When the park was reached at last, across a frail and uncertain wooden bridge shaded by large weeping willows, I found it the most creditable thing I had yet seen.  It is admirably laid out, the natural undulations of the ground being made the most of, and exceedingly well kept.  This in itself is a difficult matter where all vegetation runs up like Jack’s famous beanstalk, and where the old proverb about the steed starving whilst his grass is growing falls completely to the ground.  There are numerous drives, made level by a coating of smooth black shale, and bordered by a double line of syringas and oaks, with hedges of myrtle or pomegranate.  In some places the roads run alongside the little river—­a very muddy torrent when I saw it—­and then the oaks give way to great drooping willows, beneath whose trailing branches the river swirled angrily.  On fine Saturday afternoons the band of the regiment stationed here plays on a clear space under some shady trees—­for you can never sit or stand on the grass in Natal, and even croquet is played on bare leveled earth—­and everybody rides or walks or drives about.  When I saw the park there was not a living creature in it, for it was, as most of our summer afternoons are, wet and cold and drizzling; but, considering that there was no thunderstorm likely to break over our heads that day, I felt that I could afford to despise a silent Scotch mist.  We varied our afternoon weather last week by a hailstorm, of which the stones were as big as large marbles.  I was scoffed at for remarking this, and assured it was “nothing, absolutely nothing,” to the great hailstorm of two years ago, which broke nearly every tile and pane of glass in Maritzburg, and left the town looking precisely as though it had been bombarded.  I have seen photographs of some of the ruined houses, and it is certainly difficult to believe that hail could have done so much mischief.  Then, again, stories reach me of a certain thunderstorm one Sunday evening just before I arrived in which the lightning struck a room in which a family was assembled at evening prayers, killing the poor old father with the Bible in his hand, and knocking over every member of the little congregation.  My informant said, “I assure you it seemed as though the lightning were poured out of heaven in a jug.  There were no distinct flashes:  the heavens appeared to split open and pour down a flood of blazing violet light.”  I have seen nothing like this yet, but can quite realize what such a storm must be like, for I have observed already how different the color of the lightning is.  The flashes I have seen were exactly of the lilac color he described, and they followed each other with a rapidity of succession unknown in less electric regions.  And yet my last English letters were full of complaints of the wet weather in London, and much self-pity for the long imprisonment in-doors.  Why, those very people don’t know what weather inconveniences are.  If London streets are muddy,