In this journey among the Dutch towns which lie around the capital I missed Stellenbosch, which is, I am told, the most Dutch of them all. As good Americans when dead go to Paris, so do good Dutchmen while still alive go to Stellenbosch,--and more especially good Dutchwomen, for it is a place much affected by widows. The whole of this country is so completely Dutch that an Englishman finds himself to be altogether a foreigner. The coloured people of all shades talk Dutch as their native language. It is hard at first to get over the feeling that a man or woman must be very ignorant who in an English Colony cannot speak English, but the truth is that many of the people are much less ignorant than they are at home with us, as they speak in some fashion both English and Dutch. In the Eastern Province of the Colony, as in the other Colonies and divisions of South Africa, the native speaks some native language,--the Kafir, Zulu, or Bechuana language as the case may be; but in the part of the Western Province of which I am speaking,--that part which the Dutch have long inhabited,--there is no native language left among the coloured people. Dutch has become their language. The South African language from the mouths of Kafirs and Zulus does not strike a stranger as being odd;--but Dutch volubility from Hottentot lips does do so. I must not finish this short record of my journeys in the Western Province of the Cape Colony without repeating the expression of my opinion as to the beauty of the scenery and the special charms of the small towns which I had visited. CHAPTER X. PORT ELIZABETH AND GRAHAMSTOWN. From Capetown I went on by sea to Port Elizabeth or Algoa Bay, thus travelling from the Western to the Eastern Province,--leaving the former when I had as yet seen but little of its resources because it was needful that I should make my tour through Natal and the Transvaal before the rainy season had commenced.[12] The run is one which generally occupies from thirty to forty hours, and was effected by us under the excellent auspices of Captain Travers in something but little in excess of the shorter period. It rained during the whole of our little journey, so that one could not get out upon the deck without a ducking;--which was chiefly remarkable in that on shore every one was complaining of drought and that for many weeks after my first arrival in South Africa this useless rain at sea was the only rain that I saw. Persons well instructed in their geography will know that Algoa Bay and Port Elizabeth signify the same seaport,--as one might say that a ship hailed from the Clyde or from Glasgow. The Union Steam Ship Company sends a first-class steamer once a month from Southampton to Algoa Bay, without touching at Capetown.