every week of getting east or west in
powerful ocean steamers, besides such chances as smaller vessels,
designed for freight rather than for passengers, supply. From Durban
there is one weekly boat as far as Delagoa Bay, a voyage of about
twenty-four hours. From Delagoa Bay northward to Beira and Mozambique
the traveller must rely either on the steamers of the German East Africa
Line, which run from Hamburg through the Red Sea all the way to Durban
making the entire voyage in about seven weeks, or on Messrs. Rennie's
line, which ply from Durban to Delagoa Bay, Beira and Chinde. The
drawback to these coast voyages is that the sea is apt to be rough
between Cape Town and Durban, less frequently so between Durban and
Beira, and that there is no sheltered Port between Cape Town and Delagoa
Bay. At Port Elizabeth and at East London the large steamers lie out in
the ocean, and passengers reach the land by a small tender, into which
they are let down in a sort of basket, if there is a sea running, and
are occasionally, if the sea be very high, obliged to wait for a day or
more until the tender can take them off. Similar conditions have
prevailed at Durban, where a bar has hitherto prevented the big liners,
except under very favourable conditions of tide and weather, from
entering the otherwise excellent port. Much, however, has recently been
done to remove the Durban bar, and it is expected that the largest
steamers will soon be able to cross it at high tide. At Delagoa Bay the
harbour is spacious and sheltered, though the approach requires care and
is not well buoyed and lighted. At Beira the haven is still better, and
can be entered at all states of the tide. There is now a brisk goods
trade, both along the coast between the ports I have mentioned, and from
Europe to each of them.

Secondly, as to the railways. The railway system is a simple one. A
great trunk-line runs north-eastward from Cape Town to a place called De
Aar Junction, in the eastern part of the Colony. Here it bifurcates. One
branch runs first east and then north-north-east through the Orange Free
State and the Transvaal to Pretoria; the other runs north by east to
Kimberley and Mafeking, and thence through Bechuanaland to
Bulawayo.[38] The distance from Cape Town to Pretoria is ten hundred and
forty miles, and the journey takes (by the fastest train) fifty-two
hours. From Cape Town to Mafeking it is eight hundred and seventy-five
miles, the journey taking a