Well, I have been to Gnadenthal, and seen the 'blooming parish',
and a lovely spot it is. A large village nestled in a deep valley,
surrounded by high mountains on three sides, and a lower range in
front. We started early on Saturday, and drove over a mighty queer
road, and through a river. Oh, ye gods! what a shaking and
pounding! We were rattled up like dice in a box. Nothing but a
Cape cart, Cape horses, and a Hottentot driver, above all, could
have accomplished it. Captain D- rode, and had the best of it. On
the road we passed three or four farms, at all which horses were
GALLOPING OUT the grain, or men were winnowing it by tossing it up
with wooden shovels to let the wind blow away the chaff. We did
the twenty-four miles up and down the mountain roads in two hours
and a half, with our valiant little pair of horses; it is
incredible how they go. We stopped at a nice cottage on the
hillside belonging to a ci-devant slave, one Christian Rietz, a
WHITE man, with brown woolly hair, sharp features, grey eyes, and
NOT woolly moustaches. He said he was a 'Scotch bastaard', and 'le
bon sang parlait - tres-haut meme', for a more thriving, shrewd,
sensible fellow I never saw. His FATHER and master had had to let
him go when all slaves were emancipated, and he had come to
Gnadenthal. He keeps a little inn in the village, and a shop and a
fine garden. The cottage we lodged in was on the mountain side,
and had been built for his son, who was dead; and his adopted
daughter, a pretty coloured girl, exactly like a southern
Frenchwoman, waited on us, assisted by about six or seven other
women, who came chiefly to stare. Vrouw Rietz was as black as a
coal, but SO pretty! - a dear, soft, sleek, old lady, with beautiful
eyes, and the kind pleasant ways which belong to nice blacks; and,
though old and fat, still graceful and lovely in face, hands, and
arms. The cottage was thus:- One large hall; my bedroom on the
right, S-'s on the left; the kitchen behind me; Miss Rietz behind
S-; mud floors daintily washed over with fresh cow-dung; ceiling of
big rafters, just as they had grown, on which rested bamboo canes
close together ACROSS the rafters, and bound together between each,
with transverse bamboo - a pretty BEEHIVEY effect; at top, mud
again, and then a high thatched roof and a loft or zolder for
forage, &c.; the walls of course mud, very thick and whitewashed.
The bedrooms tiny; beds, clean sweet melies (maize) straw, with
clean sheets, and eight good pillows on each; glass windows (a
great distinction), exquisite cleanliness, and hearty civility;
good food, well cooked; horrid tea and coffee, and hardly any milk;
no end of fruit. In all the gardens it hung on the trees thicker
than the leaves. Never did I behold such a profusion of fruit and
vegetables.
But first I must tell what struck me most, I asked one of the
Herrenhut brethren whether there were any REAL Hottentots, and he
said, 'Yes, one;' and next morning, as I sat waiting for early
prayers under the big oak-trees in the Plaats (square), he came up,
followed by a tiny old man hobbling along with a long stick to
support him. 'Here', said he, 'is the LAST Hottentot; he is a
hundred and seven years old, and lives all alone.' I looked on the
little, wizened, yellow face, and was shocked that he should be
dragged up like a wild beast to be stared at. A feeling of pity
which felt like remorse fell upon me, and my eyes filled as I rose
and stood before him, so tall and like a tyrant and oppressor,
while he uncovered his poor little old snow-white head, and peered
up in my face. I led him to the seat, and helped him to sit down,
and said in Dutch, 'Father, I hope you are not tired; you are old.'
He saw and heard as well as ever, and spoke good Dutch in a firm
voice. 'Yes, I am above a hundred years old, and alone - quite
alone.' I sat beside him, and he put his head on one side, and
looked curiously up at me with his faded, but still piercing little
wild eyes. Perhaps he had a perception of what I felt - yet I
hardly think so; perhaps he thought I was in trouble, for he crept
close up to me, and put one tiny brown paw into my hand, which he
stroked with the other, and asked (like most coloured people) if I
had children. I said, 'Yes, at home in England;' and he patted my
hand again, and said, 'God bless them!' It was a relief to feel
that he was pleased, for I should have felt like a murderer if my
curiosity had added a moment's pain to so tragic a fate.
This may sound like sentimentalism; but you cannot conceive the
effect of looking on the last of a race once the owners of all this
land, and now utterly gone. His look was not quite human,
physically speaking; - a good head, small wild-beast eyes, piercing
and restless; cheek-bones strangely high and prominent, nose QUITE
flat, mouth rather wide; thin shapeless lips, and an indescribably
small, long, pointed chin, with just a very little soft white
woolly beard; his head covered with extremely short close white
wool, which ended round the poll in little ringlets. Hands and
feet like an English child of seven or eight, and person about the
size of a child of eleven. He had all his teeth, and though shrunk
to nothing, was very little wrinkled in the face, and not at all in
the hands, which were dark brown, while his face was yellow.
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