Before we came to Vryburg, the continuous valley had broadened out into
a prairie, with not a hill in sight. The face of the land was as bare
as though ploughed. By 4 p.m. we had come to the 850th mile, showing
that the rate during the last twenty-four hours had been sixteen and a
third miles an hour. Since Taungs, 731 miles, we had been closely
skirting the Transvaal frontier, while to the west of the line lay what
was once the mission-field of Livingstone and Moffatt. An hour later we
arrived at Mafeking, on the Moloppo River, a tributary of the Orange
River. Mafeking will always be celebrated in the future as the place
whence Jameson started on his desperate incursion into the Dutch
Republic. The Moloppo River contains lengthy pools of water along its
deepened course, but the inhabitants of Mafeking are supplied by copious
springs from Montsioa's old farm. The town lies on the north, or right
bank, and is 870 miles from Cape Town. It is 4194 feet above the sea.
Already it has been laid out in broad streets which are planted with
trees, and as these are flourishing they promise to furnish grateful
shade in a few years. Outside of the town there is not a tree in sight,
scarcely a shrub, and consequently it is more purely a prairie town than
any other. Due east of it lies Pretoria, the Boer capital, about 180
miles distant, and it may be when the Boers take broader views of their
duty to South Africa at large, and their own interests, that they will
permit a railway to be constructed to connect the two towns, in which
case the people of Mafeking cannot fail to profit by having exits at
Delagoa Bay, Durban, and Cape Town. It will be passing strange also if
the neighbourhood of Mafeking will not be found to contain some of the
minerals for which the Transvaal is famous. The Malmani Gold Field is
about 50 miles off, and the Zeerust Lead and Quicksilver Mine but a
trifle further. For the growing of cereals it ought also to be as
distinguished as the neighbouring state, for the soil is of the right
colour.