Vlii PREFACE. 



ruminant fauna that ever a land possessed. Further 

 inland the Kafir, armed with a gun, pursues the same 

 desultory warfare, and this portion of Southern Africa 

 has completely lost what was once its most distinctive 

 zoological feature. This animal extinction has also 

 reacted on the Boer himself: now no longer the mighty 

 hunter, he will soon cease to be the matchless marks- 

 man as of old ; and his life on the solitary farm is 

 thereby rendered more monotonous, for the gun was 

 once his constant companion. When railways intersect 

 the country the ox- wagon will gradually disappear, and 

 with it the last characteristic feature of the old " voor- 

 trekkers." 



The Transvaal is thus changed in its natural aspects 

 from a tract once supporting an immense number of 

 wild animals, and peopled by rugged farmers who lived 

 a semi-pastoral, semi-hunting existence, to a country 

 becoming progressively subject to European laws and 

 customs, in which the earlier rough struggle for ex- 

 istence is now transformed into a race for wealth. The 

 lawyer and the financier thrive where in recent years 

 the lion and leopard fought for food, and townships 

 have sprung up on spots where living Boers have 

 formerly shot big game. 



I thus saw the old order changing, and a state 

 basing its progress solely on the foundation of aurifer- 

 ous reefs, for the future of the Transvaal largely depends 

 upon the development of its mineral wealth. But the 

 real Boer population form no appreciable portion of the 

 inhabitants which reside in the large towns and depend 

 on commerce and mining ; the true Boer is still a 



