CHAPTER XIII

TRAVELLING AND COMMUNICATIONS

THERE is nothing one more desires to know about a country, and especially a new country, than how one can travel through it. There was nothing about which, when contemplating a journey to South Africa, I found it more difficult to get proper information in England; so I hope that a few facts and hints will be useful to those who mean to make the tour, while to others they may serve to give a notion of the conditions which help or obstruct internal communication.

First, as to coast travel. There is no line of railway running along the coast, partly because the towns are small, as are small, as well as few and far between, partly because the physical difficulties of constructing a railway across the ridges which run down to the sea are considerable, but chiefly, no doubt, because the coasting-steamers are able to do what is needed. The large vessels of the Castle Line and the Union Line run once a week between Cape Town and Durban (the port of Natal), calling at Port Elizabeth and East

Thus one

London, sometimes also at Mossel Bay. can find two opportunities every week of getting east or west in powerful ocean steamers, besides such chances as smaller vessels, designed for freight rather than for passengers, supply. From Durban there is one weekly boat as far as Delagoa Bay, a voyage of about twenty-four hours. From Delagoa Bay northward to Beira and Mozambique the traveller must rely on the steamers of the German East Africa Line, which run from Hamburg through the Red Sea all the way to Durban, making the entire voyage in about seven weeks. The drawback to these coast voyages is that the sea is apt to be rough between Cape Town and Durban, less frequently so between Durban and Beira, and that there is no sheltered port between Cape Town and Delagoa Bay. At Port Elizabeth and at East London the large steamers lie out in the ocean, and passengers reach the land by a small tender, into which they are let down in a sort of basket, if there is a sea running, and are occasionally, if the sea be very high, obliged to wait for a day or more until the tender can take them off. Similar conditions have prevailed at Durban, where a bar has hitherto prevented the big liners, except under very favourable conditions of tide and weather, from entering the otherwise excellent port. Much, however, has recently been done to remove the Durban bar, and it is expected that the largest steamers will soon be able to cross it at high tide. At Delagoa Bay the harbour is spacious and sheltered, though the

approach requires care and is not well buoyed and lighted. At Beira the haven is still better, and can be entered at all states of the tide. There is now a brisk goods trade, both along the coast between the ports I have mentioned, and from Europe to each of them.

Secondly, as to the railways. The railway system is a simple one. A great trunk-line runs north-eastward from Cape Town to a place called De Aar Junction, in the eastern part of the Colony. Here it bifurcates. One branch runs first east and then north-north-east through the Orange Free State and the Transvaal to Pretoria; the other runs north by east to Kimberley and Mafeking, and is now being continued through Bechuanaland to Bulawayo. The distance from Cape Town to Pretoria is ten hundred and forty miles, and the journey takes (by the. fastest train) fifty-two hours. From Cape Town to Mafeking it is eight hundred and seventy-five miles, the journey taking about fifty hours. From this trunk-line two important branches run southward to the coast, one to Port Elizabeth, the other to East London; and by these branches the goods landed at those ports, and destined for Kimberley or Johannesburg, are sent up. The passenger traffic on the branches is small, as people who want to go from the Eastern towns to Cape Town usually take the less fatiguing as well as cheaper sea voyage.

Three other lines of railway remain. One, opened in the end of 1895, connects Durban with Pretoria and Johannesburg; another, opened in 1894, runs

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from Delagoa Bay to Pretoria; a third, opened part of it in 1894 and the rest in 1896, connects Beira with a place called Chimoyo in the Portuguese dominions, and is being now built therefrom to Mtali and Fort Salisbury, in the territory of the British South Africa Company.1

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Of these railways the trunk-line with its branches was constructed by and is (except the parts which traverse the Orange Free State and the Transvaal) owned by the government of Cape Colony. has latterly paid very well. The line from Durban to the Transvaal border at Charlestown belongs to the Natal government, and is also a considerable source of revenue. The rest of this line, from Charlestown northward through the Transvaal, is the property of a Dutch company, which also owns the line from Delagoa Bay to Pretoria and from Pretoria to the frontier of the Free State. The Beira railway belongs to a company controlled by the British South Africa Company, and is virtually a part of that great undertaking.

All these railways, except the Beira line, have the same gauge, one of three feet six inches. The Beira line has a two-foot gauge, but will probably be enlarged as the traffic increases. Throughout South Africa the lines of railway are laid on steeper gradients than is usual in Europe: one in forty is not uncommon, and on the Natal line it is some

1 There is also a line of railway from Port Elizabeth to GraafReinet, some short branch lines near Cape Town, and a small line from Graham's Town to the coast at Port Alfred.

times one in thirty, though this is being gradually reduced. Although the accommodation at the minor stations is extremely simple, and sometimes even primitive, the railways are well managed, and the cars are arranged with a view to sleep on the night journeys; so that one can manage even the long transit from Cape Town to Pretoria with no great fatigue. Considering how very thinly peopled the country is, so that there is practically no local passenger and very little local goods traffic, the railway service is much better than could have been √ expected, and does great credit to the enterprise of the people.

Railways have made an enormous difference, not to travel only, but to trade and to politics; for before the construction of the great trunk-line (which was not opened to Pretoria till 1892) the only means of conveyance was the ox-waggon. The ox-waggon needs a few words of description, for it is the most characteristic feature of South African travel. It is a long, low structure, drawn by seven, eight, nine, or even ten yoke of oxen, and is surmounted (when intended to carry travellers) by a convex wooden frame and canvas roof. animals are harnessed by a strong and heavy chain attached to the yoke which holds each pair together. The oxen usually accomplish about twelve miles a day, but can be made to do sixteen, or with pressure a little more. They walk very slowly, and they are allowed to rest and feed more hours than those during which they travel. The rest-time is usually

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