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 the other line would go through a district less likely to be productive of traffic. It is alleged on the other hand that as Delagoa Bay belongs to the Portuguese, and as the Portuguese will probably be unwilling to part with the possession, the making of a railway into their territory would be inexpedient. I cannot see that there is anything in this argument. The Americans of the United States made a railway across the Isthmus of Panama with excellent financial results, and in Europe each railway enterprise has not been stopped by the bounds of the country which it has occupied. The Portuguese have offered to take some share in the construction, and by doing so would lessen the effort which the Colony will be obliged to make. It is also alleged that Lorenço Marques, the Portuguese town at Delagoa Bay, is very unhealthy. I believe that it is so. Tropical towns on the sea board are apt to be unhealthy, and Lorenço Marques though not within the tropics is tropical. But so is Aspenwall, the terminus of the Panama Railway, unhealthy, being peculiarly subject to the Chagres fever. But in the pursuit of wealth men will endure bad climate. That at Delagoa Bay is by no means so bad as to frighten passengers, though it will probably be injurious to the construction of the railway. To the ordinary traffic of a constructed railway it will hardly be injurious at all.

If the Natal Colony would join the Transvaal in the cost, making the railway up to its own boundary, then the Natal line would no doubt be the best The people of the Transvaal would compensate themselves for the bad harbour at Durban by the lessening of their own expenditure, and the