Six Months at the Cape

The mine of which I write is the Public Library of Capetown.

And let it not be supposed that I exaggerate or over-estimate this mine. It unquestionably takes rank as one of the noted libraries of the world, and South Africa has reason to be proud of, and grateful to, the men who, by their enlightened schemes and liberality, were the means of creating what is at once a mine and a monument to the Cape.

But Capetown boasts of many other institutions which are well worthy of notice. It is—and has been since its foundation by Van Riebeek in 1652—the seat of Governments.7 It is also the seat of the Supreme Court and of the University of the Cape of Good Hope. It possesses a first-rate “South African museum,” two cathedrals, many churches, a castle, fort, barracks, and other buildings too numerous to mention. Also a splendid breakwater, patent slip, and docks.

From the sublime to the ridiculous is well-known to be but a step. From mines of knowledge to matter-of-fact mules may seem a rather long step. If it is, the blame of my taking it must rest on the force of association. From the library you can walk in a few minutes to the docks, and docks has brought me to mules. I saw a ship-load of mules there, and it was a sight not to be forgotten.

Have you ever seen a fair stand-up fight between men and mules? It is not easy to say which of the two combatants is the more mulish. I went one day to the docks and chanced to witness a conflict. They were discharging the mules—the men were—from the hold of the small vessel which had brought them over sea from South America. “Victory or death” was undoubtedly the motto of each. Of course man prevailed because of superior power,—not obstinacy.

Many days, ay weeks, had these mules spent on the heaving deep; no doubt they had all been sea-sick, certainly they had been half killed, but when I went down into the hold of that ship, where there must have been at least fifty animals, the hundred ears of all of them lay quite flat, pinned to their necks as a desperate pirate might nail his colours to the mast, while deep unutterable hate and dogged resolution gleamed from every eye.

They were ranged along the sides of the ship in two rows. The rows had been full all the voyage, but when I saw them, half the animals had been got on shore, so that there was plenty of room for the remnant to career about and kick defiance at their human persecutors. What charmed me most was not the triumph of intelligence over brute force, but the application of brute force on both sides, with just sufficient mechanical addition on the part of the men to render their power irresistible.

When I entered the hold, the stench of which was almost overpowering, I could see nothing in the dim light, but I could hear the wild clattering of hoofs on wooden floors, the little shrieks of irrepressible fury, and the deep firmly uttered command—such as:—

“Now, then, Dick, look out!”

“Grab ’im!”

“Dig into ’im!”

“Twist ’is tail!”

“That’s it!”

“Hup!”

My eyes soon becoming accustomed to the dim light, I saw a trembling mule in the embrace of three men. It trembled with passion only. One had passed a stout sheet under it. Next moment there was an order to “hoist away,” and the mule went past me, with rigid limbs, high into the air, whence it was lowered I could not see whither, and disappeared.

Meanwhile the three men went viciously at another animal. They were unusually strong men, with immense chests, and brawny arms bared to the shoulders. They panted and perspired freely, and had been severely dishevelled by their recent struggles.

I saw the dim outline of a mule, in the dark recesses of the hold to which he had retired, crushing his companions against the bulk-heads of the ship. He evidently knew that his hour was come.

To this demon Dick advanced with a short rope in his hand. The mule eyed him with a gleam of malice. Its ears became, if possible, flatter. Dick made a loop on the rope, and leaning over the breast-high barricade between him and his adversary made a cast after the manner of South Americans, but the mule jerked his head aside, and the lasso missed him. While Dick was preparing for another cast, Tom came up behind him with a sly motion. The mule observed Tom, let fly both heels with a tremendous crash on the barrier, and bolted to the other end of the ship. There Harry met him with a stick, and turned him back whence he came.

Again Dick advanced, made a successful cast, and drew the noose tight. For a few moments a perfect shower of kicks was delivered at the barrier and on the sides of the ship, but the three men did not wait till the creature was exhausted: they had no time for that. Two of them hauled the mule’s head by main force to the edge of the barrier, the third leaning far over caught its tail, and instantly drew it broadside on. It was still some distance from the spot under the hatchway where the band and tackle were to be attached. Towards this Tom and Dick dragged the beast by the head, while Harry assisted with the tail. No power on earth could have made that mule walk! With its ears back and all its legs planted stiffly forward, it was made to slide in the required direction by main force. The place of execution reached, Dick jammed its head against the barrier, Tom hauled its tail taut over the same and made fast. There was no intentional cruelty in their actions, but difficult work had to be quickly done, and they could not afford to be squeamish. Obstinate violence had to be overcome by resolute vigour. The mule was now helplessly fixed, with its tongue hanging out and its eyes protruding. Nevertheless, in that condition it continued, without ceasing, to struggle and try to kick, and flatten its ears. It was a magnificent exhibition of determination to resist to the very death!—a glorious quality when exercised in a good cause, thought I—my mind reverting to patriots and martyrs.

Meanwhile Harry had passed the broad band under the mule, drawn it over its back, and attached the big hook to it. The signal was given to the men who managed the tackle on deck, and the animal bounded into empty space.

It was at that moment I made the discovery that a mule’s spirit resides in its legs. Its last act on earth, before leaving, was to deliver a concentrated double-kick at the barrier, but the instant it found itself in air its flattened ears sprung up with an air of horrified astonishment, and all its legs hung straight and rigid, the four hoofs coming together as if in abject supplication to any one, or anything, that could deliver. Not the smallest effort did it make; not a trace of self-will did it display, while it shot upwards through the hatchway nearly to the yard-arm, whence it obtained its first bird’s-eye view of Capetown docks. For one moment it hung, while it was being swung over the quay, whither it was lowered, and its feet once more came in contact with mother-earth. Then, but not till then, did the disease of its limbs depart, and the spirit of its ears and heels return. With a bound it sprang into the air, but, before it had time to think, a human enemy caught its rope, and drew its head tight to an iron post. Another such enemy cast off the broad band and tackle, and the creature was suddenly let go free. Its final act was to flourish its heels in the air, and utter a squeal of rage as it trotted into the midst of a group of its kindred which had already been treated in the same way.

A spirited literary commencement—the publication of newspapers—under men of great ability and high principle, bade fair to inaugurate an era of progress that might have quickly led the colony to a far greater height of moral, mental, and, by consequence, physical prosperity than it has ever yet attained; but a long struggle for freedom of the press followed, and in 1828 this freedom was secured. The sparkling streams thus set free have flowed and waxed in volume ever since.

There is a custom-house at Capetown. It is not because of being one of the noteworthy buildings of the port that I mention it, but because of its having been to me a personal nuisance on the occasion of my arrival in the colony. A fellow-passenger had informed me—whether rightly or wrongly I knew not and cared not—that watches, jewellery, and guns, were among the taxable articles. Knowing that my portmanteau contained no such articles, except a brass watch-guard, I presented myself to the official with an air of conscious innocence. I had hoped that, like many such officials in France and elsewhere, he would have been content with an assurance that I had “nothing to declare” and the offer of my keys, but I was mistaken. This particular official was perhaps a “new broom.” It may be that he had caught some smugglers not long before, and the excitement had not yet worn off. At all events, instead of allowing me to pass he ordered me to open my portmanteau.

While I was engaged in doing so he opened my shoulder-bag and eyed its contents curiously. They were not numerous. He found nothing contraband, and appearing somewhat disappointed applied his nose to it.

“It has a queer smell,” he remarked.

As the bag had frequently done duty at picnics and been loaded with flasks and sandwiches, I was not surprised. Besides, it occurred to me that no tax was levied on “queer smells,” though such a tax might have been, with advantage, levied on the town itself. It would certainly have produced an immense revenue. I smiled, however, in a pleasant manner and said nothing.

Having shut the bag this official opened the portmanteau, and began to examine each article in a way that would have rendered it probable he might have finished sometime within the next twenty-four hours. He slowly turned over my shirts and flannels as if he expected to find mines of jewellery in the folds thereof. Suddenly he came on the brass chain and his eye glittered, which was more than the chain did. It had to be re-deposited with a sigh. I began to grow despairing. Presently he took up a book and opened it. Was he going to refresh himself with a chapter? His turning over the leaves very slowly gave reason for the suspicion. Or did the obtuse creature expect to find watches and gun-barrels between the leaves? At last he shut the book, and, laying it down, proceeded to exhume a morning coat.

At this point one of his superiors told him that that was enough, to my immense relief, and the too-conscientious official allowed me to re-pack and lock-up my property.

Letter 14.

Stellenbosch, etcetera

An agreeable surprise is not only interesting to the recipient, but sometimes to his friends. I received one at Capetown, which is worthy of record on several grounds.

For the proper explanation of that surprise I must turn aside for a little.

A mission started in the year 1860 for the Zambesi, where it was met, and for a time joined, by the great Dr Livingstone. Its leader, Bishop Mackenzie, who laid down his life in the cause, was a man as well as a missionary. By that I mean that he was manly,—a quality which is not sufficiently appreciated, in some quarters, as being a most important element in the missionary character.

While on his way up to the selected sphere of labour in Central Africa, the Bishop and his party, with Dr Livingstone, got into the region of the accursed slave-trade, and one day came unexpectedly on a band of slaves. They were chiefly women and children, bound together with sticks and chains, and herded by a few armed slave-dealers, who, having murdered their male defenders and burned their villages, were driving them to the coast for shipment to eastern lands—largely, it is said, to the land of the amiable Turk.

With characteristic zeal and energy Dr Livingstone advanced with a few men to set these poor wretches free. The slave-catchers did not await the onset: they bravely fired a shot or two and fled. To set the slaves free was naturally a most congenial work for the good Bishop who had gone there to free the black man from the slavery of sin. The sticks were cut, the bonds were unloosed, and the people were told that they were free to go back to their homes. Homes! Their homes were in ashes, and the brave hearts and stout arms that might have reared new homes were cold and powerless in death, while armed Arab and Portuguese bands were prowling about the land gathering together more victims. To send these unfortunates away would have been to insure their death or recapture. There was no alternative left but to keep and guard them.

Thus the Bishop suddenly found himself in possession of a small flock with which to begin his mission.

He accepted the charge, conducted them to the region where the mission was to be established, and finally settled down with them there.

Some time after this there came a rumour that a large and powerful band of slavers was approaching the settlement with many slaves in possession, and with the intention of attacking the tribe among whom the missionaries were located. What was now to be done? To have remained inactive until the slavers marched up to their huts would have been equivalent to suicide. It would have been worse, for it would have insured the putting to flight of the few men of the tribe—who it seems were not celebrated for courage—and the result would have been the overthrow of the mission and the recapture of the women and children who had already been delivered.

In these trying circumstances Bishop Mackenzie and his people came to the conclusion that self-defence called for vigorous action, and, with musket and rifle, sallied forth to meet the men-stealers, with the Bishop at their head.

On reaching the position of the enemy they paused at a distance of above six hundred yards. A group of Arab slavers were standing on a hill together. One of the mission party kneeled, and with an Enfield rifle sent a bullet over their heads. The effect was powerful! The slavers, accustomed to the smooth-bore musket, had thought themselves quite safe at such a distance. They were panic-stricken: perhaps the unexpected sight of white men aided the effect. At all events, when another bullet was dropped into the midst of them, they took to flight. The missionaries, like good generals, seized their opportunity, charged home, and chased the scoundrels into the woods. Thus, with little fighting, they gained an important victory, and became possessed of a second large band of slaves—chiefly women and children—who had been forsaken by their terrified captors.

These the Bishop resolved to add to his settlement. Indeed, as in the previous case, he had no alternative. They were at once liberated and conducted to the station, and one of the poor black children—a little girl named Dauma—was carried home by Mackenzie on his own shoulders.

Soon afterwards the mission failed in that quarter. Among other misfortunes disease attacked and carried off several of the chief Europeans of the party. The earnest enthusiastic Bishop himself died there in his Master’s cause, and left his bones in the swamps of the Shire River.

All this, and a great deal more, had I read with profound interest, many years before my visit to the Cape, and the whole subject had made a deep impression on my memory—especially the figure of the gallant Bishop returning from his raid on the men-stealers with the little wearied Dauma on his shoulders!

Well, one day I went to visit the “Saint George’s Orphanage for Girls,” in Capetown. I was conducted over the dormitories and schools, etcetera, and at last came to a class-room in which were assembled some hundred or so of black orphans—infants almost, most of them, and irresistibly comic in their little looks and actions.

It was here that I received the agreeable surprise before referred to. The teacher of this class was as black as her pupils.

“She is herself an orphan, one of the best girls in our school,” said Miss Arthur, referring to her. “She was saved from the slavers in Central Africa many years ago.”

“What!” I exclaimed, “the little girl who was saved by the missionaries of the Shire River?”

“The same.”

“And who was carried home on the shoulders of Bishop Mackenzie?”

“Yes; her name is Dauma.”

I shook hands with Dauma immediately, and claimed old acquaintance on the spot!

Chief among the many interesting visits which I paid while at Capetown was one to the beautiful towns of Stellenbosch and Wellington. Both are but a short distance from the capital, and connected with it by rail. The former is one of the oldest towns of the colony. Many of the French refugees settled there in 1685.

When, in 1684, Governor Van der Stell founded the lovely town of Stellenbosch, and led out the sparkling waters of its river to irrigate trees which afterwards became very giants of the forest, little did he, or his oppressive and tyrannical son and successor, imagine that they had sown the seed of that which was destined to become an academic grove, in the pleasant retirement of which lads and men should study the universal laws of matter and of mind.

That, however, which made the deepest impression on me during this visit was the manner in which the work of training the young is conducted. Everything seemed to be done with an amount of wisdom and vigour which cannot fail to tell most beneficially and extensively on future generations.

Well do I remember in days gone by, how, with my juvenile mind addled and my juvenile fingers tingling after an application of the “tawse,” I have stared at my arithmetic book in despair—hopelessly ignorant of the meaning of words and terms, utterly incapable of comprehending explanatory “rules,” passionately averse to learning in every form, and longingly anxious for the period of emancipation to arrive, when I should be old and big enough to thrash my master! No such feelings, sentiments, or difficulties can ever find a place in the breasts of those fortunate pupils whose happy lot has been cast in the Seminaries of Stellenbosch and Wellington.

Periwinkle, my friend, farewell.

1

Near the Tower of London. The South African traffic is now carried on chiefly through the East India Docks, Poplar, from which the Union Castle liners depart. The mail boats proceed from Southampton.

2

In 1840. See page 83. The author was writing in 1876.

3

Known as the Province of the Cape of Good Hope, (or the Cape Province), since the establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910.

4

This deeply interesting lecture was published in Grahamstown as a pamphlet, entitled, The Reminiscences of an Albany Settler.

5

The author was an artist as well as a writer of merit, and exhibited water-colour drawings at the Royal Scottish Academy.

6

The map of the present railways on page vi will enable the reader to judge how far this has been realised.

7

The Parliament of the Union of South Africa meets at Capetown, but Pretoria is now the seat of the Union Government.