Jan. 3d. - We Have Had Tremendous Festivities Here - A Ball On New
Year's-Eve, And Another On The 1st Of January - And The Shooting For
Prince Alfred's Rifle Yesterday.
The difficulty of music for the
ball was solved by the arrival of two Malay bricklayers to build
the new parsonage, and I heard with my own ears the proof of what I
had been told as to their extraordinary musical gifts.
When I went
into the hall, a Dutchman was SCREECHING a concertina hideously.
Presently in walked a yellow Malay, with a blue cotton handkerchief
on his head, and a half-bred of negro blood (very dark brown), with
a red handkerchief, and holding a rough tambourine. The handsome
yellow man took the concertina which seemed so discordant, and the
touch of his dainty fingers transformed it to harmony. He played
dances with a precision and feeling quite unequalled, except by
Strauss's band, and a variety which seemed endless. I asked him if
he could read music, at which he laughed heartily, and said, music
came into the ears, not the eyes. He had picked it all up from the
bands in Capetown, or elsewhere.
It was a strange sight, - the picturesque group, and the contrast
between the quiet manners of the true Malay and the grotesque fun
of the half-negro. The latter made his tambourine do duty as a
drum, rattled the bits of brass so as to produce an indescribable
effect, nodded and grinned in wild excitement, and drank beer while
his comrade took water.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 57 of 141
Words from 15285 to 15542
of 37925
