Maritzburg, June 3, 1876.

Dust and the Bazaar: those are the only topics I have for you. Perhaps I ought to put the Bazaar first, for it is past and over, to the intense thankfulness of everybody, buyers and sellers included; whereas the dust abides with us for ever, and increases in volume and density and restlessness more and more. But still here is a little bit of bracing, healthy weather, and we enjoy every moment of it, and congratulate each other upon it, and boast once more to new comers that we possess “the finest climate in the world.” This remark rather died out in the summer, but is again to be heard on all sides now, and I am not strong-minded enough to take up lance and casque and tilt against it. Besides which it would really be very pleasant, if only the tanks were not dry, the cows giving but a tea-cupful of milk a day for want of grass; whilst butter is half-a-crown a pound, and of a rancid cheesiness, trying to the consumer. Still it is bright and sunny and fresh all day,—too hot indeed in the sun, and generally bitterly cold in the evening and night.

I am more thankful than words can express that we live out of the town, on account of the dust, though the pretty green slopes around are sere and yellow now, with here and there vast patches of black, where the fires rage night and day among the tall grass.