The last census taken of the population of the village gave its numbers as 3,000. I was told that at present there might be perhaps 2,000 coloured persons living there. I should have thought that to be a very exaggerated number, judging from the size of the place and the number of ruined and deserted huts, were it not that the statement was made to me in a tone of depreciation rather than of boasting. "They call it three thousand," said the pastor, "but there are not more than two." Looking at the people as I passed through the village I should be inclined to describe them as Hottentots, were it not for the common assertion that the Hottentot race is extinct in these parts. The Institution was originally intended for Hottentots, and the descendants of Hottentots are now its most numerous inhabitants. That other blood has been mixed with the Hottentot blood,-that of the negroes who were brought to the Cape as slaves and of the white men who were the owners of the slaves,-is true here as elsewhere. There is a church for the use of these people,—and a school. Without these a missionary institution would be altogether vain;-though, as I have stated some pages back, the school belonging to the Institution at Pacaltsdorp had gone into abeyance when I visited that place. Here the school was still maintained; but I learned that the maximum number of pupils never exceeded a hundred. Considering the amount of the population and the fact that the children are not often required to be absent on the score of work, I think I am justified in saying that the school is a failure. M. Esselin in his schools at Worcester, which is a town of 4,000 inhabitants of whom a large pro

portion are white, has an average attendance of 500 coloured children. The attendance at the missionary church is no better, the number of customary worshippers being the same as that of the scholars,-namely a hundred. With these people there is nothing to compel them to send their children to school, and nothing but the eloquence of the pastor to induce them to go to church. The same may be said as to all other churches and all other congregations. But we are able to judge of the utility of a church by the force of example which it creates. Among these people the very fashion of going to church is dying out.

But I was more intent, perhaps, on the daily employment than the spiritual condition of these people, and asked whether it sent out girls as maid-servants to the country around. The pastor assured me that he was often unable to get a girl to assist his wife in the care of their own children. The young women from the Missionary Institution do not care for going into service.

"But how do they live?" Then it was explained to me that each resident in the Institution had a plot of ground of his own, and that he lived on its produce, as far as it went, like any other estated gentleman. Then the men would go out for a little sheep-shearing, or the picking of Buchus in the Buchu season. The Buchu is a medicinal fruit which is gathered in these parts and sent to Europe. Such an arrangement cannot be for the welfare either of the Colony or of the people concerned. Nothing but work will bring them into such communion with civilization as to enable them to approach the condition of the white man. The

arcadian idea of a coloured man with his wife and piccaninnies living happily under the shade of his own fig tree and picking his own grapes and oranges is very pretty in a book, and may be made interesting in a sermon. But it is ugly enough in that reality in which the fig tree is represented by a ruined mud-hut and the grapes and oranges by stolen mutton. The sole effect of the missionary's work has too often been that of saving the Native from working for the white man. It was well that he should be saved from slavery; but to save him from other work is simply to perpetuate his inferiority.

The land at the Caledon Institution is the property of the resident Natives. Each landowner can at present sell his plot with the sanction of the Governor. In ten years' time he will be enabled to sell it without such sanction. The sooner he sells it and becomes a simple labourer the better for all parties. I was told that the Governor's sanction is rarely if ever now refused.

Then we went on to the Tradouw, and just at the entrance of the ravine we came upon a party of coloured labourers, with a white man over them, making bricks in the close vicinity of an extensive building. A party of convicts was about to come to the spot for the purpose of mending the road, and the bricks were being made so that a kitchen might be built for the cooking of their food. The big building, I was told, had been erected for the use of the convicts who a few years since had made the road. But it had fallen out of repair, and the new kitchen was considered necessary, though the number of men needed for the repair

would not be very large, and they would be wanted only for a few months. I naturally asked what would become of the kitchen afterwards,-which seemed to be a spacious building containing a second apartment, to be used probably as a scullery. The kitchen would again be deserted and would become the property of the owner of the land. I afterwards heard by chance of a contract for supplying mutton to the convicts at 6d. a pound,-a pound a day for each man ;and I also heard that convict labour was supposed to be costly. The convicts are chiefly coloured people. With such usage as they receive the supply, I should imagine, would be ample. The ordinary Hottentot with his daily pound of mutton, properly cooked in a first-class kitchen and nothing but convict labour to do, would probably find himself very comfortable.

Southey's Pass, so called from Mr. Southey who was Colonial Secretary before the days of parliamentary government, and is now one of the stoutest leaders of the opposition against the Ministers of the day,-is seven miles from end to end and is very beautiful throughout. But it is the mile at the end,-furthest from Swellendam,-in which it beats in sublimity all the other South African passes which I saw, including even the Montague Pass which crosses the Outiniqua mountains near George. South Africa is so far off that I cannot hope to be able to excite English readers to visit the Cape Colony for the sake of the scenery,-though for those whose doctors prescribe a change of air and habits and the temporary use of a southern climate I cannot imagine that any trip should be more pleasant and service

able; but I do think that the inhabitants of Capetown and the neighbourhood should know more than they do of the beauties of their own country. I have never seen rocks of a finer colour or twisted about into grander forms than those which make the walls of that part of Southey's Pass which is furthest from Swellendam.

When we were in the ravine two small bucks called Klipspringers, springers that is among the stones,-were disturbed by us and passing down from the road among the rocks, made their way to the bottom of the ravine. Two dogs had followed the Hottentot who was driving us, a terrier and a large mongrel hound, and at once got upon the scent of the bucks. I shall never forget the energy of the Hottentot as he rushed down from the road to a huge prominent rock which stood over the gorge, so as to see the hunt as near as possible, or my own excitement as I followed him somewhat more slowly. The ravine was so narrow that the clamour of the two dogs sounded like the music of a pack of hounds. The Hottentot as he leant forward over his perch was almost beside himself with anxiety. Immediately beneath us, perhaps twenty feet down, were two jutting stones separated from each other by about the same distance, between which was a wall of rock with a slant almost perpendicular and perfectly smooth, so that there could be no support to the foot of any animal. animal. Up to the first of these stones one of the Klip-springers was hunted with the big hound close at his heels. From it the easiest escape was by a leap to the other rock which the buck made without a moment's hesitation. But the dog could not follow. He knew the distance to be