Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/316

 train is about to start; all passengers take their seats." After we got to bed at midnight, country boys were constantly racing through the corridor outside, and looking into our compartment for seats. We could not lock the door, and, although the train was crowded when we left Bloemfontein, we took on passengers at every station. In American sleeping-cars, you engage a sleeping-berth in advance, and after bedtime the cars are quiet; no racing through the aisles. Here you take your chance of getting a bed. A similar train on an American railway would have had a train conductor, a Pullman conductor, and a porter in each sleeping-car. The door of our compartment was thrown open a dozen times during the night, but my two companions, important mining men, were accustomed to it, and were not annoyed. The beds were narrow, but clean and comfortable; I had no fault to find except the racing of country boys through the corridors. There were three of us in a compartment that would have seated eight. I suppose the country boys had a right to chase us out, and demand that five of of them be given seats in the compartment, but fortunately they did not do it, and we slept a little toward morning.

—We returned to Johannesburg at 8 o'clock this morning, and it was a little like getting home. We found two excellent rooms awaiting us at the Langham, as the proprietor expected us, and we soon forget the discomforts of the night ride. We found an invitation to dinner awaiting us at the hotel,