Yankee Girls in Zulu Land

New York City, November , 18—.
My Dear Children:
Your Affectionate Mother.
P.S. George wants to know what has set you thinking of going to South Africa, where there are only Zulus and missionaries. Of course if the physician orders it for Frank’s health, you know what is best.

Well, it had rained, and snowed, and “fogged” for six months during the year we were in London, and we had seen the sun only on ten separate days during that period. The doctor ordered a change of climate for Frank, to a land of heat and sunshine, and advised us to go to South Africa, that land of “Zulus and missionaries.”
The old strain ran through my head, “From Greenland’s icy mountains, From India’s coral strands, Where Afric’s sunny fountains,” etc, and as anything that suggested sunshine, even if it were in a diluted state, was what we wanted, we considered that a health excursion to the antipodes was worth a trial, if it wrought the desired effect.
There lived in the house with us an African lady who had recently come “home” for a trip to see the wonders of a civilised world. You must not imagine that by African I mean a Zulu or a Kafir or Hottentot. Oh, dear, no! The lady in question was as white as we, and very much more fashionable. She never tired of expatiating on the glories of her country, its marvellous fertility, its thousands of miles of grasslands, its myriads of birds of dazzling plumage and bewitching song, its flocks of sheep, flocks so large that even their owners could only approximately count their numbers, its mighty rivers, and above all, its immense wealth in gold and diamonds. Then the hospitality of the farmers, the way in which they welcomed strangers and treated them to the best of everything, was quite beyond the conception of any one who had not visited this wonderful country.
These descriptions, tallying with the doctor’s directions, decided us, and having counted up our pounds, shillings, and pence, we made adieus, packed our Saratogas, and took passage on board the mail steamer Trojan , Captain Lamar, sailing from the London Docks.