- scription. The companies have come afterwards, but individual
enterprise has done the pioneering work.
In 1873 gold was found in the Lydenburg district which is south of the Olifant's river. Here are the diggings called Pilgrim's Rest, and here the search for gold is still carried on,—not as I am told with altogether favourable results. One nugget has been found weighing nearly 18 pounds. Had there been a few more such treasures brought to light the Lydenburg gold fields would have been famous. There are two crushing machines now at work, and skilled European miners are earning from 10s. to 12s. a day. The place is healthy, and though tropical is not within the tropics. A considerable number of Kafirs are employed at low rates of wages, but they have not as yet obtained a reputation as good miners. The white employer of black labour in South Africa does not allow that the Kafir does anything well.
Among other difficulties and drawbacks to gold mining in South Africa the want of fuel for steam is one. Wood of course is used, but I am told that wood is already becoming scarce and dear. And then the great distance from the coast, the badness of the roads, and the lack of the means of carriage exaggerates all the other difficulties. Machinery, provisions, and the very men themselves have to be brought into the country at a cost which very materially interferes with the chances of a final satisfactory result. If there be a railway from Pretoria to Delagoa Bay,—as at some not very remote date there probably will be,—then that railway will pass either through or very near to the Lydenburg district,
