is grown. Wheat sown in the spring is, I am told, subject to rust. Mealies, or Indian corn, will thrive here, and almost all kinds of fruit. The gardens produce all kinds of vegetables, when irrigation is used.

We descended into Pretoria through a "poort" or opening between the hills and the little town with its many trees smiled upon us in the sun. It lies in a valley on a high plateau, just as Grahamstown does, and is surrounded by low hills. As we were driven into the town I congratulated myself on having come to the end of my journey. To reach Pretoria had been my purpose, and now I was at Pretoria. My further troubles would be confined to my journey home which I intended to commence after a week's delay at the capital of our new Colony. Hitherto my work had been not very uncomfortable and certainly not unprosperous.

CHAPTER II.

The Transvaal.-Its History.

THE Transvaal as its name plainly indicates is the district lying north or beyond the Vaal river. The Orange river as it runs down to the sea from the Diamond Fields through the inhospitable and little known regions of Bushmansland and Namaqualand used to be called the Gariep and is made up of two large rivers which, above their junction, were known as the Gariep Kye and the Knu Gariep, the tawny and the orange coloured. The former which is the larger of the two is now known as the Vaal, and the latter as the Orange. The Vaal rises in the Drakenberg mountains and is the northern border of the Orange Free State or Republic. The country therefore beyond that river received its present name very naturally.

This southern boundary of the Transvaal has always been marked clearly enough, but on every other side. there are and have been doubts and claims which are great difficulties to the administrator of the new Colony. To the west are the Zulus who are, at this moment, claiming lands which we also claim. Then above them, to the north-west are the Portuguese who are not perhaps likely to extend their demands for inland territory, but who are probably quite as much in doubt as we are as to any defined boundary between them and the natives.* To the north I think I may say that no one yet knows how far the Transvaal goes. The maps give the Limpopo river as a boundary, but I think Sir Theophilus Shepstone will own that Great Britain cannot, should she wish to do so, make good her claim to lordship over the native races up to the Limpopo without a considerable amount of-arrangement with the tribes. And yet the matter is one that must be settled with accuracy because of the hut tax. From the natives living under the protection of the British Crown in the other colonies of South Africa a direct tax is levied,-10s. or 14s., -on each hut occupied, and it is indispensable to the Government of the new Colony that the same system shall be introduced there. We cannot govern the country without a revenue, and from our black subjects this is the only means of collecting a revenue, till we begin to make something out of their taste for strong drinks. It was inaccuracy as to their northern and north-eastern boundaries which brought the South African or Transvaal Republic to that ruin which induced us to seize it;-or, in other words, the lands which the Dutch claimed the natives claimed also,

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In 1864 by a treaty between the Portuguese and the Republic the Lobombo range of mountains was agreed upon as a boundary between them, but I am not aware that the natives living to the east of these mountains were ever made a party to this treaty.

and these claims were so ambiguous, so progressive, so indefinite, that to have yielded to them would have been to give up the whole country. Sicocoeni who was the Chief most specially hostile to the Republic in its last days claimed even the site on which stood Pretoria the capital, where the Volksraad or Parliament of the Republic sat. In dealing with the Natives as to boundaries nothing can be got by yielding. Nor does it seem possible to trust to abstract justice. Between Sicocoeni and Mr. Burgers, the last President of the Republic, it would have been impossible for abstract justice to have drawn a true line so confused had the matter become. It can only be done by a strong hand, and can only be done well by a strong hand guided by a desire equally strong to do what is right. As an Englishman I feel sure that we shall have the one, and, again as Englishman, I trust that we shall have the other. The habitations of hundreds of thousands of Natives are concerned. I find that the coloured population of our new Colony is variously stated at numbers ranging from 250,000 to 800,000. It is all guess work; but there is no doubt that the multitude of human beings concerned is very great. Were we to annex everything included in the Dutch maps of the Transvaal, the true number would probably be much greater than the larger of those above given. You, my readers, probably think that the more we include the better for them, even though they should be made to pay a tax of IOS. a hut. So do I. But they don't. They want to be independent,—as are the Zulus down on the sea coast. It is therefore impossible not to perceive a difficulty. A line to the North and North-East must be drawn;-but no possible line will satisfy the natives. To the West and North-West the matter is probably as doubtful, though not as difficult. The numbers are fewer and

the people less warlike. But to the South-West there is another problem to be solved. There is a territory North by West of the Vaal river, including the little town of Bloomhof, which we, by British award declared to be independent. Governor Keate of Natal was appointed as arbitrator to draw a line between the Republic and the natives, and he declared this territory to be a portion of Bechuanaland. But the Transvaal, rejecting Governor Keate's award, took the territory and governed it. we now to reject it and give it back to the Bechuanas, or are we to keep it as part of the annexed Colony? This also will add something to the difficulty of defining our new possession.

Are

The history of the European occupation of the Transvaal is the same as the history of all South Africa during this century. The Dutch have been ever running away from the English, and the English have sometimes pursued them and sometimes determined that they should go whither they would and be no longer accounted as British subjects. They have certainly been a most stiffnecked people with whom to deal,-and we by their inability to amalgamate with ourselves have been driven into vacillations which have not always been very creditable to our good sense. We have been too masterful and yet not masterful enough. In Natal as we have seen, we would not allow them to form a Republic or to throw off their British allegiance. Across the Orange river we have fought them and reduced them,-at Boom Plaats, as I shall describe when giving the little history of the Orange Free State,—and then have bid them go their own way and shift for themselves.

The Dutch of South Africa have hated our ways, though I do not think that they have hated us. What they have practically said to us is as follows. "No doubt

you are very fine fellows, and very strong. We do not intend to pit ourselves against you. We first took and cultivated and civilized this Cape Colony. But as you want it in God's name take it and use it, and do with it as you list. But let us go and do as we list elsewhere. You don't like slavery. We do. Let us go and have our slaves in a new land. We must encounter endless troubles and probably death in the attempt. But anything will be better to us than your laws and your philanthropy." We could not hinder them from going. There was at one time a desire to hinder them, and the Colonial Attorney General in 1836 was consulted as to the law on the subject. There was an old Dutch law, he said, forbidding the Colonists to cross the border; but that could hardly be brought in force to prevent persons from seeking their fortunes in other lands. We have already seen in regard to Natal, how Lieut.-Governor Stockenstrom, when appealed to, declared that he knew of no law which prevented His Majesty's subjects from leaving His Majesty's dominions and settling elsewhere. That these people must be allowed to go away with their waggons wheresoever they might choose was evident enough; but the British rulers could not quite make up their minds whether it was or was not their duty to go after the wanderers.

When the Dutch first made their way into the country now called the Transvaal they were simply on their road to Natal. News had reached them of the good land of Natal and they endeavoured to get to it by going northwards across the Orange river. While pursuing their way through what is now the Free State they encountered a terrible savage named Mazulekatze, who was at the head of a tribe called the Matabele, with whom they had to fight to the death. This warrior was a Zulu and had South Africa. II.

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