34

Grande

Macaricari

SKETCH MAP

OF THE

Petermann.

in 1870 1875

Convention of Pretoria,, 1881

...London 1884

ENGLISH MILES

26

25

50

mpo

100

150

R Save

28 Longitude East of Greenwich 30

London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington.

32

34

My reasons for visiting the Transvaal-How I came to be involved in the war-Some account of the country-Its boundaries and area-Physical divisions-The High Veld and the Bush VeldThe natives as producers-The minerals-Other products of the country-The towns and villages-The native population.

year

In the 1877 I visited South Africa for the purpose of recruiting my health, which had been shattered by an attack of typhoid fever, followed by lung complications. I stayed in the country about eight months, and during my visit I made a flying trip to Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal.1

In 1879 I was recommended by my medical adviser to revisit South Africa. This time I determined to proceed direct to the Transvaal. I experienced considerable delay in Natal on my way up country, in consequence of an accident which happened to a travelling companion, and I did not arrive in Pretoria till April, 1880. Shortly after my arrival, a Commission

An account of this visit will be found in " Among the Boers," published by Remington and Co.

B

was appointed to determine the boundary between the Transvaal and the territory of Sechele, the chief of the Bakwena, a sub-tribe of the Betshuana, on the western border. Sechele is tolerably well known to English readers as the first convert of Dr. Livingstone. I obtained permission from Sir Owen Lanyon to accompany the Commission, and went with it into Betshuana-land. When I got there, I found the warm, dry air so beneficial to my weak lungs, that I remained five months under the hospitable roof of Mr. Price, the successor of Dr. Livingstone in Sechele's country. I then returned to Pretoria, where I was when the Boer war broke out. I was shut up in Pretoria throughout the siege, during which I held a temporary commission in the Commissariat. After peace was declared, I was elected a member of the Loyalists' Committee. In this capacity I attended the sittings, at Newcastle in Natal, of the Royal Commission appointed to prepare the convention with the Boers. I then returned to England, where I assisted the deputation which was sent home by the Loyalists to represent their case to the Government. I may, therefore, claim a personal acquaintance with a great deal of what took place during the war and subsequent to it; and hence I shall probably not be deemed presumptuous in endeavouring to place before the reader a clear and connected account of the circumstances which led to the war, and a history of the events which took place during its progress, together with a brief review of the actual and probable consequences of it. I desire especially to show who, in my judgment, is to blame for what happened.

In order to understand the subject fully, it will be necessary to learn something about the country and

the people who inhabit. it, and how they came there. The war has occasioned the publication of a great deal of information about the Transvaal, which was previously almost an unknown country, so far as the general public is concerned. But, notwithstanding, there remains a large amount of ignorance-or, perhaps, I ought to say half-knowledge-respecting it. The whole business is so mixed up with politics, that people at home have tinctured their facts with their political principles, very much to the prejudice of the facts. I do not think it necessary to apologize for laying my foundations at the very beginning, even at the risk of repeating much that has become familiar. I propose, then, to give in this chapter a succinct account of the country and its inhabitants previous to the Boer irruption, and then to show who the Boers were, and how they came to possess the land.

The Transvaal is situated to the north of the Vaal river. It occupies the tract of country lying between that river and the Limpopo, or Crocodile river. It is bounded on the east partly by Zulu-land, Swasi-land, and Tonga-land, and partly by the possessions of the Portuguese. The western boundary is formed by a number of Betshuana tribes, who inhabit a district. known as Betshuana-land, which runs north and south between the Transvaal and the Kalihari Desert, and which, since the retrocession of the Transvaal, has become the main avenue for approach to the denselypopulated Zambesi basin. The area of the country is, roughly speaking, a little short of that of France. considerable portion of this area had, however, reverted to the natives at the time of the annexation, the Boers being too weak to hold it.

A

The Transvaal is divisible physically into two dis