England, muff: but in both these arts, unfortunately, I was equally
deficient.
This tutor, then, as soon as he was in bed, placed the candle by
his side, as I at first thought and hoped, to extinguish it, that I might
be left to close my eyes for that sleep which nature demanded after
two days of fatigue with little intermediate rest. But finding that
the light still remained, I turned my head towards it, and, to my
double mortification, beheld the meester lying very quietly, with a
short crooked German pipe hanging from one corner of his mouth,
while from the other, arose clouds of smoke rapidly following each
other, till the room was filled with the fume of tobacco, and myself
almost suffocated.
A t length when that pipe was finished, I had some little respite,
but it was only while he was occupied in filling it again. In this
interval, finding that I was not asleep, a circumstance not much to
be wondered at, he began to relate to me some of his adventures in
foreign parts ; and these reminiscences afforded him so much satisfaction,
that he allowed himself to talk and smoke in alternate fits,
so that the second pipe, unfortunately, lasted twice as long as the
first- But, as it would ill become a guest so hospitably received, to
interrupt his entertainers’ enjoyments, I endured it all with perfect
patience till the last; though, at an hour when most mortals desire
to be ft lulled into sweet oblivion,’ his candle, his pipe, and his conversation,
kept three of my senses in a state of continued irritation.
By degrees the smoking became fainter; the anecdotes of
Malacca, Batavia, and Moccha, were at length all exhausted; he
stretched forth his arm to put out the candle; and bade me Good-
night. But the long-wished-for hour of sleep was not yet come;
and it now fell to his turn to be annoyed. Scarcely had we begun
to doze, when repeated daps of the most violent thunder, roused
us again; and flashes of lightning glaring through the window, gave
us opportunities of beholding each other once more.
In a few minutes after this, the sound of the rain out of doors,
pouring down in torrents, made me, notwithstanding the tobacco
smoke, consider myself fortunate in being at such a time under the
shelter of a roof. Presently, I heard the meester start up, and, with
furious rattling, begin dragging his bed, with the frame which supported
it, from one side of the room to the other. He cried out,
in a mixed tone of lamentation and surprize, that the rain was
running down upon him in a stream, from the groot gat in het dak;
and truly enough; for on looking upwards, I saw, what I had not
noticed before, a ‘ great hole in the roof,’ just above the place
whence he had so long been issuing his fumigations, and his anecdotes
of Malacca, Batavia, and Moccha. When I saw this, I began to
regret that the storm had not commenced an hour or two sooner.
Yet it would have been ungenerous, not to have condoled with him
for having to sleep in a wet bed; as he had given himself the
trouble of telling his adventures, purely from a wish to amuse me.
20tli. These misfortunes consumed the greater part of the night;
and the next morning was little better suited to cheer us. The rain
had never .ceased since it first began, and there was little appearance
of our having any sunshine during the day. The clouds hung so
low that the surrounding mountains were hidden from our sight; and
the ground was every where deluged with streams of rain water,,
supplied by the torrents, which were seen at a distance rushing down
the foot of the mountains.
Our breakfast consisted of coffee, the usual beverage at this
meal; after which I was compelled by the rain, to remain in the house
more than three hours ; the good lady of the house at the same time,
and the meester, assuring me that they had known it to rain there with
little intermission for a fortnight, before they had any return of fair
weather; and that a four or five days’ rain was not unusual. But
fortunately this was not the case at present; and as soon as it cleared
up, I walked out to take a view of the place, while my men were
packing the oxen. The clouds had risen above the mountains, and
now gave me an opportunity of making a sketch of the house, and of a
hill which was very remarkable on account of its great resemblance
to the Table Mountain at Cape Town. * The colonists have dis-
, , view of Kleine Tafelterg and Vmnetden’s dwelling, is given in the engraving at
the head of the sixth chapter. The distant mountains on the right, are a part of Sneewwberg.