t how much I
should like to visit the country again and see some of my old friends
there. I am certain that there is a great quantity of ivory in many
parts, and ostrich-feathers could be procured, as ostriches are
plentiful."

"We will think about it," said my uncle, "and perhaps it may be
managed."

After this conversation I became unsettled. I was always thinking of
the wild life I had led, of its freedom from all forms and
conventionalities, and the beauty of the country.

My uncle said nothing more for some weeks, but again referred one
morning to our previous conversation, and asked if I were still willing
to pursue my adventures in South Africa. He said that I could sail to
the Cape in one of the ordinary Indiamen, and charter at the Cape a
small vessel which could cross the bar at Natal. When this ship was
loaded I could return with her to Cape Town, transfer my goods to an
Indiaman, and return home. The whole business, he thought, might occupy
a year; and, if carefully carried out, ought to be profitable.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

It was a bright fresh morning in April, that--I embarked at Gravesend in
the full-rigged ship _Condor_, bound to the Cape and Calcutta. The most
unpleasant and dangerous portion of the voyage in those days was from
Gravesend through the Downs, and along the Channel. Sailing ships only
then made these long voyages, and they were sometimes detained during
many weeks in the Downs waiting for a fair wind. Then, when sailing in
the Channel, they often had to beat against a contrary wind the whole
way. In my case we were fortunate in having a fair wind nearly the
whole way from the Downs, until we had entered the Bay of Biscay. Fine
weather continued until we were within a few degrees of the Equator,
when the usual calms stopped us, and we lay broiling on the calm sea
during ten days.

I caught two rather large sharks, and had a narrow escape from one as I
was bathing from a boat near the ship. We reached Table Bay in
sixty-two days after leaving Gravesend, which period was considered by
no means bad time for a sailing vessel. Having cleared my baggage from
the ship and Custom House, I put up at an hotel at the corner of the
parade in Cape Town, and sent word to my friend, Mr Rossmar, to say I
had arrived.

Early on the following morning. Mr Rossmar came to see me, and was at
once full of complaints on account of my not having immediately gone to
his house, and made it