From Capetown to Ladysmith

An Unfinished Record of the South African War

G. W. (George Warrington) Steevens, Vernon Blackburn,

• Publisher: Perlego
• Year: 2005
• eBook ISBN: 9700000016337
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: African History
• Index: History

Presently I came into it, and began to wonder what it looked like. It seemed half Western American with a faint smell of India--Denver with a dash of Delhi. The broad streets fronted with new-looking, ornate buildings of irregular heights and fronts were Western America; the battle of warming sun with the stabbing morning cold was Northern India. The handsome, blood-like electric cars, with their impatient gongs and racing trolleys, were pure America (the motor-men were actually imported from that hustling clime to run them). For Capetown itself--you saw it in a moment--does not hustle. The machinery is the West's, the spirit is the East's or the South's. In other cities with trolley-cars they rush; here they saunter. In other new countries they have no time to be polite; here they are suave and kindly and even anxious to gossip. I am speaking, understand, on a twelve hours' acquaintance--mainly with that large section of Capetown's inhabitants that handled my baggage between dock and rail way-station. The niggers are very good-humoured, like the darkies of America. The Dutch tongue sounds like German spoken by people who will not take the trouble to finish pronouncing it.