orded in the visitors'
book my favourable opinion of the arrangements made for the health and
comfort of the prisoners. They appeared to me to be all that could
reasonably be expected, or desired. I also went to see the Kafir school,
carried on under the careful management of the Rev. Mr. and Mrs. M----.

I regretted that time did not permit of my visiting the celebrated
Ostrich Farm of Mr. Arthur Douglass, at Heatherton Towers, about fifteen
miles from Grahamstown. Mr. Douglass has the largest and most successful
Ostrich Farm in the Colony, in addition to which he is the patentee of
an egg hatching machine, or incubator, which is very much used in
various parts of South Africa. The export of feathers has increased
rapidly, and has become one of the chief exports of the Colony, as
whilst in 1868 the quantity exported was valued at L70,000, in 1887 it
had reached the value of L365,587. This is by no means the largest
amount appearing under the head of exports during recent years, as in
1882 the value of feathers exported was L1,093,989. It is estimated that
during the past half-century the total weight of the feathers exported
has been more than one thousand tons. The Cape Colony has, in fact, had
a monopoly of the ostrich industry, but in 1884 several shipments of
ostriches took place to South Australia, the Argentine Republic, and to
California, and the Government of the Cape Colony, being alarmed, that
the Colony was in danger of losing its lucrative monopoly, imposed an
export tax of L100 on each ostrich, and L5 on each ostrich egg
exported.

[Illustration: Decorative]

PORT ELIZABETH TO CAPE TOWN.

On my return to Port Elizabeth, I spent another day or two there, and
left on the evening of Monday, the 26th of August, by railway for Cape
Town. This long journey of between eight hundred and nine hundred miles
occupies nearly two days and two nights. It was the last I took in South
Africa. The country, generally speaking, is very much of the same kind
as that northward, over the Karoo, and in the southern part of the
Transvaal. High land,--in the neighbourhood of Nieupoort 5,050 feet
above the sea level,--flat, bare, and treeless. It is certainly a very
desolate-looking country to travel over in winter. Nearing Cape Town,
however, I ought not to omit to mention the Hex River Pass. The scenery
here is certainly very grand, and is some of the best of its kind I have
seen in South Africa. The railway, which wi