Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). The History of Sea Voyages, Discovery, Piracy and Maritime Warfare онлайн
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THE “GALATEA” PASSING KNYSNA HEADS.
On his return from the elephant hunt, the Prince gave a parting ball. A capital ballroom, 135 feet long by 44 wide, was improvised out of an open boat-house by a party of blue-jackets, who, by means of ships’ lanterns, flags, arms arranged as ornaments, and beautiful ferns and flowers, effected a transformation as wonderful as anything recorded in the “Arabian Nights,” the crowning feature of the decorations being the head of one of the elephants from the Knysna, surmounting an arch of evergreens. Most of the visitors had to come all the way from Cape Town, and during the afternoon were to be seen flocking along the sands in vehicles of every description, many being conveyed to Simon’s Town a part of the distance in a navy steam-tender or the Galatea’s steam-launch. The ball was, of course, a grand success.
This not being a history of Cape Colony, but rather of what the sailor will find at or near its ports and harbours, the writer is relieved from any necessity of treating on past or present troubles with the Boers or the natives. Of course, everything was tinted couleur de rose at the Prince’s visit, albeit at that very time the colony was in a bad way, with over speculation among the commercial classes, a cattle plague, disease among sheep, and a grape-disease. Mr. Frederick Boyle, whose recent work on the Diamond-fields has been already quoted, and who had to leave a steamer short of coal at Saldanha Bay, seventy or eighty miles from Cape Town, and proceed by a rather expensive route, presents a picture far from gratifying of some of the districts through which he passed. At Saldanha Bay agriculture gave such poor returns that it did not even pay to export produce to the Cape. The settlers exist, but can hardly be said to live. They have plenty of cattle and sheep, sufficient maize and corn, but little money. Mr. Boyle describes the homestead of a Boer substantially as follows:—