large quadrangle, surrounding a plot of grass shaded by noble
trees. The situation of the farm is very striking. It stands in a deep
valley, green, fertile, and well watered, but completely hemmed in by
mountains of volcanic formation some 4,000 feet in height, beautiful
in form, but entirely devoid of vegetation. Want of rain and the
phylloxera are constant anxieties at the Cape. We observed that the
field labourers were invariably men of colour. Their earnings do not
exceed one shilling per day.

Cape politics have been a fertile source of trouble and anxiety to the
British Government at home. With the necessarily imperfect knowledge
of local circumstances, it is impossible, from London, to deal in a
satisfactory manner with the relations between the Government of a
distant colony and neighbours so little known as the Boers, and
savages so rude as the Kaffirs and Zulus. Our errors of the past will
not be repeated, if only we resolve firmly not to fetter the
discretion of the local Governments, which, in pursuance of a wise
policy, we have called into existence.

[Illustration: St. Helena]

The visit of President Kruger, of the Transvaal, to President Brand,
of the Free State, was a prominent topic at the time of our visit. It
had led to the delivery of a speech by Mr. Kruger, in which he had
declared the determination of the Boers to preserve their complete
independence. In the Cape Colony people are more interested in the
establishment of railway communication with the new gold-fields
within the borders of the Transvaal than in the question of political
union. As yet a certain reluctance is manifested by the Boers to
establish railway communication with the Cape. An English company has
made a railway from Delagoa Bay to the Transvaal frontier, and the
line will shortly be extended to Pretoria. In the meanwhile the people
of the Cape Colony are desirous of extending their system of railways,
already 1,483 miles in length, into the interior. Considerable
discoveries of gold have recently been made within the limits of the
Transvaal, but close to the border, and all the workers at the mines
are Englishmen from the Cape Colony. There is no reason to doubt that
permission to establish railway communication with this newly
discovered gold-mining district will be ultimately granted.

Among the Boers of the Transvaal a large number are friendly to the
English. Once connected with the Cape by railway, and by a Customs
un