Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/547

 waves constantly break. The dark Blueberg Mountains to the right finished the picture.

Anchored in Table Bay during a deep cold fog at 10 —took apartments in an hotel in the Heerengracht,—found the rooms intensely hot at night, and very disagreeable after the pure sea air. We drove in the evening to a friend's house in the Camp Ground, and gathered a beautiful bouquet from his garden.

My first thought on arriving in Southern Africa was of the Mountain, the next of the flowers. A strelizia was brought to me; it is an indigenous bulb in Africa, and as one flower dies away another bursts forth. On our return to the ship, I took the strelizia on board, and watched the bursting forth of the fresh flowers for some days. A very good sketch of Cape Town may be taken in the Heerengracht, just below Messrs. Dickson and Burnie's; it gives George's Hotel, now kept by a man of the name of Duke, the large trees in front, the Dutch Reform Church, and the Table Mountain beyond. Another good point is the Market Square, with its pump in the centre, St. George's Church, the Town Hall, and the Dutch and Hottentot venders of fruit and vegetables at their stands in the Green Market, as they call it.

Mr. Robertson, a stationer in the Heerengracht, has some admirable water-colour drawings for sale, portraits of the natives of Africa.

7th.—Drove to Green Point with the captain of the "Essex," to see the light-house. I climbed up to the roof through a narrow pigeon-hole, and was well rewarded for my trouble by the beauty of the view. The beach was covered with shells, broken into the smallest fragments by the rolling surf. The view from the rocks, at the end of Green Point, looking over Camp's Bay, is very beautiful.

10th.—Visited my ayha, whom I had been obliged to send to the hospital on account of the accident which she met with on board, and found her quite comfortable. The poor woman was very glad to see me, and I arranged for her return to Calcutta. I bought a kaross of eighteen heads, as it is technically called,