Six Months at the Cape

Dear Periwinkle,--Since that memorable, not to say miserable, day, when you and I parted at Saint Katherine's Docks, [see note 1], with the rain streaming from our respective no...

To start for the hunting-field at seven in the morning in a carriage and six, smacks of royalty and sounds luxurious, but in South Africa there are drawbacks connected therewith.

On my way to the Karroo I had to pass through Somerset East, and it so fell out that I fell in with a countryman from Edinburgh, who chanced to be going to Somerset in the same...

In ordinary circumstances the ostrich is a mild, inoffensive creature-- indeed the female is always so; but when a male ostrich is what I may style nesting--when, enclosed in a...

Ah, those were happy days, when, with a congenial spirit, I drove and galloped over the South African plains. There was not much in the way of thrilling incidents, to be sure, a...

I had gone there in absolute ignorance of men and things, and had found a hearty welcome in the abode of a warm-hearted Christian family and a romantic region, full, to me, of n...

It is deeply interesting to tread in the footsteps of bold adventurous men, and visit the scenes which have been rendered classic by their deeds of heroic daring or of patient e...

Rain is a blessed refreshment to the thirsty land; it is a life-giving cordial to the thirsty soul; but when rain descends in torrents and without cessation during the greater p...

At the Great Fish River I came on a specimen of the mighty power of water in the ruins of a splendid bridge. The great floods of the previous year had carried one-half of it awa...

Salem is, as it should be, a peaceful spot. It was not always so. There was a time when its inhabitants had to toil, so to speak, with the spade in one hand, and the musket in t...

Standing on the shores of Algoa Bay, with the "Liverpool of South Africa"--Port Elizabeth--at my back, I attempted to realise what must have been the scene, in the memorable "18...

Port Elizabeth may be described as the first-born city of the Eastern Province of the Cape of Good Hope. It came into being in 1820. It is now a flourishing seaport, full of ene...

It is pretty generally known that there is a "tablecloth" at Capetown. Its proper resting-place is Table Mountain. When the flat top of that celebrated hill is clear, (I write o...

A mission started in the year 1860 for the Zambesi, where it was met, and for a time joined, by the great Dr Livingstone. Its leader, Bishop Mackenzie, who laid down his life in...