Mr. Cecil Rhodes was here for a few days, and we went to supper with him one Sunday evening. He is generally supposed to dislike ladies; but if that is true, he does not show it. There were not many there, and I sat next to him at supper. I believe it was a very good supper; but the conversation was so interesting (all about South Africa and South Africans) I couldn't attend to it, and I went home hungry, and had to have a private snack before I went to bed. The morning after the Governor arrived we received an invitation to dine at Government House that evening; and it was rather awkward, as we had a dinner party here. But P. and Mr. ---- went off to call and explain matters, and we were excused. They gave two huge garden parties, which we attended, and I enjoyed them very much--both the Governor and lady so very pleasant and friendly. Another day they were the guests of De Beers, and we also were invited; so we saw all the process of diamond-mining under very comfortable circumstances: the blue stone as it was brought up from the mines in little trucks and laid out in the sun (surrounded by barbed-wire fences) to pulverize, then collected and crushed and washed; and then we went into the sorting-shed, and were given trowels to sort with, and I found four nice diamonds in ten minutes, and should like to have kept them! then to the packing-room, and saw _such_ diamonds, bags and bags of them. Afterwards we drove out to Kenilworth, the model village, all planned by Mr. Cecil Rhodes for the De Beers' men. Such nice little houses, with water laid on, and every convenience; a good garden to each house; a school and a club-house; a recreation ground; and then miles of fruit-trees--grapes, peaches, apricots, &c.--that Mr. Rhodes has planted and has had carefully irrigated. One could hardly believe it was so near to Kimberley, and Kimberley dust. Every day at the Exhibition there was a good band playing, and every evening some fireworks and other entertainments. Cricket matches--played on a pitch of cocoanut matting--tennis tournaments, &c., were the order of the day; so that now, when the Governor and other visitors have returned to the Cape, and the Exhibition is closed, you can understand that Kimberley seems a little flat, and I am much looking forward to a run down to the Cape next month by way of a change. IX KENILWORTH, NR. CAPE TOWN, _January 1893_. Here we are, amidst lovely greenery and flowers, with the turtle-doves cooing in the garden, and with the very blue sea on one side and grand old Table Mountain towering above us on the other. Kimberley was really a very warm place before we left it. We had had several bad dust-storms, when you shut up all the doors and windows, and still the dust comes through, and settles in inches on the furniture, and everything you touch or taste is dusty.