Capetown,Sunday,March 23d.
It has been a REAL hot day,and threatened an earthquake and a thunderstorm;but nothing has come of it beyond sheet lightning to-night,which is splendid over the bay,and looks as if repeated in a grand bush-fire on the hills opposite.The sunset was glorious.
That rarest of insects,the praying mantis,has just dropped upon my paper.I am thankful that,not being an entomologist,I am dispensed from the sacred duty of impaling the lovely green creature who sits there,looking quite wise and human.Fussy little brown beetles,as big as two lady-birds,keep flying into my eyes,and the musquitoes are rejoicing loudly in the prospect of a feast.You will understand by this that both windows are wide open into the great verandah,-very unusual in this land of cold nights.
April 4th.-I have been trying in vain to get a passage home.The CAMPERDOWN has not come.In short,I am waiting for a chance vessel,and shall pack up now and be ready to go on board at a day's notice.
I went on the last evening of Ramadan to the Mosque,having heard there was a grand 'function';but there were only little boys lying about on the floor,some on their stomachs,some on their backs,higgledy-piggledy (if it be not profane to apply the phrase to young Islam),all shouting their prayers E TUE TETE.Priests,men,women,and English crowded in and out in the exterior division.
The English behaved E L'ANGLAISE -pushed each other,laughed,sneered,and made a disgusting display of themselves.I asked a stately priest,in a red turban,to explain the affair to me,and in a few minutes found myself supplied by one Mollah with a chair,and by another with a cup of tea -was,in short,in the midst of a Malay SOIREE.They spoke English very little,but made up for it by their usual good breeding and intelligence.On Monday,I am going to see the school which the priest keeps at his house,and to 'honour his house by my presence'.The delight they show at any friendly interest taken in them is wonderful.Of course,I am supposed to be poisoned.A clergyman's widow here gravely asserts that her husband went mad THREE YEARS after drinking a cup of coffee handed to him by a Malay!-and in consequence of drinking it!It is exactly like the mediaeval feeling about the Jews.Isaw that it was quite a DEMONSTRATION that I drank up the tea unhesitatingly.Considering that the Malays drank it themselves,my courage deserves less admiration.But it was a quaint sensation to sit in a Mosque,behaving as if at an evening party,in a little circle of poor Moslim priests.
I am going to have a photograph of my cart done.I was to have gone to the place to-day,but when Choslullah (whom I sent for to complete the picture)found out what I wanted,he implored me to put it off till Monday,that he might be better dressed,and was so unhappy at the notion of being immortalized in an old jacket,that I agreed to the delay.Such a handsome fellow may be allowed a little vanity.
The colony is torn with dissensions as to Sunday trains.Some of the Dutch clergy are even more absurd than our own on that point.
A certain Van der Lingen,at Stellenbosch,calls Europe 'one vast Sodom',and so forth.There is altogether a nice kettle of religious hatred brewing here.The English Bishop of Capetown appoints all the English clergy,and is absolute monarch of all he surveys;and he and his clergy are carrying matters with a high hand.The Bishop's chaplain told Mrs.J-that she could not hope for salvation in the Dutch Church,since her clergy were not ordained by any bishop,and therefore they could only administer the sacrament 'UNTO DAMNATION'.All the physicians in a body,English as well as Dutch,have withdrawn from the Dispensary,because it was used as a means of pressure to draw the coloured people from the Dutch to the English Church.
This High-Church tyranny cannot go on long.Catholics there are few,but their bishop plays the same game;and it is a losing one.
The Irish maid at the Caledon inn was driven by her bishop to be married at the Lutheran church,just as a young Englishman I know (though a fervent Puseyite)was driven to be married at the Scotch kirk.The colonial bishops are despots in their own churches,and there is no escape from their tyranny but by dissent.The Admiral and his family have been anathematized for going to a fancy bazaar given by the Wesleyans for their chapel.
April 8th.-Yesterday,I failed about my cart photograph.First,the owner had sent away the cart,and when Choslullah came dressed in all his best clothes,with a lovely blue handkerchief setting off his beautiful orange-tawny face,he had to rush off to try to borrow another cart.As ill luck would have it,he met a 'serious young man',with no front teeth,and a hideous wen on his eyebrow,who informed the priest of Choslullah's impious purpose,and came with him to see that he did NOT sit for his portrait.I believe it was half envy;for my handsome driver was as pleased,and then as disappointed,as a young lady about her first ball,and obviously had no religious scruples of his own on the subject.The weather is very delightful now -hot,but beautiful;and the south-easters,though violent,are short,and not cold.As in all other countries,autumn is the best time of year.
April 15th.-Your letters arrived yesterday,to my great delight.
I have been worrying about a ship,and was very near sailing to-day by the QUEEN OF THE SOUTH at twenty-four hours'notice,but I have resolved to wait for the CAMPERDOWN.The QUEEN OF THE SOUTH is a steamer,-which is odious,for they pitch the coal all over the lower deck,so that you breathe coal-dust for the first ten days;then she was crammed -only one cabin vacant,and that small,and on the lower deck -and fifty-two children on board.Moreover,she will probably get to England too soon,so I resign myself to wait.
