On our way from Montague to Swellendam, where was to be our next short sojourn, our Cape cart broke down. The axle gave way, and we were left upon the road;--or should have been left, some fifteen miles from Montague in one direction and the same distance from Swellendam in the other, had not the accident happened within sight of a farm house. As farm houses occur about once in every six or seven miles, this was a blessing; and was felt so very strongly when a young Dutch farmer came at once to our rescue with another cart. “I might as well take it,” he said with a smile when we offered him half a sovereign, “but you’d have had the cart all the same without it.” This was certainly true as we were already taking our seats when the money was produced. I am bound to say that I was never refused anything which I asked of a Dutchman in South Africa. I must remark also that often as I broke down on my travels,--and I did break down very often and sometimes in circumstances that were by no means promising,--there always came a Deus ex machina for my immediate relief. A generous Dutchman would lend me a horse or a cart;--or a needy Englishman would appear with an animal to sell when the getting of a horse under any circumstances had begun to appear impossible. On one occasion a jibbing brute fell as he was endeavouring to kick everything to pieces, and nearly cut his leg in two;--but a kindhearted colonist appeared immediately on the scene, with a very pretty girl in his cart, and took me on to my destination. And yet one often travels hour after hour, throughout the whole day, without meeting a fellow traveller. Swellendam is such another village as The Paarl, equally enticing, equally full of oaks, though not equally long. From end to end it is but three miles, while The Paarl measures eight. But the mountains at Swellendam are finer than the mountains at The Paarl, and with the exception of those immediately over George, are the loveliest which I saw in the Colony. Swellendam is close under the Langeberg range,--so near that the kloofs or wild ravines in the mountains can be reached by an easy walk. They are very wild and picturesque, being thickly wooded, but so deep that from a little distance the wood can hardly be seen. Here at the foot of the hills were exquisite sites for country houses,--to be built, perhaps, by the future coloured millionaires of South Africa,--with grand opportunities for semi-tropical gardens, if only the water from the mountains could be used. Oranges, grapes, and bananas grow with the greatest profusion wherever water has been “led on.” And yet it seems that the district is the very country for oaks. I had found more oaks during this last little tour through a portion of the Western Province of the Cape Colony than I have ever seen during the same time in England.