Page:South Africa (1878 Volume 2).djvu/134

 hardly more than a boy judge. He had been brought from the Cape Bar to act as Judge in the Transvaal before the annexation,—when the payment even of a judge's salary must have been a matter of much doubt. But the annexation came speedily and the position of the new comer was made sure by British authority. He at any rate must approve the great step taken by Sir Theophilus Shepstone. I was assured when at Pretoria that the Colony generally had every reason to be satisfied with the choice made by the Republic. He will no doubt have assistant Judges and become a Chief Justice before long and may probably live to be the oldest legal pundit under the British Crown. I went into the Court to look at him while at work, but was not much edified as the case then before him was carried on in Dutch. Dutch and English have to be used in the Court as one or the other language may be needed. An interpreter is present, but as all the parties concerned in the case, including the Judge and the jury, were conversant with Dutch, no interpreter was wanted when I was there.

From Potchefstroom to Klerksdorp our horses, including the new purchase, did their work well. Here we found a clean little Inn kept by an Englishman with a very nice English wife,—who regaled us with lamb and mint-sauce and boiled potatoes, and provided clean sheets for our couches. Why such a man, and especially why such a woman, should be at such a place it is difficult to understand. For Klerksdorp is a town consisting perhaps of a dozen houses. The mail cart passes but once a week, and the other traffic on the road is chiefly that of ox-waggons.