THE TRANSVAAL. 7 
however, gone slowly, and have been delayed once 
or twice. We stayed a few days at Ladysmith and 
Newcastle, two towns, as they are called here (we 
should call them small villages) ; we then got into 
the Transvaal Republic, and had a very bad tract of 
country to cross, the high veldt. This country is 
very high, about 5000 feet above the sea, and as it 
was dead of winter when we crossed it the cold at 
PRETORIA, TRANSVAAL. 
night was rather severe. One of the coldest nights 
I think we had, was that of the 8th of June, when 
the thermometer showed 8 degrees of frost Fahren- 
heit. This may not seem very much, but the days 
being hot you feel the cold a good deal, and are glad 
of a good lot of blankets. In this respect I had 
taken care that we should be all right. The morning 
after the night I speak of my hand was numb with 
the cold, and I dropped and smashed my only ther- 
mometer.^ My aneroid barometer, which tells me 
' This instrument was afterwards kindly replaced by Mr. Lys of 
Pretoria. 
