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Page 14
UMBOPA ENTERS OUR SERVICE
It takes from four to five days, according to the speed of the vessel
and the state of the weather, to run up from the Cape to Durban.
Sometimes, if the landing is bad at East London, where they have not
yet made that wonderful harbour they talk so much of, and sink such a
mint of money in, a ship is delayed for twenty-four hours before the
cargo boats can get out to take off the goods. But on this occasion we
had not to wait at all, for there were no breakers on the Bar to speak
of, and the tugs came out at once with the long strings of ugly flat-
bottomed boats behind them, into which the packages were bundled with
a crash. It did not matter what they might be, over they went slap-
bang; whether they contained china or woollen goods they met with the
same treatment. I saw one case holding four dozen of champagne smashed
all to bits, and there was the champagne fizzing and boiling about in
the bottom of the dirty cargo boat. It was a wicked waste, and
evidently so the Kafirs in the boat thought, for they found a couple
of unbroken bottles, and knocking off the necks drank the contents.
But they had not allowed for the expansion caused by the fizz in the
wine, and, feeling themselves swelling, rolled about in the bottom of
the boat, calling out that the good liquor was "tagati"--that is,
bewitched. I spoke to them from the vessel, and told them it was the
white man's strongest medicine, and that they were as good as dead
men. Those Kafirs went to the shore in a very great fright, and I do
not think that they will touch champagne again.
Well, all the time that we were steaming up to Natal I was thinking
over Sir Henry Curtis's offer. We did not speak any more on the
subject for a day or two, though I told them many hunting yarns, all
true ones. There is no need to tell lies about hunting, for so many
curious things happen within the knowledge of a man whose business it
is to hunt; but this is by the way.
At last, one beautiful evening in January, which is our hottest month,
we steamed past the coast of Natal, expecting to make Durban Point by
sunset. It is a lovely coast all along from East London, with its red
sandhills and wide sweeps of vivid green, dotted here and there with
Kafir kraals, and bordered by a ribbon of white surf, which spouts up
in pillars of foam where it hits the rocks. But just before you come
to Durban there is a peculiar richness about the landscape. There are
the sheer kloofs cut in the hills by the rushing rains of centuries,
down which the rivers sparkle; there is the deepest green of the bush,
growing as God planted it, and the other greens of the mealie gardens
and the sugar patches, while now and again a white house, smiling out
at the placid sea, puts a finish and gives an air of homeliness to the
scene. For to my mind, however beautiful a view may be, it requires
the presence of man to make it complete, but perhaps that is because I
have lived so much in the wilderness, and therefore know the value of
civilisation, though to be sure it drives away the game. The Garden of
Eden, no doubt, looked fair before man was, but I always think that it
must have been fairer when Eve adorned it.
To return, we had miscalculated a little, and the sun was well down
before we dropped anchor off the Point, and heard the gun which told
the good folks of Durban that the English Mail was in. It was too late
to think of getting over the Bar that night, so we went comfortably to
dinner, after seeing the Mails carried off in the life-boat.
When we came up again the moon was out, and shining so brightly over
sea and shore that she almost paled the quick, large flashes from the
lighthouse. From the shore floated sweet spicy odours that always
remind me of hymns and missionaries, and in the windows of the houses
on the Berea sparkled a hundred lights. From a large brig lying near
also came the music of the sailors as they worked at getting the
anchor up in order to be ready for the wind. Altogether it was a
perfect night, such a night as you sometimes get in Southern Africa,
and it threw a garment of peace over everybody as the moon threw a
garment of silver over everything. Even the great bulldog, belonging
to a sporting passenger, seemed to yield to its gentle influences, and
forgetting his yearning to come to close quarters with the baboon in a
cage on the foc'sle, snored happily at the door of the cabin, dreaming
no doubt that he had finished him, and happy in his dream.
We three--that is, Sir Henry Curtis, Captain Good, and myself--went
and sat by the wheel, and were quiet for a while.
"Well, Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry presently, "have you been
thinking about my proposals?"
"Ay," echoed Captain Good, "what do you think of them, Mr. Quatermain?
I hope that you are going to give us the pleasure of your company so
far as Solomon's Mines, or wherever the gentleman you knew as Neville
may have got to."
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