I Have Received All The Saturday Reviews Quite Safe, Likewise The Books, Mendelssohn's Letters, And The Novel.

I have written for my dear Choslullah to fetch me.

The Dutch farmers don't know how to charge enough; moreover, the Hottentot drivers get drunk, and for two lone women that is not the thing. I pay my gentle Malay thirty shillings a day, which, for a cart and four and such a jewel of a driver, is not outrageous; and I had better pay that for the few days I wait on the road, than risk bad carts, tipsy Hottentots, and extortionate boers.

This intermediate country between the 'Central African wilderness' and Capetown has been little frequented. I went to the Church Mission School with the English clergyman yesterday. You know I don't believe in every kind of missionaries, but I do believe that, in these districts, kind, judicious English clergymen are of great value. The Dutch pastors still remember the distinction between 'Christenmenschen' and 'Hottentoten'; but the Church Mission Schools teach the Anglican Catechism to every child that will learn, and the congregation is as piebald as Harlequin's jacket. A pretty, coloured lad, about eleven years old, answered my questions in geography with great quickness and some wit. I said, 'Show me the country you belong to.' He pointed to England, and when I laughed, to the cape. 'This is where we are, but that is the country I BELONG TO.' I asked him how we were governed, and he answered quite right. 'How is the Cape governed?' 'Oh, we have a Parliament too, and Mr. Silberbauer is the man WE send.' Boys and girls of all ages were mixed, but no blacks. I don't think they will learn, except on compulsion, as at Gnadenthal.

I regret to say that Bill's wife has broken his head with a bottle, at the end of the honeymoon. I fear the innovation of being MARRIED AT CHURCH has not had a good effect, and that his neighbours may quote Mr. Peachum.

I was offered a young lion yesterday, but I hardly think it would be an agreeable addition to the household at Esher.

I hear that Worcester, Paarl, and Stellenbosch are beautiful, and the road very desolate and grand: one mountain pass takes six hours to cross. I should not return to Capetown so early, but poor Captain J- has had his leg smashed and amputated, so I must look out for myself in the matter of ships. Whenever it is hot, I am well, for the heat here is so LIGHT and dry. The wind tries me, but we have little here compared to the coast. I hope that the voyage home will do me still more good; but I will not sail till April, so as to arrive in June. May, in the Channel, would not do.

How I wish I could send you the fruit now on my table - amber- coloured grapes, yellow waxen apples streaked with vermillion in fine little lines, huge peaches, and tiny green figs!

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