such a place as Lovedale should do evil rather than good is to my thinking impossible.

To see a lot of Kafir lads and lasses at school is of course more interesting than to inspect a seminary of white pupils. It is something as though one should visit a lion tamer with a group of young lions around him. The Kafir has been regarded at home as a bitter and almost terrible enemy who, since we first became acquainted with him in South Africa, has worked us infinite woe. I remember when a Kafir was regarded as a dusky demon and there was a doubt whether he could ever be got under and made subject to British rule; whether in fact he would not in the long run be too much for the Britons. The Kafir warrior with his assegai

and his red clay, and his courageous hatred, was a terrible fellow to see. And he is still much more of a Savage than the ordinary negro to whom we have become accustomed in other parts of the world. It was very interesting to see him with a slate and pencil, wearing his coarse clothing with a jaunty happy air, and doing a sum in subtraction. I do not know whether an appearance of good humour and self-satisfaction combined does not strike the European more than any other Kafir characteristic. He never seems to assert that he is as good as a white man, as the usual negro will do whenever the opportunity is given to him,but that though he be inferior there is no reason why he should not be as jolly as circumstances will admit. The Kafir girl is the same when seen in the schools. Her aspect no doubt will be much altered for the worse when she follows the steps of her Kafir husband as his wife and slave.

But at Lovedale she is comparatively smart, and gaylooking. Many of these pupils while still at school reach the age at which young people fall in love with each other. I was told that the young men and young women were kept strictly apart; but nevertheless, marriages between them on their leaving school are not uncommon,-nor unpopular with the authorities. It is probable that a young man who has been some years at Lovedale will treat his wife with something of Christian forbearance.

I find from the printed report of the seminary that the four following young ladies got the prizes in 1877 at Lovedale for the different virtues appended to their names. I insert the short list here not only that due honour may be given to the ladies themselves, but also that my readers may see something of Kafir female nomenclature.

Miss Kwankwa and Miss Bobi had I suppose Christian names given to them early in life. The other two are in possession of thoroughly Kafir appellations,-especially the young lady who has excelled in tidiness, and who no doubt will have become a bride before these lines are read in England.

I was taken out from King Williamstown to Peeltown to

see another educational Kafir establishment.

At Peeltown

the Rev. Mr. Birt presides over a large Kafir congregation, and has an excellent church capable of holding 500, which has been built almost exclusively by Kafir contributions. The boys' school was empty, but I was taken to see the girls who lived together under the charge of an English lady. I wished that I might have been introduced to the presence of the girls at once, so as to find how they occupied themselves when not in school. But this was not to be. I was kept waiting for a few moments, and then was ushered into a room where I found about twenty of them sitting in a row hemming linen. They were silent, well behaved and very demure while I saw them, and then before I left they sang a hymn.

If I had an Institution of my own to exhibit I feel sure that I should want to put my best foot forward,—and the best foot among Kafir female pupils is perhaps the singing of hymns and the hemming of linen.

CHAPTER XIII.

CONDITION OF THE CAPE COLONY.

LATER on in my journey, when I was returning to Capetown, I came back through some of the towns I have mentioned in the last chapter or two, and also through other places belonging to the Western Province. On that occasion I took my place by coach from Bloemfontein, the capital of the little Orange Free State or Republic to Fort Elizabeth, -or to the railway station between Grahamstown and Fort. Elizabeth,—and in this way passed through the Stormberg and Catberg mountains. Any traveller visiting South Africa with an eye to scenery should see these passes. For the mere sake of scenery no traveller does as yet visit South Africa, and therefore but little is thought about it. I was, however, specially cautioned by all who gave me advice on the subject, not to omit the Catberg in my journey. I may add also that this route from the Diamond Fields to Capetown is by far the easiest, and for those travelling by public conveyances is the only one that is certain as to time and not so wearisome as to cause excruciating torment. When travelling with a friend in our own conveyance I had enjoyed our independence,-especially our breakfasts in the veld; but I had become weary of sick and dying horses, and

of surrounding myself with horse provender. I was therefore glad to be able to throw all the responsibility of the road on to the shoulders of the proprietor of the coach, especially when I found that I was not to be called on to travel by night. A mail cart runs through from the Diamond Fields to Capetown, three times a week ;-but it goes day and night and has no provision for meals. The journey so made is frightful, and is fit only for a very young man who is altogether regardless of his life. There is also a decent waggon;-but it runs only occasionally. Families, to whom time is not a great object, make the journey with ox-waggons, travelling perhaps 24 miles a day, sleeping in their waggons and carrying with them all that they want. Ladies who have tried it have told me that they did not look back upon the time so spent as the happiest moments of their existence. The coach was tiresome enough, taking seven days from the Diamond Fields to Fort Elizabeth. Between Bloemfontein and Grahamstown, a trip of five days, it travels about fourteen hours a day. But at night there was always ten hours for supper and rest, and the accommodation on the whole was good. The beds were clean and the people along the road always civil. I was greatly taken with one little dinner which was given to us in the middle of the day at a small pretty Inn under the Catberg Mountain. The landlord, an old man, was peculiarly courteous, opening our soda water for us and handing us the brandy bottle with a grace that was all his own. Then he joined us on the coach and travelled along the road with us, and it turned out that he had been a member of the old Capetown Parliament, and

VOL. I.