line from Cape Town was effected through the Hex River Valley
with a gradual ascent to Hex River East, where the line begins
to climb the mountains by sweeping curves and zigzags, piercing
some of the spurs in tunnels, and spanning gulleys with viaducts,
until it attains its highest elevation of 3588 feet at Pieter Meintjes
Fontein, 77 miles from Worcester. This is a trifle higher than
the summit of
Table Mountain,
which rises in air
3582 feet above
Cape Town. For
a stretch of more
than 20 miles in
the ascent of this
ridge, the gradients
are one in 40 and
one in 45, with
curves of five chains
radius.
In
the year following the extension to Kimberley there was a fortunate
impulse to the extension and operation of all the lines by the
discovery of the Witwatersrand Gold Fields. Then first appeared some
substantial prospect of profit for all the competing lines by the
addition of another great centre of attraction and production. The
junction of the Cape Town and Port Elizabeth line at De Aar, in March,
1884, had largely diverted the flow of freight and passenger traffic
between the Diamond Fields and the coast, which, for some years, had
been passing principally along the line through Graaff Reinet; but the
rise of Johannesburg offset this loss to the Port Elizabeth,
