Letters from the Cape Part 4

WELL, I have been to Gnadenthal, and seen the 'blooming parish', and a lovely spot it is. A large village nestled in a deep valley, surrounded by high mountains on three sides, and a lower range in front. We started early on Sat.u.r.day, and drove over a mighty queer road, and through a river. Oh, ye G.o.ds! what a shaking and pounding! We were rattled up like dice in a box. Nothing but a Cape cart, Cape horses, and a Hottentot driver, above all, could have accomplished it. Captain D- rode, and had the best of it. On the road we pa.s.sed three or four farms, at all which horses were _galloping out_ the grain, or men were winnowing it by tossing it up with wooden shovels to let the wind blow away the chaff. We did the twenty-four miles up and down the mountain roads in two hours and a half, with our valiant little pair of horses; it is incredible how they go. We stopped at a nice cottage on the hillside belonging to a _ci-devant_ slave, one Christian Rietz, a _white_ man, with brown woolly hair, sharp features, grey eyes, and _not_ woolly moustaches. He said he was a 'Scotch bastaard', and 'le bon sang parlait-tres-haut meme', for a more thriving, shrewd, sensible fellow I never saw. His _father_ and master had had to let him go when all slaves were emanc.i.p.ated, and he had come to Gnadenthal. He keeps a little inn in the village, and a shop and a fine garden. The cottage we lodged in was on the mountain side, and had been built for his son, who was dead; and his adopted daughter, a pretty coloured girl, exactly like a southern Frenchwoman, waited on us, a.s.sisted by about six or seven other women, who came chiefly to stare. Vrouw Rietz was as black as a coal, but _so_ pretty!-a dear, soft, sleek, old lady, with beautiful eyes, and the kind pleasant ways which belong to nice blacks; and, though old and fat, still graceful and lovely in face, hands, and arms. The cottage was thus:-One large hall; my bedroom on the right, S-'s on the left; the kitchen behind me; Miss Rietz behind S-; mud floors daintily washed over with fresh cow-dung; ceiling of big rafters, just as they had grown, on which rested bamboo canes close together _across_ the rafters, and bound together between each, with transverse bamboo-a pretty _beehivey_ effect; at top, mud again, and then a high thatched roof and a loft or zolder for forage, &c.; the walls of course mud, very thick and whitewashed. The bedrooms tiny; beds, clean sweet melies (maize) straw, with clean sheets, and eight good pillows on each; gla.s.s windows (a great distinction), exquisite cleanliness, and hearty civility; good food, well cooked; horrid tea and coffee, and hardly any milk; no end of fruit. In all the gardens it hung on the trees thicker than the leaves. Never did I behold such a profusion of fruit and vegetables.

But first I must tell what struck me most, I asked one of the Herrenhut brethren whether there were any _real_ Hottentots, and he said, 'Yes, one;' and next morning, as I sat waiting for early prayers under the big oak-trees in the Plaats (square), he came up, followed by a tiny old man hobbling along with a long stick to support him. 'Here', said he, 'is the _last_ Hottentot; he is a hundred and seven years old, and lives all alone.' I looked on the little, wizened, yellow face, and was shocked that he should be dragged up like a wild beast to be stared at. A feeling of pity which felt like remorse fell upon me, and my eyes filled as I rose and stood before him, so tall and like a tyrant and oppressor, while he uncovered his poor little old snow-white head, and peered up in my face. I led him to the seat, and helped him to sit down, and said in Dutch, 'Father, I hope you are not tired; you are old.' He saw and heard as well as ever, and spoke good Dutch in a firm voice. 'Yes, I am above a hundred years old, and alone-quite alone.' I sat beside him, and he put his head on one side, and looked curiously up at me with his faded, but still piercing little wild eyes. Perhaps he had a perception of what I felt-yet I hardly think so; perhaps he thought I was in trouble, for he crept close up to me, and put one tiny brown paw into my hand, which he stroked with the other, and asked (like most coloured people) if I had children. I said, 'Yes, at home in England;' and he patted my hand again, and said, 'G.o.d bless them!' It was a relief to feel that he was pleased, for I should have felt like a murderer if my curiosity had added a moment's pain to so tragic a fate.

This may sound like sentimentalism; but you cannot conceive the effect of looking on the last of a race once the owners of all this land, and now utterly gone. His look was not quite human, physically speaking;-a good head, small wild-beast eyes, piercing and restless; cheek-bones strangely high and prominent, nose _quite_ flat, mouth rather wide; thin shapeless lips, and an indescribably small, long, pointed chin, with just a very little soft white woolly beard; his head covered with extremely short close white wool, which ended round the poll in little ringlets. Hands and feet like an English child of seven or eight, and person about the size of a child of eleven. He had all his teeth, and though shrunk to nothing, was very little wrinkled in the face, and not at all in the hands, which were dark brown, while his face was yellow. His manner, and way of speaking were like those of an old peasant in England, only his voice was clearer and stronger, and his perceptions not blunted by age.

He had travelled with one of the missionaries in the year 1790, or thereabouts, and remained with them ever since.

I went into the church-a large, clean, rather handsome building, consecrated in 1800-and heard a very good sort of Litany, mixed with such singing as only black voices can produce. The organ was beautifully played by a Bastaard lad. The Herrenhuters use very fine chants, and the perfect ear and heavenly voices of a large congregation, about six hundred, all coloured people, made music more beautiful than any chorus-singing I ever heard.

Prayers lasted half an hour; then the congregation turned out of doors, and the windows were opened. Some of the people went away, and others waited for the 'allgemeine Predigt'. In a quarter of an hour a much larger congregation than the first a.s.sembled, the girls all with net-handkerchiefs tied round their heads so as to look exactly like the ancient Greek head-dress with a double fillet-the very prettiest and neatest coiffure I ever saw. The gowns were made like those of English girls of the same cla.s.s, but far smarter, cleaner, and gayer in colour-pink, and green, and yellow, and bright blue; several were all in white, with white gloves. The men and women sit separate, and the women's side was a bed of tulips. The young fellows were very smart indeed, with muslin or gauze, either white, pink, or blue, rolled round their hats (that is universal here, on account of the sun). The Hottentots, as they are called-that is, those of mixed Dutch and Hottentot origin (correctly, 'bastaards')-have a sort of blackguard elegance in their gait and figure which is peculiar to them; a mixture of negro or Mozambique blood alters it altogether. The girls have the elegance without the blackguard look; _all_ are slender, most are tall; all graceful, all have good hands and feet; some few are handsome in the face and many very interesting-looking. The complexion is a pale olive-yellow, and the hair more or less woolly, face flat, and cheekbones high, eyes small and bright. These are by far the most intelligent-equal, indeed, to whites. A mixture of black blood often gives real beauty, but takes off from the 'air', and generally from the talent; but then the blacks are so pleasant, and the Hottentots are taciturn and reserved. The old women of this breed are the grandest hags I ever saw; they are clean and well dressed, and tie up their old faces in white handkerchiefs like corpses,-faces like those of Andrea del Sarto's old women; they are splendid. Also, they are very clean people, addicted to tubbing more than any others. The maid-of-all-work, who lounges about your breakfast table in rags and dishevelled hair, has been in the river before you were awake, or, if that was too far off, in a tub. They are also far cleaner in their huts than any but the _very best_ English poor.

The 'Predigt' was delivered, after more singing, by a missionary cabinet-maker, in Dutch, very ranting, and not very wise; the congregation was singularly decorous and attentive, but did not seem at all excited or impressed-just like a well-bred West-end audience, only rather more attentive. The service lasted three-quarters of an hour, including a short prayer and two hymns. The people came out and filed off in total silence, and very quickly, the tall graceful girls draping their gay silk shawls beautifully. There are seven missionaries, all in orders but one, the blacksmith, and all married, except the resident director of the boys' boarding-school; there is a doctor, a carpenter, a cabinet-maker, a shoe-maker, and a storekeeper-a very agreeable man, who had been missionary in Greenland and Labrador, and interpreter to MacClure. There is one 'Studirter Theolog'. All are Germans, and so are their wives. My friend the storekeeper married without having ever beheld his wife before they met at the altar, and came on board s.h.i.+p at once with her. He said it was as good a way of marrying as any other, and that they were happy together. She was lying in, so I did not see her. At eight years old, their children are all sent home to Germany to be educated, and they seldom see them again. On each side of the church are schools, and next to them the missionaries' houses on one side of the square, and on the other a row of workshops, where the Hottentots are taught all manner of trades. I have got a couple of knives, made at Gnadenthal, for the children. The girls occupy the school in the morning, and the boys in the afternoon; half a day is found quite enough of lessons in this climate. The infant school was of both s.e.xes, but a different set morning and afternoon. The missionaries' children were in the infant school; and behind the little blonde German 'Madels' three jet black n.i.g.g.e.rlings rolled over each other like pointer-pups, and grinned, and didn't care a straw for the spelling; while the dingy yellow little bastaards were straining their black eyes out, with eagerness to answer the master's questions. He and the mistress were both Bastaards, and he seemed an excellent teacher. The girls were learning writing from a master, and Bible history from a mistress, also people of colour; and the stupid set (mostly black) were having spelling hammered into their thick skulls by another yellow mistress, in another room. At the boarding school were twenty lads, from thirteen up to twenty, in training for school-teachers at different stations. Gnadenthal supplies the Church of England with them, as well as their own stations. There were Caffres, Fingoes, a Mantatee, one boy evidently of some Oriental blood, with glossy, smooth hair and a copper skin-and the rest Bastaards of various hues, some mixed with black, probably Mozambique. The Caffre lads were splendid young Hercules'. They had just printed the first book in the Caffre language (I've got it for Dr. Hawtrey,)-extracts from the New Testament,-and I made them read the sheets they were going to bind; it is a beautiful language, like Spanish in tone, only with a queer 'click' in it. The boys drew, like Chinese, from 'copies', and wrote like copper-plate; they sang some of Mendelssohn's choruses from 'St. Paul'

splendidly, the Caffres rolling out soft rich ba.s.s voices, like melodious thunder. They are clever at handicrafts, and fond of geography and natural history, incapable of mathematics, quick at languages, utterly incurious about other nations, and would all rather work in the fields than learn anything but music; good boys, honest, but '_trotzig_'. So much for Caffres, Fingoes, &c. The Bastaards are as clever as whites, and more docile-so the 'rector' told me. The boy who played the organ sang the 'Lorelei' like an angel, and played us a number of waltzes and other things on the piano, but he was too shy to talk; while the Caffres crowded round me, and chattered away merrily. The Mantatees, whom I cannot distinguish from Caffres, are scattered all over the colony, and rival the English as workmen and labourers-fine stalwart, industrious fellows. Our little 'boy' Kleenboy hires a room for fifteen s.h.i.+llings a month, and takes in his compatriots as lodgers at half a crown a week-the usurious little rogue! His chief, one James, is a bricklayer here, and looks and behaves like a prince. It is fine to see his black arms, ornamented with silver bracelets, hurling huge stones about.

All Gnadenthal is wonderfully fruitful, being well watered, but it is not healthy for whites; I imagine, too hot and damp. There are three or four thousand coloured people there, under the control of the missionaries, who allow no canteens at all. The people may have what they please at home, but no public drinking-place is allowed, and we had to take our own beer and wine for the three days. The gardens and burial-ground are beautiful, and the square is entirely shaded by about ten or twelve superb oaks; nothing prettier can be conceived. It is not popular in the neighbourhood. 'You see it makes the d-d n.i.g.g.e.rs cheeky' to have homes of their own-and the girls are said to be immoral. As to that, there are no so-called 'morals' among the coloured people, and how or why should there? It is an honour to one of these girls to have a child by a white man, and it is a degradation to him to marry a dark girl. A pious stiff old Dutchwoman who came here the other day for the Sacrament (which takes place twice a year), had one girl with her, big with child by her son, who also came for the Sacrament, and two in the straw at home by the other son; this caused her exactly as much emotion as I feel when my cat kittens. No one takes any notice, either to blame or to nurse the poor things-they scramble through it as p.u.s.s.y does. The English are almost equally contemptuous; but there is one great difference. My host, for instance, always calls a black 'a d-d n.i.g.g.e.r'; but if that n.i.g.g.e.r is wronged or oppressed he fights for him, or bails him out of the Tronk, and an English jury gives a just verdict; while a Dutch one simply finds for a Dutchman, against any one else, and _always_ against a dark man. I believe this to be true, from what I have seen and heard; and certainly the coloured people have a great preference for the English.

I am persecuted by the ugliest and blackest Mozambiquer I have yet seen, a bricklayer's labourer, who can speak English, and says he was servant to an English Captain-'Oh, a good fellow he was, only he's dead!' He now insists on my taking him as a servant. 'I dessay your man at home is a good chap, and I'll be a good boy, and cook very nice.' He is thick-set and short and strong. Nature has adorned him with a c.o.c.k eye and a yard of mouth, and art, with a prodigiously tall white chimney-pot hat with the crown out, a cotton nightcap, and a wondrous congeries of rags. He professes to be cook, groom, and 'walley', and is sure you would be pleased with his attentions.

Well, to go back to Gnadenthal. I wandered all over the village on Sunday afternoon, and peeped into the cottages. All were neat and clean, with good dressers of crockery, the _very_ poorest, like the worst in Weybridge sandpits; but they had no gla.s.s windows, only a wooden shutter, and no doors; a calico curtain, or a sort of hurdle supplying its place.

The people nodded and said 'Good day!' but took no further notice of me, except the poor old Hottentot, who was seated on a doorstep. He rose and hobbled up to meet me and take my hand again. He seemed to enjoy being helped along and seated down carefully, and shook and patted my hand repeatedly when I took leave of him. At this the people stared a good deal, and one woman came to talk to me.

In the evening I sat on a bench in the square, and saw the people go in to 'Abendsegen'. The church was lighted, and as I sat there and heard the lovely singing, I thought it was impossible to conceive a more romantic scene. On Monday I saw all the schools, and then looked at the great strong Caffre lads playing in the square. One of them stood to be pelted by five or six others, and as the stones came, he twisted and turned and jumped, and was hardly ever hit, and when he was, he didn't care, though the others hurled like catapults. It was the most wonderful display of activity and grace, and quite incredible that such a huge fellow should be so quick and light. When I found how comfortable dear old Mrs. Rietz made me, I was sorry I had hired the cart and kept it to take me home, for I would gladly have stayed longer, and the heat did me no harm; but I did not like to throw away a pound or two, and drove back that evening. Mrs. Rietz, told me her mother was a Mozambiquer. 'And your father?' said I. 'Oh, I don't know. _My mother was only a slave_.'

She, too, was a slave, but said she 'never knew it', her 'missus' was so good; a Dutch lady, at a farm I had pa.s.sed, on the road, who had a hundred and fifty slaves. I liked my Hottentot hut amazingly, and the sweet brown bread, and the dinner cooked so cleanly on the bricks in the kitchen. The walls were whitewashed and adorned with wreaths of everlasting flowers and some quaint old prints from Loutherburg-pastoral subjects, not exactly edifying.

Well, I have prosed unconscionably, so adieu for the present.

_February_ 3_d_.-Many happy returns of your birthday, dear -. I had a bottle of champagne to drink your health, and partly to swell the bill, which these good people make so moderate, that I am half ashamed. I get everything that Caledon can furnish for myself and S- for 15_l._ a month.

On Sat.u.r.day we got the sad news of Prince Albert's death, and it created real consternation here. What a thoroughly unexpected calamity! Every one is already dressed in deep mourning. It is more general than in a village of the same size at home-(how I have caught the colonial trick of always saying 'home' for England! Dutchmen who can barely speak English, and never did or will see England, equally talk of 'news from home'). It also seems, by the papers of the 24th of December, which came by a steamer the other day, that war is imminent. I shall have to wait for convoy, I suppose, as I object to walking the plank from a Yankee privateer. I shall wait here for the next mail, and then go back to Capetown, stopping by the way, so as to get there early in March, and arrange for my voyage. The weather had a relapse into cold, and an attempt at rain. Pity it failed, for the drought is dreadful this year, chiefly owing to the unusual quant.i.ty of sharp drying winds-a most unlucky summer for the country and for me.

My old friend Klein, who told me several instances of the kindness and grat.i.tude of former slaves, poured out to me the misery he had undergone from the 'ingrat.i.tude' of a certain Rosina, a slave-girl of his. She was in her youth handsome, clever, the best horsebreaker, bullock-trainer and driver, and hardest worker in the district. She had two children by Klein, then a young fellow; six by another white man, and a few more by two husbands of her own race! But she was of a rebellious spirit, and took to drink. After the emanc.i.p.ation, she used to go in front of Klein's windows and read the statute in a loud voice on every anniversary of the day; and as if that did not enrage him enough, she pertinaciously (whenever she was a little drunk) kissed him by main force every time she met him in the street, exclaiming, 'Aha! when I young and pretty slave-girl you make kiss me then; now I ugly, drunk, dirty old devil and free woman, I kiss you!' Frightful retributive justice! I struggled hard to keep my countenance, but the fat old fellow's good-humoured, rueful face was too much for me. His tormentor is dead, but he retains a painful impression of her 'ingrat.i.tude '.

Our little Mantatee 'Kleenboy' has again, like Jeshurun, 'waxed fat and kicked', as soon as he had eaten enough to be once more plump and s.h.i.+ny.

After his hungry period, he took to squatting on the stoep, just in front of the hall-door, and altogether declining to do anything; so he is superseded by an equally ugly little red-headed Englishman. The Irish housemaid has married the German baker (a fine match for her!), and a dour little Scotch Presbyterian has come up from Capetown in her place.

Such are the vicissitudes of colonial house-keeping! The only 'permanency' is the old soldier of Captain D-'s regiment, who is barman in the canteen, and not likely to leave 'his honour', and the coloured girl, who improves on acquaintance. She wants to ingratiate herself with me, and get taken to England. Her father is an Englishman, and of course the brown mother and her large family always live in the fear of his 'going home' and ignoring their existence; a _marriage_ with the mother of his children would be too much degradation for him to submit to. Few of the coloured people are ever married, but they don't separate oftener than _really_ married folks. Bill, the handsome West Indian black, married my pretty washerwoman Rosalind, and was thought rather a.s.suming because he was asked in church and lawfully married; and she wore a handsome lilac silk gown and a white wreath and veil, and very well she looked in them. She had a child of two years old, which did not at all disconcert Bill; but he continues to be dignified, and won't let her go and wash clothes in the river, because the hot sun makes her ill, and it is not fit work for women.

_Sunday_, 9_th_.-Last night a dance took place in a house next door to this, and a party of boers attempted to go in, but were repulsed by a sortie of the young men within. Some of the more peaceable boers came in here and wanted ale, which was refused, as they were already very _vinous_; so they imbibed ginger-beer, whereof one drank thirty-four bottles to his own share! Inspired by this drink, they began to quarrel, and were summarily turned out. They spent the whole night, till five this morning, scuffling and vociferating in the street. The constables discreetly stayed in bed, displaying the true Dogberry spirit, which leads them to take up Hottentots, drunk or sober, to show their zeal, but carefully to avoid meddling with stalwart boers, from six to six and a half feet high and strong in proportion. The jabbering of Dutch brings to mind Demosthenes trying to outroar a stormy sea with his mouth full of pebbles. The hardest blows are those given with the tongue, though much pulling of hair and scuffling takes place. 'Verdomde Schmeerlap!'-'Donder and Bliksem! am I a verdomde Schmeerlap?'-'Ja, u is,' &c., &c. I could not help laughing heartily as I lay in bed, at hearing the gambols of these t.i.tan cubs; for this is a boer's notion of enjoying himself. This morning, I hear, the street was strewn with the hair they had pulled out of each other's heads. All who come here make love to S-; not by describing their tender feelings, but by enumerating the oxen, sheep, horses, land, money, &c., of which they are possessed, and whereof, by the law of this colony, she would become half-owner on marriage. There is a fine handsome Van Steen, who is very persevering; but S- does not seem to fancy becoming Mevrouw at all. The demand for English girls as wives is wonderful here. The nasty cross little ugly Scotch maid has had three offers already, in one fortnight!

_February_ 18_th_.-I expect to receive the letters by the English mail to-morrow morning, and to go to Worcester on Thursday. On Sat.u.r.day the young doctor-good-humoured, jolly, big, young Dutchman-drove me, with his pretty little greys, over to two farms; at one I ate half a huge melon, and at the other, uncounted grapes. We poor Europeans don't know what fruit _can be_, I must admit. The melon was a foretaste of paradise, and the grapes made one's fingers as sticky as honey, and had a muscat fragrance quite inconceivable. They looked like amber eggs. The best of it is, too, that in this climate stomach-aches are not. We all eat grapes, peaches, and figs, all day long. Old Klein sends me, for my own daily consumption, about thirty peaches, three pounds of grapes, and apples, pears, and figs besides-'just a little taste of fruits'; only here they will pick it all unripe.

_February_ 19_th_.-The post came in late last night, and old Klein kindly sent me my letters at near midnight. The post goes out this evening, and the hot wind is blowing, so I can only write to you, and a line to my mother. I feel really better now. I think the constant eating of grapes has done me much good.

The Dutch cart-owner was so extortionate, that I am going to wait a few days, and write to my dear Malay to come up and drive me back. It is better than having to fight the Dutch monopolist in every village, and getting drunken drivers and bad carts after all. I shall go round all the same. The weather has been beautiful; to-day there is a wind, which comes about two or three times in the year: it is not depressing, but hot, and a bore, because one must shut every window or be stifled with dust.

The people are burning the veld all about, and the lurid smoke by day and flaming hill-sides by night are very striking. The ashes of the Bosh serve as manure for the young gra.s.s, which will sprout in the autumn rains. Such nights! Such a moon! I walk out after dark when it is mild and clear, and can read any print by the moonlight, and see the distant landscape as well as by day.

Old Klein has just sent me a haunch of bok, and the skin and hoofs, which are pretty.

LETTER VIII

Caledon, Sunday.

YOU must have fallen into second childhood to think of _printing_ such rambling hasty scrawls as I write. I never could write a good letter; and unless I gallop as hard as I can, and don't stop to think, I can say nothing; so all is confused and unconnected: only I fancy _you_ will be amused by some of my 'impressions'. I have written to my mother an accurate account of my health. I am dressed and out of doors never later than six, now the weather makes it possible. It is surprising how little sleep one wants. I go to bed at ten and often am up at four.

I made friends here the other day with a lively dried-up little old Irishman, who came out at seven years old a pauper-boy. He has made a fortune by 'going on _Togt_' (_German_, _Tausch_), as thus; he charters two waggons, twelve oxen each, and two Hottentots to each waggon, leader and driver. The waggons he fills with cotton, hardware, &c., &c.-an ambulatory village 'shop',-and goes about fifteen miles a day, on and on, into the far interior, swapping baftas (calico), punjums (loose trowsers), and voerschitz (cotton gownpieces), p.r.o.nounced 'foossy', against oxen and sheep. When all is gone he swaps his waggons against more oxen and a horse, and he and his four 'totties' drive home the spoil; and he has doubled or trebled his venture. _En route_ home, each day they kill a sheep, and eat it _all_. 'What!' says I; 'the whole?'

'Every bit. I always take one leg and the liver for myself, and the totties roast the rest, and melt all the fat and entrails down in an iron pot and eat it with a wooden spoon.' _Je n'en revenais pas_. 'What! the whole leg and liver at one meal?' 'Every bit; ay, and you'd do the same, ma'am, if you were there.' No bread, no salt, no nothing-mutton and water. The old fellow was quite poetic and heroic in describing the joys and perils of Togt. I said I should like to go too; and he bewailed having settled a year ago in a store at Swellendam, 'else he'd ha' fitted up a waggon all nice and snug for me, and shown me what going on togt was like. Nothing like it for the health, ma'am; and beautiful shooting.'

My friend had 700_l._ in gold in a carpet bag, without a lock, lying about on the stoep. 'All right; n.o.body steals money or such like here.

I'm going to pay bills in Capetown.'

Tell my mother that a man would get from 2_l._ to 4_l._ a month wages, with board, lodging, &c., all found, and his wife from 1_l._ 10_s._ to 2_l._ a month and everything found, according to abilities and testimonials. Wages are enormous, and servants at famine price; emigrant s.h.i.+ps are _cleared off_ in three days, and every ragged Irish girl in place somewhere. Four pounds a month, and food for self, husband, and children, is no uncommon pay for a good cook; and after all her cookery may be poor enough. My landlady at Capetown gave that. The housemaid had _only_ 1_l._ 5_s._ a month, but told me herself she had taken 8_l._ in one week in 'tips'. She was an excellent servant. Up country here the wages are less, but the comfort greater, and the chances of 'getting on' much increased. But I believe Algoa Bay or Grahamstown are by far the best fields for new colonists, and (I am a.s.sured) the best climate for lung diseases. The wealthy English merchants of Port Elizabeth (Algoa Bay) pay best. It seems to me, as far as I can learn, that every really _working_ man or woman can thrive here.

My German host at Houw Hoek came out twenty-three years ago, he told me, without a 'h.e.l.ler', and is now the owner of cattle and land and horses to a large amount. But then the Germans work, while the Dutch dawdle and the English drink. 'New wine' is a penny a gla.s.s (half a pint), enough to blow your head off, and 'Cape smoke' (brandy, like vitriol) ninepence a bottle-that is the real calamity. If the Cape had the grape disease as badly as Madeira, it would be the making of the colony.

I received a message from my Malay friends, Abdool Jemaalee and Betsy, anxious to know 'if the Misses had good news of her children, for bad news would make her sick'. Old Betsy and I used to prose about young Abdurrachman and his studies at Mecca, and about my children, with more real heartiness than you can fancy. We were not afraid of boring each other; and pious old Abdool sat and nodded and said, 'May Allah protect them all!' as a refrain;-'Allah, il Allah!'

LETTER IX

Caledon, Feb. 21st.

THIS morning's post brought your packet, and the announcement of an extra mail to-night-so I can send you a P.S. I hear that Capetown has been pestilential, and as hot as Calcutta. It is totally undrained, and the Mozambiquers are beginning to object to acting as scavengers to each separate house. The '_vidanges_' are more barbarous even than in Paris.

Without the south-easter (or 'Cape doctor') they must have fevers, &c.; and though too rough a pract.i.tioner for me, he benefits the general health. Next month the winds abate, but last week an omnibus was blown over on the Rondebosch road, which is the most sheltered spot, and inhabited by Capetown merchants. I have received all the _Sat.u.r.day Reviews_ quite safe, likewise the books, Mendelssohn's letters, and the novel. I have written for my dear Choslullah to fetch me. The Dutch farmers don't know how to charge enough; moreover, the Hottentot drivers get drunk, and for two lone women that is not the thing. I pay my gentle Malay thirty s.h.i.+llings a day, which, for a cart and four and such a jewel of a driver, is not outrageous; and I had better pay that for the few days I wait on the road, than risk bad carts, tipsy Hottentots, and extortionate boers.

This intermediate country between the 'Central African wilderness' and Capetown has been little frequented. I went to the Church Mission School with the English clergyman yesterday. You know I don't believe in every kind of missionaries, but I do believe that, in these districts, kind, judicious English clergymen are of great value. The Dutch pastors still remember the distinction between 'Christenmenschen' and 'Hottentoten'; but the Church Mission Schools teach the Anglican Catechism to every child that will learn, and the congregation is as piebald as Harlequin's jacket. A pretty, coloured lad, about eleven years old, answered my questions in geography with great quickness and some wit. I said, 'Show me the country you belong to.' He pointed to England, and when I laughed, to the cape. 'This is where we are, but that is the country I _belong to_.' I asked him how we were governed, and he answered quite right. 'How is the Cape governed?' 'Oh, we have a Parliament too, and Mr. Silberbauer is the man _we_ send.' Boys and girls of all ages were mixed, but no blacks. I don't think they will learn, except on compulsion, as at Gnadenthal.

I regret to say that Bill's wife has broken his head with a bottle, at the end of the honeymoon. I fear the innovation of being _married at church_ has not had a good effect, and that his neighbours may quote Mr.

Peachum.

I was offered a young lion yesterday, but I hardly think it would be an agreeable addition to the household at Esher.

I hear that Worcester, Paarl, and Stellenbosch are beautiful, and the road very desolate and grand: one mountain pa.s.s takes six hours to cross.

I should not return to Capetown so early, but poor Captain J- has had his leg smashed and amputated, so I must look out for myself in the matter of s.h.i.+ps. Whenever it is hot, I am well, for the heat here is so _light_ and dry. The wind tries me, but we have little here compared to the coast. I hope that the voyage home will do me still more good; but I will not sail till April, so as to arrive in June. May, in the Channel, would not do.

How I wish I could send you the fruit now on my table-amber-coloured grapes, yellow waxen apples streaked with vermillion in fine little lines, huge peaches, and tiny green figs! I must send dear old Klein a little present from England, to show that I don't forget my Dutch adorer.

I wish I could bring you the 'Biltong ' he sent me-beef or bok dried in the sun in strips, and slightly salted; you may carry enough in your pocket to live on for a fortnight, and it is very good as a little 'relish'. The partridges also have been welcome, and we shall eat the tiny haunch of bok to-day.

Mrs. D- is gone to Capetown to get servants (the Scotch girl having carried on her amours too flagrantly), and will return in my cart. S- is still keeping house meanwhile, much perturbed by the placid indolence of the brown girl. The stableman cooks, and very well too. This is colonial life-a series of makes.h.i.+fts and difficulties; but the climate is fine, people feel well and make money, and I think it is not an unhappy life. I have been most fortunate in my abode, and can say, without speaking cynically, that I have found 'my warmest welcome at an inn'.

Mine host is a rough soldier, but the very soul of good nature and good feeling; and his wife is a very nice person-so cheerful, clever, and kindhearted.

I should like to bring home the little Madagascar girl from Rathfelders, or a dear little mulatto who nurses a brown baby here, and is so clean and careful and 'pretty behaved',-but it would be a great risk. The brown babies are ravis.h.i.+ng-so fat and jolly and funny.

One great charm of the people here is, that no one expects money or gifts, and that all civility is gratis. Many a time I finger small coin secretly in my pocket, and refrain from giving it, for fear of spoiling this innocence. I have not once seen a _look_ implying 'backsheesh', and begging is unknown. But the people are reserved and silent, and have not the attractive manners of the darkies of Capetown and the neighbourhood.