lves in an
International sleeping car. Time tables were also furnished us, from
which we learned that we were due at Kimberley, 647 miles, at 10:15 p.m.
on the next day, November 1; at Mafeking, 870 miles, at 3:12 p.m. on
November 2; Palachwe, in Khama's country, 1132 miles, at 12:47 p.m.,
November 3; and at Bulawayo, 1360 miles, at 9:30 a.m. on November 4,
which would be ninety hours at fifteen miles per hour.

It took us an hour to cross the Lowry Strait, which at no very distant
period must have been covered by sea and separated the Cape Peninsula
from the Continent.

At 5:30 we arrived at the Paarl, 35 miles, a beautiful place suggestive
of Italy with its vineyards, gardens and shrubbery, and lovingly
enfolded by the Drakenstein Range. With its groves of fir and
eucalyptus, bright sunshine, and pleasant-faced people, with picturesque
mountains round about, it seemed a most desirable place.

The Paarl Station and others we passed bear witness to the excellence of
Cape railway administration. The names of the stations were boldly
printed on japanned iron plates, and though the passage of so many
trains crowded with distinguished strangers had drawn large assemblages
of the Colonists, male and female, whites, mulattoes, and negroes, the
cleanliness and orderliness that prevailed were very conspicuous.

A MESSAGE TO MR LABOUCHERE.

At 6 p.m. we had passed Wellington, 45 miles, which went to prove the
rate of travel. This town also drew from us admiring expressions for
its picturesque situation in one of the folds of the Drakenstein, for
the early summer green of its groves, vineyards, and fields, and its
pretty white houses. I thought, as I marked the charming town and its
church spires, and the sweet groves around, what a contrast it was to
the time when the Hottentot reared his cattle in the valley, and the
predatory bushman infested the neighbourhood, and preyed on ground game
and goats.

On the platform, among those who welcomed our coming, were a dozen
Radical shoemakers lately arrived from Leicester. They charged Colonel
Saunderson, M.P., my fellow traveller, with an expressive message to Mr
Labouchere. It is too forcible and inelegant for print, but it
admirably illustrates the rapidity with which Radicals become perverted
by travel.

Darkness found the train labouring through the mountainous defile of the
Hex River. We could see but a loom of the rugged heights on either
side, but from all accou