Untidiness and unsanitary conditions invariably prevail where black races are in the majority, especially so where the percentage is three to one white person; but a pleasant surprise is met with here in this respect, as few cities anywhere surpass Durban in cleanliness, whether composed entirely of white people or a predominating number of blacks. Almost the whole white population is British.
To the east and south, as one comes through a channel from the sea to the harbor, a ridge of land known as the Bluff, thickly verdured with low trees and wild flowers, offers such an inviting setting to a visitor that one forms a favorable opinion of Durban before he has stepped off a ship. That foreground is as green in the winter months as during the summer, for it is summertime in Durban the year round. After having passed through the channel into the bay, the harbor is seen landlocked on one side by the city, and on the other side and end by the evergreen Bluff and more verdure. It is Durban's splendid harbor, reasonable port dues, up-to-date facilities for coaling ships, and splendid docks that has gained for her the title of premier seaport of the South Indian Ocean. Her modern maritime facilities are the result of energy by the Durban business man more than to natural advantages, for the entrance channel had to be dug out and the harbor dredged.
The business houses are built of brick, cement and stone, some of them being seven stories high. The stores are large, of fine appearance, with attractive windows. No place of Durban's size can boast of better buildings or better stores.
One of the largest and best built structures to be found south of the equator is the Durban Town Hall. This building, of brick and cement, is a city block in size and three stories in height. The scope of this hall may be understood when it is mentioned that under its roof is contained a public museum, an art gallery, public library, theater, councilors' chambers, besides offices for the city officials. The building is not only large and imposing, but the architects have succeeded in giving the structure an artistic finish. The Town Hall of to-day should meet the requirements of the Durban Corporation centuries hence, and would be a credit to a city of a million inhabitants.
A good bathing beach and a well-laid-out and well-appointed park do not, as a rule, go together, but one finds this dual comfort at this part of the Indian Ocean. Scattered about the terraced lawn have been built substantial kiosks and pagodas, with thatched roofs, which lend to the surroundings a decidedly Oriental air. These have been provided with comfortable seats, and, with the soft breezes nearly always coming from the Indian Ocean, enviable restfulness is assured to even nervous wrecks. Then stone walls, with alcoves built in to add to the seating capacity of the park, together with flowering vines creeping up and over and then drooping, form a means of shelter and rest, adding more attractiveness to the surroundings. Above the beach and park are splendid hotels, some without doors, and all with wide, inviting verandas.
Sharks—man-eaters—are so numerous along the Natal coast that the bathing enclosure is closely studded with iron rods to prevent the voracious sea beasts from mangling and killing bathers, as would happen were there no means provided to keep the sharks away from the holiday-maker.
The Berea is a residential section of Durban, and for landscape and floral effect is a notable feature. On a range of hills rising several hundred feet, overlooking the business portion of the city and the Indian Ocean, many Durbanites live in broad-verandaed homes, shaded with semi-tropical flowering trees, perpetually blooming plants, vines growing so luxuriantly that the porches, and often the sides, of the houses are shut in by a green and floral portière, as it were. Added to this attractiveness are various species of palms and clusters of giant and Japanese bamboo. Some of the flowered hedges enclosing these building plots are so gorgeous in rich color and shape as to make a Solomon green with envy.
The flambeau tree, indigenous to the Island of Mauritius—"the flower garden tree," it may be termed—is conspicuous on the Berea, both as to numbers and floral beauty. This tree, with fern-shaped leaf, does not grow over twenty-five feet in height, but it is of a spreading nature, its shade in some instances measuring fifty feet across—twice its height. It is in flower about a month, from the middle of December to the middle of January—Junetime south of the equator. The color of the flower is a bright red, as large and the shape of a sewing thimble, and grows in clusters of eight and ten in number. When in bloom, this bright red aerial garden may be seen from a distance of a mile, so the reader can picture what a gorgeous floral effect is displayed when hundreds of these handsome trees are in flower at the same time.
The rosebush seemed to be the only plant of the nature of bush or tree that overrides lines, climates and seas. It is no doubt the most cosmopolitan plant that grows, and is to be seen in about the same beauty and diffuses its fragrance in the same degree in nearly all parts of the world. All the trees seen growing south of the equator appeared foreign to those growing in the United States.
The Christ thorn—said to be the same as the one that pierced the brow of the Savior on Mount Calvary—grows abundantly in Natal. In some instances the bush is used for hedge fences, and when allowed to grow to a height of from two to four feet it makes a spiky obstruction, as the prongs are an inch in length, grow numerous on the stock, little thicker than a knitting needle, and are almost as sharp as a sewing needle. The thorn, which is of a creeping nature, like a grapevine, is more generally used as a border for a flower pot, however. As its name naturally calls up memories of the deep-stained crime of nearly 2,000 years ago, one scrutinizes it closely. The Christ is a flowering thorn, and the flower is red, not larger than a wild strawberry's. These grow in a group from one stem, each cluster numbering from two to ten flowers—always even—two, four, six, eight and ten—never in odd numbers.