Page:South Africa (1878 Volume 2).djvu/274

 European town, still it carries its metropolitan honours with a good air, and shocks no one by meanness, dirt, or poverty. It certainly is not very grand, but it is grand enough. If there be no luxury, everything is decent. The members of the Volksraad are not carried about in gorgeous equipages, but when they have walked slowly to their Chamber they behave themselves there with decorum. There is nothing pretentious in Bloemfontein,—nothing to raise a laugh at the idea that a town with so small a population should call itself a capital.

It is a town, white and red, built with plastered walls or of brick,—with a large oblong square in the centre; with four main streets running parallel to each other and with perhaps double that number of cross streets. The houses are generally but one storey high, though this is not so invariably the case as at Kimberley. I do not remember, however, that I was ever required to go up-stairs,—except at the schools. The supply of water is I am assured never-failing, though in dry weather it has to be drawn from tanks. A long drought had prevailed when I reached the place, and the bed of the riverlet had been dry for many days; but the supply of water seemed to be sufficient. Fuel is very scarce and consequently dear. This is of the less importance as but little is wanted except for the purpose of cooking.

At one extreme end of the town are the public buildings in which the Volksraad is held and the judges sit. Here also are the offices of the President and the Secretary. Indeed all public business is here carried on. The edifice has but the ground floor with a clock tower rising from the centre. It