishop of Natal, and by the

peculiarity of his religious opinions has given more notoriety to the

Colony,--has caused the Colony to be more talked about,--than any of its

Governors or even than any of its romantic incidents. Into religious

opinion I certainly shall not stray in these pages. In my days I have

written something about clergymen but never a word about religion. No

doubt shall be thrown by me either upon the miracles or upon Colenso.

But when he expressed his unusual opinions he became a noted man, and

Natal was heard of for the first time by many people. He came to England

in those days, and I remember being asked to dinner by a gushing friend.

“We have secured Colenso,” said my gushing friend, as though she was

asking me to meet a royal duke or a Japanese ambassador. But I had never

met the Bishop till I arrived in his own see, where it was allowed me to

come in contact with that clear intellect, the gift of which has always

been allowed to him. He is still Bishop of Natal, and will probably

remain so till he dies. He is not the man to abandon any position of

which he is proud. But there is another bishop--of Maritzburg--whose

tenets are perhaps more in accord with those generally held by the

Church of England. The confusion has no doubt been unfortunate,--and is

still unfortunate, as has been almost everything connected with Natal.

And yet it is a smiling pretty land, blessed with numerous advantages;

and if it were my fate to live in South Africa I should certainly choose

Natal for my residence. Fair Natal, but unfortunate Natal! Its worldly

affairs have hitherto not gone smoothly.

In 1856 the Colony, which had hitherto been but a sub-Colony under the

Cape was made independent, and a Legislative Council was appointed, at

first of twelve elected and of four official members;--but this has

since been altered. From that day to this there seems to have always

been alive in Natal questions of altering the constitution, with a

desire on the part of many of the English to draw nearer to, if not to

adopt a system of government by parliamentary majorities,--and with a

feeling on the part of a few that a further departure and a wider

severance from such form of government would be expedient.

In 1873 came the Langalibalele affair to which I will only refer here

for the purpose of saying that it led to the sending out of Sir Garnet

Wolseley as a temporary governor or political head mediciner to set

things right which were supposed at home to be wrong. There can be no

doubt that the coming of a picked man, as was Sir Garnet, had the effect

of subordinating the will of the people of the Colony to the judgment of

the Colonial Office at home. Such effects will always be caused by such

selections. A Cabinet Minister will persuade with words which from an

Under Secretary would be inoperative. A known man will be successful

with arguments which would be received with no respect from the mouth of

one unknown. Sir Garnet Wolseley enjoyed an African reputation and was

recognised as a great man when he landed in South Africa. The effect of

his greatness was seen in his ability to induce the Legislative Council

to add eight nominated members to their own House and thus to clip their

own wings. Before his coming there were 15 elected members, and 5

official members--who were the Governor’s Council and who received a

salary. Now there are 13 nominated members, of whom eight are chosen by

the Governor but who receive no salaries. The consequence is that the

Government can command a majority in almost all cases, and that Natal is

therefore, in truth, a Crown Colony. I know that the word will be

received with scorn and denial in Natal. A Legislative Council with a

majority of freely elected members will claim that it has the dominant

power and that it can do as it pleases. But in truth a Chamber so

constituted as is that now at Natal has but little power of persistent

operation.

It was stated in the House of Commons, in the debate on the South

African Permissive Bill in the summer of 1877, that Natal contained a

population of 17,000 white and 280,000 Natives. I am assured that the

former number is somewhat understated, and I have spoken therefore of

20,000 white people. The Natives are certainly much more numerous than

was supposed. I have taken them as 320,000; but judging from the hut tax

I think they must be at least 10,000 more. Many probably evade the hut

tax and some live without huts. Let us take the numbers as 20,000 and

320,000. With such a population can it be well to draw even near to a

system of government by parliamentary majorities? We cannot exclude the

black voter by his colour. To do so would be to institute a class

legislation which would be opposed to all our feelings. Nor can any one

say who is black or who white. But we all know how impossible it is that

any number of whites, however small, should be ruled by any number of

blacks, however great. In dealing with such a population we are bound to

think of Ceylon or British Guiana, or of India,--and not of Canada,

Australia, or New Zealand. At present the franchise in Natal is only

given to such Natives as have lived for seven years in conformity with

European laws and customs,--having exempted themselves in that time

from native law,--and who shall have obtained from the Governor of the

Colony permission to vote on these grounds. At present the Native is in

this way altogether excluded. But the embargo is of its nature too

arbitrary;--and, nevertheless, would not be strong enough for safety

were there adventurous white politicians in the Colony striving to

acquire a parliamentary majority and parliamentary power by bringing the

Zulus to the poll.

I think that the nature of the population of South Africa, and the

difficulties which must in coming years arise from that population, were

hardly sufficiently considered when government by parliamentary

majorities was forced upon the Cape Colony and carried through its

Legislative Houses by narrow majorities. That action has, I fear,

rendered the Cape unfit to confederate with the other Provinces; and

especially unfit to confederate with Natal, where the circumstances of

the population demand direct government from the Crown. I trust that the

experiment of parliamentary government may not be tried in Natal, where

the circumstances of the population are very much more against it than

they were in the Cape Colony.

CHAPTER XV.

CONDITION OF THE COLONY.--NO. 1.

I reached Durban, the only seaport in the Colony of Natal, about the end

of August,--that is, at the beginning of spring in that part of the

world. It was just too warm to walk about pleasantly in the middle of

the day and cool enough at night for a blanket. Durban has a reputation

for heat, and I had heard so much of musquitoes on the coast that I

feared them even at this time of the year. I did kill one in my bedroom

at the club, but no more came to me. In winter, or at the season at

which I visited the place, Durban is a pleasant town, clean, attractive

and with beautiful scenery near it;--but about midsummer, and indeed for

the three months of December, January and February, it can be very hot,

and, to the ordinary Englishman, unaccustomed to the tropics, very

unpleasant on that account.

I was taken over the bar on entering the harbour very graciously in the

mail tug which as a rule passengers are not allowed to enter, and was

safely landed at the quay about two miles from the town. I mention my

safety as a peculiar incident because the bar at Durban has a very bad

character indeed. South African harbours are not good and among those

which are bad Durban is one of the worst. They are crossed by shifting

bars of sand which prevent the entrance of vessels. At a public dinner

in the Colony I heard The Bar given as a toast. The Attorney General

arose to return thanks, but another gentleman was on his legs in a

moment protesting against drinking the health of the one great obstacle

to commercial and social success by which the Colony was oppressed. The

Attorney General was a popular man, and the lawyers were popular; but in

a moment they were obliterated by the general indignation of the guests

at the evil done to their beautiful land by this ill-natured freak of

Nature. A vast sum of money has been spent at Durban in making a

breakwater, all of which has,--so say the people of Durban and

Maritzburg,--been thrown away. Now Sir John Coode has been out to visit

the bar, and all the Colony was waiting for his report when I was there.

Sir John is the great emendator of South African harbours,--full trust

being put in his capability to stop the encroachments of sand, and to

scour away such deposits when in spite of his precautions they have

asserted themselves. At the period of my visit nothing was being done,

but Natal was waiting, graciously if not patiently, for Sir John’s

report. Very much depends on it. Up in the very interior of Africa, in

the Orange Free State and at the Diamond Fields it is constantly

asserted that goods can only be had through the Cape Colony because of

the bar across the mouth of the river at Durban;--and in the Transvaal

the bar is given as one of the chief reasons for making a railway down

to Delagoa Bay instead of connecting the now two British Colonies

together. I heard constantly that so many, or such a number of vessels,

were lying out in the roads and that goods could not be landed because

of the bar! The legal profession is peculiarly well represented in the

Colony; but I am inclined to agree with the gentleman who thought that

“The Bar” in Natal was the bar across the mouth of the river.

I was carried over it in safety and was driven up to the club. There is

a railway from the port to the town, but its hours of running did not

exactly suit the mails, to which I was permitted to attach myself. This

railway is the beginning of a system which will soon be extended to

Pieter Maritzburg, the capital, which is already opened some few miles

northward into the sugar district, and which is being made along the

coast through the sugar growing country of Victoria to its chief town,

Verulam. There is extant an ambitious scheme for carrying on the line

from Pieter Maritzburg to Ladismith, a town on the direct route to the

Transvaal, and from thence across the mountains to Harrismith in the

Orange Free State, with an extension from Ladismith to the coal district

of Newcastle in the extreme north of the Colony. But the money for these

larger purposes has not yet been raised, and I may perhaps be justified

in saying that I doubt their speedy accomplishment. The lines to the

capital and to Verulam will no doubt be open in a year or two. I should

perhaps explain that Ladismith and Harrismith are peculiar names given

to towns in honour of Sir Harry Smith, who was at one time a popular

Governor in the Cape Colony. There is a project also for extending the

Verulam line to the extreme northern boundary of the Colony so as to

serve the whole sugar producing district. This probably will be effected

at no very distant time as sugar will become the staple produce of the

coast, if not of the entire Colony. There is a belt of land lying

between the hills and the sea which is peculiarly fertile and admirably

adapted for the growth of sugar, on which very large sums of money have

been already expended. It is often sad to look back upon the beginnings

of commercial enterprises which ultimately lead to the fortunes not

perhaps of individuals but of countries. Along this rich strip of

coast-land large sums of money have been wasted, no doubt to the ruin of

persons of whom, as they are ruined, the world will hear nothing. But

their enterprise has led to the success of others of whom the world will

hear. Coffee was grown here, and capital was expended on growing it upon

a large scale. But Natal as a coffee-growing country has failed. As far

as I could learn the seasons have not been sufficiently sure and settled

for the growth of coffee. And now, already, in the new Colony, on which

white men had hardly trodden half a century ago, there are wastes of

deserted coffee bushes,--as there came to be in Jamaica after the

emancipation of the slaves,--telling piteous tales of lost money and of

broken hopes. The idea of growing coffee in Natal seems now to be almost

abandoned.

But new ground is being devoted to the sugar cane every day, and new

machinery is being continually brought into the Colony. The cultivation

was first introduced into Natal by Mr. Morewood in 1849, and has

progressed since with various vicissitudes. The sugar has progressed;

but, as is the nature of such enterprises, the vicissitudes have been

the lot of the sugar growers. There has been much success, and there has

also been much failure. Men have gone beyond their capital, and the

banks with their high rates of interest have too often swallowed up the

profits. But the result to the Colony has been success. The plantations

are there, increasing every day, and are occupied if not by owners then

by managers. Labourers are employed, and public Revenue is raised. A

commerce with life in it has been established so that no one travelling

through the sugar districts can doubt but that money is being made, into

whatever pocket the money may go.

Various accounts of the produce were given to me. I was assured

by one or two sugar growers that four ton to the acre was not

uncommon,--whereas I knew by old experience in other sugar countries

that four ton to the acre per annum would be a very heavy crop indeed.

But sugar, unlike almost all other produce, can not be measured by the

year’s work. The canes are not cut yearly, at a special period, as wheat

is reaped or apples are picked. The first crop in Natal is generally the

growth of nearly or perhaps quite two years, and the second crop, being

the crop from the first ratoons, is the produce of 15 months. The

average yield per annum is, I believe, about 1½ tons per acre of

canes,--which is still high.

It used to be the practice for a grower of canes to have as a matter of

course a plant for making sugar,--and probably rum. It seemed to be the

necessity of the business of cane-growing that the planter should also

be a manufacturer,--as though a grower of hemp was bound to make ropes

or a grower of wheat to make bread. Thus it came to pass that it

required a man with considerable capital to grow canes, and the small

farmer was shut out from the occupation. In Cuba and Demerara and

Barbados the cane grower is, I think, still almost always a

manufacturer. In Queensland I found farmers growing canes which they

sold to manufacturers who made the sugar. This plan is now being largely

adopted in Natal and central mills are being established by companies

who can of course command better machinery than individuals with small

capitals. But even in this arrangement there is much difficulty,--the

mill owners finding it sometimes impossible to get cane as they want it,

and the cane growers being equally hard set to obtain the miller’s

services just as their canes are fit for crushing. It becomes necessary

that special agreements shall be made beforehand as to periods and

quantities, which special agreements it is not always easy to keep. The

payment for the service done is generally made in kind, the miller

retaining a portion of the sugar produced, half or two thirds, as he or

the grower may have performed the very onerous work of carrying the

canes from the ground to the mill. The latter operation is another great

difficulty in the way of central mills. When the sugar grower had his

own machinery in the centre of his own cane fields he was able to take

care that a minimum amount of carriage should be required;--but with

large central manufactories the growing cane is necessarily thrown back

to a distance from the mill and a heavy cost for carriage is added. The

amount of cane to make a ton of sugar is so bulky that a distance is

easily reached beyond which the plants cannot be carried without a cost

which would make any profit impossible.

In spite of all these difficulties,--and they are very great,--the

stranger cannot pass through the sugar districts of Natal without

becoming conscious of Colonial success. I have heard it argued that

sugar was doing no good to Natal because the profits reached England in

the shape of dividends on bank shares which were owned and spent in the

mother country. I can never admit the correctness of this argument, for

it is based on the assumption that in large commercial enterprises the

gain, or loss, realized by the capitalist is the one chief point of

interest;--that if he makes money all is well, and that if he loses it

all is ill. It may be so to him. But the real effect of his operations

is to be found in the wages and salaries he pays and the amount of

expenditure which his works occasion. I have heard of a firm which

carried on a large business without any thought of profit, merely for

political purposes. The motive I think was bad;--but not the less

beneficial to the population was the money spent in wages. Even though

all the profits from sugar grown in Natal were spent in England,--which

is by no means the case,--the English shareholders cannot get at their

dividends without paying workmen of all classes to earn them,--from the

black man who hoes the canes up to the Superintendent who rides about on

his horse and acts the part of master.

There is a side to the sugar question in Natal which to me is less

satisfactory than the arrangements made in regard to Capital. As I have

repeated, and I fear shall repeat too often,--there are 320,000 Natives

in Natal; Kafirs and Zulus, strong men as one would wish to see; and yet

the work of the estates is done by Coolies from India. I ought not to

have been astonished by this for I had known twenty years ago that sugar

was grown or at any rate manufactured by Coolie labour in Demerara and

Trinidad, and had then been surprised at the apathy of the people of

Jamaica in that they had not introduced Coolies into that island. There

were stalwart negroes without stint in these sugar colonies,--who had

been themselves slaves, or were the children of slaves; but these

negroes would only work so fitfully that the planters had been forced to

introduce regular labour from a distance. The same thing, and nothing

more, had taken place in Natal. But yet I was astonished. It seemed to

be so sad that with all their idle strength standing close by, requiring

labour for its own salvation,--with so large a population which labour

only can civilize, we who have taken upon ourselves to be their masters

should send all the way to India for men to do that which it ought to be

their privilege to perform. But so it is. There are now over 10,000

Coolies domiciled in Natal, all of whom have been brought there with the

primary object of making sugar.

The Coolies are brought into the Colony by the Government under an

enactment of the Legislature. They agree to serve for a period of 10

years, after which they are, if they please, taken back. The total cost

to the Government is in excess of £20 per man. Among the items of

expenditure in 1875 £20,000 was voted for the immigration of Coolies,

of which a portion was reimbursed during that year, and further portions

from year to year. The Coolie on his arrival is allotted to a

planter,--or to any other fitting applicant,--and the employer for 5

years pays £4 per annum to the Government for the man’s services. He

also pays the man 12s. a month, and clothes him. He feeds the Coolie

also, at an additional average cost of 12s. a month, and with some other

small expenses for medical attendance and lodging pays about £20 per

annum for the man’s services. As I shall state more at length in the

next volume, there are twelve thousand Kafirs at the Diamond Fields

earning 10s. a week and their diet;--and as I have already stated there

are in British Kafraria many Kafirs earning very much higher wages than

that! But in Natal a Zulu, who generally in respect to strength and

intelligence is superior to the ordinary Kafir, is found not to be worth

£20 a year.

The Coolie after his five years of compulsory service may seek a master

where he pleases,--or may live without a master if he has the means. His

term of enforced apprenticeship is over and he is supposed to have

earned back on behalf of the Colony the money which the Colony spent on

bringing him thither. Of course he is worth increased wages, having

learned his business, and if he pleases to remain at the work he makes

his own bargain. Not unfrequently he sets up for himself as a small

farmer or market-gardener, and will pay as much as 30s. an acre rent for

land on which he will live comfortably. I passed through a village of

Coolies where the men had their wives and children and were living each

under his own fig tree. Not unfrequently they hire Kafirs to do for them

the heavy work, assuming quite as much mastery over the Kafir as the

white man does. Many of them will go into service,--and are greatly

prized as domestic servants. They are indeed a most popular portion of

the community, and much respected,--whereas the white man does I fear in

his heart generally despise and dislike the Native.

I have said that the ordinary Kafir is found by the sugar grower not to

be worth £20 a year. The sugar grower will put the matter in a different

way and will declare that the Kafir will not work for £20 a year,--will

not work as a man should work for any consideration that can be offered

to him. I have no doubt that sugar can for the present be best made by

Coolie labour,--and that of course is all in all with the manufacturer

of sugar. It cannot be otherwise. But it is impossible not to see that

under it all there is an aversion to the Kafir,--or Zulu as I had

perhaps better call him now,--because he cannot be controlled, because

his labour cannot be made compulsory. The Zulu is not an idle man,--not

so idle I think as were the negroes in the West Indies who after the

emancipation were able to squat on the deserted grounds and live on

yams. But he loves to be independent. I heard of one man who on being

offered work at certain wages, answered the European by offering him

work at higher wages. This he would do,--if the story be true,--with

perfect good humour and a thorough appreciation of the joke. But the

European in Natal, and, indeed, the European throughout South Africa,

cannot rid himself of the feeling that the man having thews and sinews,

and being a Savage in want of training, should be made to work,--say

nine hours a day for six days a week,--should be made to do as much as a

poor Englishman who can barely feed himself and his wife and children.

But the Zulu is a gentleman and will only work as it suits him.

This angers the European. The Coolie has been brought into the land

under a contract and must work. The Coolie is himself conscious of this

and does not strive to rebel. He is as closely bound as is the English

labourer himself who would have to encounter at once all the awful

horrors of the Board of Guardians, if it were to enter into his poor

head to say that he intended to be idle for a week. The Zulu has his hut

and his stack of Kafir corn, and can kill an animal out in the veld, and

does not care a straw for any Board of Guardians. He is under no

contract by which he can be brought before a magistrate. Therefore the

sugar planter hates him and loves the Coolie.

I was once interrogating a young and intelligent superintendent of

machinery in the Colony as to the labour he employed and asked him at

last whether he had any Kafirs about the place. He almost flew at me in

his wrath,--not against me but against the Kafirs. He would not, he

said, admit one under the same roof with him. All work was impossible if

a Kafir were allowed even to come near it. They were in his opinion a

set of human wretches whom it was a clear mistake to have upon the

earth. His work was all done by Coolies, and if he could not get Coolies

the work would not be worth doing at all by him. His was not a sugar

mill, but he was in the sugar country, and he was simply expressing

unguardedly,--with too little reserve,--the feelings of those around

him.

I have no doubt that before long the Zulus will make sugar, and will

make it on terms cheaper to the Colony at large than those paid for the

Coolies. But the Indian Coolie has been for a long time in the world’s

workshop, whereas the Zulu has been introduced to it only quite of late.

The drive from the railway station at Umgeni, about four miles from

Durban, through the sugar district to Verulam is very pretty. Some of

the rapid pitches into little valleys, and steep rapid rises put me in

mind of Devonshire. And, as in Devonshire, the hills fall here and there

in a small chaos of broken twisted ridges which is to me always

agreeable and picturesque. After a few turns the traveller, ignorant of

the locality, hardly knows which way he is going, and when he is shewn

some object which he is to approach cannot tell how he will get there.

And then the growth of the sugar cane is always in some degree green,

even in the driest weather. I had hardly seen anything that was not

brown in the Cape Colony, so long and severe had been the drought. In

Natal there was still no rain, but there was a green growth around which

was grateful to the eyes. Altogether I was much pleased with what I saw

of the sugar district of Natal, although I should have been better

satisfied could I have seen Natives at work instead of imported Coolies.

Immediately west of the town as you make the first ascent up from the

sea level towards the interior there is the hill called the Berea on

and about which the more wealthy inhabitants of Durban have built their

villas. Some few of them are certainly among the best houses in South

Africa, and command views down upon the town and sea which would be very

precious to many an opulent suburb in England. Durban is proud of its

Berea and the visitor is taken to see it as the first among the sights

of the place. And as he goes he is called upon to notice the road on

which he is riding. It is no doubt a very good road,--as good as an

ordinary road leading out of an ordinary town in England, and therefore

does not at first attract the attention of the ordinary English

traveller. But roads in young countries are a difficulty and sometimes a

subject of soreness;--and the roads close to the towns and even in the

towns are often so imperfect that it is felt to be almost rude to allude

to them specially. In a new town very much has to be done before the

roads can be macadamized. I was driven along one road into Durban in

company with the Mayor which was certainly not all that a road ought to

be. But this road which we were on now was, when I came to observe it, a

very good road indeed. “And so it ought,” said my companion. “It cost

the Colony----,” I forget what he said it cost. £30,000, I think, for

three or four miles. There had been some blundering, probably some

peculation, and thus the money of the young community had been

squandered. Then, at the other side of Durban, £100,000 had been thrown

into the sea in a vain attempt to keep out the sand. These are the

heartrending struggles which new countries have to make. It is not only

that they must spend their hard-earned money, but that they are so

often compelled to throw it away because in their infancy they have not

as yet learned how to spend it profitably.

Natal has had many hardships to endure and Durban perhaps more than its

share. But there it is now, a prosperous and pleasant seaport town with

a beautiful country round it and thriving merchants in its streets. It

has a park in the middle of it,--not very well kept. I may suggest that

it was not improved in general appearance when I saw it by having a

couple of old horses tethered on its bare grass. Perhaps the grass is

not bare now and perhaps the horses have been taken away. The

combination when I was there suggested poverty on the part of the

municipality and starvation on the part of the horses. There is also a

botanical garden a little way up the hill very rich in plants but not

altogether well kept. The wonder is how so much is done in these places,

rather than why so little;--that efforts so great should be made by

young and therefore poor municipalities to do something for the

recreation and for the relief of the inhabitants! I think that there is

not a town in South Africa,--so to be called,--which has not its

hospital and its public garden. The struggles for these institutions

have to come from men who are making a dash for fortune, generally under

hard circumstances in which every energy is required; and the money has

to be collected from pockets which at first are never very full. But a

colonial town is ashamed of itself if it has not its garden, its

hospital, its public library, and its two or three churches, even in its

early days.

I can say nothing of the hotels at Durban because I was allowed to live

at the club,--which is so peculiarly a colonial institution. Somebody

puts your name down beforehand and then you drive up to the door and ask

for your bedroom. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are provided at stated

hours. At Durban two lunches were provided in separate rooms, a hot

lunch and a cold lunch,--an arrangement which I did not see elsewhere. I

imagine that the hot lunch is intended as a dinner to those who like to

dine early. But, if I am not mistaken, I have seen the same faces coming

out of the hot lunch and going in to the hot dinner. I should imagine

that these clubs cannot be regarded with much favour by the Innkeepers

as they take away a large proportion of the male travellers.

The population of Durban is a little in excess of that of the capital of

the Colony, the one town running the other very close. They each have

something above 4,000 white inhabitants, and something above half that

number of coloured people. In regard to the latter there must I think be

much uncertainty as they fluctuate greatly and live, many of them,

nobody quite knows where. They are in fact beyond the power of accurate

counting, and can only be computed. In Durban, as in Pieter Maritzburg,

every thing is done by the Zulus,--or by other coloured people;--and

when anything has to be done there is always a Zulu boy to do it.

Nothing of manual work seems ever to be done by an European. The

stranger would thus be led to believe that the coloured population is

greater than the white. But Durban is a sea port town requiring many

clerks and having no manufactures. Clerks are generally white, as are

also the attendants in the shops. It is not till the traveller gets

further up the country that he finds a Hottentot selling him a

pockethandkerchief. I am bound to say that on leaving Durban I felt that

I had visited a place at which the settlers had done the very utmost for

themselves and had fought bravely and successfully with the difficulties

which always beset new comers into strange lands. I wish the town and

the sugar growers of its neighbourhood every success,--merely suggesting

to them that in a few years’ time a Zulu may become quite as handy at

making sugar as a Coolie.

Pieter Maritzburg is about 55 miles from Durban, and there are two

public conveyances running daily. The mail cart starts in the morning,

and what is called a Cobb’s coach follows at noon. I chose the latter as

it travels somewhat faster than the other and reaches its destination in

time for dinner. The troubles of the long road before me,--from Durban

through Natal and the Transvaal to Pretoria, the Diamond Fields,

Bloemfontein--the capital of the Orange Free State,--and thence back

through the Cape Colony to Capetown were already beginning to lie heavy

on my mind. But I had no cause for immediate action at Durban. Whatever

I might do, whatever resolution I might finally take, must be done and

taken at Pieter Maritzburg. I could therefore make this little journey

without doubt, though my mind misgave me as to the other wanderings

before me.

I found the Cobb’s coach,--which however was not a Cobb’s coach at

all,--to be a very well horsed and well arranged Institution. We

travelled when we were going at about ten miles an hour and were very

well driven indeed by one of those coloured half-bred Cape boys, as they

are called, whose parents came into the Cape Colony from St. Helena.

Almost all the driving of coaches and mail carts of South Africa has

fallen into their hands, and very good coachmen they are. I sometimes

flatter myself that I know something about the driving of ill-sorted

teams, having had much to do for many years with the transmission of

mails at home, and I do not know that I ever saw a more skilful man with

awkward horses than was this Cape driver. As well as I could learn he

was called Apollo. I hope that if he has a son he will not neglect to

instruct him in his father’s art as did the other charioteer of that

name. At home, in the old coaching days, we entertained a most

exaggerated idea of the skill of the red-faced, heavy, old fashioned

jarveys who used to succeed in hammering their horses along a road as

smooth as a bowling green, and who would generally be altogether at

their wits’ end if there came any sudden lack of those appurtenances to

which they were accustomed. It was not till I had visited the United

States, and Australia, and now South Africa that I saw what really might

be done in the way of driving four, six, or even eight horses. The

animals confided to Apollo’s care were generally good; but, as is always

the case in such establishments, one or two of them were new to the

work,--and one or two were old stagers who had a will of their own. And

the road was by no means a bowling-green all the way. I was much taken

with the manner in which Apollo got the better of four jibbing brutes,

who, taking the evil fashion one from another, refused for twenty

minutes to make any progress with the vehicle to which they had just

been harnessed. He suddenly twisted them round and they started full

gallop as though they were going back to Durban. The animals knew that

they were wanted to go the other way and were willing to do anything in

opposition to the supposed will of their master. They were flying to

Durban. But when he had got them warm to the harness he succeeded in

turning them on the veld, keeping them still at a gallop, till they had

passed the stage at which they had been harnessed to the coach.

As much of the driving in such a country has to be done with the brake

as with the reins and whip, and this man, while his hands and arms were

hard at work, had to manage the brake with his feet. Our old English

coachman could not have moved himself quick enough for the making of

such exertions. And Apollo sat with a passenger on each side, terribly

cramped for room. He was hemmed in with mail bags. My luggage so

obliterated the foot-board that he had to sit with one leg cocked up in

the air and the other loose upon the brake. Every now and again new

indignities were heaped upon him in the shape of parcels and coats which

he stuffed under him as best he could. And yet he managed to keep the

mastery of his reins and whip. It was very hot and he drank lemonade all

the way. What English coachman of the old days could have rivalled him

there? At the end of the journey he asked for nothing, but took the

half-crown offered to him with easy nonchalance. He was certainly much

more like a gentleman than the old English coachman,--whose greedy eye

who does not remember that can remember at all those old days?

We were apparently quite full but heard at starting that there was still

a place vacant which had been booked by a gentleman who was to get up

along the road. The back carriage, which was of the waggonette fashion,

uncovered, with seats at each side, seemed to be so full that the

gentleman would find a difficulty in placing himself, but as I was on

the box the idea did not disconcert me. At last, about half way, at one

of the stages, the gentleman appeared. There was a lady inside with her

husband, with five or six others, who at once began to squeeze

themselves. But when the gentleman came it was not a gentleman only, but

a gentleman with the biggest fish in his arms that I ever saw, short of

a Dolphin. I was told afterwards that it weighed 45 pounds. The fish was

luggage, he said, and must be carried. He had booked his place. That we

knew to be true. When asked he declared he had booked a place for the

fish also. That we believed to be untrue. He came round to the front and

essayed to put it on the foot-board. When I assured him that any such

attempt must be vain and that the fish would be at once extruded if

placed there, he threatened to pull me off the box. He was very angry,

and frantic in his efforts. The fish, he said, was worth £5, and must go

to Maritzburg that day. Here Apollo shewed, I think, a little

inferiority to an English coachman. The English coachman would have

grown very red in the face, would have cursed horribly, and would have

persistently refused all contact with the fish. Apollo jumped on his

box, seized the reins, flogged the horses, and endeavoured to run away

both from the fish and the gentleman.

But the man, with more than colonial alacrity, and with a courage worthy

of a better cause, made a successful rush, and catching the back of the

vehicle with one hand got on to the step behind, while he held on to the

fish with his other hand and his teeth. There were many exclamations

from the folks behind. The savour of the fish was unpleasant in their

nostrils. It must have been very unpleasant as it reached us

uncomfortably up on the box. Gradually the man got in,--and the fish

followed him! Labor omnia vincit improbus. By his pertinacity the

company seemed to become reconciled to the abomination. On looking round

when we were yet many miles from Pieter Maritzburg I saw the gentleman

sitting with his feet dangling back over the end of the car; his

neighbour and vis-a-vis, who at first had been very loud against the

fish, was sitting in the same wretched position; while the fish itself

was placed upright in the place of honour against the door, where the

legs of the two passengers ought to have been. Before we reached our

journey’s end I respected the gentleman with the fish,--who nevertheless

had perpetrated a great injustice; but I thought very little of the

good-natured man who had allowed the fish to occupy the space intended

for a part of his own body. I never afterwards learned what became of

the fish. If all Maritzburg was called together to eat it I was not

asked to join the party.

I must not complete my record of the journey without saying that we

dined at Pinetown, half way, and that I never saw a better coach dinner

put upon a table.

The scenery throughout from Durban to Pieter Maritzburg is interesting

and in some places is very beautiful. The road passes over the ridge of

hills which guards the interior from the sea, and in many places from

its altitude allows the traveller to look down on the tops of smaller

hills grouped fantastically below, lying as though they had been

crumbled down from a giant’s hand. And every now and then are seen those

flat-topped mountains,--such as is the Table mountain over

Capetown,--which form so remarkable a feature in South African scenery,

and occur so often as to indicate some peculiar cause for their

formation.

Altogether what with the scenery, the dinner, Apollo, and the fish, the

journey was very interesting.

CHAPTER XVI.

CONDITION OF THE COLONY.--NO. 2.