ern route is via Dover to Cape Town, the eastern route is via
the Suez Canal and Natal. Several lines of steamers ply between Cape
Town and Australian ports, and others between Cape Colony and India.

There are over 8000 m. of roads in the colony proper and rivers crossing
main routes are bridged. The finest bridge in the colony is that which
spans the Orange at Hopetown. It is 1480 ft. long and cost L114,000. Of
the roads in general it may be said that they are merely tracks across
the veld made at the pleasure of the traveller. The ox is very generally
used as a draught animal in country districts remote from railways;
sixteen or eighteen oxen being harnessed to a wagon carrying 3 to 4
tons. Traction-engines have in some places supplanted the ox-wagon for
bringing agricultural produce to market. The "Scotch cart," a light
two-wheeled vehicle is also much used.

_Railways_.--Railway construction began in 1859 when a private company
built a line from Cape Town to Wellington. This line, 64 m. long, was
the only railway in the colony for nearly fifteen years. In 1871
parliament resolved to build railways at the public expense, and in 1873
(the year following the conferment of responsible government on the
colony) a beginning was made with the work, L5,000,000 having been voted
for the purpose. In the same year the Cape Town-Wellington line was
bought by the state. Subsequently powers were again given to private
companies to construct lines, these companies usually receiving
subsidies from the government, which owns and works the greater part of
the railways in the colony.

The plan adopted in 1873 was to build independent lines from the
seaports into the interior, and the great trunk lines then begun
determined the development of the whole system. The standard gauge in
South Africa is 3 ft., 6 in. and all railways mentioned are of that
gauge unless otherwise stated.

The railways, which have a mileage exceeding 4000, are classified under
three great systems:--the Western, the Midland and the Eastern.

The Western system--the southern section of the Cape to Cairo
route--starts from Cape Town and runs by Kimberley (647 m.) to Vryburg
(774 m.), whence it is continued by the Rhodesia Railway Co. to Mafeking
(870 m.), Bulawayo (1360 m.), the Victoria Falls on the Zambezi (1623
m.) and the Belgian Congo frontier, whilst a branch from Bulawayo runs
via Salisbury to Beira, 2037 m. from Cape Town. From Fourteen Streams, a
sta