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.