seemed to know, and who was able, as everybody said, to drive us anywhere over Africa. George was to have £5 a month, his passage paid back home, his keep on the road, and a douceur on parting, if we parted as friends.
Remembering what I might have had to suffer,—what I might have been suffering at that very moment,—I expressed my opinion that the affair was very cheap. But my young friend indulged in financial views than my own. "It will be cheap," said he, "if, we can sell it at the end of the journey for £150." That was a contingency which I altogether refused to entertain. It had become cheap to me without any idea of a resale, as soon as I found what was the nature of the mail cart from Newcastle to Pretoria,—and what was the nature of the mail cart horses.
Before leaving the Colony of Natal I must say that at this Newcastle,—as at other Newcastles,—coal is to be found in abundance. I was taken down to the river side where I could see it myself. There can be no doubt but that when the country is opened up coal will be one of its most valuable products. At present it is all but useless. It cannot be carried because the distances are so great and the roads so bad; and it cannot be worked because labour has not been organised.
THE END OF VOL. I.
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