A clergyman's widow here gravely asserts
that her husband went mad THREE YEARS after drinking a cup of
coffee handed to him by a Malay! - and in consequence of drinking
it! It is exactly like the mediaeval feeling about the Jews. I
saw that it was quite a DEMONSTRATION that I drank up the tea
unhesitatingly. Considering that the Malays drank it themselves,
my courage deserves less admiration. But it was a quaint sensation
to sit in a Mosque, behaving as if at an evening party, in a little
circle of poor Moslim priests.
I am going to have a photograph of my cart done. I was to have
gone to the place to-day, but when Choslullah (whom I sent for to
complete the picture) found out what I wanted, he implored me to
put it off till Monday, that he might be better dressed, and was so
unhappy at the notion of being immortalized in an old jacket, that
I agreed to the delay. Such a handsome fellow may be allowed a
little vanity.
The colony is torn with dissensions as to Sunday trains. Some of
the Dutch clergy are even more absurd than our own on that point.
A certain Van der Lingen, at Stellenbosch, calls Europe 'one vast
Sodom', and so forth. There is altogether a nice kettle of
religious hatred brewing here. The English Bishop of Capetown
appoints all the English clergy, and is absolute monarch of all he
surveys; and he and his clergy are carrying matters with a high
hand.
