



Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




Six Months at the Cape, Letters to his friend Periwinkle, by R.M.
Ballantyne.

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Robert Michael Ballantyne was born in 1825 and died in 1894.  He was
educated at the Edinburgh Academy, and in 1841 he became a clerk with
the Hudson Bay Company, working at the Red River Settlement in Northen
Canada until 1847, arriving back in Edinburgh in 1848.  The letters he
had written home were very amusing in their description of backwoods
life, and his family publishing connections suggested that he should
construct a book based on these letters.  Three of his most enduring
books were written over the next decade, "The Young Fur Traders",
"Ungava", "The Hudson Bay Company", and were based on his experiences
with the H.B.C.  In this period he also wrote "The Coral island" and
"Martin Rattler", both of these taking place in places never visited by
Ballantyne.  Having been chided for small mistakes he made in these
books, he resolved always to visit the places he wrote about.  With
these books he became known as a great master of literature intended for
teenagers.  He researched the Cornish Mines, the London Fire Brigade,
the Postal Service, the Railways, the laying down of submarine telegraph
cables, the construction of light-houses, the light-ship service, the
life-boat service, South Africa, Norway, the North Sea fishing fleet,
ballooning, deep-sea diving, Algiers, and many more, experiencing the
lives of the men and women in these settings by living with them for
weeks and months at a time, and he lived as they lived.

He was a very true-to-life author, depicting the often squalid scenes he
encountered with great care and attention to detail.  His young readers
looked forward eagerly to his next books, and through the 1860s and
1870s there was a flow of books from his pen, sometimes four in a year,
all very good reading.  The rate of production diminished in the last
ten or fifteen years of his life, but the quality never failed.

He published over ninety books under his own name, and a few books for
very young children under the pseudonym "Comus".

For today's taste his books are perhaps a little too religious, and what
we would nowadays call "pi".  In part that was the way people wrote in
those days, but more important was the fact that in his days at the Red
River Settlement, in the wilds of Canada, he had been a little
dissolute, and he did not want his young readers to be unmindful of how
they ought to behave, as he felt he had been.

Some of his books were quite short, little over 100 pages.  These books
formed a series intended for the children of poorer parents, having less
pocket-money.  These books are particularly well-written and researched,
because he wanted that readership to get the very best possible for
their money.  They were published as six series, three books in each
series.  One of these series is "On the Coast", which includes "Saved by
the Lifeboat".

Re-created as an e-Text by Nick Hodson, October 1998, reviewed February
2003.

________________________________________________________________________

SIX MONTHS AT THE CAPE, LETTERS TO HIS FRIEND PERIWIMKLE, BY R.M.
BALLANTYNE.



LETTER ONE.

"A LIFE ON THE OCEAN WAVE."

South Africa.

Dear Periwinkle,--Since that memorable, not to say miserable, day, when
you and I parted at Saint Katherine's Docks, [see note 1], with the rain
streaming from our respective noses--rendering tears superfluous, if not
impossible--and the noise of preparation for departure damaging the
fervour of our "farewell"--since that day, I have ploughed with my
"adventurous keel" upwards of six thousand miles of the "main," and now
write to you from the wild Karroo of Southern Africa.

The Karroo is not an animal.  It is a spot--at present a lovely spot.  I
am surrounded by--by nature and all her southern abundance.  Mimosa
trees, prickly pears, and aloes remind me that I am not in England.
Ostriches, stalking on the plains, tell that I am in Africa.  It is not
much above thirty years since the last lion was shot in this region,
[see note 2], and the kloofs, or gorges, of the blue mountains that
bound the horizon are, at the present hour, full of "Cape-tigers," wild
deer of different sorts, baboons, monkeys, and--but hold!  I must not
forestall.  Let me begin at the beginning.

The adventurous keel above referred to was not, as you know, my own
private property.  I shared it with some two hundred or so of human
beings, and a large assortment of the lower animals.  Its name was the
"Windsor Castle"--one of a magnificent line of ocean steamers belonging
to an enterprising British firm.

There is something appallingly disagreeable in leave-taking.  I do not
refer now to the sentiment, but to the manner of it.  Neither do I hint,
my dear fellow, at _your_ manner of leave-taking.  Your abrupt "Well,
old boy, _bon voyage_, good-bye, bless you," followed by your prompt
retirement from the scene, was perfect in its way, and left nothing to
be desired; but leave-takings in general--how different!

Have you never stood on a railway platform to watch the starting of an
express?

Of course you have, and you have seen the moist faces of those two young
sisters, who had come to "see off" that dear old aunt, who had been more
than a mother to them since that day, long ago, when they were left
orphans, and who was leaving them for a few months, for the first time
for many years; and you have observed how, after kissing and weeping on
her for the fiftieth time, they were forcibly separated by the
exasperated guard; and the old lady was firmly, yet gently thrust into
her carriage, and the door savagely locked with one hand, while the
silver whistle was viciously clapt to the lips with the other, and the
last "goo-ood--bye--d-arling!" was drowned by a shriek, and puff and
clank, as the train rolled off.

You've seen it all, have you not, over and over again, in every degree
and modification? 