ilently and greedily. We were all trembling so much
that it seemed as impossible to stand upright on the earth as on the
tossing waters, and it was with reeling, drunken-looking steps that
we rolled and staggered through the heavy sand-street until we reached
the shelter of an exceedingly dirty hotel. Everything in it required
courage to touch, and it was with many qualms that I deposited limp
little G---- on a filthy sofa. However, the mistress of the house
looked clean, and so did the cups and saucers she quickly produced;
and by the time we had finished a capital breakfast we were all quite
in good spirits again, and so sharpened up as to be able to "mock
ourselves" of our past perils and present discomforts. Outside there
were strange, beautiful shrubs in flower, tame pigeons came cooing and
bowing in at the door, and above all there was an enchanting freshness
and balminess in the sunny air.

In about an hour "Capting Florence" (as G---- styles our new
commander) calls for us and takes us out sight-seeing. First and
foremost, across the river to the rapidly-growing railway lines, where
a brand-new locomotive was hissing away with full steam up. Here we
were met and welcomed by the energetic superintendent of this iron
road, and, to my intense delight, after explaining to me what a long
distance into the interior the line had to go and how fast it was
getting on, considering the difficulties in the way of doing anything
in South Africa, from washing a pocket-handkerchief up to laying down
a railway, he proposed that we should get _on_ the engine and go as
far as the line was open for anything like safe traveling. Never were
such delightful five minutes as those spent in whizzing along through
the park-like country and cutting fast through the heavenly air. In
vain did I smell that my serge skirts were getting dreadfully singed,
in vain did I see most uncertain bits of rail before me: it was all
too perfectly enchanting to care for danger or disgrace, and I could
have found it in my heart to echo G----'s plaintive cry for "More!"
when we came to the end and had to get off. But it consoled us a
little to watch the stone-breaking machine crunching up small rocks as
though they had been lumps of sugar, and after looking at that we set
off for the unfinished station, and could take in, even in its present
skeleton state, how commodious and handsome it will all be some day.
You are all so accustomed to be whisked about th