10th.—I went to the fish market, a square-walled enclosure near the Old Jetty. The scene was curious and animated; Malays, Hottentots, Bushmen, and queer-looking people of all sorts, ages, and tribes, dressed out in their gayest colours, and grinning like so many monkeys, were all huddled together selling or buying fish. Cartloads of the most enormous craw-fish lay on the ground, crawling about and fighting each other; and on the ground near to them were heaps of silver-fish, and quantities of Cape salmon, and fish without scales, with long thin bodies and pointed heads, which were sold for one penny each,—good when salted and smoked; and there were also a number of queer-looking fish, of all sorts and sizes, with unpronounceable names. The porters who attend the market carry the fish away in baskets slung to each end of a long pole balanced on the shoulder;—and such creatures as these porters are! I bought a gielbeck or yellow beak, for which I paid twopence; the palate of the gielbeck is yellow, whence its name. A Malay porter carried it to the house on a stick through its gills, for which his pay was also twopence,—a great price for a very short distance, compared with the price of the fish, which was a very large one. One day I met a Bush-boy dragging off a fish as long as himself; he had a great stick over his shoulder, the end of which was passed through one of the gills of the fish, whilst the tail of the creature swept the ground. The high cheek-boned little black monster laughed and grinned as I could not repress an exclamation at his exceeding and picturesque ugliness.
16th.—The year, they tell me, is divided into two parts, the dry and the wet,—nine months of dry weather, and three months of rain; June, July, and August being the cold and rainy months. This day, the 16th of May, it is very cold, and may be reckoned a winter month; the thermometer in my bed-room at noon 58°. Since my arrival on the 26th April we have had daily showers, and some few days of rain; still, between the heavy showers the sun bursts forth, and a walk is delightful.
At breakfast-time a gentleman related to me an extraordinary history respecting slavery at the Cape; the particulars are as follow:—“The ‘Cleopatra’ has seized a Brazilian vessel—the ‘Progresso;’ she is a slaver. The ‘Cleopatra’ has taken from her thirteen prisoners and forty-eight slaves; with these people she has arrived at Pappendosh, a place near Cape Town, where the slaves have been landed; the rest of the slaves will follow in the ‘Progresso:’ she has not come in at present; she was taken in the Mozambique Channel. The slaves will now be examined and classed according to their ages,—the age is arbitrarily settled. They generally arrive branded; and as without some distinguishing mark they cannot be known, it is supposed those who may happen to have no mark will be branded by the authorities at the Cape. Blank indentures are to be drawn out, in which the age of the slave, his marks, &c., will be shown forth. The slaves are generally young, and they, supposing the age to be about ten years, will be bound to the purchaser of the indenture until the age of twenty-one; these indentures are to be sold by auction on the Parade at Cape Town to the highest bidder. The slaves who may be more aged are to be bound for a certain term of years to the person who buys them, so that their slavery may be the same with those of earlier years. These proceedings are under the authority of the Government; the motive is to conciliate the Dutch, who are generally the purchasers of the slaves.”
As the English hold forth that they abolish slavery, these proceedings appear curious, and I will go, if possible, to see the slaves sold on the parade. Although we do not originally capture the slaves we capture the vessels when carrying them away, take them into the Cape, and sell them for our own profit for a certain term of years to the highest bidder at public auction. It is mentioned in the indentures that the slaves are to be brought up in the Christian religion. It is said the slaves generally have no religion at all, and their masters leave them in utter ignorance.
The Table Mountain is to me a source of constant enjoyment; I delight in its varied appearance: at times a dense white vapour is spread over it,—when that passes away, the deep clear ultramarine blue of the sky, covered with bright clouds, forms a background to the dark mountain, whilst, every now and then, a stormy grey cloud passes over all, and gives a beautiful effect of light and shade.
I roamed the other day up the mountain by the side of the torrent, the bed of which is filled with large stones, over which the stream gurgles and runs with velocity. Hundreds of women and some few men were all employed washing clothes by beating them upon the stones in the stream: some of the women, with their infants tied upon their backs, were washing away, and the whole side of the mountain was covered with linen drying on the grass. How many of the groups would have formed an admirable picture, in spite of the ugliness of these Malay and Hottentot animals! They ask four shillings and sixpence, or three and sixpence a dozen for washing clothes, but will generally take two shillings and sixpence, including large and small. For the ship passengers they wash very badly; for people resident in Cape Town they wash well.
We accompanied a gentleman and his family up the mountain under the Devil’s Peak; he was going to teach his boys to fire at a target. They produced a great heavy old pair of flint pistols, and with these they amused themselves. I was enrolled amongst the Tyros; the two gentlemen were the best shots,—I took rank as the third; my success charmed me, although I was afraid of the pistol,—the crazy old weapon was so heavy I could scarcely take aim. A few evenings afterwards a pretty young French lady accompanied the party, and fired remarkably true.
25th.—The sun during the day is very powerful; it does not answer in these latitudes to expose one’s self to its rays during the noontide heat. At 4 P.M. we went on the mountain to practise pistol-shooting; we found that after sunset there was scarcely any twilight, and warned by the very cold, sharp exhalations from the wet ground, we quitted the spot quickly, but not before we had all taken cold.
June 11th.—The thermometer in my room at noon 53°, the air sharp and very cold. Rambled up Table Mountain, beyond the mill, from which place the narrow pathway is surrounded by flowers, even at this early season. I gathered great branches of what is called in England the Duke of York’s geranium; it was not in flower, but the scent of the leaves was delicious; it grew there most luxuriantly; when in blossom the flower is lilac and white. The purple and white prickly heath, and the white heath, were abundant; the deep orange-coloured aromatic azalia, the bossistroph or honey-plant, the fine white arum, and the tall slender Ixia, with its pendant crimson and graceful blossom, and its small bulb, which shot up every here and there, delighted me with their beauty. These plants, cultivated with so much care in England, were growing wild in every direction surrounding the little stony sheep-path I was ascending.
They say mechanics use the oil from the tip of the tail of the Cape sheep for their machinery, and that it does not become foul in the works. Five pounds’ weight of the tips of the tails of the sheep costs two shillings and sixpence, and produces two quarts and a half of fine clear oil, after having been melted over the fire and strained through a flannel bag. Animals in southern Africa appear to run to tail: see the enormous size of the tail of the sheep into which all the fat of the body appears to be collected: see the pretty mousehunt (a sort of fox), the Hottentot women in Cape Town, and the Bushwomen; all these have the beauty of the Hottentot Venus. Some of the Malays, both men and women, are handsome: the Africanders are too universally well known to need description.