Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/230

 storm today has given us more confidence in the guide-*books. The wind was so strong that the "Anchises," lying at its dock, twice broke its hawsers, and was only saved from drifting by the prompt use of the anchors. The passengers who were ashore found it very difficult to get back to the ship, and from our windows at the hotel we could see that the wind was doing considerable damage And this in spite of the finest, largest and brightest rainbow I have ever seen, this morning White women are scarce in South Africa. In the big dining-room of the Marine Hotel, at dinner tonight, all the guests were men, except four. Englishmen come to this country as Americans go to the Klondike The Marine Hotel introduces one feature that is entirely new to me; dinner is commenced with a hors-d'œuvre—a sort of salad of pickled fish, as an appetizer. Then follows the regular dinner, starting with soup. When a king dines, he begins with a hors-d'œuvre, the head waiter says One of the ricksha men who stands in front of the hotel has carried us three times, and regards us as his property. When we appear, he runs up to us, and bows almost to the ground; if other ricksha men appear, he pushes them angrily away. The negroes here are exactly like our negroes, except that they talk Kaffir; we have not seen any who are able to speak English easily. The negro women wear their hair in a peculiar way, and many of them dress as the men do. The ricksha men who stand in front of the hotel are always laughing and talking in a noisy, good-natured way. There are several tribes of negroes here, and all of them have different characteristics in dress Before Durban's