After five weeks of waiting and worry, I have, at last, sent my goods on
board the ship _Camperdown_, now discharging her cargo, and about to take
a small party of passengers from the Cape. I offered to take a cabin in
a Swedish ship, bound for Falmouth; but the captain could not decide
whether he would take a passenger; and while he hesitated the old
_Camperdown_ came in. I have the best cabin after the stern cabins,
which are occupied by the captain and his wife and the Attorney-General
of Capetown, who is much liked. The other passengers are quiet people,
and few of them, and the captain has a high character; so I may hope for
a comfortable, though slow passage. I will let you know the day I sail,
and leave this letter to go by post. I may be looked for three weeks or
so after this letter. I am crazy to get home now; after the period was
over for which I had made up my mind, home-sickness began.
Mrs. R— has offered me a darling tiny monkey, which loves me; but I fear
A— would send me away again if I returned with her in my pocket.
Nassirah, old Abdool’s pretty granddaughter, brought me a pair of Malay
shoes or clogs as a parting gift, to-day. Mr. M—, the resident at
Singapore, tells me that his secretary’s wife, a Malay lady, has made an
excellent translation of the _Arabian Nights_, from Arabic into Malay.
Her husband is an Indian Mussulman, who, Mr. M— said, was one of the
ablest men he ever knew. Curious!
I sat, yesterday, for an hour, in the stall of a poor German basket-maker
who had been long in Caffre-land. His wife, a Berlinerin, was very
intelligent, and her account of her life here most entertaining, as
showing the different _Ansicht_ natural to Germans. ‘I had never’, she
said, ‘been out of the city of Berlin, and _knew nothing_.’ (Compare
with London cockney, or genuine Parisian.) Thence her fear, on landing
at Algoa Bay and seeing swarms of naked black men, that she had come to a
country where no clothes were to be had; and what should she do when hers
were worn out? They had a grant of land at Fort Peddie, and she dug
while her husband made baskets of cane, and carried them hundreds of
miles for sale; sleeping and eating in Caffre huts. ‘Yes, they are good,
honest people, and very well-bred (_anständig_), though they go as naked
as God made them. The girls are pretty and very delicate (_fein_), and
they think no harm of it, the dear innocents.’ If their cattle strayed,
it was always brought back; and they received every sort of kindness.
‘Yes, madam, it is shocking how people here treat the blacks. They call
quite an old man ‘Boy’, and speak so scornfully, and yet the blacks have
very nice manners, I assure you.’ When I looked at the poor little
wizened, pale, sickly Berliner, and fancied him a guest in a Caffre hut,
it seemed an odd picture. But he spoke as coolly of his long, lonely
journeys as possible, and seemed to think black friends quite as good as
white ones. The use of the words _anständig_ and _fein_ by a woman who
spoke very good German were characteristic. She could recognise an
‘_Anständigkeit_’ _not_ of Berlin. I need not say that the Germans are
generally liked by the coloured people. Choslullah was astonished and
Pleased at my talking German; he evidently had a preference for Germans,
and put up, wherever he could, at German inns and ‘publics’.
I went on to bid Mrs. Wodehouse good-bye. We talked of our dear old
Cornish friends. The Governor and Mrs. Wodehouse have been very kind to
me. I dined there twice; last time, with all the dear good Walkers. I
missed seeing the opening of the colonial parliament by a mistake about a
ticket, which I am sorry for.
If I could have dreamed of waiting here so long, I would have run up to
Algoa Bay or East London by sea, and had a glimpse of Caffreland.
Capetown makes me very languid—there is something depressing in the
air—but my cough is much better. I can’t walk here without feeling
knocked-up; and cab-hire is so dear; and somehow, nothing is worth while,
when one is waiting from day to day. So I have spent more money than
when I was most amused, in being bored.
Mr. J— drove me to the Capetown races, at Green Point, on Friday. As
races, they were _nichts_, but a queer-looking little Cape farmer’s
horse, ridden by a Hottentot, beat the English crack racer, ridden by a
first-rate English jockey, in an unaccountable way, twice over. The
Malays are passionately fond of horse-racing, and the crowd was fully
half Malay: there were dozens of carts crowded with the bright-eyed
women, in petticoats of every most brilliant colour, white muslin
jackets, and gold daggers in their great coils of shining black hair.
All most ‘anständig’, as they always are. Their pleasure is driving
about _en famille_; the men have no separate amusements. Every spare
corner in the cart is filled by the little soft round faces of the
intelligent-looking quiet children, who seem amused and happy, and never
make a noise or have the fidgets. I cannot make out why they are so well
behaved. It favours A—’s theory of the expediency of utter spoiling, for
one never hears any educational process going on. Tiny Mohammed never
spoke but when he was spoken to, and was always happy and alert. I
observed that his uncle spoke to him like a grown man, and never ordered
him about, or rebuked him in the least. I like to go up the hill and
meet the black women coming home in troops from the washing place, most
of them with a fat black baby hanging to their backs asleep, and a few
rather older trotting alongside, and if small, holding on by the mother’s
gown. She, poor soul, carries a bundle on her head, which few men could
lift. If I admire the babies, the poor women are enchanted;—_du reste_,
if you look at blacks of any age or sex, they _must_ grin and nod, as a
good-natured dog must wag his tail; they can’t help it. The blacks here
(except a very few Caffres) are from the Mozambique—a short, thick-set,
ugly race, with wool in huge masses; but here and there one sees a very
pretty face among the women. The men are beyond belief hideous. There
are all possible crosses—Dutch, Mozambique, Hottentot and English, ‘alles
durcheinander’; then here and there you see that a Chinese or a Bengalee
_a passé par là_. The Malays are also a mixed race, like the Turks—i.e.
they marry women of all sorts and colours, provided they will embrace
Islam. A very nice old fellow who waits here occasionally is married to
an Englishwoman, _ci-devant_ lady’s-maid to a Governor’s wife. I fancy,
too, they brought some Chinese blood with them from Java. I think the
population of Capetown must be the most motley crew in the world.
_Thursday_, May 8_th_.—I sail on Saturday, and go on board to-morrow, so
as not to be hurried off in the early fog. How glad I am to be ‘homeward
bound’ at last, I cannot say. I am very well, and have every prospect of
a pleasant voyage. We are sure to be well found, as the Attorney-General
is on board, and is a very great man, ‘inspiring terror and respect’
here.
S— says we certainly _shall_ put in at St. Helena, so make up your minds
not to see me till I don’t know when. She has been on board fitting up
the cabin to-day. I have _such_ a rug for J—! a mosaic of skins as fine
as marqueterie, done by Damara women, and really beautiful; and a
sheep-skin blanket for you, the essence of warmth and softness. I shall
sleep in mine, and dream of African hill-sides wrapt in a ‘Veld combas’.
The poor little water-tortoises have been killed by drought, and I can’t
get any, but I have the two of my own catching for M—.
Good-bye, dearest mother.
* * * * *
You would have been moved by poor old Abdool Jemaalee’s solemn
benediction when I took leave to-day. He accompanied it with a gross of
oranges and lemons.