I next paid a visit to the bishop, who gave me the impression of suffering from a deadly climate, and great despondency as to the prospects of converting the heathen—in fact, he seemed on the point of leaving his flock in this world without the prospect of meeting even one of his black sheep in the next.
In the afternoon Colonel O’C——r returned our visit, and came on board the Harbinger. The nimble manner in which he glided up the ladder of the ship, and presented himself in his white toggery to our gasping selves, was a riddle, the solving of which would have melted our brains in that broiling sun. Had it not been for the gleam that shone now and then from his glazed, brown eye, which was like a parched pea, one might have taken him for an automatic mummy. The same horse-tail I mentioned as having been waved over his head while reclining at home, was now carried by himself; and in answer to a question put to him by young K—— of the 74th, he explained that it was a Mandingo emblem of authority, which had the twofold power of keeping off the flies and keeping the niggers in awe. When, in after-life, I became a Turkish Pasha with two tails, I often used to look up to the sort of barber’s pole on which was appended the same horse-tail token of authority, and think of Colonel O’C——r and the affrighted natives of Sierra Leone.
We now proceeded to St Helena, and visited the residence in which Napoleon died. I was, as we all were, much hurt on finding the neglected state of the building, and of the room in which that great man breathed his last. It was filled with broken agricultural tools and farmyard rubbish; and in the small chamber in which he had described to Montholon how kingdoms were lost and won, cackling poultry were brooding; and that small garden, in which he had spent so many weary hours, trying to dig away the cankering sorrows of his troubled life, was overrun with weeds and scarred with poultry scrabbings.
And so these small, unplastered, half-raftered rooms were the meshes of the net which had held the man-slayer of Europe; and this little plot of ground, scarce larger than a Cockney’s flower-bed, all that remained to him who had given realms away! The contrast was too great. There was something that clashed harshly somewhere, and I could not help thinking that posterity would lay this woful wreck to England’s charge.
CHAPTER III.
ARRIVE AT THE CAPE—VALUABLE ASSISTANCE FROM LOCAL AUTHORITIES—A CORPS OF VOLUNTEERS FORMED—GENERAL SIR HARRY SMITH’S DIFFICULTIES—DAMAGED STATE OF STORES AND AMMUNITION—OBLIGED TO INVENT A MINIE BALL—HAPPY JACK—THE COMPOSITION OF THE CORPS—REFLECTIONS—COLONEL NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN—HIS PRESENT OF A SWORD AND ITS SUBSEQUENT HISTORY IN TURKEY.
We now proceeded in the same pleasant manner on our way to the Cape, and landed there, after what was then thought a rapid passage of thirty-five days. We found the news from the seat of war was full of the excitement of actual strife, which was being carried on as fiercely as ever. Governor Darling, who appeared to me rather diffident as to his powers of doing good in the colony, with the instructions he had from the Home Government, was nevertheless very active in his efforts to help me. Through his assistance I was enabled, within twenty-four hours of landing, to open an enlisting office. He also stirred up the local authorities and the police to second my efforts. These, and many other kind offices of his, for which I never afterwards had the opportunity of thanking him, I here beg to acknowledge. He is gone now, and I may seem very tardy in expressing my gratitude, but perhaps some of the many who loved him may still listen to my thanks.
Sir Harry Smith, for whom I had letters from the Duke of Wellington, in which, amongst other things, he had kindly said that he believed me to be a real soldier—not only had all the resources of Cape Castle and of the commissariat department placed at my disposal, but offered an extra Government bounty of two pounds, besides the two offered by me, for every man that enlisted. Poor Sir Harry! Although a fine soldier of the olden class, equal to almost any act of gallantry that required no further intuition than that inspired by actual contact with the foe, he failed during this war for the same reasons that rendered Lord Chelmsford equally unsuccessful during the last. The dual character of the local Government, it being at the same time civil and military, places serious, almost insurmountable, obstacles, in the way of a commander in the field. On emergencies he is required to consult the wishes and give way to the exigencies of both powers. It would require the capacity and the energy of a Clive or a Stratford to combine, direct, and successfully wield such a power.
In the course of a fortnight upwards of fifty men had joined the corps, and everything promised well for our success; but now difficulties as to the clothing and arming occurred. As the bales were landed from the Harbinger, it was found that the leather jackets for the men had become so shrunk, from the extreme heat in the hold of the ship, that there was no possible means of restoring them to their original shape. The cartridges also had been reduced by water to a mealy pulp, stuck over here and there by pieces of oily white paper like suet in a black pudding. It appeared that the idea of the cartridges being of a highly inflammable nature had pursued the Woolwich authorities so far, that, out of consideration for the safety of the ship and its precious freight, some considerate souls at the dockyard had filled the tin cases, in which the cartridges were packed, with water, and then carefully soldered them down.
An enterprising clothier, named Taylour, undertook to make other jackets of a similar nature to those spoiled; and a most intelligent mechanic (a Mr Rawbone, gunsmith of Cape Town) engaged to replace the Minie bullet by another equally effective.