After visiting one of the washing mills and being driven about the town we returned to Port Elizabeth to dine. Starting from Port Elizabeth I had to commence the perils of South African travel. These I was well aware would not come from lions, buffaloes, or hippopotamuses,--nor even, to such a traveller as myself, from Kafirs or Zulus,--but simply from the length, the roughness and the dustiness of roads. I had been told before I left England that a man of my age ought not to make the attempt because the roads were so long, so rough,--and so dusty. In travelling round the coast there is nothing to be dreaded. The discomforts are simply of a marine nature, and may easily be borne by an old traveller. The terrible question of luggage does not disturb his mind. He may carry what he pleases and revel in clean shirts. But when he leaves the sea in South Africa every ounce has to be calculated. When I was told at Capetown that on going up from Natal to the Transvaal I should be charged 4s. extra for every pound I carried above fifteen I at once made up my mind to leave my bullock trunk at Government House. At Port Elizabeth a gentleman was very kind in planning my journey for me thence up to Grahamstown, King Williamstown &c.,--but, on coming into my bed room, he strongly recommended me to leave my portmanteau and dispatch box behind me, to be taken on, somewhither, by water, and to trust myself to two bags. So I tied on addresses to the tabooed receptacles of my remaining comforts, and started on my way with a very limited supply of wearing apparel. In the selection which one is driven to make with an agonized mind,--when the bag has been stamped full to repletion with shirts, boots, and the blue books which are sure to be accumulated for the sake of statistics, the first thing to be rejected is one’s dress suit. A man can live without a black coat, waistcoat, and trousers. But so great is colonial hospitality wherever the traveller goes, and so similar are colonial habits to those at home, that there will always come a time,--there will come many times,--in which the traveller will feel that he has left behind him the very articles which he most needed, and that the blue books should have been made to give way to decent raiment. These are difficulties which at periods become almost heartbreaking. Nevertheless I made the decision and rejected the dress suit. And I trusted myself to two pair of boots. And I allowed my treasures to be taken from me, with a hope that I might see them again some day in the further Colony of Natal.