One day, however, rich gold-fields were discovered on the Witwaters Rand.
A Rand is the high land on either side of a river valley.
This settled matters for the Boers. From the moment gold-fields were
discovered, Englishmen poured into the Transvaal.
The Boers, who, as we have said, are a quiet farming people, were not
pleased with this invasion of foreigners. They christened them Uitlanders,
which means outsiders, and they are decidedly not in love with them.
The capital of the Transvaal is a town called Pretoria. It is the seat of
the government, and is a simple, unpretentious town, situated in the
centre of the little Republic.
When the Uitlanders poured over the borders into the gold-fields, they
desired to have a town somewhat nearer to the Rand and the gold-fields
than Pretoria was, so they founded Johannesburg.
This town flourished amazingly, and soon far outstripped Pretoria in size
and importance, just as the Uitlanders had outstripped the Boers in point
of numbers and wealth.
The native population of the Transvaal is very scattered. They are a
nation of farmers, and at the present time there are only about 15,000
Boer men in the whole territory, while of the English-speaking Uitlanders
there are more than five times that number.
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