bouring States, is largely attributable to the Drakensberg Mountains, which act both as a watershed and as a dispersing agent to the breeze-carried moisture of the ocean, of which the benefits would be largely lost but for this natural barrier to its further progress inland. Pasturage is excellent and extensive in many parts, especially on the north and on the western boundaries, the high veld being particularly suitable for horses and cattle. The arable land not only bears mealies and good wheat, but also, in parts, sorghum, tobacco, tea, sugar, and fruit.
Now, when it is taken into consideration, along with the above facts, that Natal is in the agricultural and pastoral districts very thinly populated, and that the bulk of the white people are English, it would seem as though this were an ideal Colony for settlers from the Motherland; and so in a sense it might be. But, owing to unwise legislation and slack supervision, the best of the country land has been allowed to fall into Kaffir hands, and a vested right thus established, which the Colonial Government could only get over by compulsory sales, and that would mean trouble with the natives. By doing a very limited amount of stock-raising on their own account, these Kaffir proprietors are independent of whites, and being disproportionately undertaxed, they are fully satisfied with a lazy life. Thus the capacities of the finest areas of arable and pastoral country have never been tested. Leaving aside this first-quality land in native hands, the western frontier, Biggarsberg, and Ladysmith districts in Dutch possession, and the smaller area owned by British-born Natalians, there remains about 7,000,000 acres of Government-owned country. A considerable portion of this land ought to be available for white settlement, but the price asked is usually too high; that offered on perpetual lease by the Land Company is charged something like four times too much for the advantages offered. For this reason, coupled with the shortage and expense of labour—Natal Kaffirs are the most unwilling
