A Strong
Family Likeness Runs Through Both Buildings And Members, And A Large And
Careless Hospitality Is The Note.
There is always the same open-doored,
high-ceiled house, with matting on the floors; the same come and
Go of
dark-skinned servants, and the same assembly of men talking horse or
business, in raiment that would fatally scandalise a London committee,
among files of newspapers from a fortnight to five weeks old. The life
of the Outside Men includes plenty of sunshine, and as much air as may
be stirring. At the Cape, where the Dutch housewives distil and sell the
very potent Vanderhum, and the absurd home-made hansom cabs waddle up
and down the yellow dust of Adderley Street, are the members of the big
import and export firms, the shipping and insurance offices, inventors
of mines, and exploiters of new territories with now and then an officer
strayed from India to buy mules for the Government, a Government House
aide-de-camp, a sprinkling of the officers of the garrison, tanned
skippers of the Union and Castle Lines, and naval men from the squadron
at Simon's Town. Here they talk of the sins of Cecil Rhodes, the
insolence of Natal, the beauties or otherwise of the solid Boer vote,
and the dates of the steamers. The argot is Dutch and Kaffir, and
every one can hum the national anthem that begins 'Pack your kit and
trek, Johnny Bowlegs.' In the stately Hongkong Clubhouse, which is to
the further what the Bengal Club is to the nearer East, you meet much
the same gathering, minus the mining speculators and plus men whose
talk is of tea, silk, shortings, and Shanghai ponies.
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