CHAPTER VII.
WESTERN PROVINCE.—KNYSNA, GEORGE, AND THE CANGO CAVES.
When I had spent a few weeks in Capetown and the
immediate neighbourhood I went into the Eastern Province
of the Cape Colony, and thence on to Natal, the Transvaal,
the Diamond Fields, and the Orange Free State Republic,—as
I hope to tell my readers in this and the next volume;
but as I afterwards came back to the Western Province,—of
which I had as yet seen but little,—and used what remainder
of time was at my command in visiting what was easiest
reached, I will now go forwards so as to complete my narrative
as to the West before I speak of the East. In this way
my story may be more intelligible than if I were to follow
strictly the course of my own journeyings. I have already
alluded to the political division of the Cape Colony, and to
the great desire which has pervaded the men of the East to
separate themselves from the men of the West;—and when,
a few chapters further on, I shall have brought myself eastwards
I shall have to refer to it again. This desire is so
strong that it compels a writer to deal separately with the
two Provinces, and to divide them almost as completely as
though they had been separated. South Africa is made up
