Our inn is a very nice handsome old Dutch house;but we have got back to 'civilization',and the horrid attempts at 'style'which belong to Capetown.The landlord and lady are too genteel to appear at all,and the Hottentots,who are disguised,according to their sexes,in pantry jacket and flounced petticoat,don't understand a word of English or of real Dutch.At Gnadenthal they understood Dutch,and spoke it tolerably;but here,as in most places,it is three-parts Hottentot;and then they affect to understand English,and bring everything wrong,and are sulky:but the rooms are very comfortable.The change of climate is complete -the summer was over at Caledon,and here we are into it again -the most delicious air one can conceive;it must have been a perfect oven six weeks ago.The birds are singing away merrily still;the approach of autumn does not silence them here.The canaries have a very pretty song,like our linnet,only sweeter;the rest are very inferior to ours.The sugar-bird is delicious when close by,but his pipe is too soft to be heard at any distance.
To those who think voyages and travels tiresome,my delight in the new birds and beasts and people must seem very stupid.I can't help it if it does,and am not ashamed to confess that I feel the old sort of enchanted wonder with which I used to read Cook's voyages,and the like,as a child.It is very coarse and unintellectual of me;but I would rather see this now,at my age,than Italy;the fresh,new,beautiful nature is a second youth -or CHILDHOOD -SI VOUS VOULEZ.To-morrow we shall cross the highest pass I have yet crossed,and sleep at Paarl -then Stellenbosch,then Capetown.For any one OUT of health,and IN pocket,I should certainly prescribe the purchase of a waggon and team of six horses,and a long,slow progress in South Africa.One cannot walk in the midday sun,but driving with a very light roof over one's head is quite delicious.When I looked back upon my dreary,lonely prison at Ventnor,I wondered I had survived it at all.
Capetown,March 7th.
After writing last,we drove out,on Sunday afternoon,to a deep alpine valley,to see a NEW BRIDGE -a great marvel apparently.
The old Spanish Joe Miller about selling the bridge to buy water occurred to me,and made Sabaal laugh immensely.The Dutch farmers were tearing home from Kerk,in their carts -well-dressed,prosperous-looking folks,with capital horses.Such lovely farms,snugly nestled in orange and pomegranate groves!It is of no use to describe this scenery;it is always mountains,and always beautiful opal mountains;quite without the gloom of European mountain scenery.The atmosphere must make the charm.I hear that an English traveller went the same journey and found all barren from Dan to Beersheba.I'm sorry for him.
In the morning of Sunday,early,I walked along the road with Sabaal,and saw a picture I shall never forget.A little Malabar girl had just been bathing in the Sloot,and had put her scanty shift on her lovely little wet brown body;she stood in the water with the drops glittering on her brown skin and black,satin hair,the perfection of youthful loveliness -a naiad of ten years old.
When the shape and features are PERFECT,as hers were,the coffee-brown shows it better than our colour,on account of its perfect EVENNESS -like the dead white of marble.I shall never forget her as she stood playing with the leaves of the gum-tree which hung over her,and gazing with her glorious eyes so placidly.
On Monday morning,I walked off early to the old DROSDY(Landdrost's house),found an old gentleman,who turned out to be the owner,and who asked me my name and all the rest of the Dutch 'litanei'of questions,and showed me the pretty old Dutch garden and the house -a very handsome one.I walked back to breakfast,and thought Worcester the prettiest place I had ever seen.We then started for Paarl,and drove through 'Bain's Kloof',a splendid mountain-pass,four hours'long,constant driving.It was glorious,but more like what one had seen in pictures -a deep,narrow gorge,almost dark in places,and,to my mind,lacked the BEAUTY of the yesterday's drive,though it is,perhaps,grander;but the view which bursts on one at the top,and the descent,winding down the open mountain-side,is too fine to describe.
Table Mountain,like a giant's stronghold,seen far distant,with an immense plain,half fertile,half white sand;to the left,Wagenmaker's Vley;and further on,the Paarl lying scattered on the slope of a mountain topped with two DOMES,just the shape of the cup which Lais (wasn't it?)presented to the temple of Venus,moulded on her breast.The horses were tired,so we stopped at Waggon-maker's Valley (or Wellington,as the English try to get it called),and found ourselves in a true Flemish village,and under the roof of a jolly Dutch hostess,who gave us divine coffee and bread-and-butter,which seemed ambrosia after being deprived of those luxuries for almost three months.Also new milk in abundance,besides fruit of all kinds in vast heaps,and pomegranates off the tree.I asked her to buy me a few to take in the cart,and got a 'muid',the third of a sack,for a shilling,with a bill,'U bekomt 1muid 28granaeten dat Kostet 1S.'The old lady would walk out with me and take me into the shops,to show the 'vrow uit Engelland'to her friends.It was a lovely place,intensely hot,all glowing with sunshine.Then the sun went down,and the high mountains behind us were precisely the colour of a Venice ruby glass -really,truly,and literally;-not purple,not crimson,but glowing ruby-red -and the quince-hedges and orange-trees below looked INTENSELY green,and the houses snow-white.It was a transfiguration -no less.
