we then superintend the erection of poles, strain wire, and erect stations; in fact we make the "circuit," and then hand over the line to the operating officer and his clerks. I have been more than a year at this. Our first line was 163 miles in length, from Graaff Rimet to Citenhage. Then we went from Graham's Town to Alexandria, 43 miles. That is about the most pleasant part of the colony. I am now in charge of a line, Maling being away on another. My line runs almost at right angles to our first line, branching off some 45 miles from Graaff Rimet, at a station called Aberdeen Road, and running to the town (?) of Aberdeen. When this is completed we shall in all probability start for the Orange Free State to run 342 miles, which will, I expect, take twelve months. After this I fancy I shall leave South Africa.
So much, sir, about myself; and I fancy you will add—"too much."
A. has tried the City for some time but has left it for Zanzibar. He arrived there about a month ago. He is with a firm, Schaner and Fiede; what he does I do not know. He has written to the pater, but I have not yet heard from him. I shall certainly endeavour to run round to Zanzibar some day. He had rather an eventful passage out in the Nyanza, a boat that belongs to the Sultan of Zanzibar. The fact is our whole family is moving round. You see no one place could conveniently hold 13 Harrisons. My second sister, Mrs. Clubbe, recently married, has gone to Sidney with her husband, Dr. Clubbe; and my third sister, unmarried, has gone with them just for the visit.
I understand that business has been very slack at home lately, so I fancy that my father will feel it rather a relief to have some few of us scattered.
I, of course, have no real right to say what I am now going to say; but if you in any way think my experiences of these colonies are useful, I would strongly advise you never, (or in only very few cases where possibly interest was also in the balance,) to recommend South Africa as a field for a young man to start life in. The place is rotten to the core. And a young man fresh from home stands a far greater chance of growing disgusted with the place, or going wrong with its
