The wrath of the cockney housemaid became majestic: ‘There, ma’am; you see how saucy they have grown—a nasty black heathen Mohamedan a blessing of a white Christian!’ These men are the Auvergnats of Africa. I was assured that bankers entrust them with large sums in gold, which they carry some hundred and twenty miles, by unknown tracks, for a small gratuity. The pretty, graceful Malays are no honester than ourselves, but are excellent workmen. To-morrow, my linen will go to a ravine in the giant mountain at my back, and there be scoured in a clear spring by brown women, bleached on the mountain top, and carried back all those long miles on their heads, as it went up. My landlady is Dutch; the waiter is an Africander, half Dutch, half Malay, very handsome, and exactly like a French gentleman, and as civil. Enter ‘Africander’ lad with a nosegay; only one flower that I know—heliotrope. The vegetation is lovely; the freshness of spring and the richness of summer. The leaves on the trees are in all the beauty of spring. Mrs. R— brought me a plate of oranges, ‘just gathered’, as soon as I entered the house—and, oh! how good they were! better even than the Maltese. They are going out, and _dear_ now—two a penny, very large and delicious. I am wild to get out and see the glorious scenery and the hideous people. To-day the wind has been a cold south-wester, and I have not been out. My windows look N. and E. so I get all the sun and warmth. The beauty of Table Bay is astounding. Fancy the Undercliff in the Isle of Wight magnified a hundred-fold, with clouds floating halfway up the mountain. The Hottentot mountains in the distance have a fantastic jagged outline, which hardly looks real. The town is like those in the south of Europe; flat roofs, and all unfinished; roads are simply non-existent. At the doors sat brown women with black hair that shone like metal, very handsome; they are Malays, and their men wear conical hats a-top of turbans, and are the chief artisans. At the end of the pier sat a Mozambique woman in white drapery and the most majestic attitude, like a Roman matron; her features large and strong and harsh, but fine; and her skin blacker than night. I have got a couple of Cape pigeons (the storm-bird of the South Atlantic) for J—’s hat. They followed us several thousand miles, and were hooked for their pains. The albatrosses did not come within hail.