CHAPTER LXIII.
Port Louis--Matches no Good--Good Roads--Death Notices--Why European
Nations Rob Each Other--What Immigrants to Mauritius Do--Population
--Labor Wages--The Camaron--The Palmiste and other Eatables--Monkeys--The
Cyclone of 1892--Mauritius a Sunday Landscape
CHAPTER LXIV.
The Steamer "Arundel Castle"--Poor Beds in Ships--The Beds in Noah's Ark
--Getting a Rest in Europe--Ship in Sight--Mozambique Channel--The
Engineer and the Band--Thackeray's "Madagascar"--Africanders Going Home
--Singing on the After Deck--An Out-of-Place Story--Dynamite Explosion in Johannesburg--Entering Delagoa Bay--Ashore--A Hot Winter--Small Town--No Sights--No Carriages--Working Women--Barnum's Purchase of Shakespeare's Birthplace, Jumbo, and the Nelson Monument--Arrival at Durban
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CHAPTER LXV.
Royal Hotel Durban--Bells that Did not Ring--Early Inquiries for Comforts
--Change of Temperature after Sunset--Rickhaws--The Hotel Chameleon
--Natives not out after the Bell--Preponderance of Blacks in Natal--Hair Fashions in Natal--Zulus for Police--A Drive round the Berea--The Cactus and other Trees--Religion a Vital Matter--Peculiar Views about Babies
--Zulu Kings--A Trappist Monastery--Transvaal Politics--Reasons why the
Trouble came About
CHAPTER LXVI.
Jameson over the Border--His Defeat and Capture--Sent to England for Trial--Arrest of Citizens by the Boers--Commuted Sentences--Final Release of all but Two--Interesting Days for a Stranger--Hard to Understand
Either Side--What the Reformers Expected to Accomplish--How They Proposed to Do it--Testimonies a Year Later--A "Woman's Part"--The Truth of the
South African Situation--"Jameson's Ride"--A Poem
CHAPTER LXVII
Jameson's Raid--The Reform Committee's Difficult Task--Possible Plans
--Advice that Jameson Ought to Have--The War of 1881 and its Lessons
--Statistics of Losses of the Combatants--Jameson's Battles--Losses on
Both
Sides--The Military Errors--How the Warfare Should Have Been Carried on to Be Successful
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CHAPTER LXVIII.
Judicious Mr. Rhodes--What South Africa Consists of--Johannesburg--The
Gold Mines--The Heaven of American Engineers--What the Author Knows about
Mining--Description of the Boer--What Should be Expected of Him--What Was A Dizzy Jump for Rhodes--Taxes--Rhodesian Method of Reducing Native Population--Journeying in Cape Colony--The Cars--The Country--The
Weather--Tamed Blacks--Familiar Figures in King William's Town--Boer
Dress--Boer Country Life--Sleeping Accommodations--The Reformers in Boer
Prison--Torturing a Black Prisoner
CHAPTER LXIX.
An Absorbing Novelty--The Kimberley Diamond Mines--Discovery of Diamonds
--The Wronged Stranger--Where the Gems Are--A Judicious Change of Boundary--Modern Machinery and Appliances--Thrilling Excitement in Finding a Diamond--Testing a Diamond--Fences--Deep Mining by Natives in the Compound--Stealing--Reward for the Biggest Diamond--A Fortune in Wine--The Great Diamond--Office of the De Beer Co.--Sorting the Gems
--Cape Town--The Most Imposing Man in British Provinces--Various Reasons for his Supremacy--How He Makes Friends
CONCLUSION.
Table Rock--Table Bay--The Castle--Government and Parliament--The Club
--Dutch Mansions and their Hospitality--Dr. John Barry and his Doings--On the Ship Norman--Madeira--Arrived in Southampton
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FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR
CHAPTER I.
A man may have no bad habits and have worse.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.
The starting point of this lecturing-trip around the world was Paris, where we had been living a year or two.
We sailed for America, and there made certain preparations. This took but little time. Two members of my family elected to go with me. Also a carbuncle. The dictionary says a carbuncle is a kind of jewel. Humor is out of place in a dictionary.
We started westward from New York in midsummer, with Major Pond to manage
the platform-business as far as the Pacific. It was warm work, all the way, and the last fortnight of it was suffocatingly smoky, for in Oregon and British Columbia the forest fires were raging. We had an added week of smoke at the seaboard, where we were obliged to wait awhile for our ship.
She had been getting herself ashore in the smoke, and she had to be docked
And repaired. We sailed at last; and so ended a snail-paced march across
the continent, which had lasted forty days.
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We moved westward about mid-afternoon over a rippled and sparkling summer sea; an enticing sea, a clean and cool sea, and apparently a welcome sea
to all on board; it certainly was to me, after the distressful dustings
and smokings and swelterings of the past weeks. The voyage would furnish a three-weeks holiday, with hardly a break in it. We had the whole
Pacific Ocean in
front of us, with nothing to do but do nothing and be comfortable. The city of Victoria was twinkling dim in the deep heart of her smoke-cloud, and getting ready to vanish and now we closed the field-glasses and sat down on our steamer chairs contented and at peace. But they went to wreck and ruin under us and brought us to shame before all the passengers. They had been furnished by the largest furniture-dealing house in Victoria, and were worth a couple of farthings a dozen, though they had cost us the price of honest chairs. In the Pacific and Indian Oceans one must still bring his own deck-chair on board or go without, just as in the old forgotten Atlantic times--those Dark Ages of sea
travel.
Ours was a reasonably comfortable ship, with the customary sea-going fare
--plenty of good food furnished by the Deity and cooked by the devil. The discipline observable on board was perhaps as good as it is anywhere in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The ship was not very well arranged
for tropical service; but that is nothing, for this is the rule for ships which ply in the tropics. She had an over-supply of cockroaches, but this is also the rule with ships doing business in the summer seas--at least such as have been long in service. Our young captain was a very handsome man, tall and perfectly formed, the very figure to show up a smart uniform's finest effects. He was a man of the best intentions and
was polite and courteous even to courtliness. There was a soft grace and
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finish about his manners which made whatever place he happened to be in
seem for the moment a drawing room. He avoided the smoking room. He had no vices. He did not smoke or chew tobacco or take snuff; he did not
swear, or use slang or rude, or coarse, or indelicate language, or make puns, or tell anecdotes, or laugh intemperately, or raise his voice above
the moderate pitch enjoined by the canons of good form. When he gave an
order, his manner modified it into a request. After dinner he and his officers joined the ladies and gentlemen in the ladies' saloon, and shared in the singing and piano playing, and helped