16 SOUTH AFRICA. 



who have come out in search of a genial climate 

 and suitable work, loaf about helpless and hungry ; 

 unless the sextons of the cemeteries can account 

 for their disappearance at intervals, their fate is 

 likely to remain an unsolved mystery in the 

 majority of cases. 



South Africa is not the place for such immi- 

 grants, and indeed the existing fixed population 

 is more than numerous and capable enough to 

 supply any present or probable demands for work 

 of any kind. Whether upon the whole this state 

 of things is preferable to that of the olden time, 

 when none were very rich and none painfully poor, 

 I decline to assert I may, however, avow a per- 

 sonal preference for a life of reasonable content, 

 with easy labour, to one involving any amount of 

 deferred hope expended in a fearful struggle, and 

 terminated too often by heart-sickness and 

 despair. 



Well, after a pleasant sojourn in and around the 

 Cape for some months, I got on board the old 

 Phoenix steamer, bound for Algoa Bay. This little 

 ship was a model of comfort and safety, commanded 

 by a genial captain named Harrington, and was the 

 only coasting steamer then on the coast 



