My African Home

Abstract

IN 1852 Mrs. Feilden and her husband went to Natal, where they remained for five years. On her return to England her letters were restored to her, and in the present volume she has arranged them in chronological order, with extracts from her journal. The book contains a mass of petty details in which few readers will find much to interest them; but there are also some very good sketches of the scenery of Natal and of the rough, free-and-easy life of the colonists. Mrs. Feilden was much impressed by the fertility of the soil, and by the beauty of the vegetation with which she was surrounded. “As for fruits, vegetables, and flowers,” she wrote, “you have only to put the seeds and young plants in the ground and they grow. There is no end of season in Natal.” She remarked that there were not many native fruits, but that all that were imported seemed to suit the soil and climate. The native flowers she considered “very exquisite.” They “grew in great variety and luxuriance, with the waxy look of hot-house plants.” As for birds and insects, the air teemed with them. Of the Caffres Mrs. Feilden formed a very poor opinion. “The Caffre is indolent; he lives only like the beast, to eat and sleep, and pass through life with ease; but to do this he must have his land tilled, and to purchase wives to till his land he must have cows to pay for them. He sells his daughters to be drudges to other Caffres, while the boys and young men go out to work for the white man, till they can in turn buy cows and wives.” Even Caffres, however, have one good quality: “they heartily share anything they have with each other, and eat out of the same pot without the least feeling of who shall have most.” To Mrs. Feilden they seemed to be rather like Jews, and she asks whether they may not be descendants of Ishmael or an offshoot from the lost tribes—from which it may be inferred that in the list of subjects she has tried to study ethnology has not yet been included.

My African Home.

By Eliza Whigham Feilden. (London: Sampson Low, 1887.)