Durban Railway-Kaffir Carriers-Fever-Conveyances to Maritzburg-Royal Hotel Waiters-Kaffirs-Curfew Bell-Sunday Dinner.

AT Durban station a crowd of Kaffirs were in waiting to carry up the luggage to the various hotels. A. and myself picked out a dozen of them; and as we had been told to keep a sharp look-out to prevent anything being stolen, we had rather an anxious time before we saw all our goods deposited safely at our hotel. The boys would lag behind, pretending they wanted to rest, and we were not yet sufficiently at home with them to know how to keep them in order.

We had been very strongly advised to make as short a stay in Durban as we possibly could, for it is a notoriously unhealthy place, probably arising from the combined causes of poisoned water and unwholesome sanitary arrangements in regard to the drainage. While we were there every third person was or had been ill with a sort of low fever peculiar to Durban, and less frequently Pieter Maritzburg. The patient breaks out all over with red blotches and suffers severely from depression and weakness; as a rule it only lasts ten days or a fortnight, but occasionally takes a more serious form, and in some cases has a fatal termination. Quinine is the most important remedy; and so much had been prescribed

and consumed, that not a grain was to be procured at any price whatever, as the little the chemists had left in stock they kept to use in their prescriptions from regular customers.

The good people of Durban have lately been much exercised in mind, and roused to more energetic measures to prevent a recurrence of the epidemic, by the information from high scientific authorities that this particular form of fever, sometimes called Dingle fever, is almost a sure forerunner of Yellow Jack, and that it was common in Jamaica and other places before that dreaded complaint first appeared there.

But it is not such an easy matter as one would expect to transport oneself and baggage from Durban to Pieter Maritzburg, although they are spoken of in conjunction as the Port and City of Natal. There are two conveyances running daily up and down the road-an omnibus and the post-cart. On making inquiry at the booking-offices, we found that both were full for the next week to come, and even then we were informed that we could not take our heavy luggage with us. This being the case,

we endeavoured to hire a conveyance of our own, which would take both us and our baggage. For some time we were unsuccessful in coming to terms, but at last arranged with the proprietor of the Royal Hotel, where we were staying, for him to provide us a trap and four horses, to do the journey of fiftysix miles in two days; but so as to get as much as possible out of us, he declared his inability to get the horses together till the following Tuesday. With a promise to this effect we had to content

ourselves; and as we had to obtain magistrates' permits for guns, and then clear them from the Custom-house, we could not have been ready much before, although very anxious to leave Durban and exchange the stifling heat and dust-filled atmosphere both day and night, for the cool evenings and refreshing breezes we were prepared to find in Pieter Maritzburg.

The Royal Hotel did not hold out any inducements in the way of comfort for us to remain longer than necessary. Like most colonial hotels, it consists of a two-storied stone building containing some eight or ten rooms, and adjoining this, behind is an heterogeneous mass of outbuildings, which are used for the greater part of the bed-rooms, kitchen, offices, bath-room, and stables. The whole hotel is overrun with the most enormous cockroaches, some a couple of inches long; and our veracious landlord, without a smile on his countenance, assured me that he had seen a couple of them catch, kill, and devour, a half-grown chicken. But as he afterwards also informed us that these same cockroaches were the chief ingredient in Worcester sauce, I will not vouch for the accuracy of either statement. The cooking is also greatly below the mark, and the wines are of the same quality generally met with throughout Africavery expensive, and not worth drinking unless iced.

I was rather struck by the ornamentation of the dinner-table. Three pots of wretched artificial flowers were stuck in the centre, though the windows were half choked up with most lovely creepers, and flowering shrubs were growing in profusion all round

the house. But the artificial ones save the trouble of refilling, and saving of trouble is the great object of a man's life in Natal.

The indoor waiters in the hotel are all St. Helena boys, and are preferable in more senses than one to the Kaffirs, who do all the outdoor and stable work; but in up-country inns, where the St. Helena boys cannot yet be procured, people have to put up with the inconvenience of Kaffirs.

At Durban I saw the first Kaffirs who impressed me really favourably, and I never saw finer specimens of the race anywhere than are to be seen there. They are mostly refugee Zulus, who have kept to themselves, and not intermarried and become demoralized. It is there an exception to see one under six feet, and they are nearly all well-knit, finely built fellows. Both men and women are obliged by law, all through the colonies, to clothe themselves decently when they come within the precincts of a town.

The women merely wind a length of brownish calico over their shoulders, and let it hang down to their knees, leaving most symmetrical calves and ankles exposed to view. The men adorn themselves with every possible variety of left-off European costume; but old military tunics and jackets are the most fashionable and popular, and an old porter's jacket or guard's coat is almost equally admired. Tweed shooting-coats, frock-coats, moleskins, sacks, sheets, and blankets, all come in for a share of patronage.

Both men and women wear bangles on both ankles and arms, made of twisted brass wire, and

tight-fitting circlets of the same make between the calf and the knee. They also wear bracelets and necklaces of various sizes, and coloured beads worked in many combinations and quaint designs. Every man and boy has enormous holes through the lobes of his ears, and their ear-rings would astonish an English lady. Some keep their snuff-boxes there, and others their pipes; but the dandies have large pieces of carved wood or horn, and a sheet of coloured paper in a long roll is very fashionable at times.

At seven o'clock at night the "curfew" bell tolls. After that every Kaffir found in the town, or away from his location, is put in "trunk," as the goal is denominated throughout South Africa. No Kaffirs are allowed to sleep in town unless under the roof and care of a white. To facilitate this regulation pieces of ground are set apart outside the town, on which they may either build their own kralls, or occupy a sort of barrack provided for them. These bits of land, devoted to their use, are termed the Kaffir Locations, and are to be seen on the outskirts of all colonial townships of any size.

Durban is well off for churches, but the Wesleyans have the best of them all, and the service in their church is admirably conducted. On Sunday, throughout all South Africa, there is no late dinner, in clubs, hotels, or private houses, and a very heavy hot luncheon at three o'clock takes its place. In such a warm climate the effects of a hearty meal in the middle of the day cause the greater part of the population to pass the remainder of the afternoon and evening in slumber.