Greytown, Natal,
April 1893.

After my last letter to you we journeyed back, over the seven hundred odd miles to Kimberley, and found life up there a little flat after the gay time we had been having at the Cape; but I had some good tennis and riding, and then we had to prepare for the circuit.

At each place that the judge visits he has to do a little entertaining, so he has to take a cook and a butler with him; and as some of the places where courts are held are quite villages, he has to take a certain amount of groceries along too—and, of course, wine.

The Government provide a saloon carriage with a small kitchen on board, so that is used as the judge's headquarters when near the railway lines; but many of the places visited entail long drives in Cape carts.

The first place we went to was Colesberg, and we arrived there at 6 A.M. We were quite a large party with the barristers, the clerk and registrar, the interpreter, and the servants.

We were met by the magistrate and the sheriff, with a smart escort of Cape Mounted Police, and a party of convicts to take the baggage up.

We found a nice little house ready for us, the owner having turned out to make room; and, after a wash and breakfast, the men all went off to the court, and I stayed to unpack and get things straight.

There were three coloured girls left to do the housework, &c. None of them could speak English, and they had several babies scattered about. I knew we had to give a dinner party before we left, and felt rather hopeless about how it would go with the material to hand. However, everything went off very well in the end. Lots of people called on me, and I had some good tennis at the club, and also some nice rides on a horse that was lent to me, the first one I have tried since I came to this country that had a good mouth; most of them are ruined with the bits they use.

The surrounding country was rather pretty, and good for corn and cattle.

We stayed four days at Colesberg, and then moved on to Craddock, ten hours on the railway. There was a lot of court work there, and it had to be fitted into five days; so the men were in court nearly all the time—one night up to 11 P.M.—and I found it a little slow. But I had some nice drives, one day going out to see some curious sulphur baths, and another day to a farm about eight miles off, where every imaginable kind of fruit seemed to grow.

After this we parted company, my brother going on to Middleburg, and I for another run of ten hours in the train to Port Elizabeth, where I joined the Drummond Castle for Durban.

Various people seemed to have asked the captain to take care of me, so I sat next to him at table, and he was most kind. When he found that I meant to put up at a hotel in Durban, he told me that he wouldn't let me do that, as he had lots of friends there, and I should have a much better time if I went to stay with them.

We got to East London next day. The sea was rather rough, and there was a lot of cargo to get on board, so we were there some time; but I didn't go ashore. When we had again got under way, the captain came up to me and said, "I have wired to some people in Durban to ask them to meet you when we get there." Was it not kind of him?

When we reached Durban I waited till the captain was ready to go ashore; and then we got into a kind of huge clothes-basket, and were swung over the side and into the tender, as these big steamers can't get into the harbour. And when we had come alongside the wharf, we found two ladies waiting for us, with a sweet pair of cream-coloured ponies.

They assured me it was quite all right, and that they really had lots of room, and the captain was to come up to lunch. So off we drove to such a nice house up on the Berea, with a lovely view right over the harbour.

They were very pleasant Scotch people, and they were so kind to me, driving me about to see the town, &c.

I stayed the night with them, and all the next day, as there was no train till 6 P.M.; and then they saw me off, and made me promise to visit them on my way back.

I got to Pietermaritzburg at 10.30 P.M. (I believe it is very fine scenery on the way up, but it was too dark to see it), and stayed a night at a hotel, where I found that my kind Durban friends had wired to the proprietress to look after me; so everything was very comfortable.

I was up early the next morning to have a look round Maritzburg, and made friends with the driver of the post-cart, who promised me the box-seat. "John" was quite a character, and he entertained me well for all the forty-five miles we drove that day.

We got away at 10.30 A.M. with six tough little horses and the funniest old Noah's Ark of a coach you ever saw. The road was very rough, and there were very steep bits down to rivers (or "spruits," as they are called here), and then a hard pull up the other side. We changed horses several times, and some of the teams were very raw and wild; and the leaders were sometimes inclined to turn round and come to see how the shaft-horses were getting on. So John had to use his huge whip at times, and I had to cling on, and I got so bumped about that I was stiff for days afterwards.

John had many interesting stories to tell, having been a despatch-rider for us in the Zulu War.

My friends met me a mile or two outside Greytown with a mule-cart, in which we drove up to their farm—such a delightful old house. It really belongs to Mrs. ——'s father, but he is in England now, where they have some children at school; so they have come up from their smaller house in Greytown to take care of the farm.

I have been here a fortnight now, and have enjoyed every minute of it. For one thing, the climate is delightful. It is pretty hot, but not the damp heat you find near the coast, nor the dusty heat of Kimberley. So I am feeling very fit, and the people are so nice I should like to stay for months. It is a very free-and-easy life, and we are waited upon by a man in a shirt and an apron of cats' tails!

It is very pretty country, and I am having delightful rides on a good horse. One day we rode out to see some people who live fifteen miles away from here, and they insisted upon our staying the night. Of course they don't get many visitors out there. The next morning we rode on to a place where we got a splendid view over what they call the Thorne country, right into Zululand. We could see the Mooi River valley, and they pointed out to me where the "defence of Rorke's Drift" saved Natal.

I had never been inside a Kaffir hut, so we went one day to explore; and I was taken to call upon "Sixpence," a Zulu who works here. We had to crawl into the wattle and straw hut on our hands and knees, and at first I could not see anything and could hardly breathe, as the only escape for the smoke from their fire is through the doorway; but we squatted down on the floor—which looked clean and polished with much sitting upon—and soon I made out Mrs. Sixpence (Sixpence can only afford one wife), with a blanket draped around her, and four children. The baby was absolutely naked, and the other children were chiefly clad in beads. And then there was Sixpence's mother, a poor old thing who is over a hundred, and can remember Chaka, the great Zulu chief.

I have collected many curios while staying here, and the other day I was given the skin of a huge python 18 feet long, which had been shot near to the house not long before. I can't bear snakes and creeping beasts, and there are a great many of them up here. There is more grass than there is in Cape Colony, and so better cover for the beasts. The other day, when I was out riding, my horse gave a great jump aside, and after I had remonstrated with him I looked back, and saw a horrid snake sitting up and hissing at us; so I had to explain to my gee how sorry I was that I had spoken!

The doctor with whom I am staying has to take very long journeys on horseback to see his patients. He seems very popular, and often has to go to Kaffir kraals a long way off, though many of the natives still stick to their faith in the witch-doctors and their weird remedies. Very often they have no money, so he is paid in kind; and sometimes he returns from a visit to a chief with one or two cows, which he has to drive home before him.

Several people have asked me to stay with them; and if I was not in such a hurry to get back to work, I am sure I could put in several months up here with much enjoyment, the Natal people are quite delightful, and so hospitable. But John has promised me the box-seat on his Noah's ark again on Tuesday, and I must once more make tracks for Kimberley.

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