A few of the better class of farmers, in the difficulty which at present exists, maintain a schoolmaster in their houses for a year or two, paying a small salary and entertaining the teachers at their tables. I have met more than one such a schoolmaster in a Boer’s house. In the course of my travels I found an Englishman in the family of a Dutchman who could not speak a word of English,--and was astonished to find so much instructed intelligence in such a position. Formerly there existed a class of itinerant schoolmasters in the Transvaal, who went from house to house carrying with them some rudiments of education, and returning now and again on their tract to see how the seed had prospered. These were supported by the Government of the day, but the late Government in its ambitious desire to effect great things, discontinued this allowance. It is not improbable that the renewal of some such scheme may be suggested. It will be imperative on the Colonial Government to do something as the law now existing has certainly failed altogether. But there are great difficulties. It is not so much that education has to be provided for the children of a people numbering 45,000;--but that it has to be done for children dispersed over an area as big as Great Britain and Ireland. The families live so far apart, owing to the absurdly large size of the farms, that it is impossible to congregate them in schools. When I was at Pretoria I rode out with four companions to see a wonderful spot called the “Zoutpan” or saltpan. It is 28 miles from the town and the journey required that we should take out a tent and food, and that we should sleep in the veld. I was mounted on an excellent horse who was always trying to run away with me. This tired me much, and the ground was very hard. While turning myself about upon the ground I could not but think how comfortable the beds are in London. The saltpan, however, was worth the visit. That it had been a volcanic crater there could be no doubt, but unlike all other volcanic craters that I have seen it was not an aperture on the apex of a mountain. We went north from Pretoria and crossing through the spurs of the Magaliesberg range of hills found ourselves upon a plain which after a while became studded with scrub or thorn bushes. Close to the saltpan, and still on the plain, we came to the residence of a Boer who gave us water,--the dirtiest that ever was given me to drink,--with a stable for our horses and sold us mealies for our animals. As one of our party was a doctor and as the Boer’s wife was ill, his hospitality was not ill repaid. A gentle rise of about 200 feet from the house took us to the edge of the pan, which then lay about 300 feet below us,--so as to look as though the earthwork around the valley had been merely thrown out of it as earth might be thrown from any other hole. And this no doubt had been done,--by the operation of nature.