Cape Town, Oct. 3.
I CAME on shore on a very fine day, but the weather changed, and we had a
fortnight of cold and damp and S.W. wind (equivalent to our east wind),
such as the ‘oldest inhabitant’ never experienced; and I have had as bad
an attack of bronchitis as ever I remember, having been in bed till
yesterday. I had a very good doctor, half Italian, half Dane, born at
the Cape of Good Hope, and educated at Edinburgh, named Chiappini. He
has a son studying medicine in London, whose mother is Dutch; such is the
mixture of bloods here.
Yesterday, the wind went to the south-east; the blessed sun shone out,
and the weather was lovely at once. The mountain threw off his cloak of
cloud, and all was bright and warm. I got up and sat in the verandah
over the stoep (a kind of terrace in front of every house here). They
brought me a tortoise as big as half a crown and as lively as a cricket
to look at, and a chameleon like a fairy dragon—a green fellow, five
inches long, with no claws on his feet, but suckers like a fly—the most
engaging little beast. He sat on my finger, and caught flies with great
delight and dexterity, and I longed to send him to M—. To-day, I went a
long drive with Captain and Mrs. J—: we went to Rondebosch and
Wynberg—lovely country; rather like Herefordshire; red earth and
oak-trees. Miles of the road were like Gainsborough-lane, {27} on a
large scale, and looked quite English; only here and there a hedge of
prickly pear, or the big white aruns in the ditches, told a different
tale; and the scarlet geraniums and myrtles growing wild puzzled one.
And then came rattling along a light, rough, but well-poised cart, with
an Arab screw driven by a Malay, in a great hat on his kerchiefed head,
and his wife, with her neat dress, glossy black hair, and great gold
earrings. They were coming with fish, which he had just caught at Kalk
Bay, and was going to sell for the dinners of the Capetown folk. You
pass neat villas, with pretty gardens and stoeps, gay with flowers, and
at the doors of several, neat Malay girls are lounging. They are the
best servants here, for the emigrants mostly drink. Then you see a group
of children at play, some as black as coals, some brown and very pretty.
A little black girl, about R—’s age, has carefully tied what little
petticoat she has, in a tight coil round her waist, and displays the most
darling little round legs and behind, which it would be a real pleasure
to slap; it is so shiny and round, and she runs and stands so strongly
and gracefully.
Here comes another Malay, with a pair of baskets hanging from a stick
across his shoulder, like those in Chinese pictures, which his hat also
resembles. Another cart full of working men, with a Malay driver; and
inside are jumbled some red-haired, rosy-cheeked English navvies, with
the ugliest Mozambiques, blacker than Erebus, and with faces all knobs
and corners, like a crusty loaf. As we drive home we see a span of
sixteen noble oxen in the market-place, and on the ground squats the
Hottentot driver. His face no words can describe—his cheek-bones are up
under his hat, and his meagre-pointed chin halfway down to his waist; his
eyes have the dull look of a viper’s, and his skin is dirty and sallow,
but not darker than a dirty European’s.
Capetown is rather pretty, but beyond words untidy and out of repair. As
it is neither drained nor paved, it won’t do in hot weather; and I shall
migrate ‘up country’ to a Dutch village. Mrs. J—, who is Dutch herself,
tells me that one may board in a Dutch farm-house very cheaply, and with
great comfort (of course eating with the family), and that they will
drive you about the country and tend your horses for nothing, if you are
friendly, and don’t treat them with _Engelsche hoog-moedigheid_.
_Oct._ 19_th_.—The packet came in last night, but just in time to save
the fine of 50_l._ per diem, and I got your welcome letter this morning.
I have been coughing all this time, but I hope I shall improve. I came
out at the very worst time of year, and the weather has been (of course)
‘unprecedentedly’ bad and changeable. But when it _is_ fine it is quite
celestial; so clear, so dry, so light. Then comes a cloud over Table
Mountain, like the sugar on a wedding-cake, which tumbles down in
splendid waterfalls, and vanishes unaccountably halfway; and then you run
indoors and shut doors and windows, or it portends a ‘south-easter’, i.e.
a hurricane, and Capetown disappears in impenetrable clouds of dust. But
this wind coming off the hills and fields of ice, is the Cape doctor, and
keeps away cholera, fever of every sort, and all malignant or infectious
diseases. Most of them are unknown here. Never was so healthy a place;
but the remedy is of the heroic nature, and very disagreeable. The
stones rattle against the windows, and omnibuses are blown over on the
Rondebosch road.
A few days ago, I drove to Mr. V—’s farm. Imagine St. George’s Hill,
{30} and the most beautiful bits of it, sloping gently up to Table
Mountain, with its grey precipices, and intersected with Scotch burns,
which water it all the year round, as they come from the living rock; and
sprinkled with oranges, pomegranates, and camelias in abundance. You
drive through a mile or two as described, and arrive at a square, planted
with rows of fine oaks close together; at the upper end stands the house,
all on the ground-floor, but on a high stoep: rooms eighteen feet high;
the old slave quarters on each side; stables, &c., opposite; the square
as big as Belgrave Square, and the buildings in the old French style.
We then went on to Newlands, a still more beautiful place. Immense
trenching and draining going on—the foreman a Caffre, black as ink, six
feet three inches high, and broad in proportion, with a staid, dignified
air, and Englishmen working under him! At the streamlets there are the
inevitable groups of Malay women washing clothes, and brown babies
sprawling about. Yesterday, I should have bought a black woman for her
beauty, had it been still possible. She was carrying an immense weight
on her head, and was far gone with child; but such stupendous physical
perfection I never even imagined. Her jet black face was like the
Sphynx, with the same mysterious smile; her shape and walk were
goddess-like, and the lustre of her skin, teeth, and eyes, showed the
fulness of health;—Caffre of course. I walked after her as far as her
swift pace would let me, in envy and admiration of such stately humanity.
The ordinary blacks, or Mozambiques, as they call them, are hideous.
Malay here seems equivalent to Mohammedan. They were originally Malays,
but now they include every shade, from the blackest nigger to the most
blooming English woman. Yes, indeed, the emigrant-girls have been known
to turn ‘Malays’, and get thereby husbands who know not billiards and
brandy—the two diseases of Capetown. They risked a plurality of wives,
and professed Islam, but they got fine clothes and industrious husbands.
They wear a very pretty dress, and all have a great air of independence
and self-respect; and the real Malays are very handsome. I am going to
see one of the Mollahs soon, and to look at their schools and mosque;
which, to the distraction of the Scotch, they call their ‘Kerk.’
I asked a Malay if he would drive me in his cart with the six or eight
mules, which he agreed to do for thirty shillings and his dinner (i.e. a
share of my dinner) on the road. When I asked how long it would take, he
said, ‘Allah is groot’, which meant, I found, that it depended on the
state of the beach—the only road for half the way.
The sun, moon, and stars are different beings from those we look upon.
Not only are they so large and bright, but you _see_ that the moon and
stars are _balls_, and that the sky is endless beyond them. On the other
hand, the clear, dry air dwarfs Table Mountain, as you seem to see every
detail of it to the very top.
Capetown is very picturesque. The old Dutch buildings are very handsome
and peculiar, but are falling to decay and dirt in the hands of their
present possessors. The few Dutch ladies I have seen are very pleasing.
They are gentle and simple, and naturally well-bred. Some of the Malay
women are very handsome, and the little children are darlings. A little
parti-coloured group of every shade, from ebony to golden hair and blue
eyes, were at play in the street yesterday, and the majority were pretty,
especially the half-castes. Most of the Caffres I have seen look like
the perfection of human physical nature, and seem to have no diseases.
Two days ago I saw a Hottentot girl of seventeen, a housemaid here. You
would be enchanted by her superfluity of flesh; the face was very queer
and ugly, and yet pleasing, from the sweet smile and the rosy cheeks
which please one much, in contrast to all the pale yellow faces—handsome
as some of them are.
I wish I could send the six chameleons which a good-natured parson
brought me in his hat, and a queer lizard in his pocket. The chameleons
are charming, so monkey-like and so ‘_caressants_’. They sit on my
breakfast tray and catch flies, and hang in a bunch by their tails, and
reach out after my hand.
I have had a very kind letter from Lady Walker, and shall go and stay
with them at Simon’s Bay as soon as I feel up to the twenty-two miles
along the beaches and bad roads in the mail-cart with three horses. The
teams of mules (I beg pardon, spans) would delight you—eight, ten,
twelve, even sixteen sleek, handsome beasts; and oh, such oxen! noble
beasts with humps; and hump is very good to eat too.
_Oct._ 21_st._—The mail goes out to-morrow, so I must finish this letter.
I feel better to-day than I have yet felt, in spite of the south-easter.
Yours, &c.