Johannesburg. The distance is four hundred and eighty-three miles, and
we were twenty-four hours and a half on the way, as we left Durban at
5:50 last night, and arrived here at 6:20 this evening. The distance
from New York to Chicago is about a thousand miles, and the best trains
on the Pennsylvania and New York Central make it in twenty hours.
Formerly they made it in eighteen hours, but the speed was so great
that travelers complained. The train on which we traveled today was
the Limited, and as good as there is in South Africa. The track is
narrow-gauge, and, as seems the rule on all railroads operated by the
government, the train was crowded, though we had no cause to complain;
we were given a compartment to ourselves, without extra charge. When
we arrived at the station last night, we found a placard on the window
of a compartment, announcing that it was reserved for “Mr. and Miss
Howe.” The compartment would have easily seated four. It was provided
with a washstand, and was practically as good as a compartment on a
Pullman. At ten o’clock, a white porter appeared with two bundles of
bed-clothing, sealed. Breaking the seals, he made up two beds about
as they are made up on a Pullman. Then the porter presented me with
two tickets, for which I paid sixty cents each. The tickets read:
“South African Railways. No. 98029. Bedding ticket. From Durban to
Johannesburg. Date, 3-7-13. Train No. 192. Amount paid 2. 6. This
ticket must be handed to passenger on payment of charge.”... This is
the sleeping-car system in South Africa; two had a compartment in a
sleeping-car twenty-four hours and a half for $1.20. The Pullman charge
for a service not much better would have been $9, instead of $1.20.
There was a dining-car on the train, and the charge for dinner was 75
cents, and for lunch and breakfast, sixty cents each. The meals were
good, but the car was always packed at meal-times, and the force of
waiters not large enough. Tea was served in our compartment at 7 A.
M. and 4 P. M.... I have never enjoyed a railroad ride more than I
enjoyed the ride from Durban to Johannesburg. The weather was cool, and
there was no dust. We left Durban in a pouring rain, but this morning
the rain ceased, and by noon the sun was shining. For hours we passed
through a prairie country which greatly resembled eastern Kansas as
it was forty or fifty years ago. I saw thousands and thousands of
acres of what seemed to be old-fashioned prairie grass, and when there
was a cultivated field it was nearly always devoted to corn. I saw a
good deal of hay-making in progress, and in every case the hay-rake
was pulled by a yoke of oxen. In several places, negro laborers were
cutting oats, and the harvester was also pulled by oxen. This was the
rule in the early days in eastern Kansas; many of the older farmers
will remember when oxen were used almost entirely for farm work. If I
were dissatisfied with my present location (which I am not), I should
have no hesitancy in locating in South Africa after seeing that part
of it lying between Durban and Johannesburg. The country looks like
the best portions of the United States, and not one-tenth of it seems
to be cultivated. We saw a good many sheep, but not one-hundredth part
as many as we saw in Australia and New Zealand, although the grass was
much better. Altogether, the impression left on my mind was this: A
surprisingly good country, and very little advantage taken of it....
I doubt if I saw a corn-field of fifty acres; the patches were all
small, and weedy. In most cases the stalks of the field corn were as
small as the stalks of our sweet corn. The farming is mostly done by
negroes; either as independent farmers, or as farm laborers. If some
of the corn farmers of Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas had this
land, it would produce better crops.... This refers mainly to Natal.
The rainfall is less toward Johannesburg: I thought I could notice a
difference when we crossed into the Transvaal a little before noon
today. Toward Johannesburg, there is more stock-raising; the country
looks much like Kansas two hundred miles west of the Missouri river.
Still, the Transvaal looks better than the best parts of Australia
I saw. But in Australia, the very best is made of everything, while
here shiftlessness is the rule. The natives (negroes) live in round,
grass-covered huts, and are a shiftless lot. If other portions of
Africa are as promising agriculturally as Natal and the Transvaal (and
certain parts are said to be better), I can easily believe it has
a great future. But it should be remembered that this is the rainy
season; in a few months the country will look brown and parched.
There is plenty of rain along the coast, but in the interior, people
long for rain as they do in Australia.... At one place along the
road, we saw a family of Kaffirs going to town in a light wagon
to which was attached three yoke of oxen. Goats and donkeys, the
live-stock of shiftless men everywhere, were quite numerous along the
way.... Near Durban we saw young corn and young bananas growing
together. A half-dozen miles from Durban we saw a huge sugar-mill, and
surrounding it a Hindu village in which there were several strange
temples to strange gods. The foundation of one of these temples had
been undermined by rain lasting six days, and was toppling over in
the mud.... At many of the stations we saw American agricultural
machinery on freight cars or on station platforms.... At one station
there was a creamery which looked much like a similar establishment
in the United States; at most stations, negro boys sold milk to the
passengers at a penny a glass.... The cattle here are queer-looking;
they are shorter than ours, and usually have enormous horns. I saw no
highly bred cattle, but the native cattle were always fat, and grazing
in grass up to their knees. Some of the oxen come from Madagascar, and
have great humps on their backs. Oxen are as generally worked on farms
here as horses are at home; frequently cows are worked with them, and
when a cow works under the yoke, her calf usually travels beside her.
In the middle of nearly every string of work-oxen, you see a pair of
yearlings or two-year-olds being worked to “break” them. Donkeys are
also extensively worked here; no disease attacks the donkey, whereas
cattle often die as do our hogs with cholera, and I frequently saw ten
to twelve donkeys working to one wagon.... Soon after passing into
the Transvaal, I noticed that much of the prairie land seemed somewhat
stony. What we call “nigger-heads” were numerous; reddish-looking
stones worn into the shape of circular beehives, by long exposure to
the weather. These turned out to be ant-hills, so hardened by long
exposure to the weather that they will turn a bullet; during the late
war, the Boers used them for protection. There are countless billions
and trillions of ants here, and you are never out of sight of their
hills in the Transvaal. In some places the ant-hills are so large that
the natives chase out the ants, and use the hills for houses....
The fences in the prairie country are always of wire, and the posts
of iron, and sod houses, most of them tumbling down, are as common
as they were in western Kansas thirty years ago.... The Transvaal
is that section to which the Boers made their great trek, owing to
friction with the English along the coast. In the Transvaal was later
discovered the Johannesburg gold mines, and it was the owners of these
mines who brought on the Boer war. Should Kansas and Nebraska go to
war with England, it would not be a much more remarkable performance
than the Transvaal and Orange Free State fighting England, and forcing
it to put a quarter of a million men in the field. Early this morning
we passed through Ladysmith, famous because of the long siege, and
throughout the day we have seen occasional relics of the war; mainly
cemeteries wherein were buried English soldiers, and we also saw lone
monuments erected in memory of special heroes. Mr. and Mrs. May, the
fine old people we saw embark on the “Anchises” at Adelaide, and whom
we knew on the long voyage to Durban, had a son killed in the Boer
war, as Australia and New Zealand, as well as Canada, sent troops to
help the English suppress the terrible Boers. We had heard Mrs. May
say her son was buried at Sanderton, and we passed through that town,
and saw the cemetery where the young soldier was buried.... The
country between Durban and Johannesburg is what Americans call rolling.
Small mountains are occasionally seen in the distance, but the general
effect is like our prairie country. At one place we crossed a divide by
means of a switch-back, and two engines were usually attached to our
train.... Two hours before we left Durban, we saw the warship “New
Zealand” come into the harbor. Immediately on landing, sixty of the
officers and men left for Johannesburg, and were accommodated in three
sleepers and a dining-car on our train. Hundreds of people gathered at
the stations to see the sailor-men, and Johannesburg will entertain
them lavishly.... A gentleman told me today of a farm in South
Africa which is eight miles square. Plenty of good land can be bought
here at $6 an acre, and the English government, much as it is abused,
is as good as any in the world.... At 5 P. M. we had our first
glimpse of Johannesburg: small mountains of white rock taken out of the
different mines, and which are known as “the Johannesburg Alps.” We
stopped at suburbs and switched around for more than an hour before we
finally left the train at the greatest gold-mining camp in the world,
at 6:20 P. M.
SUNDAY, MARCH 9.—Johannesburg was a pleasant surprise, as was Durban;
it is a new, clean city of 237,000 inhabitants, and up-to-date in all
respects. The population is about equally divided between whites and
blacks. It has department stores as big as Kansas City, and last night
the main streets were so crowded that it was almost impossible to get
along. Although this is a boom town, something like but greater than
our Cripple Creek, prices are not unreasonable. I am staying at the
Langham Hotel, which is excellent in every way. The price is $3.60
per day, including three regular meals, and coffee at 7 A. M. and
tea at 4 P. M. An orchestra plays in the dining-room during dinner.
The waiters are imposing-looking Germans, wearing green coats, brass
buttons, and knee-breeches. Altogether it is as satisfactory a hotel
as we have encountered; and we were very fond of the Marine at Durban,
and of the Grand at Wellington.... Johannesburg is not situated in
the mountains, although it has hills something like the bluffs along
the Missouri river. The main town is on a flat, and the surrounding
hills add an agreeable variety. There is an excellent system of street
railway, and the price is three cents per section; the fare to the
zoölogical garden is fifteen cents. This garden shows most of the game
animals of Africa, in addition to as handsome a display of flowers as
one cares to see. A peculiarity of the flowers here is that they are
almost without scent. While coming in from the zoo this morning, the
conductor, when taking my fare, asked:
“What part of the country do you come from?”
I told him from the United States.
“I know that,” he replied; “but what section? I am from Georgia.”
This man was James Brady, who served in the Spanish-American war, and
came over here to serve in the Boer war in a spirit of adventure.
Strange as it may seem, many men like soldiering, and the risk of
battle. One can hardly refer to James Brady as a patriot; he was simply
a restless young fellow who wanted excitement.... Johannesburg’s
principal streets are well paved, and they are brilliantly illuminated
at night. I believe the town has a greater number of handsome homes,
in proportion to population, than any other city I am familiar with.
It startles an American to hear that another country has the “greatest
in the world” in anything, but South Africa leads the world in gold
production because of Johannesburg. The town is only thirty years old,
but there is nothing crude about it. Like all exceedingly prosperous
towns, its women are homely; in this respect, it reminds one of Kansas
City and Chicago. The handsomest women are always found in dull towns
like Quincy, Illinois, and Burlington, Iowa. By-the-way, “Burlington”
is a popular word in the English colonies, for some reason. In
Wellington and Sydney there are handsome restaurants called “The
Burlington;” somewhere else I saw a big arcade of the same name, and in
London a monthly magazine is called “The Burlington.”... All printed
matter in the Transvaal intended for the public, such as railway
time-tables, is printed in German as well as in English. Which is not
surprising, since the Boers outnumber the English more than three to
one.... An American negro would scream his head off in Johannesburg.
The negro here is not allowed to ride on the street-railways, nor is
he allowed on the sidewalks. A system of Jim Crow cars was tried when
the street-railways were first built, but the blacks wanted to ride
with the whites, so they were ordered to keep off the cars altogether.
A negro servant may ride on a street-car with his master, but he must
sit in a modest place pointed out by the conductor. A negro servant
may live in quarters in his master’s yard, but if he has a family, and
works for himself, he must live in Blacktown.... The Boers were more
strict with the blacks than are the English. On Sundays, the streets
are black with natives, as there are more than 100,000 in Johannesburg,
but not a great many are seen on week days; in the enormous crowds I
saw on the streets last night, I remarked the absence of negroes....
The white men here usually speak highly of the honesty of the blacks.
If the blacks find a dishonest one, they promptly report him to the
“boss.”... A thing that soon attracts your attention in Johannesburg
is the great number of negroes who own bicycles. Being refused
admission to the street-cars, they buy bicycles. But the old Boers
wouldn’t permit the blacks to ride bicycles.... Although the natives
are treated so harshly, I saw the statement in print lately that
they possess more than one-third of all the cattle in Cape Colony,
one-fourth of the sheep, produce three-fifths of all the corn, and
own one-third of all the plows. As they are excellent workers, they
are really a valuable asset.... The Hindus are not popular around
Johannesburg; everywhere I have been in South Africa, the Hindus are
severely criticised.... In the Cape Colony, the negroes can vote,
and have many other privileges not accorded them in the Transvaal.
There are thousands of mulattoes in Cape Colony, but very few in the
Transvaal. In Cape Colony, the negroes have about as many privileges
as negroes have in the northern sections of the United States, but in
most other portions of South Africa they have fewer privileges than
the negroes of Mississippi or Alabama. A white lawyer with whom I
lately talked, says the race problem here is really a very serious one.
Many university educated negroes are coming to Africa from the United
States, and making trouble. The lawyer also said that the African M.
E. Church is a source of much trouble, and that there has been serious
talk of prohibiting it in the Transvaal.... During my stay in
Johannesburg, the papers reported a meeting of the South-African Native
National Congress. Fifteen chiefs and 200 other delegates were present.
The chairman delivered his address in English, and it was interpreted
into several native languages. “Gentlemen,” said the speaker, “this
land is ours, inalienable, a God-given birthright. We do not begrudge
others a fair share in its treasures, but in so doing we do not propose
to suffer our inalienable rights to be encroached upon. More than
is adequate and just to our reasonable progress and well-being we
do not ask, but that we demand with all the strength of our being.”
Continuing, he said that he did not consider the natives were being
treated fairly by the government. In some respects they were subjected
to “an intolerable state of slavery.” They were denied a voice in the
country’s government, even in legislation bearing upon their own life
and people. They were fettered by pass laws, while illiterate men who
could scarcely writes their names, and whose knowledge of the world’s
history was limited “to the bare kopjes of their own backveld,” were
entrusted with the power of governing the natives and their land. The
government of the land granted to Indians, Chinese, Syrians, and other
such races, regardless of character, an unrestricted liberty to travel,
to trade, and to purchase land, while they (the natives) were denied
all such privileges. (Applause.)
MONDAY, MARCH 10.—Johannesburg is possibly the most prosperous town in
the world. There are six or seven thousand English and American miners
employed on the Rand, or gold reef, which is fifty miles long and one
mile wide. Johannesburg is the centre of this great gold district, and
the white miners make big wages; they are all either foremen or mine
contractors, and some of them make $500 a month; $350 a month pay to a
white miner is not at all unusual. The real work is done by the negro
miners, who are brought here from all over Africa under what amounts to
indenture. More than a hundred thousand of these are employed in the
mines, and they receive an average of sixty cents a day, and board.
They live at the mines, in great boarding-houses which accommodate,
in many cases, two thousand. No women are allowed in these compounds,
and the miners themselves may only leave the compounds with special
permits. By law, the negroes cannot be worked more than eight hours a
day in the mines, and none are accepted as workmen who do not agree
to remain at least six months. The white bosses have “stand around”
jobs; they do no actual labor. The best white miners in the world are
found here, because of the high pay. The gold-bearing rock is hoisted
to the surface from a depth, in some cases, of four thousand feet. It
is then run through stamp-mills, and crushed, and the gold extracted
by the cyanide process. The mountains of lime-rock seen all along the
Rand are composed of the gold-bearing rock after the gold has been
extracted; in some cases, these dumps are being worked over, the old
process of extracting gold having been wasteful. This broken rock is
used for concrete work and for street paving, and the mine-owners will
pay to have it hauled off their premises.... On the streets this
morning I again met James Brady, the Atlanta, Georgia, man whom I met
yesterday while he was working as a street-car conductor. As this is
his lay-off day, he spent considerable time with us. He says conductors
and motormen average about $100 a month. He complained a good deal of
the high cost of living in Johannesburg, but it developed that prices
are not much higher here than in Atchison.
“Think of it,” he said, “a good porterhouse steak costs a shilling a
pound here.”
Investigation will reveal that the best steaks cost twenty-four cents a
pound in Atchison. The best bacon costs thirty cents a pound here; that
is the price in Atchison, next door to eight or nine packing-houses.
Mr. Brady has not been in Atlanta, Georgia, for fourteen years, and
said to me:
“In Atlanta, we could buy good butter for fifteen cents a pound.”
I told him he could not do it now, and he was greatly surprised to
hear of the manner in which prices have advanced all over the United
States.... We took a street-car ride, and the price was fifteen
cents each going out, and fifteen cents each coming back, or ninety
cents out and back for three of us. It was the longest street-car
ride possible in Johannesburg; five sections, at three cents a
section.... Last Fourth of July, Brady put an American flag on his
trolley-pole, and it remained there peacefully from 6:30 in the morning
until noon. At that hour an inspector ordered it down. Brady refused
to take it down, and was suspended for three days. There is another
American on the line, a motorman, and he tongue-lashed the inspector,
and was also suspended for three days.... Brady’s father was Captain
in a Georgia company in the rebellion; five of his sons were killed in
the battle of Manassas. Of the one hundred men who originally composed
the elder Brady’s company, five returned safe and sound at the end of
the war. The others were killed, crippled, or died from illness....
You perhaps imagine that because the English whipped the Boers, the
English control the Transvaal. As a matter of fact, the present local
government, elected by the people, is Boer. The Boers in politics are
called Nationalists; the English are called Unionists, and at the
recent election the Nationalists won. There is a Labor party here,
also, but it is not as strong as it is in Australia, New Zealand,
or England itself. The Boer members of parliament are in a big row
among themselves. One leader believes in reconciling the differences
between the Boers and English, while the other is a fire-eater. The
conservative man is much more popular among the Boers, apparently, than
the fire-eater.... The Boers frequently quarrel among themselves.
There are two branches of the Dutch Reformed Church, and several years
ago the warring factions armed, and almost engaged in civil war, over
the interpretation of a passage of scripture.... Johannesburg has
recently opened a new and very handsome public market on the site of
the old Coolie village. The plague broke out among the Coolies, so
their village was burned, and now the blacks live in a section further
out. Hindus, negroes, Chinese and Malays live there; no white resident
is permitted in the village, nor is a Hindu or other black permitted
to live in any other section of Johannesburg. Dr. Gregory, a Hindu who
was educated in Edinburgh and who married a Scotch wife, had a large
practice among the whites, but when the order came segregating the
blacks, he was compelled to move from his handsome house down-town
to the dirty Coolie village. There are ten to fifteen thousand blacks
in this village, and many of the Hindus are rich; but they are not
allowed to ride on the street-cars which pass their doors. In Durban,
many of the Hindus are gardeners; here, they buy fruit and vegetables,
and peddle them in various parts of town, from small carts....
There is a Jew market in Johannesburg which is very peculiar. It is
an open field, on valuable ground owned by the city, and everything
in the way of household goods, clothing, etc., is displayed in the
open air. Nearly everything offered is second-hand, and is bought by
negroes. The market occupies an entire block, and I found it very
interesting.... At the markets here, eggs that are guaranteed fresh,
sell at three shillings, or 72 cents, per dozen, while “farm eggs” are
sold at forty-two cents. Penguin eggs are collected in large numbers
from the islands around the coast, and their consumption in Cape Town
in certain seasons exceeds that of the domestic fowl. The penguin eggs
are palatable, nutritious, and easily digestible; the “white” is of
a sea-green color, the egg is twice the size of the usual hen’s egg,
and must be boiled twenty minutes. These eggs are sent all over South
Africa, and to London. Speaking of eggs, one morning at the Langham
Hotel I saw a guest bring two eggs to the dining-room, call a waiter,
and give orders as to how the eggs should be cooked. In a few minutes
the man came in to breakfast, and the eggs were brought in from the
kitchen.... Today I passed a place called an “American restaurant.”
This sign was displayed: “A complete meal, including a glass of beer,
one shilling.”... Another peculiarity of the English: When they drive,
they turn to the left, on meeting another driver; but on the sidewalk,
when they meet another pedestrian, they turn to the right.
TUESDAY, MARCH 11.—At the meat shops in Johannesburg, pickled beef feet
are sold as pickled pigs’ feet are sold in America.... The morning
newspapers of Johannesburg sell at six cents each. The best newspapers
of New York and Chicago sell at one cent. The Transvaal _Leader_ of
this morning says the rain at Durban continues, and that the storm is
the worst since 1858. When I was there, it was said at first that the
storm was the worst in two years; then it was said it was the worst
in ten years, and now the statement is telegraphed broadcast that the
storm at Durban is the worst in fifty-five years. It is wonderful
what the Atchison hoodoo can do in the way of disturbing nature. The
weather in Johannesburg is fine. The days are somewhat warm, but the
nights are quite cool. Except a light shower this afternoon, which
was agreeable, there has been no rain since our arrival.... The
Transvaal _Leader_ has one department I have never seen in any other
newspaper. Every morning it prints a list of the loaded railway cars
received in Johannesburg the day before. Imagine a Chicago paper
printing something like the following: “Yesterday there were received
in Chicago the following loaded freight cars: Illinois Central, Nos.
100282, 287689, 159867, 829217,” etc., followed by two dozen or more
railways represented in the city. Such a list would take up as much
space as the baseball scores.... We have cantaloupes every day at
the hotel, and they are surprisingly good. The varieties are new to
us. We also have roasting-ears, and the proprietor tells me they cost
six to eight cents a dozen, in quantities.... Four of the guests at
this hotel we knew as passengers on the “Anchises.”... Warned by the
example of Australia, South Africa has prohibited the importation of
rabbits, except that they are permitted in one small island near the
coast.... The fire department made an exhibition run today to amuse
the sailors from the warship “New Zealand,” a favorite trick in all
American country towns. The apparatus here is motor-driven, new, and
of the best.... All the street and railway laborers, and laborers
generally, are negroes, and they receive an average of $22 a month.
A negro laborer in the United States receives more than twice that.
The Georgia man I met on Sunday says the South-African negroes are no
better laborers than the negroes of the South. If the South-African
government should decide that the prosperity of the country depended
upon the negroes working for a shilling a day, such a law would be
passed, without regard to the Rights of Man. Chinese labor was tried
in the Johannesburg mines, and at one time there were more than 50,000
Chinese in the country. The Chinese gradually demanded more wages, and
as a result they were ordered to leave South Africa, a fate which is
now overtaking the Hindus. Many employers of labor favor inviting the
Chinese to come back. I saw a statement in a newspaper today that if
American miners’ wages were paid along the Rand, the mines would show
a loss instead of a profit.... The Transvaal _Advertiser_ of this
morning printed a table showing that the gold output of the Rand for
February was 734,122 ounces, worth a little more than fifteen and a
half million dollars. The same table shows that the average profits
of the Rand gold mines amount to $170,000 per day. In South Africa,
184,000 men are employed in the gold mines, 8,000 in the coal mines,
and 35,000 in the diamond mines. Practically all these miners are
native negroes, so that the negroes are the source of the country’s
prosperity. The negroes are compelled to work for whatever the whites
decide is necessary to keep the country’s industries flourishing. In
many places here, the blacks outnumber the whites fifty to one, but
the blacks must work for whatever wages the whites are willing to pay.
If they do not, the whites say the blacks are in rebellion again, and
send for British soldiers.... The Transvaal _Leader_, the paper I
buy every morning for six cents, prints a summary of the news in every
issue, and I often remark how little real news there is, considering
that the _Leader_ devotes twelve nine-column pages to it. As a matter
of fact, there isn’t a great deal of real news; the best the newspaper
men can do is to make gossip interesting.... The passion for England
here is very marked; the bulk of the reading matter in the _Leader_
seems to be telegrams or correspondence from London. An Englishman
will locate in the United States, and at once become an American,
but in South Africa, New Zealand or Australia, he is more English
than he was in England.... When the new market-house was built
in Johannesburg, it was so far out of the way that people wouldn’t
patronize it, although it was a magnificent structure 668x230 feet.
Thereupon the street-railway company went to the rescue, built a line
past the new market-house, and gave free transfers to and from it on
all lines. These were the first transfers ever issued in Johannesburg,
and the people are already inquiring: “Why can’t transfers be issued
in other cases?” I predict that this enterprise on the part of the
street-railway company will result in grumbling and agitation that will
finally force free transfers generally. The street-railway receipts
here now amount to more than an average of $100 per car daily, but with
the entering-wedge referred to above, look out for a howl for lower
fares. The people here have never experienced the joy of fighting the
street-railway, and, when they get at it, they will like it as much as
do people in American towns.... All the people in foreign countries
have, I think, an exaggerated notion of the prosperity prevailing
in the United States. Most of the young men I meet are anxious to
emigrate, and they believe conditions in the United States are better
than they really are. Ours is a great country, but hard work and
poverty are not unknown in the best parts of it.... This morning
we called at an office building to see a number of Americans who have
been exiled in South Africa many years. An ex-American took us around
and introduced us to ex-Americans in the various offices. We looked
so “raw” that our conductor was immensely amused. He said to another
ex-American, the manager of a bank:
“And yet they are surprised that people everywhere know they are
Americans!”
I suppose we are called “raw Yankees” here, as we at home call new
arrivals from the old country “raw Dutch.” Our conductor in the office
building told us later that the elevator man said to him, after our
departure:
“Excuse me, sir, but were those people Americans?”
“No,” the ex-American replied, “they were Russians. Why do you ask if
they were Americans?”
“Because, sir,” the elevator man replied, “I couldn’t understand them
when they inquired for you.”
When people talk to us, they talk slowly, and use a good many signs,
as we do at home when talking to foreigners.... But so far as looks
go, I think I have solved the problem. Today I bought a London hat, and
wear it with the rim turned down in the back, instead of turned down in
front. I imagine that people now say of us:
“The man looks all right, but who is the frowzy-looking woman with him?”
The leading ladies’ tailor in Kansas City is a German named Mendelsohn.
If Mendelsohn could hear the criticism his suits attract in South
Africa, he would go crazy.... Speaking of the English habit of
turning the hat-brim down behind, instead of down in front, as
American men wear their soft hats, some Englishmen in Africa go to
an extreme, and wear the brim of their hats turned down all the way
’round.... At home, I have noticed the quiet amusement with which
a German-American regards a raw Dutchman who has just landed. I think
the Americans we meet here regard us in the same way. They are polite,
and glad to see us, but they are undoubtedly amused at our appearance,
our ways and our talk.... A peculiarity of Johannesburg is that coal
mines are operated within sight of the gold mines; and in no other gold
camp is fuel so convenient.