Lastly, one must not conclude this account of the native connection without at least mentioning the statement of Thunberg, who is generally a creditable witness on social matters. "The daughters of the colonists," he says, "are sometimes with child by their father's black slaves. In this case, in consideration of a round sum of money, a husband is generally provided for the girl, but the slave is sent away from that part of the country." There is nothing inherently improbable in this story, and I am not aware that it has ever been contradicted. Altogether, it seems that the possible percentage of black blood in the Boers is a factor that cannot be disregarded when one is attempting to portray their national character and origin. Yet here also the Dutch stock has manifested its superiority, and in regard to natives as well as Huguenots the Boers present a remarkable instance of atavism.

CHAPTER III

THE TRANSVAAL AND ITS NATIVES

SOME ingenious geographer has compared the physical structure of Africa to that of an inverted pie-dish. There is everywhere a great inland elevated plateau, girdled by mountains which slope outward and downward to the sea-coast. The Transvaal lies entirely upon this elevated plateau.

The name of the district originated in the fact that it was simply described as "the country north of the Vaal" at the time of the Great Trek, when it was almost unknown to Europeans. This is rather a loose term, and the Boers themselves thought it included Jerusalem. But in modern geography the name of Transvaal has been applied definitely to the territory of the South African Republic, which now covers an area somewhat smaller than France, lying between the Limpopo and Vaal Rivers, bounded on the east

by the great ranges of mountains, known as the Lobombo and the Drakenberg, which run parallel to the Natal coast, and on the west by the arbitrary frontier of British Bechuanaland, stretching away to the great Kalahari Desert.

The Limpopo or Crocodile River, so called by the natives from the abundance of these pleasing creatures in its waters, rises below Pretoria, and sweeps round in a wide semicircle of nearly 1,000 miles to the sea above Delagoa Bay. Unfortunately a large cataract prevents its being navigable beyond the point at which it leaves the Transvaal for Portuguese territory. The Vaal is a tributary of the great Orange River. It rises among the hills of the Drakenberg and flows to the west in a curved course, which serves as the boundary between the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.

The district of the modern Transvaal varies in height from 2,000 to 8,000 feet above the sea. It is usually divided by physical geographers into three portions: the Hooge Veldt, or uplands of the south-east, comprising the Drakenberg highlands, "a region of about 35,000 square miles, from 4,000 to 8,000 feet above the sea, almost

everywhere abounding in rich auriferous deposits"; the Banken Veldt or terraced lands, a lovely pastoral and arable district of 18,000 to 20,000 square miles, between the Drakenberg and the outer slopes of the Lobombo range; and the Bosch Veldt or bush country, "comprising all the central and western parts, merging gradually in the dry steppe lands of Bechuana, a vast plateau over 3,000 feet above sea-level, and about 60,000 square miles in extent."

The Hooge Veldt is chiefly used by the Boers as grazing land, where they raise cattle and farm sheep. Its climate is dry and cold in winter, hot, though tempered by frequent thunderstorms, in summer, and nearly perfect in spring and autumn. "A brilliant, starlit night is then succeeded by a bright, sunny day, with a warm sun and a cool, bracing air." It is on these uplands that the gold-mining is all done. The Bosch Veldt has a hotter climate, and is largely infested by malarial fever and the dreaded tsetse fly, so fatal to almost all domesticated animals. It is covered with grass and trees, and only needs a better water supply to be "capable of growing almost every sub-tropical plant and cereal." The Banken Veldt partakes of

the nature of both the other kinds, and is chiefly known at present as furnishing admirable cornland and grazing-ground.

Geologists are of opinion that the Transvaal, with its far-stretching plains, its rounded sandstone hills and its water-worn and terraced mountain ranges, was once the bed of a vast inland lake, such as sanguine engineers have dreamed of making in the Sahara. "The numerous fossil remains of aquatic life," says Mr. Keane, “together with extensive sandy tracts and much water-worn shingle, give to this great table-land the aspect of an elevated lacustrine basin, whose waters escaped partly through the Limpopo to the Indian Ocean, partly through the Vaal and Orange to the Atlantic." These two great fissures in the plateau still carry off most of the superfluous water of the Transvaal; the now famous Witwatersrand is the water-parting between their basins.

It is, of course, to its mineral resources that the Transvaal owes its fame in these latter days. Great coal-fields extend through almost the whole of the High Veldt. The first railway in the Transvaal was a short line from Johannesburg to