Life in South Africa. Lady Barker
is the first order which I hear given, and that astonishing baby is “passed up” accordingly. I use the word “astonishing” advisedly, for never was an infant so bundled about uncomplainingly. He is just as often upside down as not; he is generally handed from one quartermaster to the other by the gathers of his little blue flannel frock; seas break over his cradle on deck, but nothing disturbs him. He grins and sleeps and pulls at his bottle through everything, and grows fatter and browner and more impudent every day. On this occasion, when—after rivaling Léotard’s most daring feats on the trapeze in my scramble up the side of a vessel which was lurching away from me—I at last reached the deck, I found the ship’s carpenter nursing the baby, who had seized the poor man’s beard firmly with one hand, and with the finger and thumb of the other was attempting to pick out one of his merry blue eyes. “Avast there!” cried the long-suffering sailor, and gladly relinquished the mischievous bundle to me.
Up with the anchor, and off we go once more into the gathering darkness of what turns out to be a wet and windy night. Next day the weather had recovered its temper, and I was called upon deck directly after breakfast to see the “Gates of St. John,” a really fine pass on the coast where the river Umzimvubu rushes through great granite cliffs into the sea. If the exact truth is to be told, I must confess I am a little disappointed with this coast-scenery. I have heard so much of its beauty, and as yet, though I have seen it under exceptionally favorable conditions of calm weather, which has allowed us to stand in very close to shore, I have not seen anything really fine until these “Gates” came in view. It has all been monotonous, undulating downs, here and there dotted with trees, and in some places the ravines were filled with what we used to call in New Zealand bush—i.e., miscellaneous greenery. Here and there a bold cliff or tumbled pile of red rock makes a landmark for the passing ships, but otherwise the uniformity is great indeed. The ordinary weather along this coast is something frightful, and the great reputation of our little Florence is built on the method in which she rides dry and safe as a duck among these stormy waters. Now that we are close to “fair Natal,” the country opens out and improves in beauty. There are still the same sloping, rolling downs, but higher downs rise behind them, and again beyond are blue and purpling hills. Here and there, too, are clusters of fat, dumpy haystacks, which in reality are no haystacks at all, but Kafir kraals. Just before we pass the cliff and river which marks where No-Man’s Land ends and Natal begins these little locations are more frequently to be observed, though what their inhabitants subsist on is a marvel to me, for we are only a mile or so from shore, and all the seeing power of all the field-glasses on board fails to discern a solitary animal. We can see lots of babies crawling about the hole which serves as door to a Kafir hut, and they are all as fat as little pigs; but what do they live on? Buttermilk, I am told—that is to say, sour milk, for the true Kafir palate does not appreciate fresh, sweet milk—and a sort of porridge made of mealies. I used to think “mealies” was a coined word for potatoes, but it really signifies maize or Indian corn, which is rudely crushed and ground, and forms the staple food of man and beast.
In the mean time, we are speeding gayly over the bright waters, never very calm along this shore. Presently we come to a spot clearly marked by some odd-colored, tumbled-down cliffs and the remains of a great iron butt, where, more than a hundred years ago, the Grosvenor, a splendid clipper ship, was wrecked. The men nearly all perished or were made away with, but a few women were got on shore and carried off as prizes to the kraals of the Kafir “inkosis” or chieftains. What sort of husbands these stalwart warriors made to their reluctant brides tradition does not say, but it is a fact that almost all the children were born mad, and their descendants are, many of them, lunatics or idiots up to the present time. As the afternoon draws on a chill mist creeps over the hills and provokingly blots out the coast, which gets more beautiful every league we go. I wanted to remain up and see the light on the bluff just outside Port d’Urban, but a heavy shower drove me down to my wee cabin before ten o’clock. Soon after midnight the rolling of the anchor-chains and the sudden change of motion from pitching and jumping to the old monotonous roll told us that we were once more outside a bar, with a heavy sea on, and that there we must remain until the tug came to fetch us. But, alas! the tug had to make short work of it next morning, on account of the unaccommodating state of the tide, and all our hopes of breakfasting on shore were dashed by a hasty announcement at 5 A.M. that the tug was alongside, the mails were rapidly being put on board of her, and that she could not wait for passengers or anything else, because ten minutes later there would not be water enough to float her over the bar.
“When shall we be able to get over the bar?” I asked dolefully.
“Not until the afternoon,” was the prompt and uncompromising reply, delivered through my keyhole by the authority in charge of us. And he proved to be quite right; but I am bound to say the time passed more quickly than we had dared to hope or expect, for an hour later a bold little fishing-boat made her way through the breakers and across the bar in the teeth of wind and rain, bringing F—— on board. He has been out here these eight months, and looks a walking advertisement of the climate and temperature of our new home, so absolutely healthy is his appearance. He is very cheery about liking the place, and particularly insists on the blooming faces and sturdy limbs I shall see belonging to the young Natalians. Altogether, he appears thoroughly happy and contented, liking his work, his position, everything and everybody; which is all extremely satisfactory to hear. There is so much to tell and so much to behold that, as G—— declares, “it is afternoon directly,” and, the signal-flag being up, we trip our anchor once more and rush at the bar, two quartermasters and an officer at the wheel, the pilot and captain on the bridge, all hands on deck and on the alert, for always, under the most favorable circumstances, the next five minutes hold a peril in every second. “Stand by for spray!” sings out somebody, and we do stand by, luckily for ourselves, for “spray” means the top of two or three waves. The dear little Florence is as plucky as she is pretty, and appears to shut her eyes and lower her head and go at the bar. Scrape, scrape, scrape! “We’ve stuck! No, we haven’t! Helm hard down! Over!” and so we are. Among the breakers, it is true, buffeted hither and thither, knocked first to one side and then to the other; but we keep right on, and a few more turns of the screw take us into calm water under the green hills of the bluff. The breakers are behind us, we have twenty fathoms of water under our keel, the voyage is ended and over, the captain takes off his straw hat to mop his curly head, everybody’s face loses the expression of anxiety and rigidity it has worn these past ten minutes, and boats swarm like locusts round the ship. The baby is passed over the ship’s side for the last time, having been well kissed and petted and praised by every one as he was handed from one to the other, and we row swiftly away to the low sandy shore of the “Point.”
Only a few warehouses, or rather sheds of warehouses, are to be seen, and a rude sort of railway-station, which appears to afford indiscriminate shelter to boats as well as to engines. There are leisurely trains which saunter into the town of D’Urban, a mile and a half away, every half hour or so, but one of these “crawlers” had just started. The sun was very hot, and we voyagers were all sadly weary and headachy. But the best of the colonies is the prompt, self-sacrificing kindness of old-comers to new-comers. A gentleman had driven down in his own nice, comfortable pony-carriage, and without a moment’s hesitation he insisted on our all getting into it and making the best of our way to our hotel. It is too good an offer to be refused, for the sun is hot and the babies are tired to death; so we start, slowly enough, to plough our way through heavy sand up to the axles. If the tide had been out we could have driven quickly along the hard, dry sand; but we comfort ourselves by remembering that there had been water enough on the bar, and make the best of our way through clouds of impalpable dust to a better road, of which a couple of hundred yards land us at our hotel. It looks bare and unfurnished enough, in all conscience, but it is a new place, and must be furnished by degrees. At all events, it is tolerably clean and quiet, and we can wash our sunburned faces and hands, and, as nurse says, “turn ourselves round.”
Coolies swarm in every direction, picturesque fish-and fruit-sellers throng the verandah of the kitchen a little way off, and everything looks bright and green and fresh, having been well washed by the recent rains. There are still, however, several feet of dust in the streets, for they are made of dust; and my own private impression is, that all the water in the harbor would not suffice to lay