Most Of Them Are Unknown Here.
Never Was So Healthy A Place; But The Remedy Is Of The Heroic
Nature, And Very Disagreeable.
The stones rattle against the
windows, and omnibuses are blown over on the Rondebosch road.
A few days ago, I drove to Mr. V-'s farm. Imagine St. George's
Hill, and the most beautiful bits of it, sloping gently up to Table
Mountain, with its grey precipices, and intersected with Scotch
burns, which water it all the year round, as they come from the
living rock; and sprinkled with oranges, pomegranates, and camelias
in abundance. You drive through a mile or two as described, and
arrive at a square, planted with rows of fine oaks close together;
at the upper end stands the house, all on the ground-floor, but on
a high stoep: rooms eighteen feet high; the old slave quarters on
each side; stables, &c., opposite; the square as big as Belgrave
Square, and the buildings in the old French style.
We then went on to Newlands, a still more beautiful place. Immense
trenching and draining going on - the foreman a Caffre, black as
ink, six feet three inches high, and broad in proportion, with a
staid, dignified air, and Englishmen working under him! At the
streamlets there are the inevitable groups of Malay women washing
clothes, and brown babies sprawling about. Yesterday, I should
have bought a black woman for her beauty, had it been still
possible. She was carrying an immense weight on her head, and was
far gone with child; but such stupendous physical perfection I
never even imagined. Her jet black face was like the Sphynx, with
the same mysterious smile; her shape and walk were goddess-like,
and the lustre of her skin, teeth, and eyes, showed the fulness of
health; - Caffre of course. I walked after her as far as her swift
pace would let me, in envy and admiration of such stately humanity.
The ordinary blacks, or Mozambiques, as they call them, are
hideous. Malay here seems equivalent to Mohammedan. They were
originally Malays, but now they include every shade, from the
blackest nigger to the most blooming English woman. Yes, indeed,
the emigrant-girls have been known to turn 'Malays', and get
thereby husbands who know not billiards and brandy - the two
diseases of Capetown. They risked a plurality of wives, and
professed Islam, but they got fine clothes and industrious
husbands. They wear a very pretty dress, and all have a great air
of independence and self-respect; and the real Malays are very
handsome. I am going to see one of the Mollahs soon, and to look
at their schools and mosque; which, to the distraction of the
Scotch, they call their 'Kerk.'
I asked a Malay if he would drive me in his cart with the six or
eight mules, which he agreed to do for thirty shillings and his
dinner (i.e. a share of my dinner) on the road. When I asked how
long it would take, he said, 'Allah is groot', which meant, I
found, that it depended on the state of the beach - the only road
for half the way.
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