Part 6

The last few miles seemed a nightmare of stumbling up and down break-neck places on tired horses in the dark, and the contrast of a charming little house at last, with lights and blazing fires, was all the more delightful. Indeed, it seemed to us, stumbling out of the darkness and a chilling mist, that nothing short of Aladdin’s lamp could at all account for the transport of all the nice furniture, pictures, glass and china along such impassable tracks. However, they were all there, and everything which goes to make up a pretty and refined home besides, including a charming hostess and two rosy children. We were waited on by Kaffir boys in long white garments, looking for all the world like black-faced choristers. But after gallons of tea and a capital supper, bed seemed the most attractive suggestion, and many hours of dreamless sleep wiped away all fatigue and started us off early next morning in splendid health and spirits to explore the magnificent forest close by.

I have often thought that the three most distinct memories of beautiful scenes, which must ever remain vividly before me, are, my first view of the Himalayas, early one morning from the Grand Trunk Road, when I complained that I could not see them, and discovered it was because I had not looked half high enough. That was indeed a revelation of solemn mountain grandeur. Next to it ranks the mighty sweep of the Niagara river as you see it from the railway, and a few moments later behold it thundering over the edge. And the third is that long, lonely morning in the magnificent forest in the heart of Natal, the recollection of which dwarfs all other trees to insignificance. The growth not only of giant timber but of exquisite under-growth of ferns and delicate foliage was indeed superb. Of flowers there were none, because the sun could not enter those cathedral glades except at the very edge and outskirt where the big trees had been felled.

I confess I should greatly have preferred to wander as far as I dared, and looked longer into the old Elephant pits, and heard more stories of the comparatively recent dates at which tigers, panthers, and leopards could be met with. And I also wanted to go deep enough among the overhanging _lianes_, or monkey-ropes as they call them, to see, perchance, the great baboons swinging on them. But our host evidently regarded his new saw-mill as the greatest point of interest, and thither we betook ourselves—all too soon for my enjoyment. There, indeed, one beheld a marvellous chaos of wheels and chains and saws, which took hold of these same giant trunks and tossed them out and passed them from one to the other, until they emerged, shaven and shorn into the planks of every-day commerce. Very wonderful, no doubt, and one asked one’s-self every moment, “how did these huge masses of machinery get over that last range?” But still I feel that it was the forest I came to see and I was only peeping into it.

However, next day I had a fine long ramble in it, and explored to my heart’s content, but it was damp and drizzling, and so it remained the day after that again, when we started very early for home. The horses were quite fresh and rested, and carried us well, in spite of the extreme slipperiness of the mountain tracks. Curiously enough as soon as we got clear of the ranges we rode into the thickest fog I have ever seen. We could only go at a slow walk in Indian file, with the Kaffir leading, and every few minutes he got off his rough little pony and patted the ground to _feel_ where we were. They said it was a sea fog, but it wrapped us up as thoroughly as if it had been the thickest of blankets, and one felt quite helpless. Certainly nothing is so demoralising as a fog, and I never wish to repeat that morning’s experience. We should have tumbled over “Taylor’s,” or rather passed it, though it stood quite close to the track, if a cock had not fortunately crowed, and the leading pony neighed in reply, calling forth a chorus of barks from quite unseen dogs, who dared not venture an inch from the sheltering porch.

Although my stay in Natal lasted very little over a year, I made many friends there, and it is with sympathising regret I often saw in the roll-call of her local defenders the familiar names of those whom I remember as bright-eyed children. They have all sprung to arms in defence of the fair land of their fathers’ adoption, and when the tale of this crisis in the history of Natal comes to be written, the names of her gallant young defenders will stand out on its pages in letters of light, and the record of their noble deeds will serve as an example for ever and for ever. So will they not have laid down their lives in vain.

VI

“STELLA CLAVISQUE MARIS INDICI”

“The Star and the Key of the Indian Ocean” lay smiling before me on Easter Sunday, April 1878.

The little schooner in which I had come across from Natal had just dropped her anchor in the harbour of Port Louis after seventeen days of light and baffling winds. The tedium of that past time slipped quickly out of my mind, however, as the fast-growing daylight revealed the beauties of Mauritius, a little island which I had so often read of and yet so little expected ever to behold. The interest of the tragic tale of “Paul and Virginia” had riveted my wandering attention during the French reading-lessons of my youth, though I always secretly wondered why Virginia had been such a goose as to decline help from a sailor, apparently only because he was somewhat insufficiently clad. But I should not have dared to give utterance to this opinion, so prudish was the domestic atmosphere of those early days.

The first real interest I felt in Mauritius arose from the frequent mention of the little island as a health-resort, in some charming letters of Miss Eden’s published about five-and-twenty years ago, but written long before that date, when she was keeping house for her brother, Lord Auckland, then Governor-General of India. Miss Eden speaks of many friends as well as of Indian tourists (for “Paget, M.P.’s” existed apparently even in those distant times) having gone for change of air to “the Mauritius” and coming back quite strong and robust. She mentions one instance of a whole opera company, whose health gave way in Calcutta, and who made the excursion, returning in time for their next season with restored health, and she often longs in vain for such a change for her hard-worked brother.

But all this must have been many years before the first mysterious outbreak of fever which ravaged the place in 1867. I was assured that before that date the reputation of the pretty little island had stood very high as a sanatorium, but no doctor could give me any reason for the sudden appearance of this virulent fever. There were, of course, many theories, each of which had earnest supporters. Some said the great hurricane which had just before swept over the island brought the malaria on its wings. Others declared the _déboisement_ which had been carried on to a devastating extent in order to increase the area available for sugar-cane planting was to blame; whilst a third faction put all the trouble down to the great influx of coolie immigrants introduced about that date to work in the cane-fields. Perhaps the truth lies in a blending of these three principal theories. Anyway, I felt it sad and hard that so really lovely an island should have such dark and trying days behind as well as before it.

But, after seventeen days of glaring lonely seas and dark monotonous nights, one is not apt to think of anything beyond the immediate “blessings of the land,” and I gazed with profound content on the chain of volcanic hills, down whose rugged sides many _cascades_ tumbled their gleaming silver. Coral reefs, with white foam tossing over them, in spite of the calm sapphire sea on which we were gently floating into harbour, seemed spread all around us, and indeed I believe these _récifs_ circle the whole island with a dangerous though protecting girdle. Sloping ground, covered with growth of differing greens, some showing the bluish hue of the sugar-cane, others the more vivid colouring of a coarse tall grass, led the eye gently down to the flowering trees and foliage round the clustering houses of Port Louis, whose steep high-pitched roofs looked so suggestive of tropic rains. Port Louis was once evidently a stately capital, and large handsome houses still remain. These have, however, nearly all been turned into offices or banks, and the fine large Government House, or _Hôtel du Gouvernement_, is always empty as to its numerous bedrooms. Hardly a white person sleeps with impunity in Port Louis, though all the business—official and private—is carried on there, and it contains many excellent shops.

You must climb up, however, some few miles by the steep little railway before you realise how really lovely the scenery of Mauritius can be. All in miniature, it is true, but very ambitious in character. Except for the glowing tints of the volcanic rocks and the tropic vegetation, one might be looking at a bit of Switzerland through the wrong end of a telescope; but nowhere else have I ever seen such tints as the bare mountain sides take at sunset. The tufa rocks glow like wet porphyry, and so magical are the hues that one half expects to see the grand recumbent figure of the old warrior of the Corps de Garde hill outlined against the purple sky, rise up and salute the island which once was his.

Mauritius is in many ways an object-lesson which is not without its significance just now. Here we have a little island thoroughly French in its history and people, and inhabited by many of the _vieille roche_ who fled there in the Terror days. Battles between French and English by land and sea raged round its sunny shores in the first few years of the just-ended century. Dauntless attacks and valiant resistance have left heroic memories behind them. We took it by _force majeure_ in 1811, but it was not until the great settling up at the Restoration in 1814 that the hatchet may be said to have been finally buried, and the two nationalities began to pull together comfortably. I was rather surprised to see how thoroughly French Mauritius still is in language and in characteristics; but the result is indeed satisfactory. I found it quite the most highly civilised of the colonies I then knew, and from the social point of view there was nothing left to be desired. The early class of French settler had evidently been of a much higher type than our own rough-and-ready colonist, and the refinement so introduced had influenced the whole place. Did I find any race-hatred, oppression, or heart-burnings? No, indeed; of all the dependencies of our Empire not one has come forward more generously or more splendidly with substantial offers of help than that little lonely isle, “the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean.” I venture to say, speaking from my experience of those days, that the King has no more loyal subjects than the Mauritians.

It may be that the trials and troubles we have all borne there side by side in the past half-century have knitted and bound us together. We have had hurricane, pestilence, and fire to contend with, besides the chronic hard times of the sugar industry. In these fast-following calamities French and English have stood shoulder to shoulder, and the only race or religious rivalry has been in good and noble deeds. In the Zulu War of 1881, when Sir Bartle Frere sent a ship down with despatches to my dear husband, then the Lieutenant-Governor of Mauritius, urgently asking for help to “hold the fort” until the English reinforcements could arrive, Mauritius sprang to her feet then as now, and gave willing and substantial help. Every soldier who was able to stand up started at twenty-four hours’ notice for Durban. The same day the mayor of Port Louis held a meeting, at which a volunteer corps of doctors and nurses was at once raised, with plenty of money to equip them, and they, as well as cooks and cows—both much needed—were on their way to Durban before another sun had set. It was indeed gratifying to hear afterwards that not only had our little military effort been of great service, but that the abundance of fresh milk supplied had helped many a case of dysentery among the garrison at Durban to turn the corner on the road to recovery.

Nothing can be much more beautiful than the view from the back verandah at “Réduit,” as the fine country Government House, built by the Chevalier de la Brillane for the Governors of Mauritius more than a century ago, is called. Before you spreads an expanse of English lawn only broken by clumps of gay foliaged shrubs or beds of flowers, and behind that again is the wooded edge of the steep ravine, where the mischievous “jackos” hide, who come up at night to play havoc with the sugar-canes on its opposite side. The only day of the week on which they ventured up was Sunday afternoon, when all the world was silent and sleepy.

It used to be my delight to watch from an upper bedroom window the stealthy appearance of the old sentinel monkeys, who first peered cautiously up and evidently reconnoitred the ground thoroughly. After a few moments of careful scouting a sort of chirrup would be heard, which seemed the signal for the rest of the colony to scramble tumultuously up the bank. Such games as then started among the young ones, such antics and tumblings and rompings! But all the time the sentinels never relaxed their vigilance. They spread like a cordon round the gambolling young ones, and kept turning their horribly wise human-looking heads from side to side incessantly, only picking and chewing a blade of grass now and then. The mothers seemed to keep together, and doubtless gossiped; but let my old and perfectly harmless Skye terrier toddle round the corner of the verandah, and each female would dart into the group of playing monkeys, seize her property by its nearest leg, toss it over her shoulder, and quicker than the eye could follow she would have disappeared down the ravine. The sentinels had uttered their warning cry directly, but they always remained until the very last, and retreated in good order; though there was no cause for alarm, as “Boxer’s” thoughts were fixed on the peacocks—apt to trespass at those silent and unguarded hours—and not on the monkeys at all!

This is a sad digression, but yet it has not led us far from that halcyon scene, which is so often before the eyes of my memory. The beautiful changing hues of the Indian Ocean binds the horizon in this and every other extensive island view, but between us and it there arises in the distance a very forest of tall green masts, the spikes of countless aloe blossoms. I have heard Mauritius described as “an island with a barque always to windward,” and there is much truth in the saying; though one could easily mistake the glancing wing of a huge seagull or the long white floating tail-feathers of the “boatswain bird” for the shimmer of a distant sail.

I fear it is a very prosaic confession to make, but one fact which added considerably to my comfort in Mauritius was the excellence of the cook of that day. I hear that education and Board schools have now improved him off the face of the island, but he used to be a very clever mixture of the best of French and Indian cookery traditions. The food supply was poor. We got our beef from Madagascar, and our mutton came from Aden. We found it answer to import half-a-dozen little sheep at a time; they cost about £1 apiece for purchase and carriage, but could be allowed only a month’s run in the beautiful park of five hundred acres which surrounded Réduit. More than that made them ill, so rich and luscious was the grass; for sheep, like human beings, seem to need a good deal of exercise, and, as Abernethy advised the rich gourmet to do, ought to “live on a shilling a day and earn it.”

These same sheep, however, or rather one of the servants, gave me one of the worst frights of my life. We were at luncheon one day when an under servant, who never appeared in the dining-room, rushed in calling out, “Oh, Excellence, _quel malheur_!” then he lapsed into Hindustani mixed with patois, declaring there had been a terrible railway accident and that _all_ were injured and two killed outright! As this same line, which had a private station in the Park about a mile away, constantly brought us up friends at that hour, I nearly fainted with horror; and yet I remember how angry, though relieved, I felt when the same agitated individual wailed out, “and they were all so fat!” One is apt to be indignant at having been tricked into emotion before one is grateful for the relief to one’s mind.

Almost the first thing which struck me in Mauritius was the absence of cows as well as sheep. I never saw a cow grazing, and yet there seemed plenty of good milk, and even a pallid pat of fresh butter appeared at breakfast. But there were really plenty of cows, only the coolies kept them in their houses, to the despair of the sanitary inspectors, who insisted on proper cowsheds being built at an orthodox distance from the little _case_ or native house, only to find that the family moved down and lived with the cow as before. One year there was an outbreak of pleuro-pneumonia among the poor cows, and I heard many pathetic stories of the despair of the owners when sentence of death had to be pronounced in the infected districts against their beloved cows. It was impossible to make the coolies understand that this was a precautionary measure, and the large and liberal compensation which they received seemed to bring no consolation whatever with it. I was assured that in many instances the owner of the doomed animal would fling himself at the inspector’s feet, beseeching him to spare the life of the cow, and to kill him (the coolie) instead!

The roads in Mauritius were admirably kept, but very hard and very hilly. The big horse, usually imported from Australia, soon knocked his legs to pieces if much used up and down these hills; but an excellent class of hardy, handsome, little pony came to us from Pégou and other parts of Burma, as well as from Timor and Java. These animals were very expensive to buy, but excellent for work, and I should think would have made splendid polo ponies; but polo did not seem to be much played in Mauritius at that date.

Since my day another frightful hurricane has devastated the poor little island, but I heard many stories of former ones. During the summer season—that is, from about November until March or April—the local Meteorological Office keeps a sharp eye on the barometer, and every arrangement is cut and dry, ready to be acted upon at a moment’s warning, for a _coup de vent_ is a rapid traveller and does not dawdle on its way.

We had many false alarms during my stay, for it sometimes happens that the hurrying winds are diverted from the track they started on, and so we escaped, _quitte pour la peur_. When the first warning gun fired all the ships in harbour began to get ready to go outside, for the greatest mischief done in the big hurricane of 1868 was from the crowded vessels in the comparatively small harbour of Port Louis grinding against each other; to say nothing of those ships which, as Kipling sings, were

“Flung to roost with the startled crows.”

At the second signal gun, which meant that the force of the wind was increasing and travelling towards us, the ships got themselves out of harbour, and every business man who lived in the country betook himself to the railway station, as after the third gun, which might be heard within even half-an-hour, the trains would cease to run. I chanced to be returning from Port Louis on one of these occasions, and certainly the railway station presented a curious sight. All my acquaintances seemed to be there, hurrying home with anxious and pre-occupied faces. Each man grasped a ham firmly in one hand and his despatch-box in the other, whilst his _pion_, or messenger, was following, closely laden with baskets of bread and groceries, and attended by coolies with live fowls and bottles of lamp oil! My own head servant, “Monsieur Jorge,” always made the least sign of a “blow” an excuse for demanding sundry extra rupees in hand for carriole money, and started directly in one of these queer little vehicles for a round of marketing in the neighbourhood.

At the first gun heard at Réduit an army of gardeners used to set to work to move the hundreds of large plants out of the verandahs into a big empty room close by. They were followed by the house-carpenter and his mates, armed with enormous iron wedges and sledge-hammers. These worthies proceeded to close the great clumsy hurricane shutters, which so spoil the outer effect of all Mauritian houses, and besides putting the heavy iron bars in their places, wedged them firmly down. It really looked as if the house was being prepared for a siege. Happily, my own experience did not extend beyond a couple of days of this state of affairs, nor was any storm I assisted at dignified by the name of a hurricane, but I could form from these little experiences only too good an idea of what the real thing must be like. Personally, my greatest inconvenience arose from the pervading smell of the lamps, which were, of course, burning all day as well as all night, and from our never being able to get rid of the smell of food. One was so accustomed to the fresh-air life, with doors and windows always open, that these odours were very trying.

But the noise is, I think, what is least understood. Even in a “blow” it is truly deafening, and never ceases for an instant. At Réduit there was a long well-defended corridor upstairs, and I thought I would try and walk along its length. Not a breath of wind really got in, or the roof would soon have been whisked off the house; but although I flatter myself I am tolerably brave, I could not walk down that corridor! Every yard or so a resounding blow, as if from a cannon-ball, would come thundering against the outer side, whilst the noise of many waters descending in solid sheets on the roof, and the screams of the shrieking, whistling winds outside, were literally deafening. It was impossible to believe that any structure made by human hands could stand; and yet that was not a hurricane! Never shall I forget my last outdoor glimpse, which I was invited to take just before the big hall-door on the leeward side was finally shut and barricaded. I could not have believed that the sky could be of such an inky blackness, except at one corner, where a triangle of the curtain of darkness, with sharply defined outlines, had apparently just been turned back to show the deep blood-red colouring behind. It was awful beyond all words to describe; but “Monsieur Jorge,” who held the door open for me, said: “Dat not real bad sky.” He seemed hard to please, I thought.