Standing on the shores of Algoa Bay, with the "Liverpool of South
Africa"--Port Elizabeth--at my back, I attempted to realise what must
have been the scene, in the memorable "1820," when the flourishing city
was yet unborn, when the whole land was a veritable wilderness, and the
sands on which the port now stands were covered with the tents of the
"settlers."
Some of the surroundings, thought I, are pretty much as they were in
those days. The shipping at anchor in the offing must resemble the
shipping that conveyed the emigrants across the sea--except, of course,
these two giant steamers of the "Donald Currie" and the "Union" lines.
The bright blue sky, too, and the fiery sun are the same, and so are
those magnificent "rollers," which, rising, one scarce can tell when or
where, out of a dead-calm sea, stand up for a few seconds like liquid
walls, and then rush up the beach with a magnificent roar.
As I gazed, the scene was rendered still more real by the approach from
seaward of a great surf-boat, similar to the surf-boats that brought the
settlers from their respective ships to the shore. Such boats are still
used at the port to land goods--and also passengers, when the breakers
are too high to admit of their being landed in small boats at the wooden
pier. The surf-boats are bulky, broad, and flat, strongly built to
stand severe hammering on the sand, and comparatively shallow at the
stern, to admit of their being backed towards the beach, or hauled off
to sea through the surf by means of a rope over the bow.
As the surf-boat neared the shore, I heard voices behind me, and,
turning round, beheld a sight which sent me completely back into the
1820 days. It was a band of gentlemen in black--black from the crowns
of their heads to the soles of their feet, with the exception of their
lips and teeth and eyes. Here was the Simon Pure in very truth. They
were so-called Red Kafirs, because of their habit of painting their
bodies and blankets with red ochre. At this time the paint had been
washed off, and the blankets laid aside. They were quite naked, fresh
from the lands of their nativity, and apparently fit for anything.
Shade of Othello!--to say nothing of Apollo--what magnificent forms the
fellows had, and what indescribably hideous faces! They were tall,
muscular, broad-shouldered, small waisted and ankled, round-muscled,
black-polished--in a word, elegantly powerful. Many of them might have
stood as models for Hercules. Like superfine cloth, they were of
various shades; some were brown-black, some almost blue-black, and many
coal-black.
They were coming down to unload the surf-boat, and seemed full of fun,
and sly childlike humour, as they walked, tripped, skipped and sidled
into the water. At first I was greatly puzzled to account for the fact
that all their heads and throats were wrapped up, or swathed, in dirty
cloth. It seemed as if every man of them was under treatment for a bad
cold. This I soon found was meant to serve as a protection to their
naked skins from the sharp and rugged edges and corners of the casks and
cases they had to carry.
The labour is rather severe, but is well paid, so that hundreds of
Kafirs annually come down from their homes in the wilderness to work for
a short time. They do not, I believe, make a profession of it. Fresh
relays come every year. Each young fellow's object is to make enough
money to purchase a gun and cattle, and a wife--or wives. As these
articles cost little in Africa, a comparatively short attention to
business, during one season, enables a man who left home a beggar to
return with his fortune made! He marries, sets his wives to hoe the
mealies and milk the cows, and thereafter takes life easy, except when
he takes a fancy to hunt elephants, or to go to war for pastime. Ever
after he is a drone in the world's beehive. Having no necessity he need
not work, and possessing no principle he will not.
As the boat came surging in on the foam, these manly children waded out
to meet her, throwing water at each other, and skylarking as they went.
They treated the whole business in fact as a rather good jest, and
although they toiled like heroes, they accompanied their work with such
jovial looks, and hummed such lilting, free-and-easy airs the while,
that it was difficult to associate their doings with anything like
_labour_.
Soon the boat grounded, and the Kafirs crowded round her, up to their
waists sometimes in the water, and sometimes up to the arm-pits, when a
bigger wave than usual came roaring in. The boat itself was so large
that, as they stood beside it, their heads barely rose to a level with
the gunwale. The boatmen at once began to heave and roll the goods over
the side. The Kafirs received them on their heads or shoulders,
according to the shape or size of each package--and they refused
nothing. If a bale or a box chanced to be too heavy for one man, a
comrade lent assistance; if it proved still too heavy, a third added his
head or shoulder, and the box or bale was borne off.
One fellow, like a black Hercules, put his wrapper on his head, and his
head under a bale, which I thought would crush him down into the surf,
but he walked ashore with an easy springing motion, that showed he
possessed more than sufficient power. Another man, hitting Hercules a
sounding smack as he went by, received a mighty cask on his head that
should have cracked it--but it didn't. Then I observed the boatmen
place on the gunwale an enormous flat box, which seemed to me about ten
feet square. It was corrugated iron, they told me, of, I forget, how
many hundredweight. A crowd of Kafirs got under it, and carried it
ashore as easily as if it had been a butterfly. But this was nothing to
a box which next made its appearance from the bowels of that capacious
boat. It was in the form of a cube, and must have measured nine or ten
feet in all directions. Its contents I never ascertained, but the
difficulty with which the boatmen got it rested on the side of the boat
proved its weight to be worthy of its size. To get it on the shoulders
of the Kafirs was the next difficulty. It was done by degrees. As the
huge case was pushed over the edge, Kafir after Kafir put his head or
shoulder to it, until there were, I think, from fifteen to twenty men
beneath the weight;--then, slowly, it left the boat, and began to move
towards the shore.
Assuredly, if four or five of these men had stumbled at the same moment,
the others would have been crushed to death, but not a man stumbled.
They came ashore with a slow, regular, almost dancing gait, humming a
low monotonous chant, as if to enable them to step in time, and making
serio-comic motions with arms and hands, until they deposited safely in
a cart a weight that might have tested Atlas himself!
It seemed obvious that these wild men, (for such they truly were), had
been gifted with all the powers that most white men lay claim to,--
vigour, muscle, energy, pluck, fun, humour, resolution. Only principle
is wanted to make them a respectable and useful portion of the human
family. Like all the rest of us they are keenly alive to the influence
of kindness and affection. Of course if your kindness, forbearance, or
affection, take the form of action which leads them to think that you
are afraid of them, they will merely esteem you cunning, and treat you
accordingly; but if you convince a Kafir, or any other savage, that you
have a disinterested regard for him, you are sure to find him grateful,
more or less.
One family with which I dined gave me to understand that this was the
result of their own experience. At that very time they had a Kafir girl
in training as a housemaid. Servants, let me remark in passing, are a
Cape difficulty. The demand is in excess of the supply, and the supply
is not altogether what it should be, besides being dear and
uncomfortably independent. I suppose it was because of this difficulty
that the family I dined with had procured a half-wild Kafir girl, and
undertaken her training.
Her clothes hung upon her in a manner that suggested novelty. She was
young, very tall, black, lithe as an eel, strong as a horse. She was
obviously new to the work, and went about it with the air of one who
engages in a frolic. But the free air of the wilderness had taught her
a freedom of action and stride, and a fling of body that it was not easy
to restrain within the confined precincts of a dining--room. She moved
round the table like a sable panther--ready to spring when wanted. She
had an open-mouthed smile of amused good-will, and an open-eyed
"what-next--only-say-quick--and-I'll-do-it" expression that was
impressive. She seized the plates and dishes and bore them off with a
giraffe-like, high-stepping action that was quite alarming, but she
broke or spilt nothing. To say that she flung about, would be mild. It
would not have been strange, I thought--only a little extra dash in her
jubilant method of proceeding--if she had gone head-foremost through the
dining-room window for the sake of bearing the mutton round by a shorter
route to the kitchen.
The family expected that this girl would be reduced to moderation, and
rendered faithful--as she certainly was intelligent--by force of
kindness in a short time.
Of course in a country thus circumstanced, there are bad servants. The
independence of the Totties is most amusing--to those who do not suffer
from it. I was told that servants out there have turned the tables on
their employers, and instead of bringing "characters" with them, require
to know the characters of master and mistress before they will engage.
It is no uncommon thing for a domestic to come to you and say that she
is tired and wants a rest, and is going off to see her mother. Indeed
it is something to her credit if she takes the trouble to tell you.
Sometimes she goes off without warning, leaving you to shift for
yourself, returning perhaps after some days. If you find fault with her
too severely on her return, she will probably leave you altogether.
This naturally tries the temper of high-spirited mistresses--as does
also the incorrigible carelessness of some servants.
A gentle lady said to me quietly, one day, "I never keep a servant after
slapping her!"
"Is it your habit to slap them?" I asked with a smile.
"No," she replied with an answering smile, "but occasionally I am driven
to it. When a careless girl, who has been frequently cautioned, singes
one's linen and destroys one's best dress, and melts one's tea-pot by
putting it on the red-hot stove, what _can_ flesh and blood do?"