2$ Persona/ Impressions of the Transvaal. 



shoulder to the wheel, ignorance, cruelty, and injustice vanish. 

 Great Britain alone has made a thorough success of colonising, 

 and we await with interest the advent of a new colonising 

 power across the Atlantic which may sometime equal, but 

 never eclipse us. Wherever Great Britain goes, unlike the 

 other nations of the world, she holds her possessions in trust for 

 mankind ; that is at once the keynote and the invisible strength 

 of her Empire. 



South Africa is politically divided into many spheres, but 

 the principal divisions are Cape Colony, Natal, Rhodesia, 

 Orange Free State, and the South African Repubhc or 

 Transvaal. Germany and Portugal hold territories on the 

 borders of these, but one possession in the hands of the latter 

 power I hope will now become British, 1 refer to Delagoa Bay. 

 Cape Colony is the oldest and most important of the places 

 just named. Its length is about 440 miles, its breadth 600, and 

 its area 199,950 square miles (more than twice that of Great 

 Britain), but including dependencies it has an area of 355,171 

 square miles. To this vast area must be added that of 

 Bechuanaland, Chartered Company, Mashonaland, and .Viata- 

 belek'nd, which is 963,000 square miles, and Natal and Zululand, 

 or a grand total of i ,352,82 1 square miles owned by Great Britain 

 in South Africa. The population of Cape Colony and depen- 

 dencies is 410,000 whites and 1,500,000 blacks. 



Natal and Zululand have an area of 34,650 square miles and 

 a population of 50,000 whites and 700,000 blacks. 



The area of the South African Republic is 113,700 square 

 miles, and the population 204,000 whites and 645,000 blacks. 



The Orange Free State has an area of 43,000 square miles 

 and a population of 95,000 whites and 130,000 blacks. 



From Capetown to the Zambezi is about 1,200 mile^, and from 

 the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean is ab ut 1,300, and when we 

 assimilate the Orange Free State and the South African 

 Republic our empire in South Africa will be a gigantic one in 

 point of area, but this vast country is peopled by but 720,000 

 whites and 4,000,000 blacKs, the two added together not much 



