“Not until the afternoon,” was the prompt and uncompromising reply, delivered through my keyhole by the authority in charge of us.  And he proved to be quite right; but I am bound to say the time passed more quickly than we had dared to hope or expect, for an hour later a bold little fishing-boat made her way through the breakers and across the bar in the teeth of wind and rain, bringing F——­ on board.  He has been out here these eight months, and looks a walking advertisement of the climate and temperature of our new home, so absolutely healthy is his appearance.  He is very cheery about liking the place, and particularly insists on the blooming faces and sturdy limbs I shall see belonging to the young Natalians.  Altogether, he appears thoroughly happy and contented, liking his work, his position, everything and everybody; which is all extremely satisfactory to hear.  There is so much to tell and so much to behold that, as G——­ declares, “it is afternoon directly,” and, the signal-flag being up, we trip our anchor once more and rush at the bar, two quartermasters and an officer at the wheel, the pilot and captain on the bridge, all hands on deck and on the alert, for always, under the most favorable circumstances, the next five minutes hold a peril in every second, “Stand by for spray!” sings out somebody, and we do stand by, luckily for ourselves, for “spray” means the top of two or three waves.  The dear little Florence is as plucky as she is pretty, and appears to shut her eyes and lower her head and go at the bar.  Scrape, scrape, scrape!  “We’ve stuck!  No, we haven’t!  Helm hard down!  Over!” and so we are.  Among the breakers, it is true, buffeted hither and thither, knocked first to one side and then to the other; but we keep right on, and a few more turns of the screw take us into calm water under the green hills of the bluff.  The breakers are behind us, we have twenty fathoms of water under our keel, the voyage is ended and over, the captain takes off his straw hat to mop his curly head, everybody’s face loses the expression of anxiety and rigidity it has worn these past ten minutes, and boats swarm like locusts round the ship.  The baby is passed over the ship’s side for the last time, having been well kissed and petted and praised by every one as he was handed from one to the other, and we row swiftly away to the low sandy shore of the “Point.”

Only a few warehouses, or rather sheds of warehouses, are to be seen, and a rude sort of railway-station, which appears to afford indiscriminate shelter to boats as well as to engines.  There are leisurely trains which saunter into the town of D’Urban, a mile and a half away, every half hour or so, but one of these “crawlers” had just started.  The sun was very hot, and we voyagers were all sadly weary and headachy.  But the best of the colonies is the prompt, self-sacrificing kindness of old-comers to new-comers.  A gentleman had driven down in his own nice, comfortable pony-carriage, and without