I
Liked My Hottentot Hut Amazingly, And The Sweet Brown Bread, And
The Dinner Cooked So Cleanly On The Bricks In The Kitchen.
The
walls were whitewashed and adorned with wreaths of everlasting
flowers and some quaint old prints from Loutherburg - pastoral
subjects, not exactly edifying.
Well, I have prosed unconscionably, so adieu for the present.
February 3d. - Many happy returns of your birthday, dear -. I had a
bottle of champagne to drink your health, and partly to swell the
bill, which these good people make so moderate, that I am half
ashamed. I get everything that Caledon can furnish for myself and
S- for 15l. a month.
On Saturday we got the sad news of Prince Albert's death, and it
created real consternation here. What a thoroughly unexpected
calamity! Every one is already dressed in deep mourning. It is
more general than in a village of the same size at home - (how I
have caught the colonial trick of always saying 'home' for England!
Dutchmen who can barely speak English, and never did or will see
England, equally talk of 'news from home'). It also seems, by the
papers of the 24th of December, which came by a steamer the other
day, that war is imminent. I shall have to wait for convoy, I
suppose, as I object to walking the plank from a Yankee privateer.
I shall wait here for the next mail, and then go back to Capetown,
stopping by the way, so as to get there early in March, and arrange
for my voyage.
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