Bloemfontein is becoming another Madeira, another Algiers, another Egypt in regard to English sufferers with weak chests and imperfect lungs. It seems to the ignorant as though the doctors were ever seeking in increased distance that relief for their patients which they cannot find in increased skill. But a dry climate is now supposed to be necessary and one that shall be temperate without great heat. This certainly will be found at Bloemfontein, and perhaps more equably so through the entire year than at any other known place. The objection to it is the expense arising from the distance and the great fatigue to patients from the long overland journey. Taking the easiest mode of reaching the capital of the Free State the traveller must be kept going six weary days in a Cobb’s coach, being an average of about thirteen hours a day upon the road. This is gradually and very slowly becoming lightened by the opening of bits of the railway from Fort Elizabeth; but it win be some years probably before the coaching work can be done in less than five days. The road is very rough through the Catberg and Stromberg mountains,--so that he who has made the journey is apt to think that he has done something considerable. All this is so much against an invalid that I doubt whether they who are feeble should be sent here. There can I imagine be no doubt that the air of the place when reached is in the highest degree fit for weak lungs. There is at present a difficulty felt by those who arrive suddenly at Bloemfontein in finding the accommodation they desire. The hotel, as I have said above, is very good; but an hotel must of its nature be expensive and can hardly afford the quiet which is necessary for an invalid. Nor during my sojourn there did I once see a lady sitting at table. There is no reason why she should not do so, but the practice did not seem as yet to have become common. I am led by this to imagine that a house comfortably kept for the use of patients would well repay a medical speculator at Bloemfontein. It should not be called a sanitarium, and should if possible have the name of the doctor’s wife on the brass plate on the door rather than that of the doctor. And the kitchen should be made to do more than the dispensary,--which should be kept a little out of sight. And there should be fiddles and novels and plenty of ribbons. If possible three or four particularly healthy guests should be obtained to diminish the aspect of sickness which might otherwise make the place gloomy. If this could be done, and the coach journey somewhat lightened, then I think that the dry air of Bloemfontein might be made very useful to English sufferers.