m the Belvedere of the San Martino monastery. The whitish-grey town
is furrowed into canyon-like streets. Beyond the town and over the flats
was a view like that from Camaldoli. The foreground was scrub and pine
and deep red earth, whereon men were building a new house. May fate send
me here again when the sun is hot and the under world is all aglow!

I came at last to the little wind-swept divide between Table Mountain
and the Lion's Head. Here Capetown was lost to me, and I stood among
sandy wastes where thin pines and whin-like bushes grow. And further
still was the cold grey sea with the waves breaking on a rocky point and
a little island all awash with white water.

Though beyond this divide the air was cold as death, the slopes of Table
Mountain sweeping to the sea were full of colour; deep, strong, stern
colour. When the sun shines and full summer rules upon the Cape
Peninsula the place must be glorious. Even when I saw it an artist would
wonder how it was that with such a chill wind the colour remained. And
above the coloured lower slopes this new view of Table Mountain
suggested a serried rank of sphinxes staring out across the desert sea.
The nearest peak of the mountain is weathered, cracked and scarred, and
it in are two chimneys that appear accessible only for the oreads who
block the way with their smoky clouds. In the far north-eastern distance
the grey headlands melted into the grey ocean. But beneath me were the
tender green of the birch-like silver tree and the rich young leaves of
the transplanted English oak.

VELDT, PLAIN AND PRAIRIE

Among the problems which remain perpetually interesting are those which
deal with the influence of environment on races, and that of races on
environment. What happens when the people are plastic and their
circumstances rigid? What when the people are rigid and unyielding, and
their surroundings fluent and unabiding? And does character depend on
what is outside, or does the dominant quality of a race remain, as some
vainly think, for ever? These are puzzling questions, but not entirely
beyond conjecture for one who has heard the siren songs of the African
veldt, the Australian plain, and the American prairie.

He who consciously observes usually observes the obvious, and may rank
as a discoverer only among the unobservant. Truth may be looked for, but
he who hunts her shall rarely find when the truth he seeks is something
not suited for scientific formulae.