Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/302

 woman I saw engaged in this unusual occupation carried a baby on her back. The negroes breed like rabbits, but the infant mortality among them is large.

—This morning at 9 o'clock we left Bloemfontein by train for Kimberley. The hotel porter carried our baggage into a compartment for four, and said:

"You are to have this to yourselves all day. I have arranged it."

I thought it was simply the talk of a somewhat fresh but obliging hotel porter; but he didn't do a thing but deliver the goods. And, what is more, the train conductor frequently came into our compartment, and pointed out the sights of interest I have known railroad men all my life, and been familiar with their practice of buying butter and eggs on the line, where they are cheaper, and carrying them home. The railroad men of South Africa do the same thing; the conductor told me that he buys eggs along the line at thirty cents a dozen when they are frequently 75 cents at the division point where he lives. He also buys his meat out in the country; a dressed sheep weighing eighty pounds costs him $4.80, so that he gets his meat at six cents a pound. Sometimes potatoes sell in South Africa at $11.50 for a sack of 165 pounds, and poor people pay three cents for every potato they buy in small quantities. On this run the conductor makes a round trip of 210 miles a day, which occupies him eleven hours. He says he earns about