But even yet parliamentary government had not been attained in the Cape. Under the Constitution, as established in 1854, the power of voting supplies had been given, but the manner in which the supplies should be used was still within the Governor’s bosom. His ministers were selected by him as he pleased, and could not be turned out by any parliamentary vote. That is the system which is now in existence in the United States,—where the President may maintain his ministers in opposition to the united will of the nation. At the Cape, after 1854, the Governor’s ministers could sit and speak either in one House or in the other,—but were not members of Parliament and could notvote. Nor, which was more important, could they be turned out!
The next and last step was not taken till 1872, and was perhaps somewhat pressed on the Colony by the Home Government, who wished to assimilate the form of parliamentary constitution in all the Colonies which were capable of enjoying it. The measure however was carried at the Cape by majorities in both Houses,—by a majority of 34 to 27 votes in the House of Assembly,—which on such a subject was a slender majority as showing the wish of the Colony, and by 11 votes against 10 in the Legislative Council. I think I am right in saying that two out of these eleven were given by gentlemen who thought it right to support the Government though in opposition to their own opinions. There were many who considered that in such a condition of things the measure should have been referred back to the people by a general dissolution. But so did not think the late Governor, Sir Henry Barkly, or the Secretary of State at home. The question was settled in favour of our old well-beloved form of constitutional government; and the Cape Colony became like to the Canadas and the Australias. The Governor has really little or nothing to say to the actual government of the country,—as the Sovereign has not with us. The Ministers are responsible, and must be placed in power or turned out of power as majorities may direct. And the majorities will of course be created by the will of the people, or, as it would be more fair to say, by the will of the voters.
But there are two points in which, with all these Colonies,the resemblance to England ceases. I have said that there were in the Cape Colony, Kings, Lords and Commons. With us, at home, the Lords are hereditary. An hereditary Upper House in a Colony would be impossible, and if possible would be absurd. There are two modes of selecting such a body,—one that of election by the people as is the case in Victoria, and the other that of nomination by the Crown, as is the practice in New South Wales. At the Cape the more democratic method has been adopted. It may be a question whether in regard to the special population of the Country, the other plan would not have been preferable. The second difference is common to all our Colonies, and has reference to the power which is always named first and which, for simplicity, I have described as the King. With us the Crown has a veto on all parliamentary enactments, but is never called upon to exercise it. The Crown with us acts by its Ministers who either throw out a measure they disapprove by the use of the majority at their back, or go out themselves. But in the Colonies the veto of the third party to legislation is not unfrequently exercised by the Secretary of State at home, and here there is a safeguard against intemperate legislation.
Such is the form of government at the Cape of Good Hope. Of all forms known to us it is perhaps the most liberal, as the franchise is low enough to enable the ordinary labourer to vote for members of both Houses. For in truth every working man in the Colony may without difficulty earn 10s. a week and his diet; and no small holder of land will occupy a plot worth less than £25. Had the matter inquestion been the best form for the maintenance of liberty and assurance of liberty among white people, I, at least, should have nothing to say against it; but, seeing that the real people of the country is and will remain a coloured population, I cannot but think that there is room for doubt. I will not,—as I said before, venture to enquire into the far distant future of the black races of South Africa. There are many who think that the black man should not only be free but should be, and by his nature is, the equal of the white man. As I am glad to see all political inequalities gradually lessened among men of European descent, so should I be glad to think that the same process should take place among all men. But not only has not that time come yet, but I cannot think that it has so nearly come as to justify us in legislating upon the supposition that it is approaching. I find that the very men who are the friends of the negro hold the theory but never entertain the practice of equality with the negro. The stanchest disciple of Wilberforce and Buxton does not take the negro into partnership, or even make him a private secretary. The conviction that the white man must remain in the ascendant is as clear in his mind as in that of his opponent; and though he will give the black man a vote in hope of this happy future, he is aware that when black men find their way into any Parliament or Congress that Parliament or Congress is to a degree injured in public estimation. A power of voting in the hands of negroes has brought the time-honoured constitution of Jamaica to an end. The same power in the Southern States of the American Union is creating a political confusion of which none of us can foretell the end, but as to which we are all convinced that in one way or another a minority of white men will get the better of a majority of coloured men. In British South Africa the majority of coloured men is so great that the country has to be compared to India or Ceylon rather than to the Southern American States. When once the Kafir shall have learned what voting means there will be no withstanding him, should the system of voting which now prevails in the Cape Colony be extended over a South African Confederation. The Kafir is not a bad fellow. Of the black African races the South Eastern people whom we call Kafirs and Zulus are probably the best. They are not constitutionally cruel, they learn to work readily, and they save property. But they are as yet altogether deficient in that intelligence which is needed for the recognition of any political good. There can be no doubt that the condition of the race has been infinitely improved by the coming of the white man; but, were it to be put to the vote to-morrow among the Kafirs whether the white man should be driven into the sea, or retained in the country, the entire race would certainly vote for the white man’s extermination. This may be natural; but it is not a decision which the white man desires or by which he intends to abide.
I will quote here a few words from an official but printed report, sent by Mr. Bowker, the late Commandant of the Frontier Mounted Police, to the Chairman of the Frontier Defence Committee in 1876, merely adding, that perhaps no one in the Cape Colony better understands the feelingbetween the Kafirs and their white neighbours than the gentleman whose words I use. “It must not be forgotten that while collectively the Border farmers look upon the natives as their bitterest foes, individually they have greater confidence in their Kafir servants than in any European immigrant whose services can be obtained in the Colony. It is much the same with the native servants. As a nation they hate the white man, and look forward to the day when he will be expelled the country; while individually they are as much or more attached to their masters than would be the case with European servants.” This represents exactly the condition of feeling in South Africa:—and, if so, it certainly is not to such feeling that we can safely entrust an equality of franchise with ourselves, seeing that they outnumber us almost by five to one. It is said that they cannot combine. If they could the question would be settled against us,—without any voting. But nothing will teach men to combine so readily as a privilege of voting. The franchise is intended to teach men to combine for a certain object, and when freely given has always succeeded in its intention.
As far as it has yet gone Parliamentary Government has worked well in the Cape Colony. There had been so long a period of training that a sufficient number of gentlemen were able to undertake the matter at once. I attended one hot debate and heard the leaders of the Opposition attack the Prime Minister and his colleague in the proper parliamentary manner. The question was one of defence against the border Kafirs;—and the Premier who had brought in a measure which the Opposition, as it appeared, was desirousof slaughtering peacemeal, was suspected of an intention to let the measure drop. And yet he was asking for an increased vote for defence, which,—so said the opposition,—ought not to be granted till he had declared his entire purpose in that respect. The object of the opposition of course was to say all the severe words which parliamentary manners allowed, and it succeeded as well as do our practised swordsmen at home. It was made to appear that the Prime Minister was a very wicked man indeed, whose only object it was to rob the Colony of its money. Of Mr. Paterson, who was the keenest of the swordsmen, I must say that he was very eloquent. Of Mr. Southey and Mr. Sprigg that they were very efficacious. It was of course the object of the Ministers to get the vote passed with as little trouble as possible, knowing that they had a majority at their back. Mr. Molteno the Premier declared that he really did not know what gentlemen on the other side wanted. If they could throw out the vote let them do it,—but what was the use of their reiterating words if they had no such power. That seemed to be the gist of the Premier’s arguments,—and it is the natural argument for a Prime Minister who has never yet been turned out. Of course he got his vote,—as to which I presume that no one had the least doubt.
Mr. Molteno, who has been in parliamentary life for many years, having held a seat since the creation of the first House of Assembly in 1854, has been a very useful public servant and thoroughly understands the nature of the work required of him; but I fancy that in a parliamentary constitutional government things cannot go quite straight tillthere has been at least one change,—till a Minister has been made to feel that any deviation from responsibility may bring upon him at a moment’s notice a hostile majority. We at home talk about a strong Government; but a very strong Government is likely to be a fainéant Government, and is rarely a faithful Government. A Minister should have before him a lively dread. Mr. Molteno seemed to be too confident,—and to be almost fretful because gentlemen made him sit there in the House when he would have preferred being in his office or at home. I am far from saying that the Cape can have a better Minister;—but if he could go out for a short while and then come back it would probably be for his comfort.
I cannot finish these remarks without saying that the most sensible speech I heard in the House was from Mr. Saul Solomon. Mr. Solomon has never been in the Government and rarely in opposition, but he has been perhaps of as much use to the Colony as any living man. He is one who certainly should be mentioned as a very remarkable personage, having risen to high honours in an occupation perhaps of all the most esteemed among men, but for which he must have seemed by nature to be peculiarly ill adapted. He is a man of very small stature,—so small that on first seeing him the stranger is certainly impressed with the idea that no man so small has ever been seen by him before. His forehead however is fine, and his face full of intelligence. With all this against him Mr. Solomon has gone into public life, and as a member of Parliament in the Cape Colony has gained a respect above that of Ministers in office. It is nottoo much to say that he is regarded on both sides as a safe adviser; and I believe that it would be hardly possible to pass any measure of importance through the Cape Legislature to which he offered a strenuous opposition. He reminded me of two other men whom it has been my privilege to know and who have been determined to seize and wear parliamentary honours in the teeth of misfortunes which would have closed at any rate that profession against men endowed with less than Herculean determination. I mean Mr. Fawcett who in our own House at home has completely vanquished the terrible misfortune of blindness, and my old friend John Robertson of Sydney,—Sir John I believe he is now,—who for many years presided over the Ministry in New South Wales, leading the debates in a parliamentary chamber, without a palate to his mouth. I regard these three men as great examples of what may be done by perseverance to overcome the evils which nature or misfortune have afflicted.
The people of Capetown think of the two chambers in which the two Houses sit with something of shame, declaring that they are not at all what they ought to be,—that they are used as makeshifts, and that there has never yet been time, or perhaps money at hand, for constructing proper Houses of Parliament. Had I not heard this I should have thought that each of them was sufficiently commodious and useful, if not quite sufficiently handsome or magnificent.
WhenI had spent a few weeks in Capetown and the immediate neighbourhood I went into the Eastern Province of the Cape Colony, and thence on to Natal, the Transvaal, the Diamond Fields, and the Orange Free State Republic,—as I hope to tell my readers in this and the next volume; but as I afterwards came back to the Western Province,—of which I had as yet seen but little,—and used what remainder of time was at my command in visiting what was easiest reached, I will now go forwards so as to complete my narrative as to the West before I speak of the East. In this way my story may be more intelligible than if I were to follow strictly the course of my own journeyings. I have already alluded to the political division of the Cape Colony, and to the great desire which has pervaded the men of the East to separate themselves from the men of the West;—and when, a few chapters further on, I shall have brought myself eastwards I shall have to refer to it again. This desire is so strong that it compels a writer to deal separately with the two Provinces, and to divide them almost as completely as though they had been separated. South Africa is made upof different parts. And as there are the four divisions which I have named above, so are there the two Provinces of the Cape Colony, which are joined under the same Parliament and the same Governor but which can hardly be said to have identical interests. The West no doubt is contented with the union, having the supremacy; but the East has been always clamorous for Separation.
After a very long coach journey from Bloemfontein down to Fort Elizabeth, of which I shall have to say a few words further on, I went by steamer to Mossel Bay on my way back to Capetown. Mossel Bay is the easternmost harbour in the Western Province, collecting a Custom Revenue of £20,000. It is fourth in importance of the ports of the Colony, those ranking higher being Capetown itself, Fort Elizabeth, and East London,—the two latter belonging to the Eastern Province. It contains about 1,400 inhabitants, and has three hotels, a bank, a Custom House, and a Resident Magistrate. I doubt, however, whether all these attractions would have taken me to Mossel Bay had I not been told of the scenery of the Outeniqua mountains and of the Knysna river. It had been averred to me that I should do injustice to South Africa generally if I did not visit the prettiest scenery known in South Africa. Having done so I feel that I should have done injustice at any rate to myself if I had not taken the advice given me.
Of all the beneficent Institutions of Mossel Bay which I have named I became personally acquainted with but one,—the Resident Magistrate, who was so beneficent that at a moment’s notice he offered to make the trip to the Knysnawith me. By this I gained a guide, philosopher, and friend,—and a very pleasant companion for my excursion. In such tourings solitude will often rob them of all delight, and ignorance of all instruction. It is impossible to see the things immediately under the eye, unless there be some one to tell you where to look for them. A lone wanderer may get up statistics, and will find persons to discuss politics with him in hotel parlours and on the seats of public conveyances. He may hear, too, the names of mountains and of rivers. But of the inner nooks of social life or of green hills he will know nothing unless he can fall into some intimacy, even though it be short-lived, with the people among whom he is moving.
We had to be in a hurry because a Cape Colony Resident Magistrate cannot be absent long from his seat of justice. If he be not on the spot there is no one to whom misfortune can appeal or whom iniquity need dread. In an English town a Mayor has his aldermen, and the Chairman of the Bench his brother magistrates;—but at Mossel Bay the Resident is as necessary at ten o’clock on a Monday morning as is the Speaker to the House of Commons at four o’clock in the afternoon. So we started at once with a light cart and a pair of horses,—which was intended to take us as far as George, a distance of 30 miles.
We went through a country teeming with ostriches. Ostrich-farming on a great scale I will describe further on. Here the work was carried on in a smaller way, but, as I was told, with great success. The expenses were small, and the profits very great,—unless there should come misfortunes,as when a valuable bird will break his leg and so destroy himself, or when a hen supposed to be worth £50 or £60 won’t lay an egg. I think that in ostrich-farming, as in all commercial pursuits, the many little men who lose a little money,—perhaps their little all,—and then go quietly to the wall, attract less attention than the prosperous few. I am bound however to say that in this district I saw many ostriches and heard of much success.
As evening was coming on, when we had got half way to George, we found that our horses were knocked up. We stopped therefore at a woolwashing establishment, and sent round the country to beg for others. Here there was also a large shop, and a temperance hotel, and an ostrich farm, all kept by the same person or by his son. Word came to us that all the horses in the place had done, each of them, an extra hard day’s work that day; but, so great a thing is it to be a Resident Magistrate, that in spite of this difficulty two horses were promised us! But they had to be caught. So we walked up to see the woolwashers finish their day’s work, the sun having already set.
Their mode of woolwashing was quite new to me. The wool, which seemed to have been shorn in a very rough manner,—cut off in locks after a fashion which would have broken the heart of an Australian Squatter, wool chopped as you would chop a salad,—was first put into a square caldron of boiling, or nearly boiling water. Then it was drawn out in buckets, and brought to troughs made in a running stream, in which the dirt was trodden out of it by coloured men. These were Hottentots, and Negroes,—the children of the old slaves,—and one or two Kafirs from the East. The wool is then squeezed and laid out on drying grounds to dry. The most interesting part of the affair was the fact that these coloured men were earning 4s. 6d. a day wages each. Some distance further on the next day we came on two white men,—navvies,—who were making a dam and were earning only 1s. 7d. a day, and their diet. That might together be worth 2s. 6d. They explained to us that they had found it very hard to get any job, and had taken this almost in despair. But they wouldn’t have trod the wool along with the black men, even for 4s. 6d.
Just as the night was set in we started at a gallop with our tired horses. I know so well the way in which a poor weary brute may be spirited up for five minutes; not, alas, without the lash. A spur to a tired horse is like brandy to a worn-out man. It will add no strength, but it will enable the sufferer to collect together and to use quickly what little remains. We had fifteen miles to do, and wearily, with sad efforts, we did twelve of them. Then we reached a little town, Blanco, and were alive with hopes of a relay. But everybody in Blanco was in bed, and there was nothing for us but to walk, the driver promising that if we would allow the poor animals twenty minutes to look about them, they would be able to crawl on with the cart and our portmanteaus. And so we walked on to George, and found our dinner of mutton chops ready for us at eleven o’clock. A telegram had been sent on so that a vehicle might be prepared for us before daybreak on the morrow.
As I entered George,—the geographers I believe call theplace Georgetown, but the familiar name is George,—by star light, just able to discern the tops of the mountains above it, I felt that it was a pretty place. On the following morning, as I walked up and down its so-called principal street, waiting between 5 and 6, for the wicked mules which were an hour late, I swore that it was the prettiest village on the face of the earth,—the prettiest village at any rate that I had ever seen. Since that I have moderated my enthusiasm so far that I will admit some half dozen others to the same rank. George will probably resent the description, caring more for its importance than its prettiness. George considers itself to be a town. It is exactly what in England we would describe to be a well-to-do village. Its so-called street consists of a well made broad road, with a green sward treble the width of the road on each side. And here there are rows of oak trees,—real English oak trees, planted by some most beneficent because patient inhabitant of the earlier days. A man who will plant a poplar, a willow, or even a blue-gum in a treeless country,—how good is he! But the man who will plant an oak will surely feel the greenness of its foliage and the pleasantness of its shade when he is lying down, down beneath the sod!
In an English village there are gentlemen’s houses, and cottages, and shops. Shops are generally ugly, particularly shops in a row, and the prettiness of a village will depend mostly on the number of what may be called gentlemen’s houses, and on the grouping of them. Cottages may be lovely to look at;—sometimes are; but it is not often. 15s.a week and roses form a combination which I have seen, butof which I have read in poetry much more than I have seen. Perhaps the ugliest collection of ruined huts I ever visited was “Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain.” But the pretty English villages will have a parson, a doctor, an officer’s widow, a retired linen-draper, and perhaps the Dowager Squiress, living in houses of different patterns, each standing in its own garden, but not so far from the road as to stand in its own ground. And there will be an inn, and the church of course, and probably a large brick house inhabited by some testy old gentleman who has heaps of money and never speaks to any body. There will be one shop, or at the most two, the buying and selling of the place being done in the market-town two miles off. In George the houses are all of this description. No two are alike. They are all away from the road. They have trees around them. And they are quaint in their designs, many of them having been built by Dutch proprietors and after Dutch patterns. And they have an air of old fashioned middle class comfort,—as though the inhabitants all ate hot roast mutton at one o’clock as a rule of their lives. As far as I could learn they all did.
There are two churches,—a big one for the Dutch, and a little one for the English. Taking the village and the country round, the Dutch are no doubt in a great majority; but in George itself I heard nothing but English spoken. Late on a Sunday evening, when I had returned from the Knysna, I stood under an oak tree close to the corner of the English church and listened to a hymn by star light. The air was so soft and balmy that it was a pleasure to stand andbreathe it. It was the longest hymn I ever heard; but I thought it was very sweet; and as it was all that I heard that Sunday of sacred service, I did not begrudge its length. But the South Africans of both colours are a tuneful people in their worship.
The comfort of the houses, and the beauty of the trees, and the numbers of the gardens, and the plentiful bounty of the green swards have done much for George;—but its real glory is in the magnificent grouping of the Outiniqua mountains under which it is clustered. These are altogether unlike the generality of South African hills, which are mostly flat-topped, and do not therefore seem to spring miscellaneously one from another,—but stand out separately and distinctly, each with its own flat top. The Outiniquas form a long line, running parallel with the coast from which they are distant perhaps 20 miles, and so group themselves,—as mountains should do,—that it is impossible to say where one ends and another begins. They more resemble some of the lower Pyrenees than any other range that I know, and are dark green in colour, as are the Pyrenees.
The Knysna, as the village and little port at the mouth of the Knysna river are called, is nearly 60 miles from George. The rocks at the entrance from the sea are about that distance, the village being four or five miles higher up. We started with four mules at 6.30,—but for the natural wickedness of the animals it would have been at 5.30,—and went up and down ravines and through long valleys for 50 miles to a place called Belvidere on the near side of the Knysna river. It would be hard to find 50 miles ofmore continuously picturesque scenery, for we were ever crossing dark black streams running down through the close ravines from the sides of the Outiniqua mountains. And here the ravines are very thickly wooded, in which respect they differ much from South African hill sides generally. But neither would it be easy to find 50 miles more difficult to travel. As we got nearer to the Knysna and further up from the little streams we had crossed, the ground became sandy,—till at last for a few miles it was impossible to do more than walk. But the mules, which had been very wicked in the morning, now put forth their virtues, and showed how superior they could be under stress of work to their nobler half-brother the horse.
At Belvidere we found an Inn and a ferry, and put them both to their appropriate use, drinking at the one and crossing the other. Here we left our mules and proceeded on foot each with his own bag and baggage. On the further side there was to be a walk of three miles, and it was very hot, and we had already trudged through some weary miles of sand. And though we had compelled the ferryman to carry our bags, we were laden with our great coats. But, lo, Providence sent the mounted post-boy along our path, when the resource of giving him the great coats to carry, and taking his pony for my own use was too evident to require a moment’s thought. He saw it in the same light and descended as though it were a matter of course. And so I rode into the village, with the post boy and the post boy’s dog, the ferryman and the Resident Magistrate following at my heels.
Here was another English village, but quite of a different class;—and yet picturesque beyond expression. “The” Knysna as the place is called is a large straggling collection of houses which would never be called other than a village in England, but would strike an investigating visitor as a village rising townwards. It is, in a very moderate way, a seaport, and possesses two inns. The post boy with unflinching impartiality refused to say which was the better, and we went to the wrong one,—that which mariners frequented. But such is South African honesty that the landlord at once put us right. He could put us up no doubt;—but Mr. Morgan at the other house could do it better. To Mr. Morgan, therefore, we went, and were told at once that we could have a leg of mutton, potatoes, and cabbages for dinner. “And very glad you ought to be to get them,” said Mrs. Morgan. We assented of course, and every thing was pleasant.
In fifteen minutes we were intimate with everybody in the place, including the magistrate, the parson, and the schoolmaster; and in half an hour we were on horse back,—the schoolmaster accompanying us on the parson’s nag,—in order that we might rush out to the Heads before dark. Away we scampered, galloping through salt water plashes, because the sun was already disappearing. We had just time to do it,—to gallop through the salt water and up the hills and round to the headland, so that we might look down into the lovely bright green tide which was rushing in from the Indian ocean immediately beneath our feet. From where I stood I could have dropped a penny into the sea without touching a rock.
The spot is one of extreme beauty. The sea passes in and out between two rocks 160 yards apart, and is so deep that even at low tide there are 18 feet of water. Where we stood the rocks were precipitous, but on the other side it was so far broken that we were told that bucks when pressed by hounds would descend it, so as to take the water at its foot. This would have seemed to be impossible were it not that stags will learn to do marvellous things in the way of jumping. On our right hand, between us and the shore of the outer Ocean, there was a sloping narrow green sward, hardly broader than a ravine, but still with a sward at its foot, running down to the very marge of the high tide, seeming to touch the water as we looked at it. And beyond, further on the left, there were bright green shrubs the roots of which the sea seemed to wash. A little further out was the inevitable “bar,”—injurious to commerce though adding to the beauty of the spot, for it was marked to us only by the breakers which foamed across it.
The schoolmaster told us much of the eligibility of the harbour. Two men of war,—not probably first-class ironclads, modest little gun boats probably,—had been within the water of the Knysna. And there were always 18 feet of water on the bar because of the great scour occasioned by the narrow outlet, whereas other bars are at certain times left almost waterless. A great trade was done,—in exporting wood. But in truth the entrance to the Knysna is perhaps more picturesque and beautiful than commercially useful. For the former quality I can certainly speak; and as I stood there balancing between the charms of the spot andthe coming darkness, aggravated by thoughts which would fly off to the much needed leg of mutton, I felt it to be almost hard that my friend the magistrate should have punctilious scruples as to his duties on Monday morning.
The description given to me as to trade at the Knysna was not altogether encouraging. The people were accustomed to cut wood and send it away to Capetown or Fort Elizabeth, and would do nothing else. And they are a class of Dutch labourers, these hewers of wood, who live a foul unholy life, very little if at all above the Hottentots in civilization. The ravines between the spurs of the mountains which run down to the sea are full of thick timber, and thus has grown up this peculiarity of industry by which the people of the Knysna support themselves. But wood is sometimes a drug,—as I was assured it was at the time of my visit,—and then the people are very badly off indeed. They will do nothing else. The land around will produce anything if some little care be taken as to irrigation. Any amount of vegetables might be grown and sent by boat to Capetown or Algoa Bay. But no! The people have learned to cut wood, and have learned nothing else. And consequently the Knysna is a poor place,—becoming poorer day by day. Such was the description given to us; but to the outward eye everybody seemed to be very happy,—and if the cabbage had been a little more boiled everything would have been perfect. The rough unwashed Dutch woodcutters were no doubt away in their own wretched homes among the spurs of the mountains. We, at any rate, did not see them.
Cutting timber is a good wholesome employment; and ifthe market be bad to-day it will probably be good to-morrow. And even Dutch woodcutters will become civilized when the schoolmaster gradually makes his way among them. But I did express myself as disappointed when I was told that nothing was ever done to restore the forests as the hill-sides are laid bare by the axe. There will be an end to the wood even on the spurs of the Outiniqua range, if no care be taken to assist the reproduction of nature. The Government of the Cape Colony should look to this, as do the Swiss Cantons and the German Duchies.
The Knysna is singularly English, being, as it is, a component part of a Dutch community, and supported by Dutch labour. I did not hear a Dutch word spoken while I was there,—though our landlady told us that her children played in Dutch or in English, as the case might be. Our schoolmaster was English, and the parson, and the magistrate, and the innkeeper, and the tradesmen of the place who called in during the evening to see the strangers and to talk with the magistrate from distant parts about Kreli and the Kafirs who were then supposed to be nearly subdued. It is a singularly picturesque place, and I left it on the following morning at 5A.M.with a regret that I should never see the Knysna again.
There was to have been a cart to take us; but the horse had not chosen to be caught, and we walked to the ferry. Then, at the other side, at Belvidere, the wicked eggs would not get themselves boiled for an hour, though breakfast at an appointed time, 6A.M., had been solemnly promised to us. Everything about the George and the Knysna gratified memuch. But here, as elsewhere in South Africa, punctuality is not among the virtues of the people. Six o’clock means seven, or perhaps twenty minutes after seven. If a man promises to be with you at nine, he thinks that he has done pretty well if he comes between ten and eleven. I have frequently been told that a public conveyance would start at four in the morning,—or at five, as it might be,—and then have had to walk about for half an hour before a horse has made its appearance. And it is impossible for a stranger to discount this irregularity, so as to take advantage of it. It requires the experience of a life to ascertain what five o’clock will mean in one place, and what in another. When the traveller is assured that he certainly will be left behind if he be not up an hour before dawn, he will get up, though he knows that it will be in vain. The long minutes that I have passed, during my late travels, out in the grey dawn, regretting the bed from which I have been uselessly torn, have been generally devoted to loud inward assertions that South Africa can never do any good in the world till she learns to be more punctual. But we got our breakfast at Belvidere at last, and returned triumphantly with our four mules to George.
In the neighbourhood of George there is a mission station called Pacaltsdorp, for Hottentots, than which I can imagine nothing to be less efficient for any useful purpose. About 500 of these people live in a village,—or straggling community,—in which they have huts and about an acre of land for each family. There is a church attached to the place with a Minister, but when I visited the place there was noschool. The stipend of the minister is paid by some missionary society at home, and it would seem that it is supported chiefly because for many years past it has been supported.
The question has frequently been raised whether the Hottentots are or are not extinct as a people. Before the question can be answered some one must decide what is a Hottentot. There is a race easily recognized throughout South Africa,—found in the greatest numbers in the Western Province of the Cape Colony,—who are at once known by their colour and physiognomy, and whom the new-comer will soon learn to call Hottentots whether they be so or not. They are of a dusty dusky hue, very unlike the shining black of the Kafir or Zulu, and as unlike the well shaded black and white of the so-called “Cape Boy” who has the mixed blood of Portuguese and Negroes in his veins. This man is lantern-jawed, sad-visaged, and mild-eyed,—quite as unlike a Kafir as he is to a European. There can be no doubt but that he is not extinct. But he is probably a bastard Hottentot,—a name which has become common as applied to his race,—and comes of a mingled race half Dutch and half South African.
These people generally perform the work of menial servants. They are also farm labourers,—and sometimes farmers in a small way. They are not industrious; but are not more lazy than men of such a race may be expected to be. They are not stupid, nor, as I think, habitually dishonest. Their morals in other respects do not rank high. Such as they are they should be encouraged in all ways to work forhire. Nothing can be so antagonistic to working as such a collection of them as that at Pacaltsdorp, where each has land assigned to him just sufficient to enable him to live,—with the assistance of a little stealing. As for church services there are quite enough for their wants in the neighbourhood, of various denominations. The only excuse for such an establishment would be the existence of a good school. But here there was none. Pacaltsdorp is I believe more than half a century old. When it was commenced the people probably had no civilizing influences round them. Now the Institution hardly seems to be needed.
From George I went over the Montague Pass to Oudtshoorn. My travels hitherto had chiefly been made with the view of seeing people and studying the state of the country,—and at this time, as I have explained above, my task was nearly completed. But now I was in search of the picturesque. It is not probable that many tourists will go from England to South Africa simply in quest of scenery. The country is not generally attractive, and the distances are too long. But to those who are there, either living in the Colony, or having been carried thither in search of health or money, the district of which I am now speaking offers allurements which will well repay the trouble of the journey. I am bound however to say that the beauties of this region cannot be seen at a cheap rate. Travelling in South Africa is costly. The week which I spent in the neighbourhood of George cost me £30, and would have cost me much more had I been alone. And yet I was not overcharged. The travellers in South Africa are few innumber, and it is much travelling which makes cheap travelling.
Montague Pass is a road through the Outiniqua mountains,—which was made by Mr. White and called by the name of Mr. Montague who was the Colonial Secretary when the line was opened. It is very fine, quite equal to some of the mountain roads through the Pyrenees. There are spots on which the traveller will quite forget South African ugliness and dream that he is looking at some favoured European landskip. Throughout the whole of those mountains the scenery must be very grand, as they group themselves with fantastic intermingling peaks, and are green to the top. The ascent from the side nearest to George, which the tourist will probably walk, is about four miles, and the views are varied at almost every step,—as is the case in all really fine mountain scenery.
From the foot of the hill on the side away from George the road to Oudtshoorn passes for about thirty miles through the Karoo. The Karoo is a great Institution in the Cape Colony and consists of enormous tracts of land which are generally devoted to the pasture of sheep. The karoo properly is a kind of shrub which sheep will eat, such as is the salt bush in Australia. Various diminutive shrubs are called “karoo,” of which most are aromatic with a rich flavour as of some herb, whereas others are salt. But the word has come to signify a vast flowery plain, which in seasons of drought is terribly arid, over which the weary traveller has often to be dragged day after day without seeing a tree, or a green blade of grass; but which in spring becomes coveredwith wild flowers. A large portion of the Western Province is called Karoo, and is very tedious to all but sheep. That over which I passed now was “Karoo” only in its produce, being closely surrounded by mountains. The sheep, however, had in most places given way to ostriches,—feathers at present ruling higher in the world than wool. I could not but hope as I saw the huge birds stalking about with pompous air,—which as you approached them they would now and again change for a flirting gait, looking back over their shoulders as they skipped along with ruffled tails;—I have seen a woman do very much the same;—that they might soon be made to give place again to the modest sheep.
Oudtshoorn,—a place with a most uncomfortably Dutch name,—is an uninteresting village about two miles long; which would, at least, be uninteresting were it not blessed with a superlatively good hotel kept by one Mr. Holloway. Mr. Holloway redeems Oudtshoorn, which would otherwise have little to say for its own peculiar self. But it is the centre of a rich farming district, and the land in the valleys around it is very fertile. It must be remembered that fertility in South Africa does not imply a broad area of cultivated land, or even a capacity for it. Agriculture is everywhere an affair of patches, and frequently depends altogether on irrigation. Near Oudtshoorn I saw very fine crops,—and others which were equally poor,—the difference having been caused altogether by the quantity of water used. The productiveness of South Africa is governed by the amount of skill and capital which is applied to the saving of rain when rain does fall, and to the application of it to theland when no rain is falling. How far the water sent by God may, with the assistance of science, be made sufficient for the cultivation of the broad plains, I, at least, am unable to say. They who can measure the rainfalls, and the nature of the slopes by which the storms and showers may be led to their appointed places, will after a while tell us this. But it is patent to all that extensive cultivation in South Africa must depend on irrigation.
I had come to Oudtshoorn chiefly to see the Cango Caves. I wish some of my readers would write the name of the village in order that they may learn the amount of irritation which may be produced by an unfortunately awkward combination of letters. The Cango Caves are 24 miles distant from the place, and are so called after the old name of the district. Here too they make brandy from grapes,—called euphoniously “Old Cango.” The vituperative have christened the beverage Cape Smoke. “Now I’ll give you a glass of real fine Old Cango,” has been said to me more than once. I would strongly advise weak-headed Europeans, not to the manner born, to abstain from the liquor under whatever name it may make its appearance. But the caves may be seen without meddling with the native brandy. We brought ours with us, and at any rate believed that it had come from France.
The road from the village to the caves is the worst, I think, over which wheels were ever asked to pass. A gentleman in Oudtshoorn kindly offered to take us. No keeper of post horses would let animals or a carriage for so destructive a journey. At every terrific jolt and at every struggle overthe rocks my heart bled for our friend’s property,—of which he was justly proud. He abstained even from a look of dismay as we came smashing down from stone to stone. Every now and then we heard that a bolt had given way, but were assured in the same breath that there were enough to hold us together. We were held together; but the carriage I fear never can be used again. The horses perhaps with time may get over their ill usage. We were always going into a river or going out of it, and the river had succeeded in carrying away all the road that had ever been made. Unless the engineers go seriously to work I shall be the last stranger that will ever visit the Cango Caves in a carriage.
I have made my way into various underground halls, the mansions of bats and stalactites. Those near Deloraine in Tasmania are by far the most spacious in ascertained length that I have seen. Those at Wonderfontein in the Transvaal, of which I will speak in the next volume, may be, and probably are, larger still, but they have never been explored. In both of these the stalactites are much poorer in form than in the caves of the Cheddar cliffs,—which however are comparatively small. The Mammoth Caves in Kentucky I have not visited; but I do not understand that the subterranean formations are peculiarly grand. In the Cango Grottoes the chambers are very much bigger than in the Tasmanian Caves. They also have not been fully explored. But the wonderful forms and vagaries of the stalactites are infinitely finer than anything I have seen elsewhere. We brought with us many blue lights,—a sort of luminary which spreads a powerfulglare to a considerable distance for three or four minutes,—without which it would be impossible to see the shapes around. The candles which we carried with us for our own guidance had little or no effect.
In some places the droppings had assumed the shape of falling curtains. Across the whole side of a hall, perhaps sixty feet long, these would hang in regular pendent drapery, fold upon fold, seeming to be as equal and regular as might be the heavy folds protecting some inner sacred chapel. And in the middle of the folds there would be the entrance, through which priests and choristers and people might walk as soon as the machinery had been put to work and the curtain had been withdrawn. In other places there would hang from the roof the collected gathered pleats, all regular, as though the machinery had been at work. Here there was a huge organ with its pipes, and some grotesque figure at the top of it as though the constructor of all these things had feared no raillery. In other places there were harps against the walls, from which, as the blue lights burned, one expected to hear sounds of perhaps not celestial minstrelsy. And pillars were erected up to the ceiling,—not a low grovelling ceiling against which the timid visitor might fear to strike his head, but a noble roof, perfected, groined, high up, as should be that of a noble hall. That the columns had in fact come drop by drop from the rock above us did not alter their appearance. There was one very thick, of various shapes, grotesque and daring, looking as though the base were some wondrous animal of hideous form that had been made to bear the superstructure from age to age. Then as the eye would struggle to examineit upwards, and to divide the details each from the others, the blue light would go out and the mystery would remain. Another blue light would be made to burn; but bats would come flitting through, disturbing all investigation;—and the mystery would still remain.
There were various of these halls or chambers, all opening one to another by passages here and there, so that the visitor who is never compelled to travel far, might suppose them all to be parts of one huge dark mansion underground. But in each hall there were receding closets, guarded by jutting walls of stalactite breast high, round which however on closer search, a way would be found,—as though these might be the private rooms in which the ghouls would hide themselves when thus disturbed by footsteps and voices, by candles and blue lights from above. I was always thinking that I should come upon a ghoul; but there were inner chambers still into which they crept, and whither I could not follow them.
Careful walking is necessary, as the ground is uneven; and there are places in which the ghouls keep their supply of water,—stone troughs wonderfully and beautifully made. But except in one place there is no real difficulty in moving about, when once the visitor to the Caves has descended into them. At this place the ascent is perplexing, because the ground is both steep and slippery. I can imagine that a lady or an old man might find it difficult to be dragged up. Such lady or old man should either remain below or allow his companions to drag him up. There is very little stooping necessary anywhere. But it has to be borne in mindthat after entering the mouth of the cave and reaching the first chamber, the realms I have described have to be reached by an iron ladder which holds 38 steps. To get on to this ladder requires some little care and perhaps a dash of courage. The precautions taken, however, suffice, and I think I may say that there is no real danger.
We called at a Dutch Boer’s house about a mile from the Caves, and were accompanied by three members of the Boer’s family. This is usual, and, I believe, absolutely necessary. I paid one of the men a sovereign for his trouble,—which sum he named as his regular price for the assistance provided. He found the candles, but some of our party took the blue lights with them. Nothing could have been seen without them.
From Oudtshoorn I travelled back through the Outiniqua mountains by Robinson’s pass to Mossel Bay, and thence returned by steamer to Capetown.
Mylast little subsidiary tours in South Africa were made from Capetown to the country immediately across the Hottentot mountains after my return from Oudtshoorn and the Cango Caves. It had then become nearly midsummer and I made up my mind that it would be very hot. I prepared myself to keep watch and ward against musquitoes and comforted myself by thinking how cool it would be on my return journey, in the Bay of Biscay for instance on the first of January. I had heard, or perhaps had fancied, that the South African musquito would be very venomous and also ubiquitous. I may as well say here as elsewhere that I found him to be but a poor creature as compared with other musquitoes,—the musquito of the United States for instance. The South African December, which had now come, tallies with June on the other side of the line;—and in June the musquito of Washington is as a roaring lion.
On this expedition I stopped first at The Paarl, which is not across the Hottentot mountains but in the district south of the mountains to which the Dutch were at first inclined to confine themselves when they regarded the apparentlyimpervious hills at their back as the natural and sufficient barrier of their South African dominions.
There is now a railway out of Capetown which winds its way through these mountains, or rather circumvents them by a devious course. It branches from the Wynberg line a mile or two out of Capetown, and then pursues its way towards the interior of Africa with one or two assistant branches on the southern side of the hills. The Wynberg line is altogether suburban and pleasant. The first assistant branch goes to Malmesbury and is agricultural. Malmesbury is a corn producing country in the flats north of Capetown, and will, I hope, before long justify the railway which has been made. At present I am told that the branch hardly pays for the fuel it consumes. It no doubt will justify the railway as wheat can be grown in the district without irrigation, and it will therefore become peopled with prosperous farmers. Then there is a loop line to Stellenbosch, an old and thriving little Dutch town which I did not visit. It is very old, having been founded in 1684. In 1685 the French Refugees came of whom a large proportion were settled at Stellenbosch. The main line which is intended to cross the entire Colony then makes its way on to The Paarl and Wellington,—from whence it takes its passage among the mountains. This is of course in the Western Province,—which I must persist in so designating though I know I shall encounter the wrath of many South African friends of the West. In the Eastern Province there are two lines which have been commenced from the coast with the same mission of making their way up intothe whole continent of Africa, one of them starting from Port Elizabeth, intending to go on by Cradock, with a branch already nearly finished to Grahamstown, and the other from East London travelling north by King Williamstown and Queenstown. The rivalry between the three is great. It is so great even between the two latter as to have much impaired the homogeneity of the Eastern Province. At present the chief object of them all is to secure the trade to Kimberley and the Diamond Fields. That by which I was now travelling is already open to Worcester, across the mountain, for all traffic, and for goods traffic forty miles beyond Worcester, up the valley of the Hex River.
I stopped at The Paarl to see the vineyards and orange groves, and also the ostriches. These are the industries of The Paarl, which is in its way a remarkable and certainly a very interesting place. It was only during the last month of my sojourn in South Africa that I came to see how very much lovely scenery there is within reach of the residents of Capetown. As in all countries of large area, such as South Africa, the United States, the interior of Australia, and Russia generally,—of which I speak only from hearsay,—the great body of the landskip is uninteresting. The Transvaal, the Orange Free State, Griqua Land West, and the Karoos of the Cape Colony are not beautiful. This the traveller hears, and gradually sees for himself. But if he will take the trouble he may also see for himself spots that are as entrancing as any among the more compressed charms of European scenery. The prettinesses of The Paarl, however, come from the works of man almost as much as from those of Nature.
It is a very long town,—if town it is to be called,—the main street running a length of eight miles. Through all this distance one spot is hardly more central than another,—though there is a market-place which the people of The Paarl probably regard as the heart of the town. It is nowhere contiguous, the houses standing, almost all, separately. It is under the paarl, or pearl rock,[8]—which strangers are invited to ascend, but are warned at the same time that the ascent in summer may be very hot. I thanked my friend for the caution and did not ascend the mountain. I was of course told that without ascending I could not see The Paarl aright. I did not therefore see it aright, and satisfy my conscience by instructing others how they may do so. The town from one end to the other is full of oak trees, planted as I was told by the Dutch. They did not look to be over seventy years of age, but I was assured that the growth though certain had been slow. It is perhaps the enormous number of oak trees at The Paarl which more than anything else makes the place so graceful. But many of the houses too are graceful, being roomy old Dutch buildings of the better class, built with gables here and there, with stables and outhouses around them, and with many oaks at every corner, all in full foliage at the time of my visit. At The Paarl there are no bad houses. The coloured people who pick the grapes and tread the wine vats and hoe the vineslive in pretty cottages up the hill side. There is nothing squalid or even untidy at The Paarl. For eight miles you are driven through a boskey broad well-shaded street with houses on each side at easy intervals, at every one of which you are tempted to think that you would like to live.
What do the people do? That is of course the first question. It was evident from the great number of places of worship that they all went to church very often;—and from the number of schools that they were highly educated. Taking the population generally, they are all Dutch, and are mostly farmers. But their farming is very unlike our farming,—and still more unlike that of the Dutch Boers up the country,—the main work of each individual farmer being confined to a very small space, though the tract of adjacent land belonging to him may extend to one or two or three thousand acres. The land on which they really live and whereby they make their money is used chiefly for the growth of grapes,—and after that for oranges and ostriches. The district is essentially wine making,—though at the time of my visit the low price of wine had forced men to look to other productions to supplement their vines.
I was taken to the house of one gentleman,—a Dutchman of course,—whose homestead in the middle of the town was bosomed amidst oaks. His vineyard was a miracle of neatness, and covered perhaps a dozen acres;—but his ostriches were his pride. Wine was then no more than £3 the “ligger,”—the ligger, or leaguer, being a pipe containing 126 gallons. This certainly is very cheap for wine,—so cheap that I was driven to think that if I lived at The PaarlI would prefer ostriches. It seemed to be thought, however, that a better time would come, and that the old price of £5 or £6 the ligger might again be reached. I am afraid there is some idea that this may be done by the maternal affection of the Mother Country,—which is to be shewn in a reduction of the duties, so that Cape wine may be consumed more freely in England. I endeavoured to explain that England cannot take wine from the Colonies at a lower rate of duty than from foreign countries. I did not say anything as to the existing prejudice against South African sherries. I was taken into this gentleman’s house and had fruit and wine of his own producing. The courtesy and picturesque old-fashioned neatness of it all was very pleasing. He himself was a quiet well-mannered man, shewing no excitement about anything, till it was suggested to him that a mode of incubating ostriches’ eggs different to his own might be preferable. Then he shewed us that on a subject which he had studied he could have a strong opinion of his own. This was in the town. The owner, no doubt, had a considerable tract of land lying far back from the street; but all his operations seemed to be carried on within a quarter of a mile of his house.
I was afterwards driven out to two country farms, but at both of them the same thing prevailed. Here there were large vineyards, and oranges in lieu of ostriches. At one beautiful spot, just under the mountains, there was a grove of 500 orange trees from which, the proprietor told me, he had during the last year made a net profit of £200 after paying all expenses. £200 will go a long way towards the expenditure of a Dutch farmer’s house. Of course there was no rent to be paid as the whole place belonged to him,—and had probably belonged to his ancestors for many generations. He was lord also of a large vineyard which he told me had cost a great deal of labour to bring to its present perfection of cleanliness and fertility.
Here too we were taken into the house and had wine given to us,—wine that was some years old. It certainly was very good, resembling a fine port that was just beginning to feel its age in the diminution of its body. We enquired whether wine such as that was for sale, but were told that no such wine was to be bought from any grower of grapes. The farmers would keep a little for their own use, and that they would never sell. Neither do the merchants keep it,—not finding it worth their while to be long out of their money,—nor the consumers, there being no commodity of cellarage in the usual houses of the Colony. It has not been the practice to keep wine,—and consequently the drinker seldom has given to him the power of judging whether the Cape wines may or may not become good. At dinner tables at the Cape hosts will apologise for putting on their tables the wines of the Colony, telling their guests that that other bottle contains real sherry or the like. I am inclined to think that the Cape wines have hardly yet had a fair chance, and have been partly led to this opinion by the excellence of that which I drank at Great Draghenstern,—which was the name either of the farm or of the district in question.
As we had wandered through the grove we saw oranges still hanging on the trees, high up out of reach. Theseason was over but still there were a few. It is a point of honour to keep them as long as possible,—so that towards December they become valuable treasures. I had one given to me when we started, as being the oldest of the party. It was scrupulously divided, and enjoyed no doubt very much more than had we been sent away with our cart full.
Here too the house was exceedingly picturesque, being surrounded by oak trees. There was no entrance hall, such as has been common with us for many years; but the rooms were lofty, spacious, and well built, and the neighbouring wilderness of a garden was wonderfully sweet with flowers. The owner was among the vines when we arrived, and as he walked up to us in the broad place in front of his house, he informed us that he was “jolly old —— ——” This he said in Dutch. His only word of English was spoken as we parted. “Good bye, old gentleman,” he holloaed out to me as I shook hands with him. Here as elsewhere there was no breadth of cultivation. The farm was large, but away from the house, and on it there were only a few cattle. There can be no cultivation without irrigation, and no extended irrigation without much labour. Like other farmers in South Africa jolly old —— —— complained that his industry was sadly crippled by want of labour. Nevertheless jolly old —— —— seemed to me to be as well off as a man need be in this world. Perhaps it was that I envied him his oaks, and his mountains, and his old wine,—and the remaining oranges.
We visited also a wool-washing establishment which had just been set up with new fashioned machinery, and thenwe had seen all that The Paarl had to shew us in the way of its productions. I should perhaps say that I visited the stores of a great wine company, at which, in spite of the low price of the article in which they deal, good dividends are being paid. At the wine stores I was chiefly interested in learning that a coloured cooper whom I saw at work on a cask,—a black man,—was earning £300 a year. I enquired whether he was putting by a fortune and was told that he and his family lived from hand to mouth and that he frequently overdrew his wages. “But what does he do with the money?” I asked. “Hires a carriage on Sundays or holy days and drives his wife about,” was the reply. The statement was made as though it were a sad thing that a coloured man should drive his wife about in a carriage while labour was so scarce and dear, but I was inclined to think that the cooper was doing well with his money. At any rate it pleased me to learn that a black man should like to drive his wife about;—and that he should have the means.
I was very much gratified with The Paarl, thinking it well for a Colony to have a town and a district so pretty and so prosperous. The population of the district is about 16,000, and of the town about 8000. It is, however, much more like a large village than a small town,—the feeling being produced by the fact that the houses all have gardens attached to them and are built each after its own fashion and not in rows.
From this place I and the friend who was travelling with me went on by cart to Ceres. It would have been practicable to go by railway at any rate to the Ceres Road Station,but we were anxious to travel over two of the finest mountain roads in South Africa, Bain’s Kloof, and Mitchell’s Pass, both of which lay on the road from The Paarl to Ceres. To do so we passed through Wellington and Wagon-maker’s valley, which lay immediately under the Hottentot mountains. I have described grapes and oranges as being the great agricultural industries of The Paarl district;—but I must not leave the locality without recording the fact that the making of Cape carts and wagons is a specialty of The Paarl and of the adjacent country. It is no more possible to ignore the fact in passing through its streets than it is to ignore the building of carriages in Long Acre. The country up above The Paarl has been called Wagon-maker’s valley very far back among the Dutch of the Cape, and the trade remains through the whole district. And at Wellington there is I believe the largest orange grove in the country. Time did not allow me to see it, but I could look down upon it from some of the turns in the wonderful road by which Mr. Bain made his way through the mountains.
Rising up from Wellington is the Bain’s Kloof road which traverses the first instalment of the barrier mountains. It is the peculiarity of these hills that they seem to lie in three folds,—so that when you make your way over the first you descend into the valley of the Breede River,—and from thence ascend again on high, to come down into the valley of Ceres, with the third and last range of the Hottentots still before you. Bain’s Kloof contains some very grand scenery, especially quite at the top;—but is not equal either to Montague Pass,—or to Mitchell’s Pass which we were justabout to visit. Descending from this we crossed at the fords two branches of the Breede River,—at one of which the bridge was impassable, there never having been a bridge at the other,—and immediately ascended Mitchell’s Pass. The whole of the country north and east of Capetown as far as the mountains extend is made remarkable by these passes which have been carried through the hills with great engineering skill and at an enormous cost to the Colony. It has chiefly been done by convict labour,—the labour of its own convicts—for the Colony, as my reader will I hope remember, has never received a convict from the Mother Country. But convict labour is probably dearer than any other. The men certainly are better fed than they would be if they were free. Houses have to be built for them which are afterwards deserted. And when the man has been housed and fed he will not work as a freeman must do if he means to keep his place. But the roads have been made, and Mitchell’s Pass into the valley of Ceres is a triumph of engineering skill.
To see it aright the visitor should travel by it from Ceres towards the Railway. We passed it in both directions and I was never more struck by the different aspect which the same scenery may bear if your face be turned one way or the other. The beauty here consists of the colour of the rocks rather than of the shape of the hills. There is a world of grey stone around you as you ascend from the valley which becomes almost awful as you look at it high above your head and then low beneath your feet. As you begin the ascent from Ceres, near the road but just out of sight of it, there is a small cataract where the Breede runsdeep through a narrow channel,—so narrow that a girl can jump from rock to rock. Some years since a girl was about to jump it when her lover, giving her a hand to help her, pulled her in. She never lived to become his bride but was drowned there in the deep black waters of the narrow Breede.
Ceres is one of those village-towns by which this part of the Colony is populated, and lies in a Rasselas happy valley,—a basin so surrounded by hills as to shew no easy way out. The real Rasselas valley, however, was, we suppose, very narrow, whereas this valley is ten miles long by six broad, and has a mail cart road running through it. It lies on the direct route from Capetown to Fraserburg, and thence, if you choose to go that way, to the Diamond Fields and the Orange Free State. Nevertheless the place looks as though it were, or at least should be, delightfully excluded from all the world beyond. Here again the houses stand separate among trees, and the river flowing through it makes everything green. I was told that Ceres had been lately smitten with too great a love of speculation, had traded beyond her means, and lost much of her capital. It was probably the reaction from this condition of things which produced the peculiarly sleepy appearance which I observed around me. A billiard room had been lately built which seemed just then to monopolize the energy of the place. The hotel was clean and pleasant,—and would have been perfect but for a crowd of joyous travellers who were going down to see somebody married two or three hundred miles off. On our arrival we were somewhat angry with the very civil and consideratelandlady who refused to give us all the accommodation we wanted because she expected twelve other travellers. I did not believe in the twelve travellers, and muttered something as to trying the other house even though she devoted to the use of me and my friend a bedroom which she declared was as a rule kept for ladies. We of course demanded two rooms,—but as to that she was stern. When a party of eleven did in truth come I not only forgave her, but felt remorse at having occupied the best chamber. She was a delightful old lady, a German, troubled much in her mind at the time by the fact that a countryman of hers had come to her house with six or seven dozen canaries and had set up a shop for them in her front sitting room. She did not know how to get rid of them; and, as all the canaries sang continuously the whole day through, their presence did impair the comfort of the establishment. Nevertheless I can safely recommend the hotel at Ceres as the canaries will no doubt have been all sold before any reader can act on this recommendation.
The name of Ceres has been given to the valley in a spirit of prophecy which has yet to be fulfilled. The soil no doubt is fertile, but the cereal produce is not as yet large. Here, as in so large a proportion of South Africa, irrigation is needed before wheat can be sown with any certainty of repaying the sower. But the valley is a smiling spot, green and sweet among the mountains, and gives assurance by its aspect of future success and comfort. It has a reputation for salubrity, and should be visited by those who wish to see the pleasant places of the Cape Colony.
From Ceres we went back over Mitchell’s Pass to the railway, and so to Worcester. Worcester is a town containing 4,000 inhabitants, and is the capital of a “Division.” The whole Colony is portioned out into Divisions, in each of which there is located a Resident Magistrate or Commissioner, who lives at the chief town. The Division and the Capital have, I believe always, the same name. Worcester is conspicuous among other things for its huge Drotsdy, or Chief Magistrate’s mansion. In the old Dutch days the Drotsdy was inhabited by the Landroost, whose place is now filled by the English Commissioner. I grieve to say that with the spirit of economy which pervades self-governing Colonies in these modern days, the spacious Drotsdy houses have usually been sold, and the Commissioners have been made to find houses for themselves,—just as a police magistrate does in London. When I was at George I could not but pity the Commissioner who was forced day after day to look at the beautiful Drotsdy house, embowered by oak trees, which had been purchased by some rich Dutch farmer. But at Worcester the Drotsdy, which was certainly larger than any other Drotsdy and apparently more modern, was still left as a residence for the Commissioner. When I asked the reason I was told that no one would buy it.
It is an enormous mansion, with an enormous garden. And it is approached in front through a portico of most pretentious and unbecoming columns. Nothing could be imagined less like Dutch grandeur or Dutch comfort. The house, which might almost contain a regiment, certainly contained a mystery which warranted enquiry. Then I wastold the story. One of the former great Governors, Lord Charles Somerset,—the greatest Governor the Colony ever had as far as a bold idea of autocratic authority can make a Governor great,—had wanted a shooting lodge under the mountains, and had consequently caused the Drotsdy house at Worcester to be built,—of course at the expense of the Crown. I can never reflect that such glorious days have gone for ever without a soft regret. There was something magnificent in those old, brave, unhidden official peculations by the side of which the strict and straight-laced honesty of our present Governors looks ugly and almost mean.
Worcester is a broad town with well arranged streets, not fully filled up but still clean,—without that look of unkempt inchoation which is so customary in Australian towns and in many of the young municipalities of the United States. The churches among its buildings are conspicuous,—those attracting the most notice being the Dutch Reformed Church, that of the Church of England,—and a church for the use of the natives in which the services are also in accordance with the Dutch Reformed religion. The latter is by far the most remarkable, and belongs to an Institution which, beyond even the large Drotsdy house, makes Worcester peculiarly worth visiting.