Letters from the Cape | Page 7

I asked the pert, active, cockney housemaid what I ought
to pay them, as, being a stranger, they might overcharge me. Her scorn
was sublime, 'Them nasty blacks never asks more than their regular
charge.' So I asked the black-lead demon, who demanded 'two shilling
each horse in waggon', and a dollar each 'coolie man'. He then glided
with fiendish noiselessness about the room, arranged the furniture to
his own taste, and finally said, 'Poor missus sick'; then more chirruping
among themselves, and finally a fearful gesture of incantation,
accompanied by 'God bless poor missus. Soon well now'. The wrath of
the cockney housemaid became majestic: 'There, ma'am; you see how
saucy they have grown- -a nasty black heathen Mohamedan a blessing

of a white Christian!'
These men are the Auvergnats of Africa. I was assured that bankers
entrust them with large sums in gold, which they carry some hundred
and twenty miles, by unknown tracks, for a small gratuity. The pretty,
graceful Malays are no honester than ourselves, but are excellent
workmen.
To-morrow, my linen will go to a ravine in the giant mountain at my
back, and there be scoured in a clear spring by brown women, bleached
on the mountain top, and carried back all those long miles on their
heads, as it went up.
My landlady is Dutch; the waiter is an Africander, half Dutch, half
Malay, very handsome, and exactly like a French gentleman, and as
civil.
Enter 'Africander' lad with a nosegay; only one flower that I know-
-heliotrope. The vegetation is lovely; the freshness of spring and the
richness of summer. The leaves on the trees are in all the beauty of
spring. Mrs. R- brought me a plate of oranges, 'just gathered', as soon
as I entered the house--and, oh! how good they were! better even than
the Maltese. They are going out, and DEAR now--two a penny, very
large and delicious. I am wild to get out and see the glorious scenery
and the hideous people. To-day the wind has been a cold south-wester,
and I have not been out. My windows look N. and E. so I get all the sun
and warmth. The beauty of Table Bay is astounding. Fancy the
Undercliff in the Isle of Wight magnified a hundred-fold, with clouds
floating halfway up the mountain. The Hottentot mountains in the
distance have a fantastic jagged outline, which hardly looks real. The
town is like those in the south of Europe; flat roofs, and all unfinished;
roads are simply non-existent. At the doors sat brown women with
black hair that shone like metal, very handsome; they are Malays, and
their men wear conical hats a-top of turbans, and are the chief artisans.
At the end of the pier sat a Mozambique woman in white drapery and
the most majestic attitude, like a Roman matron; her features large and
strong and harsh, but fine; and her skin blacker than night.

I have got a couple of Cape pigeons (the storm-bird of the South
Atlantic) for J-'s hat. They followed us several thousand miles, and
were hooked for their pains. The albatrosses did not come within hail.
The little Maltese goat gave a pint of milk night and morning, and was
a great comfort to the cow. She did not like the land or the grass at first,
and is to be thrown out of milk now. She is much admired and petted
by the young Africander. My room is at least eighteen feet high, and
contains exactly a bedstead, one straw mattrass, one rickety table, one
wash-table, two chairs, and broken looking-glass; no carpet, and a
hiatus of three inches between the floor and the door, but all very clean;
and excellent food. I have not made a bargain yet, but I dare say I shall
stay here.
Friday.--I have just received your letter; where it has been hiding, I
can't conceive. To-day is cold and foggy, like a baddish day in June
with you; no colder, if so cold. Still, I did not venture out, the fog rolls
so heavily over the mountain. Well, I must send off this yarn, which is
as interminable as the 'sinnet' and 'foxes' which I twisted with the mids.

LETTER II

Cape Town, Oct. 3.
I came on shore on a very fine day, but the weather changed, and we
had a fortnight of cold and damp and S.W. wind (equivalent to our east
wind), such as the 'oldest inhabitant' never experienced; and I have had
as bad an attack of bronchitis as ever I remember, having been in bed
till yesterday. I had a very good doctor, half Italian, half Dane, born at
the Cape of Good Hope, and educated at Edinburgh, named Chiappini.
He has a son studying medicine in