in constant relations with the leading men of the
interior, and gives a sort of unity to the upper society of the whole
country, which finds few parallels in any other part of the world.
Johannesburg and Cape Town in particular are, for social purposes, in
closer touch with each other than Liverpool is with Manchester or New
York with Philadelphia. When one turns to the map it looks a long way
from the Cape to the Witwatersrand; but between these places most of the
country is a desert, and there is only one spot, Bloemfontein, that
deserves to be called a town. So I will once more beg the reader to
remember that though South Africa is more than half as large as Europe,
it is, measured by population, a very small country.

[Footnote 71: Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London and Durban.]

[Footnote 72: In Cape Colony 28.82 of the male and 28.02 of the female
population could not (census of 1891) read or write.]

[Footnote 73: Five colleges receive Government grants.]

[Footnote 74: The small grant for religious purposes made in Cape Colony
was in 1895 being reduced, and was to expire shortly.]

[Footnote 75: The census of 1891 gives the numbers as follows: Dutch
Reformed Church, 306,000; Church of England, 139,000; Wesleyans,
106,000; Congregationalists, 69,000; Presbyterians, 37,000; Roman
Catholics, 17,000; Mohammedans, 15,000.]

CHAPTER XXIV

POLITICS IN THE TWO BRITISH COLONIES

The circumstances of the two South African Colonies are so dissimilar
from those of the British Colonies in North America and in Australasia
as to have impressed upon their politics a very different character. I
do not propose to describe the present political situation, for it may
change at any moment. It is only of the permanent causes which give
their colour to the questions and the movements of the country that I
shall speak, and that concisely.

The frame of government is, in Cape Colony as well as in Natal,
essentially the same as in the other self-governing British Colonies.
There is a Governor, appointed by the home Government, and responsible
to it only, who plays the part which belongs to the Crown in Great
Britain. He is the nominal head of the executive, summoning and
proroguing the Legislature, appointing and dismissing ministers, and
exercising, upon the advice of his ministers, the prerogative of pardon.
There is a cabinet of five persons, including the heads of the chief
administrative departments, who are th