Another Word from Distant South Africa.
I live in Africa. I am thirteen years old. My sister wrote you, and a great many American children have answered her letter. One little girl named Xena gave a description of herself which was so like me that when Bertha read the letter they all looked at me and laughed. So Bertha thought I'd be the best one to answer her. I wrote, but after five months of anxious waiting, my letter was returned to me. If Xena sees this I hope she will write again, and send her proper address in print writing.
Can you tell us what has become of the "Author of the clever contrivance"? He was among the first who wrote to Bertha. We are most interested in him, because he was an invalid. Bertha answered him, but he has not written again. Father gave us leave to subscribe to the Round Table, but there are so many troubles lately that we have been obliged to put it off—war, drought, and locusts. Besides eating the grass, beans, potatoes, and pumpkins, they have eaten the leaves off the fruit trees. The latter all look as if winter had come—all except the orange-trees. Father kept them off these trees with flags on long bamboos.
Florence Maria.
Koonah, via Grahamstown, South Africa, February.