SECOND RESIDENCE AT CAPE TOWN. 105 



England ; for collating with other herbaria. My stationary one 

 I keep in the old manner and size. 



To Mrs. L r. 



Cape Town, July 2, 1838. 



My ostrich, I regret to say, has had the fate of pets ; and, 

 absurd as it may seem, the loss of the poor brute, like the 

 prisoner's spider, has left a perceptible scar. These baby regrets 

 I crush, for I despise them while I cannot help them rising. It is 

 all very well for a young girl in her teens to talk about 



The nasty hunters riding by, 



Have shot my fawn and it must die ; 



but an old gray-headed man has felt so many real sorrows that 

 there is a positive feeling of disgust at being affected by the 

 little losses of such things. Perhaps disgust is not the right 

 word, but something like it must do : and yet the loss of any 

 constant companion, however humble, is sensibly felt, though we 

 cannot call it grief in the proper sense of the term. No matter, 

 I fully agree with you in the danger of making idols of the 

 blessings we possess, and in my small measure I have felt it. 



September 2. Have I news? None, and yet I paid four 

 morning visits yesterday, only think of that exertion, the last of 

 which was to Captain Stockenstrom, our Lieutenant-Governor of 

 the Eastern Province, who is on his way to England, having 

 passed through a torrent of abuse and slander, and expecting to 

 return in six or eight months with flying colours. I hope he 

 may, for he has been made a victim. And why ? Because he 

 does not thiuk the natives are "irreclaimable savages," and 

 recommends the discontinuance of fire and slaughter. Nay, 

 acknowledges their rights of property, &c. Even in Cape Town 

 he is far from popular. It is considered rather showing the 

 cloven foot to speak well of him, and therefore from a feeling of 

 opposition I took care to go in full pomp of circumstance to call 

 on him, borne on wheels, though the distance was short. 



To the Same. 



Cape Town, September 23rd, 1838. 

 You write from Summerville, at least within the old walls, 

 but probably seated at the new window that looks into the new 

 garden, once the old — in a new damask-covered chair, and at a 



