Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/256

 a washstand, and was practically as good as a compartment on a Pullman. At ten o'clock, a white porter appeared with two bundles of bed-clothing, sealed. Breaking the seals, he made up two beds about as they are made up on a Pullman. Then the porter presented me with two tickets, for which I paid sixty cents each. The tickets read: "South African Railways. No. 98029. Bedding ticket. From Durban to Johannesburg. Date, 3-7-13. Train No. 192. Amount paid 2. 6. This ticket must be handed to passenger on payment of charge." This is the sleeping-car system in South Africa; two had a compartment in a sleeping-car twenty-four hours and a half for $1.20. The Pullman charge for a service not much better would have been $9, instead of $1.20. There was a dining-car on the train, and the charge for dinner was 75 cents, and for lunch and breakfast, sixty cents each. The meals were good, but the car was always packed at meal-times, and the force of waiters not large enough. Tea was served in our compartment at 7 and 4 I have never enjoyed a railroad ride more than I enjoyed the ride from Durban to Johannesburg. The weather was cool, and there was no dust. We left Durban in a pouring rain, but this morning the rain ceased, and by noon the sun was shining. For hours we passed through a prairie country which greatly resembled eastern Kansas as it was forty or fifty years ago. I saw thousands and thousands of acres of what seemed to be old-fashioned prairie grass, and when there was a cultivated field it was nearly always devoted to corn. I saw a good deal of hay-making in progress, and in every case the hay-rake was pulled by a yoke of