Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/259

 TR.NSVAAL. 201 quit-rents, stamps, and trade licences, which generally suflfice to cover the expen- diture. There are no customs dues, and those levietl on imports at the seaports of Cape Colony are not refunded to the consignees in the Free State. A large portion of the revenue is applied to public instruction, and State aid is alsr) granted to the Calvinist Church. Till recently there was no public debt, and even now the national burden amounts to less thun £130,000, including an item of over £G0,000 due to the nationiil bank, but covered by State shares. In the Appendix will be found a table of the eighteen administrative districts, with their white and native populations. II. — Tkansvaai. or SoiTH African Rkpuhi.ic. This state is officially designated the South African Republic, presumably in anticipation of a future confederation of the other republican states in the southern part of the continent. In superficial extent it is nearly three times larger than the Orange Free State, but having been colonised at a later period it possessed till quite recently a far smaller number of white settlers. The disparity, however, is rapidly disappearing since immigrants have begun to flock in crowds to the old and newly discovered gold-fields. Thanks also to the admirable climate of the plateau and to the fecundity of the women, the white population, formerly almost lost amid the surrounding aborigines, already constitutes a respectable minority. According to the highest estimates not more than ten thousand Boers crossed the Orange at the time of the great exodus ; yet their de.scendauts in the twin republics already far exceed a hundred thousand souls, notwithstanding the heavy losses caused by the protracted wars with the natives and English. As regards the number of the natives themselves, no accurate returns have yet been made, except in the southern districts of Transvaal, near the capital. But in the northern provinces the aboriginal element is known to be relatively dense and steadily increasing. The whole population of the State is probably at present scarcely less than half a million, although in 1887 Jeppe estimated the number of natives at not more than three hundred thousand. Including the recently annexed territory known as the " New Republic," a fragment of the old kingdom of Zululand, Transvaal had in 1888 a total suporficial area of about 110,000 square miles, with a population variously estimated at from three hundred and sixty thousand to four hundred and eighty thousand. BOUNDAKIKS AM) NATURAL DlVISlOX.S. Along more than half of its periphery the South African Republic enjoys the tulvantnge of natural geographical frontiers. Towards the south she is separated from the Orange Free State by an affluent of the Vaal, and then by this river itself. On the north-west and north the boundary line follows the course of the Limpopo, separating it from Alatebeleland ; lastly, a part of the eastern frontier is clearly marked by the Tjobombo range, the seaward slope of which belongs to the Portuguese while the boundary towards the colony of Natal is traced by the