44 
A VARIETY OF COLOURS. 
a^'oid imagining the horrible succession of jolts to which 
we should have been forced to submit had we been run- 
ning over any but a perfectly-macadamized road. 
In addition to the perfect smoothness of this road, we 
found, after passing the Half-way House, an avenue of 
fine old oaks spreading their branches between us and 
the sun, which, meeting overhead and twisting among 
each other in every imaginable form, formed a cool, shady 
drive, that was crossed every now and then by a noisy 
little stream of limpid mountain-water, that waslied our 
tires and added to the general coolness of the road. 
This avenue reached almost to Cape Town : it must have 
been eight miles long. And just imagine an avenue of 
heavy, solid old oaks of that length: it was a perfect 
treat to drive through it. And then the numbers of the 
fair sex (?) that we were continually passing, — some of 
them quite pretty, and, again, some of them horribly ugly. 
They were of all colours, too. They were white, copper- 
coloured, black, and undetermined, and seemed to resort 
to this avenue as their favourite morning walk. 
I soon began to be attracted by Peter’s manner as we 
fell in with these fair pedestrians: I noticed that if they 
were young and pretty, our newly-fledged Mormon in- 
variably knew iheni^ whereas, if they were the contrary, such 
was never the case. To some of the former he would 
give a nod; to others, a good-morning, miss!” while 
with others again I even saw him go so far as to indulge 
in a wink ; but, when either age or ugliness drew towards 
us, he always found that his horses were not going fast 
enough, that it was necessaiy to gatlier up his reins, shake 
his dilapidated whip, and produce the startling noise, the 
