However, to return to Johannesburg as we found it, after the 1895 boom.  Even then it seemed to me that for the first time in South Africa I saw life.  Cape Town, with its pathetic dullness and palpable efforts to keep up a show of business; Kimberley, with its deadly respectability—­both paled in interest beside their younger sister, so light-hearted, reckless, and enterprising.  Before long, in spite of gloomy reflections on the evils of gold-seeking, I fell under the fascination of what was then a wonderful town, especially wonderful from its youth.  The ever-moving crowds which thronged the streets, every man of which appeared to be full of important business and in a desperate hurry, reminded one of the City in London.  Smart carriages with well-dressed ladies drove rapidly past, the shops were cunningly arranged with tempting wares, and all this bustle and traffic was restored in little over a week.  A fortnight previously a revolution was impending and a siege was looming ahead.  Business had been at a complete standstill, the shops and houses barred and barricaded, and many of the inhabitants were taking a hurried departure; while bitterness, discord, and racial feeling were rampant.  Now, after a few days, that cosmopolitan and rapidly changing population appeared to have buried their differences, and the uninitiated would never have guessed the town had passed, and was, indeed, still passing, through troublous times.  Mr. Perkins, however, was pessimistic, and told us appearances were misleading.  He rightly foresaw many lean years for those interested in the immediate future of the Rand, though even he, perhaps, hardly realized how lean those would become.  Since those days much water has flown under the bridge, and the trade of the town, not to speak of the mining industry, has gone from bad to worse.  Recently Federation, the dream of many a statesman connected with South Africa, has opened a new vista of political peace and prosperity to its chastened citizens.  Many of these, in affluent circumstances in 1896, have since gone under financially; but some of the original inhabitants still remain to show in the future that they have learned wisdom from their past troubles, brought on principally by their mad haste to get rich too quickly.

During our stay at Johannesburg we made an expedition to Pretoria in order to see our host and other friends, who were still on bail there, awaiting their trial, and also to visit the seat of the Boer Government.  By these remarkable State railways the short journey of thirty-two miles occupied three hours.  We passed one very large Boer laager, or military camp, on the line, which looked imposing enough in the bright sunlight, with its shining array of white-tarpaulin-covered waggons; companies of mounted burghers, armed to the teeth, and sitting their ragged but well-bred ponies as if glued to the saddle, were to be seen galloping to and fro.  Although the teeth of the enemy had been drawn for the present, the Boers were evidently