PRETORIA AND ITS LIFE
The writer of this has never admired the works of Rider Haggard; they
are too untrue--untrue to Nature and the probabilities of life, and
certainly untrue to facts, which are grossly exaggerated. But even in
winter a strayed swallow is seen in our country. On the barest plain
a tree is met occasionally, and in Haggard’s work I once came across
something with which I can cordially agree. It is long ago since I
read it, but it so surprised me that I have always remembered it. Yet
it is so long since I read it that I am not quite sure in which of his
works I saw it; but if I am not mistaken the thing is in _Jess_. The
passage I refer to is where he says that Pretoria is the prettiest
town in South Africa; and if Haggard thought so in the days when he
knew Pretoria, when the streets were swamps, covered with grass,
and it was a danger to venture out of doors after dark for fear of
breaking a limb in some concealed hole, when no better building--or
hardly better--than the house which Jess inhabited existed in the
town, what must we say of it now, when the streets have been rebuilt
(more or less), when beautiful buildings--the best and grandest in
South Africa--have been raised; merchant princes have erected palaces,
beautiful stores rival European houses, and Government has covered a
block of ground with a pile of buildings of which even Pretoria can be
proud. Even Nature herself has been improved upon, if I may be allowed
to say so. Plantations of trees have been planted, where formerly bare
plots of ground existed, beautifully laid out ornamental and flower
gardens enchant the vision. A block of tares, which grew only a crop
of grass formerly, is now laid out in a beautiful park, worthy the
name, with a large fish pond in the centre, and even a substantially
built bandstand has been added lately. All in all, Pretoria more than
deserves the name so often applied to it, ‘Pretty Pretoria’; it really
deserves to be called beautiful Pretoria.
No wonder, then, that Steve, who possessed a keenly appreciative eye
for the beautiful, was enchanted with the view which met his eye when
he entered Pretoria through the _poort_, from which emerges the road
leading into it from Johannesburg, and he felt--like so many others
have felt before and since--that once having seen Pretoria, a man may
travel the world over, but he would ever feel a longing to be back in
Pretoria. Many have felt this longing when in foreign lands, and have
come back. Steve found his cousin waiting for him at the halting-place,
and was soon introduced into his room at the quiet boarding-house,
which had been secured for him at his request.
After a few days spent in resting after travelling for days in a
cramped and crowded position, and becoming acquainted with the town in
which he had resolved to make his home, Steve took his place in the
office where he had secured the much-desired situation.
It did not take Steve long to get well into the mysteries of his work
and the good graces of his employer and fellow-clerks. What pleased
him most was that he came in daily contact with the Burghers of the
district, which gave him the opportunity he had desired, viz., of
studying the men whom he looked upon as heroes, in that they had dared
so much and suffered so much, and had come out of the ordeal safe and
victorious.
He found them distrustful at first, although kind and respectful. The
stranger you are to them, the more civilly and kindly you are treated,
but always with great reserve. But by studying them, and being always
friendly and cordial towards them, he soon gained their confidence,
and many was the pound of butter and biltong, varied now and then by
a dozen of eggs, a couple of fowls, and at Christmas time even a lamb,
that he received from them as tokens of friendship.
He found that the better they knew you, and the more they liked you,
the more they joked with you and teased you. They are very fond of
teasing, which has led foreigners to take them in earnest, and spread
all sorts of reports, repeating for fact what the Boers said when they
were only what is vulgarly but expressively called chaffing them. They
especially delighted in doing this to ‘green uns,’ but always with the
utmost good nature, and only when they liked such a ‘green un.’ They
would never do it to one whom they disliked or distrusted. By the good
grace and good nature with which Steve received all this banter, he
got to be greatly liked, and was soon considered as being quite one of
them, and was known to them far and wide. We shall see a great deal
more of them in connection with Steve’s adventures and life amongst
them, and shall delight to study their character with him with the view
of understanding better this much maligned people.
In this way Steve spent several years of quiet life. He applied himself
vigorously to his work, so that, as we have said, he soon gained the
confidence of his employers, and speedily obtained promotion and
increase of salary, which enabled him, while saving considerably, to
send many a present to his mother and sisters.
In the boarding-house where he lodged, he found quite a pleasant
party, composed of many nationalities, amongst whom he struck up many
friendships irrespective of language. He found himself a fellow-lodger
of his cousin; his former travelling companion, Harrison; another
Englishman, a colonial named Keith, and a young Afrikander named
Theron, who formed his particular circle of friends, and they generally
managed to be together when any excursion or picnic was undertaken.
Although, as we have said, he did not really _agree_ with his cousin,
he felt that in common gratitude towards him for having obtained a
situation for him, and as a duty due to cousinly affection, he was
bound to include him as one of his friends.
In the boarding-house, the boarders were in the habit of forming
themselves into a sort of free and easy debating society, for want of
better recreation in the long evenings. That is to say those who did
not care to spend their evenings in bar-rooms and billiard saloons,
which formed Pretoria’s principal places of amusement at this time.
Of course it goes without saying, that Steve kept clear as much as
possible of these places, for he was accustomed in his native town
to the idea that it was a disgrace for any self-respecting man or
youth to be seen going into a bar. What shocked him was for the first
time to see a girl serving drink in a bar, surrounded by a coarse and
blaspheming crowd of young men. To him women had always seemed as
creatures almost divine, too good to be touched without veneration.
He thought they should be worshipped at a distance, and that in their
presence the most choice and delicate language only should be used.
There he saw them treated roughly and disrespectfully, and even handled
as if they were only coarse, common, everyday human beings, and worst
of all they seemed to be pleased with such treatment, and even to
invite it by their actions.
‘Surely,’ thought he, ‘these girls must have mothers and fathers, who
grieve over their disgrace and degradation; and many of them must
have brothers--what must their feelings be to see their sisters in
such a position?’ And he would utter a silent prayer for God to keep
his sisters innocent and pure. Of course Steve’s horror of bars and
barmaids gradually lessened, and he afterwards even went so far as to
accept an invitation from a friend now and again to ‘Come and have
something cooling this hot weather,’ or, ‘something warming this cold
day?’ (for alcohol seems to have the power to cool on hot days and
_warm_ on cold days); but he never allowed himself to acquire the
habit of frequenting these places, and when he did enter them, he
always treated the barmaids with the utmost respect; for, said he, ‘The
question is not, whether they are ladies, but whether I am a gentleman.’
Through his always keeping from bad places, and only going to places
where he was sure respectability was guaranteed, he soon got into a
good circle of society in Pretoria. He was received and welcomed in
the best families, but his pride kept him from taking full advantage
of this. He was too poor to meet them on equal terms, and rather than
meet them as an inferior, even though it were only in purse, he would
rather not meet them at all, except in a casual way now and again. For
Steve was proud, and, what is more, he was proud of his pride. ‘For,’
said he, ‘if it were not for my pride, I would do many a wrong action
which now I am too proud to do.’ He was never too proud to do a good
action. He would stop and speak to the poorest beggar on the street if
he could do good by it. He would walk alongside of a poor, ill-dressed
person in the street, were his clothes ever so much patched; his hat so
old that it hung over his eyes; he would never think of his dress, if
it were a hard-working, honest man. But he was too proud to be seen in
the company of a well-dressed, idle, good-for-nothing, bar-frequenting,
prostitute-hunting man. He was too proud to speak or know a flighty,
forward woman. And who shall say that he was wrong?