fourpence halfpenny, and everything else in proportion, Houses are dear, and society baddish—second-rate—with a great deal of quarrelling concerning Colonial polities. Instead of Whigs and Tories, they have the Caffre party and the Government party, who will scarcely speak to each other.
We dined yesterday with some people named Wilderspin—queer, and good, and civil: they have been many years at the Cape, and are most curiously adrift as to English matters. ‘They asked whether O’Connell was stil] “celebrated in England ?” whether he was received in good society? whether party-spirit ran high? whether there were many disputes among Chureh- people and Dissenters? &e.
I saw at the Wilderspins’ a Miss Bazacot, who is here superintending the schools: she sccms really clever, and minding her schools well. The Hottentots are very willing to come, both to week-day and Sunday schools. Unglish, Malay, and EHettentot children are all taught together. At one of the schools there was a little Malay girl, who had Tearned to read, but was very dull at learning her tasks by heart, when suddenly she grew uncommonly bright, and knew all her texts, chapter and verse, better than any child in the school: when the mistress made inquiries inte the cause of this great improvement, she found that the creature had taught her old Malay father te read, and he in return used to take immense pains in teaching the child her texts, till they were thoroughly driven into her head: she taught him to read and te pray; and now, every night before he goes to bed, he repeats his prayers and the rules of the school ! I think the innocence af repeating the rules is very pretty.
T have got a Malay cap, for Frank’s private admiration: they are high pointed things, made af straw and wicker-work, very uncouth, but picturesque-lookiny, especially on the boatmen,
We have been up the Kloof. I long to go up Table Mountain, but it is thought unsafe. When the cloud that they call the Table-cloth comes down, people are often lest in the fog. There is a magnificent view from the top of the Joof—Cape Town, and the plain, and the hills on one side; and on the other only the sea and the rocks—but such sea, and such rocks, that anything else would be but an interruption, frittering away their grandeur, It is asort of Chine, as they call the openings between
