Here Silence is the queen of time; her hand
Is raised--and the tide trembles to a pause.
Beauty, too awful to be loved, awakes
And spell-binds Man’s repose. The sunken sun,
Whose mantle’s gold is melted in the tint
Of evening’s purple sadness, near the west
Lingers awhile, as loth to quit the scene.
Yet ’tis not sadness all; for though the trees,
Heavy with cumbrous melancholy, sweep
Their sombre-foliaged boughs close to the grass,
And solemn twilight peers between the trunks,
Tinging the dome of yonder vacant fane--
O’er all a spirit of subdued emotion
Breathes in pathetic sweetness, deep diffused.
In this dim palace of grey Solitude,
Where not a sigh wafts o’er the lily’s urn,
And nought, save marble forms of tenderest grace,
With pensive attitude stand in lone bowers--
The heart, upheaving into the fresh air,
Itself abandons to the scene, and claims
Kindred with placid Death, and those lost hopes
That lived around the loved ones, now no more.
Their tombs smile pale beneath these cypress boughs,
Heavy with memory of all the past.
Moveless I stand before these moveless trees--
Breathless as those broad boughs; and gazing thus,
At the dark foliage imaged in the pools,
Which deepen, as the brooding mind surveys
Their trance and awful beauty; ’tis a scene
That lures us backward to an elder time,
Through ages dim--and, thence, into a realm
Whose secret influence fills us with its soul--
Shadows of things which are not of the world,
And hopes that burn, yet find no vent save tears.
“CAPE” SKETCHES.
Cape Wants are neither peculiar nor numerous. Captain Smoke, in
Jerrold’s comedy of “Bubbles of the Day,” confides to his friend, Lord
Skindeep, that he is “terribly in want of a thousand pounds.” The reply
is “You may take it as a general rule, Captain Smoke, that _every
man_ wants a thousand pounds.” As with men so with Colonies. The
sun never sets upon one of the dependencies of Great Britain, young or
old, which would not be the better for a thousand pounds. Our Colonies
feel, however, another want;--it is for something to which the Smokes
of the old country show a very marked aversion; and that is labour.
“Capital and labour!” is a cry which reaches us from every quarter of
the earth. The demand does not resound so loudly perhaps from the Cape
as from other and newer Colonies; but the want of the first necessities
of enterprise, civilisation, and progress is not the less felt. Any
sort of European labour (except convict labour), any kind of capital,
is welcome in our South African dependencies; and in the long run
“pays.”
As to Capital; men with from two thousand pounds to ten thousand
pounds will find plenty of most profitable employment for their money.
The Colony has innumerable resources--amongst them I may mention her
fisheries and her mineral treasures. The former produce a large revenue
even now, though carried on, from want of enterprise and capital,
in the most unsystematic and slovenly manner. Of minerals there is
abundance; ore in many places actually lying on the surface. The
assegais (or spears) of the Kafirs are all made of iron, smelted and
welded by themselves; while recent travellers from the northernmost
extremity of the Colony bring accounts of innumerable implements in use
among the savage tribes there, formed of iron of their own manufacture.
Copper and lead have been discovered within fifteen miles of Algoa Bay.
But such riches remain utterly unproductive without facile means of
transport, and a great want in the Colony is good roads. Of course,
want of labour is the cause of this deficiency, which is, however,
being slowly remedied by the local government. Whether the Cape
Colonists were wise in rejecting the convicts, so kindly proffered
to them by Lord Grey, I shall not presume to opine, because I have a
notion that everybody knows their own business best; but we must not
forget that New South Wales owes the blessing of her good roads to what
was, it must be admitted, in other respects, a great curse to her--the
bands of convicts the Colonial Office were so obliging as to send her.
Before I dilate on the greatest of all colonial wants, I will mention
what the Cape of Good Hope does _not_ want; namely, young
gentlemen with white hands and empty pockets, of no profession, and
with very extensive notions of refinement. She does not require
martinet “half-pays,” who know more of pipe-clay than of soils, and
more of killing than of breeding and fattening. Fine ladies, who are
proficient pianistes, and do not understand poultry, she is much
better without. What she _does_ require, are:--In the towns,
mechanics and artisans of all kinds; in the country, good farmers and
sturdy dames, shepherds and agricultural labourers; in both, domestic
servants, male and female. For all these the Cape is open, and it
offers them first-rate livelihoods, abundance of food of the best
description, and a climate which the returns taken of the mortality
among the troops prove to be amongst the healthiest in all Her
Majesty’s world-wide dominions. The Colony has also one great advantage
over Australia--it is ten thousand miles nearer to England.
Want the third in point of importance is a change in the present system
of selecting Colonial Governors. Were we to choose Generals to lead
our armies--not from soldiers trained to arms and distinguished in the
field--but from decayed statesmen, who had “never set a squadron in the
field,” nor even handled a sword; would not our enemies not only beat
us, but laugh at us? Yet conversely we commit precisely this absurdity:
we “reward” meritorious Generals by appointing them Governors; of whose
duties they are, as a rule, as ignorant as a Lord of the Treasury is of
fortification. The Governor of a Colony, as the representative of the
highest power in the Empire, is required to fulfil the highest civil
functions; to conduct the most difficult and delicate negotiations;
and we select a brave old General, who hardly knows the geography of
his government; is profoundly ignorant of the habits and requirements
of its people; who never even pretended to statesmanship, and either
commits himself to something so rash that it makes everybody angry, or
to something so silly that it makes everybody laugh.
* * * * *
In Education, England might take a lesson from her South African
dependency--it is in the education of the people. Government schools
are established in every town, and almost every village of the
Colony, open to children of all classes and all creeds, and free of
all expense. They are presided over by intelligent teachers, chiefly
selected from the Scotch Universities, and truly their pupils do
these gentlemen infinite credit. I do not hesitate to say, that the
rising generation of the Cape Colony will be the best educated men
of their class in all the British Empire. It is to Dr. Jones, the
former President of the South African College, in Cape Town, that
the colony is indebted for this invaluable boon. Even the population
in the far interior are better off in this respect than the children
of our English peasantry. Thanks to the energy of Campbell, Latrobe,
Moffat, and other energetic, common-sense, as well as pious, members
of the Missionary Society; the children of the Hottentots, Griquas,
and even of some of the Bechuanas, are fast being brought into the
pale of civilisation by attendance at the schools established by those
gentlemen. Some of the offspring of English parents in the “interior”
of England, have no such schools to attend.
* * * * *
Sheep Farming is, perhaps, the best and most profitable occupation at
the Cape. It is far better than agriculture, and better than cattle
farming, for the following reasons. The great deficiency of the colony
is the want of sufficient water for irrigation. Wherever this want is
not felt, all kinds of grain may be raised with profit, and Cape wheat
is universally pronounced to be the finest in the world. But the farms,
or portions of farms, on which it can be grown are few and far between.
Nor is this the only drawback to agriculture; the farmer has two other
dire enemies to contend with. The one is the blight or “smut,” which is
very common; and frequently destroys whole crops. Two young friends of
mine hired a farm in partnership, and, in spite of the warnings of more
experienced persons, determined to turn their principal attention to
agriculture. They went to great expense in the purchase of agricultural
implements, paid the highest wages for labourers, and worked with
their own hands as hard as any ploughman in England. They raised a
magnificent crop, and began to indulge a sweet reverie on the “Dollars”
it was to bring them. Alas, the “smut” came, and the beautiful crop
was destroyed, while not one solitary dollar found its way into the
young farmers’ pockets. Disappointed, but not disheartened, they set
to work again, and next year with precisely the same result. Luckily
they were prudent fellows, and had neither been personally extravagant,
nor sunk all their money in one enterprise. They, therefore, purchased
some sheep, cattle, and horses, and only cultivated a very _small
portion_ of their farm; and now they are among the most prosperous
farmers in the Colony.
Another enemy of the agriculturist at the Cape, not less destructive
than the former, though less frequent in his attacks, is the locust.
Till I went to the Cape, I never had a clear conception of the mischief
that could be done by this one of the “Plagues of Egypt.” They came
always in clouds, and fly _with_ the wind. I am almost afraid to
describe their numbers. I have seen the air as full of these creatures
as of the flakes of snow in a heavy snow-storm--in fact, literally
“raining locusts.” I have been obliged to turn back on a journey from
the impossibility of getting my horse to face them when driven against
us by the wind. I have seen immense plains one day covered with grass,
corn, and gardens; and the next day left, after a visit of locusts,
without one solitary blade of verdure on any part of them. I have seen
millions of these insects driven by the wind into the sea at Algoa
Bay, and washed on shore in such heaps, that their bodies decaying
have become so offensive as to oblige the authorities of the town to
employ all the Coolies in the place in burying them. Think of all
this, grumbling farmers of England. What corn-laws could afford you
“protection” against such an importation? Still, I must add that during
my five years’ residence at the Cape, I can only recall three visits of
these pests; nor must it be supposed that they at any time spread over
the whole Colony. When they visit a sheep or cattle farm, the owner
has, of course, no other alternative than to move his stock to some
place which they have not visited.
Cattle are profitable stock at the Cape; but no Englishman seems to
like them so well as sheep. Besides, it occasionally happens that, in
a fit of caprice, every Hottentot labourer on your farm will leave
you in a day, and you will have to be your own herdsman. This is
comparatively nothing with sheep; but if you had a couple of hundred
cows that wanted milking you would be rather in a “fix.”
Horses are also a profitable stock, and far more suited to English
taste. But the “returns” are necessarily slow; and few men can afford
to wait three years for their profits.
Sheep are the best. Here is one example, by no means extraordinary, but
forming an average sample of the fruits of sheep-farming:--A gentleman
who was reading for the Church, at Cambridge, found that his health
would not allow him to continue his studies; he emigrated to Algoa Bay,
with a capital of about two thousand five hundred pounds. He wisely
listened to good advice in the selection of a farm and the purchase of
his stock of sheep. At the end of three years I visited him, and we
talked about sheep-farming, which was then in a bad condition. I was
expressing my wonder that so many sheep-farmers had lately been “sold
up;” and this was his reply, “What else could you expect? Half of them
come out here without one farthing of capital. They hire a farm; buy
stock on credit (for two or three years), live on the sale of the wool
and also on credit--for they live ‘like fighting-cocks’--and then when
pay-day comes at last, they, of course, have not a sixpence. But, look
at my own case: I have been here three years; my wool fetches double
the price that it did the first year; my stock is just doubled in
number and vastly improved in quality; I have lived in as much comfort
as I require in the meantime; and I don’t owe a sixpence.”
The life of a Cape farmer is necessarily solitary. His nearest
neighbour is probably seven miles off, and his only daily companions
are his stock and his labourers. A visitor (especially if he come from
one of the Towns) is a veritable Godsend; and is safe to be welcome as
long as he chooses to remain. He may ride his host’s horses and shoot
or hunt his game, smoke his pipes, and drink his “Cape Smoke,”[A] as
long as he pleases. But he must be contented with very rough fare.
Mutton and goats’ flesh, meal-cakes (very similar, I fancy, to those
which King Alfred burnt), Indian corn, and badly-made coffee, will form
the staple articles of his food. He will sleep on a home-made sofa with
goatskins for blankets, in a room with a mud floor, and very probably
no ceiling but the thatch roof. The house will most likely be built of
lath and plaster, and look far more like the stable of a third-rate
country inn than a gentleman’s residence. Yet the host is often a
highly educated and sensible man, fighting his way to competence,
living a comparatively easy life, and, if unblessed with luxuries, at
least unharassed by cares, save when an occasional wolf (or rather
hyæna) makes a night assault on his homestead.
[A] Cape Brandy.
Of the Cape Trade, the most peculiar and profitable branch is that with
the native tribes. At present it is carried on in the most primitive
style. A trader will load a couple of waggons with such goods as are
likely to sell among savages. Coarse cloth, smart Manchester printed
calicoes, blankets, beads, brass curtain-rings (worn by the natives
as ornaments on their arms), soldiers’ jackets, wide-awake hats,
&c. With this load he will proceed across the colonial boundary,
and penetrate as far as he pleases into the interior, calling where
experience has shown him he is likely to find customers, and selling
his goods like a hawker, or “Cheap Jack,” in England. But he seldom
obtains _money_ for his goods,--nor does he wish for it. He gets
ivory, ostrich feathers, wild-beast skins, horns, and, in fact, all the
rarest trophies of the chase. With these he reloads his waggons for
his return home, and reaches the Colony after, perhaps, six or eight
months’ absence, with a load which fetches him at once, seven or eight
hundred--sometimes a thousand--pounds in exchange for his outlay of one
hundred and fifty pounds.
It seems clear that the establishment of trading stations in the
interior of Southern Africa would be most profitable to the projectors,
and most advantageous to the native tribes, by accustoming them to the
sights and habits of a civilised life.
The shopkeepers are rather jealous of the merchants at the Cape.
The latter are very often so undignified as to sell a dozen pair of
stockings or a single hat, to the exceeding disgust of retailers.
A Cape shop is a curiosity. It strikes a man as odd, to buy his boots
and his cheese, or his hat and his sugar, at the same shop,--still more
odd to purchase his wife a Chinese shawl and his child a peg-top in the
same establishment.
* * * * *
The Wild Sports of South Africa have been celebrated by many a writer,
from Major Cornwallis Harris down to Mr. Gordon Cumming. For large game
the country is perhaps the finest sporting ground in the world. People
come even from India to hunt the lion and the buffalo, the rhinoceros
and the hippopotamus, the elephant, the giraffe, and the innumerable
varieties of wild deer, from the delicate and graceful springbok to the
heavy and powerful gnu. Some of the most dreaded amongst them are not
nearly so terrible as travellers’ tales would persuade “the gentlemen
of England who sit at home at ease.”
On one occasion I was riding through a wood, with a single companion;
we were on a journey, and quite unarmed. At a little open space in the
woods we dismounted and knee-haltered our horses to let them feed,
while we lazily stretched ourselves under a tree, and “took a pull”
at our pocket-pistols, loaded with Cognac. A slight rustling sound
was heard above our heads, and down came something to the ground in
front of us. It was a fine, full-grown, handsome leopard, who coolly
turned round and stared us in the face. I very much doubt whether
two respectable young gentlemen ever felt in a greater fright than
my friend and myself at that moment. The unwelcome visitor, however,
merely wagged his tail, and having apparently satisfied his curiosity
as to our personal appearance, trotted quietly off into the woods.
Without uttering a word we each drew a long breath, took another pull
at the _eau-de-vie_, caught our horses, and put as many miles as
we could in a few minutes between ourselves and that same wood.
The lion can even be companionable. Major Nicholson occupies a farm
near the north-east boundary of the Colony. He is a great sportsman,
and goes out alone to look after a lion with as much unconcern as a
Regent Street lounger seeks out a Skye-terrier as a present for his
lady-love. In one of his afternoon rambles the Major fell in with a
lion; they were both going the same way and jogged along for some
distance silent, though excellent friends. At length the lion stopped,
turned round, faced the Major, and sat on his haunches like a great
tom-cat. The Major, not knowing how soon his majesty’s tacit treaty
of peace might be broken with him, levelled his piece, taking aim
between the eyes. He was just about to fire, when a sound caused him
to turn round; he then at once understood that, the lion having been
out for a walk, his lady had come, like a dutiful wife, to meet him.
The Major drew back and calculated the odds--two to one in favour of
the quadrupeds--and reserved his fire; deciding that it would be little
satisfaction to kill the husband and be eaten by the wife, or _vice
versâ_. The respectable couple then continued their walk alone,
treating the Major with the most sovereign contempt, and allowing him,
like Young Norval, to “mark the course they took,” and to follow them
to their abode. This he next day visited, with men, dogs, and guns; and
a week afterwards I was sleeping soundly, in the Major’s house, on the
skin of that same king of the forest, while his consort’s hide served
me for a coverlid.
Although the keener sportsman prefers to go beyond the colonial
boundary for prey, yet it is customary in the towns for a number of
friends to make up a shooting party, who sally forth with waggons and
a tent, which they pitch on some agreeable spot, and stay for several
days, living _al fresco_,--enjoying good sport by day and good
fare at the end of it, with merry songs, toasts, and stories. Others
prefer hunting, mount their active little horses, and, followed by a
whole host of curs, whose pedigrees would puzzle the most ingenious
zoologist, sally forth in search of wild bucks; and many a good run
they enjoy, and much do they contribute to the stock of good things
which grace the table on the greensward at night.
“BATTLE WITH LIFE!”
Bear thee up bravely,
Strong heart and true!
Meet thy woes gravely,
Strive with them too!
Let them not win from thee
Tear of regret,
Such were a sin from thee,
Hope for good yet!
Rouse thee from drooping,
Care-laden soul;
Mournfully stooping
’Neath grief’s control!
Far o’er the gloom that lies,
Shrouding the earth,
Light from eternal skies
Shows us thy worth.
Nerve thee yet stronger,
Resolute mind!
Let care no longer
Heavily bind.
Rise on thy eagle wings
Gloriously free!
Till from material things
Pure thou shalt be!
Bear ye up bravely,
Soul and mind too!
Droop not so gravely,
Bold heart and true!
Clear rays of streaming light
Shine through the gloom,
God’s love is beaming bright
E’en round the tomb!