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with its colony of 800 lepers. After Cape Town, the steamer, 
and away around Cape Agulhas, the old Cape of Storms, up the 
coast past Port Elizabeth and East London to Durban. Here a 
detachment from the splendid corps of Durban Cadets acted as 
a guard of honour, and every facility was given in the way of 
free railway and tram tickets and many other privileges. 
Then on by train to Pietermaritzburg, a pretty little town 
among what might be called the foot-hills of the Drakensberg, 
and hence to the sad but very interesting battle-fields of 
Colenso and Ladysmith. It was a strange and fascinating 
experience, to stand on the place where Long’s guns were lost. 
It was seen at once how naturally an enterprising artillery 
officer would be led to seize such a position ; and then, crossing 
over to where the no less plucky burghers lay hid in the con- 
cealed donga, it was realised how deceptive were the levels and 
other appearances of the country around, and how completely 
a position, which looked from the south so strong, looked from 
the north so hopeless. From Colenso, past Pieter’s Hill, and 
Hart’s Folly, with Spion Kop in the distance, all those 20 miles 
or so to Ladysmith were dotted with little piles of stones and 
white cresses. Hardly a word is spoken. Few indeed were 
on that train for whom this sad bit of country was not a 
hallowed place in memory of relatives or friends who lay resting 
there. Leaving Ladysmith, the party went over the great 
shoulder of Majuba, through the frontier town of Volksrust to 
Pretoria. Coming out of this beautiful little valley, the great 
Witwatersrand goldfield was approached, stretching like a half 
moon or beat bow for 40 miles of outcrop, with Johannesburg 
on the inner side of the bow. A couple of days was spent 
among the gold mines, visiting the large Chinese compound of 
the Simmer and Jack mine, where nearly 4,000 Chinese are 
comfortably housed and well cared-for. But they are dis- 
contented and troublesome, in complete contrast te the con- 
tented, orderly, and hard-working Chinese of, for instance, 
British Columbia. The experiment, as Mr. Balfour called it, 
is still in the experimental stage, and we cannot yet be 
sure either of its success or failure. Thence in very comfortable 
railway carriages, still on free passes, via Vereeniging to 
Bloemfontein, one of the pleasantest little cities in South 
Africa. From this interesting place the party had to take a 
cross-country trek via Abraham’s Kraal, and Poplar Grove, to 
Cronje’s Laager and Paardeberg, and so forward to Kimberley. 
Cronje’s Laager was the only battle-field seen which is still 
strewn thickly with the relics of the fight,—the burnt wagons, 
whitening bones of oxen and horses, spent bullets, empty 
cartridge shells lie thick around; and they cooked their evening 
meal on a fire made with the charred remains of one of Cronje’s 
