even at this time of year, but it is always
cool in the shade, and no sooner do the afternoon shadows grow
to any length than the air freshens into sharpness, and by
sundown one is glad of a good warm shawl.

OCTOBER 18.

Another bright, ideal day, and the morning passed in a
delicious flower-filled room looking over old books and
records and listening to odd, quaint little scraps from the
old Dutch records. But directly after luncheon (and how hungry
we all are, and how delicious everything tastes on shore!) the
open break with four capital horses comes to the door, and we
start for a long, lovely drive. Half a mile or so takes us
out on a flat red road with Table Mountain rising straight up
before it, but on the left stretches away a most enchanting
panorama. It is all so soft in coloring and tone, distinct and
yet not hard, and exquisitely beautiful!

The Blue-Berg range of mountains stretch beyond the great bay,
which, unless a "sou'-easter" is tearing over it, lies glowing
in tranquil richness. This afternoon it is colored like an
Italian lake. Here are lines of chrysoprase, green-fringed,
white with little waves, and beyond lie dark, translucent,
purple depths, which change with every passing cloud. Beyond
these amethystic shoals again stretches the deep blue water,
and again beyond, and bluer still, rise the five ranges
of "Hottentots' Holland," which encircle and complete the
landscape, bringing the eye round again to the nearer cliffs
of the Devil's Peak. When the Dutch came here some two hundred
years ago, they seized upon this part of the coast and called
it Holland, driving the Hottentots beyond the neighboring
range and telling them that was to be their Holland--a name it
keeps to this day. Their consciences must have troubled them
after this arbitrary division of the soil, for up the highest
accessible spurs of their own mountain they took the
trouble to build several queer little square houses called
"block-houses," from which they could keep a sharp look-out
for foes coming over the hills from Hottentots' Holland.
The foes never came, however, and the roofs and walls of
the block-houses have gradually tumbled in, and the
gun-carriages--for they managed to drag heavy ordnance up the
steep hill-side--have rotted away, whilst the old-fashioned