A Year's Housekeeping in South Africa ... With illustrations

Letter XIV. An Expedition Into The Bush

307 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS To face WITCH DOCTORS (From a Photograph by Staunton) Front. "* " langalibalei.e" xg "roM" 66 SIR GARNET gQ INDUNA AND FAMILY ON THE " TREK " I2[ A KAFIR DANDY . ,0 HEAD-DRESS OF A W1TCHFINDER , »g WITCHFINDER DETECTING A THIEF ,g- SUNDAY AT EDENDALE ,„-. A YEAR'S HOUSEKEEPING IN SOUTH AFRICA.

Letter I

, CAPE TOWN. October 1 6, 1S75. Safe, — safe at last, after twenty-three days of nothing but sea and sky, of white-crested waves, which made no secret of their intention of coming on board when ever they could, or of tossing the good ship Edinburgh Castle hither and thither, like a child's plaything — and of more deceitful, sluggish, rolling billows, looking tolerably calm to the unseafaring eye, but containing a vast amount of heaving power beneath their slow, undulating water-hills and valleys. Sometimes sky and sea have been steeped in dazzling haze of golden glare ; sometimes brightened to blue of a sapphire depth. Again, a sudden change of wind has driven up serried clouds from the south and east, and all has been grey and cold and restful to eyes wearied with radiance and glitter of sun and sparkling water * B %, scar's poasibtping [

Letter 2

Never has there been such exceptional weather (although the weather of my acquaintance invariably is exceptional). No sooner had the outlines of Madeira melted and blended into the soft darkness of a summer night, than we appeared to sail straight away into tropic heat with a sluggish vapour brooding on the water like steam from a giant geyser. This simmering, oily, exhausting temperature carried us close to the line. " What is before us ? " we asked each other, languidly. " If it be hotter than this, how can mortal man, woman, still less child, endure their existence ? " Vain alarms. Yet another shift of the light wind, another degree passed, and we are all shivering in winter wraps. The line was crossed in great coats and shawls, and that exceptional weather pursued us right into the very dock.

Table Mountain ought to be seen, and very often is seen, seventy miles away. I am told it looks a fine bold bluff at that distance. Yesterday we had blown off our last pound of steam, and were safe under its lee before one could tell there was a mountain there at all ; still less an almost per pendicular cliff more than 3,000 feet high. Robben Island looked like a dun-coloured hillock as we shot past it within a short distance, and a more forlorn and discouraging islet I don't think I have ever beheld. When I expressed something of this im pression to a cheery fellowvoyager, he could only urge in its defence that there were a great many rabbits on it. If he had thrown the lighthouse into in Snuifr %ititk. 3 the bargain I think he would have summed up all its attractive features. And now for the land.

We are close alongside of the wharf, and still a capital and faithful copy of a Scotch mist wraps houses and trees and sloping up lands in a filmy, fantastic veil, and the cold drizzle seems to curdle the spirits and energies of the few listless Malays and half-caste boys and men who are lounging about. Here come hansom cabs rattling up one after the other, all with black drivers in gay and fantastic head gear ; but their hearts are precisely as the hearts of their London brethren, and they single out new comers at a glance, and shout offers to drive them a hundred yards or so for ex orbitant sums, or yell laudatory recommendations of sundry hotels. The hansoms seem to be all painted white, with the name of some ship in bright letters on the side, and are a great deal cleaner, roomier, and more comfortable than their London "forbears."

The horses are small and shabby, but rattle along at a good pace, and soon each cab has its load of happy home-comers, and swings rapidly away to make room for fresh arrivals hurrying up for fares. Hospitable suggestions come pouring in, and it is as though it were altogether a new experience when one steps cautiously on the land, half expecting it to dip away playfully from under one's feet. A little boy puts my thoughts into words, he exclaiming, " How steady the ground is ! " and becomes a still more faithful interpreter of a wave-worn voyager's sensa- B % star's Ponseke£ptng [letter 4 tions when, a couple of hours later, he demands permission to get out of his delicious little white bed that he may have the pleasure of getting into it over again ! The evening closes in cold and raw, and the new picture is all blurred and soft and indistinct, and nothing seems plain except the kindly grace of our welcome and the never-before-sufficiently-appreciated delights of space and silence.

October 17. How pleasant is the process familiarly known as " looking about one," especially when performed under exceptionally favourable circumstances ! A long day commenced with a stroll through the Botanic Gardens, parallel with which runs, on one side, a splendid oak avenue, just now in all the vivid freshness of its young spring foliage. The Gardens are beautifully kept, and are valuable as affording a sort of experimental nursery, in which new plants and trees can be brought up on trial, and their adaptability to the soil and climate ascertained. The flora of the Cape Colony is exceptionally varied and beautiful; one peculiarity, incidentally alluded to by my charming guide, struck me as very notice able : it is that in this dry climate and porous soil all the efforts of uncultivated nature are devoted to the stems of the vegetation.

On their sap-retaining power depends the life of the plant ; so blossom and leaf, though exquisitely indicated, are fragile and ■•] in i§0utlj %{x\cu. 5 incomplete compared to the solidity and bulbous appearance of the stalk. Everything is sacrificed to the practical principle of keeping life together ; and it is not until these stout-stemmed plants are cultivated and duly sheltered and watered, and can grow (as it were) with confidence, that they are able to do justice to the inherent beauty of pencilled petal and veined leaf. Then the stem contracts to ordinary dimen sions, and leaf and blossom expand into a joy to the botanist's eyes. A thousand times during that shady saunter I envied my companions their scientific acquaintance with these beautiful green things of earth, and that intimate knowledge of a subject which enhances one's appreciation of its charms as much as bringing a lamp into a darkened picture gallery.

There are the treasures of form and colour ; but from ignorant eyes more than half their charms and wonders are holden back. A few steps beyond the Garden stands the Library and Natural History Museum. The former is truly a credit to the Colony. Spacious, handsome, rich in literary treasures, it would bear comparison with similar institutions in far older and wealthier places. But I have often noticed in colonies how much importance is attached to the possession of a good public library; and how fond, as a rule, colonists are of books. In a new settlement other shops may be ill supplied, but there is always a good bookseller's, and all the books are to be bought there at pretty nearly the same prices % gear's JpousehMping [letter as in England. Here each volume costs precisely the same as it would in London ; and it would puzzle ever so greedy a reader to name a book which would not be instantly handed to him.

The Museum is well worth a visit of many more hours than we could afford minutes ; and, as might be expected, contains numerous specimens of the great " bok " family, whose tapering horns and slender legs are to be seen at every turn of one's head. Models are there also of the largest diamonds, and especially well copied is the famous " Star of South Africa," a magnificent brilliant of purest water, sold here originally for something like £ 12,000, and resold for double that sum three or four years back. But it is often necessary to pretend that a really fine Cape diamond has come from Brazil to ensure it fetching anything like its value, and in that way even jewellers themselves have been known to buy, and give a good price too, for stones they would otherwise have looked upon with suspicion.

I have seen lately a straw-coloured diamond from " De Toit's Pan," in the Diamond Fields, cut in Amsterdam and set in London, which could hold its own for purity, radiance, and colour, against any other stone of the same rare tint, without fear or favour ; but of course such gems are not common, and fairly good diamonds cost nearly as much here as in any other part of the world. The light morning mists from the dampness of yesterday have rolled gradually away, and by mid-day the Table-cloth, as the colonists affectionately call the «■] in Btmtb %ixiCcX. 7 white, fleece-like vapour, which so often rests on their pet mountain, has been folded up, and laid aside in cloudland for future use. I don't know what picture other people may have made to their own minds of the shape and size of Table Mountain, but it was quite a surprise, and the least little bit in the world of a disappointment to me, to find that it cuts the sky (and what a beautiful sky it is !) with a perfectly straight and level line.

A gently undulating fore ground, broken into ravines where patches of glit tering green " velts " or fields, clumps of trees and early settlers' houses nestle cosily down, guides the eye half way up the mountain. There the rounder forms abruptly cease, and great granite cliffs rise, bare and straight, — straight up to the level line, stretching ever so far along. " It is so characteristic," and " You grow to be so fond of that mountain," are observations I have heard made in reply to the carping criticism of travellers ; and already I begin to understand the meaning of the phrases. But you need to see the mountain from various points of view, and under differing influences of sun and cloud, before you can take in its striking and peculiar charms. On each side of the straight line which is emphatically Table Mountain, but actually forming part of it, is a bold headland of the shape one is usually accustomed to see in mountains.

The "Devil's Peak" is uncompromising enough for any one's taste, whilst the " Lion's Head " charms the eye by its bluff forms and deep purple fissures. % -fear's Ponst-kef-ping [letter 8 These grand promontories are not, however, half so beloved by Cape colonists as their own Table Moun tain ; and it is curious and amusing to notice how the influence of this odd, straight ridge ever before their eyes, seems to have unconsciously guided and in fluenced their architectural tastes. All the roofs of the houses are straight — straight as the mountain ; a gable is almost unknown, and even the few steeples are dwarfed to an imperceptible departure from the level line. The very trees which shade the Parade Ground, and border the road in places, have their tops as absolutely straight and flat as though giant shears had trimmed them ; but I must confess — in spite of a natural anxiety to carry out my theory — that the violent " sou'-easters " are the straighteners in their case.

Cape Town is so straggling that it is difficult to form any idea of its real size, but the low houses seem neat, and the streets look quaint and lively enough to my new eyes this morning. There are plenty of people moving about with a sociable busi ness-like air. Lots of differing shades of black and brown, Malays with pointed hats on the men's heads, whilst the women encircle their dusky, smiling faces with a gay cotton handkerchief, and throw another of a still brighter hue over their shoulders. When you add to this that they wear a full, flowing, stiffly starched cotton gown of a third bright colour, you can, perhaps, form some idea of how they enliven the streets. Swarms of children everywhere, romping 1*1 in gaixtb £Jnca. 9 and laughing, and showing their white teeth in broadest of grins.

The children strike me at once as looking marvellously well. Such chubby cheeks, such sturdy, fat legs, and all, black or white, with that amazing air of independence peculiar to baby-colonists. Nobody seems to mind them, and nothing seems to harm them. Here are half-a-dozen tiny boys, shouting and laughing, at one side of the road, and half-a-dozen baby girls at the other (they all seem to play separately) ; they are all driving each other, for "horses" is the one game here. By the side of a pond sit two toddlers of about three years old, in one garment apiece, and pointed hats. They are very busy with string and a pin : but who is tak ing care of them, and why don't they tumble in ? They are as fat as ortolans, and grin at us in the most friendly fashion. We must remember that this chances to be the very best moment of the whole year in which to see the Cape and the dwellers thereat.

The cold weather has left its bright roses on the children's cheeks, and the winter rains have made every blade of grass and leaf of tree to laugh and sing in freshest green. After the dry windy summer I am assured that there is hardly a leaf and never a blade of grass to be seen in all Cape Town, and only a little strag gling verdure hidden away quite under the shelter of the mountain. The great want of the place is water. No river, no brook refreshes one's eye for many and many a league inwards. The necessary water for the use of the town is brought down by pipes from the %, star's Housekeeping [letter 10 numerous springs which trickle out of the granite cliffs, but there is never a sufficiency to spare for watering roads or grass-plots. This scarcity is a double loss to residents and visitors, for one misses it both for use and beauty.

Everybody who comes here rides or drives, they say, round the " Kloof." That may be, but what I maintain is that very few do it so delightfully as I did this sunny afternoon, with a companion who knew and loved every turn of the romantic road, who could tell me the name of every strange bush or flower, of every distant stretch of hills, and help me to make a map in my head of the stretching landscape and curving bay. Ah, how delicious it all was ! The winding, climbing road at whose every angle a fresh, fair landscape fell away from beneath our feet ; or a shiny stretch of sea, whose transparent green and purple shadows broke in fringe of feathery spray at the foot of bald rocky cliffs, or crept up to a smooth expanse of silver strand in a soft curling line of foam. "Kloof" means simply " cleft," and is the Pass between the Table Mountain and the " Lion's Head."

The road first rises, rises, rises until one seems half way up the great mountain, and the little straight-roofed, white houses, the green " velts " or fields, and the parallel lines of the vine yards, have sunk below one's feet far, far away. The mountain gains in grandeur as one approaches it ; for the undulating spurs which run from it down to the sea-shore take away from the height, looking «■] in South %fx'ux. 1 1 upwards. But when these are left beneath, then the perpendicular walls of granite rising sheer and straight up to the bold sky-line, and the rugged massive strength of the buttress-like cliffs begin to gain something of their true value to the stranger's eye. The most beautiful part of the road, however, to my taste, is the descent, when the shining expanse of Camp's Bay lies shimmering in the warm afternoon sunny haze, with a thousand lights and shadows from cloud and cliff gleaming and glooming over the crisp water surface.

By many a steep zig-zag we round the " Lion's Head," and drop down once more on a level road running parallel to the sea-shore, and so home in the balmy and yet bracing twilight. The mid-day sun is not scorching at this time of year, and it is always cool in the shade ; but no sooner do the after noon shadows grow to any length than the air freshens into sharpness, and by sundown one is glad of a good warm shawl. October 1 8. Another bright, ideal day ; the morning passed in a delicious flower-filled room, looking over old books and records, and listening to odd quaint little scraps from the old Dutch records. Directly after luncheon, the open brake, with four horses, comes to the door, and we start for a long, lovely drive. Half-a-mile or so takes us out on a flat red road, with Table Mountain rising straight before it, but on the left stretches away a most enchanting panorama.

It %, gear's Jfmrsc..eerjing [letter 12 is all so soft in colouring and tone, distinct and yet not hard, and exquisitely beautiful. The Blue-Berg range lies beyond the great bay which, unless a " sou'-easter " is tearing over it, lies glowing in tranquil richness, coloured like an Italian lake. Here are lines of chrysoprase green, fringed white with little waves, and beyond lie dark, translucent purple depths changing with every passing cloud. Beyond these amethystic shoals stretches the deep blue water ; and beyond, and bluer still, rise the fine ranges of " Hottentot's Holland," which encircle and complete the landscape, bringing the eye round once more to the nearer cliffs of the Devil's Peak. When the Dutch came here, some two hundred years ago, they seized upon this part of the coast and called it Holland, drying the Hottentots beyond the neighbouring range, telling them " that was to be their Holland," a name it keeps to this day.

Their consciences must have troubled them after this arbitrary division of the soil, for up the highest accessible spurs of their own mountain they took the trouble to build several queer little square houses called " block-houses," from which they could keep a sharp look out for foes coming over the hills from the Hottentot's Holland. The foes never came, however, and the roofs and walls of the block-houses have gradually tumbled in, and the gun-carriages, — for they managed to drag some heavy ordnance up the steep hill-side, — have rotted away, whilst the old-fashioned guns lie, grim and rusty, amid a tangled profusion -•] in j§»out{r 13 of wild geranium, heath and lilies. I scrambled up to one of the nearest block-houses and found the date on the dismounted gun to be more than 100 years old.

But to return to our drive. I could gaze and gaze lor ever at this lovely panorama, yet I am told this is the least pretty part of the way. The road itself is certainly cloudy with a fine red dust ; but this view of sea and distant hills is enchanting. Soon we get under the lee of the great mountain, and beneath its sheltering power splendid oak avenues begin to border the road all the way, whilst miniature forests of straight stemmed pines and shimmering belts of the ghostly " silver tree " run far into the mountain clefts. Stem and leaf are all of silvery white, and when one gets a gleam of sunlight on a distant patch of these trees, the effect is quite indescribable, contrasting as they do with the green of field and vineyard. The vines all about here, and towards " Constantia," — thirteen miles off. — are dwarf plants, and only grow to the height of gooseberry bushes.

It is a particular species which is found to answer best, as requiring less labour to train and cul tivate, and is less likely to be blown out of the ground by the violent " sou'-easters," which come sweeping near the mountain. These gales are evidently the greatest annoyance which Cape Colonists have to endure; and although everybody kindly suggests that I " ought to see one, just to understand what it is like," I am profoundly thankful that I only % gear's Housekeeping [letter 14 know it from their description, and my own distinct recollection of the New Zealand " nor'- westers." Those were hot winds, scorching and curling up everything ; whereas this is rather a cold breeze, although it blows chiefly in summer. It whirls along clouds of penetrating dust from the red clay roads and fields, which dyes the stems and lower branches of the trees a deep brick-dust colour, and I hear moving and pathetic stories of how it ruins clothes, utterly spoiling black silk dresses, and staining white petticoats and children's frocks and pinafores with a border of colour exactly like the ruddle with which sheep are branded.

Especially is it the terror of sailors, rendering the navigation along the coast dan gerous and difficult, for it blends land and sea into one indistinct whirl of vaporous cloud, confusing and blurring everything, until one cannot distinguish land from water. The vineyards of " Constantia " originally took their pretty name from the fair daughter of one of the early Dutch Governors ; but now it has grown into a generic word ; and you see " Cloete's Constantia," " Van Reybeck's Constantia," written up on great stone gate ways, leading by long avenues into the various wine growing plantations. It was to the former of these " Constantias," which was also the farthest off, that we were bound that pleasant summer afternoon ; and from the time we got out of the carriage until the moment we re-entered it — all too soon, but it is a long drive back in the short, cold twilight, — I felt as in J§outIj %{~x\tn. '■] 15 though I had stepped through a magic portal into the scene of one of Washington Irving's stories.

It was all so simple and homely, so quaint, and so inexpressibly picturesque. The house had stood there for a couple of hundred years, and looks as though it might so stand for ever, with its air of cool, leisurely repose, and comfort and strength. In the flagged hall towers a huge stalactite, some ten feet high, brought a hundred years ago from caves far away in the distant ranges. It is shaped something like a Malay's hat, only the peak tapers to a point about eight feet high. The drawing room — though it seems a profanation to call that venerable, stately room by so flippant and modern a name — is large and lofty, ceiled with great beams of cedar, and lighted by large windows which must contain many scores of small panes of glass. There were treasures of rarest old china and Dels-ware, with curious old carved stands for the most fragile dishes.

A wealth of swinging baskets of flowers and ferns, and bright girls' faces, lighted up the solemn, shady old room, in which we must not linger, for there is much to see outside. First we go to the cellar, as it is called, though it is far from being underground, and is in fact a spacious stone building, with an elaborately carved pediment. Here are rows and rows of giant casks, stretching on either hand into avenues of black distance ; but these are mere children in the nursery compared to those we are going to see. But a pause has to be made in a middle room, full of quaintest odds and ends — cross- % gear's Housekeeping [letter 16 bows, long whips of hippopotamus hide, strange rusty old swords and firearms, — to look at a map of Africa drawn somewhere about 1620. It hangs on the wall, and is hardly to be touched, for the paint and varnish crack and peel off at a breath.

It is a marvel of accurate geographical knowledge, and is far better filled in than the maps of yesterday. All poor Living stone's great geographical discoveries are marked on it as being known (perhaps only from description), or guessed at, all that long time ago. It was found im possible to photograph it, on account of the dark shade which age has laid over the original yellow varnish ; but a careful tracing has been made, and, I believe, sent home to the Geographical Society. It is in the long corridor beyond this that the " Stuck-vats " live, — puncheons which hold easily some thousand gallons or so, and are of a solemn rotundity, calculated to strike awe into the beholder's heart. Here is white Constantia and red Constantia, young Constantia, middle-aged Constantia, and Con stantia so old as to be a liqueur almost beyond price.

When the wine has been kept for all these years, the sweetness by which it is distinguished becomes so absorbed and blended as to be hardly perceptible. Presently one of the party throws a door suddenly open, and, behold, we are standing right over a wild, wooded glen, with a streamlet running through it, and black washerwomen beating heaps of white cloths on the strips of shingle. Turtle-doves are cooing, and one might almost fancy one was back again on I-J in South %fcu%. 17 the wild Scotch west coast, until some one says eagerly, " Look at the ostriches ! " Here they come, with a sort of dancing step, twisting their long necks and snake-like heads from side to side in search of a tempting pebble or trifle of hardware. Their wings are slightly raised, and the long fringe of white feathers rustles softly as they trot easily and grace fully past us.

They are young male birds ; and in a few months more their plumage, which now resembles that of a turkey-cock, will be jet black, except the long wing-feathers. Some drops of rain are falling, and we hurry back to where the carriage is standing under some splendid oak-trees, swallow a sort of stirrup-cup of delicious hot tea, and so home again as fast as we can go. October 19. It is decided that I ought to take a drive in a Cape cart ; so, directly after breakfast, a smart, work manlike-looking vehicle, drawn by a pair of well-bred iron-grey cobs, dashes up under the portico. There are capital horses in Cape Town, but they fetch a good price, and such a pair as these would easily find purchasers at .£150. The cart itself is very trim and smart ; it holds four people easily, and has a frame work sort of hood which falls back at pleasure.

It is a capital vehicle, light and strong, and uncommonly comfortable ; but I am warned not to imagine that all Cape carts are as easy as this one. Away we go at a fine pace through the delicious, sparkling, morning c % gear's Housekeeping [letter sunshine and crisp air, soon turning off the red high road into a sandy, marshy flat, with a sort of brackish backwater standing in pools here and there. We are going to call on Langalibalele and his son Malambuli, who are "located" at Uitabugt on the Cape Downs, about four miles from the town. It is a sort of farm residence, and, considering that the Chief has hitherto lived in a reed hut, he is not badly off, for he has plenty of room out of doors as well as a good house over his head. We bump over some strange and rough bits of sandy road, and climb up and down steep banks in a manner seldom done on wheels.

There is a wealth of lovely flowers blossom ing around, but I can't help fixing my eyes on the pole of the cart, which is sometimes sticking straight up in the air, its silver hook shining merrily in the sun ; or else it has disappeared altogether, and I can only see the horses' haunches : that is when we are going down hill, and I think it is even a more terrible sensation than when we are playfully scrambling, as a cat might, up some sandy hillock. Here is the " location " at last, thank Heaven ! and there is Langalibalele, sitting in the verandah — " stoep " (pronounced " stoup ") they call it here — on his haunches on a brick taking snuff He looks as comfortable as if he were in an arm-chair, but it must be a difficult thing to do, if you think seriously of it. The etiquette seems to be to take no notice of him as we pass into the parlour, where we present our pass, and the people in authority satisfy themselves that we *~".".C;AL1EALEL_.

"__>„__ , in South %Htx. 19 I are all quite en rkgle. Then the old Chief walks quietly in, takes off his soft felt hat, and sits himself down in a Windsor arm-chair with grave deliberation. He is uncommonly ugly, but when one remembers that he is nearly seventy years of age, it is astonishing to see how young he looks. He is a large and powerful man, and looks the picture of sleek con tentment, as well he may. Only one of his sons, a good-natured, fine-looking young man, black as ebony, is with him ; but the Chief's great grievance is that none of his wives will come to him. In vain he sends commands and entreaties to these dusky ladies to come and share his solitude ; they return for answer that they " are working for somebody else." For, alas, the only reason their presence is desired is that they may cultivate some of the large extent of ground placed at the old Chief's disposal.