te of the difficulties
mentioned, the profits made have greatly increased, and the shareholder
has fared well.

There is nothing in the natural aspect of the mining belt to distinguish
it from the rest of the Transvaal plateau. It is a high, dry, bare,
scorched, and windy country, and Johannesburg, its centre, stands in one
of the highest, driest, and windiest spots, on the south slope of the
Witwatersrand ridge, whose top rises some 150 feet above the business
quarters. Founded in 1886, the town has now a population exceeding
100,000, more than half of them whites. In 1896 the census (probably
very imperfect) showed within a radius of three miles 50,000 whites,
42,000 Kafirs, and 6000 Asiatics. Though it is rapidly passing from the
stage of shanties and corrugated iron into that of handsome streets
lined with tall brick houses, it is still rough and irregular, ill
paved, ill lighted, with unbuilt spaces scattered about and good houses
set down among hovels.

Another element of unloveliness is supplied by the mines themselves, for
the chief reefs run quite close to the southern part of the town, and
the huge heaps of "waste rock" or refuse and so-called "tailings", the
machinery which raises, crushes, and treats the ore, and the tall
chimneys of the engine houses, are prominent objects in the suburbs.
There is not much smoke; but to set against this there is a vast deal of
dust, plenty from the streets, and still more from the tailings and
other heaps of highly comminuted ore-refuse. The streets and roads
alternate between mud for the two wet months, and dust in the rest of
the year; and in the dry months not only the streets, but the air is
full of dust, for there is usually a wind blowing. But for this dust,
and for the want of proper drainage and a proper water-supply, the place
would be healthy, for the air is dry and bracing. But there had been up
to the end of 1895 a good deal of typhoid fever and a great deal of
pneumonia, often rapidly fatal. In the latter part of 1896 the mortality
was as high as 58 per thousand.[62]

It is a striking contrast to pass from the business part of the town to
the pretty suburb which lies to the north-east under the steep ridge of
the Witwatersrand, where the wealthier residents have erected charming
villas and surrounded them with groves and gardens. Less pretty, but far
more striking, is the situation of a few of the outlying country houses
which have been built to the north, o