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 and humanity seem to have worked together to prevent any rational want.

Ostrich feathers and wool are the staples of the place. I witnessed a sale of feathers and was lost in wonder at the ingenuity of the auctioneer and of the purchasers. They seemed to understand each other as the different lots were sold, with an average of 30 seconds allowed to each lot. To me it was simply marvellous, but I gathered that the feathers were sold at prices varying from £5 to £25 a pound. They are sold by the pound, but in lots which may weigh perhaps not more than a few ounces each. I need only say further of Port Elizabeth that there are churches, banks, and institutions fit for a town of ten times its size,—and that its club is a pattern club, for all Colonial towns.

Twenty miles north west of Port Elizabeth is the pleasant little town of Uitenhage,—which was one of the spots peopled by the English emigrants who came into the Eastern Province in 1820. It had previously been settled and inhabited by Dutch inhabitants in 1804, but seems to have owed its success to the coming of the English,—and is now part of an English, as distinct from a Dutch Colony. It is joined to Port Elizabeth by a railway which is being carried on to the more important town of Graff Reynet. It is impossible to imagine a more smiling little town than Uitenhage, or one in which the real comforts of life are more accessible. There is an ample supply of water. The streets are well laid out, and the houses well built. And it is surrounded by a group of mountains, at thirty miles distance, varying from 3,000 to 6,000 feet in height, which