Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- Description and travel
I got my cart and Choslullah photographed after all. Choslullah came
next day (having got rid of his pious friend), quite resolved that ‘the
Missis’ should take his portrait, so I will send or bring a few copies of
my beloved cart. After the photograph was done, we drove round the
Kloof, between Table and Lion Mountain. The road is cut on the side of
Lion Mountain, and overhangs the sea at a great height. Camp Bay, which
lies on the further side of the ‘Lion’s Head’, is most lovely; never was
sea so deeply blue, rocks so warmly brown, or sand and foam so glittering
white; and down at the mountain-foot the bright green of the orange and
pomegranate trees throws it all out in greater relief. But the
atmosphere here won’t do after that of the ‘Ruggings’, as the Caledon
line of country is called. I shall never lose the impression of the view
I had when Dr. Morkel drove me out on a hill-side, where the view seemed
endless and without a vestige of life; and yet in every valley there were
farms; but it looked a vast, utter solitude, and without the least haze.
You don’t know what that utter clearness means—the distinctness is quite
awful. Here it is always slightly hazy; very pretty and warm, but it
takes off from the grandeur. It is the difference between a pretty
Pompadour beauty and a Greek statue. Those pale opal mountains, as
distinct in every detail as the map on your table, are so cheerful and
serene; no melodramatic effects of clouds and gloom. I suppose it is not
really so beautiful as it seemed to me, for other people say it is bare
and desolate, and certainly it is; but it seemed to me anything but
dreary.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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