The population is something over 30,000,—which when we remember that the place is more than two centuries old and that it is the capital of an enormous country, and the seat of the colonial legislature, is not great. Melbourne which is just two hundred years younger than Capetown contains above a quarter of a million of inhabitants. Melbourne was of course made what it is by gold;—but then so have there been diamonds to enhance the growth of Capetown. But the truth, I take it, is that a white working population will not settle itself at any place where it will have to measure itself against coloured labour. A walk through the streets of Capetown is sufficient to show the stranger that he has reached a place not inhabited by white men,—and a very little conversation will show him further that he is not speaking with an English-speaking population. The gentry no doubt are white and speak English. At any rate the members of Parliament do so, and the clergymen, and the editors—for the most part, and the good-looking young ladies;—but they are not the population. He will find that everything about him is done by coloured persons of various races, who among themselves speak a language which I am told the Dutch in Holland will hardly condescend to recognise as their own. Perhaps, as regards labour, the most valuable race is that of the Malays, and these are the descendants of slaves whom the early Dutch settlers introduced from Java. The Malays are so-called Mahommidans, and some are to be seen flaunting about the town in turbans and flowing robes. These, I understand, are allowed so to dress themselves as a privilege in reward for some pious work done,—a journey to Mecca probably. Then there is a Hottentot admixture, a sprinkling of the Guinea-coast negro, and a small but no doubt increasing Kafir element. But all this is leavened and brought into some agreement with European modes of action and thought by the preponderating influence of Dutch blood. So that the people, though idle, are not apathetic as savages, nor quite so indifferent as Orientals. But yet there is so much of the savage and so much of the oriental that the ordinary Englishman does not come out and work among them. Wages are high and living, though the prices of provisions are apt to vary, is not costly. Nor is the climate averse to European labourers, who can generally work without detriment in regions outside the tropics. But forty years ago slave labour was the labour of the country, and the stains, the apathy, the unprofitableness of slave labour still remain. It had a curse about it which fifty years have not been able to remove.
The most striking building in Capetown is the Castle, which lies down close to the sea and which was built by the Dutch,—in mud when they first landed, and in stone afterwards, though not probably as we see it now. It is a low edifice, surrounded by a wall and a ditch, and divided within into two courts in which are kept a small number of British troops. The barracks are without, at a small distance from the walls. In architecture it has nothing to be remarked, and as a defence would be now of no avail whatever. It belongs to the imperial Government, who thus still keep a foot on the soil as though to show that as long as British troops are sent to the Cape whether for colonial or imperial purposes, the place is not to be considered free from imperial interference. Round the coast at Simon’s Bay, which is at the back or eastern side of the little promontory which constitutes the Cape of Good Hope, Great Britain possesses a naval station, and this is another imperial possession and supposed to need imperial troops for its defence. And from this possession of a naval station there arises the fiction that for its need the British troops are retained in South Africa when they have been withdrawn from all our other self-governing Colonies. But we have also a station for ships of war at Sydney, and generally a larger floating force there than at Simon’s Bay. But the protection of our ships at Sydney has not been made an excuse for having British troops in New South Wales. I will, however, recur again to this subject of soldiers in the Colony,—which is one that has to be treated with great delicacy in the presence of South African Colonists.
There was lately a question of selling the Castle to the Colony,—the price named having been, I was told, something over £60,000. If purchased by the municipality it would I think be pulled down. Thus would be lost the most conspicuous relic of the Dutch Government;—but an ugly and almost useless building would be made to give way to better purposes.
About thirty years ago Dr. Gray was appointed the first bishop of Capetown and remained there as bishop till he died,—serving in his Episcopacy over a quarter of a century. He has been succeeded by Bishop Jones, who is now Metropolitan of South Africa to the entire satisfaction of all the members of the Church. Bishop Gray inaugurated the building of a Cathedral, which is a large and serviceable church, containing a proper ecclesiastical throne for the Bishop and a stall for the Dean; but it is not otherwise an imposing building and certainly is anything but beautiful. That erected for the use of the Roman Catholics has been built with better taste. Near to the Cathedral,—behind it, and to be reached by a shady walk which is one of the greatest charms of Capetown, is the Museum, a handsome building standing on your right as you go up from the Cathedral. This is under the care of Mr. Trimen who is well known to the zoologically scientific world as a man specially competent for such work and whose services and society are in high esteem at Capetown. But I did not think much of his African wild beasts. There was a lion and there were two lionesses,—stuffed of course. The stuffing no doubt was all there; but the hair had disappeared, and with the hair all that look of martial ardour which makes such animals agreeable to us. There was, too, a hippopotamus who seemed to be moulting,—if a hippopotamus can moult,—very sad to look at, and a long since deceased elephant, with a ricketty giraffe whose neck was sadly out of joint. I must however do Mr. Trimen the justice to say that when I remarked that his animals seemed to have needed Macassar oil, he acknowledged that they were a “poor lot,” and that it was not by their merits that the Capetown Museum could hope to be remembered. His South African birds and South African butterflies, with a snake or two here and there, were his strong points. I am but a bad sightseer in a museum, being able to detect the deficiencies of a mangy lion, but unable from want of sight and want of education to recognise the wonders of a humming bird. But I saw a hideous vulture, and an eagle, and some buzzards, with a grand albatross or two, all of which were as glossy and natural as glass eyes and well brushed feathers could make them. A skeleton of a boa-constrictor with another skeleton of a little animal just going to be swallowed interested me perhaps more than anything else.
Under the same roof with the Museum is the public library which is of its nature very peculiar and valuable. It would be invidious to say that there are volumes there so rare that one begrudges them to a distant Colony which might be served as well by ordinary editions as by scarce and perhaps unreadable specimens. But such is the feeling which comes up first in the mind of a lover of books when he takes out and handles some of the treasures of Sir George Grey’s gift. For it has to be told that a considerable portion of the Capetown library,—or rather a small separate library itself numbering about 5,000 volumes,—was given to the Colony by that eccentric but most popular and munificent Governor. But why a MS. of Livy, or of Dante, should not be as serviceable at Capetown as in some gentleman’s country house in England it would be hard to say; and the Shakespeare folio of 1623 of which the library possesses a copy,—with a singularly close cut margin,—is no doubt as often looked at, and as much petted and loved and cherished in the capital of South Africa, as it is when in the possession of a British Duke. There is also a wonderful collection in these shelves of the native literature of Africa and New Zealand. Perhaps libraries of greater value have been left by individuals to their country or to special institutions, but I do not remember another instance of a man giving away such a treasure in his lifetime and leaving it where in all human probability he could never see it again.
The remaining, or outer library, contains over thirty thousand volumes, of which about 5,000 were left by a Mr. Dessin more than a hundred years ago to the Dutch Reformed Church in Capetown. These seem to have been buried for many years, and to have been disinterred and brought into use when the present public library was established in 1818. The public are admitted free, and ample comforts are supplied for reading,—such as warmth, seats, tables and a handsome reading-room. A subscription of £1 per annum enables the subscriber to take a set of books home. This seems to us to be a munificent arrangement; but it should always be remembered that at Boston in the United States any inhabitant of the city may take books home from the public library without any deposit and without paying anything. Among all the philanthropical marvels of public libraries that is the most marvellous. I was told that the readers in Capetown are not very numerous. When I visited the place there were but two or three.
A little further up along the same shady avenue, and still on the right hand side is the entrance to the Botanic Gardens. These, I was told, were valuable in a scientific point of view, but were, as regards beauty and arrangement, somewhat deficient, because funds were lacking. There is a Government grant and there are subscriptions, but the Government is stingy,—what Good Government ever was not stingy?—and the subscriptions are slender. I walked round the garden and can imagine that if I were an inhabitant of Capetown and if, as would probably be the case, I made frequent use of that avenue, I might prolong my exercise by a little turn round the garden. But this could only be three times a week unless my means enabled me to subscribe, for on three days the place is shut against the world at large. As a public pleasure ground the Capetown gardens are not remarkable. As I walked up and down this somewhat dreary length I thought of the glory and the beauty and the perfect grace of the gardens at Sydney.
Opposite to the Museum and the Gardens is the Government House in which Sir Bartle Frere with his family had lately come to reside. In many Colonies, nay in most that I have visited, I have heard complaints that Government Houses have been too small. Seeing such hospitality as I have seen in them I could have fancied that Governors, unless with long private purses, must have found them too large. They are always full. At Melbourne, in Victoria, an evil-natured Government has lately built an enormous palace which must ruin any Governor who uses the rooms placed at his disposal. When I was there the pleasant house at Tourac sufficed, and Lord Canterbury, who has now gone from us, was the most genial of hosts and the most sage of potentates. At Capetown the house was larger than Tourac, and yet not palatial. It seemed to me to be all that such a house should be;—but I heard regrets that there were not more rooms. I know no office in which it can be less possible for a man to make money than in administering the government of a constitutional Colony. In a Colony that has no constitution of its own,—in which the Governor really governs,—the thing is very different. In the one there is the salary and the house, and that is all. In a Crown Colony there is no House of Commons to interfere when this and the other little addition is made. We all know what coals and candles mean at home. The constitutional Governor has no coals and candles.
Wherever I go I visit the post-office, feeling certain that I may be able to give a little good advice. Having looked after post-offices for thirty years at home I fancy that I could do very good service among the Colonies if I could have arbitrary power given to me to make what changes I pleased. My advice is always received with attention and respect, and I have generally been able to flatter myself that I have convinced my auditors. But I never knew an instance yet in which any improvement recommended by me was carried out. I have come back a year or two after my first visit and have seen that the things have been just as they were before. I did not therefore say much at Capetown;—but I thought it would have been well if they had not driven the public to buy stamps at a store opposite, seeing that as the Colony pays salaries the persons taking the salaries ought to do the work;—and that it would be well also if they could bring themselves to cease to look at the public as enemies from whom it is necessary that the officials inside should be protected by fortifications in the shape of barred windows and closed walls. Bankers do their work over open counters, knowing that no one would deal with them were they to shut their desks up behind barricades.
But I am bound to say that my letters were sent after me with that despatch and regularity which are the two first and greatest of post-official virtues. And the services in the Colony generally are very well performed, and performed well under great difficulties. The roads are bad, and the distances long, and the transit is necessarily rough. I was taken out to see such a cart as I should have to travel on for many a weary day before I had accomplished my task in South Africa. My spirit groaned within me as I saw it,—and for many a long and weary hour it has since expanded itself with external groanings though not quite on such a cart as I saw then. But the task has been done, and I can speak of the South African cart with gratitude. It is very rough,—very rough indeed for old bones. But it is sure.