e, that this sudden development is desirable, the
English are the people most likely to carry it out effectively, and the
strong and strenuous man who, with little encouragement from the
government of his country, founded the British South Africa Company and
acquired these territories for his countrymen, took one of the most
fateful steps that statesman or conqueror has ever taken in the African
continent.

[Footnote 57: The above was written in 1897. The subsequent extension of
the railway from Mafeking to Bulawayo stimulated production, and in
July, 1899, there were 115 stamps at work on the gold reefs, and the
total value of the gold produced in Matabililand and Mashonaland
(including the Tati concessions) was given by the Bulawayo Chamber of
Mines as L192,679 for the preceding ten months. The average wages paid
to natives were L2 a month. Some reefs are stated to have been worked to
a depth of 500 feet.]

[Footnote 58: This very isolation and independence of the small native
communities in Mashonaland retarded the pacification of the country
during 1896-97. There were hardly any influential chiefs with whom to
treat. But since 1897 it has been perfectly quiet.]

CHAPTER XVIII

THROUGH NATAL TO THE TRANSVAAL

There are two ways of reaching the Witwatersrand goldfields, now the
central point of attraction in South Africa, from the south-east coast.
One route starts from Delagoa Bay, a place of so much importance as to
deserve a short description. It is a piece of water protected from the
ocean by Inyack Island, and stretching some twenty miles or more north
and south. At the north end, where two rivers discharge their waters
into it, is an almost landlocked inlet, on the east side of which stands
the town of Lourenco Marques, so called from the Portuguese captain who
first explored it in 1544, though it had been visited in 1502 by Vasco
da Gama. The approach to this harbour is long and circuitous, for a
vessel has to wind hither and thither to avoid shoals; and as the
channel is ill-buoyed, careful captains sometimes wait for the tide to
be at least half full before they cross the shallowest part, where there
may be only twenty feet of water at low tide. Within the harbour there
is plenty of good deep anchorage opposite the town, and a still more
sheltered spot is found a little farther up the inlet in a sort of
lagoon. The town, which is growing fast, but still in a rough and
unsightly condition, runs f