Online Encyclopedia

HARRISMITH

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V13, Page 22 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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HARRISMITH  , a

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town in the Orange
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Free State, 6o m . N.W. by
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rail of
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Ladysmith,
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Natal, and 240 M . N.E. of
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Bloemfontein via Bethlehem . Pop . (2904) 8300 (including troops 1921) . It is built on the banks of the Wilge, 5250 ft. above the sea and some 20 M . W. of the Drakensberg . Three miles N. is the Platberg, a table-shaped mountain rising 2000 ft. above the town, whence an excellent supply of
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water is derived . The town is well laid out and several of the streets are lined with trees . Most of the houses are built of white stone quarried in the neighbourhood . The Kaffirs, who numbered in 1904 3483, live in a
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separate location . Harrismith has a dry, bracing
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climate and enjoys a high reputation in South Africa as a
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health resort .

It serves one of the best-watered and most fertile agricultural and

pastoral districts of the province, of which it is the chief eastern trading centre . Wool and hides are the
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principal exports . Harrismith was founded in 1849, the site first chosen being on the Elands
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river, where the small town of Aberfeldig now is; but the advantages of the
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present site soon became apparent and the settlement was removed . The founders were
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Sir Harry Smith (after whom the town is named), then governor of Cape Colony, and Major Henry D .
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Warden, at that time Britisl
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resident at Bloemfontein, whose name is perpetuated in tha of the principal street . In a cave about 2 M. from the town an well-preserved Bushman paintings .

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