The little town--a group of flat-roofed white and yellow houses, with Venetian shutters and wide verandahs--is prettily situated at the foot of a mountain, fringed with bushes. American aloes and cactus form luxuriant hedges round the gardens, and flourish to an immense size; picturesque groups of swarthy Malays, in huge beehive-shaped hats, or red and yellow bandanas, gazed at us from the shore, or pulled alongside, vociferating in Dutch, and offering melons, pumpkins, eggs, and fruit, for sale. Next day we went ashore, while the women and children were being disembarked to remain behind at Cape Town, and the rest of our camp equipage was got on board, and took advantage of the opportunity to make a rapid survey of the immediate neighbourhood, and stretch our legs after nearly two months imprisonment on board ship. As we strolled along the street we were much struck with the skill and ease with which the native Africanders drove their waggons, eight and ten in hand, full trot round the most difficult corners, an assistant wielding an enormous whip with both hands; and during our rambles were delighted to find the most exquisite specimens of our greenhouse _ericas_ wild on the mountain sides. The evening was warm and lovely, and the perfume of the creepers and flowering trees most delicious, as we walked in the bright moonlight; not a sound was heard but the rippling of the waves and the shrill cry of the cicada, and we very reluctantly left the refreshing repose of the quiet shore to go on board again. The following morning, at a signal from the Commodore, we steamed out of the harbour, and shaped our course for Algoa Bay, a run of about three hundred miles, along a wild, and almost uninhabited coast. CHAPTER II. STATE OF THE COUNTRY ON ARRIVAL. On arriving in Simon's Bay our first anxiety, of course, was to learn the latest tidings from the seat of war, which fully confirmed the unfavourable intelligence that had led to our sudden change of destination. The natives were in open rebellion, plundering the frontier farms, attacking post after post, and committing the most deliberate outrages and murders; and all the efforts of Sir Harry Smith to check them were comparatively ineffectual without fresh reinforcements, which he was now anxiously expecting. It was at last but too evident, even to the most sanguine advocates of peace, that all hopes of such a desirable consummation being permanently effected in the colony were at end, so far as depended on any promises or treaties of the faithless Kaffirs. The experiment had been fairly tried again and again, and had as often failed. Never had there been such encouragement to hope for ultimate success as in the decided improvement and progress effected during the few years which had elapsed since the last war, after the conferences of December 24, 1847, and January 7, 1848, at King William's Town.