Caledon, Feb. 22d.
Yesterday Captain D— gave me a very nice caross of blessbok skins, which
he got from some travelling trader. The excellence of the Caffre
skin-dressing and sewing is, I fancy, unequalled; the bok-skins are as
soft as a kid glove, and have no smell at all.
In the afternoon the young doctor drove me, in his little gig-cart and
pair (the lightest and swiftest of conveyances), to see a wine-farm. The
people were not at work, but we saw the tubs and vats, and drank ‘most’.
The grapes are simply trodden by a Hottentot, in a tub with a sort of
strainer at the bottom, and then thrown—skins, stalks, and all—into vats,
where the juice ferments for twice twenty-four hours; after which it is
run into casks, which are left with the bung out for eight days; then the
wine is drawn off into another cask, a little sulphur and brandy are
added to it, and it is bunged down. Nothing can be conceived so
barbarous. I have promised Mr. M— to procure and send him an exact
account of the process in Spain. It might be a real service to a most
worthy and amiable man. Dr. M— also would be glad of a copy. They
literally know nothing about wine-making here, and with such matchless
grapes I am sure it ought to be good. Altogether, ‘der alte Schlendrian’
prevails at the Cape to an incredible degree.
If two ‘Heeren M—’ call on you, please be civil to them. I don’t know
them personally, but their brother is the doctor here, and the most
good-natured young fellow I ever saw. If I were returning by Somerset
instead of Worcester, I might put up at their parents’ house and be sure
of a welcome; and I can tell you civility to strangers is by no means of
course here. I don’t wonder at it; for the old Dutch families _are
gentlefolks_ of the good dull old school, and the English colonists can
scarcely suit them. In the few instances in which I have succeeded in
_thawing_ a Dutchman, I have found him wonderfully good-natured; and the
different manner in which I was greeted when in company with the young
doctor showed the feeling at once. The dirt of a Dutch house is not to
be conceived. I have had sights in bedrooms in very respectable houses
which I dare not describe. The coloured people are just as clean. The
young doctor (who is much Anglicised) tells me that, in illness, he has
to break the windows in the farmhouses—they are built not to open! The
boers are below the English in manners and intelligence, and hate them
for their ‘go-ahead’ ways, though _they_ seem slow enough to me. As to
drink, I fancy it is six of one and half a dozen of the other; but the
English are more given to eternal drams, and the Dutch to solemn drinking
bouts. I can’t understand either, in this climate, which is so
stimulating, that I more often drink ginger-beer or water than wine—a
bottle of sherry lasted me a fortnight, though I was ordered to drink it;
somehow, I had no mind to it.
27_th_.—The cart could not be got till the day before yesterday, and
yesterday Mrs. D— arrived in it with two new Irish maids; it saved her
3_l._, and I must have paid equally. The horses were very tired, having
been hard at work carrying Malays all the week to Constantia and back, on
a pilgrimage to the tomb of a Mussulman saint; so to-day they rest, and
to-morrow I go to Villiersdorp. Choslullah has been appointed driver of
a post-cart; he tried hard to be allowed to pay a _remplaçant_, and to
fetch ‘his missis’, but was refused leave; and so a smaller and blacker
Malay has come, whom Choslullah threatened to curse heavily if he failed
to take great care of ‘my missis’ and be a ‘good boy’. Ramadan begins on
Sunday, and my poor driver can’t even prepare for it by a good feast, as
no fowls are to be had here just now, and he can’t eat profanely-killed
meat. Some pious Christian has tried to burn a Mussulman martyr’s tomb
at Eerste River, and there were fears the Malays might indulge in a
little revenge; but they keep quiet. I am to go with my driver to eat
some of the feast (of Bairam, is it not?) at his priest’s when Ramadan
ends, if I am in Capetown, and also am asked to a wedding at a relation
of Choslullah’s. It was quite a pleasure to hear the kindly Mussulman
talk, after these silent Hottentots. The Malays have such agreeable
manners; so civil, without the least cringing or Indian obsequiousness.
I dare say they can be very ‘insolent’ on provocation; but I have always
found among them manners like old-fashioned French ones, but quieter; and
they have an affectionate way of saying ‘_my_ missis’ when they know one,
which is very nice to hear. It is getting quite chilly here already;
_cold_ night and morning; and I shall be glad to descend off this plateau
into the warmer regions of Worcester, &c. I have just bought _eight_
splendid ostrich feathers for 1_l._ of my old Togthandler friend. In
England they would cost from eighteen to twenty-five shillings each. I
have got a reebok and a klipspringer skin for you; the latter makes a
saddle-cloth which defies sore backs; they were given me by Klein and a
farmer at Palmiet River. The flesh was poor stuff, white and papery.
The Hottentots can’t ‘bray’ the skins as the Caffres do; and the woman
who did mine asked me for a trifle beforehand, and got so drunk that she
let them dry halfway in the process, consequently they don’t look so
well.
Worcester, Sunday, March 2d.
Oh, such a journey! Such country! Pearly mountains and deep blue sky,
and an impassable pass to walk down, and baboons, and secretary birds,
and tortoises! I couldn’t sleep for it all last night, tired as I was
with the unutterably bad road, or track rather.
Well, we left Caledon on Friday, at ten o’clock, and though the weather
had been cold and unpleasant for two days, I had a lovely morning, and
away we went to Villiersdorp (pronounced Filjeesdorp). It is quite a
tiny village, in a sort of Rasselas-looking valley. We were four hours
on the road, winding along the side of a mountain ridge, which we finally
crossed, with a splendid view of the sea at the far-distant end of a huge
amphitheatre formed by two ridges of mountains, and on the other side the
descent into Filjeesdorp. The whole way we saw no human being or
habitation, except one shepherd, from the time we passed Buntje’s kraal,
about two miles out of Caledon. The little drinking-shop would not hold
travellers, so I went to the house of the storekeeper (as the clergyman
of Caledon had told me I might), and found a most kind reception. Our
host was English, an old man-of-war’s man, with a gentle, kindly Dutch
wife, and the best-mannered children I have seen in the colony. They
gave us clean comfortable beds and a good dinner, and wine ten years in
the cellar; in short, the best of hospitality. I made an effort to pay
for the entertainment next morning, when, after a good breakfast, we
started loaded with fruit, but the kind people would not hear of it, and
bid me good-bye like old friends. At the end of the valley we went a
little up-hill, and then found ourselves at the top of a pass down into
the level below. S— and I burst out with one voice, ‘How beautiful!’
Sabaal, our driver, thought the exclamation was an ironical remark on the
road, which, indeed, appeared to be exclusively intended for goats. I
suggested walking down, to which, for a wonder, the Malay agreed. I was
really curious to see him get down with two wheels and four horses, where
I had to lay hold from time to time in walking. The track was
excessively steep, barely wide enough, and as slippery as a flagstone
pavement, being the naked mountain-top, which is bare rock. However, all
went perfectly right.
How shall I describe the view from that pass? In front was a long, long
level valley, perhaps three to five miles broad (I can’t judge distance
in this atmosphere; a house that looks a quarter of a mile off is two
miles distant). At the extreme end, in a little gap between two low
brown hills that crossed each other, one could just see Worcester—five
hours’ drive off. Behind it, and on each side the plain, mountains of
every conceivable shape and colour; the strangest cliffs and peaks and
crags toppling every way, and tinged with all the colours of opal;
chiefly delicate, pale lilac and peach colour, but varied with red brown
and Titian green. In spite of the drought, water sparkled on the
mountain-sides in little glittering threads, and here and there in the
plain; and pretty farms were dotted on either side at the very bottom of
the slopes toward the mountain-foot. The sky of such a blue! (it is
deeper now by far than earlier in the year). In short, I never did see
anything so beautiful. It even surpassed Hottentot’s Holland. On we
went, straight along the valley, crossing drift after drift;—a drift is
the bed of a stream more or less dry; in which sometimes you are drowned,
sometimes only _pounded_, as was our hap. The track was incredibly bad,
except for short bits, where ironstone prevailed. However, all went
well, and on the road I chased and captured a pair of remarkably swift
and handsome little ‘Schelpats’. That you may duly appreciate such a
feat of valour and activity, I will inform you that their English name is
‘tortoise’. On the strength of this effort, we drank a bottle of beer,
as it was very hot and sandy; and our Malay was a _wet_ enough Mussulman
to take his full share in a modest way, though he declined wine or ‘Cape
smoke Soopjes’ (drams) with aversion. No sooner had we got under weigh
again, than Sabaal pulled up and said, ‘There _are_ the Baviāans Missis
want to see!’ and so they were. At some distance by the river was a
great brute, bigger than a Newfoundland dog, stalking along with the
hideous baboon walk, and tail vehemently cocked up; a troop followed at a
distance, hiding and dodging among the palmiets. They were evidently _en
route_ to rob a garden close to them, and had sent a great stout fellow
ahead to reconnoitre. ‘He see Missis, and feel sure she not got a gun;
if man come on horseback, you see ’em run like devil.’ We had not that
pleasure, and left them, on felonious thoughts intent.
The road got more and more beautiful as we neared Worcester, and the
mountains grew higher and craggier. Presently, a huge bird, like a stork
on the wing, pounced down close by us. He was a secretary-bird, and had
caught sight of a snake. We passed ‘Brant Vley’ (_burnt_ or hot spring),
where sulphur-water bubbles up in a basin some thirty feet across and ten
or twelve deep. The water is clear as crystal, and is hot enough just
_not_ to boil an egg, I was told. At last, one reaches the little gap
between the brown hills which one has seen for four hours, and drives
through it into a wide, wide flat, with still craggier and higher
mountains all round, and Worcester in front at the foot of a towering
cliff. The town is not so pretty, to my taste, as the little villages.
The streets are too wide, and the market-place too large, which always
looks dreary, but the houses and gardens individually are charming. Our
inn is a very nice handsome old Dutch house; but we have got back to
‘civilization’, and the horrid attempts at ‘style’ which belong to
Capetown. The landlord and lady are too genteel to appear at all, and
the Hottentots, who are disguised, according to their sexes, in pantry
jacket and flounced petticoat, don’t understand a word of English or of
real Dutch. At Gnadenthal they understood Dutch, and spoke it tolerably;
but here, as in most places, it is three-parts Hottentot; and then they
affect to understand English, and bring everything wrong, and are sulky:
but the rooms are very comfortable. The change of climate is
complete—the summer was over at Caledon, and here we are into it
again—the most delicious air one can conceive; it must have been a
perfect oven six weeks ago. The birds are singing away merrily still;
the approach of autumn does not silence them here. The canaries have a
very pretty song, like our linnet, only sweeter; the rest are very
inferior to ours. The sugar-bird is delicious when close by, but his
pipe is too soft to be heard at any distance.
To those who think voyages and travels tiresome, my delight in the new
birds and beasts and people must seem very stupid. I can’t help it if it
does, and am not ashamed to confess that I feel the old sort of enchanted
wonder with which I used to read Cook’s voyages, and the like, as a
child. It is very coarse and unintellectual of me; but I would rather
see this now, at my age, than Italy; the fresh, new, beautiful nature is
a second youth—or _childhood_—_si vous voulez_. To-morrow we shall cross
the highest pass I have yet crossed, and sleep at Paarl—then
Stellenbosch, then Capetown. For any one _out_ of health, and _in_
pocket, I should certainly prescribe the purchase of a waggon and team of
six horses, and a long, slow progress in South Africa. One cannot walk
in the midday sun, but driving with a very light roof over one’s head is
quite delicious. When I looked back upon my dreary, lonely prison at
Ventnor, I wondered I had survived it at all.
Capetown, March 7th.
After writing last, we drove out, on Sunday afternoon, to a deep alpine
valley, to see a _new bridge_—a great marvel apparently. The old Spanish
Joe Miller about selling the bridge to buy water occurred to me, and made
Sabaal laugh immensely. The Dutch farmers were tearing home from Kerk,
in their carts—well-dressed, prosperous-looking folks, with capital
horses. Such lovely farms, snugly nestled in orange and pomegranate
groves! It is of no use to describe this scenery; it is always
mountains, and always beautiful opal mountains; quite without the gloom
of European mountain scenery. The atmosphere must make the charm. I
hear that an English traveller went the same journey and found all barren
from Dan to Beersheba. I’m sorry for him.
In the morning of Sunday, early, I walked along the road with Sabaal, and
saw a picture I shall never forget. A little Malabar girl had just been
bathing in the Sloot, and had put her scanty shift on her lovely little
wet brown body; she stood in the water with the drops glittering on her
brown skin and black, satin hair, the perfection of youthful loveliness—a
naiad of ten years old. When the shape and features are _perfect_, as
hers were, the coffee-brown shows it better than our colour, on account
of its perfect _evenness_—like the dead white of marble. I shall never
forget her as she stood playing with the leaves of the gum-tree which
hung over her, and gazing with her glorious eyes so placidly.
On Monday morning, I walked off early to the old _Drosdy_ (Landdrost’s
house), found an old gentleman, who turned out to be the owner, and who
asked me my name and all the rest of the Dutch ‘litanei’ of questions,
and showed me the pretty old Dutch garden and the house—a very handsome
one. I walked back to breakfast, and thought Worcester the prettiest
place I had ever seen. We then started for Paarl, and drove through
‘Bain’s Kloof’, a splendid mountain-pass, four hours’ long, constant
driving. It was glorious, but more like what one had seen in pictures—a
deep, narrow gorge, almost dark in places, and, to my mind, lacked the
_beauty_ of the yesterday’s drive, though it is, perhaps, grander; but
the view which bursts on one at the top, and the descent, winding down
the open mountain-side, is too fine to describe. Table Mountain, like a
giant’s stronghold, seen far distant, with an immense plain, half
fertile, half white sand; to the left, Wagenmaker’s Vley; and further on,
the Paarl lying scattered on the slope of a mountain topped with two
_domes_, just the shape of the cup which Lais (wasn’t it?) presented to
the temple of Venus, moulded on her breast. The horses were tired, so we
stopped at Waggon-maker’s Valley (or Wellington, as the English try to
get it called), and found ourselves in a true Flemish village, and under
the roof of a jolly Dutch hostess, who gave us divine coffee and
bread-and-butter, which seemed ambrosia after being deprived of those
luxuries for almost three months. Also new milk in abundance, besides
fruit of all kinds in vast heaps, and pomegranates off the tree. I asked
her to buy me a few to take in the cart, and got a ‘muid’, the third of a
sack, for a shilling, with a bill, ‘U bekomt 1 muid 28 granaeten dat
Kostet 1_s._’ The old lady would walk out with me and take me into the
shops, to show the ‘vrow uit Engelland’ to her friends. It was a lovely
place, intensely hot, all glowing with sunshine. Then the sun went down,
and the high mountains behind us were precisely the colour of a Venice
ruby glass—really, truly, and literally;—not purple, not crimson, but
glowing ruby-red—and the quince-hedges and orange-trees below looked
_intensely_ green, and the houses snow-white. It was a
transfiguration—no less.
I saw Hottentots again, four of them, from some remote corner, so the
race is not quite extinct. These were youngish, two men and two women,
quite light yellow, not darker than Europeans, and with little tiny black
knots of wool scattered over their heads at intervals. They are hideous
in face, but exquisitely shaped—very, very small though. One of the men
was drunk, poor wretch, and looked the picture of misery. You can see
the fineness of their senses by the way in which they dart their glances
and prick their ears. Every one agrees that, when tamed, they make the
best of servants—gentle, clever, and honest; but the penny-a-glass wine
they can’t resist, unless when caught and tamed young. They work in the
fields, or did so as long as any were left; but even here, I was told, it
was a wonder to see them.
We went on through the Paarl, a sweet pretty place, reminding one vaguely
of Bonchurch, and still through fine mountains, with Scotch firs growing
like Italian stone pines, and farms, and vineyard upon vineyard. At
Stellenbosch we stopped. I had been told it was the prettiest town in
the colony, and it _is_ very pretty, with oak-trees all along the street,
like those at Paarl and Wagenmakkers Vley; but I was disappointed. It
was less beautiful than what I had seen. Besides, the evening was dull
and cold. The south-easter greeted us here, and I could not go out all
the afternoon. The inn was called ‘Railway Hotel’, and kept by low
coarse English people, who gave us a filthy dinner, dirty sheets, and an
atrocious breakfast, and charged 1_l._ 3_s._ 6_d._ for the same meals and
time as old Vrow Langfeldt had charged 12_s._ for, and had given
civility, cleanliness, and abundance of excellent food;—besides which,
she fed Sabaal gratis, and these people fleeced him as they did me. So,
next morning, we set off, less pleasantly disposed, for Capetown, over
the flat, which is dreary enough, and had a horrid south-easter. We
started early, and got in before the wind became a hurricane, which it
did later. We were warmly welcomed by Mrs. R—; and here I am in my old
room, looking over the beautiful bay, quite at home again. It blew all
yesterday, and having rather a sore-throat I stayed in bed, and to-day is
all bright and beautiful. But Capetown looks murky after Caledon and
Worcester; there is, to my eyes, quite a haze over the mountains, and
they look far off and indistinct. All is comparative in this world, even
African skies. At Caledon, the most distant mountains, as far as your
eye can reach, look as clear in every detail as the map on your table—an
appearance utterly new to European eyes.
I gave Sabaal 1_l._ for his eight days’ service as driver, as a
Drinkgelt, and the worthy fellow was in ecstasies of gratitude. Next
morning early, he appeared with a present of bananas, and his little girl
dressed from head to foot in brand-new clothes, bought out of my money,
with her wool screwed up extremely tight in little knots on her black
little head (evidently her mother is the blackest of Caffres or
Mozambiques). The child looked like a Caffre, and her father considers
her quite a pearl. I had her in, and admired the little thing loud
enough for him to hear outside, as I lay in bed. You see, I too was to
have my share in the pleasure of the new clothes. This readiness to
believe that one will sympathize with them, is very pleasing in the
Malays.
March 15.
I went to see my old Malay friends and to buy a water-melon. They were
in all the misery of Ramadan. Betsy and pretty Nassirah very thin and
miserable, and the pious old Abdool sitting on a little barrel waiting
for ‘gun-fire’—i.e. sunset, to fall to on the supper which old Betsy was
setting out. He was silent, and the corners of his mouth were drawn down
just like —’s at an evening party.
I shall go to-morrow to bid the T—s good-bye, at Wynberg. I was to have
spent a few days there, but Wynberg is cold at night and dampish, so I
declined that. She is a nice woman—Irish, and so innocent and frank and
well-bred. She has been at Cold Bokke Veld, and shocked her puritanical
host by admiring the naked Caffres who worked on his farm. He wanted
them to wear clothes.
We have been amused by the airs of a naval captain and his wife, who are
just come here. They complained that the merchant-service officers spoke
_familiarly_ to their children on board. _Quel audace_! When I think of
the excellent, modest, manly young fellows who talked very familiarly and
pleasantly to me on board the _St. Lawrence_, I long to reprimand these
foolish people.
_Friday_, 21_st_.—I am just come from prayer, at the Mosque in Chiappini
Street, on the outskirts of the town. A most striking sight. A large
room, like a county ball-room, with glass chandeliers, carpeted with
common carpet, all but a space at the entrance, railed off for shoes; the
Caaba and pulpit at one end; over the niche, a crescent painted; and over
the entrance door a crescent, an Arabic inscription, and the royal arms
of England! A fat jolly Mollah looked amazed as I ascended the steps;
but when I touched my forehead and said, ‘Salaam Aleikoom’, he laughed
and said, ‘Salaam, Salaam, come in, come in.’ The faithful poured in,
all neatly dressed in their loose drab trousers, blue jackets, and red
handkerchiefs on their heads; they left their wooden clogs in company,
with my shoes, and proceeded, as it appeared, to strip. Off went
jackets, waistcoats, and trousers, with the dexterity of a pantomime
transformation; the red handkerchief was replaced by a white skullcap,
and a long large white shirt and full white drawers flowed around them.
How it had all been stuffed into the trim jacket and trousers, one could
not conceive. Gay sashes and scarves were pulled out of a little bundle
in a clean silk handkerchief, and a towel served as prayer-carpet. In a
moment the whole scene was as oriental as if the Hansom cab I had come in
existed no more. Women suckled their children, and boys played among the
clogs and shoes all the time, and I sat on the floor in a remote corner.
The chanting was very fine, and the whole ceremony very decorous and
solemn. It lasted an hour; and then the little heaps of garments were
put on, and the congregation dispersed, each man first laying a penny on
a very curious little old Dutch-looking, heavy, iron-bound chest, which
stood in the middle of the room.
I have just heard that the post closes to-night and must say farewell—_a
rivederci_.