50 
A CAPE TOWN BOOKSELLER. 
again sallied out. tins time in search of a bookstore, where 
we hoped to find a standard work that w'C 'were in search 
of. Wc w^ere surprised to find but one establishment 
of the kind, and at being there informed that they 
only imported similar works “ to order” I could not help 
comparing this yawning reply, the store, and the “im- 
porter’* himself, with the Yankee bookseller of the pre- 
sent day/ I could not help thinking how in a port like 
that, where no duties were levied, the latter would soon 
open their eyes to the “Young America” -way of carry- 
ing on that business. 
W e now returned to the hotel, where we found several 
Dutch oflicers, whoso vessel had reached Simon’s Bay 
since our arrival, engaged in discussing a late lunch in 
the only sitting-room. Of course wo had to intrude our 
company upon them or retire to our rooms ; so we chose 
the former. It is a singular fact that naval men, of what- 
ever nation, become acquainted as the most natural thing 
in the world: in the present case, five minutes had not 
elapsed before sev'eral bottles of ale were consumed and 
double the number of cheroots ignited. Then we com- 
menced to talk of our past and future movements quite 
smoothly; and when they left in the “mail-coach” a 
half-hour later, one would have imagined that we were 
old acquaintances. We learned one thing from those 
gentlemen -which struck us as being but just and reason- 
able : — their rnen-of-war arc kept seven or eight years in 
commission Avhen once sent to a distant colony like Ba- 
tavia, (they were then on their homeward-bound voyage 
from that station,) and after that, such officers as desire it 
may retire from service on reduced pay ; — a proceeding 
