2 A NATURALIST IN THE TRANSVAAL. 



The sociologist, however, may see much to interest 

 and instruct him in the curious group of individualities 

 which constitute the passengers on an ocean steamship. 

 Thrown so close together, with no outside news of the 

 world, we notice each other's peculiarities and expose 

 our own. South Africa is now not only a health resort 

 for the invalid, and a campaigning ground for the com- 

 mercial traveller, but its gold-fields attract those spirits 

 of enterprise and speculation who wait on fortune and 

 scorn laborious days. By the side of the sufficiently 

 opulent man of weak constitution who can afford the 

 time and money incidental to a trip for health, is the 

 commercial traveller who now carries his samples through 

 the colonies as he once " worked " the United Kingdom, 

 and starts for the Cape with little more preparation than 

 he would have previously made for a journey to the 

 North pf England. Church of England curates who 

 take precedence on Sundays and members of High 

 Anglican Sisterhoods sail along with highly educated 

 and less educated dissenting ministers. Forward our 

 hardy mechanic, " whose bones were made in England," 

 who will carry his handicraft, his energy, and also his 

 love of " wholesome beer " to a colony that will be 

 certainly the richer for his first two qualifications, rubs 

 shoulders with the lower form of Israelite, who does 

 not compliment his race, who may possibly buy " illicit 

 diamonds," or even succeed to the greater height of 

 assisting in the promotion of a bogus gold company. 

 All, however, are " hail, good fellows, well met," on 

 board, and though saloon, second-class, and steerage 

 are a little timorous of each other afloat, the distinctions 

 are not so accentuated as on shore. It is in these 

 migratory assemblies that one may study the evolution 

 of a colony. 



There is little opportunity for a naturalist on board a 

 fast steamer ; and for one who has travelled the ocean 

 before, the animals met are much the same. But after 

 twenty years the sight of a flying-fish is a renewed 

 delight. We first met with the genus for there are 



