Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/248

 always seem quicker and brighter We also visited a Kaffir brewery, where is manufactured the beer of which Kaffirs are so fond. The head-man is an Englishman, and Kaffir beer is manufactured under public control, to prevent the blacks drinking the white man's fire-water While visiting the Hindu stores, we noted that the keepers had borrowed one idea from the whites: they had signs out announcing "Specially low prices for a few days only;" "Great clearing-out sale now in progress," etc Durban has an excellent system of street railways, and the suburban lines do an express business. At almost every stop the motorman gives a package to a negro servant who seems to be expecting it, and, if no servant appears, the conductor carries the package into a house. The charge is two cents per package. If you buy tickets, you can ride on the Durban street cars for three cents a section; some long street-car rides we took cost us twelve cents each This is our fifth day in Durban. The first day was bright, but a storm of rain and wind began Sunday night, and has continued ever since. As I write this in my room, water is dropping from the ceiling; probably every roof in town is leaking. I have just placed a washbowl on the bed to keep the bed dry for tonight; in case the rain lets up. (P. S.—Since writing the above, two white maids and two Indian men have moved me into another room.) If the rain would only cease, we should probably find South Africa very much more interesting than Australia or New Zealand The policemen of Durban are negroes, and they have the most serious and important expressions I have ever seen on