Pretoria itself, the capital of our new country, is a little town, lying in a basin on a plateau 4,500 feet above the level of the sea,--lat. 25° 45´, S., long. 28° 49´, E. From its latitude it would be considered to be semitropical, but its altitude above the sea is so great as to make the climate temperate. In regard to heat and cold it is very peculiar,--the changes being more rapid and violent than I have experienced in any other place. I was there during the last days of September, which would answer to the last days of March on our side of the equator. The mornings were very fine, but somewhat chilly,--not so as to make a fire desirable but just to give a little sting to the water. The noon-day was hot,--not too hot for exercise; but the heat seemed to increase towards the afternoon, the level rays of the sun being almost oppressive. Then suddenly there would come an air so cold that the stranger who had not expected the change and who was wearing perhaps his lightest clothes would find that he wanted a great coat and a warm cravat round his neck. It was not till I was about to leave the place that I became alive to its peculiarities. I caught a cold every evening in consequence of my ignorance, becoming quite hoarse and thinking of hot water externally and internally as I went to bed;--but in the morning I was always quite well again. I was assured, however, that the climate of Pretoria was one which required great care from its inhabitants. It is subject to very violent storms, and deaths from lightning are not uncommon. The hailstorms, when they come, are very violent, the stones being so large as not unfrequently to batter the cattle to death. I was glad to find that they were unfrequent, and that my good fortune saved me from experiencing their effects. “What does a man do if he be out in the veld?” I asked when I heard these frightful stories. “Put his saddle over his head,” was the answer, showing much as to the custom of a people who seldom walk to any distance always having horses at command. “But if he have not a saddle?” “Ah, then indeed, he would be badly off.” My informants, for I was told of the hailstorms and the necessary saddles more than once, seemed to think that in such a dilemma there would be no hope for a man who, without a saddle, might chance to be beyond the reach of a roof. I could not, however, learn that people were often killed. I therefore accepted the Pretorian hailstones with a grain of salt.