Part 7
However, a couple of days’ imprisonment was all we suffered that time, and the instant the gale dropped, at sunrise on the second day, the rain ceased and the sun shone out. It was a curious scene the rapidly-opened shutters revealed. Every leaf was stripped off the trees, which were bare as mid-winter. A few of the smaller ones had been uprooted bodily and whisked away down the ravine. Some were found later literally standing on their heads a good way off. It was quite a new idea to me that roots could be snowy white, but they had been so completely washed bare of soil by the down-pouring rain that they were absolutely clean and white. A few hours later I was taken for a drive round some neighbouring cane-fields. Of course, the road was like the bed of a mountain torrent, and how the pony managed to steer himself and the gig among the boulders must ever remain a mystery. Already over three hundred Malagashes (coolies) were at work covering up the exposed roots of the canes, for each plant stood in a large hole partly filled with water, which was rapidly draining away. The force of the wind seemed to have whirled the cane round and round until it stood, quite bare of its crown of waving leaves, in the middle of a hole. Had the sun reached these exposed roots nothing could have saved the plant.
But my memories must not be all meteorological. Rather let me return in thought to the merry and happy intercourse with pleasant friends, of which so many hours stand brightly out. In all the colonies I know hospitality is one of the cardinal virtues, and nowhere more so than in pretty little Mauritius. I heard many lamentations that in these altered times the gracious will far outran the restricted possibilities, but still there used to be pleasant dances, without end and number, most amusing cameron-fishing _déjeuners_, and _chasses au cerf_ in the winter months. It so chanced that we had a guest hailing from Exmoor, who was bidden to one of these popular forms of _le sport_, and never shall I forget his horror at finding he was required to carry a gun and shoot a stag if he could! No fox-hunter invited to assist at a battue of foxes in the Midlands could have been more shocked and disgusted, and it was quite in vain that we cited Scotch deer-stalking in excuse. This was _not_ deer-stalking he vowed, for you sat on a camp-stool in a thick forest and took pot shots at the poor animals as they were driven past certain spots! An excellent luncheon was served in the middle of the _chasse_, so it was always a favourite diversion, but the hospitable owner of one of the best deer districts told me that he had to inflict fines on these sportsmen who only wounded the poor deer. Some very handsome “heads” could be got among them however. But, indeed, I am constrained to say that the idea of sport, as we understand it, seemed rather undeveloped in that fairy island, and it was difficult to keep one’s countenance when, in answer to the Governor’s inquiry as to the success of a morning among the cane-fields in pursuit of red-legged partridges and quail, the sportsman rose in his place, bowed low, and answered, “Excéllence, j’ai tué un, mais j’ai blessé deux.”
The annual race-meeting, held on the Champ-de-Mars outside Port Louis, was remarkable for the crowds of coolies it attracted from all parts of the island. The horses were the least important or interesting part of the performance, and the betting on even the principal races appeared to be confined to a few Arab merchants, who certainly did not look at all “horsey” in their gay and flowing robes. It so chanced that I was being driven home very late the night before the third principal day of one of these race-meetings, and I thought the shuffling, sheeted crowds with which the roads were thronged by far the most curious and suggestive part of the proceedings. No cemetery giving up its silent sleepers could have furnished a more ghostly crew. Young and old, babes astride on their mothers’ hips, older children carried by their fathers, aged men and girls in their shrouding veils, all gliding, barefooted, in absolute silence along the dusty roads in such a dense and never-ending crowd that my carriage could only move, and that with difficulty, at a foot’s pace. It was a lovely starlight, cold night, and I had the hood of the victoria lowered so as to better take in the weird scene, to which the dangling cooking-pots carried by all, added a grotesque touch. At various parts of the road the wily Chinaman had hastily set up a little booth of palm branches, from which he dispensed refreshments of sorts doubtless at a high price. These moving masses were perfectly orderly, nor did they seem to require any restraining or even guiding force.
Next day I naturally looked out from my beautiful rose-wreathed stand on the Champ-de-Mars for these white-clad crowds, and there they were, sure enough, covering the slopes of the encircling natural amphitheatre, but to my astonishment, though it was barely noon and the principal race was yet to be run, the massed mob was rapidly dispersing. As a matter of fact, none of these fifty thousand coolie spectators cared in the least about the races. That final Saturday of the race week had come to be regarded as a public holiday. Work was suspended at the sugar estates all over the Island, and the race meeting was just an occasion on which all expected to meet their friends. Every coolie had washed his garment to a snowy whiteness, and this, taken in conjunction with the vivid touches of colour dear to the Oriental eye, furnished by the babies’ little scarlet caps and the red edging of the women’s veils, made up an enchanting picture set against the vivid green and glowing blue of earth and sky.
It was always great fun when the flagship of the East Indian squadron paid us an all too brief visit; and, indeed, the arrival of any man-of-war used to be made an excuse for a little extra gaiety. It was my special delight to get the midshipmen to come in batches and stay at Réduit, although I often found myself at my wits’ end to provide them with game to shoot at, for that was what their hearts were most fixed on. They all brought up weird and obsolete fowling-pieces, which the moment they had finished breakfast they wanted to go and let off in the park. What fun those boys were, and what dears! One chubby youth, being questioned as to whether midshipmen were permitted to marry, answered, “No, but sometimes there was a _candlestick_ marriage.”
“A _what_?”
“A candlestick marriage, sir,—not allowed, you know.”
“Clandestine” was the proper word, but the mistake had great success as a joke.
My young soldier guests were quite as gallant and susceptible to the charms of the bright eyes and pretty, gentle manners of my pet French girls, but I often felt disconcerted to find that at my numerous _bals privés_ there was a difficulty in getting them to dance with each other, because the red-coated youths would not or could not speak one word of French, whereas that difficulty never seemed to weigh with the middy for a moment.
I dare say things are now different, and that improved mail and cable services have changed the loneliness of my day, when there was no cable beyond Aden and only a mail steamer once a month. I always felt as though we ourselves were on a ship anchored in the midst of a lonely ocean, and that once in four weeks another ship sped past us, casting on board mail bags and cablegrams. But even as we stood with stretched-out hands, craving for more news or more details of what news was flung to us, the passing steamer had sunk below the horizon, and we were left to possess our souls in what patience we might until the next mail day came round.
The consequence of this comparative isolation was that few visitors came our way, so that it aroused quite a little excitement in our small community to hear that the Government of Madagascar—a curious mixture in that day of power vested in the hands of a Queen, who was always expected to marry her prime minister—intended to send three delegates to Europe _viâ_ Mauritius to protest against the proposed French protectorate. These delegates were dignified by the name of Ambassadors, and their mission was to seek the intervention of Great Britain and other European powers. We were instructed to receive them with all official courtesy, including salutes from big guns and guards of honour and so forth; the worst of all this ceremonial being that the idea became firmly impressed on their minds that England was quite prepared to take up their quarrel, or, at least, to remonstrate with France. So it was a very happy and hopeful trio of “Ambassadors” who presented themselves, with a number of attendants, including several interpreters, at Réduit one evening to go through the ordeal of a formal banquet.
I confess to a certain amount of curiosity when I heard that the ambassadors were not only as black as jet, but they were quite unused to the forms of society, and that, in fact, their only experience of the ways of English folk was gathered from Wesleyan missionaries near their chief towns. Indeed, the only English entertainment they had ever seen was a school-feast to little native children, at which they had been onlookers, and which, as one of the interpreters informed me, had seemed to them a strange and puzzling performance.
However, when the dinner-hour arrived I beheld three fine, dignified and stately gentlemen, quite as black nevertheless as their faultless evening dress, the only false note being a massive gold watch chain, from which dangled rather an aggressive bunch of lockets and other ornaments, and with which each ambassador was decorated. Beautiful bows were exchanged, and nothing could be more correct than the fashion in which the senior dignitary offered me his arm. With an interpreter on my left hand we got on famously all through dinner, with absolutely no mistakes in essentials, though I often observed some anxiety in the interpreter’s face. I suppose he felt responsible for their manners. But the false hopes were there all the time, and I felt myself to be quite a cruel monster when I had to whisper to the interpreter to explain to his black Excellency, that it was only the usual custom for the Governor to propose after the toast of our own Queen the health of the sovereign of any foreign guests at table. Poor ambassadors! they thought this commonplace courtesy meant a public announcement of England’s intention of ranging herself on their side of the question at issue. One did not realise at the time what a deadly importance they attached to all these trifles, nor would we perhaps have wondered at it so much had we known that they felt their own lives depended on the success of the mission. They considered it a most hopeful sign when I asked them after dinner to write their names in my little birthday-book; and most astonishing names they were, each name occupying three lines, but all apparently forming one syllable! They seemed quite familiar with a pen, and each letter was beautifully formed, only they were all joined together.
There is an excellent and most comfortable rule in the Colonial Service which forbids a Governor to receive any gifts. I suppose it would also apply to a Governor’s wife if the said gifts were of any intrinsic value; but I did not see my way to wounding the feelings of my poor guests that evening by sheltering myself behind official etiquette when they tendered a hideous little glass biscuit-box and a sort of native quilt (spoiled by vivid aniline dyes) for my acceptance. Yet I had terrible misgivings all the time that they thought they were securing my interest and co-operation in their affairs, and I even edged in a word or two in my thanks through the interpreter to imply that acceptance of their gifts must be taken “without prejudice.” I do not believe, however, that he had the heart to pass my remark on, for the ambassadors beamed joyously on me and the rest of the company all the time.
I heard afterwards that they had made desperate efforts at all the European Courts, beginning with that of St. James’s to secure intervention, and that it was impossible to make them understand that no one was able or willing to take up their quarrel. So in the fulness of time, their money being all spent, they had to return to their own land, where failure meant death, which I believe they welcomed rather than the new order of things.
VII
GENERAL CHARLES GORDON
I feel as if no sketch, however slight, of my short stay in beautiful Mauritius would be complete without a reference to General Gordon. Soon after our own arrival Colonel Charles Gordon came in command of the small body of Royal Engineers stationed there. From the very first his delightful personality made itself felt, and although I suspect that very few of the island-dwellers had the least idea of what a name to conjure with “Chinese Gordon” was, still he at once assumed that amazing sway over men’s hearts of which he possessed the secret. Looking back on it through all these years I think the wonderful humility of the man is the first thing one realises. He took up his duties and his position in that obscure little corner of the Empire with just as much interest and simplicity as though he had never led armies to victory or changed the fate of nations. I am proud to say we saw a great deal of him, though it had to be on his own terms and in his own way. Of course, he was asked to the large and formal entertainments at Réduit, but he always excused himself, and only came to dine with us when we were quite alone. He would change into the mess uniform, which it was the custom always to wear at Government House, in the carriole which brought him up, and he once gave this as an excuse for the extreme crookedness of his black neck-tie.
On these occasions, which I am happy to say were very frequent, the dinner had to be of the most simple character and compressed into the shortest possible space. I do not remember whether he took wine or not, but he consumed an immense amount of black coffee, not at dinner, but directly after, when we adjourned to the verandah and cigarettes were lighted. Every half-hour a servant brought a fresh cup of fragrant coffee, and noiselessly put it on the little table at Colonel Gordon’s elbow, and this went on for hours! It is impossible to convey in words any idea of the singular charm of Gordon’s conversation. With so appreciative and sympathetic a listener as my dear husband was, he gave of his best and that was very good. Not in the least egotistical, his vivid narratives were the most thrillingly interesting it has ever been my good fortune to listen to. Every word he said, for all its picturesqueness, bore the stamp of reality, and the scenes he described at once stood out before your eyes. A question now and then was all that was needed to sustain the delightful flow of talk. He never uttered a word which could be called “cant,” nor did he bring his religious opinions into prominence. One gathered from his utterances that he was more deeply imbued with the “enthusiasm of humanity” than with any dogma.
His eyes were the most remarkable part of his face, and I cannot imagine any one who has ever seen them forgetting their wonderful beauty. It was not merely that they were of a crystal clearness and as blue as a summer sky, but the expression was different to that of any other human eye I have ever seen. In the first place, instead of the trained, conventional glance with which we habitually regard each other and which, certainly at first, tells you nothing whatever of your new acquaintance’s character or inner nature, Gordon’s beautiful, noble soul looked straight at you, directly from out of these clear eyes. They revealed him at once, as he was, and I am sure the secret of his extraordinary and almost instantaneous influence over his fellow-creatures lay in that glance. There was a sort of wistful tenderness in it for all its penetration, an extraordinary magnetic sympathy, and yet you felt its authority. The rest of his face was rugged, and, I suppose, what would be called plain, but one never thought of anything beyond the soul shining out of those wonderful windows. To look at any other face after his was like looking at a lifeless mask. A few months after he arrived the General commanding the troops in Mauritius left, and Colonel Gordon was promoted and succeeded him. He had been very active among the Chinese mercantile class (a very numerous one) and had done much good, not merely of a missionary but of a social nature, explaining the duties of citizenship to them, and enforcing local laws and rules which they probably had not understood. That part of the community became much easier to manage after he took them in hand.
But there was a strangely unpractical side to General Gordon’s nature, apart from his utter disregard of what might be called his own interests. Those he never thought of for one moment, and I honestly believe that his feelings about the value or importance of money—_as_ money—were on a par with the ideas of a nice child of five years old! Coins of the realm remained but a short time in his pocket, and were only welcome to him as a means of helping others. Still his charity was not at all indiscriminate, and in the numerous instances of which I knew his help was always judiciously given.
Curiously enough, the scheme of defence for Mauritius, which General Gordon was requested officially to draw up, was found to be absolutely impossible. He bestowed much pains and care on it, but his plans involved many alterations and changes not one of which were found practicable. I have in my possession some charming letters of his to my husband, who had written privately to the General to state that in forwarding this scheme of defence to the War Office, he, as Lieutenant-Governor, had felt obliged to disagree entirely with it, and to point out the utter impossibility on every ground of carrying it out. Now my husband was one of General Gordon’s warmest and most discriminating admirers, and he showed me the private correspondence on the subject as illustrating the noble and beautiful nature of the man. There was not the slightest trace of annoyance or even pique at the uncompromising terms in which a civilian Governor had felt it his duty to differ from so eminent a military authority. The General just recognised that it was a plain expression of an honest opinion and respected it accordingly, nor was there the slightest friction between them nor the least check upon their friendly intercourse.
I remember particularly one merry evening in the verandah after dinner, when the General had just returned from an official visit to the Seychelles, a little group of islands nearly 1000 miles from Mauritius, but in those days one of its _dépendences_. He was full of a brand new theory, based on the coco-de-mer, a gigantic palm which he saw for the first time, and which convinced him that he had discovered the site of the Garden of Eden. He explained with great eagerness how he felt sure of the existence of the four encircling rivers of that favoured spot (only they now ran underground), but his strong point was the strange weird fruit which hung, some eighty feet or so above the ground, from those splendid palms which are peculiar to the Seychelles group. In vain the Governor pointed out, with much laughter, that our first parents must have been of a goodly height to reach this fruit, and in the next, that it was not good to eat!
The dear General bore all our chaff with the sweetest good-humour, but remained as firmly fixed as ever in his idea. He was most eager and earnest about it all, and, though he found our laughter infectious and joined heartily in it, nothing made the least impression on him, and I believe he always thought the Garden of Eden had once united that little group of islets in one exquisite whole—for Mahé is certainly a lovely spot and as fertile as it is fair.
We always felt we could not expect to keep him long with us in Mauritius though he never chafed nor repined in any way, and just did his duty from day to day, and whatever other work for his fellow-men his hand found to do, with all his might. But all too soon he was summoned home, and quite the next thing we heard of him was that he was going out to India with the new Governor-General, Lord Ripon, as his Private Secretary. We all exclaimed at once, “Think of the dinner-parties!” and were not at all surprised to hear how short a time that arrangement had lasted, though the dreaded form of entertainment had really nothing whatever to do with Gordon’s resignation of his post long before India was reached. From time to time he wrote to my husband, and we followed every step of his subsequent career with the deepest interest. I have since heard, I do not know with what truth, that it was a mistake in a telegram which prevented his going to the Congo on King Leopold’s business instead of to Egypt on ours. However that may be, the rest of the story was quite in harmony with what one had known of him, but of all those who sorrowed for his tragic fate—and it was a nation that grieved—no one lamented him more than his official chief of the Mauritian days.
VIII
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Few people can realise how rapid is the growth of a colony when once it begins to grow. Like a young tree, after reaching a certain stage, it may seem to have almost attained its limit, and one often feels disappointed that more visible progress has not been made. But come again a little later, and you will find your sapling shooting rapidly up into a splendid tree. It was really growing, as it were, _under_ ground; searching with its roots for the most favourable conditions. Perhaps there was a piece of rock to be got round before the good soil could be reached, but the little tree was covering that rock all the time with a network of roots so that it ceased to be an obstacle and was gathered up and assimilated with its growth. In the decade between 1880 and 1890 Western Australia was just in that stage, and the splendid young giant of to-day must have been growing underground then, though it did not seem to be making much progress as a colony. In those days we sadly called ourselves “Cinderella,” but the Fairy Prince—Responsible Government—was not far off, and I am proud to remember that my dear husband, then Governor of the colony, was one of those who helped to open the door and let Prince Charming in.
They tell me the colony is quite different now, and that Perth is unrecognisable. I try to be glad to hear it, and keep repeating to myself that the revenue of a month now is what we thought good for a year, fifteen years ago. But no one can be more than happy, and I question very much if the rich people there to-day are any happier or even better off, in the true sense of the words, than we were. Of course, enormous progress has been made, and many of the works and wants which we only dreamed of and longed for, have suddenly become accomplished facts. Our Cinderella’s shoes have turned out to be made of gold, but they pinch her now and then, and have to be eased here and there. Still they are, no doubt, true fairy shoes, and will grow conveniently with the growth of her feet.
In our day—which began in May 1883—the colony was as quiet and primitive as possible, but none the less delightful and essentially homelike. I must confess that one of its greatest attractions in my eyes was what more youthful and enterprising spirits used to call the dulness of Perth. But it never was really dull. To me there always appeared to be what I see American newspapers describe as “happenings” going on.