appliances of modern days The steam plough and threshing machine, the improved rakes, and all the varied mechanical machinery in general use in far older countries are here to be found This is especially so, in the case of a very large farm belonging to Mr. Eaton. I asked the question with impetuous vehemence, why with so much waste land lying around these central farms, more was not brought under cultivation? The same old provoking answer greeted my ear-absence of labour and capital. Mr. Howard, the agricultural implement maker, when in South Africa, on a visit to his sons who own extensive farms near Malmesbury, expressed great surprise at the slow rate of progress with which agricultural pursuits had been blessed in the Colony. He is not the only visitor, sophisticated or otherwise in such matters, who has experienced and expressed this surprise.

As to the journey itself, it yielded but a poor return to the lover of the picturesque, the country traversed being flat and for the most part uninteresting. After passing the Koelberg Hills the wandering eye has nothing upon which it may rest excepting alone, the long chain of the Drackenstein Mountains which draw out their lengthened being on the right of the road.

I was considerably amused at the mixed character of the copper coinage which I found in my pocket upon arriving at Malmesbury. At the wayside inns and toll gates the change dispensed is made up of old tokens, Georgian pence, and an olla podrida of mouldy coins, which in this country the less scrupulous youth reserve to set in motion the mechanical peep shows with which various fairs and exhibitions are favoured. I suppose these derelict pence have reverted to South Africa, much in the same way as have not a few derelict citizens, on the principle in either case, that anything is good enough for the Colonies. As to these waifs and strays of humanity, who are cast upon these shores, from time to time, many of them degenerate into waggon drivers and transport riders, at which pursuits they earn considerable sums of money. But the tastes which have often been their ruin by no means desert them in their fallen condition.

Some little way outside of Malmesbury we pulled up at a desolate looking inn, yclept the "Welcome Inn "—

"Far in a wilderness obscure

The lonely mansion lay;

A refuge to the neighb'ring poor,

And strangers led astray."

In prowling about the purlieus of the bar, I noticed a room entirely given over to champagne bottles. "For what purpose," I asked,

can a miserable little inn like this want all that champagne? I should imagine that the boss of this shanty only pounces upon the man afflicted with the depraved taste for 'phiz' once in a blue moon." A general laugh rebuked my innocence. "Why, man," said an old colonist, who was of our party, "the transport riders will make short shift of that lot, many months before your growing beard, assumes the full extent of its fair dimensions." "And what," I added, "do these gentlemen consent to pay for the indulgence of their extravagant tastes?" "Half-a-guinea a bottle. at the least, and probably more," I was informed.

This little narrative my perhaps be pardoned as "pointing a moral," if not "adorning a tale". It contains within itself food for very serious reflection. My confusion was subsequently twice confounded, when I learnt that on the Diamond Fields, and elsewhere, the diggers drink champagne (wine passing muster for the best brands too) out of pewter pots.

We arrived at Malmesbury, as I have already indicated, weary and sore, not footsore, to be sure, but sore nevertheless. We had come over to attend a ball, but I and another positively refused to have anything whatsoever to do with it. After a substantial meal I was only too glad to get to bed. It was rather trying, however, to be awakened during the small hours of the morning by the loud knocks at the door of the returning revellers, who had forgotten to take the key with them. Notwithstanding, I was up betimes the next morning investigating the mysteries of the strange little town.

CHAPTER XV.

MALMESBURY.

"THE SHELTERED COT-THE CULTIVATED FARM."

"The sylvan slopes with corn-clad fields

Are hung, as if with golden shields,

Bright trophies of the sun."

-Wordsworth.

"Let husky wheat the haughs adorn,

And aits set up their awnie horn."

-Burns.

THE chief institution of Malmesbury is its hot-spring baths. These hot springs are met with in various parts of South Africa, and are considered to possess considerable curative properties. At Malmesbury there is a women's invalid bath, and the same accommodation is provided for invalided men. There is also a swimming bath. The building which covers in these important and well-arranged adjuncts to health is constructed in a very tasteful manner. The originator and proprietor of this establishment, M. de Lethe Barras, is a medical man in practice at Malmesbury. The hot spring oozes forth from marshy, muddy soil. It will, therefore, be readily understood that before the building could be erected, considerable expense and trouble had necessarily to be borne. Like Amsterdam, it is built on piles. These piles are about 27 feet long, and they are cut out of hard, firm fir trees. After they have been driven to a certain depth, they have to pass through solid masses of magnesia formed by the constant subsidence of a white precipitate from the spring. These blocks had to be bored, of course, before the piles could be driven into them. The temperature of the water is 89 degrees. It is impregnated with iron, sulphuretted hydrogen, and magnesia. The wood-work and paint

throughout the structure which forms the baths is blackened and corroded by the action of the sulphur, so that constant renovation is necessary. Persons suffering from cutaneous, rheumatic, or liver complaints, receive great benefit from a course of bathing, and, in fact, many cures have been effected by this spring. I ventured to suggest to Dr. Barras that he might have prepared similar baths by the more simple expedient of bringing together identical ingredients in like proportions, and thus spared all the labour and trouble of pile-driving and so on. The doctor met my objection--which I have no doubt he considered to be very childlike in the courteous manner of the race to which he belonged. "In a case like this, Nature must do her own work," he said. "Nature's counterfeit is not nature. A glass of wine chemically prepared is but a poor thing." There was no answer to the logic of this view of the matter.

In the Cape Colony the convicts are employed in useful work, and they are made to assist in the support of the state, instead of being a burthen to the community as they are in England. They are employed in quarrying, road-making, and engineering, everywhere. We watched them at work here, embanking the river with random blocks. Theoretical objections to convict labour, have no weight in a country where labour of all kinds is in such earnest request. That this should be so, may appear a curious anomaly in a land teeming with aborigines. I hope to throw some light on this strange fact when I address myself to the consideration of the labour and native questions.

On our return journey we made some considerable stay at Durban, a pretty village some ten miles from Cape Town, where the Cape hounds meet, and where waggon builders much do congregate. The population of Durban is about 800 souls. The importance of the place and of Malmesbury, are not entirely owing to the neighbouring wheat fields. Horses and cattle are reared in the immediate district, and there are some lucrative salt pans not far off.

On the whole, from what I saw and heard in South Africa, I am inclined to take a somewhat hopeful view of the future of agriculture there. It may be a long time before South Africa

FOR AND AGAINST.

119

shall become an agricultural country, but I cannot admit that it is on the cards, that she never shall achieve that distinction. Before she can hope to do so, much remains to be done, as I have already hinted, and hope to further elaborate in subsequent chapters. I look to the northern portions of South Africa, towards the Zambesi, to become the granary of all the southern parts of the continent, but nevertheless, we need not go further north than the Transvaal and Orange Free State to discover symptoms favourable to the agrestic future of South Africa, and not to go outside the boundaries of the old colony itself, if we cast our eye towards a very promising though somewhat recently annexed portion thereof to wit, British Kaffraria-we find in that favoured land hundreds of families earning a respectable livelihood from agricultural pursuits alone. English farmers are attached to their native soil. They are incredulous and conservative, and even in times of great depression, and I may add, of distress, the glowing and by all accounts truthful descriptions of Manitoba's wealth and capabilities, scarcely suffice to lure them from home.

For all that, there is plenty of room for small farmers with families, who cannot get on in England, in certain parts of South Africa. They would do well to go there for they would not only benefit themselves, but the colonies and England to boot. In this country, despite the ravings of the peasant proprietorship advocates, the tendency must inevitably be in the direction of the creation of larger and larger farms from year to year. I allude, of course, to the immediate future only. A time may come, when should a complete change take place in our system of land tenure, things will be different. Other things being equal, however, we cannot look for any realisation of the dreams of the small holdings party. I need not meander further into the tortuous paths of controversy I see before me, in this connection, but will return to the colonies. Who can doubt that the creation of a large farming community there, "a proud peasantry, a nation's pride," would be the salvation of the country? I am free to confess, however, that taking the broadest view of the matter possible, wheat growing has not been a great success up to date. As to the wheat itself, countless unpleasant contin