Life in South Africa

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Life in South Africa, by Lady (Mary Anne) Barker

By LADY BARKER, AUTHOR OF “STATION LIFE IN NEW ZEALAND,” “STORIES ABOUT,” Etc., Etc.
PHILADELPHIA J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 1877.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
LIFE IN SOUTH AFRICA.
Safe, safe at last, after twenty-four days of nothing but sea and sky, of white-crested waves—which made no secret of their intention of coming on board whenever they could or of tossing the good ship Edinburgh Castle hither and thither like a child’s plaything—and of more deceitful sluggish rolling billows, looking tolerably calm to the unseafaring eye, but containing a vast amount of heaving power beneath their slow, undulating water-hills and valleys. Sometimes sky and sea have been steeped in dazzling haze of golden glare, sometimes brightened to blue of a sapphire depth. Again, a sudden change of wind has driven up serried clouds from the south and east, and all has been gray and cold and restful to eyes wearied with radiance and glitter of sun and sparkling water.
Never has there been such exceptional weather, although the weather of my acquaintance invariably is exceptional. No sooner had the outlines of Madeira melted and blended into the soft darkness of a summer night than we appeared to sail straight into tropic heat and a sluggish vapor, brooding on the water like steam from a giant geyser. This simmering, oily, exhausting temperature carried us close to the line. “What is before us,” we asked each other languidly, “if it be hotter than this? How can mortal man, woman, still less child, endure existence?” Vain alarms! Yet another shift of the light wind, another degree passed, and we are all shivering in winter wraps. The line was crossed in greatcoats and shawls, and the only people whose complexion did not resemble a purple plum were those lucky ones who had strength of mind and steadiness of body to lurch up and down the deck all day enjoying a strange method of movement which they called walking.