In reference to the fatigue, tedium, and expense of the coach journey,--a seat to Bloemfontein from the Fort Elizabeth railway costs £18, and half a crown a pound extra is charged for all luggage beyond a small bag,--it may be as well to say that in the treaty by which £90,000 have been given by Great Britain to the Free State to cover any damage she may have received as to the Diamond Fields, it is agreed that an extra sum of £15,000 shall be paid to the Free State if she shall have commenced a railway with the view of meeting the Colonial railway within a certain period. As no Dutchman will throw over a pecuniary advantage if it can be honestly obtained, a great effort will no doubt be made to secure this sum. It may be difficult to decide, when the time comes, what constitutes the commencement of a railway. It appears impossible that any portion of a line shall be opened in the Free State till the entire line shall have been completed from the sea to the borders of the State, as every thing necessary for the construction of a line, including wooden sleepers, must be conveyed overland. As the bulk so to be conveyed will necessarily be enormous it can only be carried up by the rail as the rail itself progresses. And there must be difficulty even in surveying the proposed line till it be known actually at what point the colonial line will pass the Orange River or which of the colonial lines will first reach it. Nevertheless I feel assured that the Dutchman will get his £15,000. When an Englishman has once talked of paying and a Dutchman has been encouraged to think of receiving! the money will probably pass hands. A railway completed to Bloemfontein would double the value of all property there and would very soon double the population of the town. Everything there used from a deal plank or a bar of iron down to a pair of socks or a pound of sugar, has now to be dragged four hundred miles by oxen at an average rate of £15 a ton. It is not only the sick and weakly who are prevented from seeking the succour of its climate by the hardness of the journey, but everything which the sick and weakly can require is doubled in price. If I might venture to give a little advice to the Volksraad I would counsel them to open the purse strings of the nation, even though the purse should be filled with borrowed money, so that there should be no delay on their part in joining themselves to the rest of the world. They should make their claim to the £15,000 clear and undoubted. At present there is no telegraph to Bloemfontein, though the line of wires belonging to the Cape Colony passes through a portion of the State on its way to Kimberley,--so that there is a telegraph station at Fauresmith, a town belonging to the Republic. An extension to the capital is much wanted in order to bring it within the pale of modern civilization.