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 and among those which are bad Durban is one of the worst. They are crossed by shifting bars of sand which prevent the entrance of vessels. At a public dinner in the Colony I heard The Bar given as a toast. The Attorney General arose to return thanks, but another gentleman was on his legs in a moment protesting against drinking the health of the one great obstacle to commercial and social success by which the Colony was oppressed. The Attorney General was a popular man, and the lawyers were popular; but in a moment they were obliterated by the general indignation of the guests at the evil done to their beautiful land by this illnatured freak of Nature. A vast sum of money has been spent at Durban in making a breakwater, all of which has,—so say the people of Durban and Maritzburg,—been thrown away. Now Sir John Coode has been out to visit the bar, and all the Colony was waiting for his report when I was there. Sir John is the great emendator of South African harbours,—full trust being put in his capability to stop the encroachments of sand, and to scour away such deposits when in spite of his precautions they have asserted themselves. At the period of my visit nothing was being done, but Natal was waiting, graciously if not patiently, for Sir John's report. Very much depends on it. Up in the very interior of Africa, in the Orange Free State and at the Diamond Fields it is constantly asserted that goods can only be had through the Cape Colony because of the bar across the mouth of the river at Durban;—and in the Transvaal the bar is given as one of the chief reasons for making a railway down to Delagoa Bay instead of connecting the now