Letters from the Cape

WHEN I wrote last Sunday, we put our pilot on shore, and went down Channel. It soon came on to blow, and all night was squally and rough. Captain on deck all night. Monday, I we...

I CAME on shore on a very fine day, but the weather changed, and we had a fortnight of cold and damp and S.W. wind (equivalent to our east wind), such as the ‘oldest inhabitant’...

28_th_ _Oct._—Since I wrote, we have had more really cold weather, but yesterday the summer seems to have begun. The air is as light and clear as if _there were none_, and the s...

I DID not feel at all well at Simon’s Bay, which is a land of hurricanes. We had a ‘south-easter’ for fourteen days, without an hour’s lull; even the flag-ship had no communicat...

I AM beginning now really to feel better: I think my cough is less, and I eat a great deal more. They cook nice clean food here, and have some good claret, which I have been ext...

Till this last week, the weather was pertinaciously cold and windy; and I had resolved to go to Worcester, which lies in a ‘Kessel’, and is really hot. But now the glorious Afri...

WELL, I have been to Gnadenthal, and seen the ‘blooming parish’, and a lovely spot it is. A large village nestled in a deep valley, surrounded by high mountains on three sides,...

YOU must have fallen into second childhood to think of _printing_ such rambling hasty scrawls as I write. I never could write a good letter; and unless I gallop as hard as I can...

THIS morning’s post brought your packet, and the announcement of an extra mail to-night—so I can send you a P.S. I hear that Capetown has been pestilential, and as hot as Calcut...

Yesterday Captain D— gave me a very nice caross of blessbok skins, which he got from some travelling trader. The excellence of the Caffre skin-dressing and sewing is, I fancy, u...

Dr. Shea says he fears I must not winter in England yet, but that I am greatly improved—as, indeed, I could tell him. He is another of the kind ‘sea doctors’ I have met with; he...

IT has been a _real_ hot day, and threatened an earthquake and a thunderstorm; but nothing has come of it beyond sheet lightning to-night, which is splendid over the bay, and lo...

Here I am, waiting for a ship; the steamer was too horrid: and I look so much to the good to be gained by the voyage that I did not like to throw away the chance of two months a...

After five weeks of waiting and worry, I have, at last, sent my goods on board the ship _Camperdown_, now discharging her cargo, and about to take a small party of passengers fr...

These weary six weeks have cost no end of money and temper. I have been eating my heart out at the delay, but it was utterly impossible to go by any of the Indian ships. They sa...

I EMBARKED this day week, and found a good airy cabin, and all very comfortable. Next day I got the carpenter’s services, by being on board before all the rest, and relashed and...