fairly vindicates its title of the “Flower-town” of the Transvaal.
The streets are straight, dividing the town into rectangular blocks, and at the-places where they intersect, open squares are left, the most spacious of which is appropriated for a market-place. The little English church, all overgrown with ivy, is very picturesque, but with this exception none of the public edifices rise above the level of the ordinary style of building. The town is the residence of a magistrate, and of the Portuguese Consul, and it contains several elementary schools. It carries on an active trade with the diamond-fields and Natal, some mills and tan-yards being situated on the outskirts. The produce sent to the diamond-fields consists chiefly of corn, meal, meat, and tobacco; that sent to Natal being tobacco, cattle, skins, and a small supply of ostrich feathers and ivory. It should be added that a large proportion of the goods despatched to the interior from Natal and the diamond-fields has to pass through Potchefstroom on its way.
Although the town has no pretensions to architectural beauty, yet the places of business are thoroughly commodious, and the private residences are often quite elegant villas. The great charm, however, of them all, even of the most modest, lies in the well-kept orchards and gardens with which they are surrounded, the hedges being gay with myriads of roses, with fig-bushes, and with the bright leaves and fiery blossoms of the pome-
