VISIT TO SOUTH AFRICA. 
279 
with the sea and its ways was not to be gauged from his faultless 
yachting suits and caps, went in a boat with me. 
As we passed under the bow of the ship he remarked that the ship 
was drawing twenty-one feet of water. That seemed to interest him. 
As we were coining back again (the ship in the meantime having 
taken in 200 or 300 tons of coal) he noticed that the ship was drawing 
nearly twenty-three feet of water. 
He stared for a moment, gave a whistle, and said “ By Jove ! how 
the tide has come in ! ” (Laughter and applause.) 
After Madeira there should be no stoppage till the Cape. We however 
stopped when one of the stokers, who was known on the ship by the 
name of Nansen, threw himself overboard. There were many sharks, 
but with good luck and management he was picked up in fourteen 
minutes. He had been on an arctic journey recently and it was 
evidently not a very wise thing for him to have gone straight away to 
the tropics afterwards. When recovered he was off his head. 
If there is wind Cape Town has a very difficult harbour to enter, and 
having landed when a south-easter is blowing it will be found that 
Cape Town is about the most objectionable place on the face of the 
earth. 
I think perhaps that, before saying anything about Cape Town, a 
glance at the history of the Cape, as showing how the Dutch have made 
the Cape for us, may be of interest. 
It was Drake who first sighted the Cape as early as 1580, and in 
writing about it described it as “ the most stately thing and fairest cape 
we saw in the whole circumference of the world.” 
About forty years after that the English flag was hoisted there, but 
no settlement was made. 
You will remember that the Dutch in those days had a considerable 
Indian trade. A Dutch ship, on its way to India, was wrecked at the 
Cape. The people who were wrecked eventually returned home and 
reported so favourably on the Cape that a few years afterwards, in 1651, 
Van Riebeek, who may be called the father of the colony, took about 
100 souls out there and formed a colony. 
I might point out that the rather abused Dutchman has done a great 
deal for England. Not only has he made the Cape what it is, but his 
agricultural tastes are of the greatest value throughout South Africa ; 
and even in England all must admit that William of Orange did a great 
deal for the British constitution. 
After the Dutch settled at the Cape there were wars between Holland 
and England, and eventually in 1806 England took over the colony, 
paying the Dutch £6,000,000 indemnity. 
That is how it came into the possession of the English. 
In 1834 tbe English government insisted upon the emancipation of 
slaves. That was a matter which caused great dissatisfaction to the 
Dutchmen, and they decided to trek north. About 10,000 Boers there¬ 
fore crossing the Orange River, which you will see on the map, formed 
the Orange Free State ; some going still further north, crossed the Yaal 
River to make the Transvaal. 
Arriving from Europe one is not struck with Cape Town as a town ; 
nor with the hotel accommodation, the food, nor any of the points 
which make it the most desirable place for a holiday in South Africa, 
from the colonial point of view. 
I know it is rather dangerous to say that the food in South Africa is 
