With a vessel steaming perhaps nine knots it was therefore necessary to keep as much inshore as could be done with safety. To set a course was not possible; during the daylight hours the ship was steered by the coastline, and when darkness closed in a course was set which ran parallel to the land by the chart, yet caught the current on the port bow, with the result that when daylight came the ship would be thirty miles out, or more, fighting the full strength of an adverse current. The nett result was that passages between East London and Natal were a very uncertain quantity.
I took to this sort of watch-keeping in the daylight very kindly. The coast was mostly like English parkland, and I set myself to learn it as thoroughly as possible; in this I was assisted in every possible manner by the captain, who spared no pains to point out the various places by name. It was interesting work, for it gave one a chance to exercise one’s initiative which was in no way checked by my seniors.
Durban harbour in those days was not the ample port it is now. Under the best conditions there might be perhaps sixteen feet of water on the bar at high tide. It was more often twelve or even less. Outside the bar there were the remains of three attempts to improve the harbour, but each one had been a failure. There was an impression that any of them might have been a success if it had been persevered with, but money had been too scarce to push the experiment to a successful ending. There was, however, one man who even then had made up his mind that Durban should be a port, and he lived long enough to realise his ambition. His name was Harry Escombe, afterwards “Right Honourable.” If Harry Escombe and Cecil Rhodes were alive to-day there would be some backbone in the councils of the Empire. But this is a digression.
There was a good deal of formality about getting the little Natal into the Bluff Channel, a dignified port captain, an oracular pilot, lots of signalling and a final pointing for the bar. Whether we touched or not I cannot remember; most likely we did, for it was a very common occurrence—but anyhow we got in, moored in the Bluff Channel, and looked around us with satisfaction. There was every reason to do so. A beautiful harbour, a hearty welcome from all, and an utter absence of anything approximating to bustle. Further it was the land of the Zulu, who was relied upon to do all the hard work. I suppose that it would be difficult to find finer specimens of muscular humanity than were the Zulus who did the shipwork; their scanty raiment appeared perhaps inadequate to the white ladies who were then making their first acquaintance with the manners and customs of the country, but if modernity has now insisted upon trousers in the towns of Natal, it has destroyed a picturesque side of the national life.
Natal was absolutely different from any other part of South Africa, inasmuch as it was mainly British! In Cape Town you heard as much Dutch spoken as English, if not more. Towns like Stellenbosch or Wellington might be called all Dutch, and I remember when I first visited those places I wondered in a vague sort of way how it happened that the British flag flew over them, by which it is evident that I had not learned my history properly. But in Durban there was a different atmosphere. It was essentially British and the inhabitants prided themselves upon being up to date and live specimens of colonists. They were, moreover, intensely loyal, and fully realised what their country was going to be in the future.
I was sitting in the Durban Club one Sunday afternoon and certain men were arguing as to the possibility of a railway between Durban and Pietermaritzburg, the journey in those days being made by mail cart. Escombe brought the matter to a head with the following words addressed to a sugar planter named Tom Milner, a splendid fellow who had come out with me on the first voyage of the Roman: “Look here, Milner, I will give you a shilling a day until I go by train from Durban to Maritzburg; after that you shall pay my butcher’s bill for life!—is it a bet?” Milner said yes, and this being in 1872 he received his cheque yearly until about eight years later when the railway was built and the bet was compromised. I fancy he paid back two shillings for each one received.
No one walked in Natal. If a man wished to go one hundred yards down the street, the Kaffir boy invariably brought his horse. There was never any difficulty in borrowing a mount. The people were most generous and hospitable; but underlying it all there was the sure knowledge that the great Zulu power in the north would some day have to be reckoned with. There was one little incident that happened about this time that should find a place here, for it shows that even then the minds of Germans were fixed upon the great expansion of their nation. There was a small German trading steamer on the coast called the Bismarck. She was commanded by a very fine fellow named Staats, who wore a magnificent beard. On one occasion he had a difference of opinion with the Point boatmen, who were not quite as bad as the East London men, although very nearly, and they declared they would cut off his beard. Staats, however, set them at defiance, and declared that the German flag was sufficient to prevent such an outrage even then, and would be for all time. The men admired his pluck and cheered him, for it took a bit of doing.
When I left the Roman, Leigh presented me with a suit of canvas clothes which he had found useful. In the daytime I lived in them, for the forehold of the Natal was not a place adapted for the wear of fine raiment. The principal articles we took away were raw hides, sugar and wool, and the smell of those hides was a thing to remember. There was no trouble in getting cargo either stowed or discharged, but an officer had to be there all the time, and in a canvas rig it was possible to sit down. The Zulus would work well if you did not lose your temper, and as they happened to approve of me I never had any trouble with them.
One voyage was much like another, but sailing day at Natal offered considerable variety, for it depended upon the vagaries of the bar. I have known passengers and their friends come down four days in succession and be detained for want of water. Those days, however, usually resulted in a sort of picnic on the bluff—and were most enjoyable. It was a treat to see the way the girls could negotiate the steep slope under the lighthouse, and if the idea was to go up town, there would be a rush for the point, with not too much care exercised as to whose pony you mounted to get there. Upon one occasion we stuck on the bar for over half-an-hour, bumping fairly heavily, but she was a well-built little ship and it did not seem to do much harm; it used to jar the spars a good deal though. On the passage down the coast we would call at the ports, weather permitting and pick up such passengers and cargo as we could, transhipping to the mail steamer in Cape Town Docks.
After a few trips I got some knowledge of the upper part of the coast, and experienced a dislike to being set off miles in the middle watch by the current. I therefore sounded the skipper as to whether he would let me exercise my judgment in keeping her in when I could see well. I found he was agreeable that I should do so, and I used to report to him every hour, and hand the ship over to the chief at 4 a.m. well in shore. This led to a considerable shortening of the passage up the coast; but it told against me in one way, for when I wanted to get home the old man said, “No, the ship has made much better passages up since you’ve been here and I shan’t let you go.” That was a bit hard, for there was a lot of promotion going on at home, new men being taken in as chief, and I out of it all, as was said, for lack of experience.