It was a field for elaborate machinery, which could only be provided by capital.

Managers, engineers, miners, technical experts, and the tradesmen and middlemen who live upon them, these were the Uitlanders, drawn from all the races under the sun, but with the Anglo-Celtic vastly predominant.

The best engineers were American, the best miners were Cornish, the best managers were English, the money to run the mines was largely subscribed in England.

As time went on, however, the German and French interests became more extensive, until their joint holdings are now probably as heavy as those of the British.

Soon the population of the mining centres became greater than that of the whole Boer community, and consisted mainly of men in the prime of life--men, too, of exceptional intelligence and energy.
The situation was an extraordinary one.