CHAPTER XIV.
GOOD-BYE TO DURBAN.
NORAH and her father left their patients sound asleep, after luncheon, and went out to Umgeni on the top of an electric tram—seeing Kaffirs innumerable, in gala Sunday dress, and, at the end of the long run, the shallow, winding river that seems to be always cutting for itself new channels among its mud-flats. A long bridge crosses it; they stood there, watching the bare-footed native boys who strolled through the river rather than trouble to climb up to the bridge.
“So much more sensible!” said Norah, envying them openly.
They found a hotel with a big garden sloping down to the river, and little tables with basket-chairs scattered about it. Two were in the shade of a big clump of bamboo; and there they had tea, and watched the queer, cosmopolitan crowd that filled the place—travellers, passengers from all the ships lying at the Point, soldiers and sailors, and the youth and beauty of Durban itself, out for the afternoon. The Indian waiters flitted about, busy and noiseless. There were long-legged birds in the garden, walking with ridiculous solemnity near the river-bank; and a big wire-netted house that held innumerable pigeons—exquisitely marked birds, whose cooing filled the air. Plants and flowers grew there which they had never seen; and there was a tree with tiny red-and-black seeds like jewels.
They strolled further up the winding road, and came to Umgeni village itself, where almost every coloured race seemed to nourish together. The deep bush grew on both sides of it, right up to the straggling street. All the people were out in front of their houses.
“Aren’t they the nicest children!” Norah uttered.
They were everywhere—cheery babies just able to crawl; mites of two or three in bright scraps of clothing; and bigger children who played their own solemn games without paying much attention to the strangers. One ridiculous person of perhaps four years came strutting down the middle of the street after his mother, his small form framed in a gigantic yellow umbrella, which he held open behind him. The best of all, they found in a patch of grass under a tree—half a dozen mothers with tiny babies, who tumbled about in every direction.
“Could I photograph them, do you think?” Norah asked.
“I don’t suppose they would mind,” her father replied. “We’ll ask them.”