The most striking building in Capetown is the Castle, which lies down close to the sea and which was built by the Dutch,--in mud when they first landed, and in stone afterwards, though not probably as we see it now. It is a low edifice, surrounded by a wall and a ditch, and divided within into two courts in which are kept a small number of British troops. The barracks are without, at a small distance from the walls. In architecture it has nothing to be remarked, and as a defence would be now of no avail whatever. It belongs to the imperial Government, who thus still keep a foot on the soil as though to show that as long as British troops are sent to the Cape whether for colonial or imperial purposes, the place is not to be considered free from imperial interference. Round the coast at Simon’s Bay, which is at the back or eastern side of the little promontory which constitutes the Cape of Good Hope, Great Britain possesses a naval station, and this is another imperial possession and supposed to need imperial troops for its defence. And from this possession of a naval station there arises the fiction that for its need the British troops are retained in South Africa when they have been withdrawn from all our other self-governing Colonies. But we have also a station for ships of war at Sydney, and generally a larger floating force there than at Simon’s Bay. But the protection of our ships at Sydney has not been made an excuse for having British troops in New South Wales. I will, however, recur again to this subject of soldiers in the Colony,--which is one that has to be treated with great delicacy in the presence of South African Colonists. There was lately a question of selling the Castle to the Colony,--the price named having been, I was told, something over £60,000. If purchased by the municipality it would I think be pulled down. Thus would be lost the most conspicuous relic of the Dutch Government;--but an ugly and almost useless building would be made to give way to better purposes.