Once on board I had plenty of interesting matters to think about. I had brought down from the front several wild animals and birds, which I intended for the Zoological Gardens at home. Amongst others, a springbok, which Mr Mitchell, then director of the Gardens in Regents Park, informed me was the first of that species of antelope that had been seen alive in England.
I also had several birds equally rare, and monkeys, besides sacks of roots, bulbs, and herbs, the spoils of African glades, with which I intended to adorn my own little garden at home.
When all things had been safely stowed away, and night was drawing on, I went to the taffrail, and looking over, thought of the land now sinking in the distance. It is a glorious spot that Cape, which Vasco de Gama called of Good Hope, while he thought of the wonders it contained, as yet unseen by the white man. And so it is still to all those who seek a future for our race: that mighty continent which Grant has lately strode over, and Livingstone claimed for us by there laying down his life. The entire continent must, in my opinion, be yet spread open to us through the Cape of Good Hope.
When I proposed to the Hon. R. C—— the noble task of pioneering the way, I felt that we then stood at the real starting-point. It is useless to seek a passage by wading through the oceans of sandy deserts in effete Northern Africa, when the explorer may recruit his strength, and start almost every day with renewed life, from the fertile unexhausted Cape.
Of settled life there is already a strong and valuable nucleus. Both Dutch and English present as fine specimens of our common Protestantism, and are as enthusiastic lovers of constitutional rights, as are to be found anywhere. The fault hitherto impeding their useful amalgamation has been the forcing process employed by the Home Government.
The annexation of the Transvaal has been a most immature and ill-devised proceeding. However good the wished-for object may be in itself, the end can never justify violence; and the ten thousand Dutch Boers, born and bred with the same prevalent ideas as existed during the Puritan times at home, cannot, by a stroke of the pen, be brought into allegiance to the British Crown. The native population are slowly disappearing, like dark clouds at sunrise. The advent of the white man dispels all visions of the land ever returning to the blindness and horrors of a barbarian sway. Let those who dream of admixture of races look to the difficulties at home, and hold their peace.
CHAPTER XIV.
ST HELENA—ASCENSION—MONKEYISH PRANKS IN THE “HORSE” LATITUDES—YOUNG BEN’S FATE—AN IRISH WAKE ON THE LINE—NARROW ESCAPE—THE MAURITIUS STEAMSHIP—OCEAN VISITORS—A WESTERLY GALE—SIGHT THE WHITE CLIFFS OF BRIGHTON—SALUTE THE NATIVE SOIL—A GREEDY MOUTHFUL—A DARK IMPRESSION—DIRECT ATTENTION OF GOVERNMENT TO NEGLECTED STATE OF NAPOLEON’S LATE RESIDENCE IN ST HELENA—OBTAIN REPLY IN 1855—DESIRE TO OBTAIN ACTIVE MILITARY EMPLOYMENT—DELAYS OF THE HORSE GUARDS AUTHORITIES—MY RECEPTION THERE.
We had a fine passage as far as St Helena. The Arethusa was a fast sailer and a good sea boat, although rather crank at times under the press of canvas we sometimes induced our good-natured Captain B—— to clap on her lofty spars; in fact she was overmasted, and required all that nice attention as to trimming that a top-heavy belle of the seas must have not to show too much of her keel.
From St Helena we sailed towards Ascension, noted for its turtle. The island itself is a dull, brown spot lying in the sea, its cracked surface looking like a burnt egg-shell. This place was discovered by Jan de Noves, a Portuguese navigator, on Ascension Day, 1501—hence its name—at least so I was told by a whitey-brown native who boarded us.