house from his hotel, carrying his overcoat on his arm. On leaving the
house, the old gentleman forgot his cloak, and Lady Dufferin received
a note the next morning asking her to be good enough to send back the
cloak by the bearer. The note was signed "Joseph de Noailles." Lady
Dufferin returned the cloak with this message, "Monsieur, lorsqu' on a
le malheur de s'appeler Joseph, on ne laisse pas son manteau chez une
dame."

Joseph naturally suggests Egypt, and Egypt recalls Africa, and on the
whole African continent there is surely no more delectable spot than
the Cape peninsula. Capetown with its suburbs is dominated everywhere
by the gigantic flat-topped rock of Table Mountain. Go where you will
amongst the most splendid woodland, coast and mountain scenery in the
world, that ever-changing rampart of rock is still the central
feature. Jan Van Riebeck, the original Dutch pioneer of 1652, must
have yielded to the irresistible claims of Table Bay as a harbour with
a very bad grace, before founding his new settlement on the slopes of
Table Mountain. Every racial and inherited instinct in him must have
positively itched to select in preference some nice low swampy site,
for choice in the Cape Flats, if not actually below sea-level, at all
events at sea-level, where substantial brick dams could be erected
against the encroaching waters, where he could construct an elaborate
system of canals, and where windmills would have to pump day and night
to prevent the place becoming submerged. The Dutch, both in Java and
in Demerara, had yielded to this misplaced affection for a sea-level
site, and had constructed Batavia and Georgetown strictly according to
their racial ideals, with a prodigal abundance of canals. Though this
doubtless gave the settlers a home-like feeling, the canal-intersected
town of Batavia is so unhealthy under a broiling tropical sun that it
has been virtually abandoned as a place of residence.