deep through a narrow channel,—so narrow that a girl can jump from rock to rock. Some years since a girl was about to jump it when her lover, giving her a hand to help her, pulled her in. She never lived to become his bride but was drowned there in the deep black waters of the narrow Breede.
Ceres is one of those village-towns by which this part of the Colony is populated, and lies in a Rasselas happy valley,—a basin so surrounded by hills as to shew no easy way out. The real Rasselas valley, however, was, we suppose, very narrow, whereas this valley is ten miles long by six broad, and has a mail cart road running through it. It lies on the direct route from Capetown to Fraserburg, and thence, if you choose to go that way, to the Diamond Fields and the Orange Free State. Nevertheless the place looks as though it were, or at least should be, delightfully excluded from all the world beyond. Here again the houses stand separate among trees, and the river flowing through it makes everything green. I was told that Ceres had been lately smitten with too great a love of speculation, had traded beyond her means, and lost much of her capital. It was probably the reaction from this condition of things which produced the peculiarly sleepy appearance which I observed around me. A billiard room had been lately built which seemed just then to monopolize the energy of the place. The hotel was clean and pleasant,—and would have been perfect but for a crowd of joyous travellers who were going down to see some-*body married two or three hundred miles off. On our arrival we were somewhat angry with the very civil and considerate
