Lost Cities 28
he wrote. “At first, after we had crossed the Vaal [river],
the surface of the country was smooth and grassy, but
as the column advanced northwards the ground became
broken – at once more dangerous and picturesque. Dim
blue hills rose up on the horizon, the rolling swells of
pasture grew sharper and less even, patches of wood or
scrub interrupted the level lines of the plain, and polished
rocks of conglomerate or auriferous quartz showed through
the grass, like the bones beneath the skin of the cavalry
horse. We were approaching the Rand [the ridge upon
which Johannesburg is built].”^12
Just outside of Johannesburg, there’s a city called Pre-
toria. Once a year, Pretoria becomes distinctive from the
surrounding landscape. The city is also known as the
Jacaranda City due to the thousands of jacaranda trees
planted in the streets, parks, and gardens. When Joshua
flew above Pretoria, he saw all the jacaranda trees’s blue
and purple flowers and decided this was the place to build
a new life and open a chiropractor clinic.^88
Opening a chiropractor clinic in South Africa wasn’t
easy because most people had never before heard of chiro-
practors. They couldn’t advertise because the Afrikaans-
English dictionary didn’t include the word chiropractor,
so they had to use their own personal contacts. “I was
unable to get an office downtown, so bought a place 2.5
miles [4 km] from the business district,” Joshua wrote
in a letter. “We moved in on the first of December and
started to practice that day. Had good success with the first
patients so the practice built up to 25 appointments by the