Guillaume Seignac The Wave painting

Guillaume Seignac The Wave painting
Steve Hanks Interior View I painting
takes from four to five days, according to the vessel and the state of the weather, to run up from the Cape - to Durban. Sometimes, if the landing is bad at East London, where they have not yet got that wonderful harbor they talk so much of and sink such a mint of money in, one is delayed for twenty-four hours before the cargo boats can get out to take the goods off. But on this occasion we had not to wait at all, for there were no breakers on the bar to speak of, and the tugs came out at once with their long strings of ugly, flat-bottomed boats, into which the goods were bundled with a crash. It did not matter what they were, over they went, slap-bang! whether they were china or woollen goods they met with the same treatment. I saw one case containing four dozen of champagne smashed all to bits, and there was the champagne fizzing and boiling about in the bottom of the dirty cargo-boat. It was a wicked waste, and so evidently the Kaffirs in the boat thought, for they found a couple of unbroken bottles, and knocking the tops off drank the contents. But they had not allowed for the expansion caused by the fizz in the wine, and feeling themselves swelling, rolled about in the bottom of the boat, calling out that the good liquor was "tagati" (bewitched). I spoke to them from the vessel, and told them that it was the white man's strongest medicine, and that they were as good as dead men. They went on to the shore in a very great fright, and I do not think that they will touch champagne again.