SAILING THE SEVEN SEAS 



669 



he was wont to spend many leisure hours, 

 either alone or in the company of his 

 favorite companion, a nine-year-old child, 

 daughter of a sergeant of the garrison. 



Near the grave is the residence of the 

 French consul, whose duties include the 

 care and protection of this burial place, 

 where Napoleon's body remained for 

 nearly 20 years before being removed to 

 France. 



As we climb out of the valley and reach 

 the crest of the ridge which stretches 

 across the middle of the island, the con- 

 tinuous cool southeast trade wind reaches 

 a force which turns the branches of the 

 trees backward upon themselves, none 

 being able to grow to windward against 

 the pressure of the breeze. 



The view toward the sea, south across 

 Sandy Bay, that huge basin of an extinct 

 crater, is a picture of desolate grandeur, 

 with enormous gorges amidst tumbled 

 masses of rock. The isolated peaks of 

 Lot and Lot's Wife stand out against 

 the western sky. 



The chief industries of the island are 

 lace-making and the production of hemp 

 from a species of New Zealand flax. The 

 people were formerly poverty-stricken, 

 there being very little profit in anything 

 that they raised, since there was no local 

 market. This led to the introduction of 

 lace-making, men, women, and children 

 being taught the industry. St. Helena 

 lace has a splendid reputation for pattern 

 and quality. 



CAPE TOWN, ONE OP THE WONDER PLACES 

 OP THE WORIyD 



Our visit to Cape Town emphasized, 

 perhaps more strongly than at any other 

 place, how little we know of a country 

 or of its people before we see them at 

 first hand. 



Africa has often been thought a land 

 remote, mysterious, and inaccessible, but 

 Cape Town might well have been a city 

 in our own country and its people our 

 own countrymen, except that very few 

 of our cities could compare with it in its 

 beautiful and unique setting. It nestles 

 in the shadow of Table Mountain, a 

 broad, flat-topped pile of rock with al- 

 most perpendicular sides, towering to a 

 height of 3,600 feet and flanked on either 

 side by two conical peaks. 



Climbing up the winding road back of 



the city leading to the mountain top, in 

 the midst of the beautiful silver-leaf trees 

 for which Cape Town is famous, and 

 viewing the town spread out in panorama 

 at our feet with the harbor and crescent- 

 shaped bay beyond, we could not fail to 

 class it as one of the wonder places of the 

 world. 



Motoring to the Cape of Good Hope, 

 we passed through fertile valleys, clothed 

 with fruit trees and immense .vineyards, 

 where some of the finest fruit in the 

 world is grown. 



Standing on the high bluff of the cape, 

 we could look westward over the South 

 Atlantic, southward over the Southern 

 Ocean, and eastward toward the Indian 

 Ocean, and, having in mind the storms 

 which we had met and the ones yet in 

 prospect on these turbulent seas, our 

 thought was that the best place to see the 

 sea is from the shore (see page 673). 



The famous summer resort and bathing 

 beach of South Africa at Muizenberg 

 was deserted, at the time we were there, 

 in May, during the winter season of the 

 Southern Hemisphere. There can be no 

 place so dreary as a deserted popular 

 beach, which in season is teeming with 

 pleasure-seekers, but now full of empty 

 spaces and dead seaweed. 



As the English and the Dutch are al- 

 most equal in number, two languages 

 must be used in all official documents in 

 this province, evident everywhere on road 

 and railway signs and on public bulletin- 

 boards. 



We motored to Stellenbosch, with its 

 quaint buildings, the original settlement 

 of the earliest European colonists, French 

 Huguenots. No rain had fallen for sev- 

 eral months and a water famine was 

 feared ; otherwise the climate reminded 

 us of southern California. 



CEYLON, THE GATEWAY TO THE EAST 



Our first impression upon landing at 

 Colombo, chief seaport of Ceylon, after 

 our long trip up through the Indian 

 Ocean, was that India is surely sweltering 

 in humanity. This seemed another world, 

 the contrast between the life of the old 

 East and of our own Western civilization 

 being so great. 



Here the manner of living has not 

 changed for centuries and perhaps will 

 remain much the same for centuries to 



