is before us,” we asked each other languidly, “if it be hotter than this?  How can mortal man, woman, still less child, endure existence?” Vain alarms!  Yet another shift of the light wind, another degree passed, and we are all shivering in winter wraps.  The line was crossed in greatcoats and shawls, and the only people whose complexion did not resemble a purple plum were those lucky ones who had strength of mind and steadiness of body to lurch up and down the deck all day enjoying a strange method of movement which they called walking.

The exceptional weather pursued us right into the very dock.  Table Mountain ought to be seen—­and very often is seen—­seventy miles away.  I am told it looks a fine bold bluff at that distance, Yesterday we had blown off our last pound of steam and were safe under its lee before we could tell there was a mountain there at all, still less an almost perpendicular cliff more than three thousand feet high.  Robben Island looked like a dun-colored hillock as we shot past it within a short distance, and a more forlorn and discouraging islet I don’t think I have ever beheld.  When I expressed something of this impression to a cheery fellow-voyager, he could only urge in its defence that there were a great many rabbits on it.  If he had thrown the lighthouse into the bargain, I think he would have summed up all its attractive features.  Unless Langalibalele is of a singularly unimpressionable nature, he must have found his sojourn on it somewhat monotonous, but he always says he was very comfortable there.

And now for the land.  We are close alongside of a wharf, and still a capital and faithful copy of a Scotch mist wraps houses, trees and sloping uplands in a fibry fantastic veil, and the cold drizzle seems to curdle the spirits and energies of the few listless Malays and half-caste boys and men who are lounging about.  Here come hansom cabs rattling up one after the other, all with black drivers in gay and fantastic head and shoulder gear; but their hearts seem precisely as the hearts of their London brethren, and they single out new-comers at a glance, and shout offers to drive them a hundred yards or so for exorbitant sums, or yell laudatory recommendations of sundry hotels.  You must bear in mind that in a colony every pot-house is a hotel, and generally rejoices in a name much too imposing to fit across its frontage.  These hansoms are all painted white with the name of some ship in bright letters on the side, and are a great deal cleaner, roomier and more comfortable than their London “forbears.”  The horses are small and shabby, but rattle along at a good pace; and soon each cab has its load of happy home-comers and swings rapidly away to make room for fresh arrivals hurrying up for fares.  Hospitable suggestions come pouring in, and it is as though it were altogether a new experience when one steps cautiously on the land, half expecting it to dip away playfully from under one’s