South Africa; vol I.

by Anthony Trollope

Here was another English village, but quite of a different class;—and yet picturesque beyond expression. “The” Knysna as the place is called is a large straggling collection of houses which would never be called other than a village in England, but would strike an investigating visitor as a village rising townwards. It is, in a very moderate way, a seaport, and possesses two inns. The post boy with unflinching impartiality refused to say which was the better, and we went to the wrong one,—that which mariners frequented. But such is South African honesty that the landlord at once put us right. He could put us up no doubt;—but Mr. Morgan at the other house could do it better. To Mr. Morgan, therefore, we went, and were told at once that we could have a leg of mutton, potatoes, and cabbages for dinner. “And very glad you ought to be to get them,” said Mrs. Morgan. We assented of course, and every thing was pleasant.

In fifteen minutes we were intimate with everybody in the place, including the magistrate, the parson, and the schoolmaster; and in half an hour we were on horse back,—the schoolmaster accompanying us on the parson’s nag,—in order that we might rush out to the Heads before dark. Away we scampered, galloping through salt water plashes, because the sun was already disappearing. We had just time to do it,—to gallop through the salt water and up the hills and round to the headland, so that we might look down into the lovely bright green tide which was rushing in from the Indian ocean immediately beneath our feet. From where I stood I could have dropped a penny into the sea without touching a rock.

The spot is one of extreme beauty. The sea passes in and out between two rocks 160 yards apart, and is so deep that even at low tide there are 18 feet of water. Where we stood the rocks were precipitous, but on the other side it was so far broken that we were told that bucks when pressed by hounds would descend it, so as to take the water at its foot. This would have seemed to be impossible were it not that stags will learn to do marvellous things in the way of jumping. On our right hand, between us and the shore of the outer Ocean, there was a sloping narrow green sward, hardly broader than a ravine, but still with a sward at its foot, running down to the very marge of the high tide, seeming to touch the water as we looked at it. And beyond, further on the left, there were bright green shrubs the roots of which the sea seemed to wash. A little further out was the inevitable “bar,”—injurious to commerce though adding to the beauty of the spot, for it was marked to us only by the breakers which foamed across it.

The schoolmaster told us much of the eligibility of the harbour. Two men of war,—not probably first-class ironclads, modest little gun boats probably,—had been within the water of the Knysna. And there were always 18 feet of water on the bar because of the great scour occasioned by the narrow outlet, whereas other bars are at certain times left almost waterless. A great trade was done,—in exporting wood. But in truth the entrance to the Knysna is perhaps more picturesque and beautiful than commercially useful. For the former quality I can certainly speak; and as I stood there balancing between the charms of the spot and the coming darkness, aggravated by thoughts which would fly off to the much needed leg of mutton, I felt it to be almost hard that my friend the magistrate should have punctilious scruples as to his duties on Monday morning.

The description given to me as to trade at the Knysna was not altogether encouraging. The people were accustomed to cut wood and send it away to Capetown or Fort Elizabeth, and would do nothing else. And they are a class of Dutch labourers, these hewers of wood, who live a foul unholy life, very little if at all above the Hottentots in civilization. The ravines between the spurs of the mountains which run down to the sea are full of thick timber, and thus has grown up this peculiarity of industry by which the people of the Knysna support themselves. But wood is sometimes a drug,—as I was assured it was at the time of my visit,—and then the people are very badly off indeed. They will do nothing else. The land around will produce anything if some little care be taken as to irrigation. Any amount of vegetables might be grown and sent by boat to Capetown or Algoa Bay. But no! The people have learned to cut wood, and have learned nothing else. And consequently the Knysna is a poor place,—becoming poorer day by day. Such was the description given to us; but to the outward eye everybody seemed to be very happy,—and if the cabbage had been a little more boiled everything would have been perfect. The rough unwashed Dutch woodcutters were no doubt away in their own wretched homes among the spurs of the mountains. We, at any rate, did not see them.

Cutting timber is a good wholesome employment; and if the market be bad to-day it will probably be good to-morrow. And even Dutch woodcutters will become civilized when the schoolmaster gradually makes his way among them. But I did express myself as disappointed when I was told that nothing was ever done to restore the forests as the hill-sides are laid bare by the axe. There will be an end to the wood even on the spurs of the Outiniqua range, if no care be taken to assist the reproduction of nature. The Government of the Cape Colony should look to this, as do the Swiss Cantons and the German Duchies.

The Knysna is singularly English, being, as it is, a component part of a Dutch community, and supported by Dutch labour. I did not hear a Dutch word spoken while I was there,—though our landlady told us that her children played in Dutch or in English, as the case might be. Our schoolmaster was English, and the parson, and the magistrate, and the innkeeper, and the tradesmen of the place who called in during the evening to see the strangers and to talk with the magistrate from distant parts about Kreli and the Kafirs who were then supposed to be nearly subdued. It is a singularly picturesque place, and I left it on the following morning at 5 A.M. with a regret that I should never see the Knysna again.

There was to have been a cart to take us; but the horse had not chosen to be caught, and we walked to the ferry. Then, at the other side, at Belvidere, the wicked eggs would not get themselves boiled for an hour, though breakfast at an appointed time, 6 A.M., had been solemnly promised to us. Everything about the George and the Knysna gratified me much. But here, as elsewhere in South Africa, punctuality is not among the virtues of the people. Six o’clock means seven, or perhaps twenty minutes after seven. If a man promises to be with you at nine, he thinks that he has done pretty well if he comes between ten and eleven. I have frequently been told that a public conveyance would start at four in the morning,—or at five, as it might be,—and then have had to walk about for half an hour before a horse has made its appearance. And it is impossible for a stranger to discount this irregularity, so as to take advantage of it. It requires the experience of a life to ascertain what five o’clock will mean in one place, and what in another. When the traveller is assured that he certainly will be left behind if he be not up an hour before dawn, he will get up, though he knows that it will be in vain. The long minutes that I have passed, during my late travels, out in the grey dawn, regretting the bed from which I have been uselessly torn, have been generally devoted to loud inward assertions that South Africa can never do any good in the world till she learns to be more punctual. But we got our breakfast at Belvidere at last, and returned triumphantly with our four mules to George.

In the neighbourhood of George there is a mission station called Pacaltsdorp, for Hottentots, than which I can imagine nothing to be less efficient for any useful purpose. About 500 of these people live in a village,—or straggling community,—in which they have huts and about an acre of land for each family. There is a church attached to the place with a Minister, but when I visited the place there was no school. The stipend of the minister is paid by some missionary society at home, and it would seem that it is supported chiefly because for many years past it has been supported.

The question has frequently been raised whether the Hottentots are or are not extinct as a people. Before the question can be answered some one must decide what is a Hottentot. There is a race easily recognized throughout South Africa,—found in the greatest numbers in the Western Province of the Cape Colony,—who are at once known by their colour and physiognomy, and whom the new-comer will soon learn to call Hottentots whether they be so or not. They are of a dusty dusky hue, very unlike the shining black of the Kafir or Zulu, and as unlike the well shaded black and white of the so-called “Cape Boy” who has the mixed blood of Portuguese and Negroes in his veins. This man is lantern-jawed, sad-visaged, and mild-eyed,—quite as unlike a Kafir as he is to a European. There can be no doubt but that he is not extinct. But he is probably a bastard Hottentot,—a name which has become common as applied to his race,—and comes of a mingled race half Dutch and half South African.