Johannesburg, South Africa

T.R.S…
Arrived at 8.30am at Johannesburg, the city beautiful. Came into station through native slums, consisting of squatty hovels and narrow dirt streets, but even this section looks clean and orderly, reflecting a sort of dignified poverty that refuses to be sullied with filth.

Neatly kept warehouses and factories line electrified railway lines. Station very busy with a constant flow of humanity. Saw one native woman with a huge bundle on her head, child in a sling on her back, a basket in one hand and a three-year old barefoot child hanging on the other, and quite a conspicuous lump under her apron. She looked straight ahead and went about her business.

To dress, most children simply gird themselves with a loin cloth and are all ready for the day's fun. A fleet of autos awaited our party at the station and took us on tour of the city. Terrain is rolling like Cincy, Pittsburgh, or Kansas City. Fine downtown business buildings are of Dutch and English architecture, and sloping streets permit an observer to see a whole section at a glance.

Mostly modest but well-built houses of various shades of brown brick or stone, roofed with red tile. Hundreds of modern and well-designed apartment buildings, usually with balconies, and many attractively decorated with wrought-iron grill work.

Not many Venetian blinds are seen. The preference is for French windows with pull curtains. Looked for and failed to see a single dwelling without a hedge or masonry wall around it. Driver said bricklayers in Jo-burg earn $45 a week and hundreds are busy at work year round. Houses of frame or wooden construction are forbidden by law. City has many public parks, nice, wide and winding boulevards, double-decked buses.

Materials for buildings under construction are stacked in rear, while in front lawns and flower beds are maintained. Streets torn up to repair water and sewer lines are surrounded with white picket fence sections to prevent unsightliness. My hat is off to Jo-burg, the most orderly and exquisitely beautiful city I have ever visited.

Took morning tea as guests of city's mayor and wife at Wanderer's Club, a stately edifice at edge of town where membership fee is $75 and annual dues only $50. It has 600 members, four bowling greens and several tennis courts stand out in the terraces of this club's magnificent grounds.

Leaving the club, we drove about the city viewing thousands of fine homes, flowered landscapes and gardens, then back to Carlton Hotel for luncheon, where the steward brought us the sad news of King George's death.

On the street after lunch we saw flags hanging at half-mast from many store buildings. Our driver (a Suid African) seemed to grieve deeply, rated the King as a fine man, and the new Queen Elizabeth as a worthy successor to the throne. Asked what he thought of the Duke of Windsor, he said he never thought of him at all.

Pretoria, South Africa

T.R.S…
The overland auto trip from Jo-burg to Pretoria is much like driving through Richland and Ashland Counties in Ohio. Highway is lined on both sides by full-grown eucalyptus trees, with crop-lands and pastures on the wide slopes surrounding.

After 30 miles, Voortrekkers Shrine appears high on a hilltop overlooking the capital city of Pretoria, 3 miles beyond. The shrine is a blockhouse-type of building built of brown stone, 100 feet square and 150 feet high, surrounded by a circular wall 15 feet high. On the face of the wall is a continuous train of covered wagons in bas-relief, depicting the early trek. Seven hundred thousand people attended the dedication of this monument in 1948 and camped in tents, autos and trailers for miles around.

In Pretoria, the home of Oom Paul Kruger, first president of Orange Free State, is maintained as a government museum and contains all the relics, emblems and manuscripts incident to his office. The stately horse-drawn coach in the stable and all the symbols of authority and power displayed here were in odd contrast with the crude chair-potty standing next to his bed.

The government building originally built to house the Parliament as the capital of the Union of South Africa (now located at Cape Town) is an architectural masterpiece, and the approach to it is a gem of landscaping and flower gardening. Standing at the building entrance one looks down over a series of long terraces, each covered with flowers in full bloom of infinite colour and variety.

Wide walk-ways with heavily buttressed stone stairs lead from one terrace down to the next, and enable the visitor to get a full panoramic view of the gardens. There is no flower gardening in North America to compare with this and, knowing this, amateur photographers with colour film had their cameras clicking on all sides.