There is much hand-shaking with everybody, acquaintance or stranger, who are standing about at the time. The worthy couple then climb into their Cape cart, or spring wagon, and drive off home, where they vegetate until the low condition of the domestic stores compels them again to visit the store, or until a Nachtmaal is announced at the nearest church. The profits of such a store are very large, and, as a rule, amply sufficient to compensate the proprietor, often a man who has received his business training in a large wholesale house in England or Germany, for his eight or nine years of exile. He has the opportunity, living as he does in the midst of the farmers, of taking advantage of the many speculations which the fluctuations in the market prices of wool, skins, feathers, etc, offer. The most successful of these shopkeepers are Jews; they seem to have a happy knack of acquiring the jaw-breaking patois of the country, an indispensable accomplishment to any one wishing to have successful dealing with the Boers. We were now nearing the end of our ox-wagon journey, but were not at all glad it was so. We had got fond of this careless, lazy life we had been leading so many weeks; the very oxen we had come to know by their names of "Blesbok," "Witful," "Kafir," etc. As we neared Queenstown we found ourselves getting anxious about their welfare, trekking slowly, and making frequent and long outspans. When at last we found ourselves on a common, close to Queenstown, it was with regret we said good-by to our six weeks' life in an ox-wagon. CHAPTER TWENTY NINE. We went to the Central Hotel. On the second day after our arrival, the wife of a physician of the town called and invited us to dine with them on the following day, Sunday. We did so and made the acquaintance of the excellent Doctor and his little family of interesting children. She then invited us to make her house our home during our stay, and overwhelmed us with kindness. Unless you have been in a strange land, away from kindred and all who know your people, you can never know the deep happiness it gives to meet with kindness from an utter stranger, as this charming woman was, and to be invited to a home as lovely as hers. After the annoyances and inconveniences of the wretched inns, or hotels, as they were called, to find such open-hearted hospitality was like meeting with kindred in a desert land. Most of the inhabitants of Queenstown are English or Scotch, there being fewer Dutch or Germans there than in any of the other towns we had visited. There are a number of fine churches and schools, with several newspapers and banks. The ladies of the place are especially social, and dress handsomely. The railway, which had been finished to the port of East London two years previous to our arrival, seemed to have given an impetus to trade, and it was confidently hoped by the burghers would increase rapidly the prosperity of the district.