Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/293

 the servants get only what is served out to them at the beginning of every week Everywhere in America, women believe that there is nothing better for a salad than a whole tomato on lettuce leaves, and Durkee's yellow dressing poured over the tomato. Mrs. Cary had it, except that Abel made the dressing. We also had apple pie, and Abel's crust, made of beef suet and butter, would have done credit to any cook Mrs. Cary says that when she announced her engagement to a man in South Africa, all her friends inquired:

"Is he a missionary?"

People at home have a vague notion that all the whites in South Africa are missionaries, but I have seen none, and heard little of their operations We went to the Cary home in a rain-storm, and it was still raining when we returned to the hotel at 10 o'clock at night. Four years ago, rain fell here forty-two days and nights, according to citizens of Johannesburg. This, it seems to me, breaks the record by two days. The rain here is very erratic, and usually falls at the wrong time. The rainfall for the past twenty years has averaged twenty-six inches, but the rainfall is nine inches short this season The rain continues at Durban, and when the warship "New Zealand" left for Australia late this afternoon, there was a downpour of rain, and the crowd on the docks was therefore small Four years ago, on the 17th of August, ten inches of snow, the first ever seen here, fell in Johannesburg, and all business was suspended while the people engaged in snowballing.