Transvaal
189
Woodbush districts north of the Olifants river. Mimosa and the wild wilge-boom (Salix capensis) are the common trees on the banks and rivers, while the weeping willow is frequent round the farmsteads.
Many trees have been introduced and considerable plantations made, as for instance on the slopes between Johannesburg and Pretoria. Among the most successful of the imported trees are citrus trees, the Australian wattle and the eucalyptus. Tobacco and the vine both flourish and most European fruits and vegetables thrive. Of native fruits the misple (Vangueria infausta), miscalled the wild medlar, is of excellent flavour. It is common on the rands and kopjes of the bush veld. Rose and other flowering shrubs and trees grow well on the banken veld and in the valleys. A large yellow tulip (Homerica pallida) is one of the most abundant flowers on moist vlei lands on the high veld and is occasionally met with in the low veld; slangkop (Urginea Burkei) with red bulbs like a beetroot is a low bush plant apparently restricted to the Transvaal and adjacent Portuguese territory. Both these and many other plants such as gift-blaar and drouk-gras are poisonous to cattle. These poisonous plants are found chiefly in the banken and low veld.
Fauna.—When first entered by white men the Transvaal abounded in big game, the lion, leopard, elephant, giraffe, zebra and rhinoceros being very numerous, while the hippopotamus and crocodile were found in all the rivers. The indiscriminate destruction of these animals has greatly reduced their numbers and except in the Pongola district, at one or two other places on the Portuguese frontier, and along the Limpopo the hippopotamus, rhinoceros and crocodile are now extinct in the province. A few elephants, giraffes and zebras (equus burchelli—the true zebra is extinct) are still found in the north and north-eastern districts and in the same regions lions and leopards survive in fair numbers. Other animals fairly numerous are the spotted hyena, long-eared fox, jackal, aard wolf, red lynx, wild cat, wild dog and wart hog. Many species of antelope are found, mostly in small numbers, including the kudu, hartebeest, the sable and roan antelope, the white tailed and the brindled gnu, water buck, red buck, duiker, blesbok, palla, springbuck (numerous), steinbok, grysbok and klipspringer. The Africander breed of cattle is a well-marked variety, and a characteristic native domestic animal. Whether originally imported from Europe by the Portuguese or brought from the north by Africans is not certain. It is not found in a wild state and the buffalo (bos caffer) is almost if not quite extinct in the Transvaal. Among edentata the ant-bear, scaly ant-eater and porcupine are plentiful. The spring hare (pedetes capensis) abounds. Baboons and other apes are fairly common and there are several species of snakes. The ostrich is found in the Marico and Limpopo districts, and more rarely elsewhere; the great kori bustard and the koorhaan are common.
Insects abound, the greatest pest being the tsetse fly, common in the low veld. Six species of tick, including the blue tick common throughout South Africa, are found, especially in the low veld, where they are the means of the transmission of disease to cattle. Mosquitoes, locusts and ants are also common.
The baba or cat fish and the yellow fish are plentiful in the rivers and the trout has been acclimatized.
To preserve the native fauna the low country on the Portuguese frontier has been made a game reserve. It is nearly 300 m. long with an average breadth of 50 m. Other reserves have been constituted in the north of the province.
Inhabitants.—The population of the Transvaal, on the 17th of April 1904, when the first complete census of the country was taken, was 1,269,951 (including 8215 British soldiers in garrison),[1] or 11.342 persons per sq. m. Of these 20.67%, namely 297,277, were European or white. Of the coloured population 937,127 were aboriginals; and 35,547 were of mixed or other coloured races. Of the whites 178,244 (59.95 %) were males. The white population is broadly divisible into the British and Dutch elements, the percentage of other whites in 1904 being but 8.6. The Dutch, as their usual designation, Boers, implies, are mainly farmers and stock-raisers and are still predominant elsewhere than in the Witwatersrand and Pretoria districts. They speak the patois of Dutch known as the Taal. The British element is chiefly gathered in Johannesburg and other towns on the Rand and in Pretoria.. The total white population in the Witwatersrand and in Pretoria in 1904 was 135,135, and the strength of the British in these districts is shown by the fact that only 20% was Transvaal born. Of those born outside the Transvaal 24.6% came from other British possessions in Africa and 24.92% from Great Britain or British colonies other than African. Of the non-British or Boer whites Russians form 3.01%, Germans 1.62% and Dutch (of Holland) 1.14%.
The natives are found chiefly in Zoutpansberg district, where there were 314,797 at the 1904 census, and the adjoining districts of Lydenburg and Waterberg, i.e. in the northern and north-eastern region of the country. The natives belong to the Bantu negro race and are represented chiefly by Basuto, Bechuana, Bavenda, and Xosa-Zulu tribes. None of these peoples has any claim to be indigenous, and, save the Bavenda, all are immigrants since c. 1817–1820, when the greater part of the then inhabitants were exterminated by the Zulu chief Mosilikatze (see § History). After that event Basuto entered the country from the south, Bechuana from the west and Swazi, Zulu, Shangaan and other tribes from the east and south-east.
The Basuto, who number 410,020 and form 40% of the total population, are now found mostly in the central, northern and north-eastern districts, forming in Lydenburg about 67%, and in Zoutpansberg about 50% of the inhabitants. The Bechuana, who number 64,751, are almost confined to the western and south-western districts.
Next, numerically, to the Basuto and Bechuana peoples are the tribes known collectively as Transvaal Kaffirs, of whom there were 159,850 enumerated at the 1904 census. Altogether the Transvaal Kaffirs form 50% of the inhabitants of Waterberg district, 30% of Zoutpansberg district and 18% of Middelburg district. Zulus number 75,601 and form 54% of the population in Wakkerstroom district and 18% in Standerton district. Elsewhere they are very thinly represented. Swazis form more than half the total population of the Barberton and Ermelo districts and are also numerous in Wakkerstroom. In Barberton, Lydenburg and Zoutpansberg districts Shangaan and other east coast tribes are settled, 80,834 being returned as born in the Transvaal. The Shangaan are members of a Bantu tribe from the Delagoa Bay region who took refuge in the Transvaal between 1860 and 1862 to escape Zulu raids. They were for some time ruled by a Portuguese, Joao Albasini, who had adopted native customs. Since 1873 Swiss Protestant missionaries have lived among them and many of the Shangaans are Christians and civilized. Several other east coast tribes, such as the Bankuna, are of mixed Zulu and Shangaan blood. Among the mixed and other coloured races in the census returns figure 1592 Bushmen, 3597 Hottentots and 1147 Koranna; these people are found chiefly in the south-western regions and are remnants of the true aboriginal population.
Besides the tribes whose home is in the Transvaal considerable numbers of natives, chiefly members of east coast tribes, Cape Kaffirs and Zulus, go to the Witwatersrand to work in the gold and other mines. In all there were, in 1904, 135,042 Bantus in the country born elsewhere. Many east coast natives after working in the mines settle in the northern Transvaal. Of the aboriginal South Africans in the Transvaal, at the 1904 census, 77.69% were born in the Transvaal. Among the aborigines the number of females to males was 114 to 100. (See further Kaffirs; Bechuanas; Zululand; Bushmen; Hottentots; and for languages Bantu Languages).
The number of Asiatics in the Transvaal in April 1904 was 12,320, including 904 Malays, natives of South Africa, and 9986 British Indians. They were nearly all domiciled in the Witwatersrand and in the towns of Pretoria and Barberton, where they are engaged mainly in trade.
Administrative Divisions and Chief Towns.—The province is divided into sixteen magisterial districts. Zoutpansberg, 25,654 sq. m.; Waterberg, 15,503 sq. m.; Lydenburg, 9868 sq. m., occupy the north and north-eastern parts of the country and include most of the low veld areas. Barberton district, 5106 sq. m., is east central. Piet Retief district (in the south-east), 1673 sq. m., lies between Swaziland and Natal. Along the southern border, going east to west from Piet Retief, are the districts of Wakkerstroom, 2128 sq. m.; Standerton, 1959 sq. m.; Heidelberg, 2410 sq. m.; Potchefstroom, 4805 sq. m.; Wolmaransstad, 2169 sq. m., and, occupying the south-western corner of the province, Bloemhof, 3003 sq. m. In the west are the districts of Lichtenburg, 4487 sq. m.; Marico, 3626 sq. m. and Rustenberg, 9511 sq. m. The central regions are divided into the districts of Witwatersrand, 1653 sq. m.; Pretoria, 6525 sq. m.; Middelburg, 4977 sq. m.; Carolina, 1877 sq. m.; Ermelo, 2995 sq. m. and Bethel, 1959 sq. m. It will be seen that twenty districts are enumerated, these being the divisions under the Boer government and still commonly used. In 1904 Bloemhof was officially included in Wolmaransstad; Bethel in Standerton; Piet Retief in Wakkerstroom, and Carolina in Ermelo. Each district is sub-divided into field-cornetcies, the cornetcies being themselves divided, where necessary, into urban and rural areas. For parliamentary purposes the districts are divided into single member constituencies. The capital of the
- ↑ For most purposes this military element is omitted in the census returns.
