We have got a new 'boy'(all coloured servants are 'boys,'-a remnant of slavery),and he is the type of the nigger slave.Athief,a liar,a glutton,a drunkard -but you can't resent it;he has a NAIF,half-foolish,half-knavish buffoonery,a total want of self-respect,which disarms you.I sent him to the post to inquire for letters,and the postmaster had been tipsy over-night and was not awake.Jack came back spluttering threats against 'dat domned Dutchman.Me no WANT (like)him;me go and kick up dom'd row.
What for he no give Missis letter?'&c.I begged him to be patient;on which he bonneted himself in a violent way,and started off at a pantomime walk.Jack is the product of slavery:he pretends to be a simpleton in order to do less work and eat and drink and sleep more than a reasonable being,and he knows his buffoonery will get him out of scrapes.Withal,thoroughly good-natured and obliging,and perfectly honest,except where food and drink are concerned,which he pilfers like a monkey.He worships S-,and won't allow her to carry anything,or to dirty her hands,if he is in the way to do it.Some one suggested to him to kiss her,but he declined with terror,and said he should be hanged by my orders if he did.He is a hideous little negro,with a monstrous-shaped head,every colour of the rainbow on his clothes,and a power of making faces which would enchant a schoolboy.The height of his ambition would be to go to England with me.
An old 'bastaard'woman,married to the Malay tailor here,explained to me my popularity with the coloured people,as set forth by 'dat Malay boy',my driver.He told them he was sure Iwas a 'very great Missis',because of my 'plenty good behaviour';that I spoke to him just as to a white gentleman,and did not 'laugh and talk nonsense talk'.'Never say "Here,you black fellow",dat Misses.'The English,when they mean to be good-natured,are generally offensively familiar,and 'talk nonsense talk',i.e.imitate the Dutch English of the Malays and blacks;the latter feel it the greatest compliment to be treated AU SERIEUX,and spoken to in good English.Choslullah's theory was that I must be related to the Queen,in consequence of my not 'knowing bad behaviour'.The Malays,who are intelligent and proud,of course feel the annoyance of vulgar familiarity more than the blacks,who are rather awe-struck by civility,though they like and admire it.
Mrs.D-tells me that the coloured servant-girls,with all their faults,are immaculately honest in these parts;and,indeed,as every door and window is always left open,even when every soul is out,and nothing locked up,there must be no thieves.Captain D-told me he had been in remote Dutch farmhouses,where rouleaux of gold were ranged under the thatch on the top of the low wall,the doors being always left open;and everywhere the Dutch boers keep their money by them,in coin.
Jan.3d.-We have had tremendous festivities here -a ball on New Year's-eve,and another on the 1st of January -and the shooting for Prince Alfred's rifle yesterday.The difficulty of music for the ball was solved by the arrival of two Malay bricklayers to build the new parsonage,and I heard with my own ears the proof of what I had been told as to their extraordinary musical gifts.When I went into the hall,a Dutchman was SCREECHING a concertina hideously.Presently in walked a yellow Malay,with a blue cotton handkerchief on his head,and a half-bred of negro blood (very dark brown),with a red handkerchief,and holding a rough tambourine.
The handsome yellow man took the concertina which seemed so discordant,and the touch of his dainty fingers transformed it to harmony.He played dances with a precision and feeling quite unequalled,except by Strauss's band,and a variety which seemed endless.I asked him if he could read music,at which he laughed heartily,and said,music came into the ears,not the eyes.He had picked it all up from the bands in Capetown,or elsewhere.
It was a strange sight,-the picturesque group,and the contrast between the quiet manners of the true Malay and the grotesque fun of the half-negro.The latter made his tambourine do duty as a drum,rattled the bits of brass so as to produce an indescribable effect,nodded and grinned in wild excitement,and drank beer while his comrade took water.The dancing was uninteresting enough.The Dutchmen danced badly,and said not a word,but plodded on so as to get all the dancing they could for their money.I went to bed at half-past eleven,but the ball went on till four.
Next night there was genteeler company,and I did not go in,but lay in bed listening to the Malay's playing.He had quite a fresh set of tunes,of which several were from the 'Traviata'!
Yesterday was a real African summer's day.The D-s had a tent and an awning,one for food and the other for drink,on the ground where the shooting took place.At twelve o'clock Mrs.D-went down to sell cold chickens,&c.,and I went with her,and sat under a tree in the bed of the little stream,now nearly dry.The sun was such as in any other climate would strike you down,but here COUPDE SOLEIL is unknown.It broils you till your shoulders ache and your lips crack,but it does not make you feel the least languid,and you perspire very little;nor does it tan the skin as you would expect.The light of the sun is by no means 'golden'-it is pure white -and the slightest shade of a tree or bush affords a delicious temperature,so light and fresh is the air.They said the thermometer was at about 130degrees where I was walking yesterday,but (barring the scorch)I could not have believed it.
