re they are first taught to read their own language, which is an
enormous difficulty to them. They always tell me it is so much easier to
learn to read English than Kafir; and if one studies the two languages,
it is plain to see how much simpler the new tongue must appear to a
learner than the intricate construction, the varying patois and the
necessarily phonetic spelling of a language compounded of so many
dialects as the Zulu-Kafir.

FEBRUARY 12.

In some respects I consider this climate has been rather over-praised.
Of course it is a great deal--a very great deal--better than our English
one, but that, after all, is not saying much in its praise. Then we must
remember that in England we have the fear and dread of the climate ever
before our eyes, and consequently are always, so to speak, on our guard
against it. Here, and in other places where civilization is in its
infancy, we are at the mercy of dust and sun, wind and rain, and all the
eccentric elements which go to make up weather. Consequently, when the
balance of comfort and convenience has to be struck, it is surprising
how small an advantage a really better climate gives when you take away
watering-carts and shady streets for hot weather, and sheltered
railway-stations and hansom cabs for wet weather, and roads and servants
and civility and general convenience everywhere. This particular climate
is both depressing and trying in spite of the sunny skies we are ever
boasting about, because it has a strong tinge of the tropical element in
it; and yet people live in much the same kind of houses (only that they
are very small), and wear much the same sort of clothes (only that they
are very ugly), and lead much the same sort of lives (only that it is a
thousand times duller than the dullest country village), as they do in
England. Some small concession is made to the thermometer in the matter
of puggeries and matted floors, but even then carpets are used wherever
it is practicable, because this matting never looks clean and nice after
the first week it is put down. All the houses are built on the ground
floor, with the utmost economy of building material and labor, and
consequently there are no passages: every room is, in fact, a passage
and leads to its neighbor. So the perpetually dirty bare feet, or, still
worse, boots fresh from the mud or dust of the streets, soon wear out
the matting. Few houses are at all prettily decorated or furnished,
partly from the