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diff --git a/42737-8.txt b/42737-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 4fbb01f..0000000 --- a/42737-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3510 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cape Peninsula, by Réné Juta - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Cape Peninsula - Pen and Colour Sketches - -Author: Réné Juta - -Illustrator: W. Westhofen - -Release Date: May 18, 2013 [EBook #42737] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAPE PENINSULA *** - - - - -Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - -Transcriber's Note: - - Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have - been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. - - - - - THE CAPE PENINSULA - - [Illustration: CAPE TOWN FROM TABLE BAY] - - - - - THE CAPE - PENINSULA - - PEN AND COLOUR SKETCHES - - DESCRIBED BY - RÉNÉ JUTA - - PAINTED BY - W. WESTHOFEN - - - LONDON: ADAM & CHARLES BLACK - CAPE TOWN: J. C. JUTA & CO. - 1910 - - - - -DEDICATION - - -'Only those who see take off their shoes. The rest sit round and pluck -blackberries and stain their faces with the natural hue of them.' - - * * * * * - -'I am told there are people who do not care for maps, and find it hard -to believe. The names, the shapes of the woodlands, the courses of the -roads and rivers, the prehistoric footsteps of man still distinctly -traceable up hill and down dale, the mills and the ruins, the ponds -and the ferries, perhaps the Standing Stone or the Druidic Circle on -the heath; here is an inexhaustible fund of interest for any man with -eyes to see or twopence worth of imagination to understand with.' - - R. L. STEVENSON. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. THE CASTLE 1 - - II. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY SOCIETY AND SLAVERY 15 - - III. IN THE BLUE SHADOW OF TABLE MOUNTAIN 30 - - IV. 'PARADISE' AND THE BARNARDS 46 - - V. THE LIESBEEK RIVER 53 - - VI. THE BOSHEUVEL, OR HEN AND CHICKENS HILL 62 - - VII. THE CONSTANTIA VALLEY 73 - - VIII. THE MOUNTAIN 78 - - IX. ROUND THE LION'S HEAD AND THE VICTORIA ROAD 92 - - X. FALSE BAY 100 - - XI. THE BLUE SHADOW ACROSS THE FLATS 110 - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - - 1. Cape Town from Table Bay (_Frontispiece_) - FACING PAGE - 2. On the Ramparts of the old Castle (moonlight) 5 - - 3. Table Bay from the Kloof Nek 17 - - 4. Blaauwberg and Head of Table Bay 32 - - 5. Tigerberg and Diep River 34 - - 6. Blue Hydrangeas at Groote Schuur 41 - - 7. The Blue Shadow--View from Rhodes's Monument 45 - - 8. The Southern Part of False Bay, with Cape Hangclip 47 - - 9. Oak Avenue, Newlands 59 - - 10. Silver Trees and Wild Geraniums 62 - - 11. Fir Avenue--'Alphen' 72 - - 12. Constantia Valley and False Bay, with Cape Point 78 - - 13. A Sunset on the Lions Head: Effect of South-east Wind 88 - - 14. On the Victoria Road, near Oude Kraal 92 - - 15. Camps Bay, on the Victoria Road 95 - - 16. Hout Bay and Hangberg 97 - - 17. Chapman's Peak and Slang Kop Point from Hout Bay 99 - - 18. At Lakeside, looking towards Constantia 102 - - 19. At Lakeside, looking South-East 103 - - 20. On Fish Hoek Beach, Nord Hoek Mountains in - Distance 105 - - 21. Simonstown Mountains, with Cape Point and Roman - Rock Lighthouses 106 - - 22. Table Mountain from Retreat Flats 110 - - 23. Sand Dunes 112 - - 24. On the Sandhills near Muizenberg 115 - - 25. At the Head of False Bay 118 - - - - -CHARACTERS - - -MARINUS and THE WRITER, two slightly sentimental travellers, in modern -dress, generally riding-clothes. - -_Immortals._ - - MYNHEER VAN RIEBEEK, AND ALL THE DUTCH COMMANDERS. - CAPTAIN COOK. - MARION LE ROUX. - MR. AND LADY ANNE BARNARD. - OLD MAN VAN DER POOL. - THE ENGLISH GOVERNORS. - SOME ENGLISH MIDSHIPMEN. - MYNHEER VAN RHEENEN, a brewer. - MR. BARROW, a naturalist. - MONSIEUR LE VAILLANT, a French explorer with a temperament. - LIEUTENANT ABRAHAM SCHUT. - KOLBÉ, a great liar with a sense of humour. - MYNHEER CLOETE, a wealthy farmer, - - And some others. - -_Chorus._ - -Hottentots, Bushmen, Saldanhas, Dutch Soldiers and Sailors, English -Soldiers and Sailors, Burghers, Slaves, Market-Gardeners, Wine-Makers, -Fishermen, and ordinary people from 1651 to 1910. - - - - -THE CAPE PENINSULA - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE CASTLE - - -Under three purple-flowered trees standing in the Castle courtyard, -one blazing hot morning, we, more sentimentally than travellingly -inclined, sat and rested while a khaki-clothed Tommy wandered round to -find a guide to show us over the old Dutch fort. We thanked Heaven for -his half-heartedness and for some shade. Marinus, fortunately for us -both, smoked his pipe of peace and of Transvaal tobacco, and I opened -the Brass Bottle, which, indeed, is no bottle at all, but, as everyone -not vulgarly inclined knows, a fairy-tale metaphor for one's -imagination. The barometer registered 97° F. in the shade, which is a -perfect state of atmosphere for the fumes of the Brass Bottle, in -which, all mingling with the smoke from Marinus' pipe, the building of -the Castle began. - -The walls dissolved into blue air: the brasswork of the 'Kat,' the -block of buildings dividing the Castle into two courtyards, melted -into one small spot of liquid, leaving a dry, dusty, levelled yellow -plain, with an earthwork wall embodying the spirit of the dykes of the -Netherlands in its composition--for the green waves of Table Bay -lapped at its base. It was the second day of January, 1666; under the -blazing sun three hundred discontented-looking men were digging and -levelling the hard earth. At the westerly land-points were the -foundations of two bastions. Suddenly a group of men appeared, looking -like Rembrandt's 'Night-Watch' come to life, carrying sealed -parchments and plans, followed by many Madagascar slaves in clean -white linen tunics not to be renewed for six whole months, this being -the New Year. The slaves carried bags of food and a long tray made of -wood, on which were about one hundred small moneybags. One of the -Night-Watch, who was the Commander Wagenaar, walked up to a long table -whereon was a white stone; the guns of the old fort, crumbling to -pieces across the parade-ground, fired. It was noon, and the -foundation-stone of the Castle was laid. The three hundred weary, -sweating men raised a feeble cheer, the masons, carpenters, and -smiths, advancing separately, received from the hands of the 'Fiscal,' -Chief Magistrate and Attorney-General of the Colony, the gift of the -General Netherlands East India Company of thirty Rds., or rix-dollars, -tied up in the small black bags. Then the Company moved across to -another part of the ground, and the Predikant, the Rev. Joan van -Arckel, proceeded to lay another stone, followed by the Fiscal, Sieur -Hendrick Lucas, to whose honour fell the laying of the third great -corner-stone. Then were the entire three hundred malcontents, as well -as the soldiers who had also laboured, presented with two oxen, six -sheep, one hundred fresh-baked wheaten loaves, and eight casks of -Cape-brewed beer, 'which food and drink, well cooked and well -prepared,' whispered the Chief Surgeon, Sieur Pieter van Clinckenberg, -to Lieutenant Abraham Schut, 'let us hope may induce these sluggish -fellows to be better encouraged and made more willing to work.' - -Lieutenant Abraham Schut, to whose duties of supervising the Company's -stables and the Mounted Guards in the country, and the watch-houses, -and the supervising of the workings and workers of the vineyards, the -orchards, and the granary, were also added those of 'keeping an eye' -on the 'lazy fellows at work in the brick and tile fields,' very -solemnly stared before him at the 'encouraged' diggers, and wondered -what reward the General Netherlands East India Company had laid up for -him. - -But the Fiscal was addressing the crowd gathered round the Commander. -I had missed some of his speech because of these two babbling -Night-Watchers next me, but I now listened: 'And that it may also -somewhat be evident that by this continual digging and delving in and -under the ground, poets have also been found and thrown up, a certain -amateur this day presents to the Commander the following eight -verses.' The crowd drew closer to the Fiscal, who continued with the -amateur's verses: - -DEN EERSTEN STEEN VAN 'T NIEUWE CASTEEL GOEDE HOOP HEEFT WAGENAAR -GELECHT MET HOOP VAN GOEDE HOOP. - -_Ampliatie._ - - Soo worden voort en voort de rijcken uijtgespreijt, - Soo worden al de swart en geluwen gespreijt, - Soo doet men uijt den aerd' een steen wall oprechten, - Daer't donderend metael seer weijnigh (an ophecten) - Voor Hottentoosen waren 't altijts eerde wallen. - Nu komt men hier met steen van anderen oock brallen, - Dus maeckt men dan een schrik soowel d'Europiaen, - Als vor den Aes! Ame! en wilden Africaen, - Dus wort beroemt gemaeckt 't geheijligst Christendom, - Die zetels stellen in het woeste heijdendom, - Wij loven 't Groot Bestier, en zeggen met malcander, - Augustus heerschappij, noch winnend' Alexander, - Noch Caesars groot beleijd zijn noijt daermee geswaerd, - Met 't leggen van een steen op 't eijnde van de Aerd! - -THE FIRST STONE OF THE NEW CASTLE GOOD HOPE HAS WAGENAAR LAID WITH -HOPE OF GOOD HOPE. - - Thus more and more the kingdoms are extended; - Thus more and more are black and yellow spread; - Thus from the ground a wall of stone is raised, - On which the thundering brass can no impression make. - For Hottentoos the walls were always earthen, - But now we come with stone to boast before all men, - And terrify not only Europeans, but also - Asians, Americans, and savage Africans. - Thus holy Christendom is glorified; - Establishing its seats amidst the savage heathen. - We praise the Great Director, and say with one another: - 'Augustus's dominion, nor conquering Alexander, - Nor Cæsar's mighty genius, has ever had the glory - To lay a corner-stone at earth's extremest end!' - - [Illustration: ON THE RAMPARTS OF THE OLD CASTLE (MOONLIGHT)] - -Lieutenant Abraham Schut came towards me; no, it was not this -wonderful Abraham, though he wore a uniform--the cheering of the crowd -still rung in my ears. 'Who wrote it?' I said. 'Wrote what?' The -subaltern stared at me. 'Built it, I suppose you mean,' he smiled. 'Oh -yes, built, of course, of course,' I muttered, hotter than ever. -Marinus' pipe had burnt out, and the officer who stood before us wore -khaki. - -With the last words of the quaint Dutch poem ringing in my ears, we -followed our guide across the courtyard into an arched white doorway. -The old entrance, the sea entrance to the Castle, was blocked up, -because on the other side runs the Cape Government Railway, with all -its paraphernalia of tin walls, engine-rooms, dirty, ugly workshops, -gasometers, coal-heaps, all making up the foreshore scenery of Table -Bay, and delighting the eyes of the workers and drones who are daily -hurried (_sic_) along like 'animated packages in a rabbit hutch.'[1] - -In the plaster ceiling of this archway is such a charming miniature -plan, in raised stucco, of the Castle buildings. From here we climbed -some stone steps and came on to the ramparts, called after the ships -that first brought Company rule to the Cape--the _Reiger_, the -_Walvis_, the _Dromedaris_. We climbed up stone stairs, and in white -stucco, in the wall, were the Company's arms--the big galleon in full -sail. We passed the cells--the one used by Cetewayo, the rebellious -Chief of the Zulus, the 'Children of Heaven,' had a special little -fireplace sunk into the wall--walked along wonderfully neat, bricked -ramparts past the Guard Tower, and climbed down more steps into the -courtyard. - -We rambled through the quarters of the old Governors. Everything is -groaning under heavy military paint--teak doors, beautiful brass -fittings and beamed ceilings--and about a mile away, shut up in a -small ugly museum room, are the Rightful Inhabitants--the proper -belongings of these long rooms: the oak tables, the big chairs, which -once held the old Dutch Governors, the glass they used, the huge -silver spittoons, their swords, the flowered panniers of their wives' -dresses, fire-irons, brasses, china, the old flags, someone's -sedan-chair--all bundled together in grotesque array. The teak-beamed -rooms in the Castle would make a better setting than the little room -in the museum. - -'Marinus,' I said, 'isn't it awful--this horrible clean paint and -these little tin sheds in the old garden? Oh, Marinus, _do_ let us -scrape this tiny bit of latch, just to peep at the lovely brass -beneath! And let us pretend we are putting back the old cupboards, and -coffers, and china, and let us burn all that'--with my eye on sheets -of neat military maps and deal tables. But Marinus, with the fear of -God and of the King, pushed me rudely past a Georgian fireplace into a -large room with a big open chimney. Over the grate, let into the wood, -I saw the most ridiculous old painting--like a piece of ancient -sampler in paint instead of silk--an absurd tree with an impossible -bird on a bough, and beneath it a terraced wall with some animals like -peacocks, with the _paysage_ background _à la_ Noah's ark, but -slightly less accurate. 'There is a superstitious story about that -picture,' said Marinus. 'They say some treasure was hidden in the -thick wooden screen over the chimney, and the picture was gummed over -it. The story goes that whoever should touch this picture, or attempt -to remove it, would die shortly afterwards. It may be that the curse, -or a bit of it, landed on the old, stamped brass screen which was -taken to Groote Schuur, shortly before Rhodes died. But no one would -want this horror, would they?' This story made me love the chintz -picture, and, after all, the colours were good; it was antique; it -was old; and there was treasure behind it! - -Above this room are Anne Barnard's apartments, where she came to live -when the Secretary of State, Melville, gave 'the prettiest appointment -in the world for any young fellow'--the Secretaryship to the Governor -of the Cape--to Lady Anne's husband in 1797. She had to write Melville -several letters before she got this appointment. 'To pay me all you -have owed and still owe me, you _never can_--but what you can you -should do, and you have got before you the pleasure of obliging me,' -she wrote. There is stuff for a novel in this sentence. The last -appeal, 'You owe me some happiness, in truth you do,' brought this -pretty appointment with a salary of £3,500 a year. - -I looked out of a window of her room, which opened on to a small -balcony, and conjured up the procession she saw the day after she -landed--the taking of the oath of allegiance to King George III., the -crowd trooping in through the yellow-bricked gateway, clattering over -the cobble-stones, every man with his hat off (an old Dutch regulation -on entering the Castle on a public occasion). 'Well-fed, rosy-cheeked -men, well-powdered and dressed in black! "Boers" from the country, -farmers and settlers, in blue cloth jackets and trousers and very -large flat hats, with a Hottentot slave slinking behind, each carrying -his master's umbrella, a red handkerchief round his head, and a piece -of leather round his waist comprising his toilette.' - -I heard voices under the arch-gateway leading to the inner courtyard; -the subaltern had another party in tow, and his nice voice was very -clear: 'Oh yes, wonderful people, these old Dutch Johnnies; everything -they built lasts so well. Now look at this old sundial; same old -thing! there it is, _keeping the right time still--what_?' - -I laughed quite loudly, and the party looked up, but I had flown back -into Anne's room, which is haunted, so perhaps they thought it was the -ghost--same old ghost! a good lusty ghost--what? - -I met Marinus in the inner court with a man carrying a lantern and -some huge keys--our guide to the magazine and armoury, which might -have been the crypt of some old European monastery, with what seemed -to be miles of white arches, arches with broad brass shutters over the -windows, covered with red or grey army paint. - -The garden of this second courtyard exists no longer, though the man -with the lantern and the keys told us he remembered it--a pond with -bamboos and trees. Beyond the moat on the mountain side, on a low -level, is a disused Tennis court, a real court for the 'Jeu de Paume' -of the seventeenth century, with hard cement walls and cement floor. - -Although Governor Borghorst, with his entire family, amused -themselves by carrying the earth in baskets from the ditch which was -to form the moat, the real work of the Castle was carried out from old -plans of Vauban by Isbrand Goski, in a great hurry, with the shadows -of French cannon and French flags disturbing his dreams. The shadows -proved worthless phantoms, for peace was declared before the fort was -ready. Later on, Sir James Craig, filled with zeal for the defence of -this ultra-important outpost, which had come, with some slight -misunderstanding, into the hands of England, caused more blockhouses -to be built along the slopes of the Devil's Peak, realizing the -ridiculous position of the Castle for defence purposes. Fort Knokke -was connected with the Castle by a long, low, fortified wall, called -the 'Sea Lines.' Beyond the Castle stood the 'Rogge Bay,' the -'Amsterdam,' and the 'Chavonnes' batteries, while at the water edge of -the old Downs--now called Green Point Common--stood the little -'Mouille' battery. The land on which, unfortunately, the Amsterdam -battery was built has become a valuable adjunct of the docks, and it -now stands a scarred, maimed thing with its sea-wall lying in débris. -A sad spectacle, like a deserted beehive, with all its cells and -secrets exposed to the dock world--half solid rock, half small, yellow -Dutch brick. - -It is Wednesday morning in present Cape Town, we have left the -Castle, wept over the Amsterdam battery, and marched up Adderley -Street. - -At the top of Adderley Street is the old Slave Lodge, now used for -Government Offices and the Supreme Court, low and white, with cobbled -courtyard and thick walls. About here, in the old days, began the -Government Gardens or 'Company's' Gardens, a long oak avenue running -through them. At the time of the Cession of the Cape to the English, -the Gardens had been very much neglected. Lord Macartney appropriated -a large slice for the rearing of curious and rare plants (the -Botanical Gardens). - -Government House, on the left, was originally built as a pleasure -pavilion or overflow guesthouse during the 'Company's' régime. One or -two of the later Dutch Governors used it as their residence, and -during the short English rule in 1797 Lord Macartney and his -successor, Sir George Younge, ceased to use the large suite of rooms -in the old Castle. Poor Lord Macartney, because of his gout, found the -narrow, steep stairs in the Gardens House a great trial. He hopped up -the stairs like a parrot to its perch, says one of his staff in a -private letter; but Sir George Younge, fresh from Holyrood, rebuilt -the stairs and kitchens and the high wall round a part of the garden. -For the occasion the avenue was shut to the public, which nearly -caused a revolution. It has seen much, this low, yellow 'Pavilion in -the Gardens.' It has sheltered French, English, and Dutch: famous for -its ancient hospitality, its big white ball-room saw our -great-grandmothers, in white muslin and cashmere shawls, dancing under -the tallow candles: every tree in the garden hung with lights: Van -Rheenen and Mostaert ladies dancing away, while their husbands and -fathers and mothers stood outside and cursed their partners: but one -must dance, no matter what one's politics may be. - -Hanging on the walls of the present day Government House are portraits -of the Past-Governors--Milner with the thinking eyes, dignified Lord -Loch, Rosmead, Grey, Bartle Frere benignly gazing. Skip some history, -and you have Somerset, stern and disliked; 'Davie' Baird, full of good -round oaths, in 'Raeburn' red; Sir Harry Smith of the perfect profile, -too short for the greatness of his spirit. Marinus grows sentimental -before this portrait, because of Juanita, Lady Smith, her beauty, and -her bravery. 'But she was fat'--this from me. Marinus looks -compassionately on such doubtful tactics. 'She was not fat when he -found her in that sacked Spanish town; she was not fat when he sent -her that long ride to return the looted silver candlesticks; she was -not fat when she rode with him into danger during the Kaffir -wars--wonderful energetic woman!' 'Sir Harry was very short,' -continued Marinus, whose methods are quite unoriginal. 'But his -dignity, and his beautiful nose!' I said; 'it reminds me of that story -told of Napoleon, who tried and failed, through being too short, to -reach a certain book from a shelf. A tall Marshal came to his aid, -and, looking down at the little Emperor, said: "Ah, sire, je suis plus -grand que vous." "Pas du tout, vous êtes plus long," said the -Emperor.' - -Then there is the portrait of Macartney, looking straight across the -room at old Dutch Rhenius in wig and satins, whose shrewd, amused eyes -follow one about the room. I think Rhenius' dinner-parties were -probably amusing. - -There are no other portraits of Dutch Governors; none of those who -followed in such quick succession just before the first British -occupation. - -One of these, De Chavonnes, ruled with pomp and circumstance. There is -an amusing story set down in the 1720 _Journal_ wherein the Governor -maintained his dignity in the face of a humorous situation. - -De Chavonnes was at the Castle, and into Table Bay sailed the English -ship, the _Marlborough_. She failed to salute the Castle on arrival. -Much bustle and fuss--such an insult cannot be passed over. The -Wharf-master, Cornelius Volk, is ordered to proceed on board and -inform the captain that no one will be allowed to land before the -usual salute is fired. With more haste arrives an English midshipman, -very pink and well-mannered: 'We have on board an elephant, your -Excellency, and are afraid the firing might frighten him.' His -Excellency and the Wharf-master and the chief merchant, Jan de la -Fontaine, together with the members of the Council and officers of the -garrison, stared at the pink-faced middy. De Chavonnes hesitated only -one minute, which is a long period of time for the middy, who I am -quite sure had compromising dimples; then came His Excellency's -answer: 'The excuse is allowed.' - -A very dignified finale! Smaller things than elephants have unbalanced -the scales of peace. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[1] The Right Hon. J. X. Merriman. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY SOCIETY AND SLAVERY - - -We walked across the parade-ground, and past the spot where, in my -dream, I had seen the old Van Riebeek fort crumbling to pieces, with -its canal and little bridges: now, there is a building called the Post -Office, and instead of the canal, with its tree-bordered pathways, a -street called Adderley Street, with shop-windows where the trees -stood. Even the old Exchange is gone, with its stiff row of trees and -its chained posts and _kiosque_, before which, in the turbulent days -of Sir Harry Smith's régime, all Cape Town, English, Dutch, Malay, in -stock, and crinoline, and turban, with one united voice roared against -the Imperial Government's decree, which was to turn the Peninsula into -a dumping-ground for convicts. Crinoline, stock, and turban kept the -half-starved convict ships with their unwelcome freight for five -months at anchor in Simon's Bay. Sir Harry, with an eye of sympathy on -the mob, and the other eye of duty on the starving convict ships, -ordered food to be sent, offered famine prices: no one moved. A few -judicious civil servants, with both eyes on the main chance, smuggled -a small supply on board. But the crowd in front of the old Exchange -won the day, and Australia profited instead. - -At the end of the eighteenth century a young lady described the Cape -and its inhabitants in a few words: 'Di menschen zyn moei dik en vet, -di huizen moei wit en groen' (The people are very fat and plump; the -houses are pretty white and green). - -Up Strand Street, which was the 'Beach Street,' lived all the high in -the land, the Koopmans, or merchants--'a title,' says an old writer, -'that conferred rank at the Cape to which the military even aspired.' -There they lived, in flat-roofed, high-stoeped houses with teak doors -and small-paned glass windows, facing the sea; the men smoking, -drinking and selling; the women eating, dressing and dancing. Not a -decent school in the town, not a sign of a library, only a theatre -whose productions bored them intolerably: 'Ach, foei toch, Mijnheer -Cook,' says the lady with the smallest feet in all Kaapstad to the -famous sailor Cook, who was the guest of her father, Mijnheer Le Roux, -'go to the theatre? to listen for three hours to a conversation?' Cook -gave in, and, instead, was carried off in a big 'carosse,'[2] with a -Malay coachman in large reed hat over his turban, pointed and with -flowing ribbons at the side, to the Avenue in the Company's -Gardens, a modest Vauxhall, and then on to one of the monthly dances -given in the Castle by the Governor Van Plettenberg. - - [Illustration: TABLE BAY FROM THE KLOOF NEK] - -Dancing was the great form of exercise. 'The ladies of the Cape are -pretty and well dressed,' says the French traveller Le Vaillant, -visiting the Cape about this time--1772. He expressed great surprise -at the way they dressed: 'With as much attention to the minutiæ of -dress as the ladies of France, with neither their manners nor their -graces.' How could they have manners and graces? With the adaptability -which amounts to genius, which the women of newly-arisen cosmopolitan -nations possess as Fate's compensation for depriving them of the -birthright of history, tradition, and ancient habitation, they -imitated the manners and fashions of the passing passengers resting a -few days at the Cape on their way to India. Those belonging to the -better class all played on the harpsichord and sang; they had -generally a good knowledge of French, and often of English; were -experts with the needle, making all kinds of lace, 'knotting' and -tambour work; and they usually made up their own dresses. - -The men and youths, who never mixed with the English or foreign -visitors, were entirely different: phlegmatic and dull, badly dressed -and badly mannered. Anne Barnard, writing Cape gossip to London, has -many stories to tell of pretty Cape ladies running off with -Englishmen or Frenchmen. The thanksgiving sigh of one worthy 'Koopman' -is conclusive: 'Grace à Dieu, ma femme est bien laide!' - -However, we must return to the house of Le Roux in the Strand Street. -It is the day after the fête in the Avenue and the Governor's ball. At -an old French bureau, with metal inlays, praising Monsieur Buhl in -every beautiful line, this gallant Captain Cook wrote in his _Journal_ -while the pretty little 'Foei toch,' with sighs of neglect, sat -playing the spinet in a corner of vantage. They changed places -presently--he would dictate and she should write. Two minutes passed, -and Cook got up and looked over her shoulder. She had written, -atrociously, a funny little French verse and signed it: - - 'Marion pleurt, - Marion rit, - Marion veut, qu'on la marie. - 'MARION.' - -Cook smiled and bowed. 'Me dear, you have the most adorable foot in -the world, but I dare say little for your hand.' Very witty of him, -but of course she wrote badly; there were no schools, only ill-paid -writing masters. The parsons, all well paid by the Government, would -not condescend to such a worthless occupation. - -So Cook wrote his _Journal_ himself, in large, scrawling writing, -with old-fashioned _s_'s, while his two ships, the _Resolution_ and -the _Adventure_, anchored by stout chains instead of cables in this -Bay of Storms, lay waiting for a good wind to sail away round the -world. And Marion sang from her corner at the spinet: - - 'Marions ci, - Marions ça, - Mais jamais, jamais marions là.' - -Cook writes: - - 'THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, - '_Monday, November 2, 1772_. - - 'The Cape of Good Hope, in Caffraria, or the Country of the - Hottentots, is the most southern promontory of Africa. - - 'It is very mountainous. - - 'The Table Mountain is of a great height (_sic_), and the - top of it is always covered with a cap of clouds before a - storm. There are no harbours, though there is a sea-coast - of a thousand miles. When Commodore Byron touched at the - Cape he was obliged to work into Table Bay with his top - sails close reefed. Indeed, the Cape is scarce ever free - from storms a week together; the winds blow hard and on - every side from the vast southern ocean, and the waves of - the sea rise to a height never seen or experienced in any - part of Europe. The Bay of Biscay, turbulent as it is, has - no billows that mount like those on this extensive ocean; - the stoutest vessels are tossed and almost lifted to the - skies. A number of rich ships have perished on this coast; - the Dutch have lost whole fleets even at anchor before the - Town. - - 'The climate is very healthy, the country is fine, and it - abounds with refreshments of every kind. The Company's - garden is the most ravishing spot.' - -(He read this to Mademoiselle Marion, who had found Mr. Pickersgill, -his Third Lieutenant, a good second when the gallant Captain, with his -tongue in his cheek and a wink at Marion, escorted the fat wife of -Governor Van Plettenberg round the most ravishing Gardens.) The -Captain went on with his diary: - - 'The garden produces all the most delicious fruits of Asia - and Europe. It is guarded from the winds and storms by - hedges of bay, very thick and high, affording a most - refreshing shade in the hottest season. It abounds with - peaches, pomegranates, pineapple, bananas, citrons, lemons, - oranges, the pears and apples of Europe, all excellent in - their kind, and the crimson apple of Japan, appearing - through the green leaves, of all the most beautiful. The - Dutch have large plantations of almond-trees, and many - sorts of camphor-trees, and there is scarce a cottage - without a vineyard to it. Their cabbages and cauliflowers - weigh from thirty to forty pounds, their potatoes from six - to ten, raised from seed brought from Cyprus and Savoy. - Their corn is ripe in December, and our Christmas is the - time of their harvest. In January they tread out their - corn, and in February the farmers carry it to the Company's - magazines. - - 'They sow every kind of grain but oats. Lions, tigers, - leopards, elephants, and the rhinoceros are to be found - here; the elephants are very large; their teeth (_sic_) - weigh from sixty to one hundred and twenty pounds. The - Dutch keep up a body of regular forces, and have a strong - garrison at the Cape; they have also a militia, a corps of - men in all nations formidable in themselves, most dreadful - to an enemy, and, when called out for service, spreading - destruction all around them in the heights of their - ungovernable fury. They are of so robust a disposition, and - so naturally inclined for war, that, like the Devonshire - and Northamptonshire champions in England, they are ever - ready to solicit employment, even against the principles of - their own institution.' - -Next day the Governor, the English Consul, the Fiscal, Marion and her -father, together with a large party, boarded the _Resolution_, to see -them make fresh water out of salt water; and when they left, and -before the _Resolution_, firing fifteen guns, and the _Adventure_ -nine, sailed away round the world, Mr. Pickersgill and Marion had -found time to fall in love. Marion at her spinet that evening shed -very salt little Dutch tears when she came to the lines, 'Mais jamais, -jamais marions là.' - -There is a charming poem by Ian Colvin which Marinus thinks might be -inspired by Marion and her Lieutenant. - -In the Museum at the top of the old Company's gardens lies a little -English shoe of surprising smallness--surprising, for not only Anne -Barnard remarked on the size of the Cape ladies' feet: there is that -nice story of the enterprising merchant who chartered a large shipload -of out-sizes in ladies' shoes, and the ladies sent their slaves in the -dark to buy them! - -The poem goes: - - 'There's a tiny English shoe - Of morocco, cream and blue, - Made with all a cobbler's skill - By Sam Miller in Cornhill. - - 'Many a story, quaint and sweet, - Of the lady fair, whose feet - Twinkled with a charm divine - Beneath her ample crinoline, - Making her tortured lovers dream - That heaven itself was blue and cream.' - -The story tells of how this dainty creature walked down the -'Heerengracht,' followed by the tortured lovers: - - 'Van der Merwe, Jacques Theron, - The Captain of the garrison, - Petrus de Witt, or Van Breda, - Or Cloete of Constantia. - And then the Fiscal--fat and old-- - What matters? he had power and gold, - Coffers of dollars, and doubloons, - Gold mohurs, pagodas, ducatoons, - And in his cupboards stored away - The priceless treasures of Cathay.' - -Then it tells of how she loved this English sailor, how he left to -sail to many strange lands, and asked her what she wished to have. - - 'And she, although her cheeks were wet, - Was in a moment all coquette: - "Your English fashions would, I fear, - But ill become my homely sphere; - Besides, you know not how to choose-- - Bring me instead a pair of shoes."' - -So the English lover sailed away, and the Fiscal became a menace to -the poor little cream and blue 'Jonge Vrouw,' and the wedding-day -arrived: - - 'From Signal Hill to Witteboom, - From Kirstenbosch to Roodebloem, - With cannon, bugle, bell and horn, - They ushered in the wedding morn.' - -But the English lover and the shoes arrived just in time; the bride -was missing; the wedding-party and the storming Fiscal rushed down to -the sea-shore--'a ship in a cloud of sail was riding out of the Bay in -a favouring gale.' - - 'They heard above the ocean's swell - Ring faint and clear a wedding bell; - And where the boat put off, they found - A tiny shoe upon the ground.' - - 'Marions ci, - Marions ça, - Et jamais, jamais marions là.' - -A charming idyll to amuse us as we climbed up the hill to Riebeek -Square, where the flat-roofed houses and the old Slave-Market with a -few wind-twisted pines have so much of the 'old order' in their -keeping. - -Behind the square were the old brickfields, where poor Lieutenant -Schut's duties lay. The Slave-House stands in the middle of the -square. - -This energetic young man disappears from the pages of the _Journals_ -and presumably from society. - - '_August 1, 1668._ - - 'Lieutenant Schut is expelled from the Council, because he - has passed a deed of reclamation to the widow of the late - Reverend Wachtendorp for libellous words uttered by him - behind her back, and to her injury. - - 'The Council should keep itself free from obloquy, and - unpolluted.' - -Praiseworthy sentiments, but they must have suffered for them. I find -no mention of another paragon who was able to accept the -responsibilities imposed upon Schut. - -Indiscriminate gossip or libel was most severely punished at the Cape, -the desire to be free from obloquy not being confined to the Council. - -In 1663 Teuntje Bartholomeus, wife of the burgher, Bartholomeus Born, -is banished for six weeks to Dassen Island for having libelled a -certain honest woman. A perfect rest-cure! Six weeks on Dassen Island! -alone with Nature, wind, sea, rock-rabbits, and seals! - -There is no official mention of her return from exile. - - -SLAVES. - -'For there is no country in the world where slaves are treated with so -much humanity as at the Cape,' writes Le Vaillant in 1780, but in -reading through the old day-books of Van Riebeek, Hackius, Borghorst, -Isbrand Goski, and the Van der Stels, the punishments inflicted on -slaves might have been inspired by those old, over-praised painters, -who gloried in an anatomical dissection of a poor wretch whose -miserable body possessed no anatomy at all. The Mozambique, -Madagascar, and Malay slaves were keel-hauled; they were tied in sacks -and thrown into the Bay; they were tortured. Here is the sentence of -one: 'Bound on a cross, when his right hand shall be cut off, his body -pinched in six places with red-hot irons, his arms and legs broken to -pieces, and after that to be impaled alive before the Town House on -the Square, his dead body afterwards to be thrown on a wheel outside -the town _at the usual place_, and to be left a prey to the birds of -the air.' Could any torture of the Inquisition be worse? But these -tortures were in 1696, years before the enlightened days of Le -Vaillant. The half-breed slaves of the early days were a source of -worry to the ruling council; several times in the _Journals_ one may -come across a case of a freeman or burgher marrying his emancipated -slave: - - '"Maria of Bengal," a Hindoo woman, set the fashion, and - the famous interpretress, Eva, during her extraordinary - career of diplomatic and immoral episodes within the walls - of the Fort, where she wore garments made by kind Maria van - Riebeek, or outside the walls, where she wore the filthy - skins of her own people, the Hottentots, beguiled the - senior surgeon to such lengths that he was granted - permission to marry her. He fortunately was killed during - an expedition to Madagascar, but not before he had had - sufficient time to regret the beguilings of Eva.' - -Many of the slaves were children of convicts sent from Batavia and the -Malay Settlements. Here is the case of a half-breed girl, which was -sent to Batavia for judgment: - - 'Regarding the half-breed girl, you order that she is to - serve the Company until her twenty-second year, when she is - to be emancipated on condition that she makes profession of - the Christian faith, and, moreover, pays R. 150 for her - education. We are well aware that this rule is observed in - the case of _slave children having Dutch fathers_, but - whether it applies to children of _convict women_ by Dutch - fathers, as in the case of this girl, would like to hear - from you.' - -When Le Vaillant wrote, all these rules had changed, though even he -talks with some mystery of a runaway slave having received a _slight -correction_. When slaves landed at the Cape, they cost from a hundred -and twenty to a hundred and fifty dollars (_i.e._, rix-dollars) each, -that being about £22 10s. to £27 10s. The negroes from Mozambique and -those of Madagascar were the best labourers; the Indians were much -sought after for service in the house and in the town. Malays were the -most intelligent and the most dangerous. Barrow, in whose days (1798) -the price of slaves had gone up considerably, tells a story showing -the revengeful spirit of the Malay. A slave, thinking that he had -served his master sufficiently long and with great fidelity, and -having also paid him several sums of money, was tempted to demand his -liberty. He was met with a refusal. He straightway went and murdered -his fellow-slave. He was taken up and brought before the Court, -acknowledged that the slave he had murdered was his friend, but said -that the best form of revenge he could think of was not to murder his -master, but to deprive him of a slave worth the value of a thousand -rix-dollars (_i.e._, £187 10s.) and of another thousand by bringing -himself to the gallows! - -The Creole slaves were sold for a higher price than the others, and -were often 'acquainted with a trade,' when their price became -exorbitant. They were clothed properly, but went barefooted. Twenty to -thirty slaves were generally found in one house. 'That insolent set -of domestics called _footmen_,' writes the French explorer, 'are not -to be seen at the Cape; for pride and luxury have not yet introduced -these idle and contemptible attendants who in Europe line the -ante-chambers of the rich, and who in their deportment exhibit every -mark of impertinence!' The abolition of the Rack and Torture was -responsible for an extraordinary occurrence: the public executioner -made an application for a pension in lieu of the emoluments he used to -receive for the breaking of legs and arms; the second hangman upon -inquiry learnt that not only did the English of this new régime -abolish the Rack and Torture, but that they were not thinking of -establishing breaking on the wheel; this was more than he could bear, -and, fearing starvation, he went and hanged himself! Strange irony of -fate. - -In every family a slave was kept whose sole duty was the gathering of -wood. It was strictly forbidden to gather any fuel, scrub, or bush on -the Downs or Flats, so the slave would go out every morning up the -mountains, and would return at night with two or three small bundles -of faggots--the produce of six or eight hours' hard labour--swinging -at the two ends of a bamboo carried across his shoulder. In some -families more than one slave was kept for this purpose, and this gives -a very good idea of the scarcity of wood at the Cape as late as 1798. -From the diaries of that time one gathers that, though wood was only -used for cooking purposes--as only the kitchen possessed a -fireplace--yet the cost of fuel for a small household amounted to -forty or fifty pounds a year. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[2] Barouche. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -IN THE BLUE SHADOW OF TABLE MOUNTAIN - - -The blue shadow of Table Mountain falls straight across the 'Flats,' -or the sandy isthmus of the Cape Peninsula--a long, intensely blue -line stretching from one ocean to the other. - -In 1653 this shadow meant something more than a beautiful shade; it -was a boundary-line; it meant safety and shade within its depth, war -and barbarians beyond. - -Along its borders were dotted small forts and watch-houses; there were -even the beginnings of a canal running parallel with the definite -shade, to intensify its significance. - -The Dutch East India Company's long-suffering and harassed Commander, -Van Riebeek, with infinite undertaking of dangers and difficulties, -wild beasts, Hottentots, and quicksands, rode across it, and fixed its -boundaries as proper limits to the Settlements, which its most -honourable directors were pleased to call 'Goode Hoop.' - -The blue shadow begins on the other side of the Wind Mountain or -Devil's Peak, and we will go where it leads. - -In 1663 there was a narrow road running close up to the mountain -rather higher up than the present dusty main road. It ran as far as -Rondebosch, or 'Rond die Bostje,' whose round-wood traditions are -untraceable, Van Riebeek having given orders that only the outer -bushes should be preserved as a convenient kraal for cattle. Along -this narrow road a small ox-cart rumbled every day from the fort in -Cape Town, dragging home logs of wood from the almost unknown land -beyond; its driver running momentary risk of meeting in the narrow way -the lions, tigers, or rhino, that roamed the mountain slopes. - -One end of the shadow falls into the sea at Maitland or Paarden -Island, and covers some stretches of beach, small houses, and railway -workshops. There the rivers meet--the Diep River from Milnerton, the -Liesbeek and the Black Rivers from across the Flats. They join and -form the Salt River, a wide, overflowing stream that is constantly -flooding the green lands between the sea and the old Trek road to the -north. - -In the old days, this beach between Salt River and Milnerton was the -setting of tragedies: backed in on the north and east by the -Blaauwberg Mountains and the Stellenbosch Ranges, and on the -south-east by the Hottentot's Holland. - -From behind the Blaauwberg, or Blueberg, came that long thin stream of -Saldanhas from the north, lighting their fires among the rushes of the -Diep River and the Salt Pans near the Tigerberg or Leopard Mountains, -which are the green, corn-sown hills of Durbanville and Klipheuvel. - -They brought with them, past the outpost 'Doornhoop' on the Salt -River, to the very gates of Van Riebeek's Fort, then standing where -the railway station now is, cattle and sheep and wonderful stories of -rich countries to the north and north-east, where kings lived in -stationary stone houses and had much gold, their wives loaded with -bracelets and having necklaces of sparkling white stones! The little -dysentery-stricken settlement, growing thin and determined on a carrot -and a snack of rhinoceros, opened the gates, bought the scurvy cattle, -believed the stories, and had visions of reaching the fabulously -renowned river 'Spirito Sancto.' They dragged their waggons and their -precious oxen and horses over the scrub and sand-dunes; and now one -may see the fruits of these brave but small expeditions in carefully -compiled but imaginative maps and plans, telling of how one or another -reached the banks of the Orange River and found 'a great desert,' but -found no great kings, no gold, no cities. - - [Illustration: BLAAUWBERG AND HEAD OF TABLE BAY] - -Lying close to the shore are many wrecks, an old order which has -changed but slowly. - -This corner of the bay was a dangerous roadstead before the year 1653. - -A scurvy gang of bastard natives called 'Watermen' or 'Beach Rangers,' -crawling like mammoth cockroaches among the seaweed and wreckage, had -eked out their monstrous living long before the _Harlem_ dragged her -anchor and stranded at the mouth of the Salt River. - -A grand string of names in the records of these old wrecks; no cheap -sloops, galleots, or second-rate pirating-hulks, but big, stately -merchantmen: one, from France, _La Maréchale_, with a Bishop on board -who is uncommonly like the man who became a Cardinal during the reign -of 'Le Roi Soleil.' He was on his way to Madagascar with something -political behind his mad-sounding schemes for church-building (on such -a sparsely inhabited island) and for personally endowing the buildings -to the tune of hundreds of thousands; it may be heresy, but there was -something politically consequent in the extraordinary story of this -wreck of _La Maréchale_ and the energy of the French seal-fisheries at -Saldanha Bay. - -To continue the rôle of backstairs glory: an English ship--a -well-known name, _The Mayflower_--on her way from the east with John -Howard, her captain, got a bad time in the terrible bay, tearing winds -coming from the 'Wind Mountain' and across from Robben Island. - -The clearing of the roadsteads became almost a yearly festival and a -certain necessity. - -So the blue shadow begins by the sea and ends by the sea; but to reach -the other end will take us in a motor more than thirty minutes; an -ox-waggon lumbering across sandy dunes and along stony mountain-paths -took the early settlers something more than a day or two. We did it -riding, and took something like a month; but one must compromise to -really enjoy life. - -We rode one day along the main road to Rondebosch, where the old -Commanders would ride out two hundred years ago, to inspect the -Company's granary, 'Groote Schuur,' and the Company's guesthouse, -'Rustenburg.' - -The Cape Town length of the road has little of interest. 'Roodebloem' -comes into the list of old homesteads; and down in the swampy green -fields of Observatory Road, where the clerk life of Cape Town has its -two acres and a cow, and near the Royal Observatory, lived the -Company's free miller; and the Liesbeek waters worked his mill. There -is still an old mill in existence, but probably of later date. - - [Illustration: TIGERBERG AND DIEP RIVER] - -In 1658 the Company gave grants of land along the Liesbeek River, -mostly all along the west side, beginning with the swampy land below -the Wind Mountain or Devil's Peak, granted to the Commander's -nephew-in-law, Jan Reyniez, and ending on the south side, -somewhere in Wynberg, with the lands of Jacob Cloeten of Cologne. The -burghers, having formed into three companies--one called Vredens -Company--lying in lands on the wrong side of the river at Rosebank, -sent in a petition, which was forwarded with all due delay to the -Commander and Council, who, 'having found, according to the many deeds -and diagrams, that the land is quite dangerously situated, the owners -being exposed to the depredations of the Hottentots,' granted new -lands near the Company's orchard, called 'Rustenburg.' - -The conditions laid down by the Company to freemen varied slightly in -each little colony: there were three along the Blue shadow: - - '1. They might fish in the rivers, but not for sale. - - '2. The Company would _sell_ them at ploughing time a plough - and twelve oxen. The ground should be theirs for ever. - - '3. That they should grow tobacco.' - -These are some of the rules. Everyone knows the story of how the rules -later became unbearable--the fixing of selling-prices by the Company, -the paying of taxes, the limitations set on selling produce to the -ships. - -The conditions, however, and the dangers from the Hottentots on the -east side of the shadow, were thankfully accepted. - -In the old records there is the entry which explains the position of -these little colonies: - - '_February 21, 1657._ - - 'Fine sunshine, fickle weather.' - - 'Many having been informed of the intention of the Masters - to establish freemen all about and under favourable - conditions, a party of five selected a locality on the - other side of the Fresh River (Liesbeek), named by us the - Amstel, _below_ the forests and beyond it where our - woodcutters are, near the crooked tree about three leagues - from the Fort, and as long and broad as they wished it, on - condition that they were to remain on the other side of the - river. Another party of four selected a spot about a league - nearer, at the Rondebosjen, on this side of the river or - Amstel, from the small bridge leading to the forest as far - as the spot chosen for the redoubt, near where the bird - trap is to be built. The boundary of that land will be - three-quarters of a league long, the river will divide them - from the other party, and they will go back as far as they - like to Table Mountain and the other mountains. The party - of five may go forward towards the mountains of the - continent proper, as far as they like; these two parties - are therefore stationed right on the isthmus in fruitful - soil. The further colony has therefore been named Amstel, - or the Groeneveld, and the farthest redoubt will be about - quarter of a league beyond it. The nearer colony at - Rondebosjen (which is to be converted into a cattle kraal - and to be provided with a gate) is to be called the "Dutch - garden." A redoubt will also be built there.' - -And then began some amusing correspondence between the Honorable -Commander and his honorable employers at Amsterdam. - -Very few of these freemen had wives. Jan Reyniez had married the -Commander's niece Lysbeth, Jacob Cloeten sent to Cologne for Frau -Fychje Raderoffjes, and a few other wives were ordered out; but, -grumbled the Council from this strenuous settlement, 'Here are good -freemen, who would willingly marry if there were any material -(_stoffe_)'--to quote from the old documents-- - - 'These young men have accordingly prayed and begged us [the - Council spared no words] to ask girls (_meis-jen_) for - them, whom they may marry. We therefore request - outward-bound families to bring with them strong, healthy - farm girls, and the Company would make the condition that, - when arriving at the Cape, the good ones might be retained - and all others permitted to go on; as between Patria and - this, it will be easily discovered what sort of persons - they are.' - -So in like manner, as bread fell from heaven to the Israelites in the -desert, or as the British Government supplied wives to their Virginian -Colonies, came wives to the freemen at the Cape. But rather hard for -the families who were to have their good maids retained. - -It is a surprising thing, in looking over the old Roll-call, to find -so few old Cape names. The varying forms of spelling may account for -this. - -In the old title-deeds one finds some lands in Table Valley granted to -one Cornelius Mostaert, a well-known name; then there are mentioned -Cloeten, Cloetas, Muller, Theunissen, Visagie, and a Van der Byl, who -was a 'messenger of justice,' and rode from Cape Town to the Bosheuvel -on his rounds; but the large majority are almost unknown names. - -But we have arrived at Rustenburg, off the wagon road which leads to -the forest on the slopes of the Bosheuvel, or 'Hen and Chickens Hill,' -where Amman Erichiszen, the keeper of the forest lands, planted most -energetically the great pine-trees which now, like an invincible army, -have marched over all the lands. - -It is said that the original buildings at Rustenburg have been -destroyed. Marinus and I choose to think differently, as the position -of the present building must be on the exact spot. Rustenburg has -degenerated into a high school for girls, and bears itself like an -aristocrat in the stocks. Its long teak windows and rows of Doric -pillars look imposing enough to suggest the ancient glories which are -so carefully recorded: 'This day the Commander takes out a party to -inspect the Company's corn-lands at Rond die Bosje'--Van Riebeek on -his famous horse, 'Groote Vos'; Maria de Quellerai, his wife, in a -coach with the guests; Governors on their way to the East--the Great -Drakenstein, Van Oudtshoorn, Governor Van Goens, the Java Commander -who gave so much advice on his way to and fro, the Van der Stels still -working in the East; the Admirals of Return and Outward -Fleets--Vlemdingh, Van Tromp, De Reuyter--with their wives and -families; the famous Commander of the French Fleet, M. le Marquis du -Quesne, and so many others. Do their ghosts disturb the dreams of the -little high-school 'backfish'? - -At the back of the Rustenburg buildings, to the left, following a path -which was probably a way to the Groote Schuur, are the remains of some -old orchard lands, and some years ago I remember going with a troop of -excited girls, in the terrifying hour of twilight, to see the old -slave burial-place, which lay to the right of a path leading to the -summer-house and 'Rustbank'--a small white seat still to be seen near -the little red-roofed tea-house. To the right of this spot is the -house called 'The Woolsack,' where Rudyard Kipling has lived every -summer for years. Here were remains of graves, old bits of tombstone, -old decaying skulls--oh! the horror and pleasure of these evening -desecrations! An orgie for the emotions which makes one adore the -past. - -Above the Woolsack towers the Wind Mountain, on its slopes the white -and grey granite temple of the Rhodes Monument. - - -THE RHODES MEMORIAL. - -One day someone sat gazing at the big Devils Peak, which shadows -Groote Schuur and stands like a rampart of the Citadel Mountain -behind. As he gazed he became inspired; he said: 'There should be a -monument to Rhodes, just there, on those steep green slopes under the -Watch House, where the heavy Dutch cannon were dragged up to defend -the bay.' The Rhodes trustees rose up and formed the chorus. - -So began the drama of the monument. - -The players were reinforced. Watts from London sent a huge bronze -group, Physical Energy, which is the beginning in the game of -progress. John Swan, with his wonderful head of a Michael Angelo -prophet and a later Roman Emperor, Rodin of the English, came himself -and drew designs for paradoxical lions. - -This was our train of mind as we rode up the fir avenue of Groote -Schuur bordered with blue periwinkle flowers. - - [Illustration: BLUE HYDRANGEAS AT GROOTE SCHUUR] - -Home of Rhodes and a hostel for passing visitors of name and fame, it -was the 'Great Barn' of long ago--the Great Barn where the 'Company's' -corn, grown under such difficulties, was stored in times of -plenty, that there should be food for the Company's servants, ever -busy fighting off the Hottentots across the Flats, when the Batavian -Directors, with great omnipotence, decreed that the homeward-bound -fleet should find no room to carry rice to the vegetable settlement of -Bonne Esperance. For the Company settled in the shadow, not to found -an empire beyond the seas, but to 'grow vegetables for their ships.' - -Groote Schuur, the great barn with its present building carefully -imitative, its masses of blue hydrangeas and wisteria, white-walled -terraces of plumbago and magenta bougainvillæa, and its tall -pine-trees and deep, fern-banked glen. - -There is something adorable in the green plaque over the front -entrance--and instinctively it is _chapeau bas_--a small group of -Dutchmen and Hottentots on the seashore--'The Landing of Van Riebeek.' -The simplicity of the thing starts the weaving of the spell, which, in -the plod, plod of life at the Cape, is a forgotten aspect. No nation -can ever be great that has no time for sentimental patriotism. Why is -it that this Africa cannot hold its people? There is talk of the Call -of the Sun, but it does not hold fast, this Sun call. If Progress goes -north and all new effort must wander away from the Patria, it must not -be allowed to wander without the shibboleth of sentiment. A domestic -simile would be invidious. - -Marinus, my guide, is used to my wanderings, and the horses are slowly -climbing the steep gravelled path behind the house. Past cool woods -filled with arum lilies and fantastic, twisted young oaks, looking to -the heated imagination like fauns and satyrs, which send back one's -mind to a long-ago atmosphere of mythology. - -This atmosphere increases, and culminates at the Temple of the -monument. - -In a large sloping field to the right of the path live, in happy -monotony, four or five llamas, while in another teak-gated enclosure -the striped zebras are gazing in mild surprise at a fierce wildebeeste -stalking along the other side of the thin wire fence. - -Far across the purple sandy flats with their blue barriers to the -north--the 'Mountains of Africa'--lie the big vleis, or lakes, and -near them the tall white spire of the tiny Lutheran church, little -shepherd of all the German souls who cluster round in white farms, -growing lettuce on week-days and singing Lutheran hymns on Sunday. - -At the top of the gravel road, almost buried in a kloof of stunted -oaks and yellow protea-bush, is a cottage, where the two sons of that -fat King of the Matabele, Lobengula, lived and were educated. What has -happened to them since Rhodes's death I do not know; they may be -studying French and science at the Sorbonne, or, having married -somebody's 'respectable English housemaid,' may be the happy fathers -of a tinted family of pupil teachers or typewriters! - -We climbed higher, and were soon in the shadow of the Devil's Peak or -Doves Peak. - -The name 'Devil' must have drifted from the 'Cape' to the Wind -Mountain. 'Windberg' was the ordinary name for the Peak, and 'Devil's -Cape' was the name given to the Cape many years before Diaz's ship was -driven round into the Indian Ocean. - -Humboldt, the German traveller, has interesting information about this -name. He says that on Fra Mauro's world chart, published between 1457 -and 1459, the Cape of Good Hope is marked 'Capo Di Diab!' - -Diaz, to his surprise and unintention, rounded the Cape in 1486. - -But even before this, others than the 'Flying Dutchman' sailed these -seas. On the old planisphere of 'Semito,' made in 1306, the tricorned -shape of South Africa is shown, and in a note added later to the -planisphere it is stated that an Indian junk coming from the East -circumnavigated this Cape 'Diab.' - -To those who have thought of this Cape as shrouded in mystery until -the Portuguese sailors rounded it, the shock might be similar to the -state of mind of the Ignoble Vulgar (used in the sense of ignorance), -who find, one day, that quite a decent system of education existed -before the Flood; but shattering a fallacious perspective may not -necessarily widen a horizon, and Sheba's Mines of Ophir, the voyages -of the Phoenicians, Moorish slavers, Indian junks, gold, and apes, -and peacocks, and Flying Dutchmen, may still be in the jig-saw pattern -border of South Africa. - -Groups of almond-trees guide us to two cement and iron cages. There, -lying blinking benignly in the sun, are the famous lions of Groote -Schuur--almost monuments in themselves. - -Did not their ancestors roam over these very slopes of the mountain, -and swoop down into the cornfields and ricefields of the Company's -burghers, seeking water and shelter from the raging north winds, in -the comfortable piece of land 'Rond die Bosch' below? - -Passing the lions, we are still mounting to the east ridge of the -Peak. Somewhere George Eliot says, 'attempts at description are -stupid--how can one describe a human being?' The assertion does not -apply entirely to human beings. Who but refuses to bear attempt at -minute description, and who but would fail in the attempt to describe -the wonderful view which suddenly appears--the shining blue rim of -Table Bay, a harmony in blue and silver, Watts's 'Energy' in -silhouette, the giant horse and rider dominating a huge precipice, the -precipice which is the narrow, flat, and sandy isthmus of the -Peninsula? All round and down the slopes are soft, green forests of -firs. - - [Illustration: THE BLUE SHADOW--VIEW FROM RHODES' MONUMENT] - -The inscription on the statue runs: 'Physical Energy, by G. F. Watts, -R.A., and by him given to the Genius of Rhodes.' - -From the foot of the group in bronze and granite we look up the huge -steps to the grey granite temple, the grey rocks of the mountain -behind, and the 'Silver-Trees' keep the eye and senses running along -the gamut of greys. - -Behind the tall pillars runs another inscription--'Dedicated to the -Spirit and Life Work of Cecil John Rhodes.' The paradox to this will -be found in the statue, or bust, of Cecil John, to be placed by the -trustees in the niche below. It is in the nature of man to embody, -allegorically, in human form, virtues and vices, but surely it were -better to leave the good deeds of the man, which belonged to the -Spirit, in the care of this wonderful grey granite temple. To the Life -and Spirit! Few bodies make temples worthy of the Spirit, and Cecil -John failed to prove the rule. But 'how truly great is the Actual, is -the Thing, that has rescued itself from bottomless depths of theory -and possibility, and stands as a definite indisputable fact ...' and -the Knowledge and the Practice, which are the elements of the mighty -Physical Energy, hang over the abyss of the Known, the Practicable. - -The man and his life 'rest on solidity and some kind of truth.' - -So we came down from the heights. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -'PARADISE' AND THE BARNARDS - - -From Newlands we rode, one glorious afternoon, up a small, conical -hill at the back of Fernwood, or the old homestead 'Boshof.' There are -several ways of arriving, but we, full of enthusiasm, chose to take a -stony path hedged by scented wild-geraniums and ripening blackberry -hedges, along which more than a hundred years ago a big wagon had -rolled, dragging up the hill, as far as the ravines and rocks would -allow, two occupants--Mr. Barnard, His Excellency's secretary, and -Lady Anne, his wife. - -There has been a great 'Barnard' cult of late, and the people who have -wondered at the romantic and witty correspondence of Lady Anne and the -Secretary of State for War, Lord Melville, have perhaps gained some -geographical knowledge of the Cape Peninsula one hundred years ago. I -adore Anne for her sense of humour; Marinus adores her for her -faithfulness to Barnard, whom for various reasons I have depicted to -him as a dullish and obliging man. - - [Illustration: THE SOUTHERN PART OF THE FALSE BAY, WITH CAPE HANGCLIP] - -Behind this overgrown hill at the top of the Newlands Avenue lies -'Paradise,' where Anne Barnard lived during the summer, and which she -called her Trianon! - -So Mecca-wards we rode, with the gigantic grey wall of Table Mountain -towering before us. - -We turned our horses round to face the Flats! We saw the great plains -before us, once so bare that you could have seen a Hottentot crawling -among the sandhills miles away; the Bosheuvel Hill, or 'Hen and -Chickens,' standing out to the right, with its crown of silver-trees -shivering and shining in the sun. To the east lay False Bay--thousands -and thousands of emeralds set in cream; to the left, the dull, low, -crouching Tygerberg Hills, full of propriety, sleek and smooth. Below -us lay the Bishopscourt woods--the old Company's 'Forest lands' hiding -the river and the squirrels and the black babies of Little Paradise, -or Protea, with the branches of their enormous oak-trees--_chapeauz -bas_ to Wilhelm Adrian Van der Stel. - -Anne Barnard wrote other letters than those to Lord Melville; she -wrote in long charming letters to her sisters at home a description of -the pretty little place called 'Paradise,' halfway up the hill, which -Lord Macartney wished her to have; 'how she could not drive up the -hill, but had to alight,' and walk, and thought the way to Paradise -the proverbial path, hard and steep, and thought less and less of His -Excellency's offer the steeper the path became. She writes--all out of -breath: - - 'On turning round, a sequestered low road appeared, over - which oaks met in cordial embrace--the path which, suddenly - turning, presented to us an old farmhouse, charming in no - point of architecture, but charming from the mountain which - reared itself three thousand feet perpendicular above its - head, with such a variety of spiral and gothic forms, - wooded and picturesque, as to be a complete contrast to the - hill which we had ascended or the plains over which we - gazed. Before the house, _which was raised a few steps from - the court_, there was a row of orange-trees. A garden, well - stocked with fruit-trees, was behind the house, through - which ran a hasty stream of water descending from the - mountain; on the left a grove of fir-trees, whose long - stems, agitated by the slightest breeze of wind, knocked - their heads together like angry bullocks in a most - ludicrous manner.' - -'Anne! What do you say to this?' - -Mr. Barnard speaks in much admiration. Anne, still breathless, feeling -happier, but her skirts are torn by the blackberries and low bushes: - -'Why, that I like it, I am vexed to say, beyond all things.' - -His Excellency's Secretary, becoming more elated (Anne having bright -pink in her flushed cheeks): 'And if you do, my dear Anne, why should -we not have it?' (This with all acknowledgment of the lamentable -fact, which I impress upon Marinus, that Anne's approval is the only -thing which will matter; Marinus always argues that in the other scale -are 'Robin Gray' and that packet of letters which Lord Melville tied -up with blue ribbon.) - -Anne answers the adoring Barnard, not too decisively: 'Because the -World's end is not so distant as this spot from the haunts of men.' - -Barnard's last effort is worthy of a diplomatist; he sighed: 'It's -very charming, however.' - -They visited a number of other places, but Barnard's sigh won the day; -and a new road was made to 'Paradise' by the slaves--a road we were -presently to see, still showing the hard brick foundation, winding and -hugging the mountain from the present Groote Schuur Road. - -There is a delicious description of a day at 'Paradise' in the -wonderful 'Lives of the Lindsays'--the mad, witty Lindsays! and Anne -was one of them--and she wrote as amusingly and wittily to her sisters -as she wrote to Melville, and she tied up the beautiful Cape wild -flowers in gauze bags to send to 'my dearest Margaret.' - -I sometimes think that the letters, which are known to be in a famous -collection kept from the world, must be less philosophical, less -cynical, less amusing, and more in accord with the mood in which Anne -wrote 'Old Robin Gray.' - -That in 1797. - -This in 1909--Marinus and I asking our way of an old black woodcutter, -with feathery green 'Newlands Creeper' twisted round his hat--that -heirloom of the old slave descendant--a broad, passive grin crinkling -over his face: 'Jaa, Missis; Missis want ole slavy-house--want get by -ole "Paradise"? Yaa, vat I know ole Paradise; working by dese woods -tirty years--fader, grandfader, all working by "Paradise."' So we -followed him, our guide, our ponies scrambling up the slippery, -moss-covered pathway, the trees growing low and thick, obscuring the -sunlight, the dark figure of the woodman always running before us. -Deeper and deeper we plunged into the low woods, when turning suddenly -to the right and going slightly downhill, quite behind the fir-covered -koppie, we came into 'Paradise.' Found! and in ruins! And I picked -ferns from the walls of Anne Barnard's dining-room! - -Here was the courtyard with the chief buildings facing north; on the -right, the long stoep showing remains of the curved, rounded steps. On -the left are the walls of lower buildings--probably the kitchens which -the Barnards built. - -We left our ponies with the black man and pushed our way in silence -through the overgrown garden, all the terraces still banked up by -small stone walls, now moss-covered, past little garden paths running -along the mountain-stream, and fig-trees long since overgrown and -forgetful of bearing fruit; and higher up towards the mountain we -found two graves and four or five chestnut-trees--'the finest -chestnuts I ever saw by many, many degrees,' says Anne. - -But wherever we went the thin, twisted, fantastic oaks, like deformed -gnomes reared in the dark, barred the way of 'Paradise' to intruders, -and with the rustling breeze the frightened squirrels and the ghosts -of this Trianon rushed away before us into the gloom. - -Once, when sitting alone, only breathing a little Greek poem of praise -to Pan, I thought I saw a ghost of this dead 'Paradise,' forming -etheresque, vague and elusive, between the green hanging strands of -creepers.... It was only the web of a wood-spider caught in a shaft of -sunlight which had shot through the heavy roof of leaves. The garden -which should have grown the most sensitive plants now grows weeds; -only in a deserted corner we found a quaint, aromatic pink flower with -a scent which suggested the East. - -The light was fading; Anne in her letters remarks upon this: 'The sun -sets here in "Paradise" two hours sooner than on the other side of the -hill, which I am told marks its height, but with lamps and candles it -makes no difference. We have nothing here to annoy us--except -mosquitoes and the baboons who come down in packs to pillage our -garden of the fruit with which the trees are laden.' - -So we recovered our ponies from the woodcutter, who told us he had cut -wood round 'Paradise' for over thirty years, and followed the -red-brick slave-road which brought us to the middle of the Newlands -Avenue. 'Paradise,' with its shy ghosts, its decay, its charm, and its -memories of Anne, we placed at the back of our minds like little -sacred hidden temples, and the essence of it all burnt like incense in -their shrines. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -THE LIESBEEK RIVER - - -We traced one day the old boundary-line, the Liesbeek River, from its -mouth near the Salt River to its sources in the woods of Paradise and -Bishopscourt. - -In some of the old record-books I found this entry, which will do as a -prologue to the chapter: - - 'CABO DE BONNE ESPERANCE, - '_September, 1652_. - - 'Riebeek and the Carpenter proceed' (it was proceeding with - some great care and danger in those days) 'to the back of - Table Mountain' (a vague term for everything which was not - visible from the fort). 'Here to examine, whether there are - any forests other than already mentioned on the Lion - Mountain, as the timber from home has been much spoilt, and - is too light for the dwellings, in consequence of the heavy - winds from the mountain we dare not leave our heaviest - houses without supports. We found in the kloofs fine, - thick, fairly strong trees, somewhat like the ash and - beech, heavy and difficult to be transported. We found on - some trees the dates 1604, 1620, and 1622, but did not - know who carved them. Astonished that so many East India - voyagers have maintained that there is no wood here. Found - also fine soil, intersected by countless rivulets, the - biggest as broad as the Amstel (Liesbeek), and running into - the Salt River.' - -This well-watered ground round Bishopscourt and Newlands became the -Company's forest lands. - -In 1656, when the Commander went on another tree-hunting expedition, -there is another entry: - - '_August 31, 1656._ - - 'The Commander proceeds to the cornland, has some tobacco - sown, and proceeds behind Table Mountain, where the forests - are. He found very many sorts of trees similar to pine, but - no real pines, and not one higher than 6, 7, or 8 feet.' - -The Commander grew to love the forests, and land was granted him on -the banks of the Liesbeek (where Bishopscourt now stands) in an almost -dangerous situation, for day and night a watch was kept on the -Hottentots lurking in the bushes of the Hen and Chickens Hill, or -secretly striving to drive their cattle across the river into the -Company's grazing-ground. The river, the watch-houses reported, was -fordable, and cattle were constantly stolen. And as we were now -pushing our way through the bushes and brambles along the overgrown -banks, so in 1658 did Van Riebeek ride out with Van Goens 'all -through the reeds, shrubs, lilies, and marshes.' - -The old Diary goes on: - - 'He found the forest so closely grown from the one point to - the other that no opening could be found than the wagon - road, which might be easily closed with a bar. No cattle - could pass through this wood, even if thousands of - Hottentots were driving them. It is about two hours distant - from the fort, as far as Visagie's dwelling and brewery - below the foot of the Bosheuvel, where the Commander one - morning showed Commander Van Goens, when they were walking - over the Bosheuvel (with a Hottentot who did not wish that - land should be cultivated there), a spot on which to build - a small redoubt or watch-house, to protect the lands in the - neighbourhood, and to which spot the River Liesbeek could - be made navigable for small boats from the fort and through - the Salt River. But as the Liesbeek is thickly studded with - reeds, etc., 1½ and 2 feet high, it will be necessary to - make a clearing on the sides, in order to examine the whole - more carefully.' - -Then started a great labour, and many seamen were busy for months -clearing the river, until, with much triumph, it was written in the -journal that in 'some places it was found to be the depth of a pike.' - -The river as far as Rondebosch is not interesting, and often -impossible to follow, as it runs through private grounds and is very -overgrown by oaks and poplars. At the extreme end of Rondebosch it -becomes wider. At Westerford, or the West Ford, the main road crosses -it on a bridge, and the old history is perpetuated in the name given -to a shaded road running past the brewery--Boundary Road. - -At Westerford is one of the old, fast-disappearing Outspan places--a -big, bare spot under the oaks, with the white walls and thatch -outhouses of the homestead which once belonged to Mostaert, 'living on -the other side of the Schuur.' Here we saw, as we rode past, some -wagons outspanned, the small black boys busy watering the mules and -oxen in the river below, farmers lying about wreathed in tobacco -smoke--the old days seem so quaintly characteristic, in spite of the -near proximity of a wine-store and a forage-loft. A scene of busy -lethargy--if such a paradox is permitted. I imagined how much more it -meant in the olden days, when the hard-grown corn, and flax, and hemp, -and tobacco were brought in from the brave little colony in the -Groeneveld; how they rushed through the deep ford to this outspan of -safety on the right side of the river. - -The river runs through a lovely wood at the bottom of Government -House, Newlands, and on its steep opposite bank is 'The Vineyard,' -which little place--lately belonging to the Manuel family--was -designed and built by the Barnards, when the angel with the flaming -sword, in the guise of a new Governor--decrepit, weak old Sir George -Younge, with his debts and dissipations--turned them out of -'Paradise.' - -Anne writes to Melville from 'The Vineyard' on March 14, 1800: - - 'I am living out of town at our little country place, which - we purchased, built a cottage on, and called "The - Vineyard," removed from all party work, except working - parties in our fields, rooting up of palmiet roots[3] and - planting of fir-trees and potatoes.' - -'The Vineyard,' which is in due order the correct place to fly to when -one has lost 'Paradise,' must have been a great refuge to the -Barnards. Those were troublous times of social intrigue--the old order -and the new--the Barnards weeping over the departure of the poor -Governor Macartney, wary, well-bred and witty, all crippled with gout; -old Younge, arriving with his sycophants; the General, Dundas, busy -fighting the natives and courting the rather dull lady who came out to -marry him; the entire gang eyeing poor Anne in her comfortable -stronghold in the Castle, and (one may gather) keeping no judicious -guard over their tongues. Anne rose to the occasion, offered her -Castle home to the General and his Cummings gave a good party for the -ladies of the staff, and retired to watch the dénouement from the -comforting distance at 'The Vineyard,' and to write philosophical -letters on the political situation, which, in the district of -Graff-Reinet, was of an inky blackness. - -The long oak avenues of Newlands House on the opposite bank gave us -Canaletto-like perspectives of the low white house and twisted -chimneys, the green lawns and deer-park, and the intensest blue -hydrangeas. I have seen a drawing of the house as it was in the time -of Lord Charles Somerset, with oval verandah, otherwise very much the -same. It ultimately became the property of an old Van der Pool, who -left it to the famous Hiddingh family, who have for years leased it to -the Government. A namesake of his was an amusing character, living in -semi-darkness and dirt, hoarding up his unprofitable wealth. An old -black woman who was once his cook told a very good story of this old -miser. Van der Pool was noted for having in his cellars the best wine -at the Cape--no one ever tasted it. He hated spinach, but spinach grew -in the garden, and therefore must not be wasted. In the dark -dining-room, with an old gazette serving for a tablecloth, sat old man -Van der Pool waiting for his dinner. Up came the dinner, 'Saartje' -with a big dish of spinach rotten with long keeping. Old man Van der -Pool cursed Saartje and spinach in best Dutch, and 'made a plan.' -'"Saartje," say ole Bass, very gentle, soft like, "go fetch me from -die cellar a best big bottle of ole Pontac." I run fetch ole Pontac; -ole Bass, he put die bottle jus so, in front of him. "Now," he say, -"Saartje, you trek." I trek out not farder dan die door keyhole. I see -ole Bass pour out best old Pontac and put die spinach in front too. -"Now," he say, "Hendrick, you see dis fine, werry, werry fine ole -Pontac, you eat dis verdommte spinach first, den you drink dis wine, -wot's been standin, Hendrickie, Kerl, for werry many years." Ole Bass, -he eat, eat fast as I nebber seen him before; den, when all spinach -done, ole Bass he pour die wine back in die bottle. He laf, laf, and -he say, putting his finger to his nose, "Hi! Hendrick, I fool you dis -time, I tink, fool you pretty well."' - - [Illustration: OAK AVENUE, NEWLANDS] - -We left the river for a time and got up a side avenue into the big -Newlands Avenue, near Montebello and the brewery. All this estate, -once called the Palmboom, or Brewery Estate, belonged to old Dirk Van -Rheenen, or Van Rhénen, Anne Barnard's friend, the most hospitable man -in all the Peninsula. Dirk got the Government beer contract and built -a wonderful mansion, designed with all its white stateliness and Doric -pillars by a Frenchman who came out to build the Amsterdam Battery--at -least, Marinus says so. But I have another story which is as well -told. Anne Barnard is my authority, and she says she considers the -Van Rheenen house possessed the air of a European mansion, it being -erected by his own slaves from an Italian drawing he happened to meet -with. There is a quaint description of how the Barnards' party went -a-dining with Mynheer Van Rheenen: - - 'The family received us all with open countenances of - gladness and hospitality, but the openest countenance and - the most resolute smile, amounting to a grin, was borne by - a calf's head, nearly as large as that of an ox, which was - boiled entire and served up with the ears whole and a pair - of gallant horns. The teeth were more perfect than dentist - ever made, and no white satin was so pure as the skin of - the countenance. This melancholy merry smiler and a tureen - of bird's-nest soup were the most distinguished _plats_ in - the entertainment. The soup was a mass of the most aromatic - nastiness I ever tasted, somewhat resembling macaroni - perfumed with different scents; it is a Chinese dish, and - was formerly so highly valued in India that five-and-twenty - guineas was the price of a tureenful of it. The - "springer"[4] also made its appearance, boiled in large - slices--admirable! It is a fish which would make the - fortune of anyone who could carry it by spawn to England. - The party was good, the game abundant, but ill-cooked, the - beef bad, the mutton by no means superior, the poultry - remarkably good, and the venison of the highest flavour, - but without fat; this, however, was supplied by its being - larded very thickly--all sorts of fruits in great - perfection, pines excepted, of which there are not many at - the Cape. Mynheer carried us off after dinner to see his - bloom of tulips and other flowers; the tulips are very - fine, and the carnations beautiful; _all were sheltered - from the winds by myrtle hedges_. Our gentlemen returned - delighted with the day they had spent, and very glad to - have the prospect of another such.' - -Gigantic appetites, hadn't they? And if Anne hadn't tasted it all how -could she have commented with so much definiteness? They grew tulips -here! Why not? But they won't grow, is the answer. I expect the secret -lies in the neat myrtle hedges, which can yet be seen in some -old-fashioned gardens in Sea Point and Cape Town. They drank well and -unwisely, also, these Peninsula people. Thompson remarks upon this in -his book on the Cape: 'The Pokaalie cup, like the blessed beer of -Bradwardine, too often drowns both reason and refinement.' - -FOOTNOTES: - -[3] Palmiet is a high, strong river-weed. - -[4] A fresh-water fish. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -THE BOSHEUVEL, OR HEN AND CHICKENS HILL - - -We crossed the river at the bottom of the Bishopscourt gardens, and -found ourselves looking down the long fir avenue, arched as perfectly -as the nave of a Gothic cathedral. Opposite, ran another little avenue -along the side of the hill, and to the right, staring at us like black -and white toadstools of monstrous size out of the green gloom, the -thatched cottages of Bishopscourt. - -We chose a little narrow pathway running up the hill from the middle -avenue, winding through low protea-bush and silver-trees. - - [Illustration: SILVER TREES AND WILD GERANIUMS] - -There is cruel, continuous, silent fighting on this hillside--the -battle between the silver-trees and the firs. The firs, or pines, who -came here last, are creeping, year by year, higher and higher up the -hill; year by year the brave little 'witteboomen' (white trees) are -driven before this strong green army of invaders; soon there will be a -last stand on the hilltop--the survival of the fittest. We shall all -see it; we are seeing it every day of our lives--and will no one -help? The pines are helped by unthinking man in his horrible -materialism--the silver-tree branches are easy to break off, and make -good fuel. Day by day, like a file of gaudy beetles, the dwellers of -'Protea' crawl along our little path and down again to the river huts, -with loaded shoulders, and leave the silver woods leaner. - -A hundred years ago Anne Barnard, herself a tree-planter for the -generations to come, talks with satisfaction of 'The Marriage of Miss -Silver-tree and Donald Fir-tops.' Marinus says I am a sentimental -traveller, but it is a distressing end to such a _ménage_ after only -one hundred years! Barrow, the naturalist, speaks of the moth which -feeds on the _Protea argenta_, and suggests turning them to some -account, seeing that it is said to be exactly the same insect which -spins the strong Indian silk called 'Tussach.' Here is an idea of -interest, but that means the protection of the silver-tree. There is -in Cape Town a society for the preservation of objects of national -interest--a slumbering giant of the moment. The protection of natural -objects of national importance and beauty should appear as an -amendment on its syllabus. In France, a fat little bourgeois Ministre -de l'Instruction Publique et des Beaux Arts, or the fatter and more -bourgeois Sous-Préfet of a small town, will run about on any hot day -or any cold day, with all the importance and authority of the State -embodied in his active patriotic French body and his 'red ribbon,' and -behold! 'Messieurs, you would destroy this tree--"tiens!"--destroy the -beauty of France, "je vous demande?" Never, "jamais de la vie!"' The -tree stays. That ancient wall destroying the value of a good building -site--'tant pis!' It remains! 'Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité'--the New -Rule; but we must perforce worship the Old. Such the snobbism of La -Patrie, La France. - -Such is my plea for the shining, Ancient Inhabitants of the Bosheuvel. -Most travellers assert that they are unique, growing in no other part -of the world; and many affirm that they are indigenous. Their -evolution is distinctly traceable in the soft grey silkiness on the -back of the leaves of the large, yellow protea-bush. A careful walk -across the Wynberg hills, and you will come back to report that nearly -every shrub or even quite tiny ground plant is of the protea family, -vastly productive and attractive family, from the yellow giants with -their pink-tipped cousins, the sugar-bushes--the treasure caves of the -bees and tiny, brilliant, green sugar-birds--to the top-heavy white -protea, sometimes painted, like Alice's red rose-tree, a deep crimson. -Some very distant cousins, who have not risen sufficiently high in -their world, have no flowers at all, only brilliant-coloured red and -yellow stem tops. - -We have seen the Bosheuvel in many moods and seasons; we have been -there when the sweet-smelling pink flower, half acacia, half pea, the -Keurboom, lines the paths, and Bishopscourt lies in a deep blue sea of -mist, while above, the 'Skeleton' and 'Window' Gorges are mauve with -aching buds of the oaks in early spring. Now it is middle summer, with -fields of yellow mustard flower, tall blue reeds, and wild-geraniums, -of which it is said that 'this tribe of plant alone might imitate in -their leaves every genus of the vegetable world.' - -Our ponies crackled their way over the dead silver leaves as we -climbed over this old outpost hill, from whose summit the agitated -freemen or soldiers would see the 'Caapmen' dancing round their fires -below. The hill has a fighting reputation; terrible murders of slaves -and burghers and cattle-thieving were daily recorded from the vicinity -of the Bosheuvel in the first Commander's journal. Van Riebeek, -walking up from his farm below, saw 'Kyekuyt,' his second outpost, -burning away to the tune of this Hottentot singing; saw the Saldanhas -pressing close to its base, forming one long ominous barrier along the -blue shadow. His mind was full of tricks for peace. By a clever ruse -he turned these savages with their herds through the Kloof Nek, hoping -they might wander away to Cape Point. But they hurried back over the -Constantia or Wynberg Pass, and their cattle fed with the Company's -cattle, and they danced once again on the 'Hen and Chickens,' whose -grey granite boulders, several small rocks clustering round a big one, -would form fit temples for these worshippers of the moon. - -When we reached the famous 'Grey Hen' overlooking the Wynberg Park, -Marinus produced a small piece of paper, and read from it this scheme -of peace, signed in full by the Council and the Commander, -recommending their decision to the grace of God and the approval of -Amsterdam: 'That not only should the Colony be protected from the -ravages of the Hottentots by the redoubts placed at intervals along -the river, with the last and farthest on the Bosheuvel, called "Hout -den Bul" (Hold the Bull), but a fence of bitter almonds should be -planted across the Bosheuvel, stretching to the bottom and then going -off at a direct angle along the river lands to the seashore.' - -On our way along the river we have behaved with more inquisitiveness -than respect; most unsuspecting people have had their gardens and -fields incautiously explored by Marinus and me. Here and there we have -found in the overgrown garden of a thatched house, in a tangle of -oleanders (or Chinese roses, as the Dutch call them)--and goodness -knows they are the only flowers that can possibly account for the -floral decorations on old China--myrtle hedges, Cape jasmine, and -magnolias (can't you smell the garden?), a few little clumps of the -shining, green bitter almond, the last of the old fence. - -It is not, however, hard to find on the Bosheuvel Hill, though it is -always being destroyed in the bush fires so frequent on the hill, when -in a few minutes hundreds of trees have given one sharp crackle of -agony, and are charred heaps of silvery ashes. We traced it, this old -warrior of a hedge which was once the only shade for the horsemen and -soldiers stationed at the Redoubt. It crosses the middle of the hill. -It once looked on one side on the farm of the Commander, and on the -other side on the huts and kraals of the Hottentots, whose erring -cattle poked their uncivilized horns through its thick greenness; and -now its aged branches lap over a barbed-wire fence which runs along -the farms Oosterzee and Glen Dirk, of Mr. Philip Cloete and his -brother; while, on the other side, the firs and oaks hide the white -walls of Bishopscourt. The silver-tree and the bitter-almond hedge are -the Ancient Inhabitants, and Marinus and I felt we were friends and in -league with the barbed-wire fence, and we hated the position. - -So we rode down the hill into the Wynberg Park, and leaving the camp -on the left we crossed the glen at the bottom of Glen Dirk, and, -behold, we were in a sea of vineyards, the purple bunches almost -resting their ripe weight on the burning pink earth. - -Some old naturalist thinks that it is to the laziness of the old -vine-growers that we owe the slow evolution of our wine. No tall -trellised vines or standards of France and Spain and the Rhine, no -rows of mulberry-trees supporting the hanging tendrils as in Italy, -but low, stubby-looking little vine-sticks; and, says my authority of -a hundred years ago, 'as is well known, the exhalations from the earth -are so much imbibed by the leaves of the tobacco plant which grow -nearest to it, that those leaves are always rejected as unfit for use, -so it is natural to suppose that the fruit of the vine hanging very -near to, or even resting upon, the ground, will also receive the -prevailing flavour exhaling from the soil.' This was the theory of a -theorist. I have the authority of a wine-maker who says that it is not -only the heavy spring winds that have necessitated low vines, but that -the Cape wine was, and is, essentially a sweet wine, and to procure -the right amount of sugar it is important to grow the vines as near -the ground as possible, that the radiation of the sun off the ground -may ripen them. Later came the demand for a lighter wine, and creeping -vines were introduced grown on wire, but as close to the ground as -possible, otherwise the wine does not maintain itself, and becomes -acid. The old Pontac vine, which is a creeper by nature, was treated -in the old days, and is still treated as a creeper, by tying a long -cane across the centre of the tree, so that it lies horizontally -across, close to the ground; no wire is used, or the days of sweet -Pontac would be over. - -My first authority, the theorist, deplores, in excellent English, the -slackness that existed in the making of wine and brandy. I remember -with horror seeing in Constantia cellars the old process in full -swing. Huge vats--the hugeness of a fairy-tale ogre's bath--raised -high up in the gloom of the cellar, the sickening smell of -fermentation, the squash, squash, bubble, bubble, of the juice oozing -through the vat holes, and the sweating blacks, in tunics that reached -to the knee and were once white, treading and squashing the grapes, -their black faces bobbing up and down in the great vats, sometimes -singing, or spitting out the chewed tobacco, the Nirvana of the -workers. My whole body and soul revolted against this physical -strength and stench--to me it was the greatest weapon in the total -abstainer crusade; the nauseous odour of malt and beer is nothing to -it. - -Oh! it's a fascinating subject, this culture of the Vine, as old as -the hills, and with the greatest sympathy do the Jew and the Gentile -view it; and its cosmopolicy is almost perfect. It makes brothers of -strangers, swine of brothers; it is an everlasting monument to -Adam--he went out of Paradise to till the ground, and wherefore till -unless to grow the vine which alone can make him forget Paradise--and -in its long pageant come passing by, old Noah and his sons, who -peopled the earth; Dionysius and his followers--his troupe of -Bacchantes revelling in leopard skins, purple grapes and flowing hair, -and in turn their ghastly following of fauns and satyrs, the chorus -for their appalling rites and festivals; then comes the solemn -Persian, whose women carried the purple wine while he sang the praises -of both, in the guise of the philosophy of the most ancient Abyssinian -Universities; in great disorder crowd along the poisoners of early -Rome and the Renaissance, carrying their fatal goblets; the decadent -revellers of Lemnos in artistic drunkenness--roses and pearls and wine -and the heated dancers of inspiration, which made luxury to be -desired. In the crowd, jostling with all, pass Popes and Cardinals -with more wine--strange vicissitude! The Host of the Lord followed by -the faithful--it is now become the religion of the world. Then come -the painters, the great 'primitives,' and the makers of the new -religion, creators of sublime pictures--a 'Last Supper'; the wine in -the cup, pure red, as red as the wine Bacchus is flinging over his -drunken followers, as red as the wine of Omar, of Cleopatra's -love-philtres dissolving pearls. Great Fellowship of the Vine; it -rules the world! Continue looking: there is more procession; -picturesque, besatined men who have fought picturesque duels, and -gambled and drunk wine in the coffee-houses (what a paradox!), men who -have made poems and books, and run States and Empires, and have laid -with unflagging regularity under their tables in the respectability -which rank and custom made possible; and looming in the gloom behind -the pageant are the shadows of the invading army. They, too, have kept -their pattern in this kaleidoscope; the men who have made a Hell for -the drunkards--the Ironsides, Calvinists, Protestants, a dull crowd to -follow such gorgeousness. The Banners of Temperance are Grey and -Green: and grey is an enduring colour, and clashes with nothing; and -green is the colour of the World! the Earth! and the woods! leaves and -pure water! the singing of birds! time to sleep, time to eat, time to -listen! This may be behind the grey banners; but the Eyes of the -Pageant are near-sighted and tired with overmuch colour and vibration, -and the Ears of the Pageant are tuned too high to hear the song of -birds. - -We have been round the Mulberry Bush, round and round.... - - 'This is the way we have brushed our hair; - This is the way we have washed our faces; - This is the way we have eaten our food; - This is the way we go to bed; - This is the way we get up again.' - -All the cynical philosophy of that child-game brings us back to where -we started--the vineyards. - -I told all this to Marinus as we lazed along the path through the -vineyards, with Klastenbosch Woods on our right and tiny thatched -farms with a symmetrical patch of cabbages and violets supporting each -household: the slopes of the Tokai or Steenbergen ranges before us, -'Un paysage après Claud.' - -Constantia was once divided into two big plots--Great and Little--and -a few things in between which didn't count much. - -Now--well, there are such pretty names; old Klastenbosch, its -outhouses dying in their old faith, with dilapidated Dutch white and -green and low stoeps, while the dwelling-house flaunts its regenerated -walls in newly-acquired glory, full of comfortable English -furniture--the fullest example of the new South African nation, in -ideals laid down by a clever man--_enfin!_ what could be more solid -than such combination? English, Dutch, and German. But the -Klastenbosch pigs are still black, and they grunt and nozzle in the -oak forest and along the stream with the wild olive-trees on its banks -_comme autrefois_. To continue the list of names. Just below us in a -poplar forest lies 'Belle Ombre'; to our left is 'Alphen'; and we -trotted past its gates and low white walls, along the avenue of -twisted, red-dusted stone-pines, past 'Hauptville,' a tiny spot in the -midst of its acres of vines, and up the pink, pine-edged Constantia -road to Groot Constantia. - - [Illustration: FIR AVENUE--ALPHEN] - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -THE CONSTANTIA VALLEY - - -Lady Anne Barnard writes amusingly of a visit she paid to this green -valley from her home on the other side of the hill, to the house of -Mynheer Cloete, who once had to pay one thousand dollars for a large -piece of Druip[5] stone. In a cave beyond Sir Lowry's Pass this -gentleman saw the mass of petrifaction, and thinking it a safe thing, -he made a bet with a Boer standing near that, though no one could -possibly get such a fragile mass over the pass, he would give one -thousand dollars to have it at Constantia. The fragile mass, and the -Boer, turned up one day at Constantia, to the disgust of Mynheer. - -Lady Anne took Lord Mornington, stopping at the Cape on his way to -India, to lunch with this Cloete, who showed her a new blend of wine -which he had himself invented. 'I was astonished,' she remarks, 'to -hear a Dutchman say he did anything his father had not done before -him, for when I asked him why such and such a thing was not done, he -shrugged his shoulders and said 'it was not the custom.' A -characteristic episode, I fancy, and one which has taken too long to -change, independence of mind and imagination not being smiled upon by -cautious contentment. - -As Governors-General did not often pass the Cape, Mynheer brought out -his best and oldest port, sherry, and claret, and 'the gentlemen's -prejudices got the better of their manners'; Mynheer Cloete copiously -drinking foreign claret, remarking, 'My wines are valuable; and I am -glad when others like them, but I do not; whoever prizes what is made -at home?' - -A few years before Mynheer did without his after-dinner (luncheon) -'slaap' to entertain Lord Mornington and the Barnards, Monsieur Le -Vaillant, turning his unappreciated French back on the town 'where -only the English are loved,' wandered into the quince and -myrtle-hedged vineyard of Cloete's Constantia, where his host, a -Jacobin to his finger-tips, gave him a 'sopje'[6] of his best -Constantia, and Le Vaillant bewailed his prejudiced Cape Town audience -aloud: - -'Mynheer, here in your Kaapstad, it is the English who are adored; -when they arrive, everyone is eager to offer them a lodging. In less -than eight days everything becomes English in the house upon which -they have fixed their choice; and the master and the mistress, and -even the children (with his fine laces ballet-dancing round his waving -and gesticulating hands), _et même des enfants!_ soon assume their -manners.' Then came the currant in this suet. 'At table, for instance, -the knife never fails to discharge the office of the fork! Would you -credit this, Mynheer? I have even heard some of the inhabitants say -that they would rather be taken by the English than owe their safety -to the French.' Mynheer, deep in his 'sopje,' grunts a Dutch grunt of -uncompromising depth. - -This garrulous French explorer found this rich old Cloete less -sympathetic than his Jacobin friend Broers, for whose services at a -critical time a grateful French Government was not unwilling to shower -rewards, and Le Vaillant left Constantia to write of it: 'That this -celebrated vineyard does not produce a tenth part of the wine which is -sold under its name. Some say the first plants were brought here from -Burgundy, others from Madeira, and some from Persia. However this may -be, it is certain (in 1782) that this wine is delicious when drunk at -the Cape; that it loses much by being transported; and that after five -years it is worth nothing. Close to Constantia is another vineyard, -called the Lesser Constantia (Klein Constantia), but it is only within -these later years that it has begun to be held in the same esteem as -the former. It has even sometimes happened that the produce of it has -been sold for a larger sum than that of the other at the Company's -sales! As it is separated from the other only by a plain hedge, it is -probable that there was formerly no difference between the wines, but -in the manner of preparing them. Only the rich use the wine of other -countries.' - -A not too flourishing 'koopman' (merchant), a lover of the English and -a well-known despiser of the popinjay little Frenchman, hearing this -remark in a coffee-house, and not counting on the irrepressible -Broers, sat one evening on the stoep of his long, flat-roofed house in -the Wale Street. Up from the Heerengracht, across the canal bridge, -came Monsieur le Français with friend Fiscal Broers. This was an -opportunity to be seized. 'Dantje!' echoed in loud tones down the Wale -Street. Dantje the slave came running up from the kitchens. 'Fetch -some red wine immediately.' 'The vanity of this man,' says the -triumphant Le Vaillant, 'is ridiculous. Mr. Broers assures me that he -has not a single drop in his possession, and that he had perhaps drunk -of it ten times in his life.' On this account, having reached the top -of the street, they turned round and beheld the knowing Dantje pouring -out beer! Slimmer Kerl! There seems justifiable reason for belief that -Dantje scored heaviest in this particular case. - -By now we have passed the gates of High Constantia and Klein -Constantia, and very soon have reached the Government wine-farm, -Groote Constantia, Simon Van der Stel's home, of which so much has -been written, and which we passed rather hurriedly; for it does not -please me to know that its best furniture has disappeared, that the -new wine cellars have iron roofs, that the old bath is overgrown with -brambles and weeds, and that convicts in a plague of arrow-marked -garments frighten the birds who come to 'steal in the vineyards.' We -cut across country into the Tokai road, through a violet farm, whose -charm dies when the flowers fade in early summer. There are acres and -acres of violets, hedged by poplars, and deep streams which water them -and overflow into potato lands lying lower down in 'Retreat' country, -and help to feed the 'vleis' at Lakeside. We raced along a mile of -sandy lane lined with firs and protea and heath, called, by reason of -some virtue, 'The Ladies' Mile.' This road led us to the farm 'Berg -Vliet,' behind whose white walls we passed into a sandy vineyard -track, and soon we reached the Tokai convict station and the oak woods -of the Manor House. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[5] Druip stone--_i.e._, stalactite. - -[6] A 'sopje' or 'sooppie,' a glass of rack or gin, or, rather, a -French brandy. Before sitting down to dinner it was etiquette to offer -a 'soppe' or a little white wine, into which wormwood or aloes had -been infused in order to excite the appetite. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -THE MOUNTAIN - - -To realize the Cape Peninsula one must stand on the lower plateau of -Table Mountain, near the Wynberg Reservoir: there is a clear, neat map -of the country laid out before one. - -We drove up over the Hen and Chickens Hill, the road running parallel -with the old bitter-almond Hedge to the teak-gated enclosure on the -'Rhodes Road.' - -It was a misty morning, though the sun was hot; the Flats were mostly -in shade, with long shafts of light striking across the sand-dunes and -the 'vleis.' - -A trolley, dragged by a white horse, brought us through a grove of -silver-trees to a tin shed, where a coolie half-caste told us that we -should have to wait for the mountain trolley, which was then running -up coal and food to the workers at the reservoir on the mountain above -us. - - [Illustration: CONSTANTIA VALLEY AND FALSE BAY, WITH CAPE POINT] - -The thin mist crept up and down the slopes, and hordes of black -flower-pickers passed us, carrying huge bunches of pink and -purple flowers, gathered from the Skeleton and Window Gorges, to be -sold next morning in Adderley Street. - -A small black trolley, with planks across the top to serve as seats, -slipped through a clump of gum-trees, stopped at the shed, and we -climbed in. The damp mists crept lower, and Marinus lent me his big -black mackintosh. The trolley was hauled up the one-in-one gradient by -a rope worked by steam. Running from the front of the car to the iron -bar at the back of it was a small piece of dilapidated-looking rope, -the object of which I could not imagine. Slowly we climbed through the -gum-trees, and came face to face with the grey wall of mountain -towering before us. - -The rays of sun caught the silver-trees below, and they flashed their -farewells as we mounted into the mists. On our right were slopes of -pale pink gladioli and gentian-blue flowering reed. On our left, -clumps of scarlet-red 'Erica' heath and brown grasses, and -far--terribly far--below us the Rhodes Road winding close to the -mountain over Constantia Nek. - -Suddenly I felt the rope tighten, and instinctively (no need to ask -its use now) found myself clinging and crouching forward with a tense -feeling in my throat. - -The mountain seemed almost to hang over the car, yet the line went -straight up. - -I smelt the pungent scent of wild-geraniums, and knew there were pink -flowers, but my eyes saw not. - -The rope slackened, and I looked back! - -I understood why Lot's wife became a pillar of salt: we had come up -over the edge of the world. - -Once, like a reassuring presence, a small black car ran down past the -trolley, almost brushing my coat. - -Twelve minutes of this, then before us were iron sheds and black and -white genii--the men who had made the line and the men who worked the -trolley. Inside the shed the puffing little engine of magic power. -Then the 'man who makes' on the mountain hurried us off, through a -forest of thin firs, on to a plain of rock and white sand, with not -more than ten feet of view around. - -It was a mysterious walk, this pilgrimage in silence through the -rain--soft, soaking stuff of spray--past huge water-worn boulders, -grey granite gargoyles that peered at us through the fog. No sound but -the noise of our footsteps on the damp white pathway, and the crunch -of small pebbles as we passed between grey walls of rock. - -Suddenly the way became a field of mauveness, palest pink and purple -flowers, hedged by masses of tall, yellow, flowering reeds, while -close to the damp earth grew hundreds of sweet-smelling -butter-coloured orchids and white crassula. - -As we watched our phantom party moving through the flowers in their -unpractical garments, Marinus reminded me of how Anne Barnard had -climbed this mountain in scanty skirt, her husband's trousers, and -pattens. The memory of Anne made me sing something Scotch--not her own -song, 'Robin Gray,' but 'Loch Lomond.' I sang very softly to suit the -mists, elusive spirits with feathery wings. - -As I sang there came a noise of driven waters, the clouds moved away, -and before us was a lake: a great ocean it might have been, for one -saw no farther shore, but only big angry waves dashing against the -rocks. - -The 'man who made things' took us down the bank and led us on to a -huge wall with a cement pathway and a thin iron rail. - -On one side of the water, a sheer drop of over a hundred feet, a drop -into ferns and creepers and gorgeous greenness. On the other side, -sixty feet across, were the wind-driven waters of the big Cape Town -reservoir, and the clever fingers of the 'man who made' pointed into -the mist to where there was another of those caged seas, 'The highest -dam in Africa--in all Africa,' he said, with some suspicion of -satisfaction in his voice. - -Big waves splashed over the stone wall, and through the mist we heard -a dog bark from the caretaker's cottage across the water. - - -A DIARY FROM DISA HEAD, TABLE MOUNTAIN. - - DISA HEAD, TABLE MOUNTAIN, - _January 29, 1910_. - -A small Norwegian Pan is sitting on a big grey rock beside me as I -write; he is a Christian, civilized imp by birth, and his name is Olaf -Tafelberg Thorsen, and he is a Viking by descent. He is round and -brown as one of the little pebbles that lie on the white shores of the -big blue dams, and his eyes are like the blue-brown pools that are in -the shadow of the 'Disa Gorge.' This world, which I had only seen -through the grey mists, is sparkling in the perfect atmosphere of some -2,000 feet above the sea. - -The same trolley I have spoken of before ran me and my baggage up the -Wynberg side of the mountain. On top I was met by its inventor and the -father of Olaf Tafelberg, and we formed a procession, to walk for -three-quarters of an hour to this home on the grey rock above the dam, -where months before I had heard a dog bark out of the mist. - -Olaf Tafelberg has a Viking brother, Sigveg, fair and blue-eyed, who -knows every flower on the mountain. Then there is a girl child with -nothing more distinctive than the most distinctive name of Disa -Narina; but she has the same simpleness of manner as the buxom brown -Lady Narina, beloved by Monsieur Le Vaillant--the 'model for the -pencil of Albano'--'the youngest of the Graces, under the figure of a -Hottentot.' This fascinating Hottentot, whom Le Vaillant met with on -his inland travels, became a kind of dusky and rustic Egeria. But -Narina possessed more morality than morals, and made life very -pleasant for herself, acquiring many fine bracelets and -head-handkerchiefs from her devoted Frenchman, whose 'sentimentality' -induced him to weep over the far-travelled letters of Madame Le -Vaillant, and to be content to see Narina in the capacity of a game -dog who would tramp for miles with him along the banks of the river -Groot-Vis. - -But this is a diversion from the small Disa Narina of Table Mountain. -Narina is the Hottentot word for flower, and the flower is a gorgeous -species of lily in every shade of red, pink, and maroon, covered with -shining gold dust. There is a picture by an old Dutch master of the -time of William of Orange, hanging in a room in Hampton Court--dull -pink narinas in a gold vase. - -The red grandiflora Disa grows in a deep gully running right through -the mountain. The father of Disa Narina took me into the gorge over -which the great white dam wall towers, and down which 25 to 50 million -gallons of water rush weekly into the thirsty Cape Town reservoirs. We -watched it dashing and splashing out of its narrow valve pipe down -this steep ravine with towering, fern-covered cliffs on either side, -down into the soft blue distance, where it rushes through a tunnel, -and is lost from sight. Poor water! to leave those lovely blue lakes -for dusty Cape Town; no wonder it grumbles and foams all the long -length of the Disa Gorge. Some of it escapes--for a rest--into the -dark brown pools that lie round the low tree-roots in the shadow of -the dripping fern cliffs. - -I climbed along some fallen boughs into the coolness to pick the fern, -which is a bright pink colour where it grows in the shadow. High above -I saw the crimson disa and terracotta heath, and, edging the pathway, -a pure mauve flower and gentian-blue lobelia, the ancestor of that -little blue border for English flower-beds. The first lobelia emigrant -left the Cape in 1660, and arrived to find London almost too busy -welcoming a new-old King to worry very much about its little Colonial -blueness. Still, it has found a certain rural fame, and has returned -to the land of its birth; but its mountain brothers, who are citizens -of the world, would wonder at its small size. - -We climbed down the gorge through an aromatic hedge of shrub and tall -red gladiolus and royal blue agapanthus, until we came to a projecting -cliff, called 'Lover's Leap,' which has the romantic and tragic -tradition that its name implies. Instead of being overpowered by its -tragedy and its height, I sat down on a sun-warmed rock, and so -closely in our souls are the praises of all religions allied, that, -stirred by the pureness of the air, the blueness of the distances, the -sea before me and the distance of the world below, I unconsciously -quoted the words which are written by Walt Whitman in that creed of -the vagrant philosopher, the 'Song of the Open Road': 'The efflux of -the Soul is happiness; here is happiness; I think it pervades the open -air, waiting at all times. - -'Now it flows unto us: we are rightly charged; the earth never tires. - -'I swear to you that there are divine things more beautiful than words -can tell.' - - _Sunday, January 30, 1910._ - -I have spent the morning in the fir-woods which fringe the dams. -Through a dip in the mountains facing east, I see the blue peaks of -the Hottentot's Holland Ranges. A trolley brought me and my books down -from the house on the rock, and I walked up the 'Kitchen Gorge' to -find an old Hottentot cattle kraal--the grey rocks covered with -lichen--and close beside it, on the side of the mountain, a concave -rock big enough to hold six herds. Just above us the famous 'Echo' -Valley, where Anne Barnard, having discarded many pairs of pattens, -called on her party to drink the health of His Majesty King George, -'not doubting that all the hills around would join us: "God save the -King--God save great George our King!" roared I and my troop. "God -save--God save--God save--great George--great George--great George our -King!" echoed the loyal mountains.' - -Anne was almost the first woman to climb up the mountain, and there -was pretty heavy betting against it in the town. - -Among her party was one of the pleasantest, best-informed, and most -eager-minded young men in the world--a Mr. Barrow, a naturalist and -explorer, who was employed by the Governor, Lord Macartney, to report -on the Colony, and especially its unexplored territory. Barrow wrote a -life of Lord Macartney and a two-volume book of travels in Africa, in -which it is amusing to trace the way of all explorers--the casting of -dark doubts on the writing of those who have been before. Le Vaillant -dismissed the disgraceful old gossiper Kolbé in a few well-timed -words: 'The Residence of this man at the Cape is not yet forgotten. It -is well known that he never quitted the town, yet he speaks with all -the assurance of an eyewitness. It cannot, however, be doubted that, -after an abode of ten years, having failed to accomplish what he was -commissioned to do, he found it much easier to collect all the -tipplers of the Colony, who, treating him with derision whilst they -were drinking his wine, dictated memoirs to him from tavern to -tavern, tried who could relate to him the most absurd and ridiculous -anecdotes, and amused him with information until they had drained his -bottles. In this manner are new discoveries made, and thus is the -progress of the human mind enlarged!' - -In turn Barrow treats Monsieur Le Vaillant in like manner. For while -visiting some years later the farm on which Le Vaillant killed some -tigers with so much éclat and danger that a few pages are devoted to -the feat, Barrow hears a very different story at the famous house of -Slabert in the Groen Kloof. The family knew Le Vaillant well, and Mr. -Barrow read his travels aloud, to the intense amusement of the -Slaberts. Barrow says in his book: '... But the whole of his -transactions in this part of the country, wherein his own heroism is -so fully set forth, they assert to be so many fabrications'; that the -celebrated tiger-shoot was done entirely by their own Hottentots' -trap-gun; and that the gay Le Vaillant found the animal expiring under -a bush, and, with no great danger to himself, discharged his musket -into the dying tiger! Le Vaillant had set out to find a barbarous race -said to wear cotton clothing. His first book of travels in the East -had sold well, and here in Africa Kolbe's imagination had left little -scope for improvement; hence these revilings. - - DISA HEAD, TABLE MOUNTAIN, - _January 31_. - -There was no sunrise this morning; a driving mist and a howling, black -south-easter. 'Table Mountain has put on its peruke,' says the witty -Le Vaillant, so there will be no fir-woods or flower-hunting this -morning; and I am sitting in a small office. Through the windows, in -the minutes between the mists, I can see the blue Indian Ocean and -Hout Bay, and the tallest heads of the Twelve Apostles Mountains, or -'Casteelbergen' as they used to be called. Every hour it grows -clearer, and the wind keeps the clouds high up, their great dark -shadows flying across the grey rocks like a defeated army of Erlkings. -A big bird battling against the gale in the Disa Valley reminds one of -the story told by some old traveller, who states that, when the -south-east wind blew very strongly, whole swarms of vultures were -swept down from the mountain into the streets of Cape Town, where the -inhabitants killed them, like locusts, with big sticks! - -The world is showing itself now, but all looks cowed and dominated by -the fury of the wind. A mad game this--wind and clouds in league, -making a sun-proof roof, with only the noise of the gale, the splash -of the driven waters in the dams below, and the bells of the goats -walking round the house in the fog. - - [Illustration: A SUNSET ON THE LION'S HEAD: EFFECT OF SOUTH-EAST WIND] - - -THE FIR-WOODS AT DISA HEAD. - -I have seen the kingdoms of the world, and am satisfied--a wondrous -state of mind and body! I have sat on a ledge of crassula-covered rock -and looked down upon Cape Town--Lion's Head far below us, the green -slopes scarred by innumerable red roads, the bay clear and calm -beneath us, and a gentle south-east breeze with the coolness of water -behind us. To the north, line upon line of low hills swimming in blue -haze, the farms of Malmesbury showing up like little white beacons in -the plains; to our left the Platt Klip Gorge, like a great rent in the -grey mountain. My guide, who is a philosopher, started a story--at -least, I thought it was a fairy-tale--of a sanatorium on the flat top -and a railway. 'Cape Town has got that up its sleeve'--I realized that -he really was speaking sense. It will happen, of course, in the -natural order of things; and it will bring the believers and the -unbelievers--those who see and those 'who pick blackberries to stain -their faces'--the cool gorges will echo with their voices, the Disa -will be hedged round with regulations stronger than barbed wire, and -the swampy ground which now grows shiny white pebbles will grow -potatoes and lettuce for the multitude. - -In the old journal we have the first record of the climbing of Table -Mountain: - - '_Sunday, September 29, 1652._ - - 'Fine day. Our assistants and two others ascended Table - Mountain with the Ottento, who speaks a little English; saw - the fires lit by them; ascent difficult; top of mountain - flat--as broad and three times as long as the Dam of - Amsterdam, with some pools of fresh water.' - -The present pool has very little water; but then, it is summer, and we -took the rain gauge for the month and poured back on to the earth -three large drops of water! - -Barrow, in his description of the ascent, which he made in the -charming company of the Barnards, talks of the view from the top: 'All -the objects on the plain below are, in fact, dwindled away to the eye -of the spectator into littleness and insignificance. The flat-roofed -houses of Cape Town, disposed into formal clumps, appear like those -paper fabrics which children are accustomed to make with cards. The -shrubbery on the sandy isthmus looks like dots, and the farms and -their enclosures as so many lines, and the more-finished parts of a -plan drawn on paper.' - -But we crossed the flat top and came to the Wynberg side: saw the -country, neatly mapped as Barrow says, bathed in sunshine. My guide -has been a sailor, and has travelled round the world, but here he -says: 'Here is the best view in the world!' and he went off to examine -more rain gauges. - -It is a wonderful thing to be utterly alone with the earth and the -sun; to become a hill Pantheist, but to realize why, in a hot stone -church, one can get up and sing that the Sun, the Moon, the Air, the -Mountains, and the Earth may bless and praise the Lord. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -ROUND THE LION'S HEAD AND THE VICTORIA ROAD - - -Sea Point lies, white-roofed and aloe-hedged, under the sanctified -Lion's Head Mountain; sanctified, because of a great white cross -scarred into the bare rock by a nation to whom crosses and scars were -almost inseparable. Da Gama's gigantic cross on the Lion's Head is one -of the many to be found round the coast; but here begins and ends -every trace of Portuguese possession or atmosphere in the Cape -Peninsula. - - [Illustration: ON THE VICTORIA ROAD, NEAR OUDE KRAAL] - -Old Sea Point savours of ancient Dutch régime, but is hedged in on -every side, hidden, almost lost, by Cape Town Commerce _chez eux_. But -along the Beach Road, running from the old Downs, or Common, to the -Queen's Hotel, are houses with names which are historical: -flat-roofed, whitewashed houses, with high stoeps and stucco -fountains, syringa-trees, cactus plants, and hedges of flaming red -aloes behind their white garden walls; old-fashioned gardens with -box and myrtle hedges, lichens and gaudy mesembryanthemums crawling -like giant starfish over the walls. Edging the road and hiding the -beach from travellers are thick hedges of kei-apple, a prickly red -berry, and of a low shrub whose leaves furnished correct food for the -imported French snails, whose descendants are purely a pest and have -no justification. But the French-lavender hedges and pink Huguenot -roses can still say 'Bonjour' to the snails. It is the only French -word any of them remember; it is prettier than the 'Dag,' which the -prickly-pear, gorgeous with orange and carmine flower, grunts across -the road to the hedge of wax berries; it is prettier, too, than the -'Morgen,' which is the large white 'Frau Karl Druschki's' morning -greeting; just a little daintier than 'Saka bona,' from the purple -jacaranda and scarlet kaffir-boom; but far, far more charming than the -chorus of 'Hullo! hullo!' from the cheerful English trees and plants -in this white-walled garden. And then there is the sea--not the -wind-swept sea of False Bay, but a cosmopolitan sea; a highroad, where -ships of many flags sail past the rocks, bound for the world. - -In one white-roofed house lived a man on whose importance hung the -beginning of a nation. The resolution in favour of responsible -government had been passed by the Lower House of Parliament. The -decision now rested with the Council. To be a member, the -qualification meant possessing property to the value of some thousand -pounds over and above mortgages. The member whose vote turned the -balance was in such bad circumstances, that even if the mortgaged -white house at Sea Point was sold he would not be qualified for this -momentous voting. His friends, filled with national and patriotic -zeal, rushed out to Sea Point: 'Have you, then, nothing of any value?' -they cried. 'Yes; I will show you something which might be of some -value. I was once in Turkey and of service to the Sultan.' He produced -from a deep-shelved Dutch cupboard with brass fittings, then of little -account, a small gold case, filigree-worked, and inside a snuff-box -sparkling with diamonds, rubies and emeralds. 'Given by the Sultan,' -said he of the important vote. Nothing more, just this _soupçon_ of -adventure. Responsible government was carried on a snuff-box. - -Sea Point possesses the two best private libraries in the Peninsula. -One of them belonged to a great little man, Saul Solomon, of -Clarensville, who died some years ago. Public men never live long -enough at the Cape to die in the fulness of attainment; ambition and -principle go but slowly hand in hand if you would have them travel -along the same road, but Saul Solomon's name is high in the annals of -politics and principles. The rocks below Clarensville, or probably -those larger granite masses beyond the Queen's Hotel, were -celebrated fishing-places in the days of the early Commanders; but one -short entry thrills one and dissipates the ideal dulness of the gentle -art. During the Van Riebeek reign a corporal went fishing for 'klip' -fish amongst the brown seaweed which lies like a barren reef round the -south-west coast, when a lion wandered down to the beach, and left so -little of the angler that nought of him was found but his trousers and -his shoes: which we imagine he had discarded, and was not -discrimination on the part of the lion. - - [Illustration: CAMPS BAY, ON THE VICTORIA ROAD] - -Marinus and I climbed into a green tram which ran along a high -mountain road overlooking the lower Victoria Road. We reached Clifton, -a little kraal of houses and bungalows, and left the tram and walked -down to the lower road through an old farm-garden. The steep slopes of -the cliff down to the sea were covered with brilliant green shrub and -purple flowers. Strolling along, we came upon Camps Bay, which we -fancy was Caapmans Bay; for here the Caapmans, or Hottentots, pastured -their flocks during their 'merry-go-round' journeying from the Fort, -over the Kloof Nek, along the Casteelbergen, or Twelve Apostles Range, -to Hout Bay; then often over the Constantia Nek to worry the outposts -on the Bosheuvel, and back to the Fort; or from Hout Bay to Chapmans -Bay and Noord Hoek, and on to Cape Point. Their last stronghold was in -the Hottentot's Holland Mountains; but in the year 1714 nearly all -the tribe were exterminated by the smallpox. Four chiefs -remained--'Scipio Africanus,' 'Hannibal,' 'Hercules,' and 'Konja'--who -received, says the old chronicle, 'the usual stick with the brass -knob,' the insignia of office. Camps Bay gave the old map-makers and -Commanders some trouble; but they all found the great line of breakers -prevented the bay from being used either for themselves or for the -landing of hostile forces. - -On the slope of the Lion's Head, above the bay, is a little round -white house, the Round House, where Sir Charles Somerset spent his -week-ends. Sir Charles, whose reign here was during the end of the -eighteenth century, used several of the old homesteads as -shooting-boxes. - -Marinus, with enormous satisfaction, found a stray taxi, and soon we -had passed the 'Oude Kraal' of the watermen on our way to Hout Bay. -The turreted tops of the Casteelbergen, or Twelve Apostles Mountains, -were 'canopied in blue,' their slopes covered with a bright mauve -Michaelmas daisy. The narrow road curves and curls round their sides, -and below stretch acres and acres of sea, horizonless, heaving and -sinking, blue and green and gold, lapping against the edges of the -land in crescent-shaped little bays, or dashing against walls of rock. -The cliffs, grass-grown down to the water, are covered with flowers, -big clumps of prickly-pear, and blue aloe, every freshly-turned -corner more lovely than the last. There is one other road in the world -to compare with it, and that road runs along the South of France into -Italy; but the waters of the Mediterranean are _fade_, lifeless waters -to the ocean that fringes the Casteelbergen in Africa. - - [Illustration: HOUT BAY AND HANGBERG] - -Far out into the sea stretches a reef of sharp rocks where many ships -have found a terrible end: the steep, slippery slopes beyond the -little Lion's Head isolate the coast from all assistance. - -In front of us a dull green car was swinging round the curves. 'We'll -pass her,' said Marinus, who was driving. The road is not wide--just -room enough for two cars to pass abreast. The green car saw us coming, -and decided we should not pass her. Marinus jerked his head forward, -and vowed we should. For ten minutes I sat rigid; my eyes never left a -small spot of mud on Marinus' coat. Between us and the mountain was -the green motor; to our right was the sea. We dashed round corner -after corner, a great juggernaut or machinery with not a spare yard of -road. It was a glorious gamble, with almost a thousand to one that -round the next corner we should meet something--a car or a cart. The -cars ran silently.... Suddenly someone's nerve failed; we had passed -the green car, and Marinus turned round to me and grinned. 'All -right?' he said. My jaw seemed set in plaster of Paris, so I grinned -too. The chauffeur was cursing softly and rapidly. Over the brow of -the Hout Bay Nek was a big white car, full of people and wild flowers, -coming towards us. I bent forward close to Marinus, so that the -chauffeur should not hear. 'You brute!' I whispered; 'but it was -simply great.' And Marinus winked. - -We rushed down the hill, lined with pink protea, into the village of -Hout Bay, or the Wood Bay, where the Company's yachts and sloops would -come to carry away wood from the thick forests. No sign of forest -now--only some low, wind-stunted trees along the beach. The Dutch -fortified the bay, and the ruins of their fort still stand. - -Chapman's Peak hides the curve of the coast and the Noord Hoek and -Kommetje Valleys. Near the village is the old home of the Van -Oudtshoorn family, whitewash and teak, high-stoeped, with stucco -designs, and the date over the door. The Hout Bay Valley has a -distinctive charm of its own; its river-bed is overgrown with palmiet, -and its thatched farmhouses have Huguenot names: for in this valley -grants of land were made to the Huguenot refugees, the road is hedged -with little pink Huguenot roses growing over the ground which pastured -the Hottentots' cattle. The farm, Orange Grove, lies low in an oak -wood. We climbed the long Constantia Nek, and once more saw the -widespread Isthmus, Constantia, Wynberg, and False Bay; little farms, -little woods, the smoke from an engine--we had been round our world in -a few hours. - - [Illustration: CHAPMAN'S PEAK AND SLANG KOP POINT FROM HOUT BAY] - - - - -CHAPTER X - -FALSE BAY - - -The old road from Wynberg to Muizenberg is no longer traceable. I -imagine it started from Waterloo Green, as all old Wynberg was centred -round the hill. A convent stands back from the green, but, like the -poem in the story of 'Through the Looking-Glass,' if you look again -you will see it isn't a convent at all, but the old Wynberg homestead, -one of the early grants of land to a freeman, the home of Mynheer -Cloete. - -Wynberg hides its archives in overgrown gardens of oleander, -wild-olive, blue plumbago hedges, cool white gardenias and red -hibiscus flowers, cypress-trees and date-palms, brought from the East -by retired soldiers from India, with large livers and small pensions, -making their curries and their chutneys in the little thatched -bungalows of old Wynberg. To one of these, still standing and acting -as a stable to a big white house in the oak avenue which we fancy is -part of the old road, came Wellington on his way to India, and gave -his name to the avenue. On our way along the main road to Muizenberg -we passed a renovated homestead, probably one of the old rest-houses, -now used as a convalescent home, but its gardens are full of old-world -memories, willows, and myrtle-hedge, and arbours of strange trees, -bent and twisted into fantastic coolnesses. - -There is a dull stretch of wattled road running through Plumstead, -Diep River, and Retreat. At Diep River the flooded lands grow -potatoes, at Plumstead they grow vegetables, all in amongst the -wildness of the big plain covered with vleis and protea-bush and -purple and crimson heath. The Retreat is historical. It lies on the -Cape Town side of the Muizenberg Mountains, which seem to spring up in -granite and green from the sea. A narrow strip of land at their base -spoils the illusion--'The Thermopylæ of the Cape,' says an old -enthusiast some hundred years ago. Through the narrow pass between the -sea and mountains retreated the famous Burgher Cavalry, abandoning -their position at Muizenberg before the guns of the _America_. But -history, I fancy, regards the Battle of Muizenberg more as a -diplomatic coup than as a serious fight. Even the cannon-balls, which -are dotted along the road from Kalk Bay to Muizenberg, are ending -their uneventful days in seaside peace, and their resting-places in -soft sand speak of further diplomacy. - -Near Lakeside are several old farms with lost identity. Over the -hill, leaving the lovely vleis behind us, we came upon Muizenberg, -from an architectural point of view the saddest sight in the world; -here are two old landmarks, the one so renovated that it is almost -unrecognizable, the other a ruin. The first was a low, whitewashed, -thatched homestead--an old inn, or rest-house, as the Dutch called -it--and it was named 'Farmer Pecks.' The oldest inhabitant cannot tell -why, but I remember the original building with its celebrated -signboard. The story of the signboard is as follows: 'Two middies, -many, many years ago, returning to Simonstown from Cape Town, where -they had been on a jaunt, arrived one dark night at Muizenberg. It was -a twenty-mile walk--twenty miles along a difficult track, across a -dangerous beach of quicksands (Fish Hoek), and they were travelling on -foot, because very few people could afford a cart. It was too late and -too dark to continue their journey, so they had to put up at Farmer -Pecks'. When it came to paying for the night's board and lodging there -was no money--all left in Cape Town. "We'll paint you a signboard," -they said--a Utopian mode of finance to solve the difficulty and pay -their debt. They must have come from Salisbury Plain, or Farmer Peck -had, for the signboard portrayed a mild-looking shepherd of a Noah's -Ark type, gazing over a hill at some fat wooden sheep, grazing in -emerald grass, and in the background a very English-looking little -farmhouse with rows of stiff Noah's Ark trees. Quite a premature -attempt at modern conventional design, inspired by the ideals of "Two -Years Old" playing at Creation and landscape-gardening in the nursery. -Here the momentous questions are: whether Mr. and Mrs. Noah, in red -and blue æsthetic garments of a wondrous purity of line, shall stand -under perfectly symmetrical trees which are on dear little rounds of -wood, or whether they shall be dotted over the farm together with -Shem, Ham, and Japheth, in pure yellow, pink, and green, in close -proximity to two pink cows, two red geese, two black pigs, and two -purple horses.' - - [Illustration: AT LAKESIDE, LOOKING TOWARDS CONSTANTIA] - - [Illustration: AT LAKESIDE, LOOKING SOUTH-EAST] - -A domesticated sequel to the story of the Flood. - -Everyone has played 'Noah,' so everyone will understand the design of -the poster. - -The following verses were painted under the board, springing from the -same talented and amusing brains, a quaint mixture of English, Dutch, -and Latin: - - 'Multum in parvo, pro bono publico, - Entertainment for man and beast all of a row. - Lekker kost as much as you please, - Excellent beds without any fleas. - - 'Nos patriam fugimus now we are here, - Vivamus, let us live by selling beer. - On donne à boire et à manger ici, - Come in and try, whosoever you be.' - -In a balloon issuing from the mouth of the gentle shepherd was this -motto, carrying a deeper philosophy: 'Life's but a journey; let us -live well on the road, says the gentle shepherd of Salisbury Plain.' - -On the opposite side of the road are the ruins of the barracks, a low, -stone, thatched house in a green field, surrounded by a stone wall. - -Anne Barnard drove down at the peril of her life, she thought, to -Simonstown, or False Bay as it was called, and, passing Muizenberg on -her way, found the garrison living in huts, and was regaled on boiled -beef and Constantia wine served by the late steward of the Duke of -Orleans. 'Un mauvais sujet,' says Lady Anne. - -The main road runs at the foot of the mountains, with a railway-line -and a few yards of beach and rock between it and the sea. The most -wonderful sea in the world! emerald green, with mauve reefs of rock -showing through its clearness; sapphire blue towards Simonstown, the -colour of forget-me-nots sweeping the white crescent of Muizenberg -sands. - -We passed St. James and Kalk Bay, where the steam-trawler was coming -in like a big brown hen to roost surrounded by all the fishing-boats, -some still on the horizon, like straggling chickens, flying along with -their white wings sparkling and fluttering in the sun and south-east -breeze. - - [Illustration: ON FISHHOEK BEACH, NORDHOEK MOUNTAINS IN DISTANCE] - -At Fish Hoek, the dangerous beach of quicksands, the setting sun -poured through the Kommetje and Noord Hoek Valley, tinting the -sandhills until they glowed like gigantic opals; the lights swept pink -over the blue streams running across the beach into the sea, and the -long line of wave, which rolled in to meet them, made a bank of -transparent aquamarine before it curled itself on to the shore--thin -blueness with foam-scalloped edges. - -We rounded another mountain corner and came upon Glen Cairn with its -beach-streams and quarries. Clusters of stone huts, like prehistoric -dwellings on the mountain slopes, are the homes of the quarrymen. -Simonstown had begun to consider its nightcap when we rode slowly -round the last corner. The dark grey cruisers were hardly discernible -in the dusk; across the bay, on the Hottentot's Holland, a fire -crawled like a red snake up the mountains; the light on the Roman Rock -Lighthouse was lit. The gardens of Admiralty House are terraced above -the sea by a long, low white wall; to the right is an enormous white -plaster figure of Penelope, the old figure-head from the ship of that -name, and the unseeing eyes of the watchful Penelope are turned -towards the decrepit hulk lying a few hundred yards away. Great -magenta masses of bougainvillæa hid the low house, and soon the -darkness hid all. - -The strains of 'God save the King' from the flagship woke me to the -day, and an hour later we were riding along the gum-tree avenue into -the town. The quaint little town was named after Governor Simon Van -der Stel; before that it was called False Bay, or the Bay of Falso. -Here for five months, beginning with March, the ships from Table Bay -would anchor, while for five months Table Bay was given over to -intolerable gales. - -A traveller of the eighteenth century describes the town: - - 'Close to the shore of the Bay there are a number of - warehouses, in which the provisions are deposited for the - use of the East India Company's ships. A very beautiful - hospital has been erected here for the crews, and a - commodious house for the Governor, who usually comes hither - and spends a few days while the ships are lying in the Bay. - Commerce draws hither also a great number of individuals - from the Cape, who furnish the officers with lodgings. - While the latter are here the Bay is exceedingly lively, - but as soon as the season permits them to heave up their - anchors, it becomes a desert; everyone decamps, and the - only inhabitants are a company of the garrison, who are - relieved every two months. The vessels which arrive then - and have need of provisions are in a dismal situation, for - it often happens that the warehouse has been so much - drained that it is necessary to bring from Cape Town in - carts whatever these new-comers are in want of, and - the carriage usually costs an exorbitant price. The hire of - a paltry cart is from twenty to thirty dollars a day; I - have known of fifty paid for one, and it is to be observed - that they can only make one journey in the twenty-four - hours.' - - [Illustration: SIMONSTOWN MOUNTAINS, WITH CAPE POINT AND ROMAN ROCK - LIGHTHOUSES] - -We can nowadays, for the exorbitant price of something more than a -dollar, run up to Cape Town in less than an hour; but I have heard -from not too ancient inhabitants wonderful stories of not too long ago -of how, packed like sardines, parties would drive from Town to -Simonstown to dance on a gunboat and home again in the dawn, with some -danger of the wrong tide over the Fish Hoek beach, or of the bad road -to Wynberg. - -In an old book of travels I find the _raison d'être_ for the name -given to the 'Roman' Rock: - - 'The finest fish are caught here, and particularly the - Rooman (or Rooiman), that gives its name to the Roman Rock, - in the neighbourhood of which it is found in great - abundance.' - -The Commander of old Simonstown died a millionaire, and his illegal -dealings seem to have been well known and discussed, as all the -writers of this time and later speak of it. He had the rank of 'under -merchant,' and carried on a trade with the foreign vessels, reselling -necessaries at enormous profit.... 'Mr. Trail (a great rogue),' writes -Anne Barnard to Melville. - -We rode up the Red Hill--a steep roadway up the mountain--and saw a -precarious-looking aerial car swaying up the mountain-side to the -Sanatorium and Range. We ultimately passed quite close to the Range on -the flat top in thick purple heath. We looked north, over the False -Bay and Noord Hoek Mountains, the Steenbergen, or Tokai Ranges, and -saw Table Mountain in a coronet of cloud. Across these flat-topped -ranges, over three hundred years ago, had fled the Hottentots, before -finding their asylum on the opposite shore--the Hottentot's Holland -Mountains. The two Passes--the Kloof and the road from the Castle to -the Flats--were carefully guarded. The Caapmans, Hottentots, and -Watermen, cattle-thieves, tobacco-thieves, garden-thieves, -wreck-salvagers, hurried along with their cattle from Hout Bay, -Chapmans Bay, and Noord Hoek, to Cape Point. The Commander sent -several parties to hunt them out, and the majority made off over the -Flats, led by their rascally chief 'Herry.' The lowest of them, the -Watermen, remained behind, hiding in caves and underwood. One fine day -Corporal Elias Giero, who, with a considerable force, had wandered for -days round Hout Bay and the Berghvalleyen, reported that eighteen -hours' walk from this neighbourhood, almost at the southern end of the -Cape, he had come upon their camp. It sounds pathetic, this great -expedition for such a small enemy. They found three reed huts, with -thirteen men and as many women and children. They were making -assegais, when their dogs barked, and they fled into the rushes, -crying out that they were Watermen, and not cattle-stealers. But some -were recognized by 'men who had felt their assegais,' and the chief -was captured. The former were killed. The chief and a _ci-devant_ -kitchen-boy refused to walk to the fort, 'and, as it was too difficult -to carry them, our men brought with them to the fort _their upper -lips_.' Many of them were recognized as wood and water carriers to the -garrison at the fort, and their names and aliases are carefully -recorded--for example: 'Carbinza,' or 'Plat neus'; 'Egutha,' or 'Hoogh -en Laagh'; 'Mosscha,' or 'Kleine Lubbert'; 'Kaikana Makonkoa'; -'Louchoeve'; 'Orenbare'; 'Diknavel'; and so on. Translated into -English--those that are translatable--they run: 'Flat-nose,' 'High and -Low,' 'Quick,' 'Bring,' 'Unweary,' 'Hold him fast,' 'He nearly,' etc. - -This is a small bit of history which belongs to Cape Point. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -THE BLUE SHADOW ACROSS THE FLATS - - -Our ponies met us at Muizenberg, and we crossed the railway-line on to -the long white beach. - -It was Easter Monday, and trainloads of inhabitants swarmed like gaudy -bees round the bathing-huts. At no other time can one see to better -advantage the wonderful fusion of races which has gone to the making -of the population of the Cape Peninsula. - -In the shade of one of the small, stationary wooden bathing-houses I -saw the gardener's family, their colour scheme running through the -gamut of shades from white to chocolate. The gardener had once had a -Cockney wife, and his life was ''ell,' so he married Marlie, the -slightly coloured girl brought up on a German mission-station, who -made excellent stews, washed his shirts well, and sang Lutheran hymns -to the children when they howled. There were ancestors, black and -white, on both sides--and everyone hasn't ancestors. - - [Illustration: TABLE MOUNTAIN FROM RETREAT FLATS] - -We passed a wagon-load of Malays in gala dress of silks and -spangles--our washerwomen--possessing the wondrous Oriental gift -of elusive speech, which will turn away good Christian wrath. One old -Malay told us he remembered the days when all the Malays made their -pilgrimage yearly to the grave of Sheik Joseph. A political prisoner -of the East India Company, of great wealth and position in the East, -he was exiled to the Cape, and lived at the mouth of the Eerste River, -near the farm of the Governor's witty brother, Franz Van der Stel. -There is a sepulchre which is called the 'Kramat,' or resting-place of -a holy man. The wanderers of the Flats in those early days would often -come upon the Sheik and his forty followers galloping across the -sand-hills. This generation of followers wore suits of neat blue -serge, and, over the fez, a wide reed hat with a low, pointed crown. - -Marinus and I thought it would require a Shakespeare to describe the -heterogeneous mass we passed through. Pathetic sometimes--a -knock-kneed clerk from Cape Town, shivering in a new, dark-blue -bathing suit, vainly trying to acclimatize his pasty-faced offspring -to the waves. Complexions are hard to keep in South Africa; the sun is -our master, all-absorbing and requiring all--colour, brain, -energy--your puny effort of concentration useless against this fierce, -concentrated mass, this alluring South African sun--Lorelei of the -South. - -The very people here are an example--not one concentrated type. -Marinus and I soliloquized quietly until we reached the shallow river -which feeds the Lakeside Vleis (lakes). We avoided the beach and kept -close up to the sand-dunes, the white sand protected from the tearing -gales of the 'south-easters' by a network of creeping 'Hottentot fig,' -a fleshy plant with wonderful bright flowers of every hue, and bearing -an acquired taste in fruit--a small, dried-up-looking fig. - -Tall flowering reeds grow in 'klompjes,'[7] and dotted about are small -green bushes covered with red berries--'dinna bessies,' the coloured -folk call them. 'Not much cover for the hippo,' laughed Marinus. - -My mind went back with a jerk to the old days of Muizenberg, the -Mountain of Mice, its cannon buried in the sand, its battle, its fort -and barracks, the Caapmans, who wandered with their herds over the -flats and killed sea-cows, or hippo, on the very spot where the -enterprising boatman of Lakeside had built his café. - -'And elephants roamed,' I quoted; 'and always the reflection of Table -Mountain--always the same blue lotus lilies, and the sand-hills, and -the blue river flowing across the beach.' - -We made for Strandfontein, regaining the beach as the tide was going -out and we could avoid the quicksands. Strandfontein, a little -desolate bay boasting one reed-covered house and a celebrated -beach--celebrated for its shells, huge blue mussels, pale pink -mussels, daintily carved nautili, and rows and rows of coral and mauve -fan shells. - - [Illustration: SAND DUNES] - -Again we talked of the old 'Company days,' and the wonderful plan of -Commander Van Riebeek to drain the Liesbeek and the Salt Rivers into -one big canal which would cut off the peninsula from the mainland, -and, like the great Wall of Hadrian, would keep the barbarians out, -away from the Company's freemen growing flax, wheat, and disaffection -on the swampy flats. - -Van Riebeek bewails the impracticability in his journal, which, bound -in ancient brown leather, and written in heavy Dutch lettering, is -carefully preserved in Cape Town. - - '_February 4, 1656._ - - 'Dry, calm weather. Riebeeck proceeds to False Bay (roads - being favourable), accompanied by a guard of soldiers, to - see whether the Canal, proposed by Van Goens, could be made - across the Isthmus. Took the river course to see whether it - at all approached False Bay. Found that the Sweet River, - now Liesbeek, which with the Salt River runs into Table - Bay, runs snake-like three or four leagues crosswise over - the Isthmus, and at some places appears to be stagnant, - forming small lakes, between which low and sandy lands lie, - until within a league of certain high sand-hills of False - Bay, where it again turns into small streams, which - gradually become broader, and form a river of fresh water - running further on into a large lake, almost as broad as - the Meuse and about two hours on foot in circumference, - with deep and brackish water full of sea-cows and - sea-horses, and supplied from the downs of False Cape. - There was apparently no opening, but the water percolated - through the sands. The Lake is still about one and a half - hours on foot from the seashore, which is about half an - hour's walk broad. The Downs about a league, and so high, - that they are almost mountains, twenty or twenty-four - behind each other, it would therefore be impossible to cut - them through. Besides, there would be lakelets on the - Flats, some a quarter, some half a league broad to be cut - through. This would also be difficult, because of the rocky - ground, as we found the next day, after having spent the - night in the veldt. The matter is therefore impossible, and - would be useless and most injurious to the Company, as the - Canal could not be made so wide and deep as to prevent the - natives swimming across with their cattle. In case it is - supposed that on this side the passage would be closed to - them, it must be borne in mind that a large sheet of water - on the south side of False Cape about three hours' walk in - circumference, becomes a large dry and salt flat in summer, - so that no proper Canal could be pierced through it--as the - sand is soft and the downs are high--which latter would - continually fill up the channel; thousands of men would be - required to keep it open; so that the Company cannot - for a moment think of it, as the expense would be enormous - in comparison with the advantages derived. _Millions of - gold would be required!_ and if finally the work be - finished and communication with the natives cut off, it - would be absurd to suppose that they could be confined on - this side--for the artificial island would have such - dimensions that, in order to control it, a large number of - men would be required, scattered in the veldt, not a few, - but a good many, soldiers. - - 'The idea that such a canal would enable the householders - to live more securely is hardly worth considering, as those - who may choose to live here and there may build stone - dwellings sufficiently strong to protect them from the - natives. Should such free householders cost the Company so - much that soldiers are to be kept for their defence, - instead of their assisting the Company?...' - - [Illustration: ON THE SANDHILLS NEAR MUIZENBERG] - -We cantered over some small sand-hills, and came down to the plains, -covered with 'quick' grass, dotted with small yellow protea-bush, tiny -pink flowers, and scarlet heath called 'erica,' intersected by blue -pools of water, their surfaces almost covered by a sweet-smelling, -white waterweed. The Malays gather the flower, 'water-eintje,' and -curry it or stew it into a thick soup. A narrow, white, sandy pathway -ran between the pools, and far away, in a blue haze, we saw Table -Mountain and the Devil's Peak. - -Quoting again from the Diary: - - '_June 29, 1656._ - - 'Proceeded to the Flats where Van Goens wished to have - canal dug. Find the whole country so inundated with rapid - streams that the whole cutting, with redoubts and all, - would, if made, be swept away at once. The Flats had become - a combination of lakes; the work would therefore at present - be left in abeyance.' - -The ponies slopped through the wet sand, and ahead lay the big lake -called Zeekoe Vlei (_i.e._, Sea-Cow Lake), separated from a smaller -lake, Ronde Vlei, by a narrow isthmus. - -Skirting a huge, precipitous mountain of sand, we rode round the vlei, -disturbing great flocks of heron, gulls, and wild-duck. - -Straight up out of a yellow protea-bush flew a brown bird with a dull -orange-red breast--a wip-poor-will, or, as the coloured people say, -the 'Christmas bird,' or 'Piet, mij vrouw.' Its call is more surely -'Piet, mij vrouw' than anything else. - -'Do you know Le Vaillant's story?' said Marinus. I did. But Marinus -loves to tell a story, and he has to listen to many; so I said: 'His -story of what?' Then Marinus, being a dear, told me the tale: - -'Le Vaillant and the faithful Hottentot chief, or Piet, as his master -called him, were out shooting. Le Vaillant shot and killed a female -bird. Piet brought up the bird. "Go back, you adorable Hottentot," -said the traveller, "to the spot where you found this bird, for surely -there you will find Monsieur le Mari." The "adorable Piet" began to -weep; that Baas would excuse him, but this he could not do--never -could he fire at the male bird. "Go--I insist!" said Le Vaillant. "No, -no, Baas!" And the astonished Baas listened to the reason: that no -sooner had Piet shot the female, when the male, to quote the old -story, "began to pursue him with great fury, continually repeating, -'Piet, mij vrouw! Piet, mij vrouw!' This, in English, is, 'Piet, my -wife! Piet, my wife!' Small wonder that Le Vaillant wrote of the -misjudged, Dutch-ridden Hottentot as being "full of sensibility"!' - -The sun had begun to set when we reached the other side of the vlei, -and a coloured woman, carrying a mass of blue lotus lilies up to Town -for sale, told us 'we had v-e-ry far way still to go.' - -Marinus agreed that it was quite worth a hurried ride home, seeing -this wonderful kaleidoscope of colouring reflected in the vleis. - -The sand-hills around were pink, and over the tops of some appeared -the purple of the Muizenberg Mountains. In the north were the -Stellenbosch Mountains, with the Helderberg, in a blaze of red, -underlined by long patches of shining white sand-hills. - -But all the while the great blue shadow of Table Mountain crept over -the Flats, over the vleis, until we watched it reach the north -barriers. Slowly the blue mounted, absorbing the flush of sunset, -reached the summits, and drove the pink into the fleecy, detached -clouds above; these, like blazing balloons, floated over the bay. - -I sat up--to reality. - -'I have been lost on these Flats, Marinus, and still remember with -horror the growing darkness and the interminable miles of sandy road -and dense wattle plantations. Let us get on.' - -So we rode and rode, through the brown rushes, splashing through -water, over mealie patches, dozens of little German children from the -tiny farms hidden in low wattle rushing out to see us pass. - -On we flew into the darkening blue shadow; behind us, whirlwinds of -sand rising like white wraiths of pursuing Erlkings; and before, the -smoke from the Kaffir location near the mouth of the Salt River -curling into the mist. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[7] _I.e._, clumps. - - -BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD - - [Illustration: AT THE HEAD OF FALSE BAY] - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cape Peninsula, by Réné Juta - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAPE PENINSULA *** - -***** This file should be named 42737-8.txt or 42737-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/2/7/3/42737/ - -Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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