136 A NATURALIST IN THE TRANSVAAL. 



Exchange at home, and an often regretted part in the 

 income-earning capital of private families. On this 

 bare South- African tableland fortunes have been made 

 by those who had nothing, and others have lost what 

 they had previously acquired elsewhere. Commercial 

 and mining companies were once of daily formation, as 

 though the whole country was one vast gold-reef, and 

 the Transvaal was to redress the financial balance of 

 Europe. The Jews have long possessed a genius for 

 dealing with precious stones and for being the best 

 financiers in the world. Diamonds brought them to 

 Kimberley, the discovery of gold-bearing reefs proved 

 at once a magnetic attraction to the Transvaal ; they 

 largely created Johannesburg and its stock exchange- 

 now so silent, and their element has proved a consider- 

 ably constructive one in the formation of a commercial 

 community, many branches of which are now almost 

 entirely their own. With the untiring energy and 

 industry of the race, they have explored the whole country 

 in search of subjects for financial speculations, and their 

 knowledge of the Transvaal I estimate as far higher than 

 that of the Boers, who may, and doubtless do, excel 

 them in the possession of geographical details, but do not 

 approach their profound appreciation of the present and 

 future commercial capacity of the state. The Jew, 

 again, has a racial, but no particular political, nationality, 

 and thus can prosper with less suspicion and friction 

 amongst the burghers, who are naturally proud of the 

 development they see going on around them, yet know 

 it is not their work, and feel mistrust as to their future 

 independence in a purely Boer condition. And yet in 

 other respects the two races have little in common. No 

 one can deny that the Boer in his religion is a narrow 

 bigot, and not only in his heart dislikes unbelievers, but 

 would probably deny the right of a Jew or any pro- 

 nounced heretic to hold an administrative part in the 

 Republic. On the other hand the Boer is a natural 

 sportsman, a pleasure which the Jew little appreciates, 

 who is at home in shop or counting-house, for which 

 the Boer has neither aptitude nor predilection. The 



