The Loss of the Transvaal. 8i 



in mines, or for common tiI■e^vood, the plantation 

 of trees proposes to a landowner munificent re- 

 muneration. Such is the geniality of the climate, 

 such the fertility of the soil, that many kinds 

 of useful and valuable trees are estimated by 

 competent authority to make a growth of no 

 less than ten feet in tlie course of a year. 

 For the independence of the Transvaal Boers it 

 ^vas truly a most fortunate circumstance that the 

 discovery of the gold-helds succeeded rather than 

 preceded the restoration of Boer independence in 

 1881. Had Johannesburg, with its present popu- 

 lation, its present possessions, and its present 

 prospects, existed at the time of the Transvaal 

 AVar, it never Avould have been suft'ered to |)ass 

 away from the dominion of the British Govern- 

 ment. I adhere to the opinion I expressed in a 

 former letter that the restoration of Dutch inde- 

 pendence was necessary if not essential to the 

 peaceful government of the Cape Colony, but 

 viewinir the Transvaal as it is, and calculating 

 what it might be if its possessors and i-ulers were 

 English, one cannot but lament that so splendid a 

 territory should have ceased to be British. The 

 English traveller, according to his disposition, 

 must be sorrowful or indignant when he considers 

 the contrast which is afforded by the capacity of 

 the country and the incapacity of its present 

 rulers. The natural events of the future will 

 probably peacefully retrieve the losses occasioned 

 by the errors of the past. The gold-fields, when 

 connected by railways with the coast, will be 



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