Part 4

KENILWORTH, NR. CAPE TOWN, _January 1893_.

Here we are, amidst lovely greenery and flowers, with the turtle-doves cooing in the garden, and with the very blue sea on one side and grand old Table Mountain towering above us on the other.

Kimberley was really a very warm place before we left it. We had had several bad dust-storms, when you shut up all the doors and windows, and still the dust comes through, and settles in inches on the furniture, and everything you touch or taste is dusty.

One of the worst dust-storms, and the hottest of days, was Christmas Day. We had invited a few lonely men to dinner; and when I came in to dress, George met me at the door, and said, "Missus, kitchen window all gone; dinner no good." And when I went to investigate, I found poor Stanley nearly weeping, as the window had been blown completely in, frame and all, on to the table at which she was preparing our dinner; and the dignified cat was licking up the custard on the floor!

Fortunately the turkey was saved, and, with the help of a few extra tins, we scraped together a fairly good dinner. I don't know what would become of the people in Kimberley if they were afraid to eat tinned foods.

Besides the dust (and my old enemies, the mosquitoes), the flies were very horrible. They settle everywhere, and it is necessary to keep everything very well covered up. You have to shoo them off the sugar before you help yourself; and if you venture to put some honey or jam on your bread, it is ten to one there is at least one fly on it before it reaches your mouth!

Well, we left Kimberley still gasping for rain, and the train strolled down to the Cape in two days and one night.

The scenery we passed through on the second day was very fine indeed, all through the Hex River Pass. I saw a good many baboons. One little chap scuttled away, and then sat down and threw stones at us. A most quaint little beast he looked, in a fury of a temper.

Mr. ---- met us at the station, and they have such a delightful house and garden. You have no idea what a rest it is to see plenty of greenery again, after all the sun and glare of Kimberley.

All the people about here seem to be so very pleasant and friendly, I am enjoying myself immensely.

We went to dinner one night at Government House. I was shy at the prospect of going, but it was really very jolly. I went in to dinner with Captain ---- of H.M.S. ---- (now at Simonstown), and he was very entertaining. The men were all in naval, military, or court dress, and they looked so nice.

Another day Mrs. ---- gave a picnic at Constantia, the Government wine farm, and the Governor and party joined us there.

It was a very pretty place, and after tea we went for a scramble up a ravine to pick blackberries. Part of the way up I was trying to disentangle Lady ---- from a bramble, when the Governor turned round and called to her, "Hurry up, my dear, hurry up!" and she replied, "But, H. dear, I'm caught by my hair." So he had to return to assist; and then coming down he twice fell down, and each time pretended he had sat down only to admire the view!

On Sunday we went over to Simonstown to call on the Admiral's wife. There were two captains of men-of-war calling, and some other officers, and they invited us to visit them on their ships; but P. could not spare a day. I was rather disappointed.

Mr. Cecil Rhodes was away, but we walked over to see his place, Groot Schuur. It is a very lovely and peaceful spot, just at the foot of Table Mountain, and with lovely views in all directions. The hydrangeas that he is so fond of are quite a sight; they grow up the sides of a hollow glen in the grounds, and the mass of different shades is very beautiful.

Another day we went to lunch with the Chief Justice at Wynberg. Such a lovely place he has, with many beautiful trees in the grounds. Amongst others they have a good many of the silver trees which grow up Table Mountain, and, I believe, nowhere else in the world.

In the afternoon Lady ---- drove us to a huge garden party at Newlands (Government House). I heard that 1600 invitations had been sent out, and I should think most of them had been accepted. But there was still plenty of room, and the grounds are beautiful; and there was a good band playing. One of Khama's sons was there, but I did not meet him.

My brother was anxious to have a little sea-bathing, so we stayed for a few days at a small place called Muizenberg, on the shore of False Bay. I have never bathed in such deliciously warm water before. I believe there are some sharks around Table Bay, but False Bay is considered quite safe; so many Cape Town people go out there to bathe, and some of them have bungalows near the sea.

I was very keen to climb Table Mountain, so I left P. for one night at Muizenberg, and went to spend the night again at Kenilworth, with some friends who were making up a "mountain party."

We were up early, and left in Cape carts--a party of eight--at 5 A.M., and drove round to Hout's Bay Neck. Most unfortunately it was a cloudy morning, and the mountain is said to be dangerous in a fog; but we kept hoping it would clear, and we began the climb at 6.45 A.M.

It was fairly steep, but never really a difficult climb. When we got to the ranger's cottage, we found he had just killed a horrid cobra snake that measured 5 feet 6 inches long. He did not hold out any hope of the weather clearing; but as we had gone so far, we thought we might as well go on. So we clambered to the top, where we arrived at 11 A.M., and were greatly disappointed not to get any view. The only compensations were the flowers we found, which were simply lovely--huge white heather, and many-coloured everlastings, and many flowers which I had never seen before.

Coming down in the afternoon, it was blowing and cold, and at one place we missed the path, and for about a mile had to force our way through some thick and very wet undergrowth, and then it began to rain. So we were rather a draggled-looking party when we reached the carts, and the drive home in our wet garments was not exactly comfortable.

This may not sound as though we had a very enjoyable expedition, and yet I really did enjoy the day very much. The people were all so jolly, and made fun of all the discomforts.

Major ----, the Governor's secretary, was one of the party, and he had provided himself with pins, needles, bandages, sticking plaster, and all sorts of other things, most of which came in useful in the course of the day. I heard afterwards that he told the Governor that he had never done such a hard day's work before, as we made him walk for eleven and a half hours, and only let him sit down for half an hour!

The time has gone so quickly down here, as there has been so much going on, and every one has been so kind. We have had about twice as many invitations as we could accept.

Now we are packing up to return to Kimberley, and as they have had some good rains up there, I hope we shall find it a little cooled down. If only we could take some of this lovely greenery with us! You have no idea how grateful you ought to be in England that you can always find a green field if you go to look for it, instead of perpetual greyness and brownness and glare.

Soon after we get back P. will have to start off on circuit in the colony, and I am hoping to go part of the way with him, and then to start off on an expedition to visit some friends up country in Natal; they are fifty miles from a railway. I am looking forward to this tremendously. And then soon after it will be time for me to make tracks for home, as I have now nearly reached the venerable age of twenty-three, and am therefore eligible for beginning my training in an adult hospital. And though this sort of life is very jolly for a time, I should not like it for always; it is not so satisfying as useful work.

I am quite sad at saying good-bye to all my friends. I believe one makes real friends more easily out here than one does in England. It must be something in the air.

X

GREYTOWN, NATAL, _April 1893_.

After my last letter to you we journeyed back, over the seven hundred odd miles to Kimberley, and found life up there a little flat after the gay time we had been having at the Cape; but I had some good tennis and riding, and then we had to prepare for the circuit.

At each place that the judge visits he has to do a little entertaining, so he has to take a cook and a butler with him; and as some of the places where courts are held are quite villages, he has to take a certain amount of groceries along too--and, of course, wine.

The Government provide a saloon carriage with a small kitchen on board, so that is used as the judge's headquarters when near the railway lines; but many of the places visited entail long drives in Cape carts.

The first place we went to was Colesberg, and we arrived there at 6 A.M. We were quite a large party with the barristers, the clerk and registrar, the interpreter, and the servants.

We were met by the magistrate and the sheriff, with a smart escort of Cape Mounted Police, and a party of convicts to take the baggage up.

We found a nice little house ready for us, the owner having turned out to make room; and, after a wash and breakfast, the men all went off to the court, and I stayed to unpack and get things straight.

There were three coloured girls left to do the housework, &c. None of them could speak English, and they had several babies scattered about. I knew we had to give a dinner party before we left, and felt rather hopeless about how it would go with the material to hand. However, everything went off very well in the end. Lots of people called on me, and I had some good tennis at the club, and also some nice rides on a horse that was lent to me, the first one I have tried since I came to this country that had a good mouth; most of them are ruined with the bits they use.

The surrounding country was rather pretty, and good for corn and cattle.

We stayed four days at Colesberg, and then moved on to Craddock, ten hours on the railway. There was a lot of court work there, and it had to be fitted into five days; so the men were in court nearly all the time--one night up to 11 P.M.--and I found it a little slow. But I had some nice drives, one day going out to see some curious sulphur baths, and another day to a farm about eight miles off, where every imaginable kind of fruit seemed to grow.

After this we parted company, my brother going on to Middleburg, and I for another run of ten hours in the train to Port Elizabeth, where I joined the _Drummond Castle_ for Durban.

Various people seemed to have asked the captain to take care of me, so I sat next to him at table, and he was most kind. When he found that I meant to put up at a hotel in Durban, he told me that he wouldn't let me do that, as he had lots of friends there, and I should have a much better time if I went to stay with them.

We got to East London next day. The sea was rather rough, and there was a lot of cargo to get on board, so we were there some time; but I didn't go ashore. When we had again got under way, the captain came up to me and said, "I have wired to some people in Durban to ask them to meet you when we get there." Was it not kind of him?

When we reached Durban I waited till the captain was ready to go ashore; and then we got into a kind of huge clothes-basket, and were swung over the side and into the tender, as these big steamers can't get into the harbour. And when we had come alongside the wharf, we found two ladies waiting for us, with a sweet pair of cream-coloured ponies.

They assured me it was quite all right, and that they really had lots of room, and the captain was to come up to lunch. So off we drove to such a nice house up on the Berea, with a lovely view right over the harbour.

They were very pleasant Scotch people, and they _were_ so kind to me, driving me about to see the town, &c.

I stayed the night with them, and all the next day, as there was no train till 6 P.M.; and then they saw me off, and made me promise to visit them on my way back.

I got to Pietermaritzburg at 10.30 P.M. (I believe it is very fine scenery on the way up, but it was too dark to see it), and stayed a night at a hotel, where I found that my kind Durban friends had wired to the proprietress to look after me; so everything was very comfortable.

I was up early the next morning to have a look round Maritzburg, and made friends with the driver of the post-cart, who promised me the box-seat. "John" was quite a character, and he entertained me well for all the forty-five miles we drove that day.

We got away at 10.30 A.M. with six tough little horses and the funniest old Noah's Ark of a coach you ever saw. The road was very rough, and there were very steep bits down to rivers (or "spruits," as they are called here), and then a hard pull up the other side. We changed horses several times, and some of the teams were very raw and wild; and the leaders were sometimes inclined to turn round and come to see how the shaft-horses were getting on. So John had to use his huge whip at times, and I had to cling on, and I got so bumped about that I was stiff for days afterwards.

John had many interesting stories to tell, having been a despatch-rider for us in the Zulu War.

My friends met me a mile or two outside Greytown with a mule-cart, in which we drove up to their farm--such a delightful old house. It really belongs to Mrs. ----'s father, but he is in England now, where they have some children at school; so they have come up from their smaller house in Greytown to take care of the farm.

I have been here a fortnight now, and have enjoyed every minute of it. For one thing, the climate is delightful. It is pretty hot, but not the damp heat you find near the coast, nor the dusty heat of Kimberley. So I am feeling very fit, and the people _are_ so nice I should like to stay for months. It is a very free-and-easy life, and we are waited upon by a man in a shirt and an apron of cats' tails!

It is very pretty country, and I am having delightful rides on a good horse. One day we rode out to see some people who live fifteen miles away from here, and they insisted upon our staying the night. Of course they don't get many visitors out there. The next morning we rode on to a place where we got a splendid view over what they call the Thorne country, right into Zululand. We could see the Mooi River valley, and they pointed out to me where the "defence of Rorke's Drift" saved Natal.

I had never been inside a Kaffir hut, so we went one day to explore; and I was taken to call upon "Sixpence," a Zulu who works here. We had to crawl into the wattle and straw hut on our hands and knees, and at first I could not see anything and could hardly breathe, as the only escape for the smoke from their fire is through the doorway; but we squatted down on the floor--which looked clean and polished with much sitting upon--and soon I made out Mrs. Sixpence (Sixpence can only afford one wife), with a blanket draped around her, and four children. The baby was absolutely naked, and the other children were chiefly clad in beads. And then there was Sixpence's mother, a poor old thing who is over a hundred, and can remember Chaka, the great Zulu chief.

I have collected many curios while staying here, and the other day I was given the skin of a huge python 18 feet long, which had been shot near to the house not long before. I can't bear snakes and creeping beasts, and there are a great many of them up here. There is more grass than there is in Cape Colony, and so better cover for the beasts. The other day, when I was out riding, my horse gave a great jump aside, and after I had remonstrated with him I looked back, and saw a horrid snake sitting up and hissing at us; so I had to explain to my gee how sorry I was that I had spoken!

The doctor with whom I am staying has to take very long journeys on horseback to see his patients. He seems very popular, and often has to go to Kaffir kraals a long way off, though many of the natives still stick to their faith in the witch-doctors and their weird remedies. Very often they have no money, so he is paid in kind; and sometimes he returns from a visit to a chief with one or two cows, which he has to drive home before him.

Several people have asked me to stay with them; and if I was not in such a hurry to get back to work, I am sure I could put in several months up here with much enjoyment, the Natal people are quite delightful, and so hospitable. But John has promised me the box-seat on his Noah's ark again on Tuesday, and I must once more make tracks for Kimberley.

XI

KIMBERLEY, SOUTH AFRICA, _June 1893_.

I managed my journey back from Natal very comfortably, and made several new friends on the way.

The drive on the post-cart from Greytown to Maritzburg was somewhat perilous, as there had been a great deal of horse-sickness about, so that good horses were scarce; and several of our teams were very raw, and there was much bucking and kicking before each start; and several times the harness broke down, and John had to descend to make repairs. I am sure the passengers in the body of the ark were terrified lest the horses should take it into their heads to start off while the reins were entrusted to me; and though I am pretty good at managing a horse, I should be shy of trying to drive six of these bucking creatures. However, we got safely down to Maritzburg in the course of the day, and again I had to spend a night there, taking the train the next morning for Durban.

The railway between these two towns is a wonderful piece of engineering work, crawling up one side of a mountain and scuttling down the other; very fine scenery, with sub-tropical vegetation, all the way down.

My good Durban friends again met me, and were most kind, putting me up for the night, and then seeing me off on the _Courland Castle_, rather a tub of a coasting vessel, that gave us such a pitching about that even I succumbed and was sea-sick. This greatly annoyed me, as I had come all the way out to the Cape without a qualm!

I had meant to do a jaunt up from East London to visit some people at Grahamstown and at King William's Town, but I was so happy at Greytown that I stayed on longer than I intended, and had to give up the other visits.

We anchored off East London for some hours, and the captain took me ashore to lunch with some friends of his; and they took us for a nice drive round the town and out to a place called Cambridge, where we picked oranges and lots of flowers. The scenery at the mouth of the Buffalo River is very pretty.

Then we went on to Port Elizabeth, and the captain again took me out to lunch; and we had a pleasant day exploring the town with some of his friends, and in the evening they saw me off by train for Kimberley. The train was rather full, but I was so tired that I slept all night, and woke up only just in time to get some breakfast at Craddock. I am getting quite experienced in making good use of the twenty minutes they allow you to get meals at these wayside stopping-places.

All that day we were strolling along in the train--dinner at De Aar Junction in the evening--and at 4 A.M. the next morning I reached Kimberley. No one to meet me, and no cabs; so I left my baggage with a porter, and walked down to our house. Peter, the cat, was holding an "at home" in the garden, and Carlo, the retriever, was on the stoep to welcome me, and assisted me to find the key under the doormat; and I was glad to find my bed ready to tumble into, after a much-needed wash.

It is winter here now, and the people seem rather more energetic than usual. I have been to two dances since I got back, and there are some dinner parties in prospect.

The other day I went down a diamond mine--a thing visitors don't often do, though, of course, a good many see all the workings above ground. I had to dress up in a canvas overall suit and sou'wester, and then, in a very rough cage, we were lowered to the 1800-feet level. I hear they will soon be working at 2000 feet below the surface, but 1800 feet is the depth they are working just now.

It was all very interesting--swarms of natives (with very little on!), and the fussy little trucks rushing about with their loads of the blue-stone, in which the diamonds are found--but I was rather glad to get back to the daylight again.

Then on Sunday afternoon I was invited to go and see a war-dance by the Zulus in the mine compound. It was really very fine. Only one tribe is allowed to dance at a time, or there would soon be fighting; and the men of the other tribes kept away at the far end of the compound, and would not look on. There were about forty Zulus dancing. They were dressed in little aprons of cats' tails and a few beads, and wore feathers on their heads, and were waving skin shields and knobkerries (sticks with weighted knobs). They all stood in a row, and stamped, and clapped, and danced, and sang in very good time; and then single ones stalked out in front of the others, and, throwing themselves into extraordinary attitudes, with much stuttering and stammering, they recounted the great deeds they had done in war, and the others all chimed in with great "Hoos" and "Hoofs" of approval, stamping on the ground like angry bulls. Some of these men fought against us in the Zulu War. After the dance was over, one very line fellow was introduced to us as the man who had carried a lot of Englishmen out of the mine when it was on fire a year or two ago.

I think it is a wonderful system by which all these tribes--that have hated each other for generations--can be made to live together in one compound, working side by side, and earning very good wages. They have separate huts and messes, but they buy at the same store, and share the same chapel, hospital, and swimming-bath.

There are about 2000 men in the compound, and they all seemed very happy. No beer or spirits are allowed. Any man who likes can learn to read and write while he is in the compound; and many of them were sitting round the fires, where they were boiling their mealy meal, reading to their mates.

We went into the hospital, which was very clean and trim. Natives in white suits, acting as attendants, showed us with pride their neatly-kept charts. There were one or two minor accidents in, and some bad cases of pneumonia, but they all appeared well cared for and comfortable.

The lady who lent me her horse has now returned to Kimberley, so I have not had so much riding lately; but the other night we had a glorious scamper out to Alexanderfontein by moonlight. About ten of us went, and we had supper out there. We had rather a mixed lot of horses and saddlery, and on the way back first one saddle came to grief, and then another. I distributed my gear by degrees--a girth to a gentleman who was riding with only one girth and it gave way, and I had two; a stirrup to a lady who dropped hers, and came off in consequence; and one of my reins to another lady, whose horse was too excited by the crowd of us, and required to be led. The others chaffed me, and begged for the bridle, and then for the saddle!

Now I am busy packing up for home, and trying to arrange things for my brother, who, when I go, intends to move into a smaller house just opposite to the club. There is also a good deal of tennis on just now, and between whiles I am struggling to pay my farewell calls. I was rather surprised to find there were about forty people I ought to call on; and as Kimberley does not wake up from its siesta until 4 P.M., and it is dark by 6 P.M. now, it is difficult to get through things, and George will have to take some P.P.C. cards round for me.