ys a good bookseller's, and all books are to be bought
there at pretty nearly the same prices as in England. Here
each volume costs precisely the same as it would in London,
and it would puzzle ever so greedy a reader to name a book
which would not be instantly handed to him.

The museum is well worth a visit of many more hours than we
could afford minutes, and, as might be expected, contains
numerous specimens of the _Bok_ family, whose tapering horns
and slender legs are to be seen at every turn of one's head.
Models are there also of the largest diamonds, and especially
well copied is the famous "Star of South Africa," a
magnificent brilliant of purest water, sold here originally
for something like twelve thousand pounds, and resold for
double that sum three or four years back. In these few hours I
perceive, or think I perceive, a certain soreness, if one
may use the word, on the part of the Cape Colonists about the
unappreciativeness of the English public toward their produce
and possessions. For Instance, an enormous quantity of wine is
annually exported, which reaches London by a devious route and
fetches a high price, as it is fairly entitled to do from its
excellence. If that same wine were sent direct to a London
merchant and boldly sold as Cape wine, it is said that the
profit on it would be a very different affair. The same
prejudice exists against Cape diamonds. Of course, as in other
things, a large proportion of inferior stones are forced into
the market and serve to give the diamonds that bad name which
we all know is so fatal to a dog. But it is only necessary to
pretend that a really fine Cape diamond has come from Brazil
to ensure its fetching a handsome price, and in that way even
jewelers themselves have been known to buy and give a good
round sum, too, for stones they would otherwise have looked
upon with suspicion. Already I have seen a straw-colored
diamond from "Du Zoit's pan" in the diamond-fields cut in
Amsterdam and set in London, which could hold its own for
purity, radiance and color against any other stone of the same
rare tint, without fear or favor; but of course such gems are
not common, and fairly good diamonds cost as much here as in
any other part of the world.

The light morning mists from that dampness of yesterday have
rolle