Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/241

 *tain is also the pilot, and he took me up on the bridge. I have never before been on the bridge of a ship; on a liner, it is a violation of law for a passenger to go on the bridge. The captain also took me down to his cabin, which is reached by a ladder. The mate, engineer and gunner occupy the cabin with him, and it is the darkest and worst ventilated place I have ever visited. Two of the beds are simply holes-in-the-wall, and the rooms of the gunner and mate are the funniest holes ever occupied by men. The ladder leading to the officers' quarters was so steep and slippery that Adelaide was afraid to attempt to go down. The captain invited me to go out with him next Friday, and I accepted; but when the time comes, I suppose I will back out. He says he often has visitors, and that a good many of them have seen whales caught. In the best season for whaling, a whale is caught every day, and always within fifteen or twenty miles of Durban. If the weather is stormy, the whaling-ships do not go out, as nothing can be done in rough weather. The captain, who is a Norwegian, also invited us to stay for dinner, but we declined, although we saw the dinner on the table. It consisted of boiled beef and potatoes, bread and butter, dried-apple sauce, and tea On the way to visit the whaling-ship we passed the Durban court-house. It was surrounded by negroes. The inferior races everywhere have a passion for going to law. To go to law a good deal—to have confidence in the justice dealt out by lawyers and judges—is everywhere a sign of feeble intelligence There are only 90,000 whites in all of Natal, and 300,000 natives. The Hindus number about 180,000, and lately