I should weary my reader were I to tell him of all the civilized institutions,--one by one,--which are in daily use in Capetown. There is a Custom House, and a Sailors’ Home, and there are hospitals, and an observatory,--very notable I believe as being well placed in reference to the Southern hemisphere,--and a Government Herbarium and a lunatic asylum at Robben Island. Of Mr. Stone, the Astronomer Royal and lord of the Observatory, I must say one word in special praise. “Do you care for the stars?” he asked me. In truth I do not care for the stars. I care, I think, only for men and women, and so I told him. “Then,” said he, “I won’t bother you to come to the Observatory. But if you wish to see stars I will show them to you.” I took him at his word and did not then go to the Observatory. This I had said with some fear and trembling as I remembered well the disgust which Agazziz once expressed when I asked permission not to be shown his museum at Cambridge, Massachusetts. But Mr. Stone seemed to understand my deficiency, and if he pitied me he abstained from expressing his pity. Afterwards I did make a special visit to the Observatory,--which is maintained by the imperial Government and not by the Colony,--and was shown all the wonders of the Southern Heavens. They were very beautiful, but I did not understand much about them. There is a comfortable and hospitable club at Capetown, to which, as at all colonial clubs, admission is given to strangers presumed to be of the same social standing as the members. The hour of lunch seems to be the hour of the day at which these institutions are most in request. This is provided in the form of a table d’hôte, as is also a dinner later on in the day. This is less numerously attended, but men of heroic mould are thus enabled to dine twice daily.