120 A NATURALIST IN THE TRANSVAAL. 



town, thus bringing the line to the Transvaal frontier 

 and under the shadow of Majuba Hill. Thus far it has 

 come from the sea at Durban ; its continuance depends 

 upon the sanction of the Boer Government. The pro- 

 gress of this line has been slow but continuous. The 

 first instalment was made in 1860, with a short section 

 connecting the point with Durban. It was not till 

 1873 that a further move was made, when powers were 

 obtained for pushing on the line to the Drakensberg. 

 Pine town was reached in 1878, and the capital (Maritz- 

 burg) two years later ; Ho wick, 1884 ; Lady smith, 1886 ; 

 Elands Laagte, 1888; Biggarsberg, 1889; Newcastle, 

 1890 ; and now Charlestown and the frontier, 1891. 

 The great engineering feat of this last extension is the 

 tunnel through Laings Nek, which was bored through a 

 hill 3200 feet wide (the actual tunnel is 2213 ft. 6 in. 

 long), consisting of the hardest indurated shale, with the 

 addition of three dykes of whinstone. It was completed 

 in October of this year 1891, after having occupied an 

 average of 430 coloured and 60 white men upwards 

 of two years in its construction. About 85,000 tons of 

 slate and whinstone have been excavated, and upwards 

 of 8000 tons of masonry have been required for the 

 purposes of lining ; there have also been used over 

 40,000 Ibs. of dynamite, 4000 Ibs. of powder, 70,000 

 yards of fuse, and 50,000 detonators in the necessary 

 blasting-operations. Thus Laings Nek may now be 

 associated with a monument of our colonial enterprise, 

 and its painful military memories be forgotten. Already, 

 when I passed down, the neighbourhood of Charlestown 

 was being covered with the iron-roofed huts of the 

 advance guard of commerce, and soon many of the spots 

 celebrated only for a useless carnage will be almost 

 obliterated by the dwellings of a trading community. 



The train left Newcastle at 7.15 P.M., and thus the 

 night was passed in traversing a region which I had 

 seen by day on my journey out. Political divisions do not 

 alter the physical aspects of a region, and after passing 

 the grand mountainous scenery between Charlestown 

 and Newcastle, the country once more resumes the flat 



