the Orange River, is one of the electoral divisions of the Cape Colony, and to that I will confine the few remarks which I will make as to this uncomfortable district.
It is for its copper and for its copper alone that Little Namaqualand is of any real value. On looking at the printed reports of the Commissioner and Magistrate for the division, made in 1874, 1875, and 1876, I find nothing but misfortune mentioned,—except in regard to the copper mines. "1874," says the report for that year, "has been a very bad year." "There has, so to say, been no corn in the land." "One person after thrashing out his corn obtained three pannicans." Poor farmers! "Living is very expensive, and were it not for the tram line"—a railroad made by the Copper Company nearly to Springbok Fontein, which is the seat of government and the magistrate's residence,—"we would have been on the verge of starvation." Poor magistrate! Then the report goes on. "The Ookiep mine is steadily progressing." "The yield of ore during the year has been 10,000 tons." It is pretty nearly as bad in 1875. "The rain came late in the year, and the yield in corn was very small." "It is almost impossible to describe the poverty in which the poorer classes exist in a severe drought." And a severe drought is the normal condition of the country in which the fall of rain and dew together does not exceed five inches in the year. But the copper enterprise was flourishing. "The Ookiep mine," says the same report, "has been steadily progressing, its yield being now 1,000 tons per month." In 1876 rural matters were not much better. "The water supply all over the country has
