Johannesburg. 261 



up periodical dances. Such a desirable consummation, out- 

 rageously improbable as it may now appear, will no doubt 

 come to pass in time. 



Leaving the Randt Club and feeling about five stone 

 better than when I entered it, I walked down the principal 

 street in the direction of the Central Hotel, where I had sent 

 on my luggage. The street was broad, macadamised, and 

 had good masonry houses on each side. Off this main 

 thoroughfare, there was only one or two metalled roads, with 

 straggling streets of ill-assorted houses ; some being preten- 

 tious ; others, paltry. Many of them were of corrugated 

 iron, which is the staple material of which South African 

 houses are constructed up country. The style of architecture 

 and the method in which the bricks and mortar had been put 

 together, denoted that the buildings had been erected in a 

 hurry and under difficulties to meet the requirements of 

 immediate occupation. Remembering that five years previ- 

 ously Johannesburg had been a mere miners' canvas camp, 

 and that at the time of my arrival it housed 60,000 people, 

 my wonder was not that it was lacking in many of the 

 beauties and comforts of old-established cities, but that it 

 was such a flourishing and go-a-head place as it was. The 

 old proverb of money making the mare go, is equally applic- 

 able to towns. As a site for a city, Johannesburg has no 

 advantages. It is situated on a desert, the dust of which, 

 when the wind blows, gets into the lungs of the unfortunate 

 inhabitants and afHicts them with various forms of chest 

 disease. There being no natural drainage, sanitation has to 

 be carried on by the ' pail system/ with the consequence of 

 a chronic stench. It is far away from everywhere else ; 

 but it has gold in vast quantities under its surface. I believe 

 it is now the third most productive gold field in the world. 

 This precious metal is an immense advantage in stimulating 

 the growth of a city ; but alone, and it is alone in this case, 

 it can never make of Johannesburg anything more than a 

 mining camp : a splendidly flourishing one, no doubt ; but 



