Chapter Nineteen.
One of the most interesting objects in Port E— is the Donkin Memorial, a pyramidal monument erected on the first ledge of the hill by Sir Thomas Donkin to the memory of his wife Elizabeth, who died off this point on ship-board while on her way from India, and after whom the town is named.
A signal station is built by the side of the brick pyramid, and the fine open stretch of green turf which surrounds it and overlooks the sea forms a pleasant promenade at all seasons of the year. There are several well-edited newspapers, the Herald being the most enterprising and the leading one, excelling in matter and printing any of the Cape Town journals, excepting the Cape Times, edited by the genial and popular Mr Murray. Although Port Elizabeth has not the fine harbour and docks of Cape Town or the beautiful suburban surroundings, still a more energetic spirit exists in the business community, and the style of entertaining is on a far more liberal scale than in the latter place.
As in most South African towns, a place is set aside for the black people at the upper end of the town.
There they live, coming down to the stores and beach in the morning, and returning to their respective kraals at night. Several tribes are represented among them, and they form separate kraals, keeping themselves as distinct as though they were of a different species, although it would trouble most people to tell the difference between a Gaika and a Fingo, or a Zulu.
The Fingoes, who have in all the Kafir wars been the white man’s ally, are cordially hated by the other Kafirs, who fight with them continually. The quarrel on one occasion during the latter part of our stay assumed such a threatening aspect that the town was alarmed for the consequences. For nearly a week not a Kafir came to the town, and it was rumoured that the Gaikas had grievously routed the Fingoes and were preparing to make a night raid on the town to massacre the inhabitants. It was at a time when the whole country was disturbed, there being two or three tribes at war with the colonists on the eastern borders. The report was then easily credited, and every available measure was taken for the protection of the inhabitants and to prevent surprise, the local volunteer corps being under arms for several days.
One Sunday night we in the town could hear them singing their peculiar war chant, and such wonderful precision have they in time that the mighty chorus from the thousands of voices came down to us like the beating of a great heart. The effect of their deep melodious voices, as they rolled out on the moonlit midnight air in a great wave of sound, was weird and fearsome to a degree. We could not tell whether their fury might not rise to such a pitch as to send them rushing down upon us like naked fiends, yelling, stabbing, and spearing. But they seemed to be satisfied with a little bloodshed among themselves, and the Gaikas and Fingoes, after a few days, resumed their work on the beach and in the store side by side.
But the alarm brought home to the colonists the danger existing in their midst. The black population outnumbers the white throughout the colony by almost six to one. In the town it is quite three to one, and a general uprising under an intelligent head could not but result in the total annihilation of every white face in the country. The colonists never seem to think such a contingency likely, relying on the internal dissensions between the different tribes and the moral force the white man seems to possess over the untutored black man.
After remaining in Port Elizabeth seven months, we held a family conclave and came to the conclusion that we did not wish to leave the country until we had tried the climate of the Orange Free State, which we had heard lauded to the skies. So we bade adieu to Port Elizabeth, thinking it a very pleasant place to visit, and taking a parting look at the sea, we were whirled away to Grahamstown. From here we left by railroad for Cradock, a town some sixty miles east. Like Grahamstown, Cradock is the centre of a large wool-gathering district, and is laid out in boulevards and watered streets. It is situated on the Great Fish River, over which there is a fine stone bridge. It is at least forty feet above the surface of the water, which, at the time of our visit, flowed slowly between its arches in a sluggish stream, some fifty feet wide. Several years ago, after heavy rains up country, the river became suddenly so fierce, rapid, and swollen that the whole structure, solid as it was, was swept away by the first wave, which is described as advancing, with little or no warning, like a solid wall of water, fifty feet high. There is a Dutch Reformed Church, a well-built Town Hall, and a few houses and stores, with a population of three to four thousand inhabitants.
We had experienced so many discomforts in our previous journeys by coach that we resolved here to have no more of it. So we provided ourselves with a comfortable and roomy Cape cart and four strong horses to make the journey up country, and we were prepared for once to take things easy. When travelling by coach one has no alternative between pressing right on, or waiting over in a dreary village for a week, until the next coach passes through. But with your own cart you can do as you like, going or staying, as pleases the fancy.
Passing some of the villages we had been through by coach, in a few days we had reached the Orange Free State, more frequently called simply “Free State.” Our introduction to this thinly populated upland region was not calculated to put us in the best of humours, either with the country or our tired selves. We remained long enough to find out there were many things of interest about it. The Free State is embraced within the boundaries of the Vaal and Orange Rivers, and was first settled by the Dutch farmers, who had emigrated from the Cape Colony; the farms are very large, and by no means all occupied.
About nine o’clock one night we stopped to give our horses a rest at a miserable house built of mud bricks. On either side of the door was a small window, in one of which was a sputtering candle. The house was occupied by Dutch people, but as it did not look sufficiently inviting to tempt me out of my seat even for a change, some coffee was brought out by a daughter of the family; a girl of sixteen. In the moonlight her face was very pleasing, and on asking her a question she answered in such pure English that we asked where she learned to speak so correctly. She replied that she had learned at the English school in Bloemfontein, called the “Home,” belonging to the Church of England. She was so bright and chatty, yet modest withal, and her surroundings so wretched and uninviting, that I thought the educational institutions of B— must be something superior to those usually found in the colony, which, on further knowledge, proved to be true.
When we reached the brow of the hill overlooking the town of Bloemfontein, we saw with pleasure, under the bright moonlight, the town filled with fine trees and gardens. As we drove through we passed large buildings of both church and state which would not be excelled in any town of the United States of double the size.
