My stay at Klerksdorp much impressed me with the idea of the future of
this town of yesterday's growth. It is only fifteen months ago, (a
little more than a year) that the whole of the town on the side of the
stream where the Union Hotel is situated, was begun. The inhabitants
already number some thousands; and the indications I have seen in the
mines, of great prospects of gold being found in large and payable
quantities, are very strong. Klerksdorp may yet become a second
Johannesburg, whose remarkable and rapid development I was told, would
astonish me.




[Illustration: Decorative]

POTCHEFSTROOM.


After leaving Klerksdorp, we travelled the next day in our wagon
thirty-two miles, halting for the night at Potchefstroom, which is not
only one of the oldest, but one of the most important of the Transvaal
districts. Recently the presence of gold-bearing reefs has been
demonstrated in many parts of the division. On our way we passed, during
the afternoon, a spot on the road where a flock of not less than fifty
of those unclean birds, vultures, were hovering over and around the
carcase of a recently dead bullock. These birds are the scavengers of
this part of the world; they feed greedily on carrion, and rapidly pull
a dead animal completely to pieces, leaving only the bones, which
afterwards lie bleaching on the Veldt, to mark the spot where it has
fallen in death--whether it be either horse, or mule, or bullock--left