e sufficient money for
all my needs in port and for the homeward voyage.

[G] Colonel Saunderson was Mr. Kruger's very best friend, inasmuch as he
advised the president to avast mounting guns.

After visiting Kimberley and Pretoria, and finding the _Spray_ all
right in the docks, I returned to Worcester and Wellington, towns
famous for colleges and seminaries, passed coming in, still traveling
as the guest of the colony. The ladies of all these institutions of
learning wished to know how one might sail round the world alone,
which I thought augured of sailing-mistresses in the future instead of
sailing-masters. It will come to that yet if we men-folk keep on
saying we "can't."

On the plains of Africa I passed through hundreds of miles of rich but
still barren land, save for scrub-bushes, on which herds of sheep were
browsing. The bushes grew about the length of a sheep apart, and they,
I thought, were rather long of body; but there was still room for all.
My longing for a foothold on land seized upon me here, where so much
of it lay waste; but instead of remaining to plant forests and reclaim
vegetation, I returned again to the _Spray_ at the Alfred Docks, where
I found her waiting for me, with everything in order, exactly as I had
left her.

I have often been asked how it was that my vessel and all
appurtenances were not stolen in the various ports where I left her
for days together without a watchman in charge. This is just how it
was: The _Spray_ seldom fell among thieves. At the Keeling Islands, at
Rodriguez, and at many such places, a wisp of cocoanut fiber in the
door-latch, to indicate that the owner was away, secured the goods
against even a longing glance. But when I came to a great island
nearer home, stout locks were needed; the first night in port things
which I had always left uncovered disappeared, as if the deck on which
they were stowed had been swept by a sea.

[Illustration: Captain Slocum, Sir Alfred Milner (with the tall hat),
and Colonel Saunderson, M. P., on the bow of the _Spray_ at Cape
Town.]

A pleasant visit from Admiral Sir Harry Rawson of the Royal Navy and
his family brought to an end the _Spray's_ social relations with the
Cape of Good Hope. The admiral, then commanding the South African
Squadron, and now in command of the great Channel fleet, evinced the
greatest interest in the diminutive _Spray_ and her behavior off Cape
Horn, where he was not an entire stranger. I have to admi