I heard of no special industry at Bloemfontein. As far as I am aware nothing special is there manufactured. It is needful that a country should have a Capital, and therefore the Orange Free State has Bloemfontein. I was told that some original Boer named Bloem first settled there by the side of the stream in which water runs when there has been rain, and that hence has come the name. But the little town has thriven with a success peculiarly its own. Though it would seem to have no raison d’etre just there where it stands,--though it has been encouraged and fostered by no peculiar fertility, adorned with no scenic beauty, enriched by no special gifts of water or of metals, even though the population has not grown beyond that of the suburb of some European town, still it carries its metropolitan honours with a good air, and shocks no one by meanness, dirt, or poverty. It certainly is not very grand, but it is grand enough. If there be no luxury, everything is decent. The members of the Volksraad are not carried about in gorgeous equipages, but when they have walked slowly to their Chamber they behave themselves there with decorum. There is nothing pretentious in Bloemfontein,--nothing to raise a laugh at the idea that a town with so small a population should call itself a capital. It is a town, white and red, built with plastered walls or of brick,--with a large oblong square in the centre; with four main streets running parallel to each other and with perhaps double that number of cross streets. The houses are generally but one storey high, though this is not so invariably the case as at Kimberley. I do not remember, however, that I was ever required to go up-stairs,--except at the schools. The supply of water is I am assured never-failing, though in dry weather it has to be drawn from tanks. A long drought had prevailed when I reached the place, and the bed of the riverlet had been dry for many days; but the supply of water seemed to be sufficient. Fuel is very scarce and consequently dear. This is of the less importance as but little is wanted except for the purpose of cooking.