Letters from the Cape by Lucy Duff Gordon (ereader with dictionary txt) 📕

while her husband made baskets of cane, and carried them hundreds of miles for sale; sleeping and eating in Caffre huts. 'Yes, they are good, honest people, and very well-bred (anstandig), though they go as naked as God made them. The girls are pretty and very delicate (fein), and they think no harm of it, the dear innocents.' If their cattle strayed, it was always brought back; and they received every sort of kindness. 'Yes, madam, it is shocking how people here treat the blacks. They call quite an old man 'Boy', and speak so scornfully, and yet the blacks have very nice manners, I assure you.' When I looked at the poor little wizened, pale, sickly Berliner, and fancied him a guest in a Caffre hut, it seemed an odd picture. But he spoke as coolly of his long, lonely journeys as possible, and seemed to think black friends quite as good as white ones. The use of the words anstandig and fein by a woman who spoke very good German were characteristic. She could recognise an 'Anstandigkeit' not of Berlin. I need not say that the Germans are generally liked by the coloured people. Choslullah was astonished and Pleased at my talking German; he evidently had a preference for Germans, and put up, wherever he could, at German inns and 'publics'.

I went on to bid Mrs. Wodehouse good-bye. We talked of our dear old Cornish friends. The Governor and Mrs. Wodehouse have been very kind to me. I dined there twice; last time, with all the dear good Walkers. I missed seeing the opening of the colonial parliament by a mistake about a ticket, which I am sorry for.

If I could have dreamed of waiting here so long, I would have run up to Algoa Bay or East London by sea, and had a glimpse of Caffreland. Capetown makes me very languid--there is something depressing in the air--but my cough is much better. I can't walk here without feeling knocked-up; and cab-hire is so dear; and somehow, nothing is worth while, when one is waiting from day to day. So I have spent more money than when I was most amused, in being bored.

Mr. J- drove me to the Capetown races, at Green Point, on Friday. As races, they were nichts, but a queer-looking little Cape farmer's horse, ridden by a Hottentot, beat the English crack racer, ridden by a first-rate English jockey, in an unaccountable way, twice over. The Malays are passionately fond of horse-racing, and the crowd was fully half Malay: there were dozens of carts crowded with the bright-eyed women, in petticoats of every most brilliant colour, white muslin jackets, and gold daggers in their great coils of shining black hair. All most 'anstandig', as they always are. Their pleasure is driving about en famille; the men have no separate amusements. Every spare corner in the cart is filled by the little soft round faces of the intelligent-looking quiet children, who seem amused and happy, and never make a noise or have the fidgets. I cannot make out why they are so well behaved. It favours A-'s theory of the expediency of utter spoiling, for one never hears any educational process going on. Tiny Mohammed never spoke but when he was spoken to, and was always happy and alert. I observed that his uncle spoke to him like a grown man, and never ordered him about, or rebuked him in the least. I like to go up the hill and meet the black women coming home in troops from the washing place, most of them with a fat black baby hanging to their backs asleep, and a few rather older trotting alongside, and if small, holding on by the mother's gown. She, poor soul, carries a bundle on her head, which few men could lift. If I admire the babies, the poor women are enchanted;--du reste, if you look at blacks of any age or sex, they MUST grin and nod, as a good-natured dog must wag his tail; they can't help it. The blacks here (except a very few Caffres) are from the Mozambique--a short, thick-set, ugly race, with wool in huge masses; but here and there one sees a very pretty face among the women. The men are beyond belief hideous. There are all possible crosses--Dutch, Mozambique, Hottentot and English, 'alles durcheinander'; then here and there you see that a Chinese or a Bengalee a passe par la. The Malays are also a mixed race, like the Turks--i.e. they marry women of all sorts and colours, provided they will embrace Islam. A very nice old fellow who waits here occasionally is married to an Englishwoman, ci-devant lady's-maid to a Governor's wife. I fancy, too, they brought some Chinese blood with them from Java. I think the population of Capetown must be the most motley crew in the world.

Thursday, May 8th.--I sail on Saturday, and go on board to-morrow, so as not to be hurried off in the early fog. How glad I am to be 'homeward bound' at last, I cannot say. I am very well, and have every prospect of a pleasant voyage. We are sure to be well found, as the Attorney-General is on board, and is a very great man, 'inspiring terror and respect' here.

S- says we certainly SHALL put in at St. Helena, so make up your minds not to see me till I don't know when. She has been on board fitting up the cabin to-day. I have SUCH a rug for J-! a mosaic of skins as fine as marqueterie, done by Damara women, and really beautiful; and a sheep-skin blanket for you, the essence of warmth and softness. I shall sleep in mine, and dream of African hill- sides wrapt in a 'Veld combas'. The poor little water-tortoises have been killed by drought, and I can't get any, but I have the two of my own catching for M-.

Good-bye, dearest mother.

You would have been moved by poor old Abdool Jemaalee's solemn benediction when I took leave to-day. He accompanied it with a gross of oranges and lemons.


LETTER XV


Capetown, Thursday, May 8th.

At last, after no end of 'casus' and 'discrimina rerum', I shall sail on Saturday the 10th, per ship Camperdown, for East India Docks.

These weary six weeks have cost no end of money and temper. I have been eating my heart out at the delay, but it was utterly impossible to go by any of the Indian ships. They say there have never been so few ships sailing from the Cape as this year, yet crowds were expected on account of the Exhibition. The Attorney- General goes by our ship, so we are sure of good usage; and I hear he is very agreeable. I have the best cabin next to the stern cabin, in both senses of NEXT. S- has come back from the ship, where she has spent the day with the carpenter; and I am to go on board to-morrow. Will you ask R- to cause inquiries to be made among the Mollahs of Cairo for a Hadji, by name Abdool Rachman, the son of Abdool Jemaalee, of Capetown, and, if possible, to get the inclosed letter sent him? The poor people are in sad anxiety for their son, of whom they have not heard for four months, and that from an old letter. Henry will thus have a part of all the blessings which were solemnly invoked on me by poor old Abdool, who is getting very infirm, but toddled up and cracked his old fingers over my head, and invoked the protection of Allah with all form; besides that Betsy sent me twelve dozen oranges and lemons. Abdool Rachman is about twenty-six, a Malay of Capetown, speaks Dutch and English, and is supposed to be studying theology at Cairo. The letter is written by the prettiest Malay girl in Capetown.

I won't enter upon my longings to be home again, and to see you all. I must now see to my last commissions and things, and send this to go by next mail.

God bless you all, and kiss my darlings, all three.


LETTER XVI


Friday, May 16th.

On board the good ship Camperdown, 500 miles North-west of Table- Bay.

I embarked this day week, and found a good airy cabin, and all very comfortable. Next day I got the carpenter's services, by being on board before all the rest, and relashed and cleeted everything, which the 'Timmerman', of course, had left so as to get adrift the first breeze. At two o'clock the Attorney-General, Mr. Porter, came on board, escorted by bands of music and all the volunteers of Capetown, quorum pars maxima fuit; i.e. Colonel. It was quite what the Yankees call an 'ovation'. The ship was all decked with flags, and altogether there was le diable a quatre. The consequence was, that three signals went adrift in the scuffle; and when a Frenchman signalled us, we had to pass for brutaux Anglais, because we could not reply. I found means to supply the deficiency by the lining of that very ancient anonymous cloak, which did the red, while a bandanna handkerchief of the Captain's furnished the yellow, to the sailmaker's immense amusement. On him I bestowed the blue outside of the cloak for a pair of dungaree trowsers, and in signalling now it is, 'up go 2.41, and my lady's cloak, which is 7.'

We have had lovely weather, and on Sunday such a glorious farewell sight of Table Mountain and my dear old Hottentot Hills, and of Kaap Goed Hoop itself. There was little enough wind till yesterday, when a fair southerly breeze sprang up, and we are rolling along merrily; and the fat old Camperdown DOES roll like an honest old 'wholesome' tub as she is. It is quite a bonne fortune for me to have been forced to wait for her, for we have had a wonderful spell of fine weather, and the ship is the ne plus ultra of comfort. We are only twelve first-class upper-deck passengers. The captain is a delightful fellow, with a very charming young wife. There is only one child (a great comfort), a capital cook, and universal civility and quietness. It is like a private house compared to a railway hotel. Six of the passengers are invalids, more or less. Mr. Porter, over-worked, going home for health to Ireland; two men, both with delicate chests, and one poor young fellow from Capetown in a consumption, who, I fear, will not outlive the voyage. The doctor is very civil, and very kind to the sick; but I stick to the cook, and am quite greedy over the good fare, after the atrocious food of the Cape. Said cook is a Portuguese, a distinguished artist, and a great bird-fancier. One can wander all over the ship here, instead of being a prisoner on the poop; and I even have paid my footing on the forecastle. S- clambers up like a lively youngster. You may fancy what the weather is, that I have only closed my cabin-window once during half of a very damp night; but no one else is so airy. The little goat was as rejoiced to be afloat again as her mistress, and is a regular pet on board, with the run of