Part 23 (2/2)
Hans looked astonished at this remark, and hesitated a minute before he replied He then said, ”Do youwater, over which you creep in a boat, and fear getting drowned every st which we can ride? Why, you cannot get on a horse here ever”
”And never want to,” replied the lieutenant ”I always tumble off when I do; but that's not often When a man can ride over the waves I don't see what he wants with a horse on dry land”
”Ah! you don't knohat the plains are, that is evident,” replied Hans, ”or you'd be discontented with the sea”
”There's the shi+p,” said the lieutenant; ”she's co now A red handkerchief h”
The shi+p came steadily on, and ithin about twosails andto, so that the lieutenant at once knew his boats had been seen The captain of the shi+p was standing in the rigging, watching the boats, and on co distance inquired where the boats were froside was soon with his boat's crew on the deck of the shi+p, his boats being hauled on board also
The vessel proved to be an Indiaman bound for Madras, and was a well-appointed vessel in every way The lieutenant and Hans were iiven accommodation in the after-part of the vessel, whilst the sailors and Zulus were quartered a heard the account of the lieutenant, was surprised to find the island was so well supplied in various ways, as was the small rock which he had passed so often on his outward-bound voyage, and which he had always looked upon as ainto Table Bay, he asked the lieutenant whether, if he altered his course and kept closer in to the land, he would be able to get into False Bay, and hence to Si how much value these Indian traders set upon their time, the lieutenant at once accepted this proposition; so the captain, steering slightlyhim within a few miles of the Cape of Good Hope, at which point, if the weather were favourable, he proposed lowering the lieutenant's boats, and starting hie into the bay
The distance which had taken the boats several days to pass over, was run by the Indiaman in about fifty hours, and when the entrance to False Bay was directly north of them, the boats were lowered, and the lieutenant, with Hans and the creished a hearty farewell; and being supplied with some provisions in case of need, co expedition, and shortly pulled round into Si at anchor, and having gone alongside, the lieutenant, with the systematic method induced by discipline, went on board and reported his arrival
No inti been received either of the capture of the slaver or of her destruction by fire, the arrival of the lieutenant was a great surprise to the ad been captured by the slavers, soon found himself an object of curiosity and interest The account which the lieutenant gave of hiiven of his proceedings on the island and in the boats so much to his credit, that he stood in no need of friends From the Indiaman he had received presents of various articles of clothes, of which he stoodreceived invitations to dine on shore with various official people ere interested in his adventures, he was additionally supplied with all necessaries by the officers of the shi+p
The residents of Cape Town and the vicinity are proverbially hospitable, andof Dutch extraction, Hans' adventures, and his experience of the Matabili and Zulu warfare, were the very subjects on which they were deeply interested It is so how little the inhabitants of one part of the world know about the lives and occupations of those in another part, but at the Cape, in forular still to find the residents there knowing little or nothing of the principal events occurring up the country, or if they knew of the general facts, these were in transmission so perverted or distorted as to be very far from the truth when they reached Cape Town; so that Hans, both frouest bydespatched to some friends in the eastern frontier letters which he requested ht be sent by the first opportunity to Bernhard and Katrine, Hans had no objection to partake for a time of the hospitality offered to him at the Cape To him it was an entire novelty to sit down to formal dinners, and to live in the ceremonial manner which it struck him was adopted by the people ho before he fully appreciated the good things which were set before hih Hans was deficient in many of those necessary ite to civilised and polite society, yet from his knoild life these were overlooked, and as he ware, either in English or Dutch, the scenes through which he had passed, and gave in detail his adventures in elephant and lion hunting, his hearers forgot that he had used his knife to carry his peas to hisdelayed eating his fish that the table had been kept waiting for hihbourhood were land, or had been born at Cape Town, and had never travelled far from it Thus to these men the wilderness of Africa was as hlands of Scotland, with their sports, to the London cockney, whose travels have been confined to Richmond, Kew, or Greenwich As a natural consequence, Hans was often supposed to be inventing tales when he was stating thefor ahis veracity, he rarely gave any of those additional details which ht have sst entlemen of the Cape, who had never themselves travelled a hundredDutchman”
Two months were passed by Hans at Cape Town and its vicinity, when an opportunity occurred for his reaching Algoa Bay by sea, aa vessel which was about to sail for Port Elizabeth frost themselves, offered Hans above one hundred pounds to enable him to purchase horses for his journey fro unwilling to be a debtor whilst he had the ood-bye to many kind friends, he set sail frooa Bay, the port of the eastern frontier
After a fair-weather voyage of eight days, Hans onceno time in this part of the colony, he at once purchased a horse which would do to carry him until he went farther inland, where horse-flesh was cheaper and better; and having at Cape Town purchased a good double-barrelled gun, Hans joined the waggon of a Dutch trader as bound on an expedition across the Orange river, and was oncethe life of a South African Boer
It ht and comparison in the mind of a man who has seen both the life of the natural and civilised es of each By the natural ains his bread by the sweat of his brow in agricultural labours or in hunting, who considers the necessities of life to consist in food and raiht, and who, possessing these, thirsts for nothing more The majority of South African Boers lead this life They by inheritance are possessors of a certain quantity of cattle and horses These increase in the natural course of events, and if taken care of, the horses especially soon multiply, for a couple of horses may be counted on to produce about two foals in two years: thus in six years the two have increased to eight About the sixth year the first foals in to produce stock, and the increase then becohth year it becomes trebled, and so on Thus, in a suitable district for horses (and many parts of the Cape colony are admirably suited for them), a boy presented with a mare may ten years afterwards be the owner of upwards of a dozen horses, the produce of this one present, and his cattle having increased in like in to live upon his stock The ti a certain portion of ground, in hunting as ahis stock; and thus he has but few cares or anxieties, and lives what may fairly be termed a natural life He is at least twelve hours a day in the open air, and enjoys consequently most robust health
Let us compare the daily occupations of this man with those of hundreds of thousands ofcivilised nations A youth is educated, but he , because his predecessors have not been able to dotheir children The youth is found a situation in an office in one of the cities of Europe In this office it is competition, a race for wealth, and none but the hard worker can hope even to avoid ruin A youth thus started leads a life probably as follows He rises early in the , hurriedly eats a breakfast, walks down to the train, is carried rapidly to a sht of the sun is a rarity, labours in this office aain enters his train, and a, where the re hours are occupied Day after day, and year after year, this life is passed, until theelse, even his recreations often being partaken of as a e to reflect that perhaps on the very spot that is now the scene of such artificial life, our ancestors, before Caesar had 'taught them to clothe their pinked and painted hides,' reatest freedo, or transfixed the passing salmon, and each day ame in a manner which few of these day-labourers are able to do
Here, however, is the singular comparison of lives of the two divisions offor a ti partaken in a measure of this, could not, now that he was once ine how any man could endure the life which he had seen many pursue in their offices or on board their shi+ps The life of the sailor he considered strange and unnatural, but that of the clerk he could not coht over what he had seen during his visit to Cape Town, for that locality was to him the most advanced civilisation he had seen; but he could come to no other conclusion than that a mistake had been made by those who selected this life A conversation which took place on this subject between Victor and Hans some time after his return to his own people h anticipating the future slightly, ill venture to insert it here
”What is Cape Town like?” inquired Victor ”Is it er There are e, whilst the shops are supplied with every thing”
”Do the people there want much more, then, than we do in the country, that the shops are so well supplied?”
”Yes, Victor, that is so We here are accounted rich if we have plenty of horses and cattle, a waggon, or perhaps to good guns, a house that keeps out the rain, and just clothes enough to change about It is not so in the great towns Your house e A man is poor who is not able to eat his breakfast in one room, his dinner in a second, and to drink his tea in a third You may not sit in a room whilst your servant places the dinner plates on a table: that would show you were poor You must not eat your dinner either in the same clothes that you would wear at breakfast: that would show you were a poor fellow There are regular clothes for eating dinner in; and, Victor, the young frauleins come to their dinner with scarcely any clothes on”
”Is this true, Hans?”
”It is, Victor We turn up our sleeves e skin an eland, and we take off our coats and turn down our collars e are too hot The frauleins in the towns turn down their dresses far lower than we do, and their sleeves are turned up higher than we turn ours”
”Cess, this is strange And you saw all this, Hans?”
”I did, Victor, and much more”
”What more did you see, Hans?”