The AIR Is Fresh And Light
All Day, Though The Sun Is Tremendous; But One Has No Languid
Feeling Or Desire To Lie About, Unless One Is Sleepy.
We dine at
two or half-past, and at four or five the heat is over, and one
puts on a shawl to go out in the afternoon breeze.
The nights are
cool, so as always to want one blanket. I still have a cough; but
it is getting better, so that I can always eat and walk. Mine host
has just bought a horse, which he is going to try with a petticoat
to-day, and if he goes well I shall ride.
I like this inn-life, because I see all the 'neighbourhood' -
farmers and traders - whom I like far better than the GENTILITY of
Capetown. I have given letters to England to a 'boer', who is
'going home', i.e. to Europe, the FIRST OF HIS RACE SINCE THE
REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES, when some poor refugees were
inveigled hither by the Dutch Governor, and oppressed worse than
the Hottentots. M. de Villiers has had no education AT ALL, and
has worked, and traded, and farmed, - but the breed tells; he is a
pure and thorough Frenchman, unable to speak a word of French.
When I went in to dinner, he rose and gave me a chair with a bow
which, with his appearance, made me ask, 'Monsieur vient
d'arriver?' This at once put him out and pleased him.
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