When Cape Town was reached, it was customary to fire two guns as an announcement that the English mail had arrived. These were answered by two fired from the castle, for in those days this was an event. Upon this particular occasion we carried out the news of the outbreak of the Franco-German War. This, however, did not seem to greatly interest our visiting officials, who were then full of the discovery of the diamond fields, and it may be said that we on our side did not realise the vast importance of this new discovery. There was no cable in those days, and the near interior of South Africa was an unexplored country. We landed our Natal passengers, who were sent up the coast in a smaller vessel called the _Natal_, and said good-bye with regret to one of the best of fellows, a sugar-planter called Tom Milner, whose memory is still green to old Natalians. Cape Town docks were at that time open for sailing-ships and small vessels, but we discharged our cargo in Table Bay to sailing lighters. Little more than the commencement of the present magnificent breakwater had been made, and it was not an infrequent occurrence for vessels to drive on shore when it blew hard from the north-west. The Table Bay boatmen were very splendid seamen. In the worst weather a well-fitted anchor boat would keep the sea, and if a vessel was driving, or had parted her cable, they were very clever at passing on board the end of a big coir cable, the other end of which was fast to an anchor they had let go to windward. Before we left Table Bay, the homeward-bound mail steamer came in--the _Briton_, afterwards H.M.S. _Dromedary_. She looked a small but beautiful little ship, as she came in with yards squared to a nicety, sail covers on, nicely painted, and generally speaking spick and span. She looked thoroughly workmanlike and typical of her captain, by name George Rawlinson Vyvyan, of whom more anon. On a preceding voyage the _Briton_ had lost her propeller and had run into Vigo at the rate of three hundred miles in a day under canvas only, which was plain proof that sail was not carried in those ships for ornament only. In due course we completed our trip to Algoa Bay, discharged our cargo and loaded wool for home, calling at Table Bay on the way back to fill up with cargo and passengers. We had amongst our passengers one very accomplished man named Woollaston, who took great pains both to teach me écarté and indicate the sort of reading that would be useful to me; I retain grateful memories of him. On the passage home the S.E. trades blew strongly. The _Roman_ on that voyage had a two-bladed propeller; this we fixed up and down when the engines were stopped, and for two days we ran over ten knots with no steam at all. As that was well over contract speed it was thought desirable to save coal, but the pursuance of that policy brought about the opposition which in time absorbed the original line of mail steamers.