Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World. Part 7Twain, Mark
General
Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World. Part 7
Twain, Mark
Equator -- Description and travel; Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 -- Travel; Voyages around the world
Durban is a neat and clean town. One notices that without having his
attention called to it.
Rickshaws drawn by splendidly built black Zulus, so overflowing with
strength, seemingly, that it is a pleasure, not a pain, to see them
snatch a rickshaw along. They smile and laugh and show their teeth--a
good-natured lot. Not allowed to drink; 2s per hour for one person; 3s
for two; 3d for a course--one person.
The chameleon in the hotel court. He is fat and indolent and
contemplative; but is business-like and capable when a fly comes about
--reaches out a tongue like a teaspoon and takes him in. He gums his
tongue first. He is always pious, in his looks. And pious and thankful
both, when Providence or one of us sends him a fly. He has a froggy
head, and a back like a new grave--for shape; and hands like a bird's
toes that have been frostbitten. But his eyes are his exhibition
feature. A couple of skinny cones project from the sides of his head,
with a wee shiny bead of an eye set in the apex of each; and these cones
turn bodily like pivot-guns and point every-which-way, and they are
independent of each other; each has its own exclusive machinery. When I
am behind him and C. in front of him, he whirls one eye rearwards and the
other forwards--which gives him a most Congressional expression (one eye
on the constituency and one on the swag); and then if something happens
above and below him he shoots out one eye upward like a telescope and the
other downward--and this changes his expression, but does not improve it.
Natives must not be out after the curfew bell without a pass. In Natal
there are ten blacks to one white.
Sturdy plump creatures are the women. They comb their wool up to a peak
and keep it in position by stiffening it with brown-red clay--half of
this tower colored, denotes engagement; the whole of it colored denotes
marriage.
None but heathen Zulus on the police; Christian ones not allowed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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