Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: Cover]
[Illustration: President Kruger on the piazza of the Executive Mansion,
Pretoria.]
OOM PAUL'S PEOPLE
A NARRATIVE OF THE BRITISH-BOER TROUBLES
IN SOUTH AFRICA, WITH A HISTORY
OF THE BOERS, THE COUNTRY,
AND ITS INSTITUTIONS
BY HOWARD C. HILLEGAS
ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT PHOTOGRAPHS
AND A MAP OF SOUTH AFRICA
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1900
COPYRIGHT, 1899,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
PREFACE
American enterprises in South Africa, and especially in the Transvaal,
have assumed such large proportions in the last five years that the
affairs of the country and the people are steadily gaining in interest
the land over. As almost all the interest is centred in the Transvaal
and the Boers, an unprejudiced opinion of the country and its people may
serve to correct some of the many popular misconceptions concerning
them. The Boers constitute a nation, and are deserving of the
consideration which many writings concerning them fail to display. They
have their failings, as many a more powerful nation has, but they also
have noble traits. In these pages an effort has been made to describe
the Boers as they impressed themselves upon my mind while I associated
with them in the farmhouses on the veldt, in the drawing-rooms in the
cities, in the chambers of the Government House, and in the mansion of
the Executive.
The alleged grievances of the Uitlanders are so complex and
multitudinous that a mere enumeration of them would necessitate a
separate volume, and consequently they are not touched upon except
collectively. As a layman, it is not within my province to discuss the
diplomatic features of South African affairs, and I have shown only the
moral aspect as it was unfolded to an American whose pride in the
Anglo-Saxon race causes him to wish that there were more justice and
less venom in the grievances.
To the many South Africans with whose hospitable treatment I was
favoured I am deeply and sincerely grateful. Englishmen, Afrikanders,
Dutchmen, Boers, and Uitlanders were exceptionally gracious in many
ways, and, however they may have differed on local topics, were
unanimously courteous in their entertainment of a citizen of the country
for which they frequently expressed such great admiration. I am
especially indebted to Sir Alfred Milner, the Queen's High Commissioner
to South Africa and Governor of Cape Colony, and Sir James Sivewright,
the Acting Premier of Cape Colony, for many courtesies and much
information; to President S. J. P. Kruger for many kindnesses and a
greatly treasured Transvaal flag; to Postmaster-General Van Alphen, Mr.
Peter Dillingham, Commissioner of War Smidt, and many other Government
officials, for valuable assistance given to me in Pretoria. To those
stanch Americans, Mr. Gardner F. Williams, of Kimberley, and Dr. J.
Perrott Prince, of Durban, I am indebted for many pleasant excursions
and experiences, and finally to my friend Mr. W. M. B. Tuttle, of New
York city, for valuable assistance in this work.
HOWARD C. HILLEGAS.
NEW YORK CITY, _September 4, 1899_.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I.--SOUTH AFRICA OF THE PRESENT TIME
Its physical and political divisions--Relations of the races--Progress
of the natives--Transvaal's relative position.
II.--THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BOER RACE
Early settlement of the Cape--Troubles of the immigrants with the East
India Company and the English--The Great Trek--Battles with the natives
and the English--Founding of the republic.
III.--THE JOHANNESBURG GOLD FIELDS
Discovery of gold--Early days of the field and the influx of
foreigners--The origin of the enmity between the Boers and the
newcomers--The Jameson raid and its results.
IV.--THE BOER OF TO-DAY
His habits and modes of living--His love of family--His religion and
patriotism.
V.--PRESIDENT KRUGER
Personal description--His long and active career--His public
services--Anecdotes of his life--His home life.
VI.--INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT KRUGER
His democracy--Hatred of Mr. Rhodes--Discussion of the Transvaal's
position--His opinion of Americans--Why he hates the English--A message
to America.
VII.--CECIL JOHN RHODES
The ambition of the man--Story of his youth--His many
enterprises--Political career--Personality--Anecdotes and incidents of
his life--Groote Schuur--His home.
VIII.--THE BOER GOVERNMENT--CIVIL AND MILITARY
The executive and legislative branches of the Government--The Raads in
session--The state military organization--Mobilizing the
army--Commandant-General P. J. Joubert--His services to the republic.
IX.--CAUSES OF PRESENT DISSENSIONS
British contempt of the Boers--The suzerainty dispute--The question of
the franchise--Campaign of slander.
X.--PREPARATIONS FOR DEFENCE
Boers' strong defences--Attitude of the races--The Afrikander
Bond--Armed strength of races--England's preparation--Importance of
Delagoa Bay.
XI.--AMERICAN INTERESTS IN SOUTH AFRICA
American influence--Exports and imports--Leaders of the American
colony--American machinery--Prominent part Americans have taken in the
development of the country.
XII.--JOHANNESBURG OF TO-DAY
Approach to the city--Description of the city--Its characteristics--Its
inhabitants.
[Illustration: Map of South Africa]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
President Kruger on the piazza of the Executive Mansion, Pretoria . . .
. _Frontispiece_
A band of Zulu warriors in war costume
Majuba Hill, where one hundred and fifty Boer volunteers defeated six
hundred British soldiers
Kirk Street, Pretoria, with the State Church in the distance
The Rt. Hon. Cecil J. Rhodes on the piazza of his residence, Groote
Schuur, at Rondebosch, near Cape Town
Cape Colony Government House, at Cape Town
Cape Town and Table Mountain
Zulu maidens shaking hands
Map of South Africa
OOM PAUL'S PEOPLE
CHAPTER I
SOUTH AFRICA OF THE PRESENT TIME
The population of South Africa may be divided into three great classes
of individuals: First, those who are only waiting for the time when they
will be able to leave the country--the Uitlanders; second, those who
hope that that time may speedily come--the native-born whites; and,
third, those who have no hope at all--the negroes.
The white population, south of the Zambezi River, is almost as large as
the population of the city of Philadelphia. Half of the population is
Boer, or of Dutch extraction, while the remainder consists of the other
Afrikanders and the Uitlanders. The Afrikander class comprises those
persons who were born in the country but of European descent, while the
Uitlanders are the foreigners who are, for the most part, only temporary
residents. The negro population is estimated at five millions, divided
into many tribes and scattered over many thousand miles of territory,
but united in the common cause of subdued hostility toward the whites.
The discovery and first settlement of South Africa were made about the
same time that America was being won from the Indians; but, instead of
having a people that united in the one object of making a great and
influential nation, South Africa is rent asunder by political intrigue,
racial antagonism, and internal jealousies and strife. The Dutch and
Boers have their mutual enemies, the Uitlanders; the Cape Colonists are
unfriendly with the Natalians, yet unite to a great extent in opposing
the Dutch and Boers; while all are the common enemy of the black race.
Strife is incessant in the country, and a unification of interests is
impossible so long as the enmity continues. Meanwhile the natural
growth and development of the country are retarded, and all classes
suffer like consequences. A man who is capable of healing all the
differences and uniting all the classes in a common bond of patriotism
will be the saviour of the country, and far greater than Kruger or
Rhodes. A fugitive bit of verse that is heard in all parts of South
Africa affords a clearer idea of the country than can be given in pages
of detailed description. With a few expurgations, the verse is:
"The rivers of South Africa have no waters,
The birds no song, the flowers no scent;
The child you see has no father,
The whites go free, while the negroes pay the rent."
A person who has derived his impressions of the physical features of the
continent of Africa from books generally concludes that it is either a
desert or a tropical wilderness throughout. South Africa combines these
two features in such a way that the impression need not be entirely
shattered, and yet it is not a truthful one.
South Africa is at once a tropical garden, a waterless desert, a fertile
plain, and a mountainous wilderness. It has all the distinctions of
soil, climate, and physical features that are to be found anywhere in
the world, and yet in three hundred years less than half a million
persons have found its variety agreeable enough to become permanent
residents. Along the coast country, for one hundred miles inland, the
territory is as fertile as any in the world, the climate salubrious, and
the conditions for settlement most agreeable. Beyond that line is
another area of several hundred miles which consists chiefly of lofty
tablelike plateaus and forest-covered mountains.
Farther inland is the Great Karroo, a desert of sombre renown, and
beyond that the great rolling plains of the Kimberley region, the Orange
Free State, and the Transvaal. Here, during the dry season, the earth
is covered with brown, lifeless grass, the rays of the sun beat down
perpendicularly, and great clouds of yellow dust obscure the horizon.
No trees or bushes are seen in a half-thousand-mile journey, the great
broad rivers are waterless, and the only live objects are the lone Boer
herders and their thirsty flocks.
A month later the rainy season may commence, and then the landscape
becomes more animated. Rains, compared with which the heaviest
precipitations of the north temperate zone are mere drizzles, continue
almost incessantly for weeks; the plain becomes a tropical garden, and
the traveller sees some reasons for that part of the earth's creation.
In the midst of these plains, and a thousand miles from the Cape of Good
Hope, are the gold mines of the Randt, richer than California and more
valuable than the Klondike. The wonder is that they were ever
discovered, and almost as marvellous is it that any one should remain
there sufficiently long to dig a thousand feet below the surface to
secure the hidden wealth. Farther north are the undeveloped countries,
Mashonaland and Matabeleland, the great lakes, and the relics of the
civilization that is a thousand years older than ours.
According to the American standard, the most uninhabitable part of South
Africa is the Transvaal, that inland territory of sun and plain, which
has its only redeeming feature in its underground wealth. Had Nature
placed her golden treasure in the worthless Kalahari Desert, it would
have been of easier access than in the Transvaal, and worthy of a
plausible excuse. But, excluding the question of gold, no one except
the oppressed Boers ever had the weakest reason for settling in
countries so unnatural, unattractive, and generally unproductive as the
Transvaal and the Orange Free State.
Cape Colony and Natal, the two British colonies on the coast, are the
direct opposites of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State in physical
and climatic conditions. The colonies are comfortably settled, the soil
is marvellously productive, negro labour is cheap, and everything
combines to form the foundation for a great nation.
Cape Town, the city where every one is continually awaiting the arrival
of the next mail steamer from England, and the capital of Cape Colony,
is a modern city of fifty thousand inhabitants, mostly English. It was
the metropolis of the country until Johannesburg was born in a day, and
caused it to become a mere point in transit. The city has electric
lights, electric street railways, fine docks, excellent railways into
the interior, and all the other attributes of an English city, with the
possible exception that it requires a four-weeks' passage to reach
London.
It is a city of which Englishmen are proud, for its statue of Queen
Victoria is beautiful, the Government society is exclusive, "Tommy
Atkins" is there in regiments, and the British flag floats on every
staff. Cape Town, too, is the home of the politicians who manage the
Colonial Office, which in turn has charge of the South African colonial
affairs. Two cable lines lead from South Africa to London, and both
dive into the ocean at Cape Town, where live Cecil J. Rhodes, Sir Alfred
Milner, and the other politicians who furnish the cablegrams and receive
the replies. Farther north on the east coast, about three days' sail
around the Cape, is the colony of Natal, peaceful, paradisaical, and
proud. Taken by conquest from the Zulus a half century ago, it has
already distanced its four-times-older competitor, Cape Colony, in
almost all things that pertain to the development of a country. Being
fifteen hundred miles farther from London than Cape Town, it has escaped
the political swash of that city, and has been able to plough its own
path in the sea of colonial settlement.
Almost all of Natal is included in the fertile coast territory, and
consequently has been able to offer excellent inducements to intending
settlers. The majority of these have been Scotchmen of sturdy stock,
and these have established a diminutive Scotland in South Africa, and
one that is a model for the entire continent. Within the last year the
colony has annexed the adjoining country of the Zulus, which, even if it
accomplishes nothing more practical, increases the size of the colony.
Durban, the entry port of the colony, is the Newport of South Africa, as
well as its Colorado Springs. Its wide, palm-and-flower-fringed
streets, its 'ricksha Zulus, its magnificent suburbs, and its healthful
climate combine to make Durban the finest residence city on the Dark
Continent. Pietermaritzburg, the capital of the colony, on the other
hand, has nothing but its age to commend it. The colony produces vast
quantities of coffee, tea, sugar, and fruits, almost all of which is
marketed in Johannesburg, in the Transvaal, which is productive of
nothing but gold and strife.
The Orange Free State, which, with the Transvaal, form the only
non-English states in South Africa, also lies in the plain or veldt
district, and is of hardly any commercial importance. Three decades ago
it found itself in almost the same situation with England as the
Transvaal is to-day, but, unlike the South African republic, feared to
demand its rights from the British Government. At that time the
Kimberley diamond mines were discovered on acknowledged Free State soil.
England purchased an old native chief's claims, which had been
disallowed by a court of arbitration, and pushed them as its own. The
Free State was weak, and agreed to forfeit its claim in return for a sum
of four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The mines, now owned by a
syndicate, of which Cecil J. Rhodes is the head, have yielded more than
four hundred million dollars' worth of diamonds since the Free State
ceded them to England for less than half a million dollars.
The natives, who less than one hundred years ago ruled the whole of
South Africa with the exception of a small fraction of Cape Colony and
several square miles on the east coast, have been relegated by the
advances of civilization, until now they hold only small territories, or
reservations, in the different colonies and republics. They are making
slow progress in the arts of civilization, except in Cape Colony, where,
under certain conditions, they are allowed to exercise the franchise,
and on the whole have profited but little by the advent of the whites,
notwithstanding the efforts of missionaries and governments. They smart
under the treatment of the whites, who, having forcibly taken their
country from them, now compel them to pay rental for the worst parts of
the country, to which they are circumscribed, and to wear brass tags,
with numbers, like so many cattle.
Comparatively few natives work longer than three months of the year, and
would not do that except for the fear of punishment for non-payment of
hut taxes. With the exception of those who are employed in the towns
and cities, the negroes wear the same scanty costumes of their
forefathers, and follow the same customs and practices. Witchcraft and
superstition still rule the minds of the majority, and the former is
practised in all its cruel hideousness in many parts of the country,
although prohibited by law.
The sale of rum, the great American "civilizer" of the Indians, is also
prohibited in all the states and colonies, but it frequently is the
cause of rebellious and intertribal wars. Notwithstanding the generous
use of "dum-dum" bullets in the recent campaigns against the negroes,
and the score of other agents of civilization which carry death to the
natives, the black population has increased greatly since the control of
the country has been taken from them. In Natal, particularly, the
increase in the Zulu population has been most threatening to the
continued safety of that energetic colony. The Colonial Office, through
generous and humanitarian motives, has fostered the development of the
native by every means possible. No rabbit warren or pheasant hatchery
was ever conducted on a more modern basis.
Everything that the most enthusiastic founder of a new colony could do
to increase the population of his dominion is in practice in Natal.
Polygamy is not prohibited, and is indulged in to the full extent of the
natives' purchasing ability. Innumerable magistrates and police are
scattered throughout the country to prevent internecine warfare and
petty quarrels. The Government protects the Zulu from external war,
pestilence, and famine. King Tshaka's drastic method of recurring to
war in order to keep down the surplus population has been succeeded by
the Natal incubation scheme, which has proved so successful that the
colony's native population is fourfold greater than it was when Tshaka
ruled the country. The situation is a grave one for the colony, whose
fifty thousand whites would be like so many reeds in a storm if the half
million Zulus should break the bonds in which they have been held since
the destruction of Cetewayo's army in the recent Zulu war.
The only tribe of natives that has made any progress as a body is that
which is under the leadership of King Khama, the most intelligent negro
in South Africa. Before his conversion to Christianity, Khama was at
the head of one of the most bloodthirsty, polygamous, and ignorant
tribes in the country. Since that event he has been the means of
converting his entire tribe of wild and treacherous negroes to
Christianity, has abandoned polygamy and tribal warfare, and has
established a government, schools, churches, and commercial enterprises.
In addition to all his other good works, he has assisted Great Britain
in pacifying many belligerent tribes, and has become England's greatest
friend in South Africa.
Khama is the paramount chief of the Bawangwato tribe, whose territory is
included in the British Bechuanaland protectorate, situated about one
thousand miles due north from Cape Town. There are about fifteen
thousand men, women, and children in the kingdom, and every one of that
number tries to emulate the noble examples set by their king, whom all
adore. The country and climate of Khama's Kingdom, as it is officially
called, are magnificent, and so harmless and inoffensive are the people
that the traveller is less exposed to attacks by marauders than he is in
the streets along New York's water front.
Many Europeans have settled in Khama's Kingdom for the purpose of mining
and trading, and these have assisted in placing the Bawangwatos on a
plane of civilization far above and beyond that attained by any other
negro nation or tribe in the country. A form of government has been
adopted, and is carried out with excellent results. The laws, which
must be sanctioned by the British Government before they can be put in
force, are transgressed with an infrequency that puts to shame many a
country of boasted ancient civilization. Theft is unknown and murders
are unheard of, while drunkenness is to be seen only when a white man
smuggles liquor into the country. A public-school system has been
introduced, and has resulted in giving a fairly good education to all
the youth. Even music is taught, and several of the brass bands that
have been organized compare favourably with such as are found in many
rural communities in America.
Well-regulated farms and cattle ranches are located in all parts of the
territory, and in most instances are profitably and wisely conducted.
The negroes have abandoned the use of beads and skins almost entirely,
and now pattern after Europeans in the matter of clothing. Witchcraft
and kindred vices have not been practised for fifty years, and only the
older members of the tribe know that such practices existed. The
remarkable man to whom is due the honour of having civilized an entire
nation of heathen is now about eighty years old. He speaks the English
language fluently, and writes it much more legibly than his
distinguished friend Cecil Rhodes.
Khama is about six feet in height, well proportioned, and remarkably
strong despite his great age. His skin is not black, but of that dark
copper colour borne by negro chiefs of the royal line. He has the
bearing of a nobleman, and is extremely polite and affable in his
treatment of visitors. He is well informed on all current topics, and
his knowledge of South African men and affairs is wonderful. In his
residence, which is constructed of stone and on English lines, Khama has
all the accessories necessary for a civilized man's comfort. He has a
library of no small size, a piano for his grandchildren, a folding bed
for himself, and, not least of all, an American carriage of state.
It is a strange anomaly that the Boers, a pastoral people exclusively,
should have settled in a section of the earth where Nature has two of
her richest storehouses. Both the Kimberley diamond mines and the
Witwatersrandt gold mines, each the richest deposit of its kind
discovered thus far, were found where the Boers were accustomed to graze
their herds and flocks. It would seem as if Nature had influenced the
Boers to settle above her treasures, and protect them from the attacks
of nations and men who are not satisfied with the products of the
earth's surface, but must delve below.
This circumstance has been both fortunate and unfortunate for the Boer
people. It has laid them open to the attacks of covetous nations, which
have not been conducive to a restful existence, but it has made their
country what it is to-day--the source from which all the other South
African states draw their means of support. The Transvaal is the main
wheel in the South African machinery. Whenever the Transvaal is
disturbed, Cape Colony, Natal, and the Orange Free State are similarly
affected, because they are dependent upon the Boer country for almost
their breath of life. When the Transvaal flourishes, South Africa
flourishes, and when the Transvaal suffers, then the rest of the country
is in dire straits.
Before the diamond and gold mines were discovered, South Africa was
practically a cipher in the commercial world. The country exported
nothing, because it produced no more than was needed for home
consumption, and it could import nothing because it was too poor to pay
for imported goods. The discovery of the diamond mines twenty-five
years ago caused the country to be in a flourishing condition for
several years, but the formation of the De Beers syndicate ended it by
monopolizing the industry, and consequently starving the individual
miners. The country was about to relapse into its former condition when
the Transvaal mines were unearthed. No syndicate having been strong
enough to consolidate all the mines and monopolize the industry, as was
done at Kimberley, and the Boers having resisted all efforts to defraud
them out of the valuable part of their country, as had happened to the
Orange Free State Boers, the Transvaal soon attained the paramount
position in the country, and has retained it since.
Until Lobengula, the mighty native chief of the regions west of the
Transvaal, was subdued and his country taken from him, the British
empire builders were limited in their field of endeavour, because the
Transvaal was the only pass through which an entry could be made into
the vast Central African region. When Lobengula's power yielded to
British arms, the Transvaal became useless as the key to Central Africa,
but, by means of its great mineral wealth, became of so much greater and
more practical importance that it really was the entire South Africa.
The Witwatersrandt,[#] the narrow strip of gold-bearing soil which
extends for almost one hundred miles east and west through the
Transvaal, is the lever which moves the entire country. In the twelve
years since its discovery it has been transformed from a grass-covered
plain into a territory that is filled with cities, towns, and villages.
Where the Boer farmer was accustomed to graze his cattle are hundreds of
shafts that lead to the golden caverns below, and the trail of the
ox-team is now the track of the locomotive and the electric cars.
[#] Witwatersrandt is the name given to the high ridge in the southern
part of the Transvaal, which is the watershed between the Atlantic and
Indian Oceans. The word means "whitewater ridge," and is commonly
abridged to "The Randt."
The farmer's cottage has developed into the city of Johannesburg, the
home of more than one hundred thousand persons and the metropolis of a
continent. All the roads in South Africa lead to Johannesburg, and over
them travels every one who enters the country either for pleasure or
business. The Transvaal is the only great producer of money, as well as
the only great consumer, and consequently all other communities in the
country are dependent upon it for whatever money it chooses to yield to
them. The natural conditions are such, however, that, while the
Transvaal has almost all the money in South Africa, it is compelled to
support Cape Colony, Natal, and the Orange Free State like so many poor
relations.
The Transvaal, being an inland state, is the feeding ground of those
states which are located between it and the sea. Every ton of foreign
freight that enters the Transvaal through Cape Colony is subject to high
customs duties and abnormal freight rates. The railway and the customs
house being under the same jurisdiction, it will readily be seen to what
extent Cape Colony derives its revenues from the Transvaal commerce.
The Orange Free State again taxes the freight before allowing it to pass
through its territory. The third tax, which makes the total far greater
than the original cost of the freight, is added by the Transvaal
Government. Certain classes of freight shipped from Europe are taxed by
the steamship line, the Cape Colony Railroad, the Transvaal Railroad,
and with Cape Colony, Orange Free State, and Transvaal customs duties.
This vast expenditure is borne by the consumers in the Transvaal, who
are compelled to pay from three to five times as much for rent and food
as is paid in England or America. Cape Colony, in particular, has been
fattening upon the Transvaal. The Government railroads in one year
showed a profit of more than eight per cent. upon the capital invested,
after accounting for the great losses incurred with unprofitable branch
lines, showing that the main line to the Transvaal must have produced a
profit of from fifteen to twenty per cent. The customs duties collected
by Cape Colony on almost all freight in transit is five per cent. of its
value. The inhabitants of the Transvaal are obliged to pay these large
amounts, and are so much poorer while the Cape Colony Government preys
upon them. The Transvaal Government receives none of this revenue
except that from its customs, which is insufficient for its expenses.
After having grown wealthy in this manner, the colony of Natal has
recently become conscience-smitten, and allows freight to pass in
transit without taxing it with customs duties. The Government owns the
railroad, and is content with the revenue it secures from the Transvaal
freight without twice preying upon the republic.
Not only have the colonial governments profited by the existence of the
gold mines in the Transvaal, but the cities, towns, and individuals of
Cape Colony, Natal, and the Orange Free State have also had a period of
unparalleled prosperity. Although the natural resources of the
Transvaal are very great, they have not been developed, and the other
colonies which have been developed along those lines are supplying the
deficit. Almost every ounce of food consumed in the Transvaal arrives
from over the border. Natal and Cape Colony supply the corn, wheat,
cattle, and sugar, and, having a monopoly of the supply close at hand,
can command any price for their commodities.
Industries have grown up in Natal and Cape Colony that are entirely
dependent upon the Transvaal for their existence, and their
establishment has been responsible for much of the recent growth of the
population of the colonies. The large sugar factories and fruit farms
in Natal have the only market for their products in the Transvaal, and
the large farms and vineyards in Cape Colony supply the same demand.
The ports of Durban, Port Elizabeth, and East London, as well as Cape
Town, are important only as forwarding stations for goods going or
coming from the Transvaal, and but for that Godsend they would still be
the listless cities that they were before the discovery of gold on the
Randt. Owing to the lack of raw material, the cities have no large
factories and industries such as are found even in small American towns,
and consequently the inhabitants are obliged to depend upon the traffic
with the interior. Notwithstanding this condition of affairs, which
causes Natal and Cape Colony to be commercial weaklings, swayed by the
Transvaal tide, the colonists are continually harassing the Government
of the republic by laws and suggestions. The republic's mote is always
bigger than the colonies' own, and the strife is never-ending.
The Transvaal is a country of such enormous value that it has attracted,
and will continue to attract, investors from all parts of the earth.
The gold production, in the opinion of the first experts on the Randt,
will rapidly reach one hundred and twenty-five million dollars a year.
It already yields one hundred million a year, or more than a third of
the world's production, of which the United States is credited with less
than seventy-five million. The very fact of that production, and the
world being enriched to that extent, will provide the money for further
enterprises. So long as the gold supply continues to appear
inexhaustible, and mines continue to pay dividends ranging from one to
one hundred and fifty per cent., so long will the Transvaal remain
supreme in the commerce and finance of South Africa.