Cape Town

“ Next day, in fact, we were both of us quietly at anchor outside of the shipping in Table Bay; Cape Town glittering along on the green flat amongst the trees to southward, with the hills on each side of it like some big African lion lying on guard close by; while Table Mountain hove up, square-shouldered, blue to the left, four thousand feet high, as bare and steep as a wall, with the rocks and trees creeping up from the foot, and the wreaths of light cloud resting halfway, like nothing else but the very breakwater of the world's end. ”

“ I have seen the kingdoms of the world, and am satisfied—a wondrous state of mind and body! I have sat on a ledge of crassula-covered rock and looked down upon Cape Town—Lion's Head far below us, the green slopes scarred by innumerable red roads, the bay clear and calm beneath us, and a gentle south-east breeze with the coolness of water behind us. ”

“ It is a landscape unlike anything one can see in Europe, and though the light in sea and sky is brilliant, the brilliance is on this coast soft and mellow, unlike the clear sharp radiance of the arid interior.
No one who cares for natural scenery quits Cape Town without ascending Table Mountain, whose summit affords not only a very beautiful and extensive prospect over the surrounding country, but a striking ocean view. ”

“ At the same time, as a place of residence in the summer months, I can well understand Cape Town being wellnigh deserted. Those who can boast of even the most moderate means have their residences in the attractive suburbs of Rondebosch, Newlands, or Wynberg, and innumerable are the pretty little villas and gardens one sees in these vicinities. There the country is beautifully wooded, thick arching avenues of oak extending for miles, interspersed with tracts of Scotch firs and pines, the latter exhaling a delicious perfume under the sun's powerful rays. ”

“ The situation of Cape Town, with a magnificent range of precipices rising behind it, a noble bay in front, and environs full of beautiful avenues and pleasure-grounds, while bold mountain-peaks close the more distant landscape, is equalled by that of few other cities in the world. Constantinople and Naples, Bombay and San Francisco, cannot boast of more perfect or more varied prospects. ”

“ Cape Town, the capital of Cape Colony, has a pleasant situation on the south side of Table Bay. It is a flourishing city of forty-five thousand inhabitants. It has many fine buildings and pretty villas, lighted by gas.
Tramways and railways pour into it the rich agricultural products of the adjacent countries. There is little, indeed, to remind the visitor that he is in a colonial capital founded, and for a long time inhabited, solely by Dutch settlers.
Cape Town is, in many respects, very unlike any city seen in Europe. No two houses can be found of the same size or architecture. ”

“ Although we who have been out here for months may hate the very mention of the veldt, yet if we live to go home we shall live to regret that we ever left it. We may curse its boundless wastes—curse that endless rise which so often has lain between our tired bodies and the evening bivouac; but the curses will die over the rail of an ocean steamer and with the fading lights of Cape Town, while the memory of the exhilarating air, the freedom, the [52] stirring adventure lurking in every dip and donga of that wind-swept, sun-dried, war-racked expanse of steppe, will live with us for ever. ”

“ Cape Town is a fine city and contains some splendid public buildings, whilst its situation at the foot of Table Mountain is magnificent. The suburbs at Green Point and Wynburg are excellently laid out, and it is very pleasing to see the way trees are planted in the streets, and how open spaces are encouraged. The electric trams are splendid, and many of the battalion amused themselves by riding on the top of a car as far as it went and coming back again. ”

“ We can nowadays, for the exorbitant price of something more than a dollar, run up to Cape Town in less than an hour; but I have heard from not too ancient inhabitants wonderful stories of not too long ago of how, packed like sardines, parties would drive from Town to Simonstown to dance on a gunboat and home again in the dawn, with some danger of the wrong tide over the Fish Hoek beach, or of the bad road to Wynberg. ”

“ Cape Town is one of the handsomest colonial towns in the world; the streets, which are wide and perfectly straight, are kept in the highest order, and planted with rows of oaks and firs. The houses are built in a stile of very superior elegance, and inside are in the cleanest and most regular order. They are not, however, sufficiently ventilated, to dissipate the stale fume of tobacco, which is peculiarly offensive to a stranger. The play-house is a neat building, erected by the English, where French and Dutch plays are acted alternately twice a week by private performers. ”

“ An outer harbour, 44 acres in extent, will be gradually formed under the protection of the breakwater. When these works are completed, Cape Town will afford advantages to shipping such as are scarcely exceeded in any port of Great Britain.
Cape Town contains not a few buildings of which the inhabitants of an older capital might justly be proud. The House of Assembly is a noble structure. The admirably kept and beautifully situated Observatory, the banks, the railway station, and the docks are all excellent. ”

“ There are some fine pieces of wood and water scenery along the south coast of Cape Colony, and one of singular charm in the adjoining colony of Natal, where the suburbs of Durban, the principal port, though they lack the grandeur which its craggy [Pg 52] heights give to the neighbourhood of Cape Town have, with a warmer climate, a richer and more tropically luxuriant vegetation. In the great range of mountains which runs some seventeen hundred miles from Cape Town almost to the banks of the Zambesi, the scenery becomes striking in three districts only. ”

“ THE band of the gallant Bayonetteers was making the calm air of Government House gardens melodious with the strains of an entrancing German valse not more than a year old, which had convulsed society at Cape Town when introduced a few weeks previously; for society at Cape Town, like society everywhere else, professes to understand everything artistic, even to the delicacies of German dance music. ”

“ Cape Town lies on the low ground in front of the mountain and one can not see the old and new fortifications guarding the entrance to the docks without remembering its early settlement by the Dutch, its later acquisition by the English and the fact that, until the completion of the railways to Durban, Delagoa Bay and Beira, the story of South Africa is almost contained in that of Cape Town. All through the late war it was the principal port of entry for men and supplies and during that time was a scene of tremendous activity. ”

“ Cape Colony and Natal, the two British colonies on the coast, are the direct opposites of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State in physical and climatic conditions. The colonies are comfortably settled, the soil is marvellously productive, negro labour is cheap, and everything combines to form the foundation for a great nation.
Cape Town, the city where every one is continually awaiting the arrival of the next mail steamer from England, and the capital of Cape Colony, is a modern city of fifty thousand inhabitants, mostly English. ”

“ The Cape Town is considerably increased within the last eight years. Its respectability with regard to strength has kept pace with its other enlargements and rendered it very secure against any attempt which is not made with considerable force. ”

“ There is in Cape Town a society for the preservation of objects of national interest—a slumbering giant of the moment. The protection of natural objects of national importance and beauty should appear as an amendment on its syllabus. ”

“ The railway from Cape Town to Hope Town avoids this singular formation, consequently the great traffic is carried round in another direction, more to the east, passing through Beaufort West and Victoria West, over a flat and barren part of the great Karroo. The mountain pass at Franschehoek is very fine, also Baiu’s Kloof, both possessing grand scenery.
The principal towns in the colony beside Cape Town, in degree of importance, are Port Elizabeth, Graham’s Town; the capital of the eastern province is pleasantly situated in a fertile valley. ”

“ Everywhere green foliage and abundant vegetation, which, combined with the setting of the bluest sky that can be imagined, make the drives round Cape Town some of the most beautiful in the world. At Newlands, the Governor's summer residence, a pretty but unpretentious abode, Sir Hercules and Lady Robinson then dispensed generous hospitality, only regretting their house was too small to accommodate visitors, besides their married daughters. ”

“ Business, professional and official life is concentrated in Cape Town and at the docks. The chief feature of the decade 1910–20 was, however, the development of the suburbs, an enterprise in which the municipality took the lead. Cape Town in the season (Oct.–March) is the principal pleasure resort of South Africa. ”

“ In spite of the fact that the population of the whole colony is less than 600,000 whites, trading was started after the war on a scale which a white population of twenty millions would hardly have justified. As might be expected in a town of nearly 80,000 inhabitants, Cape Town has the conveniences of a modern city, a fine town hall just finished at a cost of a million and a quarter dollars, a good and plentiful water supply, electric light, extended railway and trolley car lines, and a perfect sewerage and drainage system. ”

“ All the persons of consequence in these places know one another and follow one another's doings. All mix frequently, because the Cape Town people are apt to be called by business to the inland cities, and the residents of the inland cities come to Cape Town for sea air in the summer, or to embark thence for Europe. ”

“ Constituting the chief centre for the diffusion of civilisation throughout Austral Africa, Cape Town is endowed with several literary and scientific institutions, including a museum, a valuable library with a complete collection of works relating to the colony, besides many rare books and manuscripts, and a botanic garden nearly fifteen acres in extent, where may be seen specimens of all the native flora und thousands of exotics. ”

“ Cape-Town is generally described as a clean and neat place. With all due deference, I must dissent widely from this opinion. All the streets, for instance, are unpaved, and are, moreover, half filled with rubbish, swept from the shops and warehouses, until some friendly shower carries it away. Undoubtedly the town is regularly built, with broad streets, laid out at right angles to each other; but as almost every person of property resides in the country, few handsome dwelling-houses are to be met with—and by far the greater number are in the Dutch style. ”

“ I do not wish to detract from the general goodness of the inhabitants of Cape Town, but I must say they are an eager money-getting race. On the arrival of a ship from England an auction is generally held, and the various articles exhibited, damaged and sound, under the shade of some tree in the centre of the town; where an Englishman would be amused to see one of the first merchants shuffling round with a handful of tea, and telling the audience that it is just upon the rise, and recommending that he be allowed to send home a pound or two. ”

“ On the 16th of November, at noon, we at length cast anchor in front of Cape Town. For a description of this place, I refer my readers to my “Second Voyage round the World.”
It was Sunday, and I therefore refrained from going on shore. Where English people form the majority of the population, it is not customary to pay visits on this day; the good folks are all day long either at church, or praying at home, or supposed to be praying.
Cape Town is not so great but that the name of every stranger is known within a few hours after arrival ”

“ He took no note of the country about him, as they passed from veldt to karroo, from karroo to the coast plateau, and from the coast plateau down across the Cape Flats, sparsely covered with pipe grass and acacias. Then, as Table Mountain and the Devil's Peak lifted themselves on his right hand, he knew that Cape Town was near, and he braced himself to go through what was before him. ”

“ No authorities seem yet to have been established to prevent the populace, white, brown, and black, from throwing out all their old refuse where they like. Some day things may be taken in hand, but at present this half-baked civilization produces very dreadful results. There is promise of what, some day, may be done in the pleasing red Parliament House and the beautiful public gardens of the upper town. There is such a rush for gold, you see! No one cares for poor Cape Town as a town. The adventurer is essentially a bird of passage. ”

“ After spending a week in Cape Town, finding that they overcharged me at the hotel, and having seen everything there was to see, including the botanical gardens, which seem to me likely to confer a great benefit on the country, and the new Houses of Parliament, which I expect will do nothing of the sort, I determined to go back to Natal by the Dunkeld, then lying at the docks waiting for the Edinburgh Castle due in from England. ”