He Had Quite A Fresh Set Of Tunes, Of Which Several Were From The 'Traviata'!

Yesterday was a real African summer's day.

The D-s had a tent and an awning, one for food and the other for drink, on the ground where the shooting took place. At twelve o'clock Mrs. D- went down to sell cold chickens, &c., and I went with her, and sat under a tree in the bed of the little stream, now nearly dry. The sun was such as in any other climate would strike you down, but here coup de soleil is unknown. It broils you till your shoulders ache and your lips crack, but it does not make you feel the least languid, and you perspire very little; nor does it tan the skin as you would expect. The light of the sun is by no means 'golden' - it is pure white - and the slightest shade of a tree or bush affords a delicious temperature, so light and fresh is the air. They said the thermometer was at about 130 degrees where I was walking yesterday, but (barring the scorch) I could not have believed it.

It was a very amusing day. The great tall Dutchmen came in to shoot, and did but moderately, I thought. The longest range was five hundred yards, and at that they shot well; at shorter ranges, poorly enough. The best man made ten points. But oh! what figures were there of negroes and coloured people! I longed for a photographer. Some coloured lads were exquisitely graceful, and composed beautiful tableaux vivants, after Murillo's beggar-boys.

A poor little, very old Bosjesman crept up, and was jeered and bullied. I scolded the lad who abused him for being rude to an old man, whereupon the poor little old creature squatted on the ground close by (for which he would have been kicked but for me), took off his ragged hat, and sat staring and nodding his small grey woolly head at me, and jabbering some little soliloquy very sotto voce. There was something shocking in the timidity with which he took the plate of food I gave him, and in the way in which he ate it, with the WRONG side of his little yellow hand, like a monkey. A black, who had helped to fetch the hamper, suggested to me to give him wine instead of meat and bread, and make him drunk FOR FUN (the blacks and Hottentots copy the white man's manners TO THEM, when they get hold of a Bosjesman to practise upon); but upon this a handsome West Indian black, who had been cooking pies, fired up, and told him he was a 'nasty black rascal, and a Dutchman to boot', to insult a lady and an old man at once. If you could see the difference between one negro and another, you would be quite convinced that education (i.e. circumstances) makes the race. It was hardly conceivable that the hideous, dirty, bandy-legged, ragged creature, who looked down on the Bosjesman, and the well- made, smart fellow, with his fine eyes, jaunty red cap, and snow- white shirt and trousers, alert as the best German Kellner, were of the same blood; nothing but the colour was alike.

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