Fancy the Undercliff in the Isle of
Wight magnified a hundred-fold, with clouds floating halfway up the
mountain.
The Hottentot mountains in the distance have a fantastic
jagged outline, which hardly looks real. The town is like those in
the south of Europe; flat roofs, and all unfinished; roads are
simply non-existent. At the doors sat brown women with black hair
that shone like metal, very handsome; they are Malays, and their
men wear conical hats a-top of turbans, and are the chief artisans.
At the end of the pier sat a Mozambique woman in white drapery and
the most majestic attitude, like a Roman matron; her features large
and strong and harsh, but fine; and her skin blacker than night.
I have got a couple of Cape pigeons (the storm-bird of the South
Atlantic) for J-'s hat. They followed us several thousand miles,
and were hooked for their pains. The albatrosses did not come
within hail.
The little Maltese goat gave a pint of milk night and morning, and
was a great comfort to the cow. She did not like the land or the
grass at first, and is to be thrown out of milk now. She is much
admired and petted by the young Africander. My room is at least
eighteen feet high, and contains exactly a bedstead, one straw
mattrass, one rickety table, one wash-table, two chairs, and broken
looking-glass; no carpet, and a hiatus of three inches between the
floor and the door, but all very clean; and excellent food. I have
not made a bargain yet, but I dare say I shall stay here.
Friday. - I have just received your letter; where it has been
hiding, I can't conceive. To-day is cold and foggy, like a baddish
day in June with you; no colder, if so cold. Still, I did not
venture out, the fog rolls so heavily over the mountain. Well, I
must send off this yarn, which is as interminable as the 'sinnet'
and 'foxes' which I twisted with the mids.
LETTER II
Cape Town, Oct. 3.
I came on shore on a very fine day, but the weather changed, and we
had a fortnight of cold and damp and S.W. wind (equivalent to our
east wind), such as the 'oldest inhabitant' never experienced; and
I have had as bad an attack of bronchitis as ever I remember,
having been in bed till yesterday. I had a very good doctor, half
Italian, half Dane, born at the Cape of Good Hope, and educated at
Edinburgh, named Chiappini. He has a son studying medicine in
London, whose mother is Dutch; such is the mixture of bloods here.
Yesterday, the wind went to the south-east; the blessed sun shone
out, and the weather was lovely at once. The mountain threw off
his cloak of cloud, and all was bright and warm. I got up and sat
in the verandah over the stoep (a kind of terrace in front of every
house here). They brought me a tortoise as big as half a crown and
as lively as a cricket to look at, and a chameleon like a fairy
dragon - a green fellow, five inches long, with no claws on his
feet, but suckers like a fly - the most engaging little beast. He
sat on my finger, and caught flies with great delight and
dexterity, and I longed to send him to M-. To-day, I went a long
drive with Captain and Mrs. J-: we went to Rondebosch and Wynberg-
-lovely country; rather like Herefordshire; red earth and oak-
trees. Miles of the road were like Gainsborough-lane, on a large
scale, and looked quite English; only here and there a hedge of
prickly pear, or the big white aruns in the ditches, told a
different tale; and the scarlet geraniums and myrtles growing wild
puzzled one.
And then came rattling along a light, rough, but well-poised cart,
with an Arab screw driven by a Malay, in a great hat on his
kerchiefed head, and his wife, with her neat dress, glossy black
hair, and great gold earrings. They were coming with fish, which
he had just caught at Kalk Bay, and was going to sell for the
dinners of the Capetown folk. You pass neat villas, with pretty
gardens and stoeps, gay with flowers, and at the doors of several,
neat Malay girls are lounging. They are the best servants here,
for the emigrants mostly drink. Then you see a group of children
at play, some as black as coals, some brown and very pretty. A
little black girl, about R-'s age, has carefully tied what little
petticoat she has, in a tight coil round her waist, and displays
the most darling little round legs and behind, which it would be a
real pleasure to slap; it is so shiny and round, and she runs and
stands so strongly and gracefully.
Here comes another Malay, with a pair of baskets hanging from a
stick across his shoulder, like those in Chinese pictures, which
his hat also resembles. Another cart full of working men, with a
Malay driver; and inside are jumbled some red-haired, rosy-cheeked
English navvies, with the ugliest Mozambiques, blacker than Erebus,
and with faces all knobs and corners, like a crusty loaf. As we
drive home we see a span of sixteen noble oxen in the marketplace,
and on the ground squats the Hottentot driver. His face no words
can describe - his cheek-bones are up under his hat, and his meagre-
pointed chin halfway down to his waist; his eyes have the dull look
of a viper's, and his skin is dirty and sallow, but not darker than
a dirty European's.
Capetown is rather pretty, but beyond words untidy and out of
repair. As it is neither drained nor paved, it won't do in hot
weather; and I shall migrate 'up country' to a Dutch village.
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