The Delaware ledger. (Newark, Del.) 1879-19??, 1884-08-23

Life In south Africa.
|
A recent traveller thus details his ex-
perience In South Afria 81 landed at
Cape Town, " he said, This Is place
OF 40, 900 inhabitants, three-fourths of
whom are blacks OF Malays. The May
lays have seven wives apiece that is the
most interesting and unfortunate thing
that can he said against them. The
other quarter of the population is
European. A small cottage there con-
tanning four or five rooms will cost $45
month /; good sized dwelling will
cost three times that sum. Coal is SIS
ton meat from Is to 25 cents pound ;
whisky is 20 cents drink imported
ale 81 a bottle. AT the restaurant a
good meal can be had for 25 cents, con-
sisting of such things as roast beef, NUT
ton chops, soup, bread, butter, coffee,
rolls, etc. In October, November and
December there are terrific gales that
sweep over the town. The drivers Of
vehicles wear green spectacles on ac-
count Of the dust, and the women at
the approach of the hurricane, sit down
promptly for fear of sailing skyward
like so many balloons.
81 went to South Africa as as trader
speculator. and spent much of my time
in fact the hest part of it--in the
back country. OF course | visited the
diamond fields. They are in the hands
of the two companies, English and
French, who have from the govern
ment the privilege of working the mines.
They are not doing much in them at
the present time on account of the pre-
vailing dullness in the diamond market.
| The mines are worked by blacks, and L
suppose there are about 1900 at work
at the present time, about quarter Of
the number that could be found there
when times we're good. The superin-
tendents and better class of workers
live in houses made of sheet-iron the
common delivers in small brushwood
houses. Some of the horses have three
rooms and kitchen some have only
sleeping places or hunks. The Zulu
Kaffirs live in the meanest kind Of huts.
They only work long enough to earn
some money with which to buy guns !;
then they go back to the country four
hundred miles away, and engage IN
warfare with some of the branches OF
their tribes. There are twenty-one
tribes of Zulu Kaffirs. The workmen
have few chances to steal diamonds
themselves, but they have been known
to slip one of the valuables into the
pocket of some visitor in the hope of
seeing him later and arranging with him
as to its sale, and the visitor has had the
diamond found on him by some of the
officers and been promptly sent off to
the western coast, there to work from
ten to twenty years on the breakwater
they are building in that section. The
workmen were once paid 81 a day ;now
they do not get so much. The officers
who oversee them used to get from S25
to $50 week now they get from SIS to
$25.
81 rode INTO the back country on a
cart, keeping the west coast and en-
deavoring to trade with the natives for
skins, ostrich feathers, and other goods
which would dispose of to the arriv-
ing vessels at Cape Town. The coun-
try is dry and barren there are plenty
of stones, but no trees, the tallest BUSH
es are not over four feet high. At the
numerous rivers. where they cross the
roads, you will now and then find a tree
or tw standing together near the banks.
\ ou will often meet wild animals, tigers,
leopards, hyenas, jackals, monkeys and
elephants, but they will not modest you
unless you attack them on the con-
trary, they are afraid OF human being,
and will unless ravenously hungry,
run away from you. There are plenty
of poisonous snakes there six feet long,
which jump at you and biteyou quickly,
| if you are not on the lookout for them.
The natives eat the meat of the buffalo
and the buck, and hunt the wild ANIMALS
for the sake of their skins, tiger skins
tanned bring about 50.
at is very hot there in the summer sea-
son, and in some parts there is great
scarcity of water Within one hundred
miles of Cape Town you will find nice
country and water enough, but beyond
that it is very dry. In the winter time
when the rains come and swell up the
rivers like flash, as you might say,
| you would think you would be drowned.
The water comes quickly, and at the
moment wipes away everything within
its immediate reach : but the country
is as dry as ever within a few hours.
In the hottest season it is 126 to 100
Fahrenheit in the shade-that is, such
shade as there is-where the suns rays
strike directly it is from $50 to 154.
The moment the sun rises it is hot ;
the moment it sets it is cool People
cannot, of course, work all day in such
weather they stay in the house from
10 to 3, but of course the heat does not
affect them so much as it does newly
arrived foreigner, and after awhile, if
he Is strong aud healthy, hecm stand it
pretty well.
THE country is sparsely populated,
mostly by the Dutch and Germans.
The Dutchmen do not till the soil, but
cOnfine their attention to the raising Of
sheep, oxen and ostriches, making it a
special business. "lf farmer is ricN
the children get their schooling from a
private tutor he hires to live ON the
place. OF course there are no public
schools, and the farmers are generally
many miles apart-at stance say oil
half day or davis walk.