My baggage, by the kind and civil attention of the Custom-house officers, was transferred from one brig to the other without the usual and laborious ordeal of landing. My new things arrived from London, and in a few days we were summoned to embark. It was daybreak, and the brig was floating in dock ready for the gates to be opened. We were soon on board; I had taken a little shore-boat to row me the few yards across. After paying my outfit, my bill at the inn, passage, insurance of baggage, etc., the last remains of my money was half a crown. “There,” says I, “my friend!” “Lord, sir, my fare is only threepence.” “Keep it,” says I, “and drink the health of a man banished from his native land.” The fellow stared at me at first as if looking at a convict. At last, in that manner so peculiarly English, he made up his mind, “He must be a gentleman.” “I’ll drink to your Honour’s health, depend on it, and success attend you wherever you go.” My friend and his boat were the farewell to my native land. It was then January, 1829; this is 1844, and I have never been home since.
CHAPTER XXXII.
VOYAGE TO THE CAPE—MILITARY DUTIES AND SPORT, 1829-1834—SIR BENJAMIN D’URBAN SUCCEEDS SIR LOWRY COLE AS GOVERNOR OF THE COLONY.
The stormy element, as if to atone for the violence with which it treated us on our voyage from Nassau, now behaved most moderately. We had a strong breeze across the Bay of Biscay, but as it was abaft the beam we did not feel it, and our whole passage was one of fine and moderate weather. This was very fortunate, as the brig was so heavily laden, that at the beginning of the voyage her main chains were positively under water. We were well found in everything, and had the whole after-cabin to ourselves. The captain was an able navigator, both nautical and astronomical. He gave me a list of his stock on board, and requested me to manage dinner, etc., saying, “There is, I think, plenty, so that if we live badly you will be to blame; but the brig is deep and no great sailer at any time, so calculate on a three months’ passage, to make sure.”
The captain was a most excellent and kind-hearted man, a regular British tar. During the war he had been in the Navy, and prided himself on having been the coxswain of Captain Seymour on a frigate whose name I forget. “Lord, Sir,” he would say, “he was a proper taut hand, but a real gentleman.”
During the whole voyage our captain, who had a studious turn for mathematics and astronomy, was always hard at work, and highly delighted to explain the methods of his nautical calculations. He would exclaim, “Oh! if I had been so lucky as to have had a real education, I think I should have made a mathematician and astronomer.” He was a large powerful man, and had a forehead as clear and as prominent as that of Dr. Chalmers.
Our voyage was more fortunate than the captain had anticipated, and in eleven weeks we anchored in Table Bay. I had never been at the Cape before, but I had heard much of it from part of my Corps which touched there years before [March, 1807] on their way to Buenos Ayres, and as I had read every book about it which I could lay my hands on, I was scarcely in a foreign land. As soon as I landed, I found that the Governor, my old and noble General, Sir Lowry Cole, was not at Government House, but residing in the country. I then went to look for my dear old friend John Bell and his noble wife, Lady Catherine. They were in an excellent house of their own, and as rejoiced to see me as I was to see them. John and My Lady would hear of nothing but our putting up with them, Johnny saying, “Harry, you and I and Juana have fared more sparingly together than we will now.” The carriage was ordered, and John and I went on board to bring the wife ashore, all delighted at our happy union after an absence of years.
Next day John and I drove out in his buggy to breakfast with the Governor. He and Lady Frances, that noble and accomplished woman, were delighted to see me, but oh, how she was altered! When I first knew her in 1815, a few days after her marriage, she was in the prime of life, a full-blown beautiful woman, and the most interesting I ever knew. As soon, however, as my old recollection of her was somewhat subdued, I found her ladyship everything I had a right to expect, the mother of six beautiful children, whose education she conducted herself, and my gallant General all kindness and hospitality.