I am looking forward to next month and the following ones to make some little excursions into the country, or to go “trekking,” as the local expression is. I hear on all sides how much that is interesting lies a little way beyond the reach of a ride, but it is difficult for the mistress—who is at the same time the general servant—of an establishment out here to get away from home for even a few days, especially when there is a couple of small children to be left behind. No one travels now who can possibly help it, for the sudden violent rains which come down nearly every afternoon swell the rivers and make even the spruits impassable; so a traveler may be detained for days within a few miles of his destination. Now, in winter the roads will be hard, and dust will be the only inconvenience. At least, that is what I am promised.
PART VI.
Maritzburg, March 5, 1876.
I don’t think I like a climate which produces a thunderstorm every afternoon. One disadvantage of this electric excitement is that I hardly ever get out for a walk or drive. All day it is burning hot: if there is a breath of air, it is sultry, and adds to the oppression of the atmosphere instead of refreshing it. Then about midday great fleecy banks of cloud begin to steal up behind the ridge of hills to the south-west. Gradually they creep round the horizon, stretching their soft gray folds farther and farther to every point of the compass, until they have shrouded the dazzling blue sky and dropped a cool, filmy veil of mist between the sun’s fierce, steady blaze and the baked earth below. That is always my nervous moment. F—— declares I am exactly like an old hen with her chickens; and I acknowledge that I should like to cluck and call everything and everybody into shelter and safety. If little G—— is out on his pony alone, as is generally the case—for he returns from school early in the afternoon—and I think of the great open veldt, the rough, broken track and the treacherous swamp, what wonder is it that I cannot rest in-doors, but am always making bareheaded expeditions every five minutes to the brow of the hill to see if I can discern the tiny figure tearing along the open, with its floating white puggery streaming behind? The pony may safely be trusted not to loiter, for horse and cow, bird and beast, know what that rapidly-darkening shadow means, and what sudden death lurks within those patches of inky clouds, from which a deep and rolling murmur comes from time to time. I am uneasy even if F—— has not returned, for the little river, the noisy Umsindusi, thinks nothing of suddenly spreading itself far and wide over its banks, turning the low-lying ground into a lake for miles.
It is true that this may only last for a few hours, or even moments, but five minutes is quite enough to do a great deal of mischief when a river is rising at the rate of two feet a minute—mischief not only to human beings, but to bridges, roads and drains, as well as plantations and fields. Yet that tropical downpour, where the clouds let loose the imprisoned moisture suddenly in solid sheets of water instead of by the more slow and civilized method of drops, is a relief to my mind, for there are worse possibilities than a wet jacket behind those lurid, low-hanging vapors. There are hailstorms, like one yesterday morning which rattled on the red tile roof like a discharge of musketry, and with nearly as damaging an effect, for several tiles were broken and tumbled down, leaving melancholy gaps, like missing teeth, in the eaves. There are thunderbolts, which strike the tallest trees, leaving them in an instant gaunt and bare and shriveled, as though centuries had suddenly passed over their green and waving heads. There are flashes of lightning which dart through a verandah or room, and leave every living thing in it struck down dead—peals of thunder which seem to shake the very earth to its centre. There are all these meteorological possibilities—nay, probabilities—following fast upon a burning, hot, still morning; and what wonder is it that I am anxious and nervous until everybody belonging to me is under shelter, though shelter can only be from the driving rain or tearing gusts of wind? No wall or window, no bolt or bar, can keep out the dazzling death which swoops down in a violet glare and snatches its victims anywhere and everywhere. A Kafir washerman, talking yesterday morning to his employer in her verandah, was in the act of saying, “I will be sure to come to-morrow,” when he fell forward on his face, dead from a blinding flash out of a passing thundercloud. An old settler, a little way upcountry, was reading prayers to his household the other night, and in a second half the little kneeling circle were struck dead alongside of the patriarchal reader—dead on their knees. Two young men were playing a game of billiards quietly enough: one was leaning forward to make a stroke when there came a crash and a crackle, and he dropped dead with his cue in his hand. The local papers are full every day of a long list of casualties, but it is not from these sources I have drawn the preceding examples: I only chanced to hear them yesterday, and they all happened quite close by.
As for cattle or trees being killed, that is an every-day occurrence in summer, and even a hailstorm, so long as it does not utterly bombard the town and leave the houses roofless and open to wind and weather, is not thought anything of. The hail-shower of yesterday, though, bombarded my creepers and reduced them to a pitiful state in five minutes. So soon as it was possible to venture outside the house, F—— called me to see the ruin of leaf and bud which strewed the cemented floor of the verandah. It is difficult to describe, and still more difficult to believe, the state to which the foliage had been reduced. On the weather side of the house every leaf was torn off, and not only torn, but riddled through and through as though by a charge of swan-shot. All my young rose-shoots, climbing so swiftly up to the roof of the verandah, were snapped off and stripped of their tender leaves and pretty buds. The honeysuckles’ luxuriant foliage was all gone, lying in a wet, forlorn mass of beaten green leaves around each pillar, and there was not a leaf left on the vines. But a much more serious trouble came out of that storm. Though it has passed with the passing fury of wind and rain, still, it will always leave a feeling of insecurity in my mind during similar outbursts. The great hailstones were forced by the driving wind in immense quantities beneath the tiles, and deposited on the rude planking which, painted white, forms the ceiling. This planking has the boards wide apart, so it is not difficult to see that so soon as the warmth of the house melted the hailstones—that is, in five minutes—the water trickled down as through a sieve. It was not to be dealt with like an ordinary leak: it was here, there and everywhere, on sofas and chairs, beds and writing-tables; and the moment the sun shone out again, bright and hot as ever, the contents of the house had to be turned out of doors to dry. Drying meant, however, warping of writing-tables, and in fact of all woodwork, and fading of chintzes, beneath the broiling glare of a midday sun. Such are a few of the difficulties of existence in South Africa—difficulties, however, which must be met and got over as best they may, and laughed at once they are past and over, as I am really doing in spite of my affectation of grumbling.
A very pleasant adventure came to us the other evening, however, through one of these sudden thunderstorms. Imagine a little tea-table, with straw chairs all around it, standing in the verandah. A fair and pleasant view lies before us of green rises and still greener hollows, with dark dots of plantations from which peep red roofs or white gables. Beyond, again, lies Maritzburg under the lee of higher hills, which cast a deeper shadow over the picturesque little town. We are six in all, and four horses are being led up and down by Kafir grooms, for their riders have come out for a breath of air after a long, burning day of semi-tropical heat, and also for a cup of tea and a chat. We were exactly even, three ladies and three gentlemen; and we grumbled at the weather and complained of our servants according to the usual style of South-African conversation.
Presently, some one said, “It’s much cooler now.”