sessed a capital of several thousand pounds--a sum which
would make him a rich man in the colony. None of the party had ever
seen the sea before, and the delight of the two boys and the wonderment
of the labourers at all they saw was very great Mr Humphreys had taken
first-class passages for himself and family, while the others of course
were steerage passengers.

CHAPTER THREE.

THE FARM.

The voyage to the Cape passed without any incident whatever. The
weather was fine the whole distance. Without even a single storm to
break the monotony they touched at Capetown and Port Elizabeth, and at
last arrived at Durban. The journey had not been too long for the boys;
everything was so perfectly new to them that they were never tired of
watching the sea and looking for porpoises and the shoals of fish, over
which hovered thousands of birds.

Once or twice they saw a whale spout, while flying-fish were matters of
hourly occurrence. They had prodigious appetites, and greatly enjoyed
the food, which was altogether different to that to which they had been
accustomed. They had stopped at Madeira and St Vincent, where great
stocks of delicious fruit had been taken on board. Altogether they were
quite sorry when they arrived at the end of the voyage.

The landing was effected in large boats, as the _Dunster Castle_ drew
too much water to cross the bar at the mouth of the harbour.

They stopped only one day at Durban, where Mr Humphreys hired a waggon
to take the party to Pieter-Maritzburg, the capital. He was not
encumbered with baggage, as he had decided to buy everything he wanted
in the colony.

"You may pay dearer," he said, "no doubt; but then you get just what you
want. If I were to take out implements, they might not be suited to the
requirements of the country. As for clothes, they would of course be
pretty much the same everywhere; still, it is better to take out only a
year's requirements and to buy as we want, instead of lumbering over the
country with a quantity of heavy baggage."

The party were greatly amused at their first experience of a Cape
waggon; it was of very large size, massively built, and covered with a
great tilt; and it was drawn by sixteen oxen, spanned two by two. This
was an altogether unnecessary number for the weight which had to be
carried, but the waggon had come down loaded from the interior, and Mr
Humphreys therefore paid no more than he would have done for a waggon
with a