Nothing could be more creditable to a young colony than the way everything was arranged, for the difficulties in one’s culinary path in Natal are hardly to be appreciated by English housekeepers.  At one time there threatened to be almost a famine in D’Urban, for besides the pressure of all these extra mouths of visitors to feed, there was this enormous luncheon, with some five hundred hungry people to be provided for.  It seems so strange that with every facility for rearing poultry all around it should be scarce and dear, and when brought to market as thin as possible.  The same may be said of vegetables:  they need no culture beyond being put in the ground, and yet unless you have a garden of your own it is very difficult to get anything like a proper supply.  I heard nothing but wails from distracted housekeepers about the price and scarcity of food that week.  However, the luncheon showed no sign of scarcity, and I was much amused at the substantial and homely character of the menu, which included cold baked sucking pig among its delicacies.  A favorite specimen of the confectioner’s art that day consisted of a sort of solid brick of plum pudding, with, for legend, “The First Sod” tastefully picked out in white almonds on its dark surface.  But it was a capital luncheon, and so soon as the mayor had succeeded in impressing on the band that they were not expected to play all the time the speeches were being made, everything went on very well.  Some of the speeches were short, but oh! far, far too many were long, terribly long, and the whole affair was not over before five o’clock.  The only real want of the entertainment was ice.  It seems so hard not to have it in a climate which can produce such burning days, for those tiresome cheap little ice-machines with crystals are of no use whatever.  I got one which made ice (under pressure of much turning) in the ship, but it has never made any here, and my experience is that of everybody else.  Why there should not be an ice-making or an ice-importing company no one knows, except that there is so little energy or enterprise here that everything is dawdly and uncomfortable because it seems too much trouble to take pains to supply wants.  It is the same everywhere throughout the colony:  sandy roads with plenty of excellent materials for hardening them close by; no fish to be bought because no one will take the trouble of going out to catch them.  But I had better stop scribbling, for I am evidently getting tired after my long day of unwonted festivity.  It is partly the oppression of my best bonnet, and partly the length of the speeches, which have wearied me out so thoroughly.

MARITZBURG, January 6.