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6
Satyagraha in South Africa

fertile country, and it may be said that almost all the vegetables of India are grown there by Indians with a palate for home delicacies.

Cattle also are bred in considerable numbers. Cows and oxen are better built and stronger than in India. I have been ashamed, and my heart has often bled, to find many cows and oxen in India, which claims to protect the cow, as emaciated as the people themselves. Although I have moved about over all parts of South Africa with open eyes, I do not remember to have seen a single emaciated cow or bull.

Not only has Nature showered her other gifts upon this country, but she has not been stingy in beautifying it with a fine landscape.

The scenery of Durban is considered very beautiful, but that of Cape Town surpasses it. Cape Town is situated at the foot of the Table Mountain which is neither too high nor too low. A gifted lady who dotes on South Africa says in her poem about this mountain that no other gave her such a sense of the unique. There may be exaggeration in this. I think there is. But one of her points struck me as true. She says the Table Mountain stands in the position of a friend to the citizens of Cape Town. Not being too high, it does not inspire awe. People are not compelled to worship it from afar, but build their houses upon it and live there. And as it is just on the seashore, the sea always washes its foot with its clear waters. Young and old, men and women, fearlessly move about the whole mountain, which resounds every day with the voices of thousands. Its tall trees and flowers of fine fragrance and variegated hues impart such a charm to the mountain that one can never see too much of it, or move too much about it.

South Africa cannot boast of such mighty rivers as the Ganga or the Indus. The few that are there are comparatively small. The water of rivers cannot reach many places. No canals can be taken to the highlands. And how can there be canals in the absence of large rivers? Wherever there is a deficiency of surface water in South