Page:South Africa (1878 Volume 2).djvu/15



CHAPTER I.

THE TRANSVAAL.—NEWCASTLE TO PRETORIA.

THE distance from Newcastle to Pretoria is 207 miles. About 20 miles north from Newcastle we crossed the borders of what used to be the Transvaal Republic, but which since the 12th August last,—1877,—forms a separate British Colony under the dominion of Her Majesty. The geographical configuration here is remarkable as at the point of contact between Natal and the Transvaal the boundary of the Orange Free State is not above two or three miles distant, and that of Zulu Land, which is at present but ill defined, not very far off;—so that in the event of the Transvaal being joined to Natal the combined Colonies would hang together by a very narrow neck of land.

Of all our dominions the Transvaal is probably the most remote. Its Capital is 400 miles from the sea, and that distance is not annihilated or even relieved by any railway. When I left home my main object perhaps was to visit this remote district, of which I had never heard much and in which I had been interested not at all, till six months before I started on my journey. Then the country had been a