THE "ROUGES" AT HARRISMITH. 123 



out of a broken hearth-stone, so often had it been 

 charged in rotation to officers who had the bad luck to 

 reside in the room that possessed it. 



Not having to wait for the quarantine officer, as is 

 the habit on shipboard, we at once proceeded to inspect 

 the town and deliver a letter of introduction. At the 

 post-office we called, but a surly little Dutchman refused 

 to deliver letters, as it was after hours. Grumbling at 

 the want of courtesy in officials, we went in search of 

 the gentleman to whom we had credentials. Alas ! he 

 had gone to Cronstad, and would not be back for some 

 days. After several inquiries, and making many mis- 

 takes, we found the hotel, a large, roomy, square, white 

 house, very dirty and mouldy. There was no induce- 

 ment to sleep or even eat there. The beverage we 

 wanted (lemonade and pontac) was not to be obtained, 

 so I had a soupje of Hollands, the favourite drink of 

 the Boers. To see and learn as much as possible of the 

 people and their ways, I searched out the bar-room ; it- 

 was a filthy place, filled with as dirty, drunken, dissi- 

 pated a lot of roughs as ever I set eyes on. The 

 frequenters of the grog-shops of some of the gulches of 

 the Eocky Mountains in olden times could not have 

 surpassed this dissolute crew. Yet the white population 

 of this part of South Africa are a very law-abiding 

 people : robberies seldom take place, and bloodshed 

 more rarely, and though I have heard it asserted that 

 travellers do occasionally disappear in mysterious ways, 

 the law does not trouble itself to ascertain whether such 

 occurrences happen through violence or not. 



One thing is certain, the transport riders to the 

 diamond and gold fields carry rich loads of mer- 

 chandise, and the mail-carts precious stones and specie, 



