ople to come
out to from D'Urban to spend their holiday time in fine weather (there
is a pretty little church in the village hard by), but also that it
was quite _de rigueur_ for all honeymoons to be spent amid its pretty
scenery.

A steady downpour of rain all through the night made our early start
next day an affair of doubt and discouragement and dismal prophecy;
but we persevered, and accomplished another long stage through a cold
persistent drizzle before reaching an inn, where we enjoyed simply the
best breakfast I ever tasted, or at all events the best I have tasted
in Natal. The mules were also unharnessed, and after taking, each, a
good roll on the damp grass, turned out in the drizzling rain for a
rest and a nibble until their more substantial repast was ready. The
rain cleared up from time to time, but an occasional heavy shower
warned us that the weather was still sulky. It was in much better
heart and spirits, however, that we made a second start about eleven
o'clock, and struggled on through heavy roads up and down weary hills,
slipping here, sliding there, and threatening to stick everywhere.
Our next stage was to a place where the only available shelter was a
filthy inn, at which we lingered as short a time as practicable--only
long enough, in fact, to feed the mules--and then, with every prospect
of a finer afternoon, set out once more on the last and longest stage
of our journey. All the way the road has been very beautiful, in spite
of the shrouding mist, especially at the Inchanga Pass, where round
the shoulder of the hill as fair a prospect of curved green hills,
dotted with clusters of timber exactly like an English park, of
distant ranges rising in softly-rounded outlines, with deep violet
shadows in the clefts and pale green lights on the slopes, stretches
before you as the heart of painter could desire. Nestling out of sight
amid this rich pasture-land are the kraals of a large Kafir location,
and no one can say that these, the children of the soil, have not
secured one of the most favored spots. To me it all looked like a fair
mirage. I am already sick of beholding all this lovely country
lying around, and yet of being told that food and fuel are almost at
famine-prices. People say, "Oh, but you should see it in winter. _Now_
it is green, and there is plenty of feed on it, but three months ago
no grass-eating creature could have picked up a living on all the
country-side. It is all as brown an