HOUW HOEK AND STANFORD 93 



Lowry's Pass station, and after climbing the steep 

 mountain road pursue their way over open and more or 

 less elevated ground. The destination of most of 

 these carts is Caledon, a small town of importance, 

 distant about forty miles from Sir Lowry's Pass, and 

 seventy miles from Cape Town. A half - way house 

 between Sir Lowry's Pass and Caledon stands at a 

 hamlet which goes by the name of Houw Hoek. This 

 village, situated on a pass in the Houw Hoek Moun- 

 tains, stands eight or ten hundred feet above the sea, 

 and consists merely of a church, a small hotel, and a 

 few white cottages, huddled together, as though for 

 protection, beneath the shelter of two or three tall 

 eucalyptus trees, or blue gums, as they are called in 

 the Colony. Houw Hoek had bided its time for many 

 years under the shade of these tall trees, and would 

 soon reap its reward ; the railway was going to pass its 

 way, sections of which were begun here and there, 

 along the most difficult parts of the route. The prin- 

 cipal seat of the work when we w^ere there was near 

 Houw Hoek, where extempore houses, constructed of the 

 ubiquitous galvanised iron, had been put up to accom- 

 modate the engineers. The workmen were almost 

 entirely Kaffirs, and their lodging was easily arranged 

 for, being simply a sheet of galvanised iron resting at a 

 slant against a heap of brushwood. Rain or shine, this 

 seemed to be all they required, indeed the less they 

 wore the happier they appeared to be, and although 

 they were obliged to put on ordinary clothes during 

 working days, they would re\ert on Saturdays and 

 Sundays to a state which reminded them as nearly as 

 might be of that of their fathers. Many of them were 



