April 17th.—The winter has set in to-day. It rains steadily, at the rate of the heaviest bit of the heaviest shower in England, and is as cold as a bad day early in September. One can just sit without a fire. Presently, all will be green and gay; for winter is here the season of flowers, and the heaths will cover the country with a vast Turkey carpet. Already the green is appearing where all was brown yesterday. To-day is Good Friday; and if Christmas seemed odd at Midsummer, Easter in autumn seems positively unnatural. Our Jewish party made their exodus to-day, by the little coasting steamer, to Algoa Bay. I rather condoled with the pretty little woman about her long rough journey, with three babies; but she laughed, and said they had had time to get used to it ever since the days of Moses. All she grieved over was not being able to keep Passover, and she described their domestic ceremonies quite poetically. We heard from our former housemaid, Annie, the other day, announcing her marriage and her sister’s. She wrote such a pretty, merry letter to S—, saying ‘the more she tried not to like him, the better she loved him, and had to say, “Aha, Annie, you’re caught at last.”’ A year and a half is a long time to remain single in this country.
Monday, April 21st, Easter Monday.—The mail goes out in an hour, so I will just add, good-bye. The winter is now fairly set in, and I long to be off. I fear I shall have a desperately cold week or so at first sailing, till we catch the south-east trades. This weather is beautiful in itself, but I feel it from the suddenness of the change. We passed in one night from hot summer to winter, which is like fine English April, or October, only brighter than anything in Europe. There is properly, no autumn or spring here; only hot, dry, brown summer, with its cold wind at times, and fresh green winter, all fragrance and flowers, and much less wind. Mr. M—, of whom I told you, has been in every corner of the far East—Java, Sumatra, everywhere—and is extremely amusing. He has brought his wife here for her health, and is as glad to talk as I am. The conversation of an educated, clever person, is quite a new and delightful sensation to me now. He appears to have held high posts under the East India Company, is learned in Oriental languages, and was last resident at Singapore. He says that no doubt Java is Paradise, it is so lovely, and such a climate; but he does not look as if it had agreed with him. I feel quite heart-sick at seeing these letters go off before me, instead of leaving them behind, as I had hoped.
Well, I must say good-bye—or rather, ‘auf Wiedersehn’—and God knows how glad I shall be when that day comes!
LETTER XIII
Capetown, April 19th.
Dearest Mother,
Here I am, waiting for a ship; the steamer was too horrid: and I look so much to the good to be gained by the voyage that I did not like to throw away the chance of two months at sea at this favourable time of year, and under favourable circumstances; so I made up my mind to see you all a month later. The sea just off the Cape is very, very cold; less so now than in spring, I dare say. The weather to-day is just like very warm April at home—showery, sunshiny, and fragrant; most lovely. It is so odd to see an autumn without dead leaves: only the oaks lose theirs, the old ones drop without turning brown, and the trees bud again at once. The rest put on a darker green dress for winter, and now the flowers will begin. I have got a picture for you of my ‘cart and four’, with sedate Choslullah and dear little Mohammed. The former wants to go with me, ‘anywhere’, as he placidly said, ‘to be the missis’ servant’. What a sensation his thatchlike hat and handsome orange-tawny face would make at Esher! Such a stalwart henchman would be very creditable. I shall grieve to think I shall never see my Malay friends again; they are the only people here who are really interesting. I think they must be like the Turks in manner, as they have all the eastern gentlemanly ‘Gelassenheit’ (ease) and politeness, and no eastern ‘Geschmeidigkeit’ (obsequiousness), and no idea of Baksheesh; withal frugal, industrious, and money-making, to an astonishing degree. The priest is a bit of a proselytiser, and amused me much with an account of how he had converted English girls from their evil courses and made them good Mussulwomen. I never heard a naïf and sincere account of conversions from Christianity before, and I must own it was much milder than the Exeter Hall style.
I have heard a great many expressions of sorrow for the Queen from the Malays, and always with the ‘hope the people will take much care of her, now she is alone’. Of course Prince Albert was only the Queen’s husband to them, and all their feeling is about her. It is very difficult to see anything of them, for they want nothing of you, and expect nothing but dislike and contempt. It would take a long time to make many friends, as they are naturally distrustful. I found that eating or drinking anything, if they offer it, made most way, as they know they are accused of poisoning all Christians indiscriminately. Of course, therefore, they are shy of offering things. I drank tea in the Mosque at the end of Ramadan, and was surrounded by delighted faces as I sipped. The little boy who waits in this house here had followed us, and was horrified: he is still waiting to see the poison work.
No one can conceive what has become of all the ships that usually touch here about this time. I was promised my choice of Green’s and Smith’s, and now only the heavy old Camperdown is expected with rice from Moulmein. A lady now here, who has been Heaven only knows where not, praises Alexandria above all other places, after Suez. Her lungs are bad, and she swears by Suez, which she says is the dreariest and healthiest (for lungs) place in the world. You can’t think how soon one learns to ‘annihilate space’, if not time, in one’s thoughts, by daily reading advertisements for every port in India, America, Australia, &c., &c., and conversing with people who have just come from the ‘ends of the earth’. Meanwhile, I fear I shall have to fly from next winter again, and certainly will go with J— to Egypt, which seems to me like next door.
I have run on, and not thanked you for your letter and M. Mignet’s beautiful éloge of Mr. Hallam, which pleased me greatly. I wish Englishmen could learn to speak with the same good taste and mésure.