CHAPTER I.
THE TRANSVAAL.—NEWCASTLE TO PRETORIA.
THE distance from Newcastle to Pretoria is 207 miles. About
20 miles north from Newcastle we crossed the borders of what
used to be the Transvaal Republic, but which since the
12th August last,—1877,—forms a separate British Colony
under the dominion of Her Majesty. The geographical
configuration here is remarkable as at the point of contact
between Natal and the Transvaal the boundary of the Orange
Free State is not above two or three miles distant, and that
of Zulu Land, which is at present but ill defined, not very far
off;—so that in the event of the Transvaal being joined to
Natal the combined Colonies would hang together by a very
narrow neck of land.
Of all our dominions the Transvaal is probably the most remote. Its Capital is 400 miles from the sea, and that distance is not annihilated or even relieved by any railway. When I left home my main object perhaps was to visit this remote district, of which I had never heard much and in which I had been interested not at all, till six months before I started on my journey. Then the country had been a
