The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-07-21

6O OTHA, the famous Boer guerilla gen kA era, British premier and feted in E4D London the Transvaal, after three years of warfare and five of military rule, once more a self-governing colony under Boer control-how strangely events re- verse themselves And yet Johannesburg, which created the Transvaal and is nine tenths of 1t, goes on serenely, pouring forth gold in a continuous stream, un- mindful of political change, and will con tinue, doubtless, to do so, till the last pay ing particle of the auriferous metal has been extracted. Then the mines will close down forever, the houses tumble to decay, r-d the myriads of migrating springbok Ill once more wander over the site of the great mining city.
 Dumped down in the middle of vast, rolling sea of barren uplands, crowned with strong granite hills, joined to the southern coasts, over thousand miles away, by only two slender railway lines, Johannesburg is emphatically dependent for its existence on the gold output Just one-and-twenty years ago party Of pros pectors made a discovery of gold upon the farm of an ignorant Boer named Johann, who resided far from civilization In desolate region where it had been stated officially that gold could not possibly be found. They offered him a price which seemed enormous for the sale of his prop erty. The old man pocketed the money, packed his wife, children, and household utensils inside his ponderous wagon, in- spanned his oxen, and trekked away north ward into the wilderness. To-day his farm is valued in billions and now, where once the weld was blackened with antelope herds, stalked by the lion and leopard and a few adventurous frontiersmen, there stands a city of 10000 souls, white, black, yellow and brown, known as Jo- hannesburg.
 It is a long, irregular, strung-out sue cession of mining villages, amalgamating into . fine town toward the center of their length, and stretching away for about thirty miles along the course of the famous reef-a series of tall chimneys miners huts, groups of stores, negro. and Chinese compounds, huddled beneath the shadow of the great wheels which crown the headgear at the entrance to the shafts From miles away. when everything Is hid- den under the noon haze, or floats, a dancing mirage, between earth and sky, may be seen the immense heaps of tall inrs", which is the name given to that refuse that remains after the gold has been extracted by cyanide of mercury from the pulverized ore, and shines, whiter than snow, in immense mounds along the whole course of the outcrop. So vast are these heaps that when, during the exciting days of revolution and the Jameson raid Boer officials suspected that maxim guns and rifles were hidden therein, they were searched systematically for days without their contents being discovered.
 There Is probably no city In the world which has seen so many eventfud days or held such an assorted population. The fame which Johannesburg attained on the discovery there of the richest gold fields in the world, sustained by her constant prominence in the eternal Anglo-Dutch feud in South Africa, attracted thither adventurers and fortune-hunters from all corners of the earth. Here we may see the Englishman, recently arrived and superciliously scornful of colonias; the miner from Wales, speaking no tongue but Welsh, drawn thlther by high wages; ; the Yankee, supreme in enterprise and slowly busting all his competitors from business; the French investor, the Ger man brewer and. of course the Scotch bank clerk. Indian coolles, Afghans with horses, Persians In round, embroidered caps; Syrians peddling and hawking Greeks and Italians pushing great bar rows laden with fruits and luscious grapes from the Cape orchards Malay women with regular, oval features, carry ing upon their backs enormous bundles of washing; Boers with wagons and oxen, cracking their long whips round the mar ket square; half-castes and natives from every tribe between the Zambesi and Table Mountain, pass and repass, Intent upon their business. There Is the sturdy farmer from the back ved, making his first visit ito town,' with his round fringe, veldschoen of untanned antelope hide and nautical trousers buttoning at the sides. and the Hebrew, predominant Al azArxthinx. tn tho saloon tradA the