s of a certain dimension. When the fishing is
over for the season, these square lots of pearl oysters are put up to
auction and sold to the highest bidder, of course, `contents unknown;'
so that it becomes a species of lottery; the purchaser may not find a
single pearl in his lot, or he may find two or three, which will realise
twenty times the price which he has paid for his lot."

"It is, then, a lottery from beginning to end; the poor divers' lottery
is shark or no shark; the purchasers', pearls or no pearls. But Mr
Fairburn is coming up the ladder, and I am anxious to know what was the
fate of Mokanna."

Mr Fairburn, who had come on deck on purpose to continue the narrative,
took his seat by his two fellow-passengers and went on as follows:--

"I stated that Mokanna had been forwarded to the Cape. You must have
perceived that his only crime was that of fighting for his native land
against civilised invaders; but this was a deep crime in the eyes of the
colonial government; he was immediately thrown into the common gaol, and
finally was condemned to be imprisoned for life on Robben Island, a
place appropriated for the detention of convicted felons and other
malefactors, who there work in irons at the slate-quarries."

"May I ask, where is Robben Island?"

"It is an island a few miles from the mainland, close to Table Bay, upon
which the Cape Town is built.

"Mokanna remained there about a year, when, having made his intentions
known to some Caffres who were confined there with him, he contrived out
of the iron hoops of the casks to make some weapons like cutlasses, with
which he armed his followers, rose upon the guard and overpowered them;
he then seized the boat, and with his Caffres made for the mainland.
Unfortunately, in attempting to disembark upon the rocks on the
mainland, the boat was upset in the surf, which was very violent;
Mokanna clung some time to a rock, but at last was washed off and thus
perished the unfortunate leader of the Caffres."

"Poor fellow," said Alexander; "he deserved a better fate and a more
generous enemy; but did the war continue?"

"No; it ended in a manner every way worthy of that in which it was
begun. You recollect that the war was commenced to support Gaika, our
selected chief of the Caffres, against the real chiefs. The Caffres had
before been compelled to give up their territories on our side of the
Fish River; the colonial government now insisted upon their retiri