130 SOUTH AFRICA. 



The place is reputed to be unusually healthy, 

 and a considerable number of consumptive sufferers 

 use it as a roadside resting-place on their way to 

 more permanent quarters. The whole place, how- 

 ever, is enveloped in a dense ecclesiastical atmo- 

 sphere, which eclipses the brilliant sunshine of the 

 natural article, and is hardly exhilarating to 

 visitors not in urgent search of vicarious ghostly 

 assistance. English "very-High-Church" officials 

 in queer hats and sacerdotal garb appear 

 spasmodically alert, and their immaculate philac- 

 teries flutter on the breeze in all directions, and are 

 no doubt effective instruments of edification to the 

 worshippers of clerical millinery. Fragile-looking 

 nuns, seemingly in sadly depressed spirits, glide 

 about the streets, and are, I believe, quartered in 

 a neighbouring nunnery, which, however, was not 

 built when I was last in this little metropolis. 

 Monks there may be too, for aught I know to the 

 contrary, as they are undistinguishable to the 

 profane eye from the present High Church priest- 

 hood. Anyhow I can strongly recommend the 

 place as splendid hunting quarters for aspirants 

 to the honours and emoluments of monkhood, or 

 appearances are more than usually deceptive. 



