A CAPE CART JOURNEY. 45 



crowded to the uttermost. Madame Anna Bishop 

 appeared, and, although of course her voice had 

 long since lost its pristine freshness, her execution 

 was faultless. The Graaff Reinetters were enrap- 

 tured, and applauded with a quite astonishing 

 vigour. Madame Bishop was assisted by a Mr. 

 Lascelles, who played her accompaniments, and 

 himself sang " The Wolf," " Rocked in the cradle 

 .of the deep," and other good songs at intervals, 

 with great effect. It was strange to hear this lady 

 — who forty years before had, with her singing, 

 delighted the contemporaries, I might almost say, 

 of my grandmother — in this far-away town in the 

 South African wilderness. I believe, at the time I 

 heard her, Madame Bishop was at least sixty-three 

 or sixty-four years old, yet (such are the inscrutable 

 ways of woman) she appeared upon the stage 

 apparently not more than middle-aged. Her dresses 

 (for we heard her a second night) and jewels were 

 unexceptionable, and we marvelled how she had pre- 

 served the splendour of her apparel thus undimmed, 

 for she had but just completed a tour through the 

 Transvaal and Orange Free State, where travelling 

 is even more difficult, and roads are far rougher 

 than in the Old Colony. I suppose this indefatigable 

 lady, who in her youth had charmed every capital in 

 Europe with her magnificent singing, had seen more 

 of the world and sung in stranger places than any 

 other person known to fame. Besides securing a 

 European reputation in its day unrivalled, she had 

 sung in Tartary (at Kasan the capital), in all the 

 known cities and towns of North and South America 

 — crossing the Andes in this last country — and 

 in the Australias. I met this wonderful old lady 



