ng, and that sores on children's faces
were quite common. This sounded very dreadful, but I am beginning to
hope it was an exaggeration, for whenever G---- cuts or knocks himself
(which is every day or so), or scratches an insect's bite into a bad
place, I wash the part with a little carbolic soap (there are two
sorts--one for animals and a more refined preparation for the human
skin), and it is quite well the next day. We have all had a threatening
of those horrid boils, but they have passed off.

In town the mosquitoes are plentiful and lively, devoting their
attentions chiefly to new-comers, but up here--I write as though we were
five thousand feet instead of only fifty above Maritzburg--it is rare to
see one. I think "fillies" are more in our line, and that in spite of
every floor in the house being scrubbed daily with strong soda and
water. "Fillies," you must know, is our black groom's (Charlie's) way of
pronouncing _fleas_, and I find it ever so much prettier. Charlie and I
are having a daily discussion just now touching sundry moneys he
expended during my week's absence at D'Urban for the kittens' food.
Charlie calls them the "lil' catties," and declares that the two small
animals consumed three shillings and ninepence worth of meat in a week.
I laughingly say, "But, Charlie, that would be nearly nine pounds of
meat in six days, and they couldn't eat that, you know." Charlie grins
and shows all his beautiful even white teeth: then he bashfully turns
his head aside and says, "I doan know, ma': I buy six' meat dree time."
"Very well, Charlie, that would be one shilling and sixpence." "I doan
know, ma';" and we've not got any further than that yet.

But G---- and I are picking up many words of Kafir, and it is quite
mortifying to see how much more easily the little monkey learns than I
do. I forget my phrases or confuse them, whereas when he learns two or
three sentences he appears to remember them always. It is a very
melodious and beautiful language, and, except for the clicks, not very
difficult to learn. Almost everybody here speaks it a little, and it is
the first thing necessary for a new-comer to endeavor to acquire; only,
unfortunately, there are no teachers, as in India, and consequently you
pick up a wretched, debased kind of patois, interlarded with Dutch
phrases. Indeed, I am assured there are two words, _el hashi_ ("the
horse"), of unmistakable Moorish origin, though no one knows how they
got into the