[Illustration: Decorative]
[Illustration: Decorative]
CAPE TOWN.
To produce the most favourable impression of any new place, it is
essential that it should be seen for the first time in fine weather.
Places look so very different under a canopy of cloud, and, perhaps, a
deluge of rain, or when they are bathed in the sunshine of a beautiful
day. Happily for me, my first view of Cape Town was under the latter
genial aspect. I need scarcely say, that I was, in consequence, quite
charmed with my first sight of this celebrated town, the seat of
Government of the Cape Colony. What made the scene more than usually
striking to a traveller, fresh from the sea, was, that it was the
Queen's birthday, and the day dawned with a most perfect specimen of
"Queen's weather." Cape Town was literally _en fete_. The inhabitants
thronged the streets. I was astonished at the great variety of gay
costumes among the motley crowd--English, Dutch, Germans and French,
Malays, Indian Coolies, Kafirs, and Hottentots--a tremendous gathering,
in fact, of all nations, and "all sorts and conditions of men." There
was a grand review of all the military branches of the Service, in which
His Excellency the Administrator, General Smyth, surrounded by a
brilliant staff, received the homage due to the British flag; and, as
her representative on this occasion, to Her Majesty's honoured name.
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