At dawn of the next day we continued on our journey, passing through the village of Phillopolis, once the principal place of the native tribe of the Griquas. It is a typical Dutch village, ill built, and in every way insignificant and uninviting. Close by the village is a very large Kafir kraal. As we passed it many came out to see the coach go by. A few hours later we crossed one of the bridges which span the Orange River, and were again in the Cape Colony. We passed through Colesberg, a village of considerable size, and the centre of a large sheep and ostrich-farming country. A thriving wool-washing establishment is situated there. Wool is the most important production of the farming industry of Cape Colony, but the best farmers in sheep-raising are not among the native Dutch, but among the English, German, and Scotch emigrants. I never saw Boer women knitting; the Boer women, in fact, seem to have little capacity for the kind of work peculiar to women in other civilised countries. From Colesberg we travelled through an uninviting country, usually a plain, studded, here and there with isolated hills, and having very little timber. We reached Grahamstown in the cool of the evening of the next day, alighting at the Masonic Hotel. CHAPTER SIXTEEN. On the day following our arrival at Grahamstown the thermometer stood at one hundred and thirty degrees. The air fairly quivered with the intensity of the heat, and although nowhere in South Africa can the song of birds be heard, our ears were tired with the sound of busy insect life. The continuous hum made by the myriads of locusts and other insects in the trees sounded like the buzzing of a saw-mill with twenty or thirty great circular saws in full swing. The climate of Grahamstown is considered almost perfect for the English invalid. Frequent rains in summer make the heat endurable; the winter is drier than at Port Elizabeth. It is called the "City of Churches," for many fine churches and a cathedral make the town interesting. The houses are in the midst of beautiful grounds filled with trees of dense foliage and with rare plants. The people are very social, and a fine class of English the descendants of the early settlers are to be met with here. They are very kind, and make the life of the invalid endurable, if not pleasant. To be ill and alone in the midst of unsympathetic neighbours is certainly worse than to linger a hopeless invalid amongst loving friends. The society of Grahamstown tries to welcome the stranger; and male visitors find amusement in hunting in the surrounding district, where game is plentiful. It is a fact that many English youths who have been threatened with hereditary consumption have gone to Grahamstown and made it their home for several years, and then returned to their island home, a wonder to all their friends.