More Hardships
The train reached Charlestown in the morning. There was no railway, in those days, between Charlestown and Johannesburg, but only a stagecoach, which halted at Standerton for the night en route. I possessed a ticket for the coach, which was not cancelled by the break of the journey at Maritzburg for a day; besides, Abdulla Sheth had sent a wire to the coach agent at Charlestown.
But the agent only needed a pretext for putting me off, and so, when he discovered me to be a stranger, he said, “Your ticket is cancelled.” I gave him the proper reply. The reason at the back of his mind was not want of accommodation, but quite another. Passengers had to be accommodated inside the coach, but as I was regarded as a “coolie” and looked a stranger, it would be proper, thought the “leader,” as the white man in charge of the coach was called, not to seat me with the white passengers. There were seats on either side of the coachbox. The leader sat on one of these as a rule. Today he sat inside and gave me his seat. I knew it was sheer injustice and an insult, but I thought it better to pocket it. I could not have forced myself inside, and if I had raised a protest, the coach would have gone off without me. This would have meant the loss of another day, and Heaven only knows what would have happened the next day. So, much as I fretted within myself, I prudently sat next the coachman.
At about three o’clock the coach reached Pardekoph. Now the leader desired to sit where I was seated, as he wanted to smoke and possibly to have some fresh air. So he took a piece of dirty sackcloth from the driver, spread it on the footboard and, addressing me, said, “Sami, you sit on this, I want to sit near the driver.” The insult was more than I could bear. In fear and trembling I said to him, “It was you who seated me here,