CHAPTER XV.
CONDITION OF THE COLONY.—NO. 1.
I REACHED Durban, the only seaport in the Colony of Natal, about the end of August,—that is, at the beginning of spring in that part of the world. It was just too warm to walk about pleasantly in the middle of the day and cool enough at night for a blanket. Durban has a reputation for heat, and I had heard so much of musquitoes on the coast that I feared them even at this time of the year. I did kill one in my bedroom at the club, but no more came to me. In winter, or at the season at which I visited the place, Durban is a pleasant town, clean, attractive and with beautiful scenery near it;—but about midsummer, and indeed for the three months of December, January and February, it can be very hot, and, to the ordinary Englishman, unaccustomed to the tropics, very unpleasant on that account.
I was taken over the bar on entering the harbour very graciously in the mail tug which as a rule passengers are not allowed to enter, and was safely landed at the quay about two miles from the town. I mention my safety as a peculiar incident because the bar at Durban has a very bad character indeed. South African harbours are not good and among those which are bad Durban is one of the worst. They are crossed by shifting bars of sand which prevent the entrance of vessels. At a public dinner in the Colony I heard The Bar given as a toast. The Attorney General arose to return thanks, but another gentleman was on his legs in a moment protesting against drinking the health of the one great obstacle to commercial and social success by which the Colony was oppressed. The Attorney General was a popular man, and the lawyers were popular; but in a moment they were obliterated by the general indignation of the guests at the evil done to their beautiful land by this ill-natured freak of Nature. A vast sum of money has been spent at Durban in making a breakwater, all of which has,—so say the people of Durban and Maritzburg,—been thrown away. Now Sir John Coode has been out to visit the bar, and all the Colony was waiting for his report when I was there. Sir John is the great emendator of South African harbours,—full trust being put in his capability to stop the encroachments of sand, and to scour away such deposits when in spite of his precautions they have asserted themselves. At the period of my visit nothing was being done, but Natal was waiting, graciously if not patiently, for Sir John’s report. Very much depends on it. Up in the very interior of Africa, in the Orange Free State and at the Diamond Fields it is constantly asserted that goods can only be had through the Cape Colony because of the bar across the mouth of the river at Durban;—and in the Transvaal the bar is given as one of the chief reasons for making a railway down to Delagoa Bay instead of connecting the now two British Colonies together. I heard constantly that so many, or such a number of vessels, were lying out in the roads and that goods could not be landed because of the bar! The legal profession is peculiarly well represented in the Colony; but I am inclined to agree with the gentleman who thought that “The Bar” in Natal was the bar across the mouth of the river.
I was carried over it in safety and was driven up to the club. There is a railway from the port to the town, but its hours of running did not exactly suit the mails, to which I was permitted to attach myself. This railway is the beginning of a system which will soon be extended to Pieter Maritzburg, the capital, which is already opened some few miles northward into the sugar district, and which is being made along the coast through the sugar growing country of Victoria to its chief town, Verulam. There is extant an ambitious scheme for carrying on the line from Pieter Maritzburg to Ladismith, a town on the direct route to the Transvaal, and from thence across the mountains to Harrismith in the Orange Free State, with an extension from Ladismith to the coal district of Newcastle in the extreme north of the Colony. But the money for these larger purposes has not yet been raised, and I may perhaps be justified in saying that I doubt their speedy accomplishment. The lines to the capital and to Verulam will no doubt be open in a year or two. I should perhaps explain that Ladismith and Harrismith are peculiar names given to towns in honour of Sir Harry Smith, who was at one time a popular Governor in the Cape Colony. There is a project also for extending the Verulam line to the extreme northern boundary of the Colony so as to serve the whole sugar producing district. This probably will be effected at no very distant time as sugar will become the staple produce of the coast, if not of the entire Colony. There is a belt of land lying between the hills and the sea which is peculiarly fertile and admirably adapted for the growth of sugar, on which very large sums of money have been already expended. It is often sad to look back upon the beginnings of commercial enterprises which ultimately lead to the fortunes not perhaps of individuals but of countries. Along this rich strip of coast-land large sums of money have been wasted, no doubt to the ruin of persons of whom, as they are ruined, the world will hear nothing. But their enterprise has led to the success of others of whom the world will hear. Coffee was grown here, and capital was expended on growing it upon a large scale. But Natal as a coffee-growing country has failed. As far as I could learn the seasons have not been sufficiently sure and settled for the growth of coffee. And now, already, in the new Colony, on which white men had hardly trodden half a century ago, there are wastes of deserted coffee bushes,—as there came to be in Jamaica after the emancipation of the slaves,—telling piteous tales of lost money and of broken hopes. The idea of growing coffee in Natal seems now to be almost abandoned.
But new ground is being devoted to the sugar cane every day, and new machinery is being continually brought into the Colony. The cultivation was first introduced into Natal by Mr. Morewood in 1849, and has progressed since with various vicissitudes. The sugar has progressed; but, as is the nature of such enterprises, the vicissitudes have been the lot of the sugar growers. There has been much success, and there has also been much failure. Men have gone beyond their capital, and the banks with their high rates of interest have too often swallowed up the profits. But the result to the Colony has been success. The plantations are there, increasing every day, and are occupied if not by owners then by managers. Labourers are employed, and public Revenue is raised. A commerce with life in it has been established so that no one travelling through the sugar districts can doubt but that money is being made, into whatever pocket the money may go.
Various accounts of the produce were given to me. I was assured by one or two sugar growers that four ton to the acre was not uncommon,—whereas I knew by old experience in other sugar countries that four ton to the acre per annum would be a very heavy crop indeed. But sugar, unlike almost all other produce, can not be measured by the year’s work. The canes are not cut yearly, at a special period, as wheat is reaped or apples are picked. The first crop in Natal is generally the growth of nearly or perhaps quite two years, and the second crop, being the crop from the first ratoons, is the produce of 15 months. The average yield per annum is, I believe, about 1½ tons per acre of canes,—which is still high.
It used to be the practice for a grower of canes to have as a matter of course a plant for making sugar,—and probably rum. It seemed to be the necessity of the business of cane-growing that the planter should also be a manufacturer,—as though a grower of hemp was bound to make ropes or a grower of wheat to make bread. Thus it came to pass that it required a man with considerable capital to grow canes, and the small farmer was shut out from the occupation. In Cuba and Demerara and Barbados the cane grower is, I think, still almost always a manufacturer. In Queensland I found farmers growing canes which they sold to manufacturers who made the sugar. This plan is now being largely adopted in Natal and central mills are being established by companies who can of course command better machinery than individuals with small capitals. But even in this arrangement there is much difficulty,—the mill owners finding it sometimes impossible to get cane as they want it, and the cane growers being equally hard set to obtain the miller’s services just as their canes are fit for crushing. It becomes necessary that special agreements shall be made beforehand as to periods and quantities, which special agreements it is not always easy to keep. The payment for the service done is generally made in kind, the miller retaining a portion of the sugar produced, half or two thirds, as he or the grower may have performed the very onerous work of carrying the canes from the ground to the mill. The latter operation is another great difficulty in the way of central mills. When the sugar grower had his own machinery in the centre of his own cane fields he was able to take care that a minimum amount of carriage should be required;—but with large central manufactories the growing cane is necessarily thrown back to a distance from the mill and a heavy cost for carriage is added. The amount of cane to make a ton of sugar is so bulky that a distance is easily reached beyond which the plants cannot be carried without a cost which would make any profit impossible.
In spite of all these difficulties,—and they are very great,—the stranger cannot pass through the sugar districts of Natal without becoming conscious of Colonial success. I have heard it argued that sugar was doing no good to Natal because the profits reached England in the shape of dividends on bank shares which were owned and spent in the mother country. I can never admit the correctness of this argument, for it is based on the assumption that in large commercial enterprises the gain, or loss, realized by the capitalist is the one chief point of interest;—that if he makes money all is well, and that if he loses it all is ill. It may be so to him. But the real effect of his operations is to be found in the wages and salaries he pays and the amount of expenditure which his works occasion. I have heard of a firm which carried on a large business without any thought of profit, merely for political purposes. The motive I think was bad;—but not the less beneficial to the population was the money spent in wages. Even though all the profits from sugar grown in Natal were spent in England,—which is by no means the case,—the English shareholders cannot get at their dividends without paying workmen of all classes to earn them,—from the black man who hoes the canes up to the Superintendent who rides about on his horse and acts the part of master.
There is a side to the sugar question in Natal which to me is less satisfactory than the arrangements made in regard to Capital. As I have repeated, and I fear shall repeat too often,—there are 320,000 Natives in Natal; Kafirs and Zulus, strong men as one would wish to see; and yet the work of the estates is done by Coolies from India. I ought not to have been astonished by this for I had known twenty years ago that sugar was grown or at any rate manufactured by Coolie labour in Demerara and Trinidad, and had then been surprised at the apathy of the people of Jamaica in that they had not introduced Coolies into that island. There were stalwart negroes without stint in these sugar colonies,—who had been themselves slaves, or were the children of slaves; but these negroes would only work so fitfully that the planters had been forced to introduce regular labour from a distance. The same thing, and nothing more, had taken place in Natal. But yet I was astonished. It seemed to be so sad that with all their idle strength standing close by, requiring labour for its own salvation,—with so large a population which labour only can civilize, we who have taken upon ourselves to be their masters should send all the way to India for men to do that which it ought to be their privilege to perform. But so it is. There are now over 10,000 Coolies domiciled in Natal, all of whom have been brought there with the primary object of making sugar.
The Coolies are brought into the Colony by the Government under an enactment of the Legislature. They agree to serve for a period of 10 years, after which they are, if they please, taken back. The total cost to the Government is in excess of £20 per man. Among the items of expenditure in 1875 £20,000 was voted for the immigration of Coolies, of which a portion was reimbursed during that year, and further portions from year to year. The Coolie on his arrival is allotted to a planter,—or to any other fitting applicant,—and the employer for 5 years pays £4 per annum to the Government for the man’s services. He also pays the man 12s. a month, and clothes him. He feeds the Coolie also, at an additional average cost of 12s. a month, and with some other small expenses for medical attendance and lodging pays about £20 per annum for the man’s services. As I shall state more at length in the next volume, there are twelve thousand Kafirs at the Diamond Fields earning 10s. a week and their diet;—and as I have already stated there are in British Kafraria many Kafirs earning very much higher wages than that! But in Natal a Zulu, who generally in respect to strength and intelligence is superior to the ordinary Kafir, is found not to be worth £20 a year.
The Coolie after his five years of compulsory service may seek a master where he pleases,—or may live without a master if he has the means. His term of enforced apprenticeship is over and he is supposed to have earned back on behalf of the Colony the money which the Colony spent on bringing him thither. Of course he is worth increased wages, having learned his business, and if he pleases to remain at the work he makes his own bargain. Not unfrequently he sets up for himself as a small farmer or market-gardener, and will pay as much as 30s. an acre rent for land on which he will live comfortably. I passed through a village of Coolies where the men had their wives and children and were living each under his own fig tree. Not unfrequently they hire Kafirs to do for them the heavy work, assuming quite as much mastery over the Kafir as the white man does. Many of them will go into service,—and are greatly prized as domestic servants. They are indeed a most popular portion of the community, and much respected,—whereas the white man does I fear in his heart generally despise and dislike the Native.
I have said that the ordinary Kafir is found by the sugar grower not to be worth £20 a year. The sugar grower will put the matter in a different way and will declare that the Kafir will not work for £20 a year,—will not work as a man should work for any consideration that can be offered to him. I have no doubt that sugar can for the present be best made by Coolie labour,—and that of course is all in all with the manufacturer of sugar. It cannot be otherwise. But it is impossible not to see that under it all there is an aversion to the Kafir,—or Zulu as I had perhaps better call him now,—because he cannot be controlled, because his labour cannot be made compulsory. The Zulu is not an idle man,—not so idle I think as were the negroes in the West Indies who after the emancipation were able to squat on the deserted grounds and live on yams. But he loves to be independent. I heard of one man who on being offered work at certain wages, answered the European by offering him work at higher wages. This he would do,—if the story be true,—with perfect good humour and a thorough appreciation of the joke. But the European in Natal, and, indeed, the European throughout South Africa, cannot rid himself of the feeling that the man having thews and sinews, and being a Savage in want of training, should be made to work,—say nine hours a day for six days a week,—should be made to do as much as a poor Englishman who can barely feed himself and his wife and children. But the Zulu is a gentleman and will only work as it suits him.
This angers the European. The Coolie has been brought into the land under a contract and must work. The Coolie is himself conscious of this and does not strive to rebel. He is as closely bound as is the English labourer himself who would have to encounter at once all the awful horrors of the Board of Guardians, if it were to enter into his poor head to say that he intended to be idle for a week. The Zulu has his hut and his stack of Kafir corn, and can kill an animal out in the veld, and does not care a straw for any Board of Guardians. He is under no contract by which he can be brought before a magistrate. Therefore the sugar planter hates him and loves the Coolie.
I was once interrogating a young and intelligent superintendent of machinery in the Colony as to the labour he employed and asked him at last whether he had any Kafirs about the place. He almost flew at me in his wrath,—not against me but against the Kafirs. He would not, he said, admit one under the same roof with him. All work was impossible if a Kafir were allowed even to come near it. They were in his opinion a set of human wretches whom it was a clear mistake to have upon the earth. His work was all done by Coolies, and if he could not get Coolies the work would not be worth doing at all by him. His was not a sugar mill, but he was in the sugar country, and he was simply expressing unguardedly,—with too little reserve,—the feelings of those around him.
I have no doubt that before long the Zulus will make sugar, and will make it on terms cheaper to the Colony at large than those paid for the Coolies. But the Indian Coolie has been for a long time in the world’s workshop, whereas the Zulu has been introduced to it only quite of late.
The drive from the railway station at Umgeni, about four miles from Durban, through the sugar district to Verulam is very pretty. Some of the rapid pitches into little valleys, and steep rapid rises put me in mind of Devonshire. And, as in Devonshire, the hills fall here and there in a small chaos of broken twisted ridges which is to me always agreeable and picturesque. After a few turns the traveller, ignorant of the locality, hardly knows which way he is going, and when he is shewn some object which he is to approach cannot tell how he will get there. And then the growth of the sugar cane is always in some degree green, even in the driest weather. I had hardly seen anything that was not brown in the Cape Colony, so long and severe had been the drought. In Natal there was still no rain, but there was a green growth around which was grateful to the eyes. Altogether I was much pleased with what I saw of the sugar district of Natal, although I should have been better satisfied could I have seen Natives at work instead of imported Coolies.
Immediately west of the town as you make the first ascent up from the sea level towards the interior there is the hill called the Berea on and about which the more wealthy inhabitants of Durban have built their villas. Some few of them are certainly among the best houses in South Africa, and command views down upon the town and sea which would be very precious to many an opulent suburb in England. Durban is proud of its Berea and the visitor is taken to see it as the first among the sights of the place. And as he goes he is called upon to notice the road on which he is riding. It is no doubt a very good road,—as good as an ordinary road leading out of an ordinary town in England, and therefore does not at first attract the attention of the ordinary English traveller. But roads in young countries are a difficulty and sometimes a subject of soreness;—and the roads close to the towns and even in the towns are often so imperfect that it is felt to be almost rude to allude to them specially. In a new town very much has to be done before the roads can be macadamized. I was driven along one road into Durban in company with the Mayor which was certainly not all that a road ought to be. But this road which we were on now was, when I came to observe it, a very good road indeed. “And so it ought,” said my companion. “It cost the Colony——,” I forget what he said it cost. £30,000, I think, for three or four miles. There had been some blundering, probably some peculation, and thus the money of the young community had been squandered. Then, at the other side of Durban, £100,000 had been thrown into the sea in a vain attempt to keep out the sand. These are the heartrending struggles which new countries have to make. It is not only that they must spend their hard-earned money, but that they are so often compelled to throw it away because in their infancy they have not as yet learned how to spend it profitably.
Natal has had many hardships to endure and Durban perhaps more than its share. But there it is now, a prosperous and pleasant seaport town with a beautiful country round it and thriving merchants in its streets. It has a park in the middle of it,—not very well kept. I may suggest that it was not improved in general appearance when I saw it by having a couple of old horses tethered on its bare grass. Perhaps the grass is not bare now and perhaps the horses have been taken away. The combination when I was there suggested poverty on the part of the municipality and starvation on the part of the horses. There is also a botanical garden a little way up the hill very rich in plants but not altogether well kept. The wonder is how so much is done in these places, rather than why so little;—that efforts so great should be made by young and therefore poor municipalities to do something for the recreation and for the relief of the inhabitants! I think that there is not a town in South Africa,—so to be called,—which has not its hospital and its public garden. The struggles for these institutions have to come from men who are making a dash for fortune, generally under hard circumstances in which every energy is required; and the money has to be collected from pockets which at first are never very full. But a colonial town is ashamed of itself if it has not its garden, its hospital, its public library, and its two or three churches, even in its early days.
I can say nothing of the hotels at Durban because I was allowed to live at the club,—which is so peculiarly a colonial institution. Somebody puts your name down beforehand and then you drive up to the door and ask for your bedroom. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are provided at stated hours. At Durban two lunches were provided in separate rooms, a hot lunch and a cold lunch,—an arrangement which I did not see elsewhere. I imagine that the hot lunch is intended as a dinner to those who like to dine early. But, if I am not mistaken, I have seen the same faces coming out of the hot lunch and going in to the hot dinner. I should imagine that these clubs cannot be regarded with much favour by the Innkeepers as they take away a large proportion of the male travellers.
The population of Durban is a little in excess of that of the capital of the Colony, the one town running the other very close. They each have something above 4,000 white inhabitants, and something above half that number of coloured people. In regard to the latter there must I think be much uncertainty as they fluctuate greatly and live, many of them, nobody quite knows where. They are in fact beyond the power of accurate counting, and can only be computed. In Durban, as in Pieter Maritzburg, every thing is done by the Zulus,—or by other coloured people;—and when anything has to be done there is always a Zulu boy to do it. Nothing of manual work seems ever to be done by an European. The stranger would thus be led to believe that the coloured population is greater than the white. But Durban is a sea port town requiring many clerks and having no manufactures. Clerks are generally white, as are also the attendants in the shops. It is not till the traveller gets further up the country that he finds a Hottentot selling him a pockethandkerchief. I am bound to say that on leaving Durban I felt that I had visited a place at which the settlers had done the very utmost for themselves and had fought bravely and successfully with the difficulties which always beset new comers into strange lands. I wish the town and the sugar growers of its neighbourhood every success,—merely suggesting to them that in a few years’ time a Zulu may become quite as handy at making sugar as a Coolie.
Pieter Maritzburg is about 55 miles from Durban, and there are two public conveyances running daily. The mail cart starts in the morning, and what is called a Cobb’s coach follows at noon. I chose the latter as it travels somewhat faster than the other and reaches its destination in time for dinner. The troubles of the long road before me,—from Durban through Natal and the Transvaal to Pretoria, the Diamond Fields, Bloemfontein—the capital of the Orange Free State,—and thence back through the Cape Colony to Capetown were already beginning to lie heavy on my mind. But I had no cause for immediate action at Durban. Whatever I might do, whatever resolution I might finally take, must be done and taken at Pieter Maritzburg. I could therefore make this little journey without doubt, though my mind misgave me as to the other wanderings before me.
I found the Cobb’s coach,—which however was not a Cobb’s coach at all,—to be a very well horsed and well arranged Institution. We travelled when we were going at about ten miles an hour and were very well driven indeed by one of those coloured half-bred Cape boys, as they are called, whose parents came into the Cape Colony from St. Helena. Almost all the driving of coaches and mail carts of South Africa has fallen into their hands, and very good coachmen they are. I sometimes flatter myself that I know something about the driving of ill-sorted teams, having had much to do for many years with the transmission of mails at home, and I do not know that I ever saw a more skilful man with awkward horses than was this Cape driver. As well as I could learn he was called Apollo. I hope that if he has a son he will not neglect to instruct him in his father’s art as did the other charioteer of that name. At home, in the old coaching days, we entertained a most exaggerated idea of the skill of the red-faced, heavy, old fashioned jarveys who used to succeed in hammering their horses along a road as smooth as a bowling green, and who would generally be altogether at their wits’ end if there came any sudden lack of those appurtenances to which they were accustomed. It was not till I had visited the United States, and Australia, and now South Africa that I saw what really might be done in the way of driving four, six, or even eight horses. The animals confided to Apollo’s care were generally good; but, as is always the case in such establishments, one or two of them were new to the work,—and one or two were old stagers who had a will of their own. And the road was by no means a bowling-green all the way. I was much taken with the manner in which Apollo got the better of four jibbing brutes, who, taking the evil fashion one from another, refused for twenty minutes to make any progress with the vehicle to which they had just been harnessed. He suddenly twisted them round and they started full gallop as though they were going back to Durban. The animals knew that they were wanted to go the other way and were willing to do anything in opposition to the supposed will of their master. They were flying to Durban. But when he had got them warm to the harness he succeeded in turning them on the veld, keeping them still at a gallop, till they had passed the stage at which they had been harnessed to the coach.
As much of the driving in such a country has to be done with the brake as with the reins and whip, and this man, while his hands and arms were hard at work, had to manage the brake with his feet. Our old English coachman could not have moved himself quick enough for the making of such exertions. And Apollo sat with a passenger on each side, terribly cramped for room. He was hemmed in with mail bags. My luggage so obliterated the foot-board that he had to sit with one leg cocked up in the air and the other loose upon the brake. Every now and again new indignities were heaped upon him in the shape of parcels and coats which he stuffed under him as best he could. And yet he managed to keep the mastery of his reins and whip. It was very hot and he drank lemonade all the way. What English coachman of the old days could have rivalled him there? At the end of the journey he asked for nothing, but took the half-crown offered to him with easy nonchalance. He was certainly much more like a gentleman than the old English coachman,—whose greedy eye who does not remember that can remember at all those old days?
We were apparently quite full but heard at starting that there was still a place vacant which had been booked by a gentleman who was to get up along the road. The back carriage, which was of the waggonette fashion, uncovered, with seats at each side, seemed to be so full that the gentleman would find a difficulty in placing himself, but as I was on the box the idea did not disconcert me. At last, about half way, at one of the stages, the gentleman appeared. There was a lady inside with her husband, with five or six others, who at once began to squeeze themselves. But when the gentleman came it was not a gentleman only, but a gentleman with the biggest fish in his arms that I ever saw, short of a Dolphin. I was told afterwards that it weighed 45 pounds. The fish was luggage, he said, and must be carried. He had booked his place. That we knew to be true. When asked he declared he had booked a place for the fish also. That we believed to be untrue. He came round to the front and essayed to put it on the foot-board. When I assured him that any such attempt must be vain and that the fish would be at once extruded if placed there, he threatened to pull me off the box. He was very angry, and frantic in his efforts. The fish, he said, was worth £5, and must go to Maritzburg that day. Here Apollo shewed, I think, a little inferiority to an English coachman. The English coachman would have grown very red in the face, would have cursed horribly, and would have persistently refused all contact with the fish. Apollo jumped on his box, seized the reins, flogged the horses, and endeavoured to run away both from the fish and the gentleman.
But the man, with more than colonial alacrity, and with a courage worthy of a better cause, made a successful rush, and catching the back of the vehicle with one hand got on to the step behind, while he held on to the fish with his other hand and his teeth. There were many exclamations from the folks behind. The savour of the fish was unpleasant in their nostrils. It must have been very unpleasant as it reached us uncomfortably up on the box. Gradually the man got in,—and the fish followed him! Labor omnia vincit improbus. By his pertinacity the company seemed to become reconciled to the abomination. On looking round when we were yet many miles from Pieter Maritzburg I saw the gentleman sitting with his feet dangling back over the end of the car; his neighbour and vis-a-vis, who at first had been very loud against the fish, was sitting in the same wretched position; while the fish itself was placed upright in the place of honour against the door, where the legs of the two passenge