CHAPTER XIX.
PIETER MARITZBURG TO NEWCASTLE.
When starting from Pieter Maritzburg to Pretoria I have
to own that I was not quite at ease as to the work before me.
From the moment in which I had first determined to visit
the Transvaal, I had been warned as to the hard work of the
task. Friends who had been there, one or two in number,—friends
who had been in South Africa but not quite as far as
the capital of the late Republic, perhaps half a dozen,—and
friends very much more numerous who had only heard of
the difficulties, combined either in telling me or in letting
me understand that they thought that I was,—well—much
too old for the journey. And I thought so myself. But then
I knew that I could never do it younger. And having once
suggested to myself that it would be desirable, I did not like
to be frightened out of the undertaking. As far as Pieter
Maritzburg all had been easy enough. Journeys by sea are
to me very easy,—so easy that a fortnight on the ocean is a
fortnight at any rate free from care. And my inland journeys
had not as yet been long enough to occasion any inconvenience.
But the journey now before me, from the capital
of Natal to the capital of the Transvaal and thence round
by Kimberley, the capital of the Diamond Fields, to Bloem-
