1. Cape Town, And Other Matters
Africa ! The land I had long wished to see. The land of Negroes, Boers, and Mystery ! At last my opportunity came to go there, and just after Dr Jameson's raid I arrived in Cape Town.
We had been beating about off Table Bay most of the night, and it was some time after sunrise before Table Mountain was sighted above the mist. Every one crowded to the side of the boat to see what they could, on their first acquaintance with the new country, wondering what it had in store for them.
No one can watch a crowd of emigrants fresh from England, just entering their destined port, without trying to picture them, say five or ten years hence. What a history might be written by one shipload in that time !
Of my fellow ship's-passengers, some returned very soon to England, disgusted and disappointed with the outlook in towns and country ; others found it exceedingly difl&cult to get work; some have done well; many others had friends or introductions to settlers in the colony ; while still others came apparently for the mere fun of the thing.
On nearing the landing-stage, we saw what might have been placed there as a stagepiece for our special benefit. There were mountains of coal and an anny of natives. It was hard to tell the coal from the natives, who sat amongst it, waiting to load it into the ship's bunkers. There were rows of small cabs and piles of merchandise, amongst which wandered a crowd of Cape Town's very miscellaneous population, representing nearly every degree of white, yellow, brown, and black humanity.
The docks all round us were filled with shipping from many and widely scattered ports.
mil!stillintheBay,our;hipwasboLded by a shouting and struggling crowd of agents and hotel pLrs. each describing himsTlf as prompt and in all ways the most desirable. I engaged an agent as a necessary evil to look after my luggage, and then with a friend went in search of an hotel.
Walking through the town, we realise that we are indeed in a new country. The sober clothing of England has given way to light felt hats, light garments, and bright colours. Instead of white labourers, there are crowds of black workmen. Even many of the cabmen and drivers are coloured. The smart and sleek horses we have been used to have given place to teams of mules or oxen, or thin and unhappy-looking horses, with every rib showing through their skins. The main streets are well made and have good footpaths, but in nearly all the side streets the paths are obstructed by verandahs, which turn pedestrians into the road, a by no means enviable experience in wet weather, when the streets are often some inches deep in mud. Nearly every other house in Cape Town has a single or double verandah. These give the streets a very foreign appearance.
We had not expected to find hotel accommodation in Cape Colony equal to that of England, but our first experience of South African hotels was even worse than we had anticipated. We had been recommended to a certain hotel as a good one, and the outside did promise a good deal more comfort than we got within. I suppose the proprietor saw that we were " green," and therefore gave us the worst room.
The paper was falling from the walls in sheets, and the ceiling was roughly planked and whitewashed. Our bedroom door opened upon a balcony which ran round a yard containing the kitchen and other oflBces. It is only fair to add that later experience has proved that Cape Town can furnish as good hotel accommodation as any place.
To ai^y single young man going to Cape Town for the first time, I can highly recommend the Young Men's Christian Association, which makes its boaxding-house a special feature of its work. One of the members will usually be found on the look-out for /incoming steamers.
Except in the towns, the hotels of Cape Colony are nearly always built on one level, the bedrooms leading into a garden, a verandah, or a yard. In nearly every hotel black servants are employed. They are not always as trim as they might be, but perhaps this is not the fault of the proprietors. I myself should not like to promise to keep any single native clean and tidy for a whole day ! Ofbener than not, there are white waiters, but in many places one is waited on by natives, sometimes without shoes or stockings, and not too much clothing. They make smart attendants and are noiseless. A native servant brings coffee into your bedroom at half.past six in the morning, when you want to be left alone, and wish those who bring it anywhere else. You get coffee for breakfast, coffee after lunch, coffee after dinner, coffee when out calling, coffee at eleven, and coffee at four. They call it coffee, but it is often difficult to guess what it is made of. Coffee is indeed an institution in Cape Colony.
What South Africa would do without tinned foods it would be hard to say. When fresh foods are scarce, we almost live on tinned soups, fish, meats, vegetables, and finiits. I once sat down to dinner in a country hotel, at which tinned herrings were served up in the bill of fare under three different names, and formed a large portion of it. On the other hand, venison is by no means scarce, though it is [often kept so long in the form of biltong, that to the taste it is often more fit to be buried than eaten.
In Cape Town penguin eggs are considered a delicacy. They are eaten with pepper, salt, butter, and other condiments, according to taste- or is it to drown the original flavour ? The taste of one penguin egg has outlasted five years, and I don't think the dose will need repeating, for a fouler and more fishy egg I have never eaten. The convicts, I am told, are fed on penguin eggs ; I suppose it is on the principle of Charles Dickens' '' brimstone and treacle.'
Fruit can nearly always be procured in every part of the Colony. Besides the usual bananas, pine -apples, oranges, and naartjes, there are nearly sure to be on every hotel table either loquats, guavas, ripe figs, or watermelons, all of which are delicious fruits, and well suited to the country, being juicy and cooling.
For those on pleasure bent, Cape Town has not many attractions. If there were only a comfortably seated pier running out from the foot of Adderley Street well into the waters of the Bay, with a sea wall to right and left along the Bay front, visitors and the inhabitants of Cape Town could enjoy the Bay and the surrounding scenery of mountain, town, and shipping ; but at present there is only an old wooden jetty, which rocks with almost every ripple, and which people make use of at their own risk. It seems to me a pity that Cape Town, shut in as it is with mountains, should be content to remain so, and not make use of the shores of its grand Bay as a shaded esplanade, where its people might fill their lungs with fresh sea air at any time, without taking a journey to Sea Point for the purpose.
One of the most interesting centres in Cape Town is the railway station, which we might call the heart of South Africa, from which the fresh blood flows to all parts of the country. Any of the daily corridor trains leaving for or arriving from the interior furnishes food for reflection and interest. There is almost sure to be one or other of Africa's financial kings on board, and young fellows, full of hope, about to seek their fortunes, dreaming of gold and diamonds, dressed in wonderful colonial costumes, "made in England," carrying all their worldly possessions with them : or soldiers and volunteers, either going to or returning from one or other of the innumerable tribal squabbles in the interior. What a pity it is that some peaceable way cannot be found to deal with these matters !
The slopes of the Lion's Head, Table Mountain, and Devil's Peak, are pretty, and provide good climbing. From some points, such as the reservoir, fine views are obtained across the city and Bay, to the mountains beyond, which are sometimes white with snow. The lower slopes of the mountains round the city are extensively covered with gpines and thick " bush," the beautiful silver tree growing fieely on the slopes of Lion's Head, also proteas, or mountain roses, in many places, while, after rains, a profusion of wild flowers will be found everywhere.
One of Cape Town's most popular resorts is Sea Point ; but to me the sun-baked rocks and sand dunes along the coast of South Africa are too desolate and bleak to be really attractive or interesting. The view looking down from the Lion's Head towards Sea Point and the indented coast-line beyond, shut in by the rugged cliffs of the Twelve Apostles, makes a beautiful and impressive picture.
Next to Table Mountain, Capetonians seem to pride themselves on the beauty of the suburbs and townships lying between Cape Town and Wynberg. These suburbs are well laid out, and the roads are shaded with large trees, the householders seeming to vie with each other in adding to the general effect, by laying their gardens out to the best advantage. Not least among them was the late Mr Cecil J. Rhodes, who generously threw his large gardens and plantations open to the public The whole district is saved from monotony by the mountain slopes, along which, part of the suburbs are built. About August the ground in many places is covered witb arum liHes. This is certainly one of the sighte worth seeing. Arum lilies are so common in some parts of Cape Colony that the roots are used for fattening pigs ; hence the name of " pig lilies," often given to them in the Colony.