Lady Barker made an interesting excursion of over one hundred miles into the Bush, where she saw real savage Kaffir life, splendid forest scenes, and came on traces of the wild animals, which are being rapidly exterminated. With one forest picture we regretfully take leave of this interesting volume: ‘The tall stately trees around, with their smooth magnificent boles, shoot up straight as a willow wand for sixty feet and more before putting forth their crown of leafy branches; the more diminutive undergrowth of gracefulest shrubs and plumy tufts of fern and lovely wild-flowers, violets, clematis, wood anemones, and hepaticas, shewing here and there a modest gleam of colour. But indeed the very mosses and lichens at our feet are a week’s study, and so are the details of the delicate green tracery creeping close to the ground. Up above our heads the foliage is interlaced and woven together by a perfect network of “monkey-ropes,” a stout and sturdy species of liane, which are used by the troops of baboons which live in those great woods, coming down in armies when the mealies are ripe, and carrying off the cobs by armfuls.’ It is spring-tide (September) when Lady Barker lays down her pen; soon, we hope, to resume it, and tell us of the growth of the colony. ‘Everything is bursting hurriedly and luxuriantly into bloom. The young oaks are a mass of tender green, and even the unpoetical blue gums try hard to assume a fresh spring tint. The fruit-trees look like large bouquets of pink blossom, and the loquot trees afford good sport in climbing and stone-throwing amid their cluster of yellow plums. On the _veldt_ the lilies are pushing up their green sheaths and white or scarlet cups through the yet hard ground, and the black hill-slopes are turning a vivid green, and the flowers are springing up in millions all over my field like flower-beds. Spring is always lovely everywhere, but nowhere is it lovelier than in fair Natal.’ A PERILOUS POSITION. IN TWO CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER I. ‘Now, look here, Fred; you’ve exactly an hour and a half to get back in,’ said Mr Middleton after luncheon. ‘I shall be at the mill by three precisely. Are you sure you can manage it?’ ‘Oh, quite certain of it, sir,’ was my confident reply. ‘Why, I could go to M—— and back within the hour, easy riding. I’ll not keep you waiting, depend upon it.’ So saying, I vaulted the low sill of a window which stood wide open, and approached a couple who were strolling upon the lawn in front of Holm Court, the aristocratic-looking dwelling I had quitted.