12 
passengers wlio wanted to go to sleep. At last the 
captain, after several vain expostulations, summoned the 
watch, and cleared the saloon. 
April 3rd. Arrived in Table Bay, and went into the 
new docks, after a voyage of twenty-nine days. We got 
our things together and went ashore, taking up our 
quarters at the Eoyal Hotel, kept by the butler of an 
ex-governor. Rooms very inferior, but the cuisine was 
good. We were rather disappointed in our first impres- 
sions of Cape Town, as we found the dust and glare most 
trying, and the houses, shops, and buildings generally, 
much inferior to what we had expected to see in such an 
important place, and the capital of so large and prosperous 
a Colony. The vegetation, too, was completely burnt up, 
and owing to this, and the want of trees, the surrounding 
landscape looked as barren as a desert, the only redeeming 
feature in the view being Table Mountain, which towered 
up grandly in the background above the town. Dr. Bleek 
kindly came to call upon us at the hotel, and in the after- 
noon we went out to see him and our cousins at Mowbray, 
a village on the local railway to Wynberg, the favourite 
neighbourhood for the villas and homes of the merchants 
in Cape Town. Next day we did the museum, where 
there is a good collection of South African birds, and 
several stuffed animals, but the latter are very badly set 
up. The botanical gardens and the public library are 
also some of the lions of the place. We enjoy living on 
shore again after our long voyage, though the screw of 
the steamer, with its unceasing revolution, still seems to 
be rumbling and vibrating in our ears. We found some 
letters from my friend St. Vincent Erskine, in Natal, who, 
I was in hopes, would go with us up the country. 
Following his advice to buy some large-bore rifies, I went 
to Messrs. Kawlone, the gunmaker of the town, and bought 
a single 6, and a double-barrelled 8-bore, both muzzle- 
