GOOD HOPE, or CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, was taken by the British on 17th August 1796 with very little difficulty. At this we need not be much surprised, if to the discontent which must have prevailed among the planters and townsmen with the new order of things, be added the manners of the people. M. Vaillant, who was at the Cape during the last war, when the garrison expected to be every day attacked by a British squadron, and when the people were not absolutely disguised with their own government, represents them, however, as rendered so completely frivolous by imitating the manners of their French allies, that, though the place was strongly fortified, it could hardly be expected to hold out long against a vigorous and well conducted siege.
"The females of the Cape (says he), when I saw them for the first time, had really excited my astonishment by their dress and their elegance; but I admired in them, above all, that modesty and reserve peculiar to the Dutch manners, which nothing as yet had corrupted.
"In the course of six months, a great change had taken place. It was no longer the French modes that they copied; it was a caricature of the French. Plumes, feathers, ribbons, and tawdry ornaments heaped together without taste on every head, gave to the prettiest figures a grotesque air, which often provoked a smile when they appeared. This mania had extended to
the neighbouring plantations, where the women could scarcely be known. A mode of dress entirely new was everywhere introduced; but so fantastical, that it would have been difficult to determine from what country it had been imported."
At that time a French and a Swiss regiment were in the garrison; and though the town was occupied only with warlike preparations, and though an attack from the British fleet was every moment expected, the French officers had already introduced a talte for pleasure. Employed in the morning at their exercise, the French soldiers in the evening acted plays. A part of the barracks was transformed into a theatre; and as women capable of performing female characters could not be found in the town, they assigned these parts to some of their comrades, whose youth, delicate features, and freshness of complexion, seemed best calculated to favour the deception. These heroines, of a new kind, heightened the curiosity of the spectators, and rendered the entertainment still more lively and interesting.
To add to the general pleasure, ladies of the first rank considered it as incumbent on them to lend to the military actors and actresses, their laces, jewels, rich dresses, and most valuable ornaments. But some of them had cause to repent of their condescension; for it happened more than once that the Countess of Almaviva having left in pledge at the suttling house her borrowed decorations, the owner, to recover them, was obliged to discharge not only the bill due for brandy and tobacco, but all the other debts of the heroine.
During the intoxication and giddiness occasioned by these amusements, Love also did not fail to act his part; and certain little intrigues were, from time to time, brought to light, which gave employment to the tongue of scandal, and introduced unhappiness into families. Hymen, it is true, amidst these adventures, sometimes intervened to repair the follies of his brother; and many marriages, which restored every thing to order, were the result of his negotiations; but the complaints, though filial, did not less exist. The watchfulness of the mother was alert. The husband, by so much the more secretly irritated as he saw himself obliged to conceal his jealousy, cursed in his heart both actors and theatre; while the matronly part of the community, less on the reserve, declaimed with bitterness against the licentiousness that prevailed, which they wholly imputed to this mode of theatrical entertainment. At last, to the great mortification of the young, but to the high satisfaction of the old women and husbands, the theatre was on a sudden shut up. The cause that effected this was altogether foreign to the complaints that were made, and of a nature that it was impossible to foresee. Two of the French actors, who, it must be remembered, were officers in the army, thought proper to imitate the paper money of the company, and to put their forged notes in circulation. The forgery was detected, and traced to its authors; the two theatrical heroes were banished from the Cape; and the company, ashamed of the adventure, dared neither seek others to supply the vacant places, nor resume their flagrant entertainments.
Intoxicating as were these pleasures, government meanwhile had not been inattentive to the danger which threatened the colony. As they daily expected
to be attacked by the British fleet, they had increased the means of defence, and ordered different works and new fortifications to be constructed.
At first, the business was carried on with activity and ardour; because the inhabitants, instigated by their private interest, which was then considered as involved with that of the public, had voluntarily offered their services, and mingled with the workmen. Young and old, soldiers and magistrates, sailors and planters, all solicited the honour of co-operating for the general good and common safety. To behold this heterogeneous multitude—some lashed with pick-axes, and some with spades, or other similar implements—marching out in the morning from the town, and proceeding in high spirits to the new fortifications, was a sight truly admirable.
But this patriotic fervour was of no long continuance. Under pretence of sparing their strength, and that they might not weary themselves to no purpose, they soon caused their slaves to follow them with the tools and instruments. In a little time they contented themselves with sending their slaves only; and at last these substitutes themselves, in imitation of their masters, or perhaps by their secret orders, gave over going also. Their enthusiasm, in short, from the first moment of its breaking out till the period when it was thus entirely cooled, had been the affair of something less than a fortnight.
This taste for frivolity which, almost twenty years ago, was introduced among the Dutch in Cape-town by their good friends the French, spread rapidly thro' the planters, who are thus described by M. Vaillant, who certainly had the best opportunities of knowing them.
The planters of the Cape may be divided into three classes; those who reside in the vicinity of the Cape, within a distance of five or six leagues; those who live further off in the interior parts of the colony; and lastly, those who, more distant still, are found at the extremity of the frontiers among the Hottentots.
The first, who are opulent proprietors, and have handsome country houses, may be likened to what was formerly called in France petits seigneurs terriers, and differ extremely from the other planters in ease and luxury, and particularly in their manners, which are haughty and disdainful. Such is the result of wealth. The second, simple, kind, hospitable, are cultivators, who live upon the fruits of their labour. Here we have an example of the good effects of mediocrity. The last, poor enough, yet too indolent to derive subsistence from the soil, have no other resource than the produce of some cattle, which they feed as they can. Like the Beduin Arabs, they think much of the trouble of driving them from canton to canton, and from one pasturage to another. This wandering life prevents them from building any settled habitations. When their flocks oblige them to sojourn for a while in the same place, they construct, in haste, a rude kind of hut, which they cover with mats, after the manner of the Hottentots, whose customs they have adopted, and from whom they in no respect differ, but in their complexion and features. And here the evil is, that there is no precise situation in social life to which these miserable beings belong.
These sluggish tribes are held in horror by their in-
dustrious neighbours, who dread their approach, and remove as far from them as they can; because, having no property of their own, they steal without scruple that of others, and, when in want of pasturage for their cattle, conduct them secretly to the first cultivated piece of ground that comes in their way. They flatter themselves they shall not be discovered, and they remain till every thing is devoured. If detected in their thefts, squabbles and contentions ensue, and afterwards a suit at law, in which recourse is had to the magistrate, and which commonly terminates in making three men enemies, the robber, the person robbed, and the judge.
Nothing can be so mean and cringing as the conduct of the first description of planters, when they have anything to transact with the principal officers of the company, who may have some influence over their lot; and nothing so absurdly vain and so superlatively insolent as their behaviour to persons from whom they have nothing to hope and nothing to fear. Proud of their wealth, spoiled by residing near a town, from whence they have imbibed only a luxury that has corrupted, and vices that have degraded them, it is particularly towards strangers that they exercise their surly and pitiful arrogance. Though neighbours to the planters who inhabit the interior of the country, you must not suppose they regard them as brethren; on the contrary, in the true spirit of contempt, they have given them the name of Rauw-boer, a word answering to the lowest description of clown. Accordingly, when these honest cultivators come to the town upon any kind of business, they never stop by the way at the houses of the gentry of whom we are speaking; they know too well the insulting manner in which they would be received. One might suppose them to be two inimical nations, always at war, and of whom some individuals only met at distant intervals, upon business that related to their mutual interests.
What is the more disgusting in the insolence of these Africans is, that the majority of them are descended from that corrupt race of men, taken from prisons and hospitals, whom the Dutch company, desirous of forming a settlement at the Cape, sent thither to begin, at their risk and peril, the population of the country. This shameful emigration, of which the period is not so remote but that many circumstances of it are remembered, ought to render particularly modest those who are in the most distant manner related to it. On the contrary, it is this very idea that most contributes to their arrogance; as if they flattered themselves that, under the guise of supercilious manners, they could hide the abjectness of their origin. If a stranger arrives at the Cape with the design of remaining and settling there, they conceive him to be driven from his country by the same wretched circumstances which formerly banished their fathers, and they treat him with the most sovereign contempt.
This melancholy failing is the more to be lamented, as the contagion has spread through almost every residence about the Cape, which is in reality a very charming canton. Embellished by cultivation, by its numerous vineyards and pleasant country houses, it everywhere exhibits so varied and delicious a prospect, that, were it occupied by other inhabitants, it would excite no sensations but those of pleasure.
Good Hope As we advance into the country, the planters are a sort of farmers; and constitute, by their manners, customs, and occupations, a class by themselves, perfectly distinct from that we have been describing. Situated farther from the Cape, and, of consequence, not having the same opportunities for disposing of their commodities, they are less rich than the first. We see among them none of those agreeable country houses, which, placed at different distances from the town, embellish the country as we pass, and afford such charming prospects. Their habitation, which is about the size of a large coach-house, is covered with thatch, and divided into three rooms by means of two partitions, which reach only to a certain height. The middle apartment, in which is the entrance to the house, serves at once both as a parlour and eating-room. It is there that the family reside during the day, and that they receive their tea and other visitors. Of the two other rooms, one forms a chamber for the male children, and the other for the females, with the father and mother. At the back of the middle apartment is a farther room serving for a kitchen. The rest of the building consists of barns and stables.
Such is the distribution which is generally followed in the interior plantations of the colony; but nearer to the frontiers, where there does not prevail the same ease of circumstances, the habitations are much less commodious. They are merely a barn, consisting of a single room, without any division, in which the whole family live together, without separating, either day or night. They sleep upon sheep skins, which serve them also for covering.
The dress of these planters is simple and rustic. That of the men consists of a check shirt, a waistcoat with sleeves, a large pair of trousers, and a hat half unlooped. The women have a petticoat, a jacket fitted to their shape, and a little round bonnet of muslin. Unless upon extraordinary occasions, neither sex wear stockings. During a part of the year, the women even walk with their feet quite naked. The occupations of the men require that theirs should have some covering; and this covering they make from a piece of the hide of an ox, applied and shaped to the foot soon after the animal is killed, and while the hide is yet fresh. These sandals are the only article of their dress which they make themselves; the rest is the business of the women, who cut out and prepare their whole wardrobe. Though the equipment we have mentioned constitute the every-day dress of the planter, he has, however, a coat of handsome blue cloth, which he wears upon days of gala and ceremony. He has then also stockings and shoes, and is dressed exactly like an European. But this finery never makes its appearance but when he goes to the Cape; and then, indeed, is not put on till he arrives at the entrance of the town.
It is commonly in these journeys that they purchase such things as they may want to refit their wardrobe. There is, at the Cape, as well as in Paris and London, a species of old-clothes-men, who deal in commodities of this sort; and who, from their enormous profits, and the extortion they practise, they have obtained the name of Cape Smouze, or Cape Jews. These traffickers contrive, at all times, to sell their goods at a dear rate; but they vary their price in proportion as their flock is great or small; of course they bear no fixed
price; and the planter who comes from the desert, and Good Hope who can understand but little of this fluctuation, is sure to be duped.
On the other hand, the regular shopkeeper, who knows the probity of these farmers, and how punctual they are in the payment of their debts, exerts every effort to prevail on them to open an account with him. He tempts them by the pretended cheap price and excellent quality of his stuffs, and offers to remit the payment till their next journey in the following year. It is seldom that these people, simple and unexperienced as they are, perceive the craft that is presented to them under this guise of kindness and civility. If they suffer themselves to be prevailed upon, they are shackled for life. Upon their return, there are new purchases to be made upon the same conditions; and thus, year after year, always in debt, always buying without prompt payment, they become the prey of an extortioner, who raises to himself a fortune out of their weakness.
It is true, these buyers, after being thus duped at the Cape, commonly return home only to make dupes of others. The cunning that has been employed to deceive them, they employ in their turn to tempt the Hottentots who are in their service. The remnants of stuff, or the frippery garments which they bring back, are sold to these unfortunate servants with so great a profit, that commonly the wages of a year are inadequate to the payment, and they find themselves, like their masters, in debt for the year that is to come. In the end, therefore, it is the poor Hottentot that pays for the extortion at the Cape.
Custom has rendered the planters insensible to the want of fruit and pulse, though the soil is admirably adapted to the cultivation of both. The facility with which they rear their cattle makes up for this privation, as their flocks afford them plenty of provision. The chief food is mutton; and their tables are loaded with such profusion as to disgust one at the sight.
From this mode of living, cattle are in the colonies, as in other places, not only a useful object, but an article of the first necessity. The planter undertakes himself the care of watching over his flocks. Every evening, when they return from the field, he stands at his door, with a stick in his hand, and counts them over one by one, in order to be sure that none of them are missing.
People who have no other employment than a little agriculture, and the superintendence of a flock, must have long intervals of idleness. It is thus with the planters, particularly those who live in the interior parts of the country, and who being unable, on account of their distance from the Cape, to dispose of their corn, never raise more than is sufficient for their own consumption. From the profound inaction in which they live, one would suppose their supreme felicity to consist in doing nothing. They sometimes, however, visit each other; and upon these occasions the day is spent in smoking, and drinking tea, and in telling, or listening to tales of romance, that are equal neither in merit nor morality to the story of Blue-beard.
As every man always carries with him, wherever he goes, both a pipe, and a tobacco-pouch made of the skin of the sea-calf, he is sure in these visits to have one source of amusement. When any one of the company
is desirous of lighting his pipe, he takes out his pouch, and, having filled, passes it to the rest. This is a civility that is never omitted. However numerous may be the party, every body smokes: the consequence of which is a cloud, that, rising at first to the upper part of the room, increases, by degrees, till it fills the whole house, and becomes at last so thick, that it is impossible for the smokers to see one another.
When a stranger travelling through the country is received by the master of a house, he instantly becomes a member of the family. Accustomed to a domestic life, the planters delight in the ties of affinity, and consider in the light of a relative every person whom they love. Upon entering a house, the form of salutation is, to shake hands first with the master, and then with every male person in the company arrived at years of maturity. If there happens to be any one whom we do not like, the hand is refused to him; and this refusal, of so common a testimony of friendship, is looked upon as a formal declaration that the visitor considers him as his enemy. It is not the same with the females in the company. They are all embraced one after another, and to make an exception would be a signal affront. Old or young, all must be kissed. It is a benefit with the duties attached to it.
At whatever time of the day you enter the house of a planter, you are sure to find the kettle and tea-things upon the table. This practice is universal. The inhabitants never drink pure water. If a stranger presents himself, it is tea they offer him for refreshment. This is their common liquor in the interval of meals, and in one season of the year, when it often happens that they have neither beer nor wine, is their only beverage.
If a stranger arrives at dinner-time before the cloth is taken away, he shakes hands, embraces, and immediately seats himself at the table. If he wishes to pass the night, he stays without ceremony, smokes, drinks tea, asks the news, gives them all he knows in his turn; and the next day, the kissing and shaking hands being repeated, he goes on his way, to perform elsewhere the same ceremony. To offer money on these occasions would be regarded as an insult.
These particulars of a people, whose condition it is to be hoped that the generosity of the British character, and the mildness of the British government, will gradually meliorate, cannot but be acceptable to many of our readers. We shall, therefore, make no apology for the length of this article.