There are some very fine botanical gardens in King Williamstown, always kept in order and most delightfully placed along the banks of the Buffalo River, beside which the town is built. On returning at sunset one afternoon from these gardens, we were walking in front of four well-dressed Kafirs, evidently living in domestic service in the town. They were two men and two women. Suddenly they struck up a wild melody which thrilled us as we listened; one voice took up the melody, then the second voice joined in, then the third and fourth, until the song swelled into a triumphant hymn; the soprano seemed to be singing an octave higher than an ordinary soprano voice, but it was merely the peculiar timbre of the voice which made it sound so. The bass rolled out like an organ peal, and when the singers turned away from us to go up the hill, keeping on in their wild "hallelujahs," we could scarcely keep from following them. The only music that can give an idea of it is to be heard in some of the strains "Aida" has to sing. Verdi seems to have thoroughly caught the spirit of these dusky-coloured people, which is a closed book to most of the white race. Perhaps one of the reasons of the failure of many of the missionaries in their work among this peculiar people is, that it takes a many-sided man to comprehend a race whose traits are entirely different from his own. As a rule, the men sent out to Africa as missionaries are _not_ many-sided, nor do they possess that to them most necessary of all gifts, a _practical_ knowledge of human nature. CHAPTER THIRTY ONE. After remaining a few weeks in King Williamstown we had a longing to see the ocean, and accordingly, one evening, took the train for East London, two hours distant by rail, and fell asleep that night to the sound of the waves rolling up on the shore. The next day we went down the steep hill-side to the beach, and played with the pebbles and pretty sea-shells, as happily as children with their wooden spades and pails. When the tide is out the rocks are strewn with wrecks, one of which we climbed upon, and let the spray of the waves dash upon us. East London is rather a misnomer, for by that term people mean Panmure, which is built on the opposite bank of the Buffalo to the old town of East London; but Panmure, having grown up and eclipsed its elder brother, the old name seems to cling to it, and East London, the larger and more important town of the two, is indicated. It is very picturesquely situated. The Buffalo River finds its way to the sea at this point, between excessively high and bountifully wooded banks. East London proper is erected on the western point of the junction of the river with the ocean, while Panmure looks down upon it from the higher elevation of the eastern bank.