They eat up everything in the kitchen-garden, devour every leaf off my peach and orange trees, scarring and spoiling the fruit as well.  It is no comfort whatever that they are wonderfully beautiful creatures, striped and ringed with a thousand colors in a thousand various ways:  one has only to see the riddled appearance of every leaf and flower to harden one’s heart.  Just now they have cleared off every blossom out of the garden except my zinnias, which grow magnificently and make the devastated flower-bed still gay with every hue and tint a zinnia can put on—­salmon-color, rose, scarlet, pink, maroon, and fifty shades besides.  On the veldt too the flowers have passed by, but their place is taken by the grasses, which are all in seed.  People say the grass is rank and poor, and of not much account as food for stock, but it has an astonishing variety of beautiful seeds.  In one patch it is like miniature pampas-grass, only a couple of inches long each seed-pod, but white and fluffy.  Again, there will be tall stems laden with rich purple grains or delicate tufts of rose-colored seed.  One of the prettiest, however, is like wee green harebells hanging all down a tall and slender stalk, and hiding within their cups the seed.  Unfortunately, the weeds and burs seed just as freely, and there is one especial torment to the garden in the shape of an innocent-looking little plant something like an alpine strawberry in leaf and blossom, bearing a most aggravating tuft of little black spines which lose no opportunity of sticking to one’s petticoats in myriads.  They are familiarly known as “blackjacks,” and can hold their own as pests with any weed of my acquaintance.

But the most beautiful tree I have seen in Natal was an Acacia flamboyante.  I saw it at D’Urban, and I shall never forget the contrast of its vivid green, bright as the spring foliage of a young oak, and the crown of rich crimson flowers on its topmost branches, tossing their brilliant blossoms against a background of gleaming sea and sky.  It was really splendid, like a bit of Italian coloring among the sombre tangle of tropical verdure.  It is too cold up here for this glorious tree, which properly belongs to a far more tropical temperature than even D’Urban can mount up to.

I am looking forward to next month and the following ones to make some little excursions into the country, or to go “trekking,” as the local expression is.  I hear on all sides how much that is interesting lies a little way beyond the reach of a ride, but it is difficult for the mistress—­who is at the same time the general servant—­of an establishment out here to get away from home for even a few days, especially when there is a couple of small children to be left behind.  No one travels now who can possibly help it, for the sudden violent rains which come down nearly every afternoon swell the rivers and make even the spruits impassable; so a traveler may be detained for days within a few miles of his destination.  Now, in winter the roads will be hard, and dust will be the only inconvenience.  At least, that is what I am promised.