GNADENTHAL
Caledon,Jan.28th.
Well,I have been to Gnadenthal,and seen the 'blooming parish',and a lovely spot it is.A large village nestled in a deep valley,surrounded by high mountains on three sides,and a lower range in front.We started early on Saturday,and drove over a mighty queer road,and through a river.Oh,ye gods!what a shaking and pounding!We were rattled up like dice in a box.Nothing but a Cape cart,Cape horses,and a Hottentot driver,above all,could have accomplished it.Captain D-rode,and had the best of it.On the road we passed three or four farms,at all which horses were GALLOPING OUT the grain,or men were winnowing it by tossing it up with wooden shovels to let the wind blow away the chaff.We did the twenty-four miles up and down the mountain roads in two hours and a half,with our valiant little pair of horses;it is incredible how they go.We stopped at a nice cottage on the hillside belonging to a CI-DEVANT slave,one Christian Rietz,a WHITE man,with brown woolly hair,sharp features,grey eyes,and NOT woolly moustaches.He said he was a 'Scotch bastaard',and 'le bon sang parlait -tres-haut meme',for a more thriving,shrewd,sensible fellow I never saw.His FATHER and master had had to let him go when all slaves were emancipated,and he had come to Gnadenthal.He keeps a little inn in the village,and a shop and a fine garden.The cottage we lodged in was on the mountain side,and had been built for his son,who was dead;and his adopted daughter,a pretty coloured girl,exactly like a southern Frenchwoman,waited on us,assisted by about six or seven other women,who came chiefly to stare.Vrouw Rietz was as black as a coal,but SO pretty!-a dear,soft,sleek,old lady,with beautiful eyes,and the kind pleasant ways which belong to nice blacks;and,though old and fat,still graceful and lovely in face,hands,and arms.The cottage was thus:-One large hall;my bedroom on the right,S-'s on the left;the kitchen behind me;Miss Rietz behind S-;mud floors daintily washed over with fresh cow-dung;ceiling of big rafters,just as they had grown,on which rested bamboo canes close together ACROSS the rafters,and bound together between each,with transverse bamboo -a pretty BEEHIVEY effect;at top,mud again,and then a high thatched roof and a loft or zolder for forage,&c.;the walls of course mud,very thick and whitewashed.The bedrooms tiny;beds,clean sweet melies (maize)straw,with clean sheets,and eight good pillows on each;glass windows (a great distinction),exquisite cleanliness,and hearty civility;good food,well cooked;horrid tea and coffee,and hardly any milk;no end of fruit.In all the gardens it hung on the trees thicker than the leaves.Never did I behold such a profusion of fruit and vegetables.
But first I must tell what struck me most,I asked one of the Herrenhut brethren whether there were any REAL Hottentots,and he said,'Yes,one;'and next morning,as I sat waiting for early prayers under the big oak-trees in the Plaats (square),he came up,followed by a tiny old man hobbling along with a long stick to support him.'Here',said he,'is the LAST Hottentot;he is a hundred and seven years old,and lives all alone.'I looked on the little,wizened,yellow face,and was shocked that he should be dragged up like a wild beast to be stared at.A feeling of pity which felt like remorse fell upon me,and my eyes filled as I rose and stood before him,so tall and like a tyrant and oppressor,while he uncovered his poor little old snow-white head,and peered up in my face.I led him to the seat,and helped him to sit down,and said in Dutch,'Father,I hope you are not tired;you are old.'
He saw and heard as well as ever,and spoke good Dutch in a firm voice.'Yes,I am above a hundred years old,and alone -quite alone.'I sat beside him,and he put his head on one side,and looked curiously up at me with his faded,but still piercing little wild eyes.Perhaps he had a perception of what I felt -yet Ihardly think so;perhaps he thought I was in trouble,for he crept close up to me,and put one tiny brown paw into my hand,which he stroked with the other,and asked (like most coloured people)if Ihad children.I said,'Yes,at home in England;'and he patted my hand again,and said,'God bless them!'It was a relief to feel that he was pleased,for I should have felt like a murderer if my curiosity had added a moment's pain to so tragic a fate.
This may sound like sentimentalism;but you cannot conceive the effect of looking on the last of a race once the owners of all this land,and now utterly gone.His look was not quite human,physically speaking;-a good head,small wild-beast eyes,piercing and restless;cheek-bones strangely high and prominent,nose QUITEflat,mouth rather wide;thin shapeless lips,and an indescribably small,long,pointed chin,with just a very little soft white woolly beard;his head covered with extremely short close white wool,which ended round the poll in little ringlets.Hands and feet like an English child of seven or eight,and person about the size of a child of eleven.He had all his teeth,and though shrunk to nothing,was very little wrinkled in the face,and not at all in the hands,which were dark brown,while his face was yellow.His manner,and way of speaking were like those of an old peasant in England,only his voice was clearer and stronger,and his perceptions not blunted by age.He had travelled with one of the missionaries in the year 1790,or thereabouts,and remained with them ever since.
I went into the church -a large,clean,rather handsome building,consecrated in 1800-and heard a very good sort of Litany,mixed with such singing as only black voices can produce.The organ was beautifully played by a Bastaard lad.The Herrenhuters use very fine chants,and the perfect ear and heavenly voices of a large congregation,about six hundred,all coloured people,made music more beautiful than any chorus-singing I ever heard.
