bout fifty hours; and from Mafeking to
Bulawayo it is a little over five hundred more. From this trunk-line two
important branches run southward to the coast, one to Port Elizabeth,
the other to East London; and by these branches the goods landed at
those ports, and destined for Kimberley or Johannesburg, are sent up.
The passenger traffic on the branches is small, as people who want to go
from the Eastern towns to Cape Town usually take the less fatiguing as
well as cheaper sea voyage.

Three other lines of railway remain. One, opened in the end of 1895,
connects Durban with Pretoria and Johannesburg; another, opened in 1894,
runs from Delagoa Bay to Pretoria; a third, opened part of it in 1894
and the last part in 1899, connects Beira with Fort Salisbury, in the
territory of the British South Africa Company.[39]

Of these railways the trunk-line with its branches was constructed by
and is (except the parts which traverse the Orange Free State and the
Transvaal) owned by the government of Cape Colony. It has latterly paid
very well. The line from Durban to the Transvaal border at Charlestown
belongs to the Natal government, and is also a considerable source of
revenue. The rest of this line, from Charlestown northward through the
Transvaal, is the property of a Dutch company, which also owns the line
from Delagoa Bay to Pretoria and from Pretoria to the frontier of the
Free State. The Beira railway belongs to a company controlled by the
British South Africa Company, and is virtually a part of that great
undertaking.

All these railways, except the Beira line, have the same gauge, one of
three feet six inches. The Beira line has a two-foot gauge, but is now
(1899) being enlarged to the standard gauge. Throughout South Africa the
lines of railway are laid on steeper gradients than is usual in Europe:
one in forty is not uncommon, and on the Natal line it is sometimes one
in thirty, though this is being gradually reduced. Although the
accommodation at the minor stations is extremely simple, and sometimes
even primitive, the railways are well managed, and the cars are arranged
with a view to sleep on the night journeys; so that one can manage even
the long transit from Cape Town to Pretoria with no great fatigue.
Considering how very thinly peopled the country is, so that there is
practically no local passenger and very little local goods traffic, the
railway service is much better than could have been expected, and does