whom I was anxious to meet. When he was Governor of Natal, he had 

 pluckily outfaced public opinion and had refused to receive Dr. 

 Jameson, when that worthy had been released from the Boer prison and 

 was on his way home to England for trial. The British colonials were 

 making a hero of him and, at the time of our visit, he was the Prime 

 Minister of Cape Colony. I was astonished at the feeling which eminent 

 men of science expressed to me concerning Jameson's piratical raid; they 

 seemed to think that the only fault which could be found with that 

 enterprise was that it had failed! 



I entered Government House with some trepidation, because I had 

 not brought with me the silk hat and frock coat, which I was told were 

 indispensable, and yet I desired to see the performance and the setting 

 of a function that plays so large a part in English novels. Purposely, 

 therefore I went rather late and found the Governor almost alone in the 

 reception room. On shaking hands with him, I remarked : "I hope. Sir 

 Walter, you will pardon my coming here without a wedding garment," 

 to which he heartily responded: "Of course I will; you're a traveller. I'm 

 the unlucky beggar that has to wear the wedding garment." Govern- 

 ment House, or, at least, the state apartments which were thrown open 

 for the occasion, were expensively furnished and decorated, but in the 

 stodgy, florid style that we call "early Pullman." The garden was not 

 very large and, in its winter condition, was uninteresting, but a stay in 

 the open air was very pleasant. 



The sectional meetings were thinly attended and I did not go to 

 many, but saw as much as possible of Cape Town and its surroundings. 

 The South African Museum contained much that was interesting, 

 especially from the point of view of similarities with Patagonia. I took 

 one of the many "finest drives in the world" going out to the coast, 

 where a series of bold, rocky headlands, called the "Twelve Apostles," 

 fringe the shore, and granite reefs, over which the surf breaks furiously, 

 run far out to sea, making a wonderful panorama. At Naples, in 1903, 

 old Dr. Dohrn, head of the Zoological Station, urged me to take my 

 Wife to Amalfi and thence to Sorrento, the "finest drive in the world," 

 and the road around the Bay of Rio Janeiro is also the "finest in the 

 world." And so they are, in truth; each, in its own different way, is 

 incomparably fine. 



Most of the Association went to Durban by sea and thence to 

 Johannesburg by rail, while a party of fifteen, under the guidance of 

 Mr. A. W. Rogers, Geologist of Cape Colony, took a geological trip 

 through the Karroo Desert. I went with this party, much to my pleasure 



