Chapter XXIV: The Child Fina (1)

Nothing surprised the North Astonians more than what it was the fashion to call "the admirable manner in which Leam behaved to the child Fina." If the world which praised her had known all the compelling circumstances, would it have called her admirable then? Yet beyond those natural promptings of remorse which forced her to do the best she could for the child whom her fatal crime had rendered motherless, Leam did honestly behave well, if this means doing irksome things without complaint and sacrificing self to a sense of right. And this was all the more praiseworthy in that sympathy of nature between these two young creatures there was none, and the girl's maternal instinct was not of that universal kind which makes all children pleasant, whatever they may be. Hence, she did nobly when she did her duty with the uncompromising exactness characteristic of her; but then it was only duty, it was not love.

How should it be love? Her tenacity and reserve were ill matched with Fina's native inconstancy of purpose and childish incontinence of speech; her pride of race resented her father's adoption of a stranger into the penetralia of the family; and to share the name she had inherited from her mother with the daughter of that mother's rival seemed to her a wrong done to both the living and the dead. Naturally taciturn, unjoyful, and ever oppressed by that brooding consciousness of guilt hanging like a cloud over her memory, formless, vague, but never lifting, Fina's changeful temper and tumultuous vivacity were intensely wearisome to her. Nevertheless, she was forbearing if not loving, and the people said rightly when they said she was admirable.

Her grave patience with the little one did more to open her father's heart to her than did even her own wonderful beauty, which gratified his paternal pride of authorship, or than her efforts after docility to himself--efforts that would have been creditable to any one, and that with her were heroic. For Mr. Dundas, being of those clinging, clasping natures which must love some one, had taken poor madame's child into his affections in the wholesale manner so emphatically his own, now in these first days of his new paternity seeming to live only for the little Fina, and never happy but when he had her with him. It was the first time that he felt he had had a child of his own; and he gave her the love which would have been Leam's had Pepita been less of a savage than she was, and more discreet in the matter of doll-dressing.

The little round, fair-haired creature, with her picturesque Gainsborough head and rose-red lips, pretty, pleasant, facile, easily amused if easily made cross, divertible from her purpose if she was but coaxed and caressed, and if the substitute offered was to her liking--without tenacity, fluid, floating on the surface of things and born of their froth; loving only those who ministered to her pleasure and were in sight; forgetting yesterday's joys as though they had never been, and her dearest the moment they were absent--a child deliciously caressing because sensual by temperament and instinctively diplomatic, with no latent greatness to be developed as time went on and the flower set into the fruit. Epitomizing the characteristics of the class of which her mother had been a typical example, she was the pleasantest thing of his life to a man who cared mainly to be amused, and who liked with a woman's liking to be loved.

The strong love of children inherent in him, which had never been satisfied till now, seemed now to have gathered tenfold strength, and the love of the man, who had never cared for his own, for this his little daughter by adoption was almost a passion. If Leam could have been jealous where she did not love, she would have been jealous of her father and Fina. But she was not. On the contrary, it seemed to soften some of the bitterness of her self-reproach, and she was glad that madame's motherless child was not deserted, but had found a substitute for the protection which she had taken from her; for Leam, criminal, was not ignoble.

A few days after the meeting on the moor between Learn and Edgar, Mr. Dundas drove to the Hill, carrying Fina with him. Leam had a fit of shyness and refused to go: thus Sebastian had the child to himself, and was not sorry to be without his elder and less congenial daughter. He owned to himself that she was good, very good indeed, and a great deal better than he ever expected she would be; yet for all that, with her more than Oriental gravity and reserve, and that look of tragedy haunting her face, she was not an amusing companion, and the little one was.

Mr. Dundas had begun to take up his old habits again with the Harrowbys. He found the patient constancy of his friend Josephine not a disagreeable salve for a wounded heart and broken life; albeit poor dear Joseph was getting stout and matronly, and took off the keen edge of courtship by a willingness too manifest for wisdom. Sebastian liked to be loved, but he did not like to be bored by being made overmuch love to. The things are different, and most men resent the latter, how much soever they desire the former.

Edgar was in the drawing-room when Mr. Dundas was announced. He was booted and spurred, waiting his horse to be brought round. "What a pretty little girl!" he said after a time. True to his type, he was fond of children and animals, and children and animals liked him. "Come and speak to me," he continued, holding out his hand to Fina.--"Whose child is she?" vaguely to the company in general.

"Mine," said Mr. Dundas emphatically--"my youngest daughter, Fina Dundas."

Edgar knew what he meant. He had often heard the story from his sisters, and since his return home he had had Adelaide Birkett's comments thereon. He looked then with even more interest on the pretty little creature in dark-blue velvet and swansdown, careless, unconscious, happy, as the child of a mystery and a tragedy in one.

"Ah!" he said sympathetically. "Come to me, little one," again, coaxingly.

Fina, with her finger in her mouth, went up to him half shyly, half boldly, and wholly prettily. She let him take her on his knee and kiss her without remonstrance. She was of the kind to like being taken on knees and kissed--especially by gentlemen who were strong and matronly women who were soft--and she soon made friends. Not many minutes elapsed before, kneeling upon his knees, she was stroking his tawny beard and plaiting it in threes, pulling his long moustache, playing with his watch-guard, and laughing in his face with the pretty audacity of six.

"What a dear little puss!" cried Edgar, caressing her. "Very like you, Joseph, I should think, when you were her age, judging by your picture. Is she not, mother?"

"They say so, but I do not see it," answered Mrs. Harrowby primly.

She did not like to hear about this resemblance. There was something in it that annoyed her intensely, she scarcely knew why, and the more so because it was true.

"Poor madame used to say so: she saw it from the first, when Fina was quite a little baby," said Josephine in a low voice.

She was kneeling by her brother's side caressing Fina. She always made love to the little girl: it was one of her methods of making love to the father.

"Is she like her mother?" asked Edgar in the same low tones, looking at the child critically.

"A little," answered Josephine--"not much. It is odd, is it not, that she should be more like me?"

Just then Fina laid her fresh sweet lips against Edgar's, and he kissed her with a strange thrill of tenderness.

"Why, Edgar, I never saw you take so to a child before," cried Mrs. Harrowby, not quite pleasantly; and on Sebastian adding with his nervous little laugh, which meant the thing it assumed only to play at, "I declare I shall be quite jealous, Edgar, if you make love to my little girl like this." Edgar, who had the Englishman's dislike to observation, save when he offered himself for personal admiration, laughed too and put Fina away.

But the child had taken a fancy to him, and could scarcely be induced to leave him. She clung to his hand still, and went reluctantly when her stepfather called her. It was a very little matter, but men being weak in certain directions, it delighted Edgar and annoyed Sebastian beyond measure.

"I hope your elder daughter is well," then said Edgar, emphasizing the adjective, the vision of Leam as he first saw her, breasting the wind, filling his eyes with a strange light.

"Leam? Quite well, thanks. But how do you know anything about her?" was Sebastian's reply.

"I met her yesterday on the moor, and Rover introduced us," answered Edgar laughing.

"How close she is!" said her father fretfully. "She never told me a word about it."

"Perhaps she thought the incident too trifling," suggested Edgar, a little chagrined.

"Oh no, not at all! In a place like North Aston the least thing counts as an adventure; and meeting for the first time one of the neighbors is not an incident to be forgotten as if it were of no more value than meeting a flock of sheep."

Mr. Dundas spoke peevishly. To a man who liked to be amused and who lived on crumbs this reserved companionship was disappointing and tiresome.

"Leam is at home making music," said Fina disdainfully. She had caught the displeased accent of her adopted father, and echoed it.

"Does she make much music?" asked Edgar with his hand under her chin, turning up her face.

The child shrugged her little shoulders. "She makes a noise," she said; and those who heard her laughed.

"That is not a very polite way of putting it," said Edgar a little gravely.

"No," said Josephine.

"You should speak nicely of your sister, my little one," put in Sebastian.

Fina looked up into his face reproachfully. "You called it a noise yourself, papa," she said, pouting. "You made her leave off yesterday as soon as you came in, because you said she made your head ache with her noise, and set your teeth--something, I don't know what."

"Did I, dear?" he repeated carelessly. "Well, we need not discuss the subject. I dare say it amuses her to make music, as you call it, and so we need say no more about it."

"But you did say it was a noise," persisted Fina, climbing on to his knees and putting her arms round his neck. "And I think it a noise too."

"Poor Leam's music cannot be very first-rate," remarked Maria, who was a proficient and played almost as well as a "professional." "Four years ago she did not know her notes, and four years' practice cannot be expected to make a perfect pianiste."

"But a person may play very sweetly and yet not be what you call perfect," said Edgar.

"Do you think so?" Maria answered with a frosty smile. "I do not." Of what use to have toiled for thirty years early and late at scales and thorough-bass if a stupid girl like Leam could be allowed to play sweetly after four years' desultory practice? "Adelaide Birkett, if you will, plays well," she added; "but Leam, poor child! how should she?"

"I hope I shall have an opportunity of judging for myself," said Edgar with his company manner.--"When will you come and dine here, Dundas?--to-morrow? You and your elder daughter: we shall be very glad to see you."

He looked to his mother. Mrs. Harrowby had drawn her lips tight, and wore an injured air doing its best to be resigned. This was Edgar's first essay in domestic mastership, and it pained her, not unnaturally.

"Thanks," said Sebastian. "Willingly, if--" looking to Mrs. Harrowby.

"I have no engagement, and Edgar is master now," said that lady.

"And mind that Leam comes too," said Josephine, sharing her favorite brother's action by design.

"And me," cried Fina.

Whereat they all laughed, which made Fina cry, to be consoled only by some sweetmeats which Josephine found in her work-basket.

It was agreed, then, that the next day Leam and her father should dine at the Hill.

"Only ourselves," Edgar said, wanting the excuse of her "being the only lady" to devote himself to Leam. It was strange that he should be so anxious to see her nearer, and in company with his sisters and mother; for after all, why should he? What was she to him, either near or afar off, alone or in the inner circle of his family?

But when the next day came Mr. Dundas appeared alone. Leam had been taken with a fit of shyness, pride--who shall say?--and refused to accept her share of the invitation. Her father made the stereotyped excuse of "headache;" but headaches occur too opportunely to be always real, and Leam's to-night was set down to the fancy side of the account, and not believed in by the hearers any more than by the bearer.

Edgar raged against her in his heart, and decided that she was not worth a second thought, while the ladies said in an undertone from each to each, "How rude!" Maria adding, "How like Leam!" the chain of condemnation receiving no break till it came to Josephine, whose patient soul refrained from wrath, and gave as her link, "Poor Leam! perhaps she is shy or has really a headache."

In spite of his decision that she was not worth a second thought, the impression which Leam had made on Edgar deepened with his disappointment, and he became restless and unpleasant in his temper, casting about for means whereby he might see her again. He cast about in vain. This fit of shyness, pride, reluctance--who knows what?--continued with Leam for many days after this. If she went out at all, she went where she knew she should not be met; and if Edgar called at Ford House, she was not to be found. She mainly devoted herself to Fina and some books lent her by Alick, and kept the house with strange persistency. Perhaps this was because the weather was bad, for Leam, who could bear wind and frost and noonday sun, could not bear wet. When it rained she shut herself up in her own room, and pitied herself for the ungenial skies as she had pitied herself for some other things before now.

Sitting thus reading one miserably dark, cold, misty day, the child Fina came in to her with her lessons, which she repeated well. They were very small and insignificant little lessons, for Leam had a fellow-feeling for the troubles of ignorance, and laid but a light hand on the frothy mind inside that curly head. When they were finished the little one said coaxingly, "Now play with me, Leam! You never play with me."

"What can I do, Fina?" poor Leam replied.

She had never learnt to play when she was a child: she had never built towers and towns, made railway trains and coaches with the sofa and chairs, played at giants through the dark passages and screamed when she was caught. She had only sat still when mamma was asleep, or when she was awake played on the zambomba, or listened to her when she told her of the things of Spain, and made up stories with her dolls that were less edifying than those of Mother Bunch. She could scarcely, however, unpack that old box full of waxen puppets, with the one dressed in scarlet and black, with fishbone horns and a worsted tail, and a queer clumped kind of foot made of folds of leather, cleft in the middle, that used to go by the name of "El señor papa." What could she do?

"Shall I tell you a story?" she then said in a mild fit of desperation, for story-telling was as little in her way as anything else.

"Yes, yes, tell me a story!" Fina clapped her chubby hands together and climbed up into Leam's lap.

"What shall it be about--bears or tigers, or what?" asked Leam dutifully.

"Tell me about mamma, my own mamma, not Aunty Birkett," said Fina.

Leam shuddered from head to foot. This was the first time the little girl had mentioned her mother's name to her. Indeed, she did not know that she had ever heard of her at all--ever known that she had had a mother; but the servants had talked, and the child's curiosity was aroused. The dead mother is as much a matter of wondering inquiry as the angels and the stars; and Fina's imagination was beginning to bestir itself on the mysteries of childish life.

"I have nothing to tell you about her," said Leam, controlling herself, though she still shivered.

"Yes, you have--everything," insisted Fina. "Was mamma pretty?" playing with a corner of her sister's ribbon.

"People said so," answered Leam.

"As pretty as Cousin Addy?" she asked.

"About," said Leam, who thought neither supreme.

"Prettier than you?"

"I don't know: how can I tell?" she answered a little impatiently.

The mother's blood that ran in her, the mother's mould in which she had been formed, forbade her to put herself below madame in anything; but, as she was neither vain nor conscious, she found Fina's question difficult to answer.

"Oh," cried Fina, in a tone of disappointment, "then she could not have been very pretty."

"I dare say she was, but I do not know," returned Leam.

"And she died?" continued Fina, yawning in a childishly indifferent manner.

"Yes, she died."

"Why? Who killed her? Did papa?" asked Fina.

Leam's face was very white: "No, not papa."

"Did God?"

"I cannot tell you, Fina," said Leam, to whom falsehoods were abhorrent and the truth impossible.

"Did you?" persisted Fina with childish obstinacy.

"Now go," said Leam, putting her off her lap and rising from her chair in strange disorder. "You are troublesome and ask too many questions."

Fina began to cry loudly, and Mr. Dundas, from his library below, heard her. He came up stairs with his fussy, restless kindness, and opened the door of the room where his two daughters, of nature and by adoption, were.

"Heyday! what's all this about?" he cried. "What's the matter, my little Fina? what are you crying for? Tut, tut! you should not cry like this, darling; and, Leam," severely, "you should really keep the child better amused and happy. She is as good as gold with me: with you there is always something wrong."

Fina ran into his arms sobbing. "Leam is cross," she said. "She will not tell me who killed mamma."

The man's ruddy face, reddened and roughened with travel, grew white and pitiful. "God took her away, my darling," he said with a sob. "She was too good for me, and He took her to live with the angels in heaven,"

"And Leam's mamma? Is she in heaven too with the angels?" asked Fina, opening her eyes wide through their tears,

"I hope so," Sebastian answered in an altered voice.

Leam covered her face in her hands; then lifting it up, she said imploringly, "Papa, do not talk to her of mamma. It is sacrilege."

"I agree with you, Leam," said Mr, Dundas in a steady voice. "We meet at the same point, but perhaps by different methods."

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

LETTERS FROM SOUTH AFRICA

BY LADY BARKER.

CAPE TOWN, October 16, 1875.

Safe, safe at last, after twenty-four days of nothing but sea
and sky, of white-crested waves--which made no secret of their
intention of coming on board whenever they could or of tossing
the good ship Edinburgh Castle hither and thither like a
child's plaything--and of more deceitful sluggish rolling
billows, looking tolerably calm to the unseafaring eye, but
containing a vast amount of heaving power beneath their slow,
undulating water-hills and valleys. Sometimes sky and sea
have been steeped in dazzling haze of golden glare, sometimes
brightened to blue of a sapphire depth. Again, a sudden change
of wind has driven up serried clouds from the south and east,
and all has been gray and cold and restful to eyes wearied
with radiance and glitter of sun and sparkling water.

Never has there been such exceptional weather, although the
weather of my acquaintance invariably _is_ exceptional. No
sooner had the outlines of Madeira melted and blended into
the soft darkness of a summer night than we appeared to sail
straight into tropic heat and a sluggish vapor, brooding on
the water like steam from a giant geyser. This simmering,
oily, exhausting temperature carried us close to the line.
"What is before us," we asked each other languidly, "if it be
hotter than this? How can mortal man, woman, still less child,
endure existence?" Vain alarms! Yet another shift of the
light wind, another degree passed, and we are all shivering in
winter wraps. The line was crossed in greatcoats and shawls,
and the only people whose complexion did not resemble a
purple plum were those lucky ones who had strength of mind
and steadiness of body to lurch up and down the deck all
day enjoying a strange method of movement which they called
walking.

The exceptional weather pursued us right into the very
dock. Table Mountain ought to be seen--and very often is
seen--seventy miles away. I am told it looks a fine bold bluff
at that distance, Yesterday we had blown off our last pound of
steam and were safe under its lee before we could tell
there was a mountain there at all, still less an almost
perpendicular cliff more than three thousand feet high. Robben
Island looked like a dun-colored hillock as we shot past it
within a short distance, and a more forlorn and discouraging
islet I don't think I have ever beheld. When I expressed
something of this impression to a cheery fellow-voyager, he
could only urge in its defence that there were a great many
rabbits on it. If he had thrown the lighthouse into the
bargain, I think he would have summed up all its attractive
features. Unless Langalibalele is of a singularly
unimpressionable nature, he must have found his sojourn on
it somewhat monotonous, but he always says he was very
comfortable there.

And now for the land. We are close alongside of a wharf,
and still a capital and faithful copy of a Scotch mist wraps
houses, trees and sloping uplands in a fibry fantastic veil,
and the cold drizzle seems to curdle the spirits and energies
of the few listless Malays and half-caste boys and men who are
lounging about. Here come hansom cabs rattling up one after
the other, all with black drivers in gay and fantastic head
and shoulder gear; but their hearts seem precisely as
the hearts of their London brethren, and they single out
new-comers at a glance, and shout offers to drive them a
hundred yards or so for exorbitant sums, or yell laudatory
recommendations of sundry hotels. You must bear in mind that
in a colony every pot-house is a hotel, and generally rejoices
in a name much too imposing to fit across its frontage. These
hansoms are all painted white with the name of some ship in
bright letters on the side, and are a great deal cleaner,
roomier and more comfortable than their London "forbears." The
horses are small and shabby, but rattle along at a good pace;
and soon each cab has its load of happy home-comers and swings
rapidly away to make room for fresh arrivals hurrying up for
fares. Hospitable suggestions come pouring in, and it is as
though it were altogether a new experience when one steps
cautiously on the land, half expecting it to dip away
playfully from under one's feet. A little boy puts my thoughts
into words when he exclaims, "How steady the ground is!"
and becomes a still more faithful interpreter of a wave-worn
voyager's sensations when, a couple of hours later, he demands
permission to get _out_ of his delicious little white bed
that he may have the pleasure of getting _into_ it again. The
evening is cold and raw and the new picture is all blurred and
soft and indistinct, and nothing seems plain except the
kindly grace of our welcome and the
never-before-sufficiently-appreciated delights of space and
silence.

OCTOBER 17.

How pleasant is the process familiarly known as "looking
about one," particularly when performed under exceptionally
favorable circumstances! A long and happy day commenced with a
stroll through the botanic gardens, parallel with which runs,
on one side, a splendid oak avenue just now in all the
vivid freshness of its young spring leaves. The gardens are
beautifully kept, and are valuable as affording a sort of
experimental nursery in which new plants and trees can be
brought up on trial and their adaptability to the soil and
climate ascertained. For instance, the first thing that caught
my eye was the gigantic trunk of an Australian blue-gum tree,
which had attained to a girth and height not often seen in its
own land. The flora of the Cape Colony is exceptionally varied
and beautiful, but one peculiarity incidentally alluded to by
my charming guide struck me as very noticeable. It is that
in this dry climate and porous soil all the efforts of
uncultivated nature are devoted to the _stems_ of the
vegetation: on their sap-retaining power depends the life of
the plant, so blossom and leaf, though exquisitely indicated,
are fragile and incomplete compared to the solidity and
bulbous appearance of the stalk. Everything is sacrificed to
the practical principle of keeping life together, and it is
not until these stout-stemmed plants are cultivated and
duly sheltered and watered, and can grow, as it were, with
confidence, that they are able to do justice to the inherent
beauty of penciled petal and veined leaf. Then the stem
contracts to ordinary dimensions, and leaf and blossom expand
into things which may well be a joy to the botanist's eye.
A thousand times during that shady saunter did I envy my
companions their scientific acquaintance with the beautiful
green things of earth, and that intimate knowledge of a
subject which enhances one's appreciation of its charms as
much as bringing a lamp into a darkened picture-gallery. There
are the treasures of form and color, but from ignorant eyes
more than half their charms and wonders are held back.

A few steps beyond the garden stand the library and natural
history museum. The former is truly a credit to the Colony.
Spacious, handsome, rich in literary treasures, It would
bear comparison with similar institutions in far older and
wealthier places. But I have often noticed in colonies how
much importance is attached to the possession of a good public
library, and how fond, as a rule, colonists are of books. In
a new settlement other shops may be ill supplied, but there
is always a good bookseller's, and all books are to be bought
there at pretty nearly the same prices as in England. Here
each volume costs precisely the same as it would in London,
and it would puzzle ever so greedy a reader to name a book
which would not be instantly handed to him.

The museum is well worth a visit of many more hours than we
could afford minutes, and, as might be expected, contains
numerous specimens of the _Bok_ family, whose tapering horns
and slender legs are to be seen at every turn of one's head.
Models are there also of the largest diamonds, and especially
well copied is the famous "Star of South Africa," a
magnificent brilliant of purest water, sold here originally
for something like twelve thousand pounds, and resold for
double that sum three or four years back. In these few hours I
perceive, or think I perceive, a certain soreness, if one
may use the word, on the part of the Cape Colonists about the
unappreciativeness of the English public toward their produce
and possessions. For Instance, an enormous quantity of wine is
annually exported, which reaches London by a devious route and
fetches a high price, as it is fairly entitled to do from its
excellence. If that same wine were sent direct to a London
merchant and boldly sold as Cape wine, it is said that the
profit on it would be a very different affair. The same
prejudice exists against Cape diamonds. Of course, as in other
things, a large proportion of inferior stones are forced into
the market and serve to give the diamonds that bad name which
we all know is so fatal to a dog. But it is only necessary to
pretend that a really fine Cape diamond has come from Brazil
to ensure its fetching a handsome price, and in that way even
jewelers themselves have been known to buy and give a good
round sum, too, for stones they would otherwise have looked
upon with suspicion. Already I have seen a straw-colored
diamond from "Du Zoit's pan" in the diamond-fields cut in
Amsterdam and set in London, which could hold its own for
purity, radiance and color against any other stone of the same
rare tint, without fear or favor; but of course such gems are
not common, and fairly good diamonds cost as much here as in
any other part of the world.

The light morning mists from that dampness of yesterday have
rolled gradually away as the beautiful sunshine dried the
atmosphere, and by midday the table-cloth, as the colonists
affectionately call the white, fleece-like vapor which so
often rests on their pet mountain, has been folded up and laid
aside in Cloudland for future use. I don't know what picture
other people may have made to their own minds of the shape and
size of Table Mountain, but it was quite a surprise and the
least little bit in the world of a disappointment to me to
find that it cuts the sky (and what a beautiful sky it is!)
with a perfectly straight and level line. A gentle, undulating
foreground broken into ravines, where patches of green _velts_
or fields, clumps of trees and early settlers' houses nestle
cosily down, guides the eye half-way up the mountain. There
the rounder forms abruptly cease, and great granite cliffs
rise, bare and straight, up to the level line stretching ever
so far along. "It is so characteristic," and "You grow to be
so fond of that mountain," are observations I have heard made
in reply to the carping criticisms of travelers, and already
I begin to understand the meaning of the phrases. But you
need to see the mountain from various points of view and under
different influences of sun and cloud before you can take in
its striking and peculiar charms.

On each side of the straight line which is emphatically Table
Mountain, but actually forming part of it, is a bold headland
of the shape one is usually accustomed to in mountains. The
"Devil's Peak" is uncompromising enough for any one's taste,
whilst the "Lion's Head" charms the eye by its bluff form
and deep purple fissures. These grand promontories are not,
however, half so beloved by Cape Colonists as their own Table
Mountain, and it is curious and amusing to notice how the
influence of this odd straight ridge, ever before their eyes,
has unconsciously guided and influenced their architectural
tastes. All the roofs of the houses are straight--straight
as the mountain; a gable is almost unknown, and even the few
steeples are dwarfed to an imperceptible departure from the
prevailing straight line. The very trees which shade the
Parade-ground and border the road in places have their tops
blown absolutely straight and flat, as though giant shears
had trimmed them; but I must confess, in spite of a
natural anxiety to carry out my theory, that the violent
"sou'-easters" are the "straighteners" in their case.

Cape Town is so straggling that it is difficult to form any
idea of its real size, but the low houses are neat and the
streets are well kept and look quaint and lively enough to my
new eyes this morning. There are plenty of people moving about
with a sociable, business-like air; lots of different shades
of black and brown Malays, with pointed hats on the men's
heads: the women encircle their dusky, smiling faces with a
gay cotton handkerchief and throw another of a still brighter
hue over their shoulders. When you add to this that they
wear a full, flowing, stiffly-starched cotton gown of a third
bright color, you can perhaps form some idea of how they
enliven the streets. Swarms of children everywhere, romping
and laughing and showing their white teeth in broadest
of grins. The white children strike me at once as looking
marvelously well--such chubby cheeks, such sturdy fat
legs--and all, black or white, with that amazing air of
independence peculiar to baby-colonists. Nobody seems to mind
them and nothing seems to harm them. Here are half a dozen
tiny boys shouting and laughing at one side of the road, and
half a dozen baby-girls at the other (they all seem to play
separately): they are all driving each other, for "horses" is
the one game here. By the side of a pond sit two toddles of
about three years old, in one garment apiece and pointed hats:
they are very busy with string and a pin; but who is taking
care of them and why don't they tumble in? They are as fat as
ortolans and grin at us in the most friendly fashion.

We must remember that this chances to be the very best moment
of the whole year in which to see the Cape and the dwellers
thereat. The cold weather has left its bright roses on the
children's cheeks, and the winter rains exceptionally having
this year made every blade of grass and leaf of tree to laugh
and sing in freshest green. After the dry, windy summer I am
assured there is hardly a leaf and never a blade of grass to
be seen in Cape Town, and only a little straggling verdure
under the shelter of the mountain. The great want of this
place is water. No river, scarcely a brook, refreshes one's
eye for many and many a league inward. The necessary water for
the use of the town is brought down by pipes from the numerous
springs which trickle out of the granite cliffs of Table
Mountain, but there is never a sufficiency to spare for
watering roads or grassplots. This scarcity is a double loss
to residents and visitors, for one misses it both for use and
beauty.

Everybody who comes here rides or drives round the "Kloof."
That may be; but what I maintain is that very few do it so
delightfully as I did this sunny afternoon with a companion
who knew and loved every turn of the romantic road, who could
tell me the name of every bush or flower, of every distant
stretch of hills, and helped me to make a map in my head of
the stretching landscape and curving bay. Ah! how delicious it
was, the winding, climbing road, at whose every angle a fresh
fair landscape fell away from beneath our feet or a shining
stretch of sea, whose transparent green and purple shadows
broke in a fringe of feathery spray at the foot of bold, rocky
cliffs, or crept up to a smooth expanse of silver sand in a
soft curling line of foam! "Kloof" means simply cleft, and is
the pass between the Table Mountain and the Lion's Head, The
road first rises, rises, rises, until one seems half-way up
the great mountain, and the little straight--roofed white
houses, the green velts or fields and the parallel lines of
the vineyards have sunk below one's feet far, far away. The
mountain gains in grandeur as one approaches it, for the
undulating spurs which run from it down to the sea-shore take
away from the height looking upward. But when these are left
beneath, the perpendicular Walls of granite, rising sheer
and straight up to the bold sky-line, and the rugged, massive
strength of the buttress-like cliffs, begin to gain something
of their true value to the stranger's eye. The most beautiful
part of the road, however, to my taste, is the descent, when
the shining expanse of Camp's Bay lies shimmering in the warm
afternoon haze with a thousand lights and shadows from cloud
and cliff touching and passing over the crisp water-surface.
By many a steep zigzag we round the Lion's Head, and drop once
more on a level road running parallel to the sea-shore, and so
home in the balmy and yet bracing twilight. The midday sun is
hot and scorching even at this time of year, but it is always
cool in the shade, and no sooner do the afternoon shadows grow
to any length than the air freshens into sharpness, and by
sundown one is glad of a good warm shawl.

OCTOBER 18.

Another bright, ideal day, and the morning passed in a
delicious flower-filled room looking over old books and
records and listening to odd, quaint little scraps from the
old Dutch records. But directly after luncheon (and how hungry
we all are, and how delicious everything tastes on shore!) the
open break with four capital horses comes to the door, and we
start for a long, lovely drive. Half a mile or so takes us
out on a flat red road with Table Mountain rising straight up
before it, but on the left stretches away a most enchanting
panorama. It is all so soft in coloring and tone, distinct and
yet not hard, and exquisitely beautiful!

The Blue-Berg range of mountains stretch beyond the great bay,
which, unless a "sou'-easter" is tearing over it, lies glowing
in tranquil richness. This afternoon it is colored like an
Italian lake. Here are lines of chrysoprase, green-fringed,
white with little waves, and beyond lie dark, translucent,
purple depths, which change with every passing cloud. Beyond
these amethystic shoals again stretches the deep blue water,
and again beyond, and bluer still, rise the five ranges
of "Hottentots' Holland," which encircle and complete the
landscape, bringing the eye round again to the nearer cliffs
of the Devil's Peak. When the Dutch came here some two hundred
years ago, they seized upon this part of the coast and called
it Holland, driving the Hottentots beyond the neighboring
range and telling them that was to be their Holland--a name it
keeps to this day. Their consciences must have troubled them
after this arbitrary division of the soil, for up the highest
accessible spurs of their own mountain they took the
trouble to build several queer little square houses called
"block-houses," from which they could keep a sharp look-out
for foes coming over the hills from Hottentots' Holland.
The foes never came, however, and the roofs and walls of
the block-houses have gradually tumbled in, and the
gun-carriages--for they managed to drag heavy ordnance up the
steep hill-side--have rotted away, whilst the old-fashioned
cannon lie, grim and rusty, amid a tangled profusion of wild
geranium, heath and lilies, I scrambled up to one of the
nearest block-houses, and found the date on the dismounted gun
to be more than a hundred years old. The view was beautiful
and the air fresh and fragrant with scent of flowers.

But to return to our drive. I could gaze and gaze for ever at
this lovely panorama, but am told this is the ugliest part of
the road. The road itself is certainly not pretty just here,
and is cloudy with a fine red dust, but this view of sea and
distant hills is enchanting. Soon we get under the lee of
the great mountain, and then its sheltering arms show their
protective power; for splendid oak avenues begin to border the
road all the way, and miniature forests of straight-stemmed
pines and shimmering belts of the ghostly silver tree run up
all the mountain-clefts. Stem and leaf of the silver tree are
all of purest white; and when one gets a gleam of sunlight
on a distant patch of these trees, the effect is quite
indescribable, contrasting, as they do, with green of field
and vineyard. The vines all about here and towards Constantia,
thirteen miles off, are dwarf-plants, and only grow to the
height of gooseberry-bushes. It is a particular species, which
is found to answer best as requiring less labor to train and
cultivate, and is less likely to be blown out of the ground
by the violent "sou'-easters" which come sweeping over the
mountain. These gales are evidently the greatest annoyance
which Cape Colonists have to endure; and although everybody
kindly suggests that I _ought_ to see one, just to understand
what it is like, I am profoundly thankful that I only know it
from their description and my own distinct recollection of the
New Zealand "nor'-westers." Those were hot winds, scorching
and curling up everything, whereas this is rather a cold
breeze, although it blows chiefly in summer. It whirls along
clouds of dust from the red clay roads and fields which
penetrates and clings to everything in the most extraordinary
manner. All along the road the stems and lower branches of the
trees are dyed a deep brick-dust color, and I hear moving and
pathetic stories of how it ruins clothes, not only utterly
spoiling black silk dresses, but staining white petticoats and
children's frocks and pinafores with a border of color exactly
like the ruddle with which sheep are branded. Especially is
it the terror of sailors, rendering the navigation along the
coast dangerous and difficult; for it blends land and water
into one indistinct whirl of vaporous cloud, confusing and
blurring everything until one cannot distinguish shore from
sea.

The vineyards of Constantia originally took their pretty name
from the fair daughter of one of the early Dutch governors,
but now it has grown into a generic word, and you see
"Cloete's Constantia," "Von Reybeck Constantia," written upon
great stone gateways leading by long avenues into the various
vine-growing plantations. It was to the former of these
constantias, which was also the farthest off, that we were
bound that pleasant summer afternoon, and from the time we got
out of the carriage until the moment we re-entered it--all
too soon, but it is a long drive back in the short cold
twilight--I felt as though I had stepped through a magic
portal into the scene of one of Washington Irving's
stories. It was all so simple and homely, so quaint and so
inexpressibly picturesque. The house had stood there for a
couple of hundred years, and looks as though it might last for
ever, with its air of cool, leisurely repose and comfort and
strength.

In the flagged hall stands a huge stalactite some ten feet
high, brought a hundred years ago from caves far away in the
distant ranges. It is shaped something like a Malay's hat,
only the peak tapers to a point about eight feet high. The
drawing-room--though it seems a profanation to call that
venerable stately room by so flippant and modern a name--is
large, ceiled with great beams of cedar, and lighted by lofty
windows, which must contain many scores of small panes of
glass. There were treasures of rarest old china and delfware,
and curious old carved stands for fragile dishes. A wealth of
swinging-baskets of flowers and ferns and bright girl-faces
lighted up the solemn, shady old room, in which we must not
linger, for there is much to see outside. First to the cellar,
as it is called, though it is far from being under ground,
and is, in fact, a spacious stone building with an
elaborately-carved pediment. Here are rows and rows of giant
casks, stretching on either hand into avenues in the black
distance, but these are mere children in the nursery, compared
to those we are going to see. First we must pause in a middle
room full of quaintest odds and ends--crossbows, long whips of
hippopotamus hide, strange rusty old swords and firearms--to
look at a map of South Africa drawn somewhere about 1640. It
hangs on the wall and is hardly to be touched, for the paint
and varnish crack and peel off at a breath. It is a marvel of
accurate geographical knowledge, and is far better filled
in than the maps of yesterday. All poor Livingstone's great
geographical discoveries are marked on it as being--perhaps
only from description--known or guessed at all that long time
ago. It was found impossible to photograph it on account of
the dark shade which age has laid over the original yellow
varnish, but a careful tracing has been made and, I believe,
sent home to the Geographical Society. It is in the long
corridor beyond this that the "stuck-vats" live--puncheons
which hold easily some thousand gallons or so, and are of a
solemn rotundity calculated to strike awe into the beholder's
heart. Here is white constantia, red constantia, young
constantia, middle-aged constantia, and constantia so old as
to be a liqueur almost beyond price. When it has been kept
all these years, the sweetness by which it is distinguished
becomes so absorbed and blended as to be hardly perceptible.

Presently one of the party throws a door suddenly open, and,
behold, we are standing right over a wild wooded glen with a
streamlet running through it, and black washerwomen beating
heaps of white clothes on the strips of shingle. Turtle-doves
are cooing, and one might almost fancy one was back again on
the wild Scotch west coast, until some one else says calmly,
"Look at the ostriches!" Here they come, with a sort of
dancing step, twisting their long necks and snake-like heads
from side to side in search of a tempting pebble or trifle of
hardware. Their wings are slightly raised, and the long fringe
of white feathers rustles softly as they trot easily and
gracefully past us. They are young male birds, and in a few
months more their plumage, which now resembles that of a
turkey-cock, will be jet black, except the wing-feathers. A
few drops of rain are falling, so we hurry back to where the
carriage is standing under some splendid oak trees, swallow a
sort of stirrup-cup of delicious hot tea, and so home again as
fast as we can go.

OCTOBER 19.

It is decided that I must take a drive in a Cape cart; so
directly after breakfast a smart workman-like-looking vehicle,
drawn by a pair of well-bred iron-gray cobs, dashes up under
the portico. There are capital horses here, but they fetch
a good price, and such a pair as these would easily find
purchasers at one hundred and fifty pounds. The cart itself
is very trim and smart, with a framework sort of head, which
falls back at pleasure, and it holds four people easily. It
is a capital vehicle, light and strong and uncommonly
comfortable, but I am warned not to imagine that all Cape
carts are as easy as this one. Away we go at a fine pace
through the delicious sparkling morning sunshine and crisp
air, soon turning off the red high-road into a sandy, marshy
flat with a sort of brackish back-water standing in pools here
and there. We are going to call on Langalibalele, and his
son, Malambuli, who are located at Uitvlugt on the Cape
downs, about four miles from the town. It is a sort of
farm-residence; and considering that the chief has hitherto
lived in a reed hut, he is not badly off, for he has plenty
of room out of doors as well as a good house over his head. We
bump over some strange and rough bits of sandy road and climb
up and down steep banks in a manner seldom done on wheels.
There is a wealth of lovely flowers blooming around, but I
can't help fixing my eyes on the pole of the cart, which is
sometimes sticking straight up in the air, its silver hook
shining merrily in the sun, or else it has disappeared
altogether, and I can only see the horses' haunches. That
is when we are going _down_ hill, and I think it is a more
terrible sensation than when we are playfully scrambling up
some sandy hillock as a cat might.

Here is the location at last, thank Heaven! and there is
Langalibalele sitting in the verandah stoep (pronounced
"stoup") on his haunches on a brick. He looks as comfortable
as if he were in an arm-chair, but it must be a difficult
thing to do if you think seriously of it. The etiquette seems
to be to take no notice of him as we pass into the parlor,
where we present our pass and the people in authority satisfy
themselves that we are quite in rule. Then the old chief walks
quietly in, takes off his soft felt hat and sits himself
down in a Windsor arm-chair with grave deliberation. He is
uncommonly ugly; but when one remembers that he is nearly
seventy years of age, it is astonishing to see how young
he looks. Langalibalele is not a true Kafir at all: he is a
Fingor, a half-caste tribe contemptuously christened by the
Kafirs "dogs." His wool grows in distinct and separate clumps
like hassocks of grass all over his head. He is a large and
powerful man and looks the picture of sleek contentment, as
well he may. Only one of his sons, a good-natured, fine
young man, black as ebony, is with him, and the chief's one
expressed grievance is that none of his wives will come to
him. In vain he sends commands and entreaties to these dusky
ladies to come and share his solitude. They return for answer
that "they are working for somebody else;" for, alas! the only
reason their presence is desired is that they may cultivate
some of the large extent of ground placed at the old chief's
disposal. Neither he nor his stalwart son would dream for
a moment of touching spade or hoe; but if the ladies of the
family could only be made to see their duty, an honest penny
might easily be turned by oats or rye. I gave him a large
packet of sugar-plums, which he seized with childish delight
and hid away exactly like the big monkeys at the Zoo.

By way of a joke, Malambuli pretended to want to take them
away, and the chattering and laughing which followed was
almost deafening. But by and by a gentleman of the party
presented a big parcel of the best tobacco, and the chuckling
old chief made over at once all my sweetmeats "jintly" to
his son, and proceeded to hide away his new treasure. He
was dressed exactly like a dissenting minister, and declared
through the interpreter he was perfectly comfortable. The
impression here seems to be that he is a restless, intriguing
and mischief-making old man, who may consider himself as
having come out of the hornets' nest he tried to stir up
uncommonly well.

We don't want to bump up and down the sandy plain again, so
a lively conversation goes on in Dutch about the road between
one of my gentlemen and somebody who looks like a "stuck-vat"
upon short legs. The dialogue is fluent and lively, beginning
with "Ja, ja!" and ending with "All right!" but it leads to
our hitting off the right track exactly, and coming out at a
lovely little cottage-villa under the mountain, where we rest
and lunch and then stroll about up the hill spurs, through
myrtle hedges and shady oak avenues. Then, before the
afternoon shadows grow too long, we drive off to "Groote
Schuur," the ancient granary of the first settlers, which is
now turned into a roomy, comfortable country-house, perfect
as a summer residence, and securely sheltered from the
"sou'-easters." We approach it through a double avenue of tall
Italian pines, and after a little while go out once more for
a ramble up some quaint old brick steps, and so through a
beautiful glen all fringed and feathered with fresh young
fronds of maiden-hair ferns, and masses of hydrangea bushes,
which must be beautiful as a poet's dream when they are
covered with their great bunches of pale blue blossom. That
will not be until Christmas-tide, and, alas! I shall not be
here to see, for already my three halcyon days of grace are
ended and over, and this very evening we must steam away
from a great deal yet unvisited of what is interesting
and picturesque, and from friends who three days ago were
strangers, but who have made every moment since we landed
stand out as a bright and pleasant landmark on life's highway.

ON SANKOTA HEAD.