ept; and finally the
Exchange and the street enclosed by iron chains, where the stock markets
were principally carried on. We were also shown the interior of the
Stock Exchange itself, though we were warned that it was scarcely worth
a visit at that time of depression. We heard the "call of the shares,"
which operation only took twenty minutes, against nearly two hours
during the time of the recent boom. Instead of the listless,
bored-looking individuals below us, who only assumed a little excitement
when the revolving, clock-like machine denoted any popular share, we
were told that a few months ago every available space had been crowded
by excited buyers and sellers--some without hats, others in their
shirt-sleeves, almost knocking one another over in their desire to do
business. Those must indeed have been palmy days, when the money so
lightly made was correspondingly lightly spent; when champagne replaced
the usual whisky-split at the Rand Club, and on all sides was to be
heard the old and well-known formula, "Here's luck," as the successful
speculator toasted an old friend or a newcomer.

However, to return to Johannesburg as we found it, after the 1895 boom.
Even then it seemed to me that for the first time in South Africa I saw
life. Cape Town, with its pathetic dullness and palpable efforts to keep
up a show of business; Kimberley, with its deadly respectability--both
paled in interest beside their younger sister, so light-hearted,
reckless, and enterprising. Before long, in spite of gloomy reflections
on the evils of gold-seeking, I fell under the fascination of what was
then a wonderful town, especially wonderful from its youth. The
ever-moving crowds which thronged the streets, every man of which
appeared to be full of important business and in a desperate hurry,
reminded one of the City in London. Smart carriages with well-dressed
ladies drove rapidly past, the shops were cunningly arranged with
tempting wares, and all this bustle and traffic was restored in little
over a week. A fortnight previously a revolution was impending and a
siege was looming ahead. Business had been at a complete standstill,
the shops and houses barred and barricaded, and many of the inhabitants
were taking a hurried departure; while bitterness, discord, and racial
feeling were rampant. Now, after a few days, that cosmopolitan and
rapidly changing population appeared to have buried their differences,
and the uninitiated would never h