Four years in Southern Africa

Front matter

Sie He ; PE A

C | PTS set alt ga a b Gti Ey +? ee

“Sr tes ae i

Preface

Tue letters from which this volume is prineipally extracted were written to a brother, during a residence of some years in Southern Africa. In preparing them for publication, many alterations were found necessary, and much of minute adventure and individual feeling, which could have no general interest, thas been discarded; while, perhaps, more than enough of the familiarity of their original manner—a manner which was natural in writing to a brother—is retained. In some instances the contents of several letters have been condensed, and they now appear as one; the vi PREFACE.

writer is aware that they are very inartificially blended, though he doubts whether more labour would have improved them; for the whole is but a collection of sketches, and laboured sketches are seldom graceful. If he has dwelt too often and too long on the pleasure derived from the beauties of natural scenery, he can only say, that the feelings he has expressed are unaffected, and were suggested by the scenes amid which it was his chance to wander.

The author attempts only to describe what fell under his own immediate observation. His object in his rambles, being to seek amusement, he writes but with the view of amusing others.

This volume contains nought “ unborrowed from the eye :” all that caught its glance, and on which that glance lingered—all that is beautiful or stern in nature: the gleam of the river —the gloom of the forest—the shadow of the mountain—the swift burst of the troop of

PREFACE. vii graceful antelopes—the towering strength of the elephant—and the bold bearing of the free-born savage, the author has in these pages endeavoured to delineate.

Letter I

Cape Town.—The Government Gardens.—Dance of the Ladies. — Marriage. —The Signal-Station. —Amuse- - es.—Dress of Indian Servants.—Fashionable Equi- -Fancy Ball and Masquerade . . Page 1—14 3 LETTER II.

ape Flats.—Fransche-Hoek, a Settlement of French Hugueine.— Description of the Valley.—Interior of a Cape —Its dirty state—Cape Wines.— Method of killing The Slave-Girl.— Conduct of Masters towards their -The Hottentots.—Adventure.—Instinct of the Horse — collections . : : c - 15—43

* LETTER III.

1a m’s Town.— Population.—Situation.—Poortes.—State of ure-—Produce-Waggons of the Boors.—Duchany, a Kaffer -Begging.— Different Animals.— Elephant-hunting. —Sinscapes.—The Orange River—The Chief. Chaka.—The Jepredations committed by the Border-Tribes . 44—69 eb ae) eel ees x CONTENTS.

LETTER IV.

} Description of Natural Scenery.—Plants.—Flowers.—The Kap- River.—Soldiers’ Graves.—Revenge of the Kaffers.—Dutch Border Government.—The old Chiefs——The Commando.—Military Policy. | —Present humane Regulations.—Character of the Kaffers.—Customs.—Adventures.—Anecdotes.—Reflections . - 70—95

LETTER V.

An Excursion.—Travelling Equipments——The Great Fish-River. »—Caves.— Wild Scenery.—The Tiger’s haunt.—Hottentot Soldiers.—

lh. The Patrol.—Character—The Bushmen.—The Boors.—The Kaffers. ~ | — Anecdotes.—A Portrait—The little Bushboy.—Contrasts of Cha- | racter.—Frontier Scenery.—Hottentot Soldiers.—Wandering.—Singular Plants.—A Dialogue.—Eventful History._Savage and civilized _ Life.—The Settlers. —Eccentric Character and Family . 96—122 f LETTER VI.

Excursions.—Sketches of the people.—Anecdotes from the Mis- | sionaries.—Line of route-—Mountains.—Rivers.—Scenery of the t Country.—Wild Animals.—Birds.—Herds of Cattle—A travelling party.—Plan of a Tour.—Incidents and Adventures.—Pitching our Tent.— Missionary Establishment— Kaffer Chiefs.— Manners and f Anecdotes. — Portraits. — School.—Language.— A dinner. — Kaffer hymn.—Usefulness of the Missionaries. —Wild Beasts.—Superstitions.—Singular rites. —A Story —Customs.—Anecdotes.—Elephant-hunting 3 ° . = 3 + 123—157

LETTER VII.

Wesleyville.—Its delightful Scenery—Second and Third Missionary Stations.—Interpreters and Guides.— Anecdotes of Elephants.—Strange Scene.—Hottentot Eloquence.—Grave Argument.—

CONTENTS. xi

Artifice. —Criticism, and Humour.—Games.—Evening Amusements. Shooting Hippopotami—The River Kei—The Incagolo.—Kaffer ~ Chief and his Staff.—Anecdotes < : + 158—180

LETTER VIII.

River Kei—Hinza’s Kraal.—Savage and civilized Regrets—A 2 Character.—Mark of Hospitality.—A Proposal. — Namarké, — cd More Anecdotes.—Caffrarian Ladies.—Presents.—Departure from -t Hinza’s Kraal.—Horsemanship.—Hinza.—Chaka.— Value of Wives. os —Conguar’s Tribe.—Anecdote.—Kaffer Chief's Appearance.—Society —Warfare.—Majestic Scenery._The Campanero.—Solitudes.—

- Motives for travelling.—Hottentot Guides.—Climate.—Animals. 181—207

LETTER IX.

Sources of Interest.—Elephant-hunting.—Portrait of a Hunter.— Recital of his Adventures.—Account of a Week’s Excursion —A Night in the Wilderness.—Costume of the Iunters——Narrow Escape—A Rhinoceros.—The Buffalo.—More Sport.—Return to our Bivouac.— Anecdotes of Elephants — Of the Hunter— Of ~~ Skipper, his attendant Hottentot ~ ~~. e “> 208—244

LETTER X.

Return tothe Cape.—Early recollections. —A gale off the Cape.— Number of books.—The Naturalist.—Flocks of Locusts.—Etfects of Kaffer wars.—Portraits of a Dutch Boor and his family.—The

Schoolmaster.—Pictures.—Scriptural learning.—Christina.—Life of

a Boor.—Anecdotes.—Visit to Mr. Rex.—District of George.—

Hospitable reception.—A dilemma.—Opinions of Le Vaillant.— : Whimsical occurrence.— Moravian Institution.—Spurtzheim.—A

marriage—Classical Names.—Criterion of beauty.—Cape Flats. Scenes visited in my Tour . : : - « 245—281 xu -CONTENTS.

LETTER XI.

Saint Helena.—Visit Napoleon’s House.—His tomb.—The old Serjeant. — Flying Fish—Dolphin. — Imagination matter of fact— The Spectre-bark.— Singular story.— Natives. — Scenery. — Animals, &c. —Contrasts. — Natural scenery—Recollections of Africa. —Arrival in England > ‘ . -. 282—308

FRONTISPIECE. —

BIVOUAC IN KAFFERLAND-+ o Cat

MOXCHEN

FOUR YEARS

IN

SOUTHERN AFRICA.

LETTER I.

Society at Cape Town.—The Government Gardens.—Dance of the

, Slaves. —The Ladies. — Marriage.—The Signal-Station.—Amusements.—Races.—Dress of Indian Servants—Fashionable Equipages.—Fancy Ball and Masquerade,

_. Most conquered or ceded colonies receive

from the conquerors the stamp of their man-

ners and customs; and though the elder Africanders* keep a sore and sullen distance, yet

* The designation by which the Cape-born Dutch are distinguished.

B their sons and daughters move with the march of events, (if not of intellect,) and make an attempt at imitation not always unsuccessful. It is thus the society of Cape Town is a copy of English society, and, like most copies, catches little except the faults of the original. A ball-room here is much like a ball-room with you, and the ladies dance as well, and dress more gaily, show the same becoming timidity in being introduced to their partners, and commence an immediate flirtation in much the same manner. But this is what you see every week; let me try to describe some of the points in which we differ; and I know not that I can do it better than by taking a stroll in the Government gardens,

It is Sunday, and the bands are playing, the people assembling under the ‘shade of the oaks, and the scene is gay with many coloured’ dresses; even slavery wears a smile. ‘Here is the lounging officer, and the still more lounging Indian, yellow, listless, and motiveless; the Dutch ladies, who, though they want the fresh complexions of

England, are still pretty; the Malay, with his

high conical hat, or turbaned. handkerchief of

blue or crimson, and red sash, his bare sinewy

throat, straight handsome outline of counte-

nance, and tiger eye ; then there is the female

half-caste slave, (that is, having an European

father,) whose form is graceful and step elastic,

the blood-tinge of whose cheek shows through

the clear brown complexion, which is shaded by

curls of glossy blackness, and whose dark eyes

glance wildly round; and these strangely con-

_ trasted figures are walking in the shade, thrown

by the trailing branches of the African oak,

through which gleams of sunny light find their

way, and touch with a momentary brightness

the gaily-coloured dresses of the passers by.

' Leaving the Government gardens, we will

look at the dance of the poorer slaves, whose

hideousness renders itself more hideous by the

most fantastically ugly garments: the sounds

they dance to cannot be termed music, and the dance, (that which is common throughout the - B2 fr

Fast,) which, when performed by beauty, might be voluptuous, is here only disgusting.

This, you will tell me, is mere surface; and what is society but surface? yet to those who wish to go deeper, and to watch the changing and vagabond race of this half-way house, where the vices and follies of the East meet, and shake hands with those of Europe, the scrutiny will not go unrewarded. I leave the _ vices to graver writers,--to those who make strange discoveries and bold assertions, and on an acquaintance of six weeks with the poor Cape, reverse for it the epitaph which so nobly commemorates the family of Lord Lucas of Colchester, wherein it is said, that all the brothers were valiant, and all the sisters virtuous ; I can only say, that the author must have had opportunities of judging, which I, in a much longer residence, have not attained. Let the follies then be my province, and let me treat them in the same manner as I have mingled in them, not lingering until they weary, but

“ Lightly skim and haste away.”

2 A = a

‘There are the ladies who touch on their way to the Indian market, all going out to pressing friends or relations, and not one having the most distant thought of marriage ; then there are the Indian invalids, who come to pass their year of restless idleness, and to spend their allowances at the Cape; and it is among these that the spinsters look for husbands, and often find them. The ladies pass over the bilious complexions and broken constitutions of the gentlemen, and they (what can they less ?) excuse the total want of education, and a few other things that in England are considered essential ; but what woman ought to be, what an English woman is, one who leaves his | country as a boy, can have but little knowledge. Then the Cape ladies are frequently pretty, dance well, flirt readily, and speak their broken English softly, perhaps offer to teach the Indian Dutch, excite a kind of interest, at first rather sleepy, then less drowsy, and as he (after having been to the pastrycook’s) has nothing else to do, he becomes rad attached. Such is the stuff of which marriage here is frequently made.

But, even in this most sketchy description of Cape Town, I must not omit the Signal-station; © for, without that and the table-cloth on ; the Table Mountain, and the south-east wind that it denotes, I know not what we should have to talk about. From the first announcement of an approaching vessel, by the appearance of a black ball on the signal hill, all is anxiety. «Is it English ?” becomes the general inquiry. The next signal says, * English ;” then, “Is it from England?” “Yes.” Then, “ Has it a mail?” and the signal tells that it brings a mail; and lastly, the date of its leaving the Downs; and the health-boat puts off and returns with the mail; and people meet each other with bustling, restless looks, and tell that there are five large boxes; and the postoffice is thronged with anxious busy faces, and the files of newspapers, complete to a recent date, (that is, some three or four months old,) are sent to the library, and some determined a i, * e politician has possessed himself of the last, containing a speech of Brougham’s on the state of the Cape, and appears to the anxious . expectants to be spelling it through, even to its last advertisement. . We have amusements too, at least they go by the name; and first on the list come the races. You who are only acquainted with those of England, the gayest and most exhilarating of sights, would smile at our’s: but they serve their purpose—they ‘do to bet on. __ After much delay and high-raised expectation, one horse invariably bolts, another does not - save his distance, and the third comes in at an easy gallop; a finely contested heat, and giving rise to many conjectures as to how it would have turned out, had it not been for the bolting : then our Hottentot jockeys, how they would be cheered on an English course; some in trowsers, some in boots, some in white satin caps, contrasting beautifully with their yellowish-brown faces of strange ugliness,

« Each gives to each a double charm, Like pearls upon an Ethiop’s arm.”

The ground is dotted with horsemen of all classes—now pricking their steeds into a gallop—now moving languidly over the parched sun-scorched grass ;—there is the gaily-dressed and well-mounted officer—the still better mounted Indian—the large-bodied Dutch boor, in his rough duffle jacket and sheep-skin trowsers, and the Malay in his conical hat, casting a broad shadow from which his wild eyes glare. There are many pedestrians, among whom the soldiers show conspicuous; ther there are the slaves in their best dresses, and as happy as if to-morrow was not to bring a renewal of their toils, as if it were to be all holiday ; for, to judge from the numerous sets of white teeth that are exhibited in tremendous grins, they “ take no thought for the morrow.”

Sometimes, too, is to be seen a group of Eastern figures in their rich and variously shaped turbans—the most graceful of head- = dresses, in all its varieties; linén vests sitting close to their light forms, and white petticoat” trowsers. The appearance of these men a et S : ae Ps — = ae quently noble and imposing, though they are but Indian servants; their features are generally fine, always expressive ; the well-marked brow, clustering luxuriant hair of raven blackness, mustachios clearly defined upon the dusky skin, and bare and muscular neck, complete a figure, that, when I have often seen them standing behind the chair of their listless master, I have thought (if the mould in which man is cast means any thing,) born to hold a higher place in the creation than the beings whom they served.

- Then all the equipages in the colony are collected on the ground, taking their stations on either side the winning-post, and lining the course as far as they extend, the higher places

: appertaining to the carriages of the higher powers, and exhibiting the beauty and fashion of the Cape. Here congregate the horsemen, each with his unmeaning speech of hope or fear, uttered in the same manner and with the Se | ey Py 5 _ same smile, or bet of gloves, with the attendant

: pprehension, that there are none small enough > in the Cape Town shops, for that fair delicate hand,—a pleasing name to give to a set of brown. bony fingers, resembling nothing so much as the consumptive talons of an expiring vulture, One set passes on to repeat the same things at the next carriage, and is relieved by another, equally agreeable and intellectual. Ladies, how often have I pitied you, obliged to smile, when you would have given the world to yawn !

It is amusing to mark, in riding along the line, the regular gradation from the well-appointed English carriage, to that curious piece of antiquity, the ancient Dutch—the gig, the light waggon-cart, and the long heavy waggon with its eight horses in hand, hired for the day, and. stuffed with black damsels arrayed in their brightest colours, and determined, if one may judge by the eating and drinking that is go- | ing forward, accompanied by loud bursts of laughter, to. make the most of their day of pleasuring.

There is, however, society among the residents of Cape Town and its neighbourhood that is well worth cultivating, and some of the Indian families are informed and agreeable people; but in the hasty sketch of a town, there is no individualizing, and, in general, nothing cans be more frivolous and insipid than our parties. Information is the exception— frivolity the rule; but I see that I am describing the society of the Cape Town by a definition that will equally suit that of any other country. |

_ Our gay season, that is-our wintér, answering to your summer, is generally closed by a Fancy Ball and a Masquerade; the last, an amusement newly introduced, and not, I think, particularly _ well suited to the phlegm of Dutch temperament,—to a people the gay and the lively among whom—the frequenters of ball-rooms— entertain their partners by small talk on the value of the rix-dollar.

_ There are eyes, however, that could glance with sparkling meaning through a mask,—eyes of dark lustre, betraying that at some distant period a sprinkle of black blood had mingled with and tainted the pure descent of the African Dutch :

“ In Spain, you know, this is a sort of sin ;”

and not only in Spain, for here it is thought much worse of than some others, and blue eyes kindle into expression in their animadversions on their rivals.

Against the Masquerade, however, there was a very general feeling, not the less decided from its cause not being understood ; perhaps the young girls who had good faces did not see the sense of hiding them; there were doubts whether they should accept the invitation, from an undefined fear that mischief would ensue,—a fear, however, that in the end prevented not a single fair one from appearing, though I believe it sent many away disappointed at the strict and stupid propriety of a night that had raised so much expectation. Let me not be misunderstood: I do not mean that on the whole they would have been better

E E pleased it had been otherwise; but when ladies are prepared to resist the slightest infringement on the most punctilious rules of conduct ; when the look of insulted dignity has been practised at the glass, and the calm reproof that is to daunt the offender, tried in every tone from the mildly-impressive to the sarcastically-bitter, it requires more than female philosophy to find the flower of beauty wasted on the wilderness, no eye to admire, no hand to pluck it.

I have now discussed the Races, the Southeaster, the arrival of a Mail, and the Masque- _ rade; and I will defy the most hackneyed

Caper to name another thing that «“ Breaks the tedium of fantastic idleness”

in the capital of Southern Africa ; unless, indeed, he chance to be a politician, a Cape party-man ;

_ for here, as in most places, the feeling is virulent in proportion to its insignificance : but fear not that I am going to inflict on you an account of our divisions, which serve no purpose that I can discover, save that of destroying the little society that we have :—no: my description of the amusements may have been triste, pe polities would be even more trifling. spare you that “ puddle in a storm.”

y ar i . a : 4 t? sf bi¢ ae seas IG 1 aes: * co — - i - —— ’ ae = ae = ——_———— = -= = et oe

Letter II

The Cape Flats.—Fransche-Hoek, a Settlement of French Huguenots.—Ravine.—Deseription of the Valley.—Interior of a Cape Wine Farm.—Its filthy state—Cape Wines.—Method of killing the Tiger.—The Slave-Girl.—Conduct of Masters towards their Slaves. —The Hottentots. — Curious Adventure.—Instinct of the Horse.—Early Recollections.

WHEN tired of all that I have described in my last letter, and unfit to be a trifler amid triflers; when I find “no music in the song, no smartness in the jest,” I turn my horse’s head from Cape Town, and, fixing my eye on a distant hill, move over the weary waste called the Cape Flats, mounting sand-hill after sand-hill, like the wild waves of a trackless ocean ; while nothing meets the eye save the land tortoise, the large footprint of the wolf, or the trail of the serpent. For miles it is a scene of barren desolation; the bushes, which the birds flit silently among, are withered with the heat; the very stones seem parched, through which the poison-snake winds its shining length. This sandy flat is bounded by a range of mountains, in whose valleys there are many beautiful spots ; green, well-watered, sheltered nooks, in which the Dutch wine-farmers have settled and built good houses, that peep out from among their rich green oaks.

In one of these houses I have been lately staying, in the valley of the Fransche-Hoek, which is a settlement of French Hugonots situated about fifty miles from Cape Town. The inhabitants are now Dutch, however, in every thing but name; they speak no French, have no French customs, and not evenareligious book in that language is to be found among them: the only distinction I could discover between them and other boors was their greater fondness for psalm-singing, and their aversion to dancing. That it is far easier to retrograde than advance is known; but that these people, settling as they did, remote from

° ii ‘ , Le Dae i is the Dutch, should yet have lost every national distinction, surprises me.

Near the valley is a ravine called the Fransche Hoek Kloof,* one of the passes through the mountain barrier, that must be crossed at some point in order to penetrate into the interior of the colony. The road through it is nearly seven miles in length, ascending from the near gorge, that opens into the valley, gradually to the summit, and descending on the other side in the same manner ; and in both cases running along the face of one of the steep mountains which form the boundaries of the ravine. This road is itself well worth examining, on account of the difficulty of its execution, and the immense labour bestowed upon it: many parts are cut out of the solid rock, whose high grey crags tower above it; while a parapet wall only separates the travellers from a precipice in whose shadowy depth a stream winds its way far

_ Kloof, in the country round the Cape, generally means a pass among the hills and mountains: in Albany, a deep wooded hollow, frequently the retreat of savage animals.

Cc below, through the rocky defile,—so low, that even its roar, when the torrents pour down the steep sides of the ravine, swelling the brown rush _ = of its turbid waters, cannot be heard.

I have been among higher mountains than those of this wild pass; but under some effects of light and shade, I know not that I ever saw a scene more gloomily impressive.

I have ridden through it when the sun stood high in the heavens, and I looked around in vain for shelter from its tremendous power, | when objects seemed to waver before the eyes in the bright and sultry stillness ; and my horse, with drooping ears, and feeble step and frequent halt, slowly and painfully toiled up the steep ascent; while all nature, animate and inanimate, seemed to yield to the scorching influence: when the stunted shrubs and geraniums that clothe the face of the mountain were parched, and the various proteas that shoot out from the fissures of the rocks, were twisted and wreathed into strange fantastic forms, and black as from the effects of fire.

' LT have ridden through it when the sun was declining, and one side of the ravine was in gloom, and threw its broad deep shadow over the hollow; and where it contracted, and the high barriers approached each other, it was strange to mark the mimic resemblance of cliff and pinnacled crags traced in cold grey shade upon the side, whose summits yet shone in the golden light of evening. It was like the dim chillness of age contrasted with the fairy colouring of youth. The only living thing I saw was of a nature to add to the stern, solitary character of the scene—a vulture, which, in turning a projection of rock, I startled from its feast : it rose slowly from the carcase, spreading its broad grey wings, and swept over me with a rushing sound, sailing up the ravine, and

' disappearing in the deep misty blue of the perspective.

_ The valley of the Franche Hoek is a beauti-

ful and cultivated amphitheatre, surrounded by

mountains—not of one prevailing form, which

is so common, but as various as the clouds:that — C2 rest upon them: many are clothed at their bases, and half-way up their sides, with richest verdure, which suddenly ceasing, gives place to high grey naked cliffs; others are wholly bare, except in their shadowy recesses, where the forest trees find shelter and nourishment. The valley has many windings, which, during a week’s stay that I made with some friends, it was my amusement to penetrate,— into deep wooded hollows, or low grounds, in winter flooded, but in summer covered with the most luxuriant vegetation, rich bulbous plants, rare heaths, and bright geraniums, through which my horse with difficulty made his way, startling as we went the fairy sugar birds, that appear to derive their brilliant colours from the blossoms they feed on. Then I would trace some mountain river toits source, having, in the attempt, frequently to cross the calm, cool, transparent water, and to break my way through its banks, fringed with high reeds, and shaded with bending willows. In following the course of the stream,

SOUTHERN AFRICA. Q1

I have been much struck with the contrasts exhibited within a distance of a few hundred yards. In one part, the banks are rich with various greens, in glowing orange and yellow tints, in light creepers, which the waters touch, as they ripple by through their leafy and blossomy covert. Go but a short mile, and the scene is changed, and all around bears the stamp of cold decay and death. The barkless trunks of the trees are of a pale grey hue, withered, sun-scorched, and lifeless—the skeletons of what they were; and the river, that every where else brings gladness and nourishment, here gloomily wanders through a scene that is beyond its power,—a scene over which the fiery breath of desolation seems to have passed, and leaf, and tree, and blossom, to have fallen beneath its blasting influence.

~ But enough of wandering description; and I am tired of riding alone; therefore take horse, and let us turn from the river I have been tracing,

“ Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds, Through many a fen where the serpent breeds,”

over matted vegetation, over trees whose trunks, brought down by the floods, are strewed around, covered with clustering plants, hiding the decay that lies beneath.

» The horses know that they are returning home; and mine, that seemed scarcely able to drag on during the sultry day,. has literally broken into a gallop. And now we are again in the inhabited part of the valley ; how beautifully that farm-house peeps out from amidst its oaks and orange trees; and that high hedge covered with the blossoms of the Ceylon rose! And now that. we have passed the gorge, and the valley is opening before us, many more become visible, at least, glimpses of them are caught ; a white ornamental gable, or a chimney rising among deep green trees. It is evening, and the herds of cattle that have been grazing where the pasture was richest and freshest on the river’s banks, and the flocks of goats that have been browzing on the mountain’s ‘side and among the rocks, are now returning; look at them as they cross that bar of yellow light; and there too is the young Hottentot herdsman, surrounded by his dogs, with his slouched hat, from which hangs a shaggy, black ostrich feather, and his ragged dress, —he cares not, for it is an improvement on his former sheepskin covering ; the same urchin. that I saw inmy ramble far up the glen, taking his meal so independently by a fire, the blue smoke of which curled through the trees and bushes.

We have now reached the house at which I am staying, and I will introduce you to the interior of a Cape Wine Farm, premising that you must banish from your memory all highwrought: descriptions of rural happiness, not unmingled with elegance, to be found in the

" yine-sheltered cottages of the South of France, or in the imagination of the novelist ; here it is not to be met with, albeit they are of French extraction; and still less must you expect any thing of the plenty of which Washington Irving has drawn so delightful a picture, in describing the Farm House of a Dutch settler of New York; a picture which, I remember, won my heart as well as Ichabod Crane’s. Here the means of comfort seem of easy attainment, and nature has more than done her part—man less than his.

The houses are many of them large, and the wine-stores and slave-lodges extensive; but within is listless indolence, squalid dirt, and the absence of all those comforts which you find in an English farm of far inferior appearance. You enter at the principal door into a large darkened room, for the shutters are kept closed during the day to exclude the heat ;—would that the same means could keep out the flies, that swarm in myriads, and are of all small nuisances the greatest! In this room all the members of the family congregate; here sits the Vrouw, issuing her commands from an easy chair; here the meals are eaten, the clothes ironed, the psalms sung; here the Dutch chil-

”

—@ AA TEST bee a dren and those of the slaves, equally dirty, and distinguished only by colour, sprawl together on the mud floor: but I am already weary of in-doors, and the sun is sinking behind that deep range of purple mountains, and now comes the delicious hour which it would be a shame to pass under any roof, and a surpassing shame under that of a Dutch boor.

_ How beautifully defined and clearly distinguished are the lights and shadows beneath this sky, undimmed by cloud or vapour! and how brightly shine the intervening lines of rich sunny green, contrasted with the slanting shadows thrown by the trunks of those tall wide-spreading oaks! resembling the tree of England in leaf and acorn, but without its character of strength, and its gnarled tortuous branches; for these droop, as unable to support the weight of leaves and of those hanging nests suspended secure from the serpent, around which their yellow inmates are twittering; while the wood-pigeon is crooning above, amidst the thick and clustering foliage.