I think that the nature of the population of South Africa, and the difficulties which must in coming years arise from that population, were hardly sufficiently considered when government by parliamentary majorities was forced upon the Cape Colony and carried through its Legislative Houses by narrow majorities. That action has, I fear, rendered the Cape unfit to confederate with the other Provinces; and especially unfit to confederate with Natal, where the circumstances of the population demand direct government from the Crown. I trust that the experiment of parliamentary government may not be tried in Natal, where the circumstances of the population are very much more against it than they were in the Cape Colony.
I reachedDurban, the only seaport in the Colony of Natal, about the end of August,—that is, at the beginning of spring in that part of the world. It was just too warm to walk about pleasantly in the middle of the day and cool enough at night for a blanket. Durban has a reputation for heat, and I had heard so much of musquitoes on the coast that I feared them even at this time of the year. I did kill one in my bedroom at the club, but no more came to me. In winter, or at the season at which I visited the place, Durban is a pleasant town, clean, attractive and with beautiful scenery near it;—but about midsummer, and indeed for the three months of December, January and February, it can be very hot, and, to the ordinary Englishman, unaccustomed to the tropics, very unpleasant on that account.
I was taken over the bar on entering the harbour very graciously in the mail tug which as a rule passengers are not allowed to enter, and was safely landed at the quay about two miles from the town. I mention my safety as a peculiar incident because the bar at Durban has a very bad character indeed. South African harbours are not goodand among those which are bad Durban is one of the worst. They are crossed by shifting bars of sand which prevent the entrance of vessels. At a public dinner in the Colony I heard The Bar given as a toast. The Attorney General arose to return thanks, but another gentleman was on his legs in a moment protesting against drinking the health of the one great obstacle to commercial and social success by which the Colony was oppressed. The Attorney General was a popular man, and the lawyers were popular; but in a moment they were obliterated by the general indignation of the guests at the evil done to their beautiful land by this ill-natured freak of Nature. A vast sum of money has been spent at Durban in making a breakwater, all of which has,—so say the people of Durban and Maritzburg,—been thrown away. Now Sir John Coode has been out to visit the bar, and all the Colony was waiting for his report when I was there. Sir John is the great emendator of South African harbours,—full trust being put in his capability to stop the encroachments of sand, and to scour away such deposits when in spite of his precautions they have asserted themselves. At the period of my visit nothing was being done, but Natal was waiting, graciously if not patiently, for Sir John’s report. Very much depends on it. Up in the very interior of Africa, in the Orange Free State and at the Diamond Fields it is constantly asserted that goods can only be had through the Cape Colony because of the bar across the mouth of the river at Durban;—and in the Transvaal the bar is given as one of the chief reasons for making a railway down to Delagoa Bay instead of connecting the nowtwo British Colonies together. I heard constantly that so many, or such a number of vessels, were lying out in the roads and that goods could not be landed because of the bar! The legal profession is peculiarly well represented in the Colony; but I am inclined to agree with the gentleman who thought that “The Bar” in Natal was the bar across the mouth of the river.
I was carried over it in safety and was driven up to the club. There is a railway from the port to the town, but its hours of running did not exactly suit the mails, to which I was permitted to attach myself. This railway is the beginning of a system which will soon be extended to Pieter Maritzburg, the capital, which is already opened some few miles northward into the sugar district, and which is being made along the coast through the sugar growing country of Victoria to its chief town, Verulam. There is extant an ambitious scheme for carrying on the line from Pieter Maritzburg to Ladismith, a town on the direct route to the Transvaal, and from thence across the mountains to Harrismith in the Orange Free State, with an extension from Ladismith to the coal district of Newcastle in the extreme north of the Colony. But the money for these larger purposes has not yet been raised, and I may perhaps be justified in saying that I doubt their speedy accomplishment. The lines to the capital and to Verulam will no doubt be open in a year or two. I should perhaps explain that Ladismith and Harrismith are peculiar names given to towns in honour of Sir Harry Smith, who was at one time a popular Governor in the Cape Colony. There is a projectalso for extending the Verulam line to the extreme northern boundary of the Colony so as to serve the whole sugar producing district. This probably will be effected at no very distant time as sugar will become the staple produce of the coast, if not of the entire Colony. There is a belt of land lying between the hills and the sea which is peculiarly fertile and admirably adapted for the growth of sugar, on which very large sums of money have been already expended. It is often sad to look back upon the beginnings of commercial enterprises which ultimately lead to the fortunes not perhaps of individuals but of countries. Along this rich strip of coast-land large sums of money have been wasted, no doubt to the ruin of persons of whom, as they are ruined, the world will hear nothing. But their enterprise has led to the success of others of whom the world will hear. Coffee was grown here, and capital was expended on growing it upon a large scale. But Natal as a coffee-growing country has failed. As far as I could learn the seasons have not been sufficiently sure and settled for the growth of coffee. And now, already, in the new Colony, on which white men had hardly trodden half a century ago, there are wastes of deserted coffee bushes,—as there came to be in Jamaica after the emancipation of the slaves,—telling piteous tales of lost money and of broken hopes. The idea of growing coffee in Natal seems now to be almost abandoned.
But new ground is being devoted to the sugar cane every day, and new machinery is being continually brought into the Colony. The cultivation was first introduced into Natal by Mr. Morewood in 1849, and has progressed since withvarious vicissitudes. The sugar has progressed; but, as is the nature of such enterprises, the vicissitudes have been the lot of the sugar growers. There has been much success, and there has also been much failure. Men have gone beyond their capital, and the banks with their high rates of interest have too often swallowed up the profits. But the result to the Colony has been success. The plantations are there, increasing every day, and are occupied if not by owners then by managers. Labourers are employed, and public Revenue is raised. A commerce with life in it has been established so that no one travelling through the sugar districts can doubt but that money is being made, into whatever pocket the money may go.
Various accounts of the produce were given to me. I was assured by one or two sugar growers that four ton to the acre was not uncommon,—whereas I knew by old experience in other sugar countries that four ton to the acre per annum would be a very heavy crop indeed. But sugar, unlike almost all other produce, can not be measured by the year’s work. The canes are not cut yearly, at a special period, as wheat is reaped or apples are picked. The first crop in Natal is generally the growth of nearly or perhaps quite two years, and the second crop, being the crop from the first ratoons, is the produce of 15 months. The average yield per annum is, I believe, about 1½ tons per acre of canes,—which is still high.
It used to be the practice for a grower of canes to have as a matter of course a plant for making sugar,—and probably rum. It seemed to be the necessity of the business of cane-growing that the planter should also be a manufacturer,—as though a grower of hemp was bound to make ropes or a grower of wheat to make bread. Thus it came to pass that it required a man with considerable capital to grow canes, and the small farmer was shut out from the occupation. In Cuba and Demerara and Barbados the cane grower is, I think, still almost always a manufacturer. In Queensland I found farmers growing canes which they sold to manufacturers who made the sugar. This plan is now being largely adopted in Natal and central mills are being established by companies who can of course command better machinery than individuals with small capitals. But even in this arrangement there is much difficulty,—the mill owners finding it sometimes impossible to get cane as they want it, and the cane growers being equally hard set to obtain the miller’s services just as their canes are fit for crushing. It becomes necessary that special agreements shall be made beforehand as to periods and quantities, which special agreements it is not always easy to keep. The payment for the service done is generally made in kind, the miller retaining a portion of the sugar produced, half or two thirds, as he or the grower may have performed the very onerous work of carrying the canes from the ground to the mill. The latter operation is another great difficulty in the way of central mills. When the sugar grower had his own machinery in the centre of his own cane fields he was able to take care that a minimum amount of carriage should be required;—but with large central manufactories the growing cane is necessarily thrown back to a distance from the mill and aheavy cost for carriage is added. The amount of cane to make a ton of sugar is so bulky that a distance is easily reached beyond which the plants cannot be carried without a cost which would make any profit impossible.
In spite of all these difficulties,—and they are very great,—the stranger cannot pass through the sugar districts of Natal without becoming conscious of Colonial success. I have heard it argued that sugar was doing no good to Natal because the profits reached England in the shape of dividends on bank shares which were owned and spent in the mother country. I can never admit the correctness of this argument, for it is based on the assumption that in large commercial enterprises the gain, or loss, realized by the capitalist is the one chief point of interest;—that if he makes money all is well, and that if he loses it all is ill. It may be so to him. But the real effect of his operations is to be found in the wages and salaries he pays and the amount of expenditure which his works occasion. I have heard of a firm which carried on a large business without any thought of profit, merely for political purposes. The motive I think was bad;—but not the less beneficial to the population was the money spent in wages. Even though all the profits from sugar grown in Natal were spent in England,—which is by no means the case,—the English shareholders cannot get at their dividends without paying workmen of all classes to earn them,—from the black man who hoes the canes up to the Superintendent who rides about on his horse and acts the part of master.
There is a side to the sugar question in Natal which to meis less satisfactory than the arrangements made in regard to Capital. As I have repeated, and I fear shall repeat too often,—there are 320,000 Natives in Natal; Kafirs and Zulus, strong men as one would wish to see; and yet the work of the estates is done by Coolies from India. I ought not to have been astonished by this for I had known twenty years ago that sugar was grown or at any rate manufactured by Coolie labour in Demerara and Trinidad, and had then been surprised at the apathy of the people of Jamaica in that they had not introduced Coolies into that island. There were stalwart negroes without stint in these sugar colonies,—who had been themselves slaves, or were the children of slaves; but these negroes would only work so fitfully that the planters had been forced to introduce regular labour from a distance. The same thing, and nothing more, had taken place in Natal. But yet I was astonished. It seemed to be so sad that with all their idle strength standing close by, requiring labour for its own salvation,—with so large a population which labour only can civilize, we who have taken upon ourselves to be their masters should send all the way to India for men to do that which it ought to be their privilege to perform. But so it is. There are now over 10,000 Coolies domiciled in Natal, all of whom have been brought there with the primary object of making sugar.
The Coolies are brought into the Colony by the Government under an enactment of the Legislature. They agree to serve for a period of 10 years, after which they are, if they please, taken back. The total cost to the Government is in excess of £20 per man. Among the items of expenditure in1875 £20,000 was voted for the immigration of Coolies, of which a portion was reimbursed during that year, and further portions from year to year. The Coolie on his arrival is allotted to a planter,—or to any other fitting applicant,—and the employer for 5 years pays £4 per annum to the Government for the man’s services. He also pays the man 12s. a month, and clothes him. He feeds the Coolie also, at an additional average cost of 12s. a month, and with some other small expenses for medical attendance and lodging pays about £20 per annum for the man’s services. As I shall state more at length in the next volume, there are twelve thousand Kafirs at the Diamond Fields earning 10s. a week and their diet;—and as I have already stated there are in British Kafraria many Kafirs earning very much higher wages than that! But in Natal a Zulu, who generally in respect to strength and intelligence is superior to the ordinary Kafir, is found not to be worth £20 a year.
The Coolie after his five years of compulsory service may seek a master where he pleases,—or may live without a master if he has the means. His term of enforced apprenticeship is over and he is supposed to have earned back on behalf of the Colony the money which the Colony spent on bringing him thither. Of course he is worth increased wages, having learned his business, and if he pleases to remain at the work he makes his own bargain. Not unfrequently he sets up for himself as a small farmer or market-gardener, and will pay as much as 30s. an acre rent for land on which he will live comfortably. I passed through a village of Coolies where the men had their wives andchildren and were living each under his own fig tree. Not unfrequently they hire Kafirs to do for them the heavy work, assuming quite as much mastery over the Kafir as the white man does. Many of them will go into service,—and are greatly prized as domestic servants. They are indeed a most popular portion of the community, and much respected,—whereas the white man does I fear in his heart generally despise and dislike the Native.
I have said that the ordinary Kafir is found by the sugar grower not to be worth £20 a year. The sugar grower will put the matter in a different way and will declare that the Kafir will not work for £20 a year,—will not work as a man should work for any consideration that can be offered to him. I have no doubt that sugar can for the present be best made by Coolie labour,—and that of course is all in all with the manufacturer of sugar. It cannot be otherwise. But it is impossible not to see that under it all there is an aversion to the Kafir,—or Zulu as I had perhaps better call him now,—because he cannot be controlled, because his labour cannot be made compulsory. The Zulu is not an idle man,—not so idle I think as were the negroes in the West Indies who after the emancipation were able to squat on the deserted grounds and live on yams. But he loves to be independent. I heard of one man who on being offered work at certain wages, answered the European by offering him work at higher wages. This he would do,—if the story be true,—with perfect good humour and a thorough appreciation of the joke. But the European in Natal, and, indeed, the European throughout South Africa, cannot ridhimself of the feeling that the man having thews and sinews, and being a Savage in want of training, should be made to work,—say nine hours a day for six days a week,—should be made to do as much as a poor Englishman who can barely feed himself and his wife and children. But the Zulu is a gentleman and will only work as it suits him.
This angers the European. The Coolie has been brought into the land under a contract and must work. The Coolie is himself conscious of this and does not strive to rebel. He is as closely bound as is the English labourer himself who would have to encounter at once all the awful horrors of the Board of Guardians, if it were to enter into his poor head to say that he intended to be idle for a week. The Zulu has his hut and his stack of Kafir corn, and can kill an animal out in the veld, and does not care a straw for any Board of Guardians. He is under no contract by which he can be brought before a magistrate. Therefore the sugar planter hates him and loves the Coolie.
I was once interrogating a young and intelligent superintendent of machinery in the Colony as to the labour he employed and asked him at last whether he had any Kafirs about the place. He almost flew at me in his wrath,—not against me but against the Kafirs. He would not, he said, admit one under the same roof with him. All work was impossible if a Kafir were allowed even to come near it. They were in his opinion a set of human wretches whom it was a clear mistake to have upon the earth. His work was all done by Coolies, and if he could not get Coolies the work would not be worth doing at all by him. His was not asugar mill, but he was in the sugar country, and he was simply expressing unguardedly,—with too little reserve,—the feelings of those around him.
I have no doubt that before long the Zulus will make sugar, and will make it on terms cheaper to the Colony at large than those paid for the Coolies. But the Indian Coolie has been for a long time in the world’s workshop, whereas the Zulu has been introduced to it only quite of late.
The drive from the railway station at Umgeni, about four miles from Durban, through the sugar district to Verulam is very pretty. Some of the rapid pitches into little valleys, and steep rapid rises put me in mind of Devonshire. And, as in Devonshire, the hills fall here and there in a small chaos of broken twisted ridges which is to me always agreeable and picturesque. After a few turns the traveller, ignorant of the locality, hardly knows which way he is going, and when he is shewn some object which he is to approach cannot tell how he will get there. And then the growth of the sugar cane is always in some degree green, even in the driest weather. I had hardly seen anything that was not brown in the Cape Colony, so long and severe had been the drought. In Natal there was still no rain, but there was a green growth around which was grateful to the eyes. Altogether I was much pleased with what I saw of the sugar district of Natal, although I should have been better satisfied could I have seen Natives at work instead of imported Coolies.
Immediately west of the town as you make the first ascent up from the sea level towards the interior there is the hillcalled the Berea on and about which the more wealthy inhabitants of Durban have built their villas. Some few of them are certainly among the best houses in South Africa, and command views down upon the town and sea which would be very precious to many an opulent suburb in England. Durban is proud of its Berea and the visitor is taken to see it as the first among the sights of the place. And as he goes he is called upon to notice the road on which he is riding. It is no doubt a very good road,—as good as an ordinary road leading out of an ordinary town in England, and therefore does not at first attract the attention of the ordinary English traveller. But roads in young countries are a difficulty and sometimes a subject of soreness;—and the roads close to the towns and even in the towns are often so imperfect that it is felt to be almost rude to allude to them specially. In a new town very much has to be done before the roads can be macadamized. I was driven along one road into Durban in company with the Mayor which was certainly not all that a road ought to be. But this road which we were on now was, when I came to observe it, a very good road indeed. “And so it ought,” said my companion. “It cost the Colony——,” I forget what he said it cost. £30,000, I think, for three or four miles. There had been some blundering, probably some peculation, and thus the money of the young community had been squandered. Then, at the other side of Durban, £100,000 had been thrown into the sea in a vain attempt to keep out the sand. These are the heartrending struggles which new countries have to make. It is not only that theymust spend their hard-earned money, but that they are so often compelled to throw it away because in their infancy they have not as yet learned how to spend it profitably.
Natal has had many hardships to endure and Durban perhaps more than its share. But there it is now, a prosperous and pleasant seaport town with a beautiful country round it and thriving merchants in its streets. It has a park in the middle of it,—not very well kept. I may suggest that it was not improved in general appearance when I saw it by having a couple of old horses tethered on its bare grass. Perhaps the grass is not bare now and perhaps the horses have been taken away. The combination when I was there suggested poverty on the part of the municipality and starvation on the part of the horses. There is also a botanical garden a little way up the hill very rich in plants but not altogether well kept. The wonder is how so much is done in these places, rather than why so little;—that efforts so great should be made by young and therefore poor municipalities to do something for the recreation and for the relief of the inhabitants! I think that there is not a town in South Africa,—so to be called,—which has not its hospital and its public garden. The struggles for these institutions have to come from men who are making a dash for fortune, generally under hard circumstances in which every energy is required; and the money has to be collected from pockets which at first are never very full. But a colonial town is ashamed of itself if it has not its garden, its hospital, its public library, and its two or three churches, even in its early days.
I can say nothing of the hotels at Durban because I was allowed to live at the club,—which is so peculiarly a colonial institution. Somebody puts your name down beforehand and then you drive up to the door and ask for your bedroom. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are provided at stated hours. At Durban two lunches were provided in separate rooms, a hot lunch and a cold lunch,—an arrangement which I did not see elsewhere. I imagine that the hot lunch is intended as a dinner to those who like to dine early. But, if I am not mistaken, I have seen the same faces coming out of the hot lunch and going in to the hot dinner. I should imagine that these clubs cannot be regarded with much favour by the Innkeepers as they take away a large proportion of the male travellers.
The population of Durban is a little in excess of that of the capital of the Colony, the one town running the other very close. They each have something above 4,000 white inhabitants, and something above half that number of coloured people. In regard to the latter there must I think be much uncertainty as they fluctuate greatly and live, many of them, nobody quite knows where. They are in fact beyond the power of accurate counting, and can only be computed. In Durban, as in Pieter Maritzburg, every thing is done by the Zulus,—or by other coloured people;—and when anything has to be done there is always a Zulu boy to do it. Nothing of manual work seems ever to be done by an European. The stranger would thus be led to believe that the coloured population is greater than the white. But Durban is a sea port town requiringmany clerks and having no manufactures. Clerks are generally white, as are also the attendants in the shops. It is not till the traveller gets further up the country that he finds a Hottentot selling him a pockethandkerchief. I am bound to say that on leaving Durban I felt that I had visited a place at which the settlers had done the very utmost for themselves and had fought bravely and successfully with the difficulties which always beset new comers into strange lands. I wish the town and the sugar growers of its neighbourhood every success,—merely suggesting to them that in a few years’ time a Zulu may become quite as handy at making sugar as a Coolie.
Pieter Maritzburg is about 55 miles from Durban, and there are two public conveyances running daily. The mail cart starts in the morning, and what is called a Cobb’s coach follows at noon. I chose the latter as it travels somewhat faster than the other and reaches its destination in time for dinner. The troubles of the long road before me,—from Durban through Natal and the Transvaal to Pretoria, the Diamond Fields, Bloemfontein—the capital of the Orange Free State,—and thence back through the Cape Colony to Capetown were already beginning to lie heavy on my mind. But I had no cause for immediate action at Durban. Whatever I might do, whatever resolution I might finally take, must be done and taken at Pieter Maritzburg. I could therefore make this little journey without doubt, though my mind misgave me as to the other wanderings before me.
I found the Cobb’s coach,—which however was not aCobb’s coach at all,—to be a very well horsed and well arranged Institution. We travelled when we were going at about ten miles an hour and were very well driven indeed by one of those coloured half-bred Cape boys, as they are called, whose parents came into the Cape Colony from St. Helena. Almost all the driving of coaches and mail carts of South Africa has fallen into their hands, and very good coachmen they are. I sometimes flatter myself that I know something about the driving of ill-sorted teams, having had much to do for many years with the transmission of mails at home, and I do not know that I ever saw a more skilful man with awkward horses than was this Cape driver. As well as I could learn he was called Apollo. I hope that if he has a son he will not neglect to instruct him in his father’s art as did the other charioteer of that name. At home, in the old coaching days, we entertained a most exaggerated idea of the skill of the red-faced, heavy, old fashioned jarveys who used to succeed in hammering their horses along a road as smooth as a bowling green, and who would generally be altogether at their wits’ end if there came any sudden lack of those appurtenances to which they were accustomed. It was not till I had visited the United States, and Australia, and now South Africa that I saw what really might be done in the way of driving four, six, or even eight horses. The animals confided to Apollo’s care were generally good; but, as is always the case in such establishments, one or two of them were new to the work,—and one or two were old stagers who had a will of their own. And the road was byno means a bowling-green all the way. I was much taken with the manner in which Apollo got the better of four jibbing brutes, who, taking the evil fashion one from another, refused for twenty minutes to make any progress with the vehicle to which they had just been harnessed. He suddenly twisted them round and they started full gallop as though they were going back to Durban. The animals knew that they were wanted to go the other way and were willing to do anything in opposition to the supposed will of their master. They were flying to Durban. But when he had got them warm to the harness he succeeded in turning them on the veld, keeping them still at a gallop, till they had passed the stage at which they had been harnessed to the coach.
As much of the driving in such a country has to be done with the brake as with the reins and whip, and this man, while his hands and arms were hard at work, had to manage the brake with his feet. Our old English coachman could not have moved himself quick enough for the making of such exertions. And Apollo sat with a passenger on each side, terribly cramped for room. He was hemmed in with mail bags. My luggage so obliterated the foot-board that he had to sit with one leg cocked up in the air and the other loose upon the brake. Every now and again new indignities were heaped upon him in the shape of parcels and coats which he stuffed under him as best he could. And yet he managed to keep the mastery of his reins and whip. It was very hot and he drank lemonade all the way. What English coachman of the old days could have rivalled himthere? At the end of the journey he asked for nothing, but took the half-crown offered to him with easy nonchalance. He was certainly much more like a gentleman than the old English coachman,—whose greedy eye who does not remember that can remember at all those old days?
We were apparently quite full but heard at starting that there was still a place vacant which had been booked by a gentleman who was to get up along the road. The back carriage, which was of the waggonette fashion, uncovered, with seats at each side, seemed to be so full that the gentleman would find a difficulty in placing himself, but as I was on the box the idea did not disconcert me. At last, about half way, at one of the stages, the gentleman appeared. There was a lady inside with her husband, with five or six others, who at once began to squeeze themselves. But when the gentleman came it was not a gentleman only, but a gentleman with the biggest fish in his arms that I ever saw, short of a Dolphin. I was told afterwards that it weighed 45 pounds. The fish was luggage, he said, and must be carried. He had booked his place. That we knew to be true. When asked he declared he had booked a place for the fish also. That we believed to be untrue. He came round to the front and essayed to put it on the foot-board. When I assured him that any such attempt must be vain and that the fish would be at once extruded if placed there, he threatened to pull me off the box. He was very angry, and frantic in his efforts. The fish, he said, was worth £5, and must go to Maritzburg that day. Here Apollo shewed,I think, a little inferiority to an English coachman. The English coachman would have grown very red in the face, would have cursed horribly, and would have persistently refused all contact with the fish. Apollo jumped on his box, seized the reins, flogged the horses, and endeavoured to run away both from the fish and the gentleman.
But the man, with more than colonial alacrity, and with a courage worthy of a better cause, made a successful rush, and catching the back of the vehicle with one hand got on to the step behind, while he held on to the fish with his other hand and his teeth. There were many exclamations from the folks behind. The savour of the fish was unpleasant in their nostrils. It must have been very unpleasant as it reached us uncomfortably up on the box. Gradually the man got in,—and the fish followed him! Labor omnia vincit improbus. By his pertinacity the company seemed to become reconciled to the abomination. On looking round when we were yet many miles from Pieter Maritzburg I saw the gentleman sitting with his feet dangling back over the end of the car; his neighbour and vis-a-vis, who at first had been very loud against the fish, was sitting in the same wretched position; while the fish itself was placed upright in the place of honour against the door, where the legs of the two passengers ought to have been. Before we reached our journey’s end I respected the gentleman with the fish,—who nevertheless had perpetrated a great injustice; but I thought very little of the good-natured man who had allowed the fish to occupy the space intended for a part of his own body. I never afterwards learned what became ofthe fish. If all Maritzburg was called together to eat it I was not asked to join the party.
I must not complete my record of the journey without saying that we dined at Pinetown, half way, and that I never saw a better coach dinner put upon a table.
The scenery throughout from Durban to Pieter Maritzburg is interesting and in some places is very beautiful. The road passes over the ridge of hills which guards the interior from the sea, and in many places from its altitude allows the traveller to look down on the tops of smaller hills grouped fantastically below, lying as though they had been crumbled down from a giant’s hand. And every now and then are seen those flat-topped mountains,—such as is the Table mountain over Capetown,—which form so remarkable a feature in South African scenery, and occur so often as to indicate some peculiar cause for their formation.
Altogether what with the scenery, the dinner, Apollo, and the fish, the journey was very interesting.
Onarriving at Pieter Maritzburg I put up for a day or two at the Royal Hotel which I found to be comfortable enough. I had been told that the Club was a good club but that it had not accommodation for sleeping. I arrived late on Saturday evening, and on the Sunday morning I went, of course, to hear Bishop Colonso preach. Whatever might be the Bishop’s doctrine, so much at any rate was due to his fame. The most innocent and the most trusting young believer in every letter of the Old Testament would have heard nothing on that occasion to disturb a cherished conviction or to shock a devotional feeling. The church itself was all that a church ought to be, pretty, sufficiently large and comfortable. It was, perhaps, not crowded, but was by no means deserted. I had expected that either nobody would have been there, or else that it would have been filled to inconvenience,—because of the Bishop’s alleged heresies. A stranger who had never heard of Bishop Colenso would have imagined that he had entered a simple church in which the service was pleasantly performed,—all completed including the sermon within an hour and a half,—and would have had his special attention only called to the two factsthat one of the clergymen wore lawn sleeves, and that the other was so singularly like Charles Dickens as to make him expect to hear the tones of that wonderful voice whenever a verse of the Bible was commenced.
Pieter Maritzburg is a town covering a large area of ground but is nevertheless sufficiently built up and perfected to prevent that look of scattered failure which is so common to colonial embryo cities. I do not know that it contains anything that can be called a handsome building;—but the edifices whether public or private are neat, appropriate, and sufficient. The town is surrounded by hills, and is therefore, necessarily, pretty. The roadways of the street are good, and the shops have a look of established business. The first idea of Pieter Maritzburg on the mind of a visitor is that of success, and this idea remains with him to the last. It contains only a little more than 4,000 white inhabitants, whereas it would seem from the appearance of the place, and the breadth and length of the streets, and the size of the shops, and the number of churches of different denominations, to require more than double that number of persons to inhabit it. Observation in the streets, however, will show that the deficiency is made up by natives, who in fact do all the manual and domestic work of the place. Their number is given as 2,500; but I am disposed to think that a very large number come in from the country for their daily occupations in the town. The Zulu adherents to Pieter Maritzburg are so remarkable that I must speak separately of them in a separate chapter. The white man in the capital as in Durban is not the workingman, but the master, or boss, who looks after the working man.
I liked Pieter Maritzburg very much,—perhaps the best of all South African towns. But whenever I would express such an opinion to a Pieter Maritzburger he would never quite agree with me. It is difficult to get a Colonist to assent to any opinion as to his own Colony. If you find fault, he is injured and almost insulted. The traveller soon learns that he had better abstain from all spoken criticism, even when that often repeated, that dreadful question is put to him,—which I was called upon to answer sometimes four or five times a day,—“Well, Mr. Trollope, what do you think of——,”—let us say for the moment, “South Africa?” But even praise is not accepted without contradiction, and the peculiar hardships of a Colonist’s life are insisted upon almost with indignation when colonial blessings are spoken of with admiration. The Government at home is doing everything that is cruel, and the Government in the Colony is doing everything that is foolish. With whatever interest the gentleman himself is concerned, that peculiar interest is peculiarly ill-managed by the existing powers. But for some fatuous maddening law he himself could make his own fortune and almost that of the Colony. In Pieter Maritzburg everybody seemed to me very comfortable, but everybody was ill-used. There was no labour,—though the streets were full of Zulus, who would do anything for a shilling and half anything for sixpence. There was no emigration from England provided for by the country.There were not half soldiers enough in Natal,—though Natal has luckily had no real use for soldiers since the Dutch went away. But perhaps the most popular source of complaint was that everything was so dear that nobody could afford to live. Nevertheless I did not hear that any great number of the inhabitants of the town were encumbered by debt, and everybody seemed to live comfortably enough.
“You must begin,” said one lady to me, “by computing that £400 a year in England means £200 a year here.” To this I demurred before the lady,—with very little effect, as of course she had the better of me in the argument. But I demur again here, with better chance of success, as I have not the lady by to contradict me.
The point is one on which it is very difficult to come to a direct and positive conclusion. The lady began by appealing to wages, rent, the price of tea and all such articles as must be imported, the price of clothes, the material of which must at least be imported, the price of butter and vegetables, the price of schooling, of medical assistance and of law, which must be regulated in accordance with the price of the articles which the schoolmaster, doctors, and lawyers consume,—and the price of washing. In all such arguments the price of washing is brought forward as a matter in which the Colonist suffers great hardships. It must be acknowledged that the washing is dear,—and bad, atrociously bad;—so bad that the coming home of one’s linen is a season for tears and wailing. Bread and meat she gave up to me. Bread might be about the same as in Europe, and meat no doubt in Pieter Maritzburg was to be had at about half theLondon prices. She defied me to name another article of consumption which was not cheaper at home than in the Colony.
I did not care to go through the list with her, though I think that a London butler costs more than a Zulu boy. I found the matter of wages paid to native servants to be so inexplicable as to defy my enquiries. A boy,—that is a Zulu man—would run almost anywhere for a shilling with a portmanteau on his head. I often heard of 7s. a month as the amount of wages paid by a farmer,—with a diet exclusively of mealies or of Kafir corn. And yet housekeepers have told me that they paid £5 and £6 a month wages for a man, and that they considered his diet to cost them 15s. a week. In the heat of argument exceptional circumstances are often taken to prove general statements. You will be assured that the Swiss are the tallest people in Europe because a Swiss has been found seven feet high. A man will teach himself to think that he pays a shilling each for the apples he eats, because he once gave a shilling for an apple in Covent Garden. The abnormally dear Zulu servants of whom I have heard have been I think like the giant Swiss and the shilling apple. Taking it all round I feel sure that Zulu service in Natal is very much cheaper than English service in England,—that it does not cost the half. I have no doubt that it is less regular,—but then it is more good humoured, and what it lacks in comfort is made up in freedom.
But I would not compare items with my friend; nor do I think that any true result can be reached by such comparison. Comfort in living depends not so much on the amount of good things which a man can afford to consume, but on theamount of good things which those with whom he lives will think that he ought to consume. It may be true,—nay, it certainly is true,—that for every square foot of house room which a householder enjoys he pays more in Pieter Maritzburg than a householder of the same rank and standing pays in London for the same space. But a professional man, a lawyer let us say, can afford to live, without being supposed to derogate from his position, in a much smaller house in Natal than he can in England. It may cost sixpence to wash a shirt in Natal, and only threepence in England; but if an Englishman be required by the exacting fastidiousness of his neighbours to put on a clean white shirt every day, whereas the Natalian can wear a flannel shirt for three days running, it will be found, I think, that the Natalian will wash his shirts a penny a day cheaper than the Englishman. A man with a family, living on £400 a year, cannot entertain his friends very often either in London or in Pieter Maritzburg;—but, of the two, hospitality is more within the reach of the latter because the Colonist who dines out expects much less than the Englishman. We clothe ourselves in broadcloth instead of fustian because we are afraid of our neighbours, but the obligation on us is imperative. In a country where it is less so, money spent in clothing will of course go further. I do not hesitate to say that a gentleman living with a wife and children on any income between £400 and £1,000 would feel less of the inconveniences of poverty in Natal than in England. That he would experience many drawbacks,—especially in regard to the education of his children,—is incidental to all colonial life.
I find the following given in a list of prices prevailing at Pieter Maritzburg in March 1876, and I quote from it as I have seen no list so general of later date. Meat 6d. per pound. Wheat 13s. per cwt. Turkeys from 8s. upwards. Fowls 2s. 4d. each. Ham Is. 1d. per lb. Bacon 8d. Butter, fresh, 1s. 2d. to 1s. 6d. This is an article which often becomes very much dearer, and is always too bad to be eaten. Coals £3 6s. 8d. per ton. Good coal could not be bought for this; but coal is never used in houses. Little fuel is needed except for cooking, and for that wood is used—quoted at 1s. 4d. per cwt. Potatoes 4s. to 6s. per cwt. Onions 16s. per cwt. A horse can be kept at livery at 17s. 6d. a week. The same clothes would be dearer in Pieter Maritzburg than in London, but the same clothes are not worn. I pay £2 2s. for a pair of trowsers in London. Before I left South Africa I found myself wearing garments that a liberal tradesman in the Orange Free State, six hundred miles away from the sea, had sold me for 16s.—although they had been brought ready made all the way from England. This purchase had not taken place when I was discussing the matter with the lady, or perhaps I might have been able to convince her. I bought a hat at the Diamond Fields cheaper than my friend Scott would sell it me at the corner of Bond Street.
While in Pieter Maritzburg a public dinner was given to which I had the honour of receiving an invitation. After dinner, as is usual on such occasions, a great many speeches were made,—which differed very much from such speeches as are usually spoken at public dinners in England, by being all worth hearing. I do not know that I ever heard somany good speeches made before on a so-called festive occasion. I think I may say that at home the two or three hours after the health of Her Majesty has been drunk are generally two or three hours of misery,—sometimes intensified to such a degree as to induce the unfortunate one to fly for support to the wine which is set before him. I have sometimes fancied that this has come, not so much from the inability of the speakers to make good speeches,—because as a rule able men are called upon on such occasions,—as from a feeling of shame on the part of the orators. They do not like to seem to wish to shine on an occasion so trivial. The “Nil admirari” school of sentiment prevails. To be in earnest about anything, except on a very rare occasion, would almost be to be ridiculous. Consequently man after man gets up and in a voice almost inaudible mumbles out a set of platitudes, which simply has the effect of preventing conversation. Here, at Pieter Maritzburg, I will not say that every speaker spoke his best. I do not know to what pitch of excellence they might have risen. But they spoke so that it was a pleasure to hear them. The health of the Chief Justice was given, and it is a pity that every word which he used in describing the manner in which he had endeavoured to do his duty to the public and the bar, and the pleasure which had pervaded his life because the public had been law-abiding, and the bar amenable, should not have been repeated in print. Judges at home have not so much to say about their offices. There was a tradesman called to his legs with reference to the commerce of Natal who poured forth such a flood of words about the trade of the Colony as tomake me feel that he ought not to be a tradesman at all. Probably, however, he has made his fortune, which he might not have done had he become a member of Parliament. It was here that the gentleman protested against drinking the health of The Bar at Durban, to the infinite delight of his hearers. Napier Broome, who was known to many of us in London, is now Colonial Secretary at Natal. I don’t remember that he ever startled us by his eloquence at home; but on this occasion he made a speech which if made after a London public dinner would be a great relief. Everybody had something to say, and nobody was ashamed to say it.
I found 1,200 British soldiers in Pieter Maritzburg, for the due ordering of whom there was assembled there the rather large number of eight or nine Field Officers. But in Natal military matters have had a stir given to them by the necessity of marching troops up to Pretoria,—at a terrible cost, and now an additional stir by Zulu ambition. An Englishman in these parts, when he remembers the almost insuperable difficulty of getting a sufficient number of men in England to act as soldiers, when he tells himself what these soldiers cost by the time they reach their distant billets, and reminds himself that they are supported by taxes levied on a people who, man for man, are very much poorer than the Colonists themselves, that they are maintained in great part out of the beer and tobacco of rural labourers who cannot earn near as much as many a Kafir,—the Englishman as he thinks of all this is apt to question the propriety of their being there. He will say to himself that at any rate the Colony should pay for them.A part of the cost is paid for by the Colony, but only a small part. In 1876 £4,596 9s. 11d. was so expended, and in 1877 £2,318 2s. 7d.
Other countries, Spain most notoriously and Holland also, have held the idea that they should use their Colonies as a source of direct wealth to themselves,—that a portion of the Colonists’ earnings, or findings, should periodically be sent home to enrich the mother country. England has disavowed that idea and has thought that the Colonies should be for the Colonists. She has been contented with the advantage to her own trade which might come from the creating of new markets for her goods, and from the increase which accrued to her honour from the spreading of her language, her laws and her customs about the world. Up to a certain point she has had to manage the Colonies herself as a mother manages her child; and while this was going on she had imposed on her the necessary task of spending Colonial funds, and might spend them on soldiers or what not as seemed best to her. But when the Colonies have declared themselves able to manage themselves and have demanded the privilege of spending their own moneys, then she has withdrawn her soldiers. It has seemed monstrous to her to have to send those luxuries,—which of all luxuries are in England the most difficult to be had,—to Colonies which assume to be able to take care of themselves with their own funds. But the act of withdrawing them has been very unpopular. New South Wales has not yet quite forgiven it, nor Tasmania. For a time there was a question whether it might not drive New Zealand intorebellion. But the soldiers have been withdrawn,—from all parliamentary Colonies, I think, except the Cape. Natal is not a parliamentary Colony in the proper sense, and cannot therefore in this matter be put on quite the same footing as the Cape Colony. But she spends her own revenues and according to the theory which prevails on the subject, she should provide for her own defence.
Australia wants no soldiers, nor does New Zealand in spite of the unsubdued Maoris who are still resident within her borders. They fear no evil from aboriginal races against which their own strength will not suffice for them. At the Cape and in Natal it is very different. It has to be acknowledged, at any rate as to Natal, that an armed European force in addition to any that the Colony can supply for itself, has to be maintained for its protection against the black races. But who should pay the bill? I will not say that assuredly the Colony should do so,—or else not have the soldiers. What is absolutely necessary in the way of soldiers must be supplied, whoever pays for them. England will not let her Colonies be overcome by enemies, black or white, even though she herself must pay the bill. But it seems to me that a Colony should either pay its bill or else be ruled from home. I cannot admit that a Colony is in a position to levy, collect, and spend its own taxes, till it is in a position to pay for whatever it wants with those taxes. Were there many Colonies situated as are those of South Africa it would be impossible for England to continue to send her soldiers for their protection. In the mean time it is right to say that the Colony keeps a colonial force of 150 mounted police who are stationed at three different placesin the Colony,—the Capital, Eastcourt, and Greyton. In these places there are barracks and stables, and the force as far as it goes is very serviceable.
The Colony is governed by a Lieutenant-Governor,—who however is not in truth Lieutenant to any one but simply bears that sobriquet, and an Executive Council consisting I think of an uncertain number. There is a Colonial Secretary, a Secretary for Native Affairs, a Treasurer, and an Attorney-General. The Commandant of the Forces is I think also called to the Council, and the Superintendent of Public Works. The Governor is impowered also to invite two members of the Legislative Council. They meet as often as is found necessary and in fact govern the Colony. Laws are of course passed by the Legislative Council of twenty-eight members, of which, as I have stated before, fifteen are elected and thirteen nominated. New laws are I think always initiated by the Government, and the action of the Council, if hostile to the Government, is confined to repudiating propositions made by the Government. But the essential difference between such a government as that of Natal, and parliamentary government such as prevails in Canada, the Australias, New Zealand and in the Cape Colony, consists in this—that the Prime Minister in these self-governing Colonies is the responsible head of affairs and goes in and out in accordance with a parliamentary majority, as do our Ministers at home; whereas in Natal the Ministers remain in,—or go out if they do go out,—at the dictation of the Crown. Though the fifteen elective members in Natal were to remain hostile to the Government on every point year after year, there would be no constitutional necessity tochange a single Minister of the Colony. The Crown,—or Governor,—would still govern in accordance with its or his prevailing ideas. There might be a deadlock about money. There might be much that would be disagreeable. But the Governor would be responsible for the government, and no one would necessarily come in or go out. Such a state of things, however, is very improbable in a Colony in which the Crown nominates so great a minority as thirteen members out of a Chamber of twenty-eight. It is not probable that the fifteen elected members will combine themselves together to create a difficulty.
In 1876 the Revenue of the Colony was £265,551. In 1846 it was only £3,095. In 1876 the expenditure was £261,933. What was the expenditure in 1846 I do not know, but certainly more than the Revenue,—as has often been the case since. The Colony owes an old funded debt of £331,700, and it has now borrowed or is in the act of borrowing £1,200,000 for its railways. The borrowed money will no doubt all be expended on public works. When a country has but one harbour, and that harbour has such a sandbank as the bar at Durban, it has to spend a considerable sum of money before it can open the way for its commerce. Upon the whole it may be said that the financial affairs of the Colony are now in a good condition.
When I had been a day or two in the place the Governor was kind enough to ask me to his house and extended his hospitality by inviting me to join him in an excursion which he was about to make through that portion of his province which lies to the immediate North of Pieter Maritzburg, andthence, eastward, down the coast through the sugar districts to Durban. It was matter of regret to me that my arrangements were too far fixed to enable me to do all that he suggested; but I had a few days at my disposal and I was very glad to take the opportunity of seeing, under such auspices, as much as those few days would allow. An active Colonial Governor will be so often on the move as to see the whole of the territory confided to his care and to place himself in this way within the reach of almost every Colonist who may wish to pay his respects or may have ought of which to complain. This is so general that Governors are very often away from home, making semi-regal tours through their dominions, not always very much to their own comfort, but greatly to the satisfaction of the male Colonist who always likes to see the Governor,—very much indeed to the satisfaction of the lady Colonist who likes the Governor to call upon her.
Upon such occasions everything needed upon the road has to be carried, as, except in towns, no accommodation can be found for the Governor and his suite. In Natal for instance I imagine that Durban alone would be able to put the Governor up with all his followers. He lives as he goes under canvas, and about a dozen tents are necessary. Such at least was the case on this trip. Cooks, tentpitchers, butlers, guards, aides-de-camp, and private secretary are all necessary. The progress was commenced by the despatch of many waggons with innumerable oxen. Then there followed a mule waggon in which those men were supposed to sit who did not care to remain long on horseback. While I remainedthe mule waggon was I think presided over by the butler and tenanted by his satellites, the higher persons preferring the more animated life of the saddle. I had been provided with a remarkably strong little nag, named Toby Tub, who seemed to think nothing of sixteen stone for six or seven hours daily and who would canter along for ever if not pressed beyond eight miles an hour. The mode of our progress was thus;—as the slow oxen made their journeys of twelve or fourteen miles a day the Governor deviated hither and thither to the right and the left, to this village or to that church, or to pay a visit to some considerable farmer; and thus we would arrive at the end of our day’s journey by the time the tents were pitched,—or generally before. There was one young officer who used to shoot ahead about three in the afternoon, and it seemed that everything in the way of comfort depended on him. My own debt of gratitude to him was very great, as he let me have his own peculiar indiarubber tub every morning before he used it himself. Tubbing on such occasions is one of the difficulties, as the tents cannot be pitched quite close to the spruits, or streams, and the tubs have to be carried to the water instead of the water to the tubs. Bathing would be convenient, were it not that the bather is apt to get out of a South African spruit much more dirty than he went into it. I bathed in various rivers during my journey, but I did not generally find it satisfactory.
We rode up to many farms at which we were of course received with the welcome due to the Governor, and where in the course of the interview most of the material facts as to the farmer’s enterprise,—whether on the whole he hadbeen successful or the reverse, and to what cause his success or failure had been owing,—would come out in conversation. An English farmer at home would at once resent the questionings which to a Colonial farmer are a matter of course. The latter is conscious that he has been trying an experiment and that any new comer will be anxious to know the result. He has no rent to pay and does not feel that his condition ought to remain a secret between him and his landlord alone. One man whom we saw had come from the East Riding of Yorkshire more than twenty years ago, and was now the owner of 1,200 acres,—which however in Natal is not a large farm. But he was well located as to land, and could have cultivated nearly the whole had labour been abundant enough, and cheap enough. He was living comfortably with a pleasant wife and well-to-do children, and regaled us with tea and custard. His house was comfortable, and everything no doubt was plentiful with him. But he complained of the state of things and would not admit himself to be well off. O fortunati nimium sua si bona norint Agricolæ. He had no rent to pay. That was true. But there were taxes,—abominable taxes. This was said with a side look at the Governor. And as for labour,—there was no making a Zulu labour. Now you could get a job done, and now you couldn’t. How was a man to grow wheat in such a state of things, and that, too, with the rust so prevalent? Yes;—he had English neighbours and a school for the children only a mile and a half off. And the land was not to say bad. But what with the taxes and what with the Zulus, there were troubles more than enough. TheGovernor asked, as I thought at the moment indiscreetly, but the result more than justified the question,—whether he had any special complaint to make. He had paid the dog tax on his dogs,—5s. a dog, I think it was;—whereas some of his neighbours had escaped the imposition! There was nothing more. And in the midst of all this the man’s prosperity and comfort were leaking out at every corner. The handsome grown-up daughter was telling me of the dancing parties around to which she went, and there were the pies and custards all prepared for the family use and brought out at a moment’s notice. There were the dining room and drawing room, well furnished and scrupulously clean,—and lived in, which is almost more to the purpose. There could be no doubt that our Yorkshire friend had done well with himself in spite of the Zulus and the dog tax.
An Englishman, especially an English farmer, will always complain, where a Dutchman or a German will express nothing but content. And yet the Englishman will probably have done much more to secure his comfort than any of his neighbours of another nationality. An English farmer in Natal almost always has a deal flooring to his living rooms; while a Dutchman will put up with the earth beneath his feet. The one is as sure to be the case as the other. But the Dutchman rarely grumbles,—or if he grumbles it is not at his farm. He only wants to be left alone, to live as he likes on his earthen floor as his fathers lived before him, and not to be interfered with or have advice given to him by any one.
In the course of our travels we came to a German village,—altogether German, and were taken by the Lutheran parson to see the Lutheran church and Lutheran school. They were both large and betokened a numerous congregation. That such a church should have been built and a clergyman supported was evidence of the possession of considerable district funds. I am not sure but that I myself was more impressed by the excellence of the Lutheran oranges, grown on the spot. It was very hot and the pastor gave us oranges just picked from his own garden to refresh us on our journey. I never ate better oranges. But an orange to be worth eating should always be just picked from the tree.
Afterwards as we went on we came to Hollanders, Germans, Dutchmen, and Englishmen, all of whom were doing well, though most of them complained that they could not grow corn as they would wish to do because the natives would not work. The Hollander and the Dutchman in South Africa are quite distinct persons. The Hollander is a newly arrived emigrant from Holland, and has none of the Boer peculiarities, of which I shall have to speak when I come to the Transvaal and the Free State. The Dutchman is the descendant of the old Dutch Colonist, and when living on his farm is called a Boer,—the word having the same signification as husbandman with us. It flavours altogether of the country and country pursuits, but would never be applied to any one who worked for wages. They are rare in the part of the country we were then visiting, having taken themselves off, as I have before explained, to avoid English rule. There is however a settlement of them stillleft in the northern part of the Colony, about the Klip River and in Weenen.
One Hollander whom we visited was very proud indeed of what he had done in the way of agriculture and gave us, not only his own home-grown oranges, but also his own home-grown cigars. I had abandoned smoking, perhaps in prophetical anticipation of some such treat as this. Others of the party took the cigars,—which, however, were not as good as the oranges. This man had planted many trees, and had done marvels with the land round his house. But the house itself was deficient,—especially in the article of flooring.
Then we came to a German farmer who had planted a large grove about his place, having put down some thousands of young trees. Nothing can be done more serviceable to the country at large than the planting of trees. Though there is coal in the Colony it is not yet accessible,—nor can be for many years because of the difficulty of transport. The land is not a forest-land,—like Australia. It is only on the courses of the streams that trees grow naturally and even then the growth is hardly more than that of shrubs. Firewood is consequently very dear, and all the timber used in building is imported. But young trees when planted almost always thrive. It has seemed to me that the Governments of South Africa should take the matter in hand,—as do the Governments of the Swiss Cantons and of the German Duchies, which are careful that timber shall be reproduced as it is cut down. In Natal it should be produced; and Nature, though she has not given the country trees, hasmanifestly given it the power of producing them. The German gentleman was full of the merits of the country, freely admitting his own success, and mitigating in some degree the general expressions against the offending Native. He could get Zulus to work—for a consideration. But he was of opinion that pastoral pursuits paid better than agriculture.
We came to another household of mixed Germans and Dutch, where we received exactly the same answers to our enquiries. Farming answered very well,—but cattle or sheep were the articles which paid. A man should only grow what corn he wanted for himself and his stock. A farmer with 6,000 acres, which is the ordinary size of a farm, should not plough at the most above 40 acres,—just the patches of land round his house. For simply agricultural purposes 6,000 acres would of course be unavailable. The farming capitalists in England who single-handed plough 6,000 acres might probably be counted on the ten fingers. In Natal,—and in South Africa generally,—when a farm is spoken of an area is signified large enough for pastoral purposes. This may be all very well for the individual farmer, but it is not good for a new country, such as are the greater number of our Colonies. In Australia the new coming small farmer can purchase land over the heads of the pastoral Squatters who are only tenants of the land under Government. But in South Africa the fee of the land has unfortunately been given away.
On many of these farms we found that Zulus had “locations.” A small number,—perhaps four or five families,—had been allowed to make a kraal,—or native village,—on condition that the men would work for wages. The arrangement is not kept in any very strict way, but is felt to be convenient by farmers who have not an antipathy to the Zulus. The men will work, unless they are particularly anxious just then to be idle;—which is, I think, as much as can be expected from them just at present. Throughout this country there are other “locations”—very much larger in extent of land and numerously inhabited,—on which the Natives reside by their own right, the use of the soil having been given to them by the Government.
At Greyton the capital of the district I met an English farmer, a gentleman living at a little distance whose residence and station I did not see, and found him boiling over with grievances. He found me walking about the little town at dawn, and took out of his pocket a long letter of complaint, addressed to some one in authority, which he insisted on reading to me. It was a general accusation against the Zulus and all those who had the management of the Zulus. He was able to do nothing because of the injuries which the vagabond Natives inflicted upon him. He would not have had a Zulu near him if he could have helped it. I could not but wish that he might be deserted by Zulus altogether for a year,—so that he might have to catch his own horse, and kill his own sheep, and clean his own top boots—in which he was dressed when he walked about the streets of Greyton that early morning reading to my unwilling ears his long letter of complaint.
At his camp in the neighbourhood of Greyton I badeadieu to the Governor and his companions and went back to Pieter Maritzburg by the mail cart. I had quite convinced myself that the people whom I had seen during my little tour had done well in settling themselves in Natal, and had prospered as Colonists, in spite of the dog tax and the wickedness of the Zulus to the unfortunate owner of the top boots.
Uponentering Natal we exchange the Kafir for the Zulu,—who conceives himself to be a very superior sort of man—not as being equal to the white man whom he reverences, but as being greatly above the other black races around him. And yet he is not a man of ancient blood, or of long established supremacy. In the early part of this century,—beyond which I take it Zulu history goeth not,—there was a certain chief of the Zulus whom we have spoken of as King Chaka. To spell the name aright there should be a T before the C, and an accent to mark the peculiar sound in the Kafir language which is called a click. To the uninstructed English ear Chaka will be intelligible and sufficient. He was King of the Zulus, but the tribe was not mighty before his time. He was a great warrior and was brave enough and gradually strong enough to “eat up” all the tribes around him; and then, according to Kafir fashion, the tribes so eaten amalgamated themselves with the eaters, and the Zulus became a great people. But Chaka was a bloody tyrant and if the stories told be true was nearly as great an eater of his own people as of his enemies. In his early days the territory whichwe now call Natal was not inhabited by Zulus but by tribes which fell under his wrath, and which he either exterminated or assimilated,—which at any rate he “ate up.” Then the Zulus flocked into the land, and hence the native population became a Zulu people. But Zulu-land proper, with which we Britons have no concern and where the Zulus live under an independent king of their own, is to the North of Natal, lying between the Colony and the Portuguese possession called Delagoa Bay.
It may be as well to say here a few words about the Zulus on their own land. I did not visit their country and am not therefore entitled to say much, but from what I learned I have no doubt that had I visited the nation I should have been received with all courtesy at the Court of his dreaded Majesty King Cetywayo,—who at this moment, January, 1878, is I fear our enemy. The spelling of this name has become settled, but Cetch-way-o is the pronunciation which shews the speaker to be well up in his Zulu. King Chaka, who made all the conquests, was murdered by his brother Dingaan[16]who then reigned in his stead. Dingaan did not add much territory to the territories of his tribe as Chaka had done, but he made himself known and probably respected among his Zulu subjects by those horrible butcheries of the Dutch pioneers of which I have spoken in my chapter on the early history of the Colony. The name of Dingaan then became dreadful through theland. It was not only that he butchered the Dutch, but that he maintained his authority and the dread of his name by the indiscriminate slaughter of his own people. If the stories told be true, he was of all South African Savages the most powerful and the most savage. But as far as I can learn English missionaries were safe in Zulu-land even in Dingaan’s time.
Then Dingaan was murdered and his brother Panda became Chief. Neither Chaka or Dingaan left sons, and there is extant a horrible story to the effect that they had their children killed as soon as born, thinking that a living son would be the most natural enemy to a reigning father. Panda was allowed to live and reign, and seems to have been a fat do-nothing good-natured sort of King,—for a Zulu. He died some years since,—in his bed if he had one,—and now his son Cetywayo reigns in his stead.
Cetywayo has certainly a bad reputation generally, though he was till quite lately supposed to be favourable to the English as opposed to the Dutch. When dealing with the troubles of the Transvaal I shall have to say something of him in that respect. He has probably been the indirect cause of the annexation of that country. In Natal there are two opinions about the Zulu monarch. As the white man generally dislikes the black races by whom he is surrounded and troubled in South Africa,—not averse by any means to the individual with whom he comes in immediate contact, but despising and almost hating the people,—Cetywayo and his subjects are as a rule evil spoken of among the Europeansof the adjacent Colony. He is accused of murdering his people right and left according to his caprices. That is the charge brought against him. But it is acknowledged that he does not murder white people, and I am not at all sure that there is any conclusive evidence of his cruelty to the blacks. He has his white friends as I have said, and although they probably go a little too far in whitewashing him, I am inclined to believe them when they assert that the spirit of European clemency and abhorrence from bloodshed has worked its way even into the Zulu Court and produced a respect for life which was unknown in the days of Chaka and Dingaan. It is no doubt the case that some of the missionaries who had been settled in Zulu-land have in the year that is last past,—1877,—left the country as though in a panic. I presume that the missionaries have gone because two or three of their converts were murdered. Two or three certainly have been murdered, but I doubt whether it was done by order of the Chief. The converts have as a rule been safe,—as have the missionaries,—not from any love borne to them by Cetywayo, but because Cetywayo has thought them to be protected by English influence. Cetywayo has hitherto been quite alive to the expediency of maintaining peace with his white neighbours in Natal, though he could afford to despise his Dutch neighbours in the Transvaal. It has yet to be seen whether we shall be able to settle questions as to a line of demarcation between himself and us in the Transvaal without an appeal to force.