My stay at Klerksdorp much impressed me with the idea of the future of this town of yesterday's growth. It is only fifteen months ago, (a little more than a year) that the whole of the town on the side of the stream where the Union Hotel is situated, was begun. The inhabitants already number some thousands; and the indications I have seen in the mines, of great prospects of gold being found in large and payable quantities, are very strong. Klerksdorp may yet become a second Johannesburg, whose remarkable and rapid development I was told, would astonish me. [Illustration: Decorative] POTCHEFSTROOM. After leaving Klerksdorp, we travelled the next day in our wagon thirty-two miles, halting for the night at Potchefstroom, which is not only one of the oldest, but one of the most important of the Transvaal districts. Recently the presence of gold-bearing reefs has been demonstrated in many parts of the division. On our way we passed, during the afternoon, a spot on the road where a flock of not less than fifty of those unclean birds, vultures, were hovering over and around the carcase of a recently dead bullock. These birds are the scavengers of this part of the world; they feed greedily on carrion, and rapidly pull a dead animal completely to pieces, leaving only the bones, which afterwards lie bleaching on the Veldt, to mark the spot where it has fallen in death--whether it be either horse, or mule, or bullock--left to die, worn out with fatigue by its unfeeling owners. Before leaving Potchefstroom, the next morning, I paid a hasty visit to the Fort and Cemetery, rendered so tragically historical in connection with the Transvaal war. It was here that my lamented friend, the late Chevalier Forssman, was shut up with his family for ninety days, and lost during the siege, two of his children, a son and a daughter. I was much struck with the picturesque appearance of Potchefstroom. It has a population of about 2,000. Another long two days' journeying of about sixty-four miles, through a prettier country than the wide wilderness of the boundless and treeless plain, we had hitherto passed through in the Western part of the Transvaal, brought us to Johannesburg. [Illustration: Decorative] [Illustration: Decorative] JOHANNESBURG. We had some little trouble in finding our way into the town, as for the last two hours the daylight failed, and we had to grope our way along at a snail's pace in total darkness. This, in a country of such rough roads and deep and dangerous gulleys and water-courses, was a most intricate and difficult proceeding. Eventually, however, we reached our destination about nine o'clock at night.