14 CAPETOWN. 



nate out-of-door individual. On disembarking in any 

 foreign land, one is naturally amused with the curious 

 costumes of the people ; and when the country happens 

 to be that of a coloured race, this peculiarity is still more 

 striking. The people here were of every colour and 

 denomination, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Chinamen, 

 Malays, Negroes, Kaffirs, Hottentots, Fingoes, and Mo- 

 hammedans, white and black, red and yellow, with every 

 intermediate shade. 



The head-dresses showed in the greatest variety. Some 

 heads had nothing on them, not even hair; others had a 

 small rag. Hottentot and Malay women's heads were 

 extensively got up with red and blue handkerchiefs ; some 

 wore English straw hats or coverings shaped like rotundas ; 

 others had plumes of ostrich-feathers, wide-awakes, &c. 

 Most of the women and boys danced round us when we 

 first landed, and I felt like Sindbad the sailor being 

 welcomed by the beasts on the magician's island. 



I rather liked Cape Town ; there was a good library, 

 very fair balls, pretty women, and a pleasant country near, 

 well sprinkled with good houses, the hospitality of which 

 might well be introduced in place of the oyster-like 

 seclusion of many homes in England. 



Three months after landing in Table Bay I again 

 embarked for Algoa Bay, en route for the frontier. We 

 had a pleasant calm voyage, keeping the coast in sight 

 during the whole passage, and putting into two or three 

 bays, where a delay of a few hours enabled me to haul oil 

 board a good dish of grotesque-looking fish, and some 

 crayfish : the latter were excellent eating. 



