At Heidelberg we were nearly on the highest table ground of the Transvaal. From thence there is a descent to Pretoria,--not great indeed for Pretoria is 4,450 feet above the sea,--but sufficient to produce an entire change of climate. On the High Veld, as it is called, the characteristics of the country are all those belonging to the temperate zone,--such, indeed, as are the characteristics of our own country at home. Wheat will grow if planted in the late autumn and will ripen in the summer. But as the hill is turned, down to Pretoria, tropical influences begin to prevail. Apples are said to thrive well, but so also do oranges. And wheat will not live through the droughts of the winter without irrigation. Irrigation for wheat must be costly, and consequently but little wheat is grown. Wheat sown in the spring is, I am told, subject to rust. Mealies, or Indian corn, will thrive here, and almost all kinds of fruit. The gardens produce all kinds of vegetables, when irrigation is used. We descended into Pretoria through a “poort” or opening between the hills and the little town with its many trees smiled upon us in the sun. It lies in a valley on a high plateau, just as Grahamstown does, and is surrounded by low hills. As we were driven into the town I congratulated myself on having come to the end of my journey. To reach Pretoria had been my purpose, and now I was at Pretoria. My further troubles would be confined to my journey home which I intended to commence after a week’s delay at the capital of our new Colony. Hitherto my work had been not very uncomfortable and certainly not unprosperous. CHAPTER II. THE TRANSVAAL.--ITS HISTORY. The Transvaal as its name plainly indicates is the district lying north or beyond the Vaal river. The Orange river as it runs down to the sea from the Diamond Fields through the inhospitable and little known regions of Bushmansland and Namaqualand used to be called the Gariep and is made up of two large rivers which, above their junction, were known as the Gariep Kye and the Knu Gariep,--the tawny and the orange coloured. The former which is the larger of the two is now known as the Vaal, and the latter as the Orange. The Vaal rises in the Drakenberg mountains and is the northern border of the Orange Free State or Republic. The country therefore beyond that river received its present name very naturally.