OCR Text |
Show cent are the farmers of the Soutfc Africa Union and the Dutch party i: at present in political power. Tin. re are about 1,500,000 whits people in South Africa and 10.000.00C black people with many colored and tiaf-easts. There are also many East Indians and Jewish people. There are two legal languages English am' African. The latter being a mixture of Dutch English and Hottentot Nearly everyone speaks both languages lan-guages but English is dominant in the cities and African in the Urban districts. The English mercenary system is used. We spend "tickeys" and shillings. shill-ings. It breaks our hearts as well as the Missionaries pocket book to spend pounds. The natural resources of Africa are agriculture and the mining of gold and diamonds. There are many kinds ond colors of diamonds, they also vary in hardness. They are found in many parts of the Union and in great quantities in Kimberly, the largest deposits, however in the world are found in Joranesburg. The diamond mines are owned by Englishmen English-men and the output is under the most careful control. If you find a diamond you must throw it away, anyone caught with a raw diamond will go to jail. This accounts for the high price one pays for these gems. Agriculture presents many different problems down here to those at home. ' There is very little rainfall and that largely in the winter season. The soil is very sandy. I am surprised to And that loam soils are very rare and I have not seen a clay soil while I have been here. The soils are acid and deficient in phosphorous and nitrates. ni-trates. Since Ostrage plumes have gone out of fashion, ostrage farming is hardly profitable. On our journey from Capetown to Port Elizabeth we saw a number of these farms. There are many poison snakes here, only yesterday a new kind was found. This single snake was a whole cart load. Monkeys and baboons ba-boons are plentiful out in the brush, also game of many kinds. Lions and elephants are far inland and we do not see them, wild. Very little natural forest is found here; however, through the dilligence of the people, there are many hundreds hund-reds of acres of planted forests, these being largely evergreen and gum-wood forests. Africa's greatest social problem is the colored question; it is a serious one in our Missionary work too. It is hard to adjust ones self to these conditions. Another problem is that of the "Poor White" Men who can only pick and shovel must compete with the negro and he works for $.75 to $1.25 per day. Another disadvantage disadvant-age is that the Jews own all the big interests, gold, and most of the commerce, com-merce, consequently all the wholesale profits go out of this country. Living conditions as to modern conveniences, are not as favorable here as in the U. S. Telephones are rare, electric lights are common in cities but not so in the Urban districts. dis-tricts. The latest models in automobiles automo-biles are here but most people do not own one. Previous to the war there was no manufacturing in South Africa, conditions con-ditions at that time forced some manufacturing man-ufacturing and it has come to stay. There is a very high tariff on most of these products and the quality is inferior in-ferior to those of our country. In spite of these draw backs, I think this is a beautiful country. Flowers and foliage grow abundantly, new and interesting things are to be seen all the while. Again thanking you for the "News from Home" "Very sincerely, Clare B. Christensen. o I With Our Missionaries Port Elizabeth, Cape Province, South Africa January 8th, 1929. American Fork Citizen, Dear Editor: It is surely good to receive the Citizen each week and learn how Ihings are in the Home community, and although the editions are a month old when they reach me they are twice as welcome as ever before. Being Be-ing fourteen thousand miles from Utah, makes everyone seem a little nearer. South Africa, too seems quite a different world to our home in the mountains. We have day while you have night, summer while you have winter, and we have a new set of lights in the firmament Our economic and social conditions are very different; we eat the same kind of food only it is served and eaten in English fashion. The history of Cape Colony began when Vasco De Gama found the end of Africa and the way to the East Indies. Portugal, under Prince Henry, established a trading route around Africa, but the Dutch being superior in navagation, soon took it up, sank Portugal ships and brought ruin to Portuges companies. The waters of the Indian Ocean are very rough at times, the African Coast between Durban and Capetown is very rugged and racky. It is said that hundreds of the old Dutch ships were wrecked on that coast. Since it took from one to two years to make the round trip to India, Capetown was built as a base of supplies. The English tried for a long time to take Capetown but were unsuccessful. unsuccess-ful. Finally they secured it by subduing sub-duing the Mother country. The English Eng-lish kept it ever after but the Dutch persisted in acquiring other holdings so that today the people of Dutch de- |