Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/22

18 three miles from the town, commands it completely, and had the Boers in their determined attempt on January 6, 1900, succeeded in capturing the hill against the desperate defense made by the British, it would have been necessary to retake it at all costs or to evacuate Ladysmith. Another hill of historic interest, Spion Kop, some eighteen miles distant, was visited by a small party who had gone on ahead for the purpose. The town itself bears few marks of the siege. The hole made by a shell in the clock tower of the town hall is still unrepaired, doubtless for the sake of tourists. I noticed the remains of a few of the 'dug-outs' in the steep crumbling banks of the river, and some of the corrugated iron plates which form the walls of a freight shed at the railway station had many bullet-holes in them; they had been evidently used for. cover and returned at the end of the siege.

The day at Ladysmith was followed by a night's journey to Johannesburg. The higher veld is reached along a series of heavy grades, frequently one in thirty. There is no attempt to make the line straight; tunnels, embankments and cuttings have been avoided as far as possible to save expense, and the line, especially over rolling plains, closely follows the natural level of the land. Over a thousand feet of height is gained near the border of the Transvaal by a series of zigzags up the side of a mountain; at each of these the line comes to a stop, and the train is reversed up the next portion, and then forward again after another stop. There is apparently no hill around which the line may curve easily in order to obtain the desired height.

Although Johannesburg has been so often described, I can not pass in silence over this focus of all the later development of the Transvaal and of most of its political difficulties during the last twenty years. Moreover, so many changes have taken place since the war ended and so much misconception still prevails about the conditions there that it is only right and perhaps not uninteresting to record the impressions of one who was anxious to learn the facts and who had various opportunities for obtaining accurate information at first hand. The most striking and noteworthy of these impressions was the absolute openness of everything connected with the mining industry. Not only have very full reports of the working of each mine to be sent in monthly to the government and to the Chamber of Mines, but every new process, every improvement in machinery, every new problem arising, every difficulty occurring in the management of the natives and Chinese, is known or can easily be found out by those living on the Rand. And this is true not only of the residents, but also of any visitors who may wish to learn the facts and will go to the proper sources for them. In our case, the chief desire seemed to be that we should get to know