io MATABELE LAND. 



and have a few cattle and sheep. The Boers are 

 rather good sort of people, and though trying to get 

 every penny they can in a bargain, honest, I should 

 say, on the whole, and hospitable. I cannot speak 

 any Dutch yet, so communication is limited, having 

 to be carried on through an interpreter. 



" Here in Pretoria are a great many English. 

 The English keep stores ; the Dutch Boers stick 

 to farming. The latter come in with their waggons 

 of grain, wood, and other produce, which is sold by 

 auction at 8 a.m. in the market-place. 'Mealies' 

 (unground Indian corn) tetch fifteen shillings a 

 muid, which is about 200 lbs. This the Englishmen 

 buy, get ground for two-and-sixpence a muid, and 

 ask twenty-two and sixpence, or even twenty-five 

 shillings for, and make a good thing out of the 

 numbers of people passing through here to the 

 Marabastad and Lydenburg Gold-fields. The 

 latter fields were newly discovered and much talked 

 about when we were at Durban and Pietermaritz- 

 burg, but do not seem as good as the Marabastad. 

 No one thinks much of the Tati or Baines's Gold- 

 fields in Mosilikatze's Country. 



" I fear the English who are here are a bad lot, 

 with few exceptions. One man who cheated me I 

 asked if he had a conscience. He replied that no 

 one here had them. 



" Though here and there you see a garden with 

 a few trees in it, and, as I mentioned, orange-trees 

 and rose-bushes, do not imagine a scene of the least 

 beauty. The town itself, the seat of the govern- 



