Many of them after a short compulsory service find a better employment elsewhere, and their places are filled up by new comers. From King Williamstown I went to East London by railway and there waited till the ship came which was to take me on to Natal. East London is another of those ports which stubborn Nature seems to have made unfit for shipping, but which energy and enterprise are determined to convert to good purposes. As Grahamstown believes in Port Alfred, so does King Williamstown believe in East London, feeling sure that the day will come when no other harbour along the coast will venture to name itself in comparison with her. And East London has as firm a belief in herself, with a trustworthy reliance on a future day when the commerce of nations will ride in safety within her at present ill-omened bar. I had heard much of East London and had been warned that I might find it impossible to get on board the steamer even when she was lying in the roads. At Port Elizabeth it had been suggested to me that I might very probably have to come back there because no boat at East London would venture to take me out. The same thing was repeated to me along my route, and even at King Williamstown. But not the less on that account, when I found myself in British Kafraria of which East London is the port, was I assured of all that East London would hereafter perform. No doubt there was a perilous bar. The existence of the bar was freely admitted. No doubt the sweep of the sea in upon the mouth of the Buffalo river was of such a nature as to make all intercourse between ships and the shore both difficult and disagreeable. No doubt the coast was so subject to shipwreck as to have caused the insurance on ships to East London to be abnormally high. All these evils were acknowledged, but all these evils would assuredly be conquered by energy, skill, and money. It was thus that East London was spoken of by the friends who took me there in order that I might see the works which were being carried on with the view of overcoming Nature.