of paying and a Dutchman has been encouraged to think of receiving! the money will probably pass hands.
A railway completed to Bloemfontein would double the value of all property there and would very soon double the population of the town. Everything there used from a deal plank or a bar of iron down to a pair of socks or a pound of sugar, has now to be dragged four hundred miles by oxen at an average rate of £15 a ton. It is not only the sick and weakly who are prevented from seeking the succour of its climate by the hardness of the journey, but everything which the sick and weakly can require is doubled in price. If I might venture to give a little advice to the Volksraad I would counsel them to open the purse strings of the nation, even though the purse should be filled with borrowed money, so that there should be no delay on their part in joining themselves to the rest of the world. They should make their claim to the £15,000 clear and undoubted.
At present there is no telegraph to Bloemfontein, though the line of wires belonging to the Cape Colony passes through a portion of the State on its way to Kimberley,—so that there is a telegraph station at Fauresmith, a town belonging to the Republic. An extension to the capital is much wanted in order to bring it within the pale of modern civilization.
The schools at Bloemfontein are excellent, and are peculiarly interesting as showing the great steps by which the English language is elbowing out the Dutch, This is so marked that though I see no necessity for a political Confederation in South Africa I think I do see that there will
