Natal native. For the natives of the Transkei it is a more accessible privilege.

Although numbering only 40,000, the Natal colonists are the possessors of a large tract of country, in which great and valuable interests are involved. They have shown themselves active pioneers and bold settlers, daunted neither by the pressure of the native question nor by the inherent difficulties of their situation. Should their laudable ambition of making their coast and harbour the great shipping resort and coaling depôt of south-east Africa be attained, they are destined to occupy a still more important position than has fallen to their lot already. The area of Natal territory may be almost indefinitely increased in course of time by the admission of certain native areas, which are at present outside her boundaries on the north and south. If Pondoland were annexed, her responsibilities and task of government might be rendered heavier, but this should be more than compensated by the market, which every native district readily affords to Europeans, traders, and merchants1.

CHAPTER XII.

THE DUTCH REPUBLICS.

(1) The Transvaal or South African Republic.
(2) The Orange Free State.

(1) THE Transvaal is an inland state lying to the northeast of the Cape Colony. It is bounded on the south by the Vaal River, on the west by British Bechuanaland and the Bechuanaland Protectorate as far as the junction of the Macloutsi River with the Limpopo or Crocodile River. Thence its northern boundary is the Limpopo as far as longitude 32° E. Its eastern boundaries are the Lebombo Ranges as far as the latitude of Lourenzo Marques. At this point, Swazieland, and then Zululand and Natal, form the east and south-east boundaries. The area of the Transvaal is about 125,000 square miles, and is about half the size of the Cape Colony. The whole of the country has been divided into 20,000 farms. It is conjectured that there are 60,000 Dutch Burghers in the Transvaal, of whom 10,000 are adults. In addition there are about 60,000 English-speaking immigrants. There are said to be about 500,000 natives.

(2) The following are the chief periods of Transvaal history :

i. In 1852 by the Sand River Convention the South African Republic began its existence.

ii. In 1860 Pretoria was chosen as the seat of government, and two then existing Boer Republics, one comprising the districts of Potchefstroom, Rustenburg, Pretoria, Zontspanberg, and the other comprising the

districts of Lydenburg and Utrecht, were united. The constitution flag and coat-of-arms of the South African Republic were then adopted by the United State.

iii. On April 12, 1877, Sir Theophilus Shepstone, armed with the necessary authority, annexed the country.

iv. The Transvaal War broke out in 1880-81, and on August 3, 1881, the Pretoria Convention was signed, by which complete self-government was given to the Transvaal, subject to the suzerainty of England.

v. On February 27, 1884, the London Convention. supplemented the Pretoria Convention, and fresh definitions were given to the boundaries.

vi. On October 22, 1886, the Boer Republic established itself in Vryheid, a portion of Zululand.

For electoral purposes, the Republic has been divided into nineteen districts: Pretoria, Potchefstroom, Rustenburg, Lydenburg, Utrecht, Wakkerstroom, Waterberg, Bloemhof, Middelburg, Heidelberg, Standerton, Marico, Zoutspanberg, Ermelo, Lichtenberg, Piet Retief, Barberton, Johannesburg, and Vryheid.

(3) The principal towns in these districts are:

1. Pretoria, the capital and seat of government, laid out originally in 1855, and named after Pretorius, a president of the first Transvaal Republic. The exact position of the town is latitude 25° 44′ 59′′ S. and longitude 28° 25′20′′ E., its elevation 4,000 feet above the sea level. The town itself is built in a hollow and is badly drained. The population is computed at 12,000. The nearest seaport is Delagoa Bay, a Portuguese possession, distant 240 miles on the east coast. Port Natal is 433 miles, Kimberley 300, and Capetown nearly 1,000 miles distant.

2. Lydenburg is the capital of the Lydenburg district, a division adjoining the Portuguese territories and about 180 miles north-east of Pretoria. It was in this division

that the natives rebelled against the first Dutch Republic, and, entrenching themselves in the rocky fastnesses, under the chief Sekukuni, defied the efforts of the Boers, and brought the whole commonwealth to the verge of ruin and bankruptcy. An expedition under Sir Garnet, now Lord Wolseley, stormed Sekukuni's kopjie or hillfortress, with the aid of the Swazie contingent, and restored peace on the frontier.

3. Utrecht is the capital of a district of this name and adjoins the Colony of Natal, with which it carries on the chief part of its trade, the railway from Durban to Newcastle bringing Port Natal into communication. Close by is the German settlement of Luneburg.

4. Klerksdorp is a bustling town close to the Vaal River, with a population of 3,000 Europeans. It is on the main highway between Cape Colony and Pretoria.

5. Potchefstroom, close by, has a population of 2,000 inhabitants, and has been the scene of some of the most stirring events in Transvaal history. It was established in 1839 by the voertrekker, Hendrik Potgieter. It was besieged in 1862 during a civil war, in the time of the first Dutch Republic, and again in 1881, when it was held by the English under Colonel Winsloe for three months against the Boers.

6. Heidelberg is situated about seventy miles from Potchefstroom and fifty-four from Pretoria. It is a rising town and is famed as a sanatorium for invalids. It is the centre of the Witwatersrand gold-bearing district.

(4) The greatest industry, however, of the Transvaal is gold mining, and the gold fields of South Africa occupy such an important place in the development of the country that they deserve a brief notice. Copper and diamonds have done an immense deal for the prosperity of the Cape Colony, gold promises to effect a revolution

in South Africa generally. Kimberley, as a mining centre, attracted trade, enterprise, and capital, and caused a railway to be constructed for the best part of a thousand miles through the desert; gold will prompt a still further extension, perhaps until the Victoria Falls are reached, the utmost regions of Mashonaland are explored, and the valley of the Zambesi is fully known. Of the three epochs of prosperity caused by copper, diamonds, and gold, it is probable that the gold epoch will be at once the most important and far-reaching in its influence.

From very early times gold has been found in southeast Africa, and natives have brought it down to the coast, finding it as an alluvial deposit. At the beginning of the present century, Lichtenstein, the medical adviser of De Mist, the last Dutch Governor of the Cape, is said to have found gold in the Warme Bokkeveldt, in the borders of the Cape Colony, and this gold is now in the Berlin Museum. In 1845 von Buch, the great German geologist, asserted that, from his observation, there was a great resemblance between the geological formation of South Africa and that of Australia and of the gold-bearing strata in the two lands. In 1864, Carl Mauch, a German mineralogist, made a tour across the Matabili country, and discovered the Tati gold fields; and in 1869, Baines and Nelson, the latter a Swedish mineralogist, who had worked for many years in California, found the more remote Mashona gold fields, distant 350 miles to the north-east of Tati. In 1869 Mr. Button, a Natal colonist, accompanied by Mr. Sutherland, a Californian miner, explored Lydenburg and Zoutspanberg on the north-east of the Transvaal. This was in the neighbourhood of Sekukuni's land, the Kaffir chieftain whom Lord Wolseley was sent out to subdue in 1875.