But the man, with more than colonial alacrity, and with a courage worthy of a better cause, made a successful rush, and catching the back of the vehicle with one hand got on to the step behind, while he held on to the fish with his other hand and his teeth. There were many exclamations from the folks behind. The savour of the fish was unpleasant in their nostrils. It must have been very unpleasant as it reached us uncomfortably up on the box. Gradually the man got in,--and the fish followed him! Labor omnia vincit improbus. By his pertinacity the company seemed to become reconciled to the abomination. On looking round when we were yet many miles from Pieter Maritzburg I saw the gentleman sitting with his feet dangling back over the end of the car; his neighbour and vis-a-vis, who at first had been very loud against the fish, was sitting in the same wretched position; while the fish itself was placed upright in the place of honour against the door, where the legs of the two passengers ought to have been. Before we reached our journey’s end I respected the gentleman with the fish,--who nevertheless had perpetrated a great injustice; but I thought very little of the good-natured man who had allowed the fish to occupy the space intended for a part of his own body. I never afterwards learned what became of the fish. If all Maritzburg was called together to eat it I was not asked to join the party. I must not complete my record of the journey without saying that we dined at Pinetown, half way, and that I never saw a better coach dinner put upon a table. The scenery throughout from Durban to Pieter Maritzburg is interesting and in some places is very beautiful. The road passes over the ridge of hills which guards the interior from the sea, and in many places from its altitude allows the traveller to look down on the tops of smaller hills grouped fantastically below, lying as though they had been crumbled down from a giant’s hand. And every now and then are seen those flat-topped mountains,--such as is the Table mountain over Capetown,--which form so remarkable a feature in South African scenery, and occur so often as to indicate some peculiar cause for their formation. Altogether what with the scenery, the dinner, Apollo, and the fish, the journey was very interesting. CHAPTER XVI. CONDITION OF THE COLONY.--NO. 2.