VI.
Cape of Good Hope.
Stay from 2nd to 26th October, 1857.
Contrasts of scenery and seasons at Cape Colony. Ramble through Simon's Town.—Malay Population.—The Toad-fish, or Sea-devil.—Rondebosch and its delightful scenery.—Cape Town.—Influence of the English element.—Scientific and other Institutions.—Botanical Gardens.—Useful plants.—Foreign Emigration.—A Caffre prophet and the consequences of his prophecies.—Caffre prisoners in the Armstrong Battery.—Five young Caffres take service as sailors on board the Novara.—Trip into the interior.—Stellenbosch.—Paarl.—Worcester.—Brandvalley.—The Mission of Moravian Brethren at Genaadendal.—Masticatories and intoxicating substances used by the Hottentots.—Caledon.—Somerset West.—Zandvliet.—Tomb of a Malay Prophet.—Horse Sickness.—Tsetse-fly.—Vineyards of Constantia.—Féte champêtre in honour of the Novara.—Excursion to the actual Cape of Good Hope.—Departure.—A life saved.—Experiments with Brook's deep-sea sounding apparatus.—Arrival at the Island of St. Paul in the South Indian Ocean.
There can scarcely be a landscape more gloomy and desolate than the sterile, rocky mountains, and white sandy plains, which, like snow-fields, inclose Simon's Bay. Coming from the charming coast of Brazil, with its luxuriant verdure, the contrast becomes doubly unpleasing. A narrow green strip of land, running along from a small fort, forms a refreshing sight and a resting point for the eye fatigued with looking at these grim masses of stone. The traveller who merely touches at Simon's Bay without pushing into the interior, or who visits the Cape in the winter of the southern hemisphere (from April to September), can scarcely form an idea of the voluptuous loveliness which reigns during spring and summer in the interior of the colony, and will regard as fictitious those brilliant descriptions of its natural beauties, related by travellers who have been fortunate enough to visit this point of South Africa at those genial seasons.
Had we left the Cape without seeing anything else than the melancholy neighbourhood of False Bay and the dull little settlement of Simon's Town, on its left bank, we should have carried away very different impressions and ideas to those entertained after having during spring passed some weeks in the delightful interior, and obtained at the same time an insight into the social condition of the colony.
On the very day that we cast anchor in the bay, we took a stroll (our first footfall upon the soil of Africa) through Simon's Town, which consists of a single street of about forty clean, neat, and tidy-looking houses, straggling along the shore. The principal buildings are the Arsenal, the residence of the admiral of the station, five churches (one of which belongs to Roman Catholics), and two tolerably large hotels.
It is hardly possible to conceive any town occupying a more dreary dismal site, with the exception, perhaps, of some of the Peruvian settlements on the west coast of South America. While the eye, below this row of houses, beholds nothing but granite rocks thickly strewn with shells, the main street is overhung by steep sandstone rocks, which, despite the marvellous richness of the blooming flowers, that well repay the researches of the naturalist, have a naked gloomy aspect, viewed from a distance, and are environed right and left by waste patches of white sand.
The favourite walks of this small place seem to be along the shore, or on the road to Cape Town, into the soft sand of which the foot of the traveller is continually sinking. A number of ladies and gentlemen whom we met walking appeared to be somewhat surprised at the unusual appearance of an Austrian man-of-war, the flag of which was gaily fluttering in the gloomy bay. The residents in Simon's Town, amounting to about 800 souls, are mostly Malays, descendants of those numerous compulsory emigrants, who, during the period of Dutch ascendency at the Cape, had been transported from Java and other islands of the Indian Archipelago, owing to the want of labour or for political causes. For the Dutch used to send to the Cape Colony, as a place of banishment, many wealthy and influential Malay families, by whom the first germs of Mohammedanism were introduced into South Africa. It would even seem that the religious opinions of the Malay population exercise some influence on the habits of the Christian settlers of Simon's Town, as no butcher, for instance, would venture to kill and sell pigs for fear of giving offence to his Mohammedan customers.
On a fine spring morning we started in a handsome vehicle from Simon's Bay to Cape Town. The road runs close along the seashore, which, seen from a distance, apparently consists of nothing but sand and rock, but, on more near acquaintance, exhibits at various points delightful nooks decked with most beautiful flowers. Everything indicated, by its glorious blooming garment, the bursting forth of spring.