The plant has a
thick, succulent, triangular leaf, creeping on the ground, and
growing anywhere, without earth or water.
Figs proper are common
here, but tasteless; and the people pick all their fruit green, and
eat it so too. The children are all crunching hard peaches and
plums just now, particularly some little half-breeds near here, who
are frightfully ugly. Fancy the children of a black woman and a
red-haired man; the little monsters are as black as the mother, and
have RED wool - you never saw so diabolical an appearance. Some of
the coloured people are very pretty; for example, a coal-black girl
of seventeen, and my washerwoman, who is brown. They are
wonderfully slender and agile, and quite old hard-working women
have waists you could span. They never grow thick and square, like
Europeans.
I could write a volume on Cape horses. Such valiant little beasts,
and so composed in temper, I never saw. They are nearly all bays -
a few very dark grey, which are esteemed; VERY few white or light
grey. I have seen no black, and only one dark chestnut. They are
not cobs, and look 'very little of them', and have no beauty; but
one of these little brutes, ungroomed, half-fed, seldom stabled,
will carry a six-and-a-half-foot Dutchman sixty miles a day, day
after day, at a shuffling easy canter, six miles an hour. You 'off
saddle' every three hours, and let him roll; you also let him drink
all he can get; his coat shines and his eye is bright, and
unsoundness is very rare. They are never properly broke, and the
soft-mouthed colts are sometimes made vicious by the cruel bits and
heavy hands; but by nature their temper is perfect.
Every morning all the horses in the village are turned loose, and a
general gallop takes place to the water tank, where they drink and
lounge a little; and the young ones are fetched home by their
niggers, while the old stagers know they will be wanted, and
saunter off by themselves. I often attend the Houyhnhnm
conversazione at the tank, at about seven o'clock, and am amused by
their behaviour; and I continually wish I could see Ned's face on
witnessing many equine proceedings here. To see a farmer outspan
and turn the team of active little beasts loose on the boundless
veld to amuse themselves for an hour or two, sure that they will
all be there, would astonish him a little; and then to offer a
horse nothing but a roll in the dust to refresh himself withal!
One unpleasant sight here is the skeletons of horses and oxen along
the roadside; or at times a fresh carcase surrounded by a
convocation of huge serious-looking carrion crows, with neat white
neck-cloths. The skeletons look like wrecks, and make you feel
very lonely on the wide veld. In this district, and in most, I
believe, the roads are mere tracks over the hard, level earth, and
very good they are. When one gets rutty, you drive parallel to it,
till the bush is worn out and a new track is formed.
January 17th. - Lovely weather all the week. Summer well set in.
LETTER VI - CALEDON
Caledon, January 19th.
Dearest Mother,
Till this last week, the weather was pertinaciously cold and windy;
and I had resolved to go to Worcester, which lies in a 'Kessel',
and is really hot. But now the glorious African summer is come,
and I believe this is the weather of Paradise. I got up at four
this morning, when the Dutchmen who had slept here were starting in
their carts and waggons. It was quite light; but the moon shone
brilliantly still, and had put on a bright rose-coloured veil,
borrowed from the rising sun on the opposite horizon. The
freshness (without a shadow of cold or damp) of the air was
indescribable - no dew was on the ground. I went up the hill-side,
along the 'Sloot' (channel, which supplies all our water), into the
'Kloof' between the mountains, and clambered up to the 'Venster
Klip', from which natural window the view is very fine. The
flowers are all gone and the grass all dead. Rhenoster boschjes
and Hottentot fig are green everywhere, and among the rocks all
manner of shrubs, and far too much 'Wacht een beetje' (Wait a bit),
a sort of series of natural fish-hooks, which try the robustest
patience. Between seven and eight, the sun gets rather hot, and I
came in and TUBBED, and sat on the stoep (a sort of terrace, in
front of every house in South Africa). I breakfast at nine, sit on
the stoep again till the sun comes round, and then retreat behind
closed shutters from the stinging sun. The AIR is fresh and light
all day, though the sun is tremendous; but one has no languid
feeling or desire to lie about, unless one is sleepy. We dine at
two or half-past, and at four or five the heat is over, and one
puts on a shawl to go out in the afternoon breeze. The nights are
cool, so as always to want one blanket. I still have a cough; but
it is getting better, so that I can always eat and walk. Mine host
has just bought a horse, which he is going to try with a petticoat
to-day, and if he goes well I shall ride.
I like this inn-life, because I see all the 'neighbourhood' -
farmers and traders - whom I like far better than the GENTILITY of
Capetown. I have given letters to England to a 'boer', who is
'going home', i.e. to Europe, the FIRST OF HIS RACE SINCE THE
REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES, when some poor refugees were
inveigled hither by the Dutch Governor, and oppressed worse than
the Hottentots.
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