ONLY A DREAM.
Of all those who lived through the fever, poor Alick Corfield's
case had been the most desperate while it lasted. Mr. Gryce, his
fellow-sufferer, had been up and about his usual work, extracting
Aryan roots and impaling Lepidoptera for a month and more, while Alick
was still in bed among ice-bags and Condy's Fluid, and as bad as at
the beginning--indeed, worse, having had a relapse which nothing but
his wiry constitution, backed by his mother's scientific nursing,
could have pulled him through. Gradually the danger passed, and this
time his convalescence was solid, and, though slow, uninterrupted. He
began to creep about the house by the aid of sticks and arms, and he
came down stairs for the first time on the day when the Harrowbys
and Birketts returned home; but he remained in strict quarantine, and
Steel's Corner was scrupulously avoided by the neighbors as the local
lazaretto which it would be sinful to invade. By all but Leam, who
went daily to ask after the invalid, and to keep the mother company
for exactly half an hour by the clock.
One day when she went on her usual errand Mrs. Corfield met her at the
hall-door, "Alick will be glad to see you, my dear," she called out,
radiant with happiness, as the girl crossed the threshold. "We are in
the drawing-room to-day, as brisk and bonny as a bird: such a treat
for him, poor dear!"
"I am glad," said Leam, who held a basket of early spring flowers
in her hand. "Now you are happy." Tears came into the poor mother's
haggard eyes. "Happy, child! You do not know what I feel," she said
with tremulous emotion. "Only a mother who has been so near to the
loss of her dearest, so near to heartbreak and despair, as I have
been, can know the blessed joy of the reprieve."
"How you love him!" said Leam in a half whisper. "I loved mamma like
that."
"Yes, poor child! I remember," said Mrs. Corfield with compassion. She
forgot that at the time she had thought the girl's love and despair,
both the one and the other, exaggerated and morbid. She met her now on
the platform of sympathy, and her mind saw what it brought to-day as
it had seen what it had brought before, but she was not conscious of
the contradiction.
"I thought I should have died too when she did. I wish I had," said
Leam, looking up to the sky with dreamy love, as if she still thought
to meet her mother's face in the blue depths.
"My poor dear! it was terrible for you," sighed the elder woman
sympathetically. "But you must not always mourn, you know. There is
a time for everything, even for forgetting, and for being happy after
sorrow."
"Never a time for me to forget mamma, nor to be happy," said Leam.
"Why not?" answered Mrs. Corfield in her impatient way. "You are
young, nice-looking, in tolerably good health, but you are black
round your eyes to-day. You have friends: I am sure all of us, from my
husband downward, think a great deal of you. And Alick has always been
your friend. Why should you not be happy?"
Leam put the question by. "Yes, you have always been kind to me," she
answered. "I remember when mamma died how you wanted to be kind then.
But I did not understand you as I do now. And how good Alick was! How
sorry I should have been if anything had happened to him now!" Her
beautiful face grew tender with the thought. She did really love Alick
in her girlish, sisterly way.
Mrs. Corfield looked at her. "Have you never loved any one else as you
loved your poor mother?" she asked.
Leam lifted her eyes. "Never," she answered simply. "I have liked a
few people since, but love as I loved mamma? No!"
"Leam, I am going to ask you a straightforward question, and you must
give me a straightforward answer: Which do you like best, my boy or
Edgar Harrowby?" Mrs. Corfield asked this suddenly, as if she wanted
to surprise the girl's secret thought rather than have a deliberate
answer.
"I like them differently," began Leam without affectation. "Alick is
so unlike Major Harrowby in every way. And then I have known him so
long--since I was a mere child. I feel that I can say what I like to
him: I always did. But Major Harrowby is a stranger, and I am--I don't
know: it is all different. I cannot say what I mean." She hesitated,
stopped, grew pale, glanced aside and looked disturbed; then putting
on her old air of cold pride, she drew herself a few paces away and
said, "Why do you ask me such a question, Mrs. Corfield? You should
not."
Mrs. Corfield sighed. If Edgar was undecided between his personal
desires and conventional fitness, she was undecided between her
longing to see Alick happy and her dislike to his being happy in any
way but the one she should design for him. He had raved a good deal
during his illness, and had said many mad things connected with
Leam--always Leam; and since his convalescence his mother had seen
clearly enough how his heart was toward her. His pleasure when he
heard that she had been there, his childish delight in anything that
she had brought for him, the feverishness with which he waited to hear
her step, her voice from a distance, always demanding that the doors
should be left open so that he might hear her,--all betrayed to his
mother as plainly as confession would have done the real thoughts of
his heart, and cast a trouble into her own whence she saw no present
satisfactory issue. Though she was fond of Leam now, and grateful to
her for her faithful visits during Alick's illness, yet, just as Edgar
doubted of her fitness as a wife for the master of the Hill, so did
she doubt of her fitness as a daughter-in-law for Steel's Corner. As a
friend she was pleasant enough, with her quaint ways and pretty face;
but as one of the Corfield family, bound to them for ever--what then
would she be? But again, if Alick really loved her, she would not like
to see him disappointed. So, what between her dislike to the marriage
should it ever be, and her fear for Alick's unhappiness should he ask
and be refused, the poor mother was in a state of confused feelings
and contradictory wishes which did not agree with a nature like hers,
given to mathematical certainties and averse to loose ends and frayed
edges anywhere. As nothing more was to be got out of Leam at this
moment, and as Mrs. Corfield knew that Alick would be impatient, they
went into the drawing-room together, Leam carrying her basket of
spring flowers for her old friend.
It was pitiful to see the poor fellow. Thin, gaunt, plainer than ever,
if also ennobled by that almost saintly dignity which is given by
illness, the first impression made on Leam was one of acute physical
repulsion: the second only gave room to compassion. Fortunately, that
little shudder of hers was unnoticed, and Alick saw only the beloved
face, more beautiful to him than anything out of heaven, with its
grave intensity of look that seemed so full of thought and feeling,
turned to him--saw only those glorious eyes fixed once more straight
on his--felt only the small hand which seemed to give him new life
to touch lying clasped in his own, weak, wasted, whitened, like a dead
hand for color against the warm olive of her skin. It was almost worth
while to have been separated so long to have this joy of meeting; and
he thought his pain and danger not too dearly bought by this exquisite
pleasure of knowing that she had pitied him and cared for him.
He raised himself from his pillows as he took her small, warm, fibrous
hand, and his pallid face brightened into a tearful smile. "Ah!" he
said, drawing a deep breath, "I am so glad to see you again!"
"I am glad to see you too," said Leam with a certain sudden
embarrassment, she did not know why, but it came from something that
she saw in his eyes and could not explain even to herself.
"Are you?" He pressed her hand, which he still held. "It does me good
to hear you say so," he replied.
"I have brought you some flowers," then said Leam, a little coldly,
drawing away her hand, which she hated to have either held or pressed.
He took them with a pleased smile. "Our pretty wild-flowers!" he said
gratefully, burying his face in them, so cool and fresh and fragrant
as they were. "They are like the giver," he added after a pause, "only
not so sweet."
"Do you remember when I persisted to you there were no wild-flowers
in England?" asked Leam, wishing that Alick would not pay her
compliments.
"Do I remember? That was the first time I saw you," cried Alick. "Of
what else have I thought ever since?"
"You like wild-flowers and celandine, do you not?" asked poor Leam,
desperately disturbed. "I found them in the wood as I came here."
"And picked them for me?--up in the corner there by Barton's? I know.
And you went up the lane for them--for me?" he repeated.
"Yes," said Leam.
"For me?" he asked again.
"Why, yes: for whom else could it have been?" answered Leam in the
tone of grave rebuke he knew so well--the tone which always expressed,
"You are stupid."
Alick's lip quivered. "You are so good," he said.
"Am I?" asked Leam seriously.
Then something passed over her face, a kind of gray shadow of
remembrance, and she dropped her eyes. Was she good? and could he
think so?
A silence fell between them, and each knew of what the other was
thinking; then Leam said suddenly, to break that terrible silence,
which she felt was more betraying than even speech would have
been, "I am sorry you have been so ill. How dreadfully ill you have
been!"
"Yes," he said, "I have been bad enough, I believe, but by God's grace
I have been spared."
"It would have been more grace not to have let you get ill in the
beginning," said Leam gravely.
Alick looked distressed. Should he never Christianize this pagan?
"Don't say that, dear," he remonstrated. "We must not call in question
His will."
"Things are things," said Leam with her quiet positiveness. "If they
are bad, they are bad, whoever sends them."
"No. God cannot send us evil," cried Alick.
"Then He does not send us disease or sorrow," answered Leam. "If He
does, it is silly to say they are good, or that He is kind to make us
ill and wretched. I cannot tell stories. And all you people do."
"Leam, you pain me so much when you talk like this. It is bad,
dear--impious and unchristian. Ah! can I never bring you to the true
way?" he cried with real pain.
"You cannot make me tell stories or talk nonsense because you say
it is religious," replied Leam, impervious and unconvinced. "I like
better to tell the truth and call things by their right names."
"And you cannot feel that we are little children walking in the dark
and that we must accept by faith?" said Alick.
She shook her head, then answered with a certain tone of triumph in
her voice, "Well, yes, it is the dark: so let it be the dark, and do
not pretend you understand when you do not. Do not say God made you
ill in one breath, and in another that He is kind. It is silly."
"Now, my boy, don't excite yourself," said Mrs. Corfield, bustling
into the room and noting how the thin cheek had flushed and how bright
and feverish the hollow eyes of her invalid were looking. "You know
the doctor says you are not to be excited or tired. It is the worst
thing in the world for you."
"I am neither, mother: don't alarm yourself," he answered; "but I must
have a little talk with Leam. I have not seen her for so long. How
long is it, mother?"
"Well, my dear, you have been ill for over ten weeks," she said as she
went to the window with a sudden gasp.
"Ten weeks gone out of my life!" he replied.
"We have all been sorry," said Leam a little vaguely.
His eyes grew moist. He was weak and easily moved. "Were you very
sorry?" he asked.
"Very," she answered, for her quite warmly.
"Then you did not want me to die?" He said this with a yearning look,
raising himself again on his elbow to meet her eyes more straightly.
"Want you to die?" she repeated in astonishment. "Why should I want
you to die? I want you to get well and live."
He took her hand again. "God bless you!" he said, and turned his face
to the pillow to conceal that he was weeping.
Again that gray look of remembrance, passed over her face. She knew
now what he had meant. "No," she said slowly, "I do not want you to
die. You are good, and would harm no one."
After this visit Leam saw Alick whenever she called at the house,
which, however, was not so often as heretofore, and week by week
became still more seldom. Something was growing up in her heart
against him that made his presence a discomfort. It was not fear
nor moral dislike, but it was a personal distaste that threatened to
become unconquerable. She hated to be with him; hated to see his face
looking at her with such yearning tenderness as abashed her somehow
and made her lower her eyes; hated his endeavors to convert her to
an orthodox acceptance of mysteries she could not understand and of
explanations she could not believe; hated his sadness, hated his joy:
she only wished that he would go away and leave her alone. What did
he mean? What did he want? He was changing from the blushing, awkward,
subservient dog of his early youth, and from the still subservient if
also more argumentative pastor of these later days alike, and she did
not like the new Alick who was gradually creeping into the place of
the old.
When Mrs. Corfield spoke of taking him to the sea for change of air,
her heart bounded as if a weight had been suddenly removed, and she
said, "Yes, he ought to go," so warmly that the mother was surprised,
wondering if she cared so much for him that the idea of his getting
good elated her beyond herself and made her forget her usual reserve.
She instinctively contrived not to see him alone now when she went to
Steel's Corner during his tedious convalescence, for the poor fellow
mended but slowly, if surely. Either she had only a short time to
stay, and so stood for a moment, making serious talk impossible, or
she took little Fina with her, or maybe she entangled Mrs. Corfield
in the conversation so that she should not leave them alone, the vague
fear and distaste possessing her making her strangely _rusée_ and on
the alert. But one day she was caught. It had to come, and it was only
a question of time. She knew that, as we know when our doom is upon
us.
Leam had not intended to go in to-day, but Alick, who was in the
garden rejoicing in the warmth and freshness of this tender April
noontide, came to meet her at the second gate, and asked her to come
and sit with him on the garden-seat, there where the budding lilacs
began to show their bloom, and there where they sat on that fatal day
when she had hidden the little phial in her hair and bade him tell her
of flowers till she tired.
She hesitated, and was on the point of refusing, when he took her by
the upper part of her arm as if to hold her. "Do," he pleaded. "I want
to say something to you."
"I have no time to stay," she answered, shrinking from his touch.
"Yes, yes, time enough for all I have to say," he returned. "I beg you
to come with me to-day, Leam--I beg it; and I do not often ask a favor
of you."
There was something in his manner that seemed to compel Leam to
consent in spite of herself. True, he besought, but also he seemed
almost to command; and if he did not command, then his earnestness was
so strong that she was forced to yield to it. Trembling, but with
her proud little head held straight--wondering what was coming, and
vaguely conscious that whatever it was it would be pain--Leam let
him take her to the garden-seat where the budding lilacs spoke of
springtime freshness and summer beauty. Alick was trembling too, but
from excitement, not from fear. He had made up his mind now, and when
he had once resolved he was not wavering. He would ask her to share
his life, accept his love, and he would thus take on himself half the
burden of her sin. This was how he felt it. If he married her, knowing
all that he knew, he would make himself the partner of her crime,
because he would accept her past like her present--like her future;
and thus he would be equally guilty with her before God. But he would
trust to prayer and the Supreme Mercy to save her and him. He would
carry no merits of devotion as his own claim, but he would have freed
her of half her guilt, and he would be content to bear his own portion
of punishment for this unfathomable gain. It was the man's love, but
also the soul's passionate promise of sacrifice and redemption, that
gave him boldness to plead, power to ask for a grace to which, had
this deep stain of sin never tainted her, he would not have dared to
aspire. But, as it was, his love was her greater safety, and what
he gained in earthly joy he would lose in spiritual peace, while her
partial forgiveness would be bought by the loss of his security of
salvation. Not that she understood all this or ever should, but it
gave him courage.
"When you first saw me, Leam, after my illness you said that you
wanted me to live," he began in a low voice, husky with emotion. "Do
you mean this?"
"Yes," she said, looking straight before her.
"Live for you?" he asked.
"For us all," she answered.
"No, not for us all--for you," he returned with insistence.
"That would be silly," said Leam quietly. "I am not the only person in
the world: you have your mother."
"For my mother, perhaps; but for the world, nothing. You are the world
to me," said Alick. "Give me your love, and I care for nothing else.
Tell me you will be my wife, and I can live then--live as nothing else
can make me. Leam, can you love me, dear? I have loved you from the
first moment I saw you. Will you be my wife?"
"Your wife!" cried Leam with an involuntary gesture of repulsion. "You
are dreaming."
"No, no: I am in full earnest. Tell me that you love me, Leam. Oh,
I believe that you do. Surely I have not deceived myself so far. Why
should you have come every day--every day, as you have done--if you do
not love me? Yes, you do--I know you, do. Say so, Leam, my darling, my
beloved, and put me out of my misery of suspense."
"You are my good friend: I love you like a friend; but a wife--that is
different," faltered Leam.
"Yes, but it will come if you try," pleaded Alick, shifting his point
from confidence to entreaty. "Won't you try to love me as I love you,
Leam? Won't you try to love me as a wife loves her husband?"
She turned away. "I cannot," she answered in a low voice, yet firm
and distinct. It was a voice in which even the most sanguine must have
recognized the accent of hopeless certainty, inevitable despair.
"Leam, it will be your salvation," cried Alick, taking her hands.
He meant her spiritual salvation, not her personal safety: it was a
prayer, not a threat.
"You would not force me by anything you may know?" asked Leam in the
same low, firm, distinct voice. "Not even for safety, Alick."
"Which I would buy with my own," he answered--"with my eternal
salvation."
"I am not worthy of such love," said Leam trembling. "And oh, dear
Alick, do not blame me, but I cannot return it," she added piteously.
She saw him start and heard him moan when she said this, but for a
moment he was silent. He seemed half stunned as if by a heavy blow,
but one that he was doing his best to bear. "Tell me so again, Leam.
Let me be convinced," he then said with pathetic calmness, looking
into her face. "You cannot love me?--never? never?"
"Never," she said, her voice breaking.
Alick covered his face in his hands, and she saw the tears trickle
slowly through his fingers. He made no com-plaint, no protestation,
only covered up his face and prayed, weeping, recognizing his fate.
She was sorry and heart-struck. She felt cruel, selfish, ungrateful,
but for all that she could not yield nor say that she would marry him,
trying to love him. Confused images of something dearer than this as
the love of her life passed before her mind. They were images without
recognizable form or tangible substance, but they were the true love,
and this was not like them. No, she could not yield. Sorry as she
might be for him, and was, she could not promise to marry him.
"Yes," he then said after a pause, lifting up his wan face,
tear-stained and disordered, but making a sad attempt to smile--"yes,
dear Leam, I was, as you say, dreaming. We shall always be friends,
though--brother and sister, as we have been--to the end of our lives,
shall we not?"
"Yes," was her answer, tears in her own eyes and a kind of wonder at
her hardness running through her repugnance.
"Thank you, darling, thank you! If you want a friend, and I can be
that friend and can serve you, you will come to me, will you not? You
may want me some day, and you know that I shall not fail you. Don't
you know that, my royal Leam?"
"I am sure of you," she half whispered, shuddering. To be in his power
and to have rejected him! It all seemed very terrible and confused to
Leam, to whom things complex and entangled were abhorrent.
"And now forget all this. I was only dreaming, dear. Why, no, of
course you could not have married me--never could--never, never!
I know that well enough now. You see I have been ill," nervously
plucking at his hands, "and have had strange fancies, and I do not
know myself or anything about me quite yet. But forget it all. It was
only a sick fancy, and I thought what did not exist"
"I am sorry to have hurt you even in fancy," said Leam; giving a sigh
of relief. "I do not like to see you unhappy, Alick. You are so-good
to me."
"And to the end of my life I shall be what I have been," he said
earnestly. "You can trust me, Leam."
"I am sorry I have hurt you," she said again, bending forward and
looking up into his face. "But it was only a dream, was it not?"
pleadingly.
He smiled pitifully, "Yes, dear, only a dream," he answered, turning
away his head. After a while he took her hand and looked into her
face, "And now it has passed," he said, calm that she should not be
sorry.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
LOVE'S SEPULCHRE.
Build for my love a costly sepulchre;
Not underneath cathedral arches dim,
Where the sad soul may wake to comfort her
The stately music of a funeral hymn;
Nor on some wind-swept hill, whose wavering grass
Sways to the summer breezes blowing free,
While the great cedars, rustling as they pass,
Murmur a cadence of the mournful sea;
Not in the arched depths of the solemn woods,
Within the flickering shadows cool and deep,
Where the still wing of silence ever broods,
And woos the weary soul to dreamless sleep.
But build it in the temple of my heart,
And from the sacred and mysterious shrine
A flame of deathless memory shall start,
Tended by Sorrow and by Love divine.
All sweetest recollections of past joy
Shall haunt that shrine, to make it heavenly fair:
All memories of bliss without alloy
Shall cluster in undying beauty there.
There quiet peace shall hold resistless sway:
Softer than snow the holy hush shall be.
Till even Sorrow gently glide away,
And Love divine alone keep watch with me.
KATE HILLARD.
LETTERS FROM SOUTH AFRICA.
BY LADY BARKER.
ALGOA BAY, October 23, 1875.
Two days ago we steamed out of Table Bay on just such a gray,
drizzling afternoon as that on which we entered it. But the weather
cleared directly we got out to sea, and since then it has carried us
along as though we had been on a pleasant summer cruise. All yesterday
we were coasting along the low downs which edge the dangerous
sea-board for miles upon miles. From the deck of the Edinburgh Castle
the effect is monotonous enough, although just now everything
is brightly green; and, with their long ribbon fringe of white
breaker-foam glinting in the spring sunshine, the stretches of
undulating hillocks looked their best. This part of the coast is well
lighted, and it was always a matter of felicitation at night when,
every eighty miles or so, the guiding rays of a lighthouse shone out
in the soft gloom of the starlight night. One of these lonely towers
stands more than eight hundred feet above the sea-level, and warns
ships off the terrible Agulhas Bank.
We have dropped our anchor this fresh bright morning a mile or so from
the shore on which Port Elizabeth stands. Algoa Bay is not much of a
shelter, and it is always a chance whether a sudden south-easter
may not come tearing down upon the shipping, necessitating a sudden
tripping of anchors and running out to sea to avoid the fate which
is staring us warningly in the face in the shape of the gaunt ribs or
rusty cylinders of sundry cast-away vessels. To-day the weather is on
its good behavior; the south-easter rests on its
aëry nest
As still as a brooding dove;
and sun and sea are doing their best to show off the queer little
straggling town creeping up the low sandy hills that lie before us. I
am assured that Port Elizabeth is a flourishing mercantile place. From
the deck of our ship I can't at all perceive that it is flourishing,
or doing anything except basking in the pleasant sunshine. But when I
go on shore an hour or two later I am shown a store which takes
away my breath, and before whose miscellaneous contents the
stoutest-hearted female shopper must needs _baisser son pavilion_.
Everything in this vast emporium looked as neat and orderly as
possible, and, though the building was twice as big as the largest
co-operative store in London, there was no hurry or confusion.
Thimbles and ploughs, eau-de-cologne and mangles, American stoves,
cotton dresses of astounding patterns to suit the taste of Dutch
ladies, harmoniums and flat-irons,--all stood peaceably side by side
together. But these were all "unconsidered trifles" next the more
serious business of the establishment, which was wool--wool in every
shape and stage and bale. In this department, however, although for
the sake of the dear old New Zealand days my heart warms at the sight
of the huge packages, I was not supposed to take any interest; so we
pass quickly out into the street again, get into a large open carriage
driven by a black coachman, and make the best of our way up to a
villa on the slope of the sandy hill. Once I am away from the majestic
influence of that store the original feeling of Port Elizabeth being
rather a dreary place comes back upon me; but we drive all about--to
the Park, which may be said to be in its swaddling-clothes _as_ a
park, and to the Botanic Gardens, where the culture of foreign
and colonial flowers and shrubs is carried on under the chronic
difficulties of too much sun and wind and too little water. Everywhere
there is building going on--very modest building, it is true, with
rough-and-ready masonry or timber, and roofs of zinc painted in
strips of light colors, but everywhere there are signs of progress and
growth. People look bored, but healthy, and it does not surprise me in
the least to hear that though there are a good many inhabitants, there
is not much society. A pretty little luncheon and a pleasant hour's
chat in a cool, shady drawing-room, with plenty of new books and music
and flowers, gave me an agreeable impression to carry back on board
the ship; which, by the way, seemed strangely silent and deserted when
we returned, for most of our fellow-passengers had disembarked here on
their way to different parts of the interior.
As I saunter up and down the clean, smart-looking deck of what has
been our pleasant floating home during these past four weeks, I
suddenly perceive a short, squat pyramid on the shore, standing out
oddly enough among the low-roofed houses. If it had only been red
instead of gray, it might have passed for the model of the label on
Bass's beer--bottles; but, even as it is, I feel convinced that there
is a story connected with it: and so it proves, for this ugly, most
unsentimental-looking bit of masonry was built long ago by a former
governor as a record of the virtues and perfections of his dead wife,
whom, among other lavish epithets of praise, he declares to have been
"the most perfect of women." Anyhow, there it stands, on what was once
a lonely strip of sand and sea, a memorial--if one can only believe
the stone story, now nearly a hundred years old--of a great love and a
great sorrow; and one can envy the one and pity the other just as much
when looking at this queer, unsightly monument as when one stands
on the pure marble threshold of the exquisite Taj Mahal at Agra, and
reads that it too, in all its grace and beauty, was reared "in memory
of an undying love."
Although the day has been warm and balmy, the evening air strikes
chill and raw, and our last evening on board the dear old ship has to
be spent under shelter, for it is too cold to sit on deck. With the
first hours of daylight next morning we have to be up and packing, for
by ten o'clock we must be on board the Florence, a small, yacht-like
coasting-steamer which can go much closer into the sand-blocked
harbors scooped by the action of the rivers all along the coast. It is
with a very heavy heart that I, for one, say good-bye to the Edinburgh
Castle, where I have passed so many happy hours and made some pleasant
acquaintances. A ship is a very forcing-house of friendship, and no
one who has not taken a voyage can realize how rapidly an acquaintance
grows and ripens into a friend under the lonely influences of sea
and sky. We have all been so happy together, everything has been so
comfortable, everybody so kind, that one would indeed be cold-hearted
if, when the last moment of our halcyon voyage arrived, it could bring
with it anything short of a regret.
With the same chivalrous goodness and courtesy which has taken thought
for the comfort of our every movement since we left Dartmouth, our
captain insists on seeing us safely on board the Florence (what a
toy-boat she looks after our stately ship!) and satisfying himself
that we can be comfortably settled once more in our doll's house of a
new cabin. Then there comes a reluctant "Good-bye" to him and all
our kind care-takers of the Edinburgh Castle; and the last glimpse we
catch of her--for the Florence darts out of the bay like a swallow in
a hurry--is her dipping her ensign in courteous farewell to us.
In less than twenty-four hours we had reached another little port,
some hundred and fifty miles or so up the coast, called East London.
Here the harbor is again only an open roadstead, and hardly any vessel
drawing more than three or four feet of water can get in at all near
the shore, for between us and it is a bar of shifting sand, washed
down, day by day, by the strong current of the river Buffalo. All
the cargo has to be transferred to lighters, and a little tug steamer
bustles backward and forward with messages of entreaty to those said
lighters to come out and take away their loads. We had dropped our
anchor by daylight, yet at ten o'clock scarcely a boat had made its
appearance alongside, and every one was fuming and fretting at the
delay and consequent waste of fine weather and daylight. That is to
say, it was a fine bright day overhead, with sunshine and sparkle all
round, but the heavy roll of the sea never ceased for a moment. From
one side to the other, until her ports touched the water, backward and
forward, with slow, monotonous heaving, our little vessel swayed with
the swaying rollers until everybody on board felt sick and sorry.
"This is comparatively a calm day," I was told: "you can't possible
imagine from this what rolling really is." But I _can_ imagine quite
easily, and do not at all desire a closer acquaintance with this
restless Indian Ocean. Breakfast is a moment of penance: little G----
is absolutely fainting from agonies of sea-sickness, though he has
borne all our South-Atlantic tossings with perfect equanimity; and it
is with real joy that I hear the lifeboat is alongside, and that the
kind-hearted captain of the Florence (_how_ kind sailors are!) offers
to take babies, nurse and me on shore, so as to escape a long day of
this agonizing rolling. In happy unconsciousness of what landing at
East London, even in a lifeboat, meant when a bar had to be crossed,
we were all tumbled and bundled, more or less unceremoniously, into
the great, roomy boat, and were immediately taken in hand by the busy
little tug. For half a mile or more we made good progress in her wake,
being in a position to set at naught the threatening water-mountains
which came tumbling in furious haste from seaward. It was not until we
seemed close to the shore and all our troubles over that the tug was
obliged to cast us off, owing to the rapidly shoaling water, and
we prepared to make the best of our own way in. Bad was that best,
indeed, though the peril came and went so quickly that it is but a
confused impression I retain of what seemed to me a really terrible
moment. One instant I hear felicitations exchanged between our
captain--who sits protectingly close to me and poor, fainting
little G----, who lies like death in my arms--and the captain of the
lifeboat. The next moment, in spite of sudden panic and presence of
danger, I could laugh to hear the latter sing out in sharpest tones
of terror and dismay, "Ah, you would, would you?" coupled with rapid
orders to the stout rowers and shouts to us of "Look out!" and I _do_
look out, to see on one side sand which the retreating wave has sucked
dry, and in which the boat-seems trying to bury herself as though
she were a mole: on the other hand there towers above us a huge
green wave, white-crested and curled, which is rushing at us like a
devouring monster. I glance, as I think, for the last time, at the
pale nurse, on whose lap lies the baby placidly sucking his bottle.
I see a couple of sailors lay hold of her and the child with one hand
each, whilst with the other they cling desperately to the thwarts.
A stout seafaring man flings the whole weight of his ponderous
pilot-coated body upon G---- and me: I hear a roar of water, and, lo!
we are washed right up alongside of the rude landing-place, still _in_
the boat indeed, but wet and frightened to the last degree. Looking
back on it all, I can distinctly remember that it was not the sight
of the overhanging wave which cost me my deadliest pang of sickening
fright, but the glimpse I caught of the shining, cruel-looking sand,
sucking us in so silently and greedily. We were all trembling so much
that it seemed as impossible to stand upright on the earth as on the
tossing waters, and it was with reeling, drunken-looking steps that
we rolled and staggered through the heavy sand-street until we reached
the shelter of an exceedingly dirty hotel. Everything in it required
courage to touch, and it was with many qualms that I deposited limp
little G---- on a filthy sofa. However, the mistress of the house
looked clean, and so did the cups and saucers she quickly produced;
and by the time we had finished a capital breakfast we were all quite
in good spirits again, and so sharpened up as to be able to "mock
ourselves" of our past perils and present discomforts. Outside there
were strange, beautiful shrubs in flower, tame pigeons came cooing and
bowing in at the door, and above all there was an enchanting freshness
and balminess in the sunny air.
In about an hour "Capting Florence" (as G---- styles our new
commander) calls for us and takes us out sight-seeing. First and
foremost, across the river to the rapidly-growing railway lines, where
a brand-new locomotive was hissing away with full steam up. Here we
were met and welcomed by the energetic superintendent of this iron
road, and, to my intense delight, after explaining to me what a long
distance into the interior the line had to go and how fast it was
getting on, considering the difficulties in the way of doing anything
in South Africa, from washing a pocket-handkerchief up to laying down
a railway, he proposed that we should get _on_ the engine and go as
far as the line was open for anything like safe traveling. Never were
such delightful five minutes as those spent in whizzing along through
the park-like country and cutting fast through the heavenly air. In
vain did I smell that my serge skirts were getting dreadfully singed,
in vain did I see most uncertain bits of rail before me: it was all
too perfectly enchanting to care for danger or disgrace, and I could
have found it in my heart to echo G----'s plaintive cry for "More!"
when we came to the end and had to get off. But it consoled us a
little to watch the stone-breaking machine crunching up small rocks as
though they had been lumps of sugar, and after looking at that we set
off for the unfinished station, and could take in, even in its present
skeleton state, how commodious and handsome it will all be some day.
You are all so accustomed to be whisked about the civilized world when
and where you choose that it is difficult to make you understand the
enormous boon the first line of railway is to a new country--not only
for the convenience of travelers, but for the transport of goods, the
setting free of hundreds of cattle and horses and drivers--all sorely
needed for other purposes--and the fast-following effects of opening
up the resources of the back districts. In these regions labor is the
great difficulty, and one needs to hold both patience and temper fast
with both one's hands when watching either Kafir or Coolie at work.
The white man cannot or will not do much with his hands out here, so
the navvies are slim-looking blacks, who jabber and grunt and sigh a
good deal more than they work.
It is a fortunate circumstance that the delicious air keeps us all in
a chronic state of hunger, for it appears in South Africa that one is
expected to eat every half hour or so. And, shamed am I to confess,
we _do_ eat--and eat with a good appetite too--a delicious luncheon at
the superintendent's, albeit it followed closely on the heels of our
enormous breakfast at the dirty hotel. Such a pretty little bachelor's
box as it was!--so cool and quiet and neat!--built somewhat after the
fashion of the Pompeian houses, with a small square garden full of
orange trees in the centre, and the house running round this opening
in four corridors. After lunch a couple of nice, light Cape carts came
to the door, and we set off to see a beautiful garden whose owner had
all a true Dutchman's passion for flowers. Here was fruit as well as
flowers. Pine-apples and jasmine, strawberries and honeysuckle,
grew side by side with bordering orange trees, feathery bamboos and
sheltering gum trees. In the midst of the garden stood a sort of
double platform, up whose steep border we all climbed: from this we
got a good idea of the slightly undulating land all about, waving down
like solidified billows to where the deep blue waters sparkled and
rolled restlessly beyond the white line of waves ever breaking on the
bar. I miss animal life sadly in these parts: the dogs I see about the
streets are few in number, and miserably currish specimens of their
kind. "Good dogs don't answer out here," I am told: that is to say,
they get a peculiar sort of distemper, or ticks bite them, or they got
weak from loss of blood, or become degenerate in some way. The horses
and cattle are small and poor-looking, and hard-worked, very dear
to buy and very difficult to keep and to feed. I don't even see many
cats, and a pet bird is a rarity. However, as we stood on the breezy
platform I saw a most beautiful wild bird fly over the rose-hedge just
below us. It was about as big as a crow, but with a strange iridescent
plumage. When it flitted into the sunshine its back and wings shone
like a rainbow, and the next moment it looked perfectly black and
velvety in the shade. Now a turquoise-blue tint comes out on its
spreading wings, and a slant in the sunshine turns the blue into a
chrysoprase green. Nobody could tell me its name: our Dutch host spoke
exactly like Hans Breitmann, and declared it was a "bid of a crow,"
and so we had to leave it and the platform and come down to more roses
and tea. There was so much yet to be seen and to be done that we could
not stay long, and, laden with magnificent bouquets of _gloire de
Dijon_ roses and honeysuckle, and divers strange and lovely flowers,
we drove off again in our Cape carts. I observed that instead of
saying "Whoa!" or checking the horses in anyway by the reins, the
driver always whistles to them--long, low whistle--and they stand
quite still directly. We bumped up and down, over extraordinarily
rough places, and finally slid down a steep cutting to the brink of
the river Buffalo, over which we were ferried, all standing, on a big
punt, or rather pontoon. A hundred yards or so of rapid driving then
took us to a sort of wharf which projected into the river, where the
important-looking little tug awaited us; and no sooner were we all
safely on board--rather a large party by this time, for we had gone
on picking up stragglers ever since we started, only three in number,
from the hotel--than she sputtered and fizzed herself off up-stream.
By this time it was the afternoon, and I almost despair of making
you see the woodland beauty of that broad mere, fringed down to the
water's edge on one side with shrubs and tangle of roses and woodbine,
with ferns and every lovely green creeping thing. That was on the bank
which was sheltered from the high winds: the other hillside showed the
contrast, for there, though green indeed, only a few feathery tufts
of pliant shrubs had survived the force of some of these south-eastern
gales. We paddled steadily along in mid-stream, and from the bridge
(where little G---- and I had begged "Capting Florence" to let us
stand) one could see the double of each leaf and tendril and
passing cloud mirrored sharp and clear in the crystalline water. The
lengthening shadows from rock and fallen crag were in some places
flung quite across our little boat, and so through the soft, lovely
air, flooded with brightest sunshine, we made our way, up past Picnic
Creek, where another stream joins the Buffalo, and makes miniature
green islands and harbors at its mouth, up as far as the river was
navigable for even so small a steamer as ours. Every one was sorry
when it became time to turn, but there was no choice: the sun-burned,
good-looking captain of the tug held up a warning hand, and round we
went with a wide sweep, under the shadows, out into the sunlight, down
the middle of the stream, all too soon to please us.
Before we left East London, however, there was one more great work to
be glanced at, and accordingly we paid a hasty visit to the office of
the superintendent of the new harbor-works, and saw plans and drawings
of what will indeed be a magnificent achievement when carried out.
Yard by yard, with patient under-sea sweeping, all that waste of sand
brought down by the Buffalo is being cleared away; yard by yard, two
massive arms of solidest masonry are stretching themselves out beyond
those cruel breakers: the river is being forced into so narrow a
channel that the rush of the water must needs carry the sand far
out to sea in future, and scatter it in soundings where it cannot
accumulate into such a barrier as that which now exists.
Lighthouses will guard this safe entrance into a tranquil anchorage,
and so, at some not too far distant day, there is good hope that East
London may be one of the most valuable harbors on this vast coast; and
when her railway has reached even the point to which it is at present
projected, nearly two hundred miles away, it will indeed be a thriving
place. Even now, there is a greater air of movement and life and
progress about the little seaport, what with the railway and the
harbor-works, than at any other place I have yet seen; and each
great undertaking is in the hands of men of first-rate ability and
experience, who are as persevering as they are energetic. After
looking well over these most interesting plans there was nothing left
for us to do except to make a sudden raid on the hotel, pick up our
shawls and bags, pay a most moderate bill of seven shillings and
sixpence for breakfast for three people and luncheon for two, and the
use of a room all day, piteously entreat the mistress of the inn to
sell us half a bottle of milk for G----'s breakfast to-morrow--as he
will not drink the preserved milk--and so back again on board the tug.
The difficulty about milk and butter is the first trouble which besets
a family traveling in these parts. Everywhere milk is scarce and poor,
and the butter such as no charwoman would touch in England. In vain
does one behold from the sea thousands of acres of what looks like
undulating green pasturage, and inland the same waving green hillocks
stretch as far as the eye can reach: there is never a sheep or cow to
be seen, and one hears that there is no water, or that the grass
is sour, or that there is a great deal of sickness about among the
animals in that locality. Whatever the cause, the result is the
same--namely, that one has to go down on one's knees for a cupful of
milk, which is but poor, thin stuff at its best, and that Irish salt
butter out of a tub is a costly delicacy.
Having secured this precious quarter of a bottle of milk, for which
I was really as grateful as though it had been the Koh-i-noor, we
hastened back to the wharf and got on board the little tug again.
"Now for the bridge!" cry G---- and I, for has not Captain Florence
promised us a splendid but safe tossing across the bar? And faithfully
he and the bar and the boat keep their word, for we are in no danger,
it seems, and yet we appear to leap like a race-horse across the strip
of sand, receiving a staggering buffet first on one paddle-wheel and
then on the other from the angry guardian breakers, which seem sworn
foes of boats and passengers. Again and again are we knocked aside by
huge billows, as though the poor little tug were a walnut-shell; again
and again do we recover ourselves, and blunder bravely on, sometimes
with but one paddle in the water, sometimes burying our bowsprit in a
big green wave too high to climb, and dashing right through it as fast
as if we shut our eyes and went at everything. The spray flies high
over our heads, G---- and I are drenched over and over again, but
we shake the sparkling water off our coats, for all the world like
Newfoundland dogs, and are all right again in a moment, "Is that the
very last?" asks G---- reluctantly as we take our last breaker like
a five-barred gate, flying, and find ourselves safe and sound, but
quivering a good deal, in what seems comparatively smooth water. Is it
smooth, though? Look at the Florence and all the other vessels. Still
at it, see-saw, backward and forward, roll, roll, roll! How thankful
we all are to have escaped a long day of sickening, monotonous motion!
But there is the getting on board to be accomplished, for the brave
little tug dare not come too near to her big sister steamboat or
she would roll over on her. So we signal for a boat, and quickly the
largest which the Florence possesses is launched and manned--no
easy task in such a sea, but accomplished in the smartest and most
seamanlike fashion. The sides of the tug are low, so it is not very
difficult to scramble and tumble into the boat, which is laden to the
water's edge by new passengers from East London and their luggage.
When, however, we have reached the rolling Florence it is no easy
matter to get out of the said boat and on board. There is a ladder let
down, indeed, from the Florence's side, but how are we to use it when
one moment half a dozen rungs are buried deep in the sea, and the next
instant ship and ladder and all have rolled right away from us? It has
to be done, however, and what a tower of strength and encouragement
does "Capting Florence" prove himself at this juncture! We are all to
sit perfectly still: no one is to move until his name is called, and
then he is to come unhesitatingly and do exactly what he is told.
"Pass up the baby!" is the first order which I hear given, and
that astonishing baby is "passed up" accordingly. I use the word
"astonishing" advisedly, for never was an infant so bundled about
uncomplainingly. He is just as often upside down as not; he is
generally handed from one quartermaster to the other by the gathers of
his little blue flannel frock; seas break over his cradle on deck,
but nothing disturbs him. He grins and sleeps and pulls at his bottle
through everything, and grows fatter and browner and more impudent
every day. On this occasion, when--after rivaling Léotard's most
daring feats on the trapeze in my scramble up the side of a vessel
which was lurching away from me--I at last reached the deck, I found
the ship's carpenter nursing the baby, who had seized the poor man's
beard firmly with one hand, and with the finger and thumb of the other
was attempting to pick out one of his merry blue eyes. "Avast
there!" cried the long-suffering sailor, and gladly relinquished the
mischievous bundle to me.
Up with the anchor, and off we go once more into the gathering
darkness of what turns out to be a wet and windy night. Next day the
weather had recovered its temper, and I was called upon deck directly
after breakfast to see the "Gates of St. John," a really fine pass
on the coast where the river Umzimvubu rushes through great granite
cliffs into the sea. If the exact truth is to be told, I must confess
I am a little disappointed with this coast-scenery. I have heard
so much of its beauty, and as yet, though I have seen it under
exceptionally favorable conditions of calm weather, which has allowed
us to stand in very close to shore, I have not seen anything really
fine until these "Gates" came in view. It has all been monotonous,
undulating downs, here and there dotted with trees, and in some places
the ravines were filled with what we used to call in New Zealand
_bush_--i.e., miscellaneous greenery. Here and there a bold cliff or
tumbled pile of red rock makes a landmark for the passing ships, but
otherwise the uniformity is great indeed. The ordinary weather along
this coast is something frightful, and the great reputation of our
little Florence is built on the method in which she rides dry and safe
as a duck among these stormy waters. Now that we are close to "fair
Natal," the country opens out and improves in beauty. There are still
the same sloping, rolling downs, but higher downs rise behind them,
and again beyond are blue and purpling hills. Here and there, too, are
clusters of fat, dumpy haystacks, which in reality are no haystacks at
all, but Kafir kraals. Just before we pass the cliff and river which
marks where No-Man's Land ends and Natal begins these little locations
are more frequently to be observed, though what their inhabitants
subsist on is a marvel to me, for we are only a mile or so from shore,
and all the seeing power of all the field-glasses on board fails to
discern a solitary animal. We can see lots of babies crawling about
the hole which serves as door to a Kafir hut, and they are all as fat
as little pigs; but what do they live on? Buttermilk, I am told--that
is to say, sour milk, for the true Kafir palate does not appreciate
fresh, sweet milk--and a sort of porridge made of _mealies_. I used
to think "mealies" was a coined word for potatoes, but it really
signifies maize or Indian corn, which is rudely crushed and ground,
and forms the staple food of man and beast.
In the mean time, we are speeding gayly over the bright waters, never
very calm along this shore. Presently we come to a spot clearly marked
by some odd-colored, tumbled-down cliffs and the remains of a great
iron butt, where, more than a hundred years ago, the Grosvenor, a
splendid clipper ship, was wrecked. The men nearly all perished or
were made away with, but a few women were got on shore and carried
off as prizes to the kraals of the Kafir "inkosis" or chieftains.
What sort of husbands these stalwart warriors made to their reluctant
brides tradition does not say, but it is a fact that almost all the
children were born mad, and their descendants are, many of them,
lunatics or idiots up to the present time. As the afternoon draws on a
chill mist creeps over the hills and provokingly blots out the coast,
which gets more beautiful every league we go. I wanted to remain up
and see the light on the bluff just outside Port d'Urban, but a heavy
shower drove me down to my wee cabin before ten o'clock. Soon after
midnight the rolling of the anchor-chains and the sudden change of
motion from pitching and jumping to the old monotonous roll told us
that we were once more outside a bar, with a heavy sea on, and that
there we must remain until the tug came to fetch us. But, alas! the
tug had to make short work of it next morning, on account of the
unaccommodating state of the tide, and all our hopes of breakfasting
on shore were dashed by a hasty announcement at 5 A.M. that the tug
was alongside, the mails were rapidly being put on board of her, and
that she could not wait for passengers or anything else, because ten
minutes later there would not be water enough to float her over the
bar.
"When shall _we_ be able to get over the bar?" I asked dolefully.
"Not until the afternoon," was the prompt and uncompromising reply,
delivered through my keyhole by the authority in charge of us. And he
proved to be quite right; but I am bound to say the time passed more
quickly than we had dared to hope or expect, for an hour later a bold
little fishing-boat made her way through the breakers and across the
bar in the teeth of wind and rain, bringing F---- on board. He has
been out here these eight months, and looks a walking advertisement of
the climate and temperature of our new home, so absolutely healthy
is his appearance. He is very cheery about liking the place, and
particularly insists on the blooming faces and sturdy limbs I
shall see belonging to the young Natalians. Altogether, he appears
thoroughly happy and contented, liking his work, his position,
everything and everybody; which is all extremely satisfactory to
hear. There is so much to tell and so much to behold that, as G----
declares, "it is afternoon directly," and, the signal-flag being up,
we trip our anchor once more and rush at the bar, two quartermasters
and an officer at the wheel, the pilot and captain on the bridge, all
hands on deck and on the alert, for always, under the most favorable
circumstances, the next five minutes hold a peril in every second,
"Stand by for spray!" sings out somebody, and we do stand by, luckily
for ourselves, for "spray" means the top of two or three waves. The
dear little Florence is as plucky as she is pretty, and appears to
shut her eyes and lower her head and go _at_ the bar. Scrape, scrape,
scrape! "We've stuck! No, we haven't! Helm hard down! Over!" and so
we are. Among the breakers, it is true, buffeted hither and thither,
knocked first to one side and then to the other; but we keep right on,
and a few more turns of the screw take us into calm water under the
green hills of the bluff. The breakers are behind us, we have twenty
fathoms of water under our keel, the voyage is ended and over, the
captain takes off his straw hat to mop his curly head, everybody's
face loses the expression of anxiety and rigidity it has worn these
past ten minutes, and boats swarm like locusts round the ship. The
baby is passed over the ship's side for the last time, having been
well kissed and petted and praised by every one as he was handed from
one to the other, and we row swiftly away to the low sandy shore of
the "Point."
Only a few warehouses, or rather sheds of warehouses, are to be
seen, and a rude sort of railway-station, which appears to afford
indiscriminate shelter to boats as well as to engines. There are
leisurely trains which saunter into the town of D'Urban, a mile and a
half away, every half hour or so, but one of these "crawlers" had just
started. The sun was very hot, and we voyagers were all sadly
weary and headachy. But the best of the colonies is the prompt,
self-sacrificing kindness of old-comers to new-comers. A gentleman had
driven down in his own nice, comfortable pony-carriage, and without a
moment's hesitation he insisted on our all getting into it and making
the best of our way to our hotel. It is too good an offer to be
refused, for the sun is hot and the babies are tired to death; so we
start, slowly enough, to plough our way through heavy sand up to the
axles. If the tide had been out we could have driven quickly along the
hard, dry sand; but we comfort ourselves by remembering that there
had been water enough on the bar, and make the best of our way through
clouds of impalpable dust to a better road, of which a couple of
hundred yards land us at our hotel. It looks bare and unfurnished
enough, in all conscience, but it is a new place, and must be
furnished by degrees. At all events, it is tolerably clean and quiet,
and we can wash our sunburned faces and hands, and, as nurse says,
"turn ourselves round."
Coolies swarm in every direction, picturesque fish- and fruit-sellers
throng the verandah of the kitchen a little way off, and everything
looks bright and green and fresh, having been well washed by the
recent rains. There are still, however, several feet of dust in the
streets, for they are _made_ of dust; and my own private impression
is, that all the water in the harbor would not suffice to lay the dust
of D'Urban for more than half an hour. With the restlessness of people
who have been cooped up on board ship for a month, we insist, the
moment it is cool enough, on being taken out for a walk. Fortunately,
the public gardens are close at hand, and we amuse ourselves very well
in them for an hour or two, but we are all thoroughly tired and worn
out, and glad to get to bed, even in gaunt, narrow rooms on hard
pallets.
The two following days were spent in looking after and collecting
our cumbrous array of boxes and baskets. Tin baths, wicker chairs and
baskets, all had to be counted and recounted, until one got weary of
the word "luggage;" but that is the penalty of drafting babies about
the world. In the intervals of the serious business of tracing No. 5
or running No. 10 to earth in the corner of a warehouse, I made many
pleasant acquaintances and received kindest words and notes of welcome
from unknown friends. All this warm-hearted, unconventional kindness
goes far to make the stranger forget his "own people and his father's
house," and feel at once at home amid strange and unfamiliar scenes.
After all, "home" is portable, luckily, and a welcoming smile and
hand-clasp act as a spell to create it in any place. We also managed,
after business-hours, when it was of no use making expeditions to
wharf or custom-house after recusant carpet-bags, to drive to
the Botanic Gardens. They are extensive and well kept, but seem
principally devoted to shrubs. I was assured that this is the worst
time of year for flowers, as the plants have not yet recovered
from the winter drought. A dry winter and wet summer is the correct
atmospheric fashion here: in winter everything is brown and dusty and
dried up, in summer green and fragrant and well watered. The gardens
are in good order, and I rather regretted not being able to examine
them more thoroughly. Another afternoon we drove to the Berea, a
sort of suburban Richmond, where the rich semi-tropical vegetation is
cleared away in patches, and villas with pretty pleasure-grounds
are springing up in every direction. The road winds up the
luxuriantly-clothed slopes, with every here and there lovely sea-views
of the harbor, with the purpling lights of the Indian Ocean stretching
away beyond. Every villa must have an enchanting prospect from its
front door, and one can quite understand how alluring to the merchants
and business--men of D'Urban must be the idea of getting away after
office-hours, and sleeping on such; high ground in so fresh and
healthy an: atmosphere. And here I must say that we Maritzburgians (I
am only one in prospective) wage a constant and deadly warfare with
the D'Urbanites on the score of the health and convenience of our
respective cities. _We_ are two thousand feet above the sea and
fifty-two miles inland, so we talk in a pitying tone of the poor
D'Urbanites as dwellers in a very hot and unhealthy place. "Relaxing"
is the word we apply to their climate when we want to be particularly
nasty, and they retaliate by reminding us that they are ever so much
older than we are (which is an advantage in a colony), and that they
are on the coast, and can grow all manner of nice things which we
cannot compass, to say nothing of their climate being more equable
than ours, and their thunderstorms, though longer in duration, mere
flashes in the pan compared to what we in our amphitheatre of hills
have to undergo at the hands of the electric current. We never can
find answer to that taunt, and if the D'Urbanites only follow up their
victory by allusions to their abounding bananas and other fruits,
their vicinity to the shipping, and consequent facility of getting
almost anything quite easily, we are completely silenced, and it is a
wonder if we retain presence of mind enough to murmur "Flies." On the
score of dust we are about equal, but I must in fairness confess that
D'Urban is a more lively and a better-looking town than Maritzburg
when you are in it, though the effect from a distance is not so
good. It is very odd how unevenly the necessaries of existence are
distributed in this country. Here at D'Urban anything hard in the
way of stone is a treasure: everything is soft and friable: sand and
finest shingle, so fine as to be mere dust, are all the available
material for road-making. I am told that later on I shall find that
a cartload of sand in Maritzburg is indeed a rare and costly thing:
there we are all rock, a sort of flaky, slaty rock underlying every
place. Our last day, or rather half day, in D'Urban was very full of
sightseeing and work. F---- was extremely anxious for me to see the
sun rise from the signal-station on the bluff, and accordingly he,
G---- and I started with the earliest dawn. We drove through the sand
again in a hired and springless Cape cart down to the Point, got into
the port-captain's boat and rowed across a little strip of sand at the
foot of a winding path cut out of the dense vegetation which makes
the bluff such a refreshingly green headland to eyes of wave-worn
voyagers. A stalwart Kafir carried our picnic basket, with tea and
milk, bread and butter and eggs, up the hill, and it was delightful
to follow the windings of the path through beautiful bushes bearing
strange and lovely flowers, and knit together in patches in a green
tangle by the tendrils of a convolvulus or clematis, or sort of wild,
passion-flower, whose blossoms were opening to the fresh morning air.
It was a cool but misty morning, and though we got to our destination
in ample time, there was never any sunrise at all to be seen. In fact,
the sun steadily declined to get up the whole day, so far as I knew,
for the sea looked gray and solemn and sleepy, and the land kept its
drowsy mantle of haze over its flat shore; which haze thickened and
deepened into a Scotch mist as the morning wore on. We returned by
the leisurely railway--a railway so calm and stately in its method
of progression that it is not at all unusual to see a passenger step
calmly out of the train when it is at its fullest speed of crawl,
and wave his hand to his companions as he disappears down the by-path
leading to his little home. The passengers are conveyed at a uniform
rate of sixpence a head, which sixpence is collected promiscuously
by a small boy at odd moments during the journey. There are no nice
distinctions of class, either, for we all travel amicably together in
compartments which are a judicious mixture of a third-class carriage
and a cattle-truck. Of course, wood is the only fuel used, and that
but sparingly, for it is exceedingly costly.
There was still much to be done by the afternoon--many visitors to
receive, notes to write and packages to arrange, for our traveling of
these fifty-two miles spreads itself over a good many hours, as you
will see. About three o'clock the government mule-wagon came to the
door. It may truly and literally be described as "stopping the way,"
for not only is the wagon itself a huge and cumbrous machine, but
it is drawn by eight mules in pairs, and driven by a couple of black
drivers. I say "driven by a couple of drivers," because the driving
was evidently an affair of copartnership: one held the reins--such
elaborate reins as they were! a confused tangle of leather--and the
other had the care of two or three whips of differing lengths. The
drivers were both jet black--not Kafirs, but Cape blacks--descendants
of the old slaves taken by the Dutch. They appeared to be great
friends, these two, and took earnest counsel together at every rut and
drain and steep pinch of the road, which stretched away, over hill and
dale, before us, a broad red track, with high green hedges on either
hand. Although the rain had not yet fallen long or heavily, the
ditches were all running freely with red, muddy water, and the dust
had already begun to cake itself into a sticky, pasty red clay. The
wagon was shut in by curtains at the back and sides, and could hold
eight passengers easily. Luckily for the poor mules, however, we
were only five grown-up people, including the drivers. The road was
extremely pretty, and the town looked very picturesque as we gradually
rose above it and looked down on it and the harbor together. Of a
fine, clear afternoon it would have been still nicer, though I was
much congratulated on the falling rain on account of the absence of
its alternative--dust. Still, it was possible to have too much of a
good thing, and by the time we reached Pine Town, only fourteen miles
away, the heavy roads were beginning to tell on the poor mules, and
the chill damp of the closing evening made us all only too thankful to
get under the shelter of a roadside inn (or hotel, as they are called
here), which was snug and bright and comfortable enough to be a credit
to any colony. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to be
told that this inn was not only a favorite place for people to come
out to from D'Urban to spend their holiday time in fine weather (there
is a pretty little church in the village hard by), but also that it
was quite _de rigueur_ for all honeymoons to be spent amid its pretty
scenery.
A steady downpour of rain all through the night made our early start
next day an affair of doubt and discouragement and dismal prophecy;
but we persevered, and accomplished another long stage through a cold
persistent drizzle before reaching an inn, where we enjoyed simply the
best breakfast I ever tasted, or at all events the best I have tasted
in Natal. The mules were also unharnessed, and after taking, each, a
good roll on the damp grass, turned out in the drizzling rain for a
rest and a nibble until their more substantial repast was ready. The
rain cleared up from time to time, but an occasional heavy shower
warned us that the weather was still sulky. It was in much better
heart and spirits, however, that we made a second start about eleven
o'clock, and struggled on through heavy roads up and down weary hills,
slipping here, sliding there, and threatening to stick everywhere.
Our next stage was to a place where the only available shelter was a
filthy inn, at which we lingered as short a time as practicable--only
long enough, in fact, to feed the mules--and then, with every prospect
of a finer afternoon, set out once more on the last and longest stage
of our journey. All the way the road has been very beautiful, in spite
of the shrouding mist, especially at the Inchanga Pass, where round
the shoulder of the hill as fair a prospect of curved green hills,
dotted with clusters of timber exactly like an English park, of
distant ranges rising in softly-rounded outlines, with deep violet
shadows in the clefts and pale green lights on the slopes, stretches
before you as the heart of painter could desire. Nestling out of sight
amid this rich pasture-land are the kraals of a large Kafir location,
and no one can say that these, the children of the soil, have not
secured one of the most favored spots. To me it all looked like a fair
mirage. I am already sick of beholding all this lovely country
lying around, and yet of being told that food and fuel are almost at
famine-prices. People say, "Oh, but you should see it in winter. _Now_
it is green, and there is plenty of feed on it, but three months ago
no grass-eating creature could have picked up a living on all the
country-side. It is all as brown and bare as parchment for half the
year. _This_ is the spring." Can you not imagine how provoking it is
to hear such statements made by old settlers, who know the place only
too well, and to find out that all the radiant beauty which greets
the traveler's eye is illusive, for in many places there are miles and
miles without a drop of water for the flock and herds; consequently,
there are no means of transport for all this fuel until the days of
railways? Besides which, through Natal lies the great highway to
the Diamond Fields, the Transvaal and the Free States, and all the
opening-up country beyond; so it is more profitable to drive a wagon
than to till a farm. Every beast with four legs is wanted to drag
building materials or provisions. The supply of beef becomes daily
more precarious and costly, for the oxen are all "treking," and
one hears of nothing but diseases among animals--"horse sickness,"
pleuro-pneumonia, fowl sickness (I feel it an impertinence for the
poultry to presume to be ill), and even dogs set up a peculiar and
fatal sort of distemper among themselves.
But to return to the last hours of our journey. The mules struggle
bravely along, though their ears are beginning to flap about any way,
instead of being held straight and sharply pricked forward, and the
encouraging cries of "Pull up, Capting! now then, Blue-bok, hi!"
become more and more frequent: the driver in charge of the whips is
less nice in his choice of a scourge with which to urge on the patient
animals, and whacks them soundly with whichever comes first. The
children have long ago wearied of the confinement and darkness of
the back seats of the hooded vehicle; we are all black and blue from
jolting in and out of deep holes hidden by mud which occur at every
yard; but still our flagging spirits keep pretty good, for _our_
little Table Mountain has been left behind, whilst before us, leaning
up in one corner of an amphitheatre of hills, are the trees which mark
where Maritzburg nestles. The mules see it too, and, sniffing their
stables afar off, jog along faster. Only one more rise to pull up: we
turn a little off the high-road, and there, amid a young plantation
of trees, with roses, honeysuckle and passion-flowers climbing up the
posts of the wide verandah, a fair and enchanting prospect lying
at our feet, stands our new home, with its broad red tiled roof
stretching out a friendly welcome to the tired, belated travelers.
A SYLVAN SEARCH.
I.
From tales of rural gods I rose,
And sought them through the woody deeps,
Where, held in shadowy, sweet repose,
The sunshine, like Endymion, sleeps--
Where murmurous waters softly sing
To listening branches, bended low,
And tuneful birds on waving wing,
As Zephyrus, gently come and go.
II.
Vainly I sought the gods, yet heard
Their whispering spirits say to mine,
"Who seeks us finds the forests stirred
By myriad voices all divine,
And learns that still the mystic spell
Of fauns and dryads fills the place
With beauty myths have failed to tell--
One god in every hidden face."
MARY B. DODGE.
THE SONGS OF MIRZA-SCHAFFY.
It was in Vienna during the stormy days of October, 1848. The sky was
lurid with the glow of surrounding conflagrations: roof and turret
were illumined by the glaring reflection of the sea of fire, while
the broad Danube madly stretched forth its blood-red tongue to the
blood-red walls of the city. The clashing of weapons and rolling of
drums resounded through the streets. Every house became in its turn a
fortress, every window a porthole. During these days of horror there
assembled in the evening at the dwelling of Friedrich Bodenstedt a
circle of friends, who sought in conversation on literary topics some
relief after the agitating experiences of the day.
"Bodenstedt," exclaimed Auerbach on one of these occasions, "tell
us of your adventures in the East. Awake with blithesome touch the
memories of your past: transport us into a new world where will be
dispelled the gloom of the present."
"Yes, do," chimed in the rest, drawing their chairs closer together.
"Tell us, above all, of your famous teacher, Mirza-Schaffy," added
Kaufmann.
One usually narrates one's experiences best in a circle of sympathetic
listeners, and even under ordinary circumstances Bodenstedt was
esteemed a good talker. Soon a spirit of cheerfulness prevailed, and
as the friends sat far into the night, the tumult without, the burning
suburbs, the beat of drums and the firing of cannons were forgotten.
Night after night the friends met--poets, philosophers, men of
learning, artists--and sat, to use Bodenstedt's own words, "on the
carpet of expectation, smoked the pipe of satisfaction, saw the
sunshine of wine sparkle up from the flask, and fished for words of
pearls with the delicate nets of the ears." The story of Eastern life
grew and rounded in its proportions, and Auerbach, who seemed most of
all entranced, insisted that the source of so fascinating a narrative
should be guided through the "canal of the pen into the sea of
publicity." Bodenstedt demurred, maintaining that the "art-hewn path
from the head to the hand" was far more difficult to traverse than the
natural one from the mouth to the ear.
"Yes, but it leads farther," rejoined Auerbach, "and what pleases us,
who listen, you may rest assured, with critical ears, cannot fail to
please in more extended circles."
Upon this foundation arose that delightful book, _A Thousand and One
Days in the Orient_, which was the occasion of one of the most
amusing mystifications and controversies that ever occupied the German
literary world.
Friedrich Bodenstedt was born at Peine in Hanover, April 21, 1819.
Notwithstanding his precocious intellectuality and remarkable poetic
talents, he was condemned by his parents to a mercantile career. After
a mournful apprenticeship he managed, however, to escape from this
uncongenial employment, and pursued a course of study at Göttingen,
Munich and Berlin, devoting himself chiefly to philology and history.
The year 1840 found him in Moscow as private tutor in the family of
Prince Galitzin, and shortly after he published his first volume of
poetry. Later, he was appointed teacher of languages at the Tiflis
Gymnasium, and the result of his learned investigations here were
given to the world in his _People of Caucasus_, in which, however,
were wholly thrust into the background poetical reminiscences evoked,
as we have seen, by gifted and genial friends.
During his sojourn in Tiflis, the mountain-encompassed capital of
Georgia, Bodenstedt undertook the study of the Tartar language,
finding it to be a universally-employed means of communication with
the many-tongued races of Caucasus. Among the numerous teachers
recommended to him, he selected one called Mirza-Schaffy, "the wise
man of Gjändsha," being attracted to him partly because of his calm,
dignified demeanor, partly because he possessed a sufficient knowledge
of Russian, with which Bodenstedt was perfectly familiar, to render
intercourse easy and agreeable.
Here it may not be amiss to observe that "Mirza" is a title which
placed before a proper name signifies "scribe"--after a name it
designates a prince. Thus, Mirza-Schaff[^y] means "Scribe Schaffy,"
but Schaffy-Mirzâ would mean "Prince Schaffy." Each word, when
pronounced separately, has the accent on the last syllable, but
together they are pronounced as one word, with the accent on the final
syllable.
The Tartars possess no such brilliant stores of literature as the
Persians, but they are endowed with a manly vigor which the latter
have lost. Mirza-Schaffy was a Tartar by birth, nurtured with Persian
culture, and was, when Bodenstedt made his acquaintance, in December,
1843, a man of some forty years of age, of very stately appearance
and excessive neatness. He wore a soft silken suit, about which he
carelessly draped a blue Turkish cloak, while a tall black sheep-skin
hat of sugar-loaf form adorned his shapely head. A dark, well-tended
beard framed his handsomely chiseled face, whose calm, earnest
expression was heightened by the deep, rich hue of his complexion, and
his large, serious eyes were void of the usual cunning of his class.
His high-heeled slippers, whose purity he miraculously preserved
unimpaired when mud was at its height in the streets of Tiflis, he
left always at the threshold of his pupil's room, pressing carpet and
divan only with his immaculate variegated stockings.
But Mirza-Schaffy's main charm lay in his thorough genuineness,
his earnestness of purpose and the tranquillity of his whole being.
Misfortune and sorrow had visited him in many forms, leaving their
impress on his brow, yet he had not been crushed; and thoroughly as he
appreciated the refined enjoyments of life, he could most gracefully
renounce luxuries attainable only by Fortune's favorites. So long as
he could have his _tschibuq_ filled with good tobacco and his goblet
with good wine, both of which were plentiful in Tiflis, he seemed
content with the entire dispensation of the world. Highly as he
prized, however, the beneficent effects of wine, he was an enemy to
excess, having made moderation in all things the law of his life.
The whole atmosphere surrounding the man produced a deep and lasting
impression on Bodenstedt, who, longing to immortalize the name of one
who had unfolded to him the treasures of Eastern lore, and from whom
he had derived so much pleasure and profit, conceived the idea of
representing his teacher in his public characterization with poetic
freedom, as a type of the Eastern poet and man of learning. Poet,
Mirza-Schaffy was not in reality, for although he was skilled in the
art of rhyming, and could translate with ease any simple song from
the Persian into the Tartar language, Bodenstedt found only one of his
original efforts which was worthy of preservation. The song referred
to was one hurled, as it were, at the head of an offending mullah who
had derided Mirza-Schaffy for his tenderness to wine, and reads as
follows:
Mullah! pure is our wine:
It to revile were sin.
Shouldst thou censure my word,
May'st find truth therein!
No devotion hath me
To thy mosque led to pray:
Through wine render'd free,
I have chanced there to stray.
All other poems introduced into the _Thousand and One Days in the
Orient_ are entirely of Bodenstedt's own composition, were designed
to add flavor to the picture of an Eastern divan of wisdom, and were
usually written while the impression was fresh of intercourse with the
wise man of Gjändsha. Shortly after the appearance of the book, which
was well received by the public, the publisher proposed to Bodenstedt
to issue separately the poems contained in it; and this was finally
done in an attractive volume entitled _The Songs of Mirza-Schaffy_,
many additions being made to the original collection. Of these, one of
the most fresh and sparkling is a spring song, which has never before
appeared in English, and which we present as a fitting introduction:
When young Spring up mountain-peaks doth hie,
And the sunbeams scatter stores of snow--
When the trees put forth their leaflets shy,
And amid grass the first wild flower doth blow--
When in yonder vale
Fleeth in a gale
All the dolesome rain and wintry wail,
Rings from upland air
Forth to many a clime,
"Oh, how wond'rous fair
Is the glad spring-time!"
When the glaciers quail 'neath hot sunbeams,
And all Nature into life doth spring--
When from mountain-sides gush forth cool streams,
And with sounds of glee the forests ring--
Fragrant zephyrs too
Stray the green meads through
And the heavens smile, serene and blue.
While from upland air
Rings to many a clime,
"Oh, how wond'rous fair
Is the glad spring-time!"
And was it not in the days of spring
That thy heart and mine, O maiden fair!
Were united, while our lips did cling
In their first long kiss, so sweet and rare?
What the glad grove sang
Through the wide vale rang,
And the fresh stream from the mountain sprang.
While the upland air
Wafted forth its rhyme,
"Oh, how wond'rous fair
Is the glad spring-time!"
Seldom has a volume of poems been received with more general applause.
Their renown spread rapidly through their native land; constantly
increasing demand for copies rendered needful frequent new editions,
to which at divers times were added by the author freshly-created
poems; and the interest is still alive, now nearly quarter of a
century after their first appearance, when they have passed their
fiftieth edition. They have been at one time or other translated into
most of the modern tongues of Europe; and that they have never gained
popularity with us is due probably to the fact that in those which
have been translated into our tongue neither the essence nor the form
of the original has been preserved. By the title no mystification was
ever designed: it came, as it were, of itself, and the purport of
the narrative through which the main songs were interwoven being well
known, it was never, supposed that a doubt concerning the authorship
could arise. Nevertheless, the critics accepted them as translations
from the Persian, and sharp lines of distinction were drawn between
the poet, Mirza-Schaffy, and his translator, Friedrich Bodenstedt,
not precisely to the advantage of the latter. Many a hearty laugh
did Bodenstedt indulge in on reading in one or another learned
dissertation that he was the possessor of a very neat poetic talent,
and frequently reminded one in his original compositions of the works
of his genial teacher, Mirza-Schaffy, of which he had given admirable
translations, though without attaining to the excellence of the
original. Now, a poet, in the wildest flights of his imagination,
could not hope for a more brilliant success for the poetic fiction
of his own creation than to have it accepted by the world as a living
reality. In this he would naturally delight, even though his own
personality were for a time thrust into the background, precisely like
a loving father whose children meet with better fortune in life than
himself. Sundry renditions into foreign tongues were even announced as
direct translations from the Persian.
After the death of the real Mirza-Schaffy in 1852, which was duly
announced by the press, sundry efforts were made by Eastern travelers
to visit his grave in Tiflis and gain those particulars concerning
him and his writings which Bodenstedt was supposed to have selfishly
withheld from the public. Of these, one of the most prominent was
Professor H. Brugsch, secretary of the Prussian embassy to Persia in
1860, who in his book of travels thus descants on his futile efforts:
"No one could inform us where the last earthly remains of a certain
Mirza-Schaffy were laid to rest. We consoled ourselves with the
reflection that neither mounds nor monuments are requisite to preserve
a poet's fame, but that through his songs is his name transmitted to
posterity. Yet even here we were doomed to disappointment. No one
whom we encountered knew aught of the songs of the jovial, genial
Mirza-Schaffy which in our German Fatherland have penetrated to the
very life of the people."
Some years later the Russian imperial state counselor Bergé, while
chief of educational institutions in Caucasus, also made the matter
a subject of investigation, and in the year 1870 gave the history
thereof to the world in the _Journal of the German Oriental Society_.
He tells of his vain efforts to learn something of the genius of
Mirza-Schaffy in his own land, and the amusement he created by his
queries concerning possible posthumous works, and finally settles the
question beyond dispute concerning the authorship of the poems.
After this, Bodenstedt yielded to the solicitations of friends to give
in the pages of the popular German magazine _Daheim_ a correct version
of the whole affair.
Let the reader present to his mind's eye a picture of the Eastern
scribe, clad in the apparel before described, seated on the
comfortable divan, with legs crossed after the fashion of the country,
the long _tschibuq_ caressingly held in one hand, the other uplifted,
and with finger pointed to his brow, haranguing the German man of
letters at his side on the advantages to be enjoyed under his tuition,
and on the idle pretensions of those who call themselves learned
without so much as comprehending the sacred languages. He cherished,
however, the pious hope that in the course of time, thanks to his
efforts, the enlightenment of the East might take effect in the West,
which hope was strengthened by the encouraging fact that Bodenstedt
was the fifth scholar who had felt the need of migrating to Tiflis to
profit by his instructions. In his excess of national modesty the wise
man of Gjändsha only styled himself the first wise man of the East,
but since the children of the West dwelt under a dark cloud of
unbelief, it resulted as a matter of course that he must be the wisest
of all men.
"I, Mirza-Schaffy," said he to his pupil, "am the first wise man
of the East, consequently thou, as my disciple, art the second. But
misunderstand me not. I have a friend, Omar Effendi, an extremely wise
man, who verily is not third among the learned scribes of the land.
Did not I live, and were Omar Effendi thy teacher, he would be first,
and thou the second wise man."
On being asked what he should do if told that the wise men of the West
would consider him as deficient in enlightenment as he did them, he
rejoined, "What could I do but be amazed at their folly? What new
thing can I learn from their opinions when they merely repeat my own?"
Hence the song:
Shall I laugh or fall to wailing
That the most of men so dumb are,
Ever borrowed thoughts retailing,
And in mother-wit so mum are?
No: thanksgiving heavenward rise
That fools so crowd this generation,
Else the wisdom of the wise
Would be lost to observation.
Numerous rivals envied Mirza-Schaffy his lessons, for each of which
he was paid a whole silver ruble--an unusually high tuition-fee. Most
formidable among these was Mirza-Jussuf (Joseph), the wise man of
Bagdad, who called one day on Bodenstedt and boldly informed him that
the revered Mirza-Schaffy was an Ischekj ("an ass") among the bearers
of wisdom--that he could not write properly, and could not sing
at all. "And what is wisdom without song?" he exclaimed. "What is
Mirza-Schaffy compared with me?" With bewildering eloquence he set
forth his own superior accomplishments, dwelling largely on his name,
which had been exalted by the Hebrew poet Moses as well as by
the Persian poet Hafiz, and exerting himself to prove that the
significance of a great name must be transmitted to all future bearers
thereof. He was still speaking when a measured tread was heard in
the ante-chamber, and Mirza-Schaffy himself drew near. He appeared to
comprehend intuitively the cause of the guest's presence, for he cast
on Jussuf, who had become suddenly stricken with modesty, a glance
of withering contempt, and was about giving vent to his emotions when
Bodenstedt interposed with the words, "Mirza-Schaffy, wise man of
Gjändsha, what have my ears heard? You undertake to instruct me, and
you can neither write nor sing! You are an Ischekj among the bearers
of wisdom: thus sayeth Mirza-Jussuf, the wise man of Bagdad."