

 . 



CHAPTEE VI 





MR. PREFER, OF PREFER ? S HOTEL. 



A Week of Laughter Mine Host An Oddity His Peculiar Way of 'trans- 

 acting Business Prefer's Nationality "All Mine, all Mine" Pound your 

 Cattle Various Purchases of Live Stock I ride on to Howick A Fearful 

 Storm Summit House Howick Its Loveliness No Wagon A Chapter 

 of Accidents Holly dismissed Zeiderberg's Team Reach Howick at last 

 Catch a Cropper almost. 



PIETER-MARTTZBURG, the political capital of Natal, I 

 shall never forget, for the reason that I laughed more 

 there in a week than I ever did in a month. Much 

 of this merriment was owing to our host not that 

 he was ever ungentlemanly, but the reverse. He pre- 

 sided, in grave dignity, at the head of his own table, 

 and discussed with great good sense local politics, the 

 topics of the day, and little scandals that constantly vex 

 society ; but when you became acquainted with Mr. 

 Prefer you discovered that he possessed a deep vein of 

 satire and great comic powers. He also must have been 

 a man of study, for he professed to speak Zulu with 

 the proficiency of a native. I certainly heard him, on 

 numerous occasions, when a great, powerful, handsome 

 native was bounding past, shout out, " Homy lapa!" 

 What it meant, I knew not, but it had a visible effect 

 on the native, who always afterwards seemed for many 

 minutes to pursue his course a sadder if not a wiser 

 man. 



Like all geniuses, he transacted his affairs after a 



