Lady Barker is a practised writer, and a good deal of literary skill is shown in her books of travel, "Station Life in New Zealand" and "A Year's Housekeeping in South Africa." Pleasanter reading one could hardly wish for; the sketches are vivid, and the observations judicious; the style is fluent, and flavoured by a genial and unobtrusive humour. Lady Barker looks at things, of course, with a woman's eye, and this womanliness is one of the charms of her books. She sees so much that no man would ever have seen, and sees it all in a light so different from that in which men would have seen it. To our knowledge of South Africa, Lady Barker has unquestionably made a very real and interesting contribution. She and her husband, who had been appointed to an official position of importance in Natal, arrived at Cape Town in October, 1875, and, after a brief rest, steamed along the coast to the little port of East London. Thence they proceeded to Port Durban, where they disembarked, and, in waggons drawn by mules, jolted over the fifty-two miles that lie between Port Durban and their place of destination, Maritzburg. During her residence there she made good use of her time and opportunities, studying the native ways and usages, sketching Zulus and Kaffirs, interviewing witches and witch-finders, exploring the scenery of the interior, and accomplishing an expedition into the Bush, the result being a book of some 320 pages, in which not one is dull or unreadable. Of her lightness and firmness of touch we can give but one specimen, a sketch of a Kaffir bride:--