no converts. An American missionary arrived at almost the same time, rented a hut, and hired interpreters. At the end of two years he had one hundred and fifty converts, many more natives who were learning useful occupations and trades, and had sent home a request for more missionaries with which to extend his field.

It is rather remarkable that the scouts who assisted in subduing the American Indians should later be found on the African continent to assist in the extermination of the blacks. In the Matabele and Mashona campaigns of three years ago, Americans who scouted for Custer and Miles on the Western plains were invaluable adjuncts to the British forces, and in many instances did heroic work in finding the location of the enemy and in making way for the American Maxim guns that were used in the campaigns.

The Americans in South Africa, although only about ten thousand in number, have been of invaluable service to the land. They have taught the farmers to farm, the miners to dig gold, and the statesmen to govern.

Their work has been a credit to the country which they continue to revere, and whose flag they raise upon every proper occasion. They have taken little part in the political disturbances of the Transvaal, because they believe that the citizens of a republic should be allowed to conduct its government according to their own idea of right and justice, independently of the demands of those who are not citizens.

CHAPTER XII

JOHANNESBURG OF TO-DAY

THE palms and bamboos of Durban, the Zulu policemen and 'ricksha boys, and the hospitable citizens have been left behind, and the little train of English compartment cars, each with its destination "Johannesburg" labelled conspicuously on its sides, is winding away through cane fields and banana groves, past groups of open-eyed natives and solemn, thin-faced Indian coolies.

Pretty little farmers' cottages in settings of palms, mimosas, and tropical plants are dotted in the green valleys winding around the innumerable small hills that look for all the world like so many inverted moss-covered china cups. Lumbering transport wagons behind a score of sleek oxen, wincing under the fire of the far-reaching rawhide in the hands of a sparsely clad Zulu driver, are met and

passed in a twinkling. Neatly thatched huts with natives lazily lolling in the sun become more frequent as the train rolls on toward the interior, and the greenness of the landscape is changing into the brown of dead verdure, for it is the dry season-the South African winter. The hills become more frequent, and the little locomotive goes more slowly, while the train twists and writhes along its path like a huge python.

Now it is on the hilltop from which the distant sea and its coast fringe of green are visible on the one side, and nothing but treeless brown mountain tops on the other. A minute later it plunges down the hillside, along rocky precipices, over deep chasms, and then wearily plods up the zigzag course of another hillside. For five hours or more the monotony of miniature mountains continues, relieved by nothing more interesting than the noise of the train and the hilarious laughter and weird songs of a car load of Zulus bound for the gold fields. After this comes an undulating plain and towns with far less interest in their appearance than in their names. The