Barrow, in his description of the ascent, which he made in the charming company of the Barnards, talks of the view from the top: 'All the objects on the plain below are, in fact, dwindled away to the eye of the spectator into littleness and insignificance. The flat-roofed houses of Cape Town, disposed into formal clumps, appear like those paper fabrics which children are accustomed to make with cards. The shrubbery on the sandy isthmus looks like dots, and the farms and their enclosures as so many lines, and the more-finished parts of a plan drawn on paper.'
But we crossed the flat top and came to the Wynberg side: saw the country, neatly mapped as Barrow says, bathed in sunshine. My guide has been a sailor, and has travelled round the world, but here he says: 'Here is the best view in the world!' and he went off to examine more rain gauges.
It is a wonderful thing to be utterly alone with the earth and the sun; to become a hill Pantheist, but to realize why, in a hot stone church, one can get up and sing that the Sun, the Moon, the Air, the Mountains, and the Earth may bless and praise the Lord.
CHAPTER IX
ROUND THE LION'S HEAD AND THE VICTORIA ROAD
Sea Point lies, white-roofed and aloe-hedged, under the sanctified Lion's Head Mountain; sanctified, because of a great white cross scarred into the bare rock by a nation to whom crosses and scars were almost inseparable. Da Gama's gigantic cross on the Lion's Head is one of the many to be found round the coast; but here begins and ends every trace of Portuguese possession or atmosphere in the Cape Peninsula.
ON THE VICTORIA ROAD, NEAR OUDE KRAAL
Old Sea Point savours of ancient Dutch régime, but is hedged in on every side, hidden, almost lost, by Cape Town Commerce chez eux. But along the Beach Road, running from the old Downs, or Common, to the Queen's Hotel, are houses with names which are historical: flat-roofed, whitewashed houses, with high stoeps and stucco fountains, syringa-trees, cactus plants, and hedges of flaming red aloes behind their white garden walls; old-fashioned gardens with box and myrtle hedges, lichens and gaudy mesembryanthemums crawling like giant starfish over the walls. Edging the road and hiding the beach from travellers are thick hedges of kei-apple, a prickly red berry, and of a low shrub whose leaves furnished correct food for the imported French snails, whose descendants are purely a pest and have no justification. But the French-lavender hedges and pink Huguenot roses can still say 'Bonjour' to the snails. It is the only French word any of them remember; it is prettier than the 'Dag,' which the prickly-pear, gorgeous with orange and carmine flower, grunts across the road to the hedge of wax berries; it is prettier, too, than the 'Morgen,' which is the large white 'Frau Karl Druschki's' morning greeting; just a little daintier than 'Saka bona,' from the purple jacaranda and scarlet kaffir-boom; but far, far more charming than the chorus of 'Hullo! hullo!' from the cheerful English trees and plants in this white-walled garden. And then there is the sea—not the wind-swept sea of False Bay, but a cosmopolitan sea; a highroad, where ships of many flags sail past the rocks, bound for the world.
In one white-roofed house lived a man on whose importance hung the beginning of a nation. The resolution in favour of responsible government had been passed by the Lower House of Parliament. The decision now rested with the Council. To be a member, the qualification meant possessing property to the value of some thousand pounds over and above mortgages. The member whose vote turned the balance was in such bad circumstances, that even if the mortgaged white house at Sea Point was sold he would not be qualified for this momentous voting. His friends, filled with national and patriotic zeal, rushed out to Sea Point: 'Have you, then, nothing of any value?' they cried. 'Yes; I will show you something which might be of some value. I was once in Turkey and of service to the Sultan.' He produced from a deep-shelved Dutch cupboard with brass fittings, then of little account, a small gold case, filigree-worked, and inside a snuff-box sparkling with diamonds, rubies and emeralds. 'Given by the Sultan,' said he of the important vote. Nothing more, just this soupçon of adventure. Responsible government was carried on a snuff-box.