28_th_ _Oct._—Since I wrote, we have had more really cold weather, but
yesterday the summer seems to have begun. The air is as light and clear
as if _there were none_, and the sun hot; but I walk in it, and do not
find it oppressive. All the household groans and perspires, but I am
very comfortable.
Yesterday I sat in the full broil for an hour or more, in the hot dust of
the Malay burial-ground. They buried the head butcher of the Mussulmans,
and a most strange poetical scene it was. The burial-ground is on the
side of the Lion Mountain—on the Lion’s rump—and overlooks the whole bay,
part of the town, and the most superb mountain panorama beyond. I never
saw a view within miles of it for beauty and grandeur. Far down, a fussy
English steamer came puffing and popping into the deep blue bay, and the
‘Hansom’s’ cabs went tearing down to the landing place; and round me sat
a crowd of grave brown men chanting ‘Allah il Allah’ to the most
monotonous but musical air, and with the most perfect voices. The chant
seemed to swell, and then fade, like the wind in the trees.
I went in after the procession, which consisted of a bier covered with
three common Paisley shawls of gay colours; no one looked at me; and when
they got near the grave, I kept at a distance, and sat down when they
did. But a man came up and said, ‘You are welcome.’ So I went close,
and saw the whole ceremony. They took the corpse, wrapped in a sheet,
out of the bier, and lifted it into the grave, where two men received it;
then a sheet was held over the grave till they had placed the dead man;
and then flowers and earth were thrown in by all present, the grave
filled in, watered out of a brass kettle, and decked with flowers. Then
a fat old man, in printed calico shirt sleeves, and a plaid waistcoat and
corduroy trousers, pulled off his shoes, squatted on the grave, and
recited endless ‘Koran’, many reciting after him. Then they chanted
‘Allah-il-Allah’ for twenty minutes, I think: then prayers, with ‘Ameens’
and ‘Allah il-Allahs’ again. Then all jumped up and walked off. There
were eighty or a hundred men, no women, and five or six ‘Hadjis’, draped
in beautiful Eastern dresses, and looking very supercilious. The whole
party made less noise in moving and talking than two Englishmen.
A white-complexioned man spoke to me in excellent English (which few of
them speak), and was very communicative and civil. He told me the dead
man was his brother-in-law, and he himself the barber. I hoped I had not
taken a liberty. ‘Oh, no; poor Malays were proud when noble English
persons showed such respect to their religion. The young Prince had done
so too, and Allah would not forget to protect him. He also did not laugh
at their prayers, praise be to God!’ I had already heard that Prince
Alfred is quite the darling of the Malays. He insisted on accepting
their _fête_, which the Capetown people had snubbed. I have a friendship
with one Abdul Jemaalee and his wife Betsy, a couple of old folks who
were slaves to Dutch owners, and now keep a fruit-shop of a rough sort,
with ‘Betsy, fruiterer,’ painted on the back of an old tin tray, and hung
up by the door of the house. Abdul first bought himself, and then his
wife Betsy, whose ‘missus’ generously threw in her bed-ridden mother. He
is a fine handsome old man, and has confided to me that £5,000 would not
buy what he is worth now. I have also read the letters written by his,
son, young Abdul Rachman, now a student at Cairo, who has been away five
years—four at Mecca. The young theologian writes to his ‘_hoog eerbare
moeder_’ a fond request for money, and promises to return soon. I am
invited to the feast wherewith he will be welcomed. Old Abdul Jemaalee
thinks it will divert my mind, and prove to me that Allah will take me
home safe to my children, about whom he and his wife asked many
questions. Moreover, he compelled me to drink herb tea, compounded by a
Malay doctor for my cough. I declined at first, and the poor old man
looked hurt, gravely assured me that it was not true that Malays always
poisoned Christians, and drank some himself. Thereupon I was obliged, of
course, to drink up the rest; it certainly did me good, and I have drunk
it since with good effect; it is intensely bitter and rather sticky. The
white servants and the Dutch landlady where I lodge shake their heads
ominously, and hope it mayn’t poison me a year hence. ‘Them nasty Malays
can make it work months after you take it.’ They also possess the evil
eye, and a talent for love potions. As the men are very handsome and
neat, I incline to believe that part of it.
_Rathfelder’s Halfway House_, 6_th_ _November_.—I drove out here
yesterday in Captain T—’s drag, which he kindly brought into Capetown for
me. He and his wife and children came for a change of air for whooping
cough, and advised me to come too, as my cough continues, though less
troublesome. It is a lovely spot, six miles from Constantia, ten from
Capetown, and twelve from Simon’s Bay. I intend to stay here a little
while, and then to go to Kalk Bay, six miles from hence. This inn was
excellent, I hear, ‘in the old Dutch times’. Now it is kept by a young
Englishman, Cape-born, and his wife, and is dirty and disorderly. I pay
twelve shillings a day for S— and self, without a sitting-room, and my
bed is a straw paillasse; but the food is plentiful, and not very bad.
That is the cheapest rate of living possible here, and every trifle costs
double what it would in England, except wine, which is very fair at
fivepence a bottle—a kind of hock. The landlord pays £1 a day rent for
this house, which is the great resort of the Capetown people for Sundays,
and for change of air, &c.—a rude kind of Richmond. His cook gets £3
10_s._ a month, besides food for himself and wife, and beer and sugar.
The two (white) housemaids get £1 15_s._ and £1 10_s._ respectively
(everything by the month). Fresh butter is 3_s._ 6_d._ a pound, mutton
7_d._; washing very dear; cabbages my host sells at 3_d._ a piece, and
pumpkins 8_d._ He has a fine garden, and pays a gardener 3_s._ 6_d._ a
day, and black labourers 2_s._ _They_ work three days a week; then they
buy rice and a coarse fish, and lie in the sun till it is eaten; while
their darling little fat black babies play in the dust, and their black
wives make battues in the covers in their woolly heads. But the little
black girl who cleans my room is far the best servant, and smiles and
speaks like Lalage herself, ugly as the poor drudge is. The voice and
smile of the negroes here is bewitching, though they are hideous; and
neither S— nor I have yet heard a black child cry, or seen one naughty or
quarrelsome. You would want to lay out a fortune in woolly babies.
Yesterday I had a dreadful heartache after my darling, on her little
birthday, and even the lovely ranges of distant mountains, coloured like
opals in the sunset, did not delight me. This is a dreary place for
strangers. Abdul Jemaalee’s tisanne, and a banana which he gave me each
time I went to his shop, are the sole offer of ‘Won’t you take
something?’ or even the sole attempt at a civility that I have received,
except from the J—s, who, are very civil and kind.
When I have done my visit to Simon’s Bay, I will go ‘up country’, to
Stellenbosch, Paarl and Worcester, perhaps. If I can find people going
in a bullock-waggon, I will join them; it costs £1 a day, and goes twenty
miles. If money were no object, I would hire one with Caffres to hunt,
as well as outspan and drive, and take a saddle-horse. There is plenty
of pleasure to be had in travelling here, if you can afford it. The
scenery is quite beyond anything you can imagine in beauty. I went to a
country house at Rondebosch with the J—s, and I never saw so lovely a
spot. The possessor had done his best to spoil it, and to destroy the
handsome Dutch house and fountains and aqueducts; but Nature was too much
for him, and the place lovely in neglect and shabbiness.
Now I will tell you my impressions of the state of society here, as far
as I have been able to make out by playing the inquisitive traveller. I
dare say the statements are exaggerated, but I do not think they are
wholly devoid of truth. The Dutch round Capetown (I don’t know anything
of ‘up country’) are sulky and dispirited; they regret the slave days,
and can’t bear to pay wages; they have sold all their fine houses in town
to merchants, &c., and let their handsome country places go to pieces,
and their land lie fallow, rather than hire the men they used to own.
They hate the Malays, who were their slaves, and whose ‘insolent
prosperity’ annoys them, and they don’t like the vulgar, bustling
English. The English complain that the Dutch won’t die, and that they
are the curse of the colony (a statement for which they can never give a
reason). But they, too, curse the emancipation, long to flog the
niggers, and hate the Malays, who work harder and don’t drink, and who
are the only masons, tailors, &c., and earn from 4_s._ 6_d._ to 10_s._ a
day. The Malays also have almost a monopoly of cart-hiring and
horse-keeping; an Englishman charges £4 10_s._ or £5 for a carriage to do
what a Malay will do quicker in a light cart for 30_s._ S— says, ‘The
English here think the coloured people ought to do the work, and they to
get the wages. Nothing less would satisfy them.’ Servants’ wages are
high, but other wages not much higher than in England; yet industrious
people invariably make fortunes, or at least competencies, even when they
begin with nothing. But few of the English will do anything but lounge;
while they abuse the Dutch as lazy, and the Malays as thieves, and feel
their fingers itch to be at the blacks. The Africanders (Dutch and negro
mixed in various proportions) are more or less lazy, dirty, and dressy,
and the beautiful girls wear pork-pie hats, and look very winning and
rather fierce; but to them the philanthropists at home have provided
formidable rivals, by emptying a shipload of young ladies from a
‘Reformatory’ into the streets of Capetown.
I am puzzled what to think of the climate here for invalids. The air is
dry and clear beyond conception, and light, but the sun is scorching;
while the south-east wind blows an icy hurricane, and the dust obscures
the sky. These winds last all the summer, till February or March. I am
told when they don’t blow it is heavenly, though still cold in the
mornings and evenings. No one must be out at, or after sunset, the chill
is so sudden. Many of the people here declare that it is death to weak
lungs, and send their _poitrinaires_ to Madeira, or the south of France.
They also swear the climate is enervating, but their looks, and above all
the blowsy cheeks and hearty play of the English children, disprove that;
and those who come here consumptive get well in spite of the doctors, who
won’t allow it possible. I believe it is a climate which requires great
care from invalids, but that, with care, it is good, because it is
bracing as well as warm and dry. It is not nearly so warm as I expected;
the southern icebergs are at no great distance, and they ice the
south-east wind for us. If it were not so violent, it would be
delicious; and there are no unhealthy winds—nothing like our east wind.
The people here grumble at the north-wester, which sometimes brings rain,
and call it damp, which, as they don’t know what damp is, is excusable;
it feels like a _dry_ south-wester in England. It is, however, quite a
delusion to think of living out of doors, here; the south-easters keep
one in nearly, if not quite, half one’s time, and in summer they say the
sun is too hot to be out except morning and evening. But I doubt that,
for they make an outcry about heat as soon as it is not cold. The
transitions are so sudden, that, with the thermometer at 76°, you must
not go out without taking a thick warm cloak; you may walk into a
south-easter round the first spur of the mountain, and be cut in two. In
short, the air is cold and bracing, and the sun blazing hot; those whom
that suits, will do well. I should like a softer air, but I may be
wrong; when there is only a moderate wind, it is delicious. You walk in
the hot sun, which makes you perspire a very little; but you dry as you
go, the air is so dry; and you come in untired. I speak of slow walking.
There are no hot-climate diseases; no dysentery, fever, &c.
_Simon’s Bay_, 18_th_ _Nov._—I came on here in a cart, as I felt ill from
the return of the cold weather. While at Rathfelder we had a superb day,
and the J—s drove me over to Constantia, which deserves all its
reputation for beauty. What a divine spot!—such kloofs, with silver
rills running down them! It is useless to describe scenery. It was a
sort of glorified Scotland, with sunshine, flowers, and orange-groves.
We got home hungry and tired, but in great spirits. Alas! next day came
the south-easter—blacker, colder, more cutting, than ever—and lasted a
week.
The Walkers came over on horseback, and pressed me to go to them. They
are most kind and agreeable people. The drive to Simon’s Bay was lovely,
along the coast and across five beaches of snow-white sand, which look
like winter landscapes; and the mountains and bay are lovely.
Living is very dear, and washing, travelling, chemist’s bills—all
enormous. Thirty shillings a cart and horse from Rathfelder here—twelve
miles; and then the young English host wanted me to hire another cart for
one box and one bath! But I would not, and my obstinacy was stoutest.
If I want cart or waggon again, I’ll deal with a Malay, only the fellows
drive with forty Jehu-power up and down the mountains.
A Madagascar woman offered to give me her orphan grandchild, a sweet
brown fairy, six years old, with long silky black hair, and gorgeous
eyes. The child hung about me incessantly all the time I was at
Rathfelder, and I had a great mind to her. She used to laugh like baby,
and was like her altogether, only prettier, and very brown; and when I
told her she was like my own little child, she danced about, and laughed
like mad at the idea that she could look like ‘pretty white Missy’. She
was mighty proud of her needlework and A B C performances.
It is such a luxury to sleep on a real mattrass—not stuffed with dirty
straw; to eat clean food, and live in a nice room. But my cough is very
bad, and the cruel wind blows on and on. I saw the doctor of the Naval
Hospital here to-day. If I don’t mend, I will try his advice, and go
northward for warmth. If you can find an old Mulready envelope, send it
here to Miss Walker, who collects stamps and has not got it, and write
and thank dear good Lady Walker for her kindness to me.
You will get this about the new year. God bless you all, and send us
better days in 1862.
LETTER IV
JOURNEY TO CALEDON
Caledon, Dec. 10th.
I DID not feel at all well at Simon’s Bay, which is a land of hurricanes.
We had a ‘south-easter’ for fourteen days, without an hour’s lull; even
the flag-ship had no communication with the shore for eight days. The
good old naval surgeon there ordered me to start off for this high
‘up-country’ district, and arranged my departure for the first _possible_
day. He made a bargain for me with a Dutchman, for a light Malay cart (a
capital vehicle with two wheels) and four horses, for 30_s._ a day—three
days to Caledon from Simon’s Bay, about a hundred miles or so, and one
day of back fare to his home in Capetown.
Luckily, on Saturday the wind dropped, and we started at nine o’clock,
drove to a place about four miles from Capetown, when we turned off on
the ‘country road’, and outspanned at a post-house kept by a nice old
German with a Dutch wife. Once well out of Capetown, people are civil,
but inquisitive; I was strictly cross-questioned, and proved so
satisfactory, that the old man wished to give me some English porter
gratis. We then jogged along again at a very good pace to another
wayside public, where we outspanned again and ate, and were again
questioned, and again made much of. By six o’clock we got to the Eerste
River, having gone forty miles or so in the day. It was a beautiful day,
and very pleasant travelling. We had three good little half-Arab bays,
and one brute of a grey as off-wheeler, who fell down continually; but a
Malay driver works miracles, and no harm came of it. The cart is small,
with a permanent tilt at top, and moveable curtains of waterproof all
round; harness of raw leather, very prettily put together by Malay
workmen. We sat behind, and our brown coachman, with his mushroom hat,
in front, with my bath and box, and a miniature of himself about seven
years old—a nephew,—so small and handy that he would be worth his weight
in jewels as a tiger. At Eerste River we slept in a pretty old Dutch
house, kept by an English woman, and called the Fox and Hound, ‘to sound
like home, my lady.’ Very nice and comfortable it was.
I started next day at ten; and never shall I forget that day’s journey.
The beauty of the country exceeds all description. Ranges of mountains
beyond belief fantastic in shape, and between them a rolling country,
desolate and wild, and covered with gorgeous flowers among the ‘scrub’.
First we came to Hottentot’s Holland (now called Somerset West), the
loveliest little old Dutch village, with trees and little canals of
bright clear mountain water, and groves of orange and pomegranate, and
white houses, with incredible gable ends. We tried to stop here; but
forage was ninepence a bundle, and the true Malay would rather die than
pay more than he can help. So we pushed on to the foot of the mountains,
and bought forage (forage is oats _au natural_, straw and all, the only
feed known here, where there is no grass or hay) at a farm kept by
English people, who all talked Dutch together; only one girl of the
family could speak English. They were very civil, asked us in, and gave
us unripe apricots, and the girl came down with seven flounces, to talk
with us. Forage was still ninepence—half a dollar a bundle—and
Choslullah Jaamee groaned over it, and said the horses must have less
forage and ‘more plenty roll’ (a roll in the dust is often the only
refreshment offered to the beasts, and seems to do great good).
We got to Caledon at eleven, and drove to the place the Doctor
recommended—formerly a country house of the Dutch Governor. It is in a
lovely spot; but do you remember the Schloss in Immermann’s Neuer
Münchausen? Well, it is that. A ruin;—windows half broken and boarded
up, the handsome steps in front fallen in, and all _en suite_. The rooms
I saw were large and airy; but mud floors, white-washed walls, one chair,
one stump bedstead, and _præterea nihil_. It has a sort of wild,
romantic look; I hear, too, it is wonderfully healthy, and not so bad as
it looks. The long corridor is like the entrance to a great stable, or
some such thing; earth floors and open to all winds. But you can’t
imagine it, however I may describe; it is so huge and strange, and
ruinous. Finding that the mistress of the house was ill, and nothing
ready for our reception, I drove on to the inn. Rain, like a Scotch
mist, came on just as we arrived, and it is damp and chilly, to the
delight of all the dwellers in the land, who love bad weather. It makes
me cough a little more; but they say it is quite unheard of, and can’t
last. Altogether, I suppose this summer here is as that of ’60 was in
England.
I forgot, in describing my journey, the regal-looking Caffre housemaid at
Eerste River. ‘Such a dear, good creature,’ the landlady said; and, oh,
such a ‘noble savage’!—with a cotton handkerchief folded tight like a
cravat and tied round her head with a bow behind, and the short curly
wool sticking up in the middle;—it looked like a royal diadem on her
solemn brow; she stepped like Juno, with a huge tub full to the brim, and
holding several pailfuls, on her head, and a pailful in each hand,
bringing water for the stables from the river, across a large field.
There is nothing like a Caffre for power and grace; and the face, though
very African, has a sort of grandeur which makes it utterly unlike that
of the negro. That woman’s bust and waist were beauty itself. The
Caffres are also very clean and very clever as servants, I hear, learning
cookery, &c., in a wonderfully short time. When they have saved money
enough to buy cattle in Kaffraria, off they go, cast aside civilization
and clothes, and enjoy life in naked luxury.
I can’t tell you how I longed for you in my journey. You would have been
so delighted with the country and the queer turn-out—the wild little
horses, and the polite and delicately-clean Moslem driver. His
description of his sufferings from ‘louses’, when he slept in a Dutch
farm, were pathetic, and ever since, he sleeps in his cart, with the
little boy; and they bathe in the nearest river, and eat their lawful
food and drink their water out of doors. They declined beer, or meat
which had been unlawfully killed. In Capetown _all_ meat is killed by
Malays, and has the proper prayer spoken over it, and they will eat no
other. I was offered a fowl at a farm, but Choslullah thought it ‘too
much money for Missus’, and only accepted some eggs. He was gratified at
my recognising the propriety of his saying ‘Bismillah’ over any animal
killed for food. Some drink beer, and drink a good deal, but Choslullah
thought it ‘very wrong for Malay people, and not good for Christian
people, to be drunk beasties;—little wine or beer good for Christians,
but not too plenty much.’ I gave him ten shillings for himself, at which
he was enchanted, and again begged me to write to his master for him when
I wanted to leave Caledon, and to be sure to say, ‘Mind send same
coachman.’ He planned to drive me back through Worcester, Burnt Vley,
Paarl, and Stellenbosch—a longer round; but he could do it in three days
well, so as ‘not cost Missus more money’, and see a different country.
This place is curiously like Rochefort in the Ardennes, only the hills
are mountains, and the sun is far hotter; not so the air, which is fresh
and pleasant. I am in a very nice inn, kept by an English ex-officer,
who went through the Caffre war, and found his pay insufficient for the
wants of a numerous family. I quite admire his wife, who cooks, cleans,
nurses her babes, gives singing and music lessons,—all as merrily as if
she liked it. I dine with them at two o’clock, and Captain D— has a
_table d’hôte_ at seven for travellers. I pay only 10_s._ 6_d._ a day
for myself and S—; this includes all but wine or beer. The air is very
clear and fine, and my cough is already much better. I shall stay here
as long as it suits me and does me good, and then I am to send for
Choslullah again, and go back by the road he proposed. It rains here now
and then, and blows a good deal, but the wind has lost its bitter chill,
and depressing quality. I hope soon to ride a little and see the
country, which is beautiful.
The water-line is all red from the iron stone, and there are hot
chalybeate springs up the mountain which are very good for rheumatism,
and very strengthening, I am told. The boots here is a Mantatee, very
black, and called Kleenboy, because he is so little; he is the only sleek
black I have seen here, but looks heavy and downcast. One maid is Irish
(they make the best servants here), a very nice clean girl, and the
other, a brown girl of fifteen, whose father is English, and married to
her mother. Food here is scarce, all but bread and mutton, both good.
Butter is 3_s._ a pound; fruit and vegetables only to be had by chance.
I miss the oranges and lemons sadly. Poultry and milk uncertain. The
bread is good everywhere, from the fine wheat: in the country it is
brownish and sweet. The wine here is execrable; this is owing to the
prevailing indolence, for there is excellent wine made from the Rhenish
grape, rather like Sauterne, with a _soupçon_ of Manzanilla flavour. The
sweet Constantia is also very good indeed; not the expensive sort, which
is made from grapes half dried, and is a liqueur, but a light, sweet,
straw-coloured wine, which even I liked. We drank nothing else at the
Admiral’s. The kind old sailor has given me a dozen of wine, which is
coming up here in a waggon, and will be most welcome. I can’t tell you
how kind he and Lady Walker were; I was there three weeks, and hope to go
again when the south-easter season is over and I can get out a little. I
could not leave the house at all; and even Lady Walker and the girls, who
are very energetic, got out but little. They are a charming family.
I have no doubt that Dr. Shea was right, and that one must leave the
coast to get a fine climate. Here it seems to me nearly perfect—too
windy for my pleasure, but then the sun would be overpowering without a
fresh breeze. Every one agrees in saying that the winter in Capetown is
delicious—like a fine English summer. In November the south-easters
begin, and they are ‘fiendish’; this year they began in September. The
mornings here are always fresh, not to say cold; the afternoons, from one
to three, broiling; then delightful till sunset, which is deadly cold for
three-quarters of an hour; the night is lovely. The wind rises and falls
with the sun. That is the general course of things. Now and then it
rains, and this year there is a little south-easter, which is quite
unusual, and not odious, as it is near the sea; and there is seldom a hot
wind from the north. I am promised that on or about Christmas-day; then
doors and windows are shut, and you gasp. Hitherto we have had nothing
nearly so hot as Paris in summer, or as the summer of 1859 in England;
and they say it is no hotter, except when the hot wind blows, which is
very rare. Up here, snow sometimes lies, in winter, on the mountain
tops; but ice is unknown, and Table Mountain is never covered with snow.
The flies are pestilent—incredibly noisy, intrusive, and disgusting—and
oh, such swarms! Fleas and bugs not half so bad as in France, as far as
my experience goes, and I have poked about in queer places.
I get up at half-past five, and walk in the early morning, before the sun
and wind begin to be oppressive; it is then dry, calm, and beautiful;
then I sleep like a Dutchman in the middle of the day. At present it
tires me, but I shall get used to it soon. The Dutch doctor here advised
me to do so, to avoid the wind.
When all was settled, we climbed the Hottentot’s mountains by Sir Lowry’s
Pass, a long curve round two hill-sides; and what a view! Simon’s Bay
opening out far below, and range upon range of crags on one side, with a
wide fertile plain, in which lies Hottentot’s Holland, at one’s feet.
The road is just wide enough for one waggon, i.e. very narrow. Where the
smooth rock came through, Choslullah gave a little grunt, and the three
bays went off like hippogriffs, dragging the grey with them. By this
time my confidence in his driving was boundless, or I should have
expected to find myself in atoms at the bottom of the precipice. At the
top of the pass we turned a sharp corner into a scene like the crater of
a volcano, only reaching miles away all round; and we descended a very
little and drove on along great rolling waves of country, with the
mountain tops, all crags and ruins, to our left. At three we reached
Palmiet River, full of palmettos and bamboos, and there the horses had ‘a
little roll’, and Choslullah and his miniature washed in the river and
prayed, and ate dry bread, and drank their tepid water out of a bottle
with great good breeding and cheerfulness. Three bullock-waggons had
outspanned, and the Dutch boers and Bastaards (half Hottentots) were all
drunk. We went into a neat little ‘public’, and had porter and ham
sandwiches, for which I paid 4_s._ 6_d._ to a miserable-looking English
woman, who was afraid of her tipsy customers. We got to Houw Hoek, a
pretty valley at the entrance of a mountain gorge, about half-past five,
and drove up to a mud cottage, half inn, half farm, kept by a German and
his wife. It looked mighty queer, but Choslullah said the host was a
good old man, and all clean. So we cheered up, and asked for food.
While the neat old woman was cooking it, up galloped five fine lads and
two pretty flaxen-haired girls, with real German faces, on wild little
horses; and one girl tucked up her habit, and waited at table, while
another waved a green bough to drive off the swarms of flies. The chops
were excellent, ditto bread and butter, and the tea tolerable. The
parlour was a tiny room with a mud floor, half-hatch door into the front,
and the two bedrooms still tinier and darker, each with two huge beds
which filled them entirely. But Choslullah was right; they were
perfectly clean, with heaps of beautiful pillows; and not only none of
the creatures of which he spoke with infinite terror, but even no fleas.
The man was delighted to talk to me. His wife had almost forgotten
German, and the children did not know a word of it, but spoke Dutch and
English. A fine, healthy, happy family. It was a pretty picture of
emigrant life. Cattle, pigs, sheep, and poultry, and pigeons
innumerable, all picked up their own living, and cost nothing; and
vegetables and fruit grow in rank abundance where there is water. I
asked for a book in the evening, and the man gave me a volume of
Schiller. A good breakfast,—and we paid ninepence for all.
This morning we started before eight, as it looked gloomy, and came
through a superb mountain defile, out on to a rich hillocky country,
covered with miles of corn, all being cut as far as the eye could reach,
and we passed several circular threshing-floors, where the horses tread
out the grain. Each had a few mud hovels near it, for the farmers and
men to live in during harvest. Altogether, I was most lucky, had two
beautiful days, and enjoyed the journey immensely. It was most
‘_abentheuerlich_’; the light two-wheeled cart, with four wild little
horses, and the marvellous brown driver, who seemed to be always going to
perdition, but made the horses do apparently impossible things with
absolute certainty; and the pretty tiny boy who came to help his uncle,
and was so clever, and so preternaturally quiet, and so very small: then
the road through the mountain passes, seven or eight feet wide, with a
precipice above and below, up which the little horses scrambled; while
big lizards, with green heads and chocolate bodies, looked pertly at us,
and a big bright amber-coloured cobra, as handsome as he is deadly,
wriggled across into a hole.
Nearly all the people in this village are Dutch. There is one Malay
tailor here, but he is obliged to be a Christian at Caledon, though
Choslullah told me with a grin, he was a very good Malay when he went to
Capetown. He did not seem much shocked at this double religion, staunch
Mussulman as he was himself. I suppose the blacks ‘up country’ are what
Dutch slavery made them—mere animals—cunning and sulky. The real
Hottentot is extinct, I believe, in the Colony; what one now sees are all
‘Bastaards’, the Dutch name for their own descendants by Hottentot women.
These mongrel Hottentots, who do all the work, are an affliction to
behold—debased and _shrivelled_ with drink, and drunk all day long;
sullen wretched creatures—so unlike the bright Malays and cheery pleasant
blacks and browns of Capetown, who never pass you without a kind word and
sunny smile or broad African grin, _selon_ their colour and shape of
face. I look back fondly to the gracious soft-looking Malagasse woman
who used to give me a chair under the big tree near Rathfelders, and a
cup of ‘bosjesthée’ (herb tea), and talk so prettily in her soft
voice;—it is such a contrast to these poor animals, who glower at one
quite unpleasantly. All the hovels I was in at Capetown were very fairly
clean, and I went into numbers. They almost all contained a handsome
bed, with, at least, eight pillows. If you only look at the door with a
friendly glance, you are implored to come in and sit down, and usually
offered a ‘coppj’ (cup) of herb tea, which they are quite grateful to one
for drinking. I never saw or heard a hint of ‘backsheesh’, nor did I
ever give it, on principle and I was always recognised and invited to
come again with the greatest eagerness. ‘An indulgence of talk’ from an
English ‘Missis’ seemed the height of gratification, and the pride and
pleasure of giving hospitality a sufficient reward. But here it is quite
different. I suppose the benefits of the emancipation were felt at
Capetown sooner than in the country, and the Malay population there
furnishes a strong element of sobriety and respectability, which sets an
example to the other coloured people.
Harvest is now going on, and the so-called Hottentots are earning 2_s._
6_d._ a day, with rations and wine. But all the money goes at the
‘canteen’ in drink, and the poor wretched men and women look wasted and
degraded. The children are pretty, and a few of them are half-breed
girls, who do very well, unless a white man admires them; and then they
think it quite an honour to have a whitey-brown child, which happens at
about fifteen, by which age they look full twenty.
We had very good snipe and wild duck the other day, which Capt. D—
brought home from a shooting party. I have got the moth-like wings of a
golden snipe for R—’s hat, and those of a beautiful moor-hen. They got
no ‘boks’, because of the violent south-easter which blew where they
were. The game is fast decreasing, but still very abundant. I saw
plenty of partridges on the road, but was not early enough to see boks,
who only show at dawn; neither have I seen baboons. I will try to bring
home some cages of birds—Cape canaries and ‘roode bekjes’ (red bills),
darling little things. The sugar-birds, which are the humming-birds of
Africa, could not be fed; but Caffre finks, which weave the pendent
nests, are hardy and easily fed.
To-day the post for England leaves Caledon, so I must conclude this yarn.
I wish R— could have seen the ‘klip springer’, the mountain deer of South
Africa, which Capt. D— brought in to show me. Such a lovely little
beast, as big as a small kid, with eyes and ears like a hare, and a nose
so small and dainty. It was quite tame and saucy, and belonged to some
man _en route_ for Capetown.
LETTER V
CALEDON
Caledon, Dec. 29th.
I AM beginning now really to feel better: I think my cough is less, and I
eat a great deal more. They cook nice clean food here, and have some
good claret, which I have been extravagant enough to drink, much to my
advantage. The Cape wine is all so fiery. The climate is improving too.
The glorious African sun blazes and roasts one, and the cool fresh
breezes prevent one from feeling languid. I walk from six till eight or
nine, breakfast at ten, and dine at three; in the afternoon it is
generally practicable to saunter again, now the weather is warmer. I
sleep from twelve till two. On Christmas-eve it was so warm that I lay
in bed with the window wide open, and the stars blazing in. Such stars!
they are much brighter than our moon. The Dutchmen held high jinks in
the hall, and danced and made a great noise. On New Year’s-eve they will
have another ball, and I shall look in. Christmas-day was the hottest
day—indeed, the only _hot_ day we have had—and I could not make it out at
all, or fancy you all cold at home.
I wish you were here to see the curious ways and new aspect of
everything. This village, which, as I have said, is very like Rochefort,
but hardly so large, is the _chef lieu_ of a district the size of
one-third of England. A civil commander resides here, a sort of
_préfet_; and there is an embryo market-place, with a bell hanging in a
brick arch. When a waggon arrives with goods, it draws up there, they
ring the bell, everybody goes to see what is for sale, and the goods are
sold by auction. My host bought potatoes and brandy the other day, and
is looking out for ostrich feathers for me, out of the men’s hats.
The other day, while we sat at dinner, all the bells began to ring
furiously, and Capt. D— jumped up and shouted ‘_Brand_!’ (fire), rushed
off for a stout leather hat, and ran down the street. Out came all the
population, black, white, and brown, awfully excited, for it was blowing
a furious north-wester, right up the town, and the fire was at the
bottom; and as every house is thatched with a dry brown thatch, we might
all have to turn out and see the place in ashes in less than an hour.
Luckily, it was put out directly. It is supposed to have been set on
fire by a Hottentot girl, who has done the same thing once before, on
being scolded. There is no water but what runs down the streets in the
_sloot_, a paved channel, which brings the water from the mountain and
supplies the houses and gardens. A garden is impossible without
irrigation, of course, as it never rains; but with it, you may have
everything, all the year round. The people, however, are too careless to
grow fruit and vegetables.
How the cattle live is a standing marvel to me. The whole _veld_
(common), which extends all over the country (just dotted with a few
square miles of corn here and there), is covered with a low thin scrub,
about eighteen inches high, called _rhenoster-bosch_—looking like meagre
arbor vitæ or pale juniper. The cattle and sheep will not touch this nor
the juicy Hottentot fig; but under each little bush, I fancy, they crop a
few blades of grass, and on this they keep in very good condition. The
noble oxen, with their huge horns (nine or ten feet from tip to tip), are
never fed, though they work hard, nor are the sheep. The horses get a
little forage (oats, straw and all). I should like you to see eight or
ten of these swift wiry little horses harnessed to a waggon,—a mere flat
platform on wheels. In front stands a wild-looking Hottentot, all
patches and feathers, and drives them best pace, all ‘in hand’, using a
whip like a fishing-rod, with which he touches them, not savagely, but
with a skill which would make an old stage-coachman burst with envy to
behold. This morning, out on the veld, I watched the process of
breaking-in a couple of colts, who were harnessed, after many struggles,
second and fourth in a team of ten. In front stood a tiny foal cuddling
its mother, one of the leaders. When they started, the foal had its neck
through the bridle, and I hallooed in a fright; but the Hottentot only
laughed, and in a minute it had disengaged itself quite coolly and
capered alongside. The colts tried to plunge, but were whisked along,
and couldn’t, and then they stuck out all four feet and _skidded_ along a
bit; but the rhenoster bushes tripped them up (people drive regardless of
roads), and they shook their heads and trotted along quite subdued,
without a blow or a word, for the drivers never speak to the horses, only
to the oxen. Colts here get no other breaking, and therefore have no
paces or action to the eye, but their speed and endurance are wonderful.
There is no such thing as a cock-tail in the country, and the waggon
teams of wiry little thoroughbreds, half Arab, look very strange to our
eyes, going full tilt. There is a terrible murrain, called the
lung-sickness, among horses and oxen here, every four or five years, but
it never touches those that are stabled, however exposed to wet or wind
on the roads.
I must describe the house I inhabit, as all are much alike. It is
whitewashed, with a door in the middle and two windows on each side;
those on the left are Mrs. D—’s bed and sitting rooms. On the right is a
large room, which is mine; in the middle of the house is a spacious hall,
with doors into other rooms on each side, and into the kitchen, &c.
There is a yard behind, and a staircase up to the _zolder_ or loft, under
the thatch, with partitions, where the servants and children, and
sometimes guests, sleep. There are no ceilings; the floor of the zolder
is made of yellow wood, and, resting on beams, forms the ceiling of my
room, and the thatch alone covers that. No moss ever grows on the
thatch, which is brown, with white ridges. In front is a stoep, with
‘blue gums’ (Australian gum-trees) in front of it, where I sit till
twelve, when the sun comes on it. These trees prevail here greatly, as
they want neither water nor anything else, and grow with incredible
rapidity.
We have got a new ‘boy’ (all coloured servants are ‘boys,’—a remnant of
slavery), and he is the type of the nigger slave. A thief, a liar, a
glutton, a drunkard—but you can’t resent it; he has a _naïf_,
half-foolish, half-knavish buffoonery, a total want of self-respect,
which disarms you. I sent him to the post to inquire for letters, and
the postmaster had been tipsy over-night and was not awake. Jack came
back spluttering threats against ‘dat domned Dutchman. Me no _want_
(like) him; me go and kick up dom’d row. What for he no give Missis
letter?’ &c. I begged him to be patient; on which he bonneted himself in
a violent way, and started off at a pantomime walk. Jack is the product
of slavery: he pretends to be a simpleton in order to do less work and
eat and drink and sleep more than a reasonable being, and he knows his
buffoonery will get him out of scrapes. Withal, thoroughly good-natured
and obliging, and perfectly honest, except where food and drink are
concerned, which he pilfers like a monkey. He worships S—, and won’t
allow her to carry anything, or to dirty her hands, if he is in the way
to do it. Some one suggested to him to kiss her, but he declined with
terror, and said he should be hanged by my orders if he did. He is a
hideous little negro, with a monstrous-shaped head, every colour of the
rainbow on his clothes, and a power of making faces which would enchant a
schoolboy. The height of his ambition would be to go to England with me.
An old ‘bastaard’ woman, married to the Malay tailor here, explained to
me my popularity with the coloured people, as set forth by ‘dat Malay
boy’, my driver. He told them he was sure I was a ‘very great Missis’,
because of my ‘plenty good behaviour’; that I spoke to him just as to a
white gentleman, and did not ‘laugh and talk nonsense talk’. ‘Never say
“Here, you black fellow”, dat Misses.’ The English, when they mean to be
good-natured, are generally offensively familiar, and ‘talk nonsense
talk’, i.e. imitate the Dutch English of the Malays and blacks; the
latter feel it the greatest compliment to be treated _au sérieux_, and
spoken to in good English. Choslullah’s theory was that I must be
related to the Queen, in consequence of my not ‘knowing bad behaviour’.
The Malays, who are intelligent and proud, of course feel the annoyance
of vulgar familiarity more than the blacks, who are rather awe-struck by
civility, though they like and admire it.
Mrs. D— tells me that the coloured servant-girls, with all their faults,
are immaculately honest in these parts; and, indeed, as every door and
window is always left open, even when every soul is out, and nothing
locked up, there must be no thieves. Captain D— told me he had been in
remote Dutch farmhouses, where rouleaux of gold were ranged under the
thatch on the top of the low wall, the doors being always left open; and
everywhere the Dutch boers keep their money by them, in coin.
_Jan._ 3_d._—We have had tremendous festivities here—a ball on New
Year’s-eve, and another on the 1st of January—and the shooting for Prince
Alfred’s rifle yesterday. The difficulty of music for the ball was
solved by the arrival of two Malay bricklayers to build the new
parsonage, and I heard with my own ears the proof of what I had been told
as to their extraordinary musical gifts. When I went into the hall, a
Dutchman was _screeching_ a concertina hideously. Presently in walked a
yellow Malay, with a blue cotton handkerchief on his head, and a
half-bred of negro blood (very dark brown), with a red handkerchief, and
holding a rough tambourine. The handsome yellow man took the concertina
which seemed so discordant, and the touch of his dainty fingers
transformed it to harmony. He played dances with a precision and feeling
quite unequalled, except by Strauss’s band, and a variety which seemed
endless. I asked him if he could read music, at which he laughed
heartily, and said, music came into the ears, not the eyes. He had
picked it all up from the bands in Capetown, or elsewhere.
It was a strange sight,—the picturesque group, and the contrast between
the quiet manners of the true Malay and the grotesque fun of the
half-negro. The latter made his tambourine do duty as a drum, rattled
the bits of brass so as to produce an indescribable effect, nodded and
grinned in wild excitement, and drank beer while his comrade took water.
The dancing was uninteresting enough. The Dutchmen danced badly, and
said not a word, but plodded on so as to get all the dancing they could
for their money. I went to bed at half-past eleven, but the ball went on
till four.
Next night there was genteeler company, and I did not go in, but lay in
bed listening to the Malay’s playing. He had quite a fresh set of tunes,
of which several were from the ‘Traviata’!
Yesterday was a real African summer’s day. The D—s had a tent and an
awning, one for food and the other for drink, on the ground where the
shooting took place. At twelve o’clock Mrs. D— went down to sell cold
chickens, &c., and I went with her, and sat under a tree in the bed of
the little stream, now nearly dry. The sun was such as in any other
climate would strike you down, but here _coup de soleil_ is unknown. It
broils you till your shoulders ache and your lips crack, but it does not
make you feel the least languid, and you perspire very little; nor does
it tan the skin as you would expect. The light of the sun is by no means
‘golden’—it is pure white—and the slightest shade of a tree or bush
affords a delicious temperature, so light and fresh is the air. They
said the thermometer was at about 130° where I was walking yesterday, but
(barring the scorch) I could not have believed it.
It was a very amusing day. The great tall Dutchmen came in to shoot, and
did but moderately, I thought. The longest range was five hundred yards,
and at that they shot well; at shorter ranges, poorly enough. The best
man made ten points. But oh! what figures were there of negroes and
coloured people! I longed for a photographer. Some coloured lads were
exquisitely graceful, and composed beautiful _tableaux vivants_, after
Murillo’s beggar-boys.
A poor little, very old Bosjesman crept up, and was jeered and bullied.
I scolded the lad who abused him for being rude to an old man, whereupon
the poor little old creature squatted on the ground close by (for which
he would have been kicked but for me), took off his ragged hat, and sat
staring and nodding his small grey woolly head at me, and jabbering some
little soliloquy very _sotto voce_. There was something shocking in the
timidity with which he took the plate of food I gave him, and in the way
in which he ate it, with the _wrong_ side of his little yellow hand, like
a monkey. A black, who had helped to fetch the hamper, suggested to me
to give him wine instead of meat and bread, and make him drunk _for fun_
(the blacks and Hottentots copy the white man’s manners _to them_, when
they get hold of a Bosjesman to practise upon); but upon this a handsome
West Indian black, who had been cooking pies, fired up, and told him he
was a ‘nasty black rascal, and a Dutchman to boot’, to insult a lady and
an old man at once. If you could see the difference between one negro
and another, you would be quite convinced that education (i.e.
circumstances) makes the race. It was hardly conceivable that the
hideous, dirty, bandy-legged, ragged creature, who looked down on the
Bosjesman, and the well-made, smart fellow, with his fine eyes, jaunty
red cap, and snow-white shirt and trousers, alert as the best German
Kellner, were of the same blood; nothing but the colour was alike.
Then came a Dutchman, and asked for six penn’orth of ‘brood en kaas’, and
haggled for beer; and Englishmen, who bought chickens and champagne
without asking the price. One rich old boer got three lunches, and then
‘trekked’ (made off) without paying at all. Then came a Hottentot,
stupidly drunk, with a fiddle, and was beaten by a little red-haired
Scotchman, and his fiddle smashed. The Hottentot hit at his aggressor,
who then declared he _had been_ a policeman, and insisted on taking him
into custody and to the ‘Tronk’ (prison) on his own authority, but was in
turn sent flying by a gigantic Irishman, who ‘wouldn’t see the poor baste
abused’. The Irishman was a farmer; I never saw such a Hercules—and
beaming with fun and good nature. He was very civil, and answered my
questions, and talked like an intelligent man; but when Captain D— asked
him with an air of some anxiety, if he was coming to the hotel, he
replied, ‘No, sir, no; I wouldn’t be guilty of such a misdemeanour. I am
aware that I was a disgrace and opprobrium to your house, sir, last time
I was there, sir. No, sir, I shall sleep in my cart, and not come into
the presence of ladies.’ Hereupon he departed, and I was informed that
he had been drunk for seventeen days, _sans désemparer_, on his last
visit to Caledon. However, he kept quite sober on this occasion, and
amused himself by making the little blackies scramble for halfpence in
the pools left in the bed of the river. Among our customers was a very
handsome black man, with high straight nose, deep-set eyes, and a small
mouth, smartly dressed in a white felt hat, paletot, and trousers. He is
the shoemaker, and is making a pair of ‘Veldschoen’ for you, which you
will delight in. They are what the rough boers and Hottentots wear,
buff-hide barbarously tanned and shaped, and as soft as woollen socks.
The Othello-looking shoemaker’s name is Moor, and his father told him he
came of a ‘good breed’; that was all he knew.
A very pleasing English farmer, who had been educated in Belgium, came
and ordered a bottle of champagne, and shyly begged me to drink a glass,
whereupon we talked of crops and the like; and an excellent specimen of a
colonist he appeared: very gentle and unaffected, with homely good sense,
and real good breeding—such a contrast to the pert airs and vulgarity of
Capetown and of the people in (colonial) high places. Finding we had no
carriage, he posted off and borrowed a cart of one man and harness of
another, and put his and his son’s riding horses to it, to take Mrs. D—
and me home. As it was still early, he took us a ‘little drive’; and oh,
ye gods! what a terrific and dislocating pleasure was that! At a hard
gallop, Mr. M— (with the mildest and steadiest air and with perfect
safety) took us right across country. It is true there were no fences;
but over bushes, ditches, lumps of rock, watercourses, we jumped, flew,
and bounded, and up every hill we went racing pace. I arrived at home
much bewildered, and feeling more like Bürger’s Lenore than anything
else, till I saw Mr. M—’s steady, pleasant face quite undisturbed, and
was informed that such was the way of driving of Cape farmers.
We found the luckless Jack in such a state of furious drunkenness that he
had to be dismissed on the spot, not without threats of the ‘Tronk’, and
once more Kleenboy fills the office of boots. He returned in a ludicrous
state of penitence and emaciation, frankly admitting that it was better
to work hard and get ‘plenty grub’, than to work less and get
none;—still, however, protesting against work at all.
_January_ 7_th_.—For the last four days it has again been blowing a
wintry hurricane. Every one says that the continuance of these winds so
late into the summer (this answers to July) is unheard of, and _must_
cease soon. In Table Bay, I hear a good deal of mischief has been done
to the shipping.
I hope my long yarns won’t bore you. I put down what seems new and
amusing to me at the moment, but by the time it reaches you, it will seem
very dull and commonplace. I hear that the Scotchman who attacked poor
Aria, the crazy Hottentot, is a ‘revival lecturer’, and was ‘simply
exhorting him to break his fiddle and come to Christ’ (the phrase is a
clergyman’s, I beg to observe); and the saints are indignant that, after
executing the pious purpose as far as the fiddle went, he was prevented
by the chief constable from dragging him to the Tronk. The ‘revival’
mania has broken out rather violently in some places; the infection was
brought from St. Helena, I am told. At Capetown, old Abdool Jemaalee
told me that English Christians were getting more like Malays, and had
begun to hold ‘Kalifahs’ at Simon’s Bay. These are festivals in which
Mussulman fanatics run knives into their flesh, go into convulsions, &c,
to the sound of music, like the Arab described by Houdin. Of course the
poor blacks go quite demented.
I intend to stay here another two or three weeks, and then to go to
Worcester—stay a bit; Paarl, ditto; Stellenbosch, ditto—and go to
Capetown early in March, and in April to embark for home.
_January_ 15_th_.—No mail in yet. We have had beautiful weather the last
three days. Captain D— has been in Capetown, and bought a horse, which
he rode home seventy-five miles in a day and a half,—the beast none the
worse nor tired. I am to ride him, and so shall see the country if the
vile cold winds keep off.
This morning I walked on the Veld, and met a young black shepherd leading
his sheep and goats, and playing on a guitar composed of an old tin mug
covered with a bit of sheepskin and a handle of rough wood, with pegs,
and three strings of sheep-gut. I asked him to sing, and he flung
himself at my feet in an attitude that would make Watts crazy with
delight, and _crooned_ queer little mournful ditties. I gave him
sixpence, and told him not to get drunk. He said, ‘Oh no; I will buy
bread enough to make my belly stiff—I almost never had my belly stiff.’
He likewise informed me he had just been in the Tronk (prison), and on my
asking why, replied: ‘Oh, for fighting, and telling lies;’ Die liebe
Unschuld! (Dear innocence!)
Hottentot figs are rather nice—a green fig-shaped thing, containing about
a spoonful of _salt-sweet_ insipid glue, which you suck out. This does
not sound nice, but it is. The plant has a thick, succulent, triangular
leaf, creeping on the ground, and growing anywhere, without earth or
water. Figs proper are common here, but tasteless; and the people pick
all their fruit green, and eat it so too. The children are all crunching
hard peaches and plums just now, particularly some little half-breeds
near here, who are frightfully ugly. Fancy the children of a black woman
and a red-haired man; the little monsters are as black as the mother, and
have _red_ wool—you never saw so diabolical an appearance. Some of the
coloured people are very pretty; for example, a coal-black girl of
seventeen, and my washerwoman, who is brown. They are wonderfully
slender and agile, and quite old hard-working women have waists you could
span. They never grow thick and square, like Europeans.
I could write a volume on Cape horses. Such valiant little beasts, and
so composed in temper, I never saw. They are nearly all bays—a few very
dark grey, which are esteemed; _very_ few white or light grey. I have
seen no black, and only one dark chestnut. They are not cobs, and look
‘very little of them’, and have no beauty; but one of these little
brutes, ungroomed, half-fed, seldom stabled, will carry a
six-and-a-half-foot Dutchman sixty miles a day, day after day, at a
shuffling easy canter, six miles an hour. You ‘off saddle’ every three
hours, and let him roll; you also let him drink all he can get; his coat
shines and his eye is bright, and unsoundness is very rare. They are
never properly broke, and the soft-mouthed colts are sometimes made
vicious by the cruel bits and heavy hands; but by nature their temper is
perfect.
Every morning all the horses in the village are turned loose, and a
general gallop takes place to the water tank, where they drink and lounge
a little; and the young ones are fetched home by their niggers, while the
old stagers know they will be wanted, and saunter off by themselves. I
often attend the Houyhnhnm _conversazione_ at the tank, at about seven
o’clock, and am amused by their behaviour; and I continually wish I could
see Ned’s face on witnessing many equine proceedings here. To see a
farmer outspan and turn the team of active little beasts loose on the
boundless veld to amuse themselves for an hour or two, sure that they
will all be there, would astonish him a little; and then to offer a horse
nothing but a roll in the dust to refresh himself withal!
One unpleasant sight here is the skeletons of horses and oxen along the
roadside; or at times a fresh carcase surrounded by a convocation of huge
serious-looking carrion crows, with neat white neck-cloths. The
skeletons look like wrecks, and make you feel very lonely on the wide
veld. In this district, and in most, I believe, the roads are mere
tracks over the hard, level earth, and very good they are. When one gets
rutty, you drive parallel to it, till the bush is worn out and a new
track is formed.
_January_ 17_th_.—Lovely weather all the week. Summer well set in.
LETTER VI
CALEDON
Caledon, January 19th.