Officers of the Royal Navy may occasionally get the opportunity afforded the Prince, of attending an elephant hunt. From the neighbourhood of the Cape itself the biggest of beasts has long retired; but three hundred miles up the coast, at Featherbed Bay, where there is a settlement, it is still possible to enjoy some sport.
To leave the port or town of Knysna—where, by-the-by, the Duke was entertained at a great feed of South African oysters—was found to be difficult and perilous. The entrance to the harbour is very fine; a high cliff comes down sheer to the sea on one side, while on the other there is an angular bluff, with a cave through it. As the Petrel steamed out, a large group of the ladies of the district waved their handkerchiefs, and the elephant-hunters cheered. It was now evident, from the appearance of the bar, that the Petrel had not come out a moment too soon. A heavy sea of rollers extended nearly the whole way across the mouth of the harbour, and broke into a long thundering crest of foam, leaving only one small space on the western side clear of actual surf. For this opening the Petrel steered; but even there the swell was so great that the vessel reared and pitched fearfully, and touched the bottom as she dipped astern into the deep trough of the sea. The slightest accident to the rudder, and nothing short of a miracle could have saved them from going on to the rocks, where a tremendous surf was breaking. Providentially, she got out safely, and soon the party was transferred to the Racoon, which returned to Simon’s Bay.
THE “GALATEA” PASSING KNYSNA HEADS.
On his return from the elephant hunt, the Prince gave a parting ball. A capital ballroom, 135 feet long by 44 wide, was improvised out of an open boat-house by a party of blue-jackets, who, by means of ships’ lanterns, flags, arms arranged as ornaments, and beautiful ferns and flowers, effected a transformation as wonderful as anything recorded in the “Arabian Nights,” the crowning feature of the decorations being the head of one of the elephants from the Knysna, surmounting an arch of evergreens. Most of the visitors had to come all the way from Cape Town, and during the afternoon were to be seen flocking along the sands in vehicles of every description, many being conveyed to Simon’s Town a part of the distance in a navy steam-tender or the Galatea’s steam-launch. The ball was, of course, a grand success.
This not being a history of Cape Colony, but rather of what the sailor will find at or near its ports and harbours, the writer is relieved from any necessity of treating on past or present troubles with the Boers or the natives. Of course, everything was tinted couleur de rose at the Prince’s visit, albeit at that very time the colony was in a bad way, with over speculation among the commercial classes, a cattle plague, disease among sheep, and a grape-disease. Mr. Frederick Boyle, whose recent work on the Diamond-fields has been already quoted, and who had to leave a steamer short of coal at Saldanha Bay, seventy or eighty miles from Cape Town, and proceed by a rather expensive route, presents a picture far from gratifying of some of the districts through which he passed. At Saldanha Bay agriculture gave such poor returns that it did not even pay to export produce to the Cape. The settlers exist, but can hardly be said to live. They have plenty of cattle and sheep, sufficient maize and corn, but little money. Mr. Boyle describes the homestead of a Boer substantially as follows:—
Reaching the home of a farmer named Vasson, he found himself in the midst of a scene quite patriarchal. All the plain before the house was white with sheep and lambs, drinking at the “dam” or in long troughs. The dam is an indispensable institution in a country where springs are scarce, and where a river is a prodigy. It is the new settler’s first work, even before erecting his house, to find a hollow space, and dam it up, so as to make a reservoir. He then proceeds to make the best sun-dried bricks he can, and to erect his cottage, usually of two, and rarely more than three, rooms. Not unfrequently, there is a garden, hardly worthy of the name, where a few potatoes and onions are raised. The farmers, more especially the Dutch, are “the heaviest and largest in the world.” At an early age their drowsy habits and copious feeding run them into flesh. “Three times a day the family gorges itself upon lumps of mutton, fried in the tallowy fat of the sheep’s tail, or else—their only change of diet—upon the tasteless fricadel—kneaded balls of meat and onions, likewise swimming in grease. Very few vegetables they have, and those are rarely used. Brown bread they make, but scarcely touch it. Fancy existing from birth to death upon mutton scraps, half boiled, half fried, in tallow! So doth the Boer. It is not eating, but devouring, with him. And fancy the existence! always alone with one’s father, mother, brothers, and sisters; of whom not one can do more than write his name, scarce one can read, not one has heard of any event in history, nor dreamed of such [pg 210]existing things as art or science, or poetry, or aught that pertains to civilisation.” An unpleasant picture, truly, and one to which there are many exceptions. It was doubtful whether Mr. Vasson could read. His farm was several thousand acres. The ancient law of Cape Colony gave the settler 3,000 morgen—something more than 6,000 acres. He was not obliged to take so much, but, whatever the size of his farm might be, it must be circular in shape; and as the circumference of a property could only touch the adjoining grants it follows that there were immense corners or tracts of land left waste between. Clever and ambitious farmers, in these later days, have been silently absorbing said corners into their estates, greatly increasing their size.
The Cape cannot be recommended to the notice of poor emigrants, but to capitalists it offers splendid inducements. Mr. Irons, in his work on the Cape and Natal settlements,[120] cites several actual cases, showing the profits on capital invested in sheep-farming. In one case £1,250 realised, in about three years, £2,860, which includes the sale of the wool. A second statement gives the profits on an outlay of £2,225, after seven years. It amounts to over £8,000. Rents in the towns are low; beef and mutton do not exceed fourpence per pound, while bread, made largely from imported flour, is a shilling and upwards per four-pound loaf.
So many sailors have made for the Diamond-fields, since their discovery, from the Cape, Port Elizabeth, or Natal, and so many more will do the same, as any new deposit is found, that it will not be out of place here to give the facts concerning them. In 1871, when Mr. Boyle visited them, the ride up cost from £12 to £16, with additional expenses for meals, &c. Of course, a majority of the 50,000 men who have been congregated at times at the various fields could not and did not afford this; but it is a tramp of 750 miles from Cape Town, or 450 from Port Elizabeth or Natal. From the Cape, a railway, for about sixty miles, eases some of the distance. On the journey up, which reads very like Western experiences in America, two of three mules were twenty-six hours and a half in harness, and covered 110 miles! South Africa requires a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, one would think. Mr. Boyle also saw another way by which the colonist may become rapidly wealthy—in ostrich-farming. Broods, purchased for £5 to £9, in three years gain their full plumages, and yield in feathers £4 to £6 per annum. They become quite tame, are not delicate to rear, and are easily managed. And they also met the down coaches from the fields, on one of which a young fellow—almost a boy—had no less than 235 carats with him. At last they reached Pniel (“a camp”), a place which once held 5,000 workers and delvers, and in November, 1872, was reduced to a few hundred, like the deserted diggings in California and Australia. It had, however, yielded largely for a time.
The words, “Here be diamonds,” are to be found inscribed on an old mission-map of a part of the Colony, of the date of 1750, or thereabouts. In 1867, a trader up country, near Hope Town, saw the children of a Boer playing with some pebbles, picked up along the banks of the Orange River. An ostrich-hunter named O’Reilly was present, and the pair of them were struck with the appearance of one of the stones, and they tried it on glass, scratching the sash all over. A bargain was soon struck: O’Reilly was to take it to Cape Town; and there Sir P. E. Wodehouse soon gave him £500 for it. Then came an [pg 211]excitement, of course. In 1869, a Hottentot shepherd, named Swartzboy, brought to a country store a gem of 83½ carats. The shopman, in his master’s absence, did not like to risk the £200 worth of goods demanded. Swartzboy passed on to the farm of one Niekirk, where he asked, and eventually got, £400. Niekirk sold it for £12,000 the same day! Now, of course, the excitement became a fevered frenzy.