the worst
time of year for flowers, as the plants have not yet recovered
from the winter drought. A dry winter and wet summer is the correct
atmospheric fashion here: in winter everything is brown and dusty and
dried up, in summer green and fragrant and well watered. The gardens
are in good order, and I rather regretted not being able to examine
them more thoroughly. Another afternoon we drove to the Berea, a
sort of suburban Richmond, where the rich semi-tropical vegetation is
cleared away in patches, and villas with pretty pleasure-grounds
are springing up in every direction. The road winds up the
luxuriantly-clothed slopes, with every here and there lovely sea-views
of the harbor, with the purpling lights of the Indian Ocean stretching
away beyond. Every villa must have an enchanting prospect from its
front door, and one can quite understand how alluring to the merchants
and business--men of D'Urban must be the idea of getting away after
office-hours, and sleeping on such; high ground in so fresh and
healthy an: atmosphere. And here I must say that we Maritzburgians (I
am only one in prospective) wage a constant and deadly warfare with
the D'Urbanites on the score of the health and convenience of our
respective cities. _We_ are two thousand feet above the sea and
fifty-two miles inland, so we talk in a pitying tone of the poor
D'Urbanites as dwellers in a very hot and unhealthy place. "Relaxing"
is the word we apply to their climate when we want to be particularly
nasty, and they retaliate by reminding us that they are ever so much
older than we are (which is an advantage in a colony), and that they
are on the coast, and can grow all manner of nice things which we
cannot compass, to say nothing of their climate being more equable
than ours, and their thunderstorms, though longer in duration, mere
flashes in the pan compared to what we in our amphitheatre of hills
have to undergo at the hands of the electric current. We never can
find answer to that taunt, and if the D'Urbanites only follow up their
victory by allusions to their abounding bananas and other fruits,
their vicinity to the shipping, and consequent facility of getting
almost anything quite easily, we are completely silenced, and it is a
wonder if we retain presence of mind enough to murmur "Flies." On the
score of dust we are about equal, but I must in fairness confess that
D'Urban is a more lively and a better-looking town than Maritzburg
when you are in