curious specimens of humanity there. What means, too, persons of birth adopt to gain a livelihood yonder! A connection of my own there, whose father was a colonial governor, is keeping a little store up country, and another relation, who is nearly allied by marriage to a baronet of ancient lineage, and himself a man nursed in the lap of luxury, and of varied culture, is managing a butcher's store. The son of a well-known admiral died in poverty at Pinetown, his last employment being that of a waiter; the nephew of a noble lord is a billiard-marker at

ever.

; the cousin

of a prime minister, a purveyor of bottled beer; the sons of an eminent clergyman, peripatetic loafers; and of the editor of a leading London paper, a third-class actor; a scion of an old Suffolk family, a carpenter, and of another good county family, a Zulu trader; while the Cape Mounted Rifles possess many a sprig of nobility. In fact many persons who were at the top of the social ladder here are scarcely on the first round there, while many of the leading men in the colonies are men of no origin whatsoThese vicissitudes of fortune are, of course, conspicuous in all colonies, and in the United States more so than in British dependencies. Apropos of the United States, there is a trait of the colonial character resembling the American I must not forget to mention that is to say, the unthinking and refreshingly careless manner in which a tourist (American or Africander) will spend his "entire pile" in England or on the Continent before returning to his home, and then trust to Providence to make another. Hope, faith, and courage are here pourtrayed. A little narrative which bears upon the delightfully insouciant attitude of colonists with regard to money matters may not be out of place. A Natalian had occasion to visit the Mauritius. He discovered when on board ship that he had left his portmanteau at his hotel, containing £1,250 in bank notes. Instead of hurriedly returning he sent a policeman for it, but the messenger had not come back when the ship sailed. He merely remarked, "Well, I suppose I have lost my money, but if I have any luck I will soon pick it up again in Mauritius". There are many more colonial idiosyncracies, and in naming a few, I will draw this chapter to a close. These are the hand-shaking, the tossing for drinks, and the illicit diamond-buying

eccentricities.* There are several expressions and words peculiar to the colony. Some, of course, are Dutch, as veldt (grass), kloof (pass). Others are culled from savage vernacular, Then there are the familiar colonialisms. "You bet," "Jump a claim," (Australian), "Swindle for drinks," "So long," and the rest.

But

I must not compile a glossary, nor entrench upon Mr. Hooten's domain.

Curious customs obtain in the Cape Colony, in the matter of public sales and private funerals-or rather public funerals, for all funerals are public at the Cape. The immediate relatives of the deceased are expected to throw open the house from which the funeral takes place to all and every comer. Refreshment of course has to be provided. The same unpleasant necessity attaches to sales. It is said some old Dutch loafers, pretty well live by taking the round at funerals and sales.

Some portions of the foregoing chapters have appeared in the Journal of which I have spoken in the preface to this work, and they have received the most flattering and favourable notice from the leading Cape Journals-the Cape Argus, Natal Mercury, and Times of Natal, &c. I was heartily amused, however, to read an article occupying over two columns of space in a certain Natal journal upon my remarks concerning young Natal. The writer has unconsciously by his style of treatment given powerful testimony to my statements concerning the selfishness and want of breeding observable in too many typical Natalians. For, while he has not refuted a single assertion of mine, he has descended to the grossest personalities conveyed in the poorest jokes concerning my patronymic. Some score of times he alludes to me as "Little Mr. Little," and upon my adjectival appellation he has rung the changes by using all the synonyms at his command-"wee," "diminutive," and so on. Perhaps this undue anger, and this obliviousness of all the canons of gentlemanly behaviour may be owing to the fact that "Little Mr. Little" was considered sufficiently "big" to write the leaders for a Natal paper, the latchet of

If the member for the Diamond Fields is to be believed, seven-tenths of the people on the fields are illicit diamond buyers-that is to say, they purchase stolen diamonds from natives. He stated this in the House the other day.

whose shoes the journal in question is not worthy to fasten. I will be charitable, however, as even the aforesaid organ accords me the place of honour in its leading columns, and thus gives the lie to its own contentions concerning my unimportance.

I have now done for the present with the ethical, polemical, and politico-social aspect of colonial life, and shall proceed to deal with African fields for investment and emigration; with the industries and occupations of the people, and from these subjects, by natural transition, I shall have something to say about the missionaries and the natives, dealing with the various civilised and savage African tribes, and anon with railways, steam-packets, and public buildings; profitable speculations; sports, and adventure; natural features and conformation of the country, rivers, and mountains; health and wealth; provisions; descriptions of journeys up country; comparative analysis of life; governors and public men; first and last impressions; dialects and native folk lore; the future of the country, and numerous topics besides. But from such data as the foregoing chapters contain, prosaic as many of them have been, the poetry of a people is evolved. Baffled hopes and cruel experiences build up our belief and creeds, which poetry, or religion if the term be preferred, sets forth.

CHAPTER IX.

CAPE INDUSTRIES-GENERALLY.

"LE TRAVAIL N'EST PAS UNE PEINE, C'EST UN PLAISIR."

"You cannot escape from anxiety and labour-it is the destiny of humanity."The Earl of Derby.

"Blessed is the man who hath found work, he hath found a life purpose."Thomas Carlyle.

"A SPLENDID Country, sir, and it will one day lick America; but it wants a lot of fencing in." Such is the gist of the answer an Anglo-Africander will give to all and any questions concerning the future of the land of his adoption. The Dutch Africander is somewhat more apathetically disposed towards the issues which are determining the course and development of the wealth and resources of the colonies. The Boer-pure and simple-has no ambition beyond the selfish aims involved in his own individual advancement, and, in fact, is opposed, in his dull, phlegmatic manner, to progress altogether. progress altogether. Progress means good-bye, he faintly perceives, to his isolated and dog-in-the-manger attitude. The up-country Dutch hold much of the land, and this little fact has more to do, than at first sight appears, with the somewhat slow progress these colonies have made in comparison with other dependencies of the British Crown.

There is an outcry all over Africa, which is not dissimilar to the outcry which is making itself more audible, day by day, in this country-Land! land! everywhere, but not an acre to use. It is complained of the Dutch that they are a conservative and nonprogressive race of men. As I have already implied, to the Dutch a very considerable portion of the land belongs. The impatient

colonist of British extraction can ill brook the existence of this barrier as he rightly considers it to be-to the legitimate development and advancement of South Africa. This is yet another symptom of the old race hatred to which I have before alluded, and to which I must often allude again.

There can be no doubt, while it may be granted that the Dutchman has been the true pioneer of civilisation in Africa, that he has an awkward habit of being satisfied with very meagre and unambitious results.

In the first place, he cares not at all about the wellbeing of the native races who may be living in his midst. He desires nothing so much as that they should remain in a condition of bondage, or that being impracticable, he satisfies himself by using all his dead-weight to keep them in a condition as nearly assimilating to it as possible. The nearer the better. The Boer's ordinary life is pastoral, and his system of government is not carried much beyond a family or patriarchal system. He models his life on the primitive pattern described in the Pentateuch as being the life of the early Jews. He considers, moreover, that, having gone into the land to take possession of it, he has a perfect right to the full and unfettered control of all the savages who may be living thereon. He claims undisputed possession of the land, and everything, animal, vegetable, or mineral, which may be upon it, or under it. This being granted him, he rests content; he desires nothing

more.

Of course I am now dealing with the typical Dutch-the old agrarian Boers. The Anglicised Dutch families of Cape Town and elsewhere in the urban districts, from intermarriage and association with the English, have ceased to assimilate to their congeners in anything but in a certain sentimental sympathy. The old Dutch farmers, whether of the Cape Colony, Free State, Natal, or the Transvaal, are, however, to all intents and purposes, unaltered, and unalterable, from their sluggish ancestors.

Men may come, and men may go, but they go on for ever. The momentous changes which the nineteenth century has seen in the social, political, and scientific worlds, have rolled past them, not over them, and they stand aloof, like the rocks in their own