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SOUTH AFRICA A CENTUEY AGO
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SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
LETTEES WRITTEN PEOM THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE
(1797-1801)
THE LADY ANNE BARNARD
BDITBD WITH A MEMOIR AKD BRIEF NOTES
W. H. WILKINS, M.A., F.S.A,
WITH A PORTRAIT
FOURTH IMPRESSION
LONDON ELDER, & CO., 16 WATERLOO PLACE 1910
lAll riphts re a e r vc .;'■)
'^f-J'O
SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
LETTEKS WEITTEN FEOM THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE
(1797-1801)
BY
THE LADY ANNE BAENARD
EDITED WITH A MEMOIR AND BRIEF NOTES
BY
W. H. WILKINS, M.A., F.S.A.
WITH A PORTRAIT
FOURTH IMPRESSION
LONDON
SMITH, ELDEE, & CO., 15 WATEELOO PLACE
1910
]A11 rights reserved]
APR 1 6 1962
^%/TY Of ^^''
791137
TO THE VISCOUNTESS MELVILLE
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
PEEFACB
The letters which form this book were written by Lady Anne Barnard from Cape Colony to the first Viscount Melville, then the Eight Honourable Henry Dundas, Secretary of State for War, Treasurer of the Navy, and President of the Board of Control in Pitt's first Administration, during the earliest British occupation of South Africa, a century ago.
These letters remained among the archives at Melville Castle for a hundred years. They are now published by permission of the present Lord Melville, to whom the manuscripts belong. There is no need to dwell upon the peculiar fitness of their publication at the present time, when South African affairs loom large in men's minds. But the circumstances under which they were written lend to them an especial interest. They are not merely the letters of a clever woman to her intimate friend, but those of the wife of the first Secretary of Cape Colony to the Secretary of State at home. Lord Melville was the Minister
Vlll SOUTH AFRICA A CENTUEY AGO
chiefly responsible for the annexation of Cape Colony by the English. Almost alone among British statesmen, he early recognised the impor- tance of our keeping the Cape, not only because of its value as a station on the road to India, but because of the internal resources of the Colony and its great possibilities of development. He called the Cape his 'favourite child,' he watched over it with unflagging zeal, and he resigned office rather than be a party to its cession to the Dutch,^ He appointed Lord Macartney first Governor of Cape Colony, and Mr. Barnard, Lady Anne's husband, Secretary. The charm, talent, and rare social quali- ties of Lady Anne Barnard led Lord Melville to give this appointment to her husband. The Governor's wife (Lady Macartney) was not accompanying her husband ; the wife of the Secretary would therefore be the first lady of the Colony, and have to perform many of the social duties which usually fall to the lot of the Governor's wife. Lady Anne was ad- mirably fitted to fill such a position, and she enjoyed
' As a small illustration of this limay mention that in the library at Melville Castle there is an old volume entitled Walks and Sketches at Uie Cape of Good Hope, by Robert Temple, 1803. It is dedicated to the first Lord Melville, and in the dedication the writer says: 'I have been induced to request the permission of affixing your lordship's name hereto, solely from the conviction that no man in Great Britain has paid so much attention to the affairs of the Cape, or has so intimate an acquaintance with every subject relative to that Colony, as your lordship.'
PREFACE IX
the friendship and confidence of the Secretary of State in no ordinary degree. Lord Melville charged her to conciliate the Dutch as much as possible, and to write to him freely about everything that occurred. These letters will show how well she fulfilled his wishes in both respects. They cover the period of the Administrations of the first two English Governors (Lord Macartney and Sir; George Yonge), and, in addition to giving vivid descriptions of South Africa at that time, they are full of shrewd observations and wise suggestions as to the government of the Colony, especially with regard to the treatment of the natives and the conciliation of the Dutch. The student of history will note, too, that many of the same problems presented themselves for solution a century ago in South Africa as present themselves to-day ; the same difficulties arose, and perhaps the same mistakes were committed on either side.
Lady Anne Barnard was also the authoress of that ever-popular ballad Auld Bobin Gray, and one of the best-known figures in the Uterary and social world of her day. Her fascinating personality is all too little known. I have therefore prefaced her letters from South Africa with a brief memoir, and have incorporated in it certain other letters which she wrote from Ireland and elsewhere. They reveal, like everything else she wrote, the same sterling
X SOUTH AFKICA A CENTURY AGO
qualities — a keen perception, a liberal mind, a warm heart, and a magnetic gift of sympathy.
I take this opportunity of acknowledging my indebtedness to Loed Melville not only for his permission to publish this correspondence, but for much valuable aid and kind encouragement, I have also to thank Mr. G. Fydell Eowley and Mrs. Atholl Forbes for leave to reproduce the miniature of Lady Anne Barnard by Cosway as a frontispiece.
W H. WILKINS.
MEMOIE
MEMOIE
Lady Anne Lindsay (by marriage Barnard) was the eldest child of James, fifth Earl of Balcarres, by his wife Anne Dalrymple, daughter of Sir Kobert Dalrymple, of Castletown. Both her parents were remarkable. Her father was a brave soldier and a learned and comrteous gentleman. He had drawn his sword in the Stuart cause in the rising of 1715, but as the House of Hanover settled itself upon the throne he was too good a patriot not to sink faction for the good of his country, and he fought against its enemies under King George II. at the battle of Dettingen. He lived through troublous times. Born the year after the abdication of King James II., he survived for about twenty years the last effort of the Stuarts to regain their hereditary kingdom in 1745. Branch after branch had been shorn away from his family, until at the time of his marriage Lord Balcarres was the chief of his clan and the last of his race. He was sixty years of age when he married Miss Dalrymple, a lady nearly forty years his
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4 SOUTH AFBICA A CENTURY AGO
junior, beautiful, clever, and endowed with an almost masculine strength of mind, though some- what lacking in the feminine virtues of softness and charity.
Lady Anne, the first issue of this union, was born December 12, 1750, at Balcarres. Prince Charles Edward and the rising of '45 were still fresh in men's minds ; and when it was known that Lady Balcarres was like to be brought to bed, great things were expected of the probable heir of this ancient house. To quote Lady Anne's own words : * There long existed a prophecy that the first child of the last descendant of the House of Balcarres was to restore the family of Stuart to those hereditary rights which the bigotry of James had deprived them of. The Jacobites seemed to have gained new life on the occasion ; the wizards and witches of the period found it in their books ; the devil had mentioned it to one or two of his particular friends ; old ladies had read it from the grounds of their coffee — no wonder that the event was welcomed with the gasp of expiring hope. Songs were made by exulting Tories, masses were offered up by good Catholics, who longed to see the Pope's bull once more tossing his horns in the country. ... In due course of time the partisans of the " Pretender," the soothsayers, wizards, witches, the bards, fortune-tellers, and old
MEMOIE 5
ladies, were all in a group dismayed, disconcerted, and enraged to learn that Lady Balcarres was brought to bed of a daughter after all, absolutely but a daughter. . . . That child was the Anne Lindsay who now addresses you.'
Lady Anne was not destined to be for long the sole representative of the younger generation of the House of Balcarres, for within the next twelve years the Countess presented her lord with ten other children. To again quote Lady Anne : * Our excellent parents, having nothing else to do in the country, desisted not from their laudable aim of populating the castle of Balcarres, till their family consisted of eight boys and three girls. Such are the wonders (I speak to all old bachelors) pro- duced by a life of temperance, with the blessing of God.'
Lady Anne was carefully, if somewhat strictly, brought up. Her mother was a martinet with her numerous brood, and ruled her children rather by fear than love, after the fashion of many parents in the eighteenth century. Lord Balcarres gave up the management of his family to his v/ife, except that when punishments were unduly severe and peccadilloes treated as crimes he would sometimes break in with a remonstrance : ' Odds fish, Madame ! you will break the spirits of my young troops ; I
6 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
will not have it so.' Lady Balcarres used to say that Anne was the most difficult to punish of all her children, since her shortcomings were not sufficient to earn her a whipping. Margaret, who was Lady Anne's favourite sister, and two years younger, was of a much more high-spirited temperament and was generally in revolt and in disgrace. On one occasion Lady Margaret assembled the other children to- gether, and proposed flight in consequence of the ' horrious ' life they suffered at home. The proposal was carried with acclamation, and the six children set off forthwith, but their escape was retarded by little James, who was not yet breeched, and whom they had to carry in turns. They had not gone far when their flight was discovered by old Eobin Gray, the shepherd, who went to Lady Balcarres with the news : ' All the young gentlemen and the young ladies and all the dogs are run away, my lady.' The truants were soon captured and brought back, and the punishment of each this time was a dose of tincture of rhubarb in varying degree.
Lady Anne was given a good education in keep- ing with her social position — in fact, rather in advance of it, as education for women was understood in that day — and as she grew up she showed signs that she had inherited a full share of the family talents. Her childhood was spent at Balcarres, but as she
MEMOIR 7
became older visits were frequently paid to Edinburgh, to the house of her grandmother, Lady Dalrymple, or to Sir Thomas Oughton's country house outside the city. Lady Dalrymple, a clever old lady, was intimate with many of the most eminent Scotsmen of her time. Among her friends was David Hume, the historian, whom she had known from a child. Lady Anne mentions him in a letter which she wrote to her sister Margaret about this time from her grandmother's house in Edinburgh. * Dinners go on as usual,' she wrote, * which being monopolised by the divines, wits and writers of the present day, are not unjustly called " the dinners of the eaterati " by Lord Kellie, who laughs at his own pun until his face is purple. Our friend David Hume, along with his friend Principal Kobertson, continue to maintain their ground at these convivial meetings. To see the lion and the lamb lying down together, the deist and the doctor, is extraordinary ; it makes one hope that some day Hume will say to him, " Thou almost persuadest me to be a Christian." He is a constant visitor of ours.'
When Lady Anne was in her twenty-first year her sister, Lady Margaret, was married to Mr. Alexander Fordyce, of Eoehampton. Lady Mar- garet's charms and mental accomplishments were recorded by many of her admiring contemporaries.
8 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
Her beauty inspired Sheridan with the well-known lines :
Mark'd you her eye of heavenly blue, Mark'd you her cheek of rosy hue ; That eye in liquid circles roving, That cheek abashed at man's approving. The one love's arrows darting round, The other blushing at the wound.
It was soon after her sister's marriage, in 1771, that Lady Anne wrote the ballad which will ever remain her title to fame. Bereft of the companion- ship of her sister, she was driven back on her own resources, and her literary talents began to make themselves manifest. * Eesiding,' she says, ' in the solitude of the country, without other sources of entertainment but what I could draw from myself, I used to mount up to my little closet in the high winding staircase, which commanded the sea, the lake, the rocks, the birds, the beach, and with my pen in my hand and a few envelopes of old letters, which too often vanished afterwards, scribbled away poetically and in prose.' It was on one of these occasions that * Auld Eobin Gray ' was written.^ For some unaccountable reason she never publicly acknowledged the authorship until 1823, two years
' The original text of Auld Robin Oray is given in an appendix to this memoir. Lady Anne wrote a sequel or continuation to it some years later, but, like many sequels, it is inferior to the original.
MEMOIR 9
before her death ; indeed, it seems that she denied having written it, for once when on a visit at Dalkeith, Lady Jane Scott, sister of the Duke of Buccleuch, said : ' You sing that song in a way that makes me sure it is your own writing.' Lady Anne, according to her own statement, blushed scarlet, and denied it. • Do not do so,' said Lady Jane ; ' I will betray you unless you give me a copy of it.' Lady Anne says : ' To convince her I was not the author, I gave her a copy, entreating her not to let anybody have it.' But Lady Jane copied it for her friends, and soon the song got out into the world, and became widely popular, though its authorship remained a disputed point.
A few years after Lord Balcarres died Lady Anne left Balcarres and went to live in Edinburgh with her mother, the Dowager-Countess, who had taken a house there. In Edinburgh she mixed freely in the literary society for which the northern capital was famous. When Johnson came to Edin- burgh in 1773 he was introduced to Lady Anne, who had gathered round her a numerous company of friends, including Hume, McKenzie, and Mon- boddo. It was probably about this time that she made the acquaintance of Henry Dundas, then a rising young Scottish politician, who had been appointed, at the age of twenty-four, Solicitor-
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10 SOUTH AFEICA A CENTURY AGO
General for Scotland, and for whom his Edinburgh friends already predicted a brilliant career. Lady Anne had a great respect and affection for her mother, but she was not particularly happy with her, and after the death of Mr. Fordyce she went to London to reside with her widowed sister. Lady Margaret Fordyce, who had taken one of the smaller houses in Berkeley Square. There the two sisters lived together for many years. The beauty of Lady Margaret, and the charm and lively con- versation of Lady Anne, * one of the most fascinating women of her time,' as a contemporary describes her, made them very popular, and their house became a social centre, and a favourite resort of some of the most famous literary and political men of the day. Pitt, Burke, Sheridan, Windham, and Dundas are a few of those who were wont to avail them- selves of the sisters' simple yet charming hospitality ; the Prince of Wales was also one of their frequent guests, and his friendship with Lady Anne lasted all his life. They also enjoyed a considerable share of Court favour from King George and Queen Charlotte. * The Lindsay sisters,' as they were called, occupied a unique position in the London society of their day. With such opportunities Lady Anne, it may readily be believed, had many offers, some of them exceptionally good, but she refused them all. The
MEMOIR 11
reason that she remained unwed all these years is ascribed by her nephew, Colonel Lindsay, to inde- cision (in other matters it seems to have formed no part of her character) and to a reluctance to leave her sister. But the * Melville Letters,' hitherto un- published, afford, I think, a clue to the mystery. Lady Anne's heart was really given to Henry Dundas, with whom, to the day of his death, she remained on terms of intimate friendship. Dundas was now one of the first statesmen of the day, the most powerful man in Scotland, the intimate friend and trusted lieutenant of Pitt, a great Parliamentary debater, and a successful Minister. His career excited the admiration of his friends, and of none more than Lady Anne. But though Dundas attained public greatness, he was unfortunate in his private relations. His beautiful first wife, daughter and heiress of David Eennie, of Melville Castle, deserted him for another man ; a divorce followed, and it was some years before Dundas took to himself another wife. In private life he was of a free and genial disposition, fond of ladies' society, and during those years when his public career was at its zenith, but his domestic happiness broken up, he was a frequent and welcome guest at the sisters' house in Berkeley Square. He sought eagerly the society of Lady Anne, taking her into his confidence, and talking to
12 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
her unreservedly about political and private matters. Whether he ever contemplated marriage with her, or led her to believe that he did, it is impossible to say ; but it is certain that Lady Anne became very much attached to him. The news that he was going to marry Lady Jane Hope, the daughter of the second Earl of Hopetoun, must have come to her as a blow.
Whatever Lady Anne suffered, she kept her feelings to herself. She showed no disposition to wear the willow, and in 1793 astonished her friends by marrying Mr. Andrew Barnard, son of the Bishop of Limerick. The marriage, from a worldly point of view, could hardly be considered other than im- prudent. Lady Anne was forty-three years of age, her husband was fifteen years her junior ; he had been in the Army ; he was good-looking, well-mannered, of moderate ability and amiable disposition. It is only fair to say that, despite the disparity of age, he made Lady Anne a very good husband, and she grew to be much attached to him. The problem of ways and means early presented itself. Barnard had a small patrimony and many debts ; Lady Anne had little or nothing. But she was always of a san- guine disposition, and she looked forward to obtain- ing for her husband a Government appointment of some kind through the influence of her highly placed
MEMOIR 13
friends. Her most intimate friend was Dundas, now Secretary for War, Treasurer of the Navy, and President of the Board of Control in Pitt's First Administration, and to him she applied. A few months after her marriage she went to Ireland with her husband to make the acquaintance of his relatives, and from there we find her writing to Dundas :
' I have not forgotten, my dear friend, what you hinted to me in confidence respecting the possibility of Mr. Barnard deriving a benefit from a situation ostensibly given to another, and to be sure this would be a very eligible favour for our interests, and one I should most gratefully thank you for. But until this occurs, will you contrive to place him in any office, with no matter how little salary, where he might have something to do and prove himself useful ? He was pleased with your manner to him, and said he had never talked to a great man who had so much the power of making a man, who was asking a favour, feel at ease with him as yourself. If you could place him on your own Board, or anywhere where he might gain your friendship by deserving it, and by being connected with yourself, he would be glad. But I put the matter into your hands and leave it. You will find a mode of serving us ; the sooner you can do so in any shape the better.
14 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
I prefer owing to you than to any other person, because I can never cease to have for you sentiments which make the feeling of gratitude sit easy in my heart.' ^
But good appointments, real or sinecure, even in those days, were not to be had for the asking, and though Dundas renewed his promise, no suitable vacancy occurred. In 1794, in consequence of a rumour that her powerful friend was about to retire from the Government, Lady Anne again wrote from Ireland to renew her request :
* On an occasion so important as this, I think it right for me to remind you of myself, depending on your kindness, so many proofs of which I have experienced on former occasions, and almost certain that distance would not make you forget the hearty assurance you gave me of assisting my husband. I have never teased you about it, because I com- mitted my interests wholly into your hands, while I formed all my counsels here on the confidence I have in you, in consequence of what passed between you and me the last time I saw you, which I naturally repeated to Mr. Barnard. I prevailed on him to give up the Army, though considerable advantages were offered him by the Lord Lieutenant,
» Letter from Lady Anne Barnard to the Right Hon. Henry Dundas, St. Wolstan's, near Dublin, December 10, 1793.
MEMOIR 15
as he has been seventeen years in the Army, and has served many years abroad. I have also pre- vailed on him and his family to consent to our letting St. Wolstan's for a term of years, almost the prettiest place in Ireland, but one which our income did not render it eligible to keep, and to have a house in London also. To indulge me these things have been done. Am I not therefore doubly bound, my dear friend, to use every exertion which zeal, duty, and gratitude can give, with a friend who has long been mine, who knows our situation, and who, I trust, will not on this occasion desert me, to replace to my husband the pleasures of which I have deprived him, to secure my own comfort amongst my own friends? I throw myself on you with earnestness and hope ; you owe me some happiness, in truth you do. Pay me by making me the means of serving a man who has rebuilt in a considerable degree what tumbled to its foundation, who makes my happiness his study, and whose prospects in this country (Ireland) have been given up for me.'i
Still nothing was forthcoming, though Dundas remained in ofl&ce. In truth, Barnard, who had few qualifications, was not an easy man to fit with a
' Letter from Lady Anne Barnard to the Eight Hon. Henry Dundas, St. Wolstan's, near Dublin, March 10, 1794.
16 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
suitable appointment. After waiting another year, Lady Anne came over to England to see what pleading in person would do. She saw the power- ful Minister ; Dundas had not forgotten, and renewed his promises. Lady Anne followed up the interview by writing him a still more strongly worded letter :
' Do not let me, my dear friend, return to Ireland dispirited, and have to tell the Bishop and Mrs. Barnard that the flattering hopes I gave them for their son, from the kind promises you made me previous to our marriage three years ago, have not been realised. I have explained myself fully to you, and refer to our conversation once again to implore you to ask your own heart whether you ought not to feel yourself doubly bound to make my situation comfortable, more than you are bound to any other woman in this world. To a man like you, generous as well as just, how many motives are there not in the strong, though defeatedj regards which have subsisted between us, for you to take my husband by the hand, and make me, through him, as happy as you can? To pay me all you have owed, and still owe me, you never can. But what you can you should do, and you have got before you the pleasure of obliging me. I have paid you tears of gratitude for the hearty manner in which you pledged yourself to serve us, and while I have any memory I
MEMOIR 17
must depend on your doing so, but hope deferred maketh the heart sick.' ^
This last appeal had its effect. On the conquest of the Cape of Good Hope, the Home Government determined to send out Lord Macartney as Governor, and Dundas offered the appointment of Secretary of the Colony to Mr. Barnard, with a salary of 3,500Z. a year. Barnard was delighted with the appointment, as he ought to have been, but Lady Anne demurred somewhat. The idea of banishment to an unknown land, as the Cape then was, rather frightened her ; she would have preferred, she told Dundas, a situa- tion with less emolument nearer home, and she was not quite sure whether the post of Secretary was not one beneath Mr. Barnard's acceptance ; or, rather, whether the position of Secretary's wife was one suitable for her rank. All these doubts and fears she communicated by letter. Dundas answered her shortly, saying that it was the * prettiest appointment in the world for any young fellow,' and telling her that she must take that or nothing. He had some reason to be hurt, for he had given this appointment to Barnard, a young and untried man, solely because of his goodwill for his wife. He had thoughtfully chosen it also because (as Lady Macartney was not
' Letter from Lady Anne Barnard to the Bight Hon. Henry Dundas, London, April 30, 1796.
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going out to the Cape) Lady Anne would be able to play the part of first lady in the Colony and represent the Government, which he knew she would like. Lady Anne, fearing that she had offended her power- ful friend, apologised with tears, and a reconciliation was effected between them. In March 1797 she and her husband left England with Lord Macartney for the Cape, where they arrived, on board the * Trusty,' on May 4, 1797, and took over the Government of the Colony.
The record of Lady Anne's life in South Africa is told in full in the letters which are published in this book, so we will not allude to it at length here. Her letters were all written to Dundas, and the fact that he tied them together and kept them carefully preserved among his most cherished papers at Melville Castle shows that the great Minister, through all his vicissitudes, kept a soft corner in his heart for Lady Anne.
On the cession of the Cape to the Dutch by the Peace of Amiens, Lady Anne came back to England in 1802 ; her husband followed her a few months later. Lady Anne tried hard to obtain for Barnard another Government appointment, but without success. The Pitt Ministry was come to an end ; her powerful friend, Dundas (now Lord Melville), had resigned office rather than be a party to the
MEMOIE 19
ignoble Peace, and Addington turned a deaf ear to her representations. Baffled in her endeavours, she went to Ireland, where a new vexation awaited her in the fact that her father-in-law, the Bishop of Limerick, who was now a widower, at the age of seventy-six, declared his intention of marrying a young girl. The scandal and annoyance this occasioned to his relatives may be imagined. After trying in vain to put matters right. Lady Anne went on to visit her brother-in-law and sister. Lord and Lady Hardwicke, at Dublin Castle.
Lord Hardwicke was then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and the time was critical. The Jrish Catholics were indignant, and rightly, at the disappointment of their hopes of emancipation, which Pitt had promised to give them, but the King refused. The discontent which had brought about the Irish Eebellion of 1798 under Lord Edward FitzGerald was still rife, and the return to Ireland of exiles from France after the Peace of Amiens had enabled Napoleon to establish negotiations with the Irish malcontents. For- tunately, Napoleon and the French were now unpopular with the Irish Catholics on account of Napoleon's treatment of the Pope, and the great body of them held aloof. A rising took place, but instead of being national it was confined to a small number
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20 SOUTH AFEICA A CENTURY AGO
of Protestant republicans, and hardly exceeded the proportions of a town riot. Emmett, the leader, was taken and executed. Lady Anne was staying at the Castle through this troublous time, and she wrote a letter to Lord Melville, from which we take the following extract :
'As I think that, retired as you are amongst your own mountains, surrounded by your own friends, your own faithful Highlanders, eating your own mutton and drinking your own ale, you will not be sorry to know what is going on in this agitated country, separated from our native land by so little, I take up my pen to give you, my dear friend, a little of such Irish news as is on the cards at present. Alas ! that I must write to you so much of trials, rebels, and matters of the baneful, alarming, and horrid kind, of which Ireland is full at present. I want to tell you, though, before I begin on these sad things, that Lord Hardwicke reviewed the different corps a few days ago, about five thousand, in the Phoenix Park. They made a very respectable appearance ; the commanding officers all dined here afterwards in St. Patrick's Hall, which, together with the good dinner and sumptuous service of plate, made also a very good appearance of a different sort.
' You will, I know, expect to hear something of the
MEMOIR 21
trials and executions of the poor, faulty, and deluded men, whose guilt cannot admit of doubt, which have been taking place. Several have been hanged in the eyes of a great concourse of people, who have shown no disposition to question or to rescue. There are, however, in spite of oneself, many circumstances which daily take place, while such solemn scenes are going forward, to freeze the blood and sometimes to awaken pity for youth and talents so perverted. I refer especially to Emmett, the misguided leader of this unhappy matter. Emmett was the son of a physician, only twenty-three, as I believe, and of great, though perverted, talents. I must tell you of the reply of the young woman who was taken at the same time, and who wore green ribbons in her hat, the rebel colour. " Why," said the officer, " is it that so pretty a young woman as you wear this object of sedition ? " She coldly answered, "You can't help the colour, do what you will ; it grows every day." There is a very singular story in circulation here, which I fancy is not without foundation, that the daughter of Curran, the famous counsellor, was in corre- spondence with Emmett, and it is said that her love- letters found on him, mixed with politics, were fatal to him. No one believes that Curran, her father, knew of this correspondence ; he some time ago changed his doctrines, and declared himself loyal for
22 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
the future. "It was more to his interest," he said, "as he had a rising family." He was to have been counsel for Emmett, but on this discovery declined it, and still refuses to see his daughter. The young man was said to have behaved extraordinarily well.
* I think you will like to know the result of Emmett's trial and the manner in which he quitted his busy and turbulent career. The Court was crowded at a very early hour. The trial began at nine o'clock and lasted till eight in the evening. Many men went there with a considerable mixture of compassion for his youth and perverted talents, but these sentiments did not remain ; the proofs of his guilt were so clear that at his own desire his counsel did not make any defence. Some extracts only of the letters I mentioned were read, and the name was withheld. It is said that these letters were the principal evidence to condemn him. The name was withheld, I clearly saw, in delicacy to the young woman's father, Mr. Curran, who has lately become the friend of the Government, and has the ability to do much harm. The behaviour of Emmett during the trial was cool, firm, and manly. After he was found guilty he spoke at considerable length, it was thought in a daring and improper manner, avowing his principles and glorying in them. I do not, how- ever, think his speech reads ill ; to be sure, it is
MEMOIR 23
daring and impetuous, but I think it is sincere, and the speech of a republican and an enthusiast, who from infancy imbibed a set of false doctrines which an ardent and ambitious mind formed, and a low- placed attachment riveted.
' When Lord Norbury told Emmett that he had been found guilty of high treason, and asked him why the sentence of the law should not be passed on him, he replied :
* " My Lord, with respect to the trial and the ver- dict pronounced, nothing ; but with respect to some of the charges this night settled, I have much to say. I have been charged with being an emissary of France. Hear the declaration of a dying man. I say it is false — I never was an emissary of France. I acknowledge that the Provisional Government treated with France, and at this moment an ambas- sador from this country is in Paris to obtain a treaty signed, before an expedition should sail to get for this country such a constitution as Franklin has obtained for America. I have no faith in trea- ties. My object was to obtain for the people their rights, to restore what had been wrested from them, to act with the people against the Government to obtain it, but not, as it was construed to-night, by foreign aid. So contrary was my plan that I accelerated the attack of the 23rd, lest the French
24 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
should arrive. Hear the declaration of a dying man. My views were not formed upon ambitious motives. I had no desire for emolument or aggrandisement. I sacrificed ideals dear to my heart to obtain for the people their rights ; I now lose my life for it. Bead our proclamation. My wish was to effect this without bloodshed. I declare as a dying man I did not wish to spill blood."
' Here Lord Norbury interrupted him, but Emmett went on : " My Lord, it is true that you are the judge and I am the culprit. My Lord, you are but a man, so am I. I claim nothing as a culprit from a judge. I only desire that my dying request may be granted, and that this may pass with my life, that when I meet the cold grave no epitaph may be written on my tomb. Future times will record the work that I began."
* Here the Judge said this must end, and Emmett concluded : " My Lord, I state the solemn truth, as I shall shortly appear before my God. I was not the author of this movement, but joined it because the sentiments it professed agreed with my own. From the age of ten these sentiments were mine and will go to the grave with me — to join the people against the Government for the redress of their grievances, and were it to be done again to-morrow I would act as I have done. But hear my last declaration. I
MEMOIE 25
hate French principles and I hate the French ; I see they have paid no respect to treaties. Were I in Switzerland I would join the people against the French ; I would do the same here, and would be one of the foremost to fight against them. These are my sentiments ; for these I die. My ministry has come to a close."
* After sentence was passed Emmett was by mis- take taken to Newgate and lodged in a miserable cell, which being discovered by Mr. Wickham, he sent a strong party of dragoons, and removed him to his former prison, where he was comfortably accommodated until the next day, when he was to be executed. Emmett expressed himself sensible of this mark of attention to the Officer of the Guard, who repeated this, and a good deal more, to me. The doomed man also, in a conversation with the Attorney-General, O'Grady, entered more at large into his views and plans than he had done the day before. He reiterated his abhorrence of the French, their principles, and their government, and said he had been eager to make his push before the invasion they meditated would make it theirs. He disclaimed private views of ambition or interest, and showed a man burning with a fire which flashed only to mis- lead, being self-misled. I do not believe that Miss Curran requested to see him ; if she did she would
26 SOUTH AFKICA A CENTURY AGO
not have been permitted. The conduct of Eedman, who shot himself, had rendered it necessary that Emmett should he searched in court to prevent his concealing the means of self-destruction, and he was handcuffed. Many letters were found on him which were not exposed, and a lock of hair and a small bunch of valerian. He said to the jailer, " For Heaven's sake, do not take those from me ; let me have them to the last." They were returned to him.
* The next day at one o'clock he was taken to the place of execution, in a hackney coach at his own request. He conversed with ease and calmness with two Protestant clergymen who accompanied him, he being a Protestant, and, when he arrived at the gallows, seemed much disappointed at not being permitted to harangue the populace, giving reason to suppose that his intentions might fairly be trusted. But the experiment was one of too much danger ; he was not allowed to speak, and finding he could not prevail, he calmly and at once advanced to the halter. He had before he left prison requested to have the Sacrament, and declared himself to live and to die a Christian, sincerely sorry for whatever he had done that was wrong, but dying in the firm persuasion that he had in the present instance acted up to what was his duty, according to every
MEMOIR 27
principle which from early infancy had been instilled into him.
* This request of partaking of the Sacrament (which was granted), but at the same time acknow- ledging no repentance for his conduct, produced a very warm dispute at his Excellency's table, where opinions were so equally divided that a Bishop being on the side against the administration of the Sacrament could scarce turn the scale. I will not venture upon a subject so far above me ; but one thing I may venture to say, both with respect to Emmett and the two clergymen who administered, that I believe our great Creator, who looks into our hearts, will judge our motives rather than our actions. Our actions vary, as countries, habits, tenets of faith, and moral laws settle, but the motives of hearts are apart from religions and customs, and where they are sound and pure in their own tribunal — conscience — I do not believe that the great Judge of all will punish a person whose judgment only is wrong. Therefore, may we not forgive the clergymen, and perhaps, when we do, find an extenuation for Emmett ? ' ^
The English again conquered the Cape in 1806. Lord Caledon went out as Governor, and Barnard
' Letter of Lady Anne Barnard to Viscount Melville, Dublin Castle, September 21, 1803.
28 SOUTH AFEICA A CENTUEY AGO
was again appointed to his old post of Secretary to
the Colony, it being thought that his knowledge
of Cape affairs would prove useful. Lady Anne was
very much against her husband accepting the
appointment, but as nothing else offered he had
perforce to go, and she arranged to follow him later.
^1 Her plans, however, were changed by the news of
\J I his death, which occurred soon after his arrival at
the Cape, in 180y
I In her widowhood Lady Anne returned to Lady
/ Margaret's house in Berkeley Square, where the sisters
resided together, and she took up the thread of her
life very much where it had been broken by her
marriage. Among her best friends at this time were
Sir Walter Scott and the Prince Kegent. Some
little time after Barnard's death Lady Anne sent
a portrait of her husband to the Prince Eegent with
the following note :
' I know your goodness of heart, Sir, and I know that you will pardon this letter. It is not more to my prince that I write than to that kind friend and patron who would have stopped the fatal journey of my dear husband by an exchange of situation, had not untoward combinations defeated every hope and forced his departure. You will perceive. Sir, that it is Anne Barnard who now addresses your Eoyal Highness, to entreat your acceptance of what
MEMOIR 29
accompanies this. My dear husband requested in his will that I would send testimonies of his regard to those friends I knew he honoured and esteemed. To fulfil this desire, I have had an engraving done from this picture, of which the first proof is now sent to your Koyal Highness. You will not be dis- pleased at my venturing to place you, Sir, at the head of this (to me) sacred list — so much worth, and so many estimable qualities as he had, rendered him a person whose attachment could not disgrace even your Eoyal Highness. When you look at the print, Sir, as I hope you will do with regard for his sake, bestow a thought of pity and kindness on her who ever has been and must remain * Your Boyal Highness's ' Most faithful and affectionate servant,
'Anne Barnard.
* P.S. — May I venture to say that I would rather your Eoyal Highness did not reply to my letter? Your heart will lead you to it, but it will be better for me not to receive any reply on this subject.'
The Prince Kegent's reply shows that he possessed a warmth of heart with which many of his contemporaries did not credit him :
'My dear and old Friend, — You are right in thinking that perhaps it would be better, both for
30 SOUTH AFKICA A CENTURY AGO
you and me, that no letter should pass between us in consequence of this recent mark of your kindest recollection and affection. But there are certain feelings which one is only individually responsible for, and that which perhaps in one instance is better for one person not to do, it is impossible for another to resist. It is not from any selfish conceit or presumption that I presume to differ from your much better reasoned and conceived opinion, but from the ingenuous and paramount impulse and feelings of a heart that you have long, long, long- indeed known, which from the earliest hour of its existence has glowed with the warmest and most transcendent feelings of the most affectionate friend- ship for those who love and know how to appreciate it — and to whom can this be better applied, dearest Lady Anne, than to yourself? To tell you how much and how highly I value your present, and what (if it be possible) is much more, the affectionate remembrance you have shown me in this instance, and the manner in which you have done it, is that which I not only can never express, but can never forget. That every blessing and happiness may for ever attend you is the earnest prayer of
* Your ever and most affectionate friend,
'Geoege p.
MEMOIE 31
' P.S. — My heart is so full that I hope you will forgive this hasty scrawl, for I write the very instant I have received your letter. Pray tell me that you forgive me.'
Lady Margaret Fordyce married again in 1812 Sir James Burgess, and died two years later. Lady Anne continued to reside in Berkeley Square by herself, enjoying the esteem and society of her many friends. George IV. sent for her to come and see him when he was very ill. He spoke most affection- ately to her, and said, ' Sister Anne ' (the name he usually gave her), ' I wish to see you to tell you that I love you, and wish you to accept of this golden chain for my sake. I may, perhaps, never see you again.' ]
Lady Anne was always the life and soul of any party at which she was present. She was a great story-teller; the following is a characteristic illustration. She was entertaining a large party of distinguished guests at dinner when a hitch occurred in the kitchen. Her old servant came up behind her, and said, * My Lady, you must tell another story — the second course won't be ready for five minutes.'
A few years before her death. Sir Walter Scott's novel ' The Pirate ' appeared, in which book Sir Walter Scott, who at that time refused to identify himself
32 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTUEY AGO
with the author of 'Waverley,' mentioned Lady Anne by name as the author of *Auld Kobin Gray.' He compared the condition of Minnie to that of Jeanie Gray — to quote his own words, ' The village heroine in Lady Anne Barnard's beautiful ballad.' ^ This public ascription led Lady Anne to think that the time had at last arrived to put an end to the disputes concerning the authorship of her ballad.
She wrote a letter to Sir Walter Scott, dated July 8, 1823, asking him to convey to the author of * Waverley,' ' with whom,' she slyly added, * I am informed you are personally acquainted, how grate- ful I feel the kindness with which he has, in the second volume of " The Pirate," chapter xiii., so dis- tinguishedly noticed, and by his powerful authority assigned the long contested ballad of " Auld Eobin Gray" to its proper author.' She then went on to say:
*In truth, the position I was placed in about that song had at last become irksome to me ; how can I then so fully mark my thankfulness to him who has relieved me from my dilemma, as by trans- mitting to him, fairly and frankly, the origin, birth, life, death and confession, will and testament, of
' Nae langer she wept, her tears were a' spent, Despair it was come and she thought it content ; She thought it content— but her cheek it grew pale And she drooped like a snowdrop broke down by the hail.
MEMOIR 38
"Auld Eobin Gray," with the assurance that the author of " Waverley " is the first person out of my own family who has ever had an explanation from me on the subject ?
' " Bobin Gray," so called from its being the name of the old herdsman at Balcarres, was horn soon after the close of the year 1771. My sister Margaret had married and accompanied her husband to London ; I was melancholy, and endeavoured to amuse myself by attempting a few poetical trifles. There was an ancient Scotch melody of which I was passionately fond ; Sophy Johnstone, who lived before your day, used to sing it to us at Balcarres. I longed to sing old Sophy's air to different words, and to give to its plaintive tones some little history of virtuous distress in humble life, such as might suit it. While at- tempting to effect this in my closet, I called to my little sister, now Lady Hardwicke, who was the only person near me : " I have been writing a ballad, my dear. I am oppressing my heroine with many mis- fortunes : I have already sent her Jamie to sea, and broken her father's arm, and made her mother fall sick, and given her Auld Kobin Gray for a lover, but I wish to load her with a fifth sorrow in the four lines, poor thing ! Help me to one, I pray." " Steal the cow, sister Anne," said the little Elizabeth. The cow was immediately lifted by me, and the
P
34 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
song completed. At our fireside, amongst our neighbours, " Auld Eobin Gray " was always called for. I was pleased with the approbation it met with, but such was my dread of being suspected of writ- ing anything, perceiving the shyness it created in those who could write nothing, that I carefully kept my own secret.' ^
The last years of Lady Anne's life were spent m preparing and collecting materials for a book on the Lindsays. She died on May 6, 1825, in her seventy-fourth year. Her nephew. Colonel Lindsay, has paid the following tribute to her memory, which sums up the salient points in her remarkable and charming personality :
' The peculiar trait of Lady Anne's character was benevolence, a readiness to share with others her purse, her tears, or her joys — an absence of all selfishness. This, with her talents, created a power of pleasing which I have never seen equalled. She had in society a power of placing herself in sympathy with those whom she addressed, of drawing forth their feelings, their talents, their requirements, pleasing them with themselves, and consequently with their companions for the time being. I have often seen her change a dull party into an agreeable
' Letter of Lady Anne Barnard to Sir Walter Scott. Berkeley S(juare, London, July 8, 1823.
MEMOIR 35
one ; she could make the dullest speak, the shyest feel happy, and the witty flash fire without any apparent exertion. It were impossible to name the numbers who claimed her intimacy, even from the prince on the throne to the peasant at Balcarres.'
APPENDIX TO MEMOIK
THE OEIGINAL TEXT OF ' AULD EOBIN GEAY*
By Lady Anne Lindsay, by marriage Barnard
When the sheep are in the fauld, when the kye's come
hame, And a' the weary warld to rest are gane. The waes o' my heart fa' in showers frae my e'e, Unkent by my gudeman, wha sleeps sound by me.
Young Jamie lo'ed me weel, and sought me for his bride, But saving ae crown-piece he had naething beside ; To make the crown a pound my Jamie gaed to sea, And the crown and the pound — they were baith for me.
He hadna been gane a twelvemonth and a day.
When my father brake his arm and the cow was stown
away ; My mither she fell sick — my Jamie was at sea, And Auld Eobin Gray came a courting me.
d2
36 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
My father couldna wark — my mither couldna spin — I toiled day and night, but their bread I couldna
win, — Auld Eob maintained them baith, and, wi' tears in
his e'e, Said, ' Jeanie, O for their sakes will ye no marry me ? '
My heart it said na, and I looked for Jamie back, But hard blew the winds, and his ship was a wrack ; His ship was a wrack — why didna Jamie dee. Or why am I spared to cry wae is me ?
My father urged me sair — my mither didna speak, But she looked in my face till my heart was like to
break ; They gied him my hand — my heart was in the sea — And so Eobin Gray he was gudeman to me.
I hadna been his wife a week but only four, When, mournfu' as I sat on the stane at my door, I saw my Jamie's ghaist, for I couldna think it he Till he said ' I'm come hame, love, to marry thee ! '
Oh sair, sair did we greet, and mickle say of a', I gied him ae kiss, and bade him gang awa', — I wish that I were dead, but I'm na like to dee, For though my heart is broken, I'm but young, wae is
me
I gang like a ghaist, and I carena much to spin, I darena think o' Jamie, for that wad be a sin, But I'll do my best a gude wife to be, For, 0, Eobin Gray, he is kind to me.
LADY ANNE BAENARD'S LETTEES
As the following letters practically cover the period of the first British occupation of South Africa, a brief survey of the history of Cape Colony before it came into English hands may not be out of place.
The Cape of Good Hope was discovered by Bartholomew Dias, the Portuguese explorer, in 1486, when he was in search of an ocean road to India. His vessel was caught in a heavy gale, wherefore he entitled the new land * Cabo Tormentoso,' or the Cape of Storms. The King of Portugal, appreciating the importance of the discovery, gave it the more auspicious name of the Cape of Good Hope, as its existence afforded a good hope of a new and easier way of reaching India, the goal of maritime expedi- tions of that age. The hope was realised ten years later, when Vasco da Gama doubled the Cape and carried the Portuguese flag into Indian seas. The Portuguese, more attracted by India, never valued the Cape at its proper worth ; they often touched there, but they made no permanent settlement.
The ocean highway now being discovered, the English, Dutch, and French began to follow the
40 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
Portuguese to India vid the Cape of Good Hope. The English flag was first seen in Table Bay in 1591, On the decline of the Portuguese power the Dutch established themselves in the East, and they early saw the importance of the Cape as a port of call and refreshment, it being regarded as two-thirds of the distance from Amsterdam to Batavia. They did not colonise it until 1652, when the Dutch East India Company ordered Jacob van Biebeck, with a small party of soldiers and colonists, to form a settle- ment there, something in the nature of a military outpost. These colonists gradually drove the Hottentots back and took their territory. The early settlers, though under Dutch rule, were not wholly Dutch, but were made up also of Flemings, Germans, Poles, and Portuguese, mostly of a low class. A few of the best, and those mainly DutcTi^ formed a Council to assist the chief officer in the manage- ment of the colony. In 1686 the little community received an important addition in a number of French refugees who had left their country on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. This Huguenot immigration may still be traced in South Africa in many ways — Joubert and Du Plessis, for instance, are old Huguenot names. The colony now grew, gradually extending its borders and increasing its population. Cattle-breeding was found to pay, and became an important industry. The children and ^grandchildren of the Dutch, Germans, French, bind other nationalities became trek boeren — that is.
LADY ANNE BARNARD'S LETTERS 41
wandering farmers — and with their nomadic life they adopted unsettled and lawless habits.
For the next hundred years, throughout the eighteenth century, South Africa was under the rule, or rather the misrule, of the Dutch East India Company. They seized the territory of the Hottentots, broke their so-called contracts with them, and reduced those whom they did not kill to the position of serfs. They introduced a number of Malays and negroes into the colony as slaves — a measure absolutely indefensible, as there was no need of negro labour ; they established a narrow and tjrrannical policy, needlessly harassing the settlers with petty restrictions and extortionate taxes. They specified to the farmers the nature of the crops they were to grow, and exacted from them a large portion of their produce. This naturally led to false state- ments, bribery, cheating, and all kinds of corruption. Again and again were complaints made by the settlers to the Government in Holland against the Dutch East India Company, but without result. The Boers, or wandering farmers, were especially insubordinate, and not without reason ; indeed, much of their dislike to orderly government may be traced back to this misgovernment. They made several attempts to throw off the rule of the Dutch East India Company, until at last, in 1795, their dis- content culminated in active rebellion, and they endeavoured to form a republic of their own in the district of Graff-Beinet. At this time European
a
42 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
politics had extended even to the Cape, and the French Revolution made its influence felt here, and found many sympathisers among the Dutch. In Holland there were two parties — the * Patriot ' party, which sympathised with the French and held republican principles ; and the Orange party, which favoured the Stadtholders, the Prince of Orange, and the alli- ance with England. When war broke out the ' Patriot ' party sided with France and the Orange party with the English. The French successes of 1794-5 had the result of upsetting the Prince of Orange's Government, and he escaped to England in a fishing-boat, and Holland, or that part of it in alliance with France, became known as the Bata- vian Eepublic.
Fearing that the Cape might fall into the hands of the French, and recognising its importance as a station on the way to India, the British Government resolved to take possession of it without delay. An expedition was despatched under Admiral Elphin- stone and General Craig, who commanded the sea and land forces respectively, and arrived in Simon's Bay in June 1795. General Craig brought with him a letter from the Prince of Orange to the officers in charge at the Cape, desiring them to receive the Enghsh forces as in alliance with Holland. But the Cape oiScers, like the Dutch in Holland, were divided in their allegiance between the Patriot and the Orange factions, and they refused to recognise the mandate of a refugee prince.
LADY ANNE BARNARD'S LETTERS 43
especially without instructions from their real masters, the Dutch East India Company. The English troops then landed under General Craig, and were reinforced shortly by 3,000 soldiers under General Sir Alured Clarke. After a short engage- ment the Dutch asked for an armistice, and the next day capitulated to the English, who took possession of the castle and the garrison of the Cape of Good Hope, and hoisted the British flag. Thus ended the rule of the Dutch East India Company in South Africa.
After the capitulation, the civil government and military command of the Cape were placed in the/ hands of General Craig, who became the temporary head of the English Government there. His brief rule was judicious and conciliatory; he interfered as little as possible with the existing state of things, and was respected by the Dutch. Soon after the news of the conquest of the Cape reached Eng- land the Government resolved to appoint Lord Macartney as Governor, and to vest in him all the power held by the Governor and Council of the Dutch East India Company. They also determined to greatly increase the garrison at Cape Town, and to make the ofi&cer in command the Lieutenant- Governor. General Francis Dundas, nephew of the Secretary of State, was given this post, and Mr. Barnard was appointed Secretary to the Colony. In all these appointments the influence of Lord Melville may be clearly traced. The King rewarded
44 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
General Craig with a K.CB. for his services, and the decoration was taken out by the new Governor, Lord Macartney, who, with the Secretary of the Colony and Lady Anne Barnard, arrived at Cape Town in May 1797, and took over the duties of government. At this point Lady Anne's letters begin.
LADY ANNE BARNABD'S LETTERS 45
II
The Castle, Cape Town : July 10th, 1797.
From the Castle of Good Hope, situated within the garrison, over which towers the Table Mountain at a considerable real distance (the close apparent vicinity being from the effect of its height), and from the window of my bed-chamber, which overlooks a colonnade built around a spacious pond of water supplied from the head and tail of a spouting dolphin, I begin this letter to my dearest Friend,^ firmly assured that he will be as much interested in its contents from private affection to the writer, as from curiosity to know every point, however minute, which regards a public concern. I am perfectly convinced that you must also receive along with this such numberless letters from others much better qualified to give you an account of everything worth your knowing, that it would seem almost conceited folly in me to describe things as they appear around me, or still more to give my miserable female notions on anything of importance, were it not that I know your friendship will contrive a general apology for
' The Right Hon. Henry Dundas, Secretary of State, to whom all these letters are addressed.
46 SOUTH AFEICA A CENTURY AGO
everything silly or erroneous, and though all seems yellow to the jaundiced eye, all will seem rose colour and interesting to that partial pair of black sparklers with which you read the epistles of your female friend. You gave me leave to write freely whenever I would, and I promise that you shall find everything you wish to know — and some things you may not — from the honestest pen in the world (for I must not confine myself now to Europe). I never exaggerate — never; sometimes I may extenuate, but I set down naught in malice.
But to land us here properly, let me first return to the ship and bring up matter with a little regularity.
Our voyage on the whole was a prosperous one. We sailed from Plymouth the 23rd of February, and landed at the Cape the 5th of May. We had but few calms, and no storm such as to endanger the ship, though ten days of weather was so very rough as to give sufficient apology to a coward for being afraid, particularly from the rolling of the ship. We had, as you know, 272 great guns for Bengal aboard her, which often brought our upper guns under water, and rendered the beauties in their various cabins black and blue from the rolling and pitching the guns pro- duced. We met with but few occurrences of conse- quence. The heat between the Tropics was excessive, but not beyond or equal to what I expected, as the ther- mometer was never above 84 degrees. We passed the Line exactly at twelve o'clock, the Sun in his
LADY ANNE BAENARD'S LETTERS 47
Meridian, and on his way from his country seat of Capricorn to that of Cancer. I made a few httle drawings of sharks, dolphins, flying fish, hardly worth your looking at, which I shall send to Margaret,^ the only merit of which consists in their being literally just. All on board were well, partly owing to the dry weather, partly to the attentions of the Captain, who you very justly told me was one of the civilest and most liberal of men. Our mess- mates numbered about twenty-four, and we all got on like lambs, except two, of whom I would say nothing, were it not that you must hear of them from others. I mean Captain Campbell and his Dutch wife. We were obliged to drop common conversation with them beyond the necessities of society. He contradicted all around him in a manner most unusual in civilised company, and as for Mrs. Campbell, after every fair attention on the part of the ladies on board, who were five beside herself, she seemed resolved to keep herself apart from all Englishwomen, apparently reserving herself to be head of the Dutch party instead of the English, and finding much fault with Government for sending to the Cape, as she says, a 'parcel of people who cannot please the Dutch, or be likely to adopt their manners.' I hope that her manners are not a specimen, and that her calculations will not prove good, as the Dutch are said to be eager to be well with the English. In any case Mr. Barnard
' Her sister, Lady Margaret Fordyce.
48 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
and I mean to do all in our power to carry out your wishes, to conciliate them as much as we possibly can, and to meet their habits and the custom of the place half-way.
But to return to our voyage. The heat decreased as we passed the Tropic of Cancer, and, after having quitted our blankets and cloth habits, we all took to them again. Our course was pretty direct by the chart from the time we passed the Madeiras (where you made us go into a fine scollop to avoid certain French cruisers which we have since heard you had intelligence of) till we got into the latitude of the Cape, where contrary winds vexed us much, and blew us very nearly into the latitude where the ' Guardian ' was lost by mountains of ice. However, five or six days produced a favourable change, and the joyful news of land being seen was announced, though in truth it was so enveloped in fog that we did not enjoy its appearance till we were exactly placed in the bay opposite to Cape Town. Then, as if by one consent, the Lion's rump whisked off the vapours with its tail; the Lion's head untied, and dropped the necklace of clouds which surrounded its erect throat, and Table Mountain, over which a white damask table-cloth had been spread half-way down, showed its broad face and smiled. At the same time guns from the garrison and from all the batteries welcomed His Majesty's Government, and the distant hills, who could not step forward to declare their allegiance, by the awful thunders of their
LADY ANNE BARNARD'S LETTERS 49
acquiescing echoes, informed us that they were not ignorant of the arrival of the Governor,^ who was at that moment putting his foot on land. Nothing could be finer than the coup d'oeil from the Bay ; yet nothing can have so little affinity with each other as the bold perpendicular mountains, bare and rocky, and the low white card houses, which from the distance seem even smaller than they are, and scarce large enough to hold an ant. But this is only ap- pearance, in reality they are excellent.'^
The Thornborns, having heard of our arrival, sent us an invitation to come to their house, which was a blessing of no moderate sort, every place being crowded. Lord Macartney preferred going to one of the lodging-houses (indeed all the private houses, half a dozen excepted, are such) to incommoding Sir James Craig ^ by going to his abode. We walked from the Key to Mr. Thomborn's house, for though his carriage was sent to meet us, we preferred the
' George, Earl Macartney, the first English Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, had enjoyed a distinguished career as a diplo- matist and Colonial Governor. He had been Envoy Extraordinary to the Court of St. Petersburg, and concluded a most successful commercial treaty with Russia ; he had been Governor of Madras, and had refused the Governor-Generalship of India. He had been on a special embassy to the Emperor of China at Pekin. He was appointed Governor of the Cape of Good Hope on December 30, 1796, and arrived there on board the ' Trusty,' May 4, 1797.
" The population of Cape Town was then about 6,000 Europeans and nearly 11,000 persons of colour.
* General Sir James Henry Craig had assumed the civil govern- ment and military command at the Cape after the capitulation of the Dutch, and remained there as Deputy- Governor of the colony until the arrival of Lord Macartney.
E
50 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
feeling of hard land under our feet to all artificial conveyances. The first thing that struck me, strongly and disagreeably, was a very offensive smell in the air, and I afterwards found it in some of the houses : I was told it proceeded from the oil with which the slaves grease their hair. Waggons of wood next appeared, driven by one man, eight and ten horses moving with perfect docility to the crack of his , whip. Next we saw more melancholy evidences of the far distant classes amongst human creatures — ^ \ slaves returning from a seven or eight miles' distance, each man loaded with two bundles of sticks slung across his bare shoulders. It made one sigh at first in looking at the weight of the bundles ; the only com- fort was that one of them only was for the master, the other was for the private benefit of the slave. We walked up the town, which I found much superior in appearance and area, and in the size and accommoda- tion of the houses, to what I had expected. We were kindly welcomed by the Thornborns, who let us make their house our home during ten days and, much unlike the Dutch system, would accept of no repayment. But she is an Englishwoman, he is a Dane, and both are the intimate friends of our sweet Doctor Gillan,^ who I hope is at this moment as well as we wish him.
Long looked-for as Lord Macartney had been, his arrival seemed to give new life to languid spirits.
' A well-known Scottish physician who had accompanied Lord Macartney on his special mission to China in 1793.
LADY ANNE BARNARD'S LETTERS 51
Even the Dutch, who had vainly flattered themselves till a Governor came that a Governor never would come, and that the Cape would somehow or another fall back into the old hands ^ or be ceded to the French, seemed to have got a cold bath first, but revived health and alacrity of mind through certainty of the worst, and the necessity of beginning business again on an assured footing. This has not been the case during the procrastinated decisions of Sir James Craig, who has made it his policy to delay all un- pleasant rules until the commencement of the new Governor's administration, I fancy that on the capture of the Cape, being too eager to obtain it, he made the terms of capitulation unnecessarily beneficial to the Dutch. He wished to be the friend and pro- tector of the Cape people, and so unwittingly made himself the protector of Dutch impositions put upon the troops — a dear price for popularity. He considered these indulgences were merely temporary ones, as a Governor would soon arrive. Meantime, through his eagerness to conciliate and to keep well with the Dutch inhabitants of the Colony, we found that every article of life had been permitted to rise to an immoderate price, unchecked by any scheme of abatement by competition, or by prevailing on the farmers to bring down their stock, and that there was an actual scarcity of grain in the place. The number of mouths to be fed was now three times as many, while that granary which the Dutch policy
> The Dutch East India Company.
b2
52 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
had always kept filled with one or two years' grain beforehand, and which would now have stood us in good stead, had loaded a few ships, to be a breakfast for London and to prove the abundance of the Colony. Bread of course was raised, but not very essentially, as grain is ground all through, and brown bread of a coarser quality than what you have usually seen (of which I send you a bit), but I think good, is universally used, much to the annoy- ance of the Dutch, who reckon themselves undone if they are without the finest. They, however, sustain but little of this inconvenience, as they are too provident not to have a private stock of every- thing, which is kept up till an opportunity be found of selling to advantage ; nor is there one house in Cape Town where any article may not be bought in a clandestine manner if a tempting price is paid. But the master pretends to know nothing of the matter, as there is a great degree of false pride amongst them, no one choosing to confess he does the things which all do, and all know are done.
Immediately on our arrival, Mr. Thornborn's house was filled with scarlet and blue coats, who came to visit us and to rejoice on our arrival. I should have felt sorry, when I listened to the dislike every individual expressed of the Cape without reserve, had I not hoped that many favour- able changes would soon take place from Lord Macartney's wisdom, and from the acquisition society was gaining by a few good-humoured people being
LADY-ANNE BAENAKD'S LETTERS 53
thrown into the leaven tub, which at that moment appeared to have too much acid in it. I plainly saw from General Craig's manner that he was disappointed at not remaining here himself, but, since he was not to do so, it was very agreeable to him to go to India. He appeared, however, to be much less sanguine in his expectations of the benefits arising to England from the Cape, or from the possibility of its being rendered flourishing, convenient, or any real acquisition to us, than I had imagined he would have been. He boldly said that the expectations formed from it, and of it, were too high. One could only pause and listen to this with a portion of regret, mixed with another little portion of distrust of a judgment which, though a very tolerable one in many respects, is not so extensive in its views or powers as some others I wot of. Admiral Pringle,' however, backed this gloomy view with six-and-thirty-pounder corro- borations. He said that the Cape was the worst nautical situation it was possible for the devil himself to contrive, with fewer possibilities of harbourings or landing-places than could be con- ceived— no rivers, no water, torrents in plenty from the mountain tops, but nothing in the bosom of the earth. He imagined also that the Dutch policy was a sound one when they checked all population or improvement, for as the Colony improved and peopled he thought it would to us only prove a
' The Admiral then commanding the squadron at the Cape.
54 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
second America, and would be more likely in time to rob us of India than to secure it for us. He held all establishment of manufactures to be dan- gerous and foolish, and said that no pains should be taken with the interior of the country, but merely with the skirting of it, which could produce comforts to our people after their long voyages to and fro. All this the Admiral laid down much more clearly, God knows, than I repeat it ; and he wound up by swearing that the Cape was the * cussedest place ' ever discovered, with nothing good in it, and that even the hens did not lay fresh eggs, so vile was every animal that inhabited the place.
There appeared to be no small mixture of pre- judice, along with some reasonable causes of dis- like, in all these explosions. I could only cry pause here also, and wait to hear the other side of the question ; but this I was not likely to have from the military, who all to a man have disliked their quarters — nor is that much to be wondered at, as everything since the first capture of the Cape has been so extravagantly dear that the poor subalterns are both starved and undone. The private soldiers live well, and cheap, as beef, mutton, and bread are still reasonable, the first being only 2^cZ. per pound, raised to M. per pound now ; and I suppose bread is not more, or so much, as in London, as our house bills for it amount to nearly the same sum as it cost us there. At first there was much drinking amongst
LADY ANNE BAENARD'S LETTERS 55
the private soldiers, from the cheapness of the Cape wine, which could then be procured for about Sd. a bottle ; but now I have heard there are wine- taxes laid on it, or some way is contrived to render its attainment less easy and counteract its pernicious effects in the garrison, it being now 6d. a bottle, or more. Every other article of Hfe (the three excepted — wine, bread, and butcher's meat) is extra- ordinarily dear. An officer, who comforts himself on going to this distant destination by the thought of living within his pay, is therefore disappointed in the extreme to find that he is obliged to spend more here than if he were in London. This is by no means owing to his purchasing English articles, as the products of the country are equally expensive — garden-stuff, fruit, eggs, butter, washing, labour, all are above all reason : an egg is Sd., a pound of potatoes 6d., a dish of cauliflower Is. 6d., milk above Is. per quart, the washing of a shirt 6d., oranges about the same price as in London, almonds, raisins, walnuts nearly the same, and every assistance of labour three times as much. All this, together with the high price of horses (an ordinary one being 30Z. or 40?.) > with fodder enor- mous and not to be obtained, besides the want of amusement of every kind, has made the military sick of this place, vexed as they have been with scarcity and poverty, and hipped with ennui. Per- haps their distance from the fountain of promotion may add to this, and the very little notice taken of
56 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
the subaltern officers (which has come to a point Mr. Barnard and I think very cruel, and wish to mend as far as we can) has rendered them still more dispirited ; no man here beneath a colonel, or major at least, being invited to anything.
I soon had an opportunity of judging of this. Sir James Craig gave a ball to the new Governor m honour of his arrival, to which we, of course, went. I must say it was a very pretty sight : the Government House in the gardens was beautifully lighted with every lamp in the Colony which could be brought together, and the walks, shadowed with oak trees, were bright as day, and had very pretty devices at the end of most of them. The ball-room was very long but somewhat narrow ; perhaps it seemed narrow because it was lined with rows of Dutch ladies, all tolerably well-dressed, much white muslin about, and a good deal of colour. I had been told that the Dutch ladies were handsome as to their faces, but I saw no real beauty, though they were fresh and wholesome-looking ; while as for manner, they had none, and graces and charms
^ were sadly lacking, though they had a sort of vulgar smartness, which I suppose passed for wit. They danced without halting at all, a sort of pit-a- pat little step, which they have probably learned from some Beauty on her way to Bengal. They remind me very much of the women one might find
-^at an assize ball in a country town. What they want most is shoulders and manners. I know now
LADY ANNE BARNABD'S LETTEES 57
what is meant by a ' Dutch doll ' ; their make is exactly like them. But the most exceptional things about them are their teeth and the size of their feet. A tradesman in London, hearing their feet were so large, sent a box of shoes on speculation, which almost put the Colony in a blaze, so angry were the Beauties. But day by day a pair was sent for by a slave in the dark, until at last all the shoes vanished. But I think that these people will improve on acquaintance, and have only to be more understood ; for my part, I am resolved to be pleased with everything. I was, at the ball, all smiles, as honesty here would be by no means the best policy. There were not many Dutchmen there ; the Fiscal,^ or head officer of Justice, the President of the Court, and one or two other men in public positions, appeared for a short time and then vanished, as if they were almost afraid of being seen there by each other. They cannot divest themselves of the opinion that the English will be obliged to cede the Cape to the Dutch, or to France, on a peace, and therefore do not want to get known as partisans of the English Government. As for the young Dutchmen, I saw hardly any ; the young ones prefer smoking their pipes on the stoep, or perhaps they are altogether Jacobin. At any rate they were not there, and this brings me back to the point where I started.
1 Willem Stephanas van Byneveld, who had held the same office under the Dutch East India Company.
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I was surprised to see so small a portion of the military ; no ensigns, lieutenants, or their wives. I asked about this, and found out that it is the ton of the general officers to discountenance the subordinate ranks from mixing in society. I think this is very bad for the young mihtary, and I have heard that — for want of a better society, we shall suppose it— the garrison were much given to drinking and gaming. Every day this prevails less and less. General Dundas^ does not encourage either — indeed, in my opinion, considerably the contrary. At review-dinners, and on such public festivities, he pushes about the bottle in a manly way ; but except on these occasions never, and gaming he never gives in to. You would be pleased to see how wisely, temperately, and agreeably he conducts himself in his situation, how well he and Lord Macartney are together, and on what comfort- able terms he is with all around him. I dwell the more on this, as there was a time when I remember hearing him called hot and haughty ; if such things have been, or are, in his temper, they are at pre- sent checked and laid aside ; he is a most pleasant member of society, and well liked by man and woman. I see also great satisfaction in every one with the manners of our Lord, who was expected to be cold and dignified, and fond of his own opinion,
' General Francis Dundas, second son of Eobert Dnndas of Arniston, and nephew of the Right Hon. Henry Dundas (afterwards Viscount Melville), was appointed to command the troops at the Cape of Good Hope in August 1796. He was also Lieutenant-Governor, and afterwards Acting-Governor on two occasions.
LADY ANNE BAENARD'S LETTERS 59
and stiff in maintaining it. Such was the public notion of him : he certainly has wished to impress it differently, and has succeeded. He promotes society, and is markedly attentive to the individuals who compose it, respects those inferior to himself in their departments, lays down rules with wise firmness but no mixture of pride, and is (I may say), as far as things have come, beloved. I shall only quote you the words of one smallish man, as it contains more than his own feelings. * I am so glad,' said he, ' to find myself a gentleman now. I had begun to fancy myself a blackguard, but I look up to myself now from the manner Lord Macartney treats me.'
Lord Macartney, immediately on his arrival, declared his intention of living in the Government House in the garden, which he apprehended would not be too cold in winter, and which is certainly cooler than any other here in summer. General Dundas was the next to make his election ; he preferred remaining in the second-sized house within the Castle — being fixed there with a proper bachelor establishment — to occupying the great Government House, which required more furniture and servants, and was fitter for a family. This he gave up to us, partly from good-humour and partly from the above reasons. It is a palace, containing such a suite of apartments as makes me fancy myself a princess when in it — but not an Indian or Hottentot princess, as I have fitted all up in the style of a comfortable, plain, English house. Scotch carpets,
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English linen, and rush-bottom chairs, with plenty of lolling sofas, which I have had made by regi- mental carpenters and stuffed by regimental tailors. In a week or two I shall invite all who wish to be merry without cards or dice, but who can talk, or hop to half a dozen black fiddlers, to come and see me on my public day, which shall be once a fortnight, when the Dutch ladies (all of whom love dancing, and flirting still more) shall be kindly welcomed, and the poor ensigns and cornets shall have an opportunity of stretching their legs as well as the generals. I shall not be stinted for room, as I have a hall of sixty feet, a drawing-room of forty, a dining-room of twenty, a tea-room of thirty, and three supper-rooms — in one of which only I shall have supper, and that cold and desultory, with side-boards and no chairs, as I wish to make my guests happy without being ruined by their drinking half a hogshead of claret every party. Ducks and chickens, etc., they shall have, but as turkeys are one pound apiece, I shall not fly at any of their excellencies.
At Eondebosch is the pleasantest country house belonging to Government, four miles' distance from the Cape ; it has been occupied by General Campbell — Lord Macartney begged him and his wife to remain in it, which they have done. I like our house in the garrison better, however, than any we could have had elsewhere, as it is close by the oj6&ce, where Mr. Barnard is from ten in the morning to three or four, and sometimes part of the evening.
LADY ANNE BARNARD'S LETTERS 61
I ought perhaps to leave it to Lord Macartney to say how he is pleased with the Secretary ; but to You I cannot resist expressing the great satisfaction I feel in seeing Mr. Barnard get through the busi- ness of his situation in a manner which I perceive is completely satisfactory to Lord Macartney, and so conciliatory to every one around him. I always knew that his abilities would be found equal to any demand that could be made on them, but I feel this conjecture established into a very pleasant certainty by having, on more occasions than one, seen Lord Macartney throwing on him very con- sequential decisions which have been invariably approved of, and even adopting from time to time alterations which Mr. Barnard has ventured to make in papers after Lord Macartney has approved of them. Lord Macartney, on the other hand, seems positively fond of, and most companionable with, Mr. Barnard, who appears, and is, as happy in his department as a man can be who thirsted after employment, had it bestowed on him by a friend he is glad to be obliged to, and feels himself equal to it. With such reasons for being happy, if I tell you that I am happy, and I like the Cape, and see much of the disgust with which it is talked of by others as arising out of their own acrid humours, but half- supported by the fact, you will not be surprised. You must, however, read my account of its merits, when I begin to expatiate on them, with some grains of allowance^ as well as those opinions against on
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the other side, as I know that I have a natural dis- position to pick out flowers amongst weeds if I can, and to make the best of all * existing circumstances.' But, independent of this being the turn of my mind, let us look at the facts. Here is a divine climate (at least I have found it so as yet), no fog, no damp, no variations to check the perspirations and fall on the lungs, but a clear, pure, yet not sharp air, full of health and exhilaration to the spirits. Here is scarcity, but here will be plenty, I am convinced, when the harvest comes round, which quickly follows the sowing here — at least a third quicker than in England. The farmers saw no certain market before for their grain, nor would they venture to sow what was in their granaries, for fear of its being reaped by they knew not whom. Now that there is a fixed government and a certain allowance for all, they can send down to the shore. Less will probably be raised this year than will be necessary to make things very cheap, but industry will be doubled next year, more slaves will be got, more cattle taken into the yoke, and plenty, I think, will ensue. The town is clean, one or two dirty circum- stances attending the killing of animals excepted ; the features upon Nature's face magnificently strong. I love these bold strokes with which the Almighty has separated the dry land from sea in His chaos. The bay opens beautifully at the foot of the mountains, while the Hottentot hills at twenty miles' distance rise in forms so stupendously eccentric
LADY ANNE BABNAED'S LETTEES 63
that I look at them with admiration every time I see them. It is in the power of activity and taste to make this, by planting, the finest scene in the world. I have but little of either, but little as I have, if I was only sure of living a couple of hundred years, to see the effects of my labours, I would begin to plant to-morrow with alacrity those grounds round the town which, from their want of water, cannot be applied to any purpose save that of rear- ing wood, which I think they could do in plenty for the use of the town : the silver tree and Scotch fir particularly growing to perfection, * and join the gentle to the rude.' The marriage of Miss Silver- tree with Donald Fir-tops is exactly what I quote, the lady being covered with leaves of grey satin, and the fir, stout, of a fresh bold green, and hardy as its countrymen, I hear you say, and you speak it like a great man, like a good man, like a man of a mind far more extensive than any country is, ' But why must you live to two hundred years to plant ? Can't you plant though you should live only twenty years ? — some one in future will have the benefit of it and thank you.' I can, to be sure — and I will, that is more. I will do as much as my private purse can fairly do for public spirit, but a great deal I can't, unless 1 can persuade others to do so too, as the ground so planted must be enclosed, else the httle tender sticks would be torn up by the slaves for firewood in a twelvemonth's time.
There is a plan (I am not sure by whom
64 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
suggested) of making a sort of navigable canal or connection by water, and by the Burgh river between the sea at False Bay (or Simon's Bay as they call it here), to fall into the salt river at the foot of the Table Mountain. If this could be done it would be a great thing for this place. The expense was talked of as great, but, Lord bless me ! if we keep the Cape, John Bull would fill the subscription of 200,000L in the course of a morning on 'Change.
But I must have done, or you'll think I'll never stop. Adieu, my dearest friend. My love to dear Lady Jane. Tell her to think of me sometimes in this land of ostriches, Kaffirs, and Hottentots. God bless you all.
LADY ANNE BAKNARD'S LETTERS 65
III
The Castle, Cape of Good Hope : August 10th, 1797.
I MUST begin my letter, my dear Friend, by telling you of the steps which have been taken to bring the people of the Cape into harmony with our English Government. There was a Proclamation to the effect that during a certain time, which was an ample one, they might come from all quarters and take the oath of allegiance to His Majesty. The gates of the Castle were thrown open every morning, and 1 was surprised to see so many come after what I had heard. Firstly came a number of well-fed, rosy- cheeked men, with powdered hair, and dressed in black. They walked in in pairs with their hats off, a regulation on entering the Castle on public occasions which, in former days, Dutch pride imposed. They were followed by the Boers from the country — farmers and settlers who had come some very great distance. I think that many of them seemed very sulky and ill-affected ; their manner seemed to say : ' There is no help for it. We must swear, for they are the strongest.' They are very fine men, their height is enormous ; most of them are six feet high and up- wards, and I do not know how many feet across ; I
F
r
66 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTUEY AGO
hear that five or six hundred miles distant they even reach seven feet. They all came to the Cape in waggons, bringing a load of something to market at the same time. They were dressed in blue cloth jackets and trousers and very high flat hats. In fact, they struck me as overdressed, but the Hottentot servant who crept behind each, carrying his master's umbrella, on the other hand, was underdressed. He seemed to have little else to carry except a piece of leather round his waist and a sheepskin round his shoulders ; one or two had a scarlet handkerchief tied round the head, sometimes an old hat orna- mented with ostrich feathers, but very often they were bareheaded. I was told the Hottentots were uncommonly ugly and disgusting, but I do not think them so bad. Their features are small and their cheek-bones immense, but they have a kind expres- sion of countenance ; they are not so ugly as the slaves of Mozambique. I must try to sketch a face of every caste or nation here ; the collection cannot / be short of twenty.
I must now tell you a little about a Cape expe- dition of mine. Having been told that no woman had ever been on the top of the Table Mountain (this was not literally true, one or two having been there), and being unable to get any account of it from the inhabitants of this town, all of whom wished it to be considered as next to an impossible matter to get to the top of it, as an excuse for their own want of curiosity, and having found the officers
LADY ANNE BAENAED'S LETTEES 67
all willing to believe the Dutch for ditto reason, lazi- ness to wit, there was some ambition as a motive for climbing, as well as curiosity. And as Mr. Barrow ^ is just one of the pleasantest, best-informed, and most eager-minded young men in the world about everything curious or worth attention, I paid him my addresses and persuaded him to mount the mountain along with me. We were joined in the plan by two of my ship-mates, officers, and my maid chose to be of the party. I had a couple of servants, and a couple of boxes with cold meat and wine. Mr. Barrow and I slung round our shoulders tin cases for plants, of which we were told we should get great variety on the top of the mountain. It is 3,500 feet in height, and reckoned about three miles to the top of it from the beginning of the great ascent, the road being (or rather the conjectured path, for there is no road) necessarily squinted in the zigzag way which much increases the measurement of the walk. At eight o'clock in the morning Mr. Barrow and I, with our followers, set off. We reached the foot of the mountain on horseback, and dismounted when we could ride no more — indeed, nothing but a human creature or an antelope could ascend such a path.
We first had to scramble up the side of a pretty perpendicular cascade of a hundred feet or two, the
' Mr., afterwards Sir Henry, Barrow was a naturalist and explorer, and one of Lord Macartney's private secretaries. He was employed by Lord Macartney to examine into the natural resources of the Colony, and explore the almost unknown territory to the north of it. He later became Auditor- General, with a salary of 1,0002. a year.
£<2
68 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
falls of which must be very fine after rains, and the sides of which were shaded with myrtles, sugar trees, and geraniums. We continued our progress through a low foliage of all sorts of pretty heaths and evergreens, the sun at last beginning to beat with much force down on our heads, but the heat was not, though great, oppressive. Wherever we saw questionable stone or ore, Mr. Barrow attacked it with a hammer, which I had luckily brought for the purpose, but he found the mountain through all its strata, of which there are innumerable, composed of iron stone, and that at least to the quantity of fifty per cent. It made me smile to see the signs of human footsteps, in the quantity of old soles and heels of shoes which I came across every here and there. I suppose these relics have lain time im- memorial, as leather, I believe, never decays, at least not for a great while. They proved that the Dutchmen told fibs when they said that few people had tried to get up this mountain. The sun and fatigue obliged me frequently to sit down ; and as I had an umbrella with me, a few minutes always recruited me. At last, about twelve o'clock, the sun began to be so very hot that I rejoiced at the turn of the mountain, which I saw would soon bring us into the shadow, before we reached the great gully by which we were to get out on the top. Kedoubling my activity, at last we made the turn, but it was won- derful the sudden chill which instantaneously came over us ; we looked at our thermometers, and in a
LADY ANNE BAENARD'S LETTERS 69
second they had fallen under the shadow fifteen degrees, being now 55, and before, on the brow of the hill, they were 70. We had now come to a fine spring of water, which fell from the top of the rock, or near it, over our heads ; we drank some of it with port-wine, but it was too cold to have been safe, if we had not more way to climb. I saved a bottle of it for you, cher ami. Opposite there was a cave cut in the rock, which is occasionally inhabited by run- away negroes, of which there were traces.
Once more we set off, and in three hours from the bottom of the mountain reached the very tip-top of this great rock, looking down on the town (almost out of sight below) with much conscious superiority, and smiling at the formal meanness of its appearance, which would have led us to suppose it built by children out of half a dozen packs of cards. I was glad on this pinnacle to have a bird's-eye view of the country, the bays, and the distant and near mountains. The coup d'oeil brought to my awed remembrance the Saviour of the World presented from the top of ' an exceeding high mountain ' with all the kingdoms of the earth by the devil. Nothing short of such a view was this. But it was not the garden of the world that appeared all around ; on the contrary, there was no denying the circle bounded only by the heavens and sea to be a wide desert, bare, uncultivated, uninhabited, but noble in its bareness, and (as we had reason to know) possessing a soil capable of cultivation, a soil, which submits
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easily to the spade, and gratefully repays attention. On the top of the mountain there was nothing of that luxuriancy of verdure and foliage, flower or herbage, described by travellers ; there were roots and some flowers, and a beautiful heath on the edge of the rocks, but the soil was cold, swampy, and mossy, covered in general with half an inch of water, rushes growing in it, and sprinkled all over with little white pebbles, some dozens of which I gathered to make Table Mountain earrings for my fair European friends. We now produced our cold meat, our port, Madeira, and Cape wine, and we made a splendid and happy dinner after our fatigues. When it was over I proposed a song to be sung in full chorus, not doubting that all the hills around would join us — * God save the King.' ' ' God save great George our King,' roared I and my troop. ' God save — God save — God save — God save — God save — God save — God save — God save — great George our King — great George our King — great George — great George — great George — ' repeated the loyal mountains. ' The impression is very fine,' said Mr. Barrow, with his eyes glistening. I could not say 'Yes,' because I felt more than I chose to trust my voice with, just then, but I wished * great George our King ' to have stood beside me at the moment, and to have thrown his eye over his new colony, which we were thus (his humble viceroys) taking possession of in his name.
' King George III.
LADY ANNE BARNAED'S LETTERS 71
My servants shot a few pretty birds, which you shall see by-and-by, and we found it time to return home, which we could not reach, we saw, before six o'clock at night. Nothing was more singular than to look down far, far below, on the flag raised on the top of the Lion's head, a rock perpendicular, of some hundred feet, on the top of a great North Berwick law. It is round this rock that there is a constant necklace of clouds playing ; but on this day all was clear. The person who keeps guard on this rock is drawn up by ropes fixed in a particular manner.
If it was difficult to ascend the hill, it was much more so to descend. The ladies were dressed for the occasion, else — I need not say more after the word ' else.' The only way to get down was to sit down and slip from rock to rock the best way one could. My shoes I had tied on with some yards of tape, which had been a good scheme. At last we reached home, not more tired than I expected we should have been, and more than ever convinced that there are few things impossible where there is, in man or woman, a decided and spirited wish of attainment. Doctor Pattison (a very amiable, sensible, and humane man sent out by the Admiralty as physician to the Navy Hospital) told me there was no sum he could not have won at the Cape against my ever reaching the top of Table Mountain. He said he would not take them in, for he knew I would do it if it was possible for anybody to do it, as I had said
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I would. I had found, however, no further gratifi- cation from having been there than the pleasure of being able to say, * I have seen it,' for my fancy could have painted the same very prettily, without going up.
Since that time I have ridden round the Bay ; the road is finer than any scene I ever saw in my life, or could have seen — that is to say, fine from mountains and sea. I must make some sketches of this road, but my time has been as yet wholly occupied with domestic cares. I am a Martha, with the full intention of being twenty better things by- ('and-by ; meantime, as we have a great many people who eat and drink with us in a family way, and as it is extremely difficult to get many things, or
[servants to do them properly, I am obliged to be more of a useful than an accomplished female ; but if I can in any way make things comfortable to my kind husband and his friends I am well employed. I see a great deal of your friends the Campbells — I mean the General and his wife. She is a good- humoured, pleasant, good-looking creature with a very good heart, and is much calculated to render society pleasant and easy. The General you know to be a respectable and gentleman-like man. Of the other Campbells I cannot say so much. In my former letter I mentioned how much they had endeavoured to make themselves disagreeable in their various ways on board ship ; I had really been afraid from what General Hartley said (and from
LADY ANNE BAENARD'S LETTERS 73
her own manners) that she would endeavour to set up a Dutch party against the Englishwomen going out ; but I am glad to find that nothing is in her power. She is very much disliked here, even by her countrywomen, and he equally so, nor would she be at all in the foreground of society was she not tempted (which I will suppose is by a love of receiving notice) to go rather too great lengths with most of the gentlemen to obtain it. Her character has not yet had time to be very naughty, but with three or four flirtations going on at present it is rather equivocal. Amongst the Dutch women this7 is nothing — each one has her lover, and, if more, it only the more proves her charms. I have blushed to hear one of her sisters make her child count up ' Mama's sweethearts ' on its little fingers, when some of the sweethearts present knew it to be no joke, as some others in England could have corro- [ borated. Captain Campbell was very haughty at first to everybody, but I believe he has been taken down some pegs by Admiral Pringle. We had them to dine here lately — we wish to have no quarrels and no miffs. They had wished to miff with us, but we are so civil, without familiarity, that they cannot make it out, so now they eat our mutton, and gulp.
Amongst a few gentlemen who augur more good from the Cape than others is Mr. Thornborn — he thinks highly of its powers and fertility. Mr. Barrow also is of this party ; both of these, however, think that this is not the best situation for the Capital, but
74 SOUTH AFBICA A CENTURY AGO
that Simon's Bay would have been better, had it water, and water I dare say might be found if dug for skilfully. I wish the King would send out his friend Lady Millbank with her hazel wand — she would poke up and down till she found plenty, and we should have a second ' Judith's well,' as at the Duke of Manchester's. It is thought that hemp might be raised here with benefit to our mother country and with success. There is no barley here — that is a grain which should also be brought. Beef is certainly inferior to what it is in England, and so is mutton, which is not thought of on t'other side of the water. The fat of the first is too yellow, and of the last too white, but neither is at present well fed. The sheep's tails are very useful for anything lard would be used for, as they are much purer than lard, and far better than the butter here. At first one has a prejudice against them, but now I have them used and say nothing. Poultry is about as good as in England, but milk and butter inferior, and the Cape cows good for nothing ; the half-breed along with the English ones are better, and sell very high, I had an English cow, but she is no more — she died of rheumatism and a liver complaint. I had no good fare for her, poor cow, and a long walk every day to pick up her grass did not agree with her.
I hope soon to have poultry and vegetables of our own, as there is a little Government cottage at the bottom of the mountain, called * Paradise,' which Lord Macartney has given us to be rural in. It has
LADY ANNE BAENAKD'S LETTERS 75
not enough of ground uncleared to have a cow, but it will at least raise us chickens and potatoes. There is no road to it — or rather a road practicable only on horseback — but as it is only a place to hide our heads in the shade when the sun gets sultry, we don't much care about that. The roof is thatched and old, ad- mitting the rain, which rots the timbers ; but a new roof of reeds, which the place will furnish, will not cost much. There is a little hasty stream of water, a clump of firs, a good many old orchard trees, a few orange trees, a perpendicular rock behind, and a far extended view of mountains and sea before, the inter- mediate space being uncultivated heath or short stubbed wood, good for little but the oven. Of a Satur- day John and Joan and Jane the cousin will ' noddy ' it down, leaving the carriage at the bottom of the hill to walk up it, and will there hide themselves till Monday, visited only by a few monkeys from the mountains, perhaps a wolf, possibly some runaway negroes, but all these (the monkeys excepted, who are frequent in their visits) are rather bugbears than reali- ties. A few scarlet coated aides-de-camp. Messieurs Collier and Crawfurd, part of the number, are more likely to break up our retirement, and possibly my Lord himself in his morning's ride ; but he shakes his head when I talk of a bed. Alas ! it was at Para- dise that I may almost say I last saw poor Anguish.^
' Anguish was a young man who had come out with Lord Macartney to the Cape, and had been made Comptroller of the Customs, with a salary of l,000i. a year.
76 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
He was a good-humoured, easy-tempered young man, whom we were all disposed to love, and who promised fair to contribute to the pleasures of our
\r society. I asked him to go with me to look at this cottage at the time that we saw it was attainable, I never saw him in better spirits. He and I used often to laugh with each other at the ' Malcontents,' as we called them — the English who grumbled about the Cape — he finding novelties and amusements every-
I where, as I did, and as Barrow did. ' I think,' said he, ' if the Comptroller of the Customs was to be master of this little place, which some folks would call miserable, he would be contented to give up London and remain here quietly and lazily all his days.' He then went on to say how much more comfortable he now was than he ever had been, that his income was fixed equal to his best hopes through your and Lord Macartney's kindness, and that from its date he even now possessed a little matter to make him clear with the world. In short, I thought him rather a happy man. He was not, however, altogether in good health, as I afterwards heard, and had been taking some medical prescriptions. I thought by a transient glance I had of him one day soon after that his countenance seemed heated and confused, but I never saw him again. He left uni- versal regret behind him, and the full conviction that mental malady had been produced by bodily malady only ; for he had done nothing to reproach himself with. I never cease thinking of him when I drive
LADY ANNE BAENARD'S LETTERS 77
past his grave, which must be passed on going to the Keview ground.
Talking of Beviews — the troops here, I fancy, are esteemed to be in fine order. To me they appear well-dressed, well-matched men, and better-looking than any of the lately raised regiments I saw in England. I hear of no disturbances, and sleep secure every night in the garrison with 700 men. Desertion is over, and many of those that had deserted are returned since the proclamation ; amongst others, a man who has been absent above a year, and who bears an unlettered testimony to a matter which has been doubted — the existence of the unicorn ^ in the interior parts of Africa. Some years ago, some of the natives had expressed their surprise at seeing it in the King's arms, and when they were asked if they would procure such an animal for a sum of money they had shuddered, saying, * Ay, to be sure,' but he was * their god.' This soldier's evidence corroborates this ; he describes the unicorn to be much larger than a horse, though less than a small elephant ; about as high, he said, as the room. He had on shoes made of the hide of one ; they are of immoderate strength, and the skin more of the horse-hide sort than of any other.
Mr. Barrow, who has gone up the country to the bushmen's land, will, maybe, see something of this animal ; but he will be chiefly in quest of a still better thing — a good silver or gold mine. Of the first
> This mvist be the rhinoceros.
78 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
there is no doubt of there being several, and con- taining a much greater quantity of silver than is to be found in any of the mines we have in England. I hear there are also gold mines ; if we could pay off our paper debt with some of this, and hand you over some to pay off your National Debt, it would be pretty.^ Mr. Barrow is to bring me down a little girl from a particular country, far, far in the inner parts of this wide continent, where the people do not exceed four feet in stature and females have little pads or footboards behind, which serve for a seat for their children, instead of carrying them on their shoulders. They are clever and faithful, I hear.^ r- The day before yesterday a sad accident happened, ' or rather a wicked act, the son of our butcher being killed by his slave in revenge for having been refused liberty to go out on Sunday, though it was not his turn to do so. After he had stabbed him he attempted to murder his mistress, and stabbed one of her slaves. I suppose the unfortunate wretch would have ' run muck ' (as is the term in this country of frenzy from despair and the certainty of death), and would have killed every one he met (it is some years since an instance of this kind has happened) ; but the man had been wounded in his attempts, and must have died, had not his life been cut short by the gallows an hour after the affair happened, to deter others.]
' The paper currency of the Colony amounted to 258,255^, and there was at first no metallic coin in circulation. 2 The aborigines of South Africa were pigmies.
LADY ANNE BAKNAKD'S LETTEES 79
Thank God, the days of torture are over, and the sad evidences of what was practised by the Dutch Government only remain on a high ground hard by the entrance to the Castle ; it froze my blood at first, but habit hardens the nerves, I hope without hardening the heart.
I have had a visit at the Castle from one of the ♦ Kaffir chiefs, with his train of wives and dogs ; he was as fine a morsel of bronze as I ever saw, and there ought to have been a pair of them with candle- sticks in their hands. Nothing could exceed the savages' notes, which accompanied their uncouth gestures in their warlike dances. I gave them many trifles, and the chief a cap, which pleased him so much that with the gallantry of nature he came forward, and on receiving it from the balcony in the courtyard kissed my hand respectfully. I had pre- pared some dinner for them, but found they could eat nothing but beef or mutton ; pies, fowls, and still more particularly J?s^, they seemed to have no taste for— indeed, till they reached the Cape they had never seen a fish, hooks and lines being unknown to them, and the fish therefore in their rivers live unmolested by the wiles of Creation's lords. Wine they liked, but rum transported them J I have tried, but at present vainly, to get ostrich feathers. All have been bought up to send to Europe before they reached the Cape — at least since I arrived. A propos — shoul(r^ you have any friends coming here, I give you and them this general advice, to bring everything from
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^ London that is necessary for the consumption of one year — Indian goods as well as other things. Nothing here is likely to be soon as cheap as it may be bought
/ in town ; nothing is of the best quality ; and most things are, by tacit or perhaps private agreement of the possessors, kept up to an immoderate price. There is a man at Simon's Town, one Trail, in one of the public departments (a great rogue), who buys up everything the moment the ships come in, and then puts his own price on the goods, according to the necessities of others. N.B. — By his ofifice he is debarred from what he practises. Mr. Barnard wrote to beg that he would ask a little lump sugar from one of the captains of the ships lately arrived, and that Mr. Green would pay for it. Mr. Trail was
* fortunate enough,' he said, to have obtained some
* already,' at only 4s. 6d. per pound. Mr. Green wisely declined this precious sugar. Could coals be brought out they would answer well, also some grates and portable kitchens. Whoever means to settle here should bring everything, furniture in particular ; but it should come out packed in little compass. I brought all my chairs in pieces tied up closely — iron, Windsor, and rush-bottom chairs. Carpets and blankets are also necessary, for winter is winter here, and nothing but avarice prevents all from having fires this 11th day of July. But a fire is a serious matter.
This day signals have appeared of the arrival of six more ships, and three Indiamen are at present at
LADY ANNE BARNARD'S LETTERS 81
Simon's Town. I hope this new fleet contains my brother Hugh ^ — it will be a joyful meeting ! I have not mentioned the arrival of Mr. and Lady Anne ' Dashwood. She is a sister of Lord Lauderdale, a sweet, good girl who has performed a very heavy duty in my opinion — though it does not seem to strike her as such - in following, or rather accompanying, here a husband whose dreadful countenance bears awful testimony to a vitiated mind and person. Thank God he has contrived to give her such an account of the How he happens to be in this state as renders it less shocking to her ; but in my opinion his ugly face is more tolerable than the unprincipled, democratic, and free maxims which fall from his lips, and which prevent pity from alleviating the natural disgust the man inspires. It has been necessary to hint to him that some of his doctrines are better kept to himself here, and I believe he has said less of late. I-
* The Hon. Hugh Lindsay, who was in the sea-service of the East India Company.
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IV
The Castle, Cape of Good Hope :
September 12th, 1797.
We have now quite settled down at our residence in the Castle, my dear Friend, and like it very much. I have arranged it all as best I can, a few things we brought out with us from old England coming in most useful, and really the effect is very pleasing to the eye. Since I got our house in order I have been busy carrying out a desire which I know you have much at heart, that we should concihate as far as we could the factiousness of the Dutch here, which cannot be accomplished by any other means than by mixing them as much as possible in our society.
[ To fulfil my position here as the woman, in the absence of Lady Macartney, at the head of the Government, it is my duty to show civility and hospitality to all the women, Dutch or English, who
1 live on good terms with their husbands, and to all the Dutchmen who have taken the oath of allegiance to his Majesty, and are of sufficient respectability to visit at the Castle. Mr. Barnard has invited the heads of the Departments to dinner, and the dinner
1 went off in excellent style, our Swiss cook doing
I very well, assisted by three or four female slaves,
LADY ANNE BARNARD'S LETTERS 83
whom his Excellency gave us permission to have7 from the Slave Lodge as servants. The balls and parties were left for me to settle as I thought best. Mr. Barnard, however, wished me to consult the Fiscal as to the proper mode of inviting the Dutch ladies. I did so, but found that, though an honest man, he was prejudiced, and if I followed his advice I should keep the friends the Government had already 'twas true, but I should never make any new ones. When I went down the list with him he threw in so many objections to persons whom he called ' disaffected ' that I feared none would be left, and said so, * Oh,' he said, * leave it to me, and you shall have at your parties true friends of the Govern- ment.' ' But remember,' said I, * we are come out here not to call the righteous but sinners to repent- ance, if I may say so without being profane.' * Well,' he said, * if you are determined to bring the sheep and the goats together in one fold you must take the chance of your party becoming a bear- garden.' 'But I am going to give a ball,' I said, ' mon ami ; and music hath charms to soothe the savage breast.' He laughed and gave way, and so I had things as I wished.
The result is that I have given a most capital party on the 3rd of this month, and shall have one the first Thursday in every month. It is true, some of the Dutch fathers of families were sulky and stayed at home, being lukewarm, I suspect, to the English Government ; but the mothers and daughters came.
84 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
and to plough with heifers has always been reckoned a good means to improve reluctant soil. By-and-by I shall get the fathers, you will see. I had a fiddle or two and a bit of supper after; all went most friendly. The ' hop ' gave me also the opportunity of obliging the juvenile part of the Army and Navy, who, as I have told you, have been kept much in the background by their commanding officers. The invitations were conveyed through the mediums of the colonels of the Army and captains of the Navy to the subaltern officers, and thus all of them who were best behaved and most gentlemanlike were fsent, and I think enjoyed themselves thoroughly, flirting a good deal with the Dutch ladies, who did
I not seem to share their fathers' dislike of English officers. I shall have a similar party on the first Thursday of every month, as 1 have already told you, but cannot have public days oftener, as everything is so very, very dear that I should be ruined. You will easily believe this, my dear friend, when I tell you that, amongst other things, my thirsty guests drank me up five dozen of porter, a little stock of which I had brought with me, but not enough to stand many such attacks. As to supper, three or four hams, some dozens of fowls and ducks, venison, and other game vanished in the twinkling of an eye, along with pastry of all sorts, for supper is a great meal here. I was able, however, to carry out the lighting on a more economical plan than at home. Our lamps, which were numerous, were lighted, and well lighted.
LADY ANNE BARNARD'S LETTERS 85
with the tails of the sheep whose saddles we were eating. About these saddles of mutton, it occurred to me before leaving England that it might be useful to carry with me to Africa a map of a sheep and am ox, as I thought it likely that the Dutch butchers! might cut their meat up awkwardly. I was not! mistaken ; my maps have been of great assistance/ to me here.
About the third part of the ladies at my party were Dutch — not more ; but I shall have more by- and-by. Some of our Dutch ladies, in the towff especially, are not all that they should be. The French, I am told, corrupted them; the English have merely taught them to affect virtue. I fear,l alas ! too, that some of our officers have led them astray from it. I cannot shut my eyes to the fact. So far as I hear, this is a great place for marriages, and our brides generally lay in with fine boys about two months after marriage, so rapid are things in this country. When I was told this, wishing to be polite, I said that I feared the children had come a little too soon. * Not at all, madam,' said the Dutchman, answering literally, ' they came exactly at the proper time, but the marriages took place a little late.' I love a delicate distinction, but on his part | the humour was quite unconscious.
I hope at my next party to have a more numerous Dutch collection, as they will then understand that they may come without invitation. You will re- member how angry you were with me, my dear
86 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
friend, and how you sent me that horrible letter, when I wrote to you saying that, though Mr. Barnard and myself were most grateful for all your kindness in obtaining this appointment, ' the prettiest appoint- ment,' to quote your own words, ' a young man could wish,' I took exception to the word ' Secretary,' because I feared the situation would imply a certain amount of inferiority among people who did not properly^ understand. Well, my fears have come true. \It will make you smile to tell you that many of the Dutch women declined paying me the first visit, because I was not of high enough rank to receive it. I find they used to visit the Governor's wife and the Councillors' wives, but not the Secretary's wife, first ; and though I am the only woman belonging to the Government, yet I am but Madame la Secretaire, you know, to themj As I looked on this rather as an evasion to keep off from visiting in the Castle at all (as they supposed I might stand on the ceremony of putting myself on the footing of the Governor's lady, there being no lady but myself), I took it quite easily on another plan, and said that, though it was the custom in England for native residents always to visit strangers first, yet, if visiting the residents first would be considered by them as any conciliatory mark of respect on my part, I was perfectly ready to do so ; and off I set with a volley of visits to some of the first people, declaring my- self an enemy to all forms which in a small society kept respectable people at a distance from each other.
LADY ANNE BAKNAKD'S LETTEES 87
Fortunately I visited only two or three, who from sickness were confined at home, or who, from little circumstances that had passed, I ought to have called on to thank them for having put their daughters under my protection at my party and Hoy ; for in answer to a few lines I wrote to the Fiscal on this subject, begging to know his opinion, I find by his reply — sensibly and prettily expressed— that I shall do best to let it alone, and a little time and my now well-known disposition to be well with them will effect the matter as far as it need be effected.
General Dundas and some officers with him have been up the country for ten days. I have just seen one of them. He tells me that at a distance from Cape Town there is by no means the scarcity there is at the Cape, and they bought grain for three dollars a sack which here costs eleven dollars. This leads one to hope that time, and the confidence of the Boers in finding a market, may render every- thing cheaper this ensuing year. I'll let this remain open till the last day, cher ami. I mean to go to Simon's Bay with my brother Hugh, to see him on board, and I shall then be able to say something of it.
Wednesday, September l^th. — Since I concluded the last page we have had a gallant whaler here, who with twenty-four men (as I hear) has taken a Dutch ship from Batavia, laden with arms and ammunition.^
' A capture made by the ' Hope ' South Sea whaler in Delagoa Bay of a Dutch brig that was coming with a supply of arms and ammunition for the Dutch malcontents at Graaf Eeinet.
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It required finesse as well as courage to effect this matter, but I heartily rejoice that we have got part of the powder and have destroyed the rest of it, as the people at Graaf Keinet (for which it was bound) are very ill affected. Mr. Barrow, I believe, is there by this time ; I fancy he will be able to give many judi- cious accounts in various ways. We have had a south- easter these two days, and a pretty strong one, which has delayed the loading of the ships with victuals for the convoy in False Bay. I hope all will reach you safe when they do sail, for great must be the riches of this Fleet. I have got a jar of pineapples from Batavia for Lady Jane, and one for Lady Hardwicke,^ but I fear much that I shall find it difficult to get them conveyed, the, captains are so fearful of taking what they tell me will more than probably bring them to disgrace by being spoiled or lost at the India House. I'll make another trial ; it vexes me to see my charming pines here, when I wish them on your table, though you have probably more of these things than you care about — no, I retract ; if it is difficult now to get such things safely landed, it must have been more difficult before. I wish I knew the best mode of sending them — whether by an Indian ship, letting them take their chance, or by a man-o'-war. I'll try Mr. Brice, Mrs. Anstruther's brother, a modest, pleasing young man who has lately been with us ; smuggled, I find they must be.
' Lady Anne's sister.
LADY ANNE BARNARD'S LETTERS 89
September 24:th. — We have been at False Bay since I concluded the above, seeing Hugh on board. I find the place rather better-looking than I expected, the houses on the outside being, as is the Dutch fashion, all well whitewashed, with their clean shirts on. But there is sadly little room for the poor sick fellows, the honest Tars, multitudes of whom have been lost for want of air and wholesome accommoda- tion, they having been so closely packed in their hospital with scurvy, ulcers, etc., that it was certain death going into it. Of late, the physician to the Navy (Dr. Pattison) has got, with much difficulty, leave to have the use of a stable for horses belonging to some of the officers residing there ; and since then sixty men have been put into it, and many of them have recovered. What a pity that more places are not erected for them ! With the expenditure of a very little money hundreds, ay, thousands, of people would be saved in this hot climate. What fools, or what dirty, nasty calculators some of the contractors for the public must be ! Where is the hospital for the Navy here in Cape Town placed ? Above the public ovens, where all the bread used in the place is baked, and where the languishing creatures are baked into the next world along with it. But 'tis better to growl here than to you across the Bay of Biscay. I have been trying to persuade some of the wise people to give a great lump of the mountain behind the house at False Bay to some old honourable seaman to become gardener and raise
90 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
vegetables for the use of the Navy, selhng them at a small price, yet getting a good livelihood too. Every potato and cabbage at an immoderate price comes from Cape Town twenty miles over the bad roads, and at a rate that Government can hardly afford to purchase for the sick. How much cheaper, then, the other way would be, and what a benefit ! ^ There is a Company's garden — Mr. Trail asked it for the above purpose ; but since he has had it, the Navy people are the only ones to whom he will not sell a potato, for fear of its being remembered how he got it. (I am told he is now worth 60,000Z.) He was a favourite of our friend Lord Keith, who certainly must have thought well of him then ; but he is sadly detested here now for his extraordinary practices. If he is turned out, which there is some talk of (I speak merely of common report), I wish the garden could be turned to the purpose I mention ; I'll venture for once to launch a woman's opinion about it.
Certainly it would be very difficult for an enemy to land at Simon's Bay and get on to Cape Town, as the road may be so easily defended by a handful of men — the sea coming close up on the right, the road being bad and narrow and rocky and almost perpendicular, mountains being to the left, on which there are many little batteries raised and cannon
The wisdom of this is evident from the fact that at the mutiny of the squadron at the Cape, which took place shortly after, one of the chief grievances of the sailors was that they were given no vegetable food.
LADY ANNE BARNAED'S LETTERS 91
pointed. There is a dangerous pass, too, to cross in one of the small bays, and a quicksand in another. The camp at Meusenberg is formed of huts at present, but the officers are building a better ; the situation must be healthy for the men, and easily defended from the reasons I mention. The officers were all out a-shooting, but a soldier gave us a bit of boiled beef, and made us an apology that they had no beer or wine to give us — nothing but Constantia ; ^ but when I tasted it, to be sure 'twas excellent. The person who boiled the beef had been steward to the Duke of Orleans ; I remarked the man in Paris. Such are the chances of this mortal life ! I dare say you think I have digested a democratic morsel, when it was dressed by him. He kept afterwards a club in Dover Street, and is a bad subject in all senses of the word. You would have paused and fixed your eye with a smile on our carriage, had you seen us driving away in our Dutch vehicle, with one black coachman and eight horses ; but pos- tillions are unnecessary here, the horses being blessed with a portion of good sense to pick their own steps. It would have surprised you had you seen us at the narrowest passes, bowling away, and passing other carriages and waggon-carts, with eight horses and one driver, yet no harm ensuing. Adieu, Adieu. I know you must think I shall never finish. I shall not tell you of the alarm of an engage- ment which frightened many people, but proved at
' A Cape wine.
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last to be a species of varying clouds over the horizon, which perfectly resembled smoke and vessels at a distance. We think that Admiral Pringle does not dislike the Cape so much since he fell in love with a pretty little Miss ; it threatened matrimony for some time, but, like the engagement, it has gone off in misty clouds of smoke and left the weaker vessel unmanned ! Again, Adieu.
LADY ANNE BAENARD'S LETTERS 93
V
The Castle, Cape Town ; October 15th, 1797.
I HEAB there is a ship sails for England to-day, and I seize the opportunity to tell you, clier ami, that we are all well. We are anxious for news from England, as you will easily believe when you know that we first received the accounts of the Mutiny in the Navy by a foreign ship (as I think, Danish), which was corroborated first by one East Indiaman that put in on account of the health of the captain, and afterwards by the fleet bound for Bengal, who were ' short of water.' Perhaps some idea of dis- posing of investments here beneficially might co- operate. Be that as it may, it was plain to all here that it was not intended that this squadron should touch at the Cape, as it brought letters to no one, except one, dated the 15th of May, to me from Lord St. Helens' sister, recommending a relation to my attention in case of his touching at the Cape ; but the date showed that it was written previous to those transactions which afterwards took place. I thank God they have terminated at last in quietness, though I am sorry our Navy has ever showed a spirit so turbulent and rebellious as has been
94 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
evinced. French politics, of course, have taken the advantage of a disposition to call aloud for redress on matters where perhaps the sailors were justified for grumbling, but which we suppose the French hoped to improve beyond the point they have effected.
Newspapers have reached us in plenty, though nothing else. A peace, talked of as daily likely to take place, meets here with universal belief. The Cape to be ceded,^ as one article, is almost univer- sally believed by the Dutch ; and terms little to the honour of England have been named as necessary to be complied with by us in order to effect a peace, which is supposed to be called aloud for by the country. A change of the Ministry ^ is stated, I see by the papers, and rather credited here, upon the supposition that the present Ministers will not agree to be the makers of what they do not approve of, and also that the French wish rather to negotiate with the other party. Should the circumstances of the country be so low, the voice of the people so loud, and the disapprobation of the present Ministry so great to the terms proposed that they will not com- plete the peace — which, however, upon the whole is settled to take place — I suppose you will all walk out at one door of the stage while another set of better disposed men walk in at the other, who, after
' It was ceded to the Dutch five years later by the Peace of Amiens.
* Pitt's First Administration.
LADY ANNE BARNAED'S LETTERS 95
finishing their job, will follow you out at the first door and you will come back at the second. This, unless some new man willing to do the business is incorporated with a part of the old body for that purpose, I suppose will be the case, because I hear others suppose it. As to my poor little impressions and expectations, I can neither believe in a peace (at least not in the course of this year) nor in any change of Ministry ; and if there is a peace I don't much believe that the Cape will be made any great point of by the French. It will cost them money to keep it, and, unless they wish to send a great many of their unnecessary troops out of the country to prevent disturbances at home, I don't much see why they should wish for it, except with a future view of taking India from us. But they have plenty of work to do nearer home before they come to that.
There is plainly a fashion in everything in this world. The English Mutiny,^ of course, has set the fashion here, and we have had a swinging mutiny of our own at Simon's (False) Bay. Delegates from the malcontents at home came out, it appears, in the ' Arniston,' and, working on the minds of the seamen, who only knew the progress but not the event of the Mutiny at the Nore, a mutiny here broke out on board the Admiral's ship this day fortnight. The Admiral dined with us the day before, and we saw something after dinner made him uneasy, but Lord Augustus
' The Mutiny which broke out in the fleet on May 7th of this year (1797), commonly called the Mutiny at the Nore.
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Fitzroy,^ who came from the Bay, knew of nothing amiss ; he was also of the party. They both left Cape Town next day, Captain Stephens having come thence on the business, who by the bye had been turned out of the ' Tremendous ' by the crew, who have a par- ticular dislike to both captains of that name, we know not with what justice. Admiral Pringle and Lord Augustus each went on board his particular ship, but found that the orders of the delegates only were to be attended to till such time as certain grievances were redressed. Meantime all the commanders but the Stephens's were treated with the usual respect except in allowing them no command. This disgusted most of them, and from (probably natural) feelings of injured pride they quitted their ships and declared them severally in a state of rebellion. Not so Tod — lately appointed to the ' Trusty ' — a man who has risen from a very low class of life by undisputed merit in his profession ; he saw the thing (as I can't help thinking) in a better point of view, and re- mained on board his ship, watching the moment when the lassitude which follows an intemperate exertion should render it possible to make a few of his men listen to reason. Meantime, the other captains were all on shore until a signal from the Admiral's ship to attend him there carried them on board. When there the crew kept all of them prisoners ! They fed them well, to be sure, and denied them no mark of attention. But the terms which they offered for reconciliation were, that the two Stephens's
' Lord Augustus Fitzroy commanded the Impirieuse.
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should be sent home to England to be tried for misconduct ; that their grievances, which chiefly- consisted in their allowances being unfairly with- held by the pursers from them, should be redressed ; and that a general pardon to delegates and seamen alike should be granted. On these terms and none other they offered to lay down their arms. And these terms the Admiral would not listen to. The delegates must, he said, be given up, and the Stephens's reinstated.
Meantime all was hurry here, but without much alarm for the event; for at a critical moment a Danish ship arrived, and brought the very happy accounts of all being at last arranged in England, and the punishment of the delegates and others of the party. Nothing could be more fortunate than this news. Some people feared that it might have a contrary effect, and render the crews desperate, already possessed of power to do almost what they chose, but the event proved it to be different. The seamen really had some grievances to complain of, and, with hope to find them righted, they were willing to shake hands and be friends with their commanders, though the delegates had certainly intended the matter to go much farther.
I must here introduce, in jest, a little anecdote of General Dundas. He left Cape Town for Simon's Bay as quickly as the occasion demanded him, but no one could get him convinced that the crews could be so headstrong and intemperate as he was told
H
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they were, particularly on the * Tremendous,' which he was determined to go on board of. ' They only want talking round calmly,' said he, 'not mind- ing their nonsense, but arguing the matter coolly and reasonably with them.' Some of his military friends smiled at the idea of his supposing himself more particularly qualified than certain others to talk a mutiny over coolly, and they fortunately persuaded him against going on board, else both Admiral and Commander-in-Chief would have been prisoners.
Meantime all proper steps were taken by the Ordinance Engineers, etc., to entrench the troops, who marched on to Simon's Bay. It would have had but little effect, I suppose, considering what a mouthful the works there would have been to the guns of the 'Tremendous.' At last the ferment flattened, and the Admiral found it best, in order to finish the dangerous business, to compromise the matter — the Stephens's to have a court-martial on them here, the pursers to be tried, and all grievances to be redressed. A general pardon to be granted. This last we all were sorry for ; even the best-natured people wished the delegates to be made examples of to the Navy. But Admiral Pringle is pretty firm, and I suppose he found that he could not work the point farther than he did.
Women may say anything without presumption. How well I remember saying to the Admiral that if I were he, I should be greatly tempted to tell the Navy that, though I had received no official intelligence
LADY ANNE BARNARD'S LETTERS 99
from England, yet I was apt to believe that there were certain benefits to be bestowed on the seamen at home, and whatever they were I believed I might confidently assure them that they would share in all such.' A few exhilarating words such as these I foolishly thought might have been said by the Admiral without taking too much responsibility on himself or incurring disapprobation at home ; but he seemed to think nothing should be taken for granted in public departments, and that he had no right officially to know or say anything. Of course he must be right, as he is a clever man and knows his business ; but how often have I not seen (to use a vulgar proverb) ' a stitch in time save nine ' ! I believe there was a judicious speech issued in the public orders to the Army within these few days, which will have a good effect. They all expect, I presume, what is not, however, promised in it. Something is needed here for the poor military, for things still remain sadly dear, and I fear the Dutch heads will contrive to keep them so by their manoeuvres, though there is the prospect of a harvest plentiful beyond what has been known, owing to the immense quantity of rain which has lately fallen and swelled out the heads of the corn in a manner that Madam Nature is not accustomed to experience at the Cape, for this is a dry season in general.
' Lady Anne waa right. The mutiny at home was eventually quelled by judicious concessions and the personal influence of Lord Howe with the seamen.
h2
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What will you say when I tell you that I am writing to you in bed ? I had very near met with the ugly accident of being killed a few days ago. The servant had somehow been out of the way, and the coachman got off the box to open the carriage. I am always a coward of horses standing at their own discretion without a governor — Cape horses especially are not to be trusted. I called to him to go to their heads ; but they did not wait, and off they set round the circle, or parade, in the garrison. As I could not guess where they might land me, or whether they might not overturn me at a sharp angle in running to their stables, and as the door was open and the step down, I was tempted to jump out, and, thank God, I felt ground. But I felt no more for some time. The carriage came round safe to the door, galloping, but no Lady Anne ; I was found in the middle of the circle laying on my back, my head cut, and insensible. I recovered myself, however, in a quarter of an hour ; my shoulder and ankle were both bruised, and my head had a con- siderable contusion on it ; but the doctor, who by the bye is a right good man (Pattison), said there was no fracture ; so for anything else there's no great matter. I have lain in bed these two days, and am now going to rise, bones whole. Take this, however, as an apology for all the errors this letter may contain ; for what can be expected from a woman with a plaister on her pericranium ?
What a bold south-easter we have had these two
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days ! How the wind raged, and how a tall tree which is in the courtyard before my windows bent and tossed its great branches in at the casement, where the wind blew out a pane every half -hour ! I shall feel more of these winds, I hear. How I long, my dear friend, for letters now, to tell me how you all are ! — if safe and prosperous, or invaded by a foreign foe. I long also to know what is to become of us little mortals at the extreme point of Africa.
The last month has sent in from the country quantities of waggons chiefly loaded with wine, butter, skins, feathers, and oranges — grain is some- times added as the farmer happens to have it. The waggons are very narrow, about the size of a large pipe of wine, and long enough to hold three in length. They are drawn by sixteen oxen, and | driven by one man, a Hottentot besides generally | walking at the head of the first pair. To govern their bullocks they have whips of immense length, which they lay on and produce no small effect ; one lash is quite enough to set all the team into motion. These animals are much larger than our general breed of bullocks in England. I made a tallish man try the height of one of them — he guessed the team at sixteen hands and a-half. The men who "J drive them are in proportion to their cattle, of a very large and robust stature, but their countenances gentle, and nothing rude or boisterous in their manners.
I long most ardently now to get up the country a
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little, I shall try hard for it when I am quite well, which I expect will be in a day or two. I have two offers — the offer of good living, lodging, carriages, and civil hospitality from the Landdrost of Stellenbosch,^ and the offer of an empty house, two beds, and five chairs from the Fiscal, who has a house in that village, inhabited only by mice, and of course by no means uninhabited by fleas — the empty houses here being always richly stocked with that sort of wild animal. I love liberty, and believe I shall prefer the mice and the fleas, a ' conjurer ' for my cook, and the power of doing what I like, to the good things the Landdrost proffers me, with the hospitable attentions of his wife and daughters, which I shall gladly accept of now and then, but not all day long.
The brig which was sent round to Graaf Eeinet to meet Barrow is returned. The first lieutenant sleeps here, and tells all he saw to my lord and master, but I haven't been stout enough to see him myself yet. He describes that part of the country as extremely cheap and extremely plentiful. Some of the Dutch Boers, he mentions, drink wine. Pitchers of milk are put on table after dinner by way of beverage ; there ought to be beautiful shepherdesses and true shepherds at that board, as it surely por- trays the Golden Age !
All your friends here are well ; one of the last times I was in company with Lord Macartney he
' The stipendiary magistrate of the district, who received the revenue and administered justice.
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danced a reel remarkably well to the Scots' bagpipes with Lady Anne Dashwood, Mrs. Campbell, and a brigade-major. Perhaps you think this is cross reading, or a puzzle, or conundrum ; but no such thing — it is true. He was in excellent spirits, and paid a compliment to ' the Laddies' ain piper ' and the reel of Tulloch which neither the general nor the transported piper will soon forget. I dare not add, what I believe is true too, that I fear the little twinge in the toe next day whispered to his Excellency that he had been rash.
October SOth. — I missed the ship, and have kept this open therefore to give you the latest news about the mutiny here. As I said before, it was generally regretted that the Admiral was obliged to give a general pardon, especially to the delegates, as the con- sequence of their escaping punishment has been seen since, in that the Blue Jacket (the sign of mutiny) has been hung up in two of the vessels from St. Helena, the 'Kaisonable' and the 'Sphinx.' It is now taken down, though a strong disposition appeared in the fleet to set off anew. Subordination is by no means established ; the ferment is working secretly still, and with a degree of intrigue and plan in it that seems to originate from cleverer heads than those of the mere John Bulls, who are only the tools. The sailors come on shore in numbers, parties of twelve at a time ; they pillage the markets, get drunk, riot, and endeavour by every means to corrupt the Army ; their bad influence began to be felt, and
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General Dundas wisely ordered the Army to be encamped. This was done at twenty-four hours' warning, and near Eondebosch, which is six miles distant from Green Point, where the sailors often land, and four from the Cape. The General and Lord Macartney saw it indispensably necessary to break the dangerous friendship forming between the Army and Navy by this move. Now the troops have something to do, and that is in favour of the continuation of their loyal principles. All the garrison has marched out but a company or two ; so we are solitary enough, but have no fears, and the sentinels have orders to permit no sailor to pass into the Castle. There was a great wine-house there, where the sailors constantly resorted. The man and woman who kept it we sent off; and six other wine-houses — or punch-houses, as they call them — were broken up by Government the evening before last. Men tell women little truth when there is real or supposed danger in question, therefore I can't well quote anything that I hear from masculine reports ; but I fancy that the ferment here will cease in a few days more, without further harm. It has produced only the bad effect of forcing a measure (the en- campment of the Army) which I suppose must cost money.
I now go on with my monthly ball, and have had all the respectable Dutch families round in turn to dinner. I believe I may tell you very honestly that in our different departments Mr. Barnard and I are
LADY ANNE BARNAED'S LETTEES 105
very great favourites of the Dutch inhabitants. We J are both very civil, and never despise anybody, which I can perceive has been one great error in some of the English. I was asked to a ball given at a Dutch house on account of a wedding the day before yesterday. The parties were a lady of a certain age, with 8,000Z. or 10,000Z. — which is here a rarity, the women having little money — the man Mr. Bianchi, an Italian who came out with Sir George Elphinstone.^ They were half -married the day of the ball — that is to say (for I know you are beginning to laugh), they went to be examined by the notary; two or three weeks hence the ceremony takes place. It was an excellent ball, and voluminous supper. To be sure, the Dutch women don't flirt with the English officers ! ! I say nothing. Mr. Bianchi says that his future is very ugly and old, but she is rich, sensible, and good-humoured, and he'll contrive to be happy enough. I mention this in case Lord K. should like to know particulars. She is not a favourable likeness of Lady Grantham, but has aj resemblance. Adieu, nio7i cher ami, 1 must conclude. All your friends here are well. Sir James Craig is arrived safely at Bombay. It is thought he is not a likely man to live long in Indian climates — he is very fat, and lives very high. Perhaps you know that there are seven provinces in China in a state of mutiny. The China ships bring this news. Barrow
' Admiral Elphinstone was in command of the sea-forces which helped to capture the Cape in 1795.
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writes in raptures of Kaffir Land and of the king — a young man of twenty, who is pleased with his visit and glad to treat on terms of friendship with us God bless you.
LADY ANNE BAKNAKD'S LETTEKS 107
VI
The Castle, Cape of Good Hope : November 29th, 1797.
The last ships, my dear Friend, have sailed with- out any letter from me to you. T had made myself sure of finding them still here on my return from the country, where we have lately had the pleasure of spending a very interesting fortnight. It is the first time since we arrived, now seven months ago, that Mr. Barnard has taken the indulgence of a little country air. I should hardly mention this as an indulgence granted to himself, he having been sent to Stellenbosch by Lord Macartney to enforce the Oath of Allegiance, which has been constantly evaded by certain mauvais sujets who live there, in number about a dozen.
Friday the 10th of this month being the last day granted by the second Proclamation, it was necessary for Mr. Barnard to leave Cape Town on the 9th, the very morning when the Admiral gave his ultimatum to those in mutiny on board his and the other ships. Two hours was the time he allowed for them to give up their delegates and return to their duty, or by pulling down his flag to declare open rebellion, in which case the batteries were instantly to have fired on
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them. This circumstance had been concealed from the ladies till we were a couple of miles out of town, when Mr. Barnard told us of it, and also that the two hours were within ten minutes of being expired. I need not say how anxiously some of us stretched our throats out of the Dutch cabriole we were in to look back on the Bay, where still— still as we looked — the Admiral's flag floated, and a few minutes before the time was finally over we heard a gun, which led us to send back one of our servants to bring us the news, well authenticated, in the even- ing. We hoped the best ; nor were we disappointed in the end, each ship coming to the resolution of sacrificing its ringleader rather than being blown into the air by the artillery placed against it. Twenty-one mistaken fellows, blind agents of French miscreants, were brought on shore, all of them daring and fearless of the event, which is not as yet brought to its final issue.
^ As the little tour which this absence from the I Cape permitted us to make is the first good oppor- tunity I have as yet had of seeing the country and being able in any degree to form a judgment of the ^ Boers, or real Dutch settlers — the people at Cape Town being scarcely to be named as such — I will give my dear friend a short account of things as they presented themselves to me, always trusting that you will forgive ten thousand inaccuracies and frivolities, while I repeat matters that, even at a distance, you have a more just idea of, I dare say.
LADY ANNE BAKNARD'S LETTERS 109
from your better information, than any I can give you.
Our road from Cape Town to Stellenbosch was not distinguished by much variety. We went by the Koyle, a long sandy hill, having first passed the Salt riviere, and that long tract of sandy common (if I may call it so) that bears many traces of having one or two hundred years ago been covered by the sea, but which is now only covered scantily by heaths, and such plants and brushwood as partake a little of both sea and land. But as every plant, bush, and tree in this country has its flower and fruit at some season of the year, even in the barrenest soils there are novelty and entertainment to the eye which has never seen the thing before. We passed a consider- able number of waggons loaded with wine, as is the case at this time of the year ; each of them had sixteen oxen to draw it, but were just then without any, as the cattle had been turned out to graze amidst the bushes, where it was lucky if they could pick up anything, as these poor animals never taste food or drink from the time they enter Cape Town till they leave it, which is often two days, if the wine they have brought happens not to be immediately disposed of. Certainly there must be something rich in the dry herbs of the soil here, for the oxen are now as fat as they can be, and yet I have nowhere seen the appearance of verdure, except the verdure of green barley or other corn, for there is no grass anywhere. What they have to draw seems quite ludicrous
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behind sixteen great beasts — simply one or two barrels of wine, which I fancy does not amount to above three pipes, and which we should reckon four oxen quite equal to. I have often wondered why they don't sell a dozen of the sixteen when they come to
-^he Cape, and return with four ; but their honour and respectability amongst the Boers (and this exists in a still greater degree amongst the Kaffirs) is to have an immense number of cattle. The drivers are a race of men as large in proportion as their oxen, which is much above the size of the European breed. One man drives the whole, another taking care of the casks and being ready to assist in case of accident. I believe I have mentioned part
- of this before — no matter.
As we drove along, we saw our only English dog who has survived the ailment which attacks all who arrive here, and who is a stout vulgar pointer called ' Chops,' pointing at something, running back to the carriage, returning, and pointing again. Mr. Barnard said that the dog had not his usual manner, but a mixture of fear with his alacrity, so he went with his gun, and found Chops pointing at a serpent of between five and six feet long. Mr. Barnard killed it with his whip, and I have kept its skin.
The Landdrost of Stellenbosch,^ as I told you, had pressed us to come to his house. He has two pretty daughters and a good-humoured wife, but
• Ryno Johannes van der Riet, who had been appointed by General Craig.
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the ladies could neither spraken English nor French, and as we have never before found any necessity of speaking Dutch, we consequently are ignorant of it. I therefore preferred accepting of the Fiscal's empty house in the same village, where I thought we should be more at liberty, and give less trouble ; consenting, however, to dine with the Landdrost and his family every day, and to accept of their carriage and horses, together with the most illustrious coachman of old Governor Sheiskin, now theirs, to drive us to all curious sights near or at a distance. We arrived in time to dinner, and had a plentiful one, really good, though in the Dutch style. The Landdrost's house we found more airy and spacious than any other I have been in here, having a sort of second row of rooms behind the first ; but the division of every Dutch house in the Colony is the same — namely, a hall, a square room on either hand, and another family eating-room behind, with two bedchambers^j Before the Landdrost's door there are the only two fine oaks I have seen, except the others in the village. They each measure eighteen teet round. But the perfection of this place consists in its extreme cool- ness in the midst of the most sultry weather ; it is built in long streets, perfectly regular, each street having on each side a row of large oaks, which shadow the tops of the houses, keeping them cool, and forming a shady avenue between, through which the sun cannot pierce. Whatever way one walks one finds an avenue, right or left, and each house
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has a good garden. Stellenbosch, therefore, though there may not be above a hundred families in it, covers a good deal of ground, and is so perfectly clean and well built that it appears to be inhabited only by people of small fortune. But I am told there are many very poor people in it, without the means of ever becoming richer, as during the Dutch Government no manufacture was permitted there, and any person endeavouring to gain a livelihood by such means would have been severely punished. From this cause the place has few young people. It seems rather an asylum for old age than anything else, and I am told people live longer in it than in any other part of the Colony.
^ At the Fiscal's we found a small clean house on the same little plan with the rest, kept by a black woman, wife to the Landdrost's coachman, she keeping in her turn a slave, who was mother of eight little naked mice that run about the gardens and offices just as they came into the world, without J)eing ashamed. "We had a very good bed, partaking, however, of the error of the country, that to be cool a bed should be made of the finest feathers, instead of which a mattress of hair, pretty hard, and covered with leather, is the real luxury.
Next morning, being Friday, I thought I would take a peep at the Landdrost and the ill-affected faces that were to come to take the Oath. As I walked through one of the avenues I was pleased with the singular appearance of innumerable
LADY ANNE BAENAED'S LETTEES 113
quantities of birds' nests hanging suspended from every bough, built with a hole at the bottom for the birds to enter by. Instinct instructs them to form them so to avoid weasels, monkeys, and serpents, who would otherwise devour the young. The husband bird builds the nest, and it often happens, if he is awkward, that the wife is so much displeased with it that she tears it in pieces, and he has to begin again. Out of twelve Boers who meant to evade swearing allegiance, I found that eight had now taken the Oath and were gone ; the others had made various excuses, and had not appeared at all. This being the case, it only re- mained for Mr. Barnard to give orders for them to be laid hold of. But he thought the more moderate way better, of giving them still two days more, and of going back to the Cape to receive Lord Macartney's further orders. He concluded, however, that he should find it necessary to appoint a party of soldiers to be in the neighbourhood on Saturday evening, and to have very express orders sent to the parties to enforce their attendance on Sunday morning.
I amused myself this day by taking a view of the country and the village from one of the hills. The valley, though not extensive, is rich and fertile were it well cultivated, but the farmers are bad ones. I cannot help thinking that wherever a soil is stony, as it often is here, dibbling, as they do in Norfolk, would be a good plan. Wine is the chief produce of
I
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the land hereabouts, and a small piece of ground only being necessary to make a great deal of wine, the rest of Mother Earth lies barren and neglected. One thousand vines make a barrel of wine, and it contains eight times eighty gallons. The vines are planted in rows, and there seem to be about four feet between vine and vine. To what an extent the cultivation of the vine might be brought here, if the farmers were sure of a good market ! At present there is one thing greatly against the improvement of the vine by any better modes than what are used — namely, that wine from the country is bought by the merchant in town at the market price, with- out any reference to superiority or inferiority of quality. They don't give themselves the trouble to taste it, and sell it off in the same careless way as they buy it.
^ I never saw the force of prejudice more apparent than in the way Englishmen here turn up their foolish noses at the Cape wines because they are Cape wines. They will drink nothing but port, claret, or madeira, pretending that the wines of the country give them bowel-ache ! It may be so, if they drink two or three bottles at a time, and that very frequently, but Cape wine will not do so if used in moderation. Mr. Barnard drinks nothing else himself, though we have every other good wine at table, champagne and burgundy excepted. I must tell you, as an illustration, of what happened one day with us after dinner. We had a little hock on
LADY ANNE BAENAED'S LETTEES 115
board ship, two bottles of which remained over, and we keep them for Lord Macartney when he is ill and wishes for a bonne bouche, as they happen to be very fine. After dinner I thought myself drinking up one of the bottles of this hock, and said to Mr. Barnard, ' O fie ! why do you give us this to-day — it is some of our fine hock.' A certain lieutenant- colonel, who shall be nameless, on this filled his glass. * Lord bless me, what fine wine this is ! ' said he ; * I have not tasted a glass such as this since I came here.' I then found, on asking, that it was Steine wine, a cheap Cape wine, which Mr. Barnard had not liked, and had ordered for common use in the household. In a moment the colonel found fifty faults in it.
On Saturday evening Mr. Barnard returned from Cape Town to Stellenbosch with powers from Lord Macartney to do as he saw best on the spot. Next morning our Jacobins arrived, stout, sulky, demo- cratic fellows, who with wives and children pre- ferred refusing the Oath of Allegiance and going to Batavia to swearing to be honest and quiet members of the community, taking up no arms against us. There was now nothing further to be done — the Landdrost and Mr. Barnard had argued with them till both were worn out with vexation and fatigue. The dragoons then appeared, and the five men, escorted by them, were carried prisoners to the Cape, fully expecting, as a Dutch servant of ours told me who stood by them, to be set at liberty on
I 2
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arriving there, and the matter to blow over. The villagers in general disapproved of their conduct, and the Lady Landdrost, with tears in her eyes, said : * How can you justify yourselves to your wives and children for this ? ' But their reason was plain. Fully persuaded that the government of the Cape will not remain long in the hands of the English, they are taking grounds to be great men when the French get possession of it. But they may reckon without their host if they think the French are bound by any tie except what they suppose to be for their own interest. _^ Being Sunday, we went to church here, though
\ we understood not a word of the language. What amazing people for fat some of these good people are ! A tendency to dropsy at the same time perhaps increases it, but after thirty years of age it is rare to see a woman, in the lower class of life particularly, weighing less than from twelve to fifteen stone. The clergyman's wife, talking of the number of children christened in the parish, told me that the Sunday before this there had been twelve children baptized, and only five mothers to those twelve ! Two of the mothers had three each, and three others two each. 'I thought, madam,' said I, 'that twins
' even had been rare in this country.' ' Oh no, madam,' she replied, * I had two myself but four months ago.' These prolific mothers came from Overbergh ; behind those mountains all sorts of good things are, I hear, to be found. I wonder the
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Dutch allowed such a race to live, their Government being equally against population and cultivation. I believe it is a bit of a reflection on people here to have no family. One or two Dutchmen, on hearing us say we had none, exclaimed, ' Oh, miserable ! miserable ! ' in such a doleful tone, that I think I shall give myself credit for half a dozen left at school for the future.
On Monday Mr. Barnard returned to the Cape for a day, and Anne Barnard and I took the oppor- tunity of going into Hottentot Holland to see a famous pass in the mountains called Hottentot Kloof, which one of our English magazines pencils as tremendous. The day was cold (indeed, as yet we have had no heat to complain of), but it was better so than if it had scorched us. Still the same want of cultivation appeared, with a soil which, as far as my poor share of farming knowledge goes, would be equal to any fair crop that could be re- quired from it. But why raise grain unless there is a market for it ? I was sorry to find the season of flowers over — the spring here is a short one, and the flowers are soon dried up and withered by the summer sun. I dug up a few bulbs, which I send to Lady Jane. I know not if they are curious, but the colour was bright and handsome, and I have accompanied them with a few seeds which I cannot vouch for, except that the seed is good, for though the flowers do not change their shapes, they change their colours, and what was scarlet last year may be
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yellow, blue, or white this. The green flower struck me as being singularly genteel. I shall endeavour to get the finest plants of the sort for her, but mean- time she shall have part of what I have procured, with my love, and must be godmother to the flower, which I have called the * Lady Jane.' y' But to return to my little tour. Hottentot • Holland we found totally uninhabited by Hotten- tots, they, poor things, having been driven up the country by their avaricious masters ; and nothing can better prove the grasping hope of each Dutch- man to possess himself of large domains than the distance at which the settlers have placed them- selves from each other, instead of placing their houses within the vicinity of rational society. The Boer or farmer has only thought of keeping himself as little circumscribed as possible, and as far away as he could from the Landdrost's eye. The con- sequence of this has been that whenever families have settled wide of each other, there has been but a poor increase of them, whereas in places where they have been more confined there is ten times the increase, as in Graaf Keinet. Twenty years ago there were a hundred families in that district ; they were not permitted to emigrate beyond a certain -distance, and are now eight hundred. In Hottentot {Holland there seemed to be a house and farm every 'mile, or mile and a-half, but no hamlet or village. As the land is cultivated by slaves, and as they are rthe property of the master, his house has generally
LADY ANNE BARNARD'S LETTERS 119
a slave-house belonging to it, which, alas ! is in place of that happier cottage at home where each Englishman has his wife, his child, his pig, and his cat or dog, as great within its four walls as any emperor within his palace. Until we see here hamlets also raising up their humble heads, and the artificer receiving his shilling or two a day for his work, and spending it as he pleases, unlashed by any rattan, or without any chastisement but his wife's tongue if he has spent too much in porter, we will not see this a flourishing country. At present unwilling drudgery toils, unthanked, for indolent apathy |_J
The second largest house in Hottentot Holland was purchased lately by a Mr. Thibaud, a French- man, and I believe he is supposed to have a hanker- ing after the doctrines of that nation ; it is situated near a lake, and that lake is within a mile of Modergal Bay. I mention it particularly as the lake is famous for a fish called the springer, the very best fish I ever tasted in all my life, the most delicate and the fattest. We are in negotiation to procure its breed, and its spawn. I should be dehghted were the great events of his Majesty's reign to have added to the list of occurrences the acquisition of ' that charming fish the springer, introduced into this country by the wife of Secre- tary Barnard.' It weighs about three or four pounds, but fancy cannot paint how good it is — it is the fish only that could convince you. I found the horrors of the kloof, like most other things repeated
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by those who love to astonish others, very much exaggerated. It is, to be sure, a very narrow steep road cut from the side of a mountain, but I do not think it more terrible than Penmaenmawr in Wales ; this last is rather the more frightful of the two in my opinion, as the sea rolls below the rock, but the other may be the more dangerous on account of the badness of the road in ascending, and there is no wall or guard to prevent one from tumbling down the precipice should an accident happen. As I saw this object of fear grow less and less the nearer I approached to it, I stopped to take my sketch of it at some little distance ; in this I hear I was wrong, as it appears the most terrible when on it. On t'other side of the mountain there grew a profusion of what are called everlasting flowers, some of which I shall send to Lady Jane. The white remain for ever the same ; the red ones are the most curious, being as bright as if made of red foils ; but the foolish flowers after being plucked, instead of re- maining as they were, or withering, spread from bud to flower, shed bad seed, and fall to pieces. I must kill them by some preparation after they are plucked. Next day Mr. Barnard returned to Stellenbosch again from the Cape. Our Dutch friends are safe lodged in the Castle till a ship is ready to take them to Batavia — silly, bold, foolish people.^ No African
' At the eleventh hour they thought better of it, and took the Oath of Allegiance to King George III. They were set at liberty, but were placed under militaiy supervision for a time.
LADY ANNE BARNAED'S LETTERS 121
was ever known to live there. Europeans some- times do, though rarely. What a pity that so fine a town and country should have so shocking a climate ! We now arranged another party which promised to be still pleasanter — namely, to Paarl, a village at the bottom of mountains so called from two enormous stones being at the top of them of a size so immense that it took a friend of mine half an hour to walk round one of them. They are, however, each entire stones, somewhat shaped like imperfect pearls, and awful from gigantic and unique singularity ; they are of granite, and one of them is hollow. It is supposed it could contain 20,000 men, but this must be non- sense— let us call it 1,000, and then I shall have a better chance of being believed. The valley beneath is rich, fertile, and pretty, being tolerably wooded, watered by the Bergh river, and could produce anything and everything, was it tried. Almonds, walnuts, and oranges grow in plenty, but wine is also the chief article here. The ' paint stone ' is found in this neighbourhood in quantities — namely, an impalpable powder which, mixed with oil, serves the country people with colour to paint their waggons, houses, etc. This powder is contained within stones of different sizes, and on breaking them the powder comes forth, ground as fine as if it had been done in Bond Street. It is found of all colours but green. We dined at Paarl with a civil, hospitable Dutchman of the name of Ailing, the clergyman of the place, and the
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largest man in height and breadth I ever saw in my life.
We then went on to Waggonmakers' Valley, which is reckoned one of the finest districts in the Colony ; but here, or rather on the road here, I still found the same want of trees. Still noble mountains and fine soil, but the human face wanting. We crossed a river by means of a rope and kind of ferry-boat ; two men contrived to tow us all over by degrees, the contents of the Landdrost's waggon going first — namely, himself, his wife, three daughters, a slave, Anne, and me; the coachman, waggon, and eight horses followed, which eight horses he drove in hand with as much facility as he would have driven two.
We had arranged to sleep at the house of Mynheer Wegg, which is here pronounced Veh. We were received at the door of a very respectable- looking English farm-house by the good people themselves. He was an old soldier with the great King of Prussia,^ and has therefore a little more of the world about him than most of the other farmers have ; his wife is a hale, oldish woman, full of hospitable frankness. But as to size and appearance, suppose John Byng, my friend, near six feet high, and married to Sir Horace Mann, seven feet high and rather more masculine, and then you have both husband and wife. What a happy man Lord
' Frederick the Great.
LADY ANNE BAENAED'S LETTEES 123
Monboddo ^ would be in this country ! How it would
corroborate all his doctrines that were we as nature
meant us to be, with no luxury to enervate us, we
should be seven feet at least, or more ! Certainly '
the vrow Veh fell nothing short in her size to
Mynheer Ailing, and several Dutch neighbours who
came while we were there, partly from curiosity
and partly to pay their respects to the Landdrost,
were equal to them. We found at Waggonmakers'
Valley, what is universal in this country, a constant
drinking of coffee going forwards. It is to be found
boiling on the table over charcoal all day long.
Wine handed about half a dozen times in the
course of the evening, pipes filled and smoked by
the gentlemen, and the room filled with slaves — a
dozen at least. Here they were particularly clean
and neat. The vrow sat like Charity tormented by
a legion of devils, with a black baby in her arms,
one on each knee, and three or four larger ones
round her, smiling benignly on the little mortals, who
seemed very sweet creatures, and devilish only in
their hue. She and her husband have (for a wonder)
no children of their own ; so they mean to leave {
their slaves free, and to give amongst them all their J
• James Burnett, Lord Monboddo, was a Scottish judge who had written a work ' Of the Origin and Progress of Language,' in which he maintained inter alia that the ourang-outang was a class of human species, and that its want of speech was merely accidental. His theory had many curious points in common with that of Darwin. He had also an enthusiastic admiration for the ancient Greeks, and counselled a return to more primitive ideas. His views were much ridiculed at the time.
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I fortune. Of course, these people are likely to be
[well served for life.
We walked in an orange grove Mynheer had planted himself about eighteen years ago, and which is now extremely beneficial, being loaded with fruit ; the trees are above thirty feet high, and some of them are nearly as thick of oranges as of leaves. He had sent twenty-seven waggons to the Cape loaded with oranges, in each waggon six thousand, and he had as many more to send. Mr. Barnard pointed out to the master several articles he might cultivate with great advantage on the warm sides of these sheltered moun- tains, particularly cotton, coffee, and rice. He meant to do so, he said, and knew that it would answer. As to rice, they gave us some to supper much better than any of the Indian rice I have seen, as it was free from the musty taste that has. We had for supper a Cape ham, fat enough, but it was fat hurried on a lean pig ; a buck's hind-quarters served up as you would serve a child going to be whipped — it was well larded and good ; two fat ducks, a fowl done with currie, rice well boiled, fine peas, stewed beans, cabbage, potatoes, salad with two dozen of hard eggs for garnish, and a dish of egg-pudding which seemed rather too greasy for me to attack it. We had pastry and fruit after, as is the custom here, and plenty of strawberries of the wood sort, but I do not think a strawberry is a strawberry without sugar and cream.
We here found the misfortune of the very scanty
LADY ANNE BAENARD'S LETTERS 125
accommodation the Cape people have for friends at their houses, as with every possible exertion there was only one room for the Landdrost, his wife, and three daughters, and another for Mr. Barnard and me and Anne. I must here set your mind at rest — though we had but one room, we really had two beds ; matters were not so bad as to have one only for all threel Above Anne's, in the corner, there was a large opening in the roof. I began to congratulate her on its being a trap-door, and that we should see half a dozen Dutchmen swinging her up to the regions above before morning, but we were mistaken. The only harvest drawn up by this hole in the roof is grain or stores, the upper part of the house being used only as a loft or store-room, the Dutch having no idea of converting it (a few people in Cape Town excepted) into any accommodation for their family use ; indeed, they would not believe it was possible to do so in Waggonmakers' Valley.
Next morning we were up betimes, and the first thing we were offered was coffee again. For a second time I feared that there was to be no other breakfast, but I soon saw a plentiful one of more coffee, tea, butter, hard eggs, and meat. This over, we went to pay a visit to the vroto's brother, Mynheer Latigaas, at his house some few miles distant. This was by much the best planted and romantic situation I had seen. I only regretted that I could not ask the Land- drost to stop his waggon for me to take some views of it ; but we had much to do that day without the stop
126 SOUTH AFEICA A CENTUEY AGO
I should have produced. I never saw so fine or so thick an oak hedge as here. I am told that an oak is almost at its growth in this country in twenty-five or thirty years, and that its wood is inferior to the European oak in consequence. I don't believe it is. Many things are taken for granted ; few people give themselves the trouble to make experiments. The fir was reckoned unfit to repair the wharf till necessity forced its use, and it has proved superior and good in its quality. As for an orange grove, that at Mynheer Latigaas' exceeded, or at least came up to, anything my imagination had formed as luxuriant. Mr. Barnard and I measured some of the trees, and found them nine feet round, and were told they were between fifty and sixty feet high ; some of the branches were loaded with fruit in clusters, as our plum trees sometimes are, with forty or fifty great oranges, that were as sweet and good as they looked handsome. Little Vandekict, the Landdrost's youngest daughter, seemed rather too busy amongst them — I feared she would do her- self harm. ' Oh no ! ' she said ; ' I have only eaten eleven ! ' You will easily believe there were a few gripes the day after. We went through Mynheer's wine-house, and bespoke some excellent wine, some of which I hope we shall drink together in London. If we can make them leave out their sulphur this year, we will ; to me it is not a great fault, as it gives a clean sharpness to the taste which I don't dislike, but it makes traitors of the wines — it makes
LADY ANNE BAKNARD'S LETTERS 127
them betray their country, by prejudicing people against them, as I have before mentioned. We found Mynheer Latigaas still taller than his sister * Sir Horace,' but lean, and his wife broad enough to have made half a dozen wives. He was making an experiment from which I have good hopes of getting a liqueur nice and new for you, extracting brandy from the sweetest ripe oranges. I think it will answer — nous verrons.
After strolling about an hour we returned to the Vehs, where we dined, and proceeded back to Paarl, where Mr, Barnard and I remained all night with the Allings, that I might early next morning go up the mountain and take a view from it, and another of the great stones, which as yet I had only seen at a distance. The rest of the party returned to Stellenbosch. We appointed the Landdrost's lightest equipage for next morning (a second-hand carriage from England) to Klapnutch, a military post half-way back, to meet us, intending to ride there. The evening would have been a long one had not a Dutch conversation with Mynheer Ailing been worth many lessons to Mr. Barnard, who, I was charmed to find, could make himself so well understood by the honest clergyman that it was twelve o'clock before they separated — about three hours later than their family hour. However, it was Ailing' s choice, for the benefit of having a little conversation with a well-bred, well-informed, civil Englishman, who I fancy is a being the Dutch do
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not very often meet. The military quartered amongst them have much too contemptuous a way of treating them ; indeed, I often hear things said of the Dutch, before themselves, which nothing could prevent a gentleman taking notice of but a supposed ignorance of the Enghsh language, which, however, they often understand well enough to resent deeply, though they say nothing.
This pastor Ailing is a singular compound of learning and ignorance, in my opinion, and of curiosity and incredulity. He has a good deal of science such as books, without the intercourse of conversation, can give a man, but some of the simplest things in life are as new to him as if he had not read of them. He asked Mr. Barnard many questions respecting the Dutch, and, suppos- ing there was a general peace, what would be ceded to us by them, and what ceded by us to them and the French. He particularised a variety of Dutch and French possessions, as far as I could under- stand him, to which Mr. Barnard constantly replied : 'We have that, at present,' or, 'We took that, at such a time.' He seemed astonished, and could scarce believe we had all that Mr. Barnard ad- vanced. At last, ' St. Domingo,' said he, ' and Ceylon.' * We took both these places and have them now,' replied Mr. Barnard. ' What ! Ceylon ! ' cried the other, half angry : ' You are certainly mistaken, nan, non, c'est un peu fort ! ' in Dutch. I wonder how he could be ignorant of this. On the
LADY ANNE BARNARD'S LETTERS 129
other hand, he is full of intelligence concerning natural productions of the country, minerals, and fossils, and has a good museum stocked with many curious things — in particular a fine collection of the horns of African animals, some of which he made me take drawings of. I took a sketch of himself, too, which he sat for, as like as possible, but I dare not show it all the same to any of my English friends here, they set up such a halloo, and make such game of it. Mr. Barrow was with Ailing some months ago, and he gave him a con- siderable collection of minerals, and much useful information about the country.
I often wish, when I hear anything new, \ curious, or useful, that I could divest myself of that portion of false shame which prevents me from taking out a memorandum-book and marking it down while I remember the particulars, which afterwards escape my memory, and the thing sinks into oblivion. But for a woman very ill-informed on most subjects — I might have said on all subjects — to give herself the air of wisdom, while she knows how superficial she is, by marking down anything that passes in company, I cannot endure it ! It is wilfully drawing on a pair of blue stockings she has no right to wear ! In this I often put myself in mind of what an old friend used to say to us when children at her feasts : * My dears, eat as much as you can, but pocket nothing.' Was I a man, I would pocket without shame. It becomes at some
130 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
time or anotlier useful to him, and teaches the mind ^the good habit of reflecting on what it hears.
Unfortunately for us, next morning was so very, very bad a day, raining so heavily, that it was impossible to stir out, which was a sad disappoint- ment to me. The only good this rain produced — for everything has its fair as well as foul side — was the self-congratulation of the farmers, who now ventured to calculate on the richest harvest, this only being necessary to ensure one. It had another good effect — it swelled a cascade of one hundred feet high, which we had meant to have gone to see, with such a volume of water, that at the distance of some miles it was so evident as to render nearer inspection unnecessary. The rain did not clear up till the middle of the day, and then I durst not spend two or three hours in drawing, as the carriage and horses were waiting for us. I deferred taking these views, therefore, till we could pay another visit to Pastor Ailing, who, we were informed, would accept of no money for his hospitality, which we therefore could only repay by six dozen of English porter, since gone to him.
We left him and his wife, promising to return some day, and proceeded on horseback, sending on our servant before to have the carriage ready. In this situation, cantering along, Mr. Barnard fell in love with a horse which a slave rode without shoes or stockings ; he described his master to live across the fields at a certain farm. To it therefore we scampered with the confidence of honest people who
LADY ANNE BARNAKD'S LETTERS 131
suppose no harm is to happen to them, though in Africa, and under the guidance of a black man and a stranger. Nor did any harm happen ; we reached the farm-house, where I found a bundle of hearty, hospitable Dutch women, who seemed delighted with my visit, and begged us to stay all night with them. But the horse was too dear — 601. The carriage now reached us, and into it we stepped, not without being considerably amused to find that it was an ancient vis-d-vis of Old Q.'s,^ which I well knew again, and which has still his coronet upon it. It served our turn, however, very well, while we skirted the lowering mountains which rose above our heads in all sorts of extraordinary shapes, which constitute their beauty to me. But how out of all calculation it seemed to us that we should be driving together amongst the hills in Africa in Old Q.'s vis-d-vis, with six horses in hand, for the Landdrost's carriage, being light, had only that number, for which he made us an apology. Would the St. James's Street people believe that a Hottentot driver should be able to guide six or eight horses better than they do two ? No. We reached Stellenbosch in safety.
' The fourth Duke of Queensberry, familiarly known as ' Old Q.,' was celebrated for his connection with the Turf and his many eccentricities and social follies.
' And there, insatiate yet with folly's sport, That polish'd sin-worn fragment of the Court ; The shade of Queensb'ry should with Clermont meet Ogling and hobbling down St. James's Street.'
k2
132 SOUTH AFRICA A CENTURY AGO
Mr. Barnard was off again to the Cape next day, and returned the day after to accompany us to the Valley of Drakenstein, which is reckoned one of the richest in the whole country. We went by that mountain called Simon's Berg, with its high-forked top, where an adventurer some years ago pretended he had found a mine. He melted down a quantity of Spanish dollars into a mass, mixed with a certain quantity of rubbish, to take in the Dutch East India Company, who paid him down a large sum of money to furnish him with the means of returning them a larger. In the meantime they converted the mass of silver into a chain to suspend the keys of the Castle gates, as a proof of their riches, where it still remains, though now a proof of their folly, as the man never found the mine, nor they the money they had lent him to search for more.
We found the road through the Valley of Draken- stein in many places so very bad that we trembled for the Fiscal's cabriole, in which we were on that occasion with the Landdrost, but we got through it safe. The finest mountain that fancy can form is to the left on this road. Had poor Burke, who I fear is no more, seen it, he would have said that when found the Almighty had riven it in two, to divide between his countries, but had stopped in the intention when half executed. I do not think it is the Simon's Berg which I allude to, but another mountain whose name I have not yet obtained. This valley is without doubt the richest land and
LADY ANNE BARNAED'S LETTERS 133
the best in the Colony. Some bulbs that I had pulled up came with a fat soil round them which could have raised better things had it been put to good account. The land is plentifully watered by streams that are never dry. It was extraordinary to us, however, that in all our progress we had not seen buck, hare, nor partridge. There is plenty of game, I am told, a hundred miles or more up the country, but as far as we have seen of it, nothing to be compared to England. Game, however, there must be, from the quantity we receive from our friends.
We dined at Herold's farm ; the owner was a plain Boer with a large family of children, as they all have. I liked to see the ducks and chickens walk about in the room, as if part of the company, and with pleasure observed two or three swallows' nests in the corners of the room, which I imagine it would be deemed unlucky to pull down, else their love of propriety would make them do so. There were two pretty daughters, who will be so for a year or two more, but then one of the chief features of beauty almost invariably begins to go — namely, the front teeth, which are rarely possessed by the women after thirty ; smoking saves the men's, but it leaves them black. I am quite delighted to find that their pipes are no longer offensive to me. I even begin to like the smell of the tobacco, and to wish that, when I sent away all the little furniture from our home to the Government House, to his Excellency,
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who, poor man, had none, I had reserved a few of the tobacco jars which they use on these occasions. Jesting apart, we have not yet had any smoking in our house, but I see it must be such a want to a Dutchman when he has not his pipe after dinner, that we are going to provide ourselves with some tobacco and pipes for them.
I was pleased with the reception of the Herolds ; indeed, I have met with in all the people I have seen on this little tour an open frankness that gave one a share of what they had, apart as I believi from any views beyond the pleasure of bestowing I think the Boers, or farmers, of the country, as far as I have seen or heard of them, a better charactered race than the people of Cape Town. The first are plain unlettered folks, without emulation and with- out ambition ; the others are greedy and jealous o each other, but along with this they are equally voi of emulation, or of any ambition beyond that oj^ gaining a livelihood out of the chances that arise] No man has any fixed calling, but lives by his wits and by the purchase of such articles as can be kept, and sold out or bartered to advantage at some future time. Their plans, therefore, and turn of mind are on a very contracted scale. They remind me of the second or third class of mercantile life in England ; this, accompanied with a degree of pride above acknowledging what necessity forces the individual to do, forms an awkward and inconsistent manner. I have not seen in any man or woman of this
LADY ANNE BAENAED'S LETTEES 135
country one sparkle of what I could suppose was genius, or of any special talent or ability to make one regret that improvement from education / should have been wanting. The Fiscal is the pleasantest, and I fancy the best informed and laborious man in Cape Town. His size is immense for his age, which is only thirty-two, but he is not lazy, and has a more gentleman-like turn of mind and a better fund of conversation than the others.
I like the Landdrost of Stellenbosch and his brother-in-law very well too, because they have been kind to us ; but the Landdrost is dull — he does not, to quote some lines on Wolfe, ' put so much of his heart into his acts that all must follow that which all approve,' I believe we have been of some use to him in showing him more of his district than he ever saw before. Civility to us has carried him farther than curiosity ever did before, but as he has been Landdrost only two years, he has probably had, as yet, but little time to go about. It is a situation of considerable business, one day with another bring- ing him on an average not fewer than fifty people, or fifty differences of some sort to settle. But when the Landdrost is a sensible, honest man, how much better this is than to have a breed of lawyers in the country ! Though the parties should come at the most inconvenient times, as they often have to come far, he does not keep anyone a moment wait- ing, but leaves his dinner scarce touched to discuss
136 SOUTH AFEICA A CENTUEY AGO
the affair. An instance of this I shall particularise, because it will make you smile.
The Landdrost was called away the beginning of dinner one day to talk to an old man and old woman who had come together ; they detained him long. At last, when he returned, he told us it was an affair of jealousy, founded on what often takes place in this country, the partiality of the master to one of his black slaves ; that all was amicably settled, as he had consented to sell the object of contention. \ He had not had two mouthfuls when another 'message came from the husband, to the effect that there being a sale in Hottentot Holland next day,
ihe begged leave to sell her then. The Landdrost gave permission, thinking his hurry a proof that the man knew his own weakness, and was resolved to '.put future error out of his power. Two more Imouthfuls were not swallowed, when the wife came Back, and off the Landdrost was again. * Come,' said I, * I'll lay a rupee on old Sarah's head that she means to be generous, and since her husband is ready to sell the bondwoman to satisfy her, that she is now willing to let her and Ishmael remain.' The gentlemen shook their heads, but no one took my bet, as the appearance was in my favour. At last the Landdrost returned, and we eagerly inquired the old lady's business. ' Only to persuade me to give her leave to whip Hagar,' said he, ' before she is sold.' * Oh, damn her ! ' cried Mr. Barnard. * Amen,' said I, ' but I hope you did not consent ? ' ' No,
LADY ANNE BAENAED'S LETTEBS 137
no,' said he, * I thought the concession of seUing her quite enough, and refused her revengeful request.'
I since hear that, instead of having sold her, she has brought her to Cape Town and put her into the Fiscal's prison, in hopes of obtaining, from his ignorance of the matter, the general permission to whip her ill-behaved slave. But the Fiscal does not condemn so slightly ; he inquired into the merits of the case, and poor Hagar has once more escaped her licking, but is to be sold incontinently.
On Sunday evening we had an impromptu ball at the Landdrost's ; the young Dutchmen of the neighbourhood attended — awkward enough youths indeed — and a dozen of young ladies, amongst whom was a lately married Jacobin beauty of the name of Eousseau, of six feet and two inches high, broad in proportion, a Glumdalclitch likeness of the Duchess of Devonshire. Her age is only sixteen, so we may j prophesy much for her future greatness. The | young women are often good-looking at that age, \ but they all want softness. When they are, what is supposed