who calmly took her place in the open post-cart behind me in a brown holland gown, without scarf or wrap or anything whatever to shelter her from the weather, except a white calico sunshade.  She was a Frenchwoman too, and looked so piteous and forlorn in her neat toilette, already drenched through, that of course I could do nothing less than lend her my Scotch shawl, and trust to the driver’s friendly promises of empty corn-bags at some future stage.  By the time the bags came—­or rather by the time we got to the bags—­I was indeed wet and cold.  The ulster, did its best, and all that could be expected of it, but no garment manufactured in a London shop could possibly cope with such wild weather, tropical in the vehemence of its pouring rain, wintry in its cutting blasts.  The wind seemed to blow from every quarter of the heavens at once, the rain came down in sheets, but I minded the mud more than either wind or rain:  it was more demoralizing.  On the box-seat I got my full share and more, but yet I was better off there than inside, where twelve people were squeezed into the places of eight.  The horses’ feet got balled with the stiff red clay exactly as though it had been snow, and from time to time as they galloped along, six fresh ones at every stage, I received a good lump of clay, as big and nearly as solid as a croquet-ball, full in my face.  It was bitterly cold, and the night was closing in when we drove up to the door of the best hotel in Maritzburg, at long past eight instead of six o’clock.  It was impossible to get out to our own place that night, so there was nothing for it but to stay where we were, and get what food and rest could be coaxed out of an indifferent bill of fare and a bed of stony hardness, to say nothing of the bites of numerous mosquitoes.  The morning light revealed the melancholy state of my unhappy white gown in its full horror.  All the rivers of Natal will never make it white again, I fear.  Certainly there is much to be said in favor of railway-traveling, after all, especially in wet weather.

JANUARY 10.

Surely, I have been doing something else lately besides turning this first sod?  Well, not much.  You see, no one can undertake anything in the way of expeditions or excursions, or even sight-seeing, in summer, partly on account of the heat, and partly because of the thunderstorms.  We have had a few very severe ones lately, but we hail them with joy on account of the cool clear atmosphere which succeeds to a display of electrical vehemence.  We walked home from church a few evenings ago on a very wild and threatening night, and I never shall forget the weird beauty of the scene.  We had started to go to church about six o’clock:  the walk was only two miles, and the afternoon was calm and cloudless.  The day had been oppressively hot, but there were no immediate signs of a storm.  While we were in church, however, a fresh breeze sprang up and drove