(It Is Deeper
Now By Far Than Earlier In The Year).
In short, I never did see
anything so beautiful.
It even surpassed Hottentot's Holland. On
we went, straight along the valley, crossing drift after drift; - a
drift is the bed of a stream more or less dry; in which sometimes
you are drowned, sometimes only POUNDED, as was our hap. The track
was incredibly bad, except for short bits, where ironstone
prevailed. However, all went well, and on the road I chased and
captured a pair of remarkably swift and handsome little
'Schelpats'. That you may duly appreciate such a feat of valour
and activity, I will inform you that their English name is
'tortoise'. On the strength of this effort, we drank a bottle of
beer, as it was very hot and sandy; and our Malay was a WET enough
Mussulman to take his full share in a modest way, though he
declined wine or 'Cape smoke Soopjes' (drams) with aversion. No
sooner had we got under weigh again, than Sabaal pulled up and
said, 'There ARE the Baviaans Missis want to see!' and so they
were. At some distance by the river was a great brute, bigger than
a Newfoundland dog, stalking along with the hideous baboon walk,
and tail vehemently cocked up; a troop followed at a distance,
hiding and dodging among the palmiets. They were evidently en
route to rob a garden close to them, and had sent a great stout
fellow ahead to reconnoitre. 'He see Missis, and feel sure she not
got a gun; if man come on horseback, you see 'em run like devil.'
We had not that pleasure, and left them, on felonious thoughts
intent.
The road got more and more beautiful as we neared Worcester, and
the mountains grew higher and craggier. Presently, a huge bird,
like a stork on the wing, pounced down close by us. He was a
secretary-bird, and had caught sight of a snake. We passed 'Brant
Vley' (burnt or hot spring), where sulphur-water bubbles up in a
basin some thirty feet across and ten or twelve deep. The water is
clear as crystal, and is hot enough just NOT to boil an egg, I was
told. At last, one reaches the little gap between the brown hills
which one has seen for four hours, and drives through it into a
wide, wide flat, with still craggier and higher mountains all
round, and Worcester in front at the foot of a towering cliff. The
town is not so pretty, to my taste, as the little villages. The
streets are too wide, and the market-place too large, which always
looks dreary, but the houses and gardens individually are charming.
Our inn is a very nice handsome old Dutch house; but we have got
back to 'civilization', and the horrid attempts at 'style' which
belong to Capetown. The landlord and lady are too genteel to
appear at all, and the Hottentots, who are disguised, according to
their sexes, in pantry jacket and flounced petticoat, don't
understand a word of English or of real Dutch. At Gnadenthal they
understood Dutch, and spoke it tolerably; but here, as in most
places, it is three-parts Hottentot; and then they affect to
understand English, and bring everything wrong, and are sulky: but
the rooms are very comfortable. The change of climate is complete-
-the summer was over at Caledon, and here we are into it again - the
most delicious air one can conceive; it must have been a perfect
oven six weeks ago. The birds are singing away merrily still; the
approach of autumn does not silence them here. The canaries have a
very pretty song, like our linnet, only sweeter; the rest are very
inferior to ours. The sugar-bird is delicious when close by, but
his pipe is too soft to be heard at any distance.
To those who think voyages and travels tiresome, my delight in the
new birds and beasts and people must seem very stupid. I can't
help it if it does, and am not ashamed to confess that I feel the
old sort of enchanted wonder with which I used to read Cook's
voyages, and the like, as a child. It is very coarse and
unintellectual of me; but I would rather see this now, at my age,
than Italy; the fresh, new, beautiful nature is a second youth - or
CHILDHOOD - si vous voulez. To-morrow we shall cross the highest
pass I have yet crossed, and sleep at Paarl - then Stellenbosch,
then Capetown. For any one OUT of health, and IN pocket, I should
certainly prescribe the purchase of a waggon and team of six
horses, and a long, slow progress in South Africa. One cannot walk
in the midday sun, but driving with a very light roof over one's
head is quite delicious. When I looked back upon my dreary, lonely
prison at Ventnor, I wondered I had survived it at all.
Capetown, March 7th.
After writing last, we drove out, on Sunday afternoon, to a deep
alpine valley, to see a NEW BRIDGE - a great marvel apparently. The
old Spanish Joe Miller about selling the bridge to buy water
occurred to me, and made Sabaal laugh immensely. The Dutch farmers
were tearing home from Kerk, in their carts - well-dressed,
prosperous-looking folks, with capital horses. Such lovely farms,
snugly nestled in orange and pomegranate groves! It is of no use
to describe this scenery; it is always mountains, and always
beautiful opal mountains; quite without the gloom of European
mountain scenery. The atmosphere must make the charm. I hear that
an English traveller went the same journey and found all barren
from Dan to Beersheba. I'm sorry for him.
In the morning of Sunday, early, I walked along the road with
Sabaal, and saw a picture I shall never forget. A little Malabar
girl had just been bathing in the Sloot, and had put her scanty
shift on her lovely little wet brown body; she stood in the water
with the drops glittering on her brown skin and black, satin hair,
the perfection of youthful loveliness - a naiad of ten years old.
When the shape and features are PERFECT, as hers were, the coffee-
brown shows it better than our colour, on account of its perfect
EVENNESS - like the dead white of marble.
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