The convicts thus become
trained in useful manual work, as well as in habits of obedience,
and when they are discharged, are not only better men, but people
in whose work employers of labour have confidence. I learned that
the great public mountain roads in Cape Colony have thus been
constructed by convict labour, at a comparatively small cost, while
the convict acquires skill and useful training. Going up country,
my attention, among other matters, was turned to the distribution
of mineral wealth and difficulties of water supply, for, as Sir
Frederick Young has remarked, the water supply is one of the great
problems which all persons have to consider in South Africa. The
season during which rain falls is short, and the rain drains
rapidly down comparatively steep inclined surfaces, so that science
of many kinds has to be enlisted to conserve the water, and turn
the supply to account. I found the rocks of much of the country
have been curiously compressed and hardened and thrown into
parallel irregular folds, and that these rocks were afterwards worn
down by the action of water, at a time when the land was still
beneath the ocean, with the result that many basin-shaped
depressions are preserved and exposed, each of which holds a
certain amount of water.
Pages:
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116