18 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



three miles from the town, commands it completely, and had the Boers 

 in their determined attempt on January 6, 1900, succeeded in cap- 

 turing the hill against the desperate defense made by the British, it 

 would have been necessary to retake it at all costs or to evacuate Lady- 

 smith. 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 Johan- 

 nesburg. 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. 



IV. 



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 oppor- 

 tunities for obtaining accurate information at first hand. The most 

 striking and noteworthy of these impressions was the absolute open- 

 ness 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 Eand. 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 



