My German host at Houw Hoek came out twenty-three years ago, he told me, without a ‘heller’, and is now the owner of cattle and land and horses to a large amount. But then the Germans work, while the Dutch dawdle and the English drink. ‘New wine’ is a penny a glass (half a pint), enough to blow your head off, and ‘Cape smoke’ (brandy, like vitriol) ninepence a bottle—that is the real calamity. If the Cape had the grape disease as badly as Madeira, it would be the making of the colony.
I received a message from my Malay friends, Abdool Jemaalee and Betsy, anxious to know ‘if the Misses had good news of her children, for bad news would make her sick’. Old Betsy and I used to prose about young Abdurrachman and his studies at Mecca, and about my children, with more real heartiness than you can fancy. We were not afraid of boring each other; and pious old Abdool sat and nodded and said, ‘May Allah protect them all!’ as a refrain;—‘Allah, il Allah!’
LETTER IX
Caledon, Feb. 21st.
This morning’s post brought your packet, and the announcement of an extra mail to-night—so I can send you a P.S. I hear that Capetown has been pestilential, and as hot as Calcutta. It is totally undrained, and the Mozambiquers are beginning to object to acting as scavengers to each separate house. The ‘vidanges’ are more barbarous even than in Paris. Without the south-easter (or ‘Cape doctor’) they must have fevers, &c.; and though too rough a practitioner for me, he benefits the general health. Next month the winds abate, but last week an omnibus was blown over on the Rondebosch road, which is the most sheltered spot, and inhabited by Capetown merchants. I have received all the Saturday Reviews quite safe, likewise the books, Mendelssohn’s letters, and the novel. I have written for my dear Choslullah to fetch me. The Dutch farmers don’t know how to charge enough; moreover, the Hottentot drivers get drunk, and for two lone women that is not the thing. I pay my gentle Malay thirty shillings a day, which, for a cart and four and such a jewel of a driver, is not outrageous; and I had better pay that for the few days I wait on the road, than risk bad carts, tipsy Hottentots, and extortionate boers.
This intermediate country between the ‘Central African wilderness’ and Capetown has been little frequented. I went to the Church Mission School with the English clergyman yesterday. You know I don’t believe in every kind of missionaries, but I do believe that, in these districts, kind, judicious English clergymen are of great value. The Dutch pastors still remember the distinction between ‘Christenmenschen’ and ‘Hottentoten’; but the Church Mission Schools teach the Anglican Catechism to every child that will learn, and the congregation is as piebald as Harlequin’s jacket. A pretty, coloured lad, about eleven years old, answered my questions in geography with great quickness and some wit. I said, ‘Show me the country you belong to.’ He pointed to England, and when I laughed, to the cape. ‘This is where we are, but that is the country I belong to.’ I asked him how we were governed, and he answered quite right. ‘How is the Cape governed?’ ‘Oh, we have a Parliament too, and Mr. Silberbauer is the man we send.’ Boys and girls of all ages were mixed, but no blacks. I don’t think they will learn, except on compulsion, as at Gnadenthal.
I regret to say that Bill’s wife has broken his head with a bottle, at the end of the honeymoon. I fear the innovation of being married at church has not had a good effect, and that his neighbours may quote Mr. Peachum.
I was offered a young lion yesterday, but I hardly think it would be an agreeable addition to the household at Esher.
I hear that Worcester, Paarl, and Stellenbosch are beautiful, and the road very desolate and grand: one mountain pass takes six hours to cross. I should not return to Capetown so early, but poor Captain J— has had his leg smashed and amputated, so I must look out for myself in the matter of ships. Whenever it is hot, I am well, for the heat here is so light and dry. The wind tries me, but we have little here compared to the coast. I hope that the voyage home will do me still more good; but I will not sail till April, so as to arrive in June. May, in the Channel, would not do.
How I wish I could send you the fruit now on my table—amber-coloured grapes, yellow waxen apples streaked with vermillion in fine little lines, huge peaches, and tiny green figs! I must send dear old Klein a little present from England, to show that I don’t forget my Dutch adorer. I wish I could bring you the ‘Biltong ‘ he sent me—beef or bok dried in the sun in strips, and slightly salted; you may carry enough in your pocket to live on for a fortnight, and it is very good as a little ‘relish’. The partridges also have been welcome, and we shall eat the tiny haunch of bok to-day.