'And your father?' said I. 'Oh, I don't know.
MY MOTHER WAS ONLY A SLAVE.' She, too,
Was a slave, but said she
'never knew it', her 'missus' was so good; a Dutch lady, at a farm
I had passed, on the road, who had a hundred and fifty slaves. I
liked my Hottentot hut amazingly, and the sweet brown bread, and
the dinner cooked so cleanly on the bricks in the kitchen. The
walls were whitewashed and adorned with wreaths of everlasting
flowers and some quaint old prints from Loutherburg - pastoral
subjects, not exactly edifying.
Well, I have prosed unconscionably, so adieu for the present.
February 3d. - Many happy returns of your birthday, dear -. I had a
bottle of champagne to drink your health, and partly to swell the
bill, which these good people make so moderate, that I am half
ashamed. I get everything that Caledon can furnish for myself and
S- for 15l. a month.
On Saturday we got the sad news of Prince Albert's death, and it
created real consternation here. What a thoroughly unexpected
calamity! Every one is already dressed in deep mourning. It is
more general than in a village of the same size at home - (how I
have caught the colonial trick of always saying 'home' for England!
Dutchmen who can barely speak English, and never did or will see
England, equally talk of 'news from home'). It also seems, by the
papers of the 24th of December, which came by a steamer the other
day, that war is imminent. I shall have to wait for convoy, I
suppose, as I object to walking the plank from a Yankee privateer.
I shall wait here for the next mail, and then go back to Capetown,
stopping by the way, so as to get there early in March, and arrange
for my voyage. The weather had a relapse into cold, and an attempt
at rain. Pity it failed, for the drought is dreadful this year,
chiefly owing to the unusual quantity of sharp drying winds - a most
unlucky summer for the country and for me.
My old friend Klein, who told me several instances of the kindness
and gratitude of former slaves, poured out to me the misery he had
undergone from the 'ingratitude' of a certain Rosina, a slave-girl
of his. She was in her youth handsome, clever, the best
horsebreaker, bullock-trainer and driver, and hardest worker in the
district. She had two children by Klein, then a young fellow; six
by another white man, and a few more by two husbands of her own
race! But she was of a rebellious spirit, and took to drink.
After the emancipation, she used to go in front of Klein's windows
and read the statute in a loud voice on every anniversary of the
day; and as if that did not enrage him enough, she pertinaciously
(whenever she was a little drunk) kissed him by main force every
time she met him in the street, exclaiming, 'Aha!
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 44 of 73
Words from 22456 to 22969
of 37925
