Christiana, Attractive and Promising
Northern Cape Bulletin, October 1947
During the preparation of this Bulletin, we have spent some time in Christiana. Sitting on the stoep of the Vaal Hotel, which, under the new management of Mr. G. G. Snyman, greatly contributes to making a week-end of holiday in Christiana pleasant and enjoyable, we reviewed all the possibilities touched in Mr. Meyer's narration. Surely there was beauty, life and prosperity all around us, a busy movement of commercial and industrial traffic, a refreshing greenness, and encouraging conversations about innovations improvements in the near future. The influence of the Vaal-Hartz Scheme prosperity, resulting from artificial irrigation, is linked with the benefits which the Vaal grants to its riparians. We visited the river, we admired the places for recreation all along its banks, and we spoke with inhabitants, both young and old, about the benefits of Christiana's Health-water, on which the Government Analyst in September, 1943, wrote the following report: -
"The water is fairly heavily mineralised sulphur water, containing a lithum salt; it is fully as highly mineralised as many European natural waters which are reputed to have a medical value."
This valuable water can at present only be taken locally, but one day perhaps may be bottled and taken over much of the continent of Africa, making a second Karlsbad of this progressive town, which, although geographically situated in the Transvaal, in its economic life belongs mainly to the rich and thriving part of the regional area served by our Association, the Northern Cape. It is therefore that we feel justified in dedicating this Bulletin to the border town of Christiana. Its greater prosperity, which is only a question on time, will surely be an essential aid to our main aim: a flourishing Northern Cape in the centre of prosperous South Africa.
