tender haunches and juicy saddles, the fine and profitable wool yielded by the remnant of these afflicted flocks! But touching the mutton he is mute; and as regards the produce of the fleeces, he pledges himself that, under the most favourable circumstances, they never yield more than four per cent on the value of the flock--a small enough remuneration, as it appears to us, unlearned, we confess, in ways of woollen. But we have not yet got to the worst of the story. Supposing a farmer fortunate, and that his flocks escape the multifarious evils above enumerated--that they are spared by the lightning's blast, the big hailstones, the inflammatory epidemic, and all the rest of it. Not upon that account may he rub his hands in jubilation, and reckon upon a good clip and high prices. He gets up one morning and finds his sheep converted into goats, or something little better. "Woolled sheep have a natural tendency to deterioration in this climate; and in a few generations, notwithstanding the greatest care, the wool begins to show a tendency to assimilate itself to the hairy nature of the coat, which, is the natural covering of the indigenous animal." So that, upon the whole, Mr Nicholson inclines to prefer goats to sheep, as stock, if properly attended to, and the utmost possible numbers kept. The profit is made out of the skin, fat, and flesh, and "those carcasses not required for food, might be boiled down for tallow." He perhaps overlooks, in this calculation, "the scarcity and bad quality of the fuel, composed of the dung dug out of the sheep pens, and stacked for the purpose." The present system, however, evidently does not answer, judging from his statement that there is not "one sheep-farmer in the Eastern Province (depending on the profits of his farm) who is either contented with the results of his farming, or is not grievously indebted to his storekeeper, except among the old-established and primitive Dutch families, who spend no money in manufactures, and have but little to spend, had they the habit." Is it unfair to argue, from this paragraph, the absence, on the part of the English colonists, of that frugal simplicity of living essential in a new country? A man settling in a country like the Cape, should be prepared to resign not only luxuries, but many things which in Europe are deemed positive necessaries of life, but which, in the forest and prairie, may well be dispensed with. We infer, from certain passages in Mr Nicholson's book, that he and his fellow-colonists were rather above their position, too addicted to the comforts of England to submit to the privations of Africa, and that they augmented their expenses by procuring alleviations which their primitive Dutch neighbours cheerfully dispensed with. The Dutchmen, Mr Nicholson tells us, spend no money in manufactures. Then the English settlers' wives were evidently quite out of their element in the bush, or as occupants of houses mud-floored and roofed with reeds.