Port Elizabeth, as I walked away from the quay up to the club where I took up my residence, seemed to be as clean, as straight, and as regular as a first class American little town in the State of Maine. All the world was out on a holyday. It was the birthday of the Duke of Edinburgh, and the Port-Elizabethians observed it with a loyalty of which we know nothing in England. Flags were flying about the ships in the harbour and every shop was closed in the town. I went up all alone with my baggage to the club, and felt very desolate. But everybody I met was civil, and I found a bedroom ready for me such as would be an Elysium, in vain to be sought for in a first class London hotel. My comfort, I own, was a little impaired by knowing that I had turned a hospitable South African out of his own tenement. On that first day I was very solitary, as all the world was away doing honour somewhere to the Duke of Edinburgh. In the evening I went out, still alone, for a walk and, without a guide, found my way to the public park and the public gardens. I cannot say that they are perfect in horticultural beauty and in surroundings, but they are spacious, with ample room for improvement, well arranged as far as they are arranged, and with a promise of being very superior to anything of the kind at Capetown. The air was as sweet, I think, as any that I ever breathed. Through them I went on, leaving the town between me and the sea, on to a grassy illimitable heath on which, I told myself, that with perseverance I might walk on till I came to Grand Cairo. I had my stick in my hand and was prepared for any lion that I might meet. But on this occasion I met no lion. After a while I found myself descending into a valley,--a pretty little green valley altogether out of sight of the town, and which as I was wending along seemed at first to be an interruption in my way to the centre of the continent. But as I approached the verge from which I could look down into its bosom, I heard the sound of voices, and when I had reached a rock which hung over it, I saw beneath me a ring, as it might be of fairy folk, in full glee,--of folk, fairy or human, running hither and thither with extreme merriment and joy. After standing awhile and gazing I perceived that the young people of Port Elizabeth were playing kiss-in-the-ring. Oh,--how long ago it was since I played kiss-in-the-ring, and how nice I used to think it! It was many many years since I had even seen the game. And these young people played it with an energy and an ecstasy which I had never seen equalled. I walked down, almost amongst them, but no one noticed me. I felt among them like Rip Van Winkle. I was as a ghost, for they seemed not even to see me. How the girls ran, and could always have escaped from the lads had they listed, but always were caught round some corner out of the circle! And how awkward the lads were in kissing, and how clever the girls in taking