distant happy time, be dispensed to the various nations from the same favoured harbour. "Statio bene fida carinis," was what I heard all the way down,—or rather promises of coming security and marine fruitfulness which are to be results of the works now going on. It was all explained to me,—how ships which now could not get over the bar would ride up the quiet little river in perfect safety, and take in and discharge their cargoes on comfortable wharves at a very minimum of expense. And then, when this should have been completed, the railway from the Kowie's mouth up to Grahamstown would be a certainty, even though existing governments had been so shortsighted as to make a railway from Port Elizabeth to Grahamstown—carrying goods and passengers ever so far out of their proper course.
It is a matter on which I am altogether unable to speak with any confidence. Neither at Port Elizabeth, or at the mouth of the Kowie where stands Port Alfred, or further eastwards at East London of which I must speak in a coming chapter, has Nature done much for mariners, and the energy shown to overcome obstacles at all these places has certainly been very great. The devotion of individuals to their own districts and to the chances of prosperity not for themselves so much as for their neighbours, is almost sad though it is both patriotic and generous. The rivalry between places which should act together as one whole is distressing;—but the industry of which I speak will surely have the results which industry always obtains. I decline to prophesy whether there will be within the next dozen years a railway from Port Alfred to Grahamstown,—or
