ng
courage, and of the power of discipline in moments of tremendous trial.

LETTER THIRTEEN.

THE "CAPE DOCTOR"--THE CAPETOWN MINE--MULES, LITERATURE, AND
CUSTOMS-OFFICIALS.

It is pretty generally known that there is a "tablecloth" at Capetown.
Its proper resting-place is Table Mountain. When the flat top of that
celebrated hill is clear, (I write of the summer season), the thirty
thousand inhabitants of Capetown may go forth in comfort if they can
stand the blazing sunshine, but as surely as that pure white cloud--the
tablecloth--rests on the summit of Table Mountain, so surely does the
gale known as the "south-easter" come down like a wolf on the fold.

The south-easter is a sneezer, and a frequent visitor at the Cape in
summer. Where it comes from no one can tell: where it goes to is best
known to itself: what it does in passing is painfully obvious to all.
Fresh from the Antarctic seas it swoops down on the southern shores of
Africa, and sweeps over the land as if in search of a worthy foe. It
apparently finds one in Table Mountain, which, being 3582 feet high,
craggy and precipitous, meets the enemy with frowning front, and hurls
him back discomfited--but not defeated.

Rallying on the instant, the south-easter rushes up over its
cloud-capped head and round its rugged sides, and down its dizzy slopes,
and falls with a shriek of fiendish fury on the doomed city. Oceans of
sand and dust are caught up by it, whirled round as if in mad ecstasy,
and dashed against the faces of the inhabitants--who tightly shut their
mouths and eyes as they stoop to resist the onset. Then the
south-easter yells while it sweeps dust, small stones, twigs, leaves,
and stray miscellanies, right over Signal Hill into the South Atlantic.

This is bad enough, but it is a mere skirmish--only the advance guard of
the enemy. Supposing this attack to have been commenced in the morning,
the remainder of the day is marked by a series of violent assaults with
brief intervals of repose. In rapid succession the south-easter brings
up its battalions and hurls them on the mountain. It leaps over the
moat and ramparts of the "castle" with fury, roars down the cannons'
throats, shrieks out at the touch-holes, and lashes about the town right
and left, assaulting and violating, for the south-easter respects
neither person nor place. It rattles roofs and windows, and all but
overturns steeples and chimneys; it well-nigh blows the shops insi