Sugden was still recuperating from his battle with the Australians and expected to remain in bed for a few days more when this wire reached me. I showed it to him and he immediately became excited.
"Come on, let's go" he said, getting out of bed. "We're wasting time here. Let's get into Swaziland and see what's doing."
We left next day for the Transvaal. It is a long journey, but to one who has not made it before there is much of interest.
After leaving the coast there come the beautiful mountain passes of the Cape Colony. Then the train drops to the Karoo Desert, with its endless brown stretches broken only by dry rivers, near which can be seen great herds of sheep. Kimberley, with its barrenness and huge dumps of dark, diamond-washed soil comes next, and finally the Great Fish River is crossed to the grassy plains of the Orange Free State. Across these plains the train runs for hundreds of miles, and then comes the Vaal River, after which the veldt of the Transvaal is reached. After a while the huge smoke-stacks and great white ore-dumps of Johannesburg loom, and the journey is practically ended.
My companions were keen to hear all about this country, so new to them, and I was kept busy running from side to side of the car supplying their thirst for information. Dr. Sugden, I found, was well up on the history of the country and would often supply a missing date when I related the romantic story of the Boer and British conquest of South Africa.
We spent several days in Johannesburg, and my companions were delighted with it. They frequently commented on its being like an up-to-date American city, as they found practically everything there that they would expect in the United States. In fact, Sugden was loud in his praises of the telephone service, which he insisted was "almost as good as that at home." The city has developed extensively during the last twenty years and now has buildings, hotels, and streets of the most modern type. The great contrast lies in the character of the street traffic. There are hundreds of motors of all kinds, but there are also innumerable rickshaws drawn by Zulus, thousands of kaffirs, and not a few horse-cabs.
Then, of course, the huge mine-dumps right in the heart of the city struck my companions as extraordinary, but it must be remembered that the city grew up after the mines were sunk. There are miles and miles of smoke-stacks, and the crushing of the ore mills can always be heard. My party was much impressed by Parktown, the millionaires' suburb to the north of the city. Here there are libraries, a zoological garden, and all things essential to a thoroughly equipped and prosperous city. I have many friends in Johannesburg and my companions had a pleasant time visiting them with me.
They had their first view of a real Boer village when we landed in Ermelo a few days later. The morning we reached there we saw several score of Cape carts loaded with farmers and their wives coming to town to shop. Then there were several of those great canvas-topped freight wagons, drawn by seven or eight span of wide-horned oxen and driven by a number of kaffir boys. These walk alongside with their long goads, and the entire progress of the caravan is one long shout. With the yelling of the kaffirs, the creaking of the great wagon, and the frequent lowing of the oxen, the noise of such an outfit is as striking as is its picturesque appearance.
Sugden was intensely interested in these great freight trains, and reminded me of their similarity to those which made the overland trail in the States during the days of the forty-niners. The heavy-set men riding beside the wagons particularly impressed him.
"Why, they are the same men that settled the West of my country," he exclaimed. "Their steady eyes and great beards remind me of the days of Crockett and Boone. Their rifles, ready for instant use, carry out the picture. Fred Remington would have been crazy over these ox-teams!"