nto avenues in the black
distance, but these are mere children in the nursery, compared
to those we are going to see. First we must pause in a middle
room full of quaintest odds and ends--crossbows, long whips of
hippopotamus hide, strange rusty old swords and firearms--to
look at a map of South Africa drawn somewhere about 1640. It
hangs on the wall and is hardly to be touched, for the paint
and varnish crack and peel off at a breath. It is a marvel of
accurate geographical knowledge, and is far better filled
in than the maps of yesterday. All poor Livingstone's great
geographical discoveries are marked on it as being--perhaps
only from description--known or guessed at all that long time
ago. It was found impossible to photograph it on account of
the dark shade which age has laid over the original yellow
varnish, but a careful tracing has been made and, I believe,
sent home to the Geographical Society. It is in the long
corridor beyond this that the "stuck-vats" live--puncheons
which hold easily some thousand gallons or so, and are of a
solemn rotundity calculated to strike awe into the beholder's
heart. Here is white constantia, red constantia, young
constantia, middle-aged constantia, and constantia so old as
to be a liqueur almost beyond price. When it has been kept
all these years, the sweetness by which it is distinguished
becomes so absorbed and blended as to be hardly perceptible.

Presently one of the party throws a door suddenly open, and,
behold, we are standing right over a wild wooded glen with a
streamlet running through it, and black washerwomen beating
heaps of white clothes on the strips of shingle. Turtle-doves
are cooing, and one might almost fancy one was back again on
the wild Scotch west coast, until some one else says calmly,
"Look at the ostriches!" Here they come, with a sort of
dancing step, twisting their long necks and snake-like heads
from side to side in search of a tempting pebble or trifle of
hardware. Their wings are slightly raised, and the long fringe
of white feathers rustles softly as they trot easily and
gracefully past us. They are young male birds, and in a few
months more their plumage, which now resembles that of a
turkey-cock, will be jet black, except the wing-feathers. A
few drops of rain are falling, so we hurry back to whe