LIBRARY OF THE University of California. Class THE GEOGRAPHY OF ^m British ma SOUTH AFRICA BY GEORGE TOWNSEND WARNER, m.a. SOMETIME FELLOW OF JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE MASTER OF THE MODERN SIDE IN HARROW SCHOOL AUTHOR OF "LANDMARKS IN ENGLISH INDUSTRIAL HISTORY" "A BRIEF SURVEY OF BRITISH HISTORY" *p^ OF THE UNIVER OF IFORNife ITY BLACKIE LONDON: GLASGOW AND SON LIMITED 50 OLD BAILEY, E.C. 1904 AND DUBLIN. J}77S S&K £ftW* PREFACE In this book I have tried to describe in a simple way the main geographical features of British South Africa. In doing so it is impossible to avoid altogether the history of past quarrels, but in mentioning them I have endeavoured to be fair, and to keep clear of political controversies which are still hot. I have not thought it wise to go into any statistics. These pass out of date almost as speedily as they slip from the memory. But the physical features of the land, its climate and resources, the character of its inhabitants, its flora and fauna, its industries and occupations are more or less abiding. To these I have given most space. It remains for me to express my gratitude to those who have assisted me: first to those writers on South Africa who have allowed me to quote extracts from their books; secondly to Mr. James Smith and Mr. James Eodger, both of Cape Town, 3 192334 IV PREFACE the former for reading the MS. and offering many valuable hints and suggestions, the latter for re- vising the proofs with minute care; and last to a friend, well acquainted with South Africa, whose help has been of the greatest possible value to me. G. T. W. CONTENTS Chap. Page Introduction. The Gate of South Africa .... 7 1. Settlement in South Africa - - - - - - - 13 2. Surface Features of South Africa 17 3. The Climate of South Africa - 20 4. The Rivers of South Africa 24 5. South African Plant-Life 29 6. Wild Beasts of South Africa 33 7. The Destruction of Game in South Africa - - - - 36 8. South African Natives 39 9. The Zulus - 42 10. The Switzerland of South Africa 47 11. The Farmer's Plagues 52 12. Cape Colony 59 13. Cape Town and its Surroundings 63 14. The Railways of South Africa 69 15. Kimberley and the Diamond Mines 77 16. Port Elizabeth and its Trade 82 17. Ostriches 87 18. Natal: Its History 92 19. The Climate and Country 95 20. Durban 99 21. Pietermaritzburg 105 22. The Orange River Colony and Bloemfontein - 106 23. The Transvaal : Borders and History 110 24. The Transvaal 115 25. The Gold-Mines at Johannesburg 119 26. Pretoria 128 27. Trekking in an Ox-Wagon 130 28. Mafeking to Bulawayo 136 29. Rhodesia— The Natives 139 30. The Resources of Rhodesia 145 5 VI CONTENTS Chap. Page 31. The Resources of Rhodesia — Soil, Climate, and Crops - - 148 32. Rubber 153 33. Bulawayo and Salisbury 155 34. Rhodesia North of the Zambesi 160 35. British Central Africa 167 36. Conclusion - - - - - - - - - - 176 Summary - - - - - - - - - - 179 i COLOURED MAPS South Africa : Relief Map - - ) ^ 77 ... / follow page 8 do. Political Divisions - J do. Physical Features - J fMw> ^ ^ do. Rainfall ... J Cape Colony ....... facing page 64 British South Africa: Railways (Southern) do. ao. (Northern) Rhodesia facing page 81 \ follow page 72 ^ OF THE UNIVERSITY OF INTRODUCTION The Gate of South Africa South of the equator the shape of Africa is like a tongue — a blunt tongue that narrows gradu- ally and has a rounded end. When in 1814 the Dutch finally gave up to us the colony which we had conquered from them in 1806, what we got was the tip of the tongue. Very little was known at that time about anything in South Africa ex- cept the coast, and we hardly understood the value of the Cape. We thought it useful as a stopping- place for our ships on the way to India, since in those days there was no Suez Canal, and all the India ships had to go round the Cape, instead of going through the canal and the Red Sea as many of them do now. But the tip of the tongue turned out to be the most useful part of South Africa, because it opened the only easy way into the interior. The tip of the tongue is healthy: the sides of the tongue are very unhealthy. A trader who wishes to go up country, and lands either on the west or on the east (the sides of the tongue), has to make his SOUTH AFRICA way through hot and sometimes marshy districts, full of fever, and often plagued with tsetse -flies, whose bite kills horses and oxen. Thus he risks his life before he gets through this dangerous belt. But the coast strip at the tip of the tongue is not unhealthy: there are no fevers and no tsetse -flies. From it the white man can make his way safely up the country. Thus Cape Colony and Natal have been the gates of South Africa. The sides of the tongue are of small value: the tip is important. Cape Colony came into British hands as a result of the long war with Napoleon. This is curious, as Napoleon had nothing actually to do with the colony, and probably hardly ever gave it a thought in all his restless life. But Britain was at war with the French, and the Dutch were allies of the French; that is to say, Napoleon had overrun Holland and had put one of his brothers on the throne of it. So in the great war from 1803 to 1815 the British navy was busy in taking Dutch colonies as well as French ones. To Portugal, however, Britain was friendly — even helping it to drive out the French — and therefore the British did not touch the Portuguese colonies. Supposing that it had been the other way, sup- posing that what came into British hands had been the eastern or western side of South Africa, and not the south, it would have been much less OF THE UNIVERSiTY OF *£4UFORN-h EAST AFRICA Cape Town BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA (Political Divisions.) Natural Scale. 1:28,500,000. English Miles o 50 100 200 300 400 THE GATE OF SOUTH AFRICA 9 useful. Britain would then have got an unhealthy side of the tongue, instead of the healthy tip. It would have been hard to work inland. The Por- Ascension ' (Br.) T L A N T AFRICA (Political.) Natural Scale. 1:84,000,000. English Miles o 500 1000 tuguese have never pushed inland, nor has their colony done well, because white men cannot live in it safely. Having got hold of the tip of the tongue, British 10 SOUTH AFRICA power has gradually pushed inland and north- wards; but as it went north, it got farther from the coast -line at the sides. For as British went up the centre of the tongue the sides, sloping out- wards, became more and more distant. Roughly speaking, British territory in South Africa, north of Cape Colony and Natal, is a strip running up the middle. The sides do not belong to Britain. The eastern coast has for a long time belonged to Portugal. Rather less than twenty years ago the west coast was seized by Germany, and farther north again lies another strip of Portuguese ter- ritory. This huge tract of country now belonging to Britain includes a number of divisions. On the coast in the south lies Cape Colony, with Natal on its eastern border. The northern part of the Cape Colony, which was known as British Bechu- analand until it was annexed to the colony in 1895, and Rhodesia (formerly known as the Bechuanaland Protectorate), which lies to the north of British Bechuanaland, have German South-west Africa lying between them and the Atlantic; and the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal bound them on the east: while further north Portuguese East Africa lies between Rho- desia and the Indian Ocean. Rhodesia is a vast country extending beyond the river Zambesi, and the British Central African Protectorate continues THE GATE OF SOUTH AFRICA 11 the band of British territory as far as the southern end of Lake Tanganyika. The best way to divide Africa in our minds is by the rivers, their " river basins ", the land which they drain. If we leave out the Sahara and the north-western coast, and also leave out short rivers, we notice these four great districts, each depending on a great river and its branches: (1) Nigeria, drained by the Niger; (2) Egypt and the Soudan, drained by the Nile; (3) the Congo State and French Congo, drained by the Congo; and (4) the country drained by the Zambesi. The northern limit of British South Africa goes indeed a little beyond the Zambesi basin, for part of Northern Rhodesia is drained by streams whose waters flow into the Congo. But except for Northern Rhodesia, British South Africa is the Zambesi basin and the basins of the rivers lying south of it. GEOGRAPHY OF SOUTH AFRICA i. Settlement in South Africa At the south end of Africa is the Cape of Good Hope, a name so familiar to sailors that they have come to call it " the Cape ", as if there were no other cape in the world worth mentioning beside it. On the map, indeed, you will see that the most southerly point is really Cape Agulhas. (Needles), lying farther to the south-east. You will also notice that the tongue of land which ends in the Cape of Good Hope looks much sharper, more "needly" than Cape Agulhas. The Portuguese were the first European visitors to this part of the world. About the time that America was discovered, a bold Portuguese navi- gator, Bartholomew Diaz, discovered that Africa seemed to end in a cape, which at first he called the "Cape of Storms", but which afterwards was called the " Cape of Good Hope " by the Portu- guese king. The Cape of Good Hope became an important half-way station on voyages to the East, and for a long time was known only as possessing a harbour. 13 14 SOUTH AFRICA The Dutch were the first to make a colony there; and from the middle of the seventeenth century their farms began to spread over the interior. They were joined by a number of Huguenots, or French Protestants, driven out of France on account of their religion. In the great war with Napoleon, a century ago, a British garrison was sent to hold the Cape and keep open for Britain the road to India. When these wars were over, the Cape Colony, like other possessions, remained in the hands of Britain, whose fleet had made her mistress of the seas while Napoleon was conquering all the mainland of Europe. British colonists then began to mix with the original Dutch settlers, all living together under British government. But the two peoples did not always get on well with each other. The Boers — that is, the Dutch farmers — had been accustomed to make the natives work for them as slaves. Englishmen had held slaves too in their colonies, but many of them felt this to be wrong; and about seventy years ago the British parliament made a law that there should be no more slavery under the British flag. Money was to be paid to the owners of the slaves. The Boers, however, complained that they were not paid enough, and that the payments were not made in money, but in drafts payable in London, so that the farmer had to sell the drafts at a loss SETTLEMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA 15 to agents who advanced the money. Their dis- content over this and other matters was so great that thousands of them trekked, with all their goods and cattle, to the wild country lying to the north, where they might live free from British rule; and they founded the Orange Free State, and afterwards the South African Eepublic, or Trans- vaal. For a time it seemed as if they had indeed got beyond British rule altogether. Many of them settled in Natal, the seaboard country to the east; but this, too, was taken under the British flag about sixty years ago, at first as part of Cape Colony, though it soon was made a separate colony. Then by degrees British power spread inland. Britain took under its protection Bechuanaland, lying to the west of the Dutch states; then the Basutos, who lie to the south-east of the Orange River Colony, fearing to be over- come by the Boers, asked to be allowed to live "under the large folds of the flag of England", and their wish was granted. In 1879 the British overcame the Zulus, and by the annexation of Amatongaland (the country stretching north-eastward along the coast to the Portuguese territory) prevented the Boers of the Transvaal from getting to the sea and having a seaport from which they could communicate with other nations freely, instead of being hedged in by British and Portuguese lands. As Germany 16 SOUTH AFRICA had occupied a strip of the west coast, it became most important to the British colony to secure an open road to the north before the Germans, spreading east, and the Boers, spreading west, closed the way northwards. Indeed, the Boers were already overflowing over their frontier, and British troops under Sir Charles Warren were sent to head them back. Then the Chartered Company, directed by Mr. Cecil Rhodes, settled for ever the question whether the British colonies were to be hedged in, or whether they were to have a free road to the north. Very rapidly British power was spread beyond the Kalahari Desert, into Matabeleland and Mashonaland, completely surrounding the Transvaal, reaching to the Zambesi River and even beyond it. This great district of Ehodesia secures a continuous strip of country under the British flag more than 1800 miles in length, from Cape Town to the southern end of Lake Tanganyika. The Boer states, thus shut in by Britain's growing colonies, did not prove friendly neigh- bours. The end of Britain's quarrels with them was the long and costly war which began in 1899, and resulted in Britain's taking both the republics, under the names of the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal. (B83) SURFACE FEATURES OF SOUTH AFRICA 17 2. Surface Features of South Africa The south end of the continent, more temperate than those parts lying nearer the equator, is for the most part a high-lying land with green plains, grand mountains, rushing rivers, fine waterfalls, and, now and then, fine forests. On the north and west sides of Cape Colony, real sandy deserts can be found; and all over it there are great patches of barren heath. But, especially along the coast and throughout the eastern parts, much of the country is fertile and beautiful. From the sea this region rises to the interior by terraces, like gigantic steps, on which the higher one goes the cooler the climate becomes. Inland are several mountain ridges shutting in large flat plains called karroos, which form a remarkable feature of the scenery. These are stretches of flat country, covered with thirsty and thorny shrubs that wither up in dry weather, when the ground is baked hard as a brick, and the only water found is in shallow salt lakelets, crusted with a white scum, except where some green patch shows that a well has been sunk by settlers. The plain called the Great Karroo stands as high as an English mountain, and is bounded on the north by ridges reaching to the height of 8000 feet above the sea-level. Beyond the mountains (B83) b 18 SOUTH AFRICA again extend huge treeless plains towards the desert of Kalahari. The highest of the ranges, on the east side, is the Drakensberg, or " Dragon Mountains", which rise to over 10,000 feet. Karroo is a native name ; but most of the words used here to express natural features are Dutch, and as Dutch is a sort of cousin of English, these words differ from English words only in spelling and a little in pronunciation. Thus " berg ", which is seen in iceberg, denotes a rugged mountain like Table Mountain, or in its Dutch name " Tafel- berg", the first striking feature of South Africa that catches the eye of a visitor to Cape Town. Scattered over the country lie "kopjes" (pro- nounced "koppies"), in shape like Table Moun- tain, that is to say with flat top and steep sides, but much smaller. The name is connected with the English word "cap". "Kloof" is a cleft, or gap in the mountains, such as Lancashire folk also called a dough ; and "klip" (cliff) is a rock. The open country is spoken of as the "veld" (field), which again is distinguished as " sweet veld " and "sour veld", according to the pasture it grows, while the name "bush veld" describes the way in which much of it is covered by dense shrubs. We must remember, then, that South Africa rises in a set of terraces. If we could see a slice of the country, going northwards from the south coast, we should find it a series of steps : first the flattish SURFACE FEATURES OF SOUTH AFRICA 19 strip, often very narrow, near the coast; then the step up the Langeberg, which takes us on to the fiat Little Karroo; up another step (the Zwarte Berg) to the Great Karroo; up a third step (the Nieuwveld) to the higher plains, which lead on over the north of Cape Colony to the Orange River Colony, and thence to the Transvaal. It is hard to believe that such flat plains are in some cases higher than the top of the highest British mountains. Thus, when the traveller is looking inland, and uphill, he thinks much of South Africa to be a rugged mountainous land. If he is looking sea- wards, and downhill, the mountains seem quite small, because the ground itself is so high. But there is another thing to notice about the mountains. Starting from Cape Town, where they are close to the sea, the ranges run eastwards, al- ways coming closer together, and becoming higher. By the time they turn north-eastwards towards Natal they are very high. Some of the peaks of the Drakensberg, or Quathlamba, Mountains, as the range is here called, are nearly 11,000 feet in height — as high as the Pyrenees. But still they keep not far from the sea, as they run north-east- wards. From the coast it is a tremendous climb up. But, once up, there is no very long descent, because the land at the back lies so high. Thus, from Durban to Van Reenen's Pass, in Natal, you 20 SOUTH AFRICA climb 5500 feet, but when you come out on the side of the Orange River Colony, you have only a few hundred feet to come down. 3. The Climate of South Africa It is this arrangement of the mountains that settles the climate of South Africa. Climate de- pends partly on latitude (that is to say, the distance north or south of the equator), partly on the height of the country, and partly on the direction in which the wind blows. Where, in the tropics, or in what are called low latitudes, 1 the sun at noon rises very high in the sky it is likely to be hot, because the sun shines with great power. Again, a high land is cooler than a low-lying one; and if rain is to come, it conies with the wind. If wind is to bring rain, it must have passed over the sea, or some very damp region whence it can absorb water; but all winds, even if they blow over the sea, will not bring the same amount of rain. Hot air can hold a great deal of moisture, cold air very little. Now, west winds are not common in South Africa; but even if they were, they would not bring much rain, for the current 1 Lines of latitude are numbered from the equator, which is number 0, to the pole, numbered 90. Therefore low latitudes are latitudes close to the equator, whose number is small. THE CLIMATE OF SOUTH AFRICA 21 on the west coast of Africa is cold, and the wind from it brings little moisture. The prevailing- winds come from the east and south-east. They blow over the hot Indian Ocean, and they get filled with moisture. But as soon as they strike South Africa they meet these eastern-lying moun- tains. In order to cross these mountains the air has to rise; as it rises it gets cooler; when it gets cooler it cannot hold so much water; and what it can no longer hold falls as rain. But when the winds have passed the mountains they are dry; they have no more rain to give. Thus, the wet part of South Africa is near the coast, especially in the south-east. Here, in the wet season of the year (the months November to January), come tremendous rain-storms and violent thunder-storms, hail-storms with hailstones at times as big as pigeons' eggs, falling with enough force even to kill cattle or break holes in a corrugated iron roof. The rivers rise in furious flood. A brook that you could wade easily across in the morning may in the afternoon be twenty feet deep, a roaring torrent hurrying east or south to the sea. But as soon as you go away from the coast and the mountains in the east, the country gets drier and drier. The coast strip and the land lying east of the railway which runs from East London through Bloemfontein to Pretoria gets quite a fair amount of rain, though it falls in one season and 22 SOUTH AFRICA not all through the year as it does in England. The western half of the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal get about half the amount. Bechu- analand gets less than a quarter. In the Kalahari Desert rain hardly ever falls. The winds there are very dry, and there are no hills to catch what moisture there is. On the rain depends the fertility of the country. In the southern and eastern coast strip it is hot and damp, hot-country plants grow, such as the bamboo and the banana, and crops such as rice and sugar. Farther inland it is higher, drier, and less hot, and the vine does well, with crops of wheat and other cereals. The very dry land of the interior is of little use except for pasture. When, by means of water stored in ponds and dams, the fields can be watered, crops grow, but most of the soil is too much burnt for crops. When, however, we travel north, beyond the Transvaal, into Matabeleland and Mashonaland, we get into a better-watered country. Parts of Khodesia near the Limpopo or Crocodile Eiver, and also the part near the Zambesi, are compara- tively low-lying. The land slopes down gradually to these rivers. But part of Mashonaland is very high, and yet well watered. That is because there is no range of high mountains to the east of it to catch the rain before it gets there. On the contrary, Mashonaland itself acts as the rain- trap. THE CLIMATE OF SOUTH AFRICA 23 Thus, while Bechuanaland is bare, Khodesia is a grassy land, where there are streams, and trees, and shrubs, and plenty of pasture. But the climate is healthy even in the dry dis- tricts where the hot wind blows, driving along clouds of red dust before it, where, in the dazzling sunshine, the traveller is deceived by what seems a silvery lake, but only turns out to be a " salt pan ", or a deceitful " mirage " making the barren plain look like water. Drought burns the land, but this dry air and country is really far more healthy than the moist districts below. A plain twenty miles across looks as if one could stroll over it in an hour, and mountains a day's journey off seem but three or four miles away. This is the country that suits white men best. It is not heat that makes a climate unhealthy: it is heat and moisture. We feel choked in a greenhouse, where it is damp; but out in the summer sun, where it is dry, we feel strong and vigorous, although it may be much hotter than the stuffy greenhouse. The healthiness of the veld air may be judged by the clearness of it. On the high veld the air feels delightfully fresh, and often gives back health to men whose lungs are weak. They may perhaps recover by spending a single winter on the warm yet bracing heights of South Africa. Winter time on the north side of the 24 SOUTH AFRICA equator is, of course, summer to the south of it; but the winter does not make so much differ- ence as it does in England, though in the moun- tains ice and snow can sometimes be found. Even when the warmth of the days makes men glad to take off their coats, the nights are often tryingly cold on the uplands. But it is these cold nights that prove so re- freshing. While in the heat of midsummer in New York, and sometimes even in London, a blanket is too hot at night, the traveller in Rho- desia, although he is within the tropics, is always glad of a woollen covering after the sun is down ; and he rises fresh and restored instead of being worn out by restlessly tossing in a stifling air. 4. The Rivers of South Africa Once more we must look at the mountain ranges of South Africa, for on them depend the rivers of the country. At a first glance on the map we should be inclined to think South Africa well provided with rivers. Along the south and east coast we see a number of streams, the Breede, the Gouritz, the Gamtoos, Sundays River, the Great Fish River, the Great Kei River, the Tugela, and others. Farther north we have the Orange, with the Cole- d?R A -R UNIVER OF ITY THE RIVERS OF SOUTH AFRICA 25 don, the Vaal, the Modder, the Hart ; the Limpopo with the Olifants River running into it, encircles the Transvaal. Northwards again, dividing Rho- desia into two parts, is the Zambesi, which travels more than half-way across the continent, and has a number of streams running into it. This seems, if not an abundant, at any rate a fair amount of rivers. But maps do not tell us everything. Take the Orange River for example. It is 1200 miles long (nearly six times the length of the Thames), but observe that for the last half of its course no tributary stream with any real volume of water flows into it. There are water- courses, but they are dry nearly all the year round. So thirsty is the land through which the Orange flows that there is more water in it where it is joined by the Vaal than where it enters the sea. Almost all the rain that feeds it falls either in the Transvaal, in the Orange River Colony, or in the mountains farther east. But this rain only falls during four months in the year. Therefore through the dry season the Orange dwindles, and the rivers flowing into it are often a mere set of sluggish pools joined by a scanty stream of water. It is the same with the upper parts of the Lim- popo. During most of the year this too is a string of pools of green slimy water. It looks so nasty that the traveller hesitates to drink of it, but there 26 SOUTH AFRICA is no other water. Even when boiled for tea its unpleasant taste is scarcely hidden. In the pools, deep down in the mud, the crocodiles which have given the river its other name lie waiting for the rains. When the rains come the river grows big again. So also with the short streams of the south and east. In the wet season they are raging torrents; for the rest of the year they are mere rivulets. The exploring of the interior took so long because there were hardly any rivers for the explorers to follow. You may travel four hundred miles in Bechuanaland without crossing running water. Since the rivers have generally too little water in them, and at other times are flooded with far too much, they are not nearly so useful as we might expect. When a river is rushing down full of water, it scours away its bed. Every year the streams sink lower and lower below the level of the land. Not only does this make them diffi- cult to cross, for the wagons have to make their way down breaches in the high banks called drifts, but it also makes it exceedingly hard to use the water for watering the land. In order to bring the water up to the level of the sur- rounding land, dams of immense height would be needed; but these, being so big, would be likely to be washed away in the first flood. Thus, much of South Africa has a poor supply THE RIVERS OF SOUTH AFRICA 27 of water, because, although the rain is heavy, it falls in one part, it comes all at once, and it is not easy to use even what there is in the rivers. In so flat a land it might be expected that the rivers could be used as canals, as they are in Russia and in a great part of France; but rivers some- times torrents and sometimes half dry can be of no use in this way. And even near their mouths they are practically useless. South Africa is a succession of table-lands. Where it is flat, it is very flat; but to go from one flat plain to another you have to go up or down a big steep place. When the rivers come to the steep places, to what we may call the edge of the table, they fling them- selves down in waterfalls and rapids. Thus the Orange goes over the Great Aughrabies Rapids, or the Hundred Falls, where in sixteen miles the river drops 400 feet. The Tugela starts by plung- ing down the Drakensberg precipices, and the whole of its course is broken by falls. It is so with almost all the rivers. As the edge of the table- land is close to the sea, there is no part which ships or even small boats can use. Inland there is generally not enough water, near the coast the river is a cataract among rocks. There is, however, one exception — namely the Zambesi; and perhaps we ought to add three others, for part of the Breede can be used by boats; the Limpopo is navigable for some sixty 28 SOUTH AFRICA miles from its mouth, and the Pungwe river, which flows down to Beira, can be used for navigation over a short part of its course, but it is hampered with sand-banks. The Zambesi is a fine, broad, natural highway, forming an easy road to the high-level lake region of Central Africa; yet it too has drawbacks. The channels at its mouth are choked with mud; there are falls at Tete, where it leaves the plateau ; there are fifty miles of the Murchison Rapids on its tributary the Shire', which comes down from Lake Nyasa; and lastly, there are the Victoria Falls, where the river, a mile in width above, plunges suddenly down four hundred feet into a mere crack in the earth, scarce a hundred yards across. In spite of these obstacles, however, much of the Zambesi can be used by boats; and thus it is far more important than any other South African river, as it offers a way of getting into the interior. Finally, we must remember that the mouths of two of the three greater rivers, the Limpopo and the Zambesi, are not in British territory. Both flow out through Portuguese country; and though Portugal does not hinder the use of them, yet the Portuguese have not proved active or business- like colonists, and their ports are places where a good deal of delay and muddling is apt to occur. Since the rivers are thus of so little use as means of sending goods from one place to another, it is SOUTH AFRICAN PLANT-LIFE 29 clear that South Africa must depend mainly on roads and railways. When we leave the coast to go inland we shall see how these have been made. 5. South African Plant-Life For larger timber South Africa is, on the whole,' badly off. In the south and east there are forests among the mountains and near the coasts, but on the great inland plains one may travel far without coming to a tree large enough to cast a welcome shade. Here and there, perhaps, above the long grass or the thick scrub, stands up a cedar or a stunted mimosa- tree, with its thorny, shrivelled branches that burst into a fine show of yellow blossoms in spring. The edges of water -courses are commonly marked by lines of mimosa or one of the acacias (karroothorn, camel thorn, or hook- thorn); sometimes a willow makes a refreshing change among the low dry brushwood which takes the place of timber. Thorns and prickles are found everywhere; and, to make it worse for travellers, the thorns often grow, not straight, but bent back like a fish-hook. One such thorn is well named the "wait-a-bit" thorn. It grows in dense thickets, and men who go through them have sore need of patience and 30 SOUTH AFRICA sticking-plaster and needles and thread; even the lion gets his mane as sadly torn as a sheep's fleece is among brambles. Prickly plants, such as aloes and cactuses, are common; even the nettles are larger, and have worse stings, than those which grow in England. Very common are various kinds of heath, which, when in bloom, colour the country for miles. The hot dry summer soon burns everything brown, and the scrubby bushes look so withered up that one wonders how nibbling goats can find pasture on them as they do. One foreign plant — the prickly-pear — has made itself only too much at home in this land of prickles, almost ruining some farms by its rapid growth, while cattle suffer from eating its golden fruit, covered with irritating little spikes, so fine that you can scarcely see them. People who have rashly handled a prickly-pear with the bare hand are careful never to pick another. But we must not judge by appearances, as Mr. H. A. Bryden tells us in his Kloof and Karroo, a capital book of African adventure. He tells us that these dried-up shrubs and the low heathery bush which grow on the karroo are always full of feeding-power; and when the rains come there is a wonderful change. Bush and scrub which seemed to have no life in them shoot out; starry flowers spring forth everywhere, even before the SOUTH AFRICAN PLANT-LIFE 31 green leaves appear; fragrant grasses and herbs come up as if by magic from the soil; and the whole surface of the karroo looks like a great dark- green sea, dotted here and there with lovely flowers. Thus, in spring a carpet of bloom covers the plains and kloofs. Geraniums and lilies spring up here like daisies and buttercups in England, and many other wild flowers which would be the pride of an English garden. The arum lily, which in England is considered the best flower to decorate the churches, is in South Africa so common that it is hardly cared for. Men call it the " pig-lily ". Wherever there is water, crops and vegetables grow richly. Indian corn lifts to the height of nine or ten feet its heavy ears, known to the colonists as " mealies ". These form the staple food for natives. House-boys and grooms are provided with nothing else. Wheat, barley, rye, potatoes, all thrive as well as in England. But though South Africa is not rich in native trees, some imported trees do well. The Dutch began the planting of oaks, and long avenues of oak-trees now give a pleasant shade in many of the older towns. The stone-pine and the cluster- pine also do well in the colony; but most useful of all, because it grows quickly and helps to make unhealthy spots healthy, is the eucalyptus, or Australian gum-tree. Pretoria, Kimberley, Bula- 32 SOUTH AFRICA wayo are all shaded by these trees; and all over Mashonaland and Matabeleland, we may judge if a farm- steading or a store is near by seeing the tree-tops rising from the plain. Another Aus- tralian tree, the beef wood, also grows well. The colonists now see that they ought not to let trees die out and be destroyed, as was the wasteful way of the first Dutch settlers. But much damage is still done by the grass fires, which are kindled either accidentally or by Kafirs, who wish to catch the mice which the flames drive out. The fires are not enough to kill a tree of any size, but they destroy the saplings, and help to keep the country bare. As we get north into the tropics we pass from veld to jungle. We find various kinds of palms, with their graceful feathery foliage. There is the baobab, which the colonists call the "cream-of- tartar tree", a very curious tree, throwing out its gnarled limbs sometimes thirty or forty feet from the stem, with small branches sticking out queerly at the top. The pods, as large as small cocoa-nuts, hold a white, creamy, acid substance which is so like the medicine we call cream -of - tartar as to give the tree its name. WILD BEASTS OF SOUTH AFRICA 33 6. Wild Beasts of South Africa The lion had his home in South Africa, and the first colonists of the Cape could often hear his terrible roar through the darkness of the bush. He would be more often heard than seen, for to tell the truth, this king of beasts is not so brave as we imagine him, or at least he keeps his bravery till it is needed, and chooses rather to slink about in dark places, avoiding the sight of man, unless he be pressed by hunger. Nowadays lions have been driven aw r ay from the settlements, and one must go far north to have a chance of seeing, as Lord Eandolph Churchill saw, the long grass become alive with yellow animals about the size of small bullocks " troop- ing and trotting along like a lot of enormous dogs ". But if the hunter venture a shot at these runaways, he must be ready to fight or fly, for a wounded lion is a dangerous beast. Leopards, which the Dutch call "tigers", are still common enough in the rough parts of the country, though, sly like all animals of the cat tribe, they keep themselves so close that it is difficult to get a shot at them. The farmers have often to kill them by laying poisoned meat where they come prowling at night to prey upon the flocks. Wild buffaloes are also met with, not less dan- ( B 83 ) C 34 SOUTH AFRICA gerous than lions when attacked; it is especially dangerous to follow a wounded buffalo into the thick bush, since he will suddenly turn and charge the hunter, and a bullet is apt to glance off his hard skull. Baboons live in holes in the rocks, boldly showing themselves to chatter and bark at strangers, but making off on all-fours at any sign of real danger. They do a great deal of mischief in fields and orchards, and, though they do not eat flesh, some of them have learned the trick of killing goats to get their milk. Monkeys and tiger-cats count as nuisances rather than as dangerous enemies of man. Jackals and hyaenas act as scavengers of the wilds, as do the ugly vultures that soon come hovering over any scene of slaughter. The beautifully-striped zebra is now hardly ever found in the Cape Colony. Hippopotamuses and rhinoceroses must be hunted for in its distant outskirts, by marshy river-beds, or in unpeopled jungles. In one or two places in Cape Colony wild elephants have been carefully protected since about 1830; they are found in the Knysna and Tsitsikamma Forests and in the Addo Bush. But, wherever men have been free to kill them, they have been killed on account of their fine tusks. Snakes are still too common, such as the deadly puff-adder and the cobra. There is one familiar animal which gets rid of them. Whether it is WILD BEASTS OF SOUTH AFRICA 35 that snake-bites do not hurt pigs, or whether it is that the pigs eat the snakes or frighten them away, is not clear. But it is a fact that wherever there are many pigs there are no snakes. Another great enemy of snakes is the long-legged secretary- bird, which gets its name from a crest of feathers looking like a pen stuck behind its ear as it stalks along to pick up a dinner of snakes, lizards, and other ground -game. The Boers sometimes keep these birds tame about their farmyards; and another curious little creature, the muur-cat (pro- nounced meer-cat), is seen as a pet in houses, as are cats in England. Eagles, hawks, and other birds of prey are common, as well as great cranes, herons, and bustards. Then there are rainbow-coloured sun- birds, whose feathers are more beautiful than their songs; gorgeous cuckoos, the game-birds known as Cape pheasants; and pigeons, plovers, wild geese, wild ducks, and many more of the kinds well know T U in England, besides some quite unknown to us, such as a bird called the Kafrarian gros- beak, which at one time of the year has such a long tail that it can neither walk nor fly easily, and hardly ventures out of the bushes. Some of these birds give plenty of sport to the colonists; but the great game is the shy and graceful antelope, many kinds of which still abound in the high lands, though others have been quite 36 SOUTH AFRICA killed off for their skins, or have fled from the neighbourhood of white men. 7. The Destruction of Game in South Africa No one except hunters and naturalists will regret the destruction of beasts of prey such as lions, leopards, hyaenas, and the treacherous crocodiles and snakes; and there is little to be said for hippo- potamuses and rhinoceroses, which cannot well sur- vive in a country where there are many white men. But it is a pity to see a country stripped of game, as the Boers and British colonists are stripping South Africa. Most destructive of all the game destroyers are the hide hunters. These are generally men who some years ago hunted elephants for their ivory; but the elephant is so scarce south of the Zambesi that you may not in a season's hunting see the spoor of one. The hunters were therefore forced to come down to the antelopes. At one time the plains of the Transvaal and the Orange were full of these. " Wagons loaded with skins of the blesbok, wildebeest, zebra, hartebeest, and spring- bok rolled merrily down to Port Elizabeth and Natal." This soon cleared the country, and now the hide hunter has to go north of the Limpopo. THE DESTRUCTION OF GAME 37 He drives his wagon northwards over the veld. At daybreak he stands over the fire drinking his morning coffee and munching a "cookie" of Boer meal. His stout vrouw 1 sits near him on a low wagon-chair, stirring the embers and watching the kettle of coffee. From the fore-clap (curtain) of the buck- wagon the faces of two or three children peer forth. The Boer is a man of strong, loose-knit frame. His short cord jacket and trousers of the same material are frayed and torn from contact with bush and thorns, and stains of grease and blood from much skinning of game are very ap- parent. He picks up his rifle, buckles a bandolier of cartridges round his waist, a single rusty spur in his left heel, and climbs to the saddle of the small, rough, but hardy -looking horse that his native servant has been holding for him. Now that he is in the saddle you may see that, like most of his fellows, he wears no socks or stockings; his ankles are bare; a pair of highlow veldschoens, fashioned by himself from a piece of water-buck hide, serve him for foot-gear. With a gruff but kindly salutation to the children and his wife, the Boer rides off into the veld, jog- ging his horse's sides, and smoking vigorously from a big-bowled pipe. Close beside him walk two native " boys ", who will assist in skinning and help to bring in the game. 1 Pronounced frow. 38 SOUTH AFRICA He comes on a spoor of which a European would make little, but his eye tells him at a glance that a troop of zwart- wit-pens, sable antelope, big, long- horned beasts, has within the last half-hour passed that way. He follows, knocks over the big bull, hits another from the saddle while galloping in pursuit, overtakes it and finishes it with another bullet, tracks the others, and shoots another bull. He has done a good mornings business and is well pleased. The three skins will bring him five-and- twenty shillings, and the heads, which a few years ago he used to throw away, he can certainly sell for a sovereign each in Johannesburg. The meat will most of it be salted, sun-dried, and turned into biltong, and that can be sold too. So perish the game of South Africa. 1 Something is being done by game-laws to stop this wholesale destruction, but it is easier to make game-laws than to get them kept. The natives, many of whom have guns, shoot recklessly; and if the eland, the zebra, the giraffe, and the tribe of antelopes are to be preserved at all, and not follow the quagga to utter destruction, they will have to be saved as wild animals are saved in America, by making what is called a sanctuary — that is a wide district where no man may shoot, and where even the most savage beasts may be free to live unharmed. 1 Most of this account is taken direct, by kind permission of Mr. H. A. Bryden, from his book Nature and Sport in South Africa. SOUTH AFRICAN NATIVES 39 There is plenty of land north of the Kalahari where such a sanctuary might be placed. As has been noticed, there are places where elephants are preserved in Cape Colony, but elephants are not the only big game worth preserving. In Ehodesia a game -law divides the game into three kinds. The largest animals are "royal" game, and no one is allowed to kill them. Class 2 consists of the large antelopes not included in Class 1 ; leave to shoot these is very seldom given, and only on payment of £25. Birds and smaller antelopes (Class 3) can be shot by the holder of the ordinary £1 licence. A close time for game is also fixed. These laws are not, however, kept so strictly as they should be, and cannot be enforced in cases where explorers are wandering far from townships and have to shoot for food. (See also p. 164.) 8. South African Natives The original natives of South Africa belong to two great races, which have split up into many tribes. The first dwellers there were the Hot- tentots, who, when white men first came among them, were found in large numbers about the south and west of the country, but had been driven away from the east side by conquering tribes from the north. They are a stupid and 40 SOUTH AFEICA barbarous people, with yellowish-brown faces, black woolly hair, flat noses, and thick lips. The most curious thing about them is their language, which has some strange clicking sounds which Europeans cannot readily imitate, not unlike the cackling of geese. They used to go dressed in sheep-skins, the rough side of which they turned inward in cold weather; also they wore leather aprons, and loved to smear themselves with grease and paint. Their dwellings were low, beehive- shaped huts of matting, grass, or branches, which they built together in circular villages called kraals. Of the same stock as the Hottentots, apparently, are the dwarfish Bushmen, the tallest of them only about 4 J feet high, the women even smaller. Their poisoned arrows made them dangerous enemies; but they were hunted away like beasts by the first white settlers, and only a few of them are now found hiding in deserts and caves upon the edge of the colony. They were surprisingly clever at painting, and in many places have left curious pictures on the rocks as memorials of themselves. The wild Hottentot, too, has almost gone, though many still live among the settlements in a partly- civilized state. These poor "Totties", as they are called, act as servants to the white men. The Kafir tribes — Zulus, Pondos, Swazis, Basutos, Matabeles, and others — are bolder and more intelli- gent people, coming from a stock of black men SOUTH AFRICAN NATIVES 41 widely spread over Africa. This is called the Bantu race by learned men (the word Bantu in Zulu means people); but the various tribes are commonly spoken of as Kafirs in South Africa, where they form most of the population. In some parts, such as Basutoland, Bechuanaland, Zululand, Barotseland, they still live as great tribes, ruled by powerful chiefs, cultivating fields of their own, and owning large herds of cattle. They are tall and strong, loving to go naked, yet sometimes dressing themselves out in leopard- skins and ox-hides, or gaudy European blankets, and doing up their hair in various extraordinary fashions. Their own weapons are clubs, large ox- hide shields, short spears called assegais, and " knobkerries ", or knob -sticks, which they use with great skill; and when to these they add European firearms, they prove enemies by no means easy to conquer, as white men have often found. Peaceful missionaries, also, have faced dangers and hardships to carry light among these dark- minded barbarians. The religion of the Kafirs taught them to think more of the powers of evil than of the powers of good, to believe in witches and evil spirits, and to trust in medicine - men, who pretended to be able to bring rain and work other miracles. If anything went wrong, these impostors used to throw the blame of it 42 SOUTH AFRICA on anyone who had offended them, and often got innocent people put to death by accusing them without any real cause. While the Kafirs were so fierce and ignorant, we can easily understand that they had no mercy on their enemies. But, thanks partly to the missionaries and partly to the soldiers, the tribes near the colonies have now been tamed so far as to keep from interfering with the settlers, and many of them are learning to live quietly and industriously. Some are still proud barbarians, who love fight- ing better than anything else. Others are found serving the colonists as herds, grooms, and labourers on the land where they once were masters. A Kafir is usually a strong fellow, who will work well while he is at it, but does not like working for long at a time. Often he comes down to the settlements for a spell of work till he has earned enough to buy a gun, a wife, or some cattle, with which for the rest of his life he can set up as an idle gentleman among his own people. 9. The Zulus Among the Kafir tribes the most warlike and the proudest are the Zulus, whose country lies between the sea and the mountains north of Natal ; THE ZULUS 43 but they have spread widely into other parts, where sometimes they are known by different names. Wherever they came, no other tribe could stand against them; and it was hard even for the best-armed soldiers to attack them in their walled kraals, 1 or among the rocky hills which they turned into fortresses. They were fierce and brave: and they could beat other savages, since they took great pains to train themselves for war, and were always ready for it. The word Zulu itself means ' high ', and the people in using this name describe their idea of themselves as being ' cock-of-the-walk ' among the natives of South Africa. The story of the rise of the Zulu power is a curious one. About a hundred years ago the son of a prominent chief was sentenced by his father to be put to death. He escaped, however, with a wound in the side, and wandered away from his native land. Perhaps he went as far as Cape Town, where he saw the British troops; perhaps he only met with European travellers. Be this as it may, when, on hearing of his father's death, he judged it safe to return to his country, he brought back with him a horse and a gun. Neither horse nor gun had been seen before in Zululand. Their fortunate possessor soon won 1 The Zulu ' kraal ' is the enclosure made to pen the cattle in : the wall enclosing it is usually built of rough stones or bush. The huts lie just out- side, but in time of war the kraal was often used as a stronghold. Kraals are always round, as indeed is everything a Kafir makes. 44 SOUTH AFRICA for himself a great reputation, and ended by being recognized as chief in succession to his dead father. The scar in his side proved he was no pretender. The name of* this man was Dingiswayo. He was not a Zulu. His tribe was the Mtetwa, and to them the little tribe of Zulus were subject. Dingiswayo set up a firm friendship with Tshaka, the Zulu chief, and on the death of his patron Tshaka became head not only of the Zulus, but also of the Mtetwa. And Tshaka completed the ideas which Dingiswayo had picked up from his European acquaintance. The work which Tshaka did was to create the most powerful army that any native king in Africa ever had. Not only was it numerous and brave, but it was disciplined and organized. Every boy on approaching manhood was placed in a regiment, and every regiment was always ready for instant service; for to prevent the young men being taken up with their homes and wives, and so neglecting their country, Tshaka set up the practice that neither man nor woman inhis dominions could marry till the king gave Save to the regiment in which the man, and the class in which the girl was placed. To break the rule was death. Each year at the great annual feast of the Mkosi, or first-fruits, the king would grant permission to such regiments and classes as seemed good to THE ZULUS 45 him. The men might then put on a head-ring: the women might " put up their hair " (that is to say, shave the front and side and leave the back hair to stick out, colouring it red); and then marriage was allowed. These regiments, which were called impis, thus contained all the best fighting men of the race, men who fought all the more fiercely that they might win their king's approval, and through it a home and a wife. Each impi wore badges of feathers and had shields of different colours. Every soldier had to obey any order of the king, if it cost him his life ; and hundreds of men would sometimes be marched to death just because the king willed it. Warriors who have learned to obey a chief so blindly, without being afraid of their enemies, are not easy to beat; and one king after another carried out the same plan, till the Zulu army became a terror all over that part of Africa. No tribe ever could feel safe from their raids. A regiment of them would move to the attack of a village not less stealthily than the beasts of prey, whose voices they imitated as signals to each other in the darkness. The first warning the villagers had would be the war-cry of the dreaded Zulus as they leaped forward upon their victims. Taken by surprise, and surrounded, the poor people might be unable either to fight or to flee; 46 SOUTH AFRICA and one by one they would be butchered amid a horrid din, each slaughterer raising a fresh shriek of triumph as he tore out the heart of the dying foe, speared by his assegai. When the killing was over they would drive together the cattle, as well as the boys and girls whom they had made orphans, and with these trophies return to feast and dance over their victory. When they had no one else to fight with, the Zulus sometimes fought among themselves to keep their hands in at their favourite trade. Some- times they fought for one chief against another. Sometimes a leader who had lost a battle against an enemy would not dare to return home, expecting to be put to death for his failure. He would lead off his band to conquer a new home for themselves on the lands of some more peaceful tribe. In some such way the Matabele broke off from the Zulus and settled far from Zululand, but kept up the same fierce customs. When the Zulus had overcome most of their black neighbours, they had to deal with the Dutch, and then with the English, and did not always get the worst of it even fighting against cannon and rifles. The war in which the power of the Zulu king Cetewayo was destroyed is still well remembered for the sad misfortunes which at first befell the British troops. In the first battle at Isandlwhana they were defeated with great loss; THE SWITZERLAND OF SOUTH AFRICA 47 but in the long run, when the generals had learnt how to deal with the Zulus, they beat them, since the British troops were no less brave and had better arms. Cetewayo's kingdom was broken up, and the Zulus live now under British rule. There are some hundreds of thousands of them, who might still prove a danger if they could find a leader and agree to act together; but for some years now they have given little trouble, though more than once their kinsmen, the Matabele, have risen in arms against our new settlers. (See p. 143.) 10 The Switzerland of South Africa Basutoland is about as big as Wales. It may be called the Switzerland of South Africa because of the mountains which fill it. Nearly all of it is over 5000 feet high, much of it higher. It consists of three great valleys and three great ridges. Down the northern valley runs the Caledon, severing Basutoland from the Orange Eiver Colony, down the central flows the Kornet Spruit between two branches of the Maluti Hills, and down the southern flows the head - waters of the Orange River. Between the Caledon and the Orange lie 48 SOUTH AFRICA the Maluti Hills, rising at Machacha to a height of 11,000 feet. Facing this range, across the Orange, are the summits of the Drakensberg, where the biggest peaks, the Giant's Castle and Cathkin Peak, are even higher. Thus it is a wild land of hill and precipice, torrent and ravine. BASUTO LAND. Natural Scale, i =3. 000,000. English Miles o 5 10 20 30 40 50 The Basutos live, then, like the Swiss, in the midst of mountains. But further, just as the hard-working Swiss have made the most of such parts of their land as may be tilled, so the upland valleys of Basutoland are fertile, and the Basutos, far more industrious than most South African natives, cultivate them to good purpose. Smiling THE SWITZERLAND OF SOUTH AFRICA 49 corn-fields and pastures greet the eye. Vegetables and fruits are grown in great quantities, and even exported into Cape Colony. And this is all the work of a native race, advised by a few imperial officers, and helped by missionaries. Basutoland gives the best example of what African natives may develop into under good management. Let us go with a South African traveller 1 on a visit to Basutoland and gather from him some facts about it. The easiest way into Basutoland is from Bloem- fontein. It is a long coach drive, and the roads are not good; so even eight horses cannot drag the heavy coach fast. We pass Thaba 'Nchu, and in twelve hours get to Ladybrand. Such heavy travelling makes the traveller glad that soon a railway will be open along this route. Thence we ride across the ford on the Caledon, which brings us to Maseru, the home of the imperial commissioner. There are in Maseru some sixty Europeans — officials, police, and store-keepers — and more than two thousand natives. But we find few whites in Basutoland. None may settle there without leave; none may hold land; none may come to search for gold. Basutoland is kept for the Basutos. And they flourish in their land. There are 1 Mr. James Bryce (Impressions of South Africa), by whose kindness I am allowed to use most of the following account. ( b 83 ) D 50 SOUTH AFRICA more than 250,000 of them, and though they are so many, and the whites so few, they have become a peaceable people. They have more than once shown that they could be very dangerous in war. They had none the worst of an encounter with British forces under Sir George Cathcart; they resisted the attacks of Orange River Boers. They alone of all the natives of South Africa have taken to fighting on horseback. Mounted on their ponies, they were hard to overtake, while they constantly harassed their enemies by attack- ing on the flank and in the rear. Though their land is so rugged, a Basuto pony will go almost anywhere. A rider new to the country cannot believe that his little nag, twelve hands high, will carry him up a slope that looks steep enough to be difficult for a man on foot. He finds it hard not to slip off over the tail as his pony takes him uphill, or over the head as he comes down again. About a quarter of the Basutos are Christians. There are many missions, all doing a wonderful work amongst these natives. At Morija, the large institution connected with the Paris Evangelical Society, groves of trees and bright gardens sur- round the mission - houses. On Sundays large numbers gather and delight to sing hymns. From the printing-houses books in the Sesuto language are issued. A hundred and fifty schools are scat- tered over the land, and some Basuto boys give THE SWITZERLAND OF SOUTH AFRICA 51 an excellent account of themselves in the examina- tions of the Cape University. Near Morija lives the chief, Lerothodi. We may find him in the mornings, with his councillors, sitting in the open air to do justice among his people as Moses did among the Israelites. We may see his guest-house and the huts inhabited by his wives all fenced and floored with red clay, neat and clean. And the Basutos have, too, a sort of parliament. Once a year the commissioner meets all the people who wish to come, at an assembly, the "Pitso", where new laws are given out. Best of all, the sale of spirits is forbidden, although some of the chiefs do not keep the law, and there is a good deal of smuggling. But in the rising revenue, and the spread of education, Basutoland seems to have a happy future. Before we take leave of it let us climb Machacha in the Maluti Hills. We start on Basuto ponies, first over breezy pastures and across the beds of streams deep furrowed by the floods, to the foot of the range; then up a grassy hollow so steep that our friends who tell us to ride up seem to be making game of us. But up these wonderful ponies scramble to the crest of the ridge till the ground becomes too steep even for them. Still upwards, over a ridge carpeted with flowers and heaths, with the murmur of streams rising up to our ears from below, till we reach a huge black 52 SOUTH AFRICA cliff. Climbing hither and thither among the rocks we make our way to the summit. Beneath us the ground falls away in huge precipices. East- wards, across the Orange, lie ramparts of peaks overhanging Natal. Westwards the rolling plains of the Orange River Colony can be seen for sixty miles. A thunder-storm hangs over Ladybrand, and we catch a forked tongue of light flashing from the dark clouds contrasting in one spot with the brilliant sunshine everywhere else. No finer view can be seen in South Africa. 1 1 . The Farmer's Plagues Farmers in South Africa have many troubles to fight against. The want of water is not so serious as might be thought. Men are prepared for it; they build dams in which to store the rain when it does come; they do not plant crops or keep animals which ordinary drought will destroy; and even on the seemingly-barren karroo it is wonder- ful how beasts find pasture. Stock certainly needs a great deal of room. In many places it takes six acres to give feeding-ground for one sheep. But the food, such as it is, is juicy and full of moisture, and beasts do not suffer from want of water as they would in a land where they are used to have THE farmer's plagues 53 plenty. In Khodesia, too, water and grass are plentiful enough. But if, as the farmer goes farther north, he gets a better-watered country, he is more troubled by wild beasts. And scarcely any part of the land, once the towns are left behind, is free from destructive beasts. Of course they are more com- mon in some parts than others, but stock has often to be guarded against leopards and other animals of the same kind, or, if the stock is left out, some will be lost. Often cattle take to eating poisonous herbs and die. Sometimes a very dry season scorches the land, and even the muddy pools are drunk up, and then sheep and cattle die of thirst. Strange plagues sometimes come on the land, like the rinderpest of 1896, which, creeping down from the north, proved deadly to all cattle infected by it. Thousands upon thousands of cattle were swept away, and many farmers were brought suddenly to poverty. Horse - sickness sometimes breaks out; the horses sicken and die in a few hours. Tracks are often seen dotted with the skeletons of horses and mules which have died on the way. If a horse gets through the sickness he is said to be " salted ", and he is very valuable, for he is safe from another attack. Donkeys alone seem to escape. Cattle, too, suffer from "lung sickness"; the many cattle which one sees tailless have lost their tails in the process of inoculation against the disease. 54 SOUTH AFRICA Although most of South Africa is splendidly healthy, yet there are districts where fever is only too common. The coast strip northwards from Zululand, including a part of the Transvaal, is very unhealthy. Fever haunts parts of the Limpopo valley, and " hangs like a death-cloud over the Zambesi". Even so high as 3000 feet in Nyasa- land it is common. But in the main the British portion of South Africa lies above the fever-level; and even where swamps and marshes make the air unhealthy, when the land is drained the climate improves. The Australian blue-gum tree also does its share in this work. When we read of a land in which there are lions, as there still are in Rhodesia, or crocodiles and pythons, as there are in the hot, swampy, eastern coast strip, it makes us think that these must be uncomfortable places to live in. But these crea- tures, though terrible, are rare. It is not the big plagues that matter: it is the small ones. Even the Egyptians in Moses' day found the lice and frogs and locusts worse than all the crocodiles in Egypt. So let us look at the little plagues. Flies are always a plague in hot countries, and in South Africa there is one insect, no bigger than a house-fly, that has extraordinary powers of mis- chief for its size. This is the tsetse -fly. These flies are harmless to man, but their bite is certain death to horses and oxen. They are not found on THE farmer's plagues 55 the higher table-lands, but as soon as the land sinks a little in level towards the damper river-mouths on the eastern coast, the dreaded tsetse - fly is found. There are fly-haunted tracts in lower Zulu- land, on the Limpopo, on the Zambesi, and along all the east coast. Between Beira and Salisbury there is a belt of "fly" country ninety miles broad, across which no beast of burden can go. Thus the fly often brought the explorer to a stand-still. The bite of the fly did not hurt him, but his beasts died; unless he could get natives to carry his goods he could go no farther. It has been found, however, that when the wild beasts are killed off, the tsetse -fly disappears or becomes harmless. A good many districts, in old days fatal to cattle and horses, are now safe; and perhaps elsewhere as the game goes the fly may go too. Another plague, more serious even than the "fly", because it is so much more widely spread, is found in the locusts. The swarms of them are miles long; they flash like red snow-flakes in the sun; the air glitters with their gauzy wings. But, beautiful as they are, hardly anything — even an earthquake or the hot lava from a volcano — is more destructive. The swarms may be fought with when the insects walk along the ground, for then trenches may be dug to trap them. But when they fly nothing can stop them. Every leaf, every blade of grass is eaten, every tree stripped bare. 56 SOUTH AFRICA If you listen in the stillness of the night you can hear them "chumping". Then the cattle perish for want of food. " All along the road from Umtali we saw oxen lying dead, often by some pool in the brook to which they had staggered to drink, and where they lay down to die. We met few wagons, and those few were all standing with the team un- yoked, some of their beasts dead or sickly, some too weak to draw the load farther. This is what a plague of locusts means." 1 The poor farmer has to sit and look on, power- less to do anything to save his crops, which will in a few minutes be leafless. Where the locusts fall they lay their eggs, and next rainy season count- less crawling creatures — " voetgangers", as the Boers call them — will do as much damage as their parents. Flocks of birds follow the locust hosts, eating them by hundreds as they fly; and the antelopes and other animals browse on them like grass when they have settled on the ground; but for every thousand so destroyed there are tens of thousands left to make desolate the country through which they pass. One curious thing is the hap- hazard way in which the locusts come. Sometimes a district may enjoy years during which the lo- custs are few and come but rarely; then, for no apparent reason, locusts come in great swarms, and go on coming till the colonist is almost reduced to 1 Bryce. THE farmer's plagues 57 despair. In Rhodesia, people are trying to poison them or infect them with fatal diseases, but whether they can poison enough to make much difference is not yet very certain. Lesser plagues, but still plagues, are the ants. The white-ants, about half-an-inch long, will eat most things except metal. They work always in the dark, from inside. They will eat their way through sun-dried brick to reach wood, and then they consume it from the inside, so that it looks solid till it suddenly breaks into dust. All the telegraph poles must be of iron, or the white-ants would make short work of them. They will tunnel along a shelf to reach books, and eat them. Mr. Bryce tells us that he found half the public library at Umtali devoured in this wholesale way. They will eat a leather bag, and leave nothing but the metal fastenings. If white-ants get into the house, the only thing to do is to hunt about till the queen is found. When she is killed, the rest go; but, till she is dead, killing some out of the vast number of the rest makes really no difference to the swarm. There are other ants, small red ants, that get into the provision-boxes, and the big reddish-black ant which bites fiercely, but he is, on the whole, regarded with favour, because he kills the white-ants when he can get at them. The white-ant is a real curse to any country. Another enemy of the farmer is the baboon. He 58 SOUTH AFRICA is common and destructive, and spoils even more than he eats. He cannot be got rid of by any ordinary poison. Strychnine pills, which make hysenas curl up and die, do not seem to cause a baboon even to make a face any uglier than his usual one. Another nuisance is the tick, which causes great weakness in cattle and horses, though after a time beasts seem to be less affected by the bites; and a buyer of horses will always look for tick-scars, as in that case the horse is seasoned or "salted", and will not suffer severely again. The grass is sometimes fired to destroy ticks. In the east of the country, and especially in Natal, the worst of all disasters is hail, which is so sudden, violent, and destructive, breaking and withering every green thing it touches. But too much must not be made of the plagues. Fever does not touch the uplands, and thither the sick man may go and be cured. Horse-sickness and cattle plague are terrible when they come, but they only come now and then, and we may look to science to find a cure for these evils. The big beasts give the settler sport in hunting them. The white-ants do but annoy him. Even after the locusts there comes the rain, making the face of the country green again; the fertile soil speedily gives back what was taken away. And over all shines the African sun, and with South African CAPE COLONY 59 sunshine and South African air come happiness and content. 12. Cape Colony The Cape of Good Hope was so long the best- known part of the country that it gives its name to this whole country, twice the size of Great Britain and Ireland. As it is the oldest of British pos- sessions at the Cape, it is also often called " The Colony ". It has a long line of coast stretching from the mouth of the Orange River on the west to the border of Natal on the east, but this coast, like all the African coast, is very straight, and therefore badly provided with harbours. There is only one place where ships get a really good natural shelter; this is Saldanha Bay, about seventy miles north of Cape Town, but there is as yet no town near it, and no railway, so it is only used by fishermen. Table Bay, on which Cape Town stands, has been improved by a breakwater. Simon's Bay, the inner harbour of False Bay, is also fairly sheltered, and is the chief naval station in the southern hemi- sphere. Port Elizabeth, on Algoa Bay, and East London are both exposed to the south-east gales. Ships have to lie out in the OT)en, tossing up and down 60 SOUTH AFRICA in the heavy swell, and passengers have to be swung out from the ship into the tug, in great wicker-work baskets. As the tug is jumping about in the sea, the passengers often land in it with a violent bump, and are a good deal frightened that they may be dropped into the waves. Cape Colony is not all alike. The low-lying coast strip is hot, and in part of the year damp. Here hot-country plants will grow. As we climb up, we pass into drier and drier country, till at the top we come to the bare karroo, and the high- lying veld. Even the part of the country which is called a table-land is not always flat as the east of England is flat, or as Russia is flat. Scattered over it are little hills ("kopjes"), whose name is now so familiar to Englishmen. In places where they are thick, the traveller has them all round him, and seems always to be coming to a range of hills stretching across his path; but, as he advances, a way opens between the kopjes, and shows more of them ahead. In the east and north of the Orange River Colony there are not so many, and thus each shows its shape better; they form conspicuous landmarks. They differ in size; some are mere hillocks, others are three hundred feet above the plain. But, small or large, they have generally the same shape: they have steep sides, which get steeper as they get higher, till the last walls CAPE COLONY 61 are often sheer rock; and the tops are mostly flat. Each part, then, has its own character. On the veld, sheep and cattle keeping are the chief em- ployments. Lower down, round Grahamstown and Uitenhage, are the ostrich farms. The chief wheat- growing districts are Malmesbury, Piquetberg, Caledon, and Oudtshoorn in the west, and Albert, Wodehouse, Barkly East, and Graaff-Reinet in the east. The yield of wheat is uncertain, and seldom enough for the wants of the colony. Seed is sown very thin, and therefore the crop to each acre is poor, often not more than six bushels. But in the Calvinia districts, where river-floods make the soil fertile, the yield is much better, even rising as high as thirty bushels to the acre. Here the stalks grow six feet high, and the ears of corn are from six to nine inches long. In the west, seed is sown after the first rains, oats in April and May, wheat in May and June. Oats is often grown for hay, and cut just before ripening. Barley does well. The early crops ripen in the end of October, and from then till December harvesting is in full swing. All sorts of methods of reaping the corn are used — the latest machines on smooth ground, scythes and old-fashioned sickles where it is rough. Barley and rye are still some- times threshed in the old-fashioned way in which it was done in Palestine in Our Lord's day, 62 SOUTH AFRICA namely, by driving oxen, or horses, or mules round and round a threshing-floor, till the grain is trodden out by the tramp of their feet. Tobacco grows well in the limestone valley of Oudtshoorn, with the shelter of the Zwarte Berg on the north, and the Lange Berg on the south, where the streams give the supply of water needed by the tobacco plants. The warm sun makes South African vineyards give a larger yield per acre than any other vineyards in the world. Most of the wine is made in the districts round Cape Town. Paarl, Stellenbosch, Wynberg, and Con- stantia all produce wine and brandy, the sweet wines of Constantia being the best known. Unfor- tunately, though the yield is great, the quality is not very good, and Cape wine does not command any great price. The growing of fruit is also a prosperous busi- ness. The variety of South African fruit is extra- ordinary. It includes all sorts of English fruits, such as peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums, cherries, strawberries, apples, pears, walnuts, and many kinds for which the English climate is too uncertain or cold, such as oranges, lemons, grapes, and almonds; besides these, we find hot-country fruits — pine- apples, bananas, guavas, and loquats. At first the industry was kept back by the difficulty of sending the fruit about the country or out of it. Fruit was plentiful, but there was often no market for it. CAPE TOWN AND ITS SURROUNDINGS 63 It did not pay to send it into the interior. The growth of railways, however, has overcome this difficulty, and now, with the help of cool storage, ships are beginning to bring quantities of fresh fruit to England. Fruit-growers are learning also to adopt Californian methods of drying and tin- ning fruit, and now a great amount of raisins and dried fruit is sent to Europe. Cape Town has a climate peculiar to itself. Owing to the cold Antarctic current which flows by it, its average temperature is much lower than Simon's Town, which gets the warm "Agulhas" current. Again, Cape Town has more rain than most parts of the colony, because of Table Moun- tain lying close by it; and again, it gets rain in showers during most of the year. Like the rest of the south and east coast, it receives some rain with the south-east trade-winds in summer; but it also gets another and more liberal supply from the north-west winds in winter, from May to August, which the south and east of the colony does not get. 13. Cape Town and its Surroundings When the steamer which has brought the tra- veller from Europe drops anchor in Table Bay, and the view of the great city, the largest sea-coast town in Africa south of the equator, opens before 64 SOUTH AFRICA his eyes, he will find it hard to believe that where now run miles of streets, and suburbs reaching back to the slopes of the hills, lions and rhino- ceroses were once common. Strange i& the change since the days when a lion was found prowling in what is now the pleasure-ground of the Houses of Parliament, or when the old Dutch governor Van Riebeek wrote in his diary for Jan. 23, 1653: " This night it appeared as if the lions would take the fort by storm"; or when a rhinoceros charged and upset the coach of one of the Dutch officers. To-day if any lions survive in the colony it can only be in the wilderness along the lower Orange, while the rhinoceros is nowhere found south of the Limpopo. Let us look a little more closely at Cape Town and its surroundings. Two mistakes are often made — one that Cape Town faces south, and the other that the Cape of Good Hope is the most southern point of South Africa ; but a glance at the map shows that these ideas are both wrong. Cape Town faces north; the most southerly point is not the Cape of Good Hope, but Cape Agulhas (the "Needles"), lying much farther east. Table Bay and False Bay are two bays lying back to back, the first small and facing north, the second large and facing south. The land between them is mostly filled up by the great mass of Table Mountain. n^r N *» Sis' IS 3 CO V rt /"*■ «-p« ■ x rt | « -s. rt * >n ^%>^_ 3 ^■Xhy <; x ,Jv^ '. (j "*fr~'»? \ v /'h*^ • 'm Vv y«^ ;• &zl&£ ^t^#^ !* §i ''■ 3 # £§ §•« / < COLO :ale. i: io,ooo, lish Miles 100 150 CO § i? A %t 0,3 " Vast*- ^««« « <£ J c U ft ^ ^ '^Zn ^ ^ 'I '*A T L H T 1 C E A CAPE TOWN AND ITS SURROUNDINGS 65 The situation of Cape Town is as beautiful as it is useful. As a coaling-station for ships on the way to and from the East it is invaluable. British sea power could hardly be kept up without it. Lying in the middle of mountains, sheltered from the south by the great flat-topped mass of Table Mountain, from the west by the "Lion", and from the east by the Devil's Peak, it rivals the finest seaport towns in the world. It is as finely placed as Gibraltar, or San Francisco, or Constantinople. The town itself has to a great degree lost its Dutch look. The castle now stands where the Dutch fort stood. Most of the Dutch houses have been rebuilt; the chief memorial of the Dutch days is found in the splendid avenue of oak-trees, almost a mile long, begun by Van Biebeek, the governor to whom the lions proved such a trial. In the town itself we must notice the Parliament buildings, where meets the parliament of the colony, and where perhaps some day will meet a parlia- ment representing the whole of the South African colonies; the docks too are remarkable. A considerable part of the town is inhabited by Malays, whom the Dutch brought in first of all as slaves. Nowadays some are fruit-sellers and some are fishermen. No Kafir will have anything to do with fish if he can help it. He will not catch them nor eat them; it is hard even to make him cook them. If we take a cab in Cape Town, ( B 83 ) E 66 SOUTH AFRICA it will very likely be driven by a Malay, and Malays wash the clothes — other people's clothes that is, for they themselves are a dirty people. They crowd into the houses, as thickly packed as Simons To. Olifaiitsbosch Pt;L{ Q>' Natural Scale. 1:25,340.000. English Miles o 5 10 20 30 40 50 the poor in London, since houses in Cape Town are often difficult to obtain. Because they are crowded and dirty, they are unhealthy. When small-pox raged in Cape Town the Malays died in hundreds. Yet although they are not pleasant neighbours, they help to make Cape Town look gay. Their women dress in the gaudiest of clothes. The more blazing colours they can put on, the better they are pleased. Cape Town, indeed, contains a strange mixture of races. Malays we have already seen. We expect to find Kafirs and Hottentots, for they are natives. CAPE TOWN AND ITS SURROUNDINGS 67 We are prepared for British and Dutch, for over most of South Africa they are scattered side by side. Australian miners come on their way to the gold-fields; Arabs, Turks, Greeks, and even Hindus add to the strange collection. You can hardly walk up the street in Cape Town without meeting people from three or perhaps four continents. CAPE TOWN & NEIGHBOURHOOD Outside the town itself lie many villas, each of the South African type, long, white, low- roofed, some amidst magnolias and flowering shrubs, the homes of the richer of the white men. Behind all rise the gray cliffs of Table Mountain, often with a white mist clinging to its top, or slipping over the side of the mountain, exactly like an ill- laid " Table Cloth", which indeed it is called. On its lower slopes grows the silver- tree, whose white leaves shine in the sun with a satiny surface you can write your name on. Above, if you climb 68 SOUTH AFRICA Table Mountain, you find many kinds of heath and flowering shrubs. When you are on the top, which is not so flat as you expect to find it, you are at the same height which you will reach when, after long travelling in the train, you have got on to the bare karroo. Table Mountain is indeed an isolated bit of the inland plateau. The visitor to Cape Town will enjoy the journey round Table Mountain. At Constantia, home of the vines, he will find a most curious old Dutch farmhouse. Thoroughly Dutch, too, is the town of Stellenbosch, where houses, streets, avenues, and pastures resemble Holland. The only things want- ing to make it completely Dutch are windmills. In some of the old houses where the rooms are low, in old days the slaves were kept. The visitor will make his way also to the Cape — a splendid head- land plunging down 800 feet into the sea. At its feet the long billows break in thundering waves. Storms blow fiercely at the Cape, and even Cape Town feels them. The " Cape Doctor ", as the south-east wind is called, is a doctor whose medicine may be wholesome but not always pleasant. The wind " rattles roofs and windows, and all but over- turns steeples and chimneys; it well-nigh blows the shops inside out, and fills them with dust; it removes hats and bonnets by the score, and sweeps up small pebbles in its mad career, so that one feels as if being painfully pelted with buckshot; it causes THE RAILWAYS OF SOUTH AFRICA 69 the shipping to strain fearfully at its cables, and churns the waters of Table Bay into a seething mass of snow and indigo." 1 14. The Railways of South Africa Before we leave Cape Town we must consider where we are going, and how we propose to get there. We may choose to travel to the coast towns farther east. Both Port Elizabeth and East London deserve a visit. But we should probably go to them by sea. There is no railway along the coast of Cape Colony. It is scarcely wanted in a new country, for after all there is no cheaper and easier road than on the sea, which is free to everyone. But even were a coast railway desired it would be a very difficult thing to make, since the hills come so close to the sea, and there would be an endless number of tunnels to bore and bridges to make. Forty years ago there was only one way of tra- velling inland in Cape Colony — namely by ox- wagons; and even now, directly the railway is left on one side, much of the travelling is done in the same way. In places there are post-carts; they are faster than the ox-wagons, though not exactly fast, and they are marvellously uncomfortable. But we will leave ox-wagons and coaches till we get 1 R. M. Ballantyne. Six Months at the Cape. 70 SOUTH AFRICA farther inland. At present let us look more closely at the railways — and at the map. Since South Africa is, as we have seen, a country in which there is no chance of using the rivers as canals, railways are the only way of opening up the land. Wherever heavy or bulky goods have to be sent down to the sea-coast for export, or are wanted in the interior, railways must do the work. The chief things that need to be carried far are (a) wool, hides, farm produce, and minerals to the coast; (b) coal from the coal-mines to the gold and diamond mining districts; (c) machinery from the coast to the mines. Now none of this work can be done satisfactorily except by railways. Ox- wagons only carry a small amount; they are very slow and very costly. Imagine the work required to get a team of oxen to drag heavy mining machinery, piece by piece, hundreds of miles along mere tracks over the veldt, up and down the steep drifts which lead to the rivers, and across the rivers where there is hardly ever a bridge. As we shall see when we look more closely at Rhodesia, want of railways is the chief thing that holds back the mining in that country. It would have held back the Rand mines also, but for the fortunate fact that coal is found close to the Rand, and also in the Eastern Transvaal, be- tween Pretoria and Barberton. One object of the railways then is to lead from THE RAILWAYS OF SOUTH AFRICA 71 the important mining centres to the coast. These important mining centres are: (l) Kimberley (dia- monds); (2) Johannesburg and Barberton (gold, and also coal near the Eand); (3) Newcastle, with the northern corner of Natal, and the Stormberg (coal); (4) Namaqualand (copper); (5) scattered all over Rhodesia (gold again); and (6) on the Zambesi at Wankie (coal). The chief ports are, in order from west to east: (1) Cape Town; (2) Port Elizabeth; (3) East London; (4) Durban in Natal; (5) Lorenco Marques; and (6) Beira; but these last two are both in Portuguese territory. We shall find, then, that the railways link up these places. In particular we notice that they radiate outwards from Johannesburg, like spokes in a wheel. Two chief lines must be noticed. The first, starting from Cape Town, runs eastward and north-eastward. It climbs into the mountains, the train panting up through the curves and ravines of the Hex Eiver Pass, where the preci- pices close in on the line so much that you can scarcely see where the line is to make its way. But South African trains do not run at the same pace as British trains. They are built on a nar- rower gauge (3 feet 6 inches), and therefore can climb slopes which would bring an English loco- motive to a stand-still; they are made in a rough- and-ready way which shocks a British engineer, but which suits the country. South African trains are 72 SOUTH AFRICA not expected to travel more than twenty-five miles an hour, and their rough road allows of that. Through the Hex Eiver defile the line rises from the Little Karroo to the Great Karroo, through the town of Beaufort West, finds a gap in the Nieuw- veld range, and so reaches the plains which lead to the Orange. It crosses this river near Hope Town, and reaches its first object at Kimberley. We have travelled 650 miles over country by turns rocky gorges or bare karroo, where the wayside stations seem mere islands in a sea of rolling plains; yet most of this country, deserted as it seems, is used by the farmers whose scattered home- steads we see at long intervals. From Kimberley onwards the line becomes the link between Cape Colony and Khodesia. The pushing of it forward has been largely the work of the Chartered Company, which wished to join its far-distant towns with the south and have a means by which the mining machinery which they needed could be sent to them. Thus the line creeps on northwards through Vryburg to Mafe- king, renowned for its siege; from Mafeking along the edge of the old Transvaal frontier to Palapye; from there to Bulawayo. It does not stop there; it goes north towards Salisbury, but this section of it will be dealt with when we speak of Rhodesia. This line from Cape Town to Bulawayo is the great trunk line of the continent. Some day it BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA Northern Area. (Railways.) Natural Scale. 1:14,250,000. English Miles 50 100 IjO - Railways open.. ■■'"> CON L. Tanganyika GERMAN EAST AFRICA i 4**' bechuanailand protectohate! Gaborone Pitsani Walker & Cockei ell sc. THE RAILWAYS OF SOUTH AFRICA 73 will perhaps form a section of the railway from end to end of the continent, from the Cape to Cairo. One other thing about this line : roughly speak- ing, as we travel along it from Cape Town north- eastwards, we have on our right the wetter and more fertile part of South Africa, while the drier and barer part lies on the left. The north-west of the colony, Bechuanaland and the Kalahari Desert, are almost waterless; the east of "The Colony", the Orange Eiver Colony, the Transvaal, and Natal get a fair supply of rain. The other main Cape line joins Johannesburg and Pretoria to Port Elizabeth and East London. As we followed the other one up-country, we will trace this to the sea. The lines from Pretoria and Johannesburg join at Elandsfontein. Erom there the line runs south-westward over a huge plain. It crosses the Vaal at Vereeniging, where the peace was agreed on, and after about 200 miles comes to Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange River Colony. Still going southward, it draws near the Orange, but before reaching it, it forks. If we keep to the left (eastern branch) we go through the Stormberg coal district down to East London. If we take the right (western branch) we go through Naauwport down to Port Elizabeth. But branches connect these lines with each other and with the Cape-to-Kimberley line, 74 SOUTH AFRICA and by them Kimberley gets what coal it needs from the Stormberg mines. There are other short branch lines which you will find in the map, but they do not link the main lines very closely; they mostly bring outlying towns in connection with them. Thus, should you desire to travel by rail from one town to another in the colony, but not on the same line, you have to go the most absurd rounds. For example, from East London to Port Elizabeth is about 150 miles westward along the coast, but the rail takes you first north to Stormberg, two- thirds of the way to the Orange River, then west to Rosmead, and then south to Port Elizabeth, nearly 400 miles. From Cape Town to Port Elizabeth is also very roundabout. Of course no one need make these journeys by train, because he can go by sea. But between inland towns there is a great want of connecting lines. Fortunately the farmers in South Africa are not in a hurry like the mining men. Johannesburg is by far the biggest and busiest town of the interior, and is not content with one line. Port Elizabeth and East London are very distant ports. Durban, in Natal, is much closer. From there a line runs up through Pietermaritz- burg, then crosses the Drakensberg, and reaches Johannesburg from the south-east. The Natal line is wonderful beyond all South THE RAILWAYS OF SOUTH AFRICA 75 African lines for its curves and gradients. Though it runs through such a broken land, there is only one tunnel on it. It swings round corners, edges its way around precipices, even at times runs into a siding, puts its engine on at the other end, and starts out on a fresh direction. It sometimes makes its passengers as sick as any ship in a heavy sea. As we mount we see below loop after loop of the line we have travelled. Above, we may see it still winding among the hills, zigzagging up till it at last tunnels through the Drakensberg and comes out on the flat plains of the Transvaal. As this line passes close by the coal-mines of Newcastle in the northern corner of Natal, it carries a good deal of coal. Yet one more line makes for Johannesburg, this time starting from the Portuguese town of Lorenco Marques on Delagoa Bay. It is the shortest of all. From Johannesburg to Cape Town is 1000 miles, to Port Elizabeth 700, to Durban 450, to Lorenco Marques about 400. We might suppose that the trade will go to the nearest port, each more distant one getting less and less. But it is not quite the case; we must not forget that as we shorten the railway journey we lengthen the sea passage. Cape Town is sixteen days from England, but Lorenco Marques is at least twenty -two. People in a hurry, and goods which are wanted quickly, go through Cape Town. 76 SOUTH AFRICA One other line, this time in the far north, is curious and interesting. This is the line that joins Beira to Salisbury in Ehodesia. Once it was one of the tiniest lines in the world, running from Beira up to Chimoyo. Its gauge was only 2 feet. Its engine and carriages seemed almost toys. But, toy-like as it was, it was in a sense the life of Mashonaland. Even when Salisbury has been joined to Bulawayo, and thus to the rest of the South African railways, the immense dis- tance — 1500 miles to Cape Town (three and a half days' journey) — will still be against this route. To Beira it is little over 250 miles, one-sixth of the distance. But all the use of the toy railway was not summed up in the short way it gave to the sea. Till it was made, all goods — much of it heavy mining machinery — had to be sent by ox-wagons. Not only are the, tracks (they cannot be called roads) vile; not only are the roads deluged in the wet season with rain and turned into swamps of mud, where you might see two or three ox teams unyoked from their own wagons and struggling to pull one from the mire; not only is the low belt of Portuguese country between the mountains and the sea one of the most fever -stricken places on the earth; but, worse than all, there were 90 miles of " tsetse -fly" country to be traversed. Barely could a team of oxen get through; even KIMBERLEY AND THE DIAMOND MINES 77 when it did, most of the team died from the bites of the " fly ". All this trouble the railway saved. It carried goods quickly and surely; it took men through so fast that they had not time to get fever. So useful a line, however tiny, cannot be likened to a useless toy. But it was found, after all, to be too small, especially for the heavy work which fell on it when the Boer War closed the Bulawayo line. So its gauge has now been widened to the usual 3 feet 6 inches, and it has been continued to Salisbury. 15. Kimberley and the Diamond Mines More than thirty years ago a traveller near Hope Town found the children of a Boer family playing with a small heavy shining pebble. He offered to buy it, but the farmer laughed at the idea of selling a pebble, and gave it to him. This pebble, the first diamond found in South Africa, turned out to be worth £500. Two years later a much more important find was made. A Kafir brought in a much bigger stone. At first no one would buy it, but after a time a Boer gave what his companions thought to be the ridiculous price of £400. It is now re- 78 SOUTH AFRICA nowned among diamonds, and has a name of its own- (< The Star of South Africa". This set people searching. No more stones were found near Hope Town, but near Kimberley the diamond - diggings hold plenty. There are diamond mines at Jagersfontein and other places, but those at Kimberley are far the richest. The Orange Free State claimed that Griqualand, in which Kimberley stands, belonged to them, but Great Britain claimed it too, and in the end gave the Boers £75,000 as compensation. It was cheap, for out of the Kimberley mines diamonds worth fifteen million pounds have been taken, though the British Government has had no share in the profit. Thirty-five years ago the ground on which Kimberley stands might have been bought for a fifty-pound note. The news of " diamonds" caused people from all parts of the colony, and indeed from all parts of the world, to flock to Kimberley. At first there were a number of claims, each belonging to a separate digger. By degrees they quarried out an enormous pit. As everyone dug as he pleased in his own claim, there were all sorts of accidents. The sides of the mine fell in and buried the claims under tons of useless "reef"; one claim slipped into another, and the diggers quarrelled over the diamonds; the workers were buried beneath land- slips; fires and explosions did enormous damage. KIMBERLEY AND THE DIAMOND MINES 79 At last one great company — De Beers — bought up all the claims in all the important mines and worked them all under its own management. Mr. Ehodes had most to do with forming this company. Let us try to understand what diamonds are. A chemist tells us they consist of pure carbon. That is in his eyes the same substance as ordinary coal, or the lead in a pencil; but diamonds are crystals of carbon. These crystals of carbon only form under great pressure. They are hard and transparent, just as sugar- candy, the crystal of sugar, is transparent. Thus, diamonds are found in the so-called " erup- tive matter", that is to say, ground where once on a time the melted matter from the interior of the earth was squeezed up through some pipe or crack to the surface. The diamonds at Kimberley are found scattered about in the hard " blue clay" which has been squeezed up from " pipes" of this kind. The diamond mines are not like any other kind of mines. Imagine a huge hole, nearly half a mile across and over four hundred feet deep, big enough to bury an English village in. From the top run wire -ropes used for hauling up the blue clay. In old days, when the claims all belonged to different owners, there were such strings of them that the mine resembled the web of an 80 SOUTH AFRICA enormous spider. Down below are tramways and shafts and galleries sinking deeper into the earth — a sort of rabbit-warren, with men for rabbits. This gigantic hollow swarms with Kafirs, cleaving with pickaxes the " hard blue" which is brought out from the galleries, piling it on trucks and barrows, and carrying it off to the wide fields. Here for three months the sun and the rain are left to split it up. It becomes soft, and then it is picked over and washed till the running water washes away the clay, and leaves the hard earth which holds the diamonds at the bottom, like dregs in a coffee- cup. This is then powdered and the diamonds taken out. As one the size of a pea may perhaps turn out to be worth anything between £3 and £20, you can imagine how carefully the clay has to be searched. You can imagine, too, how greatly the Kafirs are tempted to steal, and how much care must be taken to prevent theft. Such small stones may easily be hidden; they can be pushed up a nostril, or into the ear, or hidden between the toes. There- fore the Kafirs are most carefully searched; over- seers prowl about, always on the watch. The workmen are never allowed to leave the mine. At night they go to an enclosure caged in with barbed wire and netted over the top to prevent anything being thrown out. In it are the sheds where they sleep. There is a hospital for the RHODESIA. Natural Scale. x:i2, 600,000. English Miles 50 100 150 200 ^GERMAN* EAST X %> AFR1( %, ^ T ^itata\ ^ Lber.com ' LJB-angw&&fo &] 1? J 'WESTER sf 1 r ° D 4 siA { u«L l COT* 7/ ^tp* •o Wo/t&sOl. u fazcfe Salisbury BECHUANA LAND PROTECTORATE ""NT m r'T r NS "1 KIMBERLEY AND THE DIAMOND MINES 81 sick, and a school for those who want to learn. They go to their work by an underground passage. They are indeed prisoners, but prisoners of their own choice. They earn high wages, and a short time of working in the De Beers mines makes them rich — for natives. They depart with their money, buy cows and a wife, and settle down to take it easy for the rest of their lives. The law is very severe against persons who traffic in diamonds without a licence. The offence called I.D.B. (Illicit Diamond Buying) is punished by imprisonment. Men have to be strict when a handful of little transparent stones, looking exactly like gum-arabic, may be worth many hundred pounds. Kimberley itself is a dry, dusty, ugly town, where there is little done except diamond-mining. As the houses are widely scattered, it looks bigger than it is. Thanks mainly to Mr. Rhodes, it has been improved by the planting of avenues of trees (B83) F 82 SOUTH AFRICA and the building of better houses. The shanties run up by the early diggers are empty and falling to pieces. When the mines all came under the control of the De Beers Company, the old diggers found their occupation gone; and as they could no longer hope to make a fortune by a single find, they left Kimberley, to try their luck in other places and in other kinds of mining. The most memorable event in the history of Kimberley is its long siege by the Boers, from October, 1899, till February, 1900, but, thanks to the bravery of British and colonial troops, and to Mr. Rhodes, who hurried north on purpose to be in the town during the siege and encourage the inhabitants, it was able to hold out till General French's cavalry relieved it. 1 6. Port Elizabeth and its Trade Port Elizabeth lies about midway along the coast between Cape Town and Durban. As the eastern half oi Cape Colony is more fertile than the western, Port Elizabeth is nearer for those who have to send away the produce of their farms by sea. As it is also the nearest port to both Kimberley and Bloemfontein, it gets a large share of their trade. Thus, although Cape Town is much bigger and has a better harbour, yet Port PORT ELIZABETH AND ITS TRADE 83 Elizabeth generally carries on more trade. Since the war, however, the trade of Cape Town has grown bigger than that of Port Elizabeth. It is sometimes called the " Liverpool of South Africa". This is rather a fanciful title, for Port Elizabeth is a bad harbour. It lies exposed to the very quarter from which the worst winds come — the south-east. Algoa Bay, on which it lies, seems meant by nature to attract the heavy seas forced in by the south-easters. Thus very few sailing ships dare visit Port Elizabeth, for fear that a sudden gale springing up might drive them ashore. Steamships can use it safely, but even they have great trouble in landing passengers and goods in rough weather. There is not much to see in Port Elizabeth; it is built for business. The only picturesque things in it are the Malays, who are numerous, and as gaily dressed here as they are at Cape Town. If we go over the chief exports of the place we shall understand something of the kinds of farming carried on up the country. Setting aside the diamonds from Kimberley, these exports are wool, mohair, hides, and ostrich feathers. The South African wool trade is large, and grows yearly bigger; the merino sheep does well in the country as long as it gets enough water, and though in dry years flocks of sheep sometimes die yet the sale of wool is one of the colonist's 84 SOUTH AFRICA best ways of making money. Unfortunately much of the wool does not fetch so high a price as it might, because it is badly sorted. Australian wools, which are really no better, are preferred in the market, because more care is taken in the sorting. This is a result of a difficulty which hinders Cape Colony everywhere. White men are few, and they do not, as a rule, like to do hard and wearisome work themselves. They prefer directing their Kafir servants how to do it; but the Kafir, besides being by nature lazy, is often stupid and careless. Thus the work is not done so thoroughly as it is in Australia, where white men do it all. The mohair comes from the Angora goat, which has a long, glossy coat, nearly touching the ground, and as soft as silk. Plush is made from it, and beautiful rugs, stained to imitate leopard skin and seal - skin. But mohair is no longer nearly as valuable as it used to be. At one time it was worth 4s. 6d. a pound, but the price has now sunk to less than Is. The Angora goats are beautiful creatures when you see them in the evening com- ing down from the rocky mountain sides where they have fed all day. And they are good friends to the farmer in another way, for on many farms they are almost the only meat. Goat's flesh is usually thought very nasty, and so the flesh of the European goat is — tough, stringy, and with a PORT ELIZABETH AND ITS TRADE 85 rank taste; but the flesh of the Angora goat is as good as mutton. Further, since in South Africa cows give very little milk, because they do not get enough juicy green food, the colonist has to use goat's milk. In droughts, however, he cannot even get this, and has to rely on Swiss tinned milk. Curiously enough, neither Dutch nor Kafirs think fresh milk wholesome; they always prefer it sour. This is perhaps fortunate, for milk in South Africa keeps fresh only a very short time. Port Elizabeth also exports large quantities of hides to make into leather. These hides now come chiefly from the cattle on the high veld. But in old days there was, as we have seen (p. 36), a large trade in the skins of antelopes. Game has become much rarer, however, and this trade is dwindling. Another export for which Port Elizabeth was at one time famous has stopped altogether. The hunters used to send down a great deal of ivory, but they have hunted so mercilessly and waste- fully that there are no elephants or rhinoceroses left. When the Dutch first went to the Cape, in 1652, elephants, rhinoceroses, buffaloes, hippo- potamuses, and lions roamed everywhere, even down to the sea-shore. Even in 1796 they were still common in the eastern and northern parts of the colony. Now they are scarcely found south of the Zambesi save in a few protected districts 86 SOUTH AFRICA (see p. 36). The only memorial of them lies in such names as Olifants (elephants) River, Rhe- noster (rhinoceros) River, Leeuw (lion) Spruit. And Port Elizabeth will never again export ivory. At one time it seemed that the trade in ostrich feathers would perish with the destruction of the ostrich, just as the ivory perished with the ele- phants. Luckily the happy thought occurred that it might be possible to farm ostriches. Thus ostrich farming has grown into a great business. It is no longer as paying as it was in the days when a pound of feathers was worth £100, one bird yielding £25 worth at each plucking. A pair of good breeding birds would sell for £400, a chick just out of the shell for £10. Those were grand days for the ostrich farmers, who made big fortunes. Then everyone took to ostrich farming; prices went down, and down, and down. A good ostrich could be bought for the price a chick had brought in the old days. Things have mended since, but the old prices will never come back. It is often so in new countries. New trades spring up and pay amazing profits; then hosts of people who think they see a chance of making large fortunes embark on them. Far more is turned out than is wanted, and down goes the price. Just as it has been with ostrich feathers at the Cape, so it was with coffee in Ceylon and indigo in India. It would be the same with diamonds, OSTRICHES 87 but, as the mines are all in the hands of the De Beers Company, the directors are careful not to send out so many that they become common and cheap. Their object is to keep the price high by keeping diamonds scarce. 17. Ostriches Of all farms an ostrich farm is the most curious. It is like a giant's poultry farm, where the cocks and hens stand much higher than a man, where they run as fast as a horse can gallop, where they kick hard enough even to kill a man if they strike him full, where even the eggs are the size of twenty-four hens' eggs, and it takes an hour to boil one hard. A hen ostrich will go on laying, if each day one egg is taken away, till she has laid twenty or thirty eggs. She cannot hatch more than about eighteen, so some must be hatched in the incubator, where they are kept at the right heat by lamps. In old days there was a strange way of hatching them. Some old Hottentot woman would be carefully tucked up in bed under numbers of blankets in company with the eggs. There she would stay, perhaps more than a fortnight, till the chicks were hatched. If the eggs are left in the " nest ", which is not 88 SOUTH AFRICA really a nest at all, but merely a shallow hole scratched in the ground, the cock and the hen take turns to sit; the cock sits by day, the hen by night. People once believed that ostriches left their eggs to be hatched by the sun; the sun's heat, however, would destroy them. The hen ostrich, stupid as she is, knows that well enough, and when she leaves her nest in the morning for a few minutes, she puts a pinch of sand on each egg to shade it. But when she thus leaves her eggs comes the white-necked crow's chance. He loves the taste of ostrich egg, even when it is hard set, but his beak is not strong enough to break the shell. So he picks up a good-sized stone, flies with it into the air, and drops it down on the nest. Thus, while the hen ostrich is away getting her breakfast, the white-necked crow gets his. Jackals, too, love the eggs, plundering the nests and rolling the eggs away with their paws, or, even worse, gobbling the chicks. But suppose the chick hatched and safely past his early dangers. For the first year he has " chicken feathers", stiff, narrow, and of little use. His second year's crop is better, though still narrow and pointed. In his third year he comes to have the full plumage. The cock is a beautiful glossy black, the hen a soft gray; but both have on each wing twenty-four large white feathers. These are the valu- able ones. People sometimes think the best feathers OSTEICHES come from the tail; this is a mistake. The tail is a short, stiff, scrubby tuft of very poor feathers. Plucking ostriches is not an easy job. Two or three days before, the ostriches have to be herded up. Gradually they are gathered, first in a large pen, then in a smaller one, till they are so tightly packed that the most savage bird cannot lift his foot to kick. Then one by one they are dragged and hustled into the " plucking kraal ", a wooden box with high sides, so narrow that the bird cannot turn. Here a few quick snips with the shears take off the wing-feathers. The tail-feathers and the glossy black feathers have small quills, and are pulled out. People say that this does not hurt the ostriches ; but then people say that foxes enjoy being hunted. The ostrich farmer is lucky if he gets most of the feathers clean, for there is nothing an ostrich likes so much as sitting down in the muddiest dam he can find to cool himself. Then the feathers have to be washed and dipped in strong raw starch, and shaken and beaten together in the sun till they are dry. If the farmer decides to sort his feathers at home, instead of paying sorters to do it at Port Elizabeth, for two or three days his whole house will be a mass of different heaps of feathers, covering tables, chairs, even the floor, and the air is full of dust and fluff. Even his meals are taken among the feathers, and he sneezes all day long. 90 SOUTH AFRICA If you walk about on an ostrich farm you must be careful, for the cock birds are very savage at nesting- time. You must take with you a " tackey ", a long stout branch of mimosa with all the thorns left on. When the cock ostrich sees you he will first " broom" — that is, utter short roars not unlike those of a lion ; then he squats down on the ground, flaps his wings, and blows out his neck. This is his challenge to fight. Then he charges. You wait till he gets quite close, and thrust the " tackey " in his face. He is afraid of his eyes among the thorns, and you can dodge out of his way and walk on. If he charges again, you use your tackey a second time. Two ostriches never attack at the same time, for on the large farms, perhaps 2000 acres in extent, where there are many pairs of breeding birds, each pair has its own piece. You do not know the limits of it, but the ostrich does. On it he is monarch, but outside it he will not follow you. You may be attacked by his neighbour, but he has done with you. In one case, however, the cock ostrich, who seems so ferocious, is quite humble. That is when you are nearer to his nest than he is. Instead of wanting to kick you to death, he squats at your feet, humbly begging you to spare his eggs. If you have no " tackey " you had best stay where you are till night comes, for if you move away and the ostrich gets between you and the eggs, he OSTKICHES 91 becomes fierce again, and an ostrich's kick is no trifle. It is a stamp rather than a kick; he kicks forward and downward; his horny toe or claw makes the blow worse, and he strikes hard enough to kill a man. He cannot, however, strike any- thing really hard if it is on the ground. More than one man has saved his life by lying down flat; but it is an unpleasant way of saving it, for the bird spends its time jumping and dancing on its enemy, and varying the treatment by sitting on him, till help comes. Ostriches are very silly birds. There seems to be no room for brains in their flat heads, and they certainly do not act as if they had any. They have an absurd habit of spinning round and round in the mornings, "waltzing", and getting so giddy that they fall down. When they fall they often break their legs. That leg which can give such a terrible kick is easilv broken, and when broken it can never be mended: the bird dies. A strange dog drives them wild. They will charge the wire fence in order to get at it, and the result is broken legs; or else they will run away, not into the clear country, but up against any wire fence near at hand, and the result is more broken legs. They love to eat prickly-pear leaves, and the leaves are good for them; but they eat the prickles too and make their insides into perfect pin-cushions, and of course die. 92 SOUTH AFRICA But they can eat odd things and yet live. They always make for anything glittering. They will snatch at an ear-ring, and tear off part of an ear with it. They swallow stones, pebbles, even broken glass; and these hard things in their stomachs help them to digest their food. On one farm one grabbed the manager's lighted pipe from his mouth and swallowed it. Strange to say he was none the worse. 1 8. Natal: Its History Lying to the east of Cape Colony, along the coast, is Natal. It got its name, " the Birthday ", from the Portuguese, who discovered it on Christ- mas-day, 1497. If you travel from Natal near half round the world, into the very middle of the Pacific, there, close to the Equator, you will find another island with the same name in a language we know better than Portuguese — " Christmas Island ". For more than three hundred years Natal had nothing but a name ; no white man ever went there unless he was wrecked on the coast. It was not till 1836 that some English settlers wandering out of Cape Colony founded the town of Durban, though more than ten years previously Englishmen had made their first settlements there. African names teach us a good deal of African NATAL: ITS HISTORY 93 history. We can tell the towns which Britons have founded. They call them after towns in the old country, or after their statesmen at home, or after their governors in the colony. Such towns are East London, Salisbury, Kimberley. The Dutch have the same habit; take, for example, Utrecht, the Orange River, Pretoria. We can recognize Dutch towns, too, by such endings as -fontein, -rust, -bosch, and many others. Thus Bloemfontein means the spring where the flowers are; Pietpot- gietersrust, the rest of Piet Potgieter; Tweebosch, the two bushes. Native names, again, are quite different. Often they begin with Um or M — thus Umgeni, Umtali : they do not sound like European names. No one could think that Bulawayo or Eshowe was anything but native. In this way the two chief towns of Natal, Dur- ban and Pietermaritzburg, tell us much of Natal's history. Sir Benjamin Durban was governor of the Cape, and the new town was called after him. He was also the governor to whom the task fell of declaring that henceforth there was to be no more slavery in British dominions in South Africa. This vexed the Boers all the more as they did not receive what they judged to be enough money to recompense them for losing their slaves; and in the next year began the " Great Trek", when thousands of them left their old farms and set out in their wagons, to 94 SOUTH AFRICA seek fresh lands for themselves, where they would not any longer be British subjects. By 1838 a number of them had crossed the mountains into Natal, under their leaders Pieter Eetief and Gert Maritz, and founded Pietermaritzburg. Thus Durban and Maritzburg, as the latter is more shortly called, repeat once again the story of the former rivalry between Boer and Briton. The Boer Republic, however, did not last long. In 1843 Natal was made a British colony. Only a few of the Boers stayed; most went northwards to set up afresh in the Transvaal. Many Britons came to Natal, and thus it is much less mixed in race than the Cape. You do not meet so many Dutch as you do in Cape Colony. English is its language. You do not often hear the " Taal ", the Dutch tongue which Boer farmers speak. Natal had for neighbours the fiercest native tribe in South Africa, the Zulus, and there was much fighting to be done both against them and against the Boers. The colonists still remember the gallant exploit of "Kings ride". When the Boers attempted to seize Durban and to raise the flag of a Dutch republic on the bay, having repulsed Captain Smith's attack, they laid siege to his camp. The British settlers were in sore need of help. There was no help nearer than Grahamstown, 600 miles away, across wild and broken country, swarming with savages. A brave man named King set out THE CLIMATE OF NA.TAL 95 to ride thither. In little over a week he covered the distance, arriving half dead at Grahamstown, but in time to send help to his friends in their distress. 19. The Climate and Country Natal is much warmer than Cape Colony; it gets also much more rain, and thus it is more fertile. To the north-west rise the peaks of the Drakensberg, the highest range in South Africa. Much of Natal, indeed, is a series of confused hills and ravines and precipices, tumbling down from the Drakensberg to the coast. If we measure a line from the top of the Giant's Castle, which is nearly 10,000 feet high, through Maritzburg to Durban, we shall find that in the first fifty miles we go down 9000 feet, and 2000 more in the next fifty. Of course it is not one gradual slope, but a mass of broken crests and valleys. For miles you may see ridge after ridge, flattish on the top, falling away at first in cliffs and then with a more gradual slope, covered with dense masses of trees and scrub. As there are very few good roads, it is perhaps the most difficult country in the world to move an army up through, and the easiest to defend for an enemy working from the north downhill. Indeed there has been, and always will be, some 96 SOUTH AFRICA difficulty about travelling into the interior of Natal, for the rivers are far too rapid for boats, and it is not easy to make good roads in a land that slopes so steeply upwards, and where the rain, when it comes, is so heavy. For the roads to be safe every little cleft and water-course would have to be bridged, and that with a bridge wide enough to let an enormous flood of water safely through. As during most of the year these "spruits" are quite dry, it seems a waste of money to build bridges; but in the wet season the roads are often washed away or blocked. The government mails are carried in a light cart, with an awning over the top to protect any passengers there are from the sun. These carts will stand any amount of rough work. Drawn by six horses, they gallop down one steep side of the drifts and rush up the other. If a wheeler falls the rest of the team will drag him on till the top is reached. The railway, however, as we have seen (p. 68), gives an easy way up the country, the more so because Natal is narrow, and few parts of the northern half of the colony at any rate are far from the line. This northern half of Natal has seen a great deal of fighting. Right up in the angle lie Majuba and Laing's Nek, battle-fields in the first Boer war; farther south are Dundee and Elandslaagte. Close by is Ladysmith, so long besieged, and so well de- fended by Sir George White. From here a branch- THE CLIMATE OF NATAL 97 line goes through Van Keen en's Pass to Harrismith, and will soon be lengthened to join the Bloemfontein COLONY {Umtamvuna R. NATAL. Natural Scale. 1:4,600,000. English Miles o xo 20 40 60 80 Railways open " ' " Railways in construction ♦ ♦♦♦ line. A few miles farther south, again, finds us on the Tugela, where Colenso and Spion Kop and (B83) 98 SOUTH AFRICA Pieter's Hill all saw severe fighting. Across the Buffalo river is Isandlana, where the Zulus in 1879 destroyed a British regiment, and Eorke's Drift, where two gallant officers, Chard and Brom- head, with eighty men, held out against a Zulu host and saved Natal from invasion. Not far off is Ulundi, where the Zulus were finally beaten. Just as Belgium is sometimes called the cockpit of Europe, on account of all the battles fought in it, northern Natal is the cockpit of South Africa. But we may hope that peace has now come to last for many a long day. Natal, like Cape Colony, rises in three main terraces, though, as the country is smaller, they lie closer together. On the different levels we notice great differences of plant and tree life. The low-lying coast strip is green with tropical plants; palms and mangrove-trees grow, and the feathery and graceful bamboo, and beautiful flowering shrubs and creepers; tropical crops can be raised, coffee, arrow-root, rice, cotton, ginger, bananas, pine-apple, and sugar-cane, which the locust loves more than any other green thing that grows. As the Zulus do not take kindly to hard work, thousands of Indian coolies (labourers) have been brought over. They enjoy living in a climate which resembles their own, and like Natal so well that they seldom wish to return home. If we leave the hot low-lying lands and mount DURBAN 99 higher, we reach a temperate region where English fruits and crops grow, but under a sun which is stronger than the English sun. Higher still we reach a district where corn will only grow in the sheltered valleys, but the up-country plains give good grazing ground for sheep and cattle. In the north, too, lie the coal-fields of Newcastle and Dundee, which yield a good supply of coal. High over Natal hangs the Drakensberg, and its peaks help to make the colony more picturesque than any other in South Africa. It is a land of mountains and cliffs, rivers and gorges. The Falls of the Tugela, and of the Umgeni at Ho wick, are the best known out of the many thousand fine pieces of scenery which may be found in Natal. Since the war the boundaries of Natal have been enlarged by the addition of that part of the country which lies on the lower eastern slopes of the Drakensberg, and was formerly separated from Natal by the Buffalo river. This includes the towns of Utrecht and Vryheid. 20. Durban Pietermaritzburg is the capital of Natal, but Durban is the larger and busier town, because it is on the sea-coast. Even in old countries where railways are plentiful, old inland capitals are apt 100 SOUTH AFRICA to be left behind by newer ports. Still more is this the case in a new colony. As the visitor to Natal is nearly sure to come to it by sea, Durban will be the first town he visits. Although in the map Port Natal, the inlet on which it stands, looks a good harbour, it is not quite so good as it looks. There is shelter and a fair depth inside the "Bluff", as the headland is called, but the difficulty is to get there. A bar blocks the way, and though a good deal of it has been dredged away, yet big ships cannot get over it at low tides. So even at Durban the passenger may have to be swung into a smaller steamer, like a bale of goods, before he can get ashore. There are two parts of Durban, the town itself and the suburb, called the Berea, which lies on the hill behind it. The town stands on the sand, DURBAN 101 whose white colour, contrasting with the bright-red ground of the Berea, the blue of sea and sky, and the vivid green of the trees, makes Durban so picturesque. Like all African towns, the roads cross one another at right angles, and these roads, like the roads in all African towns, are very wide. That is because of the ox-wagons. You cannot turn an ox -wagon with a span of sixteen or eighteen oxen in a narrow street. Most of the houses are of brick, though here and there you will see a wooden house. These are all built on brick piers raised from the ground, partly to escape the white-ants, partly because the rains in Durban are so heavy, that if the foundations are not very secure they may be washed away. For it rains in Durban in a way people in England can scarcely understand. As much rain sometimes falls in Durban in a day as in two months in Eng- land. At the Cape the rain comes mostly in winter, but at Durban it falls in the summer; that is to say, in the months of November, December, and January, for in Natal, as in all lands south of the Equator, the summer comes in the English winter months. No one sits by his fireside on Christmas -day in Natal, for the result of this mixture of wet and hot sun is to make Durban perhaps the hottest place in British South Africa. It has that damp heat which is hard to bear. We might expect fever, but Durban 102 SOUTH AFEICA is not feverish; it is only exhaustingly hot in summer. The heat may be escaped by leaving the town and going inland, for at once we go steeply uphill; but on returning to the town, even at night, it is roasting. Sometimes so clearly marked is the difference, that as you go down the hill you seem suddenly to walk into an oven. Every house in Durban has a large and shady verandah. In the hot weather no one stays in the house. All day he sits in his verandah; he has his meals brought to him there; sometimes he even sleeps there. But if he can he leaves the town and lives on the Berea. Here, high above the town, under the shade of bamboos and standing among gorgeous trees and shrubs, such as the flamboyant-tree, which has a mass of huge red flowers, the datura, with its greeny- white trumpet-shaped blooms, and graceful pointsettias, are the best houses. On the Berea there is generally a breeze from the sea, and it is never as hot as the town unless there should happen to be a hot north wind blowing, which the Berea catches but the town in the hollow escapes. Everywhere, too, there are wonderful views of the town and the harbour, the Bluff, and the open sea. Durban has a good deal of trade going up into the interior by railway, but little coming down. It is a common sight to see trains of trucks coming down empty or nearly empty. There is nothing DURBAN 103 to send down but a little coal and a little farm- produce. Many of the dealers are Hindus, and they are very clever and sharp, often cutting out the white men in business. The hard work is all done by Indian coolies or by Kafirs. Both help to make the town remarkable: the Hindus by the gaudy clothes they wear, the Kafirs by their splendid figures and bronze faces. In the town, and within three miles of it, the Kafirs are made to wear clothes, which they do not like, and they manage to leave off as much of them as they can. They imitate white men in their clothes, but add their own idea of ornament, often sticking wonderful designs of coloured cloths on their trousers and coats. Even Kafir policemen, who wear a dark-blue uniform, will cover their necks with strings of beads: and there is nothing a native prizes more for purposes of finery than metal curtain rings or brass pins. Even when they have got rid of all their clothes they do not look naked, any more than a bronze statue looks naked. In Durban they are carefully watched over. They have their own barracks, where they live unless they are servants, and they are not allowed out at night without a pass. Few of them can read. If you are walking in the street a Kafir will thrust a note into your hand ; you read the address ; if it is farther on you point forward, if not, you point back, and the Kafir will walk as you point, and 104 SOUTH AFKICA ask the next person, and the next, till at last the letter reaches its place. Even if you know enough Kafir to explain, it is not much use explaining, for the Kafirs do not understand explanations, or cannot remember your directions for more than a minute. White men who find the heat too op- pressive, ride in rickshaws, light two - wheeled carriages drawn by Kafirs. When you stand in the hot streets of Durban it is hard to believe how fast it has all grown, and how soon you can change your town life for a wild one. As soon as you leave the town and climb up into the hills, you are " in the bush ", country still wild. You are told that thirty years ago there were still wild elephants in Natal. If you go to a picnic you will find another and an alarming proof that wild life is around you; someone has brought a bottle of eau de luce, in case a snake should bite one of the party. Even in Durban a snake may stray into the verandah or into your bed-room, and you will realize that the modern town is but a small spot on the edge of an old- world wilderness. PIETERMARITZBURG 105 2 1 . Pietermaritzburg When the Boers came to the end of their trek and chose a site for their town of Maritzburg, they may well have had in their minds their likeness to another pastoral people who after long wanderings also came into a Land of Promise. For as " the hills stand about Jerusalem", so do the hills stand about Maritzburg. Though the capital of Natal, it would be reckoned in England no more than a quiet country town, straggling across a hollow, with the hills around it. Yet even the hollow lies high, 2500 feet above sea -level, and the dry climate makes it very healthy, though it is sometimes very hot. It is well shaded with blue-gums, and a far handsomer tree, the pine. Though the Boers mostly left it, for a long time the town kept its old-fashioned Dutch look, and the handsome government offices and Parliament House seemed strangely out of place. Lately, however, there have been great changes. The Town Hall and other big buildings have sprung up, and the streets are lighted by electricity. Natal has a parliament of its own and rules itself. All Britons will remember its courage and loyalty in the storm of war which lately broke in on its peace. What questions there will be for the parliament to settle in the future, the future hides 106 SOUTH AFEICA from us. But the people of Natal should continue to be prosperous. Farming there offers a whole- some, happy, placid life, without indeed a promise of great wealth, but without much risk of poverty. Living in the country is cheap, though the towns are often dear in spite of the fact that Natal lays a smaller tax on what comes into the country than Cape Colony does. Perhaps the chief diffi- culty may come from the natives; these, mostly Zulus, are nearly ten times the number of the white men, and they increase still faster than white men. Most of them live in their own tribes, under their own rulers, and have little to do with the whites, either in education or religion or trade. Some day, perhaps, the two races may jostle each other, as numbers grow and land is taken up. But some day is a long day. 22. The Orange River Colony and Bloemfontein The Orange River Colony is nearly as large as England, but its population, counting natives as well as white men, is not much over 200,000. That is to say, there are about as many people in it as there are in Leicester or Newcastle-on-Tyne, towns which rank about fifteenth in population in the British Isles. As the white men are only THE ORANGE RIVER COLONY 107 about a third of the number, the Orange River Colony appears very sparsely peopled. It is not, however, a land which can carry a great many people. There is only one mine, at Jagersfontein in the south-west, where diamonds //' C J R A N S /V A A*VT- Veidelberg PotchefstroonjjP a /J|L»«^ereenigingS s ^ Vrybiu^/^ / f Klerksdorp°** - ^ s 6Lgfyyf§Oy^^'£- A ~**\ t\ / c^Wolmaranstad lllReitzburg jC ^Y^h^^^^tvK H v Awt'^^^jOttV,, V& XFrankfort^^ ^\£~ Air s °fSktr a f elK °m.. Fourteen Stems« jdeel ^ V^ r00n ^ tad .A WE _jVfa.rreai.oM, ^ /y w e w\ ta r7** , i, Harr Jmt 1 \ fiW^*' WV Jf 't Sefcekal j «v^ ^^'iSj^lIlsftJv^ Cj^r^Sjf "Boshof Kimberlew§|| O jWodA5v randf0r V ~W<|iP^T*Paardeberg: ^Wf/Th R^v T^Mbsdai Bloemf onteinaUw abaN'c^JgJH^ "\ ^jP' <=> ° T ° L A N oN y^fepaYS^-^/e^^ si /^"° nt /F Be th£ny W*\ i|gflP or P ^ Ot»^^. /$£ Edenburk, ^T^LFaurg^aith \ S^enS, ORANGE RIVER U^ ^^ /r Helvetia \ / COLONY. THBringfonteinr stfgjf g- His- o f>_7r ifield ulie^ Rou Ilk (ff Natural Scale. 1:6,500.000. 1j|r English Miles .JH^^C 10 20 ^0 60 80 100 ±1 ^JS^LJgm ^O /Cblesberg 1 ^^C \ Railways open 1 1 1 1 1 > P* Railways in construction +♦ + +♦ are got, and there are no manufactures. The south-eastern district of the country, lying round Ladybrand and on the borders of Basutoland, is fertile and grows corn well. It is often called the " Granary of South Africa". But the rest of the Orange River Colony is only suited to the raising 108 SOUTH AFRICA of stock. It is a high -lying land, mostly about 4000 feet above sea-level. Most of it is flat, though in parts, especially on the eastern side, flat-topped kopjes stick up from the plain. There is very little wood, and during the winter it appears very dry, though water can be found in the streams, with which the Orange Kiver Colony is better supplied than Cape Colony is. Yet though less than one-hundredth part of the land in the Orange Kiver Colony is tilled, the rest, brown, scorched, and dusty as it appears in the dry weather, only needs the rain to call from it a carpet of brilliant green herbage, excellent food for cattle and sheep. In this pasture lies the chief wealth of the Orange River Colony. Stock always does well there: as land has been plentiful and farmers few, each man has ample room for his stock. And though the farms are widely scattered, and the farmhouses lie at great distances one from another, yet the men who dwell in them have been a prosperous race, neither tempted by great riches nor pressed by poverty. Through the middle of the Orange River Colony runs the railway on its way from Cape Town and Port Elizabeth to Johannesburg. The junction of the two branches is at Naauwpoort. It pursues its way north-eastwards, sometimes putting out a branch to link up some small town. One branch THE TRANSVAAL: BORDERS AND HISTORY 109 runs to Winburg, and will form part of the cross line which, running to Harrismith, will join the branch already made from the Natal line through Van Reenen's Pass. Another goes from Kroonstad north-westwards towards Klerksdorp on the Vaal, but there is as yet no bridge to join it to the line from there to Johannesburg. Another strikes off to Heilbron. All these "towns" are but villages, collections of a few houses and stores. There is nothing in this part of South Africa to lead men to gather in towns. Even Bloemfontein, the capital of the colony, is small. It has no manufacture of any kind: its trade is only that which the railway brings. It is a centre to which produce and stock are sent in from the farms, and from which the farmers buy the few things they need. It has some 6000 in- habitants, rather less than a half of them natives. It is neat, clean, and healthy. The dry air is well suited to those who are threatened with consumption or weak lungs. Avenues of trees give a grateful shade, under which the inhabitants led a peaceful, even a sleepy life, till the head- quarters of a great army came to give it an unusual liveliness. But this show of life soon passed away as it came, and Bloemfontein has relapsed into being one of the smallest and quietest capital towns of the world. 110 SOUTH AFEICA 23. The Transvaal: Borders and History The southern boundary of the Transvaal is the Vaal, a stream which joins the Orange River in Griqu aland West. Its northern boundary is the Limpopo or Crocodile river, which curves round, flowing north-eastward and then eastward, and finally south-eastward, on its way to the Indian Ocean; but the Transvaal border does not follow it to the sea, for on the east side there is a belt of Portuguese territory, while farther south lies Zululand. Thus the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony are without any sea-coast. Like the Orange River Colony, the Transvaal was first settled by Boers who had "trekked" from Cape Colony and Natal in order to found a state of their own. The history of the South African Republic, as the Boers of the Transvaal called it, was much less peaceable than that of the Orange Free State. From the time that the Boers trekked there, there was one quarrel after another. To begin with, the Boers had hard work to defend themselves against the natives. Indeed, if Great Britain had not struck down the Zulus, the Zulus would very likely have overcome the Boers. And the Boers also showed very little skill in forming a state or in THE TRANSVAAL: BORDERS AND HISTORY 111 managing their affairs. The Boer farmer did not like paying taxes; he hated the tax-collector, and very soon his government was nearly bankrupt. Britain believed that the best way to save the Boers from financial ruin, and protect them from the natives, was to annex the Transvaal. In 1877 this was done, but the Boers did not like it. Their idea of happiness was to live by themselves, each man doing that which was right in his own eyes. When the new British Government began to inter- fere with the way they treated the natives, and to collect taxes much more strictly than their own government had done, they rebelled. Being good shots, and knowing their own land better than any soldiers could, and being able to move much more quickly from one place to another, they defeated the few British troops which were in the country. It would not have been hard for Britain to send out an army that must have overcome them, but the British government judged it better to give them back their liberty, in the hope that they would be grateful and manage their affairs more quietly. Unfortunately this hope was disappointed. The quarrel had to be fought out all over again at a later time, when the Boers had got more money, more men, more cannons, and more rifles. The trouble between Boers and Britons in South Africa has been, indeed, largely a matter of geo- 112 SOUTH AFRICA graphy. It has turned on three points: (1) On the difference of race: (2) on the position of the Transvaal; (3) on the discovery of the gold-mines. First as to race. The British colonist was busy, enterprising, and pushing. If he saw a chance of making money, he wanted to make it; he did not understand why other people should stand in his way. The Boer, on the other hand, was slow and old- fashioned. He wished to live as his father did, and his grandfather before him: to lead a simple life, surrounded by his family, industriously making his living as a farmer; not seeking society, yet in a rough way kind to the stranger, and not being troubled by politics or education or the desire to gather great wealth. His idea of happiness is a big farm — so big that his neighbour is far enough away to be out of sight — and plenty of natives to till it. And he hated being interfered with, espe- cially in regard to the way in which he treated his natives. He was quite as proud of his race as was the Briton. His people had been in South Africa in the early days, when the colonists had had to overcome many hardships, to drive off the wild beasts, and to be constantly on the watch against fierce natives. Thus perhaps at first Boer and Briton were likely to misunderstand each other, but this misunder- standing was being overcome in the course of time. THE TRANSVAAL: BORDERS AND HISTORY 113 The two races lived peacefully side by side in the colony, often, indeed, intermarrying. There is, indeed, nothing strange in two races settling down in this way. At one time the French colonists in Canada were thoroughly discontented with British rule, but now there is no colony more loyal than Canada. Unfortunately the differences between Boer and Briton were kept alive by the Transvaal Govern- ment, which always made out that whatever the British Government did was intended to injure the Boers, or rob them of their lands. It was fatally easy to rouse dislike, owing to the position of the Boer States. At one time neither the Transvaal nor British South Africa had any clearly settled northern border. It was a question which would push northwards first. Britain won the race. By the British move into Rhodesia the Boers were hedged in on the north, while the movement of British borders in Natal up to the edge of Portuguese ter- ritory cut the Transvaal off from the sea in the south-east. Thus the Boer Government became alarmed. They imagined themselves to be like a nut in the nut-crackers; they declared that Britain had plans to swallow up their country. The Boer farmers really cared nothing about the British move into Rhodesia, which was not, indeed, in any way hurtful to them, but their government led them to believe that they were injured by it. ( B 83 ) h 114 SOUTH AFRICA And then came the finding of gold. It was first found at Barberton in 1884, but in a short time the far richer reefs at Johannesburg were dis- covered. Of course there was a rush of gold- diggers, the same sort of rush as took place in Australia and in California. If you look in a map twenty years old you will not find Johannesburg marked, for the simple reason that it did not exist. Yet at its highest, before the Raid, it numbered nearly 200,000 inhabitants. This changed everything for the Boers. They did not like this inroad of foreigners, especially the Britons, but they saw that they might make a great profit out of the gold. So they taxed the mines and the miners heavily, and used a good deal of the money to buy arms. Here, then, Briton and Boer were brought into contact. The Uitlanders (Outlanders), as the new- comers were called, became more and more in number, but the Boers would not let them have any share in the government. Thus the Uit- landers, who paid almost all the taxes, could not vote for a member of Parliament, and therefore grew angry and rebellious. To help them a body of British police and soldiers under Dr. Jameson made a foolish raid into the Transvaal. They were easily beaten, but they only made the Trans- vaal Boers more certain that the British Govern- ment had been at the bottom of the whole trouble. THE TRANSVAAL 115 Although the British Government punished all the leaders of the raid, the Boers would not believe that Britain had acted honestly. They stuck to their plan of refusing the Uit- landers any votes or chance of taking a share in the government, till at last the British Govern- ment interfered. The Boers thought they could resist and beat Great Britain, as they thought they had beaten her in 1881. They hoped that the Cape Dutch would join them. They declared war upon Britain, invaded Natal and Cape Colony, drove out the British inhabitants who refused to join them and fight against their own countrymen, and it was only after a struggle that cost the lives of many brave men that they were driven back, and Bloemfontein and Pretoria were captured. Even so the war did not end. Nearly two years more fighting took place after Pretoria was cap- tured before the Boers surrendered at Vereeniging (1902). 24. The Transvaal The Transvaal is, like the rest of the interior of Africa, mainly a table-land. On the east lie the Drakensberg or Quathlamba mountains. A few mountain ranges run, roughly speaking, east and west across the country to join the Drakensberg. 116 SOUTH AFRICA If we turn the letter E round the wrong way, thus g[, the straight piece represents the Drakensberg,, and the cross pieces ranges like the Witwaters- rand, the Magaliesberg, and the Hangklip. But as the country itself lies so high — much of it over 4000 feet — these ranges do not show much above the plain. Thus the Transvaal appears to be mainly a country of rolling plains. So large a country — the Transvaal is about as big as the United Kingdom — is not, however, all alike. There are three districts, the High Veld, the Middle Veld, and the Low or Bosch (Bush) Veld, of very different nature. The High Veld lies between the Vaal river and the Magaliesberg mountains. It is mostly about 4000 feet high. It is wonderfully bare. There is scarcely a tree on it except in the towns, but in spite of its bare look it has splendid pasture for sheep. From here also come endless supplies of horses, and consequently the Boer practically never walks. He saddles a horse if he has to go a quarter of a mile, and his horse, though it seems but a poor, small, skinny beast, will carry him forty or even fifty miles in the day, and be ready to do it again the next. Part of the secret is that he takes care of his horse. He never gets off to rest himself without unsaddling his horse and giving it a rest also. In the High Veld lie the gold-mines. THE TRANSVAAL 117 The Middle Veld is lower and more fertile. It lies round the High Veld. This is the " Garden of the Transvaal ". On it the chief occupations of the farmers are cattle-raising and the growing of grain — principally maize, to supply mealies. But not ,-° Tuii TRANSVAAL. Natural Scale. 1:9.500,000. -15° English Miles 50 TO" vV ^ 'Pietersburc^ ^mesPoorW>tf£ rdelburV-^ 3 a r> h- K O a oltannesburg; $§>£$£, &B&1& Springs/ rX^T^ f / BeS«l,^Ste3 id.elbergf/|/ vV *W< Erm nearly as much of this is grown as is needed. In old days one of the great complaints at Johannes- burg was that the price of mealies was so high on account of the tax which the Boer Government placed on imported maize. The Bush Veld is mostly much lower than the Middle Veld. It is the outermost strip, where the 118 SOUTH AFRICA country sinks either towards the Limpopo or to- wards the sea. Here we find plenty of water, and plenty of trees and scrub. But though it is more fertile it is less healthy. Fever attacks men, and the tsetse-fly makes stock-rearing impossible. On the other hand, tropical plants grow, such as coffee and the sugar-cane. Coffee is very much drunk in South Africa at all meals in the day, as is tea in China and Australia. If you arrive at a Boer farm you are always offered coffee. Were the country able to supply itself with coffee it would be a great advantage. But neither the coffee plantations of the Transvaal nor of Natal yield enough at present. With one exception the towns of the Transvaal are very small. On the High Veld lie Pretoria and Potchefstroom. The former, named after Pre- torius, the first president of the country, was the Boer capital. On the Middle Veld the towns are small markets — they would not be called more than villages in England. They look bigger than they really are, because the Boer hates being crowded, and lives as far from his neighbour as he can, even in a town. Of this kind are Rustenburg and Nylstroom, to the west and north of Pretoria. But, save in the mining districts, the Transvaal is extremely thinly peopled. As you enter the country from Natal, you would suppose it to be still mainly a wilderness, did you not know it was 5ITY j CAur THE GOLD-MINES AT JOHANNESBURG taken up in large grazing farms. It is lonely and silent. Were it not for the mines there would not be one white man to the square mile over the whole land. 1 25. The Gold-Mines at Johannesburg After the silence of the veld, what a change it is when the train runs into Elandsfontein, and we find ourselves close to Johannesburg, and all around us tall chimneys with a mass of busy people! It is like plunging from one century to another. The veld Boers are backward, old - fashioned, sleepy. Johannesburg is wide awake, modern, pushing. No wonder the Boers and the Johannesburgers could not understand each other and live in peace together. The mines at Johannesburg are not like any other gold-mines in the world. Gold is most commonly found in what are called diggings. In diggings it lies mixed with the sand and pebbles of a river-bed, or where once a river ran. It is then easy to get it out. All that is wanted is a pick and shovel to dig with, water, and a "cradle" in which to wash the "dirt" dug up. As gold is very heavy, it sinks to the bottom. The mud is by degrees washed away, and the 1 Bryce. 120 SOUTH AFRICA lowest layer left in the cradle is full of gold-dust, and perhaps small nuggets. This is what is called "alluvial" gold — gold that has been washed down by the river. Alluvial gold being easy to wash out, and need- ing no machinery, tempts poor men to go and dig for it. Thus the alluvial gold in New South Wales and in California caused a rush of diggers and miners, and all sorts of idle rascals who had little to rely on but their own strength. The mining towns of Australia and California were collections of huts. The people living in them were rough and lawless. They drank, robbed, and quarrelled, stabbed with knives, shot each other with pistols, and hanged ill-doers without any regular trial. Gold-diggings, however, do not often last long. The gold is soon dug out. It is no use digging deeper, because the gold does not belong to the river-beds, but has been brought there by the river. Thus the towns of the diggings do not last. One year they are full and busy; by the next, perhaps, they may be deserted, because the gold is worked out. The miners may, however, search for the rocks from which the gold comes. It is generally found in a rock called quartz, and this rock often crops up to the surface in ridges or "reefs". Eunning here and there through the quartz are veins of gold. If a man is lucky, he may find a lump of THE GOLD-MINES AT JOHANNESBURG 121 quartz honey-combed with gold. Such a nugget may be a fortune to a poor man, but such nuggets are rare. And generally the miner who has only a pick and shovel cannot do much in gold-diggings of this sort. The quartz is very hard to split. It can be made softer by lighting a fire against it, but even when broken off, it must be powdered before the gold can be got out. For this, stamping machinery is needed; and for machinery, money. Quartz-mining, then, has to be done by a company of rich men, who will buy machinery and pay workmen. But where gold has to be got from quartz, it is very uncertain work. The veins of gold in the quartz do not remain the same thickness. They may become thinner and thinner, and often vanish altogether. Thus, although there seems to be plenty of gold in a quartz reef, you can never be sure that, as you go deeper, there will continue to be plenty. The reef may become richer; it may become very poor — so poor that it does not pay to work it. The gold-mines of Rhodesia are, as we shall see, quartz reefs of this kind. We are told that they are very rich; we cannot be sure that they will go on being rich. Now, the mines of Johannesburg — the Rand Mines, as they are called, because the range of hills where they lie is named the Witwatersrand (White 122 SOUTH AFRICA Waters Ridge) — are neither alluvial nor quartz. The gold is found in reefs, but these reefs are not of rock, but a very hard sandy or clayey kind of cement. The Boers call it "banket", which is their name for a kind of almond toffee. The almonds are the pebbles, the clayey stuff the toffee, and the gold is pretty evenly distributed through it. There are few nuggets; so small are the flakes that the gold is scarcely ever visible. But, though finely ground up, there is a great deal of it. And the important thing is that, however deep the miners go, the beds appear to remain equally rich. Thus, while gold-diggings are soon worked out, and quartz-mining is very uncertain, the Rand Mines are sure to go on yielding enough gold to pay for the working. For how long? That is hard to answer. But the reef stretches for miles east and west of Johan- nesburg. And though the reef sinks quickly into the earth at first, as it gets deeper its slope be- comes less sharp: thus there is more gold to be mined before the reef becomes too deep for miners to work on ; and, further, as the art of getting gold is improved, it will pay to work less rich bits of the reef — " low-grade ores ", as they are called — which do not pay now. Thus the Rand Mines are likely to have what is for gold-mines a long life. Probably at least fifty years. THE GOLD-MINES AT JOHANNESBURG 123 The life of the mines is very important to the Transvaal. The mines made Johannesburg the busy town it was, with nearly 200,000 inhabitants, till the war disturbed it. But with peace the people 4 fZuurfonteirt,'-* roV# ffpfiat JP* do? *?Jof^ ■.lijyRitf^" Mever^dn , Vereenigir VJ& i *~?N$& V ill % ^ ^ cfonteicft Natural Scale. 1:1,500.000^, ^ English Miles Vi N 35"£ are returning, and will increase. And Johannes- burg is at present the life of the Transvaal. From the gold and the employment given in the mines comes its wealth. At Johannesburg is a market for huge supplies of food and produce. On the 124 SOUTH AFRICA traffic of Johannesburg the railways live. Were the gold to be worked out on the Rand, Johannes- burg would soon dwindle to be like the other Transvaal towns. This chance of a rapid decay hangs over many gold-mining towns, but not at present over Johannesburg. The town itself stands in high, bare, scorched, windy country, on the southern slope of the Wit- watersrand. It is not beautiful; it looks like a town built in haste. The best parts are of good brick houses standing in handsome streets, with tramways and electric light, but other parts are rough, ill-paved, and ill-lit, where mining shanties of wood with iron roofs elbow the mansions of the rich. There is little smoke, but there is a vast amount of dust; much from the streets, more from the powdered mine -refuse. Huge heaps of this refuse — tailings, it is called — disfigure the view, like the spoil-banks in an English mining district. It is not easy to lay the dust, because water is very scarce in Johannesburg, and the miners want all they can get. In the days before the water- works were built, it was said that in times of drought a bath in Johannesburg cost 35. 6d. But everything in the town was, and indeed still is, very dear. Nothing is priced in copper. Three- pence (a " tickey ") is the smallest coin of which any account is taken. Johannesburg is the most British town in the THE GOLD-MINES AT JOHANNESBURG 125 Transvaal. There are few Boers; and although there are nearly 50,000 Kafirs, they are not much seen in the streets. They are employed in the mines over all kinds of work that is toilsome but not difficult. Kafirs cannot be trusted over diffi- cult work. All the mining that needs skill is done by white men — chiefly Cornishmen and Aus- tralians, though there are also a good many Germans. Just as a visitor to the mines is disappointed not to see gold shining in the ore, or sticking to the passages underground, so anyone who has heard exciting tales of gold-miners, their adven- tures and strokes of luck, their gambling and fighting, and the wild gangs of robbers who try to plunder their fortunate comrades, will call Jo- hannesburg dull. If to be orderly is to be dull, then Johannesburg is dull. But the mines are orderly all through South Africa. There is some gambling, some drunkenness, and some fighting, but very little. There are no bush-rangers; there have been few of those attempts to " stick up " the coaches or the trains carrying gold, and rob them, which were common in Australia and America. Part of the reason is that the mining is all done by companies. There are roughs, of course, but none of them are either digging on their own account or trying to rob the digger; there is no settling of quarrels with the revolver. 126 SOUTH AFEICA The busiest place in all Johannesburg is where those who are buying and selling shares in the mines meet. This is at the junction of two of the chief streets, and as part of one of them is enclosed by low chains, the mining market is called " Between the Chains ". Here, when all is going well, everyone is eager and cheerful, and you may hear men shouting the prices all day long in a continual clamour. But when the shares are going down, when there is what is called a slump, you can see a lot of gloomy faces " be- tween the chains". The worst slump came during the war. Then Johannesburg was almost deserted : the mines mostly ceased working; the miners and speculators hurried away to the south; the houses were shut up, and the grass even began to spring up in the streets. We may expect Johannesburg to grow even bigger. The mines will pay better, because the companies will not have to pay such heavy taxes on their dynamite, or high rates on the railways. Probably food, too, will become cheaper, and then wages need not be so high. More mines will be worked, and this will bring more people, and, under an honest government, they will lead a life in which the tiresome word "Uitlander" will no longer have a place. But there is still one difficulty to over- come. As in many other mines in South Africa it THE GOLD-MINES AT JOHANNESBURG 127 is very hard to get labour. Kafirs do not like working in mines and do not make good miners, and even high wages do not tempt many of them to work. In an account of the mineral wealth in the Transvaal the gold of the Eand has the first place, and is apt to overshadow all the rest. Yet the Rand is not the only gold-field in the Transvaal. There is gold round Barberton, and also in the north near Pietersburg, though in less quantities than on the Rand. Again, we must not lose sight of other mines. Had there been no coal in the Transvaal, the mines would have had to rely on the Newcastle and Stormberg fields. It happens, however, that coal is mined in several places; there are mines near Vereeniging, just north of the Vaal, and other mines close to the Rand, and other fields again on the line that runs eastwards towards Lorenco Marques. The first railways made in the Trans- vaal were colliery lines made to bring coal to the gold-mines on the Rand. Further, the Transvaal is a land whose mineral wealth is still very imperfectly known. The Boer Government hindered the " prospector " who hunted for gold or silver. It did not want more mines, for more mines would bring more Uitlanders. Now the country will be more thoroughly explored, and already we are hearing of new discoveries. A great 128 SOUTH AFRICA deal of silver is known to exist, and signs of copper and other minerals are also found. 26. Pretoria If we climb over the rocky top of the Witwaters- rand, we leave behind us on the southern side the mines with their chimneys and engine-houses. We let our eyes wander over thirty or forty miles of rolling country, where here and there a greener patch shows that a careful farmer waters his land. To the north our view is blocked by the blue line of the Magaliesberg. And north-eastwards lies Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal. Johannesburg was thoroughly British even in the days when it was a Boer town; Pretoria is much more Dutch, although there were always a good many Englishmen in it. It was the Boer capital, although it was barely one-eighth of the size of Johannesburg. But, then, while Johannes- burg is not yet twenty years old, Pretoria is fifty; and fifty is old for any South African town out of "the Colony". The little city has made a great stir in the world for its size. No bigger than an ordinary English market town, it has been the seat of a government which twice engaged in war with the British Empire ; and though it has had reason to regret the PRETORIA 129 rash bravery of its people, it may be proud of that bravery. In the days when Lord Eoberts's army was drawing near it, and all Britain read of the guns round it and wondered if it would stand a siege, few probably remembered how tiny it was. Pretoria lies in a warm and well- watered valley. Gum-trees and willows grow thickly in the gardens, and line the streets. Round it stand low hills, the hills on which the guns stood, but where there will be no more need of them. The houses are not so pretty as the usual Dutch houses in Holland. They are of the usual African style, low and long, with a " stoep " (a raised pavement without a roof) in front. The streets are wide, and after rain they get so muddy that you wish they were narrower. There is a big Dutch church standing in the middle of the market square. To the great yearly festival of the Nachtmaal (the Lord's Supper) Boers come in from the country-side in ox- wagons, bringing their wives and children. As many as. 2000 persons gather to the church. The wagons are outspanned in the square, and the people used to leave behind them a collection of rubbish which lay in the square and round the church from one year's end to another. There are some fine build- ings in Pretoria — the government offices, the Raad- zaal (the meeting-place of the Boer Raad or Parlia- ment), and the Palace of Justice. (B83) i 130 SOUTH AFRICA At Pretoria, too, stands Mr. Kruger's house, though Mr. Kruger no longer lives in it. It is as homely in its looks as its owner was — a long, low cottage with the usual stoep in front of it. Here, in the shade, the president used to sit, smoking his Dutch pipe, and dressed in black clothes like a dissenting minister. The Boers are a very religious people. Mr. Kruger himself used at times to preach in the church to which he went. 27. Trekking in an Ox- Wagon We now return to the main trunk line of rail which we have already followed to Kimberley, and we prepare to follow it farther. From Kimberley northward along the border of the Transvaal to Mafeking, then through the native town of Pala- pye to Bulawayo in Matabeleland, the rail runs north-eastward; and it now reaches on towards Salisbury. The countries with which we must deal are: (l) The northern part of Cape Colony; (2) Rhodesia, including Matabeleland in the south, Mashonaland in the middle, and a third division reaching farther north across the Zambesi to the southern shore of Lake Tanganyika. We shall understand how fast our progress to the north has been, if we remember that in 1889 the railway did not go beyond Kimberley, and in 1894 TREKKING IN AN OX- WAGON 131 it ended at Mafeking. It did not reach Bulawayo till 1897. But of course the railway is only a narrow thread. As soon as it is left on one side the traveller has to use the familiar means of African travelling, the ox-wagon. Indeed the ox -wagon still offers the common way of travelling all over South Africa, for the country is so vast that the railways, quickly as they have spread, yet leave huge dis- tricts untouched. Perhaps a description of trek- king in an ox-wagon fits in best with an account of Bechuanaland, for there the traveller meets his greatest difficulty — the want of water. An ox-wagon is a sort of house on wheels, long and low, with canvas stretched over it to form a roof. As the wagon may be the trekker's home for months at a time, and a Boer generally takes wife and children with him, it has to be fairly roomy; as there are often no roads, nothing but a mere track over the veld where someone else has gone before, it has to be strong. Thus it is very heavy; sixteen or eighteen oxen are needed to draw it. The two hind ones are yoked to the disselboom or pole, the rest draw with chains fastened to their yokes. It is no use being in a hurry. Oxen walk very slowly, and they have to stop and feed more hours than they travel. Twelve miles a day is the usual journey: anything over sixteen miles is a long 132 SOUTH AFRICA march. In hot weather they go mostly at night r and at night you lie comfortably on the kartel, a wooden framework stretched across the wagon, piled with mattresses and rugs. But you will need some practice before you manage to sleep. To begin with, the wheels gener- ally creak and groan all the time, and the drivers keep up a marvellous din. Two men are needed to drive a team. One walks beside the team, while the other, the " voorlooper", leads the fore- most span. Both find it necessary to urge on the oxen with every sort of howl and cry. The long hippopotamus-hide whips (the sjamboks) are cracked every now and again with a sound as loud as a pistol-shot. A good driver uses his sjambok little and his voice much. If the oxen are driven with the sjambok they break down long before those that are more kindly treated. But sometimes, in crossing dry country, the oxen suffer very much. A great African hunter 1 gives a description of trekking across the " Thirst". He started, " first filling every cask, pot, and pan with water to drink on the road. All that day we trekked on, all the night, all the next day, and all the next night, without finding water. As no wagon had travelled along this track for two years, we found it full of little thorn bushes that scratched the poor oxen to pieces. On the morning 1 Mr F. C. Selous. TREKKING IN AN OX-WAGON 133 of the third day after setting out, the oxen, that had been in the yoke pulling night and day almost without rest, and without water all that time, began to show signs of distress. They were now too thirsty to feed, and when outspanned for a short period to rest, stood round the wagons, lowing and licking the tyres of the wheels." About mid-day they found a small "pan" or water-hole, with just a few gallons of muddy water in it. The oxen soon drank it dry; it was not enough to do more than wash the dust from their mouths. Then they had to go on again another night and another hot parching day, and the oxen toiled along with their tongues hanging from their mouths. Everywhere they passed pans where water should have been, but they were all dry. Night came again, and, leaving the wagons, the men took bullocks, horses, dogs, and Kafirs on in search of water. They had passed so many of the large " pans " dry that they hardly hoped that the little ones would hold water. " At last we found a long, shallow 'vlei', full. What a sight it was to see the poor thirsty oxen come trotting down to the pan as soon as they smelt the longed-for water, and rush knee-deep into it ! Only an hour before it had seemed that I was destined to lose all my live stock from thirst; and now the danger was past, and not a single ox had given in." But if in the Thirst Lands there is far too 134 SOUTH AFRICA little water, on the other side of the country the trekker may have much too much of it. The same traveller relates that in travelling to Mengwe from Bulawayo, before any roads were made in Mata- beleland, he took twenty -three days to go 59 miles, working hard eight hours a day. The wagons constantly sank in the boggy ground up to the bed-plank; over and over again the bullocks sank till their bellies touched the mire. " Whenever this happened we had to off-load the wagons, dig out the wheels, and place logs of wood and chopped brushwood in front of them to prevent them again sinking. At the end of a hard day's work we often found ourselves only a few hundred yards from where we had started in the morning. We broke thirteen disselbooms." Thus we see what great benefits are conferred by the roads which the Chartered Company is laying out. Boggy places are avoided, or, where they must be crossed, logs of wood are laid side by side across the road. Over this " corduroy ", as it is called, the wagons bump, but do not sink in the mud. To return to the " Thirst Lands ", it is marvellous how the game manages to thrive there. Yet in the Northern Kalahari many sorts of game, the eland, the hartebeest, the gemsbok, and even a few giraffes, pass months without tasting water. The grasses and the leaves of the acacia-trees give them TREKKING IN AN OX- WAGON 135 some moisture. But, as if to provide against thirst, the ground is rich in melons and bulbs and plants,, which store so much juice that water is less needed. Trekking in a wagon is comfortable but slow; travelling on one of the coaches that run over regular lines is faster, but very uncomfortable. The usual pace is six or seven miles an hour. The coaches are mostly drawn by mules. Where the road is bad, as it often is, the passengers inside are bumped together, or against the sides, while the outside passengers, scorched by the sun in the day and chilled by the keen night wind, cling on for dear life when the coach blunders in the dark from one rut to another, or are nearly swept off by prickly branches. The traveller sleeps somehow, though he has nothing but a bare board to sit on, with no back to lean against. The leading mules do their best to keep on the road in the dark. Often the coaches capsize. Often they stick in the fords of the rivers. When accidents happen all have to turn to to set the coach on its wheels again, or urge the mules to pull it out. No wonder the railway, which has saved the fearful coach- journey from Mafeking to Bulawayo, is blessed by those who in old days risked their lives in the coaches. 136 SOUTH AFRICA 28. Mafeking to Bulawayo Mafeking, a little town of tin-roofed houses,, lying in the middle of a wide plain, seems a much less romantic place than we are inclined to sup- pose. No one in the Empire will forget the story of its siege. It was the smallest and weakest of the besieged towns. Ladysmith was defended by an army; Kimberley had a good force; Mafeking had but a handful of defenders. On it fell the first attack: to it help came last of all. Nearly three months after the others had been relieved, Mafeking still kept the Union Jack flying in spite of starvation, sickness, and Boer shells. It was but a tiny post, the " lonely watch-tower in the north". Had it fallen, so far as the fate of the war went, not much would have been lost, except British reputation. But its defender, Colonel Baden-Powell, was not the man to let even a village fall into the hands of an enemy to Britain. So he and his Protectorate soldiers, loyally aided by the Town Guard, held it through the weary months from October till May, and the fame of their exploit has made this little, prosaic, business- like town one of the great names in the history of the empire. Northwards from Mafeking the rail crosses the head- waters of the Notwani, in the dry season no MAFEKING TO BULAWAYO 137 more than a feeble brook, more mud than water, jet it is the only stream in this part of Africa that exists all the year round. The Molopo, marked on the map, is so dry in September that you may cross its channel without noticing it. Yet the Notwani is never dry. It holds fish, and croco- diles too, as the foolish bather will find. But its water looks so green and slimy that even the heat of African mid-day is not likely to tempt the bather. The train travels on over a dull region, covered with a thin wood, mostly mimosa-trees, so starved and parched that they give hardly any shelter. Huge ant-hills are seen, sometimes 15 to 20 feet high. A few natives and a travelling wagon or two are the only signs ol human life. Every 30 or 40 miles the train stops at some tiny store or settlement. About 250 miles north of Mafe- king we reach Palapye. This is the largest native town south of the Zambesi; Khama, the king of it, is a remarkable man. He is a Christian, and clung to his Chris- tianity even though his father banished him for it. He has always been friendly to the British, and though he has not perhaps been glad to see them make a railway through his country, he has been too sensible to fight against them. He is a total abstainer, and tried very hard to prevent spirits being sold to his subjects. Unfortunately his subjects wanted the spirits, and he has not 138 SOUTH AFRICA been altogether successful. He wears ordinary European clothes and a pot-hat, and very civil- ized he looks in them. He has been to England, and thus is more experienced in white men's ways than most African chiefs. Khama made Pala- pye. In old days the capital of his tribe lay 70 miles away, but he moved it to its present place. It is high and has springs of water, but the country round is poor, sandy in some places, and rocky in others. Yet the Bechuanas find plenty of food for their horses and cattle; before the rinderpest came in 1896 Khama' s tribe had nearly 800,000 cattle. Almost all of them died. Palapye is an immense mass of huts set down without any attempt at order. The huts are small, with low walls of clay and roofs of grass. From a little way off the place looks like a wilderness of bee-hives. Each of the chief men has his hut and those of his wives encircled with a fence of thorns or prickly-pear. Between the huts lie sandy, dusty spaces which act as roads. Khama himself lives beside the great " kraal ", a fortress nearly 100 yards across, built round with a stockade 10 feet high. Inside stands the stump of a tree, supposed to have the magical power of healing any sick man who touches it. The people are quiet, and extremely lazy. At night-time they are terribly afraid of the dark. It is hard to get one to leave his hut by night, RHODESIA — THE NATIVES 139 even to show the way to where the Europeans live. They fear ghosts even more than they care about money. By day the men hang about in the sun and do nothing. They look on while the women hoe the ground and plant maize for mealies. They do not want anything except food, and when they have that they will not exert themselves to become rich. Khama s great enemy was Lo Bengula, the chief of the Matabeles. But Lo Bengula is dead, the Matabele armies have been routed, Khama is under the protection of Great Britain. " Now we can sleep" was what many tribes said when they heard that the Matabeles were subdued; and sleeping is the employment which Khama s people seem to enjoy above all others. 29. Rhodesia — The Natives The great piece of country now .called Rhodesia in honour of Mr. Rhodes, which includes Matabele- land in the south-west, Mashonaland in the east, and Northern Zambesia across the river Zambesi, was for a long time very little known. Mission- aries such as Livingstone and Moffat travelled in it; ivory-hunters shot elephants there; the Portuguese wandered into it from their strip of the coast. 140 SOUTH AFRICA Now that it has been explored, many old remains have been found, showing that some people must have colonized the country who had great skill in building strongholds and temples, and who were probably brought there by the gold which they found. Who or what these early colonists were is not certain, but some people think that they were Phoenicians, and that Mashonaland must be the land of Ophir, whither Solomon sent ships to fetch gold. Be this as it may, the remains, such as those at Zimbabwe, near Fort Victoria, show that the riches of Mashonaland were known long before the Portuguese came into South-East Africa. But until 1890 it was left untouched by any European settlers. The Mashonas, who are the older race of in- habitants, are a timid people. As the Boers pushed north into the Transvaal, they in their turn pushed out the Zulu tribes who had lived there. These Zulus, called Matabele, being driven from their homes, marched northward, and in their turn pushed out the Mashonas. The Mashonas could not resist them. Everywhere the Matabele impis, a. their war-bands were called, wandered, plundering and slaughtering. We can see from their capital, Bulawayo, how fierce and pitiless they were, for Bulawayo means " the place of slaughter ". The poor Mashonas moved away northwards. RHODESIA — THE NATIVES 141 They took to building their huts on the tops of the rocky kopjes which are common in the country. They lived lives full of fear. Daily they expected a raid from the Matabele, who would kill the men and capture the cattle; and these raids were common. But though the land was so disturbed, there were always a few white men, British and Boer hunters, travelling and shooting in it. They got leave from the Matabele king to shoot; they paid him tribute, and by selling ivory and skins they made money. Game of every sort was extremely plentiful. Less than thirty years ago, Mr. Selous shot nearly eighty elephants in one season, some- times five or six in one day. Lions, rhinoceroses, hippopotami, buffaloes, every kind of deer were plentiful. The good shot never was without meat for himself and his party, and as the country was well watered, it was the sportsman's paradise. By degrees these hunters brought down the news of what had been rumoured before, namely, that Mashonaland and Matabeleland were rich in gold. The gold lay in quartz reefs, so that the Mashonas, who had no tools except the very simplest, could not get much; but they worked with the help of fire and pick-axes, and in some cases had made quite deep shafts. When the Matabele came they were too terrified to go on working, but the gold lay there all the same. 142 SOUTH AFRICA And when white men heard of it, they resolved to brave Lo Bengula and his warriors and go to seek it. They were more encouraged to do so because the climate of the land was splendid. There was no lack of water, and yet, as the country was so high, it was healthy. Thus the British South Africa Company was formed to get the right of working minerals in what is now Ehodesia. And from seeking for gold it has gone on till Rhodesia has become a British colony, where railways and telegraph lines run over country which a short while ago was •quite savage. The pioneer expedition which first set up the British flag in Mashonaland started in 1890. Lo Bengula, the chief of the Matabeles, had heard of it. First he had promised leave for a road to be made. Then he shilly-shallied, and at last he turned and refused. The expedition did not want to cross his country. It was to start from Tuli, just north of the Transvaal border, and make north-eastwards to Mashonaland. Mr. Selous, who led it, tells the story of its progress. While Lo Bengula was hesitating, the expedition gave him the slip. In front went an advance party, with scouts out. Half of the rest cleared the way with axes; the other half held the axemen's horses, so that, if an attack was made, none would be left on foot. So fast did RHODESIA — THE NATIVES 143 the pioneers cut that they had to halt for the main body to come up. All through the month of July the work went on, the train of eighty wagons straggling over two miles of road. By the 13th of August they got out of the thick country up on to the high downs of Mashonaland, and were safe out of the places where a Matabele attack would have been dangerous. Never was an expedition better planned or better carried out. Much of the road was made before Lo Bengula knew that it was begun. Twice, however, since then the Company have had to fight with the Matabele. The first war in 1893 was brought on because the Matabele would not give up their old habit of raiding into Mashona- land. It ended in the death of the king and the capture of his town, Bulawayo. The only check was the slaughter of Major Allan Wilson and thirty- five men on the banks of the Shangani river, where they were surrounded, and, after fighting for several hours, all killed. In 1896 the Matabele rebelled again. Settlers were forced to flee to Bulawayo; those who stayed on their farms were murdered. Even Bulawayo itself had an army of 10,000 Matabele round it, and only 379 rifles for its defence; but there were resolute men behind those rifles, and the Matabele knew it. The rebellion was ended mainly by Mr. Ehodes's bravery. He went unarmed to the heart 144 SOUTH AFRICA of the rebel position at the foot of the Matoppo hills, and for six weeks stayed in his camp, un- guarded, open at any moment to an attack which could not have been resisted, in order to talk over terms of peace with the savages as quietly as if he had been in his own house. His coolness made the Matabele believe that if they surrendered they would not be harmed, and thus they gave in. Mr. Ehodes has been, by his own wish, buried in these Matoppo hills, on the spot which he used to call the " View of the World", since it was from there he could best look over the land he had won, the land which he always loved, the land in whose future prosperity he believed so firmly. His rest- ing-place commemorates his life's work, and that is no doubt why he chose it: but it also recalls the most heroic incident in his life, an incident of which he himself thought little, but which must have been fresh in the minds of many of the Matabele warriors who stood by his grave. Ehodesia has had a stormy history. Two wars in the first six years left colonists to return to their burnt-out huts and mining -camps. And lately the Boer war cut their railway line, stopped supplies and machinery from reaching them, and hindered them in every way. Yet Rhodesia is going ahead, and now that it has at last got a peace which seems likely to be secure, will go ahead still faster. THE RESOURCES OF RHODESIA 145 30. The Resources of Rhodesia The first resource of Rhodesia is gold. Gold has been found in even more places than the first explorers had expected. Almost everywhere there are signs of gold. The Mining Report of the British South Africa Company gives an account of nearly two hundred companies, mostly engaged in either getting gold or searching for it. Through all Mashonaland and Matabeleland mines are being explored or worked. At present the chief districts are near Bulawayo; at G-wanda, about 100 miles south-east of Bulawayo; at Gwelo and Selukwe, close to the line of rail that connects Bulawayo with Salisbury; round Salisbury itself; and at Urn- tali, near the eastern border on the line from Beira to Salisbury. But there are plenty of signs of gold in other districts besides these. This all looks well for the future, because nothing brings people to a country as quickly as gold. They hope to grow rich much faster than they can by the humdrum way of farming. But they want meat and food of all kinds, and so they give employment to a number of other people. The gold in Rhodesia lies mostly, as we have seen, in quartz reefs. To get it out, this very hard quartz rock has to be stamped to a powder. ( B 83 ) K 146 SOUTH AFRICA For this, machinery is needed, and until now it has been very hard to bring machinery to the mines. The railway from Cape Town to Bulawayo was interrupted for a time by the war, and a great many of the settlers in Rhodesia went off to fight in it. The railway from Beira to Salisbury was blocked by the need of sending troops and supplies, and the working of the lines that join Bulawayo to Salisbury and Bulawayo to Gwanda was also hindered. But even if the railways were all in full working order, many of the mines lie far from any railway. Thus, the necessary mining machinery has often to be sent over long distances in ox- wagons, and as this is slow and very costly, partly owing to the badness or want of roads, a great many of the mines are not really working. Samples of gold have been taken out, and shafts are being sunk. But " crushing " has to wait for the stamping machinery. Still, the number of stamps at work is gradually increas- ing. Another difficulty is to get men to work. The natives do not want to work in the mines. They are naturally what white men call lazy, because they can easily get from the land the food they want, and they do not want much besides, except spirits and guns and powder, and it is not good for natives to have these things. Thus, even the offer of high wages does not tempt many of them, THE RESOURCES OF RHODESIA 147 because they have no wish to buy anything with money when they have got it. Some of the first settlers wanted laws to force the natives to work, and, indeed, in some cases they did force them, but this was very wrong, and has been stopped. Still, all the reports from the mines complain of the scarcity of workmen. According to a report issued in the year 1900 the smallest number of hands required to keep the mines going was 600. From January to July the average number was only 512: at least 50 of these were always useless because they were ill, and a quarter of the remainder were so weak and such bad workmen that they could not drill more than 18 inches in the day. In July the number fell so low that the mines had to stop altogether. Since then matters have improved, and for the last two or three years the output of gold has been gradually increasing. As more mines open, labour will probably be still harder to get. But the question of whether the mines pay high dividends or not, will not be in the long run the most important thing for Rhodesia. Rhodesia cannot depend on gold only. Gold found in quartz is very uncertain. The veins are very promising, but may not keep their promises. How long the gold in Rhodesia will last no one can say. But it is sure to become by degrees more and more hard to get. The best mines will be 148 SOUTH AFRICA worked first. Before long many will be worked out. And then Ehodesia will have to look to something else. Fortunately it has many other things to look to. 31. The Resources of Rhodesia — Soil, Climate, and Crops If we leave the gold we may also leave other minerals. The minerals of Rhodesia are, indeed, very little known. There is copper and iron, and there is plenty of coal in the Wankie coal-field, in the north-west of Southern Rhodesia, to which a railway line now runs. The coal is near the sur- face, and stretches a long way. The best seam is 16 feet thick, and the lower part of it is very good in quality — as good as the best Welsh. But though the coal is most valuable to Rho- desia, for it is wanted both on the railways and at the mines, yet the coal-fields will hardly be of the same importance as the South Wales and Durham coal-mines are to England. England exports coal; the steam-coal from the South Wales field is so good that steamers of almost every nation use it, if they can get it. Rhodesia is not likely, for the present, to export much coal. The mines lie too far from the sea. RHODESIA 149 Rhodesia's real wealth lies in its fertile soil and its temperate climate. It lies, indeed, within the tropics. Follow on the map of the world the Tropic of Capricorn, which passes south of Bulawayo. It goes through the northern half of Australia and the southern part of Brazil. Again, follow the Tropic of Cancer, which is just as close to the Equator on the north. It goes through the Sahara, the Red Sea, Central India, and Burma. We know how hot all these places are. We have heard how everyone avoids the Red Sea in summer; how in India everyone who can leave the sweltering plains, flees for coolness to the hills; how everyone dreads sunstroke if he leaves his head even a moment uncovered to the sun ; how British children cannot grow up in India, but when they are four or five years old must be sent home, or the climate will kill them. We may notice that the southern and eastern coast of Australia has all the towns, the north none, mainly because the intense heat makes it less attractive. And now compare these unhealthy, roasting, hot places with Rhodesia. In Rhodesia it is hot by day, but there is no need to fear sunstroke, at any rate south of the Zambesi. At Salisbury the average hottest month (September) has a temperature of 84°. London is sometimes as hot as that for a week at a time. During two years the very hottest day was 93°. 150 SOUTH AFRICA England has beaten that. And the nights are always cool. There is always a refreshing wind, and it is sometimes quite cold. As on the rest of the high veld, a blanket is always wanted at night. One traveller relates that in a cold south-east wind he shivered all day in a thick great-coat, and the natives lit fires in front of their huts and huddled round them for warmth. Cold like this is rare, but what we must notice is that on the highlands in Rhodesia it is never too hot for white men to work. The climate never makes men slack; on the contrary, it braces them. Of course, so vast a country is not all alike. The highest part, Mashonaland, mostly 5000 feet above sea-level, is largely open down land. Matabeleland is lower and more wooded, but just as healthy. As you get down to the Zambesi it is hotter, and in marshy places there is fever. North of the Zambesi again it is hotter; down in the valleys which face eastwards it is hotter. But on the whole, considering how close it is to the Equator, it is wonderfully cool and healthy. Here, then, is the first great wealth of Ehodesia: it is a white man's country. The colonist can keep his children around him; he can make it his home. The other great wealth is its fertile soil. Both Matabeleland and Mashonaland are well watered. There are no thirst lands, no pressing forward to find water, no despair over dry vleis, no gratitude RHODESIA 151 for even a few inches of muddy liquid. The water makes the land fertile; there is plenty of rain and plenty also of woods and plants which hold the water and prevent it trickling too rapidly into the ground. In places the miners are cutting the woods very fast to make props for their mines. There are immense numbers of forests in Rhodesia, so at present the wood-cutters are not doing harm. But it is to be hoped they will never be allowed to strip the country of trees. As it became bare it would become drier, and therefore less fertile. There is no finer pasture anywhere in Africa than in Mashonaland. Sheep and cattle, horses, pigs, all do well. There is an immense amount of land on which grain grows well. Natives grow a variety of things: pumpkins in swampy soil, mealies (maize), which forms their chief food; manga, a kind of white millet, which has the advantage that locusts will not touch it. From Kafir corn they make porridge, and also beer; j^oJco, the favourite Mashona grain, with a small seed, makes very fattening meal; rice also grows in swampy districts. The settlers have grown both wheat and barley; the barley is often cut green and given to the horses for food. Two crops of Cape oats can be taken each year, one in April and one in October. Maize yields a ton to the acre. Vines, peaches, figs, pomegranates, apples, cherries, guavas, wal- 152 SOUTH AFRICA nuts, almonds, oranges, lemons, bananas, and other fruits, have all been brought in and flourish. Potatoes grow well. If we go into the hotter districts we find the same fertility. Coffee can be grown; both hemp and cotton have been found growing wild, and can certainly be made to do well in hot places suited to them. Tobacco also grows, and miners smoke a great deal of tobacco, so this business is likely to flourish. Indeed, Rhodesia is able to grow almost any- thing. The future, however, depends much on the gold. If plenty of gold is found, many miners will come; there will be a market for the corn and fodder, the coffee and the tobacco. But if the gold should give out, or prove not so rich as is thought, then there will be few to buy. Corn and rice can be got so cheaply in America and India, and meat is sent so cheaply from Australia and New Zealand, that Rhodesia would not find it easy to compete with them in exporting these things. There might be some export of cotton and tobacco, but ordinary farming will not pay very much unless there are people on the spot to buy the produce. The farmer will live comfortably in a healthy climate, but he will not grow rich very fast. In a word, whether Rhodesia grows fast or slowly depends on the gold. RUBBER 153 32. Rubber Yet there is one product of Rhodesia which will be valuable, gold or no gold. This is rubber. Lately the world has taken to using much rubber ; the bicycle-maker uses it; you find it on the tyres of cabs; the motor-car cannot do without it; elec- tricians use it to wrap round their wires; it is used for shoes and for waterproofs; you find it in elastic and in gutta-percha; there is a constant demand for it, and consequently it sells at a good profit. There are a number of trees and creepers that will yield rubber. It can be got from rubber vines, creepers that cling round trees, or from the Lagos-tree, or from some kinds of euphorbia, that odd -looking plant with all its branches sticking upright in a bunch, like a candlestick with numbers of arms. But in Rhodesia rubber is chiefly got either from creepers or from roots. "Tree-rubber", the first kind, is got by making a gash in the rind of the creeper, and collecting the milky juice that flows out. The native rubber- collectors first smear it over their bodies, then peel it off and roll it into balls, or press it into shapes like wax-candles. This is the easiest way in which to carry it. " Root -rubber " is got from a root generally 154 SOUTH AFRICA about an inch thick. The natives rush from one patch to another, digging up the roots with a hoe. They throw away the small roots, and waste much more than they collect. The roots are carried to the kraal, soaked in water for two or three days, pounded with wooden clubs, and then boiled to extract the rubber. This is known as " Loanda nigger", and is worth from 2s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. per lb. in London. In Rhodesia it sells for about 8d. But it is not so good as the tree-rubber, being often dirty and impure. And once rubber gets dirt into it, it is almost impossible to get it out. As rubber plants grow wild in most parts of Northern Rhodesia, and might be made to grow in the warm parts in Southern Rhodesia, it becomes the duty of the Company which governs the country to make rules about it. Natives never care if they waste dozens of young trees. The digging of root-rubber has to be checked; small trees should not be tapped; as rubber plants want shade, forests where they grow should not be thinned; and punishment must be given to those who spoil rubber by mixing it with sand, clay, bits of bark, and such like, in order that it may weigh more. If pains are taken, the rubber industry in Rho- desia should be very valuable; there is no doubt that better rubber -trees also may be planted. Indeed, we must not forget how much scientific BULAWAYO AND SALISBURY 155 men can do for a country. They tell us of plants and crops which are suitable, and also help to protect the farmer from plagues that destroy his cattle and crops; they teach him ways of keeping off horse -sickness, cattle -plague, and fowl -cholera, much as vaccination guards us from small -pox; they find out ways of poisoning wholesale the locusts and beetles that devour his crops. 33. Bulawayo and Salisbury If we wish to judge how fast Rhodesia has grown we must go to the towns. Less than ten years ago Bulawayo was a village of savages. Lo Bengula ruled in his " Place of Slaughter ", in the midst of his savage warriors. In the country round were lions and rhinoceroses. Now- adays trains run into the station daily. It is 1360 miles from Cape Town. The train covers the distance in three days and a half; the fares — first, second, and third class — are about 3d., 2c/., and Id. the mile, as they usually are in England, though for local journeys over the Ehodesian rail- ways first and second class are somewhat higher. When you leave the station you find broad streets and brick houses, street-lamps and hotels; there is a cricket-ground and a race-course. If you have a friend there you can telegraph to him as easily, 156 SOUTH AFRICA though not so cheaply, as you would telegraph to the next county town in England. There is an "Old Bulawayo" and a "New Bulawayo". Old Bulawayo was Lo Bengula's city, left in ruins after its taking in 1893. It lay some way from water, so the new town was built two miles off, on a better site. But one European building stands at " Old Bulawayo", and this is the Government House. As a sign that the •old king's power was gone and the Company ruled in his stead, Mr. Rhodes caused the Government House to be built where the king's kraal had stood. Close to the house the great " Indaba tree", where Lo Bengula used to consult with his murderous warriors, now gives shade to the white men who .have overcome him. New Bulawayo is built on the northern slope above the river. At its highest point stand the fort, the police -camp, and the hospital. The streets are broad and roomy. The best houses are of brick, but shanties with wooden sides and iron roofs still show the haste with which the town has been made. The main feature of the town is the large square in the midst of it. Here stands the market, and in one wing of the market-building stood the first billiard-table brought into Ehodesia. It was carried there on an ox- wagon, so determined is the Briton to have with him, even in the heart of South Africa, what he likes at home. Here, too, BULAWAYO AND SALISBURY 157 is the first hotel built in Bulawayo, six months after the town was taken, and recalling the wars by its name — the Maxim. But any account of a town that grows so fast is soon out of date. The official report of 1900 speaks of residences built or altered for judge and magistrate, for the civil commissioner, for the post-office, the high-court, the gaol, police- station, and other public needs. Bulawayo is rapidly changing from the state of a mining-camp, where men lunched and dined in flannel shirts, breeches, and jack-boots, to that of an ordinary town. Yet the gold-mines are the life of it. Every- one talks "gold": what new finds have been made, how the reefs are working out, how many penny- weights or even ounces have been yielded by each ton of rock crushed. Everyone is hopeful, and therefore cheerful. They cannot be otherwise in a town which is so young and so full of life. The keen easterly breezes are so fresh and inspiriting that they are forgiven even for the whirlwinds of dust which they sweep across the square and into the houses, for Bulawayo is one of the dustiest of South African towns. The story of Bulawayo is told over and over in every Khodesian town. They have all sprung up in the same rapid way. The first stage is a collection of mud huts in native style, like bee- 158 SOUTH AFRICA hives; the next sign of progress is the corrugated iron roof, hotter but more water-tight, replacing the native thatch; then conies the third stage, when brick walls replace wooden ones. At Gwelo, for example, we read that in 1900 the post and telegraph offices, together with the mines offices, moved into new quarters, for which an annual rent of £400 is paid. Six years earlier a traveller who visited Gwelo gives us a picture of the government office as it was then. It was of native make ; it looked like a large hollow haycock with a door to it. Salisbury, the capital of Southern Ehodesia, is three years older than Bulawayo. Its first build- ing, the Fort, was hastily made of loose stones by the pioneers of 1890. The fort is on the top of a low wooded hill. At the foot stands the town. It straggles over a wide space, like all towns in a new country where land is cheap. Salisbury is high, and though the sun is hot by day, the nights are cool. Since the marshy land round it has been drained it is very healthy. As you look out from the town over the grassy downs to the woods which hedge in the horizon, you would never imagine that you are within the Tropics. It looks far more like some moorland in the west of Eng- land, and after the sun has set you are not sur- prised that you want an overcoat. Salisbury is far better placed than Bulawayo. BULAWAYO AND SALISBURY 159 The soil round it is richer; there is more water; more rain falls. Bulawayo is nearly 1400 miles from Cape Town, and nearly 700 from Beira, though this distance could be shortened by carry- ing a line of rail from Gwelo to Umtali, instead of going round by Salisbury. It is therefore a very long way from the sea; and, however many railways are built, Bulawayo must always remain somewhat in an out-of-the-way corner. Salisbury, certainly, is still farther from Cape Town ; but then it is only 370 miles from Beira; and besides, it is closer still to the Zambesi. As Ehodesia develops, the Zambesi will be more and more used as a high- way. No European town could thrive on its banks, because of the fever. But Salisbury is little more than 200 miles from Tete* on the Zambesi, and the river is navigable for light craft from the sea to Tete. One advantage Bulawayo must have, however. The Cape to Cairo line will run northwards from Bulawayo to the Wankie coal-fields, and onwards past the Victoria Falls. This section indeed is already built. Thus Salisbury will be left to one side. Still, as the capital of Southern Rhodesia, and as the seat of the government, Salisbury will probably in the end be the more important town. 160 SOUTH AFRICA 34. Rhodesia North of the Zambesi The greatest need of Rhodesia is railways. The south will soon be well supplied. The line between Bulawayo and Salisbury is finished. From Bula- wayo a branch is being made southwards into the mining districts of Gwanda; another is being built to run northwards to the Wankie coal-fields. Ahead of the railway run the telegraph and the telephone, which now join most of the chief min- ing centres. When we go north of the Zambesi, however, things are more backward. The two districts, North-Eastern Rhodesia and North- Western Ehodesia, which lie beyond the Zambesi, are together bigger than Southern Rho- desia, but so far Britain has not heard much of them. They are indeed very little known; we do not yet know what the land is worth, or what mines there may be. There may be gold; there is iron-ore, especially in Barotseland (North- Western Rhodesia), of a very good quality. As it lies fairly near the Wankie coal-fields, this iron-ore may be very useful. But so far the chief difficulty in these thinly- peopled districts is the want of means of getting about. Railways there are none. North- Western Rhodesia has very few roads, and these only lead a short way into the interior, from the Zambesi RHODESIA. Natural Scale. 1:12,600,000. English Miles o 50 100 130 Railways open Railways in construction ^Xgerman^east n AFRIC%v .Kituta \* PROTECTORATE (B83) 162 SOUTH AFRICA to Lialui, Kalomo, and Monze. North-Eastern Rhodesia is a little better supplied. Fort Jameson is joined to Chikoa and Tete on the Zambesi, and in the north the Company has finished the Steven- son road, from Karonga on Lake Nyasa to Kituta on Lake Tanganyika. The best means of carrying things is using native porters, for in many places the tsetse-fly makes it impossible to use oxen. However, on two of the most important routes, the Fort Jameson-Tete road and the Stevenson road, oxen can be used. It is by these routes that goods can best be sent into North-Eastern Rhodesia. Both ways come up the Zambesi from Chinde. The southern route follows the river to Tete, and from there by road ; the northern branches off up the Shire river. The Shire has 60 miles of rapids, and the goods here have to go by land. Then, embarking again on the Upper Shire, they get to Lake Nyasa, and from there go to Karonga, on the north-western shore of that lake; thence they go by land to Tanganyika. But the cost is great — £18 a ton from Chinde to Karonga, and £16 a ton from Chinde to Fort Jameson. Sooner or later the railway will come into this northern part of Rhodesia on its way towards the Nile valley. It will run from Bulawayo through the Wankie coal-fields, and cross the Zambesi below the Victoria Falls. From there it will have RHODESIA NORTH OF THE ZAMBESI 163 to turn north-eastward until it gets into North - Eastern Ehodesia, from which it will make its way to the southern end of Tanganyika. So far, on all its long course from the Cape, it will have run entirely through British territory. But north of this it will have to pass either through the Congo State or through German East Africa, till it reaches the territory of British East Africa on the head- waters of the Nile. Little more need be said of North -Western Rho- desia, which is bordered by Portuguese West Africa and the Congo State. It is a land rich in haematite iron -ore and copper, healthy only in places, and so far very little developed. It abounds in wild beasts. Traders send caravans laden with blankets and cotton goods, calico and brass wire, and get in exchange for these goods cattle of a good stamp, skins and native curios, ivory and rubber; but there are few regular trade routes and no markets. North-Eastern Rhodesia is more easy to reach and more forward. It lies, indeed, as an offshoot of British territory, for it is joined to the rest of Rhodesia by a somewhat narrow neck of land on the south-west. To the west lies the Congo Eree State; to the north, German East Africa; on the east, the British Central Africa Protectorate. But it is an interesting country, for it touches the southern end of the great Central African lake system. 164 SOUTH AFRICA From Lake Nyasa on the east it is, indeed, severed by the British Central African Protectorate, but on the north it includes the southern end of the great lake Tanganyika, which gives a waterway 400 miles to the north, and whose northern end is again not so very far from the lakes at the head of the Nile. At the north-western corner of North-Eastern Rhodesia lies Lake Mweru, close on 70 miles long by 25 miles wide; to the east of Lake Mweru lies the Mweru marsh, now kept as a game reserve, where elephants can live and multiply unmolested. Farther south is Lake Bangweolo, whose surface of 1600 square miles of water is bigger than most English counties. North-Eastern Rhodesia lies high, 1 on the water- shed of Central Africa. Its largest stream, the Loangwa, runs into the Zambesi, but the Chambezi, which flows into Lake Bangweolo, and the Luapula, which runs from Bangweolo to Lake Mweru, send their waters to join the Congo, on its long journey westward. Besides these there are other streams, many of them of great volume, and the land never suffers from want of water. The chief settlements are Fort Jameson in the south-east, the capital of North-Eastern Rhodesia, and Fife and Abercorn on the Stevenson road. At 1 Hardly any of it is lower than 3000 feet. The Tanganyika plateau ia over 5000 feet high. KHODESIA NORTH OF THE ZAMBESI 165 the southern end of Tanganyika there has been for many years a mission sent by the London Mission- ary Society. To it have belonged the first two steamers on the lake, the Morning Star and the Good News. Seventeen hundred children come to the missionaries, and, besides learning from them the Gospel, are taught useful arts, such as brick- laying, carpentry, and how to cultivate fruit, vege- tables, and grain. Of all places in North-Eastern Ehodesia, the most interesting is where the pioneer in all this mis- sionary enterprise gave up his life for his work. Chitambo, south of Lake Bangweolo, saw the end of David Livingstone's last journey. An old man of sixty, broken down in health by hardship and disease, he had struggled on his last march for eight months. Near Lake Bangweolo the country was deeply flooded, yet nothing could bring Living- stone's courage to a halt. For days the expedition splashed on, till at length he could neither walk nor ride, and had to be carried. He could scarcely bear the pain which even a litter caused him, but the last entry in his diary, April 25, 1873, breathes still of hope. " Quite knocked up and remain . . . recover." But there was no recovery. Four days later his native servants came to his tent door before the dawn, and found David Livingstone on his knees by his bedside, dead. Wherever you go in Rhodesia, you find proofs of 166 SOUTH AFRICA the fact that no other people take up life in colonies so easily as the British. He gets on well with the natives; he does not put his hand to the plough and look back; he is not always counting the days till he can return home, for his new country is his home. He brings with him justice and a love of order. There is no shooting, and little of the gambling and drinking which made the mining camps of Western America such wild and lawless places. Crime is rare, and the roads are safe; the natives, being well treated, do not molest anyone. Even the telegraph wires, passing for miles through lonely lands, are never injured, though wire is a treasure to the native. " One finds", says a traveller, 1 "so many cheery, hearty, sanguine young fellows scattered about this country, some of them keeping stores, some of them showing what the soil may be made to do, and how homes may be reared upon it. One is always hospitably received. After half an hour's talk, you part as if you were parting with an old friend, yet knowing that the same roof is not likely ever to cover both of you again. " The strong and strenuous man who, with little encouragement from the government of his country, founded the British South Africa Com- pany and acquired these territories for his country - 1 Bryce. Impressions of South Africa. BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 167 men, took one of the most fateful steps that statesman or conqueror ever took in the African Continent." 35. British Central Africa British Central Africa is perhaps rather a mis- leading name. The protectorate — for the territory contains a number of native tribes partly governed by their native rulers, but all under the protection of the British Government — is not so large as its name might suggest, or indeed as it was intended to be. Besides, the greater part of it is now ad- ministered by the British South African Company, under the name of North-Eastern and North-West- ern Rhodesia, and is generally reckoned as being part of that country. The story of the spread of British power in this region began with Livingstone. His missionary travels led to other missionaries following into the regions which he had first explored. First went the Universities Mission in 1862, but it was so much opposed by the natives, that for a time it withdrew. Then came the Free Church Mission in 1875, and the Church of Scotland Mis- sion a year later. Other societies followed, and it was felt that so much missionary work, carried on in spite of many dangers, deserved some support from the British Government. 168 SOUTH AFRICA Nothing, however, was done till 1889, when the Portuguese sent an expedition under Major Serpa Pinto, to advance their power farther inland, threatening to annex the districts up the Shire river and along Lake Nyasa, where our missionary work had been done. These districts were not at the time British, but they were certainly not Portuguese. As Portugal would not come to an agreement with us, our government had to direct Mr. H. H. Johnston 1 to proclaim a protectorate over what might fairly be regarded as land over which we had some claim. This work was quickly and skilfully carried out. By making treaties with the native chiefs we secured British Central Africa and Rhodesia, north of the Zambesi; and had it not been that the news of our other treaties reached England too late to be considered in the Anglo- German Convention, our power would have spread to the northern end of Lake Tanganyika. As it is, British influence stops at the southern end. All the credit for this expansion must not be given to the Imperial Government. It was, indeed, largely due to Mr. Rhodes, who helped in many ways a scheme which fell in with his own ideas. From the Cape his eyes were always turned north- wards. A British protectorate reaching to the southern end of Tanganyika was what he wanted. It all fitted in with his great schemes of working 1 Now Sir Harry Johnston. 170 SOUTH AFKICA northwards to unite the Cape to Cairo. The only fault he found was that it did not go far enough north. But on the way to the north the Chartered Company was ready to provide British Central Africa with money and men. As the British South Africa Company had taken over those districts which we have already described as North -Eastern and North -Western Rhodesia, what is now known as the British Central Africa Protectorate may be described as Nyasaland. That is to say, it is a strip some 50 miles wide lying along the western shore of Lake Nyasa, and another piece which surrounds the southern end of the lake, extending down the Shire river almost to its junction with the Zambesi. Portuguese ter- ritory lies to its south-east, German East Africa on its north-east, and on the west it borders on North-Eastern Rhodesia. The natural highway through British Central Africa is along the Shire* river and Lake Nyasa. The lake itself is 300 miles long, and its breadth varies from 15 to 40 miles. It is, in fact, an inland sea, where the Mwera, the native name for gales from the south-east, often blow so strongly, that the little steamers and the passengers on them have a very uncomfortable time. The steamers, being no larger than a good -sized Thames launch, are not safe unless they face the waves. They pitch violently, and the sea-sick passengers, often BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 171 out of sight of the low shore, might well think themselves on the open sea. Yet, rough as Lake Nyasa sometimes is, none the less it makes travel- lino; in British Central Africa much easier than in most African colonies. It does away with much of the tiresome work involved in sending goods by land. An example of this is not difficult to find. One of the chief wants of British Central Africa is labour. It is not that there is any scarcity of natives who could work, but as they have few wants they do not care to earn money. Most of them prefer to lead lazy lives. What labour there is is largely taken up by the task of carrying goods. There are fifty miles on the Shire* river where the Murchison rapids make it impassable for boats. Again, most of the goods going to the southern end of Lake Tanganyika have to be carried from Karonga on the north-western end of Lake Nyasa. Further, there is no water communication with Blantyre, the chief settlement, which lies high in the hills, so that all the supplies going there, and the coffee sent down from it, have to be carried. And there is also a good deal of trade coming by land from Tete on the Zambesi. In 1891 there was only one mile of made road in British Central Africa. Five years later 390 miles had been made, and much has been added since. The Stevenson road, from Lake Nyasa 172 SOUTH AFRICA to Tanganyika, has been made a good road. The navigation of the Shire river has been improved by destroying the snags which formerly blocked the channel. But in spite of these improve- ments, the country is still hindered by the fact that so much of the available labour is taken up by transport. British Central Africa is pecu- liarly unlucky, because, owing to the existence of the tsetse -fly over much of the country, oxen cannot be used. Everything has to be made up in small packages which the native porters can carry on their heads. It is now evident how great is the value of the Shire" river and Lake Nyasa. Even with them it is difficult to get goods carried about. Without them the whole Protectorate would be hopelessly hampered. But there is a very great need of a railway — for a railway would set free much of the labour now occupied with transport and enable it to be used in cultivating the soil, and also reduce the cost of carriage, which is at present so great. Late years have shown most clearly that if the Protectorate is to continue to prosper a railway must be made from Chiromo to Blantyre, and thence on to Lake Nyasa. There are many things which British Central Africa could grow: rice does well at Kota-Kota on Lake Nyasa, tobacco grows readily, and the coffee plantations might be largely increased; but want of labour and difficulty of BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 173 transport hinder all. The native prefers to earn his money by carrying; he does not like plantation work; further, labour is most scarce in November, December, January, and February, when the natives are at work on their own food plantations. But these four months, being the season of the rains, are the time when labour is most wanted on the plantation. Weeds and grass now spring up and choke the coffee-plants; constant energy is required to keep them down. Thus in 1900-1901 many plantation were abandoned through lack of labourers. The exports of the Protectorate fell one-half in value; the only thing that really nourished was the transport business. Put plainly, the fact is that British Central Africa is being exhausted in the task of sending goods through to Northern Khodesia. A railway, however, would solve all the three difficulties; it would (1) carry goods to the interior easily, (2) bring goods to the coast cheaply, (3) abolish the need of human porters, and so set natives free to work on the plantations. The principal settlements in British Central Africa are: Karon ga; Fort Johnston, close to the southern end of Lake Nyasa; Zomba, the seat of the government; and Blantyre. All Nyasaland lies high, but Zomba and Blan- tyre are beautifully situated among the hills. It is strange to think that here, within the tropics, 174 SOUTH AFRICA the settler, who by clay has to go about under an umbrella for fear of the sun, lights his fire at nightfall, and on coming out in the early morning will find the ground white with frost. Thus, though British Central Africa is not so healthy as the Transvaal or Mashonaland, for there is a good deal of malarial fever, yet it is a pleasant climate, where a white man who is careful can be healthy enough. There are many things remarkable about Blan- tyre; perhaps the most striking is the great church belonging to the Church of Scotland Mission, whose red brick walls and white domes seem so much in advance of the rest of the settlement. The story goes, that one of the native chiefs who in early days made war upon the settlers did so because he wanted the church as a palace for himself. Again, Blantyre, and indeed the whole of British Central Africa, is remarkable for the richness of the flowers and trees. Palms of many kinds, euphorbias, aloes, baobabs overrun with flowering creepers; forest trees, teak, ebony, cedar, iron- wood; oil-producing plants, sesamum, vitex, and the castor-oil plant, help to make up a variety scarcely equalled elsewhere. But the chief product of Blantyre is coffee. The story of its introduction is a curious one. Three sickly coffee -plants were sent thither from the Edinburgh Botanical Garden. Two died, but the BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 175 third lived. Its crop of berries were carefully planted, and from them in turn have come almost all the coffee-plants in Blantyre. Blantyre coffee fetches a good price in British markets, and were it not for the cost of sending it to London, which is about £8 a ton, and the difficulty of getting natives to work on the coffee plantations, coffee- planting in British Central Africa would become a big and thriving business. Still, tillage of all kinds has increased rapidly. Only 1600 acres were under crop in 1891, but by 1896 the amount had risen to 57,000. All transfers of land are supervised by the govern- ment, to prevent native chiefs selling recklessly land belonging to their tribes. At one time land was extraordinarily cheap, so low a price as 3d. an acre being given for it. British Central Africa is still full of many kinds of wild animals. Lions, leopards, hysenas are common, as are the two-horned rhinoceros, hip- popotamus, zebra, quagga, Cape buffalo, eland, gnu, and a host of antelopes. Elephants are rare; crocodiles are only too common, and are extremely daring. At Fort Johnston it was found necessary to put a railing along the part of the fort which overlooked the river, because the crocodiles used to rush up the bank in order to carry off any unwary soldier standing there; while on another occasion an iron pail, let down to draw water, was 176 SOUTH AFRICA seized by a crocodile, who drove his teeth right through the iron. But, as in the rest of Africa, it is the smallest plagues that are really the worst. Besides tsetse- flies, locusts, white-ants, and various bloodthirsty bugs, all belonging to the country, and a sufficient host in themselves without the addition of any foreign allies, British Central Africa has been in- vaded by an undesirable South American settler known as the chigoe. 1 This insect burrows into the toes, and lays its eggs there. Unless these are at once taken out before they hatch, a horrible festering sore follows, ending in complete lame- ness. Wise men in British Central Africa have their feet examined every night to guard against these creatures. 36. Conclusion We have now traversed all the South African regions under British supremacy. It is well to think what British supremacy means. It does not mean the supremacy of the "Britisher"; it does mean the supremacy of the British flag. Where the British flag is, there will be found freedom and justice, and men will be equal before 1 It has been conjectured that the phrase, "Well, I'm jiggered ", is the natural expression of disgust on being attacked by the chigoe, or jigger. CONCLUSION 177 the law, which is the very opposite of the supre- macy of a ruling race. In Cape Colony, the Transvaal, and the Orange River Colony there will be two white races, Britons and Dutch; each at present clings proudly to its national character; it may be there will be two tongues, English and the Taal; there will be, for the present at any rate, some relics of the national jealousy which led to the war. Yet even out of the war-hatred has grown one good fruit: the two races each respect the other's stubbornness and bravery ; and we may expect the national jealousy to wear away till it becomes nothing more than that political division between two parties which we approve of in Eng- land. We regard rivalry in politics as the means of keeping government active and pure; when one party becomes overwhelmingly strong it is apt to become careless. If we have Canada before our eyes we shall find nothing alarming in a keen political rivalry, even when it is marked by a difference of tongue and race, so long as it is coupled with equality before the law, so long as neither race is oppressed by the other, so long- as there are no Uitlanders to complain, no mono- polies, and no favours. To the natives, too, the British flag means pro- tection and security. It does not mean complete equality before the law, still less does it mean political equality. In a land where the natives 178 SOUTH AFRICA are so many more in number than the whites, and where the natives are not by nature either intelligent or law-abiding, they must be restrained in matters where white men are left free. But the British flag is a safeguard against oppression, against ill-treatment, against iniquitous bargains, where the native sells cheaply what is valuable because he is deceived about its value, and against the violence of employers, who often in old days made his condition little better than that of a slave. He can no longer be compelled to work, except to earn the money for his hut-tax; and, indeed, his general contentedness is so great that it is difficult to tempt him to work, even with high wages. As he wants but little, the more he is paid the shorter time he works, for he earns all he wants more speedily. The " labour problem'' which vexes South Africa really has its roots in the fact that the native is usually too prosperous to be ambitious. SUMMARY Introduction. Cape Colony gained from the Dutch in 1814; valuei^^^ a port of call for ships sailing to India; further, as ^^P>nly healthy strip of coast in the south (the tip of the tongue), it has proved the Gate of South Africa. British territory roughly a strip, the same width as the coast of Cape Colony and Natal, running northwards to Lake Tangan- yika ; it includes the basin of the Orange Eiver and the Zambesi, and goes (in North- West Khodesia) to the head-waters of the Congo tributaries. 1. Settlement in South Africa. Cape of Good Hope discovered by Portuguese Bartholomew Diaz; first colonized by Dutch in seventeenth century. "Boers" descended from these Dutch settlers and French Protestants (Huguenots) who were driven from France. Boers, disgusted by abolition of slavery (1834), trekked north, first into Natal and the Orange Free State, and lastly into the Transvaal. Spread of British power: (1) Into Natal, 1836-1843; (2> Bechuanaland; (3) Basutoland ; (4) Zululand, 1879; (5) Kho- desia, 1890; (6) Amatongaland, 1895; (7) Orange Eiver Colony and Transvaal, 1899-1902. 2. Surface Features of South Africa. South Africa a series of terraces (large plains between moun- tains) called Karroos. Centre a table-land with steep edges. Mountains highest in south-east, and there come nearest the sea. Thus Natal is very mountainous. 3. Climate of South Africa. Climate depends on (1) latitude, (2) mountains, and (3) pre- vailing winds. South Africa naturally hot ; but the highlands are less hot than the coast strip of Natal. The highest moun- tains are in the south-east, and the chief winds are south-easterly; therefore most rain falls in the east. The farther west the drier it gets. Eain falls in the (English) autumn and winter (South ( b 53 ) 179 M 2 180 SOUTH AFRICA African summer). Parts of Transvaal and Orange River Colony very dry; Rhodesia well watered. South Africa, being very dry, is mostly very healthy ; days hot, but nights cool. A. Rivers of South Africa. (1) Coast streams, Breede, Gouritz, Gamtoos, Sundays River, Great Fish River, Kei, Tugela (Cape and Natal). (2) The Orange, with tributaries Caledon, Vaal, Modder, Hart (Orange River Colony and Cape). (3) The Limpopo, tributary Olifants River (Transvaal). y^(4).The Zambesi, tributaries Shire, Luang wa. Rivers less useful than they seem, because (1) mostly very low in dry season ; (2) run in very deep beds, carved out by sudden floods ; (3) as South Africa is a table-land, they are all inter- rupted more or less by rapids and falls when they get near the coast. The Breede, Limpopo, and Pungwe are all navigable in parts, and the Zambesi, with its tributary the Shire, forms good natural highway except for cataracts at Tet6, the Victoria Falls, and on the Shire the Murchison Rapids. As river communication is poor, Africa depends much on roads and railways. 5. South African Plant-Life. Interior mainly treeless, except in wetter parts of south-east, but Rhodesia has plenty of forest. Many thorny and prickly plants— "wait-a-bit", aloes, cactus, acacia, prickly-pear, — but the dried-up herbage gives better food than appears likely at first sight. Rich blooms and flowery heaths when the rains fall. Imported oaks, pines, and eucalyptus flourish. Tropical plants and trees in Northern Rhodesia; palms, baobab, and rubber plants. 6. Wild Beasts of South Africa. Wild animals getting much scarcer. Lions in Rhodesia. Leopards still fairly common in places; as are baboons, jackals, hysenas, antelopes of many kinds, and snakes. Many kinds of birds, eagles, vultures, cranes, herons, sun-birds, Cape pheasants, &c. Elephants only in preserves (Knysna, Tsitsikamma Forests, and Addo Bush ; also in Mweru game reserve in North-Eastern Rhodesia). 7. Destruction of Game. By elephant-hunters for ivory, and by hide-hunters ; skins, horns, and dried meat (biltong) all valuable. Game-laws made to check shooting, but these are hard to enforce. SUMMARY 181 8. South African Natives. (1) Aboriginal Hottentots, stupid and barbarous, with very curious language. Hottentots now mainly in settlements as servants. (2) Bushmen, very small, used poisoned arrows ; very few now left. (3) Bantu tribes (Kafirs), Zulus, Pondos, Swazis, Basutos, Barotses — the majority of the population. Some employed in settlements or mines ; many still live under their own chiefs. Strong warlike race, but do not like work. Have strong belief in witchcraft. 9. The Zulus. North of Natal, warlike and disciplined, enrolled in regiments (impis), the dread of all their neighbours. Fought hard against the Boers and against the English in 1879. Under King Cete- wayo they destroyed British force at Isandlana, but were finally conquered at Ulundi. Now live undisturbed by Euro- pean settlers in Zululand. Matabele are an offshoot of same race. 10. Switzerland of South Africa. Basutoland — as big as Wales. Three great valleys on head- waters of Orange Eiver. Includes Maluti Hills and Drakensberg (11,000 feet high). Basutos more industrious than most natives ; grow corn> vegetables, fruits. Land is reserved to them ; ruled by their king and a few imperial officers. Great horsemen. Basuto ponies celebrated. Many of the people are Christians. Settle- ment at Morija. Basuto Parliament — the Pitso. Magnificent views from the Maluti Hills. 11. The Farmer's Plagues. (1) Want of water; (2) destructive beasts, leopards, hyenas, baboons ; (3) diseases, rinderpest, horse-sickness ; (4) fever in low-lying districts; (5) flies, especially tsetse-fly; (6) locusts; (7) white-ants. But as the country becomes more settled, the destructive beasts and the tsetse-fly disappear; science is finding many ways of destroying locusts and ants; inoculations protect herds against disease; while with care much water can be stored. 12. Cape Colony. Long line of coast, but no good harbour in a useful place. Table Bay, Port Elizabeth, and East London all exposed to certain gales. 182 SOUTH AFRICA Lowest part of the colony is the wettest and the most fertile ; the east wetter than the west. Grows tobacco at Oudtshoorn, wine at Paarl, Wynberg, and round Cape Town. Wheat near Malmesbury, &c, in west, and in Albert, Graaff-Eeinet, &c, in east (yield uncertain, and not enough for colony). Exports wool, ostrich feathers, copper ; rapidly increasing business in fruit. 13. Cape Town and its Surroundings. Cape Town faces north, with Table Mountain south-east of it. Finely situated; very useful as a coaling-station. Large straggling town with mixed population — Britons, Dutch, Malays, Kaffirs, Arabs, Hindus. Houses mostly long, low, white, with verandahs. Often very windy. 14. Railways. Necessary to connect mining centres (Kimberley, Newcastle, Storm berg, parts of Rhodesia, and especially Johannesburg) with the ports (Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London, and Durban, Loren90 Marques, Beira). South African lines on a narrow gauge, therefore can go up steep inclines, but are slow. (1) Line from Cape Town through Beaufort, Kimberley, Mafe- king, to Bulawayo, with extensions: (a) towards Salisbury, (b) to the Zambesi through Wankies. This latter branch will con- tinue to the north. (2) Lines from Johannesburg to the sea; (a) via Bloemfontein to Port Elizabeth or East London; (b) to Durban through Natal; (c) to Lorenco Marques via Komati Poort. (3) Line (formerly very narrow gauge) from Beira to Chimoyo, now widened and continued to Salisbury. 15. Kimberley and the Diamond Mines. First diamond found at Hope Town ; mines at Kimberley. Mines first divided into many claims ; these later united under the De Beers Company. Diamonds are crystals found in the hard blue clay (eruptive matter). Mines originally open ; now workings go underground. Precautions against theft. 16. Port Elizabeth. Chief port for produce, because (1) nearer the fertile (eastern) part of Cape Colony ; (2) nearer Kimberley, Bloemfontein, and Johannesburg than Cape Town is. Not a good harbour. Ex- ports : diamonds, wool, mohair, hides, ostrich feathers. 17. Ostriches. Ostrich farming less profitable than it was. Eggs hatched in incubators, or left to the birds. Cock and hen take turns to sit. SUMMARY 183 Wing-feathers the most valuable. Savageness of cock-ostriches. Difficulties of rearing the chicks. 18. Natal: Its History. Discovered by Portuguese 1497. Settled by English in 1826- 1836. Durban founded 1836. Capital, Pietermaritzburg, founded by Dutch trekkers 1838. Boer Eepublic annexed 1843. The most British of the South African colonies. 19. Natal: Climate and Country. Climate warmer and wetter; therefore more fertile. Very mountainous, and therefore travelling is difficult. Being narrow, no part is very far from the railway. Natal, the 'cock-pit' of South Africa. Isandlana, Ulundi, Majuba, Laing's Nek, Elandslaagte, Colenso, Spion Kop, Lady- smith. Three zones: (1) coast strip, tropical vegetation, coffee, rice, cotton, ginger, sugar, fruits, coolie labour; (2) middle strip, English fruits and crops ; (3) high land under the Drakensberg, pastoral. Coal in the north near Newcastle. 20. Durban. Fair harbour; entrance difficult. Two parts of the town- Durban on the shore ; the Berea on the hill. Durban, wide streets, mostly brick houses. Very hot but not unhealthy ; ex- tremely heavy rainfalls. Very few exports. Bulk of trade goes up. 21. Pietermaritzburg. The capital ; lies high (2500 feet), surrounded by hills. The meeting-place of Parliament. Natal contented and prosperous ; native population now quiet, though in the past there have been many difficulties with the Zulus. 22. Orange River Colony and Bloemfontein. Orange Eiver Colony as large as England, very sparsely popu- lated, purely agricultural, only one mine ; no manufactures. Corn grown in south-east, round Ladybrand. Fairly well- watered. Abundant grass after the rains, therefore good for sheep and cattle. Main line of railway from Cape Colony to Transvaal runs north-eastwards through Colony. Bloemfontein (capital) very healthy, 6000 population. Other small towns — Heilbron, Lindley, Kroonstad — mostly on railway or joined by short branch lines. Eailway between Harrismith and Lady- smith in Natal. 184 SOUTH AFRICA 23. Transvaal: Borders and History. Borders: south, the Vaal; north, the Limpopo; east, Portuguese territory and Zululand; west, Bechuanaland. Settled by Boers, who trekked from Cape Colony and Natal. Much fighting be- tween Boers and Zulus. Boer Republic annexed in 1877, re- belled in 1880, granted internal independence in 1881. Jameson's Raid, 1895. Declared war on Great Britain, 1899 ; surrendered, 1902. Trouble between Boers and Britons largely geographical. (1) Difference of race. Briton enterprising, Boer backward and disliked intruders. (2) British power cut the Republic off from the sea -coast on the east, and by expanding into Rhodesia shut them in on the north. (3) The discovery of the gold-mines of the Rand and Barberton (1884) brought many foreign settlers. The Boers refused these Uitlanders a fair share in the government. Consequently great jealousy between Boer Government and Uitlanders. 24. Transvaal. A high table-land with Drakensberg Mountains on east; as big as United Kingdom. (1) High Veld between Vaal and Magaliesberg. Treeless country, with good pasture for sheep, and great supplies of horses. (2) Middle Veld, the " Garden of the Transvaal ", cattle-raising, maize-growing. (3) Bush Veld, lowest part, more water, more fertile, less healthy. Coffee, sugar, and tobacco grown. Towns (except Johannesburg) all small market -towns. Pre- toria (the capital), Potchefstroom, Rustenburg, Nylstroom, Standerton, Lydenburg. 25. Gold-Mines at Johannesburg. Mines of the Witwatersrand. Different from all other gold- mines ; not alluvial (Australia), which soon works out ; not quartz (Rhodesia), which is often uncertain. Gold lies evenly distributed through the ' banket '. Necessary to sink deep shafts and crush by machinery ; therefore work all done by companies. Gold at Johannesburg is the life of the Transvaal. Popula- tion over 100,000 ; great market for supplies ; its traffic supports the railways. Town lies high, in bare dusty country. Living very dear; mining chiefly done by Cornishmen and Australians, and the rough work by Kafirs. Very orderly town; will probably grow still bigger. Other minerals : coal, silver, and copper. SUMMARY 185 26. Pretoria. The Dutch capital, the oldest town in the Transvaal. Very small. The former seat of the Dutch Government and law- courts. 27. Trekking in an Ox-Wagon. Until the railway was made, the ox-wagon was the only way of travelling in the interior. Wagons very heavy and slow ; sixteen or eighteen oxen to a team. Great difficulties in the " thirst lands". Road-making in Rhodesia. 28. Mafeking to Bulawayo. The siege of Mafeking. King Khama: his capital, Palapye, a collection of huts. Great destruction of cattle in 1896 by the rinderpest. Men idle; women raise crops of maize. Peace secured by the British conquest of the Matabele. 29. Rhodesia — The Natives. Explored by Livingstone, Moffat, and the ivory-hunters. Traces of ancient remains in buildings at Zimbabwe and in gold work- ings. Three main divisions: (1) Matabeleland (s.w.), capital Bula- wayo. (2) Mashonaland (e.), capital Salisbury. (3) Northern Rhodesia, across the Zambesi. Mashonas, a peaceful race, driven northward by Matabele invaders from the south. Country used to be full of game ; elephant hunters went there for ivory. News of gold attracted more white men. British South Africa Company acquired right of searching for minerals. Pioneer expedition 1890. First Mata- bele war 1893; capture of Bulawayo. Second Matabele war 1896; ended by Mr. Cecil Rhodes. His burial-place in the Matoppo Hills. 30. Resources of Rhodesia. (1) Gold; quartz reefs found widely distributed. Chief min- ing districts: Bulawayo, Gwanda, Gwelo, Salisbury, Umtali. Progress of mines retarded by (1) war, since quartz-mining needs machinery, and the railways have been hindered ; (2) scarcity of labour. 31. Resources of Rhodesia — Soil, Climate, and Crops. (2) Coal in Wankie Coal-field; good quality and plentiful. Railway runs through it on its way north. (3) Temperate and healthy climate. Compare with other tropical climates — Northern Australia, Brazil, Central India, &c. In Rhodesia it is cool at night, and there is little fever 186 SOUTH AFKICA south of Zambesi. A white man's country, where Europeans thrive. (4) Well-watered and fertile soil. Good pasture for sheep, cattle, horses, pigs. Great variety of crops, maize, mango, white millet, Kafir corn, wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, and fruits of all kinds ; also rice, coffee, hemp, cotton, tobacco, in hotter parts. If the gold turns out well there will be a ready market for all these things. 32. Resources of Rhodesia — Rubber. (5) Eubber, now much used, chiefly in Northern Ehodesia. Tree -rubber and root -rubber; wasteful methods of native gatherers. 33. Bulawayo ("the Place of Slaughter ") and Salisbury. Capital of Matabeleland, has in ten years changed from a village of savages to a town where there are trains, the telegraph, streets, offices, hotels. (1) Old Bulawayo, Lo Bengula's former capital, now deserted except for "Government House" standing on site of the King's Kraal. (2) New Bulawayo, north of the river, principally occupied with gold. Climate, healthy but windy and therefore dusty. Salisbury. Capital of Southern Ehodesia, founded, 1890, by the pioneers. Stands high; though in the tropics it is not overpoweringly hot; nights cool, rainfall good. Has better communication with the sea via Beira, or via the Zambesi, than Bulawayo ; but will not be on the main Cape-to-Cairo road. 34. Rhodesia North of the Zambesi. Less developed because no railways, and bad roads, therefore goods go by water or by native carriers. Tsetse-fly makes oxen useless in many places, and country is feverish. Trade routes come up the Zambesi. For North-Eastern Ehodesia they go up the Shire to Lake Nyasa (British Central Africa), or via Tete. Eates of carriage high, and labour scarce. (1) North- Western Ehodesia (Barotseland) little developed; rich in iron and copper ; many wild beasts ; caravan trade in skins, ivory, and rubber. (2) North-Eastern Ehodesia (from the Zambesi to Lake Tan- ganyika) a country of lakes and great rivers. Lakes Mweru, Bangweolo ; Eivers Loangwa, Chambezi, Luapula (the last two in Congo basin). SUMMARY 187 Capital, Fort Jameson ; settlements at Fife, Abercorn ; a scene of much missionary activity. Livingstone died at Chitambo. 35. British Central Africa. Consists of : (1) land to the west of Lake Nyasa, and on both banks of Shire ; (2) Ehodesia, north of Zambesi (administered by British South Africa Company). Began with missions; British Protectorate proclaimed, to keep out Portuguese, 1889. Lake Nyasa and the Shire River make British Central Africa fairly accessible for travelling and sending goods, but there is great need of a railway. Scarcity of labour on plantations, because so much labour is taken up with transport. Chief towns, Blantyre, Zomba, Karonga, Fort Johnston. Chief product, coffee. Climate hot, but nights cool. Country full of wild animals, and there are many insect plagues. Conclusion. British supremacy is not the supremacy of the " Britisher ", but the supremacy of the law over all alike, black and white. It protects natives from oppression, and encourages the white men to govern the country for themselves. THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. SEP 17 1934 HQM. 13 1985 ----- -&- — m^K It J- Lb Aj U^H9 ***fr LD 21-100rn-7,'33 YB 34424