148 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS — -SECTION "x- . 



distances, travelling by the slow-moving ox-waggon was a tedious 

 and dangerous business, limited by pasturage and water. 



Even a mild drought, affecting the pasturage along the 

 road, was sufficient to discourage travelling, except as a necessity, 

 to hamper the transport of merchandise into the Territories, 

 or the export of wool, skins, and other products, and consequently 

 there was little coming and going, and a sluggish, heavily-moving 

 trade of small relative dimensions. Indeed, the whole of the 

 commerce of the Transkei has been very seriously handicapped 

 in the past by the difficulties of communication. Where the 

 transport is dependent upon oxen, anything in the nature of 

 cattle disease on a large scale, or roads ill-constructed and out of 

 repair, or even, as we have seen, a mild drought, increased the 

 difficulties, and caused a rise in prices, limiting substantially the 

 flow both of exports and imports. When more than one of 

 these factors operate at the same time the position may become 

 extremely critical, as it did, for instance, in 1912. The East 

 Coast fever had wrought havoc among the herds, and so the 

 milk supply had been affected, also the ploughing. This limited 

 the mealie harvest, and soon all the mealies stored in their 

 pits were used, and the people were compelled to buy at the 

 traders' stores. The traders, however, were not prepared for 

 such a great demand. " The drought continued, and the pasturage 

 dried up; team after team of oxen was withdrawn by poverty 

 or death ; such transport as remained was vexed and impeded 

 by ' breaks ' on the line, exigencies of dipping, the general 

 cumber of East Coast fever regulations. Carriage rose to 

 figures ordinarily termed prohibitive, as much as 7s. 6d. per 

 100 lbs. being charged for a journey of 30 miles ; in places 

 money could not secure it. As the ploughing season passed 

 without a sign of rain, something like a panic seized upon the 

 Natives. Traders' stores were thronged with would-be pur- 

 chasers of grain ; mealies sold at as much as 55s. a bag. Where 

 money was wanting, or money could not buy, people were 

 redviced to subsistence on roots ; elsewhere they abandoned their 

 homes for better supplied localities." 



This graphic description, which occurs in the annual report 

 of the Chief Alagistrate for 1912, exactly illustrates the point. 

 Indeed, it was this climax, in all probability, which determined 

 the Government to remedy matters forthwith by pushing the 

 railway on into the heart of the Territories. 



(c) Horse Vehicles. — Prior to the advent oi the railway 

 all the comings and goings from the centre and the west included 

 of necessity the formidable and even dangerous post-cart (drawn 

 by mules usually) journey of some 200 miles to the railway 

 at Kei Road. Usually, in the darkness of the night, the driver 

 trusted to his horses (or mules) to avoid any obstacles and 

 " stick to the road,'' but it was quite the ordinary thing for 

 the driver to feel, by prodding witli the butt of the whip, how 

 far or how near he was to the edge of the cutting which he 



