Yankee Girls in Zulu Land Part 10

Many English, Scotch and Dutch residents in Maritzberg, combined with the military stationed there, made the town lively. It was a place in which we should have liked to have pitched our tent for a longer period of time. But after several months of life as intimate as we could expect to have in a foreign land, we turned our thoughts to our home in America, that could never be replaced in our hearts, and left Maritzberg for Durban. It was a bright spring day in September when, having packed our belongings and souvenirs, we stepped on board the steam tug at Durban which was to take us and several friends over the bar to the steamer. The sea and the weather seemed to have entered into a conspiracy to put on their most alluring dress to do honour to the departing strangers, and we steamed across the bar, the little steam launch puffing and smoking as who should say, "Aha! you're going to America, aren't you?--you've got some fine steamers there, haven't you?--but look, see how busy I am, what a noise I make, and how recklessly I brave the dangers of the sand-bar, which those big fellows outside dare not tackle."

All animate and inanimate nature seemed to smile on us and bid us G.o.d speed, and as we climbed up the ladder that led up the side of the good ship _Asiatic_, and emerged on her deck, we registered a vow to return some day to the land of sand and sunshine.

Soon after our arrival on board the bell sounded for strangers to leave the ship, and the time came to say good-by to the good friends who had accompanied us on board. Leave-taking had become a familiar occupation with us, but yet we never seemed to overcome the misty feeling in the eyes when the time came to say the one word "Good-bye."

The steamer left her moorings at four o'clock, and soon the bluff, and the many points around it which we had explored, faded away far astern, the stars came out, and the old well-known thump of the steamer's engine began to make us realise that we were going Home.

The voyage around the coast has been already described. At Fort Elizabeth we were transhipped into the palatial mail steamer _Moor_, in which we were to make the journey to England. From the steamship we had a splendid view of the town of Port Elizabeth, built as it is on the hill, which rises quite from the beach. Almost every house could be seen distinctly, and every walk and spot that had become so pleasantly familiar to us, during our stay, we could trace without the aid of a gla.s.s.

We learned that the railroad to Kimberley had been finished. There is now no limit to the ambition of the inhabitants of Port Elizabeth. On the way to Cape Town we called at Mossel Bay, a picturesque little seaport lying midway between Algoa and Table Bays. Georgetown, thirty-six miles away, is the prettiest place in the Cape Colony. The Kinyena Forest, which stretches away to the bay, is one of the few really large forests in South Africa. In it elephants and rhinoceri still roam, and buffaloes, leopards, and every variety of antelope are found, while from its thickets come most of the hard-wood lumber used for the wagon-making districts of the colony.

After six days' steaming from Durban we put into Cape Town docks, and the mighty Table Mountain once more frowned down on us. We wandered for the last time through the town. We called on many of the acquaintances we had made on our first arrival in the country. We had been followed with much interest on our travels.

How our journeys came back to us, and the many happy months pa.s.sed in South Africa as we saw the purple cloud we knew was the last glimpse we should have of Table Mountain or South Africa slowly fading away. The voyage to England resembled all other similar voyages in its pleasurable monotony.

At last, after five years' almost incessant travel, we arrived in Southampton with the satisfactory feeling that we had accomplished the object of our voyage. Our expedition to the Antipodes in search of health was a success. Our invalid was returning home a healthy, happy, contented wife. What was there for us to ask for more?

We left the ship at Southampton and went on by rail, and soon the familiar smoky fog which overhangs the monster London received us.

Here our journey ends, for London and New York nowadays are only "across the way."