Quixotic? Yes, I suppose so. Unworthy the nineteenth century? No! I think the nineteenth century is unworthy of such Quixotism. Such an act is only worthy of the time of knight errantry, when men acted only for the honour of the thing, and every deed was not valued in £ s. d. But then Steve lived in that time in a sense--in a shell; his shell was composed of books, in which such creeds are still taught and tolerated, even though they are derided and laughed down in actual life--that is, in ultra-civilised life, which really means ‘live for self, and self only; nothing for nothing, and everything for _gold_.’ But Steve was unacquainted with this creed as yet; let us hope that he will never become the slave of such a creed. CHAPTER XVIII PRETORIA AND ITS LIFE The writer of this has never admired the works of Rider Haggard; they are too untrue--untrue to Nature and the probabilities of life, and certainly untrue to facts, which are grossly exaggerated. But even in winter a strayed swallow is seen in our country. On the barest plain a tree is met occasionally, and in Haggard’s work I once came across something with which I can cordially agree. It is long ago since I read it, but it so surprised me that I have always remembered it. Yet it is so long since I read it that I am not quite sure in which of his works I saw it; but if I am not mistaken the thing is in _Jess_. The passage I refer to is where he says that Pretoria is the prettiest town in South Africa; and if Haggard thought so in the days when he knew Pretoria, when the streets were swamps, covered with grass, and it was a danger to venture out of doors after dark for fear of breaking a limb in some concealed hole, when no better building--or hardly better--than the house which Jess inhabited existed in the town, what must we say of it now, when the streets have been rebuilt (more or less), when beautiful buildings--the best and grandest in South Africa--have been raised; merchant princes have erected palaces, beautiful stores rival European houses, and Government has covered a block of ground with a pile of buildings of which even Pretoria can be proud. Even Nature herself has been improved upon, if I may be allowed to say so. Plantations of trees have been planted, where formerly bare plots of ground existed, beautifully laid out ornamental and flower gardens enchant the vision. A block of tares, which grew only a crop of grass formerly, is now laid out in a beautiful park, worthy the name, with a large fish pond in the centre, and even a substantially built bandstand has been added lately. All in all, Pretoria more than deserves the name so often applied to it, ‘Pretty Pretoria’; it really deserves to be called beautiful Pretoria.