with me. By this I gained a guide, philosopher, and friend,—and a very pleasant companion for my excursion. In such tourings solitude will often rob them of all delight, and ignorance of all instruction. It is impossible to see the things immediately under the eye, unless there be some one to tell you where to look for them. A lone wanderer may get up statistics, and will find persons to discuss politics with him in hotel parlours and on the seats of public conveyances. He may hear, too, the names of mountains and of rivers. But of the inner nooks of social life or of green hills he will know nothing unless he can fall into some intimacy, even though it be short-lived, with the people among whom he is moving.
We had to be in a hurry because a Cape Colony Resident Magistrate cannot be absent long from his seat of justice. If he be not on the spot there is no one to whom misfortune can appeal or whom iniquity need dread. In an English town a Mayor has his aldermen, and the Chairman of the Bench his brother magistrates;—but at Mossel Bay the Resident is as necessary at ten o'clock on a Monday morning as is the Speaker to the House of Commons at four o'clock in the afternoon. So we started at once with a light cart and a pair of horses,—which was intended to take us as far as George, a distance of 30 miles.
We went through a country teeming with ostriches. Ostrich-farming on a great scale I will describe further on. Here the work was carried on in a smaller way, but, as I was told, with great success. The expenses were small, and the profits very great,—unless there should come misfortunes,
