This town flourished amazingly, and soon far outstripped Pretoria in size and importance, just as the Uitlanders had outstripped the Boers in point of numbers and wealth.

The native population of the Transvaal is very scattered.  They are a nation of farmers, and at the present time there are only about 15,000 Boer men in the whole territory, while of the English-speaking Uitlanders there are more than five times that number.

No sooner did Johannesburg grow to be a powerful city, than the Uitlanders, her citizens, demanded that they should have a voice in the government of the country.

They complained that they were hardly used by the Boers, and made to pay heavy taxes.

The taxes are certainly heavy, but they are levied upon the gold miners, who have come to the Transvaal for the sole purpose of making fortunes out of the gold deposits; these fortunes they wish to carry away with them to their own country.

The Boers, very naturally, think that some portion of these riches should be paid to the country which gave them, and they cannot see by what right these foreign gold-hunters expect to have a voice in the government.

One of the great grievances of the Uitlanders is that the Boers will not have English taught in the schools, and that their children are obliged to learn the language of the country if they go to the public schools.

These demands of the Uitlanders will seem all the more absurd when it is understood that they do not ask for a voice in the government as citizens of the country.  None of these English-speaking people have so much as offered to become citizens of the Transvaal.  They are not even willing to be.  They wish to keep their right of citizenship in their own country, that they may have the protection of England, and be able to return there as soon as they have made their fortunes.

However, while they are in the Transvaal, digging their gold out of its soil, they want to be able to govern the country in their own way, and are loud in their outcries against the Boers for preventing them from doing so.

Under the laws of the Transvaal it is very easy to become a citizen.

A man has only to live there two years before he can become a citizen, and have all the share in the government that he is entitled to.

But this the Uitlanders are not willing to do.  They want everything for nothing.

Does not their request seem outrageous?

The Uitlanders kept up their demands for a share in the government, and the Boers steadily refused them.

Then the population of Johannesburg began to arm itself, and the Boers quietly watched them.

At last, word was sent to Dr. Jameson from the leading Uitlanders in Johannesburg that the Boers were up in arms, and that the people of Johannesburg were in danger of their lives.

They begged Dr. Jameson to come to their aid, in the name of humanity.