Government; but a very strong Government is likely to be a fainéant Government, and is rarely a faithful Government. A Minister should have before him a lively dread. Mr. Molteno seemed to be too confident, and to be almost fretful because gentlemen made him sit there in the House when he would have preferred being in his office or at home. I am far from saying that the Cape can have a better Minister;-but if he could go out for a short while and then come back it would probably be for his comfort.

I cannot finish these remarks without saying that the most sensible speech I heard in the House was from Mr. Saul Solomon. Mr. Solomon has never been in the Government and rarely in opposition, but he has been perhaps of as much use to the Colony as any living man. He is one who certainly should be mentioned as a very remarkable personage, having risen to high honours in an occupation perhaps of all the most esteemed among men, but for which he must have seemed by nature to be peculiarly ill adapted. He is a man of very small stature, so small that on first seeing him the stranger is certainly impressed with the idea that no man so small has ever been seen by him before. His forehead however is fine, and his face full of intelligence. With all this against him Mr. Solomon has gone into public life, and as a member of Parliament in the Cape Colony has gained a respect above that of Ministers in office. It is not too much to say that he is regarded on both sides as a safe adviser; and I believe that it would be hardly possible to pass any measure of importance through the Cape Legislature to which he offered a strenuous opposition. He reminded me of two other men whom it has been my privilege to know and who have been determined to seize and wear parliamentary honours in the teeth of

misfortunes which would have closed at any rate that profession against men endowed with less than Herculean determination. I mean Mr. Fawcett, who in our own House at home has completely vanquished the terrible misfortune of blindness, and my old friend John Robertson of Sydney,-Sir John I believe he is now, who for many years presided over the Ministry in New South Wales, leading the debates in a parliamentary chamber, without a palate to his mouth. I regard these three men as great examples of what may be done by perseverance to overcome the evils which nature or misfortune have afflicted.

The people of Capetown think of the two chambers in which the two Houses sit with something of shame, declaring that they are not at all what they ought to be, —that they are used as makeshifts, and that there has never yet been time, or perhaps money at hand, for constructing proper Houses of Parliament. Had I not heard this I should have thought that each of them was sufficiently commodious and useful, if not quite sufficiently handsome or magnificent.

CHAPTER VII.

Western Province.-Knysna, George, and the Cango Caves.

WHEN I had spent a few weeks in Capetown and the immediate neighbourhood I went into the Eastern Province of the Cape Colony, and thence on to Natal, the Transvaal, the Diamond Fields, and the Orange Free State Republic,

-as I hope to tell my readers in this and the next volume; but as I afterwards came back to the Western Province,—of which I had as yet seen but little,—and used what remainder of time was at my command in visiting what was easiest reached, I will now go forwards

so as to complete my narrative as to the West before I speak of the East. In this way my story may be more intelligible than if I were to follow strictly the course of my own journeyings. I have already alluded to the political division of the Cape Colony, and to the great desire which has pervaded the men of the East to separate themselves from the men of the West;-and when, a few chapters further on, I shall have brought myself eastwards I shall have to refer to it again. This desire is so strong that it compels a writer to deal separately with the two Provinces, and to divide them almost as completely as though they had been separated. South Africa is made up of different parts. And as there are the four divisions which I have named above, so are there the two Provinces of the Cape Colony, which are joined under the same Parliament and the same Governor but which can hardly be said to have identical interests. The West no doubt is contented with the union, having the supremacy; but the East has been always clamorous for Separation.

After a very long coach journey from Bloemfontein down to Fort Elizabeth, of which I shall have to say a few words further on, I went by steamer to Mossel Bay on my way back to Capetown. Mossel Bay is the easternmost harbour in the Western Province, collecting a Custom Revenue of £20,000. It is fourth in importance of the ports of the Colony, those ranking higher being Capetown itself, Fort Elizabeth, and East London,-the two latter belonging to the Eastern Province. It contains about 1,400 inhabitants, and has three hotels, a bank, a Custom House, and a Resident Magistrate. I doubt, however, whether all these attractions would have taken me to Mossel Bay had I not been told of the scenery of the Outeniqua mountains and of the Knysna river. It had

been averred to me that I should do injustice to South Africa generally if I did not visit the prettiest scenery known in South Africa. Having done so I feel that I should have done injustice at any rate to myself if I had not taken the advice given me.

Of all the beneficent Institutions of Mossel Bay which I have named I became personally acquainted with but one, the Resident Magistrate, who was so beneficent that at a moment's notice he offered to make the trip to the Knysna with me. By this I gained a guide, philosopher, and friend, and a very pleasant companion for my excursion. In such tourings solitude will often rob them of all delight, and ignorance of all instruction. It is impossible to see the things immediately under the eye, unless there be some one to tell you where to look for them. A lone wanderer may get up statistics, and will find persons to discuss politics with him in hotel parlours and on the seats of public conveyances. He may hear, too, the names of mountains and of rivers. But of the inner nooks of social life or of green hills he will know nothing unless he can fall into some intimacy, even though it be short-lived, with the people among whom he is moving.

We had to be in a hurry because a Cape Colony Resident Magistrate cannot be absent long from his seat of justice. If he be not on the spot there is no one to whom misfortune can appeal or whom iniquity need dread. In an English town a Mayor has his aldermen, and the Chairman of the Bench his brother magistrates;-but at Mossel Bay the Resident is as necessary at ten o'clock on a Monday morning as is the Speaker to the House of Commons at four o'clock in the afternoon. So we started at once with a light cart and a pair of horses,-which

was intended to take us as far as George, a distance of 30 miles.

We went through a country teeming with ostriches. Ostrich-farming on a great scale I will describe further on. Here the work was carried on in a smaller way, but, as I was told, with great success. The expenses were small, and the profits very great,-unless there should come misfortunes, as when a valuable bird will break his leg and so destroy himself, or when a hen supposed to be worth £50 or £60 won't lay an egg. I think that in ostrich-farming, as in all commercial pursuits, the many little men who lose a little money,-perhaps their little all,—and then go quietly to the wall, attract less attention than the prosperous few. I am bound however to say that in this district I saw many ostriches and heard of much success.

As evening was coming on, when we had got half way to George, we found that our horses were knocked up. We stopped therefore at a woolwashing establishment, and sent round the country to beg for others. Here there was also a large shop, and a temperance hotel, and an ostrich farm, all kept by the same person or by his son. Word came to us that all the horses in the place had done, each of them, an extra hard day's work that day; but, so great a thing is it to be a Resident Magistrate, that in spite of this difficulty two horses were promised us! But they had to be caught. So we walked up to see the woolwashers finish their day's work, the sun having already set.

Their mode of woolwashing was quite new to me. The wool, which seemed to have been shorn in a very rough manner,-cut off in locks after a fashion which would have broken the heart of an Australian Squatter, wool chopped as you would chop a salad,-was first put South Africa. I,

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