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.
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