South Africa -- Description and travel; South Africa -- History -- 1836-1909; South Africa -- History -- To 1836
There are 500 children at these schools among whom I saw perhaps half a
dozen of white blood. M. Esselin said that he took any who came who
would comply with the general rules of the school. The education of
coloured children is, however, the intention of the place. In addition
to the pence, which do not amount to £100 a year, the Government
grant,--given to this school, as to any other single school kept in
accordance with Government requirements,--amounts to £70 per annum. The
remaining cost, which must be very heavy, is made up out of the funds
raised by the congregation of the church. Under M. Esselin there is but
one European master. The other teachers are all females and all
coloured. There were I think seven of them. The children, as I have said
before, are kept only till they are fifteen and are then sent out to the
work of the world without any pretence of classical scholarship or
ecstatic Christianity.
Having heard of a marvellous hot spring or Geyser in the neighbourhood
of Worcester I had myself driven out to visit it. It is about 8 miles
from the town at, or rather beyond, a marshy little lake called Brand
Vley, the name of which the hot spring bears. It is adjacent to a Dutch
farmhouse to which it belongs, and is to some small extent used for
sanitary purposes. If, as I was told, the waters are peculiarly
serviceable to rheumatic affections, it is a pity that such sanitary
purposes should not be extended, and be made more acceptable to the
rheumatic world at large.
There is but one spring of boiling water. In New Zealand they are very
numerous, bubbling up frequently in close proximity to each other,
sometimes so small and unpronounced as to make it dangerous to walk
among them lest the walker’s feet should penetrate through the grass
into the boiling water. Here the one fountain is very like to some of
the larger New Zealand springs. The water as it wells up is much hotter
than boiling, and fills a round pool which may perhaps have a
circumference of thirty feet. It is of a perfectly bright green colour,
except where the growth of a foul-looking weed defaces the surface. From
this well the still boiling water makes its way under ground, a distance
of a few yards into a much larger pool where it still boils and bubbles,
and still maintains that bright green colour which seems to be the
property of water which springs hot from the bowels of the earth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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