“There had been some delay at starting, the tide was ebbing fast, the vessel had been detained to the last safe moment, and she now moved out slowly, and with caution, past a wharf which the Malays, conspicuous in their bright-coloured clothing, had occupied, then, with a flotilla of boats rowing alongside, between a double line of yachts, steam-tugs and boats, dressed out with flags, and dipping their ensigns as she passed, and lastly, under the stern of the Boadicea man-of-war, whose yards were manned, and whose crew cheered.  The guns of the castle fired the last salute from the shore, which was answered by the guns of the Boadicea; and in the still bright evening the smoke hung for a brief space like a curtain, hiding the shores of the bay from the vessel.  A puff of air from the south-east cleared it away, and showed once more in the sunset light the flat mass of Table Mountain, the “Lion’s Head” to its right, festooned with flags, the mountain slopes dotted over with groups thickening to a continuous broad black line of people, extending along the water’s edge from the central jetty to the breakwater basin.  The vessel’s speed increased, the light faded, and the night fell on the last, the most glorious, and yet the saddest day of Sir Bartle Frere’s forty-five years’ service of his Queen and country.

“For intensity of feeling and unanimity it would be hard in our time to find a parallel to this demonstration of enthusiasm for a public servant.  The Cape Town people are by race and habit the reverse of demonstrative; yet it was noticed that day, as it had been noticed when Frere left Sattara (India) thirty years before, and again when he left Sind twenty-one years before—­a sight almost unknown amongst men of English or German race in our day—­that men looking on were unable to restrain their tears.  At Sattara and in Sind the regret at losing him was softened by the knowledge that his departure was due to a recognition of his merit; that he was being promoted in a service in which his influence might some day extend with heightened power to the country he was leaving.  It was far otherwise when he left the Cape.  On that occasion the regret of the colonists was mingled with indignation, and embittered with a sense of wrong."[28]

The writer just quoted makes the following remarks:—­

“No one who has not associated with colonists in their homes can rightly enter into the mixed feelings with which they regard the mother country.  As with a son who is gone forth into the world, there is often on one side the conceit of youth and impatience of restraint, shown in uncalled for acts of self-assertion or in dogmatic speech; and on the other side a supercilious want of sympathy with the changed surroundings, the pursuits and the aspirations of the younger generation.  It seems as if there were no bond left between the two.  But a day of trial comes; parent or offspring is threatened by a stranger; and then it is seen that the old instinct and yearnings are not dead, but only latent.  The mother country had hitherto not been forgetful of its natural obligations to its South African offspring.”