Part 6

One of my pleasantest memories of Natal, especially as seen by the light of recent events, is of a visit I paid to the annual joint encampment of the Natal Carabineers and the Durban Mounted Rifles. It was only what would be called, I suppose, a flying camp, and the ground chosen that year (August 1876) was on “Botha’s Flat,” halfway between Maritzburg and Durban. I well remember how beautiful was the drive from Maritzburg over the Inchanga Pass, and how workmanlike the little encampment looked as I came upon it (after some break-neck driving), with its small tents dotted on a green down.

Although one little knew it, that same encampment was the school where were trained the men who have so lately shown the worth of the lessons they were then learning. The whole training seemed practical and admirable in the highest degree. It had to be carried out amid every sort of difficulty, and, indeed, one might almost say discouragement. In those distant days such bodies of volunteers were struggling on with very little money, very little public interest or sympathy, and with great difficulty on the part of the members of these plucky little forces in obtaining leave for even this short annual drill. I was told that both the corps were much stronger on paper, but that the absentees could not be spared from the stores, or sugar estates, or offices to which they belonged.

I had, much earlier in the year, at our midsummer, in fact, seen some excellent swimming drill at certain athletic sports held in the little park at Maritzburg, through which a river runs. The keenest competition on that occasion lay between these same Natal Carabineers and a smart body of Mounted Police. The most difficult part of the stream, with crumbling banks and mud-holes, was chosen, and at a given signal they all plunged in on horseback, holding their carbines high above their heads. In some cases the riders slipped off their horses and swam by their side, mounting again directly the opposite bank was gained; and I noticed how well trained were the horses, and how at their master’s whistle they stood still to allow them to remount instantly. How well this training has stood the test of practical warfare let the late campaign tell. And we must also bear in mind that all this training was going on nearly thirty years ago!

It was partly to show my own sympathy and interest in this same movement that I accepted the invitation of the commandant to spend a couple of nights at the camp and see what they were doing. A lonely little inn hard by, where a tiny room could be secured for me, made this excursion possible, and I can never forget some of the impressions of that visit. When I read in the papers how splendidly the Natal colonist came forward in the late campaign, even from the purely military point of view, I remember that camp, and I understand that I was then watching the forging of those links in our long imperial chain. The men who came out so grandly as “soldiers of the Queen,” no matter by what local names they might have been called, are probably the sons of the stalwart volunteers I saw, but the teaching of that and succeeding encampments has evidently borne good fruit.

It was indeed serious work they were all engaged on during those bright winter days, and my visit was not allowed to interrupt for a moment the drill which seemed to go on all through the daylight hours. What helped to make the lesson so valuable to the earnest learners was, that all went precisely as though a state of war existed. There were no servants, no luxuries—all was exactly as it probably was in the late campaign.

I dined at the officers’ mess that evening. Our table-cloth was of canvas, our candles were tied to cross pieces of wood, and the food was served in the tins in which it was cooked. Tea was our only beverage, but the open air had made us all so hungry that everything seemed delicious. It was, I remember, bitterly cold, and the slight tent did not afford much shelter from the icy wind. How well I recollect my great longing to wrap myself up in the one luxury of the camp—a large and beautiful goatskin karosse on which I was seated! But that would have been to betray my chilliness, which would never have done. We separated somewhere about half-past eight—for we had dined as soon as ever it got too dark to go on drilling—but not before the whole encampment had assembled to sing “God save the Queen,” with all their heart as well as with all their lungs,—a fitting finish to the day’s work.

I had some other delightful rides in Natal, one especially on the peaceful errand of a visit to a Wesleyan Mission station about a dozen miles off at Edendale. It was a perfect winter’s day, and the road was fairly good.

I have often wondered why our own beloved Mother Church employs such slow and cumbrous machinery in dealing with native races. She is apparently considering the subject in the time it takes for the Baptists or Wesleyans to start a settlement. So long ago as 1851 a certain James Allison, a Wesleyan missionary who had worked among the Basuto and Amaswasi tribes, bought some six thousand acres hereabout from old Pretorius, the Dutch President of Natal, and set to work to teach the Kaffirs not only Christianity but citizenship. Now-a-days there are two chapels and four schools, all built by the natives themselves, as well as several Sunday Schools. In former days there had also been an industrial school which had turned out capital artisans, but the yearly grant of £100 from Government had been withdrawn before my visit, and the school was in consequence closed. The existing schools only receive fifty pounds a year from outside, and all the other expenses of the flourishing little Mission are borne by the people themselves. Such neat, comfortable brick houses and such gay gardens, to say nothing of “provision grounds” full of potatoes, pumpkins, and even green peas. Lots of poultry everywhere, and an air of neat prosperity over everything. I was told there were many excellent Norwegian Missions on the borders of Zululand, and I hope they still flourish, for it is difficult to overrate the value of such settlements as a factor in the spread of civilisation as well as in that of Christianity.

But I had really only one long ride during my thirteen months in Natal, and that was later in the same winter season, in fact, quite at the end—in September. Five cruel months of absolutely dry weather had reduced the roads to fine red powder, and the vegetation to sun-dried hay, but still the air was beautiful and exhilarating as we set forth—a little party of four, including a Kaffir guide—very early one lovely morning. At first we headed for Edendale, but soon left it on our right, and pushed on, before the sun got too hot, and whilst our somewhat sorry steeds were fresh, for “Taylor’s”—a roadside shanty twenty miles off. Our destination was a fine forest called “Seven-mile Bush,” only fifty miles away but with several hill-ranges to be crossed. Two hours’ bait started us again at 2 P.M. in good fettle, and it was fairly easy going to Eland’s River, which we reached at 4 o’clock, and where we off-saddled for half-an-hour. The rough waggon-track which had been our only road had been steadily rising ever since our first halt, and we were now amid beautiful undulating downs with distant ranges ever in front of us. No sooner had we climbed painfully over one saddle than another seemed to block our way, and I confess my courage rather sank when, with twilight fast coming on and the path getting steeper with every mile, I inquired of the guide how far off we still were. Of course, my question had to be in pantomime, and his answer—_five_ dips of his hand towards the hills—told me we had yet five low ranges to cross.

The last few miles seemed a nightmare of stumbling up and down break-neck places on tired horses in the dark, and the contrast of a charming little house at last, with lights and blazing fires, was all the more delightful. Indeed, it seemed to us, stumbling out of the darkness and a chilling mist, that nothing short of Aladdin’s lamp could at all account for the transport of all the nice furniture, pictures, glass and china along such impassable tracks. However, they were all there, and everything which goes to make up a pretty and refined home besides, including a charming hostess and two rosy children. We were waited on by Kaffir boys in long white garments, looking for all the world like black-faced choristers. But after gallons of tea and a capital supper, bed seemed the most attractive suggestion, and many hours of dreamless sleep wiped away all fatigue and started us off early next morning in splendid health and spirits to explore the magnificent forest close by.

I have often thought that the three most distinct memories of beautiful scenes, which must ever remain vividly before me, are, my first view of the Himalayas, early one morning from the Grand Trunk Road, when I complained that I could not see them, and discovered it was because I had not looked half high enough. That was indeed a revelation of solemn mountain grandeur. Next to it ranks the mighty sweep of the Niagara river as you see it from the railway, and a few moments later behold it thundering over the edge. And the third is that long, lonely morning in the magnificent forest in the heart of Natal, the recollection of which dwarfs all other trees to insignificance. The growth not only of giant timber but of exquisite under-growth of ferns and delicate foliage was indeed superb. Of flowers there were none, because the sun could not enter those cathedral glades except at the very edge and outskirt where the big trees had been felled.

I confess I should greatly have preferred to wander as far as I dared, and looked longer into the old Elephant pits, and heard more stories of the comparatively recent dates at which tigers, panthers, and leopards could be met with. And I also wanted to go deep enough among the overhanging _lianes_, or monkey-ropes as they call them, to see, perchance, the great baboons swinging on them. But our host evidently regarded his new saw-mill as the greatest point of interest, and thither we betook ourselves—all too soon for my enjoyment. There, indeed, one beheld a marvellous chaos of wheels and chains and saws, which took hold of these same giant trunks and tossed them out and passed them from one to the other, until they emerged, shaven and shorn into the planks of every-day commerce. Very wonderful, no doubt, and one asked one’s-self every moment, “how did these huge masses of machinery get over that last range?” But still I feel that it was the forest I came to see and I was only peeping into it.

However, next day I had a fine long ramble in it, and explored to my heart’s content, but it was damp and drizzling, and so it remained the day after that again, when we started very early for home. The horses were quite fresh and rested, and carried us well, in spite of the extreme slipperiness of the mountain tracks. Curiously enough as soon as we got clear of the ranges we rode into the thickest fog I have ever seen. We could only go at a slow walk in Indian file, with the Kaffir leading, and every few minutes he got off his rough little pony and patted the ground to _feel_ where we were. They said it was a sea fog, but it wrapped us up as thoroughly as if it had been the thickest of blankets, and one felt quite helpless. Certainly nothing is so demoralising as a fog, and I never wish to repeat that morning’s experience. We should have tumbled over “Taylor’s,” or rather passed it, though it stood quite close to the track, if a cock had not fortunately crowed, and the leading pony neighed in reply, calling forth a chorus of barks from quite unseen dogs, who dared not venture an inch from the sheltering porch.

Although my stay in Natal lasted very little over a year, I made many friends there, and it is with sympathising regret I often saw in the roll-call of her local defenders the familiar names of those whom I remember as bright-eyed children. They have all sprung to arms in defence of the fair land of their fathers’ adoption, and when the tale of this crisis in the history of Natal comes to be written, the names of her gallant young defenders will stand out on its pages in letters of light, and the record of their noble deeds will serve as an example for ever and for ever. So will they not have laid down their lives in vain.

VI

“STELLA CLAVISQUE MARIS INDICI”

“The Star and the Key of the Indian Ocean” lay smiling before me on Easter Sunday, April 1878.

The little schooner in which I had come across from Natal had just dropped her anchor in the harbour of Port Louis after seventeen days of light and baffling winds. The tedium of that past time slipped quickly out of my mind, however, as the fast-growing daylight revealed the beauties of Mauritius, a little island which I had so often read of and yet so little expected ever to behold. The interest of the tragic tale of “Paul and Virginia” had riveted my wandering attention during the French reading-lessons of my youth, though I always secretly wondered why Virginia had been such a goose as to decline help from a sailor, apparently only because he was somewhat insufficiently clad. But I should not have dared to give utterance to this opinion, so prudish was the domestic atmosphere of those early days.

The first real interest I felt in Mauritius arose from the frequent mention of the little island as a health-resort, in some charming letters of Miss Eden’s published about five-and-twenty years ago, but written long before that date, when she was keeping house for her brother, Lord Auckland, then Governor-General of India. Miss Eden speaks of many friends as well as of Indian tourists (for “Paget, M.P.’s” existed apparently even in those distant times) having gone for change of air to “the Mauritius” and coming back quite strong and robust. She mentions one instance of a whole opera company, whose health gave way in Calcutta, and who made the excursion, returning in time for their next season with restored health, and she often longs in vain for such a change for her hard-worked brother.

But all this must have been many years before the first mysterious outbreak of fever which ravaged the place in 1867. I was assured that before that date the reputation of the pretty little island had stood very high as a sanatorium, but no doctor could give me any reason for the sudden appearance of this virulent fever. There were, of course, many theories, each of which had earnest supporters. Some said the great hurricane which had just before swept over the island brought the malaria on its wings. Others declared the _déboisement_ which had been carried on to a devastating extent in order to increase the area available for sugar-cane planting was to blame; whilst a third faction put all the trouble down to the great influx of coolie immigrants introduced about that date to work in the cane-fields. Perhaps the truth lies in a blending of these three principal theories. Anyway, I felt it sad and hard that so really lovely an island should have such dark and trying days behind as well as before it.

But, after seventeen days of glaring lonely seas and dark monotonous nights, one is not apt to think of anything beyond the immediate “blessings of the land,” and I gazed with profound content on the chain of volcanic hills, down whose rugged sides many _cascades_ tumbled their gleaming silver. Coral reefs, with white foam tossing over them, in spite of the calm sapphire sea on which we were gently floating into harbour, seemed spread all around us, and indeed I believe these _récifs_ circle the whole island with a dangerous though protecting girdle. Sloping ground, covered with growth of differing greens, some showing the bluish hue of the sugar-cane, others the more vivid colouring of a coarse tall grass, led the eye gently down to the flowering trees and foliage round the clustering houses of Port Louis, whose steep high-pitched roofs looked so suggestive of tropic rains. Port Louis was once evidently a stately capital, and large handsome houses still remain. These have, however, nearly all been turned into offices or banks, and the fine large Government House, or _Hôtel du Gouvernement_, is always empty as to its numerous bedrooms. Hardly a white person sleeps with impunity in Port Louis, though all the business—official and private—is carried on there, and it contains many excellent shops.

You must climb up, however, some few miles by the steep little railway before you realise how really lovely the scenery of Mauritius can be. All in miniature, it is true, but very ambitious in character. Except for the glowing tints of the volcanic rocks and the tropic vegetation, one might be looking at a bit of Switzerland through the wrong end of a telescope; but nowhere else have I ever seen such tints as the bare mountain sides take at sunset. The tufa rocks glow like wet porphyry, and so magical are the hues that one half expects to see the grand recumbent figure of the old warrior of the Corps de Garde hill outlined against the purple sky, rise up and salute the island which once was his.

Mauritius is in many ways an object-lesson which is not without its significance just now. Here we have a little island thoroughly French in its history and people, and inhabited by many of the _vieille roche_ who fled there in the Terror days. Battles between French and English by land and sea raged round its sunny shores in the first few years of the just-ended century. Dauntless attacks and valiant resistance have left heroic memories behind them. We took it by _force majeure_ in 1811, but it was not until the great settling up at the Restoration in 1814 that the hatchet may be said to have been finally buried, and the two nationalities began to pull together comfortably. I was rather surprised to see how thoroughly French Mauritius still is in language and in characteristics; but the result is indeed satisfactory. I found it quite the most highly civilised of the colonies I then knew, and from the social point of view there was nothing left to be desired. The early class of French settler had evidently been of a much higher type than our own rough-and-ready colonist, and the refinement so introduced had influenced the whole place. Did I find any race-hatred, oppression, or heart-burnings? No, indeed; of all the dependencies of our Empire not one has come forward more generously or more splendidly with substantial offers of help than that little lonely isle, “the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean.” I venture to say, speaking from my experience of those days, that the King has no more loyal subjects than the Mauritians.

It may be that the trials and troubles we have all borne there side by side in the past half-century have knitted and bound us together. We have had hurricane, pestilence, and fire to contend with, besides the chronic hard times of the sugar industry. In these fast-following calamities French and English have stood shoulder to shoulder, and the only race or religious rivalry has been in good and noble deeds. In the Zulu War of 1881, when Sir Bartle Frere sent a ship down with despatches to my dear husband, then the Lieutenant-Governor of Mauritius, urgently asking for help to “hold the fort” until the English reinforcements could arrive, Mauritius sprang to her feet then as now, and gave willing and substantial help. Every soldier who was able to stand up started at twenty-four hours’ notice for Durban. The same day the mayor of Port Louis held a meeting, at which a volunteer corps of doctors and nurses was at once raised, with plenty of money to equip them, and they, as well as cooks and cows—both much needed—were on their way to Durban before another sun had set. It was indeed gratifying to hear afterwards that not only had our little military effort been of great service, but that the abundance of fresh milk supplied had helped many a case of dysentery among the garrison at Durban to turn the corner on the road to recovery.

Nothing can be much more beautiful than the view from the back verandah at “Réduit,” as the fine country Government House, built by the Chevalier de la Brillane for the Governors of Mauritius more than a century ago, is called. Before you spreads an expanse of English lawn only broken by clumps of gay foliaged shrubs or beds of flowers, and behind that again is the wooded edge of the steep ravine, where the mischievous “jackos” hide, who come up at night to play havoc with the sugar-canes on its opposite side. The only day of the week on which they ventured up was Sunday afternoon, when all the world was silent and sleepy.

It used to be my delight to watch from an upper bedroom window the stealthy appearance of the old sentinel monkeys, who first peered cautiously up and evidently reconnoitred the ground thoroughly. After a few moments of careful scouting a sort of chirrup would be heard, which seemed the signal for the rest of the colony to scramble tumultuously up the bank. Such games as then started among the young ones, such antics and tumblings and rompings! But all the time the sentinels never relaxed their vigilance. They spread like a cordon round the gambolling young ones, and kept turning their horribly wise human-looking heads from side to side incessantly, only picking and chewing a blade of grass now and then. The mothers seemed to keep together, and doubtless gossiped; but let my old and perfectly harmless Skye terrier toddle round the corner of the verandah, and each female would dart into the group of playing monkeys, seize her property by its nearest leg, toss it over her shoulder, and quicker than the eye could follow she would have disappeared down the ravine. The sentinels had uttered their warning cry directly, but they always remained until the very last, and retreated in good order; though there was no cause for alarm, as “Boxer’s” thoughts were fixed on the peacocks—apt to trespass at those silent and unguarded hours—and not on the monkeys at all!