Letters From The Cape By Lady Duff Gordon

 -   She could recognise an
'Anstandigkeit' not of Berlin.  I need not say that the Germans are
generally liked by the - Page 69
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She Could Recognise An 'Anstandigkeit' Not Of Berlin.

I need not say that the Germans are generally liked by the coloured people.

Choslullah was astonished and Pleased at my talking German; he evidently had a preference for Germans, and put up, wherever he could, at German inns and 'publics'.

I went on to bid Mrs. Wodehouse good-bye. We talked of our dear old Cornish friends. The Governor and Mrs. Wodehouse have been very kind to me. I dined there twice; last time, with all the dear good Walkers. I missed seeing the opening of the colonial parliament by a mistake about a ticket, which I am sorry for.

If I could have dreamed of waiting here so long, I would have run up to Algoa Bay or East London by sea, and had a glimpse of Caffreland. Capetown makes me very languid - there is something depressing in the air - but my cough is much better. I can't walk here without feeling knocked-up; and cab-hire is so dear; and somehow, nothing is worth while, when one is waiting from day to day. So I have spent more money than when I was most amused, in being bored.

Mr. J- drove me to the Capetown races, at Green Point, on Friday. As races, they were nichts, but a queer-looking little Cape farmer's horse, ridden by a Hottentot, beat the English crack racer, ridden by a first-rate English jockey, in an unaccountable way, twice over. The Malays are passionately fond of horse-racing, and the crowd was fully half Malay: there were dozens of carts crowded with the bright-eyed women, in petticoats of every most brilliant colour, white muslin jackets, and gold daggers in their great coils of shining black hair. All most 'anstandig', as they always are. Their pleasure is driving about en famille; the men have no separate amusements. Every spare corner in the cart is filled by the little soft round faces of the intelligent-looking quiet children, who seem amused and happy, and never make a noise or have the fidgets. I cannot make out why they are so well behaved. It favours A-'s theory of the expediency of utter spoiling, for one never hears any educational process going on. Tiny Mohammed never spoke but when he was spoken to, and was always happy and alert. I observed that his uncle spoke to him like a grown man, and never ordered him about, or rebuked him in the least. I like to go up the hill and meet the black women coming home in troops from the washing place, most of them with a fat black baby hanging to their backs asleep, and a few rather older trotting alongside, and if small, holding on by the mother's gown. She, poor soul, carries a bundle on her head, which few men could lift. If I admire the babies, the poor women are enchanted; - du reste, if you look at blacks of any age or sex, they MUST grin and nod, as a good-natured dog must wag his tail; they can't help it. The blacks here (except a very few Caffres) are from the Mozambique - a short, thick-set, ugly race, with wool in huge masses; but here and there one sees a very pretty face among the women.

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