old tub, they send her to East London." It was a terrible tale to hear, and especially so from men who themselves believe in the place with all the implicit confidence of expended capital. On the second day after my arrival the vessel that was to carry me on to Natal steamed into the roads. It had been a lovely morning and was yet early,—about eleven o'clock. I hurried down with a couple of friends to the man in authority who decides whether communication shall or shall not be had between the shore and the ship, and he, cocking a telescope to his eye, declared that even though the Governor wanted to go on board he would not let a boat stir that day. In my ill-humour I asked him why he would be more willing to risk the Governor's life than that of any less precious individual. I own I thought he was a tyrant,and perhaps a Sabbatarian, as it was on a Sunday. But in half an hour the wind had justified him, even to my uneducated intelligence. During the whole of that day there was no intercourse possible between the ships and the shore. A boat from a French vessel tried it, and three men out of four were drowned! Early on the following day I was put on board the steamer in a life-boat. Again it was a lovely morning,-and the wind had altogether fallen, but the boat shipped so much water that our luggage was wet through.

But it is yet on the cards that the East Londoners may prevail. Under the auspices of Sir John Coote a break-water is being constructed with the purpose of protecting the river's mouth from the prevailing winds, and the river is being banked and altered so that the increased force of the water through a narrowed channel may scour away the sand. If these two things can be done then ships will enter the Buffalo river and ride there in delicious ease, and the fortune of the place will be made. I

went to see the works and was surprised to find operations of such magnitude going on at a place which apparently was so insignificant. A breakwater was being constructed out from the shore,—not an isolated sea wall as is the breakwater at Plymouth and at Fort Elizabeth, —but a pier projecting itself in a curve from one of the points of the river's mouth so as to cover the other when completed. On this £120,000 had already been spent, and a further sum of £80,000 is to be spent. It is to be hoped that it will be well expended, for which the name of Sir John Coote is a strong guarantee.

At present East London is not a nice place. It is without a pavement,—I may almost say without a street, dotted about over the right river bank here and there, dirty to look at and dishevelled, putting one in mind of the American Eden as painted by Charles Dickens,only that his Eden was a river Eden while this is a marine Paradise. But all that no doubt will be mended when the breakwater has been completed. I have already spoken of the rivalry between South African ports, as between Port Alfred and Fort Elizabeth, and between South African towns, as between Capetown and Grahamstown. The feeling is carried everywhere, throughout everything. Opposite to the town of East London, on the left side of the Buffalo river, and connected with it by ferries, is the township of Panmure. The terminus of the railway is at Panmure and not at East London. And at Panmure there has gathered itself together an unpromising assemblage of stores and houses which declares of itself that it means to snuff East London altogether out. East London and Panmure together are strong against all the coast of South Africa to the right and left; but between the two places themselves there is as keen a rivalry as between any two towns on the continent. At East London I was assured

that Panmure was merely "upstart;"-but a Panmurite had his revenge by whispering to me that East London was a nest of musquitoes. As to the musquitoes I can speak from personal experience.

And yet I ought to say a good word of East London for I was there but three days and was invited to three picnics. I went to two of them, and enjoyed myself thoroughly, seeing some beautiful scenery up the river, and some charming spots along the coast. I was, however, very glad to get on board the steamer, having always had before my eyes the terrible prospect of a return journey to Fort Elizabeth before I could embark for Natal.

CHAPTER XII.

Kafir Schools.

THE question of Kafir education is perhaps the most important that has to be solved in South Africa,-and certainly it is the one as to which there exists the most violent difference of opinion among those who have lived in South Africa. A traveller in the land by associating exclusively with one set of persons would be taught to think that here was to be found a certain and quick panacea for all the ills and dangers to which the country is subjected. Here lies the way by which within an age or two the population of the country may be made to drop its savagery and Kafirdom and blanket loving vagabondism and become a people as fit to say their prayers and vote for members of parliament as at any rate the ordinary English Christian constituent. "Let the Kafir be caught young and subjected to religious education, and he will soon become so good a man and so docile a citizen that it will be almost a matter of regret that

more of us were not born Kafirs." That is the view of the question which prevails with those who have devoted themselves to Kafir education,—and of them it must be acknowledged that their efforts are continuous and energetic. I found it impossible not to be moved to enthusiasm by what I saw at Kafir schools.

Another traveller falling into another and a different set will be told by his South African associates that the Kafir is a very good fellow, and may be a very good servant, till he has been taught to sing psalms and to take pride in his rapidly acquired book learning;-but that then he becomes sly, a liar and a thief, whom it is impossible to trust and dangerous to have about the place. "He is a Kafir still," a gentleman said to me, "but a Kafir with the addition of European cunning without a touch of European conscience." As far as I could observe, the merchants and shopkeepers who employ Kafirs about their stores, and persons who have Kafirs about their houses, do eschew the school Kafir. The individual Kafir when taken young and raw out of his blanket, put into breeches and subjected to the general dominion of a white master, is wonderfully honest, and, as far as he can speak at all, he speaks the truth. There can I think be no question about his virtues. You may leave your money about with perfect safety, though he knows well what money will do for him; you may leave food,—and even drink in his way and they will be safe. "Is there any housebreaking or shoplifting?" I asked a tradesman in King Williamstown. He declared that there was nothing of the kind known,— unless it might be occasionally in reference to a horse and saddle. A Kafir would sometimes be unable to resist the temptation of riding back into Kafirdom, the happy possessor of a steed. But let a lad have passed three or four years at a Kafir school, and then he would have become

a being very much altered for the worse and not at all fit to be trusted among loose property. The saints in Kafirland will say that I have heard all this exclusively among the sinners. If so I can only say that the men of business are all sinners.

For myself I found it very hard to form an opinion. between the two. I do believe most firmly in education. I should cease to believe in any thing if I did not believe that education if continued will at least civilize. I can conceive no way of ultimately overcoming and dispelling what I must call the savagery of the Kafirs, but by education. And when I see the smiling, oily, good humoured, docile, naturally intelligent but still wholly uneducated black man trying to make himself useful and agreeable to his white employers, I still recognise the Savage. With all his good humour and spasmodic efforts at industry he is no better than a Savage. And the white man in many cases does not want him to be better. He is no more anxious that his Kafir should reason than he is that his horse should talk. It requires an effort of genuine philanthropy even to desire that those beneath us should become more nearly equal to us. The man who makes his money by employing Kafir labour is apt to regard the commercial rather than the philanthropic side of the question. I refuse therefore to adopt his view of the matter. A certain instinct of independence, which in the eyes of the employer of labour always takes the form of rebellion, is one of the first and finest effects of education. The Kafir who can argue a question of wages with his master has already become an objectionable animal.

But again the education of the educated Kafir is very apt to "fall off." So much I have not only heard asserted generally by those who are antikafir-educational in their sympathies, but admitted also by many of those who have