After reaching Pretoria, I stayed only two days there, engaged in
bidding farewell to my numerous friends, and making preparations for my
next long journey into Natal. I left Pretoria for Johannesburg by coach,
on the 1st of August, and started from the latter town at five o'clock
in the morning of the 3rd, in very cold weather and pitch dark, by the
post cart. This most uncomfortable vehicle is a kind of wagonette, with
somewhat dilapidated canvas curtains, through which the wind whistled
most unpleasantly, being utterly insufficient to keep out the cold. It
is drawn by eight horses, and has cramped seats for eight or ten
passengers. On this occasion there were seven others besides myself. In
addition the mail bags were crammed inconveniently under the seats. In
this post cart I travelled for three days and two nights by way of
Richmond, Heidelburg, Standerton,--where cattle rearing and horse
breeding is successfully carried on,--and Newcastle, which will be
remembered as having been the base of operations during the Boer war,
and also as the place where the final treaty of Peace was drawn up and
signed by the joint Commission, to Eland's Laagte, the present terminus
of the Natal railway, thirteen miles beyond Ladysmith. At Eland's Laagte
a very promising coal field is being worked, from which great and
important results are expected in the future. Soon after crossing the
Transvaal border we passed the battle fields of Laing's Nek, Majuba
Hill, and Ingogo, names indelibly associated with one of the saddest, as
well as most humiliating, episodes of English modern military history,
in connection with the Transvaal War of 1881. I gazed mournfully on
Majuba Hill, that black spot of bitter memories to every Briton, and of
natural exultation and pride to the Boers; and on Colley's grave, the
unfortunate commander, whose unhappy and most unaccountable military
blunder led to the lamentable and fatal defeat, which cost him his life,
and resulted in the miserable fiasco--the retrocession of the Transvaal
to the Boers. It is impossible to estimate the damage done to British
influence, prestige, and power by the political consequences resulting
from that disastrous day.
[Illustration: CEMETERY, MAJUBA HILL.]
The south-eastern part of the Transvaal is as bare, and treeless, and
altogether as uninteresting and unattractive as the south western
region, between Bechuanaland and Klerksdorp, through which I had
travelled a few weeks previously. The instant, however, the border is
crossed, and Natal is entered, the scene is at once changed, and the
beauty of the surrounding country becomes apparent. Instead of the flat,
wearisome desert of the Transvaal, undulating hills, clothed with
verdure, and an extensive panorama of broad and fertile plains meets the
eye.
[Illustration: Decorative]
[Illustration: GOVERNMENT HOUSE, MARITZBURG.]
[Illustration: Decorative]