At the stations wild-looking Kaffir women, half naked and anything but attractive in appearance, came and stared at the train and its passengers.

It is in this desolate country that Johannesburg, the Golden City, sprang up, as it were, like a fungus, almost in a night.

Nine years previously the Rand--since the theatre of so much excitement and disappointment--the source of a great part of the wealth of London at the present day, was as innocent of buildings and as peaceful in appearance as those lonely plains over which we had travelled.

As we approached Johannesburg, little white landmarks like milestones made their appearance, and these, we were told, were new claims pegged out.

The thought suggested itself that this part of South Africa is in some respects a wicked country, with, it would almost seem, a blight resting on it: sickness, to both man and beast, is always stalking round; drought is a constant scourge to agriculture; the locust plagues ruin those crops and fruit that hailstones and scarcity of water have spared; and all the while men vie with and tread upon one another in their rush and eagerness after the gold which the land keeps hidden.