After our party were seated in the port boat, an extraordinary looking individual, with a profusion of red locks oh his head, making one quite warm to look at him, presented me with a small note, requesting that “His Excellency would settle that small account before he left the harbour.” On opening the note, I found it was a formal document demanding the small amount of three pounds, five shillings, for the use of the small boat which had taken us up the creek on the previous day, after getting out of the port boat. This, of course, I refused to pay, especially as I had given what I considered a sufficient amount to the two men who had rowed us up the creek. I found the stranger was called “Daft Jemmy,” and that he obtained a living in this manner by imposing upon all persons arriving at Port Natal. I informed him that I had no intention of paying for a boat twice, and told the port boat to shove off. Nothing daunted, “Daft Jemmy” hailed the coxswain to “accept any amount which ‘His Excellency’ might think proper to offer, on account, as no doubt he would settle the balance next time he came to Natal.”
We crossed the bar in safety; reached the “Hermes;” and I closed my dispatches for England, and wrote to the Admiral and Mr. Frere, urging them to send all the disposable steam force up the Mozambique Channel for the purpose of seizing vessels carrying on the slave trade in those waters. These matters being finished, Captain Gordon started in chase of the “Minnetonka,” now supposed to be about loading her cargo of slaves.
CHAPTER VII.
Present State of Natal—Physical Formation—Succession of Terraces—Products most suitable for Each—Labour Required for Natal—Development and Prosperity of Free Labour Colonies—The Destruction of the Slave Trade—Climate of Natal—“Shall we Retain our Colonies?”
While the “Hermes” is steaming away to the Northward in search of the “Minnetonka,” we purpose giving to the reader a short statement of the present condition of the Colony of Natal.
A history of Natal has already been written by the Rev. Mr. Holden, which, combined with Five Lectures on Natal by the Hon. Henry Cloete, LL.D., the celebrated Recorder of Natal, and the perusal of “Ten Weeks in Natal” by Bishop Colenso, will give those anxious to obtain definite information relative to the origin, rise, and rapid progress of this colony, a very fair insight into its state previous to the era of self-government. It is hoped that the following statement, together with the observations contained in the last chapter relative to the harbour of Port Natal, may be acceptable to those seeking information relative to the colony up to the present date.
The British Colony of Natal, situated on the south-east coast of Africa, extends from latitude 29° 16′ to latitude 31° 34′ south; or, speaking more definitely, from the mouth of the river Omzinyat, or Fisher’s River, to that of the Umzimkulu, which latter river divides it from the rich district of Kaffraria. It will thus be seen that it has a coast line of 150 miles, washed by the Indian Ocean, and along which the gulf stream runs to the south west, at a velocity of from one and a-half to four miles per hour. From the coast it extends into the country a distance of eighty miles to the Quathlamba Mountains, which divide it from the neighbouring Boer Settlement, culled the Orange Free State. It has an area of 18,000 square miles, or about one-third of that of England and Wales. Viewed, as to its territorial extent, with other colonies of Great Britain, it holds a very insignificant position; but its physical formation is such that, small though it may be, it is capable of producing the luxuriant vegetation of the tropics in close proximity with that of the more temperate climate of Europe;—forming a bijou in South Eastern Africa, which must have a considerable effect in civilizing the natives of the surrounding territories.
The variety in the soil and climate of this interesting and truly valuable possession of Great Britain is caused by the country rising rapidly from the Indian Ocean in a succession of four steps or terraces, each having an average width of twenty miles, with its own peculiarity of soil and climate.