Transcribe Journal of a trip from the East Coast of Africa to the Cape, 1884

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For long time Ivory and hides composed exports. Then wool. Then ostrich feathers. Then diamonds. Now gold is added. As you go north in the Colony the country grows more and more arid, and the settlements more sparse. There seems to be no vegetation except thorn-bushes. Boers call them Wachta bijei (Wait a bit.) ^They stop gateway of kraals with them^. The farmers calculate 7 acres for one ox. Farms are limited in numbers by the b[illegible] Orange river in Lat. 28 S. At about Middle of continent it has two branches coming from East, – the lower the [Caledon?] The upper the Vaal. Orange Free State, nearly as large as our state of ^Maryland and^ Delaware, lies between. Then at North far cross the Vaal river into the Transvaal. That country in turn has on its North West and North sides the Limpopopo or Crocodile river which has its mouth in, or near, Delgoa Bay.