A Winter Tour in South Africa by Frederick Young
page 43 of 103 (41%)
page 43 of 103 (41%)
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They would prefer being under the British Government direct, in spite of
all its terrible mistakes and mishaps, from which they have so cruelly suffered. My informant's opinion was, that the present policy of the administration in Bechuanaland is not conducive to encourage emigration, as it puts artificial impediments in the way of farmers with small means settling there, which, he thought, they would do in crowds from the Colony, if they were allowed to do so on paying a quit rent, say of £10 or £15 per annum, instead of the high terms of £40 demanded at present. He had a very high opinion of Bechuanaland as a cattle-grazing country. The Waterburg warm sulphur baths--to which I paid a visit, taking a hot bath myself, which was certainly much too hot for me, but which was otherwise refreshing, after nearly a fortnight's residence on the veldt, where there is a decided scarcity of water, both for drinking and washing purposes--are situated about seventy miles north of Pretoria. They are extensively patronised by the Boers, and are said to be most efficacious in every variety of rheumatic and gouty complaints. They are strongly impregnated with sulphur, and might be made very attractive in the hands of anyone of enterprise, who would construct a suitable establishment of baths, fit for patients who would be quite ready to pay handsomely for them, instead of the miserably primitive and wretched receptacles, called baths, into which the highly excellent natural sulphur water is conveyed, and used by the motley crowd of invalids I saw there. From the Waterburg warm baths our route lay to the southward, across the Springbok Flats, to the Nylstroom road, along which, in two days more, we accomplished the intervening distance of about seventy miles back to Pretoria, thus concluding a most interesting and instructive journey into the northern part of the Transvaal. During all this time, with the |
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