South Africa -- Description and travel; South Africa -- History -- 1836-1909; South Africa -- History -- To 1836
As much of the driving in such a country has to be done with the brake
as with the reins and whip, and this man, while his hands and arms were
hard at work, had to manage the brake with his feet. Our old English
coachman could not have moved himself quick enough for the making of
such exertions. And Apollo sat with a passenger on each side, terribly
cramped for room. He was hemmed in with mail bags. My luggage so
obliterated the foot-board that he had to sit with one leg cocked up in
the air and the other loose upon the brake. Every now and again new
indignities were heaped upon him in the shape of parcels and coats which
he stuffed under him as best he could. And yet he managed to keep the
mastery of his reins and whip. It was very hot and he drank lemonade all
the way. What English coachman of the old days could have rivalled him
there? At the end of the journey he asked for nothing, but took the
half-crown offered to him with easy nonchalance. He was certainly much
more like a gentleman than the old English coachman,--whose greedy eye
who does not remember that can remember at all those old days?
We were apparently quite full but heard at starting that there was still
a place vacant which had been booked by a gentleman who was to get up
along the road. The back carriage, which was of the waggonette fashion,
uncovered, with seats at each side, seemed to be so full that the
gentleman would find a difficulty in placing himself, but as I was on
the box the idea did not disconcert me. At last, about half way, at one
of the stages, the gentleman appeared. There was a lady inside with her
husband, with five or six others, who at once began to squeeze
themselves. But when the gentleman came it was not a gentleman only, but
a gentleman with the biggest fish in his arms that I ever saw, short of
a Dolphin. I was told afterwards that it weighed 45 pounds. The fish was
luggage, he said, and must be carried. He had booked his place. That we
knew to be true. When asked he declared he had booked a place for the
fish also. That we believed to be untrue. He came round to the front and
essayed to put it on the foot-board. When I assured him that any such
attempt must be vain and that the fish would be at once extruded if
placed there, he threatened to pull me off the box. He was very angry,
and frantic in his efforts. The fish, he said, was worth £5, and must go
to Maritzburg that day. Here Apollo shewed, I think, a little
inferiority to an English coachman. The English coachman would have
grown very red in the face, would have cursed horribly, and would have
persistently refused all contact with the fish. Apollo jumped on his
box, seized the reins, flogged the horses, and endeavoured to run away
both from the fish and the gentleman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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