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. CHAPTER II THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BOER RACE The early history of the Boers is contemporaneous with that of the progress of white man’s civilization at the Cape of Good Hope. The two are interwoven to such an extent and for so long a time that it is well-nigh impossible to separate them. In order to give an unwearisome history of the modern Boer’s ancestors, a general outline of the settlement of the Cape will suffice.