AFRICAN CAMP FIEES. 



I. 



THE OPEN DOOR. 



THERE are many interesting hotels scattered 

 about the world, with a few of which I am 

 acquainted and with a great many of which I am 

 not. Of course all hotels are interesting, from one 

 point of view or another. In fact, the surest way 

 to fix an audience's attention is to introduce your 

 hero, or to display your opening chorus in the lobby 

 or along the f aade of a hotel. The life, the move- 

 ment and colour, the drifting individualities, the 

 pretence, the bluff, the self-consciousness, the 

 independence, the ennui, the darting or lounging 

 servants, the very fact that of those before your 

 eyes seven out of ten are drawn from distant and 

 scattered places, are sufficient in themselves to 

 invest the smallest hostelry with glamour. It is 



la 



