e have flowed and waxed in volume ever since.

There is a custom-house at Capetown. It is not because of being one of
the noteworthy buildings of the port that I mention it, but because of
its having been to me a personal nuisance on the occasion of my arrival
in the colony. A fellow-passenger had informed me--whether rightly or
wrongly I knew not and cared not--that watches, jewellery, and guns,
were among the taxable articles. Knowing that my portmanteau contained
no such articles, except a brass watch-guard, I presented myself to the
official with an air of conscious innocence. I had hoped that, like
many such officials in France and elsewhere, he would have been content
with an assurance that I had "nothing to declare" and the offer of my
keys, but I was mistaken. This particular official was perhaps a "new
broom." It may be that he had caught some smugglers not long before,
and the excitement had not yet worn off. At all events, instead of
allowing me to pass he ordered me to open my portmanteau.

While I was engaged in doing so he opened my shoulder-bag and eyed its
contents curiously. They were not numerous. He found nothing
contraband, and appearing somewhat disappointed applied his nose to it.

"It has a queer smell," he remarked.

As the bag had frequently done duty at picnics and been loaded with
flasks and sandwiches, I was not surprised. Besides, it occurred to me
that no tax was levied on "queer smells," though such a tax might have
been, with advantage, levied on the town itself. It would certainly
have produced an immense revenue. I smiled, however, in a pleasant
manner and said nothing.

Having shut the bag this official opened the portmanteau, and began to
examine each article in a way that would have rendered it probable he
might have finished sometime within the next twenty-four hours. He
slowly turned over my shirts and flannels as if he expected to find
mines of jewellery in the folds thereof. Suddenly he came on the brass
chain and his eye glittered, which was more than the chain did. It had
to be re-deposited with a sigh. I began to grow despairing. Presently
he took up a book and opened it. Was he going to refresh himself with a
chapter? His turning over the leaves very slowly gave reason for the
suspicion. Or did the obtuse creature expect to find watches and
gun-barrels between the leaves? At last he shut the book, and, laying
it down, proceeded to exhume a morning coa