CHAPTER IX

ROUND THE LION'S HEAD AND THE VICTORIA ROAD

Sea Point lies, white-roofed and aloe-hedged, under the sanctified Lion's Head Mountain; sanctified, because of a great white cross scarred into the bare rock by a nation to whom crosses and scars were almost inseparable. Da Gama's gigantic cross on the Lion's Head is one of the many to be found round the coast; but here begins and ends every trace of Portuguese possession or atmosphere in the Cape Peninsula.

Old Sea Point savours of ancient Dutch régime, but is hedged in on every side, hidden, almost lost, by Cape Town Commerce _chez eux_. But along the Beach Road, running from the old Downs, or Common, to the Queen's Hotel, are houses with names which are historical: flat-roofed, whitewashed houses, with high stoeps and stucco fountains, syringa-trees, cactus plants, and hedges of flaming red aloes behind their white garden walls; old-fashioned gardens with box and myrtle hedges, lichens and gaudy mesembryanthemums crawling like giant starfish over the walls. Edging the road and hiding the beach from travellers are thick hedges of kei-apple, a prickly red berry, and of a low shrub whose leaves furnished correct food for the imported French snails, whose descendants are purely a pest and have no justification. But the French-lavender hedges and pink Huguenot roses can still say 'Bonjour' to the snails. It is the only French word any of them remember; it is prettier than the 'Dag,' which the prickly-pear, gorgeous with orange and carmine flower, grunts across the road to the hedge of wax berries; it is prettier, too, than the 'Morgen,' which is the large white 'Frau Karl Druschki's' morning greeting; just a little daintier than 'Saka bona,' from the purple jacaranda and scarlet kaffir-boom; but far, far more charming than the chorus of 'Hullo! hullo!' from the cheerful English trees and plants in this white-walled garden. And then there is the sea--not the wind-swept sea of False Bay, but a cosmopolitan sea; a highroad, where ships of many flags sail past the rocks, bound for the world.

In one white-roofed house lived a man on whose importance hung the beginning of a nation. The resolution in favour of responsible government had been passed by the Lower House of Parliament. The decision now rested with the Council. To be a member, the qualification meant possessing property to the value of some thousand pounds over and above mortgages. The member whose vote turned the balance was in such bad circumstances, that even if the mortgaged white house at Sea Point was sold he would not be qualified for this momentous voting. His friends, filled with national and patriotic zeal, rushed out to Sea Point: 'Have you, then, nothing of any value?' they cried. 'Yes; I will show you something which might be of some value. I was once in Turkey and of service to the Sultan.' He produced from a deep-shelved Dutch cupboard with brass fittings, then of little account, a small gold case, filigree-worked, and inside a snuff-box sparkling with diamonds, rubies and emeralds. 'Given by the Sultan,' said he of the important vote. Nothing more, just this _soupçon_ of adventure. Responsible government was carried on a snuff-box.

Sea Point possesses the two best private libraries in the Peninsula. One of them belonged to a great little man, Saul Solomon, of Clarensville, who died some years ago. Public men never live long enough at the Cape to die in the fulness of attainment; ambition and principle go but slowly hand in hand if you would have them travel along the same road, but Saul Solomon's name is high in the annals of politics and principles. The rocks below Clarensville, or probably those larger granite masses beyond the Queen's Hotel, were celebrated fishing-places in the days of the early Commanders; but one short entry thrills one and dissipates the ideal dulness of the gentle art. During the Van Riebeek reign a corporal went fishing for 'klip' fish amongst the brown seaweed which lies like a barren reef round the south-west coast, when a lion wandered down to the beach, and left so little of the angler that nought of him was found but his trousers and his shoes: which we imagine he had discarded, and was not discrimination on the part of the lion.

Marinus and I climbed into a green tram which ran along a high mountain road overlooking the lower Victoria Road. We reached Clifton, a little kraal of houses and bungalows, and left the tram and walked down to the lower road through an old farm-garden. The steep slopes of the cliff down to the sea were covered with brilliant green shrub and purple flowers. Strolling along, we came upon Camps Bay, which we fancy was Caapmans Bay; for here the Caapmans, or Hottentots, pastured their flocks during their 'merry-go-round' journeying from the Fort, over the Kloof Nek, along the Casteelbergen, or Twelve Apostles Range, to Hout Bay; then often over the Constantia Nek to worry the outposts on the Bosheuvel, and back to the Fort; or from Hout Bay to Chapmans Bay and Noord Hoek, and on to Cape Point. Their last stronghold was in the Hottentot's Holland Mountains; but in the year 1714 nearly all the tribe were exterminated by the smallpox. Four chiefs remained--'Scipio Africanus,' 'Hannibal,' 'Hercules,' and 'Konja'--who received, says the old chronicle, 'the usual stick with the brass knob,' the insignia of office. Camps Bay gave the old map-makers and Commanders some trouble; but they all found the great line of breakers prevented the bay from being used either for themselves or for the landing of hostile forces.

On the slope of the Lion's Head, above the bay, is a little round white house, the Round House, where Sir Charles Somerset spent his week-ends. Sir Charles, whose reign here was during the end of the eighteenth century, used several of the old homesteads as shooting-boxes.

Marinus, with enormous satisfaction, found a stray taxi, and soon we had passed the 'Oude Kraal' of the watermen on our way to Hout Bay. The turreted tops of the Casteelbergen, or Twelve Apostles Mountains, were 'canopied in blue,' their slopes covered with a bright mauve Michaelmas daisy. The narrow road curves and curls round their sides, and below stretch acres and acres of sea, horizonless, heaving and sinking, blue and green and gold, lapping against the edges of the land in crescent-shaped little bays, or dashing against walls of rock. The cliffs, grass-grown down to the water, are covered with flowers, big clumps of prickly-pear, and blue aloe, every freshly-turned corner more lovely than the last. There is one other road in the world to compare with it, and that road runs along the South of France into Italy; but the waters of the Mediterranean are _fade_, lifeless waters to the ocean that fringes the Casteelbergen in Africa.

Far out into the sea stretches a reef of sharp rocks where many ships have found a terrible end: the steep, slippery slopes beyond the little Lion's Head isolate the coast from all assistance.

In front of us a dull green car was swinging round the curves. 'We'll pass her,' said Marinus, who was driving. The road is not wide--just room enough for two cars to pass abreast. The green car saw us coming, and decided we should not pass her. Marinus jerked his head forward, and vowed we should. For ten minutes I sat rigid; my eyes never left a small spot of mud on Marinus' coat. Between us and the mountain was the green motor; to our right was the sea. We dashed round corner after corner, a great juggernaut or machinery with not a spare yard of road. It was a glorious gamble, with almost a thousand to one that round the next corner we should meet something--a car or a cart. The cars ran silently.... Suddenly someone's nerve failed; we had passed the green car, and Marinus turned round to me and grinned. 'All right?' he said. My jaw seemed set in plaster of Paris, so I grinned too. The chauffeur was cursing softly and rapidly. Over the brow of the Hout Bay Nek was a big white car, full of people and wild flowers, coming towards us. I bent forward close to Marinus, so that the chauffeur should not hear. 'You brute!' I whispered; 'but it was simply great.' And Marinus winked.

We rushed down the hill, lined with pink protea, into the village of Hout Bay, or the Wood Bay, where the Company's yachts and sloops would come to carry away wood from the thick forests. No sign of forest now--only some low, wind-stunted trees along the beach. The Dutch fortified the bay, and the ruins of their fort still stand.

Chapman's Peak hides the curve of the coast and the Noord Hoek and Kommetje Valleys. Near the village is the old home of the Van Oudtshoorn family, whitewash and teak, high-stoeped, with stucco designs, and the date over the door. The Hout Bay Valley has a distinctive charm of its own; its river-bed is overgrown with palmiet, and its thatched farmhouses have Huguenot names: for in this valley grants of land were made to the Huguenot refugees, the road is hedged with little pink Huguenot roses growing over the ground which pastured the Hottentots' cattle. The farm, Orange Grove, lies low in an oak wood. We climbed the long Constantia Nek, and once more saw the widespread Isthmus, Constantia, Wynberg, and False Bay; little farms, little woods, the smoke from an engine--we had been round our world in a few hours.