There are 50,000 souls and as many bodies in Cape Town. Give you my
word, it's a fact. I may have omitted one or two, but saw most of
'em through telescope before landing. There's an old Town House and
a Castle, and an Excellency for Governor; Museum, Library, with
Manuscripts badly illuminated before the discovery of gas; and as good
a glass of Port (called here "Port Elizabeth," after Miss ELIZABETH
MARTIN, who first took to it, but didn't finish it, thank goodness!)
as you'd wish to get away from the Turf Club. The little boys toss for
halfpence in the street, which impressed me with the wonderful mineral
wealth of South Africa. Having nothing better to do, I joined them,
and won. I lectured them on incautious play, and they said something
in South-African, which the street Arabs here speak to perfection, and
which, I fancy, was both flattering and apologetic. Called on CECIL,
the Colossus of Rhodes, but he was absent at the time. Fine place, the
Cape. "Why," I asked myself, "do our people go to Ramsgate, Southend,
Herne Bay, and even Scarborough, when there is such a splendid seaside
place as this to come to?" But no; because their people have done it
before them, so they'll go on doing; and, unlike yours, truly, they
_won't strike out a line of their own_. [N.B.--I must beg the Editor,
when he gets this, not to strike out any line of mine, _as it's
business_, and means advertisement.]