their horses and furnish everything for themselves. When they join the force their horses and equipments are supplied to them, but the price is stopped out of their pay. They are recruited generally, though by no means universally, in England, under the care of an emigration agent who is maintained at home. I came out myself with six or seven of them,-three of whom I knew to be sons of gentlemen, and all of whom may have been so. So terrible is the struggle at home to find employment for young men that the idea of £100 a year at once has charms, even though the receiver of it will have to keep not only himself, but a horse also, out of the money. But the prospect, if fairly seen, is not alluring. The young men when in the Colony are policemen and nothing more than policemen. Many of them after a short compulsory service find a better employment elsewhere, and their places are filled up by new comers.

From King Williamstown I went to East London by railway and there waited till the ship came which was to take me on to Natal. East London is another of those ports which stubborn Nature seems to have made unfit for shipping, but which energy and enterprise are determined to convert to good purposes. As Grahamstown believes in Port Alfred, so does King Williamstown believe in East London, feeling sure that the day will come when no other harbour along the coast will venture to name itself in comparison with her. And East London has as firm a belief in herself, with a trustworthy reliance on a future day when the commerce of nations will ride in safety within her at present ill-omened bar. I had heard much of East London and had been warned that I might find it impossible to get on board the steamer even when she was lying in the roads. At Fort Elizabeth it had been suggested to me that I might very probably have to

come back there because no boat at East London would venture to take me out. The same thing was repeated to me along my route, and even at King Williamstown. But not the less on that account, when I found myself in British Kafraria of which East London is the port, was I assured of all that East London would hereafter perform. No doubt there was a perilous bar. The existence of the bar was freely admitted. No doubt the sweep of the sea in upon the mouth of the Buffalo river was of such a nature as to make all intercourse between ships and the shore both difficult and disagreeable. No doubt the coast was so subject to shipwreck as to have caused the insurance on ships to East London to be abnormally high. All these evils were acknowledged, but all these evils would assuredly be conquered by energy, skill, and money. It was thus that East London was spoken of by the friends who took me there in order that I might see the works which were being carried on with the view of overcoming Nature.

At the present moment East London is certainly a bad spot for shipping. A vessel had broken from her anchor just before my arrival and was lying on the shore a helpless wreck. There were the fragments to be seen of other wrecks; and I heard of many which had made the place noted within the last year or two. Such was the character of the place. I was told by more than one voice that vessels were sent there on purpose to be wrecked. Stories which I heard made me believe in Mr. Plimsoll more than I had ever believed before. "She was intended to come on shore," was said by all voices that day in East London as to the vessel that was still lying among the breakers, while men were at work upon her to get out the cargo. "They know that ships will drag their anchor here; so, when they want to get rid of an

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