Six Months at the Cape | Page 2

blessing befell us. A boy let his cap drop from the wharf into the water! It was an insignificant matter in itself, but it acted like the little safety-valve which prevents the bursting of a high-pressure engine. Voyagers and friends no longer looked at each other like melancholy imbeciles. A gleam of intense interest suffused every visage, intelligence sparkled in every eye, as we turned and concentrated our attention on that cap! The unexpressed blessing of the whole company, ashore and afloat, descended on the uncovered head of that boy, who, all unconscious of the great end he was fulfilling, made frantic and futile efforts with a long piece of stick to recover his lost property.
But we did at last get under weigh, and then there were some touches of real pathos. I felt no disposition to note the humorous elements around when I saw that overgrown lad of apparently eighteen summers, press to the side and wave his thin hands in adieu to an elderly lady on shore, while tears that he could not, and evidently did not care to restrain, ran down his hollow cheeks. He had no friend on board, and was being sent to the Cape for the benefit of his health. So, too, was another young man--somewhere between twenty and thirty years--whose high colour, brilliant eye, and feeble step told their own tale. But this man was not friendless. His young wife was there, and supported him with tender solicitude towards a seat. These two were in the after-cabin. Among the steerage passengers the fell disease was represented in the person of a little boy. "Too late" was written on the countenances of at least two of these,--the married man and the little boy.
As to the healthy passengers, what shall I say of them? Need I tell you that every species of humanity was represented?
There were tall men, and short men, as well as men broad and narrow,-- mentally, not less than physically. There were ladies pretty, and ladies plain, as well as grave and gay. Fat and funny ones we had, also lean ones and sad. The wise and foolish virgins were represented. So too were smokers and drinkers; and not a few earnest, loving, and lovable, men and women.
A tendency had been gaining on me of late to believe that, after passing middle-life, a man cannot make new and enthusiastic friendships. Never was I more mistaken. It is now my firm conviction that men may and do make friendships of the closest kind up to the end of their career. Of course the new friends do not, and cannot, take the place of the old. It seems to me that they serve a higher purpose, and, by enabling one to realise the difference between the old and the new, draw the cords of ancient friendship tighter. At all events, you may depend upon it, my dear Periwinkle, that no new friend shall ever tumble you out of the niche which you occupy in my bosom!
But be this as it may, it is a fact that in my berth--which held four, and was full all the voyage--there was a tall, dark, powerful, middle-aged man, an Englishman born in Cape Colony, [see note 3], who had been "home" for a trip, and was on his way out again to his African home on the great Karroo. This man raised within me feelings of disgust when I first saw him in the dim light of our berth, because he was big, and I knew that a big man requires more air to fill his lungs than a little one, and there was no superabundant air in our berth--quite the reverse. This man occupied the top berth opposite to mine. Each morning as I awoke my eyes fell on his beard of iron-grey, and I gazed at his placid countenance till he awoke--or I found his placid countenance gazing at me when I awoke. From gazing to nodding in recognition is an easy step in ordinary circumstances, but not when one's head is on one's pillow. We therefore passed at once, without the ceremony of nodding, into a quiet "good morning." Although reticent, he gradually added a smile to the "good morning," and I noticed that his smile was a peculiarly pleasant one. Steps that succeed the "first" are generally easy. From disliking this man--not on personal, but purely selfish grounds--I came to like him; then to love him. I have reason to believe that the attachment was mutual. His name--why should I not state it? I don't think he would object--is Hobson.
In the bunk below Hobson lay a young Wesleyan minister. He was a slender young fellow,--modest and thoughtful. If Hobson's bunk had given way, I fear that his modesty and thoughtfulness might have been put