Letters from the Cape | Page 7

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 London, whose mother is Dutch; such is the mixture of bloods here.
Yesterday, the wind went to the south-east; the blessed sun shone out, and the weather was lovely at once. The mountain threw off his cloak of cloud, and all was bright and warm.