d bare as parchment for half the
year. _This_ is the spring." Can you not imagine how provoking it is
to hear such statements made by old settlers, who know the place only
too well, and to find out that all the radiant beauty which greets
the traveler's eye is illusive, for in many places there are miles and
miles without a drop of water for the flock and herds; consequently,
there are no means of transport for all this fuel until the days of
railways? Besides which, through Natal lies the great highway to
the Diamond Fields, the Transvaal and the Free States, and all the
opening-up country beyond; so it is more profitable to drive a wagon
than to till a farm. Every beast with four legs is wanted to drag
building materials or provisions. The supply of beef becomes daily
more precarious and costly, for the oxen are all "treking," and
one hears of nothing but diseases among animals--"horse sickness,"
pleuro-pneumonia, fowl sickness (I feel it an impertinence for the
poultry to presume to be ill), and even dogs set up a peculiar and
fatal sort of distemper among themselves.

But to return to the last hours of our journey. The mules struggle
bravely along, though their ears are beginning to flap about any way,
instead of being held straight and sharply pricked forward, and the
encouraging cries of "Pull up, Capting! now then, Blue-bok, hi!"
become more and more frequent: the driver in charge of the whips is
less nice in his choice of a scourge with which to urge on the patient
animals, and whacks them soundly with whichever comes first. The
children have long ago wearied of the confinement and darkness of
the back seats of the hooded vehicle; we are all black and blue from
jolting in and out of deep holes hidden by mud which occur at every
yard; but still our flagging spirits keep pretty good, for _our_
little Table Mountain has been left behind, whilst before us, leaning
up in one corner of an amphitheatre of hills, are the trees which mark
where Maritzburg nestles. The mules see it too, and, sniffing their
stables afar off, jog along faster. Only one more rise to pull up: we
turn a little off the high-road, and there, amid a young plantation
of trees, with roses, honeysuckle and passion-flowers climbing up the
posts of the wide verandah, a fair and enchanting prospect lying
at our feet, stands our new home, with its broad red tiled roof
stretching out a friendly welcome to the tired, belated travelers.

A SYLVAN S