paid us an all too brief visit; and, indeed, the arrival of any
man-of-war used to be made an excuse for a little extra gaiety. It was
my special delight to get the midshipmen to come in batches and stay at
Réduit, although I often found myself at my wits’ end to provide them
with game to shoot at, for that was what their hearts were most fixed
on. They all brought up weird and obsolete fowling-pieces, which the
moment they had finished breakfast they wanted to go and let off in the
park. What fun those boys were, and what dears! One chubby youth, being
questioned as to whether midshipmen were permitted to marry, answered,
“No, but sometimes there was a _candlestick_ marriage.”
“A _what_?”
“A candlestick marriage, sir,—not allowed, you know.”
“Clandestine” was the proper word, but the mistake had great success as
a joke.
My young soldier guests were quite as gallant and susceptible to the
charms of the bright eyes and pretty, gentle manners of my pet French
girls, but I often felt disconcerted to find that at my numerous _bals
privés_ there was a difficulty in getting them to dance with each
other, because the red-coated youths would not or could not speak one
word of French, whereas that difficulty never seemed to weigh with the
middy for a moment.
I dare say things are now different, and that improved mail and cable
services have changed the loneliness of my day, when there was no
cable beyond Aden and only a mail steamer once a month. I always felt
as though we ourselves were on a ship anchored in the midst of a
lonely ocean, and that once in four weeks another ship sped past us,
casting on board mail bags and cablegrams. But even as we stood with
stretched-out hands, craving for more news or more details of what news
was flung to us, the passing steamer had sunk below the horizon, and we
were left to possess our souls in what patience we might until the next
mail day came round.
The consequence of this comparative isolation was that few visitors
came our way, so that it aroused quite a little excitement in our
small community to hear that the Government of Madagascar—a curious
mixture in that day of power vested in the hands of a Queen, who was
always expected to marry her prime minister—intended to send three
delegates to Europe _viâ_ Mauritius to protest against the proposed
French protectorate. These delegates were dignified by the name of
Ambassadors, and their mission was to seek the intervention of Great
Britain and other European powers. We were instructed to receive them
with all official courtesy, including salutes from big guns and guards
of honour and so forth; the worst of all this ceremonial being that
the idea became firmly impressed on their minds that England was quite
prepared to take up their quarrel, or, at least, to remonstrate with
France. So it was a very happy and hopeful trio of “Ambassadors” who
presented themselves, with a number of attendants, including several
interpreters, at Réduit one evening to go through the ordeal of a
formal banquet.
I confess to a certain amount of curiosity when I heard that the
ambassadors were not only as black as jet, but they were quite unused
to the forms of society, and that, in fact, their only experience of
the ways of English folk was gathered from Wesleyan missionaries near
their chief towns. Indeed, the only English entertainment they had
ever seen was a school-feast to little native children, at which they
had been onlookers, and which, as one of the interpreters informed me,
had seemed to them a strange and puzzling performance.
However, when the dinner-hour arrived I beheld three fine, dignified
and stately gentlemen, quite as black nevertheless as their faultless
evening dress, the only false note being a massive gold watch chain,
from which dangled rather an aggressive bunch of lockets and other
ornaments, and with which each ambassador was decorated. Beautiful
bows were exchanged, and nothing could be more correct than the
fashion in which the senior dignitary offered me his arm. With an
interpreter on my left hand we got on famously all through dinner,
with absolutely no mistakes in essentials, though I often observed
some anxiety in the interpreter’s face. I suppose he felt responsible
for their manners. But the false hopes were there all the time, and I
felt myself to be quite a cruel monster when I had to whisper to the
interpreter to explain to his black Excellency, that it was only the
usual custom for the Governor to propose after the toast of our own
Queen the health of the sovereign of any foreign guests at table. Poor
ambassadors! they thought this commonplace courtesy meant a public
announcement of England’s intention of ranging herself on their side
of the question at issue. One did not realise at the time what a
deadly importance they attached to all these trifles, nor would we
perhaps have wondered at it so much had we known that they felt their
own lives depended on the success of the mission. They considered it a
most hopeful sign when I asked them after dinner to write their names
in my little birthday-book; and most astonishing names they were, each
name occupying three lines, but all apparently forming one syllable!
They seemed quite familiar with a pen, and each letter was beautifully
formed, only they were all joined together.
There is an excellent and most comfortable rule in the Colonial Service
which forbids a Governor to receive any gifts. I suppose it would also
apply to a Governor’s wife if the said gifts were of any intrinsic
value; but I did not see my way to wounding the feelings of my poor
guests that evening by sheltering myself behind official etiquette when
they tendered a hideous little glass biscuit-box and a sort of native
quilt (spoiled by vivid aniline dyes) for my acceptance. Yet I had
terrible misgivings all the time that they thought they were securing
my interest and co-operation in their affairs, and I even edged in
a word or two in my thanks through the interpreter to imply that
acceptance of their gifts must be taken “without prejudice.” I do not
believe, however, that he had the heart to pass my remark on, for the
ambassadors beamed joyously on me and the rest of the company all the
time.
I heard afterwards that they had made desperate efforts at all
the European Courts, beginning with that of St. James’s to secure
intervention, and that it was impossible to make them understand that
no one was able or willing to take up their quarrel. So in the fulness
of time, their money being all spent, they had to return to their own
land, where failure meant death, which I believe they welcomed rather
than the new order of things.
VII
GENERAL CHARLES GORDON
I feel as if no sketch, however slight, of my short stay in beautiful
Mauritius would be complete without a reference to General Gordon.
Soon after our own arrival Colonel Charles Gordon came in command of
the small body of Royal Engineers stationed there. From the very first
his delightful personality made itself felt, and although I suspect
that very few of the island-dwellers had the least idea of what a
name to conjure with “Chinese Gordon” was, still he at once assumed
that amazing sway over men’s hearts of which he possessed the secret.
Looking back on it through all these years I think the wonderful
humility of the man is the first thing one realises. He took up his
duties and his position in that obscure little corner of the Empire
with just as much interest and simplicity as though he had never led
armies to victory or changed the fate of nations. I am proud to say
we saw a great deal of him, though it had to be on his own terms
and in his own way. Of course, he was asked to the large and formal
entertainments at Réduit, but he always excused himself, and only came
to dine with us when we were quite alone. He would change into the mess
uniform, which it was the custom always to wear at Government House, in
the carriole which brought him up, and he once gave this as an excuse
for the extreme crookedness of his black neck-tie.
On these occasions, which I am happy to say were very frequent, the
dinner had to be of the most simple character and compressed into the
shortest possible space. I do not remember whether he took wine or not,
but he consumed an immense amount of black coffee, not at dinner, but
directly after, when we adjourned to the verandah and cigarettes were
lighted. Every half-hour a servant brought a fresh cup of fragrant
coffee, and noiselessly put it on the little table at Colonel Gordon’s
elbow, and this went on for hours! It is impossible to convey in
words any idea of the singular charm of Gordon’s conversation. With
so appreciative and sympathetic a listener as my dear husband was, he
gave of his best and that was very good. Not in the least egotistical,
his vivid narratives were the most thrillingly interesting it has
ever been my good fortune to listen to. Every word he said, for all
its picturesqueness, bore the stamp of reality, and the scenes he
described at once stood out before your eyes. A question now and then
was all that was needed to sustain the delightful flow of talk. He
never uttered a word which could be called “cant,” nor did he bring his
religious opinions into prominence. One gathered from his utterances
that he was more deeply imbued with the “enthusiasm of humanity” than
with any dogma.
His eyes were the most remarkable part of his face, and I cannot
imagine any one who has ever seen them forgetting their wonderful
beauty. It was not merely that they were of a crystal clearness and
as blue as a summer sky, but the expression was different to that of
any other human eye I have ever seen. In the first place, instead of
the trained, conventional glance with which we habitually regard each
other and which, certainly at first, tells you nothing whatever of
your new acquaintance’s character or inner nature, Gordon’s beautiful,
noble soul looked straight at you, directly from out of these clear
eyes. They revealed him at once, as he was, and I am sure the secret
of his extraordinary and almost instantaneous influence over his
fellow-creatures lay in that glance. There was a sort of wistful
tenderness in it for all its penetration, an extraordinary magnetic
sympathy, and yet you felt its authority. The rest of his face was
rugged, and, I suppose, what would be called plain, but one never
thought of anything beyond the soul shining out of those wonderful
windows. To look at any other face after his was like looking at a
lifeless mask. A few months after he arrived the General commanding the
troops in Mauritius left, and Colonel Gordon was promoted and succeeded
him. He had been very active among the Chinese mercantile class (a very
numerous one) and had done much good, not merely of a missionary but
of a social nature, explaining the duties of citizenship to them, and
enforcing local laws and rules which they probably had not understood.
That part of the community became much easier to manage after he took
them in hand.
But there was a strangely unpractical side to General Gordon’s nature,
apart from his utter disregard of what might be called his own
interests. Those he never thought of for one moment, and I honestly
believe that his feelings about the value or importance of money—_as_
money—were on a par with the ideas of a nice child of five years old!
Coins of the realm remained but a short time in his pocket, and were
only welcome to him as a means of helping others. Still his charity was
not at all indiscriminate, and in the numerous instances of which I
knew his help was always judiciously given.
Curiously enough, the scheme of defence for Mauritius, which General
Gordon was requested officially to draw up, was found to be absolutely
impossible. He bestowed much pains and care on it, but his plans
involved many alterations and changes not one of which were found
practicable. I have in my possession some charming letters of his
to my husband, who had written privately to the General to state
that in forwarding this scheme of defence to the War Office, he, as
Lieutenant-Governor, had felt obliged to disagree entirely with it,
and to point out the utter impossibility on every ground of carrying
it out. Now my husband was one of General Gordon’s warmest and most
discriminating admirers, and he showed me the private correspondence
on the subject as illustrating the noble and beautiful nature of the
man. There was not the slightest trace of annoyance or even pique at
the uncompromising terms in which a civilian Governor had felt it his
duty to differ from so eminent a military authority. The General just
recognised that it was a plain expression of an honest opinion and
respected it accordingly, nor was there the slightest friction between
them nor the least check upon their friendly intercourse.
I remember particularly one merry evening in the verandah after dinner,
when the General had just returned from an official visit to the
Seychelles, a little group of islands nearly 1000 miles from Mauritius,
but in those days one of its _dépendences_. He was full of a brand new
theory, based on the coco-de-mer, a gigantic palm which he saw for the
first time, and which convinced him that he had discovered the site of
the Garden of Eden. He explained with great eagerness how he felt sure
of the existence of the four encircling rivers of that favoured spot
(only they now ran underground), but his strong point was the strange
weird fruit which hung, some eighty feet or so above the ground, from
those splendid palms which are peculiar to the Seychelles group. In
vain the Governor pointed out, with much laughter, that our first
parents must have been of a goodly height to reach this fruit, and in
the next, that it was not good to eat!
The dear General bore all our chaff with the sweetest good-humour, but
remained as firmly fixed as ever in his idea. He was most eager and
earnest about it all, and, though he found our laughter infectious and
joined heartily in it, nothing made the least impression on him, and
I believe he always thought the Garden of Eden had once united that
little group of islets in one exquisite whole—for Mahé is certainly a
lovely spot and as fertile as it is fair.
We always felt we could not expect to keep him long with us in
Mauritius though he never chafed nor repined in any way, and just did
his duty from day to day, and whatever other work for his fellow-men
his hand found to do, with all his might. But all too soon he was
summoned home, and quite the next thing we heard of him was that he
was going out to India with the new Governor-General, Lord Ripon,
as his Private Secretary. We all exclaimed at once, “Think of the
dinner-parties!” and were not at all surprised to hear how short a time
that arrangement had lasted, though the dreaded form of entertainment
had really nothing whatever to do with Gordon’s resignation of his
post long before India was reached. From time to time he wrote to my
husband, and we followed every step of his subsequent career with the
deepest interest. I have since heard, I do not know with what truth,
that it was a mistake in a telegram which prevented his going to the
Congo on King Leopold’s business instead of to Egypt on ours. However
that may be, the rest of the story was quite in harmony with what one
had known of him, but of all those who sorrowed for his tragic fate—and
it was a nation that grieved—no one lamented him more than his official
chief of the Mauritian days.
VIII
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Few people can realise how rapid is the growth of a colony when once
it begins to grow. Like a young tree, after reaching a certain stage,
it may seem to have almost attained its limit, and one often feels
disappointed that more visible progress has not been made. But come
again a little later, and you will find your sapling shooting rapidly
up into a splendid tree. It was really growing, as it were, _under_
ground; searching with its roots for the most favourable conditions.
Perhaps there was a piece of rock to be got round before the good
soil could be reached, but the little tree was covering that rock all
the time with a network of roots so that it ceased to be an obstacle
and was gathered up and assimilated with its growth. In the decade
between 1880 and 1890 Western Australia was just in that stage, and
the splendid young giant of to-day must have been growing underground
then, though it did not seem to be making much progress as a colony.
In those days we sadly called ourselves “Cinderella,” but the Fairy
Prince—Responsible Government—was not far off, and I am proud to
remember that my dear husband, then Governor of the colony, was one of
those who helped to open the door and let Prince Charming in.
They tell me the colony is quite different now, and that Perth is
unrecognisable. I try to be glad to hear it, and keep repeating to
myself that the revenue of a month now is what we thought good for
a year, fifteen years ago. But no one can be more than happy, and I
question very much if the rich people there to-day are any happier
or even better off, in the true sense of the words, than we were. Of
course, enormous progress has been made, and many of the works and
wants which we only dreamed of and longed for, have suddenly become
accomplished facts. Our Cinderella’s shoes have turned out to be made
of gold, but they pinch her now and then, and have to be eased here
and there. Still they are, no doubt, true fairy shoes, and will grow
conveniently with the growth of her feet.
In our day—which began in May 1883—the colony was as quiet and
primitive as possible, but none the less delightful and essentially
homelike. I must confess that one of its greatest attractions in my
eyes was what more youthful and enterprising spirits used to call the
dulness of Perth. But it never was really dull. To me there always
appeared to be what I see American newspapers describe as “happenings”
going on.
For instance, one morning I was called into the Governor’s office to
look at a tin collar just sent up from the port of Freemantle for the
Governor’s inspection. It appeared that the two little children of a
respectable tradesman in Freemantle had that morning been playing on a
lonely part of the beach, and had observed a large strange bird, half
floating, half borne in by the incoming tide. It was a very flat bit of
shore just there, and the sea was as smooth as glass, so the boy—bold
and brave, as colonial boys are—fearing to lose the curious creature,
waded in a little way, and, seizing it by the tip of the outstretched
wing, dragged it safely to land. There, after a few convulsive
movements and struggles, the poor bird died, and the little ones wisely
set off at once to fetch their father to look at what they thought was
an enormous seagull. When Mr. —— arrived at the spot, he at once saw
that the bird was an albatross, and furthermore that a large fish was
sticking in its throat. A closer inspection revealed that a sort of
tin collar round the neck, large enough to allow of its feeding under
ordinary circumstances, but not wide enough to let so big a fish pass
down its gullet, had strangled it. The collar had evidently formed part
of a preserved meat tin of rather a large size, with the top and bottom
knocked out, and around it were these words, punched quite distinctly
in the tin, probably by the point of a nail:—
“_Treize naufragés sont refugiés sur les Iles Crozets, ce_”—then
followed a date of about twelve days before. “_Au secours, pour l’amour
de Dieu!_”
In those days everything used to be referred to the Governor, so Mr. ——
at once went to the police station, got an Inspector to come and look
at the bird, hear the children’s story, take the collar off—a work of
some difficulty, in fact the head had to be cut off—and bring it up by
next train to Perth.
It was an intensely interesting story, and aroused all our sympathy.
A telegram was at once sent off to the Admiral commanding on the
Australian station, telling the tale, and asking for help to be sent to
the Crozets; but the swiftly returned answer stated, with great regret,
that it was impossible to do this, and that the Cape Squadron was the
one to communicate with. Now unfortunately this was impossible in those
days, so another message was despatched directly to the Minister for
Marine Affairs in Paris, and next day we heard that the Department had
discovered—through an apparently admirable system of ship registry—that
a small vessel had sailed from Bordeaux some months before and that
the way to her destined port would certainly take her past the Iles
Crozets. No news of her arrival at that port had ever been received,
so a message was even then on its way to the nearest French naval
station ordering immediate relief to be sent to the Crozets. This
reply, most courteously worded, added that there were _caches_ of food
on these islands, which statement was borne out by the fresh look of
the tin collar. A curious confirmation of the story was elicited by
the volunteered statement of the captain of a newly-arrived sailing
wool-ship, who said that in a certain latitude, which turned out to
be within quite measurable distance of the Crozets, an albatross had
suddenly appeared in the wake of the ship, feeding greedily on the
scraps and refuse thrown overboard, and the crew observed with surprise
that the bird followed them right into the open roadstead which then
represented Freemantle harbour. The date coincided exactly with the
figures on the tin. The bird must have found the collar inconvenient
for fishing, and had joined the ship to feed on these softer scraps,
until, with the conclusion of the little vessel’s voyage, the supplies
also ceased.
Stories should always end well, but alas! this one does not. We heard
nothing more for several weeks, and then came an official document,
full of gratitude for the prompt action taken, but stating that when
the French gunboat reached the Crozets it was found quite deserted.
A similar tin, with the same sort of punched letters on it, had been
left behind saying that the contents of the _cache_ had all been
used, and that, supplies being exhausted, the _naufragés_ were going
to attempt to construct some sort of a raft on which to try to reach
another of the islets where a fresh supply of food might possibly be
found hidden. This message had briefly added that the poor shipwrecked
sailors were literally starving.
The most diligent and careful search failed, however, to discover the
slightest trace of the unfortunate men or their raft. Probably they
were already so weak and exhausted when they started that they could
not navigate their cumbrous craft in the broken water and currents
between the Islands. We felt very sad at this tragic end to the
wonderful message brought by the albatross, and only wished we had
possessed any sort of steamer which could have been despatched that
same day to the Iles Crozets.
Another morning—and such a beautiful morning too!—F. looked in at the
drawing-room window, and asked if I would like to come with him to
the Central Telegraph Office—a very little way off—and hear the first
messages over a line stretching many hundreds of miles away to the
far North-west of the colony. Of course, I was only too delighted,
especially as I had “assisted” at the driving in of the very first pole
of that same telegraph line two or three years before at Geraldton,
some three hundred miles up the coast.