MRS. PENDER ON SOUTH AFRICA.* ONE of the most difficult
things in the world is to know what to believe of the various and conflicting accounts that one hears from different people as to the healthiness of foreign climates, and the pleasures and drawbacks of residence in distant countries. One person will tell you that Tasmania is the only perfect climate in the world, and another will " confess that he was much disappointed with it." Some friends of the present writer's recently arrived from New Zealand, a few years ago, were fall of the glories of their climate, and the free, natural life of their country; while others write home the most dismal accounts of the weather, the state of trade, epidemics, and everything uncomfortable. It is generally supposed that Japan has a most delightful climate, but Mrs. Brassey tells us that it cam be very uncomfortable there. Indeed, there is only one country that all travellers seem to be agreed about as being always charming—the Sandwich Islands—and there everything is so sleepy, that there is no scope for the settler. Under-these circumstances, what can the numerous victims do who have been appalled by the moral and physical gloom of England, in the "never yet exampled" seasons from which wo have just been suffering, but pick up all the information obtainable from books and from friends about every country with a good repu- tation, in order to come to the conclusion that there is no getting at the truth without going there themselves P
* No Telegraph ; or, a Trip to Our Unconnected Colonies, refs. By Bose Pander. • ■ For private eireu:ation.' Printed by Gilbert and itivington.
Now, if any one in his longing to escape from our gloomy clays has turned his thoughts towards " Afric's sunny fountains " and "golden sands," we would advise him to obtain the loan of the little book before us, where he will find the other side of the question put sufficiently strongly. The sunny fountains are often stagnant pools, and the golden sands are red dust, which lies thick on everything, and fills the air so as almost to suffocate one, and to make eating one's food a gritty and diffi- cult operation.
Well, to turn to Mrs. Pender's travels. Her object in going was the good, wifely one of accompanying her husband on a mission to the Cape, Natal, and elsewhere, to obtain sub- sidies for a telegraph from Aden to Natal, along the east coast of Africa. They loft Dartmouth on April 19th, 1878, and arrived at Cape Town on May 11th, a wet,
cheerless day. The disagreea,bles of South-African travel at once began, as they ploughed their way in a hansom" through the foot-deep mud " to one of the disagreeable hotels, with " independent " landlords, so common in the colonies. Apropos of this subject, Mrs. Pender remarks that there is a fine open- ing for an honest, energetic, civil-spoken man, with a little capital, in the starting of a respectable hotel at Cape Town,. conducted on English principles. [We have just heard, by- the-by, that a company is being got up for this purpose, and it might extend its operations to Durban, Maritzburg, and other towns, with both advantage to travellers and profit to itself.] However, our travellers considered themselves fortunate in securing rooms in an hotel at Wynberg, a village about eight miles from Cape Town, " standing in the midst of a lovely pine forest, which extends for some miles." Indeed, Mrs. Fender's description of the pretty villages near Cape Town, where the merchants and professional men generally have their homes, going into town daily by train, tempts us to think that life in that part of the world cannot be quite so bad as she imagines. There was, she tells us, "endless amusement" in exploring the country in search of flowers, about which "she should never end," if she once began. Then we have an account of an expedition towards Hout's Bay, "past Constantia, with its ancient trees," through scenery reminding one of Scotland, with the sea behind and the beautiful range of Hottentot moun- tains in the distance, amongst rocks and wild, deep ravines, whose sides were clothed with the lovely silver trees, only to be found on or near Table Mountain, their branches glis- tening like silver when the wind waved them in the sun ; but it is sad to hear that the trees about Wynberg are being rapidly cleared away, without any young ones being planted to take their place ; whereas, in the time of the old Dutch settlers, every man who destroyed a tree was compelled to plant two in its place. These old Dutch settlers seem to have been a very different set of people from their degenerate descendants, and a return to their good. old habits, to which the colony is said to owe all the woods that it possesses, should be enforced by the Government.
But a still worse custom than the reckless destruction of trees is the universal cruelty to animals prevalent all over the South- African colonies, and indeed, among all the other peoples visited iu this tour (except the Indian coolies at the Mauritius, who made up for their kindness in this respect by cruelty to their wives). Some of the instances given are quite horrible, as, for instance, that of the wretched, starved horse, unable to move an immense load of wood, whose driver, after vainly belabouring it with an enormous cudgel, was calmly lighting a fire under the poor animal, when his proceedings were stopped by an indignant Englishman. Will it be believed that when Mrs. Pender related this horrible anecdote to Mr. Sprigg, the then Prime Minister, he only remarked, " Oh i we farmers often light a fire under an ox up-country, when he is down and won't move." It does honour to Mrs. Ponder that she took up this question so warmly as to be the means, through the energetic assistance of Mr. Searle, of getting a Society started at Cape Town for the Pre- vention of Cruelty to Animals, of which Sir Bartle Frere is the patron.
Leaving Cape Town, we are taken to Natal, by a most un- interesting coasting voyage of five days to Durban, with land in sight all the way, but nothing to be seen but long, low hills, seeming to rise from the water and roll into the far distance, one above the other, in tiresome monotony. Then comes the journey of fifty-six miles up-country to Pietermaritzburg, which has to be made either in the post-cart—which does the whole distance in five hours, over a terrible road, keeping " at a hand-gallop the whole way, regardless of danger to life and limb ; or in a cumbrous omnibus, drawn by six horses, and apparently only a trifle less dangerous than the post-cart, which latter " very frequently comes to grief." The country for the first few miles out of Durban is described as pretty and tropical, but then it becomes dried up and unin- teresting. " The sun was very hot, the dust flew iu clouds, and whenever we passed the huge waggons drawn by from fourteen to twenty oxen, we could not see at all." But, notwithstanding the scorching heat of the day, ten minutes after the sun had set, the temperature became bitterly cold. Indeed, the whole description of Natal, both as to climate and scenery is most dismal. Any one who has read the book on South Africa, by Mr. Noble, the Secretary to the Legislative Assembly at Cape Town, will be woefully disappointed at the discrepancy between his enthusiastic reference to Natal as "the garden colony of South Africa," and the account we have here of the parching sun of the day and the bitter cold of the night, the red dust-storms of the dry weather, and the mud of the wet, the monotonous, round-topped hills, that stretch away as far as eye can see, and the absence of trees, except here and there where an ugly plantation marks a farm-dwelling. Perhaps, however, Mrs. Pender might have altered her opinion, had she stayed longer in Natal than the " one month, the experience of which she would be very sorry to repeat." Certainly, the resid- ents there speak much better of the climate, and the scenery also is said to be much less uninteresting further up-country.
Following the line of the projected cable, the authoress pro- ceeded by steamer up the coast, touching at Delagoa Bay and Mozambique and other smaller ports, to Zanzibar, which, "seen from the sea, presents quite an imposing aspect, It is built on a long flat island, covered with palms and cocoa-nut trees; the houses are all white, with flat roofs, the principal ones facing the sea." This apparent grandeur, however, fades away on landing, as behind the front row, the houses are all very small, and the streets so narrow that sometimes two people cannot walk abreast, and very dirty. The great excitement of the week here is the performance of the Sultan's band in the square in front of his palace, where everybody assembles on the occasion, a circle of chairs being placed for the Europeans, with a fan upon each. "There were a good many English people, some of the ladies in bonnets and silk dresses, as if they were at a garden party, the men all in white linen coats and trousers, and behind and around the natives, in every species of dress," some of the Arabs splendid in coloured garments and jewelled belts and knives, and others in white, long night-shirt-looking dress. Behind the band, which played. very well, stood the Sultan's Persian body-guard, no two of whom were dressed alike, and during the performance his irregular troops came rushing rather than marching past,—a mob of wild-looking creatures, all iu rags and tatters, bare -headed, and armed with any kind of weapon. The whole scene must have been most curious, and we do not wonder that it called up recollections of The Arabian Nights. The Sultan, however, seems to be a modern-minded, energetic man. He has visited England, and has a great admiration for everything English, and—what was naturally a great virtue in Mrs. Pendor's eyes—he was specially interested in electricity, and therefore in the cable scheme, to which he promised to give all the assistance in his power. He is doing what he can to improve Zanzibar, by widening the streets,--a very costly undertaking, as land is very dear, and increasing in value yearly. " A very good house will let for £300 a year." He is also improving his army, and has a now regiment, about 800 strong, under the command of Captain Matthews, late First Lieutenant of H.M.S. Loudon,' to whom it is said to do great credit. Zanzibar is doubtless a rising place, and its tropical vegetation and moist climate must have been a pleasant though hardly beneficial change, after the dry air and barren scenery of the south-east coast of Africa.
We have dwelt so long, however, ou Mrs. Ponder's experiences in " our unconnected colonies " and the neighbouring Zanzibar, that we have no time to follow her to Aden, so well known to Anglo-Indians, and to the lovely but fever-stricken island of Mauritius, where the inhabitants have been forced, at great expense, to desert their comfortable houses in one district after another, as the infection spread higher and higher up the country, and to build new ones in the few places not yet attacked. But we cannot help expressing our sympathy for their uncomfort- able position with the merchants and planters of Port Louis, who dared not incur the charge of want of public spirit
to which they would have laid themselves open by publicly opposing the cable, and who therefore promptly passed a Bill granting a subsidy to • the undertaking, though they privately declared that it would do them no good, and would entail an infinity of extra work and worry.
In conclusion, we may mention that Mrs. Pender emphatically warns her lady readers against undertaking such a tour as the one she has gone through,—at least, as far as the east coast of Africa is concerned, " where the climate during the greater part of the year is almost unbearable, and the traveller meets with a great deal, both on land and on board the steamers, that cannot fail to offend her sense of decorum and decency." And we must also add that we wish her tone of speaking of "these dreadful natives " had been more like what we should have expected from a woman with such thoroughly humane feelings towards animals. Perhaps a longer residence among them would have made her feel more appreciation of their many good qualities, such as their honesty and fidelity, and less repulsion at their unpleasing exterior.
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