give a charm to the scenery around. It has not within itself much appearance of business, but everything and everybody seems to be comfortable. I was told that it is much affected by well-to-do widows who go thither to spend the evenings of their lives and enjoy that pleasant tea-and-toast society which is dear to the widowed heart. Timber is generally scarce in South Africa;—but through the streets of Uitenhage there are lovely trees, which were green and flowering when I was there in the month of August, warning me that the spring and then the heats of summer were coming on me all too soon.
During the last few years a special industry has developed itself at Uitenhage,—that of washing wool by machinery. As this is all carried on, not in stores or manufactories within the place, but at suburban mills placed along the banks of the river Swartzcop outside the town, they do not affect the semi-rural and widow-befitting aspect of the place. I remarked to the gentleman who was kindly driving me about the place that the people I saw around me seemed to be for the most part coloured. This he good-humouredly resented, begging that I would not go away and declare that Uitenhage was not inhabited by a white population. I have no doubt that my friend has a large circle of white friends, and that Uitenhage has a pure-blooded aristocracy. Were I to return there, as I half promised, for the sake of meeting the charming ladies whom he graciously undertook to have gathered together for my gratification, I am sure that I should have found this to be the case. But still I maintain that the people are a coloured people. I saw no
