It was built of iron instead of wood, and was much higher than the make-shift arrangement, which may have been removed by this time, for all I know to the contrary. In bad weather the bridge was completely under water, sometimes so much so that waggons could not be driven across it. Although by chance, the debris of broken trees and planks have not collected in sufficient force to carry away this bridge of convenience, this ultimate result is considered by all to be inevitable, and the cry, "The bridge is broken, and we can't go over-Toll! da! roll! da! heigho!" may anytime be heard. Such being the case, and as the river. itself is useless, why not carry bridges under, instead of above ground? I point to a system of tunnelling. The method I should advise had a powerful advocate in the late Mr. Ridgeway, a prominent Natalian architect and engineer. Drive piles into the river-bed of sufficient girth, length, and strength to support a cylindrical box. The necessary gradients being made, either your train or your road traffic could be carried through this cylinder, the top of which would be within a foot or so of the top of the river-bed, on which a raised road of concrete and brick could be built. The floods and waters might beat against that bridge, and it would not fall, for it would not offer the resistance inherent in the fretted columns of an iron bridge; the water would go over it, and thus, instead of being washed away in these times of flood, it would remain the same as ever, while at such seasons the underground tunnel could be used. Thousands of natural bridges of this description are to be seen all over the country. They are composed of stones thrown together, which the cattle can be readily driven across. But the cattle sometimes come to grief, as in the midst of dry sand and stone there are wide and treacherous pools of great depth, ten feet and upwards. At the Umgeni falls a natural bridge might be made by cutting a way through the rocks over which the falls run, and by shielding it in, and allowing the water to run overhead.

There is a good deal to be done in the way of bridge-building in the colonies. The bridges which the late Mr. Holliday Brown carried across the Orange River in several places, thus supplanting the flat-bottomed ferry-boats formerly in use, have proved to be of

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the very greatest service. The regions of Savagedom beyond are by these means gradually coming under the influence of the colonists. No more convincing proof of this need be adduced, than the fact that of all the manifold merchandise and produce imported into South Africa, one-third of the whole finds its way over the boundary line of the colonies to the countries beyond. The rivers and their inutility are among the most prominent colonial bêtes noires, but when we remember the bars at their mouths we are in the presence of a yet greater trouble. They are truly cruel obstacles to progress, and at present their removal seems utterly hopeless. It might be thought that the unserviceable nature of the rivers them selves would make the colonists more or less indifferent to the presence of these bars, but those who so imagine have forgotten the harbour difficulty. South Africa has few harbours to boast of, and those she has are lost to her, from one cause or another. Well-wishers to South Africa never cease to regret that the Dutch did not select a site near Saldanha Bay, about fifty miles to the north of Table Bay, on which to build their metropolis, as it is the finest natural harbour on that coast, and would in many ways have afforded a better post of vantage from which to start the colonisation of the continent. Natalians have also their vain regrets they cast sheep-glances at St. Lucia's Bay and Delagoa Bay, and wish that their destiny had led them there instead of to Durban. Fate decreed differently, and St. Lucia, a truly noble natural harbour, is as yet nowhere, and of Delagoa Bay the same thing may be said.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

WATER SUPPLY-DENUDATION OF FORESTS AND ARTIFICIAL IRRIGATION.

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE, BUT NOT A DROP TO DRINK."

"And many a day of toil had they to clear

The tangled brake and forest's spreading roots,
Meanwhile their numbers grew, the soil became
Unequal to sustain them—.'

-Sir Theodore Martin's translation of Schiller's " Wilhelm Tell".

A SCRIBE in one of the Cape journals wrote thus sometime since: "One of the great wants of the colony-one that we have felt the incubus of, for many, many years, pressing especially upon our agriculturists, hindering their efforts to advance and standing in the way of enterprise, whilst forming an insuperable obstacle to the proper cultivation of the land, is the want of water". This is true, only too true. It cannot be said that as yet the colonists have done much to remedy the evil. They have taken no steps to store their floods and waters. The rain, although it falls infrequently, is by no means sparing in volume when it does descend. The ground however is, as a rule, of a sandy and porous nature, and thus the rain very soon percolates through it and leaves the surface as dry as ever. Then again the conformation of the country is a series of inclined planes, that is to say, it gradually rises towards various chains of mountains, which in their turn are eclipsed by other mountains farther from the coast. Thus the water finds its way briskly into the rivers, through which it filters with impetuous haste into the sea. Water should be stored in huge tanks at the base of the moun

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tains, convenient and central positions for these tanks being chosen. And moreover trees should be planted whenever and wherever opportunity affords. I believe it was Dr. Johnson who said that the man who planted a tree and reared it, had not lived in vain. If this be true of England, and who can gainsay it, how much more true is it of Africa. There a man who plants a tree, or better still, many trees, certainly deserves well of his country. There is a natural paucity of trees in a great many districts. In such districts especially, the occupation of arboriculture should be pursued sedulously. What can be said of men who, instead of bending their energies to such a task, ruthlessly fell young and old trees indiscriminately, taking no thought whatsoever for the morrow? Yet this criminal folly is the order of the day in the Cape Colony and Natal, and great energy is displayed in its cause. Young saplings, full of verdancy, are wantonly cut down and brought into the towns. Things have come to such a pass in Durban and Maritzburg, that firewood costs 30s. a load.

I regret to have to state that arboriculture and artificial irrigation, the pursuit and development of which ought to be the uppermost thoughts in the minds of colonists, are, on the contrary, almost entirely neglected. It is true, some little awakening from the fatal slumber, which in this matter has overtaken the colonial mind, has lately been apparent, and some slight effort has been made to look the future in the face. This is especially the case in Mossel Bay and in certain towns of the Free State, where the municipalities have become alive to the necessity of planting trees and also to the appreciation of the ultimate connection which exists between the presence of trees and the rainfall. To their eternal praise they have commenced to plant trees copiously to supply the place of those which have been cut down and burned. The Cape Colony, it is true, possesses many forests. In the Western province, there is the forest in the vicinity of George, and in the Eastern division of the colony, there is the famous forest of Knysna, and the forest of St. John's in Kaffraria. Still it cannot be denied as a general truism, the country is as woefully deficient of trees as it is of water. The forests near most of the towns, large and small, have been sacrificed, and the trees one sees

are generally imported species-the blue gum tree of Australia being an especial favourite.

The denudation of forests, and the question of the rainfall, are indissolubly allied. Man has no control over the winds and rain, it is said, but this is not true, he has control in a measure over both. It is a scientific axiom, and being so, it is duly respected by the gods and goddesses of the winds and the rain, that if you have no trees you shall likewise have no rain. This is a broad statement, as there are of course various natural laws affecting the downpour of rain, other than those bound up in the presence or absence of trees. Lofty mountains, and winds from inland lakes, are among these causes, and if we are to believe the native rain-makers, certain charms, the baboon being the most important among them, are effectual in procuring the needed downfalls. But amongst all these charms, the preservation of forests ranks very high indeed. In our eastern dominions we have a commissioner and staff, under whose charge the whole of the arboreous wealth of the empire is placed. Young men entering this service are required to pass through the hot ordeal of public competition before they can be appointed to these respective posts. A few years' practical experience in Norway and the South of France is the supplemental stage of the preparatory curriculum to which they are subjected. Under this system of training the woodman learns to spare the tree, until it has arrived at that state of perfection, when all the most economic ends will be answered by its removal. In the United States the backwoodsmen have, with axe and powder, and their concomitant appliances, the saw-pit and saw-mill, gradually cleared the country of its magnificent arboral heritage. The prodigious trees of California, which, when felled within two feet of the ground, offering a sufficient area upon which to dance a quadrille, are rapidly disappearing. Many have admired that ingenious representation at the Crystal Palace of a Californian pine, built from the bark of one of these enormous trees. This hollow giant used to go by the name of the "Overgrown Oak," in the parlance of childhood, but the school-boys and bread-and-butter misses were robbed of this attractive lion by the fire of 1866. Whether or not it be