ey my full meaning. He wore a
superfine black dress coat, a gaudy vest, and buff corduroy trousers so
short that they displayed to advantage his enormous bare feet. Beside
him was an elderly man with tweed trousers, a white shirt and brown
shooting coat, and a face not quite so solemn but very sedate. Some of
the men had boots, some had black silk hats, others wideawakes,--which
of course they removed on entering. It seemed to me that there was
among them every part and variety of costume from morning to evening
dress, but no individual could boast of being complete in himself.

As for the women, they were indescribable. Some of them wore little
more than a blanket, others were clothed in the height of European
fashion,--or something like it,--and all had evidently put on their
"Sunday's best." One stout and remarkably healthy young woman appeared
in a brilliant skirt, and an indescribable hat with ostrich feathers on
her woolly head. She sat herself down close beside me and went to sleep
at the beginning of the sermon--not out of irreverence, I am persuaded,
but from heat. In this state she continued swaying to and fro to the
end of the discourse, occasionally drooping, as though she meant to make
a pillow of my shoulder, which she would certainly have done, but for a
more modestly clad Hottentot girl at her other side, who, evidently
scandalised, kept poking at her continuously with her elbow. In justice
to the congregation I am bound to add, that I saw very few sleepers.
They were most attentive and earnest, despite the distracting elements
of a humorous kind that obtruded themselves.

Somerset East is a pretty town on the Little Fish River, at the foot of
the Boschberg mountains, which rise abruptly from the plain. It boasts
of banks, a newspaper, several churches, and the Gill College,--an
imposing edifice which was erected by private endowment. In regard to
its inhabitants, all I can say is, that the few members I had the
pleasure of meeting there during a three days' sojourn were exceedingly
hospitable and kind.

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Note 1. This deeply interesting lecture was published in Grahamstown as
a pamphlet, entitled, _The Reminiscences of an Albany Settler_.

LETTER FOUR.

ADVENTURES WITH OSTRICHES.

Ostrich-farming is no child's play. It involves risk in more ways than
one, and sometimes taxes both the courage and strength of t