The red soil is very destructive to clothing, but it adds to the beauty of the landscape. ‘Green things,’ says the author, describing a Natal garden, ‘which we are accustomed to see in England in small pots, shoot up here to the height of laurel bushes. In shady places grow many varieties of fern and blue hydrangea, and verbena of every shade flourish. But the great feature of this garden is roses, of at least a hundred different sorts, which grow untrained, unpruned, in enormous bushes covered by magnificent blossoms; each bloom of which would win the prize at a rose-show. Red roses, white roses, tea roses, blush roses, moss roses, and the clear old-fashioned cabbage rose, sweetest and most sturdy of all; there they are at every turn—hedges of them, screens of them, and giant bushes of them on either hand.’ Add to this a bright swift brook trickling through the garden, the constant sweet song of the Cape canary, and crowds of large butterflies of ‘all glorious hues,’ which are quite fearless and familiar, perching on the flowers and on the walks, and one gets a delightful notion of a Natal garden. This is, however, the bright side of the picture of life in our South African colony; its practical aspects are less enticing, though the drawbacks are chiefly such as will be removed in most cases, and modified in all, when railway traffic shall be established in the country; a devoutly-to-be-wished consummation, not very distant. At present, we are told, the necessaries of life are very expensive and difficult to procure; the importation of English servants is almost always a failure; and the Kaffirs, though they have many good qualities, are difficult to teach, very lazy, and given to starting off to their native kraals for an improvised holiday of uncertain duration, without the smallest regard to domestic exigences or the convenience of their employers.