Kimberley, South Africa,
July 1892.

When I last wrote to you I was still a humble pro., often a weary, hungry, and foot-sore pro., but withal a happy one, and I hope one day to be a pro. again—but for the present, times have changed.

I have come out to stay with my brother, who is the Judge-President here. He has lived here for the last eleven or twelve years, but this year there is a great Exhibition in Kimberley, so he has taken a larger house for the time being, and will be able to entertain a few friends who will be coming up for the Exhibition.

I left Southampton in June, on the R.M.S. Scot, and had a very pleasant voyage out in good weather. I suppose people are always especially kind to a "lone lady" on board ship; at any rate, I had a very good time.

There were not many passengers on board, only forty-two gentlemen in the first class, and seventeen ladies, so I had a nice big cabin to myself.

The Scot is the only twin-screw steamer on that line, and it was lucky she had a twin screw, as, when I woke up the first morning out from Southampton, there was a strange silence on board, and when I got on deck I found there had been an explosion in the engine-room, and the top of the high-pressure valve was blown off; there was some talk of having to signal for a steamer to tow us into Brest, but after awhile, the engineers concluded they could patch up matters, and we could proceed with one screw working; this reduced our speed, but I did not mind that at all.

The Bay behaved very nicely, and I did not miss a meal in the saloon all the way out. We had a few hours ashore at Madeira while they were coaling and overhauling the damaged machinery, and the flowers and fruit were beautiful as ever; the men and boys swarmed round the steamer in little boats, and would dive into the sea for silver coins thrown overboard: one or two of them could dive down under our ship and come up on the other side.

The next day we passed the Canary Islands, and had a good view of my old friend, the Peak of Tenerife.

We had the usual board-ship entertainments; two dances (the stewards make a very good band), several concerts, an amusing "Trial by Jury" of one of the passengers, sports for the passengers and for the crew, plenty of cricket and other games. This is the programme for one day from my diary:—

Seven A.M.: Salt tub. 7.30: On deck, tramp and talk, and then read. 8.30: Breakfast; excitement over the sweepstakes on the ship's run, &c.; read, prepare programmes for the concert at night, hunt up people to sing, &c.; watch a whale and flying-fish. 12.30: Fire and boat drill by the crew. 1 P.M.: lunch, sleep. 3: play cricket. 4: tea, choir practice, tramp and talk. 6.30: dinner. 8.30: concert, tramp and talk and watch the phosphorescence, and look for the Southern Cross till 11 P.M.; then bed, and as sound a sleep as though I had done a day's work. A sea-voyage, with pleasant people on board, and not too rough a sea, is the most restful way of taking a holiday I can imagine.

It was very damp and hot crossing the Line, and the cabins became so stuffy that sleep at night was somewhat difficult; but one could make up for that by sleeping a few hours in the day when up on deck.

All too soon we anchored in Table Bay, under the shelter of Table Mountain. Many people are disappointed in their first view of Table Mountain, but it has a grandeur all its own, and it grows upon you.

My brother was unable to meet me as he had intended, but a friend of his came on board—a gentleman who was down in Cape Town for the session of Parliament—and I found it was arranged for me to spend a day or two with him and his family at Sea Point, a suburb of Cape Town, before continuing my journey "up country."

Having come nearly 7000 miles alone, it did not seem to make a great deal of odds having to do another 700 miles alone; but I was glad of a few days' rest, with pleasant people.

I had made so many friends on board the ship that it was quite sad to say good-bye to them all; and I had more than one kind invitation to stay with people in different parts of South Africa.

The day after we landed, I was taken to hear a debate in the House of Parliament on the Deceased Wife's Sister's Bill. The people I was staying with went on to a reception at Government House, and wanted to take me with them; but I begged off, not having unpacked suitable garments.

It is very pretty all round Cape Town, and I hope to see more of it before I return home.

Then, one evening at 9 P.M., I was seen off from Cape Town Station, and was once more a traveller on my own account, but not under such comfortable conditions as on board ship. I learnt that the dining and sleeping cars were attached to the trains only on one night of the week (the night the mail-boats come in), so I went in an ordinary first-class carriage, the ticket costing me more than £8, and found the seats were covered with horse-hair, and by no means comfortable for a night journey. Above the seat there is a shelf which lets down at night, so that four people can secure lying-down room in each carriage.

I soon learnt, also, that in this upside-down country, in spite of the fact that it was the month of July, it was also the middle of winter, and as we got up to higher altitudes it became intensely cold. I had the carriage to myself at first, and, having piled on all the clothes I had with me, I was trying to sleep, when, about 2 A.M., two old Dutch ladies were put in with me, and for the rest of the night they chattered, and ate cheese and apples and onions, so that sleep was impossible until they left the train at Matjesfontein.

I am told the scenery we passed through that night is very grand. I hope some time to see it under more favourable conditions.

Cold and hungry, about 7 A.M., we stopped for breakfast at Matjesfontein. I took my sponge-bag and towel, thinking I should find a waiting-room; but all I found was a tap on the platform, where we took our turn at a splash in icy-cold water, and then went on to a tin shanty, where breakfast was served—kippers, good bread, indifferent butter, and moderate tea.

There did not seem to be any hurry; but when we had all finished, and the engine had had a drink, and the engine-driver had lit his pipe, we started off again. And all that day we strolled across the Karroo, stopping (apparently) just when the driver felt inclined, and, when there was a hill, going so slowly one felt tempted to jump off and take a little exercise by running alongside.

It was very grey and brown, this wonderful Karroo country, with occasional kopjes (hills with great boulders of stones up the sides), and now and then a river or a stream, and always by any water a green line of the mimosa trees covered with their yellow flower.

As the sun grew stronger I began to forget the discomforts of the night, and some pleasant Dutch people came on board and told me many interesting things about the country we were passing through. Then I was introduced to my first swarm of locusts; a weird sight it was, too. They were pointed out to me first when they were some miles ahead of us, and looked like a small black cloud; then, as they came near, the sky seemed to become black with them, and we had to shut all the windows or the carriage would soon have been full of them. They tell me sometimes the young ones settle on the lines in such masses, and the lines become so slippery, the trains can't get on, and the men have to turn out and shovel them off. Fancy a Great Northern express being held up by a swarm of locusts!

For most of the way the old waggon-road ran alongside the railway, and was marked out by the skeletons of horses and oxen, or the sadder sight of a mound of stones with a little wooden cross, where some poor fellow had "fallen by the way."

We stopped at Victoria West for dinner; and as there was another train (from up country) in the station, we were halted well out on the veldt, and I had to stumble along to the station, and then, across what seemed in the darkness to be a rickyard, to the tin shanty where dinner was served. I was the only lady there; but I had only had a snack lunch on board the train, and we were more than an hour later than we had expected to dine, so I was too hungry to mind much, and had a very good dinner. There is only a single line for all this long track, so the delays to allow trains to pass at the stations are numerous, and it is well never to travel without a supply of chocolate, as the meals are very movable feasts.

I managed to sleep through that night, as it was not so cold, and I had the carriage to myself. Early the next morning we steamed into Kimberley, and my brother met me at the station.