In New South Africa

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Mountain, invisible even after the twinkling lights of Cape Town cease to draw nearer, and the clank, clank of the iron cable announces our arrival at the moorings for the night. CHAPTER II. ACROSS DESERT AND VELDT. AWAKENING early we find ourselves already alongside the wharf, our first gaze being...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Mountain, invisible even after the twinkling lights of Cape Town cease to draw nearer, and the clank, clank of the iron cable announces our arrival at the moorings for the night. CHAPTER II. ACROSS DESERT AND VELDT. AWAKENING early we find ourselves already alongside the wharf, our first gaze being directed at crowds of men so veritably black that the coal they carry into our hold has no visible colouring effect on the occasionally large patches of epidermis brought to view. On the other side of the vessel is that most characteristic pile, Table Mountain, its long flat top and sheer precipitous cliffs, ever guarding the peaceful town extended sleeping at its feet, giving it an air of majestic and rugged individuality hardly to be dreamed of; while a delicate mist hangs over the city, gradually rising and melting into nothing as the sun increases in power. A Malay cab driver, with bronze complexion and expression of Asiatic guile, takes us rapidly through the maze of shipping, and for three miles under a glorious sun we follow the coast line, rounding the shoulder of Signal Hill, passing scores of white verandahed villas covered with luxurious creepersand brilliant flowers. Under the Lion's Head, that dependent of Table Mountain which adds so greatly to its striking effect, we stay; and in our temporary residence, long, low-roofed, and startlingly white against the brilliant sky, we make our first acquaintance with South Africa and Seapoint. From the verandah we view a glorious stretch of the Southern Ocean, its heart beats resounding on the white and jagged shore in listless and regular monotony. Separating it from us is a gently sloping garden, picturesquely intersected with regular rows of green shrubs, and an occasional sea-green aloe rearing its long stalk and hairb...