We went for the
same rides he used to take. The view was as glorious as ever, the
animals were flourishing and increasing in numbers, the old lions gazed
placidly down from their roomy cage on a ledge of Table Mountain, the
peacocks screamed and plumed themselves, and the herd of zebras grazed
in picturesque glades. Nothing was changed there to outward appearances,
and one had to go farther afield to see evidences of the dismay caused
by the pillar being abruptly broken off. Cape Town itself, I soon noted,
was altered by the war almost beyond recognition. From the dull and
uninteresting seaport town I remembered it when we came there in 1895,
it seemed, seven years later, one of the busiest cities imaginable, with
the most enormous street traffic. The pavements were thronged, the shops
were crowded, and numerous were the smart, khaki-clad figures, bronzed
and bearded, that were to be seen on all sides. The Mount Nelson Hotel,
which had been opened just before the war, was crowded with them--some
very youthful, who had early acquired manhood and selfreliance in a
foreign land; others grey-headed, with rows of medal ribbons, dimmed in
colour from exposure to all weathers, whose names were strangely
familiar as recording heroic achievements.
At that time Sir Gordon Sprigg, of the Progressive Party, was in power
and Prime Minister; but he was only kept in office by the Bond, who made
the Ministers more or less ridiculous in the eyes of the country by
causing them to dance like puppets at their bidding.
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