CHAPTER VIII.
WESTERN PROVINCE, THE PAARL, CERES, AND WORCESTER.
MY last little subsidiary tours in South Africa were made from Capetown to the country immediately across the Hottentot mountains after my return from Oudtshoorn and the Cango Caves. It had then become nearly midsummer and I made up my mind that it would be very hot. I prepared myself to keep watch and ward against musquitoes and comforted myself by thinking how cool it would be on my return journey, in the Bay of Biscay for instance on the first of January. I had heard, or perhaps had fancied, that the South African musquito would be very venomous and also ubiquitous. I may as well say here as elsewhere that I found him to be but a poor creature as compared with other musquitoes,—the musquito of the United States for instance. The South African December, which had now come, tallies with June on the other side of the line;—and in June the musquito of Washington is as a roaring lion.
On this expedition I stopped first at The Paarl, which is not across the Hottentot mountains but in the district south of the mountains to which the Dutch were at first inclined to confine themselves when they regarded the apparently impervious hills at their back as the natural and sufficient barrier of their South African dominions.
There is now a railway out of Capetown which winds its way through these mountains, or rather circumvents them by a devious course. It branches from the Wynberg line a mile or two out of Capetown, and then pursues its way towards the interior of Africa with one or two assistant branches on the southern side of the hills. The Wynberg line is altogether suburban and pleasant. The first assistant branch goes to Malmesbury and is agricultural. Malmesbury is a corn producing country in the flats north of Capetown, and will, I hope, before long justify the railway which has been made. At present I am told that the branch hardly pays for the fuel it consumes. It no doubt will justify the railway as wheat can be grown in the district without irrigation, and it will therefore become peopled with prosperous farmers. Then there is a loop line to Stellenbosch, an old and thriving little Dutch town which I did not visit. It is very old, having been founded in 1684. In 1685 the French Refugees came of whom a large proportion were settled at Stellenbosch. The main line which is intended to cross the entire Colony then makes its way on to The Paarl and Wellington,—from whence it takes its passage among the mountains. This is of course in the Western Province,—which I must persist in so designating though I know I shall encounter the wrath of many South African friends of the West. In the Eastern Province there are two lines which have been commenced from the coast with the same mission of making their way up into the whole continent of Africa, one of them starting from Port Elizabeth, intending to go on by Cradock, with a branch already nearly finished to Grahamstown, and the other from East London travelling north by King Williamstown and Queenstown. The rivalry between the three is great. It is so great even between the two latter as to have much impaired the homogeneity of the Eastern Province. At present the chief object of them all is to secure the trade to Kimberley and the Diamond Fields. That by which I was now travelling is already open to Worcester, across the mountain, for all traffic, and for goods traffic forty miles beyond Worcester, up the valley of the Hex River.
I stopped at The Paarl to see the vineyards and orange groves, and also the ostriches. These are the industries of The Paarl, which is in its way a remarkable and certainly a very interesting place. It was only during the last month of my sojourn in South Africa that I came to see how very much lovely scenery there is within reach of the residents of Capetown. As in all countries of large area, such as South Africa, the United States, the interior of Australia, and Russia generally,—of which I speak only from hearsay,—the great body of the landskip is uninteresting. The Transvaal, the Orange Free State, Griqua Land West, and the Karoos of the Cape Colony are not beautiful. This the traveller hears, and gradually sees for himself. But if he will take the trouble he may also see for himself spots that are as entrancing as any among the more compressed charms of European scenery. The prettinesses of The Paarl, however, come from the works of man almost as much as from those of Nature.
It is a very long town,—if town it is to be called,—the main street running a length of eight miles. Through all this distance one spot is hardly more central than another,—though there is a market-place which the people of The Paarl probably regard as the heart of the town. It is nowhere contiguous, the houses standing, almost all, separately. It is under the paarl, or pearl rock,[8]—which strangers are invited to ascend, but are warned at the same time that the ascent in summer may be very hot. I thanked my friend for the caution and did not ascend the mountain. I was of course told that without ascending I could not see The Paarl aright. I did not therefore see it aright, and satisfy my conscience by instructing others how they may do so. The town from one end to the other is full of oak trees, planted as I was told by the Dutch. They did not look to be over seventy years of age, but I was assured that the growth though certain had been slow. It is perhaps the enormous number of oak trees at The Paarl which more than anything else makes the place so graceful. But many of the houses too are graceful, being roomy old Dutch buildings of the better class, built with gables here and there, with stables and outhouses around them, and with many oaks at every corner, all in full foliage at the time of my visit. At The Paarl there are no bad houses. The coloured people who pick the grapes and tread the wine vats and hoe the vines live in pretty cottages up the hill side. There is nothing squalid or even untidy at The Paarl. For eight miles you are driven through a boskey broad well-shaded street with houses on each side at easy intervals, at every one of which you are tempted to think that you would like to live.
What do the people do? That is of course the first question. It was evident from the great number of places of worship that they all went to church very often;—and from the number of schools that they were highly educated. Taking the population generally, they are all Dutch, and are mostly farmers. But their farming is very unlike our farming,—and still more unlike that of the Dutch Boers up the country,—the main work of each individual farmer being confined to a very small space, though the tract of adjacent land belonging to him may extend to one or two or three thousand acres. The land on which they really live and whereby they make their money is used chiefly for the growth of grapes,—and after that for oranges and ostriches. The district is essentially wine making,—though at the time of my visit the low price of wine had forced men to look to other productions to supplement their vines.
I was taken to the house of one gentleman,—a Dutchman of course,—whose homestead in the middle of the town was bosomed amidst oaks. His vineyard was a miracle of neatness, and covered perhaps a dozen acres;—but his ostriches were his pride. Wine was then no more than £3 the “ligger,”—the ligger, or leaguer, being a pipe containing 126 gallons. This certainly is very cheap for wine,—so cheap that I was driven to think that if I lived at The Paarl I would prefer ostriches. It seemed to be thought, however, that a better time would come, and that the old price of £5 or £6 the ligger might again be reached. I am afraid there is some idea that this may be done by the maternal affection of the Mother Country,—which is to be shewn in a reduction of the duties, so that Cape wine may be consumed more freely in England. I endeavoured to explain that England cannot take wine from the Colonies at a lower rate of duty than from foreign countries. I did not say anything as to the existing prejudice against South African sherries. I was taken into this gentleman’s house and had fruit and wine of his own producing. The courtesy and picturesque old-fashioned neatness of it all was very pleasing. He himself was a quiet well-mannered man, shewing no excitement about anything, till it was suggested to him that a mode of incubating ostriches’ eggs different to his own might be preferable. Then he shewed us that on a subject which he had studied he could have a strong opinion of his own. This was in the town. The owner, no doubt, had a considerable tract of land lying far back from the street; but all his operations seemed to be carried on within a quarter of a mile of his house.
I was afterwards driven out to two country farms, but at both of them the same thing prevailed. Here there were large vineyards, and oranges in lieu of ostriches. At one beautiful spot, just under the mountains, there was a grove of 500 orange trees from which, the proprietor told me, he had during the last year made a net profit of £200 after paying all expenses. £200 will go a long way towards the expenditure of a Dutch farmer’s house. Of course there was no rent to be paid as the whole place belonged to him,—and had probably belonged to his ancestors for many generations. He was lord also of a large vineyard which he told me had cost a great deal of labour to bring to its present perfection of cleanliness and fertility.
Here too we were taken into the house and had wine given to us,—wine that was some years old. It certainly was very good, resembling a fine port that was just beginning to feel its age in the diminution of its body. We enquired whether wine such as that was for sale, but were told that no such wine was to be bought from any grower of grapes. The farmers would keep a little for their own use, and that they would never sell. Neither do the merchants keep it,—not finding it worth their while to be long out of their money,—nor the consumers, there being no commodity of cellarage in the usual houses of the Colony. It has not been the practice to keep wine,—and consequently the drinker seldom has given to him the power of judging whether the Cape wines may or may not become good. At dinner tables at the Cape hosts will apologise for putting on their tables the wines of the Colony, telling their guests that that other bottle contains real sherry or the like. I am inclined to think that the Cape wines have hardly yet had a fair chance, and have been partly led to this opinion by the excellence of that which I drank at Great Draghenstern,—which was the name either of the farm or of the district in question.
As we had wandered through the grove we saw oranges still hanging on the trees, high up out of reach. The season was over but still there were a few. It is a point of honour to keep them as long as possible,—so that towards December they become valuable treasures. I had one given to me when we started, as being the oldest of the party. It was scrupulously divided, and enjoyed no doubt very much more than had we been sent away with our cart full.
Here too the house was exceedingly picturesque, being surrounded by oak trees. There was no entrance hall, such as has been common with us for many years; but the rooms were lofty, spacious, and well built, and the neighbouring wilderness of a garden was wonderfully sweet with flowers. The owner was among the vines when we arrived, and as he walked up to us in the broad place in front of his house, he informed us that he was “jolly old —— ——” This he said in Dutch. His only word of English was spoken as we parted. “Good bye, old gentleman,” he holloaed out to me as I shook hands with him. Here as elsewhere there was no breadth of cultivation. The farm was large, but away from the house, and on it there were only a few cattle. There can be no cultivation without irrigation, and no extended irrigation without much labour. Like other farmers in South Africa jolly old —— —— complained that his industry was sadly crippled by want of labour. Nevertheless jolly old —— —— seemed to me to be as well off as a man need be in this world. Perhaps it was that I envied him his oaks, and his mountains, and his old wine,—and the remaining oranges.
We visited also a wool-washing establishment which had just been set up with new fashioned machinery, and then we had seen all that The Paarl had to shew us in the way of its productions. I should perhaps say that I visited the stores of a great wine company, at which, in spite of the low price of the article in which they deal, good dividends are being paid. At the wine stores I was chiefly interested in learning that a coloured cooper whom I saw at work on a cask,—a black man,—was earning £300 a year. I enquired whether he was putting by a fortune and was told that he and his family lived from hand to mouth and that he frequently overdrew his wages. “But what does he do with the money?” I asked. “Hires a carriage on Sundays or holy days and drives his wife about,” was the reply. The statement was made as though it were a sad thing that a coloured man should drive his wife about in a carriage while labour was so scarce and dear, but I was inclined to think that the cooper was doing well with his money. At any rate it pleased me to learn that a black man should like to drive his wife about;—and that he should have the means.
I was very much gratified with The Paarl, thinking it well for a Colony to have a town and a district so pretty and so prosperous. The population of the district is about 16,000, and of the town about 8000. It is, however, much more like a large village than a small town,—the feeling being produced by the fact that the houses all have gardens attached to them and are built each after its own fashion and not in rows.
From this place I and the friend who was travelling with me went on by cart to Ceres. It would have been practicable to go by railway at any rate to the Ceres Road Station, but we were anxious to travel over two of the finest mountain roads in South Africa, Bain’s Kloof, and Mitchell’s Pass, both of which lay on the road from The Paarl to Ceres. To do so we passed through Wellington and Wagon-maker’s valley, which lay immediately under the Hottentot mountains. I have described grapes and oranges as being the great agricultural industries of The Paarl district;—but I must not leave the locality without recording the fact that the making of Cape carts and wagons is a specialty of The Paarl and of the adjacent country. It is no more possible to ignore the fact in passing through its streets than it is to ignore the building of carriages in Long Acre. The country up above The Paarl has been called Wagon-maker’s valley very far back among the Dutch of the Cape, and the trade remains through the whole district. And at Wellington there is I believe the largest orange grove in the country. Time did not allow me to see it, but I could look down upon it from some of the turns in the wonderful road by which Mr. Bain made his way through the mountains.
Rising up from Wellington is the Bain’s Kloof road which traverses the first instalment of the barrier mountains. It is the peculiarity of these hills that they seem to lie in three folds,—so that when you make your way over the first you descend into the valley of the Breede River,—and from thence ascend again on high, to come down into the valley of Ceres, with the third and last range of the Hottentots still before you. Bain’s Kloof contains some very grand scenery, especially quite at the top;—but is not equal either to Montague Pass,—or to Mitchell’s Pass which we were just about to visit. Descending from this we crossed at the fords two branches of the Breede River,—at one of which the bridge was impassable, there never having been a bridge at the other,—and immediately ascended Mitchell’s Pass. The whole of the country north and east of Capetown as far as the mountains extend is made remarkable by these passes which have been carried through the hills with great engineering skill and at an enormous cost to the Colony. It has chiefly been done by convict labour,—the labour of its own convicts—for the Colony, as my reader will I hope remember, has never received a convict from the Mother Country. But convict labour is probably dearer than any other. The men certainly are better fed than they would be if they were free. Houses have to be built for them which are afterwards deserted. And when the man has been housed and fed he will not work as a freeman must do if he means to keep his place. But the roads have been made, and Mitchell’s Pass into the valley of Ceres is a triumph of engineering skill.
To see it aright the visitor should travel by it from Ceres towards the Railway. We passed it in both directions and I was never more struck by the different aspect which the same scenery may bear if your face be turned one way or the other. The beauty here consists of the colour of the rocks rather than of the shape of the hills. There is a world of grey stone around you as you ascend from the valley which becomes almost awful as you look at it high above your head and then low beneath your feet. As you begin the ascent from Ceres, near the road but just out of sight of it, there is a small cataract where the Breede runs deep through a narrow channel,—so narrow that a girl can jump from rock to rock. Some years since a girl was about to jump it when her lover, giving her a hand to help her, pulled her in. She never lived to become his bride but was drowned there in the deep black waters of the narrow Breede.
Ceres is one of those village-towns by which this part of the Colony is populated, and lies in a Rasselas happy valley,—a basin so surrounded by hills as to shew no easy way out. The real Rasselas valley, however, was, we suppose, very narrow, whereas this valley is ten miles long by six broad, and has a mail cart road running through it. It lies on the direct route from Capetown to Fraserburg, and thence, if you choose to go that way, to the Diamond Fields and the Orange Free State. Nevertheless the place looks as though it were, or at least should be, delightfully excluded from all the world beyond. Here again the houses stand separate among trees, and the river flowing through it makes everything green. I was told that Ceres had been lately smitten with too great a love of speculation, had traded beyond her means, and lost much of her capital. It was probably the reaction from this condition of things which produced the peculiarly sleepy appearance which I observed around me. A billiard room had been lately built which seemed just then to monopolize the energy of the place. The hotel was clean and pleasant,—and would have been perfect but for a crowd of joyous travellers who were going down to see somebody married two or three hundred miles off. On our arrival we were somewhat angry with the very civil and considerate landlady who refused to give us all the accommodation we wanted because she expected twelve other travellers. I did not believe in the twelve travellers, and muttered something as to trying the other house even though she devoted to the use of me and my friend a bedroom which she declared was as a rule kept for ladies. We of course demanded two rooms,—but as to that she was stern. When a party of eleven did in truth come I not only forgave her, but felt remorse at having occupied the best chamber. She was a delightful old lady, a German, troubled much in her mind at the time by the fact that a countryman of hers had come to her house with six or seven dozen canaries and had set up a shop for them in her front sitting room. She did not know how to get rid of them; and, as all the canaries sang continuously the whole day through, their presence did impair the comfort of the establishment. Nevertheless I can safely recommend the hotel at Ceres as the canaries will no doubt have been all sold before any reader can act on this recommendation.
The name of Ceres has been given to the valley in a spirit of prophecy which has yet to be fulfilled. The soil no doubt is fertile, but the cereal produce is not as yet large. Here, as in so large a proportion of South Africa, irrigation is needed before wheat can be sown with any certainty of repaying the sower. But the valley is a smiling spot, green and sweet among the mountains, and gives assurance by its aspect of future success and comfort. It has a reputation for salubrity, and should be visited by those who wish to see the pleasant places of the Cape Colony.
From Ceres we went back over Mitchell’s Pass to the railway, and so to Worcester. Worcester is a town containing 4,000 inhabitants, and is the capital of a “Division.” The whole Colony is portioned out into Divisions, in each of which there is located a Resident Magistrate or Commissioner, who lives at the chief town. The Division and the Capital have, I believe always, the same name. Worcester is conspicuous among other things for its huge Drotsdy, or Chief Magistrate’s mansion. In the old Dutch days the Drotsdy was inhabited by the Landroost, whose place is now filled by the English Commissioner. I grieve to say that with the spirit of economy which pervades self-governing Colonies in these modern days, the spacious Drotsdy houses have usually been sold, and the Commissioners have been made to find houses for themselves,—just as a police magistrate does in London. When I was at George I could not but pity the Commissioner who was forced day after day to look at the beautiful Drotsdy house, embowered by oak trees, which had been purchased by some rich Dutch farmer. But at Worcester the Drotsdy, which was certainly larger than any other Drotsdy and apparently more modern, was still left as a residence for the Commissioner. When I asked the reason I was told that no one would buy it.
It is an enormous mansion, with an enormous garden. And it is approached in front through a portico of most pretentious and unbecoming columns. Nothing could be imagined less like Dutch grandeur or Dutch comfort. The house, which might almost contain a regiment, certainly contained a mystery which warranted enquiry. Then I was told the story. One of the former great Governors, Lord Charles Somerset,—the greatest Governor the Colony ever had as far as a bold idea of autocratic authority can make a Governor great,—had wanted a shooting lodge under the mountains, and had consequently caused the Drotsdy house at Worcester to be built,—of course at the expense of the Crown. I can never reflect that such glorious days have gone for ever without a soft regret. There was something magnificent in those old, brave, unhidden official peculations by the side of which the strict and straight-laced honesty of our present Governors looks ugly and almost mean.
Worcester is a broad town with well arranged streets, not fully filled up but still clean,—without that look of unkempt inchoation which is so customary in Australian towns and in many of the young municipalities of the United States. The churches among its buildings are conspicuous,—those attracting the most notice being the Dutch Reformed Church, that of the Church of England,—and a church for the use of the natives in which the services are also in accordance with the Dutch Reformed religion. The latter is by far the most remarkable, and belongs to an Institution which, beyond even the large Drotsdy house, makes Worcester peculiarly worth visiting.
Of the Institution the Revd. Mr. Esselin is the Head, but was not the founder. There were I think two gentlemen in charge of a native mission before he came to Worcester;—but the church and schools have obtained their great success under his care. He is a German clergyman who came to the place in 1848, and has had charge of the Institution since that date. That he has done more than any one else as a teacher and preacher among the coloured races, at any rate in the Western Province, I think will hardly be denied. But for Lovedale in the East of which I shall speak further on, I should have claimed this pre-eminence for him as to all South Africa. This I believe is owing to the fact that under his guidance the coloured people have been treated as might any poor community in England or elsewhere in Europe which required instruction either secular or religious. There has been a distinct absence of the general missionary idea that coloured people want special protection, that they should be kept separate, and that they should have provided for them locations,—with houses and grounds. The ordinary missionary treatment has I think tended to create a severance between the natives and the white people who are certainly destined to be their masters and employers,—at any rate for many years to come; whereas M. Esselin has from the first striven to send them out into the world to earn their bread, giving them such education as they have been able to receive up to the age of fifteen. Beyond that they have not, except on rare occasions, been kept in his schools.
The material part of the Institution consists of a church, and four large school-rooms, and of the pastor’s residence. There are also other school-rooms attached of older date. The church has been built altogether by contributions from the coloured attendants, and is a spacious handsome building capable of containing 900 persons. M. Esselin told me that his ordinary congregation amounted to 500. I went to the morning service on Sunday, and found the building apparently full. I think there was no white person there besides the clergyman, my companion, and myself. As the service was performed in Dutch I did not stay long, contenting myself with the commencing hymn—which was well sung, and very long, more Africano. I had at this time been in various Kafir places of worship and had become used to the Kafir physiognomies. I had also learned to know the faces of the Hottentots, of old Cape negroes, of the coloured people from St. Helena, and of the Malays. The latter are not often Christians; but the races have become so mixed that there is no rule which can be accepted in that respect. Here there were no Kafirs, the Kafirs not having as yet made their way in quest of wages as far west as Worcester.[9] The people were generally Hottentot, half negro,—with a considerable dash of white blood through them. But in the church I could see no Europeans. It is a coloured congregation, and supported altogether by contributions from the coloured people.
The school interested me, however, more than the church. I do not know that I ever saw school-rooms better built, better kept, or more cleanly. As I looked at them one after another I remembered what had been the big room at Harrow in my time, and the single school-room which I had known at Winchester,—for there was only one; and the school-room, which I had visited at Eton and Westminster; and I was obliged to own that the coloured children of Worcester are very much better housed now during their lessons than were the aristocracy of England forty or fifty years ago. There has been an improvement since, but still something might be learned by a visit to Worcester. At Worcester the students pay a penny a week. At the other schools I have named the charges are something higher.
There are 500 children at these schools among whom I saw perhaps half a dozen of white blood. M. Esselin said that he took any who came who would comply with the general rules of the school. The education of coloured children is, however, the intention of the place. In addition to the pence, which do not amount to £100 a year, the Government grant,—given to this school, as to any other single school kept in accordance with Government requirements,—amounts to £70 per annum. The remaining cost, which must be very heavy, is made up out of the funds raised by the congregation of the church. Under M. Esselin there is but one European master. The other teachers are all females and all coloured. There were I think seven of them. The children, as I have said before, are kept only till they are fifteen and are then sent out to the work of the world without any pretence of classical scholarship or ecstatic Christianity.
Having heard of a marvellous hot spring or Geyser in the neighbourhood of Worcester I had myself driven out to visit it. It is about 8 miles from the town at, or rather beyond, a marshy little lake called Brand Vley, the name of which the hot spring bears. It is adjacent to a Dutch farmhouse to which it belongs, and is to some small extent used for sanitary purposes. If, as I was told, the waters are peculiarly serviceable to rheumatic affections, it is a pity that such sanitary purposes should not be extended, and be made more acceptable to the rheumatic world at large.
There is but one spring of boiling water. In New Zealand they are very numerous, bubbling up frequently in close proximity to each other, sometimes so small and unpronounced as to make it dangerous to walk among them lest the walker’s feet should penetrate through the grass into the boiling water. Here the one fountain is very like to some of the larger New Zealand springs. The water as it wells up is much hotter than boiling, and fills a round pool which may perhaps have a circumference of thirty feet. It is of a perfectly bright green colour, except where the growth of a foul-looking weed defaces the surface. From this well the still boiling water makes its way under ground, a distance of a few yards into a much larger pool where it still boils and bubbles, and still maintains that bright green colour which seems to be the property of water which springs hot from the bowels of the earth.
At a little distance a house has been built intended to contain baths, and conduits have been made to bring a portion of the water under cover for the accommodation of bathers,—while a portion is carried off for irrigation. We made our way into the house where we found a large Dutch party, whether of visitors or residents at the house we did not know; and one of them, a pretty Dutch girl prettily dressed, who could speak English was kind enough to show us the place. We accompanied her, though the stench was so foul that it was almost impossible to remain beneath the roof.[10] It was difficult to conceive how these people could endure it and live. The girl opened the bath rooms, in which the so-called baths, constructed on the floor, were dilapidated and ruined. “They are all just now near broke to pieces,” she said. I asked her what the patients paid. “Just sixpence a day,” she replied, “because one cannot in these hard days charge the people too much.” I presume that the patients were expected to bring their diet with them,—and probably their beds.
And yet an invaluable establishment might be built at this spot, and be built in the midst of most alluring scenery! The whole district of which I am now speaking is among the mountains, and the Worcester railway station is not more than eight or ten miles distant. The Auckland Geysers in New Zealand cannot be reached except by long journeys on horseback, and accommodation for invalids could be procured only at great cost. But here an establishment of hot baths might be made very easily. It seemed at any rate to be a pity that such a provision of hot water should b