Incwadi Yami: or twenty years' personal experience in South Africa

By Author	[ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z \| Other Symbols ]
By Title	[ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z \| Other Symbols ]
By Language

Download this book: [ ASCII ]

Look for this book on Amazon

We have new books nearly every day.
If you would like a news letter once a week or once a month fill out this form and we will give you a summary of the books for that week or month by email.

Title: Incwadi Yami: or twenty years' personal experience in South Africa
Author: Matthews, J. W.
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.

*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Incwadi Yami: or twenty years' personal experience in South Africa" ***

[Illustration:

HON: J. W. MATTHEWS M.D. M.L.C.
VICE-PRESIDENT.
]

[Illustration:

HON: G. BOTTOMLEY M.L.C.
KIMBERLEY.
]

[Illustration:

HON: JOHN PADDON M.L.C.
BARKLY.
]

[Illustration:

HON: HENRY GREEN M.L.C.
HAY.
]

[Illustration:

HON: JAMES ROSE INNES. C.M.G.
PRESIDENT.
]

[Illustration:

HON: F. J. VILLIERS.
ACTING COL^L. SEC^Y.
]

[Illustration:

HON: H. B. WRIGHT.
TREASURER GEN^L.
]

[Illustration:

HON: LEIGH HOSKYNS.
ATTORNEY GEN^L.
]

[Illustration:

M^R. ADVOCATE LANGE.
CLERK.
]

INCWADI YAMI
TWENTY YEARS’ PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
IN
SOUTH AFRICA

J. W. MATTHEWS, M.D.

LATE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF SOUTH AFRICA, AND LATE
SENIOR MEMBER FOR KIMBERLEY IN THE CAPE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY

LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON
ST. DUNSTAN’S HOUSE
FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E. C.
1887

MY FELLOW COLONISTS OF SOUTH AFRICA

AND ESPECIALLY TO

MY FRIENDS ON THE DIAMOND FIELDS

WHO HAVE ON TWO SEPARATE OCCASIONS RETURNED ME AT
THE HEAD OF THE POLL TO REPRESENT THEM IN THE
COUNCILS OF THEIR COUNTRY, I RESPECTFULLY
DEDICATE THE FOLLOWING NOTES FROM
AN EXPERIENCE GAINED DURING

TWENTY YEARS

OF, I HOPE, A NOT ALTOGETHER USELESS LIFE AMONG THEM.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

Leave England, 1864—Surgeon Superintendent of the
_Tugela_—Capt. Knowles of the _Northfleet_—First sight of
land—Mouth of the Umzimvubu—Gates of St. John’s River—Land
in Natal—Governor Maclean—Appointed District Surgeon of
Victoria Co.—Settle at Verulam. Pages 9–14

CHAPTER II.

Prevailing diseases in Natal—Incident at Mr. Tom Milner’s,
Redcliffe—Interesting medico-legal case—Coffee
Planting—Marriage—Rev. D. Lindley, D. D.—His early
work—Diamond fever, outbreak of—Sail for India. 15–32

CHAPTER III.

Zulu Customs—Ukulobola—Umkosi—Inteyezi—Insomyama—Kafir
Doctors—Fate of the Witch Doctor, Kongota, and his
victims—Bishop Calloway and Zulu “Folk-Lore.” 35–51

CHAPTER IV.

Trip to Tugela—Maritzburg—Bishop Colenso—Umgeni
Falls—Estcourt—Lidgetton—Curious absence of fish in Mooi
River—Capt. Allison’s Border Residency—Usidinane’s Cannibal
Caves—Mont aux Sources—Umbundi’s Pass—Return journey. 52–69

CHAPTER V.

Taking a holiday—Life on board the _Red Riding
Hood_—Mauritius—Madras—Calcutta. 70–84

CHAPTER VI.

Trip to Benares—Cawnpore—Homeward voyage in S. S.
_Vixen_—Distress—Perilous tramp—Aden at last—Suez
Canal—England—Africa once more. 85–93

CHAPTER VII.

Leave Natal—First impression of the Diamond Fields—Sickness
at the Dry Diggings—Father Hidien—Hospital
arrangements—Quacks—Medical registration in South
Africa—Curious decision of Capetown Medical Board—A
“Mendacious” practitioner—Sanitary condition,
1878—Threatened small-pox, 1882—so-called small-pox,
1883–84—Madmen and their treatment—Climate of Griqualand
West. 94–115

CHAPTER VIII.

Gambling at the Diamond Fields—Mr. Dodd’s advice on
gambling—Speculative value of diggings—The Fields in the
early days—Gambling hells in 1872—Mr. Jones “at
home”—Governor Southey’s proclamation—Exodus to the Free
State—Rondo en colo—Collapse. 116–125

CHAPTER IX.

O’Reilly’s account of Niekerk—Dr. Atherstone and the first
diamond—The river diggings—Influx of population—The dry
diggings—Discovery of the Kimberley Mine—Early discomforts
of the diggers—Present condition of Kimberley. 126–135

CHAPTER X.

Geology of the mine and surroundings—Section of reef
strata—Surface soil—Calcareous tufa—Light colored
shales—Black carboniferous shale—Limonite—Landslips—Burning
reef—Sulphur vapors—Natives afraid to work—Coal plants—Fire
and choke-damp—Igneous rocks—Contraction and expansion of
mine—Strata of mine itself—Red sand, tufa, yellow
ground—Blue ground—Rich and poor claims—Remarkable
boulders—Greasy slips—Maskelyne and Flight’s observations. 136–150

CHAPTER XI.

Source of diamondiferous soil—Extracts from Messrs. Bain,
Ure, Dana, and Osborne’s geological theses—Various theories
advanced—None entirely satisfactory or conclusive—The origin
of the precious stone veiled in mystery. 151–171

CHAPTER XII.

The process of diamond mining from start to date—The “Long
Tom”—The “cradle” and the “baby”—The sorting table and
scrapers—Van Doussa’s invention—The scene in the Kimberley
mine—The roads, “stages,” “whims,” and “whips”—The rotary
washing machine—The cylinders and the elevators—Singular
mistakes—Statistics of labor employed—Steam power—Fuel—The
Kimberley waterworks. 172–184

CHAPTER XIII.

Population of the Diamond Fields—Kafir eating-houses as
decoy places—Rumors of tribute in diamonds by the natives to
their chiefs—Ingenuity of native thieves—Celebrated case
Queen _vs._ Vogel—“Happy child of Ham”—Grades through which
a stolen Diamond passes—Spurious notes and glass
diamonds—Case before the late Judge Dwyer at Beaufort
West—High handed conduct of Detective Department—Two Bishops
and a Senator searched—Freetown and Oliphansfontein—A
startling exposure—Trial of notorious Highwaymen—Social
grades of I. D. B.s or Illicit Diamond Buyers. 185–206

CHAPTER XIV.

Diamond legislation—Resume of Sir Henry Barkly’s
Proclamations—Epitome of the ordinances of the Legislative
Council of Griqualand West—Review of the Acts passed by the
Cape Assembly—Description of Trapping system—Adoption of
“onus probandi” clause by Orange Free State—Searching
Department—The Compound system. 207–225

CHAPTER XV.

Description of the I. D. B.—Public morals—The Music Halls
and their songs—M. L. A.s and M. L. C.s in league with
thieves and receivers. 226–230

CHAPTER XVI.

I. D. B.—Tales from real life—“The mystic three letters”—The
Biter bitten—An ungrateful hound—A plucky woman—Nemesis—Too
clever by half—The early bird catches the worm—An unexpected
recovery—A deathbed scene. 231–242

CHAPTER XVII.

Description of the company and share mania in 1881—Events of
the “Bubble Year”—Causes which brought the mania about—Why
companies were first formed—The Barnato Co.—The Central
Co.—The Frankfort mine—The Cosmopolitan Co.—Wonderful
investments—Slow return of confidence. 243–256

CHAPTER XVIII.

The early history of the Diamond Fields—Adam Kok, Cornelius
Kok, “Dam Kok,” Andreas and Nicholas Waterboer—The Diamond
Fields and their Governments—The hoisting of the British
Flag—The Keate award—Rush from the river to the dry
diggings—Pniel deserted—The commencement of diamond
stealing—Judge Lynch puts in an appearance—Discovery of the
new Rush Kopje (Kimberley mine)—British rule proclaimed—Free
State courts closed. 257–274

CHAPTER XIX.

Sir Henry Barkly pays the Fields a second visit—Promises
that the Fields shall be a Crown colony with a Legislature
of its own—Letters Patent proclaiming Griqualand West a
crown colony—Hon. Richard Southey first Lieutenant
Governor—An incipient revolution—The Court-House surrounded
by an armed band—The Black Flag hoisted—The revolt—Colonel
Crossman—Changes in the Legislative Council—Recall of the
Lieutenant Governor. 275–289

CHAPTER XX.

Mr. Justice Barry Acting Administrator—Arrival of Major
Lanyon—Principal events of his administration—Annexation
bill passed Cape House of Assembly—Criminal prosecution of
Editor of “Independent”—Attorney General Shippard’s argument
and oratory—Acquittal of accused—Great rejoicing—Action
against “Independent”—Apology. 290–299

CHAPTER XXI.

The Gaika and Gealeka war—Col. Warren and “our
boys”—Warren’s brilliant coup—The rape of the Gaika
matrons—Signal victory at Debe Nek—Col. Lanyon and
Gasibone—Bloodless victory at Phokwane—Return of
Volunteers—The Griqualand West war—Engagements at Wittehuis,
Langeberg, and Taikoon—Cruel apprenticeship of women and
children—Close of the Griqualand West rebellion—Korannas at
the Salt Pan—Hermanus Lynx and his untimely death—Liquor
Bill of Mr. G. Bottomley. 300–311

CHAPTER XXII.

Col. Warren and Mr. Justice de Wet put their hands to the
plough—Visit of Messrs. Sprigg and Upington—Pie Crust
promises—My protest in the Legislative Council against
annexation—Departure of Mr. Rose Innes C. M. G., last acting
administrator—Election for Cape House of Assembly. 312–319

CHAPTER XXIII.

Natal again—Coolie immigration—Bishop Colenso—Laing’s
Nek—Ingogo Majuba—Interesting interview with Generals
Joubert and Smit—Grave-yard at Mount Prospect—Lady Florence
Dixie—First session in Cape House of Assembly. 320–342

CHAPTER XXIV.

Trip to Robben Island—Dean Newman’s description thereof in
1855—Old Somerset Hospital—Lunatics and Lepers—Horrible
sights—Leprosy among animals—Dr. Wynne’s opinion—Mournful
case in the Sandwich Islands—Dr. Keith Guild’s theory of
leprosy untenable—Annual cost of lepers—Segregation act
passed by the Cape House of Assembly in 1884—Dr. Ross’s last
report 1886—Visit to Cetywayo and Langibalele at Oude
Molen—My wife’s interview with Cetywayo in London. 343–368

CHAPTER XXV.

Visit to Basutoland—Pitso at Maseru—Pitso at
Leribe—Roma—Interview with Masupha—General Gordon’s
appointment—The Roman Catholic and Protestant
Missions—Mafeting—East London—Sir David Wedderburn—Arrival
in Capetown—Cape Assembly—Resignation. 369–392

CHAPTER XXVI.

Description of the religious bodies on the Diamond
Fields—Educational efforts—The Church of England—Roman
Catholic Church—Dutch Reformed
Church—Doppers—Wesleyans—Presbyterians—German
Lutherans—Jews—Mahometans—Hindoos—“Bishop”
Mellet—Natives—Neglected Opportunities—Advent of Salvation
Army—Sundry Visitors—Birds of Passage. 393–413

CHAPTER XXVII.

Law and lawyers on the Fields—Law in the early days—Absence
of crime at that epoch—The Mutual Hall—Magisterial
jurisdiction—The Attorney-generalship—Attorneys and Law
Agents—A sudden death—Curious nomenclature of Kafirs—The
fate of “Brandy and Soda.” 414–423

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A serious accident—Felstead’s—Dr. L. S. Jameson—Trip to the
Transvaal—Mons. Grandier—Umbelini and
Cetywayo—Christiana—Potchefstroom—Pretoria—The Erste
Fabrieken—Burgers—Shepstone and Lanyon—Mapoch and
Mampoer—Battlefield of Bronkhorst Spruit—Start for Natal. 424–454

CHAPTER XXIX.

Leave Pretoria—A trying
situation—Heidelberg—Standerton—Michaelson’s—Boer Camp at
Laing’s Nek—Majuba once more—Newcastle—Maritzburg—Plough
Hotel—D’Urban—Voyage to the Cape—Curious mental
phenomenon—Return to Kimberley. 455–462

CHAPTER XXX.

Visit to the Kaap Gold Field—Caves at Wonderfontein—The
Duivel’s Kantoor—“The Valley of the Shadow of
Death”—Barberton and its development—Course of gold
discoveries. 463–481

CHAPTER XXXI.

Moodie’s syndicate—Their exorbitant demands and the
result—Barber Bros. and the Umvoti Reef—Mad
speculations—Future of the Gold Fields. 482–493

CHAPTER XXXII.

Leave Barberton—Steynsdorp—Komati River—King Umbandini’s
Kraal—Swazi Land—The drink curse and its result—Interview of
Dr. Clark, M. P. Transvaal Consul-General in England, with
Umbandini—National yearly dance of Swazis—The Tembi—Delagoa
Bay. 494–510

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Lourenço Marques—The changes it has
seen—Harbor—Climate—Railway plant imported by the late
President Burgers—Advantage of the Delagoa Bay route to the
Gold Fields. 511–514

CHAPTER XXXIV.

L’envoi. 515–518

APPENDIX.

Zulu ultimatum—Table of Diamond exports—Dr. Schenk’s report
of geological formation at Barberton—Burgers’ protest
against the annexation of the Transvaal—Clause 11 of Gov.
Southey’s dispatch, April 11th, 1874, to Sir Henry
Barkly—John Dunn’s letter to the Aborigines Protection
Society. 519–542

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Legislative Council Griqualand West, 1885 _Frontispiece_
The Mouth of the Umzimvubu 8
Port Natal and Town of D’Urban 9
In a “Parlous” State 19
Falls of the Umzinyati 24
Inanda 25
Scene in Natal, Family Group of Zulus 34
Diagram of Kraal 38
A Kafir Dance 47
Umjaba’s Kraal 53
Zulu “Mashers” 41
Falls of the Umgeni 61
Falls of the Tugela 67
Umbundi’s Pass 73
Pieter Botte Mountain 79
First Home on the Diamond Fields 95
Kimberley Mine—First Stage 98
Kimberley Mine—Middle Stage 115
Kimberley Mine—Present Stage 127
Drying Floor for Blue Ground 133
Kimberley Mine—Transverse Section 143
Kimberley Mine—Plate I 153
Kimberley Mine—Plate II 159
Kimberley Mine—Plate III 163
Kimberley Mine—Plate IV 169
Diamond Washing Machine 173
Spurious Bank Note 196
Free Town 212
The Waterboer Medal 259
The Vaal River Drift 282
Annexation—Melancholy End of Griqualand West 292
Cartoon, “He’d Be Floored” 298
Taikoon Pass 307
Grave-yard at Mount Prospect 328
Leper Department, Robben Island 349
Cetywayo, with Autograph 360
Cetywayo’s Wagon 366
Maseru, Basutoland 371
Molappo’s House, Basutoland 376
Roma Mission (R. C.), Basutoland 384
A “Dopper” Boer 402
Bronkhorst Spruit 429
Court-House at Potchefstroom after the siege (1880) 433
Execution of Mampoer, Nov. ’83 443
Monument (Boer’s) 457
Monument (British) 459
Cave at Wonderfontein 465
Barberton, Transvaal 470
Barberton, First Gaol and Hospital 477
Sheba Reef, Barberton 487
Kafir Hut 497
Falls between Barberton and the King’s Kraal, Swaziland 499

[Illustration:

THE MOUTH OF THE UMZIMVUBU—“GATES” OF ST. JOHN’S RIVER, NATAL.
]

[Illustration:

PORT NATAL AND THE TOWN OF D’URBAN.
]

CHAPTER I.
LEAVE ENGLAND, 1864, AS SURGEON SUPERINTENDENT OF THE “TUGELA.”—CAPTAIN
KNOWLES OF THE “NORTHFLEET.”—FIRST SIGHT OF LAND.—MOUTH OF THE
UMZIMVUBU.—LAND IN NATAL.—GOVERNOR MACLEAN.—RECEIVE APPOINTMENT AS
DISTRICT SURGEON OF VICTORIA COUNTY.—SETTLE AT VERULAM.

After finishing my studies in Scotland I visited London at the end of
the autumn of 1864 for the purpose of appearing before the examining
board of the Apothecaries’ Hall, when I found myself the guest of a
brother-in-law, a popular non-conformist preacher in one of the populous
suburbs of that city. During my stay with him I happened to hear one
evening that an emigrant ship appointed to sail next day to Port Natal
would most probably be detained by the sudden illness of the surgeon
superintendent who had governmental charge. The vacancy was offered to
me on condition that I should at once pass the official examination
required of every medical man before he can be legally entrusted with
the care of government emigrants. Early next morning, therefore, I
appeared before Mr. Le Gros Clark, the appointed examiner, and
successfully passing this extra examination joined on the same afternoon
the good ship _Tugela_, Captain Stewart, bound with emigrants to Port
Natal, South Africa. Sailing at once, I had for the first time an
opportunity to look round at my fellow voyagers, who were chiefly
composed of honest English yeomen with their families seeking to better
their fortunes. The officers as time went on I found to be good men and
true, the chief especially, whose sterling qualities, of which but a few
years after he gave signal proof, I soon learned to appreciate. His
memory is now all that remains; yet many of my readers and especially of
my fellow passengers will have recognized in the noble hero of the
_Northfleet_, the same Knowles of the _Tugela_, who on the fatal night
of January 22d, 1873, when his ship lay at anchor between Folkestone and
Dungeness, with 400 men, women and children on board, bound for
Tasmania, was run into and sunk by a foreign steamer. I remember reading
how chivalrously he endeavored to rescue the women and children, and how
with his revolver he shot down those who in a cowardly manner tried to
seize the boats. As said at the time, “he died at his post, sinking with
his ship, having acted with a calmness, promptitude and decision that
will cover his memory with honor.”

The position of medical superintendent on board an emigrant ship I soon
found was in one sense no sinecure, but I quickly learned the art of
adjusting opposing social elements, and lulling the brewing storms,
which, as there was neither sickness nor accident during our voyage,
were the only cases (?) about which I was consulted.

Time dragged slowly on. Since bidding “good-bye” to old England on
December 3d, 1864, the eighty-four days we spent together on board the
_Tugela_ passed monotonously yet pleasantly enough, our enforced
idleness being broken only by alternate storms and calms, the distant
view of passing ships, and the comparatively uninteresting episodes of
emigrant life, until on Sunday morning, February 5th, 1865, the “golden
shores” of the Promised Land to which we were bound, burst upon our
view. Running before a fair wind in sight of land, we feasted our eyes
for a few hours, as we sailed along at a distance of one or two miles,
on the lofty cliffs with their grass-clad, table-topped summits, which
command the mouth of the Umzimvubu, the “Gates” of St. John’s River, and
excited were the discussions we indulged in about the reported resources
and fertility of the land to which we were destined. We were a long
time, however, in coasting to Natal, and it can well be imagined how our
desire and curiosity increased. At last the early morn of February 25th
found us laying at anchor outside the bar of the harbor of Natal. Words
cannot depict the intentness with which we surveyed the bluff, standing
like a sentinel on guard at the south entrance of the bay, and admired
the tropical vegetation with which it was clothed from base to summit;
neither can I put into words the interest we felt as we gazed at the
rolling breakers, and the eager anxiety with which we watched the
sluggish approach of the lighter destined to land us on the shores of a
new country. As all the emigrants under my charge landed in good health
after the long voyage, the gratification that I felt was very great. I
will not attempt to describe the hearty greetings of friends long
separated, the tender embraces of husband and wife, of parent and child,
again united, nor the shy, coy, loving looks of some, which threw out a
suggestion of an anticipated happy future.

Passing my luggage through the custom-house, I rode up to D’Urban from
the point along a deep, sandy bush path, skirted on both sides by a
tangled mass of tropical vegetation, forming a dense undergrowth to fine
forest trees, and went to the “Royal,” kept at that time by a good
fellow named Jessup, who years afterward “played the part of a
Boniface,” as the saying is, at the diamond fields.

Having a few days to wait here until the next mail steamer sailed to
England, I happened in conversation casually to hear of a vacancy in the
Natal government medical service, caused by the sudden death of a
district surgeon in Victoria County, the most enterprising and rising
portion of the whole colony. The following morning, while taking
breakfast, two gentlemen, whom I afterward knew as large sugar planters
on the coast, joined the table and began talking over the events of the
week. “So he’s dead at last,” said one. “Yes, and who’ll take his place,
I wonder?” said the other. After some further conversation, I gathered
that the report I had heard of the sudden death of a doctor was correct,
and that it was about him they were conversing. The chief speaker
continued: “He made £700 a year, but could have made double if he’d
liked.” Hearing all this, I introduced myself and told them who I was,
when, with colonial frankness, they both strongly urged me to apply at
once to the government for the appointment.

I did not require to think twice over the matter, visions of £1,000 a
year at two-and-twenty floated temptingly before me, so deciding at
once, I determined to go to the capital, Pietermaritzburg, and see
Colonel Maclean, who was acting governor at the time. This I did next
day, and the colonel gave me the acting appointment.

Being anxious as quickly as possible to see the district and people
among whom, for at least a time, I had thrown my lot, immediately on my
return to D’Urban I lost no time in visiting Verulam, the chief town of
Victoria County, which was founded, I was told, in 1850 by a party of
Wesleyan pioneers. Riding four miles through terrible sand, I crossed
the Umgeni by a beautiful iron-girder bridge, afterward washed away by a
sudden rising of the river in August, 1868, passed Jackson’s coffee
estate and some extensive bush clearings, and then a few miles more
brought me to Lovatt’s well-known roadside inn. All the way to Verulam,
the place of my future residence, the landscape was studded near and far
with thick forests, interspersed with sugar and coffee plantations,
forming lovely little views; here and there, too, I could see smoke
curling up from the fires where the planters were burning the timber in
the forest, and many a time I halted my horse to watch around the
blazing logs the groups of lithe, active, happy natives, laughing,
singing and working by turn—a novel sight, indeed, to one accustomed to
English coldness and stolidity.

Leaving behind Lister’s pretty coffee trees and banana groves, Smerdon’s
mill and extensive sugar fields, I crossed the Umhlanga River, so named
by the Kafirs from the reeds on its banks, which nearly hide it from
view, and ascending a steep cutting along the side of a hill named
Kaht’s Kop, caught sight at last, at a turn of the road, of the village
of Verulam, lying snugly ensconced in a hollow among the hills on the
banks of the Umhloti River. Another mile brought me to my journey’s end.
Turning the sharp corner of a neglected graveyard, a pretty church on
one side of the road, and on the other a sweet little thatched cottage,
literally smothered with honeysuckles, and which I soon learned was the
parsonage, greeted my view.

Putting up my horse at the inn, I called and paid my respects to the
resident magistrate, Dr. Blaine, a member of my own profession. After
lunching with him, we walked round the village, and he introduced me to
the principal inhabitants, not omitting the worthy vicar, the Rev. W. A.
Elder, and his wife, who were kind enough to invite me to take up my
residence with them. A few more days saw me settled down, and I
commenced regular practice in the county on April 3d, 1865.

Sugar was at that time paying handsomely and coffee promising well, and
consequently good wages were given to native laborers; yet the planters,
although surrounded by a large Kafir population, were never able to rely
on obtaining a regular supply of labor, as the native was too
independent, the young men merely working until they were able to save
enough money to buy cattle sufficient to pay for a wife. The consequence
was that the planters, although surrounded by hundreds of thousands of
natives, had been compelled, about six years before my arrival, to
organize a system of coolie immigration from India. One of the
agreements they were obliged to enter into with the Indian government
was that regular medical supervision should be provided for all
immigrants; and to defray this cost, the planter was authorized to make
a deduction of one shilling a month from the wages of each coolie.

I soon became acquainted with all the planters in my division of the
county, and found that a regular visit once a month to each estate,
combined with the exigencies of a private practice, kept me busy, “week
in, week out, from morn till night.”

The planter of those days I found an excellent type of colonist. He was
generally a man of means, well educated, “a good fellow,” young, and
drawn from the English upper middle class. In some few individual cases
there might be a want of ballast, but colonial experience, soon gained,
supplied the deficiency. My range of practice extended from the cotton
company’s plantation at the Umhlali to Kennedy’s sugar estate on the
Umgeni River, a district forty-five miles long, and extending inland, as
a rule, about seven miles. Within this area I attended, as nearly as I
can remember, twenty-five estates, employing on an average 1,600
indentured coolies. When, after a long absence, I visited Verulam this
year, I found matters greatly altered. Hospitals had been built there
and at Avoca, a village some twelve miles distant, to which any
important cases from the surrounding estates were sent. My old district
had been divided into three medical circles, with three doctors to do
the work which I used to do single-handed.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER II.
PREVAILING DISEASES IN NATAL.—INCIDENT AT MR. TOM MILNER’S,
REDCLIFFE.—INTERESTING MEDICO-LEGAL CASE.—COFFEE
PLANTING.—MARRIAGE.—REV. D. LINDLEY, D.D.—HIS EARLY WORK.—BISHOP COLENSO
AND THE REV. W. A. ELDER.—OUTBREAK OF THE DIAMOND FEVER.—SAIL FOR INDIA.

The climate of Natal I found extremely healthy, the average death-rate
being only 16 per 1000 among the white population, while among the
natives, judging from all inquiries, I do not think it amounted to half
that number, though this is more or less surmise, as unfortunately among
the latter no official returns were kept.

During my practice in Victoria County, extending over six years, I do
not think there were twenty deaths among the white population, and as
for the coolies, the change from India seemed to give them a new lease
of life.

Inflammation of the lungs, bronchitis and other chest complaints were
rare, and when they did occur were seldom fatal, the principal diseases
of importance being dysentery, low malarial fever (bilio-remittent) and
a peculiar form of hœmaturia, due to a parasite named the _Distoma
hæmatobium_, introduced into the system by the drinking of impure water.
I must not forget also to mention that an outbreak of diphtheria took
place before my arrival in 1859, which was the first time this disease
was known in Natal, and also that every now and then a severe form of
chicken-pox broke out among the Kafirs, which more than once gave
occasion for alarm, the malady having been mistaken for small-pox.
Asiatic cholera and hydrophobia have never been known.

Although not dangerous to life, yet as peculiar to this colony, I ought
to mention the Natal sore, a species of inflammatory boil, of a low
congestive nature, with which new arrivals were almost always troubled.

These sores were often produced by the irritating bite of an insect
known under the name of the tick (_ixodes_), of which there are
different species, and also by the bite of the mosquito.

Specimens of the larger species of tick having fastened upon animals in
such places as the ear, mane, etc., where they could not be rubbed off,
become gorged with blood to the size of haricot beans. Those which
attack men are much smaller. Ticks have no wings, no eyes, no mouth,
merely legs, a pair of sharp, delicate lancets, and a pipe or rostrum
covered over externally with small reflexed teeth, which they plunge
into the skin, and then suck away, holding on by their barbs. Dr. Mann,
formerly superintendent of education in Natal, writes: “this much,
however, must be said even for these blind, bloodthirsty insects, their
reality is not so bad as their reputation;” so that again we have an
instance of an enemy of man not being so black as he is painted.

In 1869 I treated many cases of malarial fever in Victoria County, most
of them, however, occurring close to lagoons on the coast, and though I
met with other scattered cases of it in the country, this was the only
outbreak which could be entitled absolutely epidemic.

I recollect in May of that year I had 120 cases among the whites and
coolies on a sugar estate, which was situated on the sea-coast, near the
mouth of the Umgeni River; but the fever was confined to this estate and
Verulam, where I had four cases, the total mortality, to the best of my
recollection, numbering nine.

The cases of dysentery, on the other hand, were often perfectly
intractable, and would sometimes yield to no mode of treatment, and this
was especially the case at the end of summer, when the experience of a
sudden chill would almost certainly induce the disease. Sickness was
most prevalent, if care were not taken, at the change of the seasons,
and when rains of an exceptional character took place, cases both of
fever and dysentery of a severe type were always expected. After the
disastrous flood of August, 1868, these expectations were realized to an
unusual extent. This great flood lasted from August 28th to the 31st,
inclusive, the downfall of rain being greater than the oldest
inhabitants could recollect, 15.60 inches falling in 48 hours, and 17.11
inches during the four days that the storm continued.

I had a very narrow escape at the time, when going to visit the manager
of Fenton Vacy, a sugar estate about four miles from Verulam. This
gentleman had been under my care for some days, suffering from a most
acute attack of dysentery, from which, I regret to say, he eventually
died.

A tremendous rain, which at the time I allude to had continued two days,
had caused the rivers along the coast to rise from twenty to thirty
feet, washing away both the cane from the fields and the coffee trees
from the hillsides. In addition, it carved out impassable gullies in the
roads, and choking up the rivers themselves with the carcasses of dead
oxen, broken reeds and trunks of trees, flooded the surrounding lands,
and brought everything to a stand-still. Notwithstanding the terrible
driving storm, I did not like the poor fellow to die all alone, without
a last effort to save him, so mounting one of my best horses, I rode as
far on the way as Mr. Tom Milner’s, one of Natal’s oldest sugar
planters, at Redcliffe, where I had to cross a stream at a drift close
in front of his mill. When I arrived there, the water was running like a
mill-race, but as Fenton Vacy lay on the other side, I determined to
make an attempt to get through. In the _Field_, some time after, I read
a full and accurate account of my adventure, names only being altered,
written by a visitor who was stopping for a few days at Redcliffe, and
as the article contains an accurate description of the class of rain
storms to which Natal is occasionally liable, I shall take the liberty
of reproducing it. The writer says:

“After spending a few pleasant days at the Royal Hotel, D’Urban, I was
told that a trip to Victoria County was the thing every one ought to
do, and that the planters were always glad to receive visitors lately
out from England. Accordingly, having had a horse lent me, I started
on a little tour, intending to visit some of the principal estates.
The chief caution the old hands gave me at D’Urban was, ‘Look out for
the rains, and when they come, don’t attempt crossing any river by
yourself,’ the soundness of which advice I had ample means of testing
before my return.

“The first river on my road was the Umgeni, stretching across which
was an iron bridge, at this time a good forty feet above the stream,
which was running rapidly but smoothly out to sea, distant some half
mile or so. This bridge had been erected at great cost and trouble,
and was pronounced to be strong enough to resist any flood.

“After a day’s hard riding I arrived at a sugar estate in Victoria
County, and received from its owner a pressing invitation to remain a
day or two and look round the place.

“All the week heavy showers had been falling, off and on, yet there
was nothing to indicate alarm to an uninitiated eye. But after dinner,
while we were sitting in the verandah enjoying our pipes and watching
the clouds as they swept past, my host suddenly exclaimed: ‘If this
east wind lasts through the night, we shall have a flood before three
days are over, if not sooner. It was just such a night as this ten
years ago, and very much the same time of year (about the middle of
August), when we had one of the worst floods that have occurred in the
colony. That stream which you crossed to-day, near our mill, rose a
good thirty or forty feet, and you will notice to-morrow that we have
made that allowance in choosing a site for our buildings. I don’t
believe it ever has risen more than this; but if it ever should, it
will carry everything before it.’

“Next morning, Melville, my host, was up before me, pacing the
verandah, and grumbling to himself. On my asking ‘What’s the matter?’
he came out with ‘Don’t you see, or didn’t you hear, that, just after
we turned in last night, one of the most tremendous storms we have had
for years came on? It’s been raining bucketfuls all night! And there’s
that manager of mine, sleeping down close alongside the reservoir and
mill, has never rung the bell yet to muster all hands, when he ought
to have had every man out half an hour ago, looking after the drains
and water courses. If you want to see a flood, you have got here just
in time.’

“The house stood on a hill about three hundred yards from the mill and
the other premises, which consisted of manager’s house, engineer’s
cottage, coolie and Kafir huts. Hurrying down there as fast as
possible, we found all the men quiet enough, although the waters and
river were beginning to show what might happen.

“To supply a water-power mill, which did duty partly as a
cane-crusher, though used chiefly for grinding corn, there was a large
reservoir, close to the manager’s cottage and considerably above the
level of the mill and other buildings. On nearing this we found the
banks overflowing, and the water between it and the mill nearly knee
deep. Even this overflow was enough to frighten us; but we both turned
white when Melville said: ‘If those banks give way, everything must
go—mill, sugar, engine-house, and every one within reach; so look out
that we don’t find ourselves amongst the number.’ The first thing was
to ring the bell and muster all hands. There were about 100 coolies
and 200 Kafirs, headed by the manager, who by this time was up, and
the engineer, the two forming the whole white staff upon the place.
Then there was a little excitement about volunteers to get a rope
across the river, this being a usual precaution of Melville in heavy
weather. Two trees on either side were reserved for this special
purpose, and it was accomplished with great difficulty and not a
moment too soon.

[Illustration:

“IN A PARLOUS STATE.”
]

“All that day we never left the precincts of the mill. It took us all
we knew to keep the water under, and to cut drains and cross-drains in
all directions. Several times during the heaviest showers we were
nearly beat, for the water came down, not in streams, but in sheets,
and with such force that it was difficult to stand against it. At one
time some of us were completely knocked off our feet and carried
against the mill wall, where it was nearly waist high. Fortunately
these violent rushes came but seldom, and lasted only a few minutes;
for the buildings, being of light construction, could not have
resisted such a current long, especially as the river itself at these
times rose to within a few feet of the main works. We were thus kept
constantly on the move till about 4 P. M., when the rains moderated
somewhat; and about six o’clock Melville said we might knock off work,
as he considered the premises safe, though the damage done was
considerable, and the place looked as if a party of sappers and miners
had been out under training.

“That night the rain stopped as suddenly as it had come on; and by the
following morning the temporarily made drains and water courses were
nearly dry, and the river much fallen, though still looking
impassable. Whilst we were putting things a little ship-shape—laying
out wet goods to dry, repairing roads and broken-down huts—Melville
suddenly looked up and said: ‘Here is our doctor coming down the hill,
and you may depend he is going to see a poor fellow on the next
estate, who is dying of dysentery, though I don’t know how he intends
getting across the stream.’ The sight of Dr. Hardy, who was a general
favorite, brought everybody down to the banks, where, after a good
deal of shouting and gesticulation across the foaming river, it was
made out that Melville’s surmise was correct, and that the doctor
intended crossing to visit his patient, who was, he feared, dying of
dysentery, which Melville assured me was only too prevalent in the
neighborhood; and, after a considerable amount of talking—the whites
on this side trying to dissuade him from the attempt, as one of the
most extreme danger, we saw him quietly take off his clothes and hand
them to his native outrider, who was kneeling down imploring him in
the most piteous manner not to go; at least so we judged from his
attitude, and learnt afterward that our surmise was correct. Then,
having only a thin cotton shirt on, without a moment’s hesitation he
seized fast hold of the rope, which was trembling and vibrating with
the force of the current, being in the middle quite under water, and
commenced his perilous attempt. So long as the rope was out of the
water he got on fairly; but when he reached the part under water the
struggle for life began, and a desperate one it was, for on getting a
little more than half-way his strength suddenly collapsed, and for a
few seconds he remained quite stationary. Then, suddenly plucking up
his courage and making one more desperate effort, he succeeded in
turning over on his back, getting each arm round the rope, with his
hands clasped over his breast. In this position he remained perfectly
helpless, unable to make another move. We also observed a sudden
change of his countenance take place; this, a few seconds before so
full of daring and confidence was now pale and relaxed, the eyes
closed, and the lips of a livid hue; his legs and body were entirely
at the mercy of the water, the arms alone, happily, continuing rigidly
locked round the rope. It is difficult to describe our feelings as we
stood watching these outward signs of departing strength. Melville
began frantically rushing up and down, offering hundreds of rupees to
any one who would save the doctor, but of the three hundred niggers
not a man moved. It seemed hard indeed to let a man die like this. So,
it appears, thought and felt the manager; for, with an exclamation of
horror, he got on the rope before any one could stop him, and struck
out for the doctor, whom he very quickly reached, when, speaking a few
encouraging words, he so far revived him by voice and gesture as to
get about a yard nearer the shore; but the struggle was so fierce, the
water so merciless, and the doctor so exhausted, that they could do no
more, and the manager also found his strength and nerve fail him. Our
feelings were now doubly intensified; for, instead of one man’s life
trembling in the balance, there were two. For a short time both seemed
lost, as, owing to the additional weight and strain upon the rope,
they were more under water than above, each wave completely covering
them. Suddenly, without a cry or a kick, the manager threw his hands
up, and was in a moment carried like a log yards down the stream. Then
indeed broke out cries and shrieks and yells from men, women, and even
children, of ‘Save the master! Save the master!’ some in English, some
in Hindostanee, and some in Kafir; and poor Melville was speechless.

“A little lower down the stream was a wide open space, which was
called the drift, and through which the main road passed when the
water was low. A general rush now took place there, as the only
possible chance of picking up the floating body was at this spot. Two
or three Kafirs of the Basuto tribe waded boldly half-way into this
boiling torrent, joined hands, and the outside one, by a dextrous leap
at the right moment, caught the upraised arm of the drowning man
within a few feet of a mass of rocks and boulders, which must have
caused instant death, and, amidst the cheers and shouts of all, landed
him safe. Meanwhile, the doctor still continued clinging with a
death-like grasp to the rope, it being in fact difficult to judge if
life remained at all. But now, whether the example set by the manager
stimulated others, or whether perhaps they felt some little shame,
several men, headed by the engineer (who could not swim a stroke),
succeeded in reaching him, and by dint of united efforts they brought
him to land, also alive, but considerably more like drowned than the
other. Both men, with the help of brandy and water, lots of rubbing,
and the other usual remedies, after a time recovered; and in about two
hours’ time Dr. H. felt able, accompanied by Melville, to go on his
road to Lime Hill, which they reached only in time to find his patient
rapidly sinking, and to receive his few last words, for he died that
same evening before they left the house.”

On arriving home next morning, I found a vivid account of my adventure
had reached the village. My faithful attendant in those days was a young
native, both of whose arms I had amputated owing to an accident in a
sugar-mill. This lad, seeing me struggling in the torrent, ran away in
affright, making sure I should be drowned, and told my wife and every
one he met what he had seen; consequently, on my return I received
hearty congratulations from all sides on my lucky escape.

Years after, on the diamond fields, many a diamond this honest boy
brought me when superintending my native servants, the loss of his arms
having apparently sharpened his discerning faculties. Poor fellow, at
last he gave way to that insidious enemy of the native, “Cape smoke,”[1]
which, to our eternal disgrace, is sowing destruction and misery
broadcast among them. One morning he had suddenly disappeared, never to
return, but whether murdered or not I never could find out.

While I held the government appointment in Verulam, many curious cases,
from a medico-legal point of view, came under my notice. The story of
Kongota, the Kafir witch doctor, I have told in another chapter, but I
will here relate a case which nearly terminated tragically to all
parties concerned, and which occurred on the very same estate that I
have just mentioned.

One fine moonlight night (if I remember rightly, in July, 1869) word was
hurriedly brought to the magistracy that a most shocking murder had been
committed and another attempted on the Fenton Vacy sugar estate. As
district surgeon I rode out at once, and on my arrival found all the
coolies in a terrible state of agitation, gathered in a crowd round a
small syringa tree, to which they had securely bound one of their fellow
laborers, who was pointed out to me as the chief actor in the tragedy
which had just been enacted. In a hut close by was the body of the
murdered man, his brains protruding from gashes in his skull, and in a
house adjoining the cause of all could be seen in the person of a young
and pretty coolie girl, with both her ears chopped off, moaning most
pitifully.

As no investigation could be made that night, everything was left in the
charge of the police until the morning, when I again, with the
magistrate, visited the plantation. At the edge of a stream close by I
was shown the spot where the man’s body had been found, and a large cane
knife, with which the murderous deed had been done, was produced, having
been fished up by the coolies from the bed of a rivulet some thirty
yards distant.

The theory set up was the following: The man whom I had seen tied to the
tree the night before was known to be madly in love with the murdered
man’s wife, who, however, rejected all his advances; and he, it was
supposed, out of revenge, had murdered her husband, and then attempted
to murder her—a theory which seemed feasible enough. On going to the
dead man’s house to see his body again before burial, I found all
arranged most neatly, the body cold and stiff was laid out in white
clothing; and as the deceased had been a Roman Catholic during life, a
large cross of wild flowers was laid on his breast.

On looking at the gashes on the skull, of which there were six, through
which, as I have already said, the brains were oozing, I was at once
struck with the fact that they were all parallel, and this at once
raised a doubt in my mind that perchance after all no murder had been
committed, as it would have been impossible for these wounds not to have
crossed one another, if only in a small degree. I ordered the man to be
undressed, his burial robes to be removed, and examined him more
minutely, when I fancied I detected a faint murmur over his heart.
Giving further instructions, I returned again in the evening, and found
the man actually alive and muttering to himself. To make a long story
short, he made a most extraordinary recovery. In a few days he was able
to give a lucid account of the whole affair—how, jealous of his wife, he
seized her when grinding chilies, and chopped off her ears; then he
described how he ran to the river’s brink, sat on the stone where he was
found, and made a desperate attempt, with both hands, cleaver-fashion,
to hack his skull to pieces with the cane knife which had been
recovered, and which he had spasmodically thrown away. This fully
accounted for the parallel longitudinal gashes, which had led me to
doubt that a murder had been committed.

My fortunate observation virtually saved two lives, as the funeral
procession standing outside his house was merely waiting my sanction for
the burial of the body; when in due course of law, on the strength of
the circumstantial evidence alone, the unfortunate but innocent admirer
of the wife of the would-be suicide would have paid the extreme penalty
of the law for his rash infatuation.

My readers may imagine the joy of the suspected murderer when I told
him, whilst awaiting in the Verulam jail an examination into his case,
the above facts proving his innocence. This, I may say, he had
throughout persistently and consistently maintained. The all-important
question for him of homicide or suicide was thus luckily and happily
answered.

After practicing for some months in the division I applied for a
confirmation of the acting appointment, which Gen. Sir J. J. Bisset gave
me in April, 1866.

I now felt more secure of my position in the county, and as a result
decided, in conjunction with a clerical friend, to commence a coffee
plantation near Verulam. This progressed very satisfactorily for two
seasons, when my partner, wishing again to join the ministry, from which
for a time he had retired, we sold off, in order to dissolve our
partnership, the estate we had bought, and on which we had already made
extensive clearings and planted thirty acres of coffee. This did not
deter me from another attempt at coffee planting, which I was again
doomed to forsake before the trees got into bearing, as on my return,
after my trip to India in 1871, I determined to go to the diamond
fields, where I had already, as I mention later, sent a party to dig for
me. I do not wish to dwell on matters which are not of public interest,
yet I cannot help mentioning, _en passant_, that to an accident I owe
the honor of becoming the son-in-law of one “whose name is still held in
high respect in Natal, among British colonists, Boers and Zulus, and who
belongs indeed to the very first rank of South African missionaries.”[2]
Making a professional visit to the Inanda Mission Station (American) I
met my “fate,” and in April, 1867, I married Dr. Lindley’s fifth
daughter.

During the interim which elapsed from my first visit to the Inanda and
my marriage, I had ample opportunity to observe the interest which Dr.
Lindley took in the welfare, both temporal and spiritual, of the
natives, and the unceasing efforts that he made for their advancement.
The early work of the American missionaries reads like a novel. I will
here give a short _resumé_ of their mission to the interior more than
fifty years ago, and the cause of its collapse at that time. The reason
of my introducing this sketch is the general unacquaintance of colonists
with the first steps of these noble men, these honored pioneers of
Christianity.

[Illustration:

FALLS OF THE UMZINYATI, NEAR INANDA, NATAL
]

On Dec. 3d, 1834, the _Burlington_ left Boston with a party consisting
of six missionaries and their wives, of which the late Dr. Lindley, my
father-in-law, was one, and arrived safely in Capetown on Feb. 5th,
1835, when three of their number, including Dr. Lindley, started almost
at once for the interior. Seven weeks’ wagon traveling brought them to
Griquatown, where they rested five months, arriving at Kuruman early in
1836. Here Dr. Lindley formed the acquaintance of the late Dr. Moffat,
and received much advice from him as to his future course of action.
Leaving Dr. Wilson behind with the ladies he went forward in company
with Mr. Venables to Mosega, in Klein Mariko, the headquarters of
Mosilikatze, chief of the Matabélé tribe, styled by Moffat the Napoleon
of the desert, whose permission to advance had already been obtained.
This position, about two hours from Zeerust, in the Transvaal Republic,
was the place upon which they had fixed to build a station and commence
their good work, a French mission having some short time before been
expelled from the same locality by Mosilikatze.

[Illustration:

INANDA: THE MISSIONARY STATION OF REV. D. LINDLEY.
]

The district was well chosen, and the spot where they settled, still
called Zenderling’s Post (Missionaries’ Post), was situated in a
charming, well-watered valley, embosomed in the hills in the district of
Marico, near Magaliesberg, in latitude 25°, 27′, longitude 27°, 47′.
Here, on June 15th, 1836, they commenced their labors, which, however,
were soon to be brought to a tragic end. Mosilikatze did not approve of
the teaching of the missionaries, which reflected to a certain extent on
his own actions, forbade his people to listen to them, and himself left
Mosega. Still these devoted men and women prayed and hoped that more
favorable opportunities would arise; for, to add to their misfortunes at
the time, a fever, obstinate and distressing, laid low many of their
families—caused partly by the climate, and partly by the damp floors of
the mud houses, which they had hastily built. Yet neither the distrust
or suspicion entertained by Mosilikatze, or the ravages and deaths
caused by the fever, drove them from the work to which they had devoted
themselves.

I must now go back a few months, and ask my readers to study the
previous state of affairs. During the winter of 1836, the Dutch in the
Cape Colony, disgusted by the treatment, which, in their opinion, they
were subjected to, and tired of British rule, determined to seek for
“pastures new,” and consequently they made preparations all over the
eastern and midland districts to emigrate. Some left for Natal, some
trekked northward and crossed over the Vaal River, when Mosilikatze,
becoming jealous of his rights, which had not been consulted, with his
Matabélé warriors nearly annihilated several small parties of Boers,
killing altogether twenty white men and twenty-six natives, taking away
their horses, cattle and sheep. This, as may be imagined, roused a
feeling of revenge, and as soon as possible a force large enough to
punish Mosilikatze was got together, consisting of 107 farmers, and
nearly the same number of Griquas and Korannas.

This organized reprisal left Thaba Nchu on Jan. 3d, 1837, and passing
through a country almost depopulated, where scarcely a single man was to
be seen, came to Mosega on Jan. 17th. All unexpected and unseen, at the
very earliest dawn, the Boers fell upon the inhabitants of that most
beautiful valley, and so sudden and so secret was the attack that the
missionaries were taken as much by surprise as the natives, not knowing
anything until they heard the whistle of the bullets flying around. “The
Matabélé soldiers grasped their spears and shields and rushed forward,
but volleys of slugs from the long elephant guns of the farmers drove
them back in confusion. The commanding officer of these natives was
away, and there was no one of sufficient authority to restore order. The
warriors took to flight, and were hunted by the farmers until the sun
was high overhead, when it was computed that at least 450 must have been
slain,”[3] shot down on that bloody morn ere the sun could reach the
meridian. Such a cold-blooded massacre, so one-sided an affair was it,
that not a single man, either European or native, on the Boer side was
touched. My wife’s mother has often pictured to me how, lying in bed,
where for nine weeks she had been prostrated by rheumatic fever, her
room was one morning suddenly filled by swarms of wounded, bleeding,
helpless women and children, imploring her assistance and trying to
escape from the inhuman butchery outside, but to no effect, as they were
remorselessly shot down even at her bedside; in fact, “the outhouse in
which their servants slept was literally shot to pieces.”[4] The Boers
having set fire to about fifteen villages in the valley, then thought it
advisable to retire with about 7,000 head of cattle they had found (!)
and as Mary Moffat, writing to her father at the time, said: “Pillaged
the (missionaries’) house before their eyes, and when they left, the
Boers were still in the house, packing up all their horses could carry.”
On leaving they urged, even used threats to force, the missionaries to
leave with them, which they did, “submitting to whatever the Boers
wished;” for removed far from civilization, shocked with the bloody
sight just enacted, afraid of their own lives, and convinced that for
years the introduction of Christianity had been _postponed_, they
thought it the best thing to do. In after years (1859) the fact of the
American Mission leaving Mosega with the conquerors, instead of
remaining with the conquered, was often used by the Matabélé as an
argument against allowing missionaries to again build in the country, as
they were certain it would only be a matter of time before other white
men would come, and their land would be taken away from them.

Mrs. Lindley was forced from her bed, and with a child in her lap rode
for twenty-three hours on horseback without stopping. Mr. Grout, in his
work on Zululand, says: “To their fear of being followed by a host of
exasperated savages, to the unceasing cry of cattle, and to all the
tumult of irregular, excited soldiery, add the want of proper food,
especially for the sick; the absence of a road, save such as the open
field affords; the want of a bridge or a boat on the now swollen
streams; the want of a dry suit for the women and children, who had to
be floated across the Orange River on a bundle of reeds, keeping only
head and shoulders above water; then, forthwith out of the river, add a
night of Egyptian darkness, through all the hours of which no sleep can
be had, save that which comes in spite of torrents of rain, thunder and
lightning, and all the noise of the motley group by which they are
surrounded—and you have some idea of what fell to the lot of the
missionaries, Lindley, Venables, Wilson and their families, on the
journey.”

In coming down to the coast, not knowing the passes of the Drakensberg,
they made a circuit around by Grahamstown of something like 1,500 miles,
and reached Natal at the end of July.[5] This account may read as
fiction in the present day, but it is notwithstanding a “romance in real
life;” what the early missionaries suffered and endured to propagate the
truths of divine religion among the heathen in former days, we can now
with difficulty conceive. Dr. Lindley, on his return from Mosega,
founded a mission station at Ifumi, at the south side of D’Urban, but
owing to the rupture between Durgaan, the Zulu king, and the Boers,
together with the murder of Retief and party, on February 6th, 1838, who
had gone to ask the Zulu king’s permission to settle on the south side
of the Tugela, the American missionaries considered it prudent to leave
Natal for a time. Dr. Lindley, however, remained behind, but after the
burning of his station at Ifumi, and after experiencing many dangers, he
escaped on board the _Comet_, a little schooner, lying in the D’Urban
harbor, and after first visiting Delagoa Bay, landed at Port Elizabeth
on June 22d, 1838. Here he remained twelve months, until peace was
restored by the complete overthrow of Durgaan, when he returned to
Natal, and commenced, with the approval of his Board, to labor among the
Dutch; and was the first to take over the pastoral care of the emigrant
farmers.

The Rev. John McCarter says: “As pastor he labored amongst the emigrants
for seven years (1840–1847) having as parish all Natal, together with
the surrounding territories and the Transvaal Republic. Thousands of
children were christened by him; his headquarters were Pietermaritzburg,
Winburg, and Potchefstroom. It was thus that in 1843 the congregations
of Winburg and Pietermaritzburg were amalgamated. Dr. Lindley himself
mentioned to the writer, that at all times and places his words were
listened to with the greatest concern, and the particular tenderness
with which after his departure the memory of Lindley was continually
held in these regions by those who knew him, witness what great good his
labors brought about.”[6] In 1847 Dr. Lindley resumed his connection
with the American Board, beginning his work again among the Zulus at the
Inanda. In that year he was appointed with Dr. Adams, by the Colonial
authorities, on a commission to see justice done to the natives, the
instructions given to them being “that there should not be in the eye of
the law any distinction or disqualification whatever, founded on mere
distinction of color, origin, language or creed, but that the protection
of the law, in letter and in substance, shall be extended impartially to
all alike.”

Carrying out these principles Dr. Lindley worked zealously at the Inanda
for twelve years, until he visited America in 1859. Returning in 1863,
he again resumed the duties to which he had devoted so much of his life
and energy. His success at Inanda was great and marked, and after
working another decade, he returned to America in 1873, and resting from
his labors, died in 1880.

Let me ask my readers to turn to another section of the Christian world,
in which a not altogether unimportant part was played in the little
church at Verulam. It will be remembered that I had taken up my abode
with the Rev. W. A. Elder, the Church of England clergyman, and as it
was at this time that the excitement over Bishop Colenso and his
“heresies” was at its height, I was in the centre of a very hot-bed of
opposition to him, the worthy vicar being most submissively orthodox.

After Bishop Colenso had published his work on the Pentateuch, which
horrified the orthodox and excluded the bishop from almost all the
church pulpits in England, he returned to the colony in November, 1865,
and visited Verulam. The Rev. W. A. Elder thought fit, sincerely
believing he was discharging a religious duty, to oppose his bishop
conducting service in the church on one of his visitation tours, and
this resulted in a scene, which took place on Sunday morning, Sept.
30th, 1866, not easily to be effaced from the memory of those who beheld
it. As had always been the case when the bishop made his periodical
visitations, the church was crowded, but even the earliest arrivals that
morning found the rector waiting in the chancel, which in this simple
building was merely a space railed off from the body of the church by a
low wooden balustrade. Just before the usual time for the commencement
of the service the bishop came in, walked up the middle aisle, advanced
toward the chancel, and was about to enter, when Mr. Elder confronted
him. Standing directly in the way, he read a protest against the bishop
taking any part in the service, giving his reasons at considerable
length. The bishop, who had a very commanding presence, stood while the
document was being read with unmoved dignity. When it was finished, he
made no reply, and did not show any consciousness of having even heard
it. He made no sign of assent or dissent, his looks betrayed no emotion,
but opening the gate of the rude screen he passed inside. For a moment
Mr. Elder seemed as if he would stand where he was to block the bishop’s
passage, but happily he made no attempt by physical force to prevent his
entering, and he sat down again at his own side of the Holy Table.

A few minutes of anxious suspense on the part of the congregation
followed, but as the incumbent made no signs of commencing the service,
the bishop rose from a little covered wooden box on which he had been
sitting, and with his well-toned voice in musical rythm, unshaken by
anger or agitation, read out the text that precedes the Exhortation:
“When the wicked man turneth away from the wickedness that he hath
committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his
soul alive.” Mr. Elder then at once left the church, and the bishop
conducted the beautiful offices of Morning Prayer according to the rules
of the Church of England, and delivered a most impressive and beautiful
sermon.

It was not until some years after this occurrence that Bishop Colenso’s
legal position was satisfactorily defined. Some little time after this,
I was chosen one of the church-wardens, and on Mr. Elder’s leaving the
country for England, previous to the bishop appointing another incumbent
in his place, I read, in my official capacity, the church prayers to the
congregation every Sunday morning. In addition to this rather novel
experience, the government, about this time, during the absence of Dr.
Blaine on leave, appointed me acting resident magistrate; so I acquired,
during my residence in Natal, a varied experience which has since stood
me in good stead. Everything went on swimmingly for the first few years,
fine seasons, auspicious rains, plentiful crops, good prices, money
plentiful, we had races, balls, concerts, sports, a fine regiment of
mounted volunteers, all wealthy planters; in fact the Victoria County
planter was renowned through the colony for his geniality and
open-handed hospitality. Unfortunately, however, at last a wave of
depression flowed over Natal, the planting interest came almost to its
last gasp through bad seasons and the usurious rates of interest which
the planters had to pay for advances against their crops. This, of
course, affected me more or less seriously, as no more coolies were
introduced, the sugar planters not being able to bear the expense, and
those in the colony at the time by degrees becoming free, and thus
relieved from compulsory taxation for medical attendance, my income
diminished in proportion.

Just at this time (the end of 1870) the discovery of diamonds in
Griqualand West, on the banks of the Vaal River, began to excite
attention, and digging parties to search for these precious stones were
formed both in the Cape Colony and Natal. We quiet folks in Verulam
caught the fever, which was very contagious, as a proof of which one
morning after breakfast I had no difficulty in organizing a company to
proceed to the Vaal River, of which Mr. G. I. Lee, afterward chairman of
the diggers’ committee, Kimberley mining board, and a member of many
scientific societies, consented to take charge. At the same time I sent
off a party on my own account, consisting of three white men and twelve
Zulus with wagon, oxen, tools and provisions for six months’
consumption, intending in a few months to take a trip and see the dry
diggings myself; but my anticipations of visiting Griqualand West and
the Vaal were unexpectedly deferred for a year, as, in connection with
the Natal government, I took the first ship-load of return coolies back
to India. Many a pleasant day-dream this venture gave me during my long
voyage of the immense fortune awaiting my return, and many a night, too,
did I dream of Sindbad the Sailor, his second voyage and walk through
the valley studded with diamonds. How these dreams were rudely broken, I
will tell in another chapter, but before doing so, will devote a few
pages to a description of Zulu customs and the scenery of the colony.

[Illustration:

SCENE IN NATAL—FAMILY GROUP OF ZULUS.
]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER III.
ZULU CUSTOMS.—UKULOBOLA.—UMKOSI.—INTEYEZI.—INSOMYAMA.—KAFIR
DOCTORS.—FATE OF THE WITCH DOCTOR, KONGOTA, AND HIS VICTIMS.—BISHOP
CALLOWAY AND ZULU “FOLK-LORE.”

While acting as district surgeon at Verulam under Dr. Blaine’s
magistracy, my connection with the government, as a matter of course,
enabled me to gain an insight into native customs, with which I should
not otherwise have had the opportunity of becoming acquainted. I had
further the good fortune of being associated in these matters with a
gentleman who thoroughly understood the Kafir language and character,
and whose ability has since been recognized by his promotion to an
important magistracy by the Natal government. I allude to Mr. J. C. C.
Chadwick, then clerk to the resident magistrate at Verulam, Victoria
County. This gentleman published in 1879 some commentaries on native
laws, customs and usages,[7] which are very interesting.

There are many customs among the Zulus of Natal which are known only to
the natives themselves or to those who have given great study to the
subject. Some—among others Mr. F. B. Fynney, who now occupies an
important official position under the Natal government, but whom I knew
as a sugar planter on the coast—think that the Zulus must have had at
one time an intimate connection with the Hebrew nation, as many of their
customs are decidedly similar to those practiced by the Jews, to whom
possibly they may have been in bondage in the past ages. Amongst the
usages to which Mr. Fynney draws particular attention in support of this
opinion, is the custom which the maidens follow of proceeding annually
to the hills to mourn or wail, thus reminding one forcibly of Jephthah’s
daughter. That they have a distinct religious trust, and acknowledge
both the existence of a supreme being, who created all things, and who
is endowed with infinite power, and that they also believe in another
world and a hereafter, he has no doubt. One thing is certain—they are
exceptionally superstitious, believe in signs, omens and supernatural
agencies. Nothing, in fact, according to them, happens by chance. They
even offer sacrifices to propitiate a supreme deity, whom not having
seen, they yet believe. Then, too, they have their “lesser gods,” the
spirits of their deceased ancestors; they have their conscience, their
sense of right and wrong, and their laws and customs to regulate their
social life. There is no denying the fact that a broad idea of a supreme
divinity circulates among them, and, as the Right Rev. Henry Calloway,
Bishop of St. John’s, who has devoted great study to the subject, says:
“The existence of the religious instincts in the natives, of those germs
of religious truth—which, among Christian people with a divine
revelation, have been developed into so glorious a religion—is evident
from the readiness with which, under proper teaching, they accept the
fact of the creating power continued to be manifested in Providence; and
that that creating power is our Father in heaven.”

The Rev. Dr. Lindley as well, after forty years’ experience among the
natives of South Africa, always expressed to me his belief in the easy
and gradual improvability of the native when not exposed to the
contaminating influence of the low white colonist, and to the coarse
materialism presented to him to copy.

While I was district surgeon the customs of the natives interested me
very much, and I will mention those which most attracted my notice.
_Ukulobola_, or the practice of giving cattle to the father or guardian
of a girl or widow, on her marriage, by her husband, is one of the
oldest laws among the natives of South Africa. Looking at the practice
from an Englishman’s point of view, it is tantamount to the purchase and
sale of women, but it does not bear the same construction in the native
mind, for it is by them considered as compensation for the loss of a
daughter’s services at an age when, by her usefulness and affection, she
might give some return for the care and attention which she received in
childhood. Moreover, the girl glories in it as a proof of her worth,
while the man himself would not value a wife who cost nothing. The
intended son-in-law, when engaged to a girl, generally begins to pay the
necessary cattle in instalments, and as he has to run the risk of their
dying, their sickness and death very often delay the marriage. If an
engagement is broken off the suitor gets back all the cattle he may have
paid on account; again, if a wife die without issue the husband can
claim the cattle he has paid, or the father must give him another girl
instead; but if the husband die while the wife is still young, a younger
brother takes the wife, or she returns home, and the husband’s estate
receives back the cattle, supposing the wife has borne no children.

Their law of inheritance is a study in itself. A Natal Kafir looks upon
any money or goods he may acquire as valuable only as a means of
acquiring cattle, by possession of which he may obtain wives. Land they
do not claim individually, and they set value on it only as the common
right of their tribe. The head man of a _kraal_ is a patriarch indeed,
and is responsible for the good behavior of the members of it. If he has
a son who is married, that son cannot, during his father’s lifetime, say
which of his wives shall be his _Ikohlo_ (right-hand wife), or which his
_Iquadi_ (left-hand wife), but his father, after due consideration,
chooses them for him, and when once appointed neither their position nor
that of their children can be altered, however badly they may behave.
The _Inkosikazi_ is the wife of the greatest rank, her hut is placed in
the centre opposite the gateway of the kraal, and her eldest son is
heir. The hut of the right-hand wife is placed to the right side, that
of the left-hand wife to the left of that of the “inkosikazi,” and of
course they occupy the next position to that of the chief wife. If male
issue fail the chief wife, the eldest son of the “ikohlo,” or right-hand
wife, can only succeed to the chieftainship in event of male issue
failing all the wives of the left-hand side. The head of the kraal is
entitled to receive all the earnings of his sons or daughters, but he is
expected to start his sons in life, or in other words, to find their
marriage portion. The following diagram shows the position of the chief
huts in a kraal:

[Illustration]

Generally when the head of a kraal dies, the heir leaves the kraal to
the chief wife and to the “iquadi,” his younger brothers remaining, and
if any of his father’s widows are young enough, his uncles or some other
man is appointed to raise up seed to his (the heir’s) house. This custom
is called _Ukungena_, but is now modified by allowing the widow, if she
chooses, to marry some other man; if so, however, the new husband must
pay a marriage consideration to the estate of the deceased husband.

The chase, too, has its rules, as also has the _Umkosi_, or dance of
first fruits, a festival before the celebration of which, at the chief’s
kraal, the first fruits of the season cannot be eaten. A large bull is
killed by the young warriors of the tribe, which is skinned, cut up, and
cooked, when the doctors first eat a portion, and then the chief does
likewise, but in doing so spits out some in the direction of the country
of each of his enemies, or rather of each independent government
situated around him; for instance, Cetywayo, the King of the Zulus, used
to spit toward Natal, the Transvaal, and the Swazi country, and utter
the names of the Governor of Natal, the Administrator of the Transvaal,
and the King of the Swazies, a custom equivalent to our drinking
confusion to all the Queen’s enemies and singing:

“Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks.”

The flesh after this is all cut up, thrown into the air, and all the
men, like hungry dogs, scramble to catch the pieces.

Next day the chief and all the men of the tribe dance in the kraal,
when, adjourning to a neighboring stream, the chief bathes, the ceremony
of “Umkosi” is finished, and the tribe can partake of the first fruits
of the season.

I may also mention the _Inteyezi_, or the sprinkling of warriors with a
decoction of herbs and roots to make them fierce and brave, the eating
of _Insomyama_, or the choicest meat, which, being consumed only in the
house of the head of the family, at once establishes the superiority of
the house, and consequently is very important evidence in trying cases
of disputed inheritance. Then again there is the penalty of damages in
the shape of an ox, which every man must pay who applies to another the
defamatory term _Umtagati_[8] or to a girl of _Isiropo_,[9] and,
further, there is the difference between the English and native laws of
evidence, which, as I am not a lawyer, I will discreetly pass over.

The intimate acquaintance I made, however, with the customs of the
native doctors (I suppose on account of its connection with my own
profession) many a time afforded me food for contemplation and
discussion.

It may not be out of the way here for me to mention the different
recognized kinds of doctors (_izinyanga_): 1st, the wizard or diviner
(_inyanga gokubula_); 2d, the rain doctor; 3d, the lightning and hail
doctor; 4th, the medicine doctor (_inyanga yokwelapa_).

[Illustration:

ZULU “MASHERS.”
]

The wizard or witch doctor is a very cunning, shrewd fellow, and he must
also be a doctor of medicine. The profession is not, however, confined
to the male sex, for as many women as men are engaged in its mysteries;
but to describe how the patients are gulled, and how the very secrets
about which they consult the doctor he manages to ascertain from
themselves, in what a professional manner they are duped, and how the
doctor’s riches and reputation increase, would take up too much time.
Rain doctors are supposed to have the power of causing rain to fall, and
are appealed to after a long drought, but they are clever enough never
to commence their incantations until indications of rain are
discernible, and consequently they are always sure of success. Next come
the lightning doctors, who dance around the kraals they have been
summoned to defend, brandishing their _assegais_ during the flashes and
violence of the storm in a manner that suggests insanity to the European
observer. Naturally they are more frequently successful than
unsuccessful. The hail doctors, again, believe that by burning medicine
while the hail is yet distant they diminish its power, and that when
they leave their huts to command it to depart it will return whence it
came. It must be understood that these doctors are not to be regarded as
opponents of the heavens, but simply as mediators. Bishop Calloway says
that many heathen have asked him to pray for rain, because he was one
whose office it was _Ukumelana nenkosi_—to contend with God—and who was
under the protection of heaven, and safe so long as he was observant of
the laws of his office. Last, but not least, is the medicine doctor.
Sickness, the natives believe, is always caused by an enemy, or by the
will of the spirits of their departed ancestors or relatives who
generally protect them from harm, but, who being sometimes angry, allow
sickness to overtake them, or the machinations of their enemies to
prevail. The doctor’s father and grandfather have generally been in the
profession before him, and the secrets of the healing art have thus been
handed down from generation to generation, though in some instances he
is a self-taught man, who has picked up some knowledge of diseases,
roots and herbs by observation and experience; but no faith, whatever,
is reposed in a doctor or diviner who happens to be fat. The medicines
employed are mostly innocent, but still many powerful drugs are included
in their pharmacopœia, for instance, they use the male fern
(_inkomankoma, lastred felix mas_) as a remedy for tape-worm, emetics by
the gallon for slight ailments, and as correctives after their
beer-drinking orgies, other medicaments so powerful that whole families,
both black and white, have been carried off by their felonious
administration; but their useful medicines are so mixed up with useless
adulterations that in most cases it would be better for the patient to
“throw physic to the dogs.” It used to be the case of “no cure, no pay;”
for, according to their law, if the patients died, or did not recover
until another medical man had been called in, the doctor got no payment;
but in Natal, now, on first attendance the doctor requires a preliminary
fee of ten shillings, nominally to buy medicine, but at the same time he
stipulates for receiving a bullock in case of a cure being effected. As
a rule they administer harmless drugs, thinking it safest to believe in
the motto of “vis medicatrix naturæ,” for there is no doubt the majority
are the most arrant quacks ever known. Some, who rank high in the
profession, travel from place to place, and as the result of their skill
and knowledge of human nature, return home after an absence of months,
or it may be years, rich in the possession of large herds of cattle. The
doctor of medicine is also often a witch doctor, and so combines in one
a knowledge of the two branches of the profession.

A case[10] occurred toward the end of 1866, in which I was engaged as
government surgeon, which at the time created an immense sensation in
Natal. It elucidates what I have just said of witch and medicine
doctoring being often combined. I think the story of the tragedy will
not be uninteresting to my readers.

Information was brought to the resident magistrate’s court at Verulam
that a native had been severely assaulted in a location some miles away,
and I was ordered by the resident magistrate, together with the clerk of
the court, to proceed to the wounded man’s kraal and investigate the
matter. Our path to the kraal, the home of the dying man, led through
the passes of one of the wildest, most rugged and most picturesque
regions to be found in the whole of Natal. Here, owing to the proximity
of the sea, we found the vegetation clothing the rocky defile to be most
luxuriantly dense and tropical. Tramping along the narrow Kafir path in
order to reach our destination, we had to push aside fantastic wreaths
of tangled convolvuli, force our way past festoons of monkey rope
parasites and other climbers, and whilst avoiding the wild date tree on
the one hand, had on the other to shun the prickly thorns of the
crimson-fruited _amatungulu_. Our tardy progress scared the barking
baboon in his rocky home, startled the chattering monkey from his lofty
perch and the timid buck from his grassy lair, whilst the
brilliant-plumaged _uqualaquala_ and other feathered denizens of the
bush flew away, alarmed at our approach. To describe the lovely,
ever-changing scenery which broke upon our view is almost impossible;
the majestic milk wood, the deadly _euphorbia_, the quaint Kafir boom,
the spreading fan-palm, the aloe, cactus and wild banana, all lending
their presence to produce an effect not easily to be effaced. Woe betide
us, however, if we did not keep a sharp lookout for the deadly snakes
coiled in the long grass at our feet, or for those which, hanging like
green tendrils from the trees above, were ever ready to drop upon our
heads.

On our arrival we found the man reported as seriously assaulted, whose
name, by the way, was Umjaba, sitting quietly smoking _bhang_ at the
gate of his kraal, with a blanket round his shoulders, seemingly
astonished at the excitement that he was creating.

On my asking him, through the court interpreter who accompanied us, what
was the matter, he denied that any assault whatever had been committed
on him, and as he neither showed me nor could I see any marks on his
person, we returned to Verulam.

Next morning, however, news was brought to the magistracy that he was
dead, and I was again ordered out to examine the body and report upon
the circumstances. The facts which I gathered were as follows:

Two months before, somewhere about the end of the year 1866, a native
doctor of the Amatonga tribe named Kongota, accompanied by a young
native who carried his pack of medicines and charms, came to the kraal
of an elderly native named Nokahlela, who resided in the Inanda
division, not far from Verulam.

As is customary amongst natives, the doctor was well received and
hospitably entertained by Nokahlela and his family, which consisted of
several wives and children of all ages, from infants in arms to grown up
sons and daughters.

It happened that shortly before the arrival of the doctor there had been
a death in the family of one of the wives of either the head of the
kraal or one of his sons. As is usual amongst the natives, the death was
of course not attributed to natural causes, but was firmly believed to
be attributable to the sorceries of some evil-disposed person, as I have
mentioned above, generally termed an _Umtagati_, and Nokahlela and his
family had some slight suspicion of a neighbor of theirs named Umjaba,
with whom they had had some disagreement. All these facts and suspicions
the wily doctor soon succeeded in finding out, and determined to turn to
his own advantage.

About this time a child of Umjaba’s sickened and died, and the doctor,
Kongota, who, if I recollect aright, had been called in to attend this
child, ascertained that Umjaba was quite ready to suspect his neighbor
Nokahlela of having brought about the infant’s death, and he therefore
made it his business to encourage the suspicion. When he found that the
suspicions he had encouraged were sufficiently strong, he boldly told
Umjaba that they were well founded; in fact, that by the practice of his
art and the power that he possessed of holding familiar intercourse with
the spirits of the departed he had ascertained that it was an absolute
fact that the child’s death was caused by the witchcraft of Nokahlela,
and that if he wished to be revenged for the murder of his child he,
Kongota, for a consideration could make that revenge easy to him. Having
thus “sown the good seed,” he departed and returned to Nokahlela’s
kraal.

Kongota then proceeded to fan Nokahlela’s suspicions as to the cause of
the death of his wife, until he succeeded in convincing him that the
death was caused by Umjaba, and having done so, he confirmed Nokahlela’s
belief in the same manner as he had that of Umjaba. The two men were now
both in the mood in which the doctor wished them to be—ready to
undertake almost anything that promised revenge for the supposed
injuries which each firmly believed that he had suffered at the hands of
the other.

For the consideration of a fine young cow, Kongota promised to procure
for Nokahlela the most complete satisfaction. Let us see how he
fulfilled his promise. According to primitive native law, an “Umtagati”
caught in the act of placing, during the night-time, at his intended
victim’s kraal, charms or medicines with the supposed object of causing
death or injury, could be seized and killed in the most cruel manner,
viz., by being pierced with sharp-pointed sticks, without even the form
of a trial. It was the gratification of treating his enemy in this
manner that Kongota promised to Nokahlela.

In furtherance of his plan, he now returned to Umjaba and sold him for a
head of cattle what he assured him was a most deadly charm. It looked
like fine, bright gunpowder, and was in reality the seed of the wild
spinach, and perfectly harmless. This he told him he had only to
sprinkle at the door of each hut of his enemy in such a manner that no
one could leave the huts without passing over it, and the death of every
one of the inmates would result. Umjaba hesitated for some time, as he
was afraid that he might be detected before he had effected his purpose,
but on Kongota offering to accompany him on the midnight expedition he
agreed to undertake it. The time was fixed and Kongota left him in
order, as he said, to prepare the way for him to carry out his design.
On the night following he promised to call for him and accompany him on
his errand of mercy!

[Illustration:

AMACI KAFIR DANCE.—ALFRED COUNTY, NATAL.
]

The doctor had now only to instruct his friend Nokahlela to receive his
nocturnal visitor, and then to reap his reward. This was soon done;
Nokahlela made the necessary preparations for giving Umjaba a proper and
fitting reception, and the doctor returned to the kraal of his dupe at
the appointed time. They were to start together about midnight. When the
hour approached, Umjaba, who felt rather uneasy about the possible
consequences of the enterprise, armed himself with an assegai and a
knobkerrie, that he might be able to defend himself in case of
necessity; but the doctor, not approving of these warlike preparations,
and thinking no doubt that he might receive a stray thrust or blow
himself when his treachery was discovered, assured him that such
precautions were utterly needless, as he had so charmed the kraal that
all its inmates were wrapped in the profoundest slumber, that not a dog
would bark, or a cat mew, and stated, moreover, that it was contrary to
all precedent to carry weapons when engaged on such an undertaking. Thus
reassured, and seeing that the doctor carried no weapon, Umjaba sallied
forth to his doom, preceded by his treacherous adviser. On arriving at
the gate of the kraal the doctor entered first, and observing the young
men of Nokahlela’s kraal lying on each side of the entrance, ready to
seize upon their victim, he whispered to them that Umjaba was following
him unarmed, and hurried on to a hut at the further side of the
inclosure, which he quickly entered, and wherein he took care to remain
until after the tragedy so soon to be enacted outside should be
finished.

Umjaba had no sooner entered than he was seized and secured by Nokahlela
and his sons (six in all) who took him outside the gate, and at once
inflicted on him the usual punishment awarded to _abatagati_, driving
the pointed sticks right up into his bowels. He was then carried back
and placed on the ground near his own kraal, where he was found the next
morning by his family. As I have said, information was given to the
authorities, and according to instruction I made my first visit to the
spot early next day, where we found Umjaba apparently quite sensible,
but who obstinately refused to give any information that would throw any
light upon the matter. On my second visit, as I have already mentioned,
I found the hapless Umjaba a corpse. On making a post-mortem examination
I discovered and removed three pointed sticks, each at least a foot in
length, which had been driven through the lower part of his body, right
into the bowels, out of view, and the agony of which, although it must
have been almost insufferable, he had possessed the stoicism to conceal.
Suspicion, however, fell upon the family of Nokahlela, and they were all
arrested, together with the doctor, Kongota; when the servant of the
doctor, who had himself taken no part in the affair, gave information
against the others, which resulted in the conviction of Nokahlela, his
five sons, and last, but not least, doctor Kongota himself, and they
were all sentenced to death. The doctor, Nokahlela and his eldest son
were hanged, and the others were imprisoned for a long term of years,
the sentences of death passed upon them being commuted by the governor.

There was for a long time great difficulty in getting evidence in this
case. This was caused by the doctor having administered a dose of the
already-mentioned spinach seed to every one in Nokahlela’s kraal who
knew anything about the matter, telling them after they had swallowed
the medicine that if ever they opened their mouths to say anything to
any of the authorities concerning what they knew, they would surely that
moment die. This kept them all quiet for a long while, until the
doctor’s servant, who perhaps from his familiarity with the doctor had
less faith in the potency of his medicines, told the _Induna_[11] of the
magistrate’s court that he would tell if he were not afraid of dying.
N-capai, the “induna,” assured him that he had nothing to fear from the
doctor’s medicine, though he had everything to fear from the law if he
concealed from the authorities anything with which he ought to acquaint
them. He then made a clean breast of everything, and thus revealed the
whole plot.

Umjaba, though he lived more than thirty hours after receiving these
dreadful injuries, maintained silence to the last upon the whole matter.
I suppose he considered that he had been rightly served for what he had
attempted to do, and that there was no use in saying anything about the
affair; but it always seemed to me a pity that Nokahlela and his eldest
son suffered the extreme penalty of the law, as they were simply dupes
in the hands of the doctor, and acted according to Kafir custom. The
doctor justly met his fate.

This story in “real life” illustrates the power which witchcraft still
exercises among the natives, and the vast field that yet lies open for
the teaching of the missionary and the civilizing power of the white
man.

During the six years I was in the Natal government service I had many
other opportunities afforded me of observing the effects of native
customs; but I will not tire my readers with more of these stories, as
they serve but to further illustrate the effects of superstition
ingrafted on ignorance.

Bishop Calloway, the greatest authority now living on the Zulu language,
twenty years ago interested himself in collecting the “folk-lore”
current among the Zulus, and endeavored to save from oblivion the
popular traditions, religious legends and superstitions of that people,
and “not to leave our children,” as he says, “to mourn, as our ancestors
have left us, that the people have died away and the language become
confined to a few mountain fastnesses or a few old men and women before
we have gathered up what might be known of their past.” His collection
of nursery tales (_Izniganekwane_) and the tradition of creation
(_Ukulunkulu_) are exceedingly interesting to any student of “folk-lore”
literature, the precision and exactness of the language showing that the
Zulu is the highly elaborated language of a people at once
superstitious, grave and clever, pastoral and agricultural; and also
that the language is one in which thoughts and ideas on any subject can
be clearly expressed.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER IV.
TRIP TO THE TUGELA.—MARITZBURG.—BISHOP COLENSO.—UMGENI FALLS.—ESTCOURT
LIDGETTON.—CURIOUS ABSENCE OF FISH IN MOOI RIVER.—CAPT. ALLISON’S BORDER
RESIDENCY.—USIDINANE’S CANNIBAL CAVES.— MONT AUX SOURCES.—UMBUNDI’S
PASS.—RETURN JOURNEY.

After five years’ work without any intermission, I made arrangements
early in 1870 to take a trip up country as far as the Drakensberg, a
range of mountains which divides Natal from the Free State and
Basutoland. I proposed to visit Captain Allison “at home” in his border
residency, to see the celebrated falls, where I had been told the
Tugela, rushing over awe-inspiring and romantic precipices, leaps 1,500
feet at a bound, then to visit the Mont aux sources, where from one
single spot the Tugela issues forth on its course to Natal, the Elands
River to the Free State, the Caledon to Basutoland, and the Orange River
through the Cape Colony to the Atlantic Ocean; and further to explore
the cannibal caves of Usidinane, situated in the heart of Putini’s tribe
and Langalibalela’s location.

My wife, myself, Captain Hill, of the Victoria mounted rifles, an
amateur photographer and four natives formed our party. Getting the
wagons, oxen and provisions all in readiness, we left Verulam on March
3d.

[Illustration:

UMZABA’S KRAAL, 1867.
]

The country between D’Urban and Maritzburg, the capital of the Natal
colony, ascends gradually from the sea level to an elevation of over
2,000 feet, sometimes in gentle slopes, sometimes in abrupt and rugged
steps. Our road lay through the village of Pinetown, a noted health
resort, round the cuttings of that precipitous height called Bothas
Hill, which afforded glimpses in the far distance of the fantastic
mountains, with their volcanic cones and extinct craters, of the Inanda
location, and the gloomy defiles through which the Umgeni River could be
seen twisting and winding. Then passing the Inchanga cutting, with huge
blocks of granite hundreds of tons in weight studding the foreground,
and Camperdown, a hamlet consisting of two or three homesteads and a
third-rate roadside inn, we at last reached Maritzburg, some fifty miles
from the coast. Here we remained over Sunday, and of course went to the
cathedral and heard Bishop Colenso preach. The sacred edifice was
crowded, as we were told it always was when this revered prelate
occupied the pulpit; and I may here say that his noble and commanding
presence, an attraction in itself, added greatly to the fascination of
his eloquence. The sermon that the bishop gave us on the morning on
which I heard him dealt with the trials and sufferings of Christ. In
vain I looked out for heretical doctrines, but seldom has it been my
privilege to listen to a sermon so devout in spirit and withal so
orthodox.

It was difficult indeed, seeing and hearing him, to realize the
opposition with which he was then meeting, or to comprehend the
presumption, I might say the gnarling, that characterized the majority
of his revilers.

While walking round the city I noticed that everything looked clean and
cheerful. The streams of water running in open sluits along the side of
the foot-paths, the clusters of weeping willows, the rows of stately
syringas, and the pretty villas nestling in clumps of the densest
foliage, conveyed the impression of ease and comfort. I also visited the
various public buildings, including the banks, schools, library and
hospital. On my last evening in Maritzburg, spending a few hours at the
Victoria club, I met Judge Phillips (subsequently promoted to a similar
judicial office in Cyprus), who, when talking over the route which I
intended to take, told me that after reaching the summit of the
Drakensberg and visiting the falls of the Tugela, I ought to come down
again into Natal through a pass named after a certain chief Umbundi,
“where,” he said, “you will have, if my information be correct, to pick
your way through a forest of magnificent cypress trees such as you have
never before seen.” I thanked him at the time for his information, and
often since have I been glad that I took the judge’s suggested route,
where, as he told me I should and as will be seen later, I found one of
the grandest and most novel sights in South Africa. Next day, we left
Maritzburg and ascended the Town Hill. Here we noticed the terraced
character of the country, for this road rising step by step, at least
1,500 feet, landed us fairly on the plateau which forms the midland
districts of Natal, where the long, rolling, grassy sweeps are the
principal features of the landscape.

The cracks of the long whip, the shouts of the driver, the regular times
to outspan and inspan, to eat and sleep, are the only events to break
the monotony of a wagon journey. The power of the trusty wagon whip,
with its crack so “loud and sharp,” has so bewitchingly been sung by Mr.
Charles Barter, one of Natal’s oldest colonists, that I need not offer
any excuse for reproducing it here. Many a time, to the tune of the
“Fine old English Gentleman,” have I listened to the lay.

Britannia’s three great colonies, though children of one mother,
Yet each in habits as in soil, must differ from the other,
And each some symbol vaunts to show—the rapture of her soil,
A humble household symbol of her settlers’ honest toil.
So we along the Southern Coast, let none who hear deride,
Will sing our trusty wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow hide,
Will sing our trusty wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow hide.

Through many a dreary wilderness, o’er many a barren moor,
From Western Cape to fair Natal first trekked the stalwart Boer,
His was the white-capt wagon, his was the steady team,
And he cut the lash from the reeking hide of the sea-cow by the stream.
And the savage quaked when first he heard up steep Quathlamba’s side,
The crack of our dreaded wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow hide,
The crack of our dreaded wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow hide.

The Australian boasts his stock-whip stout, with which in mad career
He urges o’er the boundless plain the wild unbroken steer,
Or drives his herds to pastures new in swift and headlong flight,
Down many a stony torrent bed, o’er many a rocky height.

But though loud and sharp its cracks resound adown the mountain’s side,
Yet it cannot match our wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow hide,
Yet it cannot match our wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow hide.

By Canada’s backwoodsman aye the narrow axe is borne,
Fit emblem of his wooded home—no theme for jest or scorn,
Right well her darksome forests know the sway of its fateful stroke,
As in answering crash comes thundering down tall pine or stately oak.
We may not scorn the narrow axe, the bold backwoodsman’s pride,
But we’ll shout ha! ha! for our wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow
hide,
But we’ll shout ha! ha! for our wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow
hide.

Then here’s to the tree our gardens yield, the tapering light bamboo,
And here’s to the hand that can wield it well, gin his heart be leal and
true,
And here’s to the slow and steady team that all the livelong day,
Through rough and smooth, with even pace, still plod their onward way,
And here’s to the Vorslacht’s clap, which wakes the echoes far and wide.
Then hurrah! hurrah! for our wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow hide,
Then hurrah! hurrah! for our wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cowhide.

But the rest from work did us all good. About thirteen miles from
Maritzburg we made a halt in order to see the beautiful falls of the
Umgeni, which are close to the drift where we crossed. The river here
has worn its way through piles of columnar basalt to the edge of an
awful precipice, where in one terrific leap of 372 feet it has for
countless ages fallen into the broad, deep pool below, the encircling
rocks around being clothed with trees, exotic ferns and flowers both
beautiful and rare. Many a tale was told us of “moving accidents by
flood and field,” of the sudden, tumultuous rush of waters when a flood
came down, of belated wayfarers and of rash unfortunates washed over
into the abyss. Leaving the pretty village adjacent to the falls, with
its church and wayside inn, reminding one of old England, we went on,
still ascending, another 1,600 feet to the Karkloof. I must not forget
to mention that a few miles before we came to this range we passed
Lidgetton, where the early settlers under the Burns’ scheme were first
located. Here our attention was drawn to the gentle puffs of smoke
lazily curling up from the steam mills working away in the forest,
where, almost unseen by mortal eye, they were turning out the timber
from which the colony obtains most of its best wagon material.

Trekking slowly, we crossed the Bushman River, the natives, seeing our
wagons from a distance, bringing chickens, marrows, pumpkins, and milk
for sale, until we came to the village of Estcourt, prettily situated on
its banks, where I enjoyed a nice plunge in the river, which here purls
over a pebbly bottom in a clear and crystal stream. Curiously enough,
the Mooi River, a few miles nearer the Drakensberg, is shunned by any
species of fish for miles, while in this river they abound. Here we were
awakened one night, having outspanned late, by the noise as of dogs
licking out the pots under our wagon, but as we had no dogs with us, we
could not make it out, until our natives next morning, from foot-prints
they saw, told us that hyenas had been prowling all round us, which was
in this part of Natal a matter of unusual occurrence.

Pushing on, our next stage was Colenso, where the Tugela, beginning to
assume grand proportions, courses swiftly to the sea; here, leaving the
main road, we turned to the left, and trekking thirty miles further
along a by-road but little used, came at last to the picturesque cottage
where Captain Allison was living, seven miles from the spot where the
Tugela falls over the perpendicular face of the berg. After cordial
greetings we rested for the night, being most kindly entertained by Mrs.
Allison and her daughters. The place seemed an “oasis in the desert,”
for here, far away from the civilized world, we suddenly found ourselves
in the midst of a circle as highly cultured as they were truly
hospitable. While fully acquainted, out of the world as their residence
might seem, with the latest sensations in literature, and doings of the
fashionable world in European capitals, our delightful host and hostess
had not neglected the study of the zoology of the colony, as their small
but carefully selected menagerie of cranes, mahens, quaggas, baboons,
etc., was sufficient to prove. Next day, with native police and horses
which our host had kindly provided, off we started before the sun was
hot to visit the Cannibal caves of Usidinane. I recollect, even now,
what a merry party we were that morning, and how we made the mountains
ring with our joyous shouts and mirth. Our guides, infected with our
exuberant spirits, chanted a war-song as they marched jauntily along in
single file leading the way, while we, riding behind, followed them by a
Kafir path which led over broken ridges up the steep, water-worn side of
a rugged mountain. After climbing some frightful ledges on its face, we
suddenly found ourselves in front of the entrance to the Cannibal caves
of the once so-much-talked-of Usidinane. This man, now a petty chief,
though formerly not possessing any tribal rights, used some sixty years
ago to live in these caves with his father and other natives, who, as
well as himself, were driven by starvation to become cannibals when the
country was overrun by the _impis_ and invading legions of the Zulu
king, Chaka, and the war-cries of that despot’s braves reverberated
through the mountains. Usidinane is still living, at an advanced age, in
charge of a few descendants of these cannibals, who, when Natal became
tranquilized, came forth from the shelter they had sought, and occupied
ground in the immediate vicinity, and are now called by the tribal name
of Amazizi. Off-saddling on our arrival at the caves, before we
commenced our exploration, we greedily set to work and ate up all the
provisions we had brought, the keen mountain air having made us
ravenously hungry.

My wife, though an excellent horsewoman, was greatly fatigued, so we
determined, the day being far spent before our examination of the
caverns was finished, to remain all night in them and return next
morning. With the caves themselves I was rather disappointed, as they
were merely like huge lime quarries scooped out in the rocks, yet
evidence was not wanting of their having been tenanted by human beings,
the charred ceilings and the vestiges of fire and bone-ash being
distinctly to be seen in their gloomy recesses. It is to my mind an
interesting fact that human flesh is never anywhere chosen by man from a
sense of preference—either necessity, not depravity, compels—or revenge,
not appetite, prompts its use. Some savages consume human flesh as a
sacred rite, a part of their religion in honor of the dead, some as a
sentiment of affection, and others again with the idea that principles
such as courage and honor are conveyed from the dead to the living.[12]

Colonel Bowker, whose name is so honorably associated with Basutoland,
in an article communicated to the _Cape Monthly_, in 1869, describing a
visit to the Putiasana Caves, in that country, says: “There was but
little disguising it [cannibalism], and the people when questioned spoke
freely of it, as first a necessity and then a choice,” but this I think
was simply native braggadocio. Charles Waterton, in his “Natural History
Essays,” bears out my opinion. In his essay on “Cannibalism,” he says:
“Before I can bring my mind to believe in the existence of cannibalism
such as I have defined it at the commencement of these fugitive notes
(the feeding of man upon man incited solely by the calls of hunger) I
must be convinced that there really does exist a human being, no matter
in what part of the world, who will slay his fellow man without any
provocation having been offered or any excitement produced, but that he
is known to deprive him of his life merely for a supply of daily food,
just exactly with the same feelings and with no other than we should
shoot a hare or a pheasant to entertain a dinner party.”[13] I have
quoted this eminent author verbatim, and though there appears to be an
omission of some such word as “not only,” his meaning is sufficiently
evident.

When the sun went down the night became bitterly cold, so lighting a
large wood fire, we sat round its crackling flames, which threw a lurid
glare on as motley a group as that cave had ever held within its walls.
White and black, male and female, horses and dogs. There we might have
been seen, clustered all night round the embers of the dying fire,
dozing and “dreaming” anything but “the happy hours away.” At early
dawn, all shivering and shaking, hungry and tired, we began our return
to Captain Allison’s, where our native servants, not knowing what had
become of us, were overjoyed on our arrival.

[Illustration:

FALLS OF THE UMGENI, HOWICK, NEAR PIETERMARITZBURG.
]

From the place where we were outspanned we could see standing out in
bold relief some few miles away the magnificent panorama of the
Drakensberg range, the white silver streak of the Tugela dashing down
the mighty cliffs and dark, buttressed precipices in front, breaking
into “snow-white foam, leaping from rock to rock like the mountain
chamois,” and in the far distance, filling up the background of the
picture, the towering crests 10,000 feet high, of Champagne Castle and
Giant’s Castle, the highest summits of the range.

Resting a day and enjoying the inspection of Captain Allison’s stock,
admiring his horses, trying their speed and jumping powers in
hurdle-racing over the _veldt_, and indulging in a little long-range
rifle practice, I made all arrangements to leave my wife at the foot of
the mountain, ascend and see the falls from the plateau, which, although
extending far backward into the Free State, is terminated so abruptly in
front by the precipitous cliffs of the ever-frowning Drakensberg.
Captain Hill being taken suddenly unwell, I started with three of the
guides who had previously accompanied me to the Cannibal caves and some
of my own “boys.” Climbing over a spur of the Drakensberg at Olivier’s
Hock, I struck a lovely valley on the south side of a branch of the
Eland’s River; but as the water was low at the time I was able to follow
its meanderings for several miles. Jumping from boulder to boulder over
the water holes in its course, I ascended the rocky bed of what was then
a simple, gentle stream flowing along with quiet delight and singing the
same old song to which generations (for this country had once been
thickly populated) long since dead and gone had listened.

Suddenly, my guides, pointing to a large sandstone cliff up high in the
banks overlooking the river, suggested that we should rest. Scrambling
up we came to a large cave, when, to my intense surprise and delight, a
perfect picture gallery presented itself, the whole of the walls being
covered with rude Bushman drawings of bucks, elephants and men in
different positions, gloriously promiscuous but remarkably graphic. The
wild, the untamed Bushman I have never seen. Small and repulsive, he
lives entirely by hunting with the bow and poisoned arrow, and although
a few still lurk in the inaccessible cliffs of the Drakensberg range,
which I was gradually nearing, the majority have been driven away by
advancing civilization to the borders of Damara land and Lake Ngami. On
again, after a rest of a couple of hours a few miles brought us to the
pass, where the final struggle had to be made. What I had hitherto gone
through was child’s play compared to the task now in front. Large
perpendicular rocks, which to clamber over seemed almost an
impossibility, stood in the way, as if blocking our further advance, and
the pass itself contracting in width toward its summit, shut out the
light and cast a weird and gloomy shadow over the scene.

At last, dead tired out, we gained the top of the mighty Quathlamba,
10,000 feet above the sea. Walking on a few hundred yards through the
scarlet and purple heather, which here carpeted the summit, level like
those of most mountains in Africa, I came almost at once to the banks of
the long looked for Tugela, flowing quietly past to the tremendous
brink, over which it was so soon to madly plunge and disappear. At a
point in the semicircle of crags surrounding the falls I sat down with
my “boys” all around me to admire the glories of a scene which they
apparently enjoyed as much as I. Never anywhere, either before or since,
have I beheld such a glorious sight, or one of such stupendous
magnificence and savage grandeur. Neither cloud nor mist obscured our
view, and there we sat perfectly entranced, never thinking of the flight
of time, drinking in the beauty of the landscape, which lay stretched
out, a glorious phantasmagoria, thousands of feet below.

Drinking a bottle of champagne, which at Captain Allison’s suggestion I
had brought with me to the top, I, with the natives’ assistance, set to
work and built a cairn, as a memento of the occasion, in the centre of
which I placed the empty bottle with a minute of my visit inside; long
ere this, however, I expect some wandering Bushman or Mosuto in his
curiosity has leveled our handiwork to the ground, and felt the pangs of
bitter disappointment on uncorking the bottle! The next thing was to
prepare for the night. If it were cold in the caves below, what was it
here? When the sun went down I had to crouch over a fire which some of
the “boys” had contrived to light, though fuel was not easily found,
while the others were busy making me a bed out of some dry heather which
they had been gathering.

Turning in among this and the long grass they had cut, “tired nature’s
sweet restorer, balmy sleep,” soon covered me over “like a cloak,” and
in a few seconds I was indifferent to everything here below.

Early astir, we were welcomed by a most glorious sunrise, “the powerful
king of day rejoicing in the east,” pouring forth a flood of beams
tinted with such grandly gorgeous hues that with difficulty could I tear
myself away after casting “one longing, lingering look” behind at a
vista of such beauty as it may perhaps never again be my lot to behold.
But before bidding this scene adieu, most likely for ever, the natives,
by my order, pushed to the edge of the precipice a large boulder which
they rolled over the face of the cliff, whilst I, with a stop watch,
lying over the precipice with one of my men to hold me, lest I should
become dizzy, marked the time the faint sound of its striking the rocks
below came back to my ear. This I tried several times with the same
result—twelve seconds—thus proving that the Tugela here falls in one
unbroken sheet 1,600 feet.[14] After a cup of coffee, following out one
of my original intentions, I spent some time in searching for the fossil
remains of the large _dinosaur_, a gigantic reptile, which had been
obtained in these mountains, but without success. At last we set off to
find Umbundi’s pass, leading to the Ulandi valley, named so by the
Kafirs after one of the peaks of the berg, by which route I hoped we
should return to the wagons. Following for two or three miles the edge
of the Drakensberg, Captain Allison’s police found out the pass for
which we were looking. We hastened on and coming to its entrance,
immediately commenced our descent. It was a narrow gorge, a perfect
chink in the mountain, and the pathway leading down by a gradual slope,
we could see was nothing more than the acute angle formed by the meeting
together of the opposite sides of the ravine. We left the top about 10
A. M., and progressed very satisfactorily for two hours, the scenery
becoming at every step more fascinating, sublime and majestic.

We appeared to be gradually leaving the world behind and sinking down to
unfathomable depths, while the cliffs above, majestically towering on
each side, one after another disappeared from our view as we pursued our
devious course.

“Echo to echo, groan for groan,
From deep to deep replies.”

At last we came to a sudden stop, an incident which will remain engraved
on my memory as long as I live.

We were brought to a stand-still by a steep, smoothly-worn chasm in the
rock, having a large and apparently deep pool of water, as clear as
crystal and as transparent and sparkling as glass at its base. How to
get past this obstacle was the question! None of my guides would venture
to drop over into the pool, and as the sides were equally precipitous,
we resolved, after mature deliberation, to turn back, and ascending
again, creep along a narrow ridge running longitudinally with the pass
but some 300 feet higher up the mountain sides. Thus avoiding the pool,
we hoped once more to descend and regain the more beaten track which we
had been obliged to leave. This we did in safety after experiencing
immense difficulty and danger. The mountain ledge to which we had
climbed, and along which we had contrived to limp our way, not being
more than a yard wide, and being studded with large, slippery stones and
bordered by precipitous cliffs both above and below, sloping at an angle
of 45°. As we descended from this giddy height, we at once found
ourselves in the forest of cypress trees (_Cupressus Wellingtona_,
so-called after a botanist of that name) which I have before mentioned.
These trees,[15] clothed in their sombre funereal foliage, seemed
altogether out of place, all the rest of nature seeming bright and gay,
while they appeared doleful and sad. Making our way for some distance
through what I may call this hypochondriacal freak of nature, we saw at
last signs of returning life and animation, the sheep and goats browsing
on the hillsides and the lowing cattle and neighing horses grazing on
the “veldt” below. I breathed freely once more when we emerged from
Umbundi’s gloomy pass into the valley of rare beauty and attraction
leading to Captain Allison’s, and wound our way through the kraals of
the Amangwani tribe, who people that locality, and I can assure my
readers that I felt relieved when, after a long day of danger and
excitement, I found myself safe at his hospitable house once more.

[Illustration:

THE FALLS OF THE TUGELA, DRAKENSBERG.
]

To my intense disappointment, I found that through some mistake all my
party had left six hours before my return, leaving me to follow alone;
so bidding Captain Allison and his family farewell, I rode after the
wagons, but it was not until two next morning I caught them up
outspanned nine miles beyond Colenso.

Nothing of particular moment occurred during our return to Verulam,
where I shortly resumed practice, much invigorated by the change.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER V.
TAKING A HOLIDAY.—LIFE ON BOARD THE “RED RIDING HOOD.”
MAURITIUS.—MADRAS.—CALCUTTA.

Having heard of the safe arrival at the Vaal River, of my diamond
venture which I mentioned in my second chapter, and being sanguine of
its success, I determined to accept an offer to take charge, as
government medical superintendent, of a detachment of time-expired
coolies returning to India. It had always been a cherished wish of mine
to see that historical land, and this presented a most favorable
opportunity for me to gratify that desire.

After getting leave of absence from the Natal government, and securing
the services of a _locum tenens_ for my private practice, I started Feb.
10th, 1871, on a journey which proved so full of incident that I am
irresistibly tempted to quote from letters which I wrote to my wife at
the time describing the journey.

It is true that neither the sacred land of the Ganges nor “Araby the
blest” is situated in Natal or the Cape Colony, and therefore the
description of my adventures in these countries is not strictly
appropriate to a journal of “Twenty Years in South Africa,” but as my
experiences were at the time the comment of the Indian and Natalian
press, I venture to reproduce them at the risk of any charges of
wandering from my subject or of egotism, though I admit they might
fairly enough be brought against me.

Bidding farewell to all at Verulam I spent the night in D’Urban, as the
shipment of the coolies was not to take place until early next morning.

These immigrants, now homeward bound, had been the first shipped to the
colony, arriving there by the _Truro_, Nov. 17th, 1860, ten years
before, and were now returning in the _Red Riding Hood_, formerly one of
the smartest tea clippers in the China trade. They were all got safely
aboard by noon, though the skipper did not heave anchor until evening.

With a favorable wind we left the shores of Natal. What we suffered and
endured, the characteristics of our passengers, our disappointing
quarantine at Mauritius, our arrival at Madras, the continuation of the
voyage to Calcutta and my own subsequent experience in Arabia, _en
route_ to Marseilles, the story of which is contained in the following
letters, will, I trust, induce my readers to pardon the digression.

“ON BOARD THE ‘RED RIDING HOOD, Feb. 22d, 1871.

“MY DEAR ——: ‘A life on the ocean wave, a home on the rolling deep,’
sounds very exciting and spirit stirring when sung on shore, but all
the excitement and enthusiasm vanish when one gets to sea on board a
ship with some 400 coolies, men, women and children, as companions.
Yet it was a sight worth seeing to behold the shipment at the outer
anchorage when we left of the lame, the blind, the paralytic, the
epileptic, the lepers without toes and the lepers without fingers.

“When the captain came off, he had got an absurd idea into his head
that as he had been obliged by the surveyors to separate part of the
hold for the women, that perforce the women must go there and leave
their husbands. This I strenuously opposed, and was supported by Davis
and Mason.[16] Now as there are not any single women on board, such
conduct on his part was preposterous. We telegraphed from the ship to
Pietermaritzberg, and got back an answer: ‘Make an amicable
arrangement’. The captain being simply obstinate, I became obstinate,
too, when, after haggling about the matter for four hours, he gave in
and I had my wish, and we got under way about six o’clock, losing an
anchor in the attempt; there was a rolling sea on, but very fine
weather otherwise, or I do not know what we should have done. The
scene on deck it is impossible to describe! Women lay about like logs
in helpless, speechless agony, children crying and yelling, and the
men, of course, doing the best they could for _themselves_.

“I felt like Job, ‘leave me alone, for all is vanity.’ However, I
recollected that old Job said this only when he was in the dumps, so I
felt almost inclined to laugh at my own self-inflicted misery in
taking the appointment.

“The whole of that week continued fine, and by degrees we got affairs
into working order. The ‘tween decks,’ where the coolies are berthed,
has port holes all along, and wind-sails are carried for ventilation,
so that the air can be kept pretty fresh. On deck there is a large
open kitchen built of brick, about twelve feet long and seven wide,
where their food is cooked. I have two interpreters, two ‘sirdars,’
four cooks and six ‘topasses,’ or scavengers, under me. The coolies
‘fare sumptuously every day;’ they make most delicious curries of
their allowance, which is rice, fish, tamarinds, turmeric, dholl,
ghee, oil, mustard and pepper, as well as a sheep every Sunday. I can
tell you they do not get such feeding in Natal. A meal such as I have
described they get twice a day—at 9 A. M. and 3 P. M. At these times
we get them all on deck, and they present a funny sight, the different
family groups around their plates, helping themselves with their
fingers out of the same pannikin. Here and there a wife, more
attentive than the rest, feeds her husband, rolling the rice into
balls and popping them into his mouth. Of course, among such a motley
crew, we have some curious characters; one, styling himself ‘a Roman
Catholic priest to his own countrymens’ is a curiosity—blind of one
eye, a face with a sanctimonious leer, expressing, ‘What a fool you
are to believe me,’ grizzly locks and a jagged beard, presenting a
grotesquely solemn appearance. He sits day after day telling his beads
and singing hymns. He has got a written paper with him to the
following effect: ‘Gentlemens and Ladys, I beg to inform that I am a
very poor old man; I have lost my sight and i can only see with my one
eye and i have got small childrens to feed, so i hope gentlemens and
kind ladys will help me and my childrens, it will be great favour to
you, and God will bless you all and your families. I am your poor old
man Antony, a Roman Catholic priest for my own countrymens.’

“I give him an approving nod when I see him, a little grog to keep his
throat moist, and in return get the advantage of his petitions to the
Throne of Grace, morning, noon and night.

“The familiarity of these semi-Christians with Holy Writ is something
ludicrous. ‘How are you getting on this morning, Interpreter?’ I said
to-day. ‘Very well, thank you; by the favor of the Lord Christ
_first_, and secondly by favor of your honor.’ You see the relative
position I hold here. Another, an old woman, who boasts of ‘Coffee
Lister’ as her former master, continually holds up to me a rotten old
blanket and says: ‘Present from the Natal government; good government,
very!’ but adds, if I will give her a blanket, she ‘will pray the good
Lord for me, my wifes [_sic_] and my families.’ We have also tailors,
barbers, washermen and jewelers with us, who all do a roaring trade.

[Illustration:

UMBUNDI’S PASS, DRAKENSBERG RANGE.
]

“But to proceed with my description of the ship and its ‘cargo.’ It is
hard work to make them keep clean; they seem to abhor cold water.
There is, however, on board a strong force pump, which enables me to
do my duty. Every other morning I have the men brought forward and
stripped, then I have the sea water pumped on them _ad libitum_.

“As a body they have a large amount of money with them. The Calcutta
coolies, especially some of them, have as much as £50, £70 and £100
each, one man has £300, showing very forcibly the result of industry
and sobriety, or rather ‘taking care of the pence, and leaving the
pounds to take care of themselves’! Domestic squabbles are of frequent
occurrence. One little wretch of a woman leads a stalwart six-footer
an awful life—all day long she is nagging at him, but at night she
excels, for she yells, and shouts, and chatters, and cries, enough to
deafen one. Last night she pealed out a regular triple bob-major from
her belfry, but so discordantly that for the first time I had a
patient in hospital! I relieved him for once of his better half,
locking her up for the night by herself in the dark, to brew mischief
for the morrow, and pull her own hair instead of that of her husband.
She came out this morning, however, considerably subdued.

“Feb. 27th.—Since writing the above we have made scarcely any
progress, and are just now drifting in an entirely opposite direction
to the one we wish to take, and are some 600 miles distant from
Mauritius.

“March 4th, 9 A. M.—Just arrived off Port Louis, have anchored, and
the health officer has been alongside, and who should he be but an old
fellow-student of mine. We were told that Paris capitulated on Jan.
26th, 1871, but nothing further, as we are quarantined because we have
coolies on board. We have, however, from the Bell buoy a good view of
the harbor and town of Port Louis, as well as of the Pieter Botte
mountain, which, I believe, has been ascended two or three times. It
has a curious summit, which it is almost an impossibility to ascend,
though this has been accomplished by flying a kite over, and so
getting ropes across. Things seem very different here from Natal, and
on an older and more established footing. After waiting until 3
o’clock, no permit has come for us to go on shore, but water has come
alongside, at least the authorities left it about 200 yards from us
and we had to fetch it, all the crew leaving the water boat. Why such
absurd regulations should exist, when our ship is perfectly healthy
and from a healthy port, I cannot possibly understand. We might surely
have all the plagues of Egypt on board, combined with a mixture of
cholera, yellow fever and small-pox, to account for the way we are
treated. They even float a letter to us, in a boat with a tow line;
like Mr. Meagles in ‘Little Dorrit,’ it is enough to make one ‘Allong
and Marshong,’ and fume and swear; but so it is.

“The master of the quarantine boat will come presently to get paid for
the water, and he takes away any letters, and this among others....

* * * * *

“AT SEA, March 16th, 1871.

“MY DEAR ——: In my letter to you from Mauritius, which I suppose you
will have long ago received, you saw that I was much disappointed by
not getting on shore through the quarantine regulations, which are
very strictly carried out. Round about Mauritius there are several
islands, viz., Flat Island, where a quarantine station is, Round
Island, where a light-house stands 365 feet above the level of the
sea, behind these Sugar Loaf Island, which rises with precipitous
cliffs, and is merely a bare rock, also the Islôt Gabriel. In sailing
without steam, vessels come to Port Louis at the windward side (east)
of the island, and sail in a kind of channel between these islands and
the mainland, as I will call it. We sighted the south corner of
Mauritius about 4 P. M., but kept off until daybreak next morning
(Saturday) when we made for our anchorage at the Bell buoy about
three-quarters of a mile from the shore. The coasting round the island
which we made was very pleasant. It was a beautiful sunshiny morning,
with a gentle eight knots an hour breeze. We passed the Gunner’s
Quoin, near which the English landed when they took the island from
the French, Nov. 29th, 1810, and very close to it we went, within a
stone’s throw. It is a large bluff which juts out with perpendicular
cliffs all around. The water is deep enough, but it would be a
frightful place to run against in the night. After rounding this
headland we stood closer in, and got pretty views of the island, and
the district of Pamplemouse, the background being closed in by the
lofty mountains, of which the Pieter Botte forms one of the principal
features, towering 2,676 feet above the sea like a Titanic obelisk. We
could see the green fields where ‘de sugar cane grows,’ the mills with
their smoky chimneys, the houses of the planters, with their steep
thatched roofs, beautiful verandahs and grassy lawns, well cut and
kept, running down in some places to the beach. As I gazed I pictured
to myself the poor groaning coolies, doomed to sweat in the mills and
to toil painfully in the fields; yet this even was a far easier task
than to conceive how the ‘Reaper, whose name is Death,’ who during the
last few years has been stalking through this island,[17] could ever
have used his sickle so keenly in such a pleasant place. We were soon
at Port Louis, passing by a barque from Newcastle, N. S. W., and
anchored just opposite a fort bristling with guns, over which the
Union Jack, ‘The flag that’s braved a thousand years, the battle and
the breeze,’ was proudly flying.

“‘From Hull, Hell and Halifax, “Good Lord deliver us,”’ the thieves in
the good old days used to devoutly pray. If they could have had my
experience their litany would have been ‘From all sailing ships,
coolie ships and Scotch ships, “Spare us good Lord.”’ The captain of
this ship is a Scotchman, his mate is Scotch too. The former seems
impressed with the idea that every one he comes in contact with has a
design upon him, and he is also morbidly impressed with the pleasing
delusion that all government officers are his servants, paid to wait
on him. I can here see and learn to my cost how to save money. The
flour we are using is quite sour, but still the cask must be finished
before another is opened; the potatoes are old and unfit to eat; the
salt beef is salt indeed, and the tongues are positively rotten—so
that to eat them is an impossibility—but when drowned in vinegar and
encased in mustard it is wonderful what an active imagination might
not fancy them to be. The butter is rancid; the tin soups splendid
emetics; the biscuit so hard that my poor teeth refuse to do duty; the
water so putrid that I find it advisable to hold my nose and gulp it
down. This style of living has considerably reduced me, but I don’t
grumble, as I see it would be useless, I rather chuckle internally.
The mate is a young, pig-headed, uncouth block of humanity, that wants
licking into shape with a cat-o’-nine tails, his principal delight
consists in calling those under him very pet names indeed. The second
mate is a decent fellow, young, a colonial, born in Tobago.

“We found we should have to remain three days before permission would
be given us to go on shore, so we got some water off under quarantine
regulations, having an officer in a boat sailing round and round us
continually at a distance of 200 yards, to see that no one had any
communication with us. With a glass we could see into portions of Port
Louis. This town lies at the foot of an amphitheatre of hills, and
seems quietly nestled under their protecting wings. On the one side of
the town lies the fort, with earthworks for defence, on the other is
the quarter inhabited by the black population, thousands of whose
little shanties we could see, built on the slope of the hill, and
surrounded with trees. Further on we had pointed out to us the railway
company’s works and the railway, with a fine viaduct crossing a deep
ravine. The Pieter Botte mountain, though not the highest in the
island, is very conspicuous. We weighed anchor at 10:30 P. M., and got
at last fair away for India. One event has occurred to break the
monotony of our journey, viz., the death of an old coolie woman. Her
body was committed to the deep without any religious ceremony the
morning after her decease, so that now, instead of

“‘Shaking on her restless pillow,
Her head heaves with the heaving billow;

and will continue to do so, I think, until the sea is called upon to
deliver up its dead, as we buried her in about 1,600 to 2,000 fathoms
of water, the bottom of which I do not suppose she will ever reach.
She has one son on board, who takes the matter very calmly, Mahomed in
the Koran giving good hopes of the future bliss of the faithful, of
which she, I am sure, was one, praying devoutly every morning with her
face turned to Mecca. In fact, these people would put to shame
thousands of Europeans in the way they observe their religious rites.
Going along the deck at sunrise, I can see some with their faces
turned to Mecca, others worshipping the sun, looking intently at it,
and returning thanks that they are permitted to see his glorious light
once more, others calling on the beneficent deity, Vishnu, whereas I
am afraid those who ought to know better omit to do anything of the
sort.

“March 27th.—Since writing last we have had three more deaths—a man, a
woman and a child. Before they were committed to the deep they were
neatly sewn up in long canvas bags. The man, when he was put
overboard, seemed unwilling to leave us. He got caught on a chain
level with the waves, and at the speed we were going, with his back
bent tightly across it, he stuck for a long time, it seeming
impossible to shake him off! The poor woman was a Christian, and my
Roman Catholic friend came to the front in full force. It was quite
refreshing to see the energy he exhibited and the gusto with which he
repeated his prayers and told his beads. He evidently seemed to
appreciate the opportunity which providence had afforded him of
showing his peculiar powers. I do not know whether you have seen any
one buried at sea, but on me the peculiar, solemn plash which the body
gives when it touches the water, has even a more impressive effect
than when the earth thrown on a coffin-lid rattles a doleful
accompaniment to the refrain, ‘ashes to ashes and dust to dust.’

“31st.—Weather is still continuing very calm. The coolies yesterday
determined to make a grand offering to the Deity. All shades of
religious opinions merged their differences, Mussulmen, Brahmins,
Christians, all contributing something to propitiate the Almighty
Power which ‘unseen they feel.’ You may laugh, but I also contributed,
when after a prayer to Allah and his prophet Mahomed, we all shouted a
grand ‘Hurrah!’—an unanimous shout it was. After this the money
offering was tied up in a bag and fastened to the top of the mainmast,
in ‘sure and certain hope’ of a fair wind resulting. Strange to say,
such has followed, and this morning we are bowling along at ten knots
an hour.

“April 8th.—Yesterday we sighted Ceylon, and during the day sailed
slowly past it at a good distance from its shores, which with a glass
I could see to be magnificently wooded. The first conquerors of Ceylon
were Portuguese, the Dutch took it from them, and the English in turn
drove out the latter, and have held it ever since, which, _mutatis
mutandis_, is about the history of all our colonies.

“The highest mountain in Ceylon is called Adam’s Peak, about 7,000
feet above the sea, which we could see dimly in the far background.
Nearer us, we saw ‘Westminster Abbey,’ some 2,000 feet high, and much
closer to the coast. We are now within 300 miles of Madras.

“April 11th.—Madras is a splendid place to look at from shipboard. I
go ashore this morning. Surf-boats came early alongside, curious
looking things, about forty feet long, very light, not drawing more
than two feet of water, and manned by thirteen to sixteen coolies,
with long oars. We saw also some catamarans, these being made of three
logs of wood just tied together, and it is perfectly astonishing to
see how they go along over the surf, paddled by two Hindoos. Well, the
captain and myself went ashore, to dance attendance at the halls of
the great. How it would open some of the Natal people’s eyes if they
could only see how things are done here! to see the Hindoo clerks in
the merchants’ houses, in the custom-house, everywhere; fine tall men,
some young, some old and venerable, all arrayed in spotless white,
with matchless turbans.

[Illustration:

SUMMIT OF PIETER BOTTE MOUNTAIN. 2,676 FEET HIGH.
]

“The luxury, the silent evidence of wealth and prosperity which one
sees everywhere, is very great in contrast with poor little Natal. The
office of the agent of the ship is as grand a building as the D’Urban
court-house, and far more luxuriously fitted up, punkahs playing all
day, and diffusing a cooling breeze. Nobody thinks of walking; in cabs
and carriages by hundreds the black and white are all riding. It is
rather curious to see the old chimney pot again; it seems the correct
thing here for ‘dress,’ that is the band and the park after the sea
breeze sets in, say at 5 P. M. I went this afternoon to the people’s
park to see the menagerie. They possess some splendid lions, tigers,
jackals, monkeys, etc., but I could not stop to hear the band, as my
time was limited.

“The collector of customs and the port doctor are coming off to-morrow
morning at 7 o’clock to pass the coolies. I expect the captain will
want me to go with him to Calcutta.

OFF SAUGOR LIGHT-HOUSE, RIVER HOOGHLY, April 21st, 1871.

“MY DEAR ——: I hope you have received a note informing you of my
coming on here from Madras. I will now endeavor to follow my own
footsteps over again on paper. On the Tuesday morning I landed at
Madras. It is a large city, built right on the sea-beach, facing the
rolling surf; it seems a mystery that anybody should ever have thought
of founding a city on such a site, but in the days when the old East
India Company was merely a mercantile, cotton buying and speculating
firm, before it thought, by mixing itself in native broils, to
increase its power, this was done, as much, no doubt as anything for
the purpose of opposing some of the aggressions which the French at
Pondicherry, some sixty miles to the south, were then making, for the
French taught us the plan of ‘protecting’ the natives. It was entirely
in this Presidency that Lord Clive, from being a mere clerk, achieved
his early renown, and managed before he was twenty-seven to retire on
£40,000 a year.

“Well, the town and suburbs extend some four or five miles along the
beach. Talk about hardening the D’Urban streets, but to harden these
must have cost a mint of money. They are all around for miles as level
as a billiard table, or if you would prefer the simile, as flat as a
grave-stone—the game, you know, gets finished at both places! The
merchants’ offices, post-office, telegraph office, Supreme Court, are
all near the pier, and to the rear and southward of these is the
native town. These public buildings are all fine ones, though the dust
and glare give the outside of them a parched appearance; inside,
however, they are got up ‘regardless of expense.’ Comfort must be
thought of in this climate. Further still to the south, say a mile, is
Fort St. George. This is the first fort I have been in, and it seemed
to my inexperienced eye to be impregnable, bastion on bastion, fosse
on fosse. The fort is lit with gas, and inside, which comprises, I
should imagine, some thousands of acres, there are the government
buildings, mint, soldiers’ quarters and arsenal. Here during the
mutiny came all the white people and the Eurasians, as they call
half-castes. There is also an American Ice Co., with a magnificent
ice-house some 200 feet high.

“Then I went to a native bazaar, where you may buy anything from a
work on medicine down to a pair of slippers. I was much struck with
the familiarity of these natives with English, nearly every man talks
it, and the hundreds of carriage drivers all speak it well. I
afterward visited the Mount Road, where all the aristocratic shops
are, and where the _elite_ do dwell, saw the governor’s house, then
the general hospital, a fine building, which I went round with Dr.
Chipperfield, a very nice man, who pointed me out many interesting
cases. On Sunday morning, at half-past five, I was on the pier to
catch the ship’s boat, got on board, and we set sail at once. While I
was waiting Lord Napier, the Governor, came down with his staff; he
looked quite pale and worn.

“It was most interesting to watch the Mausurah boatmen on their
catamarans, shooting through the surf, and difficult to realize that
before the building of the pier at Madras everybody and everything had
to be landed through this surf; now this pier, which is of light iron
girder work, projects beyond, and passengers and cargo can be landed
on it, which is a great convenience. Guessing roughly, it is 600 to
700 yards long, and during a terrible typhoon which raged here some
two years ago a French vessel ran right through the middle of it.

“Our captain, going up the Bay of Bengal, got very drunk. He managed
to crawl out of his berth yesterday the first time since leaving
Madras. As the fellow is detested, it afforded amusement (as his
suffering was self-inflicted) to hear him sighing, hiccoughing and
groaning with remorse of mind and stomach, unable to eat, afraid to
drink and just strong enough to call in whispers ‘Steward.’ I advised
a little brandy, ‘a hair of the dog that bit him,’ but recollecting
his greed, on second consideration, I thought it would be a double
lesson and that I could inflict a little more mental torture by
ordering champagne, stimulating his stomach and teaching his pocket a
lesson at the same time. We have fine weather this morning, but
contrary winds, and are tacking about, whilst tugs are provokingly
steaming past us, and puffing at us as if in derision.

“Saturday, April 22d.—When I wrote the foregoing yesterday, I did not
anticipate such a night as we have just passed. Anchored in these
roads (Saugor) for the night; at about 8 P. M. a regular north easter
came on. In my life, so far, I have never experienced anything like
it; it was accompanied by thunder and lightning. The crashes of
thunder made the ship groan again, and the lightning was like a
continuous exhibition of lime-light, the flashes succeeding one
another with such terrible quickness that I could, I think, have read
with ease, excepting that perhaps the light might have been too
luridly bright. Then the wind, I cannot describe—when I tell you that
it whistled through the bare rigging so that I could not hear myself
speak on the poop, may give you some faint idea of its power. The
moaning and sighing was painfully weird and dismal, reminding me of my
feelings long ago, when first reading ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ where
Legree is worked upon by the moaning in the keyhole up stairs; but to
add to all this were the cries and entreaties of the coolies to obtain
freedom, the captain having battened them down in their quarters.
Well, it blew strong and stronger, faces began to get long and longer,
the captain looked as if he would give anything to get the tug, which
in his meanness he had that afternoon refused, and I began to think
that what appears to be to man’s advantage may in the long run prove
his ruin, and to wish that I had stopped in Madras.

“The anchor began to drag, excitement increasing, all hands to let
down a second, I knew too well we had not a third (you will recollect
we lost it at Natal), so now our hopes were centred in either the gale
moderating, or the anchors holding true. The worst thing for us was
the wind was against the tide, and tended to make us run over our
anchors and snap the cables. After about two hours’ anxiety the wind
gradually declined, but the thunder and lightning continued all night.
This morning we have taken the tug for £50 to Calcutta, some sixty
miles, so if all is well we shall be there to-night. ‘They that go
down to the sea in ships, see the wonders of the deep!’

“Sunday, 23d.—We did not get down to Calcutta last night on account of
a two hours’ detention in the river by another squall, and we anchored
about seven miles to the south. This morning we started at 4 A. M. and
arrived at the coolie depot at 7 A. M. The Protector was not long in
coming on board, and in an hour the ship was emptied of its living,
noisy, restless, filthy freight. Here ends the first chapter of my
coolie experiences, and the second will never open.

“India is a wonderful country, and Calcutta is a prince of cities,
ought I to say queen? It is lit with gas, and water is laid on to the
dwellings, up stairs and down; the houses are simply magnificent, and
here a man can see that it is possible not only to exist, but to live.
From Saugor to Calcutta, say 100 miles or more, as far inland as I
could see, the river’s banks were inhabited by a teeming population. I
speak truly when I say that every inch of ground was occupied. This
delta must give support to thousands upon thousands. It is easy in
observing this dense population to see how cholera, fever and
dysentery must play frightful havoc when they rage amongst it, and to
picture what terrible loss of life the failure of one season’s rice
crop would produce. The country is exceedingly low and flat, and there
is an embankment at each side of the river to restrain any
extraordinary rise. In the great cyclone in 1864 there was a great
storm wave forty feet high which swept over the whole of this
country—a regular deluge, the only wonder was how even one soul
escaped. The pilot told me that he came down next day in a steamer,
and though the river is a mile wide at Diamond Harbor, and continues
to increase seaward, he could see nothing but the dead bodies of men,
women and children, cattle and horses. From his description the sight
must have been a truly appalling one. Ships drawing some fourteen feet
and twenty feet water were driven three miles inland and left high and
dry.

“I have been driving about all day seeing the streets, shops, etc.;
there are here 25,000 white and more than a million colored
inhabitants. There is no such thing as walking, as the sun is
overpowering, and you feel as if it would knock you down, so powerful
is it. The Government House, where Lord Mayo resides, is a magnificent
palace. He and all the aristocracy are gone away to Simla, in the
Himalayas, for the hot season. I also visited the museum, but it is
badly kept, and there is not much to see, but the native bazaars are
the most wonderful places that I ever was in—narrow streets, full of
small shops, each crammed with merchandise of every description. A
man, to all appearance caged in a den, turns out and shows you
cashmere shawls worth thousands of rupees, another one jewelry,
another silks, another Japan and China curiosities—the business done
being astonishing. I have made up my mind to take a trip up country
before I leave India, and visit the principal memorable scenes of the
Indian mutiny—Cawnpore, Arrah, Lucknow, Agra, not omitting the Holy
City of Benares, the head centre of Brahminism, to which all good
Hindoos make a pilgrimage at least once in their lives.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI.
TRIP TO BENARES.—CAWNPORE.—AGRA.—HOMEWARD VOYAGE IN THE S. S.
“VIXEN.”—DISTRESS.—PERILOUS TRAMP.—ADEN AT LAST.—SUEZ
CANAL.—ENGLAND.—AFRICA ONCE MORE.

Having finished all the “red tape” (which the nature of my peculiar
charge demanded) with Dr. Grant, the coolie emigration agent in
Calcutta, I made arrangements with the captain of the _Vixen_, then
lying in the Hooghly, to take medical charge of his steamer on her
return voyage through the Suez Canal to England.

As she did not sail until the 6th of the month (May), I found I had time
enough left to visit, as I had proposed to myself, the principal scenes
of the Indian mutiny. After spending several days in Calcutta, I left
Hourah, where the station of the East Indian Railway is, at the other
side of the river, and took a return ticket allowing me to stop anywhere
en route to Agra and back.

If I were to describe the whole of my trip, of which I wrote a full
account at the time, I am afraid I should weary my readers, the
circumstances and places connected with the memorable outbreak of the
Indian mutiny being too well known to bear repetition.

I may, however, briefly state that I visited the French settlement of
Chandernagore, twenty-two miles from Calcutta, like a French oasis in an
English desert, or a French desert in an English oasis, as my readers
may prefer, being only two miles long by one broad, and passing by
numberless stations, rested at Dinapore, and then went straight on to
Benares, the Holy City. Here the bridge of boats across the Ganges, the
thousands of temples and mosques, especially the Doorga Khoud, or monkey
temple, and its chattering, grinning crew of sacred inhabitants, the
numberless splendid _ghats_ along the river side, with thousands of men
and women bathing and praying, the Lingam, or well of life, at which all
pilgrims drink, the burning “ghat” where bodies after being reduced to
ashes are committed to the Holy River, and the Mosque of Aurunzebe, kept
me well employed for a day or two. I then visited Mirzapore, Allahabad,
a great railway centre, and came on to Cawnpore, saw, of course, the
Memorial Garden, the well down which “a great company of Christian
people, chiefly women and children,” the dying and the dead, were thrown
by the order of Nana Sahib, and then branched off to Lucknow. Never
shall I forget the scene presented by the Kaiser Bagh, the great work of
the ex-king’s reign, and its gardens, the Secunderbagh, where the 93d
Highlanders and 53d foot, in fearful revenge, bayoneted to a man 2,000
rebel Sepoys, the fantastic _Martiniere_, a school founded by an
eccentric Frenchman formerly in the service of the Hon. East India Co.,
about eighty-five years ago, the Residency, where for five long months a
little band of noble hearts held out, and the room where the shell burst
that was the death of Sir Henry Lawrence. I walked along the portico so
graphically pictured by Trevelyan in his “Cawnpore,” which called to my
mind the passage where he says: “Still, amidst the fantastic edifices of
Lucknow, hard by a shattered gateway, rise or lie prostrate the pillars
of a grass-grown portico. Beneath that verandah, in the July evening,
preferring the risk of the hostile missiles to the confinement of a
stifling cellar, was dying Henry Lawrence, the man who tried to do his
duty.... An Englishman does not require any extraneous incentives to
emotion when, leaning against the beams of that archway, he recalls who
have thereby gone in and out, bent on what errands and thinking what
thoughts. Between those doorposts have walked Peel and Havelock, and
gentle Outram and stout Sir Colin, heroes who no longer tread the
earth.” The ruins of the Residency and the adjoining houses have been
allowed to remain as far as possible in the state they were left after
“the relief.” To describe, however, the cemetery close by, with its
beautifully cut green-grass turf, to picture the tombstones to loved
husbands, erected by devoted wives, and recount their deeply touching
inscriptions, to portray the monuments in remembrance of comrades in
arms carried away by war, cholera, dysentery and fever, or to tell of
others, on which were written all manner of poetical extracts and
quotations from Holy Writ, would be an impossibility. Full of melancholy
memories is the spot, and it was with a sense of relief I left the
mournful scene. I then started for Agra, 906 miles by railway from
Calcutta, visited the fort overlooking the Jumna, saw the celebrated
bath with its mimic cascades in the Monarch’s Palace, and then drove to
the Taj Mahal, a mausoleum built by the Shah Jehan for the tomb of his
favorite Begum, which was finished just forty years ago at a cost of
£3,000,000, heard the delicious undulations and marvelous acoustic
properties of its dome, dwelt with astonishment on the jeweler’s inlaid
work of jasper, agate, cornelian and other precious stones in the fine,
white polished marble, and admired the noble cypress trees growing in
the gardens. After resting here a day or two I returned to Calcutta well
pleased with my excursion.

Leaving by the _Vixen_, we steamed down the Bay of Bengal and stayed for
a few hours at Madras, on leaving which place our troubles began.

Accidents were continually happening to the engines, delays were
constantly occurring, the wind was against us, until matters culminated
as I will allow my letter to tell.

“IN THE RED SEA, June 20th, 1871.

“MY DEAR ——: Since writing to you from Calcutta we have been dragging
along a weary existence in such a steamer! what with opposing
currents, head winds and weak power, we only just managed to make Cape
Guardafui, when our coal ran short, such a game! hen-coops, wooden
boxes, spare spars, cabin partitions, then the masts were burned to
keep us going. At last the captain sent the chief officer away in an
open boat to Aden, which was distant some forty miles, on Sunday
evening the 4th, to try and obtain a tug or coal. After he left, the
steamer would not even steer under the sail she carried, but drifted
down on the Arabian coast, until we were compelled to anchor on
Wednesday, about 9 A. M. The captain and myself, with four boatmen, at
once went on shore to see what the country was like and to see if wood
was procurable. As you can imagine, distilling water with spars worth
from £20 to £50 each was not a paying game. We landed and found low
brushwood which would answer the purpose, and immediately signaled the
steamer for another boat and a working party to come off; we then
walked in the direction of some lofty mountains inland, when we saw
the natives, roving Arabs and Somalis, coming down in force; the
captain and I approached them. There was nothing else to be done, for
we were too far from the boats to retire, and found them all more or
less armed, the majority with old-fashioned matchlocks. Of course we
did not relish these appearances, as in addition they had large knives
stuck in their girdles, and all the books of sailing directions for
this coast characterize them as bloody, cut-throat, treacherous
wretches. One of the boatmen, however, who came on shore with us, on
seeing them, ran off to the beach. Luckily for us the second boat had
just arrived, and meeting the crew he told them of our situation, and
they came running to our assistance. This had a salutary effect upon
them, and gave us an opportunity to retire. As matters on board were
proceeding to extremities, and seeing there was a doubt whether the
mate had got to land or not, I volunteered, with the second steward
and two darkies, to walk to Aden. The captain said the distance was
about sixty miles, but we found it, however, in the long run, to be
nearer 160. These Arabs seemed of two parties, and one of the more
friendly made signs in the direction of Aden, as if he would accompany
us there.

“Persuading the captain to let me go, away I went with my companions
at 3 P. M., armed, but with very little water or provisions, as I
fully anticipated reaching Aden, by walking all night, at about ten
o’clock next day. We walked at a good pace, as we were going through a
country peopled by tribes not to be depended on, keeping the sea-beach
in order to push through and get past a point where probably they
might intercept us. We walked until after dark, took a rest and bath
in the sea, and then pushing on, as we heard guns firing in the pitchy
darkness both on our right and left. The phosphorescence of the
breaking surf casting a lurid glare over all. Our guide seemed uneasy,
fired his gun, and then away he went. We thought we were in a regular
trap; lying down on the sand, straining our eyes in the dismal
darkness, we talked over the folly of our starting, asked ourselves
who would thank us if we got our throats cut, and then, seeing our
revolvers all right, we determined to sell our lives as dearly as we
could if attacked. After an hour’s anxious watching and waiting for
the moon, up came three camels with the guide whom we had suspected of
playing us false. He urged us to hurry on, which you may guess we did,
not stopping until 2:30 next morning, nearly done up. Stretching
ourselves out, sleep wanted no wooing. I was off in a minute, and from
the appearance of the moon must have slept about an hour, when we were
awakened by a terrible hot wind. You cannot imagine anything like it;
my hair was dry as stubble in a few moments, nearly stifled,
suffocated, the only shelter I could get was to the ‘leeward’ of a
camel. This wind continued for an hour, when we saddled up and away
again. Let me tell you what camel riding is like. If you can fancy
yourself in a blanket, with a man at each end holding it, and shaking
you continually from one to the other, you may have some faint
conception, but mounting is the worst. The camels are made to squat on
their bellies to enable you to get up, otherwise a ladder would be
needed. Well, when you are in the saddle, which is generally a most
clumsy, primitive arrangement, the camel gets on its knees, which
sends you backward, then up go the hind legs, and you get a contra
pitch forward, and just as you are anticipating to salute your mother
earth, he raises his fore legs, tosses you backward again, and you
find yourself mounted. One of my black companions had a young, frisky
camel which when he jumped on it made these movements so quickly that
number two generally sent him over the camel’s head or left him
hanging on by his legs, heels up, head down, round his neck. It is
always to me intensely ludicrous to hear a nigger swear in English,
and I think the most rigid Puritan would have laughed, at any rate in
his sleeve, to hear this darkie ‘G-d d—n this young fellow (as he
termed the camel) to ——!’ and consign himself, the ship, the country,
the water, or rather the want of it, to eternal perdition, which he
did with a gusto perfectly exhilarating.

“We journeyed along on this day (Thursday) without intermission,
alternately riding and walking, under a blazing sun, whose piercing
rays almost struck us to the ground, blistering and swelling our backs
and feet even through our boots and clothes, until 11 A. M., when our
guide told us we were approaching the confines of a friendly sultan,
who rejoiced in the name of Hyder, surnamed the ‘six-fingered,’ on
account of this work of supererogation accomplished by nature on his
behalf. Sending on a messenger to apprise his highness of our coming,
we gradually came in sight of a large mud fort, with some buildings
alongside, a small mosque, with date trees around, and the remains of
what once must have been a large city. Off-saddling at a distance of
about 200 yards, a messenger came to us from the sultan, shook hands
with us all, and then taking mine in his, like two schoolboys, we
advanced a short distance, stood in line, fired a salute, and then
walked up to be presented. The sultan, who was a fine-looking fellow,
stood outside a small tent (which was matted inside and had carpets
for himself and his visitors) with a body-guard on each side of about
thirty men. All tattered and torn, dirty, sunburnt and unshaven, we
were sad specimens indeed of Englishmen. I felt, for my part, somewhat
ashamed of myself. He, however, received us most graciously, shook
hands and invited us in, coffee was served in little cups, as hot and
bitter as Cayenne pepper, and cold water was also supplied, a beverage
which I never before so truly appreciated. Milk, dates, goat’s flesh,
round cakes made of grain, were given us as well. Did not we eat!—no
questions as to knives, forks, plates or dishes—our black friend
simultaneously falling to. It is in cases like this only that one
appreciates a man as a man; my hard-swearing friend being a regular
good fellow.

“After this, the sultan, whom we managed to understand, expressed his
pleasure at our having escaped with our lives from the tribes
inhabiting the locality where we landed and through which we had
passed, and wished me to give him a written acknowledgment of our
having left his place in safety, so that if anything befell us between
there and Aden, he would have this paper to show the English
government. Moreover, as he lived a mile from the sea, and possessed
boats, he offered to send a boat’s crew of ten men to the steamer at
once, to give the shadow, if not the reality of his protection, and
also offered us a boat to Aden. As I was suspicious, I declined giving
him the document he wanted until we were in the boat, but he pressed
very much for it, so at last I gave it him, but started immediately,
so that we might get clear of his people if he meant treachery.
Arriving at the beach, the boat getting ready to take us to Aden was
such a small, leaky, crazy thing, and the sea was running so high
outside and the surf breaking so heavily on the beach, that I demurred
going in it. Fancy spending two days and a night in an open boat of
that description. For my own part I would ten times sooner get shot at
on land with a chance of escape than be upset at sea, and finish my
career with a stomach full of salt water. So we started away again
with the camels, getting water at a well close by to take with us,
which we carried in skins tied to their sides. Most of these people
had never seen a white man before. We saw some women at this well, not
bad looking; one of them had a baby, which she carried in a sort of
triangular flat wicker basket under her arm. She was quite afraid of
me when I went near to look at it. Pushing on until long after sunset,
and striking inland for a few miles from the coast, we came at last to
a camp of Bedouins in a district of bare sand (with a little low bush
interspersed), drifted into mounds like snow driven by the wind. There
were also, here and there, the dry beds of rivulets, which in the wet
season take the water of the hills to the sea. Here we rested for the
night, and a lovely night it was, magnificently starlight and the
atmosphere beautifully clear. Lying down, in less than a minute I was
oblivious to everything here below. I left one of the darkies to keep
watch, but starting up in a short time, I found the revolvers I had
laid at my head gone and the nigger fast asleep. Presently our Arab
guide, seeing me moving, came back with them from an adjoining
camp-fire of Bedouins, where he had been exhibiting them and his
knowledge of firearms at the same time, and what was better still,
brought with him some goats’ milk and dates. Next morning the camels
were lost, and we did not start until 7 o’clock. The intermediate time
we occupied in rifle and pistol practice with the Arabs who came
flocking around us at daybreak. They were very civil, seeing we had
one of the sultan’s men with us. We took away a small goat on credit,
as between this and Aden we understood we should get no more food.
Another frightful, scorching day (Friday) succeeded, but there was
nothing for it but to go on.

“My companion, who at the beginning of the trip had been very lively,
continually singing ‘Up in a balloon, boys; up in a balloon,’ had come
down from his lofty aspirations to the level of this world again, and
a little below. The ‘Dead March in Saul’ would now have been too quick
for him to march to. My black friend’s oaths were getting less fervid,
and your humble servant was beginning to feel as if he would have
liked to ‘rest in peace.’ However, being the head of the party he had
the _morale_ to keep up, so on we went; at 1.30 P. M., after six and a
half hours killing exposure, we arrived at a small, squalid, mud-built
village of Arabs. Everything was baked and parched as if it had been
exposed for months to the blast of a large furnace. They were the most
dirty, diseased, wretched-looking, poverty-stricken creatures I ever
saw; I cannot picture the place to you, the frightful glare of a
copper sky, the monotonous, ever-present sand, no vegetation, no
shade, no living creature, save here and there a wretched camel, a fit
accompaniment to the general misery, the place seemed perfectly
God-forsaken! We got into the empty upper story of a mud house, and
water was brought, of which we drank greedily. The news of our arrival
spread fast, the room was rapidly filled with men and boys, quite
amazed at seeing us, especially the steward, whose red hair excited a
good deal of curiosity. Getting them out as best we could we managed
to secure a short sleep, during which they killed and cooked the goat
we had brought, so that with a little rice we made a tolerable meal.
Here we got a change of camels and drivers, and started again at 3 P.
M. to a well at some distance to get water, the all-essential for
travel in this country. We found it very good and cold, the well being
at least 140 feet deep, the sides surrounded by marble slabs which
were worn into deep grooves, like the flutings of an Ionic pillar by
the incessant friction of the ropes, which for centuries had drawn out
the leather bags filled with the precious fluid. After leaving the
well a further six hours’ march brought us to another camp of Arabs,
where we only rested from nine until twelve, then off again; no rest
for the wicked. My back, with constant work, was beginning to feel
stiff, and my head to ache—unfortunately we had nothing to eat, and
were yet a long way from Aden. At about 10 A. M. (Saturday) we came to
another Arab mud fort, but could get nothing to eat or drink but some
filthy water, so black and putrid that after each draught I vomited
and vomited again, and some millet seed which we managed to fry.
Proceeding after an hour’s delay, we struck the sea-beach at noon, and
saw the rock of Aden, our haven of rest, looming like a giant spectre
in the distance, right opposite to us across a large bay. The sea
breeze was very pleasant and took away the feeling of intense heat.

“Here we rested to bathe, and then drawing our belts as tightly as
possible across our empty stomachs we jogged wearily along for many an
hour. To our great delight we came across some mussels, which we
greedily swallowed without calling for pepper or vinegar! This was the
most tedious day yet, no food, no water, and this great rock like a
nightmare confronting us in the distance, and to which we seemed never
to get any nearer. The camels were tiring, and we dare not walk on and
leave them, on account of the prowling Somali fishermen. However,
after resisting time after time the imploring entreaties of my
companions to stop, threatening to leave them and push on alone, we
came at 1 A. M. on Sunday to the gates of Aden, found them locked,
threw ourselves down on the roadside, drank until nearly bursting at a
well of brackish water, and slept a dreamless sleep after our
twenty-five hours of travel and exposure. I am thankful that I have a
spirit of dogged perseverance, or we should never have got there that
night at all. The more the poor devils prayed to rest the more I was
determined to go on. The steward had forgotten his songs, even
Snowball, as we called the darkie, had almost ceased to swear, and his
final oath, which came rolling out when he laid himself down to rest,
had a pious, subdued tone of thankfulness in it. Next morning, up with
the sun, we entered Aden as soon as the military opened the gates,
when we fortunately met the agent of the steamer, a Parsee, in his
carriage, who told us the chief officer having got to Aden in safety,
had taken assistance to the steamer, and she had just arrived. He
drove us to his house, where we had a glorious bath and a hearty meal,
told us of the astonishment expressed in Aden at our journey, and the
speculations made as to our ever arriving. We found the government
authorities had been communicated with, and in fact we were the lions
of the hour. Everybody congratulated us, and the ovation we received
on returning to the steamer amply repaid us for the dangers we had
passed. Lieutenant Prideaux, one of the captives during the late
Abyssinian war, who was acting Political Resident at the time, sent
for me to tell my tale, observing that no white man had done what we
had done or been through these tribes since 1845. We stayed in Aden a
few hours while the steamer finished coaling, and amused ourselves
walking around one of the most heaven-forsaken places conceivable.

“Picture to yourself the crater of a volcano with a town built in the
centre, to which access can be gained only through a gap, so to speak,
in the wall, conjure up in your imagination a place where sometimes a
shower of soothing rain never falls for years together, and then you
can fancy Aden. I send you a photograph of the tanks built to catch
and preserve the rain when it does fall.”

I shall not weary my readers with the details of my succeeding letter,
as I should be merely re-treading familiar ground, but I may simply
mention that waiting at Aden for a day to coal, we steamed slowly up the
Red Sea without any incident worthy of note occurring, until arriving at
Ismailia in the Suez Canal, where we remained over the night. This gave
me an opportunity of landing, seeing the place and the beautiful house
and gardens of Ferdinand de Lesseps. We stopped the next night at Port
Said to take in more coal, and continuing our voyage arrived at Malta on
June 30th.

Leaving the _Vixen_ there I proceeded to England, _via_ Marseilles and
Paris, as quickly as I could, as I did not wish to overstep my leave of
absence from the Natal government.

While in England I proceeded to the north, saw the faces of old friends
once more, but as “time and tide wait for no man,” I tore myself away
from old associations, and arranged to return to Africa in the _Celt_,
one of the Union Company’s steamers. We sailed at the end of September,
1871. Fifteen years ago! It is wonderful what competition has done
during these few years in improving the speed and style of the steamers
on this route. Thirty-six long, dreary days we spent then on the _Celt_
between Southampton and the Cape, now a little more than half this time
suffices.

Hurrying on to Natal by the coasting steamer I arrived there after an
absence of nine months, finding all well; but alas! the fortune I
expected from my diamond venture was _non est_. No news whatever had
been received from the men I had sent up country. This fact combined
with the glowing accounts of the richness of the Colesberg Kopje (now
the Kimberley mine), the rapid fortunes made there, and the depressed
state of affairs in Natal, decided me to throw up my government
appointment, and test my luck in the new El Dorado.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VII.
LEAVE NATAL.—FIRST IMPRESSION OF THE DIAMOND FIELDS.—SICKNESS AT THE DRY
DIGGINGS.—FATHER HIDIEN.—HOSPITAL ARRANGEMENTS.—QUACKS.—MEDICAL
REGISTRATION IN SOUTH AFRICA.—CURIOUS DECISION OF CAPETOWN MEDICAL
BOARD.—A “MENDACIOUS” AND “DISHONEST” PRACTITIONER.—SANITARY CONDITION
OF KIMBERLEY IN 1878.—THREATENED SMALL-POX IN 1882.—SO-CALLED SMALL-POX
IN 1883 AND 1884.—MADMEN and their treatment.—CLIMATE OF GRIQUALAND
WEST.

On returning to Natal after my trip to the East, I could at once see
that this bright little colony had entered on a cycle of depression.
This, as I have mentioned before, combined with other inducements, and
the fact that the diamond fields afforded a wider scope for practice
than the ever-decreasing population of Victoria County, determined me to
sever my connection, at least for a time, with a district of which I
shall always retain a most pleasing recollection.

I left for the Fields in the beginning of December, 1871, taking the
usual route by Walsh’s passenger cart, _via_ Pietermaritzburg,
Harrismith and Bloemfontein to Du Toit’s Pan.

As I passed through Pietermaritzburg I called upon Lieut. Governor
Keate, who inquired into the particulars of my adventure in Arabia, of
which he had heard. He kindly granted me the further extension of leave
from my official duties in Natal for which I asked, as I intended, if I
did not like the diamond fields, to return. Crossing the river Umgeni at
Howick, and passing through the small villages of Estcourt and Colenso,
we came at last, after three days’ post-cart traveling, to the foot of
the Drakensberg. The road winding up the mountain was very steep, but in
first-rate order and repair. The road parties of native laborers which
each chief has to supply in rotation to the government, for, I believe,
a period of six months, at a fixed rate of pay, were evidently doing
their work well, but nevertheless the climb was a fearful strain on our
horses.

[Illustration:

FIRST “HOME” ON THE DIAMOND FIELDS, FEBRUARY 1872. TRAVELING WAGON AND
TENTS.
]

We arrived in safety at Harrismith, the first town of the Orange Free
State, lying within a few miles of the top of the Drakensberg, and next
day, after a splendid drive at a hand gallop all the way, over a road as
flat as a bowling alley, with a perfect Jehu at the reins named Brandon,
the heedless scion of a good old Irish family, came late in the evening
to Bethlehem, a quiet Dutch town, with two or three English stores,
where we rested for a few hours. Then inspanning again, on we drove past
Senekal, a wretched little place of about 100 inhabitants, and Winburg,
the centre of a fine grazing district, to Bloemfontein, the capital of
the state. Here Mr. Brand, the President, since knighted (1882) by the
English government for his services in the settlement of the Transvaal
difficulties, after the war resided, as did also a bishop of the
Anglican communion,[18] but as it was dark when we arrived, I saw
nothing of the city. I heard, however, sufficient reports of the
dreadful havoc that fever of a remittent type was making among the
residents on the diamond fields to make me anxious to arrive there as
quickly as possible. We started next morning in the moonlight at 3
o’clock, and drove through, some seventy miles, to Du Toit’s Pan in one
day. A long, dusty, tiring day it was, and as if to prove that “coming
events cast their shadows before,” we met three or four ox wagons
bringing away sick diggers from the fields, who had been stricken down
by the prevailing fever.

The sun had long set when we neared Du Toit’s Pan, yet the camp, as seen
in the distance was one blaze of light. The stores and canteens were
open, thronged with customers, while the canvas tents of the diggers,
some lit up with candles, some with wood fires, and others blazing with
paraffin lamps, studded the surroundings of the mine as with a
constellation of stars. When we arrived at Benning & Martin’s, _the_
hotel of the day, the scene was one which almost baffles description.
Clusters of men, work being ended, crowded round the post-cart to see
the new arrivals, others thronged the adjacent liquor-bars, while every
one showed signs of hurrying bustle and feverish excitement. After some
refreshment, I took a short stroll through the camp. Novel sights and
grotesque scenes met my view at every turn, the lights in the tents
throwing “shadows on the wall,” in some cases of the most laughable
description.

[Illustration:

KIMBERLEY MINE—FIRST STAGE, 1871.
]

I shall never forget my first night on the diamond fields. When I
returned to the hotel I inquired for a bed, but was assured that not one
could be had for love or money. Martin, the landlord, however, made me
up a shake-down as a favor, on the end of the long dining table, where
amidst shouts of “play or take miss” from a party of excited loo players
alongside I soon fell asleep. At an early hour on the following morning
I took one of the many passenger carts plying to the New Rush, otherwise
called Colesberg Kopje (Kimberley), and after a drive of about two miles
wended my way to the mine on foot, along roads ankle deep in sand,
bordered with stores and canteens built of iron, and with canvas tents
of all sizes and shapes fixed promiscuously around.

Arriving at the edge of the mine I paused to observe the novel sight
which met my eyes. In those days roadways extending from one side of the
mine to the other were the scenes of constant traffic, the diggers
carting along them the diamondiferous soil from the claims to sort it on
their various depositing grounds. Carts, horses, mules, oxen and men
crowded these narrow roads, on each side of which the claims were
scarcely less thronged. The _tout ensemble_ was most interesting. Every
patch of ground was occupied, the whole resembling a hive of busy human
bees, bustling and elbowing, creeping and climbing, shoveling and
sieving, to gather, if possible, honey from each opening flower, or, to
abandon metaphor, to turn out a diamond from each bucketful of soil
hauled to the surface. Not less than 10,000 natives, and from 4,000 to
5,000 white men, I should think, were busily at work the morning on
which I first saw the diggings.

I knew that the Natal Verulam Co. had claims in No. 3 Road, and on
inquiry I was directed to their manager, Mr. G. J. Lee, afterward for a
long period chairman of the Kimberley mining board. Just at the moment I
found him one of his native servants had turned out a thirty carat
diamond from a sieve which he was shaking, and having a slight tinge of
superstition in my nature, I at once accepted this as an omen of good
luck. While I was looking at the claims belonging to this company my
ears were all at once assailed by a deafening roar, for without any
warning all the natives in and around the mine ceased work and yelled
out at the top of their voices: “Hullah!” “Hullah!” Such a babel I had
never heard before, and on turning round I discovered that a lady
standing behind me, who had come to see the mine, was the innocent cause
of all the disturbance. On inquiry I learnt this was nothing new, but
that the natives from the interior, who perchance had never seen a white
woman before they came to the diggings, were in the habit of taking this
method of expressing their surprise and pleasure. Patti, Nillson, or
Marie Rozé never, I am sure, had a more enthusiastic greeting.

With Mr. Lee’s kind assistance, I got suitable quarters on the same day,
and next morning commenced professional work. At that time there were
only two qualified men on the fields, but of quacks “enough and to
spare.” It did not take long for me to settle down into practice, and in
fewer hours than those who cast their lot in communities where they are
personally unknown, and where competition is keener, take years to
establish themselves, I found myself with as much as I could do, my
arrival being looked forward to by many Natalian friends, who seemed
only too glad to see me among them once more.

The great majority of those who consulted me were suffering from camp
fever, as it was termed, which was malarial, aggravated by exposure to
the sun, tent life, bad water, obtained in the early days from exposed
dams or polluted springs, imperfectly tinned meat and fish, a scarcity
of vegetables, and last but not least by strong drink. Intemperance was
and is, though not now to so great an extent, the curse of the diamond
fields. I feel certain that, out of the number of cases (which during an
extensive medical practice of fifteen years’ duration) I have attended
among the white population on the fields, at least seventy per cent. can
be traced either directly or indirectly to excessive indulgence in
alcohol, while the name is legion of the innocent natives who have been
poisoned by the vile preparations passing under the name of brandy. The
only treatment for the local fever which could be relied on, and one by
which its relapsing tendency could be thwarted, I soon discovered was to
order the patient’s removal to a distance away from the malarial taint,
the sea-side if possible, as soon as the more urgent symptoms were
abated, as only through an entire change of air could complete
restoration to health be expected within a reasonable time. The railway
even in this matter has come to our help, as on the first approach of
the fever, the desired change can be obtained in a couple of days, or
even less, and a threatened attack possibly averted. Cases of typhoid
fever sometimes occurred, while dysentery, usually of a mild type, also
existed. Pneumonia, croup, diphtheria, and in fact the majority of the
other diseases with which practitioners most commonly come in contact,
were rare, a physician’s practice in the early days on the fields being
almost a specialty. This, to a great extent, could be accounted for by
the population of the diggings being comprised of healthy and hearty
men, mostly in the prime of life. Accidents too were few and far
between, the mine not being deep enough for the falls of reef or
diamondiferous soil to be dangerous, and no underground workings
existing, the dangers of steam, blasting powder and dynamite were as yet
unknown.

In 1871 the fields were abounding, as I have said, in quacks, but since
then the qualified medical men have increased from two to twenty-two.

The river diggings having existed for some time, matters there had
assumed more of a settled appearance than at the dry diggings. A wattle
and daub house, originally built for the Rev. Mr. Sadler, a clergyman of
the Church of England, ministering there, was converted into the first
temporary hospital, but being found too small a more permanent building
was erected, which again in course of time made way in 1873 for a fine
stone structure, which was unfortunately consumed by fire, and remained
some time in ruins before it was rebuilt. It is now chiefly used as a
convalescent home. The _Diamond News_ of the day bitterly attacked me,
because I pointed out the folly of spending money in erecting permanent
buildings at Klipdrift, a place which was becoming rapidly more or less
deserted by the digging community. The absurdity as well as the cost of
sending men with broken limbs, and suffering with fever, jogging
twenty-five miles over broken roads to a hospital, never seemed to
strike those who, having property at Klipdrift, were attempting at the
time to bolster up the place in contradistinction to what were termed
the dry diggings.

The Dry Diggings were not, however, entirely without any hospital
accommodation. A large marquee was erected in 1871 at Du Toit’s Pan,
under the auspices of Father Hidien, the first Roman Catholic priest on
the diamond fields, who himself a short time afterward fell a victim to
his never ceasing devotion. I heard many accounts, when I arrived, of
his unbounded charity and tender care of the sick. I will relate one
incident which came under my especial notice, and which occurred toward
the very end of his unselfish career. Not long before he himself was
fatally stricken with fever, an unfortunate white man, a perfect fever
wreck, covered with frightful sores and merely a living skeleton, came
to him for relief. Father Hidien took charge of him, and several times a
day, as no nurse could be got, would, with his own hands, wash his
ulcerous wounds. In the first stage of fever, until weakness bound the
kind father to his bed, he continued with unflagging zeal to relieve, as
far as he could, the sufferings of this afflicted creature; but as the
ravages of disease made increasing strides and the visits of the priest,
as a matter of course, grew fewer and fewer, it was pitiable to hear
this unfortunate fellow, who was lying in a small bell-tent near, make
the air resound with his unceasing cries for the good father’s help.
Thus he continued to beg and implore him to come to his side until he
was told that the parting spirit of his Samaritan comforter had gone to
the land of the “Hereafter,” whither he himself followed in but a few
short hours.

It was not until the arrival in 1872 of Dr. Dyer, who had been in the
government service of the Cape Colony, that two long, cool wattle and
daub buildings were erected near the race-course, providing beds for
about twenty patients. Dr. Dyer, Dr. Grimmer and myself attended to this
hospital gratuitously for some time. Everything in those days was of the
most primitive description. A large tent served as a dead-house, and I
well remember, on one of my morning visits wishing to see the body of a
patient who I was informed had died during the night, finding on going
into this tent merely the trunk of the poor fellow’s body left; the
prowling, ravenous dogs, which then roamed about, having devoured the
poor man’s limbs, which they had torn in pieces from his body.

The first case of lunacy which ever came to my notice in Griqualand West
I also saw here. Divisions constructed of mud and wattles were placed
between the beds to promote extra privacy in certain cases, so this
lunatic when brought in was placed in one of these inclosures. There was
but one white man and his wife to superintend everything. The first time
I saw this poor fellow I found him raving mad, without an attendant, or
even a straight-jacket, tied down with ropes, struggling in his wild
delirium. The scene, but for its sadness, would have been ludicrously
grotesque. The madman having managed to withe his body round, and having
gnawed a hole through the mud wall, and head all the time popping in and
out like a “Jack in a box,” was attempting to worry the patient in the
next bed, the latter though almost frightened to death, being too weak
to move away. The whole place was a chamber of horrors worthy of the
pencil of a Gustave Doré. Although the management was much to blame, and
the public were apathetic, yet the doctors attending did not escape
public criticism. I can even now call to mind one very scathing attack,
which I believe had much to do with the removal of the building, in
which Hood’s lines were applied to them:

“’Twas strange, although they got no fees,
How still they watched by two’s and three’s,
But Jack a very little ease
Obtained from them.
In fact, he did not find M. D.’s
Worth one D. M.”

At the time, also, I wrote to the _Diamond Field_ giving a description
of the wretchedness of the place, and did what I could to promote
improvement.

The hospital, which was established at the jail, and which was entirely
under government control, was even worse than the Dry Diggings hospital
which I have just described. At the risk of being a little tedious I
will give an extract from a description of this place which I wrote to
the _Diamond News_ July 7th, 1873.

“This so-called hospital is a tent about 12 feet by 9 feet in size
without even a fly. Through this during the rains the water beats, and
through the rents, which I also saw, the piercing wind on these cold
nights blows as through a funnel on the poor wretched sinners within.
It is not difficult for residents on these fields to picture further
what the state of such a tent must be, after a blazing sun has poured
its rays on it for hours in summer. Let us enter. Here a sight
presents itself which I wish I could adequately describe. On the bare
floor, deep in dust and sand, lie huddled together black and white,
criminals and honest men, no beds, no bedsteads, some with only a
blanket round them, and in this sorry plight they remain during the
rains, exposed to the chance of the water every now and then washing,
as it has done, right through, making the place rather a hot-bed of
disease, than a refuge for the sick—the floor of the tent being lower
than the surrounding ground. Here in the middle of the tent lay, with
but an apology for a bed between his body and the ‘cold, cold ground,’
and with an old piece of zinc roofing at his head to prevent it from
pushing through the canvas, a poor emaciated black, whose leg had
lately been amputated; in one corner a poor blind creature sat
piteously complaining, whilst in another corner a crouching native was
busily engaged ridding himself of vermin!

“I need not particularise further. One white man there was, however,
who told me he had been there twelve months. No doubt he could, if he
would, ‘a tale unfold’ of misery and woe. Strewed in motley confusion
on this dusty floor could be seen old clothes stinking with dirt,
boots and shoes, crutches and soap, tobacco and tea-cups, salt and
pipes, pans, buckets, a chamber utensil, half eaten provisions, an
empty bottle holding a half burnt candle, and, as if in sorry
burlesque, three or four Bibles provided with considerable
forethought, no doubt to teach the unfortunate inmates the advantages
of being ‘patient and long suffering in all their afflictions.’”

The miseries of these places, the _exposés_ that took place, as well as
the out-of-the-way situation of the Dry Diggings hospital, led the
Southey government to see the necessity of increased and better
accommodation, and a new hospital was built on the road between
Kimberley and Du Toit’s Pan in 1874. Two or three days before it was to
be given over by the contractors a serious fire broke out and destroyed
more than half the building. The government, being short of funds, did
not rebuild the part burned down, but made the portion which had escaped
suffice for the wants of the community; and in Jan., 1875, the sole
medical charge was given to the government officer, Dr. Dyer and myself
being retained as consultants. The medical care of the patients was
however in Jan., 1882 transferred from the hands of the government
district surgeon to that of a purely resident surgeon, whose sole duty
it was simply to attend to the hospital, government at this time
resigning the management to a local board.

In 1876 the nursing care of the institution was undertaken by a certain
sisterhood[19] of nurses and associates, under the superintendence of
their head, Sister Louise, and it is impossible to speak in terms of too
high commendation either of her management or of that of Sister
Henrietta, who succeeded her, and who still retains that office and
administers its important duties in a manner which I cannot too highly
praise.

The hospital received considerable addition in 1876, and again in 1882
had a large wing, an isolation ward and an extensive native ward added.
The medical tax, passed by the legislative council of Griqualand West
(No. 2, 1874) of one shilling per month payable by each native, was
received by the diggers, when it became law, with much disapprobation.
It was consequently allowed to remain in abeyance by the Griqualand West
government, until hospital matters came under the management of the
local board, which I have before mentioned, in 1882. Then it was
revived, and has been since paid by the diggers and companies, without
demur, the amount being as a general rule deducted from the natives’
wages. The amount has varied from £10,000 in 1882 to £6,000 in 1885. The
Kimberley hospital is now larger than any institution in the colony, its
working staff numbering over fifty, and it contains sixty-six
surgical[20] and forty-two medical beds for natives, twenty-nine for
poor whites, twenty for paying whites, and an isolation ward with four
beds. The number of cases treated here is enormous, the capital
operations for the last quarter in 1885 counting forty-four, and the
admissions amounting, during the same year, to 709 Europeans and 1,019
natives.

Returning to the early days of field life, the quacks soon found it
advisable to take flight, as a steady influx of regularly qualified men
was appearing on the scene, the only one retaining any kind of ground
being a non-qualified homeopath. This quack was always, however,
cautious enough to consult with qualified practitioners when his cases
were _in extremis_, and by this means he escaped any penalty of the law,
and procured a death certificate in proper order.

It seems passing strange, that in a sparsely populated though widely
extended country or congeries of States, that a man possessing
indubitable qualifications for the exercise of his profession, should be
put to such frequent and utterly unnecessary annoyance in the matter of
medical registration as sometimes occurs in South Africa. A physician or
surgeon before he can legally recover his fees in every part of South
Africa, requires, as there are five separate States, to be registered in
no less than five different places. I was early taught this in a rather
rough way; one of the advantages which confederation would bring being
vividly placed before me in a very practical manner. In 1873 I attended
a man and his family at Du Toit’s Pan, and as I found that no
inclination existed to pay my fees, amounting to some eighty guineas; I
sued for the amount, but was non-suited by the magistrate, on the
exception being raised, that I was not a legal medical practitioner in
that part of South Africa, not being registered in Griqualand West or
the Cape Colony. As I was registered in England and Natal, I had
neglected to comply with this form in Griqualand West, and consequently
had to suffer.

The law courts of this territory have also decided another important
point in medical law, agreeing in their judgment with English precedent.
A medical man whose only qualification was the diploma of the Edinburgh
College of Surgeons sued a patient for his attendance, who pleaded that
he being a simple surgeon could not charge for a medical case, and the
High Court sustained the exception. To the astonishment, however, of
nearly all the faculty in South Africa, the medical board in Capetown
after this, decided, entirely _ultra vires_, to grant permission to
_“Edinbro’” Surgeons_, to practice medicine; consequently South Africa
now is an Alsatia, to which all semi-qualified men can flee who find it
impossible to enter the army or navy, or even obtain any poor-law
appointment in England. Feeling myself interested in this matter, and
being desirous of obtaining authoritative news from the “head centre” I
telegraphed on May 23d, 1884 to the late Dr. Ebden, who held the
position as president of the medical board in Capetown, to inquire “if
the board intended to doubly qualify simple surgeons,” and received the
astounding reply: “Board considers Edinburgh surgeons entitled to
practice medicine.” It would be curious to fathom the reason why this
preference was given to men holding Scotch diplomas! Quite independently
of the fact that this abnormal announcement is contrary to all law, and
contrary to the powers vested in the medical board, it is an injustice
to the colonists themselves, and unfair to the rising generation of the
country. In Europe there are at the present time more than one hundred
and fifty medical students, sons of South African colonists, the
majority of whom are receiving a university education. Can it be fair to
these that they should be pitted against semi-qualified English
adventurers?

The necessity of a medical act in South Africa, with proper penal
clauses, becomes every day more apparent. The South African _Medical
Journal_ in 1884, on giving a _resumé_ of that year’s events of
interest, drew public attention to one glaring instance, which had to
pass unpunished. In mentioning the case of two medical men, this journal
observes: “The latter, a L. R. C. S. of Edinburgh only, had been
practicing as a physician, although gazetted as a surgeon only. He had
aggravated this by repeatedly signing his name with M. D. and F. R. C.
P., a proceeding which was not only _mendacious_, but _dishonest_.” But
yet this dishonesty had to remain without the infliction of any fine.
This case is one among many, which shows the urgency of legislation in
this direction.

Since the creation of a municipality in Kimberley in 1878, and the
consequent introduction of sanitary regulations, duly enforced by law
when necessary, the death-rate has very considerably diminished. The
late Dr. Shillito and the writer, in March, 1879, prepared an exhaustive
report for the mayor and town council on the sanitary condition of
Kimberley. The death-rate at that time was enormous, as can be seen from
the following table, which is a copy of that which we then furnished:

Total population 14,169 Deaths 867 Rate per 1,000 61.014
Europeans 6,574 „ 236 „ „ „ 40.005
Other than Europeans 7,595 „ 604 „ „ „ 79.052

At that time Kimberley was perfectly honeycombed with cesspools. We drew
attention in our report to the evil effects of the existing system, and
to the manner in which these had revealed themselves two years before,
when an epidemic of puerperal fever and erysipelas robbed the community
of many valuable lives, and we further showed that there was always
existing a remitten fever of a dysenteric and typhoid tendency, which
could in some measure be attributed to this defective sanitary
condition. Our report led to the adoption of the “Pail system,” and the
night-soil is now taken away regularly and buried some distance from the
town, the consequence of which is that the death-rate from disease has
diminished more than one-third, and the sanitary condition of Kimberley
is to my own knowledge as good as that of any town in South Africa.

Kimberley, notwithstanding its improved sanitary condition, was in 1883
and 1884 visited by a disastrous outbreak of disease, which cost the
community much, both in life and money. In May, 1882, small-pox was
brought to South Africa by the steamship _Drummond Castle_, and
spreading, proved very fatal in the Capetown Peninsula (Capetown to
Simon’s Town), 4,000, less or more, succumbing to its ravages. Great
apprehension was felt in Kimberley lest the disease might be
communicated by the passenger wagons coming up from Capetown. Terror
seized upon the digging community, and a quarantine station was
immediately established at the Modder River, some thirty miles from the
mines. Every care was taken, and all passengers were fumigated with
sulphur before they were permitted to enter Kimberley. As the result,
seven cases of small-pox were detected and detained for treatment, and
all those traveling by the same wagons were kept in quarantine
twenty-one days.

These efforts, which lasted from Sept. 1882 to March 1883, were entirely
successful, and not one single case of small-pox broke out in Kimberley.
This threatened invasion put the ratepayers to an expense of nearly
£13,000, which, however, was a mere bagatelle compared with the outlay
which the epidemic disease that broke out on the fields in 1883, 1884
and 1885 entailed. This came from another and quite unexpected quarter,
and was not imported seaward. A certain body of Kafirs, who were coming
to Kimberley to seek for work, were attacked at Klerksdorp, in the
Transvaal, a small town near Potchefstroom, with symptoms resembling
small-pox. The doctors there declared the disease to be aggravated
chicken-pox, when the Transvaal government, not being satisfied, Dr.
Dyer, who had been promoted to the chief medical office under the
Transvaal government, was sent from Pretoria to report direct. In this
report, dated Oct. 25th, 1883, he gave it as his opinion (concurred in
by Dr. Francis, the special commissioner of the Orange Free State), that
the natives were suffering merely from a severe form of chicken-pox,
termed by them “Isi-mun-qu-mun-gwane.” These natives were then allowed
to proceed on their road to the diamond mines, but of the sixteen who
left Klerksdorp four only reached Felstead’s, a store about nine miles
from Kimberley, when, the survivors being too weak to proceed,
information of the fact was brought by passers-by. An outcry was soon
raised, they were visited by medical men, materials to erect shelter for
them were immediately sent out, a doctor appointed, and all the
precautions commenced to be taken, which afterward led to so much
expense. The civil commissioner at once (Nov. 3d, 1883,) appointed a
board of six medical men to report on the disease, who after a prolonged
inquiry left matters in _statu quo_, three averring that the outbreak
was small-pox, and the others (myself among the number) arriving at a
contrary opinion. Government then sent a physician from Capetown to
investigate matters, who on Dec. 6th, 1883, declared the disease to be
small-pox; so those declaring the outbreak to be a “bullous disease,
allied to pemphigus,” and not contagious, as well as those declaring the
disease to be a Kafir pox,[21] or an aggravated form of chicken-pox,
were outvoted. It was during one of my visits, accompanied by Dr. L. S.
Jameson, to further examine into this outbreak that I met with the
nearly fatal accident which I mention elsewhere.

I will not weary my lay readers by entering upon a medical discussion,
but may refer my professional brethren to a verbatim report published by
the Diamond Fields _Advertiser_ in a book form, of the case of Regina
_vs._ Wolff, where Dr. Wolff, an American physician of more than average
skill, was charged with failing to report the existence of “small-pox”
in the hospital of which he had then charge, in which the whole matter
is carefully discussed. The outbreak of pemphigus or small-pox, which
lasted in its virulent form from Nov. 1883, to Dec. 1884, cost the
inhabitants of Kimberley and the mines of Griqualand West the large sum
of £37,503, 15s. 11d. Medical services were paid for at an extravagant
rate, two medical men alone drawing the sum of £3,320, 10s. 6d., and
what with the erection of iron hospitals, fumigating houses,
dispensaries, ambulance wagons, horses and highly paid officials the
outbreak was an expensive luxury to Griqualand West as long as it
continued. The Dutch, also taking alarm, stationed patrols on all the
roads leading from Kimberley to the Free State, excepting four, on which
they erected fumigating stations just outside our boundary. At these
stations they fumigated all Kafirs and others passing along, charging
those not resident in the State, whether white or black. Some idea of
the extent of this charge on the population may be formed from the fact
that at the Reit Pass station alone 11,570 were fumigated in three
months. Of the folly and uselessness I will remain silent. When the
outbreak first appeared, the “Act to amend the law relating to Public
Health,” No. 4, 1883, giving power to levy rates, and also for framing
regulations for vaccination and quarantining was the only ordinance
which applied, but in 1884 a special act was passed (Nov. 10th, 1884),
giving the Board of Health power to levy rates on boroughs and mines,
and to defray expenses. This was followed in 1885 by ordinance No. 41,
by which the government was empowered to pay one-half of all moneys
expended on account of small-pox; though previous to this the government
had acted with great liberality, having defrayed one-third of every
expense. The total number of cases reported from Nov. 1st, 1883, to Jan.
1st, 1885, the months during which the epidemic was at its height, was
2,311, and the number of deaths 700, or say 32.02 per cent. The
proportion of white cases as against colored was very marked, the number
of white being 400, with 51 deaths, or 12.07 per cent., and of colored
1,911, with 649 deaths, or 35.42 per cent. A second attempt to revive
the scare was made toward the end of 1885, but this did not succeed,
although twenty-five colored and one white man were sent to the
lazaretto, alleged to be suffering from small-pox. A special commission
to examine-these patients was sent out, on my describing a visit I had
made to this lazaretto, and on my drawing public attention to the
absurdity of the whole affair. This commission, although chosen from
medical men believing in the small-pox theory, actually certified that
_half_ of the patients they saw in the lazaretto were not suffering from
small-pox at all. My readers from this will be able to form an estimate
of the cruel acts perpetrated at the time by ignorant officials, and to
judge how, taking the small-pox view of the case, a loathsome disease
would be propagated amongst healthy persons—how the innocent and guilty
would suffer alike. After this exposure small-pox rapidly died out. The
lazaretto is now removed to the west side of the mine, and the buildings
surrounded by grounds, twenty-two acres in extent, are stationed on a
high plateau on the road to Schmidt’s Drift. At present Kimberley is
perfectly free from any cases of this disease.

In the beginning of this chapter I made mention of the first lunatic I
ever saw in Griqualand West, who, as he belonged to the police, was
removed, I believe, to Capetown, but ever since then, both before
annexation and since, lunatics as a rule, up to a very short time back,
have been left to drag out their weary existences, the victims of
heart-curdling neglect, in the common jail. In August, 1885, I took
occasion, when speaking on the subject of lunacy, to lay bare before the
Kimberley public some of the scenes day by day enacted in their prison
(their lunatic asylum?). In the course of a lecture I then delivered, I
spoke thus on the subject:

“Here in the middle of the nineteenth century, in an era of boasted
civilization, the only care we can give our lunatics, except in
Capetown and Grahams town, is to herd them with criminals, and to
chain and handcuff them with brutal severity, pending an official
order for removal, which may _never_ come. It is a painful thought,
that among the poorer patients, who from the ills of life suffer
mental alienation; fathers depressed from loss or anxiety, mothers
from exhaustion resulting from the rearing of a large family, the
young man from vice, dissipation or disappointed hopes, and the
foreigner among strangers, looking wistfully back to his native
home—that these, all suffering from diseases which might possibly have
been stayed, should be thrust into jails without attendants, simply
put in irons if violent, and almost compelled through sheer inhumanity
and neglect to suffer the misery of incurable lunacy!

“As I have just said, in all colonial towns except two, as far as I
can learn, the jail is the receptacle of the lunatic. Kimberley, with
its vast wealth, with its go-ahead citizens, is no exception. What
tales the walls of its jail could tell! One poor black, to my certain
knowledge, has been locked within its gates for twelve long years, and
there you can see him—to-morrow if you like—bemoaning his fate, and
cursing the government in the same breath! A poor white girl, the
daughter of a man whom old residents must remember well in the palmy
days of the _Diamond News_, has day after day, and _every_ day since
1876, paced like a caged tigress up and down a small court-yard,
panting for freedom, and growling in despair! One poor girl, black her
skin may be, is handcuffed, so I learnt, for days together, to prevent
her from stripping herself of all she wears. Two women I saw there
myself, not three days ago, clad simply in nature’s garb, as naked as
when born. A patient of my own was taken to this comfortless place
some few months ago. His case wanted thoughtful care and instant
attention. Red tape, however, consumed weeks of valuable time, the
chance of cure was risked, and he, poor fellow, instead of being cared
for by skilled attendants, was thrust handcuffed into a cell,
ironically called padded, the floor left bare, on which he might have
battered out his brains, had he chosen, in the frenzy of his despair!
On another occasion, in that very same cell, a lunatic was confined
one night not very long before. Upon the jailer paying his visit in
the morning he looked anxiously round for the man that had been
committed to his care the previous evening. To his astonishment, where
do you think he found him? I will tell you. During the long, dreary
watches of the night, the poor fellow, to escape from some imaginary
foe, had scooped out with his nails a hole large and deep enough in
which to hide, and there he found him, crouching like a wild beast in
his lair. I saw this hole myself on a visit I afterward paid him. I
will here ask you one question, who ought to inquire into these
matters? Who is answerable for this shameful neglect?”

This account created quite a sensation, and was at once taken notice of
by the government, who removed all but one lunatic, about whom there was
some local quibble, to the asylum at Grahamstown. Some idea may be
formed of the responsibility falling upon the shoulders of the Governor
of the Kimberley jail when I inform my readers that during the last
fourteen years 67,000 convicted prisoners have passed through his hands.

This chapter would be incomplete without a few words respecting the
climate of Griqualand West. Taken as a whole it is very salubrious, and
especially adapted to those suffering from lung disease, as the country
being almost entirely devoid of timber or vegetation permits free
currents of air to prevail, a condition which is very favorable to
consumptive patients. Although the changes of temperature are very
sudden and great, yet with proper care little harm is done, as the
excessive dryness of the soil and atmosphere enables the residents to
withstand with but little inconvenience a heat which would be quite
unbearable in a moist climate. The rain, too, when it comes, generally
falls in sharp and heavy showers.

The drinking water is upon the whole good, though that of the deep wells
is rather hard, and in the shallow ones brackish, but the water now
brought in from the Vaal River through the enterprise of Chevalier Lynch
by means of pipes is soft and very wholesome.

The elevation of Griqualand West of about 4,000 feet above the sea
appears to give it the air of a mountainous region, the ozone being
constant, and ranging from 3.5 to 9.5 degrees on a scale of ten, the
average being about five degrees.

In Kimberley the north wind is the prevailing one. From a report of
4,452 observations taken by Mr. G. J. Lee, F. R. Met. S., in 1885, in
681 cases it was due north; next in order came northeast and south
winds, of about equal frequency, and next, with comparatively little
difference, were winds from the northwest and southwest. As can be
imagined Griqualand West is very dry.

It will be seen from the table below that there has been one year only
during the last nine in which the rainfall came up to or exceeded
twenty-five inches, which is about the English average: 1877, 13.58
inches; 1878, 9.34; 1879, 19.38; 1880, 15.43; 1881, 30.30; 1882, 14.77;
1883, 13.63; 1884, 20.46, and 73 days on which rain fell; 1885, 9.77,
and 74 days on which rain fell.

In some months no rain falls at all. The following is a tabulated list
of the months, during the last eight years, in which this has occurred:
June, 1877; June, 1878; October, 1879; July, 1880; August, 1880;
September, 1880; July, 1881; September, 1881; June, 1883; December,
1883; July, 1884; August, 1884; July, 1885.

During the year 1885 there were ninety-two days on which lightning was
seen, seventy-four on which dew fell, two hundred and eighty-eight days
on which there were clouds, and seven days on which ice was seen,
although in the outskirts of Kimberley ice was much more frequent. I
have given monthly returns in the accompanying table:

1885 Clouds Dew Lightning Ice
January 27 days 1 10 0
February 26 „ 7 20 0
March 26 „ 21 4 0
April 24 „ 16 5 0
May 23 „ 9 1 0
June 13 „ 9 1 0
July 17 „ 1 0 0
August 25 „ 4 3 6
September 26 „ 5 5 1
October 27 „ 1 8 0
November 26 „ 0 15 0
December 28 „ 0 20 0
——— —— —— —
288 74 92 7

The barometric pressure for the year 1883 appears to have been at its
maximum in June, in which month the reading was 26.177 inches, and the
minimum, which was 25.849 inches, occurred in January, while the mean
for the year was 25.988 inches. All these readings are corrected to 32°
F.

The heat experienced in Griqualand West is sometimes very excessive,
when I state that the maximum summer heat of the day in the shade during
the months of November and December was in the year 1883, 107°, in 1884,
102°, and last year 104°, whilst during the month of December, 1885, the
ordinary bright bulb thermometer in the sun attained the height of
116.25°, and the blackened bulb in vacuo 174.6°, my readers may form
some idea of the great range of temperature to which residents are
exposed, especially if they contrast this with the minimum during the
winter months, July and August, of 26° in 1884, and of 28.25° in 1885.
At the same time it is interesting to note that the highest mean of
absolute maximum temperature was 78.98° in December and the absolute
minimum 52.52° in June. I have often conversed on this subject with one
of the early Vaal River diggers, who told me that in September, 1870, he
several times found the thermometer in his tent in the early morning
standing at 32°, and at mid-day registering 112°, and on one occasion in
1870 it was as low as 17°.

[Illustration:

KIMBERLEY MINE—MIDDLE STAGE, 1875.
]

In the winter there is a great difference between the temperature upon
the grass and that upon the bare soil. Wagoners are fully aware of this,
for when on a cold, frosty night their oxen go astray, they look for
them upon roads, or bare patches of ground, as they know where the
instinct of the animals will lead them, the oxen appearing intuitively
to know that the grass favors radiation and causes intense cold. I have
often indeed known the temperature on the grass to be as low as 16°, or
even 13°, when the temperature on the bare ground around was above
freezing point. Any one living near the diamond mines can relate the
scores of cases in which natives during the last ten years have lain
down upon the veldt (grass) to sleep away their drunken carousals, and
have been found stiff and dead in the morning.

Although “Afric’s sunny fountains” (comparatively few in number,
however, on our high plateau) have, in good old Bishop Heber’s beautiful
hymn, “rolled down their golden sand,” yet visitors who come out under
the belief that pajamas, mosquito nets, and the lightest silken
gossamers, etc., are sufficient to keep out the cold, would be
astonished to find, as they might do, from time to time, pea-jacketed
and ulstered individuals of varying ages heartily enjoying games of
snowball under the supposed burning sun.

The dust storms, to which we are liable all the year round, are our
greatest trial, sweeping over the country like a very sirocco, burning,
blinding and choking up everything in their fury. Occasionally, to
change the scene, we have storms of hail, with stones sometimes of
extraordinary size, two and two and a half inches in diameter, whilst
whirlpools ofttimes sweep and circle round, to relieve the monotony of
the landscape.

Yet, notwithstanding these drawbacks, and the great variations in the
climate, and putting aside preventible diseases, arising from defective
sanitation, and reckless exposure, the climate is on the whole very
fairly healthy for Europeans.

In the early days of the Fields the gambling spirit so infatuated many
of the diggers, that, not satisfied with the excitement of the day’s
luck, or ill-luck in the mine, they would prolong the accidents of
fortune far into the night. In my next chapter I will give an account of
that period.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VIII.
GAMBLING AT THE DIAMOND FIELDS.—MR. DODD’S ADVICE ON
GAMBLING.—SPECULATIVE VALUE OF DIGGING.—THE FIELDS IN THE EARLY
DAYS.—GAMBLING HELLS IN 1872.—MR. JONES “AT HOME.”—GOVERNOR SOUTHEY’S
PROCLAMATION.—EXODUS TO THE FREE STATE.—RONDO EN COLO.—COLLAPSE.

“Chance, my dear Bob, chance is ten times a more intoxicating liquor
than champagne, and, once take to ‘dramming’ with fortune, you may bid
a long adieu to sobriety! I do not speak here of the terrible
infatuation of play, and the almost utter impossibility of resisting
it, but I allude to what is infinitely worse—the certainty of your
applying play theories and play tactics to every event and
circumstance of real life.”—_James Dodd to Robert Doolan, Esq.—Lever._

If Mr. Dodd’s advice upon the subject of play, and his contention as to
its worst results be correct, and I think no one can fairly contradict
him, how much stronger is the position if the converse of the
proposition be taken. The latter was the case, however, in the infancy
of the diamond fields. There the daily work was one continual game at
hazard with Dame Fortune. The “hard-up” and disconsolate digger of
to-day might be Chance’s chosen favorite to-morrow. One blow of the
pick, one turn of the shovel, might disclose for him a treasure
exceeding his wildest imaginings, the difference between the precarious
business of digging for diamonds and gambling at a faro table, in fact,
being a moral difference only. Hence that hope which “springs eternal in
the human breast” buoyed him up under all difficulties and prevented his
ever yielding to absolute despair. But at the same time it tended to
weaken the force of his moral character; he was compelled by
circumstances to confront, and in a measure calculate upon, the chances,
and probabilities of his daily avocations; he had to begin with that
state of mind in which Mr. Dodd’s gambler is supposed to finish; and
there is little ground, therefore, for surprise that, when turning from
labor to leisure, the digger’s favorite recreations should be those of
the gamester.

His surroundings, moreover, were depressing in the extreme. Even when
mitigated by the company of a “chum,” tent life, upon mere bread and
meat, with indifferent coffee, and no rational amusements at command,
was not exhilarating. Is it wonderful, therefore, that the gregarious
instinct of man should have led the diggers to while away the dreariness
of their idle hours at the hotels or gambling saloons? Even of happy
England did not Shenstone say:

“Whoe’er has traveled life’s dull round,
Whate’er his stages may have been,
Must sigh to think he still has found
His warmest welcome at an inn?”

And accordingly, in all mining camps, the two great social evils have
always been drinking and gambling. The diamond fields were not singular
in this respect, for the digger only followed the example of his
Australian and Californian brother when he allowed his appetite for
drink and his passion for play to run riot. The canteens and gambling
saloons supplied the opportunities, and on the principle of “vires
acquirit eundo”—reached such dire proportions as to call for legislative
interference.

Of the evils of the drink traffic I may speak elsewhere. With regard to
the other social evil I may mention that it first took firm hold of the
community by the establishment of a saloon under the auspices of two
partners, who had discarded the legitimate but slower processes of their
ordinary digging operations for the more rapid if less regular method of
making a fortune over “the board of green cloth.” There were many
others, who all ran the game openly, engaged in this nefarious
occupation, but I select these men, as they probably made the largest
fortune in their business, if such it may be called, retiring in a few
months with £40,000. The games most in vogue at this “hell” were
“roulette,” “rouge-et-noir,” “trente-et-quarante” and “faro,” all of
which, I must admit, were conducted in a perfectly honorable manner, and
the legitimate odds invariably given the players. On the other hand the
smaller fry of the hell-keepers descended to very low dodges indeed. One
_modest_ young man who kept a roulette table had four “zeros” and a
“crown and feather” for himself, with thirty-six numbers for his
patrons, whilst he would lay only thirty to one against any individual
number, thus securing for himself in any event an advantage of some
thirty-three per cent. upon each spin of the table, if luck were in
other respects even. Another gentleman (?), by mechanical devices, as
actually robbed his patrons as if he had knocked them down and rifled
their pockets. This thief had the alternate divisions between the colors
on his revolving ribbed wheel of fortune so contrived that he could
direct the ball, by a right or left spin, on to such color as might suit
his pocket best. I also heard of a still bolder spirit, who, becoming
alarmed at the constancy with which one player persisted in backing the
number 13, quietly called in the painter’s art to erase the dangerous
figure and paint a second 31. He then allowed the player, who must have
been strangely short-sighted, to continue backing his favorite number
“13” for some nights afterward, no doubt looking upon this man’s
infatuation as a certain annuity, before the fraud was discovered. This
was “heads I win and tails you lose” with a vengeance for the banker.
There were other devices which it is unnecessary for me to refer to
here, but which all tended to increase the odds against the players.

Let me give a sketch of one eventful evening in a gambling saloon of the
olden days: We approached a corrugated iron building of no great
architectural pretensions, from whence came sounds of lively music and
the hum of many voices alternating with an almost complete stillness,
which was broken only by the ominous croak of the croupier or the
reckless oaths of the losers. Upon entering we encountered an individual
(technically called a “bonnet”) whose hateful duty it was to tempt men
to play by the lavish way in which he staked money which to all
appearance was his own, and to seduce the unwary into the meshes of his
employer’s net. On this occasion I recollect the proprietor of the hell,
no doubt urged on by an ardent thirst for gold, but who, however, was
exceedingly anxious to preserve his incognito, passing himself off as an
active business agent in claim matters, actually acting as a bonnet at
his own “hell;” losing and winning hundreds with the greatest
nonchalance. His manner was cheerful in the extreme, and as the night
was yet young, the players scanty and the stakes small, he was free to
inveigle our humble selves into play.

With a princely air, which ill became his vulgar exterior, he called for
champagne, which we declined to drink, preferring to take a modest glass
of spirits. He then politely offered other refreshments of a more solid
nature, which we also refused, and finally suggested that we should
“watch a game.” He declined to receive the payment that we offered, so
led by curiosity we turned our attention to the tables, which by this
time were surrounded by an eager throng of players. A motley crew they
were, indeed. Old men and boys, the inveterate and apparently unmoved
gambler and the nervous and manifestly excited tyro; the honest and
dishonest, the mean and generous, the cowardly and brave; all classes
were there. Some clad in decent clothes, but many in shirt sleeves and
rough garb, just as they had come from the mine, had notes of large
amounts in their hands, whilst bundles of them protruded from their
pockets. Some again had but little money, and staked warily, frequently
referring to the state of their finances; others had no funds at all,
and simply looked on from sheer infatuation, having nothing, staking
nothing, neither winning nor losing, but meddling and advising
bystanders as to the best form and chance of play, until significantly
warned by an attendant to keep silence. All, however, were beset by the
“auri sacra fames,” and flocked like sheep round the croupier’s table,
where it was not until after much crushing and grumbling that a
new-comer who had evidently some considerable money to sacrifice at Dame
Fortune’s shrine was admitted to the charmed circle. He was addressed as
Captain H. by surrounding friends, and we watched his play with
considerable interest, as despite a calm exterior his anxiety to win was
evidently most intense. Play continued with varying success for some
time, until his rolls having dwindled away, it seemed that H. had come
down to his last £10 note. This he flung on the “red” with a look of
sheer despair, and awaited the issue with an agony of expression that
was painful to witness. “Red” would have proved his salvation, but alas!
once more “black” was in the ascendant, and H. was “played out.” With a
muttered oath, but without any words intelligible to the bystanders, he
darted outside the saloon into the open. Those absorbed in play merely
jeered at his sudden departure; their hearts had become hardened to such
scenes, but even to their callous temperaments came a sudden sickening
chill as the report of a pistol rang out clearly through the midnight
air. Their unspoken thoughts found language as a chance passer-by
excitedly rushed in, telling them that Captain H. had shot himself and
was lying smothered in blood, dead in the road. It was too true. H. had
solved life’s mysteries by one mad act, and had added another name to
the long death-roll of fickle Fortune’s victims!

Shortly after this the laws against gambling were altered and rendered
much more stringent by a government proclamation signed by Richard
Southey and dated, 17th March 1873.

Prior to this, however, and whilst the gambling hells were in full
swing, there had been rusting in the legal armory of the government a
weapon which surely ought to have been sufficient to deal to some extent
with the gambling nuisance. On June 2d, 1872, the government had already
recognized the extent and growth of this evil, and with a view of
lessening it, I find that the commissioners issued a notice, which was
published in the _Gazette_, prohibiting lotteries and fining offenders
twenty-five rix dollars over and above the forfeiture of the property
played for, with an alternative of being severely flogged. Tavern
keepers and publicans who had broken the act were also forever precluded
from holding licenses. This latter notice caused the hell-keepers and
their patrons to observe more caution, but it was merely an improvement
on the surface, for the former speedily constituted so-called “clubs,”
where gambling went on as freely as ever. A notice such as the following

was the next move of the “hell” keepers, and in spite of the government
notice aforesaid of June 22d, they managed by means of this subterfuge
to carry on their “little game” for a month or two longer, until the
proclamation, on the arrival of Governor Southey, appeared in the
_Gazette_ on March 17th, 1873, which put an end to this disgraceful
state of things.

No sooner had the governmental fiat against gambling gone forth than the
sporting fraternity set their brains to work to devise some plan for
rendering the new law abortive. The digging camps being close to the
Orange Free State border, arrangements were made with the owner of
Wessel’s farm, which is some six miles from Du Toit’s Pan, and in the
Free State, to continue operations there. This is the locality which
afterward became so notorious as a sort of harbor of refuge and base of
operations for the illicit diamond trade of Griqualand West. To this
rural retreat were transported roulette wheels and other gambling
implements, and play was there recommenced, but without much success.
Men who might succumb to temptation when it was thrust under their very
noses were not weak or wicked enough to make active search for it; so
the suburban “hell” died a natural death.

Your professional gamblers are, however, very pertinacious men, and
whilst casting about for a new idea they decided to introduce “rondo en
colo,” a game which combined the simplicity of “pitch and toss” with a
capability for investing an unlimited amount of money. It had the
further merit, moreover, of being an absolute certainty for the banker.
In the other games which had previously been the fashion there was
always a chance, though a tolerably remote one, of breaking the bank,
or, at least, of winning greater or less sums from the establishment,
but in “rondo en colo” all this was changed. The hawk had been forbidden
to prey upon the doves, so he set the latter on to pluck each other,
whilst he seized upon the feathers.

The _modus operandi_ was as follows: The banker or croupier, who at this
game required little or no capital, having secured the use of a billiard
table, seated himself opposite to one of the middle pockets, and spread
out upon the table in front of himself a semicircular piece of
oil-cloth, upon the edge of which were painted the numbers one to eight,
and certain other marks and combinations peculiar to the game. A round
stick like a large ruler was provided, by which eight glass balls were
propelled in an even line from one of the end pockets to its diagonal
opposite at the other end of the table, and the stakes were won or lost
according to the manner in which the balls were deposited in or near to
the object pocket. One of the bystanders would stake say five pounds on
the oil-cloth with a view of betting either on the number of balls that
would run into the object pocket, or as to whether that number would be
odd or even. If another bystander felt inclined to take up the bet he
covered the stakes by placing an equal amount on the billiard cloth
opposite to the sum already deposited upon the board. If the money were
not covered there was no bet made. When a sufficient number of couples
had backed their opinions the balls were rolled to the object pocket,
the stakes were awarded according to the event, and last, but not least
of all, the stakes were handed over to the winner by the banker, who,
however, carefully deducted his five per cent, on the cast.

Of science there was none, the bank was sure to win. In fact if some
unfortunate wight had the good fortune to win £100 for say twenty times,
and then had ill-luck enough to back a losing event for £100 for twenty
times following, the banker’s commissions of five per cent. would have
swallowed up an amount exceeding the capital with which he commenced.
This combination of safety and simplicity for the banker, however,
failed to convince the authorities as to either the fairness or the
legality of the game, and accordingly one busy evening when the game was
in full blast, a tall, gaunt figure, with eagle eye and Roman nose, well
known to all old residents on the Fields at the time, although since
dead, suddenly came down upon the gamblers like “a wolf on the fold,”
seizing all the money and dispersing the men, taking the proprietor into
custody.

Curses both loud and deep greeted this summary proceeding, but it was
all of no avail. The law took its course, a prosecution followed, at
which divers ingenious arguments were raised for the defence by the late
Mr. T. Mortimer Siddall, a most able lawyer, but all to no purpose. The
new proclamation was so stringently worded as to preclude all loopholes
of escape; every possible legal presumption was evidently to be
construed against the accused; and a conviction and the heavy fine of
£300 followed. This tolled the death-knell of public gambling at the
Diamond Fields.

The prosecution could not, however, stop private gambling, nor in fact
is such a desirable result practicable, for since the publication of the
new law I have heard of very high play taking place. But though I have
since known hundreds and occasionally thousands of pounds to change
hands in private houses, the gambling nuisance is no longer flaunted
before sober and respectable citizens, or what is of more importance,
under the very eyes of those feebly pliant mortals who yield to the
slightest solicitations of the gambling ogre.

The class of “wasters” which public gambling bred and fostered were a
distinct outrage upon society. How could an honest and industrious but
unlucky digger fail to draw invidious comparisons between his own hard
lot and the “purple and fine linen” style of life which apparently
marked the “rake’s progress” of the professed gambler? Had not some such
proclamation been issued, I feel confident that episodes like that
related in Bret Harte’s “Outcasts of Poker Flat” might have marked the
progress of the fields, though I doubt whether any of the gamblers of
that time would have compared very favorably with “John Oakhurst,
gentleman.” The legitimate diamond industry afforded ample scope for the
most enthusiastic speculator, and there was no need of any adventitious
aid to add to the uncertainties of digging life.

In closing this chapter I may just draw attention to the fact that a new
scheme, the “totalisator,” inciting and encouraging gambling on the
South African race-courses has been introduced (1885). This, though it
protects backers of horses from levanting bookmakers, and affords the
current and proper odds on each race, ought at once to be stopped.[22]
Its very existence proves the truth of the old saying that “one man may
steal a horse, while another dare not look in at the stable door.”

I may further relate, in order to show the harm which legalized
lotteries do to the moral tone of a community, that at the spring
meeting, 1885, of the Griqualand West Turf Club, a thousand pound
lottery was so rapidly subscribed that a second was started and filled
almost at once, the club receiving 10 per cent. of the winner’s money.
At the Capetown autumn meeting in 1886 a somewhat similar lottery was
started, when a well-known Kimberley gentleman chanced to draw the
favorite, and the news of his luck soon spread. Judge of his surprise on
receiving a telegram from the horse’s owner, a supposed honorable man,
to the following effect: “My horse sure of a place, will you give a
third of prize? Otherwise I shall scratch him.” The Kimberley gentleman
did not see his way to accede to this modest request, and preferred,
much to the disgust of the too astute owner, to publish his telegram in
both the Kimberley and Capetown newspapers. This course of action caused
the question of the legality of these race lotteries to be raised in
parliament, but the premier’s reply at the time was considered to be
vague, and was severely commented upon by the press of the colony.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER IX.
O’REILLY’S ACCOUNT OF NIEKERK.—DR. ATHERSTONE AND THE FIRST DIAMOND.—THE
RIVER DIGGINGS.—INFLUX OF POPULATION.—THE DRY DIGGINGS.—DISCOVERY OF THE
KIMBERLEY MINE.—EARLY DISCOMFORTS OF THE DIGGERS.— PRESENT CONDITION OF
KIMBERLEY.

It is already a matter of history how in 1867 the first diamond was
discovered in South Africa—not in the bed of a river or in the bowels of
the earth, but among the playthings of a Boer’s child in a farm-house
near the Orange River in the Hopetown district.

It is curious to note how—to slightly alter Pope—“great events from
trivial causes spring.” In the same manner that the discovery of
diamonds in Brazil and the opening up of the mines in that country
virtually closed the Indian mines, so the diamond mines of Griqualand
West have almost put a stop to the Brazilian trade.

There is a certain spice of romance about the story of the finding of
the first diamond in South Africa, as told to me by a former patient of
mine, Mr. John O’Reilly, who was the principal agent interested in the
discovery, and who thus achieved for himself a historic name in
connection with the development of South Africa. I took down from his
own lips the following graphic account of the finding of this gem, which
differs in some particulars from the version that has been frequently
given:

[Illustration:

KIMBERLEY MINE—PRESENT STAGE, 1886.
]

“It is nine years ago, you know, Doctor,” he said, “since I first lit
upon the diamond which led to the finding and development of this
wonderful place. I was trading around as usual, never dreaming of
anything particular occurring, when in October, 1867, I outspanned at
a farm belonging to a Boer named Niekerk, close to the Orange River.
His youngsters, when I came there, were playing with pebbles just like
the ‘alleytors and commoners’ beloved by Master Bardell in Pickwick,
and their father was standing alongside watching them. Seeing me
looking on, he pointed out one stone prettier than the rest in the
hand of a little Griqua servant boy who was minding his children, and
said: ‘Dars a mooi klippe voor en borst spelt’ (there’s a pretty stone
for a woman’s brooch). I had a diamond ring on my finger, and I
fancied I could see some resemblance to the cut stone; and taking it
from the boy I tried to scratch my initials on the window pane, as I
had somewhere seen that this was one of the tests of a diamond. As
soon as I found that the stone would cut glass I offered to give
Niekerk, if he would allow me to take it away, one-half of what I
might get for it, supposing it proved to be a diamond. This he jumped
at. I at once inspanned my oxen into my wagon, and went to Hopetown,
our trading centre at that time. When I got there I showed it to
Solomon, the store-keeper, you must know him, who chaffed me and
laughing bet me a dozen of beer that it wasn’t worth anything, and
that I must be an utter idiot to bother about such a mare’s nest. From
Hopetown I trekked on to Colesberg, where I took another opinion. I
asked the resident magistrate this time. He wasn’t sure what it was,
but advised me to send it to Capetown. I didn’t care, however, to do
that, so I sent it to Grahamstown instead, where Dr. Atherstone lived,
who knows all about such things. When I arrived there myself shortly
afterward and saw him he said there was no doubt it was a diamond, and
a good one too. Dr. Atherstone sent it to Sir Philip Wodehouse, then
Governor, who bought it for £500, half of which I gave, as promised,
to Niekerk.

“You ask me how Dr. Atherstone found out what it was. Well, I’ll tell
you what Dr. Atherstone told me. He said he took the stone round to
all the jewelers in Grahamstown, and that their files couldn’t touch
it; and this with something about specific gravity I didn’t at that
time understand, made him feel certain it was a diamond. The discovery
created an enormous sensation? You are right, it did; and if it had
not been for that little bit of luck on the Orange River, diamond
digging in Africa might still be unknown, and the country would never
have made the progress it has.

“When people in the colony began to think that there was a chance of
more diamonds being found where this one came from, numerous parties
of fortune hunters came up and began to search along the banks of the
Orange River, and afterward those of the Vaal. This is the way that
the first diggers came here.”

It is now seventeen years ago since Mr. Southey, then colonial
secretary, laid the second diamond which had been found, on the table of
the House of the Cape assembly, with the prophetic remark: “Gentlemen,
this is the rock on which the future success of South Africa will be
built.” There is not a man who knows this gentleman but rejoices that he
still lives, ripe in years, to see the continued fulfillment of his
remarkable prediction.

To cross the Orange River in those days was to go beyond the confines of
civilization; but the diamond is a wonderful magnet, and as the news
spread a large population of many thousands soon collected. The influx,
as time went on, became of the most cosmopolitan character, North,
South, East and West adding their quota, gold diggers came from the
gulches of California and the creeks of Australia, “Cousin Jacks” from
Cornwall, diamond buyers and speculators from London, Paris and
Amsterdam, “tinkers, tailors, soldiers, sailors, ploughboys,
apothecaries and thieves,” eager at all cost to embrace this chance of
sudden wealth. Hardships were endured, money risked, labor spent. Some
were lucky, others unlucky. The life on the river, however, is spoken of
by the “old hands” as one of happy memory. I should think that thirty
different sites were “rushed” by the early diggers on the Vaal,[23] and
although Pinel and Klipdrift were the principal, yet the banks of the
river for at least seventy miles of its course were more or less
prospected and worked. As I will presently show, the river diggings
after the discovery of diamonds at Du Toit’s Pan and the other three
mines became rapidly deserted, until at the present time there are not
more than 400 diggers altogether on the banks. The diggings are all in
alluvial soil. No great finds are made. The diggers, however, enjoy a
healthy, happy existence, surrounded by the beauties of nature, on the
banks of a broad and majestic river, which in the early days bore on its
broad bosom a perfect flotilla of ferry boats plying for hire day and
night, and which even now, on the birthday of our beloved queen and
other public holidays, may be seen in goodly numbers, with “youth at the
prow and pleasure at the helm,” a very different form of life from the
dust and discomfort of the dry diggings. The returns from these diggings
are at present about £50,000 per annum.

While men were busily engaged in scraping away among the pebbles of the
Vaal River, _prospecting_ was going on some twenty miles southward. The
first dry diggings struck were those of Du Toit’s Pan in the middle of
1870, which were worked chiefly by the Dutch, who at that time never
thought of testing the ground to a greater depth than eighteen inches or
two feet, and who, when they came upon calcareous tufa, abandoned their
operations. Shortly afterward, on the adjoining farm, Bulfontein, and
within gunshot range of Du Toit’s Pan, diamonds were found in the very
plaster which lined the walls of the homestead. Hearing this, many
diggers moved over from Du Toit’s Pan and proved the diamondiferous
character of this farm, the returns from which, however, were found not
to be equal to those of the former place, while a month or two later
another diggings named Old De Beers, and situated about a couple of
miles north of Du Toit’s Pan, were also opened up. An occurrence which
has proved of absorbing interest to the whole of South Africa took place
about this time. In July a young man of the name of Rawstorne, who came
up from Colesberg in the Cape Colony, was out shooting, and becoming
somewhat weary, rested himself under the shades of a thorn bush, and
scratching the ground, from, force of habit and to pass the time away,
unearthed a beautiful diamond. Highly elated with his unexpected
success, when he returned after his day’s amusement to his friends at
Old De Beers, he told them of his luck. Next day, the news having got
abroad, the locality was “rushed” and hundreds of claims pegged out. The
other diggings very soon became practically deserted. Men packed up
their belongings, moved their tents, and sought the “New Rush,” and,
almost as if by magic, in the very place where but a few days before
deer had been quietly browsing, hundreds of diggers could be seen. This
famous “Kopje” is now the Kimberley mine, the richness of which it is
impossible to estimate. When this mine was first opened the claims were
laid out in an oblong of 30 from north to south and 28 from east to
west, making in all upon the original plan 840 claims of 30 feet square
(Rhynland measure), giving 961 English square feet to each claim. After
the whole of the claims were measured and given out, hundreds of others
were marked off and worked. Some were very soon abandoned as worthless,
but others equally worthless were worked, the owners for some time
hoping that a change for the better would take place, and that they
would become remunerative. These extended far into the present site of
the township, and much valuable time was lost in testing them.

At the present time out of the 420 claims originally worked 339⅕ only
remain, and the holdings by various diggers, which at that time amounted
to over 1,100, are now reduced to twenty-two companies and individuals.
In the same manner Old De Beers with its 592, Du Toit’s Pan with its
1,417, and Bulfontein with its 799 claims, are represented by 6, 34, and
21 holdings respectively.[24]

No more wretched existence can be imagined than that endured by the
early diggers. As I have already mentioned, a malarial fever raged,
water was dear and bad, being carted in barrels from adjacent farms,
(after even wells were dug it was sold for as much as 10s. per barrel)
and so scarce that I have seen diggers wash in soda water which had been
imported 700 miles from Capetown. Vegetables were also extremely dear
and almost unprocurable, cauliflowers being retailed at 20s. each and
cabbages at 8s., fleas and flies abounded, sand-storms blew in blind
fury, and of amusements there were none; yet notwithstanding all these
drawbacks, sociability ruled throughout the camps, and a helping hand
was always thrown out by a lucky digger to assist his less fortunate
brother.

Crime was nearly unknown. As I have mentioned elsewhere, the fields were
too far inland and the cost of travel too great to induce any not
honestly inclined to suffer the privations and incur the expense
necessary to get there. Men would leave their tents for hours, even
days, and yet find everything intact on their return, such was the quiet
and order which reigned through the camp.

[Illustration:

DRYING FLOOR FOR BLUE GROUND, CENTRAL COMPANY, KIMBERLEY MINE.
]

But as time went on, and as transport became easier, cheaper and
quicker, the fields became the rendezvous of, I should say, nearly all
the light-fingered gentry and desperadoes that Africa contained; and as
a consequence instances of illicit diamond buying, robberies and
assaults became comparatively numerous, in fact Kimberley became
“civilized.”

At the present day churches and chapels, a theatre and library, a
municipal council, with a mayor, a properly drilled police force, a
well-kept cemetery, the electric light, a race-course and grand stand,
public gardens, with tastefully laid out grounds, an admirably arranged
and conducted hospital for whites and blacks, a noble court of justice,
a comfortably arranged post-office, telegraphic office, and other public
buildings, with last, but not least, a large railway station (which for
the present is the terminus of the iron way to the interior), are
manifestations of the strides which, thanks to the discovery of the
diamond, civilization has made in a region which a few short years ago
was simply the hunting field of the untutored savage or the nomadic
boer. Barkly, which I have already mentioned, Hebron, Likatlong,
Boetsap, Douglas and Campbell are the other towns of the territory,
though the Langeberg and some other parts are inhabited; but the
description of a late writer that “they are poor—are almost
waterless—the trading and mission stations occupied as a rule by the
most depraved of the human race, things whose language is a curse or a
click, whose forms are inferior to those of apes, and whose doom is
extinction,” is perhaps a little too severe on the aborigines of this
country.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER X.
GEOLOGY OF THE MINE AND SURROUNDINGS.—SECTION OF REEF STRATA.—SURFACE
SOIL.—CALCAREOUS TUFA.—LIGHT COLORED SHALES.—BLACK CARBONIFEROUS
SHALE.—LIMONITE. LANDSLIPS.—BURNING REEF.—SULPHUR VAPORS.—NATIVES AFRAID
TO WORK.—COAL PLANTS.—FIRE AND CHOKE-DAMP.—IGNEOUS ROCKS.—CONTRACTION
AND EXPANSION OF MINE.—STRATA OF MINE ITSELF.—RED SAND.—TUFA.—YELLOW
GROUND.—BLUE GROUND.—RICH AND POOR CLAIMS.—REMARKABLE BOULDERS.—GREASY
SLIPS.—MESSRS. MASKELYNE AND FLIGHT’S OBSERVATIONS.

Any work dealing with Kimberley would be incomplete that did not treat
of the geology of the mine. For many years I have had the pleasure of an
intimate acquaintance with Mr. George J. Lee, who has made the
mineralogy of the Kimberley mine his special study, and who has been, as
I have already mentioned, in Kimberley since the mine opened. To his
kindness I am indebted for most of the information and for the drawings
in the two following chapters.

In the first of these I propose to give an account of the geological
formation, not only inside, but also as revealed by shafts sunk by the
Kimberley mining board and the Central and French companies, outside the
mine.

The depth of the lowest working, either within or without the mine, is
now about 550 feet, whilst that of the deepest trial shaft is 620 feet.

A section of the strata in the Mining Board shaft, about 700 feet from
the north side of the mine, I will now describe, which strata, I may
tell my readers, vary very little at any point in the vicinity, so far
at least as is shown by the examination of the other shafts.

The surface soil, which has an average depth of six feet, is a bright
red ferruginous sand, composed of somewhat fine rounded grains of
quartz. Next a thin layer of calcareous tufa is found in some places,
but not invariably; then follows a layer of laminated trap or blue whin,
evidently an intrusive rock varying in thickness and depth in different
localities. This layer, which is of a very decomposed and friable
character, runs down diagonally in some parts, in broad sheets through
the blue shale. A very even layer of light colored shales, on an average
twenty-five feet thick and very soapy to the touch, comes next. These
shales are of various colors, as pale bluish white, olive, yellow, gray,
etc., and the laminæ are often thickly marked with different designs
formed by decomposed iron, probably pyrites. Some of these markings are
very delicate and beautiful, often resembling minute ferns or _algæ_,
and in this bed various fossils have been found.

Beneath these we have a vast layer of blackish, or neutral tint,
carboniferous shale, containing four or five seams of “iron band” (bog
iron ore, or limonite) from one inch to one foot in thickness. The
nodules forming these “bands” are very full of cavities, and are of
different colors, yellow, red, and blue, with a dull appearance and
rather soft. In some specimens the colors are beautifully bright,
especially in the cavities. Many fossils have been found in this shale
as well at all depths.

Very many nodules of a similar shale, but harder, varying in size from
an inch to one or two feet in diameter, are found imbedded in this rock,
or “main reef” as the miners term it, in contradistinction to “floating
reef,” an erratic rock which will be mentioned when we come to describe
the diamondiferous ground. These nodules often assume the forms of casts
of shells, such as those of oysters, mussels, etc., and give the idea
that the main body of the reef was formed from the grinding down of an
older rock, of which these nodules are the remains, an assumption which
there is much further internal evidence to show in all probability to be
correct.

It may be as well here to mention that all the above shales, after
drying by exposure to the air, disintegrate and form a fine friable
mould, or even mud after much rain has fallen. This property of becoming
friable after exposure is the cause of the frequency of “land slips”
falling into the mine. When a fall or slip does take place, the bulk of
such mass is usually in very small pieces, not in large solid blocks,
which would be the case if the reef were not of a nature so extremely
rotten and easily decomposed.

When these shales have been much exposed to the weather and the rain has
penetrated to some depth, or when after a fall of rain upon friable reef
this is covered up by another slip, a very interesting chemical process
is set up, viz.: the decomposition of the iron pyrites which is very
plentifully distributed throughout the black shales. This decomposition
sets up such an intense combustion that the shale _débris_ becomes red
hot. This combustion I have known to last for months, even years, and
the sulphurous acid gas evolved to be so plentiful that in damp weather
or before and after sunrise it could be seen for many miles. To
strangers looking into the mine this “burning reef” is a very startling
sight, and many visitors of a superstitious turn of mind have often
precipitately left in affright, on being jokingly told by miners when
the latter were questioned about the heat, smoke and pungent sulphur
smells—that the “Old Gentleman” was trying to break loose, or that they
had come so near the “Old Gentleman” that he was now showing his anger.
This and similar stories have often sufficed to scare away simple
farmers from the place.

On many parts of the reef the surface becomes heated to such an extent
that articles placed upon it are almost at once destroyed. Laborers
cannot work upon it at all without thick boots, and these even are
destroyed in a few hours, while in many cases natives cannot by any
inducement be persuaded to go near.

The sudden combustion of coal in ships is caused by the very same
agents, moisture and insufficient ventilation. These set up chemical
change in the iron pyrites contained in the coal, and thus cause the
explosions or fires at sea of which we frequently hear. This process of
nature for reducing the iron pyrites is daily being imitated by the
smelters in Spain and other countries, in the preliminary process for
the reduction of the sulphur in copper ores, or copper pyrites.

Some of the crystals of iron pyrites found in the reef shale are so very
beautiful and perfect that they have been set in pins and other
ornaments.

After the black shale reef has been ignited by the above chemical means,
and has cooled, it is as red as an ordinary clay flower-pot. It may be
that the promoters of a brick company that was started here for the
purpose of manufacturing bricks from the shales of the Kimberley mine,
took their idea from the appearance of the shales when thus burnt by
nature. The bricks made from reef, after being pounded and ground by
heavy steam machinery, were latterly turned out of a very good quality,
but the company collapsed, probably because they could not sell enough
bricks to make it pay, as the high price of fuel rendered it necessary
to charge £11, 10s. per 1,000, a nearly prohibitive price for ordinary
building work.[25]

I may here mention that several narrow streaks of coal varying from an
inch up to one of eight inches in thickness, discovered in the French
shaft, have been found in the black shale. This coal partakes of the
nature both of anthracitic and bituminous coal, the former quality
predominating, but I may say, that even if it were found in quantity, it
would only be suitable for specially constructed furnaces, as it is very
refractory.

No “structure” or organic remains have been discovered in any specimen
of coal found in the reef of which I am aware, but many coal plants have
been found in the reef itself, and specimens have been deposited in
various museums.

Some years ago the olive-colored shales of the reef at the southeast of
the mine very frequently cracked, making great fissures at the surface.
These often remained open for months and even years, until the whole
mass of reef which was thus detached from the main body, gradually slid
down to a solid bearing. In doing so, when the moving mass was heavy
enough, the pressure upon the particles of rock within the fissure was
so great that a fine, smooth and shiny face or a light gray color was
made, entering many feet, with streaks or grooves running down,
glistening and lustrous, the prismatic colors of which could then be
seen for weeks together if viewed from a suitable position. When seen to
advantage the sight was really charming, and could never be forgotten by
those who had the good fortune to view it. But the first shower of rain
would disintegrate the striated face of the rock, and by this means
destroy the beautiful play of light described.

In the drives and deep workings in the black shale the miners are
troubled both with fire-damp and choke-damp, and many accidents, more or
less serious, have occurred therefrom through their ignorance.

The black shale is water bearing, and wells sunk in it to a depth of
eighty feet or more yield in most cases a good supply.

I have, I think, for the present done with the sedimentary formations,
and come now to the igneous rocks below them.

The first rock under the black shale gone through, as shown in the
diagram, is a light gray volcanic rock, three feet thick, with a
specific gravity of 2.815. The body of the rock is of a light bluish
gray color, and contains beside other minerals nodules of quartz, agates
and jasper, from the size of a mustard seed to that of a walnut.

Next is found eight feet of a compact augitic or hornblendic rock, of a
deeper gray color and very tough, then a seamy rock resembling basaltic
trap, which was only worked to a depth of four feet in the shaft shown
in the section, but is of unknown depth, for, since the Mining Board
shaft was abandoned, others have been sunk, one by the French company,
and another to a depth of 620 feet by the Central company, and they both
are still in this same rock.

This rock contains very numerous nodules of quartz (amygdaloidal), some
of which are split into flakes, and others completely fractured. Many of
these are white in color and semi-opaque; others have a red skin
(jasper), with transparent white quartz within, while others are
entirely red. There are also many small, dead grain-like nodules of a
white color, as well as ribbon and other agates. In some of the deeper
portions of this rock are many small fissures, presenting somewhat the
appearance of having been caused by shrinkage; these, in most cases, are
distinct from each other, and are filled with white crystallized
calcite, or carbonate of lime. Some of the layers of this rock vary in
color, and a very compact fine-grained specimen of a reddish color
contains amongst other minerals rhombic crystallized carbonate of lime,
white; very brilliant iron pyrites, and a mineral looking very much like
galena, but harder, of a dark steel gray color, very brilliant, and
easily separated into small cubes and laminæ. This is probably specular
iron ore. Another mineral has also been found in small quantities,
running in veins in the stone, which upon the top appears as having been
fused and run, like tin or lead. It is sectile, and of the color of pale
bell metal. Very many forms of crystallized carbonate of lime, including
“dog-tooth” spar of a pale yellow color are found both in the hard and
soft reef, and zeolites of various colors and species, bristling upon
and within cavities of the rock. The reef as a whole is fairly even all
around the mine, but at the southeast it is very much contorted in the
upper layers.

The wall formed by the hard rock around the mine is very compact and
smooth, and runs inward in some places as much as 30° or 40°, but in
others very much less. This naturally causes a cutting out of the claims
or a contraction of the mine, but it is said that the blue ground of the
Kimberley Central company is now gaining again, and this state of things
may also take place with other claims in the Kimberley mine at different
depths. (See illustration.)

I think this is a fairly full and accurate description of the geological
strata outside of the Kimberley mine. I shall now pass on and give a
description of the formation of the interior of the mine.

When the place was first prospected there was little to distinguish it
from the surrounding country, but in the eyes of the experts of those
days the slightest difference was enough to urge them to seek,
“fossick,” or prospect for diamonds, that is to say, scratch or dig up
the surface, sieve and sort it, and sink small trial shafts, when if
diamonds or good indications were not discovered at a moderate depth,
the place was abandoned, and the prospector tried or “fossicked”
elsewhere. A digger would pitch upon what appeared to him to be a likely
spot, when, if after passing the red sand and the lime or calcareous
tufa, he came to shale, he abandoned his “prospect” as useless; but if,
on the other hand, after going below the lime he came to “yellow
ground,” a substance something like greenish compact wood ashes, he
would continue his work for some time, in the full expectation of being
rewarded in the end by a good find. But in many cases this desired
result was not attained, although the digger had every encouragement to
persevere by finding garnets of various kinds, the pyrope garnet,
usually called a ruby, especially giving him encouragement to proceed
with his work; epidote, pisolites, talc ilmenite, called by the diggers
carbon, iron pyrites, ice spar, zircon, and various other minerals;
still after all his perseverance, and after finding all these
indications, and sinking to a depth very often of twenty or thirty feet,
not a single diamond would be found, he would abandon the place, when
possibly after a time it would be tried again by other parties of
diggers, but with no better result.

The surface, as already stated in the description of the reef, was a
red, sandy soil of an almost uniform depth of six feet, followed by a
layer of calcareous tufa and one of yellow diamondiferous soil,
averaging in thickness sixty-five feet.

In the red sand diamonds were frequently found, especially when it was
mixed with nodules of calcareous tufa which had been thrown out by the
ant-bear (_Myrmecophaga jubata_) in making its enormous burrow, but the
distribution of the diamonds which were picked up on the surface of a
large tract of country was mostly attributed to birds. Coming next to
the tufa bed proper, this was of a thickness from two to eight feet, but
was not a compact homogeneous mass, but composed of honeycombed nodules
and masses impacted together, which required much labor to break out.
Some diggers smashed up all the nodules thus broken out with sledge
hammers, or the sides of their picks, and sometimes, but very rarely,
they were rewarded by finding diamonds.

[Illustration: Kimberley Diamond Mine, Griqualand West:——South
Africa.—1885]

When the yellow ground was arrived at, which, as already stated, was of
an average depth of sixty-five feet, and contained many nodules of
calcareous tufa of all sizes, the color was of a pale yellowish green,
but when it became dry it was somewhat of the color of bath-brick, very
friable, and appeared much like fine wood-ash pressed together. It could
be broken up to a fine powder with very little beating either with
sticks or shovels. Most of this yellow ground was sorted dry, as washing
was not practiced at the dry diggings at that time.

Some few feet, perhaps eight or ten, before the yellow ground joined the
blue, a very gradual change of color took place from yellow to a
lightish green, then light greenish blue, gradually darkening to blue;
but still a line of demarcation of the two kinds of ground could easily
be made out.

The top of the blue bed was not a level surface, but full of heavings
and billows like a choppy cross sea. From the crest of a rise to the
bottom of a hollow was about six feet; and the distance from crest to
crest from thirty feet to sixty or more.

At this junction there was found in many instances a thin layer of
porous soil holding water in the hollows or wave bottoms. This proved to
be merely catch water, as after a short time it was invariably removed
in the ordinary course of work, which would not have been the case had
it been derived from perennial springs, yet this at the time created
considerable alarm. All or most of the water that now finds its way into
the mine, is through the main reef.

To turn again to the blue ground, it is mixed with small rounded stones
of basalt and small angular fragments of carboniferous shale, as well as
with many other minerals which I shall mention further on.

The blue ground is rather hard and tough when wet, but easily broken
when it becomes dry, when the same characteristics which the black reef
presents here show themselves in pulverizing when again wetted, much
after the manner of quicklime, but differing from it in not developing
heat. This property is made use of by the miners to release the
diamonds.

Miles of country may be seen covered with blue lumps spread out to a
thickness of from one to two feet, awaiting rain, or for the purpose of
being watered by means of carts and water-hose, after which process it
is rolled and harrowed by means similar to those used in dressing
ploughed fields. The diggers used to employ gangs of natives to beat and
break up this diamondiferous ground with picks and wooden beaters, yet
the dusky native found time with eagle eye to watch his chance to steal.
In this way it was thought the majority of the largest stones were lost
to their rightful owners—but of this in another chapter.

The specific gravity of blue ground from claim No. 132 at about 170 feet
from the surface was 2.268, air being 60° Fahr., and barometric pressure
25.83 inches. A cubic foot of wet blue ground would therefore weigh
141.34 lbs. The density varies slightly in different parts of the same
claim and in different localities of the same mine.

The greatest depth to which the blue has been worked in the open is 420
feet, and underground by means of shafts and drives about 620 feet. The
deepest trial shaft, as I have already stated, is 620 feet, and still no
change is found in the character of the ground, except that it is a
little denser and harder to work, and in most cases is also richer in
diamonds.

It is a curious fact that when a claim was first opened out and found to
be rich in diamonds, it generally remained so right down, and in like
manner poor claims remained poor.

But bad or poor layers for a time changed this rule, so far as rich
claims were concerned, for after some feet had been passed, say ten to
thirty feet, a change for the better would invariably take place, so
that in the long run a close estimate of what a claim would yield could
be made. At the present time claims which were enormously rich at the
surface, notably those now forming the Northeast company, were then and
are now amongst the richest claims in the mine. I may also note that a
belt existed around the mine adjoining the reef, from one-quarter to
half a claim in width, which was invariably poor.

Poor surface claims often became changed to rich ones owing to the
vicinity of a wall of floating reef, and it was often found that after
months, even years, had been spent in working down a claim unprofitably,
it would suddenly alter to a payable or probably a rich one, for at a
varying depth alongside the floating reef, or after the reef had been
removed, I have many a time known a change for the better to take place,
and the owner, who had been almost reduced to the verge of bankruptcy,
to be soon set upon his legs again.

Some of the claims at the west of the mine never paid the expense of
working at the surface, nor even in the yellow ground below, and remain
absolutely worthless to this day, although the blue ground has been
reached, worked, and tested. About five claims in the very centre of the
mine were proverbially poor, vast quantities of erratic boulders being
mixed up with, and in some cases almost displacing, the yellow and blue
ground. Some of these fragments of rock were of immense size, weighing
thousands of tons, and at the same time were so solid that they had to
be blasted to pieces. They consisted for the most part of dark and light
colored shales, whinstone or basaltic boulders, and large masses of
fine-grained micaceous sandstone, containing fragments of coal and
remains of a fossil reptile. Much lignite in large stems and branches
was also found amongst the boulders and in the blue. When this floating
reef was removed, many feet of unprofitable blue had also to be removed
before payable ground was reached, but when all the poor ground was
taken away, the junction of which with the richer ground was very
perceptible by a change of color, the remaining blue did not differ in
average return of diamonds from the rich claims surrounding it.

Several remarkable detached boulders were found. One in No. 3 road
south, of such a large size that it covered the two claims of a
well-known digger named Olsen, Nos. 136 and 166. It was a pudding-stone,
its chief constituent being grayish white crystals and fragments of
feldspar, transparent and translucent, concreted together with carbonate
of lime. This “erratic” contained also nodules of quartz, crystals of
iron pyrites, and many small cavities filled with diamondiferous soil of
a light brownish gray color.

Again in Nos. 8 and 9 roads south, there was an isolated basaltic
boulder, nearly round, of gigantic proportions. It almost filled up
claims 432 and 433 in road No. 8, and claims 462 and 463 in road No. 9,
and measured in diameter 70 feet, 35 feet in the yellow ground and the
same in the blue below. It was much decomposed, and large flakes or
layers frequently fell away into neighboring claims, causing many
lawsuits. The claim-holders burrowed round this piece of rock as long as
they possibly could, but at last they had to face the expense of
breaking it up and removing it. The upper portion of this stone in the
yellow ground had a yellow, and the lower portion in the blue a blue
tint, showing that the same cause which affected the coloring of the
diamondiferous ground also affected the imbedded “erratic.”

The floating reef proper in the Kimberley mine extended from the
southeast to the northwest; but there was also a large patch of floating
reef running north and south in No. 8 road.

The width of this reef varied from five feet to forty feet, and the
average depth was about 200 feet. It was formed of a light olive-gray
colored laminated shale, with a few rounded stones and angular pieces of
basaltic rock, as well as occasional fragments of fine grained
sandstone. These walls of shale were for the most part compact and
unbroken, with a few straggling pieces of various sizes in the immediate
vicinity. This rock was totally different from any forming the walls of
the mine, and no similar shale has been recognized to my knowledge in
any part of the country.

At the southwest of the mine, in ground at that time belonging to
Messrs. Lewis and Marks, there was a large floating reef composed of
disintegrated igneous rock, resembling dolerite, which commenced near
the main reef, and which jutted out to a distance of 120 feet in a
northwesterly direction; this was a different rock from that forming the
walls of the mine or any discoverable in the adjacent country.

Veins or seams of crystallized carbonate of lime frequently run through
the blue ground in all directions, in sheets more or less broad, and
varying in thickness from a mere trace to two or three inches. The
calcite is covered with a coating of a grayish white substance, very
soapy to the touch, resembling steatite. Some of this lime contained
cavities, having a fine deposit of iron pyrites which exhibited the most
brilliant iridescence conceivable. One specimen which I saw was so
beautiful that it was thought even worthy of presentation to royalty,
and the owner gave it to Captain Harrell (formerly Cis-Molappo
commissioner) for the purpose, but through some blundering or other it
never reached its destination. Eventually, I believe, Captain Harrell,
with the consent of the donor, caused it to be deposited in the South
Kensington Museum.

When Sir Henry Barkly was here in 1872 this was shown him, and he
confessed it to be unique, in his opinion, and the prettiest specimen of
the kind he had ever seen.

When a wall or block of blue ground is dressed down and left standing
with such a vein—or _greasy slip_, as it is termed—in it, it becomes
highly dangerous, as all above the vein (at times an immense mass) is
liable to come down without a moment’s warning.

In 1874 an account of the chemical and optical properties of the yellow
and blue ground, and the contained minerals was given in London to the
members of one of the learned associations there by Prof. N.
Story-Maskelyne, F. R. S., keeper, and the late Dr. W. Flight,
assistant, of the mineral department, British Museum, and although
rather technical in character will no doubt be interesting to those who
would like to make themselves acquainted with the formation of the
diamond mines. Extracts from this account will show the nature of the
rock commonly but erroneously called the matrix of the diamond, and also
furnish a list of minerals found in the samples furnished to the above
mentioned scientists. Alluding to the yellow and blue these gentlemen
say:

“Ground mass, pulverulent, soapy, light yellowish in the upper, and
of an olive-green to bluish gray color in the lower regions of the
excavations, is a hydrated bronzite. Through it is disseminated a
considerable amount of vermiculite.... In this ground mass fragments
of shale and a micaceous looking mineral—sometimes an important
constituent.... It is a mineral of the vermiculite group....
Ferriferous eustatite (bronzite), prismatic crystals of a bright
green color not infrequent, of the size of canary seeds—colored
brilliant green by nickel.... Hornblendic mineral accidental—closely
resembling smaragdite garnet. Ilmenite.[26]... Diallage much
altered, opaline silica, sometimes resembling hornstone. Calcite.
Bronzite, small bright green crystals, with something of an emerald
tint, prismatic; angle 87° 20′. Hydrated bronzite; drab (or pale
buff tint) much broken up, and cemented by calcite in bar-like
forms, resembling feldspar.... Through it is disseminated a
considerable amount of vermiculite—vaalite—surface of a fine bluish
green like that of clinochlore, giving color to the mass. Hexagonal
prisms 60° and 120°, resembling halite. Garnet zircon, brownish
white. Hornblende crystals, with the appearance of smaragdite.
Grossular garnet. Brilliant little black tourmalines.
Smaragdite:—brilliant grayish green fragments of crystal, angle 125°
15′ equal to hornblende type. Olivine, steatite; variety of
vermiculite, or a ferriferous eustatite or bronzite. Transparent
striated mineral, of fibrous irregular outline, augitic cleavage;
pale brown, in some lights a violet tinge. Between the fibres minute
bars of brown vaalite, but tolerably free from calcite; occasionally
associated with a yellow wax-like substance, probably opal. This
striated mineral may be regarded as made up of

Bronzite 43.850
Hydrated bronzite 24.017
Opaline silica 30.895
Alumina .970
Chromium oxide .251
——————
99.983

“The base of the rock[27] consists of the same ingredients as that
described above, the mass of it being the hydrated bronzite. The rock
is further very full of fragments of the shale, which has been
altered, but still contains carbon; indeed the character of the rock
is almost that of a breccia, in which these masses of shale are
cemented by hydrated bronzite containing the vaalite and the bright
green bronzite, with ilmenite and the other minerals associated with
it.... The several minerals composing the rocks, exhibit this
undoubtedly once igneous rock in the light of a bronzite rock,
converted into a magnesium silicate, which has the chemical character
of a hydrated bronzite.... The steatite like magma in which the other
minerals and shale fragments are contained may have originated in an
augitic mineral, but this is not very probable. The alterations that
have ensued from the shattering of the eustatite rock, at a period
subsequent to its becoming solidified, having aided in effecting the
hydration that has so largely changed it from an eustatite rock into a
mixture of eustatite with a hydrated eustatite, a combination which,
both in its composition and structure, recalls vividly to the mind the
similar mixture of the former mineral with the so-called pseudophite
in which it occurs at Zdar, in Moravia.”

From the foregoing description a fair idea may be arrived at of both the
formation and appearance of this mine, which may fairly lay claim to be
one of the wonders of the world. In the next chapter I will give the
principal theories concerning the origin of this mine.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XI.
SOURCE OF DIAMONDIFEROUS SOIL.—EXTRACT FROM MESSRS. BAIN, URE, DANA AND
OSBORNE’S GEOLOGICAL THESES.—VARIOUS THEORIES ADVANCED—NONE ENTIRELY
SATISFACTORY OR CONCLUSIVE.—THE ORIGIN OF THE PRECIOUS STONE VEILED IN
MYSTERY.

The extracts in the previous chapter, taken from the papers of the
afore-mentioned mineralogists, show, there can be no doubt, that the
diamondiferous soil of the diamond mines of South Africa is, for the
most part, the débris of an igneous rock; but little or no idea is given
how the mines became filled with the soil. Although I am unable to throw
any additional light upon this very difficult subject, I nevertheless am
of opinion that this chapter would be incomplete without giving a few
more extracts from previous writers. I may mention, however, that
scarcely a sufficient number of facts have as yet been gathered to
enable geologists to offer any theory of the formation of the diamond
mines that will carry conviction with it.

In a report to Col. Charles Warren, acting administrator of Griqualand
West, by Mr. T. C. Kitto, a mining engineer who was then visiting the
province, and who previously had some experience in Brazil, and which
report was published in the local government _Gazette_ of July, 1879, he
states: “I shall at once assume the Kimberley mine formation to be the
result of earthquakes and volcanic agency. That the De Beers, Du Toit’s
Pan, and Bulfontein belong to the same group; that the diamond deposit
has been ejected from below, and that the diamonds were formed previous
to their final deposition in the crater.”

Another geologist, Mr. Thos. Bain, district inspector P. W. D.,
“considers the numerous superficial deposits of calcareous tufa are the
detritus of the tertiary deposits,” as the following quotation from
Silver’s “Hand Book of South Africa” suffices to show: “In reference to
the beds of clay-stone porphyry before mentioned, Mr. Bain supposes them
to be the products of a vast volcano situated somewhere in the
Drakensberg range, whose products spread ruin and desolation over the
carboniferous forests for hundreds and thousands of square miles, and
were afterward swept away by the action of water, except what yet
remains of the débris in those porphyry dykes, and the greenstone tops
of the multitudinous hillocks and kopjes in the region toward the north.
The elevated plateaus of Hantam, Roggeveldt, Nieuweld and Sneeuwberg
form its inland boundaries. This immense desert, as geology tells us,
was once a great lake, bordered by an umbrageous flora, whose former
existence can only now be attested by the petrified monocotyledons
buried in its finely laminated slates, and whose waters were crowded
with the numerous adentulous animals or the varied family of dicynodons
and other saurian reptiles found in no other part of the globe.”

I give another extract from this admirable guide book of South Africa,
as bearing upon this subject: “In the part of Namaqualand called
Bushmanland, and which is a vast table-land about 3,000 feet above the
sea, are immense deposits of what Mr. Dunn calls glacial conglomerate.
These extend westward into the sovereignty (Free State), and in them in
a sort of tufaceous limestone deposit seem to occur the diamond deposits
which have made that region so famous.”

Dr. Ure, in his “Dictionary of Arts, Mines and Manufactures,” states:
“The ground in which diamonds are found in the mines of Brazil is a
solid or friable conglomerate, consisting

[Illustration: ]

Dr. Ure, in his “Dictionary of Arts, Mines and Manufactures,” states:
“The ground in which diamonds are found in the mines of Brazil is a
solid or friable conglomerate, consisting chiefly of a ferruginous sand,
which incloses fragments of various magnitude of yellow and bluish
quartz, of schistose jasper, and grains of gold disseminated with
ologist iron ore, all mineral matters different from those that
constitute the neighboring mountains. This conglomerate, or species of
pudding-stone, almost always superficial, occurs sometimes at a
considerable height on the mountainous table-land.”

Dana says: “The original rock in which diamonds are found in Brazil
appears to be either a kind of laminated granular quartz called
itacolumite, or a ferruginous quartzose conglomerate. The itacolumite
occurs in the Urals, and diamonds have been found in it, and it is also
abundant in Georgia and North Carolina, where diamonds have also been
found, while in India the rock is a quartzose conglomerate.”

The following extract which also bears upon the subject is from a report
by Mr. C. F. Osborne, M. E. on the Knysna gold fields, and may prove
both interesting and valuable, and this I have taken from a blue book of
the Cape parliament of May, 1886:

“The mineral character of the rocks is in some respects peculiar, and
they differ much in reality and very much in appearance, from the
gold-bearing rocks of Australia or California, and even from those of
the Transvaal; and the average Australian digger, judging from
appearances merely, would doubtless, at first sight and without trial,
pronounce them non-auriferous.... There are several reasons why these
rocks present such a difference in appearance from those of the
gold-bearing countries I have named. One is that the principal
gold-bearing rock here is itacolumite, a rock which does not exist, or
is very sparingly developed, in Australia, the Transvaal, and in the
greater part of California, but which is abundant and characteristic
of the gold regions in Russia.”

I will not dilate upon the above extracts as to the source of the
diamondiferous soil, and will pass on to the origin of the diamonds
themselves. All authorities state that the diamond is intimately
connected with gold and platinum, but I cannot find any record which
convinces me of the diamond having been found in the matrix—that is to
say, in the rock in which it was originally formed—as all the formation
in which the diamond has been found appear to have been the detritus of
older rocks, in which it by some means or other had become imbedded
during the formation of the newer one.

In “Precious Stones and Metals,” by C. W. King, M. A., which is a very
learned and exhaustive work, I find the following: “Pliny remarks that
the diamond is the companion of gold, and seems only to be produced in
gold itself. He is here correct, although perhaps it may be but by an
accidental coincidence; for all the diamond mines, the discovery of
which is recorded, have been brought to light in pursuit of alluvial
gold washings.”[28] Mr. King proceeds to remark: “The British Museum,
amongst the native diamonds, exhibits an octahedral diamond attached to
alluvial gold; and, strange confirmation of the ancient idea as to their
affinity, not only is the primary crystal of that metal also the
octahedron, but also its secondary modifications exactly correspond with
those of the diamond. Modern science has made no further advance toward
the solution of this problem beyond that propounded as a certainty in
the ancient ‘Timæus.’”

The theory of the Oriental philosophers upon this subject is thus
elegantly condensed in the tetrastich of Akbar’s poet laureate, Sheik
Fizee, which formed the legend on the obverse of his chief gold piece:

“The sun from whom the seven seas obtain pearls,
The _black stone_ from his rays obtains the jewel;
The mine from the correcting influence of his beams obtains gold;
And the gold is ennobled by the impression of Shah Akbar!”

It is interesting to confront the latest modern with this the most
ancient explanation of the method pursued by nature in producing the
diamond. Prof. Maskelyne remarks: “Of the numerous solutions of this
problem one possesses peculiar interest, viz.: that considering diamonds
as deposits on the cooling of fused metals (or other substances)
surcharged with carbon.... Graphite, boron and silicon are formed on the
cooling of aluminium surcharged with these elements; and the same
elements—in other respects so closely grouped with carbon—separate in
the adamantine form seen under analogous circumstances. The latter are
crystallized, indeed, in different systems from the diamond, but they
possess many of its characters in a remarkable degree.”

Prof. Maskelyne also observes: “Gold seems in every diamond country to
be either the associate or the not distant neighbor of the diamond. In
the diamond, splinters of ferruginous quartz have been found. A high
antiquity, and an origin perhaps contemporaneous and not improbably
connected with the geological distribution of gold in the quartz-veins,
may be inferred from these facts.... In Brazil it has been traced to its
rock home in the itacolumite (a micaceous quartzose schist often
containing talcose minerals, and intersected by quartz-veins) and also
in hornblende, also continuous with the itacolumite. But whether these
are the parent rocks—or whether they are metamorphic in nature—its
origin comes from an earlier state of the materials that have been
transmuted by time and the play of chemical and physical forces into
itacolumite and hornblende slate, we are not in a position to declare.”

“Until lately the diamond had never been traced to its matrix, but this
has now been done, in at least two instances in Brazil.” The writer
above quoted says: “The first was in 1839, and the rock which contained
it was described by M. P. Chasseau (Bull. de l’Acad. Royale, Bruxelles,
viii., 331) as _grès psammite_, a sort of sandy freestone, the locality
being the Serro di Santantonio di Grammagoa.

“The discoverers of the deposit took from it many diamonds, as the rock
was soft; but deeper, it became harder, and consequently more difficult
to work. As many as 2,000 persons from all parts came to the place; but
they dug without order or plan, and, undermining the rock, part of it
fell down. They still drew a profit from breaking the fragments and
extracting the diamonds. We cannot say how long this was continued. M.
Chasseau’s paper was written in 1841, and the deposit in question, as
far as we can learn, is only again mentioned by M. Semonosoffin in the
‘Annales des Mines,’ 1842. But we know that in 1855 Mr. T. Redington, a
native of Cornwall, was employed by the Vice-President of the Province
of Minas Geraes to trace the course and tributaries of the principal
river of the diamond district, so as to find the rock from whence the
diamond came. Amongst other localities he visited San Joao, about twenty
miles north of Diamantina, and here found a vein yielding diamonds,
which had for about eight years previously been wrought by the natives.
This he began to work, and though the number, size and qualities of the
stones found have never been made public, he was still engaged upon it
only some few months since, and probably is so at this moment. No doubt
these, examples will stimulate others to attempt similar discoveries.”

Says Garcias: “It seems to me quite a miracle how these gems, which
might be expected to be produced in the deepest bowels of the earth, and
in the space of many years, should on the contrary be generated almost
on the surface of the ground, and come to perfection in an interval of
two or three years, for in the mines, this year for instance, at a depth
of a cubit, you will dig and find diamonds: let two years pass and
mining in the same place you will again find diamonds. But it is agreed
that the largest are only found under the bottom of the rock.”

It is singular that in the early days of the dry diggings the diggers
used in joke to express the very same opinions as I have quoted above,
for they often unearthed diamonds coated with a thin, dark mineral
crust, which disguised merely the shape of the diamond, not the color
and lustre. Many diamonds were lost through this. After some months,
exposure, or the attrition caused in again disturbing the soil in which
they had been lying, the whole or part of the coating was so rubbed off
that the diamond and its lustre became exposed to the digger’s delighted
gaze. Most probably the idea of the ancients, as to the growth of
diamonds, originated in the same or a closely similar manner.

Dana says: “The origin of the diamond has been a subject of speculation,
and it is the prevalent opinion that the carbon, like that of coal, is
of vegetable origin. Some crystals have been found with black
uncrystallized particles or seams within, looking like coal, and this
fact has been supposed to prove their vegetable origin.”

I take the following “New facts concerning the Diamond” from the
_Quarterly Journal of Science_, Oct. 1873:

[Illustration: ]

“Whilst our knowledge of the modes of formation of other gems is so
rapidly advancing that the time does not seem to be very distant when
the chemist in his laboratory will be able to produce them
artificially if not in large at all events in microscopic crystals—the
origin and mode of formation of the diamond is shrouded in apparently
inexplicable mystery. It is even undecided whether the diamond is of
igneous or vegetable origin, whether its nature is mineral or organic.
Some diamonds appear to have been soft, as they are superficially
impressed by sand and crystals; others contain crystals of other
minerals, germs of plants, and fragments of vegetation. Professor
Goppert has a diamond containing dendrites, such as occurs on minerals
of aqueous origin, and there is at Berlin a diamond which contains
bodies resembling _protococcus pluvialis_, and another containing
green corpuscles linked together, closely resembling _polinogtœa
macrococca_. (Palmoglœa Micrographic Dictionary.) Sir John Herschel
quotes the case of a Bahia diamond mentioned by Harting, which
contained well-formed filaments of iron pyrites. Messrs. Sorby and
Baker have shown that the diamond may contain cavities entirely or
partially filled with a liquid, probably condensed carbonic acid, and
that the black specks in diamonds are really crystals which are
sometimes surrounded by contraction cracks, a black cross appearing
under polarised light. Sir David Brewster has likewise pointed out
that the diamond possesses strata of different reflective powers. M.
Damour states that diamonds sometimes contain spangles of gold in
their cavities.... When shielded from contact with the air, the
diamond may be exposed to the highest temperature of our furnaces
without undergoing alteration, at least in the case of the colorless
diamond; of colored diamonds more will be said hereafter.... A crystal
of diamond, inclosed in a piece of dense coke and placed in a plumbago
crucible packed with charcoal powder, was heated for half an hour in
one of Siemens’ regenerative furnaces to the temperature at which
cast-iron melts, without undergoing any change whatever. Another
diamond, a cut (rose) diamond, which was inclosed in a crucible as
before and heated for ten minutes in the furnace to a temperature at
which wrought-iron melts, retained its form and the smoothness of its
facets but became quite black and opaque, and exhibited a strong
metallic lustre. The black portion formed a distinct layer of the
thickness of a hair covering the unaltered substance within. These
results confirm those of Schrötter, and appear to justify the view
that diamond, though it undergoes no change when exposed to the
greatest heat of a porcelain furnace or that at which cast-iron melts,
is slowly converted at the temperature of molten wrought-iron into
graphite. G. Rose states that some of the specimens of diamond in the
Berlin collection appear quite black by reflected, though translucent
by transmitted light, and that this black substance lying in the
little irregularities of the surface is found by its behavior in fused
nitre to be graphite. The relative ease with which graphite and
diamond burn was determined by exposing them to the same temperature
for the same time, when the following amounts of the three specimens
were consumed:

Foliated graphite 27.45 per cent.
Diamond 97.76 „ „
Granular massive graphite 100.00 „ „

“In a superb cut diamond weighing between six and seven carats, the
brilliancy of the stone was decidedly increased after the operation.
The loss of brilliancy observed by Mr. Schrötter is a proof, in M.
Baumhauer’s opinion, that notwithstanding the precautions employed,
the diamond had come in contact with the oxygen of the air, or else
that at so elevated a temperature a reducing action had been effected
upon the magnesia (in which the diamond had been packed) by the
diamond, which had then been superficially burnt by the oxygen of that
earth.

A diamond which presented to the naked eye an appearance of dirty
green was treated in a similar manner; examination with a lens showed
that the color did not extend to the entire stone, but was confined to
small portions, which formed small green clouds in the centre of the
mass. After heating to a white heat in hydrogen, the brilliancy of the
surface remained as before; the transparency was rather increased than
diminished, but the green hue was transformed into pale yellow.
Another small diamond, of so dark a green as to approach black, and
almost opaque, assumed a violet hue, retaining, however, its
brilliancy, and becoming more translucid. A small cubic diamond of
light green color preserved its brilliancy and transparency intact,
but lost its color completely. No difference in its weight before and
after the operation could be perceived.

“Brown diamonds lose most of their color when heated to whiteness in
hydrogen; they generally assume a grayish tint, and in all cases the
shade is much lighter, and on examination with a lens they appear
limpid, with black spots. Diamonds with a yellow tint, such as Cape
diamonds almost invariably are, scarcely lose any portion of their
natural color.... Several experiments were made by von Baumhauer, in
concert with M. Daniels, upon gray diamonds, in the hope that the
effect of heat would, by removing their color, add to their value;
but, unfortunately, the desired result was not achieved, as the
diamonds presented after treatment the same grayish appearance as
before. Very different results are obtained when, instead of heating
the diamond in an atmosphere of hydrogen, it is heated in contact with
the air. It is unnecessary to employ a white heat, or to subject the
diamond to it for so long a time, in order to render it dull, and
consequently opaque; this being the result of positive combustion,
which is proved by its loss of weight after the operation.

“This combustion is, however, quite superficial, as shown by M.
Daniels, who found that when repolished the diamond recovered
completely its transparency and its water; it was, moreover, remarked
by Mr. G. Rose that if the diamond which had become dull was moistened
with essence of turpentine, it reassumed its transparency and retained
it so long as its surface continued moist. The diamond may also be
heated in an atmosphere of oxygen.... In this case the stone obtains a
vivid state of incandescence, and burns with a dazzling flame long
before the platinum crucible has attained a reddish white heat. In
most cases after the lamp has been withdrawn and the crucible is no
longer red hot, the diamond continues to burn for some time, and
presents the appearance of vivid light upon a dark ground. When the
diamond is very small combustion may even continue until it is
entirely consumed, and it is then seen to dart a more vivid flame at
the last moment, like a burning match, the instant previous to
extinction. When the stone is of considerable size the heat produced
by combustion is insufficient to maintain it after the removal of the
lamp, and it ceases in a few moments, notwithstanding the oxygen which
continues to flow into the crucible. Although this last experiment has
been repeated several times by these experimentalists, no other result
has been observed than tranquil combustion of the diamond; such
phenomena as turning black, transformation into coke, change of the
state of aggregation, bubbling up, melting or softening, rounding of
corners and angles, were in no case presented to our notice. Once only
in experimenting upon an opaque grayish diamond, a few sparks were
emitted, but these were evidently due to the presence of some foreign
elements incorporated with the whole. Neither did the diamonds burst
or split, save in one case, where such was foreseen by M. Daniels: a
stone evidently composed of two diamonds joined together, upon the
first application of heat broke with considerable violence into two
fragments, each constituting a decided crystal.... All that took place
in the crucible could be distinctly seen through the sheet of mica,
and thus ample evidence was obtained that the diamond, while in a
state of combustion, is surrounded by a small flame, the exterior
envelope of which is a violet-blue, similar to that produced by oxide
of carbon in a state of combustion.

“This is especially the case when the diamond is rather large, when
the lamp has been withdrawn and the platinum has ceased to glow; the
diamond is then seen upon the black ground of the crucible, brilliant
with vivid white light, and surrounded by a zone or aureole somewhat
less bright, its exterior edge being a blue-violet color. Some highly
interesting microscopic observations relative to the dull surface of
diamonds which have undergone partial combustion have been
communicated by Mr. G. Rose; he has discovered on them regular
triangular markings that resemble those occurring in abundance on the
fine crystals from the Vaal River, and recall the faces formed on
planes of crystals, soluble in acid, by the slow and imperfect etching
action of such a re-agent, as, for example, the action of hydrogen
chloride on calcite. Like them these depressions on the diamond bear
an exact relation to its crystalline form, and are determined by
certain definite faces, their sides being parallel to the edges of the
octahedral faces of the crystal. Measurement with the goniometer shows
them to belong to the icositetrahedron, the faces of which have not
been met with on diamond. These symmetrically shaped pits can easily
be seen by heating a thin plate of boart in a blow-pipe flame and
examining it under the microscope.

“By prolonged heating several small triangular pits will often merge
into one large one. A crystal of diamond, even when so reduced in size
by oxidation as to be only visible with difficulty, continues to
exhibit sharp edges and angles. A dodecahedron, with very rounded
faces but smooth and brilliant surface, also exhibited the triangular
pits often very distinctly; moreover, it had a brown color, which was
not destroyed by heat, and must therefore be of a totally different
nature from that of the topaz or smoky quartz.”

The above copious extracts by no means exhaust the very interesting and
valuable particulars to be found in the article, and I would advise all
interested in the matter to purchase this issue of the magazine, if
still in print, and read for themselves.

It is a well-known fact that river diamonds and the diamonds of each
mine are quite distinct in character from each other. The Old De Beer’s
stones are much more like those of the river than are those of
Kimberley. An experienced buyer can tell at a glance in most cases where
a diamond was found, and many buyers, diggers and other experts have on
oath expressed their conviction as to the source of certain stones
before courts of law.

There are no rents or large fissures in the hard containing rocks of the
Kimberley mine, but the joints and bedding remain undisturbed, thus
showing that earthquakes have not acted upon them, at least to any
appreciable extent.

There can be little doubt but that the pits or craters were formed by
volcanic agency, but it does not follow that the contents thereof were
thrown up at one and the same time, nor indeed that the present contents
were derived from the craters at all. After denudation had taken place,
calcareous tufa was deposited from the waters, and then the ferruginous
red sand. It does not appear probable, as suggested by Mr. Kitto, that
“the diamond was formed by a rock being crushed between other rocks
previously to its being brought to the surface by volcanic agency,” as
the rock would thus be merely broken into small fragments, whereas it is
in the form of an impalpable powder, intimately mixed with boulders,
nodules and crystals of foreign rocks.

[Illustration:

Pl. III.
]

Had diamonds been formed in this rock, and the rock crushed, the brittle
diamond would not, in my opinion, have escaped being also crushed. It
seems a more feasible theory that the rock when first elevated was in a
heated state, and brought into contact with water then covering the
land, and the sudden cooling caused its sudden disintegration, and that
the diamonds and other materials foreign to it got mixed with it
subsequently. However, in either case, the diamonds and other materials
contained therein would still have to be accounted for, and it does not
appear probable that these should have all been formed with or within
one single rock, or that they are all of the same period and were
elevated at one and the same time.

If diamonds were formed by heat, it was not in the Kimberley mine, as
the shale walls and the agglomerate within the mine show no signs of
having there been subjected to any great heat; on the contrary, water
and air seem to have been here the active agents.

From the foregoing extracts it will be seen that no theory as to the
formation of the diamond hitherto advanced is completely, if at all
satisfactory, and the mystery, if penetrable, must be left to the
geologist of the future.

GEOLOGY, FOSSILS, ETC.
DESCRIPTION OF PLATES.

PLATE I.

FIG. 1. Scale ¹⁄₆₀ inch to the foot. This represents a section of a
shaft sunk by the Kimberley Mining Board, at the N. E. of and about 700
feet from the then margin of the mine. The section was taken by Mr. Geo.
Jas. Lee, a gentleman who was at one time chairman of the mining board,
and who, when it finally decided to abandon the shaft named in 1878,
took the section of which the accompanying diagram or illustration gives
an accurate representation.

The dip of the strata is about 2°.5 N. N. W.

(_a_) Represents a heap of diamondiferous débris from the yellow ground
of the mine, 14 feet in depth.

(_b_) Surface red sand, 6 feet thick. There was no calcareous tufa
underlying the red sand here, as is usually the case within the mine
proper and its immediate vicinity.

(_c_) Jointed trap, or blue whin, 15 feet.

(_d_) Light colored shales; bluish white, olive yellow, gray, etc., 25
feet. This layer, surrounding and joining the mine, is 50 feet thick,
and contains many fossils, some of which are shown in the following
plates.

(_e_) Black, or bluish black carboniferous shale, containing four or
five “iron bands,” or limonite (marked _f_), from 1 inch to 1 foot
thick. This layer is 225 feet thick, and in addition to many fossils
also contains numerous flat-rounded pieces of black shale, of a harder
nature than the body of the reef, and generally with a _septum_ dividing
the nodules. Water has evidently worn the masses down on each side of
this hard division, often giving them the appearance of oyster, mussel
and other shells, also of fish and other forms. One such stone amongst
many (marked with an arrow) was found just above the hard rock, which
here commences.

(_g_) A trachyitic _breccia_ of specific gravity 2.815. This is of a
very tough, horny nature, and of a pale bluish gray color, sprinkled
with small particles, both angular and round, of a darker color (3
feet).

(_h_) Compact augitic, or hornblendic, very tough (8 feet).

(_i_) Seamy do. do., closely resembling basaltic trap, 4 feet worked,
but of unknown depth. The total depth of the working represented in the
diagram is 300 feet, and was the deepest working in the Kimberley mine
at the time that it was abandoned.[29]

FIG. 2. This represents a diagrammatic section of the interior of the
Kimberley mine, from the surface to a depth of about 300 feet, and made
up as follows:

(_a_) Grass, etc.

(_b_) Red sand as in Fig. 1, 6 feet.

(_c_) Calcareous tufa, 6 feet.

(_d_) Yellow diamondiferous ground, 25 feet. At the junction of the
“yellow” and “blue” the change of color previously alluded to is shown,
and also the porous layer with water oozing from it, and trickling down
the “face” of the claim.

(_e_) “Blue ground” with various “greasy seams;”

(_f_) and boulders.

PLATE II.

FIG. 1. Hind feet and portion of the vertebræ of a fossil _Dicynodont_
reptile (_Owen_), natural size. Found by Capt. Jas. Scott Helps, in the
white shale in a cutting 50 feet deep, at the east of Kimberley mine,
facing claim .018, and 40 feet back from the margin of the mine,
measuring from the surface.

The above was drawn by Mr. Geo. Jas. Lee, in Jan. 1878, soon after it
was found. The above specimen, together with three others, were
presented by Mr. Geo. Jas. Lee to the trustees of the British Museum,
and were, I believe, submitted to Professor Owen, who has now for some
years past been engaged preparing a monogram upon the Dicynodonts. From
the _Photographic News_ of Oct. 16th, 1885, I take the following: “The
British Association meeting at Aberdeen. In the Geological section, Dr.
R. H. Fraquair described a new and very remarkable reptile, lately found
in the Elgin sandstone, entirely from a photograph of the specimen
submitted to him by Professor Judd. He was able to assign the creature
to the genus _Dicynodon_, which characterizes similar sandstones in
South Africa.” There are no sandstones, however, near the Kimberley
mine, but the casts of Dicynodons have been found both within and
without the mine, and also in fragments of white shale upon the surface
of the ground a few hundred yards away from the mine. In Mr. Ralph
Tate’s “Historical Geology,” the following passage occurs:—
“Reptiliferous Sandstones of Morayshire: Geologists have maintained, on
stratigraphical grounds, that the Reptiliferous Sandstones are of the
age of the Old Red Sandstone; but the intervention of a conglomerate
implies a stratigraphical break, and a lapse of time of indefinite
extent; and the paleontological evidence favors the supposition that
these sandstones are of Triassic age.” In the light colored shales to
which I allude, and nearly in the same place, a fragment of a fossil
fish (_Palæoniscus_) of Triassic age was found, and was presented to the
British Museum. I may here repeat a passage from Mr. W. S. Dowel’s
paper, already quoted in this chapter: “Professor Liversidge describes
the geological formation of the district (Bingera, 350 miles north of
Sydney, Australia) as being of the Devonian or Carboniferous age, but
when making a visit in 1873 he was unable, in consequence of want of
time, and wet weather, to secure fossils in order to verify his opinion.
Since then Mr. Donald Porter and others have discovered fossils and
indications that clearly go to show that the professor was correct in
the opinions he had formed respecting the nature of the geological
stratification and the age to which it belonged.”

FIG. 2. Portion of a fossil leaf, natural size, found by Mr. Geo. Jas.
Lee on Oct. 13th, 1880, in the white shale from the Kimberley mine, at a
depth of about 50 feet, facing road 9, south. Length (as restored),
2¹⁄₂₀ inches; apex (restored), ¹⁷⁄₄₀ inch; width (entire), 1¼ inches.

I must leave it for fossil botanists to determine the name of this leaf,
but should it turn out to be identical with Heer’s “_Populus primæva_”
(which I believe it to be), “from the Urgonian Pattorfick, Greenland,
described twelve years ago (1875) and still remains (in 1885) the sole
representative of this sub-class in any formation below the cenomanian
and the most ancient dicotyledon known.” It is a very valuable specimen,
and almost unique, and must be a source of great satisfaction to the
fortunate finder, as well as geologists in general. Unfortunately at
this time I have no books of reference upon this subject by me, nor have
I seen a report of Heer’s discovery, therefore I must leave the
classification of the above leaf entirely in the hands of experts in
fossil botany.

A photograph of the impression of the leaf has also been taken, of which
Fig. 3 is a copy. An impression of the upper and under surface of the
leaf was found to have been very perfectly preserved as a hollow mould
when the block of shale containing it was split in halves.

PLATE III.

FIG. 1. This is a photograph of a portion of the stem of a _Sigillaria_,
found in a fragment of black, or carboniferous shale, in the centre of
the north margin of the Kimberley mine, at a depth of about 100 feet.
This probably is a new, or at all events a hitherto undescribed species.

Other very perfect casts of _Sigillariæ_, as well as of Lepidodendra,
have also been found in the black shale. In the same shale, and about
the same locality, an imprint of a species of large reptile was found,
probably of the order _Crocodilia_. The imprint was very perfect, and
many feet in length, but unfortunately the native workmen then engaged
in throwing down this “reef” had thrown down to the bottom of the mine
every vestige of the fossil, before a friend of the writer requested Mr.
William McHardy (then and now manager of the Central company) to procure
a specimen for him. Mr. McHardy saw this cast himself and informed my
friend of the find, and at his request (my friend’s) he at once returned
to save it, but unfortunately not a vestige of it was to be found, the
natives having thrown a vast quantity of reef down, so that the
proverbial needle in the bottle of hay was easily discernible in
comparison with my friend’s fossil cayman. Other interesting fossils
have been found in these shales, and have been deposited by their owners
in various museums in Europe and America.

This concludes an account of all the fossils in the shales of which I
can give any authenticated delineation, but I may mention that dendrites
are very common in the light shales, caused by iron stains, mostly of a
dark red color. I have already stated in the body of the chapter
relating to the Kimberley mine that coal, from a mere trace in thickness
to eight or ten inches, has been found in the black shales surrounding
the mine.

From the above-mentioned facts, I am inclined to believe that the
exposed strata of the Kimberley mine extends from below the
carboniferous in the primary rocks to the triassic in the secondary
rocks, of course excluding the tufa and red sand, which would be much
more recent, and from which I have not heard of any fossils being found.

PLATE IV.

FIG. 1. This shows a transverse section of a fragment of lignite found
in the Kimberley mine, in Claim 165, at a depth of 140 feet, and
embedded in “blue ground” or diamondiferous soil. Color, jet black.

_a.a._ Junction of two annual layers, or rings.

_b.b._ Fissure through medullary ray.

_c.c._ Portion of medullary ray.

Average of internal diameter of tubes, ¹⁄₁₀₀₀ inch.

Internal diameter of large tube, ¹⁄₈₀₀ inch. Number of layers from
outside to centre of stem from which the section was taken, 48; and the
remains of the bark still adhering to the specimen, ¼ inch thick. The
above was drawn on Sept. 18th, 1877, by Mr. Geo. Jas. Lee, F. R. Met.
Soc.; F. R. M. S., with the aid of neutral tint glass, 10 inches from
the paper, and with ½ inch object glass, and A, eye piece, and magnified
121½ times, but here reduced to about 82.6 times.

The hardness of the lignite found in the Kimberley mine varies from that
of soft charcoal to that of calcite, with which mineral it is mostly
impregnated; the deepest being the hardest on account of containing more
lime, and having undergone a greater change. It has been found in
various parts of the mine, and at different depths. It has been also
found in all the other mines, and in several instances large portions of
stems, branches and roots were discovered. A specimen from De Beers mine
was as hard as flint, but still retained its black color. In a specimen
of a supposed root from De Beers mine the cells were square, instead of
being circular, as in the figure.

I may here observe that “fossilized wood,” looking much like chalcedony
or agate, is plentiful all over South Africa, and in the “Bush” (forest)
of the Boston saw-mills, in Natal, not far from the river Umkomaas,
inland to the north of Pietermaritzburg, whole stems of gigantic
fossilized trees are to be found—and of the hardness of silex lying upon
the ground. So far as I am aware the whole of such specimens are
identical with the lignite of the Kimberley mine, thus tending to show
that at one time this vast continent was/covered with forests of
gigantic pine trees. The question at once arises, what has become of
those forests? Have they been turned into coal in the place where they
grew? or have they been washed into an ancient ocean and thus
transported to some distant place? I think the answer must be that the
greater portion have been washed away, and the remainder, the extent of
which it is impossible to estimate, turned into coal and silicated wood,
in, or nearly _in situ_. Fossil botanists will notice with interest the
absence of distortion in the cells in the section delineated above, as
evincing the fact that they have not been submitted to any great
pressure.

Many of the specimens when found exhibited very evident signs of having
been much rolled about and water worn, by their rounded ends, and the
absence of attached branches, twigs, bark fruit and leaves, none of
which have been found but the stems, larger branches and roots, with the
exception of a portion of bark on the piece of the stem from which the
above section was taken.

I must here draw the attention of my scientific readers to the great
similarity to the section here depicted, and to a similar section of
Greenland coal, as figured in the “Micrographic Dictionary,” 3d edition,
1875. The only apparent difference is in the slight distortion of the
cells in the coal from Greenland.

[Illustration: Pl. IV _Fig. 1._ _Fig. 2._ _Fig. 3._ _Fig. 4._]

FIG. 2. This shows a vertical radial section of the same lignite as that
of Fig. 1, and drawn upon a slightly smaller scale, and by the same
means, by Mr. Lee.

Diameter of pits or glands, rather less than ¹⁄₁₀₀₀ an inch, or ¹¹⁄₁₂ of
¹⁄₁₀₀₀ = .000916 of an inch.

Centre bright spot of gland ⅔ less than the gland.

The above section shows a single and double row of glands, by means of
which Mr. W. Carruthers classifies this lignite as being derived from
_recent pines_. (For Mr. Carruthers’ report and that of other
authorities of the British Museum, see end of this section.) I may here
state that I have seen many very beautiful sections of coal made by Mr.
G. J. Lee, obtained by him from various parts of the Cape Colony and the
Free State, and they all more or less show the single and double row of
pit arrangement, the only difference being that the pits or glands are
much smaller, as are also the tubes.

Vertical tangental sections are also the same as in the lignite, which
exhibit the usual characteristics of sections of pine, in showing the
usual reticulated and oval resin cells. In some sections the open
network of the cells is very beautifully preserved.

The general reader would hardly thank me for further geological
disquisitions, which I therefore abandon, though with a certain amount
of reluctance.

FIG. 3. Remains of a shell, natural size, found by Mr. Hugh Cowan, in
February, 1878, in his claim 163, imbedded in solid “blue ground,” 205
feet deep.

The color of the body of the shell is pale lavender, with white
convolutions. Drawn by Mr. Lee, and presented by him to the British
Museum.

It will be noticed that the above specimen was much broken and water
worn. The outside of the shell was highly polished, and the broken edges
much rounded.

FIG. 4. These are representations of the natural size of two bivalve
shells, drawn by Mr. G. J. Lee, and found by Mr. James Beningfield in
his claims 150 and 377 in the Kimberley mine.

These shells were of an olive-green color, and imbedded in fine clay
sandstone. They were given by Mr. Beningfield to Mr. Lee, who presented
them to the British Museum, the receipt of which was never acknowledged
by the Museum authorities. I therefore fear that they have been lost.

I am not aware whether the above are marine or fresh-water shells.
Several other specimens of shells have been found by Mr. James
Beningfield, who has unfortunately mislaid or lost them, and I have
heard of other diggers having also found specimens, but I have not had
the good fortune to see them. The above were evidently found in
“erratics,” but that found by Mr. Cowan was undoubtedly found in the
solid diamondiferous ground.

EXTRACTS FROM GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE.

“_Fossils from the Diamond Field, South Africa._—Mr. George J. Lee, of
Kimberley, Griqualand West, has forwarded through His Excellency,
Colonel Lanyon, the Governor of the colony, to Sir Joseph D. Hooker, C.
B., for presentation to the British Museum, part of a carbonized[30]
branch of a coniferous tree, found 195 feet below the surface in claim
196; a fragment of a fossil fish (_palæoniscus_) of Triassic age; and
four casts of portions of the vertebral columns and ribs, and a foot of
a small dicynodont reptile, preserved as hollow moulds, in finely
laminated and friable shale. Also numerous pyritised bodies, possibly
replacing some organism. The reptilian remains have been submitted to
Professor Owen, C.B., who will notice them more fully hereafter. The
fossil wood will be examined by Mr. W. Carruthers, F. R. S.—_Geological
Magazine, April number, p. 192, Decade II., Vol. VI., 1879._”

NOTE ON MR. G. J. LEE’S SPECIMENS OF FOSSIL WOOD FROM GRIQUALAND.

“_Sir_: The lignite from Kimberley mine, claim 196, consists of stems or
branches converted into a brittle lignite, which still preserves the
original size and form of the stems, and exhibits the internal structure
peculiar to _coniferæ_. The wood cells have a single series of discs, as
in the wood of the recent pines.

“The specimens from Kimberley mine, claim 165, are more altered, and
approach the condition of our Paleozoic coal. The small portions which
show structure (mother coal) consist of fragments of coniferous wood,
exhibiting the disciferous wood tissue with the discs in single rows.
The slides from the coal of Heilbron, Vaal River, Free State, consist of
wood cells, with discs in single or double and opposite rows, as in the
recent pines.

“W. CARRUTHERS,
“Botanical Department, British Museum.”—_Geological Magazine, 1879, June
number, p. 286._

NOTE.—The Paleozoic coal mentioned above was found imbedded in sandstone
similar to that of the shells.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XII.
THE PROCESS OF DIAMOND MINING FROM START TO DATE.—THE “LONG TOM.”—THE
“CRADLE” AND THE “BABY.”—THE SORTING TABLE AND SCRAPERS.—VAN DOUSSA’S
INVENTION. THE SCENE IN THE KIMBERLEY MINE.—THE ROAD’S “STAGES.” “WHIMS”
AND “WHIPS.”—THE ROTARY WASHING MACHINE. THE CYLINDERS AND THE
ELEVATORS.—SINGULAR MISTAKES. STATISTICS OF LABOR EMPLOYED.—STEAM
POWER.—FUEL.—THE KIMBERLEY WATER-WORKS.

Very shortly after the discovery of diamonds on the banks of the Vaal
River the diggers set themselves to solve the important question: How
shall we win a maximum of diamonds with a minimum of labor? Sorting
without mechanical appliances of any kind was indeed a weary and
heart-sickening toil, especially when, as not very rarely happened,
weeks elapsed without a single diamond being found to reward the digger
for his almost ceaseless labor. Only the hope that “springs eternal in
the human breast” enabled the searcher after precious stones to endure
it; and so it was not long before inventions, which ingenuity brought to
bear upon the object of answering the question above propounded, came
into general use.

[Illustration:

DIAMOND WASHING MACHINE.
]

First of all came the “Long Tom,” a trough fitted with ripples, into the
head of which the gravel was thrown, and through which a constant flow
of water drawn from the river was maintained, while the gravel was raked
and the larger stones and pebbles removed, the fine gravel found behind
the ripples being taken away to the sorting tables. To this contrivance
succeeded the “cradle,” a wooden box placed upon rockers and pulsated
upon a flat piece of ground or rock by means of a handle. The cradle
contained three sieves, the first very coarse and the third extremely
fine. Into the first the mud and gravel were poured, a constant flow of
water being of course kept up. When the mud had disappeared the first
sieve was hand-sorted, and loud indeed were the shouts of acclamation
and universal was the adjournment to the nearest liquor tent when a
diamond was found in this receptacle. The contents of sieves Nos. 2 and
3 were then emptied on different ends of the sorting table.

Both these appliances were introduced by old gold diggers, and were
similar in construction to their Californian and Australian namesakes.

Third in order came the “baby,” so-called from its inventor, a Mr. Babe,
an American. Three screens, somewhat similar to those used by
bricklayers in making mortar, were suspended by reins (leather thongs)
almost horizontally to four posts, and were kept in agitation by hand,
the reins of course giving full play for “pulsation.” The subsequent
process was nearly identical with that above described in connection
with the cradle, which this machine indeed resembled in principle,
though a decided improvement, as much more work could be accomplished
with the aid of this invention than with the assistance of its
predecessor.

Fourth in order came the “cylinder,” constructed of either wire sieving
(10 inch mesh) or punched sheet iron fitted with lids, revolving on an
axle, kept moving by a handle immersed in a tub of water. The gravel
before being shut up in a cylinder was screened. This was found to be an
excellent contrivance for saving labor, and was highly popular, as
obviously the natives could have no opportunity of purloining diamonds
from it, as it was only opened for the pouring out of the contents under
the digger’s personal supervision, or perchance the observing eye of the
partner of his joys and sorrows. It is perhaps unnecessary to add that
after these machines had come into general use, many, especially the
impecunious diggers, amongst whom were many Dutchmen, with
overwhelmingly large families, did as best they could with a single
sieve, which served as pulsator and everything beside. To-day even, many
use this primitive appliance at the river.

Before passing on to the Dry Diggings and the systems that there
prevailed, it may be as well to briefly describe the “sorting table.”
The top of a packing-case balanced on a heap of gravel often had to
serve this purpose in the early days of the river diggings, and beside
it the digger knelt, crouched or sat, changing his position when it
became too wearisome. The more affluent had a sorting table supported by
legs, and covered with a sheet of iron, being slightly inclined from the
digger, so that the water might not flow into his lap when the gravel
was poured out in front of him. Those of my readers who visited the Cape
court in the “Colinderies” have seen a sorting table almost if not quite
identical with the best constructed of the early days. The “scraper,”
too, which, though small in size and inexpensive in material, is yet an
important instrument in diamond winning, has but little altered. This
little wonder is not much to look at, being simply a piece of tin or
iron about six to nine inches in width and three to four inches in
height, with a straight edge and pointed ends. With this the sorter
scrapes—scrapes—scrapes, pushing over the edge of his sorting table,
garnets, jaspers, carbons, agates, pyrites, crystals and pebbles, which,
however interesting to the scientist, are commercially valueless, until
at last a diamond is found, and then the precious stone, large or small,
is dropped into an unpretentious tin or perhaps a broken bottle, and the
process goes on as before.

At the dry diggings sieving and hand-sorting were at first the usual
methods employed, and it was long before even so much ingenuity as was
required to construct an improved or altered cradle was brought into
play. The processes named, however, being so wearisome and exhausting,
they were at last abandoned; and among other labor-saving appliances
one, for which much _kudos_ was gained by the inventor or adapter—a Mr.
Van Doussa—was largely used, but does not need detailed description, as
it was simply a combination of the Long Tom and the cradle.

Before describing the elaborate washing machines, etc., in vogue to-day,
I will proceed to give my readers some idea of the successive methods by
which the diamondiferous soil has been removed from the claims for
manipulation. The Kimberley mine attracting by its marvelous richness
diggers from other mines was, at the time of its opening, and indeed
still is, a wondrous hive of human industry. In the earliest days the
sorting tables were placed in the claims themselves, and marvelous were
the scenes that then might daily be observed. In a space of some dozen
acres were often gathered together as many as ten thousand people;
diggers with their wives, sisters and children, busily engaged in
sorting; natives shoveling the earth into buckets ceaselessly, the whole
scene dotted with myriad parasols and umbrellas of the most varied hues,
and awnings of the most gayly-colored blankets. The example of Horace’s
“magni formica laboris,” that insect to which Mr. Eugene Wrayburn
objected to King Solomon referring him, was closely followed by
thousands filled with sanguine hopes, some doomed to bitter
disappointment, but full many destined in greater or lesser degree to
have their realization.

After a time, however, as the claims were worked deeper, it was found
more convenient to have the sorting tables placed outside the mine. I
may here mention that in order to facilitate work, roads were reserved
running across the mine from north to south. They were some fourteen in
number, and 7½ feet being allowed from the claims on each side, were 15
feet broad. On these roads the native laborers tossed the ground, most
of which was conveyed to the sorting tables outside the mine, but some
to tables placed upon the sides of the road. The waste ground out of
which the diamonds had been sorted was of course deposited outside the
mine,[31] after having been conveyed along the roads in sacks or
buckets, or sometimes in wheelbarrows or carts, by the “boys,”[32] the
name by which the native employés were entitled.

As the mine became yet deeper the system of “benches” came into vogue.
There were levels or terraces cut in the side of a claim, and on each of
them was posted a native who shoveled up the ground thrown to him from
the level below, until at last the precious soil reached the roadway,
where a fourth or perhaps a fifth native was waiting to convey it to its
destination. Of course the number of benches varied with the depth of
the claim.

When yet more of the soil was excavated, another system had to be
adopted, and then a post with a pulley attached was driven firmly into
the road and the ground drawn up in buckets constructed of either hide
or iron, whence it was tossed into carts drawn by horses or oxen, some
of which, poor creatures, tumbled over into the claim, where they had to
be slaughtered in order that their misery might be ended as soon as
possible, while others were killed instantaneously. The loss of human
life in these cases was, however, comparatively small.

This system, with the exception that many diggers used windlasses
instead of posts and pulleys, prevailed until 1874, by which time the
roads had fallen. This had long been foreseen, as isolated portions had
long before crumbled away, the chasms being spanned by bridges erected
at enormous expense. An entirely new system, therefore, had now to be
introduced, and this took the form of “stayings.” They were, as a rule,
three in number if the base or ground be counted, and may best be
described as floors stoutly constructed, the first stage proper being
placed at a height of about eight feet from the ground, the second about
sixteen feet. Numerous standing wires were stretched from the claims and
along these were drawn buckets containing the diamondiferous soil, one
perchance bearing a fortune in its narrow space, literally a _multum in
parvo_. The ground was hauled by windlasses worked by natives. So
numerous were the wires that the mine seemed a yawning pit over which
some Titanic spider had woven its web, while the noise of the wires was
as loud as the din of the traffic in Cheapside or the Strand, the rattle
of the machinery in a Lancashire factory, or, to be more imaginative,
the roar of angry waves buffeting a rock-bound coast.

In their turn the stages were abandoned, for, as may be imagined, the
process of hauling out ground by windlasses worked by hand was a slow
process when the claims were worked to a depth of eighty feet or more.
“Whims,”[33] worked by horses or mules, were substituted, and they were
in general use until the reign of steam, which still continues.

In other chapters the geological characteristics of the diamonds are
dealt with, and the best authorities quoted at considerable length; in
this connection, therefore, it will suffice to say that the “yellow
ground” only extends to a certain depth; this is friable, and was easily
broken up by means of shovels and clubs known as “beaters.” Beneath this
ground lies the hard blue, the discovery of which, as I mention
elsewhere, caused no small consternation amongst the diggers, who feared
when reaching it that they had come to what in alluvial gold digging
would be called the “bed-rock.” This blue ground requires careful
manipulation, and 1875 witnessed the general adoption of the “rotary”
already introduced for the quicker manipulation of the blue. The machine
in question may be thus briefly described: A species of “pay mill,” a
round, stationary pan with two concentric rings of sheet iron about nine
inches in height; in the centre an upright spindle driving six or eight
arms, in which are fixed a number of flattish tynes, not unlike the
prongs of a trident, placed in a diagonal direction. Into the circular
trough formed by the concentric rings the ground was poured, water was
supplied, and the mud kept in agitation by means of the tynes, the
overflow passing through a small door or opening in the inner ring. This
opening could be regulated by a slide according to the nature of the
ground manipulated, rapidity of the revolution of the tynes, etc., etc.
The machine was kept in work by means of cog-wheels at the top of the
spindle. At opposite points of the circumference of the machine Kafirs
were stationed to supply the motive power, and stood there turning and
turning all day long. Later on horse power was used for turning the
rotaries, which were much enlarged, and now are almost universally
driven by steam power. These machines, originally about four feet in
diameter, and capable of washing some forty loads per diem, are now made
as much as fourteen feet in diameter and from 400 to 800 loads,
according to the nature of the ground manipulated, can be washed daily
by a single machine. A highly important adjunct to the washing machine
proper is the cylinder, which was introduced after the discovery of the
blue ground. This was frequently found to be too insufficiently
disintegrated, even after long exposure on the depositing floors, to
allow of its being rapidly washed without more or less serious loss of
diamonds.[34] To prevent this loss the contrivance to which I allude was
invented. It is a rotatory cylinder, fixed at an angle of some ten
degrees, upon which a stream of water plays from a perforated tube
directly above it. The upper part of the cylinder is of fine mesh,
through which the finer particles of the wetted ground or mud fall upon
a table, in the centre of which is an inclined trough leading to the
washing machine, and along this the “magma” or slush mentioned flows by
natural gravitation. The lower half of the cylinder is of coarser or
more open mesh, allowing stones and larger lumps to fall upon the table
to be swept off by sorters with watchful eyes for any large diamonds
which may be present. This stuff is then generally treated as worthless
and thrown away, but the yet larger lumps that issue from the mouth of
the cylinder are, as a rule, taken back to the depositing sites for
further exposure.

The mud which flows from the opening in the inner ring of the rotary is
raised by small buckets (called elevators) on an endless chain to a
height of some twenty-five feet, when it is ejected, the more solid
portion flowing down screens, either to run down in “tailings” on the
spot or into trucks to be emptied elsewhere. The uninitiated who visit a
washing machine and elevator occasionally get an unpleasant surprise
when their curiosity leads them to wander any distance from their guide,
for the tailings, though solid enough at a distance from the flow from
the elevator, are there almost liquid, though to the sight, by reason of
the dry film at the surface, they appear literally _terra firma_. One
unwary step and the too inquisitive visitor is up to his knees, waist,
or even his neck, in a “slough of despond,” whence he is rescued
possibly minus a boot or shoe by his apparently sympathizing though
really much amused friends, a spectacle for gods or men.

I may here interpolate a few remarks as to the mistakes that were made,
especially by the early diggers, as to the nature of the stone
unearthed. Men unused to digging came and took out claims, especially in
the Du Toit’s Pan mine, a mine which has from the first been renowned
for large diamonds, and also for a considerable output of “crystals,”
which are of no commercial value. A large crystal, showing all the
angularity of the diamond and otherwise closely resembling it, often
raises hopes soon doomed to be disappointed. A Boer (a true story for
which I can vouch) arriving with his wagon, in which rode his wife and
children, acquired a claim, and shouldering his pick, with shovel in
hand, he started to work, and _mirabile dictu_, in an hour he discovered
a huge stone. Delighted beyond measure at his glorious find, he yet
deemed it prudent to conceal it from every one.

Packing up his goods and inspanning his oxen, he started for Port
Elizabeth, where he had heard that the highest prices were paid for
diamonds. A six weeks’ “trek” found him safely arrived at the bay, and
with his gem in his pocket he sallied forth to the office of a
well-known firm of buyers. He explained how he had become possessed of
the priceless brilliant, how he had not shown it to a living soul and so
forth, but when he produced the marvel of beauty, the merchant
mercilessly shattered all his six weeks’ dreams by telling him that it
was a “crystal,” and of no value whatever save as a curio!

To return to the subject of machinery. It was not, however, until after
the share mania of 1880 and 1881, when many companies were floated, that
much large machinery was imported from England. The small six and
eight-horse power engines nevertheless began to give way to those of
sixteen, twenty-four, and even sixty-horse power. The “blue” which had
frightened the early diggers, too, and which had to be spread out on
floors for miles around the various camps to disintegrate, at the great
loss of time and money, about this period attracted considerable
attention, it being thought possible that some other means of rendering
it sufficiently pulverized for washing purposes might be discovered. A
Mr. Cowan, a large digger at the time, spent several thousands of pounds
in experimenting with steam, but to no avail. In releasing this “blue”
from the mines, large quantities of gunpowder were used, until dynamite,
of the estimated yearly value of £100,000, has been introduced into the
system of mining within the last eighteen months or two years.

In consequence of the fall of reef in the Kimberley and De Beer’s mines,
underground working has been resorted to, the open diggings in many
instances having become practically unworkable in consequence of the
enormous cost of hauling out the fallen reef. The diggings in the open
unincumbered workings of the Kimberley mine before the disastrous fall
of reef had attained to a depth of some 420 feet. By a system of
“underground” mining the main difficulty in reaching the diamondiferous
ground has been overcome, shafts have been sunk, tunnels made, and the
precious “blue” again reached and hauled out. The richness of this
“blue,” at the depth from which it has been brought, has again lifted
the shareholders out of the mire of financial trouble in which they
found themselves by reason of the great reef fall. From that time to the
present, the Kimberley mine has been, comparatively speaking, relieved
of its troubles. Shares in the various companies have risen, dividends
have and are being paid regularly, and to human ken it would appear that
the future of this mine, with still further improved working, which the
exigencies of circumstances will suggest, is one of hope virtually
assured.

The De Beer’s mine, the greater portion of which is now in the hands of
a powerful company, with a capital of considerably over a million
sterling, is fast coming to the fore. Large dividends have been paid,
and tests made as to the future output. At a depth of 750 feet “blue”
ground continues to be found in the shaft sunk for the purpose. Here
also “underground” workings are going on apace with every probability of
yielding for years to come handsome returns to investors.

In the Du Toit’s Pan and Bulfontein mines, companies which a short few
years ago were non-dividend paying are forging to the front and their
shares quietly approaching “par.” In the Du Toit’s Pan mine a test shaft
of 450 feet below the open workings has been sunk, which proves that the
dreaded reef is not increasing, and that the future is in a measure
guaranteed.

The native labor of the diamond fields is drawn from an enormous extent
of country, and includes nearly twenty different tribes, such as Zulus,
Swazies, Basutos, Shangaans, Amatongas, Bechuanas, Metabélés, Mashonas,
Makalolos, Korannas, Griquas, Fingoes, Pondos, Pondomise, Hottentots,
etc. These number at the present time about 15,000, while the white
employés can be estimated at about 3,000.[35]

Although no census has been taken it is estimated that the population
consists of some 20,000 Kafirs, Malays, Indians, Arabs, Chinamen and
other colored races, and about 6,000 whites, Colonials, English, French,
German and Italians.

The number of steam engines at work in and around the four mines is
computed at 350 with a nominal horse power of 5,000. Tramways of nearly
200 miles in the aggregate extent are in use, the trucks upon which are
drawn by fully 3,000 horses and mules. To quote from the “Cape Official
Handbook,” published in 1886, the annual expenditure in labor, material,
etc., is not less than £2,000,000 sterling, distributed somewhat as
follows:

Wages, salaries, etc. £1,000,000
Fuel and water 250,000
Mining material and stores 250,000
Explosives 100,000
Forage and stable expenses 125,000
Rates, taxes, general expenses 275,000
——————————
£2,000,000

It will be remembered that the item of fuel is a most important one.
Before the completion of the railway in 1885 and the consequent
availability of coal at comparatively moderate rates, firewood for
engine and household purposes was so greatly in demand that for a
wagon-load weighing from 8,000 to 10,000 pounds as much as £45 was
frequently paid, and a proportionate amount for smaller loads. Coal
having now entered into competition by reason of cheaper transport the
price of fuel has been greatly reduced, as may be readily imagined.

Through the wholesale consumption of growing timber, to which I have
alluded, the country around has been denuded of wood, and the natural
result of de-arborization has followed in continual droughts of frequent
occurrence, nor has any effort been made so far to plant a new growth.
This is greatly to be deplored; at the present moment fuel is brought by
ox-wagons as far as 200 miles to the Kimberley market, which means some
thirty-five days’ journey for the incoming and outgoing trips.

Water, too, is a most vital question on the fields. When the early
diggers first came, as much as a shilling a bucket was given for that
necessity, which had to be brought into the camp from springs four miles
away. It soon became evident, however, that nature had stored an
abundant reservoir. Wells were sunk, and a supply insured, which more or
less sufficed many years afterward for all the purposes of manipulating
the diamondiferous ground, as well as for household purposes. By the
foresight of a respected citizen, Mr. Thomas Lynch, a scheme was started
five years ago, which I successfully guided through the legislative
council of Griqualand West, and which culminated in the floating of the
Kimberley Waterworks Co., Limited. This company now brings in the water
from the Vaal River, twenty miles away, and supplies not only most of
the mining companies but also the private residences of Kimberley and
the surrounding neighborhood. This company has had practically a
monopoly, and the management of its affairs has been most judicious, but
an opposition is now on foot for the separate supply of water to Du
Toit’s Pan, Beaconsfield, and Bulfontein.

From the above particulars, which I have endeavored as far as possible
to condense, my readers will, I trust, be able to form a tolerably
adequate idea of the manner in which the mines of Griqualand West are
worked.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIII.
I. D. B.
POPULATION OF THE DIAMOND FIELDS.—KAFIR EATING-HOUSES AS DECOY
PLACES.—RUMORS OF TRIBUTE IN DIAMONDS BY NATIVES TO THEIR
CHIEFS.—INGENUITY OF NATIVE THIEVES.—CELEBRATED CASE, QUEEN _VS._
VOGEL.—“HAPPY CHILD OF HAM.”—GRADES THROUGH WHICH A STOLEN DIAMOND
PASSES.—SPURIOUS NOTES AND GLASS DIAMONDS.—CASE BEFORE MR. JUSTICE DWYER
AT BEAUFORT WEST.—HIGH HANDED CONDUCT OF DETECTIVE DEPARTMENT.—TWO
BISHOPS AND A SENATOR SEARCHED.—FREETOWN AND OLIPHANSFONTEIN.—A
STARTLING EXPOSURE.—TRIAL OF NOTORIOUS HIGHWAYMEN.—SOCIAL GRADES OF I.
D. B.’S, OR ILLICIT DIAMOND BUYERS.

The diamond, from its value, its portability, and the ease with which it
can be secreted, has offered in India, Brazil and the Cape, at all
times, a great temptation to dishonesty to those engaged in winning it
from the soil.

Whether we refer to the works of the English traveler, William Methold,
who visited the mines near Golconda in 1622, (where there were 30,000
laborers then at work) and mentions that it was impossible to prevent
the abstraction of diamonds; those of Tavernier, the French traveler,
who visited the Indian mines in 1766; Mawes’ description of the
Brazilian diggings in the same century, where, in spite of the strict
watch maintained over the slaves employed, they managed to steal half of
the diamonds produced, or we study contemporary literature with regard
to the mines of Griqualand West, we find that although most severe
punishments have always been inflicted with a view to stamp out theft,
they have never hitherto been completely successful.

With this subject, however, I shall deal in a future chapter; in this I
intend to treat of the rise and progress of the I. D. B. (illicit
diamond buying) trade, and describe the various devices adopted by the
black thieves and white receivers.

On the Vaal River diggings there was very little thieving. The
semi-patriarchal state of society existing there was not conducive to
such a crime, and moreover the natives had not yet acquired a knowledge
of the value of diamonds or “klips”[36] as they were then termed. Each
digger had brought from the Cape Colony, Natal, the Free State, or
Transvaal, his own servants, hired for a stated time; he lived in their
midst, gave them both food and physic with his own hands, temptation
they were delivered from, as they dared not roam about, and they
generally remained honest and faithful.

This state of things, however, did not last long, as dishonest white men
and cute natives soon put the unsophisticated savage in the way they
wished him to go; but it was not until a large population had gathered
round the dry diggings, composed of the Du Toit’s Pan, Bulfontein, Old
De Beers and the New Rush, or Kimberley mines, in 1870 and 1871, that
diggers began to be alive to the enormous losses they were sustaining
through the robberies of their native servants. At this time the white
population might roundly be estimated at from 20,000 to 25,000, and the
natives and colored people at from 40,000 to 50,000 souls, or to be
within the mark say 60,000 altogether.

Now it could not be expected that this motley crew, gathered from all
the four quarters of the globe, would be without some black sheep among
them. This quickly became alarmingly apparent, for although the early
diggers, attracted by the chance of sudden fortune, were mostly old,
respectable colonists, Boers owning farms, and men who had lived in
South Africa many years, yet very soon “camp followers,” as debased as
any who ever hung on the rear of an army, began to arrive, drawn from
the purlieus of European cities; London sending from Whitechapel and
Petticoat Lane her quota of fried-fish dealers, old clo’ men, quondam
fruit merchants, and “vill you buy a vatch” gentry, who speedily brought
their home experience into profitable use.

The South African native, especially the Zulu, is, as a rule, naturally
honest. The fact irresistibly forces upon us the conclusion, however
reluctantly we may accept it, that the natives were first taught to
thieve by white receivers of stolen goods.

In those days the Basutos, the Shangaans, the natives from the
neighborhood of the Zambesi and the Limpopo, left their kraals and their
happy hunting grounds in the far interior (allured by the glorious
reports of the money which they could earn) to trudge hundreds of miles
on foot for work in the mines, imbued with but one object, the height of
their ambition, which was to become the proud possessor of a rifle or
other gun.

The quicker this could be effected the sooner they could return to their
homes; consequently the unscrupulous white man found apt scholars enough
to his hand in these poor blacks, who rapidly learned to steal all the
diamonds on which they could lay their fingers.

Then again, as another inducement to thieving, the raw native was
enticed to the canteen to spend his money, and although at this time a
strict law existed which prohibited any native being served with liquor
without an order from his master, the keepers of low grog-shops evaded
the law by keeping on hand a stock of false orders to suit any
emergency, whilst the villainous compounds[37] they retailed lit up a
fire which could be kept blazing by dishonesty only.

At that time also (and even now, though in fewer numbers) eating-houses
were kept by white men specially for natives. Among such of course were
honest men who stuck to their legitimate business, but the greater
number were suspected, and in the majority of cases rightly, of keeping
such houses simply to facilitate and conceal their illicit transactions,
supplying free food merely to induce natives to bring them diamonds.

The business done in eating-houses of this description was reduced to a
system. A native of one or the other tribes, whether a Shangaan, a
Basuto, a Zulu, or a Ballapin, was kept in the pay of the proprietors,
according to the _habitués_ of their houses. These various touts would
remain most of the day, especially at meal times, sitting at the
different tables prepared for native customers eating or pretending to
eat with them. These men were chosen for their shrewdness, and any
strange native coming in for a meal would immediately be accosted in a
friendly manner by an astute rascal of his own nationality. Where did he
come from? what was he doing? who was his master? in what claim was he
working? what diamonds was he finding? were questions the answers to
which were soon wormed out of him.

If the native had any diamonds for sale he was at once introduced to the
private room of the master, which was at the back. If the replies to the
various questions put to him were not considered satisfactory, or if he
were suspected of being a “trap,” the “tip” was very soon given. The
tout would rap on his plate and call out for “inyama futi” (more meat)
which was the signal generally agreed upon, when the suspected native
would be summarily ejected. Sometimes the native (although offering a
diamond for sale) would not give the name of his master, which was
enough in itself to excite suspicion of his being a “trap.”

“Woolsack,” a clever native detective in the employ of a Mr. Fox, who
was at the time the head of the diamond detectives, was several times
caught in such attempts to “trap.” I remember on one occasion seeing him
professionally after he had been beaten and tortured by one of these
Kafir eating-house keepers until he revealed his master’s name. “Baas
Fox.” having at last been wrung out of him, and the fact of his being a
“trap” found out, he was, after being barbarously treated, tauntingly
told to go and show his marks to his master.

His brutal assailant, though all the time inwardly chuckling over his
narrow escape, was loud in his public expressions of satisfaction that
he had caught and thrashed a nigger who had had, as he said, “the
imperence to fancy that a respectable man like him would buy a
‘goniva.’”[38] The detectives, though well aware of everything, but not
willing to expose their hand, had to look on, grin and leave unavenged
this assault on their native servant. If brought into court, they knew
too well it would merely be a case of white evidence _versus_ black. The
injuries shown would simply be the marks of condign punishment meted out
to a native for imputed and apparent thieving, inflicted under a natural
outburst of indignant honesty incapable of restraint. The magistrate, in
the meantime, let him think what he might, would on the evidence have to
discharge the prisoner, or at most inflict but a nominal punishment.

It has been stated, I may add, that certain chiefs required their
subjects on their return home to bring them a tribute in diamonds. This
I do not believe ever occurred to any great extent, if at all, as in
1872 a party of diggers to test this rumor, taking the law into their
own hands, made a tour through a large portion of the Transvaal and Free
State, overhauling thousands of natives homeward bound, without finding
a single diamond on any one of them, although on one party numbering
some 200 they found 197 guns, £3,000 in gold, and nearly two tons of
gunpowder. In contradiction to this, however, the late Sir Bartle Frere
told a deputation of the Kimberley Mining Board, which waited upon him
during his visit to the Fields in 1880, that in coming down through the
Transvaal several traders and other trustworthy people on whom he could
rely had informed him that most of the chiefs, and in fact all the great
ones, had stores of beautiful diamonds, which had been brought to them,
a few at a time, by their young men on their return home from work at
the Fields.

The native laborer at the present time through contaminating influences
has become an adept, and will steal with an adroitness which almost
defies detection.

In the Brazilian mines every precaution is taken to prevent thieving,
but without entire success. A slave on finding a diamond is compelled at
the moment of its discovery to notify the fact by holding it up between
his finger and thumb. No slave is allowed to remain for any length of
time at any one part of the long trough in which the soil is washed for
fear he should plant a diamond for subsequent removal. In addition, all
are narrowly searched, but in spite of this care the slaves hide
diamonds in the sores on their bodies, which they produce by cutting
nicks in their skins for this purpose, and ofttimes also swallow them,
though when a negro is suspected of doing so the administration of
strong purgatives, confinement in a bare room and severe punishment
invariably follow.

Our free nigger is not a whit behind his South American cousin; he uses
his nose, mouth, stomach, ears, toes and hair to conceal the diamonds
that he steals, and at nightfall walks home from the mine or from the
sorting table singing with an air of _abandon_ which would “deceive the
very elect,” the diamond being all the while secreted on his person.
This, previous to the passing of the last Act, he could do with
impunity, for the searching of servants, although it had been for years
permissible to masters, _vide_ Government Notice No. 14, 1872, was not
as it is now conducted by a government staff. This was especially the
case when native labor was scarce, for then any individual master was
afraid to make an exception which could give offense, and which might
deprive him at once of the whole of his laborers.

Again, if in working on the depositing floors, where the blue ground
which contains the diamonds is exposed to the action of the atmosphere,
a diamond should happen to be turned up which could be seen at a glance
was too large or which there was no opportunity to secrete, the wily
savage would cover it up quite nonchalantly, but at the same time would
arrange the lumps of “blue” around in such a way that when night came
and he returned, he could easily find the spot and secure the precious
stone for himself.

Sometimes in the mines when they were worked deep another dodge would be
resorted to. Suddenly, at a given signal, the whole of a gang working in
one of the claims would yell out, and jump as if the reef surrounding
them were falling. The overseer in charge would instinctively look up,
while the boy who had given the false alarm would coolly stoop down and
pocket some large diamond which he had just unearthed. Many a beautiful
diamond, too, has frequently been recovered from a native’s pipe, which
was diligently being puffed with all the air of innocence, and I have
even heard of goats, feeding near the floors set apart for the
depositing of “blue stuff,” being turned into accessories (after the
fact!), the hair of these animals affording a hiding place for stolen
diamonds which were thus carried into the “veldt” beyond, and refound by
the thief (his day’s work being over) without any danger whatever of
searching or detective interference.

The receiver, however, is worse than the thief. The devices by which the
white scoundrel saves his skin are quite as curious a study as those
resorted to by the original thief.

This trade gradually resolved itself into a fine art as the law against
it became more penal.

Before the company mania commenced at the end of 1880, and when the
mines were worked by individual diggers, many unprincipled persons, both
black and white, used their digging operations and the fact of their
possessing claims as cloaks to account for the possession of diamonds
which they otherwise obtained by illicit dealing.

About 1876 a _cause celébre_ brought this prominently before the public.

At that time claims in Bulfontein and Du Toit’s Pan cost little money in
comparison with claims in the Kimberley mine, and a great many were
owned by natives and colored people. This case, which attracted great
public attention, was that of John Vogel, a colored man, tried on April
22d, 1876, before his Honor, Mr. Recorder Barry, and a jury. This man
was charged with contravening section 17 of ordinance 27 of 1874: “The
said John Vogel being then a registered claim-holder, and the said
diamond (79¾ carats weight) not being found in ground worked by him,
although sold by him in his name as a claim-holder.”

According to evidence brought forward it was proved that Vogel received
£20 only from the white man who bought the diamond, whilst another Kafir
who accompanied him received £305 in payment for the stone, Vogel
evidently lending his. name as a registered claim-holder for the sum of
£20. Vogel was proved to have been largely engaged in this “trade,” and
on several occasions to have sold to the same buyer.

He was found guilty and sentenced to three years’ hard labor. After
sentencing the prisoner, the recorder then called for the white diamond
buyer, a well-known merchant, and said: “Your own register shows that
you have been in the habit of buying from this man, by which you have
encouraged him in his acts, while at the same time you have kept no
books sufficient to prevent me from saying that your conduct is above
suspicion.”

It will be seen that even at this time opportunities were taken to evade
the law with every show of legality.

Some again would lease their claims to “swell niggers” (both white and
black having an equal government right to obtain digging licenses and
possess claims) with an understanding that they, the claim-holders,
should receive a percentage of the finds, at the same time well knowing
that the percentage would be a large one, most of the diamonds in fact
thus obtained being stones illegally bought from natives with money
these dishonest claim-holders would advance, nominally for honest
enterprise, but virtually for illicit purposes.

Others would give an extravagant reward to their native servants for
each diamond they brought as a reputed find while working, which was of
course merely another mode of buying from natives without fear of
detection.

In late years it has become a very general practice even among
respectable diggers and companies to give a percentage to native
servants on the value of any diamond which they may bring.

One company at Du Toit’s Pan in particular by this means increased their
returns to such an extent that they found it paid them to promise each
“Happy child of Ham” twenty-five per cent. commission on whatever gem he
might unearth. This was brought to general notice by a well-known writer
in the local press in the following verses, which were much quoted at
the time:

I would not be a digger; No,
Nor yet an I. D. B.
In digging oft your moneys go,
The other’s felony.
But then, upon the other hand,
I should be quite content
If I only was a nigger, and
Got 25 per cent.

I’d not be a shareholder, or
Hold Atlas’s or Frere’s;
I am not even pining for
The scrip of great Be Beer’s.
In Kimberley the debts expand,
The loan, it isn’t lent;
So I’d rather be a nigger, and
Get 25 per cent.

I would not be a Chairman, or
Director of a Board,
For then I could not buy nice pipes,
Nor good Cape Smoke afford;
I might get nasty writs perhaps
When all my coin was spent;
I’d rather be a nigger, and
Get 25 per cent.

I wouldn’t be a Searcher, and
I wouldn’t be the Chief;
I wouldn’t hold the contract for
Removal of the reef;
I wouldn’t be Izdebski,[39] and
I wouldn’t crimes prevent;
I’d rather be a nigger, and
Get 25 per cent.

I wouldn’t be a Secretary
nor a Manager,
To be a toiling Overseer
I’d very much demur;
I wouldn’t build a crusher,
Nor such paltry things invent;
I’d rather be a nigger, and
Get 25 per cent.

I wouldn’t be proprietor
Of far-famed Kamfer’s Dam.[40]
Nor even Chairman of the French,
For all’s not real jam,
I’d scarcely purchase Centrals,
But I never should repent
If I only was a nigger, and
Got 25 per cent.

* * * * *

[No, ladies and gentlemen, many and many a time my mother has said:
“’Arry, my angel-hearted boy, don’t let nothing never persuade you to
be a Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, or a digger, or an England’s
Only General, or a writer of novelettes in the “Independent,” or a
Duke or a Marquis, or an Admiral of the Blue, or a Grand Old Man, or a
President of the United States of America. Don’t you ruin yourself by
being a Mayor or a Banker, or throw away your chances by marrying a
Baroness Burdett-Coutts—or purchasing a 900 carat diamond found by an
unknown Dutch farmer on an unknown Dutch farm when there is no secrecy
about the matter from beginning to end.” “No, my beaming boy,” said
the old lady, bless her heart! “You be a Christy Minstrel, and go work
in the claims for your wages and 25 per cent.” I took the old lady’s
advice, and—all together, if you please, gentlemen]

“I would not be an Hemperor,
I would not be a King,
I would not be a Hadmiral
Or hany sich a thing;
I wouldn’t be in Lowe’s Police
And live inside a tent;
I’d rather be a nigger, and
Get 25 per cent.”

To resume, when the company mania set in, the number of individual
diggers gradually decreased. Further restrictions were also placed upon
those remaining, as well as upon the managers and lessees of companies,
by the passing of a new law in 1882, which law is at present in force.

By this act the digger or lessee is compelled to make a monthly return
of all his finds, in which any discrepancy is detected at once by
comparing it with a return (also required) from the various licensed
buyers of their monthly purchases; and an excessive return of diamonds,
or a succession of astounding washings up from notoriously poor or
insufficiently worked ground, at once serves to arouse suspicion, and
has already in several instances led to a conviction, especially as the
private and moral character of each digger or lessee is more or less
known to the detective department.

Some white men run the risk of buying direct from natives, and to those
knowing Zulu, which is the language of which all natives gain a
smattering, the conversation becomes highly amusing. The word diamond is
never mentioned; for instance, an illicit will accost a native with the
question: “Ipi inkonyama?” (where is the calf?) The native replies if he
has no diamonds: “Inkonyama yalukile no mina” (the calf has strayed with
its mother), or the white man asks: “Tzinyamazana zi kona na?” (are
there any bucks?) and the native, having some diamonds secreted about
him, replies: “Zi kona” (there are some). In this manner the secret of
their being engaged in illicit traffic is kept from all but the
initiated.

These various phases of the crime, and others that I shall describe,
have been for years brought to the notice of the public by the local
press. The Diamond Fields _Advertiser_, in a leading article once
stated: “There is something terribly revolting about the extent of crime
arising out of the I. D. B. calling in all its ramifications. Inducing
servants to steal, murder, perjury, receiving stolen goods, white women
prostituting themselves to Kafirs for payment in diamonds, little boys
employed by mining companies taught to steal and supplied with false
pockets in which to conceal the gems, bribes attempted on officers of
law, and a thousand other crimes are practiced and gloried in by gangs
of ruffians, whom the law seldom reaches.”

But it must not be supposed that many white men were or are foolish
enough to buy direct from the raw native; unless the illicit buyer has
“planted” his own gang of natives, or in other words educated thieves,
on some company to bring him all the diamonds they can steal, he is very
wary. One very curious case in point came to light in 1876, when the
detective officers, searching among the “goods and chattels” of a man
convicted for I. D. B., found, from memorandums in his possession, that
he had no less than sixty natives “planted” on different claim-holders,
whose sole object was to rob and bring the diamonds to their real
master, who had engaged them for that purpose.

A diamond passed, in most instances, through four hands before it
reached a legal holder.

1st. The raw Kafir—the thief.

2d. The swell native, or tout of

3d. The low white man, generally agent of

4th. A licensed diamond buyer.

On analyzing this series, it will be seen that the raw native, who is
generally the worker in the mine or on the depositing floor, has only to
evade the attention of the overseer to enable him to swallow or secrete
about his person any diamond he may chance to expose. The lynx-eyed
observation of his “brothers” is to him of no moment, for they are, as a
rule, so true to each other that they never inform—brothers both in
color and in crime. His work done, on returning home to his evening meal
our subject’s real fun and excitement begin, in other words, the second
scene of the illicit play now commences. His swell “brother” arrives,
transmutes his ill-gotten diamonds into gold, leaving him to carouse far
into the night and then “dream the happy hours away,” until the morning
gives him again fresh opportunities for thieving.

Our low white man, in the meantime, with perfect confidence and
security, is awaiting his native tout, “building castles in the air” on
the possible profit of the night’s venture.

Now for the sequel, the last act of the drama. This man has an intimate
friend, a licensed diamond buyer, a more cold-blooded but less plucky
rascal than himself, whose honesty (!) and respectability (!) can be
gauged by the fact that he buys next morning in his office, without any
haggling and without even demanding the necessary permit, a collection
of stones which he introduces in ordinary course to the trade as a
“digger’s mixed parcel.” Sometimes, however, the raw native,
unfortunately for himself, sells a diamond directly to the low white
man, who (if the native be not a regular _customer_) takes advantage of
his ignorance and pays him in frequent instances partly in good and
partly in base coin. In this way spurious bank notes, of which the
accompanying engraving is a _fac-simile_, and gilt medals in imitation
of sovereigns with the inscription “Gone to Hanover,” are palmed off,
and get into circulation. Again, some very _honest_ licensed buyers
would advance money to others lower in the social scale, but also
licensed, who would run the risk of purchasing diamonds for them from
any one, whether legally qualified to sell or not. Of course if any of
these were trapped and the stone traced, the monied men could never be
punished, as all their transactions, having been with licensed men, were
perfectly legal. I may mention _en passant_ that a great trade was done
in gold at this time; certain well-known men, afterward company
promoters and directors, trading in and selling on a Saturday night all
the gold coins they could gather together during the week, at a premium
of three or four per cent., to a class of men who could have no other
but an illegal object in view. Such ramifications had this trade!

[Illustration]

This is the game as it used to be played; now with the new law there is
more difficulty, and the process is somewhat altered.

This law, passed in 1882, is more stringent than any of its
predecessors. Its main feature is that the onus of proof of the legal
possession of diamonds is thrown upon the individual in whose custody
they may be found, and any person within the confines of Griqualand West
may anywhere, at any time, be searched by the detective department, and
if diamonds are found on his or her person must give an account of their
legal ownership or be liable to fifteen years’ imprisonment, with hard
labor. The detective department at the time when this law came into
force received information which led it to the arrest of a most
notorious illicit diamond buyer, who both in Kimberley and at
Jagersfontein[41] (a celebrated mine in the Free State) had suffered for
this crime. Acting on their information, the officers thought that, on
searching this man, they would make a grand haul, when much to their
disgust instead of finding diamonds galore they found simply pieces of
glass most skillfully prepared in exact imitation of real stones, when
of course their prize was lost, and the man, to their chagrin, had to be
liberated.

These sham diamonds at first were brought out from Europe in all sizes,
shapes and colors, but at the present time this internecine illicit
trade, or fight among diamond thieves themselves, is waged to such an
extent that the detective department know of at least four individuals
on the Fields who are engaged in the manufacture of these spurious
stones.

Fluoric acid is employed, so I am told, to partially dissolve the glass
of which these are made into the shape required. As a matter of course
the sale of these sham stones when effected in Griqualand West is hushed
up.

The man taken in by purchasing a spurious diamond of this kind fondly
imagines at the time that he is buying a real although stolen diamond
under its value. He knows, if he be a licensed buyer, that he is
contravening the law in buying of an unlicensed seller, and
consequently, on finding out the deception which has been practiced upon
him, dare not give the seller into custody for obtaining money under
false pretences. He is well aware such a proceeding would merely reveal
to the public his illicit connection; again, if an unlicensed diamond
buyer, he naturally desires to keep the whole affair a secret.

It was not so, however, in the Cape Colony proper, Natal, Transvaal or
the Free State, where the operation of the act was not in force prior to
recent enactments, and the remark still applies to Natal and the
Transvaal, where any one, morality being out of the question, can buy or
sell a diamond legally. I use “legally” in the sense that the law cannot
touch him. Of course buying goods well knowing them to be stolen is a
crime in every civilized community, but in this particular instance,
without the special enactments of the Cape Colony and Free State, one
almost impossible to bring home to the criminal.

A curious case was tried in Beaufort West in 1884, which ended in the
acquittal of the accused, a man well versed, not only in the mysteries
of the I. D. B. trade, but also in the punishment attendant upon its
detection. This man offered a certain Jew residing there one of these
spurious diamonds for sale. This Jew would not purchase on his own
judgment, but asked a friend to value the stone for him, which after
buying on his advice for £280 he found out was merely a piece of glass
not worth a farthing. Not living, however, in Griqualand West, where an
unlicensed purchase would have been a crime, which might have consigned
him to the Capetown Breakwater for fifteen years, but in the Cape
Colony, where no restriction was then in force, he called in the
assistance of the law, charged the man with obtaining money under false
pretences, and the case came ultimately before Judge Dwyer at the
circuit court held in that town.

The sale by the prisoner was of course duly proved. Judge Dwyer,
however, directed the jury that as the purchaser had been guided in his
opinion by his friend, it was a question for them to decide whether he
had been misled or not by the statement of the accused. The jury, as I
said before, acquitted the prisoner.

It is certainly a curious phase in this glass, or in thieves Latin
“snyde diamond,” question, or, as I term it, in this internecine
struggle for unlawful gain, that in this province neither the
manufacturer nor the possessor of these spurious articles can be brought
to justice. It is simply with them a game of “heads I win, tails you
lose.”

The arts and sciences were also called into play to forward the ends of
this nefarious trade.

The science of chemistry was even as far back as 1872 requisitioned by
both legal and illegal sellers of diamonds. It had been discovered that
the boiling of yellow stones in nitric acid would give them a frosted
white appearance, and by this means increase their apparent value by
twenty to forty shillings a carat, according to the size of the diamond
operated upon.

Many very knowing ones were taken in by this at the time, _the_ diamond
buyer of the day, one Moritz Unger, even falling a victim to the
deception. During the past thirteen years this imposition has been
spasmodically revived, although at the time (1872) it was thought that
the exposure would once and forever warn the diamond burner that his
“little game was up.”

Although no community can hope to succeed whose prosperity depends upon
unlawful enterprise, yet it is a fact that this new law, although it has
failed to diminish diamond stealing one iota, has yet driven away the
very men who formerly used to extravagantly patronize the retail stores,
hotels, and theatres of the place, whilst Capetown and Port Elizabeth
until quite recently (session of 1885) reaped the profits of this
disgraceful and debasing trade.

Immediately on the promulgation of this law (48, 1882) the detective
department was stimulated to fresh energy, which was shown by rash and
indiscreet action. For a month or two the passenger coaches leaving for
Port Elizabeth and Capetown were searched at Alexandersfontein, a noted
hostelry about five miles distant from Kimberley, and the luggage of the
passengers overhauled. On one occasion this indignity was thrust upon
the Bishop of the Free State, the Bishop of the Transvaal and the Hon.
A. Stead, who were all traveling by the same coach to Capetown. I
believe I am correct in stating that only on one occasion was any arrest
ever made. This outburst of detective enthusiasm, however, soon
exhausted itself, and passengers now leave Kimberley as heretofore,
without let or hindrance, either by coach or rail. At this time, the
passage to the Colony being dangerous, and the outlet through the Free
State being considered insecure, the illicit trade was removed to
Christiana, in the Transvaal, and diamonds run in that direction were
shipped through Natal.

When the judges in the Free State, however, gave a decided opinion that
their law extended only to acknowledged diggings, and trapping was
abolished by the Volksraad in that country, the trade was again brought
to our very door, just as suddenly to recede when the Free State passed,
in the last session of their Volksraad, a diamond law containing the
_onus probandi_ clause.

A new village called Free Town sprang up on the boundary, a mile or two
distant from Du Toit’s Pan, inhabited chiefly by men whose acquaintance
with the diamond law of Griqualand West had been of too intimate a
character, while both there and at Oliphansfontein, another Free State
village close by Griqualand West, diamonds were openly bought and sold.
One or two Dutch homesteads in the neighborhood over the border, within
easy reach of our mines, were rented by gangs of Griqualand West
illicits in order to ply their trade with ease and impunity.

The detective department was again seized with another fit of zeal, and
many mounted men patroled the roads to these villages, searching all
comers and goers, whether male or female, whom they suspected of
connection with this traffic. In spite of this diamonds were “run the
blockade” in large quantities. The I. D. B. fraternity were not lacking
in devices. The book post conveyed many a parcel. A large hole was cut
in the pages of some novel or ready reckoner and the space filled with
diamonds carefully packed. The parcel being properly wrapped and posted
attracted no attention from the postal authorities.

Kafirs were employed as runners at night, in the day white horsemen
nicknamed “troopers,” were paid to face the risks, the diamonds they
carried being wrapped in lead so that they could be dropped in the grass
if danger loomed in the distance and then recovered again at leisure.
Others of this ilk again having swallowed the precious stones ran the
gauntlet safely, in open defiance of the detectives, with the diamonds
in their stomachs. Horses were fed with balls of meal containing
diamonds, driven across the border before the very eyes of the
detectives, where, in course of nature, the diamonds were restored to
the hands of their keepers. Dogs, too, were starved until they bolted
lumps of meat in which diamonds were imbedded. The value of these poor
brutes not being great enough to save their lives their stomachs were
soon ripped open on their arrival at Free Town, over the border. The
tails of oxen and wings of fowls were often utilized, passing the border
unsuspected and unexamined, while carrier pigeons instead of carrying
valuable information were used to transport valuable diamonds to Free
Town, in the Orange Free State, and Christiana, in the Transvaal.

Astonishing ingenuity in trying to run illicit diamonds out of the
territory was displayed by some. One man named Phillips, an instance in
point, was found guilty by the special court of illegal possession. The
reports of the case supply the accompanying particulars.

Phillips showed great cleverness. He had the heels of his boots made
hollow and filled up with rough diamonds, sealing them down with wax.
The handles of his traveling trunk were also made to remove, empty
spaces behind being constructed for the same purpose. In fact the man
thought himself safe enough. The detective department, however,
suspecting him, and failing in all efforts to trap, engaged a man to
form a _pseudo_ friendship with him, or in other words, to play the part
of a Judas. To keep up the deception and disarm suspicion this secret
agent was rushed and searched by a well-known detective, thus creating
an apparent reason for a fellow feeling between the two. The result can
easily be guessed—Convict No. — for ten long years to come has now
seclusion and opportunity enough afforded him by the government to
ponder over the folly of confiding too much in his fellow creatures.
These boots were exhibited in the Capetown Industrial Exhibition of 1884
and excited much interest.

I have learned since, however, that similar devices were used in
Australia during the gold mania.

The dishonest licensed buyer at this time adopted another dodge. In
order to evade the law, show the detective department a correct monthly
return as regards weight of diamonds, and so avoid suspicion, he would
keep on hand a large stock of boart nominally accounted as diamonds, but
worth some three shillings to five shillings only per carat. Thus,
supposing he bought a large illicit stone, of course under its value, he
would throw away a corresponding weight of boart, which he could easily
afford to lose. By this means he was enabled to produce a correct
register to the authorities and have as well the proper weight of
diamonds on hand supposing the detective department at any moment
demanded a search.

But toward the end of 1884 and the beginning of 1885 the so-called
“legal” traffic at Free Town and Oliphansfontein, in the Free State, was
seriously interfered with.

A number of desperadoes formed themselves into a gang to attack and rob
the buyers in the Free State, the argument by which they justified
themselves being that it was nothing but fair play to rob men of
property which they had no right to possess, and thus mete out to such
characters, unofficial, but at the same time retributive justice. In
other words, they knew the diamonds which they might steal were simply
illegal purchases from thieves working for companies in Griqualand West
mines.

The head of this gang was an ex-police sergeant and detective named
Mays. He committed many highway robberies on the border, but diamonds
were his sole object, he despised money and other valuables as booty
beneath his notice.

These, he argued, would simply reduce him to the level of an ordinary
thief, which he prided himself he was not. The men he robbed were always
treated well, and generally had the opportunity given them of buying
back their diamonds at a cheap rate, which, knowing full well they
themselves were thieves, they generally did, not courting publicity.

This was not always the case. A celebrated trial at Boshof, in the Free
State, in March 1885, showed otherwise. One of these gentry who
“speculated” in that country, named Kemp, caring nothing for the
exposure of his nefarious trade, on being robbed near Oliphansfontein of
2,073 carats weight of diamonds, worth £4,000, which he was taking to
Capetown, gave such information to the Free State authorities as led to
the capture, trial, and conviction of the thieves, who proved to be
rival “speculators” in the same line of business. So far, Kemp missed
his object, which was more the recovery of his diamonds than the
punishment of the highwaymen. The revelations on the trial were simply
startling, implicating as they did supposed honorable men in Griqualand
West.

Chief Justice Reitz, on sentencing the culprits, who were all found
guilty, did so in plain words. Addressing each in turn, after asking
them whether they had anything to say, said in Dutch, of which the
following is a literal translation (to Scotty Smith): “It is a pity that
a man of your appearance should deal in stolen property. There is no
excuse for you; it is a gross crime. The boundary line is getting
dangerous for our people. It is quite an accident that Kemp was not
killed. I took you for a man who knew better. I will punish you
severely.”

To Leigh he said: “You are a sergeant in the police, you are a protector
of the public, and you come into another land to commit a robbery. You
come with a dished-up story; better you had not told such a thing. You,
a sergeant in the police, using a knobkerrie and revolver. You might, in
the strict letter of the law, be hanged; but now-a-days a more lenient
view is taken. You were stopped by an accident from being hauled up for
murder.”

To Herman: “You are a mean little scoundrel, acting in that way whilst a
fellow co-religionist was being robbed, and perhaps all but murdered;
such a little fellow you are. You get used for paltry, mean things, and
here you assist in a mean way in a serious crime.”

To Welford: “The evidence against you, I think, is conclusive, although
you have a right to say there is a conspiracy against you; those can
believe you who like. I believe you are the man who started the whole
thing. I would not wonder if you first originated the matter. You see
the result of commencing by virtually doing a business of theft, because
you think the law here could not touch you. Such action leads me to be
more severe in your case. I think you are all sensible people; you knew
it all well; there is no plea of ignorance.”

The four prisoners were then sentenced to four years’ imprisonment each;
with Scotty Smith and Arthur Gerald Leigh twenty-five lashes in
addition.

So far as Kemp was concerned, the chief justice, adding injury to
insult, refused his application for the return of the diamonds, giving
as his reason that “Griqualand West was a civilized country with
competent courts, and if these were his diamonds he could go to
Kimberley, prove them to be his lawful property, and no doubt get them.”

Kemp, as Chief Justice Reitz advised him, in the following December
brought an action against the chief of the Griqualand West detective
department for the recovery of the diamonds, which resulted in a
judgment of “absolution from the instance” with costs, the diamonds
remaining in the care of the detective department. Judge President
Buchanan, in giving this decision, distinctly stated that he did not
believe Kemp, but allowed him another opportunity, if he chose, to prove
the diamonds were not stolen property.

Kemp then noted an appeal, which came before the appeal court in January
1886, at Capetown. The Premier, Mr. Upington, who appeared for the
detective department, said there was no proof that the diamonds were
Kemp’s. He was another’s servant—a noted Free State (!) diamond
buyer—had never been in possession of the diamonds, and was not entitled
to sue. Mr. Leonard, the attorney general under the former (Scanlan)
ministry, who appeared for Kemp, said he “would not ask the court to
believe, as was attempted in the court below, that a thief could recover
stolen property, but there was no proof that the diamonds in question
were stolen.” The court, in giving judgment, held that there was no
proof that the diamonds were Kemp’s property and dismissed the appeal,
and the diamonds were forfeited to the Crown.

This decision was hailed with delight by the mining community, as it
tended to overthrow a clique of _pseudo_-legal and illegal buyers, who
had long worked in concert; therefore, at the present time, the
Transvaal and Natal are the only territories where transactions in
stolen diamonds are capable of not being criminally brought home to
those engaged in them.

This so far is a faithful account of the I. D. B. trade and its various
ramifications.

Sir Jacobus de Wet, when recorder of our high court, once solemnly
termed this trade the “canker-worm of the community.” The truth of his
words time has over and over again but too truly established, as this
canker-worm is gnawing away the very vitals of Diamond Field society.

To fully explain my meaning, men in some instances, I am sorry to say,
occupying a fair status in commerce, mining or society are introduced to
the new arrival; they have an ostensible business, and nothing in their
manner would betray, save to one endowed with all the concentrated
astuteness of Scotland Yard, that they were mixed up directly or
indirectly with the nefarious business. They are not incapable of
showing acts of kindness to the tyro on the Fields even without an
ulterior motive, and the new-comer does not find out the real character
of his kind acquaintances very often until he has been the recipient of
favors from them, when even if he would wish once for all to sever his
connection with them, custom and gratitude alike tend to prevent the
separation. Positive proof of their being implicated in the traffic,
from the very nature of the case, is not forthcoming, and so the young
man gives his friends the benefit of the doubt, continues the
acquaintance, and though he may not be actually drawn into absolute
crime or abnormal vice, is certain to prove a living example of the
truthful saying: “Evil communications corrupt good manners.”

Business relations too, like poverty, make us acquainted with strange
bed-fellows in this part of the world, and the well-paying client,
patient or customer is not readily rejected, or shown that his fees or
payments are unacceptable, without so deliberate an insult as most men
would shrink from offering, without stronger grounds than the suspicion
that they are not entirely clean-handed. Hence, before a man knows where
he is, he may have become the daily associate of unconvicted criminals.
Men who themselves would not risk any direct meddling with the traffic
are strongly tempted by offers of large percentages for the loan of
money, which they may shrewdly suspect, though they do not _know_, will
be devoted to the purposes of the illicit traffic: needless to say, such
persons are morally accessories before the fact. I have elsewhere
mentioned how those who in former days were themselves recipients of
stolen diamonds are in some instances now the loudest in condemning
their successors in the business, and this is brought forward as an
argument to prove that free trade in diamonds is justifiable, an obvious
and pitiable fallacy which I am only too sorry to say imposes upon many.
The disgrace attached to the jail-bird in other parts of the world,
however truly he may have repented of the wickedness that he had
committed, here amidst the great body of the population is rarely
imposed on the I. D. B. who has served his time, and men of
comparatively high standing feel no shame in hobnobbing with them in
public bars. While I would be the last man in the world to cast in a
man’s teeth the sins which he has expiated in prison, or to frustrate
him in his effort to earn an honest living, yet it is manifest that
there is an opposite extreme, and that to exalt a convicted felon into a
martyr, or even to make him a bosom companion, can scarcely be regarded
as a sign of high integrity.

There is no doubt the receivers of stolen diamonds have made the most
money out of the mines. There is no moral difference between the
Whitechapel old clo’ Jew who “runs the klips,” the Hebrew swell who
keeps his carriage at the West End, by purchasing diamonds at half their
value in Hatton Garden, the Christian who lends money for the purchase
of stolen goods, and who every Sunday thanks God he is not as other men
are, and the respectable (?) colonial merchant “buying on the quiet.”
They are all as much thieves as the veriest pickpocket of St. Giles’.
The moral condition of the diamond fields is such that, although a man
may be known to be habitually engaged in _the trade_, he is openly
received until the jail’s portals are some day suddenly thrown back at
the bidding of the special court to receive yet another victim, an
example of the old, old story.

In a succeeding chapter I shall give some individual cases illustrative
of my theory, in the next I shall deal with the treatment that this
increasing disease has demanded and received.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIV.
DIAMOND LEGISLATION.—RESUME OF SIR H. BARKLY’S PROCLAMATIONS.—EPITOME OF
THE ORDINANCES OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF GRIQUALAND WEST.—REVIEW OF
THE ACTS PASSED BY THE CAPE ASSEMBLY.—DESCRIPTION OF THE TRAPPING
SYSTEM.—ADOPTION OF THE “ONUS PROBANDI” CLAUSE BY THE ORANGE FREE
STATE.—THE SEARCHING DEPARTMENT.—THE COMPOUND SYSTEM.

When the diamond mines of Griqualand West, viz. Du Toit’s Pan,
Bulfontein, De Beer’s and Colesberg Kopje, (now the Kimberley mine), got
into full work, diamond diggers soon found out that they were being
robbed to an enormous extent. Unfortunately but too many white men were
to be found ready to receive the stolen diamonds from the thieves, who,
at all events in those days, were almost exclusively natives.[42] A
strange infatuation seems always to have possessed those engaged in the
pursuit of “the trade” as it is euphemistically termed, which even the
stringent penalty of a possible fifteen years’ hard labor, the
culmination of repeated legislation, does not seem to have sufficed to
overcome. The first attempt to put a stop to these robberies by
legislation was contained in a proclamation issued by Sir H. Barkly, on
May 30th, 1872, in which every unauthorized buyer or seller was made
liable to a fine not exceeding three times the value of the diamond or
diamonds so bought, and in default of payment to imprisonment with or
without hard labor for any period not exceeding two years.

Soon after, further precautionary measures were introduced, and the
traffic in diamonds between the hours of sunrise and sunset and on
Sundays was forbidden (_vide_ government notice No. 69, July 29th,
1872). On Aug. 10th of the same year, Sir Henry Barkly issued a further
proclamation, diamond stealing by natives and the purchase by
unprincipled white men having immensely increased, in fact having become
at this time even the curse of the Fields. By this proclamation, any
dealer in wines, spirits, or malt liquors was unable to hold a license
to trade in diamonds. This was amended on Sept. 17th, canteen-keepers
only being disqualified, and not wholesale dealers. There was a further
enactment that no person could be registered as the holder of a claim,
unless he produced a certificate from a magistrate or justice of the
peace certifying to his character; this, however, was always a mere
form, and was never refused. Provision was also made for the
registration of all servants, while power was given to any master,
without the assistance of a constable, or for any constable without a
warrant, to search the person, residence and property of any servant
within two hours of the time he left the claim or sorting table; but on
Sept. 17th this proviso was amended, and it was made lawful for a master
to search his servant at any time whatever. If diamonds were found upon
him, it was presumed that they were his master’s, and the punishment to
which the servant was liable was imprisonment with or without hard labor
for any period not exceeding twelve months, or to receive any number of
lashes not exceeding fifty, or to such imprisonment and such whipping.

At the time this proclamation was issued native labor was in great
demand on the fields, and consequently the power given to the master by
law was seldom if ever exercised, as he knew the almost certain result
would be the loss of all his servants. A change was made by this
proclamation of Aug. 10th, 1872, so far as unauthorized buyers were
concerned, their punishment upon conviction being fixed at a fine not
exceeding £100 sterling, or to imprisonment with or without hard labor
for any period not exceeding six months. The crime of inducing servants
to steal was punished more severely. Lashes not exceeding fifty were
provided for in the proclamation, and the imprisonment increased to a
period not exceeding twelve months, or to such imprisonment and such
whipping. Many white men received lashes under this clause, and amongst
others a German, who on coming out of prison, retired to his native
country with over £30,000!

The increasing desire for drink among natives was considered by the
authorities in those days one of the greatest causes of the development
of their thievish propensities, and the canteen keeper who bought a
diamond of a native, or took diamonds in payment or pledge for liquor,
in addition to the punishment already stated, forfeited his license and
became incompetent to hold one in the future. A further discretionary
power was given to the court by which any such person might be
convicted, of forfeiting his right to any claims and expelling him from
the territory; but the last proviso was laughed at by men who had
contravened this law, as no punishment for returning to the province had
ever been inserted by the framers. If stringent laws had been properly
drafted and enforced in the early days of the Fields, the abominable
illicit traffic might have been nipped in the bud.

A great deal of animosity toward the natives existed about this period.
Part of this feeling was originated, I think, from many white men not
possessed of claims being jealous of their black brethren digging at Du
Toit’s Pan and Bulfontein, while the facility for dealing in stolen
diamonds, afforded by their possessing a digger’s license, was also a
factor in the ill-will felt and expressed.

A great mass meeting was held in the Market Square, Kimberley, on
Friday, July 19th, 1872, to bring pressure to bear upon the three
commissioners who administered the government, and get them to take away
all claim licenses from black or colored men.

Two of these gentlemen, weakly desirous of popularity, gave way to the
general outcry and suspended all claim licenses to natives by a
proclamation issued on July 24th, which contained a reservation
certainly, (which may be taken for what it is worth) allowing the issue
of such licenses on production from the various digger committees of
certificates of character and fitness; but this was a prerogative they
were little likely to exercise owing to the strong feeling then
existing.

John Cyprian Thompson, to whom I allude elsewhere, the dissentient, a
good lawyer and a thorough Englishman, did not compromise himself by
joining in this most illiberal proclamation. The subsequent action of
Sir Henry Barkly tended to prove the correctness of Mr. Thompson’s
opinion, for as soon as the proclamation reached Capetown his excellency
canceled it by another of Aug. 10th, 1872. In this he stated that “as it
is inconsistent with justice that persons against whom no specific
charges have been brought should be deprived of their rights and
properties, I do hereby revoke, cancel, and make void the said
proclamation, and do declare that the same shall be of no force or
effect whatever, and that all licenses suspended under and by virtue
thereof shall be returned and the holders thereof placed, as far as
possible, in the same position as if the said proclamation had not been
issued.”

The question of granting licenses to natives, and other matters of the
same kind, then attracted little attention from government until some
time after Governor Southey’s arrival, when the due constitution of our
own legislative council having taken place, an ordinance was passed (No.
21 of 1874) dealing more strictly with licensed dealers and brokers.
Dealers’ licenses were increased, at the suggestion of certain of them
who thought by this means to monopolize the trade, to £50 and brokers’
to £25 per annum; dealers were obliged to buy in licensed offices, and
brokers could not get a license without a magistrate’s certificate,
proving that they were not under tutelage, and producing two sureties.
By another short Act (No. 31 of 1874) diamond dealers were compelled,
under a penalty of £50 or in default three months’ imprisonment, to
properly register and record all their purchases.

Again, while Sir J. D. Barry was acting administrator, another ordinance
was passed (No. 4 of 1877) repealing 21 and 31 of 1874, re-enacting the
main clauses but increasing the maximum punishment for a first offense
to a fine of £500 and three years’ imprisonment, and for a second to
£1,000 and seven years.

The most interesting point to observe in connection with the diamond
trade ordinances is the gradual increase in their stringency, obviously
the outcome of, and in direct ratio to, the growth of this illicit
traffic; to bear this out, in 1880, when Mr. Rose Innes was
administrator, the punishment of this crime was again increased to a
maximum of five years’ imprisonment and £500 fine for the first, and ten
years and £1,000 for the second offense, with six and twelve months in
addition respectively if the fines were not paid.

I was vice-president of the legislative council of Griqualand West when
this ordinance (No. 8 of 1880) was under discussion. At the time it
seemed monstrous to me (these cases being left to the discretion of a
single magistrate) that on the opinion of one man, without a jury, a
fellow creature, possibly innocent, might be consigned to prison for ten
long years. I spoke strongly on the matter, but it was argued that with
a jury, the illicit traffic having so many ramifications (as the Spanish
proverb has it, “by the parson’s skirts the devil gets into the
belfry”), it would be almost impossible to gain a conviction.

To meet this emergency I proposed a three-judge court (the same
principle that has since been adopted in Ireland with reference to the
“Crimes act”), which suggestion was supported by the government, and now
under the title of “The Special Court” criminals of this class appear
before a just and strictly impartial tribunal

In 1880 (previous to high court with three judges being constituted) a
special magistrate was appointed to act in conjunction with the
Kimberley and Du Toit’s Pan magistrates to form the special court, but
since our high court has been formed, and the Diamond Trade Act 48 of
1882 has become law, this office has been done away with, and one of the
three judges now sits in turn as president of the special court.

The act just mentioned (48 of 1882) when it passed the Cape parliament
might have been at once extended to the whole colony, but it was
enforced by the government in Griqualand West only, consequently any one
could buy or possess diamonds with impunity in the Cape Colony proper.
As again in the Free State, although an ordinance was passed in the same
year (No. 3 of 1882) of even greater severity, providing maximum
penalties for its contravention of £2,000 fine, twenty years’ hard
labor, 100 lashes, and last but not least the power to expel from the
State all moral lepers in the shape of persons convicted outside the
State in Griqualand West of I. D. B., their judges interpreted it not to
extend beyond six miles from proclaimed diamond diggings; therefore so
far as that State was concerned the free trade in diamonds was owing to
an omission in and not a permission by the law.

[Illustration:

FREE TOWN.[43]
]

The judges there seem to have been actuated by the sound legal principle
that penal laws should be strictly or rather restrictively construed.

Again in Natal and the Transvaal no law connected with diamonds existed
except one in the latter State, forbidding the purchase of diamonds or
gold without a special license, or from a native, under a penalty of
five years’ imprisonment, £1,000 fine and confiscation, an ordinance
practically null and void, for these might be purchased without question
from any white man on paying a duty of five per cent.; consequently the
main illicit trade was done outside the confines of Griqualand West,
where there was no danger of interference from the detectives when
diamonds once were safely transported across the border.

The Volksraad, in the Transvaal, I ought not to omit mentioning, also
passed a clause in their extradition laws against all offenders charged
with contravening our diamond act, which, however, they expunged on May
26th, 1886, out of pique, because the Cape colonial government would not
take off the tax on tobacco and produce; consequently Christiana, a town
situated close to the borders of Griqualand West, is again the seat of
much illicit trade.

Natal, however, like the Transvaal, wants some good “quid pro quo”
before it will assist the Cape in suppressing this infamous trade.
During the session of the legislative council 1885–86, when the
“Post-office law amendment bill” was under discussion, in which power
was asked to detain and open certain letters, great and unhappily
successful opposition was made by certain members, Mr. Binnes, a rising
legislator, terming the clause this “jesuitical clause,” and two other
members expressing surprise at the “mean, sneaking power” which the
government by a “sidewind” wished to gain. For a time at least,
therefore, Natal has converted herself into a “thieves’ highway.” Again
in the present session, 1886–87, a similar bill has been thrown out.
This conduct on the part of Natal politicians is attributed to some
ill-feeling with respect to custom dues, and was wholly unjustifiable,
so much so that the sister colony by thus protecting the leeches that
suck the life’s blood of our great industry, lays herself open to the
charge of wilfully becoming _particeps criminis_.

These causes led to the most palpable, systematic and barefaced
robberies, as may be readily imagined. So long as the Kafir thieves and
white fences could in half an hour drive from Kimberley to the Free
State, where no _onus probandi_ of legal possession lay with the holders
of diamonds, and whence a seaport could be reached without passing
through any part of Griqualand West, the trade continued to thrive. Now,
however, the injustice under which we were laboring is greatly
diminished, first by the Free State Volksraad passing a law during the
last session containing the much desired _onus probandi_ clause, and
second by our own parliament awakening to a sense of its duty and
passing an act applying restrictions over the whole colony.[44]

The principal points in the Diamond Trade Act of 1882 are: (1st) That it
shall not be lawful for any person to have in his possession any rough
or uncut diamond, without being able to legally account for it; (2d) the
punishment of those convicted under the act is increased to a maximum of
fifteen years, the governor having at the termination of five years the
power to remit the remainder of the sentence, on condition of the
prisoner leaving the territory, with the alternative that if he return
he can be rearrested and imprisoned for a term equal to the portion of
his sentence unexpired at the time of his release; (3d) that none but a
licensed person can export or import diamonds; (4th) that the chief of
the detective department or police can stop any package in the
post-office supposed to contain diamonds illegally, and warn the owner
to be present at the examination, when if any unregistered diamonds be
found, the owner is liable to the full penalty already mentioned; (5th)
that a person finding a diamond must deliver it to the government, but
to receive ten per cent. of the proceeds when the diamond is sold; (6th)
that power under warrant is granted to detective officers and policemen
to enter and search any suspected places, and in any highway, street, or
public place, to arrest and search any suspected person, the _onus
probandi_ of legal possession resting on the suspected party if any
diamonds be found; (7th) that diamond cutters must be licensed; (8th)
that special permits must be obtained for washing débris; (9th) that
every person is required by law to keep a register and to forward it
monthly for examination to the chief of the detective department; (10th)
that a special board be formed for protecting mining interests; (11th)
that an accessory either before or after any contravention of the act
can be charged and dealt with as a principal; (12th) and that a
registration fee of one-half per cent. be levied on all exported
diamonds.

These are the main additional clauses introduced into the law which is
now in force; the remaining are not so important and refer to minor
requirements, which have been reintroduced from repealed ordinances.

To go back a little, an ordinance was passed in July, 1880, when Mr.
Rose Innes was administrator, providing for the searching of natives and
others employed in the various mines. Owing to the want of unanimity
between the four mining boards, no action was taken under this act until
Feb. 1883, when the various mines were inclosed with wire fencing,
searching houses at different outlets built, and a staff of men engaged
to act as searchers.

These remained until February, 1884, under the detective department, the
expenditure falling upon the different mines, the half per cent.
registration fee on exported diamonds and the proceeds of those captured
defraying a portion. The searching officers when under the detective
department were excessive in number and extravagantly paid. The number
and expense was ridiculous, eighty (80) searchers were employed in the
four mines, and the expense was nearly two thousand pounds per month,
for which they were supposed to examine all persons, white or black,
leaving the mines, but this was done so hurriedly that the inspection
became a mere farce. In January, 1886, the chief of the detective
department reporting on this department gave it as his decided opinion
that it had no effect on the theft of diamonds, and advised its
discontinuance. Since this was written, however, great improvement in
this department has taken place under Major Maxwell.

I am able to give my readers some statistics comprising the searching
and detective expense of the four mines which are interesting, showing
the cost of the detective department for the first twenty-seven months
after the promulgation of the act, and that of the searching department
for twenty-two months after its inauguration:

September, 1882, to November, 1884.
1 Registration Fees £38,145 14s. 2d.
3 Detectives’ Salaries 24,906 19s. 6d.
2 Captured Diamonds (sold) 30,671 12s. 3d.
4 Cost of Trap Stones (net) 4,011 8s. 7d.
5 Bonuses to traps 2,130 9s. 0d.
March, 1883, to November, 1884.
1 Searching Department £39,578 14s. 6d.

I have good authority for stating that the value of the diamonds seized
in searching amounted to less than £200. It will, however, be argued
that “prevention is better than cure,” and that the searching was to
prevent the abstraction of diamonds from the mines. This, however, it
failed to do, it only altered the channel by which they passed from the
elevated to the underground railway, or in other words, from the pockets
of the Kafirs to their stomachs.[45] In February, 1885, the various
mining boards took the searching arrangements under their own
supervision, and retrenchment is now the order of the day.

When Act 48 of 1882 was before the Cape assembly, its provisions were
minutely discussed. Being at that time one of the members for Kimberley,
I had the opportunity of bringing my influence to bear. I did not oppose
exemplary penalties being enacted for this increasing crime, but I
decidedly objected, and in this I was supported by Mr. Saul Solomon, to
flogging being inflicted for what was not a crime against the person but
against property. I was so far successful that such brutal ideas were
expunged from the act. Mr. Scanlan (now Sir T. Scanlan), who was then
premier, kindly assisted me, though I was at the time in opposition, in
passing through the house the “ticket of leave” system, which I
introduced into the second clause. In getting this inserted, I acted on
the assurance of some diggers, and these, too, the most determined to
stamp out I. D. B., that the object of their wish for increased length
of punishment was not revenge for the loss that they had sustained (for
which motive they were credited by many), but a desire to rid the place,
for as long a period as possible, of men who were reducing Griqualand
West simply to a hot-bed of thieves.

I should not be giving my readers an idea of all the legal machinery
brought to bear in order to root out and bring to justice this class of
criminal if I were to omit a description of the trapping system as now
in vogue. The detective department is one entailing immense
responsibility on its chief. When it is remembered that “the thief, the
robber, the assassin, the harlot, the murderer, and every other
conceivable criminal flourishes” on this sneaking crime, it may be
asked, seeing none are trapped but those who are well known to be in
“the trade,” why the parrot cry of its un-English-like character is
raised by many against so necessary a routine.

The detective service consists of a chief, about twenty-five natives,
chosen for their shrewdness, nine white men, known to the public as
detectives, and several engaged on special secret service. These
officers are all well paid, not only to secure the services of reliable
men, but to compensate them for the risk they run, though as a rule, the
diamond thief is the veriest of cowards.

When a man is daily seen drinking, gambling and riotously living,
without any visible means of subsistence, when his character can be
gauged by the company that he keeps, and the detective department
receives private information, _that_ man is trapped; but not before he
has bought three times do the detectives “run him in.”

Such, at least, is the system, as it has been explained to me by those
who should be thoroughly acquainted with it. On the other hand, I know
of a case of a young ex-officer of volunteers, who in a drunken moment
bought a stone not intended for him, and was brought to trial. The
detectives all swore that he had never, so far as they were aware,
purchased an illicit diamond before in his life, and the court, taking
that view, sentenced him to only eighteen months’ imprisonment. He was,
moreover, released before the expiration of his sentence.

The plan is as follows: The native who acts as the “trap” is thoroughly
searched and then supplied with a diamond by the department. He starts
on “his mission of mercy” followed by two or three detectives, who place
themselves in different positions, so as to command a view of the
premises where the transaction is expected to take place.

What follows is generally simple enough, the illicit buys the diamond
and pays for it, when the Kafir gives a signal, and the detectives rush
in and seize the man who is pointed out as the purchaser. The “trap” is
again searched, when, as corroborative evidence, no diamond is found on
him, but in its place, the money he has just received in payment for the
“stone.” Convictions, however, are occasionally obtained when no money
has passed, in which case, however, the evidence of the traps is
required to be very strongly corroborated.

Black “traps” and white are employed by the detective department. The
black trap is generally a native who does the dirty work purely as a
matter of business, and is thoroughly honest; the white trap on the
contrary is generally one who has been in the illicit trade himself, and
either from avarice or motives of jealousy and revenge sells some former
comrade to penal servitude and the breakwater.

In January, 1887, an instance occurred, showing that in spite of all the
elaborate machinery of a rigid searching system, probably general if not
universal, and the existence of the severe ordinance in question, etc.,
the native continues to steal diamonds. In a compound at Du Tot’s Pan,
only a few months ago, the body of a native who died suddenly under
suspicious circumstances was opened and a diamond of no less weight than
sixty carats discovered therein.

The necessity for the extensive machinery and the enormous cost of the
searching and detective departments will to my mind be done away with if
the “compound system” inaugurated by the Central Co. in the Kimberley
mine be carried out by other companies. In April, 1885, this company
opened their buildings for native servants. I attended the opening
ceremony, and to my surprise found a large yard some 150 yards square
inclosed partly by buildings and the remainder by sheets of iron ten
feet high. Within this inclosure were sleeping-rooms for 500 Kafirs, a
magnificent kitchen and pantry, large baths, guard-room, dispensary and
sick-ward, store and mess-rooms. There is no doubt that this arrangement
will be the means of greatly decreasing the thieving by natives, but it
opens up a great question connected with the business of the place, with
respect to the “truck” system which must follow, and has yet to be
threshed out.

During the fifteen years I have been on the Fields, I can
conscientiously say, I have never known one single man found guilty who
did not well deserve his punishment, though I have known many escape
through the laudable determination of the judges to require most
incontrovertible evidence before convicting.

I do not attempt for one moment to extenuate the crime or treat lightly
the social ulcer which so undermines the moral health of the community,
but I cannot help drawing attention, in connection with the subject of
this chapter, to the 450 carat diamond which has just flashed like a
meteor across the London market.

This is well known to have come from Jagersfontein. A whisper had never
been heard of a diamond of such weight, such color and such brilliancy
having been found there or in any other mine in the country, but a Port
Elizabeth house quietly shipped it, and it was bought in London for
£20,000 by a syndicate composed of men knowing the diamond fields
intimately.

The actuality of this diamond came prominently before the public in a
suit before the High Court of Griqualand West in October, 1886, in a
case wherein the chief of the detective department was called to give
evidence. During the course of this gentleman’s examination one of the
judges said: “Do you know where that very large diamond produced in
London some time ago came from?” “I do; from information received I
could give your lordship the whole history of that stone from the time
it left the ground until it reached Messrs. —— Bros.” This led to
another question by one of the other two judges comprising the bench,
which clinched the matter: “Was it a Griqualand West stone?” “No, it was
not, my lord.”

These, perhaps, like the Pharisee, “thank God, that they are not as
other men are.” But the question I would ask is this syndicate not the
buyer, second hand, of stolen property?

“Conscentia mille testes.”

Even in England the crime of receiving stolen goods is heavily
punishable, but in a case like this the worthies know well that it can
never be brought home to them.

The charge has frequently been brought against the diggers that they had
very considerably themselves to thank for the extent to which I. D. B.
had spread. Had they taken proper precautions, it was urged, thefts
would have minimized, and it was further pointed out, that though it
might be true that if there were no receivers there would be no thieves,
it is obviously true that if there were no thieves there could be no
receivers. I cannot myself entirely acquit the diggers of the charge of
culpable negligence. On the other hand, within the past three or four
years there has been less ground for the accusation, as an elaborate
searching system has been introduced. All the employés of the companies
or individual diggers, white men under the rank of manager and colored
men universally, are liable to be searched at any time. The white
overseer even does not know when this may take place, as the order is
secretly given from headquarters whom to search.

In connection with the searching of white men I may mention a lamentable
occurrence that took place in the early part of 1884. A fiat went forth
that they should be compelled to strip naked, and a natural feeling of
indignation arose, as many of the overseers had been themselves pioneer
diggers, and the majority of miners were men of undoubted
respectability. A most regretable amount of ill-feeling arose between
employers and employés, and though I believe the former were willing to
forego the condition that absolute nudity would be required, yet the
proviso that the boots should be removed was distasteful to the latter.
At length a strike took place, to which, it is asserted, but with what
amount of truth I cannot say, the men were urged on by unscrupulous
outsiders, who had their own ends to serve. The first strike was of
brief duration and passed over quietly, but the second, though also
lasting a comparatively short time, was attended with fatal
consequences. Briefly the circumstances were as follows: A considerable
number of men were proceeding to the edge of the Kimberley mine to
compel the French company to draw their fires. The men all distinctly
assert they had no intention whatever of damaging the machinery or
hauling gear of the company. A barricade had been erected by the
servants of the company, behind which were armed policemen and certain
diggers, etc., who had been sworn in as special constables. Various
accounts are given as to how the affray began, at all events, though the
police did not fire a single shot, the special constables shot dead on
the spot four of the unfortunate men, who were buried next day, and
another, who was an old patient of mine, died an hour or so after in my
consulting-room, where he and a comrade who died a week after had been
carried.

Great fears were entertained of a general riot; the canteens were
ordered to be closed, the men who had fired the fatal shots were removed
for safety to the jail, the government removed all firearms from the
gun-stores, a corps of mounted specials was organized, while all save
those whose passions were inflamed on one side or the other deeply
deplored the sad events, and looked forward with the gravest
apprehension to what a day or night might bring forth. The funerals of
the fallen men were most impressive, hundreds, indeed I might say
thousands, attending them, following most on foot, in slow procession to
the solemn strains of the “Dead March in Saul.” Happily, however, there
was no further bloodshed, and before a fortnight or three weeks were
over, with but few exceptions, the men had returned to work and an
amicable conclusion arrived at.

To proceed to the searching of natives, though there are certain
differences in different mines, generally speaking the system is as
follows: On arriving at the searching house they are compelled to divest
themselves of their ordinary garb and pass through a central compartment
in _puris naturalibus_, after which they assume working suits, needless
to say absolutely pocketless. Their work over, they are first searched
in the claims by the overseers and then are examined by the searching
officers. They are stripped perfectly naked and compelled to leap over
bars, and their hair, mouths, ears, etc., etc., carefully examined—no
particularly pleasant duty for the searcher when the thermometer stands
at perhaps 100° Fahrenheit in the shade.[46] There are grave doubts
occasionally expressed as to the efficacy of this costly system, as
comparatively few diamonds have ever been found in the searching houses,
and the thievish native exercises an almost supernatural ingenuity in
concealing his plunder, but the question is what diamonds have been
prevented from being stolen rather than what stolen diamonds have been
recovered.

Another system in which the supporters express a firm belief is that
known as the compound system, which is shortly as follows. I have
already described the Central Co.’s compound, but I will go a little
more into detail: A company’s boys, instead of being allowed to wander
about the town at their own sweet will, to feed at Kafir eating-houses
(which are too frequently the favorite resorts of black I. D. B.
runners, and whose proprietors are not invariably above reproach) and to
drink at low canteens or smuggling dens, are confined to a company’s
compound for two months, the period for which they now contract.

They are comfortably housed, and being unable to obtain the deleterious
and adulterated liquor which has proved so many a native’s poison and
death, are in the main much healthier than their uncompounded brethren,
who spending two-thirds of their wages in drink on Saturday and Sunday
are almost inanimate the following day and unable to work. It is
needless to say that this system has aroused considerable opposition
from the Kafir store-keepers, canteen-keepers and others whose
purchasers are mainly natives, together with, it goes without saying,
the I. D. B. gentry and a few who are neither I. D. B.’s, Kafir
store-keepers nor the like, but who conceive that the system will tend
to ruin the commerce of the town.[47] It is urged that the principle of
“live and _let_ live” was never more flagrantly outraged; that the bread
is taken out of honest men’s mouths; that it is not by Kafirs, not even
mainly by Kafirs, that diamonds are taken from the mines, and that it is
a direct interference with the liberty of the subject. The last reason,
however, is not a very cogent one against the subject, as the native
agrees of his own accord to the contract, and philanthropists declare
the compound to be an unmingled boon to the Kafir.

That it involves something allied to the “truck system” is apparently
plain, as of course the necessities of life must be purchased in the
compound, though it must be remembered that the legislative enactments
which forbid the system in England were introduced to protect the
employé whose wages were diminished by the unfair profits and the
exorbitant interest charged by the “tommy shop,” _not_ to protect the
shopkeeper whose business was interfered with. Again, the wages are paid
in cash, and the company’s store can in the event of the native failing
to pay up at the end of the week merely, as I surmise, recover it by
ordinary civil process. The companies disclaim all intention of making
any profits for their shareholders by their shops in the compound, and
are prepared to accept outside price-lists and distribute the profits
among such institutions as the free hospital and the public library.

That those who have sunk their money, large or small, in the erection of
Kafir stores and native bars feel the system a grievance I can readily
understand, and for my part, on the principle of self-preservation being
the first law of nature, am not disposed to blame them very much, if at
all, for endeavoring to protect their interests by getting a bill
introduced into parliament to abolish not the compound system, but to
render it almost null and void by limiting the period during which the
Kafirs can be kept in the compounds, through a clause principally to the
effect that no goods can be vended there. A bill was introduced into the
Cape parliament last year with this object, but a compromise, which is
perhaps only temporary, was effected, and the bill withdrawn.

Most probably the matter will be brought before the house again next
session, but I scarcely think it has much chance of passing; meanwhile
the mining union has undertaken not to compound any white men, and to
limit the period during which they keep the native compounded to two
months only.

In concluding this chapter I shall take the opportunity of expressing my
own views on the progressive legislation by which the late legislative
council of Griqualand West and the Cape assembly since annexation have
attempted to cope with this crime. After a long and thorough
acquaintance with all classes of this community (for which, to a certain
extent, I have to thank my profession), I have come to the conclusion
that the punishments now inflicted are not adapted to the requirements
of the case. The present judicial procedure of sentencing this class of
prisoner to a long term of hard labor, during which its members learn
advanced lessons in crime, and then turning them loose, further
accomplished, upon the unfortunate digger, is to my mind not only a tax
on the country, but also a calamity to Griqualand West. In my opinion a
shorter period of imprisonment would suffice, but to this I would add a
sequestration of all the culprit’s movable and immovable property, and
banishment from the colony for at least twenty years, under pain of say
fifteen years’ imprisonment with hard labor should he return previously.
Criminals of this class, again, are tempted by the extra chances of
sudden fortune which it presents.

Cases in which second convictions have taken place are numerous, in fact
there seems to be a peculiar fascination which irresistibly attracts its
devotees, and seems to render the majority of them almost incorrigible;
consequently one of the best methods of protecting the mining community
against these vampires is that they should be entirely beyond the reach
of a species of temptation that they are unable to withstand.

There is one point, in addition, which I must not omit to mention in
closing this chapter, and that is the readiness with which the present
ministry (1885–86–87) recommend the governor of the colony to grant
pardons to I. D. B.’s. “Petition-mongering, too, is a highly respectable
business, for legislators of the land condescend to handle and flutter
the interesting documents in the faces of sympathizers; cabinet
ministers are not averse to joining in the game, and the stamp of the
very highest authority is secured for it when his excellency the
governor is persuaded into opening the doors of the jail and bidding the
exultant illicit go forth once more, to lay his roguish hands on the
hard-earned gains of the diamond digger.”

I have known cases of the most extraordinary character, one I will
mention in particular. On the prisoner’s first conviction, he received a
sentence of five years’ imprisonment, but was liberated after fifteen
months’ incarceration, when, at once resuming the same sneaking kind of
theft, he was caught again, and seven years awarded to him to ponder
over his outrages. _Mirabile dictu!_ thirteen months saw him, through
his excellency the governor’s kindness, a free man once more; but with
well-earned experience, as he now, the third time of asking, makes Free
Town, in the adjoining republic, not Kimberley, the safe base of his
dishonest operations. The hammer which shivered this man’s links must
have been heavily weighted indeed! As he told me, one hammer, which of
itself was not heavy enough to complete the work, weighed £850.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XV.
DESCRIPTION OF THE I. D. B.—PUBLIC MORALS.—THE MUSIC HALLS AND THEIR
SONGS.—“M. L. A.’S AND M. L. C.’S IN LEAGUE WITH THIEVES AND RECEIVERS.”

Illicit diamond buyers are like the devils recorded in the gospel, whose
name was “legion, for they were many.” The illicits are not only many in
number, but also many in species.

The genus has little changed from the earlier times, for the I. D. B.
was and is simply a receiver of stolen goods, well knowing them to be
stolen, nothing more and nothing less. But the species of this genus are
so numerous that their accurate categorist would almost rival a Linnæus
or a Cuvier.

Some of the species are as extinct as the dodo; others have changed as
remarkably as diseases, which once epidemic have become endemic, and
members of the latter class, might, if classically inclined,
appropriately quote, with reference to their altered position: “Tempora
mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis.”

The I. D. B. of 1872 was not the I. D. B. of to-day; the I. D. B., whose
canvas canteen, thronged by semi-nude Shangaans, Zulus, Basutos or
Ballapins, was occasionally burnt over his head, was a different person
in his _modus operandi_ and manner of living from the “speculator” of
1885.

The “kopje walloper,” who was generally a gentleman of the Hebrew
persuasion hailing from Petticoat Lane or the Minories, was one of those
who, when diamond buying was as legal in the open air as in a properly
registered office, used to haunt the edge of the mine. With satchel at
side, well lined with gold and notes, sometimes on the chance of buying
a diamond cheaply, trading on the ignorance of the finder, but generally
with the view of tempting sorters to steal from the sorting table, he is
now almost forgotten, although his moral counterpart exists to this day
in the scoundrel who tempts, and but too often successfully, the white
servants of a company or a claim-holder to become thieves, or to
conveniently wink at the thieving of others.

The I. D. B. digger who could turn out as many diamonds in an
afternoon’s wash-up as mealies on a cob, and by a marvelous dispensation
of Providence was always hitting upon “splendid ground” in his claim, is
now a _rara avis_, for the _onus probandi_ of _bona fide_ possession
being now thrown upon the holders of rough and uncut diamonds, the
digger who discovers priceless gems in notoriously worthless ground and
by the aid of the poorest appliances runs a serious risk of being
confronted with the judge of the special court.[48] To those
unacquainted with diamond digging the awarding of a punishment for what
might, at first sight, appear to be merely exceptional “luck” may seem
more than Draconian, but this point will be referred to in a succeeding
chapter.

The bogus licensed diamond buyer too who, frequently subsidised by some
hidden man, merely pretended to transact legitimate business as a cloak
for his illicit transactions, but did all that remunerated him in the
“dead waist and middle of the night” is rapidly becoming extinct, owing
to the stringent rules as to the proof of _bona fide_ possession and the
enforced registration of sale and purchase, though at the same time he
is still extant in this year of grace, 1887. Like the cat employed by
the ingenious monkey, however, in removing chestnuts from the fire, or
the policeman in Gilbert’s opera, “his life is not a happy one.”

Again, the native claim-holder and digger who either bought a claim or
was put into one to find diamonds, which, as a matter of fact, came from
some other claim, perhaps some other mine, or even the river digging,
now finds a more congenial occupation in running parcels over the Free
State line or to Christiana in the Transvaal, or acting as an unlicensed
diamond broker within the limits of the camp. “Jonas” and “Kleinboy” may
still be seen with rings on their fingers and attired in a “masher”
style which would not disgrace a West End tailor, but they are no longer
diggers, though apparently their present occupation pays them handsomely
enough.

Before the act of 1882 came into force Kimberley was a different place
from what it is now—a nervous activity was universal. The booted and
spurred I. D. B. could then be seen galloping on his well-groomed steed
to his favorite resort, the canteen bars were thronged day and night,
the billiard-rooms were crowded. The “Free and Easy,” too, had its
frequenters, who were posted in all the comic songs of the day, and
nightly twitted and tickled each other with the chorus of one at that
time just out from home. These gentlemen evidently appropriated and
appreciated the point of its refrain, singing with great gusto.

“They all do it, they all do it,
Though they very often rue it,”

as if their vile traffic and its consequences were one huge grim
joke.[49]

At another music hall the song most in favor and nightly sung with
immense _éclat_ was one in which the adventures of a fortunate I. D. B.
were told in the following doggerel, which was always sure of a
vociferous encore, especially as many thought it had a peculiar local
application:

“I’m shortly about to retire,
Then to Flo of course I’ll be wed,
I shall do the thing fine, buy shares in the mine
Or else float a company instead.
I’ll of course have a carriage and pair,
And later I shall not despair,
In the council I’ll get, and if _you_ wait a bit
No doubt you will see me made mayor.”

The fact of a song like this being sung in public speaks volumes as to
the utter demoralization which then existed in certain circles.

In their well-known houses of call the popping of champagne corks was
like one continuous fusilade, and money flowed like water, for at this
time the illicit buyer had little or no fear of a detective tapping him
on the shoulder and asking him to account for the diamonds in his
pocket.

Professor Darwin may write about the development of species, but if he
resided here he might describe how an eminently respectable (?) member
of society is evolved from a thief. There are I. D. B.’s and I. D. B.’s,
all grades from high to low, from rich to poor, some accounted among the
_creme de la creme_ of Kimberley society, even pillars of this or that
church, pious receivers and ex-receivers of stolen property well knowing
it to be stolen, others buying from hand to mouth to ward off
starvation.

The I. D. B. moving in society, probably now the manager of a digging
company, or a licensed buyer, but nevertheless a rank hypocrite who has
worked his way through all grades of rascality to a certain position,
wishes by associating with men of acknowledged social status to avoid
suspicion, and therefore, as a matter of tact, he rails against the
illicit trade and preaches morality _ad nauseam_.

If he has money or influence he is surrounded by satellites, who shine
but by a borrowed light, or to alter the simile, by dogs who support
their miserable existence by licking up the “crumbs that fall from the
rich man’s table.”

So powerful is the leaven of corruption engendered by this illicit
system, that men, otherwise of undoubted probity, “kowtow” to the man
whom in their heart of hearts they know to be, to quote thieves’ Latin,
a simple “fence,” because they think that

“Thrift may follow fawning.”

From the passing of ordinance 48 of 1882 until the extension of that
ordinance to the entire colony in the session of 1885, Capetown and Port
Elizabeth were the head-centres of the I. D. B.’s, who, possessing
capital, wished to evade the consequence of their nefarious trade. These
scoundrels bought diamonds which were stolen and smuggled from
Griqualand West, and men, supposed to be honorable (?) merchants, even
members of the legislative assembly, were reported as trading with these
characters in diamonds which they must have known to be stolen.

An apparently legal, though in reality a dishonest trade, was carried on
by these men, who were described by the editor of the Orange Free State
_Advertiser_ as “M. L. A.’s and M. L. C.’s, in league with thieves and
receivers of stolen property.”

The Diamond Trade extension act has however been of infinite service in
checking the illicit traffic at the Bay and Capetown, though it has not
entirely extinguished it.

As a matter of fact, there does not exist anywhere a more unredeemable
set of miscreants than the arch-thieves who are at the head of the
illicit diamond trade in South Africa.

Illicit diamond buying, like all crime the root of which is greed of
money, tends to kill all humane instincts, and leaves those who practice
it more selfish than the very brutes and absolutely dead to every better
feeling.

The flattering unction which the confederates of the I. D. B. fraternity
lay to their souls, if any grain of conscience remains, is that they are
merely guilty of a revenue offense. It is therefore only to their
cowardly fear of punishment that the law of the land must appeal if a
stop is to be put to the wholesale system of robbery which they have
organized and carried on so long with comparative impunity.

The I. D. B. now and then boasts in his cups that he has bought hand
over fist, and cares nothing for, the adjective detective; but when the
aforesaid adjective detective lightly lays his hands on his shoulder, he
usually manifests the craven cowardice of a Noah Claypole rather than
the bravery of a bold outlaw like Robin Hood, or the semi-chivalrous
audacity and recklessness of a Claude Duval or a Dick Turpin.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XVI.
I. D. B.
TALES FROM REAL LIFE.—“THE MYSTIC THREE LETTERS.”—AN UNGRATEFUL HOUND.—A
PLUCKY WOMAN.—NEMESIS.—TOO CLEVER BY HALF.—THE EARLY BIRD CATCHES THE
WORM.—AN UNEXPECTED RECOVERY.—A DEATH-BED SCENE.

In connection with this nefarious traffic, this insidious disease I will
term it, the nature of which I have, I hope, fully explained in a
preceding chapter, I purpose appending a few examples, grave and gay, to
illustrate the subject.

The stories are not without interest, illustrating as they do a certain
phase of humanity, and at the same time possessing the merit of strict
accuracy, as I have carefully excluded any narratives for the truth of
which I am not, so far as is possible in such secret transactions,
personally able to vouch.

While it is true that some slight freemasonry, not to speak of a
frequent exhibition of what might fairly be termed freehanded
generosity, undoubtedly exists or has existed among the fraternity of
the mystic three letters, it must not for one moment be imagined that
their moral sense prevents them cheating each other quite as
remorselessly as the unfortunate digger or shareholder, on whose vitals
they so long have “preyed” without ceasing. Men engaged in this traffic
will rob one another, and there is no honor whatever among thieves of
this class, their standard of morality being low indeed. Creatures of
this type will often descend to any depth to gratify their sensual
pleasure, and to satisfy their greed for gold. Examples have not been
infrequent on the diamond fields of men employing Kafir females, on the
one hand as touts for their infamous trade, and on the other to minister
to the basest lusts of their nature. These unfortunate women are, as a
rule, faithful to their protectors (Heaven save the mark!) combining at
the same time the capacities of mistress, drudge and go-between. Their
life is a terrible one, poor creatures, as this tale will show.

A certain _gentleman_, who boasted of his intimate acquaintance with the
mysteries of one of the gayest capitals in Europe, was living not so
long ago with a smart and not by any means repulsive-looking Fingo
woman. About this time camp fever was very prevalent, and he fell under
its influence. For days, nay, weeks, the disease held him in its grasp,
and as day and night he tossed in wild delirium, hiding himself in the
bedclothes to escape from the imaginary detectives who were conjured up
by his disordered brain, his bedside was but seldom deserted by this
loving example of native fidelity.

His trade connection with the “boys” employed in the mine had, however,
to be kept together, and here it was that the faithful creature showed
the devotion of her nature by running great risks in purchasing diamonds
from the natives who had been in the habit of coming to her paramour.
When this man rose from his bed of sickness, to his astonishment she
presented him with hundreds of carats of valuable diamonds, but my
readers will scarcely credit it when I tell them that no sooner was this
despicable hound able to crawl than he sneaked away to Europe, taking
with him the diamonds that _she_ had bought, and leaving _her_ penniless
to starve or gain her living on the streets.

“Ingratum si dixeris omnia dices.”

As a pleasing contrast to the story I have just related, I have now to
record an instance of woman’s fidelity and presence of mind when brought
face to face with danger to those she loved.

A man, his wife, and child resided in Newton, a quarter of the camp, at
one time at least, as thickly studded with swell I. D. B.’s “as the
autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallambrosa.”

The husband was, not without reason, suspected of being what was
euphemistically known as “in the trade.” So the detectives came to his
house again and yet again, they emptied the sugar pots, they stuck their
fingers in the pomatum, the pepper-boxes were turned topsy-turvy, making
catarrh as universal in the house as cholera round Mecca; potatoes
preparing for the diurnal tiffin were carefully diagnosed as to their
diamondiferous capabilities, in fact Newton, the philosopher, suffered
less from the incendiary propensities of his lap-dog than did Newton,
the locality, from the “minions of the law.”

On one occasion when these gentlemen put in an appearance, a diamond of
a large size was lying in the reticule of Mrs. —— upon the table. When
about to rise and remove it, she was ordered by the officers to remain
seated, whereupon she asked permission to send for a bottle of stout, a
request at once acceded to. Hastily scribbling the words “Send bottle
stout; keep bag till I come,” she rose and nonchalantly handed the
message and reticule containing the diamond to her child, who toddled
off to a neighboring canteen, where, as the mother knew, her husband was
almost certain to be found. He, smelling a rat, made away with the
stone, and the detectives very soon after left the house, baffled in
their search, never dreaming of how they had been overreached. This
woman’s presence of mind no doubt saved her husband many years in jail.

Though then notoriously “in the swim” they are now, having seen the
error of their ways, earning an honest livelihood down Colony, and I am
told often exhibit that “charity” which we are taught “covers a
multitude of sins.”

In the case I will now mention Nemesis overtakes well-nigh all parties
concerned.

About August, 188—, an individual over whose head was hanging a charge,
not, however, connected with the diamond ordinance, determined to
diminish his household expenses by sending his wife to Europe in charge
of the proceeds of certain little private speculations which, it is
needless for me to say, are never entered in the books of any mercantile
firm. After selling off, he took apartments for his wife and another
lady at a somewhat pretentious looking hotel in Kimberley.

All was going merrily as marriage bells are popularly supposed to do,
the voyage was anticipated with eager delight, and a visit to an old
friend in Hatton Garden was expected to prove highly remunerative; but
“l’homme propose et Dieu dispose.”

The detective department, from “information received,” determined to
make these ladies a domiciliary visit; so one afternoon, just as a nice
little tiffin had been washed down with a glass of fine Clicquot,
rendered still more delicious by the inspection of the glittering gems,
which they had proudly been displaying to the longing eyes of the
landlady, who had come in to remove the cloth, a sharp tap was heard at
the door, and in walked the dreaded forms of two prominent detectives
and a female searcher.

Quick as lightning the landlady whisked up the cloth, diamonds and all,
leaving the room to give the officers the opportunity of a private and
confidential interview with their startled guests. These gentlemen
having explained the object of their visit politely introduced their
female companion, and retired to smoke a cigar on the verandah.

The lady visitor, or rather the female searcher, at once took advantage
of her position, and sarcastically remarked to her agitated “friends”:
“Never mind, my dears, let down your hair; I have had finer ladies than
you through my fingers before.”

After expressing satisfaction at the elegance of their coiffure, she
then proceeded to admire their entire wardrobe, even the pretty little
No. 2’s and silk stockings in which their tiny feet were encased did not
escape attention.

Not finding any portion of their apparel encrusted with gems of purest
ray, decidedly meant, in this case, to blush unseen, this “perfect lady”
proceeded to express her appreciation of the delicate whiteness of their
arms, somewhat marring their beauty, however, by leaving marks of sundry
pinches which she inflicted to test the genuine nature of their
plumpness.[50]

This interview being brought to a satisfactory or unsatisfactory
conclusion, as the reader may elect to decide, the detectives and their
coadjutrix took their departure. Forthwith the ladies rang the bell for
the landlady, who promptly answered it, but wonderful to relate denied
the most remote knowledge of the contents of the table-cloth, averring
that when she shook it there was nothing but bread-crumbs to be seen.

What could be done? These ladies dare not appeal to the police, time
pressed, their passages had been taken, so they were compelled to brave
the perils of the deep, unsupported by the pleasing hope that they had
cherished of a profitable visit to the horticultural domains of Hatton
Garden, E. C.

Now would the reader be surprised to hear, that shortly after this
incident, the husband of the landlady, whose eyesight had been so very
defective, was suddenly seized with a desire to visit the Transvaal,
possibly to investigate the gold-bearing qualities of that State,
perhaps merely for an agreeable change. He did not, however, confine his
peregrinations to the suzerainty, but proceeded to make an amateur
survey of the proposed railway route between Pretoria and Delagoa Bay
over the Lebombo Mountains. From the latter place he set sail for
Rotterdam, which he reached in a much more satisfied frame of mind than
his whilom lady boarders possessed on their arrival in London.

As all the world knows diamond cutters are to be found in considerable
numbers in Holland, and it did not take him long to renew acquaintance
with his old friends, some of whom were skilled in that trade. To one of
these he intrusted the cutting of a valuable parcel of gems, which by an
almost inexplicable coincidence was the exact counterpart of that which
a few months before had disappeared so mysteriously at his antipodean
hotel. Now, our Boniface was a gay old dog in his way, so he made up his
mind to taste once more the long absent pleasures of the capitals of
Europe, serenely conscious that a little extravagance was pardonable in
a landlord whose very table linen produced more diamonds in one shaking
than many a twelve-foot washing machine, worked by a Davy Paxman, would
in thousands of revolutions. While enjoying the gayeties of Vienna, he
received a telegram to the effect that his diamonds had been duly cut
and were awaiting his disposal. So he at once returned to Holland,
received his gems and secured the services of a well-known goldsmith for
their setting, which proved in accordance with his orders both elaborate
and costly. When all was completed he started once more for his South
African home. Many a night, ere the billows rocked him to sleep, though
congratulating himself on his lucky journey, he mentally execrated the
tyranny of a government which he knew too well would on his arrival in
Capetown heartlessly exact from him a certain duty of 30 per cent. _ad
valorem_. The thought of this unwarrantable interference with the
liberty of the subject haunted him continually, until one night as his
cabin companion told me he was disturbed by a delighted chuckle followed
by a semi-audible soliloquy: “Shtrike me dead, I’ve got it, pay the dam
duty, not if I knowsh it, sho’elp me. I’ll risk it.”

Arrived at Capetown he induced a female passenger with whom he was
acquainted, to conceal about her person the diamonds which already had
had so strange a story, and thus endeavor to evade the eagle eyes of the
revenue officials stationed at the dock entrance.

The attempt was unsuccessful, the diamonds were discovered and
confiscated, and the fair contrabandista, having of course in
self-defence revealed the owner, he was tried for the misdemeanor, when
in addition to the loss of his jewelry he was sentenced to pay a heavy
fine or in default of payment to endure a term of imprisonment.

For time he cared little, for character less, for money more,
consequently as a matter of course the Capetown jail received within its
walls a visitor who for several months had leisure to ruminate on the
adage, “much will have more,” ofttimes more than it bargains for.

This same man on being liberated returned to the Fields, sunk lower and
lower, until one day he was caught in “_flagrante delicto_” by the
detective department. The breakwater at Capetown now is visited daily by
the quondam tourist and the gradual progress of this valuable public
work is materially assisted by the thews and sinews of our ingenious but
not ingenuous hero.

As an illustration of the strange infatuation which this crime exercises
over its votaries, how like the fascinated moth they flutter round the
candle, singeing their wings, and what perfidy they can on occasions
exhibit to one another, I will give a brief anecdote respecting a young
man whom we shall call Silberfeldt.

Under the old diamond ordinance this bright specimen of humanity was
trapped in the usual manner, caught red-handed by the detectives and
sentenced to three years’ hard labor, of which time nearly two years
were remitted in consequence of good conduct while in jail. Unwarned by
this experience, ungrateful for the lenity shown him by the authorities,
no sooner had he gained his liberty than he emulated the example of the
scriptural sow and returned at once to his wallowing in the mire.

The further knowledge of the inner working of the I. D. B. craft, which
he had gained during his temporary retirement from public life, had so
increased his self-confidence that, considering himself now a veritable
passed-master in its mysteries, he openly boasted there was not a man
clever enough in all Griqualand West to catch him a second time; but
unhappily for him, Ord 48, 1882, which throws upon the holders of
diamonds the _onus probandi_ of honest possession, had passed the Cape
parliament, and had received Her Majesty’s sanction.

Too wary to be trapped by even the most astute detective, he
nevertheless, with all his cunning, fell into the meshes of the law, and
along with another was arrested under the section dealing with the
offense of “illegal possession,” having been pounced upon one fine
morning, when diamonds were found in the house where he and his
companion were stopping.

The two were friends who had long been on terms of the greatest
intimacy, and naturally they might have been expected to stick to each
other through thick and through thin. When, however, they were placed in
the dock and asked to plead, Silberfeldt at once, arrant coward as he
was, exclaimed:

“Oh! your vorship, I don’t vant to plead, I’m going to turn Queensh
evidensh.”

This vision of a traitor’s liberty, this desire to shelter himself and
protect his own worthless skin by “rounding on his pal” was soon rudely
ended by the magistrate, who intimated that the Crown was not in want of
any “Queensh evidensh” in the case at all, or to slightly parody Oliver
Goldsmith—

“When the culprit cried, oh, yes!
The court it cried, oh, no!”

After evidence of a most conclusive character had been given, the
accused were duly committed for trial to the special court, where,
strange to say, “one was taken and the other left,” with a cruel irony
of fate, the one taken (to the breakwater for seven years) was the
perfidious Silberfeldt, the one left (to the enjoyment of his liberty)
was the friend who so narrowly escaped betrayal.

As an instance of the fact that in temporal matters at least “honesty”
does not always appear to be “the best policy,” I recollect an instance
of which the truth can be vouched.

One fine spring morning in September, 187–, a certain diamond buyer,
whom we will call Gonivavitski, might have been seen marching up and
down the Bulfontein road enjoying the early rays of the sun, reading the
daily paper, yet still keeping a narrow watch on the canvas frame-house
in which he conducted his licensed (?) dealings. Active, robust, cheery,
though a rogue in spirit and grain, manliness appeared to beam from
every line of his seemingly honest face. Our friend, too, was of a
dogmatic turn of mind, insisted on “cleanliness being next to
godliness,” and no firmer believer in the proverb that the “early bird
catches the worm” could have been found in all Kimberley.

Just as he had finished the leading article he caught sight of one of
his clients approaching in an opposite direction. G. started nervously,
as he did not desire the visit of this especial gentleman in the
daylight—in other words he only bought of “niggers” after dark—but his
dusky acquaintance gave him a sly glance, as much as to say: “I fancy
I’ve seen you before,” a quite sufficient hint that “something” (as
illicit stones are often called “in the trade”) was in the immediate
neighborhood, so G. could not resist the temptation.

Taking a bird’s-eye view of the situation, Gonivavitski hastily came up
to the native, who, with a knowing leer, opened his hand, revealing a
magnificent pure white diamond nearly the size of a plover’s egg.

“Mooi klippe baas!” (fine stone, master) said the nigger.

“Ya! kom hier sa, booi,” (yes, come this way, boy) said G. hurriedly,
fearing observation.

The boy did as he was told, following the white man into his office,
which was close by. The door was soon shut, the stone weighed and the
bargain struck, the native starting off with the money at a round trot
to join his “brothers,” who were waiting round the corner. But
“conscience doth make cowards of us all,” and Mr. G. was not an
exception; fearing that he had been watched, and regardful either of his
spotless reputation, or of the pleasures of the “tronk”[51] looming in
the future, started in hot pursuit and gave his late visitor into the
custody of the first policeman he met.

“What’s up now?” said the guardian of law and order.

“Why, look here, this d—d thief of a nigger wants to sell me this ’ere,”
was Gonivavitski’s answer, given in tones of simulated indignation.

“This ’ere,” however, was not the forty-carat white diamond of a few
minutes before, G. was too clever for that, it was merely a piece of
boart not worth a sovereign that he now produced.

A crowd soon gathered to watch the thief marched off to jail, the
_honest_ man following in his wake to lay the charge. Next day at the
trial, a little perjury more or less was immaterial, the boy was
sentenced to imprisonment and lashes, whilst Mr. G. in a few days found
it necessary for the sake of his health to proceed to Europe, where he
disposed of the diamond for a good round sum. With this addition to his
former capital he returned to the Fields, where he still remains,
boasting the possession of an ample fortune, gained, as he always says,
by “’ard work and hearly rising.”

One of the most generally admitted apothegms of worldly wisdom is that
“a man should always tell the truth to his doctor and his lawyer,” but
like many far more valuable maxims it is frequently disregarded. An
instance in which (albeit I am happy to say I have a tolerably good
opinion of my fellow creatures) I could not place confidence in the
statements of my patient, occurs to my mind in connection with the
anecdotes of which this chapter is composed.

About two o’clock one morning in the year 1872 I was roused from the
sleep I so much needed, as it was a sickly and busy season, by a hurried
rapping at my front door. A doctor’s slumbers are through force of habit
light, and in a few seconds my dressing-gown and slippers were assumed,
and I hastened to answer the imperative summons of my visitor. A
middle-aged citizen, whose reputation, although never openly impugned,
was yet hardly enviable, greeted me in somewhat quavering accents, and
with pallid cheeks desired my services without a moment’s delay. Having
ushered him into my consulting-room I at once discovered the secret of
his alarm. The sufferer informed me that “he had been discussing with
some friends the means by which the rascally illicits evaded the law and
concealed their ill-gotten gems on any sudden emergency, suiting the
action to the word he had swallowed (or otherwise concealed from view)
two sovs. and a diamond.”

I listened to the story with all becoming gravity, and proceeded to
perform a surgical operation for the removal of the foreign substances,
with the anatomical details of which it is wholly unnecessary to weary
my readers. When relieved from his distress of mind and body he was
desirous of further explaining the circumstances under which the sad
occurrence took place, but as the subject did not particularly interest
me I suggested that “time was on the wing,” which hint he promptly took,
dividing the _corpora delicti_ by leaving the gold with me and putting
the diamond (a thirty-carat stone) in his pocket. Years afterward, when
I heard that while sitting among the _Dii majores_ of the Kimberley club
this gentleman’s main topic of conversation was his extreme horror of
the illicit traffic with its train of evils—I could not help calling to
mind the episode of 1872. However, as we are told “the reformed rake
makes the best husband,” I hope that my ex-patient believes all he now
enunciates, and what is still more important has the courage of his
opinions.

I shall finish these few sketches of I. D. B. with the recital of an
incident which occurred to me personally: the moral to be gathered I
leave to my readers.

As nearly as I can remember, it was late on a cold winter’s night in
June, 187–, that I heard a tapping at my bedroom window. It was a
dreadful night. The south wind was blowing the sand from the débris
heaps in fitful gusts, whilst the dust clouds were careering along so
thickly that to see but a yard or two ahead was impossible. To those who
know the mine and its surroundings it will require but a slight stretch
of imagination to picture the bottomless pit from which “all hell had
broken loose.”

Mentally anathematizing my nocturnal visitor, I rose and opened the
door, when a Kafir thrust into my hand a piece of paper on which was
scrawled in pencil:

“DRY DIGGINGS HOSPITAL.

“DR. MATTHEWS. _Sir_:—Mr. O. J. is tossing about and very restless
to-night, and says he _must_ see you. Will you come quickly—I think he
is dying?

“Yours obediently,

I. P.”

Though at the time one of the surgeons of the Dry Diggings hospital, yet
as O. J. was not under my treatment I did not much relish the idea of a
dreary walk at that time of night. Not wishing, however, to disappoint
the poor fellow, who had once worked a claim for me and who was now, so
I had heard, dead out of luck, having, as the American gold digger says,
struck “the bed-rock,” I dressed quickly and trudged away through the
heavy sand to the wattle and daub shanty which then did service as a
hospital.

On my arrival the attendant guided me with his flickering candle down
the long barn-like shed to the bedside of O. J. At a glance I saw that
death had marked him for his own. Beads of cold sweat stood out on his
forehead, whilst clammy hands and convulsive paroxysms of his throat
showed the nearness of the end.

“Sie können Deutsch verstehen nicht wahr, Herr Doctor?” (You can
understand German, can’t you, Doctor?)

I nodded assent, when continuing the conversation partly in that
language and partly in English, evidently with the object of keeping the
attendant ignorant of what was passing between us, he imploringly looked
up and said: “Do tell me doctor how long I shall live, I can’t last
long.” I shook my head doubtfully, when he gasped out in tones of
agonized anxiety:

“I shan’t, I won’t, I can’t die without telling you how when I worked
your and Mr. Lynch’s claim in No. 6 I robbed you of nearly all your
diamonds! Oh! doctor, how I have hoped, how I have prayed God to let me
live, to spare me to work again, to make up the wrong that I have done
you.”

Entering further into details of how he had been tempted, and how he
hoped, even if he never could work again, to repay me out of a
remittance he expected from Europe, he suddenly seized my hand and in
feeble accents, broken by the death-rattle in his throat, uttered these
earnest words:

“YOU WILL FORGIVE ME THOUGH, WON’T YOU?”

Comforting him as well as I could, I assured him that, as far as I was
concerned, he might bury the past in oblivion. Never shall I forget, to
my dying day, the expression of intense relief which passed over his
anxious face and the glow which came again to his pallid cheek by the
assurance which I gave him.

As I was rising to bid him good night he again grasped my hand with both
of his and piteously exclaimed:

“Don’t, don’t forget me, doctor, you’ll come, won’t you, and see me
to-morrow?”

This I promised him, although with inward misgiving that his “to-morrow”
would never come.

Instructing the attendant to pay special heed to the sufferer during the
night, and again promising to return at sunrise, I trudged my weary way
home.

Daylight saw me again at the hospital. Alas! Too late! No. 3 bed was
empty! The troubled spirit had fled, its sins, I trust, blotted out for
ever by a merciful and all-wise God!

Yet the wretch who tempted this poor fellow to steal diamonds, the
sneaking creature who made him a thief and who profited by his thefts, I
ofttimes meet strutting proudly about with an air of pharisaical
honesty, to all outward appearance respectable and respected!

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XVII.
DESCRIPTION OF THE COMPANY AND SHARE MANIA IN 1881.—EVENTS OF THE
“BUBBLE YEAR.”—CAUSES WHICH BROUGHT THE MANIA ABOUT.—WHY COMPANIES WERE
FIRST FORMED.—THE BARNATO CO.—THE CENTRAL CO.—THE FRANKFORT MINE.—THE
COSMOPOLITAN CO.—WONDERFUL INVESTMENTS.—SLOW RETURN OF CONFIDENCE.

The “ten claim clause,” which was passed by the legislative council of
Griqualand West under Governor Southey (_vide_ clause 18, Ordinance 10,
1874), and prohibited any person, firm or joint-stock company to have
registered in his name, or in the name of his or their accredited agent
at any time within six months, reckoned from the date of the
proclamation of a digging, more than one claim, and after that period
more than ten claims, was brought forward by some interested men as the
reason for the non-introduction of foreign capital into our digging
operations.

The rescinding of this clause in 1876 (Ordinance 12, Nov. 20th) effected
great changes, the alteration in the law throwing the road open for
capitalists to buy out small holders in the Kimberley and other mines,
virtually leading the way to the extraordinary mania for
company-mongering and share-rigging which existed in 1880 and 1881.

The repeal of this clause, however, which had never been in favor with
capitalists, because it obstructed them from “blocking” claims in the
mines, was hailed by some with delight, by others with foreboding, as
the latter believed it to prognosticate the approach of monopoly and the
departure of the individual digger. This repeal initiated a most
remarkable period in the history of the diamond fields, in which a mania
for company promoting and for mad speculation seized the whole
community, of which a repetition is now going on at the De Kaap gold
fields. It may not perhaps be a matter of surprise that the inhabitants
of a place, depending on a somewhat precarious industry and one of which
the proceeds are so liable to fluctuation, should be more or less imbued
with the spirit of gambling, nor is there anything unusual in the digger
deserting his mining operations to endeavor to gain wealth in a more
rapid manner by speculation. Such circumstances have been of frequent
occurrence in America and Australia, where many a man who had been
unlucky as a digger, using his acquired knowledge has realized a fortune
by speculating in shares or claims.

In the case of the sudden rise of the share mania in Kimberley, the most
extraordinary point was to be found in the fact that the place had long
thrown off the habits and appearance of a digging camp, and had assumed
the customs of a settled town, while all matters connected with share
transactions were conducted in so systematic a manner that the event
bore a close resemblance to one of those speculative fevers which
occasionally seize the home Stock Exchange. Kimberley was not alone in
this novel excitement; the infection spread throughout the whole of
South Africa, share transactions were eagerly carried on in all the
coast towns, and companies with large capitals were also formed to work
the diamond mines in the Free State, at Jagersfontein, Koffyfontein and
Oliphansfontein, and half a dozen others of which it can now only be
said

“Gaudet cognomine terra.”

It is no easy matter to fully trace why the cause of this wild desire
for speculation seized upon the community. It has often been stated that
it was simply an endeavor on the part of interested persons on the
diamond fields to defraud the outside public and get rid of their
worthless property. This, however, was not the case, although it must be
admitted that in many instances the actions of promoters of companies
were far from honorable. A more feasible answer to the question will be
found in the fact that for some time past there had existed in
Kimberley, companies which, although registered under the limited
liability act, were of a semi-private nature; for instance, the
“Compagnie Française” (French Diamond Mining Company) and the Cape
Diamond Mining Company, both of which had been formed in 1879, some
three years after the “ten claim clause” had been abolished. These
undertakings were believed to be most successful, and the general public
on the Fields were eager to participate in the profits of similar
enterprises. When this desire became apparent there were many
claim-holders who were desirous of realizing some ready money, or paying
off some existing mortgage, by the sale of a share in their diamond
operations, and hence the creation of new joint-stock undertakings.

That the first companies on the Fields, the British and Central, were
formed with a most legitimate object, it is quite impossible to deny,
and the reason for their formation is most easily to be seen. As the
mine attained a greater depth, the expenses of working naturally became
larger; elaborate machinery had to be erected, and more European labor
was therefore required. Under such circumstances it is not strange that
many diggers found it to their advantage to amalgamate with their
neighbors; moreover, it often occurred that those who formerly had been
actively employed in the mine were desirous of entering into other
pursuits, and yet were not willing to abandon all interest in digging
operations; consequently the formation of joint-stock companies
naturally suggested itself as a convenient way of meeting the
requirements of the case. It was under such circumstances that the first
companies in Kimberley were formed. The shares in these undertakings
very seldom passed out of the hands of the original holders and the
system gave every promise of success; it is true that there were
prophets of evil, who were ready even in those days to declare that this
step was one on the road to ruin, so far as the prosperity of Kimberley
was concerned, yet for a time the results of these companies in most
cases proved to be unmistakably satisfactory, and it was this _bona
fide_ success which encouraged the promotion of numerous other schemes
which were shortly afterward introduced.

In the early part of the year 1881 there existed about a dozen companies
in the Kimberley mine, the total capital of which amounted roundly to
two millions and a half, and the shares in these undertakings were in
the hands of the most successful diggers on the Fields. These shares had
not, of course, been purchased with cash, but every claim-holder who put
his claim ground into a company received a certain amount of scrip for
his property. It is impossible to dispute the fact that claim property
had risen enormously in value during the few years previous to the
establishment of the first joint-stock undertaking, and it is manifest
that if claims were incorporated in a company at a price on which they
could yield a fair dividend, that price was a perfectly fair one. The
non-success of many of the subsequent undertakings was mainly due to the
fact that the promoters were blind to this very simple truth, and had
forgotten, or had never known, the first principles which should govern
joint-stock undertakings. In fact people who would never have dreamed of
buying a share in a business at £1,000, which would only secure a return
on five hundred, invested freely in shares in companies, the claims in
which would have given an admirable return on a small capital, but a
very poor one, if any at all, on the enormous sums at which they were
put in.

When once the idea that the joint-stock system was the most advantageous
method for working the mines gained a hold upon the community, the
excitement became intense, company after company was formed, and the
shares in every case were eagerly taken up by the public. When the
formation of a new undertaking was announced, the applications
universally doubled and trebled the number of shares proposed to be
allotted, and in fact a premium was invariably offered to a successful
applicant for the chance he had secured of obtaining a share in any new
venture.

The different lists for share applications were filled with marvelous
rapidity, and remained open but a very short time. Ebden Street, the
“Rue Quincampoix”[52] of Kimberley, was filled from morning to night
with a tumultuous and maddened crowd. The various offices of companies
in formation were simply stormed, and those who could not get in at the
door from the pressure of the crowd, threw their applications for shares
(to which were attached cheques and bank notes) through the windows,
trusting to chance that they might be picked up. It is difficult to
picture the eagerness, the plots, the rage of the excited multitude bent
on securing this, the magic scrip, which was to make the needy rich and
the embarrassed free.

It was astonishing how the mania seized on all classes in Kimberley,
from the highest to the lowest, just as Law’s scheme and the South Sea
bubble did during the previous century; how every one, doctors and
lawyers, masters and servants, shop-keepers and workmen, men of the pen
and men of the sword, magistrates and I. D. B.’s, Englishmen and
foreigners, rushed wildly into the wonderful game of speculation.

One financial agent told me he floated five companies in three weeks,
viz.: The Fry’s Gully, Du Toit’s Pan; the De Beer’s Central, De Beer’s;
the Barnato Co., Kimberley; the Frere Co., De Beer’s; and the Globe Co.,
Du Toit’s Pan; and that although the capital required for the five
companies was £496,000 only, yet £1,230,000 passed through his hands in
the short time I have mentioned.

Business of every kind was neglected, mining operations were all but
suspended, the sole topic being the share market and the profits to be
made there. Many made unexpected fortunes, and realized in a few months
gains larger than those a whole lifetime of work and economy could have
procured them had they continued their ordinary pursuits. Under these
circumstances it was only natural that many owners of worthless ground
took advantage of the general excitement to form companies which had
hardly the remotest possibility of success; it was evident that it
mattered very little to the general public, or the majority at all
events, what the company was, what the value of the claims might be or
where they were situated, so long as it was a diamond-mining company it
was quite sufficient to command public favor. The public bought shares
in the diamond-mining companies as to-day they are doing in the gold
companies, not to obtain dividends on their capital invested, but for
purposes of pure speculation.

One of the most flagrant instances of bogus company promoting which ever
came under notice was the imposition attempted at a farm named
Frankfort, situated in the Free State, about sixteen miles from
Kimberley.

This farm was prospected, diamonds found (?), a mine surveyed, claims
given out, dams dug, shafts sunk and machinery erected, simply to
bolster up a gigantic swindle, which but for the outspoken opinion of a
surveyor named Kitto would have been foisted, through a well known
European firm, who merely awaited his report, on the English public for
£450,000. To assist in gulling home investors an American adventurer was
actually sent to England with a parcel of beautiful diamonds, certified
by affidavit to have been found in this mine, in order that those
concerned in introducing the scheme to the public might give visible and
tangible proof of the enormous value of the property which they had for
disposal. Mr. Kitto’s report, however, decided the fate of what he terms
“one of the most shameful swindles ever attempted.”

Many a laughable story is told of how diamonds were turned out of, or—to
be more accurate—put into this mine. One probable investor on going down
a shaft to examine the ground at the bottom had a hail-storm of little
diamonds showered on him (some of which lit on the brim of his hat)
which were meant for him to unearth in the loose ground at the bottom.
This wonderful discovery of the diamond’s new “locate” did not tend to
increase this gentleman’s opinion of the proffered investment! On
another occasion an astute matron interested in the swindle roundly
bullied her servants for their carelessness in finding only seven
diamonds instead of eight, with which she had “salted” the wash-up.

To make a long story short, the “best laid schemes of mice and men gang
aft agley,” the bubble burst, and the proprietors of this wonderful mine
allowed the knowledge of its startling richness to sink into oblivion,
and found consolation and support in ministering to the bodily wants of
those whom business or pleasure took to that worked-out and forsaken
Golconda.

As another example of how things were managed in those days when the
share mania was at its height, I may mention the case of a well-known
citizen who conceived the happy idea of putting into a company certain
claims in the Bulfontein mine which were then in his possession. These
claims were twenty-six and one-half in number, and the services of an
energetic promoter (who was to be paid £500 if he pushed the company
through) having been secured, a prospectus pithily written was submitted
to several well-known men who agreed to become provisional directors.
The capital of the company was stipulated to be £30,000, in 6,000 shares
of £5 each, of which £1 was payable on application, a similar sum to be
paid on allotment. The vendor, however, reserved 3,000 shares for
himself, so that only 3,000 were offered to the public. The _modus
operandi_ of floating this company was somewhat unique. It was known
that locally the company could not go through, as the unkind assertion
that “half of the ground was in the street” was generally believed, but
that difficulty the diplomatic promoter overcame by sending copies of
the prospectus to agents in the Colony and Natal fully a week before it
was allowed to see the light of day on the Fields. This turned out to be
a rather clever dodge, for, before its publication in the local prints,
the secretary had in his possession sufficient applications by wire, the
forms for which duly signed afterward came to hand, to insure the safety
of the company. Locally there were but few applications. The first
instalment of the company, however, was only just subscribed for and the
share allotment made, when the collapse in the share market took place.
What, however, is a singular thing in reference to this company is, that
the money paid on application and that paid on allotment, which must
have amounted to some thousands of pounds, has never yet been accounted
for. The directors fell away one by one, no work was done or machinery
ordered, and eventually the vendor became his own chairman, directors
secretary, trustee, manager and the general _multum in parvo_ of the
Cosmopolitan Diamond Mining Company, Bulfontein mine! It has transpired
that the shareholders’ money had not even been devoted to paying the
licenses on the claims, for I find that up to Feb. 1887, there was an
amount due to the London and South African Exploration Company (limited)
of £2,008 for licenses on the claims from Sept. 1st, 1880. When this
company was introduced to the public, one of the clauses of the
prospectus read as follows:

“The well-known and regular returns of the Bulfontein mine are
proverbial, and most of the companies recently formed at a very much
higher rate per claim, are even now at a respectable premium; which,
coupled with the fact that all difficulties and obstructions having
been removed by the settlement arrived at between the claim-holders
generally and the London and South African Exploration Company
(limited), the provisional directors have all confidence in the future
of this company.”

Although the vendor then stated that a settlement had been arrived at,
yet in March, 1884, when sued by the London and South African
Exploration Company for the rent which was due to them, this gentleman
pleaded that the company had no title! Either his first statement in the
prospectus or his last in pleading must have been audacious in the
extreme.

The London and South African Exploration Company withdrew from the case,
probably to bring it on again at a later period.[53] Some shareholders
are asking what has become of the money, and whether the company should
not be forced into liquidation, that the matter may be fully inquired
into. The promoter of the company was never fully paid, and many
outstanding accounts were never settled.

The floating of this company and its subsequent history forms a novel of
itself, and is another proof of the loose manner in which important
business involving thousands of pounds was transacted.

This was indeed a time when a visitor to Kimberley could not help being
struck with the remarkable amount of business, legitimate and
illegitimate, which was transacted in a place so lately a mere desert.
As I have already mentioned the streets were thronged with an eager
crowd, all engaged in the same pursuit, the purchase or sale of shares;
a pursuit which each one firmly believed to be the high road to fortune.
Well-nigh every conveyance which arrived on the Fields brought new
comers, anxious to share in the supposed good fortune, all the hotels
were crowded, and from every drinking bar might be heard the popping of
champagne corks; for lucky speculators were lavish with their money,
believing as they did that they had hit on an inexhaustible mine of
wealth. Diggers who had hitherto scarcely managed to make both ends meet
now imagined themselves wealthy, as their claims had been put into
companies at a price sufficient to make them comfortable for life; men
who before had been contented to work hard for five or six pounds a week
secured positions as managers of companies with comparatively enormous
salaries, clerks and shopmen became secretaries, and assumed all the
dignity of their new positions, and lawyers were employed day and night,
drawing up agreements and trust deeds. The insatiate thirst for
speculation was not slaked by the opportunity afforded of drinking
fortune’s drams in mining ventures alone. Although 113 of these were
floated, yet some score of other schemes were thrown out as baits to
catch the unwary investor. Brick, coal, laundry, transport, ironmongery,
labor supply, theatres, clubs, hotels, aerated waters, in fact the
prosecution of every conceivable industry was changed from private hands
to those of managers and directors, some directors becoming veritable
“guinea pigs,” occupying seats at as many as from ten to fifteen boards
at the same time.

Extraordinary as it may seem, it is nevertheless a fact that in six
months the nominal capital of the diamond mining companies rose from two
millions and a half to over eight, and the companies in number from half
a dozen to seventy-one; of these thirteen existed in the Kimberley mine,
with a total capital of £2,685,000; eighteen at Du Toit’s Pan, with a
capital of £2,200,750. De Beers had thirteen companies, whose united
capital was £1,334,100, while at Bulfontein there were sixteen with the
more moderate sum of £871,100. In addition to these there were about
eleven companies formed to work the outside mines, and the capital
required for this purpose was estimated at £923,000. Some idea of the
large scale on which it was proposed to conduct these operations may be
formed from the fact that the total sum proposed to be devoted to the
purchase of machinery was no less than £650,700. Taking all these
matters into consideration, it does not require very great experience in
the art of finance to realize that the community of Kimberley was
playing at a very dangerous game, and one which would sooner or later be
attended with very serious results. Nor did the danger lie only in the
fact that Kimberley speculated far beyond its capital, from the
commencement to the end the hastily formed companies had but little
chance of success, their very trust deeds being irregular. Again, the
greed of the promoters exhausted the funds which should have been
devoted to the development of the property, claims were put in at a
price which rendered the payment of any but the most paltry dividends
impossible, whilst the favoritism and nepotism of directors caused
inefficient men to be appointed to posts the occupants of which should
have had the utmost possible practical experience.

All this ought to have been clear to the old residents on the Fields,
but for some unaccountable reason they seemed blind for the time to all
principles of common sense; the Kimberley investor—I mean, of course,
the _bona fide_ investor and not the mere speculator in shares—seemed to
throw his judgment aside altogether, and apparently believed that the
“bonanza” from which he was to derive his future wealth was to be found
in the ground, which, as he might have known, had scarcely paid for
working in the hands of the individual digger, and could not be
expected, even with the command of improved and costly machinery which
capital could secure, to pay even decent dividends.

For many months, until June 1881, in fact, shares continued to advance
in price to the most absurd premiums, and the most outrageous reports
were taken as truths, while the influx of a considerable amount of money
from colonial investors aided in fanning the breeze, which wafted the
place on the rocks and breakers of financial distress.

The first check which the mania received was given by the sudden action
taken by the local banks. The managers of these institutions had given
way to the general excitement, and in fact had conduced to it by freely
advancing money on all kinds of bogus paper, and now they suddenly
became alive to the fact that the security of the scrip of mining
companies might not be so sound as at first sight it appeared to be, and
refused, for the future, to make any advances on this class of property.

A loud cry of indignation was immediately raised from every quarter,
speculators who had been purchasing heavily and mortgaging their shares
to purchase more, and who now found that their system would receive a
fatal blow, naturally complained of these, as they termed them,
“arbitrary and injudicious proceedings” on the part of the financial
institutions.

By slow degrees the mania abated, at last shareholders commenced to
realize the fact that they had invested beyond their means, and what
made the matter more serious they found it impossible to sell at
anything like the price at which they had purchased. The natural
consequence of this was a material fall in nearly all classes of shares.
In spite, however, of the tightness in the local money market, the
community by no means lost entire confidence in their pet schemes. To
show the justness of these opinions, I will mention one company in
particular, the “Barnato.” This was the smallest company in the
Kimberley mine, consisting of four claims only, and was introduced to
the public in March, 1881, at the enormous sum of £25,000 a claim, with
an addition of £15,000 for working expenses, almost double the value put
by any other company on their claims. The application list for shares
was open for an hour only, when the required capital was subscribed for
twice over, and in two days the shares were at twenty-five per cent,
premium, at which price they changed hands freely. The faith of the
investors in this company’s shares was fully borne out. During the
succeeding eighteen months (before the company’s claims were covered
over with reef) it actually paid dividends on this exorbitant capital to
the tune of thirty-one per cent., distributing among its shareholders no
less a sum than £35,650. The Central Company also paid in dividends
during the first three-quarters after its formation fifty-one per cent.,
reaching a grand total during its first two and a half years of some
eighty per cent., the amount in figures amounting to £321,985, 18s. 6d.
But the majority of companies never paid any dividend at all for years,
and some are even now not out of debt.

When it became apparent that the place had not a sufficient amount of
capital to support its enormous number of mining undertakings, many
plans were formed for the introduction of capital from Europe, and in
the hope of this object meeting with a successful issue, speculators
still continued to buy and sell shares, but as time went on and it
became perfectly clear that the hope of any benefit being derived from
this source must be abandoned, the value of scrip gradually became lower
and lower, until at last in many cases it was all but nil, and where
there were calls unpaid a minus quantity.

The decline in the value of shares in the market was enormous. Central
shares in the Kimberley mine, which had an easy sale in March, 1881, at
£400[54] per share were in 1884 almost unsalable at £25. Rose Innes
shares which were sought after at £53 sank to £5, and a similar fall
also occurred in the shares of all the companies in the other mines of
the province. In the mines of the Free State the depreciation in the
value of shares was more extraordinary still. An instance I well
remember. A friend of mine after years of application to business,
combined with indomitable perseverance, amassed a large fortune, when he
was tempted to speculate in the Koffyfontein mine, to which I have
already alluded, during the months of June and July, 1881. He bought
during the height of the mania 1,200 Koffyfontein shares at £28 each,
which were afterward within two years realized in his estate at 6d a
share. He thus lost over £30,000 on the one venture. This was far from
being an unparalleled instance of men being completely ruined by the
unprecedented fall which took place in shares at that time. Though the
diamond mania did not convey such widespread disaster as the South Sea
bubble or the Mississippi scheme, yet it will be years before the effect
of the South African “bubble year” of 1881 is forgotten.

On the time arriving when dividends were expected to be declared, in but
very few instances were the directors able to do so. Ground which had
yielded well in the hands of private owners often proved entirely
unremunerative under the joint-stock system, and the reason of this was
evident; the digger when working on his own account required no office
with a highly paid staff; he was his own manager and secretary, he
looked keenly after his own interests, and would never have dreamed of
trusting the most vital matters in his business to a possibly
incompetent servant.

In spite of the fact that, generally speaking, the company system had
proved a failure, but little attempt was made to mend matters. Things
drifted from bad to worse, until at last Kimberley entered on the worst
financial crisis that it had ever experienced. The companies with few
exceptions were more or less in difficulties. Pressed for their
liabilities by the banks, they had in turn to put the greatest pressure
on such shareholders as had not paid all the instalments on their
shares, and in very many cases their action was useless, as the
shareholders were unable to meet the demands made on them. The
consequence was that the companies had to go into liquidation and work
in the mines came to a partial stand-still. Kimberley was no longer the
Kimberley of the past.

It may be safely said that in its rash and reckless speculation
Kimberley was almost guilty of financial suicide, for not only was an
all but fatal blow given to the industry which supported the place, but
all confidence in its resources was for a time destroyed in the minds of
its colonial neighbors and the home investing public. The good, sound
investments, yielding large returns, to be made here, would startle the
quiet folk who are satisfied with the “three per cents.” As an instance
of the dividend paying capacity of some companies some months ago, I
cannot help mentioning the Elma at Old De Beers; in November, 1883, the
market value of its £10 paid-up shares was from 16 shillings to 20
shillings, when with good management in less than eight months it paid a
monthly dividend averaging from two to three per cent., or for the
investor who was lucky enough to buy in at the low prices, at the rate
of 360 per cent. per annum.

The fact of Griqualand with its incalculable mineral wealth being now
united to the colony by the line of railway opened at the end of
1885,[55] the knowledge that owing to this the cost of the production of
diamonds must be vastly diminished, together with the lessening of
theft, which the extension of the Diamond Trade Act to the colony and
the re-enactment of a similar ordinance by the government of the Free
State must produce, will tend to give a spurt to digging operations.

I shall next treat of the political stages through which the Diamond
Fields have passed from their discovery to the present time.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE DIAMOND FIELDS UNDER ADAM KOK, CORNELIUS KOK,
“DAM KOK,” ANDREAS AND NICHOLAS WATERBOER.—THE DIAMOND FIELDS AND THEIR
GOVERNMENTS.—THE HOISTING OF THE BRITISH FLAG.—THE KEATE AWARD.—RUSH
FROM THE RIVER TO THE DRY DIGGINGS.—PNIEL DESERTED.—THE COMMENCEMENT OF
DIAMOND STEALING.—JUDGE LYNCH PUTS IN AN APPEARANCE.—DISCOVERY OF THE
KIMBERLEY MINE.—BRITISH RULE PROCLAIMED.—FREE STATE COURTS CLOSED.

After writing so far about the Diamond Fields, their past and present
condition, the climate, the geology, and the peculiar crime and
legislation there existing, I will now turn to the early history of a
region which, if it had not been for the wonderful discovery of
diamonds, would yet have been the home of the half-caste Griqua, the
indolent Batlapin, the marauding Koranna, the pigmy Bushman or the
pioneer Boer.

Griqualand West, the official name of this part of South Africa, is
bounded N. E. by the Cape Colony, S. by the Orange River, N. by Bechuana
Land, E. by the Orange Free State, and W. by the Kalahari Desert.

The chief inhabitants, the Griquas, are a mixed race, many of them
half-castes, who came from the Cape Colony and settled near the Orange
River under Adam Kok (himself a half-caste, his father being a Dutch
Boer and his mother a Hottentot slave) in 1795, who in course of time
resigned his chieftainship to his son Cornelius. Cornelius Kok, being
absent from his people for some time, during which he visited Lord
Caledon in Capetown, found, on his return in 1816, the Griquas settled
down and his son, “Dam Kok,” reigning in his stead. Dam Kok, becoming
restless about this time, left Griqua Town in 1819, dying subsequently
at Philippolis in 1837. Andreas Waterboer, formerly a schoolmaster and
preacher under the London missionaries at Griqua Town was, after “Dam
Kok” left the district, unanimously chosen chief, and his appointment
was confirmed in 1822 by Lord Charles Somerset, governor of the Cape.
Andreas Waterboer then set about redressing wrongs, was both
well-intentioned and useful to the British government, being a “friendly
and sincere ally,” as well as hospitable and open-hearted to all
visitors, and by these means so consolidated his power that he received
a special recognition in the shape of a silver medal, which was sent him
by Lord Charles Somerset. Notwithstanding this, although backed up by
the English government and Sir George Cathcart, he was continually
worried by land disputes with Cornelius Kok (whom, in 1838, he had
deposed from his office of provisional captain) until his death on Dec.
13th, 1852, relieved him from further trouble. His son, Nicholas, who
was then quite a boy, succeeded him. Troubles increased, the English
abandoned the sovereignty (now the Orange Free State) in February 1854,
and Nicholas Waterboer hemmed in, on the one side by the Transvaal and
on the other by the Orange Free State, formally appointed David Arnott,
on Sept. 1st, 1863, to act as his agent, which he had in reality been
for some years. Long before even diamonds were discovered, the Orange
Free State had insisted that there could be no question as to their
right to all the country between the Orange and the Vaal Rivers, but as
the district was of little value, no special steps had been taken by
that government to insist on their so-called rights.

[Illustration:

THE WATERBOER MEDAL.
]

When the first diamond was found in 1869, and attention consequently
drawn to the discovery, as I have before stated, the banks of the Vaal
became peopled with diggers and prospectors, and Waterboer, at once
seeing his necessity to deal with this large and increasing influx,
ceded all the land to which he laid claim, some 17,000 square miles, to
the English, the allowance of £150 per annum, which the English
government had paid to Adam Kok, Cornelius Kok, and then to Andreas, the
father of Nicholas Waterboer, being increased to £250, and afterward, in
1877, to £1,000, with £500 a year to his widow after his death. The
Orange Free State now asserted its rights, based upon its former demands
of having purchased Adam Kok’s rights with the land in question. The
misunderstanding resulting between the English government and the Orange
Free State, ending in the former giving the latter a compensation of
£90,000, I shall more fully explain further on, but I may say here that
Nicholas Waterboer is a living example of the care (?) bestowed by the
English government, as a rule, upon those aborigines it may take under
its fostering care. Nicholas Waterboer, formerly the undisturbed
possessor of this valuable tract of country, now ekes out a miserable
existence at Griqua Town, having parted with his country, the farms
allotted to him mortgaged, his pension swallowed up by hungry creditors,
ruined both in body and estate, a drunkard and virtually a pauper! I
endeavored both in the Griqualand West legislature and in the Cape house
of assembly to obtain some information respecting this poor chief and
the ultimate destination of his pension, but without success.

Any one asked to describe the policy of governments in the diamond
fields under the British flag would give no better answer than “making
pie-crust promises.” That was the policy of the first representative of
British rule “under instruction,” and it has continued to be the most
marked characteristics of his successors. Every new “hand” that has been
intrusted with the reins of government started on his career by
reversing the policy of his predecessors and making promises, which, if
he ever meant to keep, he revoked shamelessly and recklessly, either to
gratify his own caprice for party purposes, or under the “instruction”
of the imperial nominee, whose seat is fixed in Capetown, and who
puppet-like moves according to “wire.” It is therefore not to be
wondered at if the inhabitants of the diamond fields have occasionally
become furious and uncontrollable. The facts of the diamond field
history speak for themselves. Early in 1871 there was a flutter amongst
the population digging for diamonds on the banks of the river Vaal,
occasioned by the announcement that Mr. John Campbell, an official of
the Cape government, had arrived at Pniel to be British resident, to
represent British rule under the Union Jack, to administer law and
order, and to keep off at arms-length the two neighboring states, who
were bent on getting the territorial rights in their own hands; the Free
State claiming all the land on the near, and the Transvaal that on the
off-side of the river.

The English were jubilant, the Dutch furious. Mr. Campbell did not
venture to hoist the flag on the Pniel side, for Mr. Truter, a subject
of the Free State, was already sitting there as the representative of
the Free State and holding magisterial office under the flag of that
republic. The great mass of the population moreover (which at that time
could not have been less than 6,000 souls) was Dutch, the proportion
being about two to one. The Klipdrift bank of the river was peopled
chiefly by Englishmen who were determined to hold the territory on which
they had settled against all comers; to preserve their nationality; to
pay no tribute to any Dutch state, and to secure their position by the
aid of British rule; so that, when Mr. Campbell arrived, they were quite
ready to welcome him and to rally round the British flag.

A number of diggers went across the river to Pniel to escort Mr.
Campbell across the Vall, and all who did not do so assembled at the
landing place on the Klipdrift side to receive him. He landed in
Klipdrift amidst the cheers of the populace; a procession was formed to
accompany him to his quarters, and when a day or two after he met the
diggers he was as prolific of promises as a bramble is of blackberries.

All the diggers’ committees then in existence bowed down to him, and he
assured them that no private right either to land or to claims was to be
disturbed, that British titles would be immediately given to those who
had obtained land either by grant or purchase from the chiefs or their
agents, and that the law would be administered precisely as in every
other part of her Majesty’s dominions. Three commissioners, Messrs. H.
Bowker, F. Orpen and Buyskes, were appointed by proclamation to deal
with the land, holding their appointments from the high commissioner,
and all parties holding documents showing them to have land claims were
requested to send them in at once to the commissioners, so that they
might have titles substituted for them.

The territory at this time no more belonged to the British government
than it did to the Mikado. Nicholas Waterboer, the chief of the Griquas,
had it is true tendered his rights to the British government, but that
government had not come to terms or closed with him. There were disputes
between Waterboer and Janje, the chief of the Korannas and Batlapins;
while Botlisatsi, a brother of Mankoroane, was contending that he was
the chief of his tribe, and that his land included Bloemhof and
Christiana.

Beside this the chiefs had no individual rights to land beyond those
given them by their counsellors who represented the tribes, the native
law being that the land belonged to the tribe, and that none of it could
be disposed of to private individuals. The white men who had been
permitted to settle among them had none but squatters’ rights, though
the Boers had come in, marked out farms without leave being asked or
given, had laid down beacons and denied that any natives had any rights
over the land. When ordered off they refused to go.

Mr. Campbell some little time after his arrival proceeded to settle
civil claims and to try criminal offenses, when it was discovered that
he held office under the joint authority of Waterboer and the British
government. This was a dilemma never calculated upon. The Griquas not
being British subjects declined to be made subject to British laws, and
Mr. Campbell was instructed to administer Griqua laws for the Griquas
whenever it was applicable to the cases before him, and to do his best
to satisfy all suitors. So Mr. Campbell, who had positively no legal
jurisdiction, mixed the Griqua and British-colonial law and got along as
best he could. The Transvaal government persisted in its protests
against the British government exhibiting itself on the Klipdrift side
of the river, and threatened to drive English and natives out of the
country and claimed the land as their own. It was ultimately arranged,
however, that this land dispute should be settled by arbitration, and
this brought about what is known as “the Keate award.”

An arbitration board of three was appointed, consisting of Mr. Campbell
for the British government, Mr. Jeppe for the Transvaal, and Mr. Keate,
then lieutenant governor of Natal, to act as referee. The arbitrators
met at Bloemhof, and witnesses were called from all directions, Griquas,
Korannas, Batlapins, Barolongs, Boers and Englishmen all giving
evidence. Of course the Transvaal and English arbitrators could not
agree, and after a very protracted sitting Mr. Jeppe went “huis
toe,”[56] or home, Mr. Campbell following his example and returning to
the diamond fields.

Lieut. Governor Keate then took the matter into his own hands, completed
the arbitration and decided that the territory in dispute belonged to
the native tribes, and that the Transvaal had no shadow of claim to it
or any part of it. The award, however, did not deal with details, the
whole of which and the conflicting claims of the natives were left to be
settled in the future. No beacons were laid down by the arbitrators to
prevent after disputes, and as may be supposed it was not long before
the territorial and land questions bred troubles with which the civil
powers were unable to cope without resorting to arms.

Mr. Campbell assured every one on his return that the British government
had won the arbitration, and his reasons for so considering were that
although the award was formally recorded for the natives the territory
was sure to come into the hands of the British government. Those,
therefore, who had lodged formal land claims were all the more eager for
their titles to be registered.

The land commissioners as soon as they commenced discussing the
principle upon which land should be dealt with came to loggerheads
amongst themselves, Mr. Holden Bowker proposing that all the land at the
disposal of the government should be given out on the Queenstown system,
of which he was the author, to which suggestion his colleagues were
opposed, each having a plan of his own. The “Queenstown system” of
settling the land was granting to applicants land at a nominal rental,
each grantee being bound to occupy the land personally, to keep a
certain number of men provided with arms and liable to be called out
when needed to go on _commando_, and to appear at an annual review to be
held in the district.

The government to put an end to the wrangle informed the commissioners
that it was not their duty to grant titles nor to settle the principle
upon which the land was to be given out. Mr. F. T. Orpen, who had been
nominated surveyor to government, declined to hold the office of
commissioner any longer and sent in his resignation. He pointed out that
it could not have been the original intention of the government that the
commissioners should only collect the documents upon which land claims
were founded, as one commissioner could have done that as well as three.
There is little or no doubt, however, that the fault attached to this
broken promise was committed at the instance of the imperial government,
who had not yet settled with Waterboer, fearing the heavy
responsibilities that would be involved in so doing.

This course of action made the Free State all the bolder in its demands
and its authorities sent to Pniel demanding from the diggers the license
money for claims and stands which, if paid, would have enriched the Free
State treasury to the extent of at least £1,500 a month—the claim
licenses being charged at a rate of 10s. each per month.

The Berlin missionaries, who laid claim to Pniel as their property,
protested, and the English diggers, together with many of the Boers who
hailed from the Cape Colony and were digging at Pniel at the time,
refused to pay.

The Free State threatened force. The diggers laughed at the menace when
the Free State government called out a _commando_, which was instantly
responded to by the Boers, and quite an army of Vrijstaat cavalry came
over the border and encamped on a flat situated close to the river,
about three miles from the Pniel diggings. Tax-gatherers were sent in to
warn the diggers that if they failed to pay the army would move in and
smite them hip and thigh. Messages were returned more plain than polite.

At this time there were about 4,000 diggers at Pniel, so the Free
Staters maintained “a masterly inactivity” for several weeks, when some
of them rode into the camp and blustered considerably. The diggers
simply regarded their invaders as so many butts for ridicule, and the
natives, who thoroughly enjoyed the fun, added to the diggers’ amusement
by jumping up behind the riders on the Boer volunteers’ horses, which
were gorgeously caparisoned with navy-blue saddle-cloths richly adorned
with embroidery of yellow and red braid, while other dusky humorists
seized the tails of the horses, laughing and shouting with all the
artless glee and _abandon_ of the sons of Ham.

The “army” saw it was useless to attack Pniel and some of the wisest of
them made their way back to their farms and donned their mole-skins
again. The bulk of them thought, however, that they would try and force
money out of the diggers at the smaller camps, and selected for the
experiment Waldek’s plant (where a number of English colonists were at
work) thinking to take them by surprise, but the Free State Boers have
no more love for being taxed than have their brethren in the Transvaal
or in the Cape Colony, and certain of them in kindly sympathy took care
to let the Waldek’s plant diggers know of the movements of the army.
When the warriors rode into Waldek’s plant they found themselves face to
face with armed men behind two small field-pieces and were given to
understand that if they did not wheel about and be off they would be
fired at. The advice of Bombastes, “begone brave army and don’t kick up
a row,” was given in sober earnest.

There was an immediate halt. A deputation was sent from the army to meet
a deputation from the diggers, and a mutual understanding was arrived at
that there should be no fighting. There was a general indulgence in the
cups that cheer and also inebriate, and the Boer army returned as
empty-handed as they came. Mr. Campbell did not venture to cross the
river to the side where there was a Free State magistrate, nor yet did
Mr. Truter, the Free State official, venture to steer his barque to the
side where Mr. Campbell had hoisted the British flag.

When the diamonds were first discovered Sir Philip Wodehouse was
governor and high commissioner of the South African colonies, but he was
recalled before there was anything like a general rush to the fields,
which only commenced in the beginning of 1870. Lieut. Governor Hay
filled the acting appointment until Sir Henry Barkly became governor and
high commissioner in 1870, and the latter had not been long in the Cape
Colony before he came up; the Cape parliament having decided that he
should, between the sessions of 1870 and 1871, make all the arrangements
for annexing the diamond fields to the Cape Colony, and at that time the
diggers looked on this annexation as inevitable.

Sir Henry went to the Klipdrift side of the river and was received with
the most strongly-marked expressions of joyfulness at his arrival.
Triumphal arches were erected and a banquet was given him, but he was
very reticent and little information as to how the fields were to be
governed was gleaned from him. The chief point of interest elicited from
him being that the land would soon be given out.

This visit was followed by the establishment of a high court presided
over by a single judge, Mr. Advocate Barry, (now Sir Jacob Dirk)
president of the court of the eastern districts of the Cape Colony. Mr.
J. Cyprian Thompson came as public prosecutor and there was soon a full
bar, Mr. Campbell holding the position of resident magistrate and the
late Mr. Giddy being civil commissioner.

The discovery of diamonds at Du Toit’s Pan and Bulfontein in 1870 caused
a revolution in the order of things. The diamonds could at this time
only be obtained at Pniel and the other river diggings by the
troublesome operations of digging out and removing boulders of immense
size, some of which were many tons in weight. The labor, as may be
conceived, was tedious to a degree when the diamondiferous gravel had to
be taken to the river, cradled, washed and sorted; all employed whites
as well as blacks were standing in water half their time, and chills,
ague and fever were the natural consequences. There was no water at the
Du Toit’s Pan or Bulfontein, the diamonds were found near the surface,
and the diamondiferous stuff only needed sieving before it was ready for
the sorting table.

The rush from the river to what were called “the dry diggings” was one
of the most remarkable ever recorded. In one week after the existence of
diamonds at Du Toit’s Pan in payable quantities was assured, Pniel,
which had grown into a town with a population of at least 3,000, and
provided with shops, post-office, hotels, law courts, etc., became
almost forsaken with nothing to be seen of its past glories, nothing
left but the deep pits from which the boulders had been removed and a
few straggling remains of roads and mud buildings. The population of
Klipdrift had been reduced by at least one-half, but the houses and
stores there being chiefly built of stone could not be removed; and
here, too, were the English courts, the judge, the public prosecutor,
the headquarters of the frontier mounted police, of which force a number
had been moved up to the Fields together with the civil servants.

All that the English government claimed was the territory under the
chieftainship of Waterboer. But the estate of Dorstfontein (Du Toit’s
Pan) was the property of a citizen of the Free State, and he, as others
had (although he was a British subject by birth), implicitly obeyed the
laws of that state and was prepared still to be loyal to it and to
submit to any digging laws that that government might pass and proclaim,
and to pay any tax or royalty that the Free State Volksraad and
government might see fit to demand. Mr. Truter, who had previously held
his court at Pniel and hoisted the republican flag there, opened a court
at Du Toit’s Pan, and English and Dutch alike respected his edicts and
availed themselves of his court.

Happily for the diamond fields, diamonds were found on the Voornitzigt
estate almost simultaneously with their discovery at Du Toit’s Pan, and
this estate had been purchased by Mr. Alfred Ebden (now the Hon. Alfred
Ebden, M. L. C.), of Old De Beers, on his first visit to Klipdrift, not
with the remotest suspicion that there were rich diamond mines on it,
but because of its close proximity to the already discovered diamond
fields.

When diamonds were found on this estate there was less difficulty in the
British government obtaining land for offices and courts than there had
been before, Mr. Ebden being a British subject and therefore desirous
that his property should be under his country’s flag, and he at once
said that the government might take any ground which they might select
as sites for the erection of buildings for official purposes.

At this time the local government was in the hands of three
commissioners, Messrs. J. C. Thompson and Campbell and Commandant Bowker
of the frontier mounted police, who were responsible to and acted under
the instructions of the high commissioner. It was never clearly
understood what their powers and duties were, nor could any one gather
from their proceedings what it was intended they should do, except to
act as buffers, so to speak, between the inhabitants and the high
commissioner, and between the high commissioner and the president of the
Free State. They continued their offices or “seat of government” as they
called it, at Barkly, placing Mr. Giddy on the Voornitzigt estate as
resident magistrate and civil commissioner, and appointing a small body
of police to do his bidding, while they themselves paid periodical
visits to the dry diggings, but never ventured into Du Toit’s Pan. When
Bulfontein was found an attempt to gain possession of it was made by the
Free State, but that was successfully resisted by the proprietors and
diggers, who declined to permit what they called “the foreign yoke” to
be placed about their necks. The high court, the post-office and all the
English government offices were still centered in Klipdrift.

Whilst the river diggings existed it was not a public complaint that the
natives stole diamonds. Occasionally a “nigger” was found to have
concealed one, being egged on to the theft by some dishonest person who
wanted to get diamonds cheaply.

When a diamond was discovered on a native he was “basted” with a
sjambok. If he had disposed of it he was made to tell who bought it and
the fellow was kicked out of the camp. The natives did not then know the
value of diamonds, and they brought those which they found to their
masters, but they were not allowed at the sorting tables and could only
obtain diamonds from out of the claims. Very soon after the discovery of
the dry diggings the character of the population underwent a change.
Originally the diggers came from the colonies and adjoining states, and
it was not until the early part of 1871 that Europeans came in any
numbers. Then the class which in the slums of London live without labor
began to put in an appearance, as I have mentioned before, and pitched
their tents in these diamond fields.

From that time trouble began. They systematically bought stolen diamonds
from natives or anybody, put up the niggers to all sorts of dodges by
which their masters might be robbed, and on this becoming known Judge
Lynch manifested his presence by the burning of the tents in which these
evil doers resided, which blazed away night after night.

One man was taken to a tree and Judge Lynch delivered judgment against
him to the effect that if he did not tell to whom he had sold the
diamond he should be hung up by the neck until he was dead, and that
such should be the fate of all buyers of stolen diamonds. The rope was
put around the neck of the condemned thief, but the threat was not
carried into effect, as those who were to perform the duty of
executioners were told that they, living as they did under British laws,
would be held guilty of murder if they carried out the sentence, and
appalled at this they held their hands, and the native, for aught I
know, lives to this day. White men keeping stores on the Voornitzigt
estate were suspected, and one of them would no doubt have been torn to
pieces had not some of his friends and companions come forward to save
his life, when pale as death and shaking like an aspen leaf he declared
that he was innocent. Nobody, however, believed in his innocence then,
nor has he yet succeeded in convincing the old residents in his
unsullied integrity. But by the skin of his teeth he escaped the
vengeance of his justly infuriated enemies.

The firing of tents went on, and the commissioners had no power to
interfere with any hope of preventing it; beyond a few policemen, they
had no force at their command whatsoever, and hence could effect nothing
themselves; they called, however, a meeting in front of the civil
commissioners’ office, which was attended by many hundreds of diggers
and others, the popular speakers saying that if the government would do
nothing to protect their diamonds against thieves that they would take
the law into their own hands. The commissioners were all present. Mr.
Thompson, on the part of the commissioners, was the only one who was not
trembling with fear. He said that he “would take care if any man, native
or white man, was found either stealing diamonds, or in possession of
stolen diamonds, he would punish him with the utmost severity of the
law; but the law should not be that of Judge Lynch, and if he found a
man setting a tent or other property on fire he would admit of no
justification, and it would be useless for such a man to talk about
stolen diamonds.” The learned gentleman would charge that man with
arson, and he might be sure that he would receive the penalty provided
by law for that crime.

He also said that the commissioners were considering what could be done
to afford diggers protection, and would let them know when they had made
up their minds. The meeting wanted to know if the commissioners would
make up their minds by the following Monday. Mr. Campbell asked: “Will
you promise not to set any more tents on fire until after Monday, and we
will see what we can do?”

Mr. Thompson declined to be a party to any bargaining of that sort, and
the meeting separated. There was no tent burning for some time after
this.

Government by nominee commissioners was a mistake from the beginning. In
both the elementary strength was lacking and the “main de fer”
(certainly) and the “gant de soie” (probably) were both needed in
dealing with so heterogeneous a community as that of the diamond fields.
Sir Henry Barkly exerted himself to the utmost to make it work
satisfactorily, but failed to do so. The system and the material were
alike bad.

His excellency at that time thought that annexation would be perfected
in the coming session of the Cape parliament, and was therefore anxious
it should begin. That the commissioners must be got rid of was clear, as
the diggers had shown themselves so completely dissatisfied with the
existing order of things.

The land claimants had become clamorous for the titles which had been so
long promised but were not yet forthcoming. The parliament of 1872 was
convened but would have nothing to say to Sir Henry’s annexing
proposals. This was another addition to the long list of promises which
the people in the Fields had found to be violated.

The high commissioner was furious and would have liked to tell the
honorable the house of assembly, his notions of the sense of honor
possessed by M. L. A’s. who were in the majority. But scolding would not
mend matters, and he therefore restrained himself from speaking out as
he would liked to have done.

His excellency’s dispatches to the secretary of state for the colonies
had inspired the imperial minister with confidence that the Fields would
be readily taken over by the Colony, but when he found that was not to
be he was no less furious than Sir Henry himself.

The adverse vote of the Cape legislature threw the onus of governing the
Fields on the high commissioner himself; his correspondence with the
president of the Free State was not only voluminous but provoked retorts
from his honor which were not pleasant nor easy of reply, and
personalities and loss of temper ensued; in fact the antagonism between
these high officials was almost unprecedented, and existed for a
considerable time.

The Boers of the Free State and all the Dutch in the Colony as well as
in the Fields were in sympathy with the president, and they accused the
high commissioner and the secretary of state for the colonies of having
shamefully robbed the Free State of the territory for the sake of its
diamonds. This charge, I may add, was believed in by a great many beside
the Dutch, and it was asserted by some of the most influential journals
in England that the home government would never have thought of setting
up Waterboer’s claim to the territory in dispute had not diamonds been
found to exist in it. This, however, was altogether untrue, for Sir
Philip Wodehouse at the time when he was engaged in interviewing the
British Kaffrarian annexation delegates at Aliwal North, who were
opposed to the proposed absorption of their country by the Cape, was in
correspondence with the president on the same subject, and complaining
that the Boers of the Free State were encroaching upon Waterboer’s
territory, and accused that state of having extended its boundaries
beyond those marked out when the sovereignty was abandoned.

Moreover, long before any diamonds were discovered, Mr. David Arnott,
the agent of Waterboer, had sent numberless protests to the Free State
government respecting the Boer encroachments, and at a conference which
had taken place on the same subject had produced evidence which he held
to be more than sufficient to prove that Waterboer’s claim was
incontestable.

On the 17th of July, 1871, the Colesberg Kopje, now the Kimberley mine,
was discovered, and in November of the same year the whole of the
diggings, without regard to title, were proclaimed to be under British
rule. This was supposed to have been done in order to enable Sir Henry
Barkly to perfect his arrangements for bringing about annexation during
the session of parliament in 1872. His excellency little knew then how
he was to be sold when the parliament met, but he afterward discovered,
as we have seen, with how capricious and unreliable a house of
representatives he had to deal.

The manner of proclaiming British rule was unique, to say the least of
it. The commissioners who were still in power, and a good many not in
power, were in a state of mental fever about the hoisting “the flag that
braves” and proclaiming British rule. It was all very well for Sir Henry
to instruct the commissioners to proclaim British rule, but who was to
read the proclamation.

The Dutch in the Fields “swore with an oath or something as good,” that
they would not be “brought under the British yoke,” as they called it,
and threatened to take arms and “deluge the Fields with blood” if their
state was deprived of the governing powers over the dry diggings. The
English on the Fields contrasted the proportions of the Dutch and
English populations, and the long odds against the latter if the Dutch
should show fight. The most timid were sure that the Dutch would rise to
a man, and the lives and property of the English would be sacrificed;
and if the truth be told many an English colonist then in these diggings
would as soon have seen the Free State as the English flag flying over
them, and no wonder, seeing that imperial rule had been in several
instances the cause of disaster to South Africa. It is hard sometimes
for colonists to remain loyal and true to their nationality when they
are treated with contumely, distrusted and scoffed at by the chief and
subordinates of the imperial colonial department, as has occurred more
than once in this colony.

However, the morning of the 17th of November broke upon the diamond
fields—the day on which the Fields from Klipdrift to the Modder River,
the whole area on which diamond diggings had been established, was to be
proclaimed British. John Campbell, Esq., in his plaids and buckles, a
model Highlander from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet,
slipped out of his office door, and with his colleagues was driven in a
cart to the margin of the Colesberg Kopje. This illustrious
commissioner, however, was not the man to “bell the cat;” that duty was
taken upon himself by the late J.C. Thompson, then crown prosecutor and
commissioner. The official car was surrounded by vehicles filled with
loyals, loyals on horseback and loyals on foot, and Mr. Thompson read
the proclamation from the scroll, which he unfolded and then nailed up
to a hoarding close by. There had been a government _Gazette_ published,
but its place of publication had not as yet been moved to the dry
diggings from Klipdrift, but whether the proclamation was gazetted or
not I have never yet been able to discover, for when Mr. G. W. Murray
asked for it, when he was a member of the legislative council, he was
told by the government that the files had been lost!

Mr. Thompson, after nailing up a copy or the original proclamation, no
one knew which, drove off in the triumphal British car to Du Toit’s Pan,
followed by a long procession of horsemen and vehicles, amidst the
shouts of the street mob and the melodious strains of an extemporized
band, which, in honor of the occasion, was playing a colorable imitation
of “The Campbells are coming.”

On reaching Du Toit’s Pan, Mr. Thompson repeated his proclaiming process
there. The honorable gentleman unfolded a second scroll and read its
contents, and then nailed up proclamation No. 2 on a hoarding. There was
a great concourse of people who came to hear and see what was up. The
multitude was a motley one. There were diggers Dutch and English,
store-keepers and canteen-keepers, Dutch and English too, and diamond
buyers with unmistakable Whitechapel marks or Bevis marks upon them, if
the pun be pardonable. In the midst of the multitude stood the Free
State magistrate and his clerk, both open-mouthed, very pale, and yet
more astonished than pale. On referring to the paper on the hoarding,
they found that Dutch as well as English had been enfolded in the arms
of Britannia. There was no fighting, no bloodshed, but a good deal of
tall talk. The Dutch authorities did not show bellicose intentions. The
Dutch magistrate merely closed his court, locked his office door, put
the key in his pocket, and paired off with his clerk to see the
president to report the aggressive proceedings, and his place in Du
Toit’s Pan “knew him no more forever.” The diggers went back to their
work, after the customary indulgence in alcoholic stimulants. The
general public exhibited few manifestations of joy, for it had even then
begun to be whispered that if this were to be the prelude of annexing
the Fields to the Cape, there was little in it for Griqualanders to
glorify themselves over. A banquet was given at Benning & Martin’s
hotel, Du Toit’s Pan, at which the officials secured front seats for
themselves and their friends, and made the speeches of the evening,
extolling themselves and each other, and becoming as full of loyal
sentiments as they were of “Mumm.” From that day forth the rule was
British, or supposed to be, but with the exception that the people had
to pay more taxes there was nothing to indicate that “a vast, great, and
glorious change” had taken place.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIX.
SIR HENRY BARKLY PAYS THE FIELDS A SECOND VISIT.—PROMISES THAT THE
FIELDS SHALL BE A CROWN COLONY WITH A LEGISLATURE OF ITS OWN.—LETTERS
PATENT PROCLAIMING GRIQUALAND WEST A CROWN COLONY.—HONORABLE RICHARD
SOUTHEY FIRST LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR.—AN INCIPIENT REVOLUTION.—THE
COURT-HOUSE SURROUNDED BY AN ARMED BAND.—THE BLACK FLAG HOISTED.—THE
REVOLT RIPENED.—COLONEL CROSSMAN.—THE CHANGES IN THE LEGISLATIVE
COUNCIL.—RECALL OF THE LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR.

As before mentioned, the Cape legislature of 1872 broke faith with Sir
Henry Barkly, who was thereupon accused by his imperial masters of
having failed to keep the parliament in hand. The violation of pledges
and promises has been a prominent characteristic of the policies alike
of the Cape parliament and of the colonial office, and in both cases it
has been prolific of evil consequences.

Sir Henry Barkly, owing to the unstable and vacillating policy of the
Cape parliament, found himself on the horns of a dilemma. The imperial
government taunted him with having shown a want of diplomatic tact in
dealing with the colonial legislature, while the latter repudiated the
charge which Sir Henry Barkly brought against the legislative assembly,
_i.e._, that of having broken faith with him. Nay, the two honorable
houses went even further, they vowed and declared that they had never
done or said anything to warrant his sending to the secretary of state
for the colonies the dispatches that he had sent. Here was a gordian
knot for a governor to loose. What was he to do? He could neither report
upon the colonial secretary, nor tell the parliament what he thought of
the latter functionary’s action; he virtually exclaimed: “A plague upon
both your houses, I’ll go to the Fields again myself.” So he made up his
mind to order the government coachman to inspan the traveling wagons,
the panels of which, by the way, were ornamented with the royal arms
painted by a Cape artist, whose idea of the lion and the unicorn was
sublimely humorous—the lion having too much skull by half, and the horn
of the unicorn being as crooked as a ram’s, or a satyr’s. His excellency
told his executive, that it was as plain as the Cape flats that British
rule could not be administered in the diamond fields by commissioners
and law courts, and that he was about to proceed to the Fields in order
to see how the British flag was to be kept flying over the
diamond-digging community. But Sir Henry had been soundly abused by
press and public, both in the colony and Griqualand West. The idea then
prevailed at Capetown that the diggers would think no more of chopping
off a governor’s head than they would of decapitating a domestic fowl.
On the Fields there was universal dissatisfaction, the commissioners all
the while remaining with virtually “no work to do.” The holders of
claims at Klipdrift had had to pay surveyors’ expenses which they had
never calculated upon having to pay, and also to meet other demands
which they regarded as extortionate, if not almost fraudulent. There
were transfer dues, stamp duties and such like, to be enacted in the not
far distant future, and the aspect of affairs was not cheering. The Free
State was wrathful and indignant, and the Boers there were threatening
vengeance. The Dutch on the Fields complained loudly and bitterly of
having to pay taxes to British extortioners and being forced to submit
to law and order, and declared that the British embrace was too ursine a
hug for their comfort.

Under these circumstances Sir Henry Barkly did not feel quite sure that
his personal appearance on the Fields would not be made the occasion for
an outbreak. Still go he must, and in order to ascertain how far he was
risking his life he remained at a farm outside the camp on the first
night of his arrival. The next morning, long before the breakfast hour,
he saw scores of vehicles and horsemen coming over the hill leading to
the homestead. It was an anxious moment. But there was the ring of the
true British metal in the cheers of the horsemen as they neared the
farm, and Sir Henry was soon convinced that his second visit was
destined to prove even more acceptable to the Griqualanders than his
first had been. The gubernatorial equipage, with Sir Henry and his
adjutant, was soon on the move, and as the Fields bore in sight he could
see Bulfontein and Du Toit’s Pan in holiday dress. There was bunting
flying from every flag-post, and the margin of the mines was crowded
with people, white and black. He was cheered all the way from his entry
into the Fields until he reached his quarters in Kimberley; flags
floated over his head, and triumphal arches spanned the roadways. On the
day of his arrival he held a levee which was well attended, and he took
care to have it generally known that he would receive as many
deputations as liked to come to him to ventilate their grievances. Of
grievances there were enough and to spare, in fact there was nobody
without one, either real or imaginary. First and foremost of all was the
land grievance. Legitimate claimants and land jobbers jostled each other
without mercy and with scant courtesy. The diggers insisted that they
had not been and were not protected as it was alleged they had been told
they were to be. Diamond thieves, they asserted, were more pestilent
than ever, having grown bolder and more unscrupulous, and the digging
population suggested that if they had shown more regard for the
protection of their own property than loyalty to the government diamond
stealing would have been considerably diminished. The trading community
also manifested extreme dissatisfaction, owing to the manner in which
government contracts were given out, the belief prevailing amongst many
that a system of favoritism if not of jobbery was in existence. The
natural result of these real or alleged grievances was that the local
government was in decidedly bad odor with the population generally.

The neighboring states had complained that guns and gunpowder were
supplied to natives, and a deputation defending the system of supplying
the natives with guns and gunpowder waited upon his excellency, who said
that his attention had been called to the fact that more guns were
supplied to natives than had been entered at the customs, where the duty
was £1 per barrel, a fact which he could not understand. The deputation,
however, explained it by the open ports, where no custom-houses were
established, further asking Sir Henry to consider the number of small
vessels which visited these ports from the Natal and Cape ports. The
guns sold here were supplied to the dealers by the merchants, and the
former paid the duty, although a large portion of it was lost to the
government. The natives at that time came here more for the sake of
getting guns than for money, and the deputation urged a sufficient
amount of labor to work the diamondiferous soil could not be obtained if
the supplying of guns to natives were prohibited. It was further pointed
out to his excellency that the natives would even then continue to get
guns from runners (smugglers), and that natives in the possession of the
assegai, their national weapon, were more dangerous than when armed with
guns. After hearing all the evidence and going into the question fully,
Sir Henry Barkly decided that the gun trade must not be interfered with,
and this opinion Governor Southey afterward endorsed.[57]

Sir Henry Barkly promised that British title should be immediately given
to legitimate land claimants, that contracts for government supplies
should be called for by public tender, and that all real grievances
should be removed. Protection was promised to the diggers, and so his
excellency became very popular indeed, a banquet followed by a ball was
given to him at Kimberley on September 12th, 1872, and both were
completely successful. The late Dr. Robertson, formerly of Fauresmith,
O. F. S., filled the chair at the banquet and introduced Sir Henry
Barkly to his entertainers in admirable style. The doctor’s speech in
introducing the toast, “the health of Sir Henry Barkly, her Majesty’s
high commissioner in South Africa and governor of the Cape Colony,” was
couched in elegant and appropriate language, and his excellency’s reply
was received with enthusiastic applause. He told the assembled guests
that up to the time of his present visit he had had but a slight
conception of the importance of the diamond fields, and had found them
to be of such a character that he realized the fact that they could not
be governed by three commissioners. The wealth, intelligence and numbers
of this community must have something better in the shape of government.
To think of governing them from Capetown was out of the question, and as
he found they were entitled to a government of their own he would take
care that they should have it. The Fields should be a crown colony with
a lieutenant governor and a legislature on the same model and as liberal
as that of Natal, and this he would bring about as quickly as the
preliminaries could be arranged. The ball over, Sir Henry paid a visit
to Barkly where he held another levee, and there also a banquet was
given him. The streets were decorated with flags, and triumphal arches
which formed a complete roofing all through the main street. Here, also,
the gubernatorial promises gladdened the hearts of the populace,
especially those which referred to the land titles. At the banquet,
which was given in the main hall of the Barkly club, it was endeavored
to get a pledge from his excellency that Barkly should be the seat of
government, but the attempt was a vain one, his excellency contenting
himself by saying that they had the high court there and all the
government offices, and that he would not forget the old proverb: “Be
sure you are off with the old love before you are on with the new.” In a
very short time after this, however, the high court and the government
offices were removed to Kimberley, and the seat of government
established there.

On his excellency leaving the Fields to return home, he had additional
proof of the loyalty which animated the great bulk of the diamond field
people. He was escorted to Alexanderfontein by at least a thousand
persons, and he expressed his gratification at the reception he had met
with there, and gave it as his opinion that her Majesty had no more
loyal people in her empire than in the diamond fields of South Africa.

The special mission of Sir Henry Barkly to South Africa was to reform
the constitution of the Cape Colony by the introduction of responsible
government. That colony had become troublesome to the imperial
government, inasmuch as the old _régime_ parliament which had full
control over the government purse strings refused to pass the taxing
measures necessary for the administration of the affairs of the country,
and unfortunately for Sir Henry Barkly his executive was too much
divided for him to move with reasonable expectation of success. The
colonial secretary, Mr. Southey, was firmly opposed to the introduction
of the measure into the parliament then assembled, as the country had
never been consulted on the question, which he held ought not to be
forced. That honorable gentleman held to the doctrine as laid down by
John Stuart Mill, that before responsible government is introduced into
a country the people must ask for it, and when it was decided by a
majority to introduce it the colonial secretary entered his solemn
protest on the minutes on constitutional grounds. This was awkward, but
Sir Henry Barkly received imperial instructions that it must be
introduced into the parliament, and that he _must_ get it passed. Sir
Henry Barkly knew that if he should fail he would be recalled in
disgrace, and accordingly did introduce it in 1873 at an early session
and managed to force it through the legislature, but when he called upon
the Hon. Mr. Southey to take office, that gentleman flatly refused to do
so. He would not attempt to form a ministry, and he would not take
office either as premier or in any other capacity. It now became
necessary for his excellency to consider what should be done with the
Hon. Mr. Southey, and he was offered the lieutenant governorship of
Griqualand West with an adequate salary, and the recommendation to take
with him his long-tried confidential clerk in the colonial office, Mr.
John Blades Currey. Mr. Southey accepted the appointment, and the
inhabitants of Griqualand West, especially the old colonists residing on
the Fields, received the intimation with extreme satisfaction, for Mr.
Southey enjoyed the confidence of both East and West. On the lieutenant
governor’s arrival here, on January 9th, 1873, he was received with
manifestations of great joy. The people went out in great numbers to
welcome him at Alexanderfontein; triumphal arches were erected; bands of
music preceded the procession into the towns; a display of fireworks and
an illumination were amongst the tokens of rejoicing, and he was
entertained at a banquet in the Theatre Royal, which was crowded to
excess.

An executive was created consisting of four members, viz.: the
lieutenant governor, the secretary to government (Mr. Currey), the crown
prosecutor (Mr. J. C. Thompson), and the treasurer general (the late Mr.
R. W. H. Giddy). No constitution was proclaimed for some time after Mr.
Southey’s arrival, and the Fields were governed by the lieutenant
governor and his executive, legal enactments being made by means of
proclamations. One of Mr. Richard Southey’s first proclamations, issued
on Feb. 5th, 1873, almost immediately on his arrival, and which pleased
the diggers very much, was one to restrain the jumping of claims.
Previous to this, a claim in any one of the mines, which might be worth
thousands of pounds, if left by its owner unworked for three days, could
be legally seized by any man who could prove this neglect; but the
proclamation containing the letters patent declaring the colony of
Griqualand West a crown colony was not promulgated until the July 16th,
1873, when Klipdrift was rechristened Barkly and the “Colesberg Kopje”
Kimberley. The new names were given in honor of the then secretary of
state for the colonies, Lord Kimberley, and of Sir Henry Barkly. They
were created electoral divisions, the third consisting of the outlying
or agricultural districts, being grouped together under the name of Hay,
in honor of Lieut. Governor Hay, who was the first to unfurl the British
flag over the Diamond Fields. The chief town of the last-named division
was Griquatown, in which the Griqua chief Waterboer resided.

[Illustration:

THE VAAL RIVER DRIFT, NEAR BARKLY.
]

The constitution was, however, not received with anything like unanimous
approval. The boundaries fixed were disputed by the neighboring States,
and the enfranchisement and representation was by no means in accordance
with the promises made by Sir Henry Barkly, inasmuch as it was not
according to the Natal model. The legislative council was constituted on
the deadlock principle, consisting as it did of eight members, four
nominated by the general government and four elected by the voters, the
lieutenant governor being president and having the casting vote. The
governor had a power to veto in the first place, and the Queen in the
second. At first it was said that no one would consent to be put into
nomination for the four seats to be filled by the votes of the people.
However, when the time of the elections came round, the seats were hotly
contested. The council was first convened in 1873, but did not meet for
business until January, 1874, when the elective members were Messrs.
Green and Dr. Graham for Kimberley, Mr. Advocate Davison for Barkly, and
Mr. David Arnott, the agent for Waterboer, to represent the electoral
division of Hay. The first ordinance, viz. for the better regulation of
diggings and mines, was promulgated on the 30th of the month named. The
government and legislature for some time worked very well, but then a
lack of cordiality among the members of the government themselves in the
executive manifested itself, and there was as well no lack of
revolutionary agitators to stir up the people to rebel against the
government from the outside. Among the agitators were one or more
generally accepted as Fenians, and several foreigners; the former with a
hatred of British rule were bent on creating disturbances. They were
joined by men who, although owning themselves British subjects, had
party and personal ends to serve, dearer to them than their reverence
for the crown. Leagues were formed and meetings were held, where
sedition was loudly and plainly talked, mass meetings were convened on
the market place, and the governor roundly abused. The lieutenant
governor offered to receive deputations and to discuss matters, provided
that the deputations should be composed of men who were known to be in
the habit of conducting themselves in a becoming manner. But the
agitators wanted their followers to come in large bodies, and this the
lieutenant governor decided not to permit. The members of the league
assembled armed for drill, and assumed a most warlike and threatening
attitude. The lieutenant governor urged the necessity of the presence of
a small body of her Majesty’s troops, and pointed out that moral force,
the only force at his command, had no influence upon the men who, led by
a clever and excitable digger named Aylward, were plotting against law
and order. No attention whatever was paid to the suggestion of the
lieutenant governor by the executive of the Cape Colony. There were no
definite grievances brought forward by the men under arms, who were mere
puppets in the hands of the riotously inclined wire-pullers. There were
grievances, however, of a grave nature, and the non-fulfilment of
promises respecting the land titles was the greatest of all. It is only
right, however, to mention that the majority of the white population,
aliens as well as British subjects, were thoroughly satisfied with Mr.
Southey’s rule; and he had, during the time he was at the head of the
government, done all in his power to make the people happy and
prosperous, while the foundations of law and order had been so far as
possible “both well and truly laid.” The social state of the Fields was
excellent, and Government House was so thoroughly well-conducted that it
led society with a genial and assuring hand. Balls and parties, indoor
and outdoor pastimes and pleasures, afforded the recreation which the
busy population required, and life in the Fields was generally pleasant
and seemly.

Armed malcontents were now drilled in the public squares, and wherever
they thought their proceedings would be most exasperating to the
government and the loyal portion of the community.[58] This was kept up
during the early part of 1875. Arms were imported from all directions
and concealed in stores and licensed liquor shops, and in the month of
April of that year the mob were led into open rebellion, the occasion
chosen for the outbreak being the seizure of arms by the magistrate and
police of Kimberley, and the arrest of the man on whose premises they
were discovered. A body of armed men marched down to the magistrate’s
office and demanded the release of the prisoner, the court-house being
surrounded and an attack threatened should their demand be refused. A
black flag to be hoisted on the edge of the Kimberley mine was to be the
signal for the revolters to fire upon the court-house and government
offices. The Kimberley prison was to be leveled to the ground, when, as
the rebels calculated, the liberated prisoners would instantly swell
their ranks and help to overthrow the government. The lieutenant
governor refused to make any terms whatever with men under arms and
ordered them to give up their weapons to the government. This they
refused to do. The authorities were not, however, to be driven from the
position they had assumed. A number of loyal inhabitants volunteered to
assist the government, and the prison was guarded by these assisted by
some of the police. Greatly to their credit the Germans then came
forward almost to a man and joined the volunteers. Mr. James Anthony
Froude, “the eminent historian,” as he is called, had paid a visit to
South Africa at the instance of the Earl of Carnarvon, then secretary
for the Colonies, to report on the chances of federating the whole of
the Colonies and States under the British flag, and that gentleman, with
his characteristic mental twist, took a most distorted view of
everything he saw, and instead of supporting the lieutenant governor
disparaged him, and actually held a conference with the rebel leaders.
This conference did not take place in the presence of any of the
authorities, and the insurgents declared at the time that their course
of conduct had secured Mr. Froude’s[59] approval. This was before they
broke out in actual revolt. A quotation from Mr. Froude’s writings,
which appears in a book of which one of the most bitter opponents of the
government is the author, strengthens the belief that Mr. Froude
actually did encourage the rebels, whether intentionally or not. The
passage is as follows: “The English government in taking up Waterboer’s
cause, have distinctly broken a treaty which they renewed before in a
most solemn manner, and the colonial office, it is painfully evident to
me, has been duped by an ingenious conspiracy.”

The “ingenious conspiracy” was one of those flights of imagination in
which the eminent historian occasionally indulges with most mischievous
results to the colonies that he has visited and attempted to describe.
There was no such thing as an “ingenious conspiracy to delude the
colonial office,” as may be gathered from the facts before stated
respecting the action of Sir Philip Wodehouse in the matter of the wrong
done Waterboer by the Boers of the Free State. The chieftainship of
Andreas Waterboer, the father of Nicholas, was confirmed by the British
government before Nicholas was born, as is shown in the earlier portions
of these pages. This is wandering from the subject of the revolt, but
the necessity for this digression will be manifest to the reader.

The rebels had calculated that no magistrate would be found with
sufficient courage to sit on the bench and try the arrested prisoner
while the court-house was surrounded by men armed with guns and
revolvers ready to fire at a given signal. They were mistaken, however,
for the late Mr. Advocate Gray, then president magistrate of Du Toit’s
Pan, took his seat on the bench, and then the Fenian leader, sword in
hand, ordered the man appointed (one Albany Paddon[60]) to hoist the
flag, which was accordingly done. There was no firing, though one gun
was accidentally discharged. Some of the leaders began to reflect and
came forward and entered into bail bonds for the prisoner. The rebels
did not then, however, put down their arms. It was only after the high
commissioner had threatened to send troops that they consented to do so.
Colonel Crossman, who had been sent out as royal commissioner in Oct.
1875, to make inquiries and report, after taking evidence absolved the
government of all blame. Then when the mischief had been done troops
were sent up at an expense of £20,000, under the command of Sir Arthur
Cunningham. Beyond showing that the imperial government were determined
to uphold law and order, the troops did nothing but manœuvre in the
market place, encamp at Barkly and attend balls and banquets given in
their honor, as well as to fête the Diamond Fields horse, who had
shortly before so gallantly fought under Sir Arthur in the war on the
northeastern frontier, driving Kreli out of the country and bringing his
tribe into subjection. The real grievance—and one destined to produce
dire consequences upon the province—the delay in giving out titles and
settling the land, had as yet found no remedy. Not even the chief
Waterboer had been settled with, and Mankoroane, the chief of the
Bechuanas, harassed on all sides by the Boers, had called upon the
British government for protection, offering to make over his territory
and people to the queen, as Waterboer had done before him. He, like
Waterboer, had always been loyal to the British rule, and to use his own
words: “I have always been true to the queen, have protected her people
when they were in danger from the Boers, and now when my people are
being crushed out of existence by the Boers the queen ought to protect
me and my people.” The lieutenant governor was of the same opinion, and
he suggested to the high commissioner that in justice and in policy the
British government could not do better than annex Bechuanaland. His
excellency further pointed out that to leave this fine country open was
to pave the way for future troubles—which it has done. The high
commissioner encouraged the scheme. Mankoroane and his councillors with
a number of his people came down to Kimberley, if I recollect rightly,
at the very time of Mr. Froude’s visit, and long conferences then took
place between the chief and his advisers, and the lieutenant governor
and his, the old chief being ultimately given to understand that he and
his people and country were to be taken over, as Mr. Southey said, with
the knowledge and consent of the high commissioner. This was another of
the promises made only to be broken; and to prove beyond question that
all the troubles predicted have come about, it is only necessary to
allude to recent historical events culminating in Sir Charles Warren’s
expedition to Bechuanaland. Mr. Southey had from the time of his taking
office persistently requested the high commissioner to get the land
question settled, and had sent warning after warning that delay in
giving out the titles was fraught with the greatest possible danger. But
the high commissioner was in the hands of the secretary of the colonies
in the first place, and in the second his excellency had not mastered
the situation. Then those who fomented discontent and disturbance had
circulated, among other infamous slanders, that the lieutenant governor
and the secretary to government were men bent on land-jobbing in their
own interest and in the interest of their friends and political
adherents.

In the session of 1875 the high commissioner, despite his previously
issued reassuring proclamation to the effect that no private rights
should be disturbed, sent up a land ordinance drafted in Capetown, and
requested the lieutenant governor to introduce it to the legislative
council and get it passed into law. This the lieutenant governor
respectfully but firmly refused to do. By the draft ordinance a land
court was to be created, and a judge appointed to decide upon the claims
of every one, no matter whether his claims were disputed or not. Even
Waterboer himself, from whom the government had derived all their
territorial rights, was to be forced into court and pay the expenses
himself, to prove that his private properties, farms, etc., belonged to
him. The judge was, moreover, to have power to reduce the size of farms,
and in no case to permit one to be given out of more than 6,000 acres in
extent. The lieutenant governor held that by allowing this ordinance to
pass into the statute book the government would be abrogating its
especial function, which was to protect those who could produce
unimpeachable titles, whether obtained by grant, purchase or other
legitimate means. The cost of going to law to obtain them they, he said,
ought not to be compelled to incur. The law courts ought not, he
maintained, to be called upon to deal with any land claims excepting
such as were in dispute. The executive government could deal with the
undisputed claims, exchange British for existing titles, etc., thus
saving expenditure and delay, while the high court was quite sufficient
to deal with disputed claims.

The high commissioner paid no heed to the lieutenant governor’s
remonstrance, but came from Capetown to the diamond fields and
introduced the draft ordinance into the council himself, while
presiding, as he was empowered to do, when in the province. The
popularly elected members at first declared that they would not vote for
the measure; nor would they even take their seats; which course, had it
been adhered to by them, would have effectually prevented the measure
being carried, as no business could be transacted unless two of the
elected members were in their seats. The high commissioner, however, by
the free use of his powerful influence, led the elected members to alter
their determination, hinting that if they did not take their seats, a
proceeding equivalent to assisting in passing the ordinance, he would
dissolve the council, and every one saw that if the high commissioner
could not control the council the constitution under which it was
created would be abolished altogether. The members took their seats, and
the ordinance was forced through and became law. The land court was
established, and Mr. Advocate Stockenstrom, of the supreme court, who
was then practicing at the bar of the court of the eastern districts,
was appointed the judge.

Sir Henry Barkly, having forced his land bill through the council,
returned to Capetown, leaving Mr. R. Southey at the head of the
government.

The greatest possible disaffection toward the land court soon found
expression on all sides. The editor of one of the newspapers, _The
Diamond News_, criticised the decisions of the judge with great freedom,
and amongst other remarks said that: “Judge Stockenstrom appeared to be
performing his duties under instruction, and if he was not doing so he
was incompetent for the office.” The editor was summoned before the
court by Judge Stockenstrom, and was charged with contempt of court. He
so ably defended himself that the judge withdrew the charge in a
semi-apologetic manner, but that did not allay the dissatisfaction. The
advocate of Waterboer, on the ground that his client had been grossly
insulted by the judge, and could hope for nothing like justice in that
land court, retired, with his client from the court, and refused to
continue his case.

The final adjustment was intrusted to Major, now Gen. Sir Charles
Warren, the land court having been abolished and the judge withdrawn.
Mr. R. Southey, soon after the purchase of the farm Voornitzigt, which
was sold to government for £100,000, was recalled, and that was the last
of Lieut. Governor Southey in Griqualand West.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XX.
MR. JUSTICE BARRY ACTING ADMINISTRATOR.—ARRIVAL OF MAJOR
LANYON.—PRINCIPAL EVENTS OF HIS ADMINISTRATION.—ANNEXATION BILL PASSED
CAPE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY.—CRIMINAL PROSECUTION OF THE EDITOR OF THE
“INDEPENDENT.”—ATTORNEY GENERAL SHIPPARD’S ARGUMENT AND
ORATORY.—ACQUITTAL OF ACCUSED.—GREAT REJOICINGS.—ACTION AGAINST
“INDEPENDENT.”—APOLOGY.

After the conclusion of the Southey _régime_, Mr. J. D. Barry, the
recorder of the province, held the reins of government for a time,
pending the arrival of Major Lanyon, an officer who had distinguished
himself on Sir Garnet Wolseley’s staff in Ashantee.

The posts of lieutenant governor and colonial secretary were abolished,
and Major Lanyon as administrator, with Mr. Francis Villiers as private
secretary, conducted the affairs of the government. The principal
matters of interest during his day in Griqualand West were the passing
of the annexation bill through the Cape house of assembly, the
disturbances of the natives, necessitating the expedition to Phokwane,
the quelling of the Griqua revolt, the trial of the editor of the
_Independent_ and the passing of Mr. Geo. Bottomley’s bill amending the
liquor ordinance.

There can be no doubt that the restless character of the diggers of the
diamond fields which culminated in the rising on April 12th, 1875, had a
good deal to do with the desire of the home government to get rid of the
bother, annoyance and responsibility of governing so small, and at the
same time so troublesome, a crown colony as Griqualand West. With that
object a bill, of course at the instigation of the imperial authorities,
was brought before the Cape assembly in June 1877, when a select
committee was appointed, of which Mr. Richard Southey, formerly
lieutenant governor of this territory, was appointed chairman, which had
“instructions to restrict its inquiry to the number and description of
the population, the extent and value of land, and the cultivation and
other resources, the revenue and expenditure and general financial
condition of the province.”

Major W. O. Lanyon, C. M. G., the administrator, went to Capetown and
gave evidence before this committee; and although of course wishing to
promote the desires of the imperial government, his answers to all the
questions asked him evidently tended to make good what was generally
understood to be his opinion, viz. that annexation was a doubtful
measure at best, and that a province with mines of undisputed richness,
whose only debts were £90,000 to the Free State, £16,000 to the imperial
government for the expense of troops sent up there to quell the
disturbances in 1875, and about £16,000 to the Standard Bank, was quite
justified in retaining its own individuality. However, as will be seen
in the sequel “Molteno (premier of the Cape Colony at the time)
incorporated the major.”[61] The bill to annex Griqualand West to the
Cape Colony passed the Cape assembly during the same session and
received the queen’s assent in the following year, but became, so far as
the inhabitants of the diamond fields were concerned, almost forgotten
until the visit of Messrs. Sprigg and Upington in October, 1879, when
Mr. J. Rose Innes, C. M. G., was acting administrator.

[Illustration:

ANNEXATION.—MELANCHOLY END OF GRIQUALAND WEST. MOLTENO TO ENCORPORATE
THE MAJOR.
]

“Affairs of State” did not run altogether smoothly in Griqualand West.
When Major Lanyon returned he found that the late Mr. Advocate Davison,
member for Barkly, had resigned his seat in the Griqualand West council
and left for England, and there were but three elected members in
council when he introduced his annexation motion, to which he desired to
gain their assent. Mr. Advocate Halkett, the senior member for
Kimberley, and Mr. R. W. Murray, the member for Hay, contended that
before such a vastly important change was made as the annexation of the
province to the Cape Colony, which involved the destruction of its
constitution and government, there ought to be a full council to discuss
the submitted resolution, and they therefore demanded that the seat for
Barkly should be filled up. This the administrator refused to do, or
rather implied that he had contemplated doing so, but had neglected it.
He evidently was determined to get his motion carried, while the members
for Kimberley and Hay were equally determined that if he should do so,
it would be by his own casting vote alone; and knowing that they were
masters of the situation, they bowed themselves out with the
announcement that they would not return until all the constituencies
were represented. They kept their word. There was no election for Barkly
and no more sittings of that council, which was shortly afterward
dissolved, and it was not until some months had passed that a new one
was elected. There were three councils in all. The names of the first
members have been before given; the elected members of the second
council, which was elected after the arrival of Major Lanyon, were
Messrs. Tucker and Gilfillan (Kimberley), Davison (Barkly), and Murray
(Hay). A vacancy occurred through Mr. Henry Tucker becoming
disqualified, and the late Mr. Halkett was elected in his place. The
next council, which was elected on Nov. 30th, 1878, consisted of myself
and Mr. Bottomley (Kimberley), Mr. J. Paddon (Barkly), and Mr. J. Orpen
(Hay).

An act of the colonial legislature which is not put into force within
three years of its having been assented to at home becomes a dead
letter, and it was not until this period had nearly expired that the
concluding scene was put on the stage of the little theatre of the
Griqualand West council, under the management of Mr. J. Rose Innes, but
this I will describe later on.

There is no hiding the fact that during Major Lanyon’s administratorship
there was a good deal of hostile feeling shown against him in some
quarters, which was fostered by many who held the opinion that the major
was inclined to be more of a martinet than if he had had the training of
an officer in a regiment other than one of those in which Charles
Lever’s Major Monsoon would have found congenial companionship, and in
politics at least his peculiar idiosyncrasies, as displayed toward
opponents, would have caused the late Dr. Johnson, had he known the
major, to admire his talents as a “good hater,” although at the same
time he would not have found him wanting in that opposite quality which
is said to naturally follow. I have often heard Major Lanyon say:
“Gentlemen, if I have ever erred, it has been the fault of the head, not
of the heart,” and I may here state that the gallant major’s abilities,
which were of no mean order, and his honesty of purpose, always received
due recognition. The want of tact of this administration, and the
unfortunate personal leaning of its chief, were strikingly exemplified
by a case in point, in the prosecution of the editor of the
_Independent_ for an alleged criminal libel published in the issue of
that paper of Nov. 16th, 1876. At that time the trade in diamonds with
roguish natives employed by diggers which unscrupulous persons carried
on, though they must have well known these cheaply acquired gems to have
been stolen, was, as it still is, the plague and disgrace of the
community. Proclamations and ordinances of the severest character were
leveled against it, but without appreciable effect. A few of the lesser
culprits were caught, imprisoned, and in some cases flogged, but still
the illicit trade (before fully described) flourished, and this too
although the laws had been rendered so stringent and complex as to prove
a trap for the innocent but unwary.

Out of the confused state of these laws two _causes célebres_ arose,
which excited much interest among the diggers and showed the continued
lack of common sense displayed by the government in their policy and
modes of procedure. In the first instance an old digger, who had made
himself prominent in the prosecution of diamond thieves and had also
materially assisted in the overthrow and subsequent recall of the
Southey-Currey faction, had in a moment of forgetfulness purchased a
small diamond without having a dealer’s license and without being able
to produce his special permit to the magistrate as by law required.
There was no pretence that the diamond had been stolen or improperly
obtained, but nevertheless the unlucky purchaser of this “precious”
stone was sentenced, if I remember rightly, to twelve months’
imprisonment without the option of a fine. Granting, for the sake of
argument, that the punishment was technically commensurate with the
offense, the ardor exhibited by the authorities in the original pursuit
of a political foe, to the minds of the independent diggers, was
anything but satisfactory. That the man had no license to purchase
diamonds, and that his permit, if he ever had one, had been lost or
mislaid was admitted, but when the prosecution sought to establish the
fact of there having been no permit given by the production of a list
kept in the Kimberley resident magistrate’s office, and manifestly a
most careless one, in which there was no mention of the name of the
accused, his attorney very properly if not conclusively contended that
this evidence was not sufficiently formal upon which to found a
conviction for a technical fault involving extremely severe punishment.
He argued moreover that if one magistrate’s list of permits was
produced, those of all other magistrates should be put in evidence also;
that the list in question might be imperfect, and as it was not in the
custody of the buyer, entries might have been confused, altered or
annulled without his knowledge; in short that the rough list of a single
magistrate was not sufficient evidence on which so heavy a punishment
ought to be inflicted on any member of the body politic. A subordinate
official, however, swore “by all his gods” that it was “impossible for a
permit to have been issued to the prisoner without an entry having been
made in his record book,” and upon the strength of that evidence the
accused was accordingly “cast into prison.” But observe the sequel. The
ink was scarcely dry upon the warrant which tore the unhappy culprit
from his wife and family and confined him amidst the vilest criminals,
when lo! a whisper went abroad that his excellency himself had also been
purchasing diamonds without any license and without any record of the
necessary permit. What was the inference? Mindful of the positive manner
in which the keeper of the records had gravely sworn to the
impossibility of any permits having been issued without an entry in the
proper book, the editor of the _Independent_ newspaper, which had taken
up a position of uncompromising hostility toward diamond thieves,
published in the public interest certain queries respecting the
anomalous and unpleasant predicament in which the administrator might be
placed. There was no contention that he had been guilty of any _malum in
se_ or of purchasing other than for his own private use and pleasure,
but merely of _malum prohibitum_. The Draconian severity of the law and
the apparent impropriety of the previous conviction was strikingly shown
forth. The article was very aptly headed: “Where is this to end?” and at
the moment it was a question difficult to answer. The administrator,
nevertheless, very promptly set about his reply, and took active steps
against the bold editor who had dared to “come between the wind and his
nobility.”

It was impossible to conjure up any entry in the record of permits, for
the book had been too carefully and publicly examined by hostile critics
for that; but hey! presto! in a very few hours after the newspaper
article had appeared, a notice said to have been inspired by the
government was publicly issued, in which it was triumphantly stated that
the versatile major was after all in possession of a permit which could
be inspected, etc., etc.

Upon reading this the _cognoscenti_ winked knowingly at each other.
After such an astonishing announcement it would only be thought
reasonable that the administrator, upon finding so striking a
confirmation of the force of the argument of the prisoner’s attorney
that the record was not infallible, would have taken some immediate
steps toward a reconsideration and possible mitigation of a sentence
passed under a harsh law.

No such thing happened, however. On the contrary, elated with the
successful experiment of “breaking a butterfly on the wheel” in the
recent prosecution, he at once caused the outspoken editor to be
arrested for a criminal libel upon “his excellency,” the accused being
temporarily liberated upon the modest bail of £6,000! which was at once
found.

A preliminary examination before the magistrate followed, and the editor
was fully committed for trial. It would perhaps not be judicious to
refer too specifically to the adverse opinions which were entertained by
an independent public with regard to this case. Lawyers have or used to
have a saying that “the greater the truth the greater the libel.”
Suffice it to say that public comments were far from flattering to Major
Lanyon and the members of his executive.

When the day of trial arrived excitement was raised to a very high
pitch. The court was crowded to overflowing, and large numbers of the
diggers were anxiously awaiting the result in the market square in front
of the court-house. The administrator was located during the trial in a
private room which adjoined the court, where a _dejeuner à la
fourchette_ and subsequent refreshments were plenteously dispensed to
some chosen supporters of the existing state of things.

The judge wore his severest frown; the government officials hovered
round the precincts of the court, and with bated breath awaited the
verdict, which was to clear their chief’s character from the calumnious
breath of an audacious critic.

But the imprisoned editor saw no reason for apprehension. Fortunately
for him his case had to be decided not by a military dictator, nor yet
by a single judge or magistrate, but by the sound common sense and fair
play of a jury. Mr. Shippard,[62] the acting attorney general, went
heart and soul into the prosecution.

In a labored and somewhat silly harangue he recounted with much unction
the obsolete and barbarous customs of the old Roman emperors in dealing
with those whom they deemed guilty of seditious libel. As he gathered
courage during the delivery of his diatribe, he overcame the natural
hesitancy of his speech and became even eloquent. It is true that the
act which had been attributed to the major was one which, as it had been
contended for the defence in a previous case, did not amount to a
morally criminal charge, and should not be proved or provable by a mere
loosely kept note-book, or punished by imprisonment without option of a
fine; in fact not that the major was guilty, but that the other man was
morally if not legally innocent; further, it was urged that the whole
matter amounted at the most to a mere technical omission of a purely
formal character, which might inadvertently be committed by any usually
law-abiding citizen.

But the engineer did not like to “be hoist with his own petard,” and the
attorney general, with “Gallio-like” unconcern for anything but his
“Dryasdust” antiquities, snorted forth his anathemas against the
offending editor. He introduced into his remarks a plentiful sprinkling
of Roman archæology and referred with ludicrous solemnity to the old
world restrictions upon the freedom of public criticism. He spoke with
grave gusto of the good old times of the Emperor Zeno, when slanderous
accusations against the “purple” were punishable with death. He must
have forgotten that in Zeno’s time offices of state were openly bought
and sold, and life and death had their price.

Did the honorable attorney general wish to apply the whole theory and
practice of the old Roman criminal law to the affairs of our days of
steam power, telegraphs and independent press? It is difficult to say
how far some men will ride their hobbies.

After he had done with Zeno’s time, however, he was compelled to admit
that capital punishment for the offense under consideration had been
“mercifully commuted to a public flogging,” and seemed to imply that
some punishment of that nature would not be inapplicable to the case of
the editor who had spoken so severely of his patron. In this style he
poured forth the vials of his wrath until the amazed crowd of listening
diggers were agape with astonishment at the righteous (and loudly
expressed) indignation of the prosecuting barrister. The audience might
not unreasonably have expected that the next authority to be quoted by
the excited counsel would be the customs and maxims of that “beauteous,
implacable tyrant,” the lamented Nero.

[Illustration]

An amusing incident occurred when the court rose for luncheon. The
editor was of course a prisoner, the responsibility of his sureties
while he was out on bail having ceased upon his appearing and pleading
to the indictment, but the judge, who, it is only fair to state, treated
him with marked courtesy throughout the trial, permitted him to leave
the court _en parole_, as it were, for luncheon.

With the jury it was quite different. The acting attorney general did
not want to let them mix with the outside crowd who had already
expressed _their_ opinion of the proceedings pretty plainly, and
accordingly at his instigation, or at least with his concurrence, the
hapless jurors were locked up _sans ceremonie_ until after luncheon.
Notwithstanding all the perverse ingenuity of the prosecuting counsel,
he could not persuade the jury to convict the prisoner. After a short
deliberation the jury returned a verdict of “not guilty” which was
received with loud acclamations both inside and outside the court, the
delighted diggers carrying off the liberated editor on their shoulders
to celebrate the victory in the “flowing bowl,” while the major,
accompanied by his sympathizers, made a hurried exit from the back of
the court and went home a “sadder and a wiser man.”

The administrator, however, brought a civil action against the
proprietors of the newspaper for libel, laying his damages at £10,000;
but after considerable skirmishing an apology was accepted, and so ended
a most disagreeable affair to all parties concerned. Many squibs and
cartoons were published at the time, the one which drew the greatest
attention being the accompanying (page 298), where Mr. Shippard and an
editor well known in South Africa, formerly a member of the Cape house
of assembly[63], Mr. R. W. Murray, are represented holding a skipping
rope over which the major tumbles.

NOTE.—Sir Wm. Owen Lanyon, R. C. M. G., who had been suffering for
some time from cancer in the throat, died at the Windsor Hotel, New
York, on April 6th, 1887.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXI.
THE GAIKA AND GEALEKA WAR.—COLONEL WARREN AND “OUR BOYS.”—WARREN’S
BRILLIANT COUP.—THE RAPE OF THE GAIKA MATRONS.—SIGNAL VICTORY AT DEBE
NEK.—COLONEL LANYON AND GASIBONE.—BLOODLESS VICTORY AT PHOKWANE.—RETURN
OF VOLUNTEERS.—THE GRIQUALAND WEST WAR.—ENGAGEMENTS AT WITTEHUIS,
LANGEBERG AND TAIKOON.—CRUEL APPRENTICESHIP OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN.—CLOSE
OF THE GRIQUALAND WEST REBELLION.—KORANNAS AT THE SALT PAN.—HERMANUS
LYNX AND HIS UNTIMELY DEATH.—MR. G. BOTTOMLEY’S LIQUOR BILL.

Before touching upon what I will term our local wars, that occurred
during Major Lanyon’s term of office, I will very shortly refer to the
fourth Kafir war in which the Cape Colony was engaged, and this I do
because the contingent the Diamond Fields sent to assist in this
campaign played a far from unimportant part.

This outbreak arose from a dispute between the Gealekas and their
hereditary enemies, the Fingoes, the former looking with envy upon the
tract of country across the Kei occupied by the latter, but which the
former had at one time possessed. The war arose from an affray at a beer
drinking bout in August 1877, the Gealekas attacking the Fingoes to
revenge the murder of one of their friends, which had been committed in
a scuffle at the feast which I have just mentioned. Directly after this,
numerous incursions began to be made by the Gealekas into Fingoland, and
old colonists could easily see that war was imminent, when in September
Kreli could not be induced to meet Sir Bartle Frere, who at that time
happened to be on the frontier.

Toward the latter end of the above-named year, the chiefs Kreli and
Sandilli massed their followings in open rebellion against the
government. Corps of volunteers were raised, and with the regiments of
regulars in the Colony were marched against the savage hordes of the
Kafir chiefs, under the control of General Thesiger, afterward Lord
Chelmsford. The turn of the year came and no material change in the
state of affairs had taken place. The Gaikas and the Gealekas were
gradually creeping toward a fastness known as the Perie Bush. This bush
is in reality a forest, in length some thirty miles and in width varying
from two to seven, and terminating to the northwest in the Amatola
mountains, an almost impassable range, contiguous to the old frontier
town of Fort Beaufort. In consequence of the vast area to be covered by
the troops, it was impossible to prevent the natives and their cattle in
obtaining entrance into the bush.

Once there, they thought that they had an immunity from danger, for on
the top of the range a vast plateau extends, where they might obtain
luxuriant pasturage for their cattle and cool, refreshing springs of
water for themselves. It almost appeared, as the first moon of 1878 rose
upon that portion of the Colony, that the guerilla warfare would be
interminable, and a cry for help was raised through the Colony, which
reached the province of Griqualand West. One hundred and twenty of our
young bloods volunteered for service five hundred miles away, and with
that military ardor which characterizes all colonists, they slung their
guns across their shoulders, sprang into the saddle, and were at once
ready for the toilsome, dusty, wearisome journey by road to King
William’s Town, for those were the days of no railways. Colonel Warren,
now Sir Charles Warren, the chief commissioner of the metropolitan
police, was their trusted leader. The force, though small, was plucky
and inured to hardships, just the right stuff to fight the wily savage,
whilst their commander was highly popular with his men. It was on Jan.
10th, 1878, that this compact band started from the Diamond Fields, and
a fine sight it was when Colonel Lanyon, the administrator, made them a
parting address at Du Toit’s Pan in the presence of at least 3,000, who
had assembled to wish “our boys” “God speed.”

Marching some forty miles a day under a “sky of molten brass,” they
arrived in King William’s Town on the 25th of the same month. At that
time the chief Sandilli was on the move, so the Diamond Fields horse
were stationed about fifty miles out of King William’s Town in
conjunction with the hapless 24th, afterward annihilated at Isandhlwana
during the now historical Zulu campaign. Patroling the country around
was their main duty for some six weeks, during which time, although the
commissariat department was fairly well attended to, much hardship was
endured by reason of the daily rains and the inadequate tent provision
supplied by the colonial government. Strange to say, little sickness was
engendered, nor did the hardy fellows suffer subsequently from their
exposure. The rebels having in the meantime congregated in the Perie
Bush, an order was issued for the Diamond Fields horse to repair
thither.

Just at this juncture the Pondoland difficulties were drawing to a
crisis, and when the Hon. Mr. Lyttleton was deputed to go to Kokstadt,
it was thought the little force under Colonel Warren would be ordered to
escort him.

It turned out otherwise; the Diamond Fields horse was required for
action, and all the men were delighted. They had not, they urged, come
down country for escort duty, but to show their qualities as fighting
men. At all events they had not long to wait, for after a short period
of duty in the dense demesne of the Perie Bush a brush with the enemy
took place. Such was the thick and jungle-like nature of the underwood,
and such the natural advantages of the position which the enemy had
chosen, that two officers of the corps, Captain Donovan and Lieutenant
Ward, a gallant young fellow, well known in Kimberley, were shot by the
savage horde, and there was no chance at that moment for their comrades
to avenge their death. The little force bided its time. In a few days it
was reported to Colonel Warren that a vast body of the enemy, advancing
on foot, according to Kafir custom, in battalions, and headed by petty
chiefs on horseback, were making for the Perie Bush. This was at an
outlying station known as Debe Nek, midway between King William’s Town
and Fort Beaufort, and in sight of the fastness wherein they believed
their safety would be assured.

The Diamond Fields horse (increased at this time by colonial recruits)
was detached, but yet there were fifty-seven men of the original corps
who volunteered to go out to meet the enemy. The latter was estimated at
1,500, or in other words the odds were twenty-five to one against our
men.

They came on, one huge phalanx, singing their war songs, and fired with
an enthusiasm peculiar to the Kafir race. Taking in the situation at
once Colonel Warren ordered his men to dismount and secure the
protection of a wide sluit running to the left of the Fort Beaufort
road. Telling off three or four to hold the horses, and holding fully a
dozen himself, he ordered the men to commence firing, and many of the
enemy fell, but, as the front row dropped, on came the vast mass behind.

As our brave fellows peppered away with the skill of sharp-shooters some
seventy of the savage horde were laid low, and then dismay seized the
remainder. From the advantageous position selected by Colonel Warren it
was impossible for the enemy to know the strength of its opponents.
Consternation, as I have said, seized the sable host, and like
Sennacherib’s army they melted away even as snow, not, however, before
several of the Diamond Fields horse got into hand-to-hand combat with
them. Although the slaughter was great on the side of the rebels, yet of
the little force under Colonel Warren only one man was wounded, who
through his own neglect afterward succumbed. The news of this gallant
defence filled the inhabitants of the Diamond Fields with exultation.
Congratulations were telegraphed down to Colonel Warren and his men,
while the friends of the brave band under him were highly delighted. The
back of the rebellion had been virtually broken. The news spread, as
news only can spread among Kafir tribes, and Colonel Warren was looked
upon by the Kafirs as possessed of supernatural powers. It only required
tact to complete the subjugation of the rebels, and the leader was not
lacking in this quality. It had been known that the women folk of the
Kafir tribes intrenched within the Perie Bush were habitually allowed
free ingress and egress. This they made use of for the purpose of
bringing supplies from King William’s Town.

Reporting this fact to the late Sir Bartle Frere, the then governor of
the colony, Colonel Warren was advised to communicate with General
Thesiger. That red-tape entangled officer, however, deigned no reply,
and seeing the waste of public treasure involved by General Thesiger’s
indifference, Colonel Warren decided to act, knowing full well, if
successful, that he would have the full support of Sir Bartle Frere.

An opportunity of carrying out his plan quickly offered itself. Out of
the Perie Bush, seeking supplies, and almost in a starving condition,
came 600 women and children. Surrounded and made prisoners by the
Diamond Fields horse they were fed and taken into King William’s Town
and there handed over to the civil authorities, to be afterward sent to
Capetown and apprenticed as domestic servants.

The husbands and fathers, rather than that those they held most dear
should be separated from them, possibly for ever, appealed to the
chiefs, some of whom perhaps were sufferers from Colonel Warren’s _coup
de main_, and so ended the Gaika-Gealika rebellion.

This sudden termination to the war, however, I believe was also the
termination in the friendship previously existing between General
Thesiger and Colonel Warren.

About this time bad news was received from the northern border of
Griqualand West. Bolasike Gasibone, it was reported, was committing acts
of plunder and generally exhibiting a total disregard of the laws of
_meum_ and _tuum_, and in consequence Major Lanyon, the administrator of
the province, left on January 21st, 1878, with 150 volunteers for
Phokwane to punish him. The major was absent from Kimberley some twelve
days, found that there had been no fighting, found no one with whom to
fight, merely old women, children and cows; he collared the cows, and
returned with the spoil to the diamond fields. Many laughed at the whole
affair, but a more serious view was afterward presented for
consideration when the Revs. Messrs. Bevan and Ashton, two well-known
missionaries, appealed to the public for assistance for the poor
natives, who, they stated, were starving. Major Lanyon to stay public
indignation sent a so-called independent commission to report on the
state of affairs, consisting of Mr. Lord, acting attorney general, a
submissive admirer of every act of government, and Mr. Baillie, merely a
subordinate in the survey department. The report framed was of almost
interminable length, occupying fifteen pages in the government _Gazette_
of March 16th, but before it was issued the public had openly expressed
their anticipations respecting the document. The public was not,
however, prepared for its “highfalutin” rhapsodies on the “duty of man,”
nor for the strange citing of Holy Writ in its concluding sentence, in
which natives, owners of the soil and living an independent pastoral
life, were told, after all their cattle had been forcibly removed, “if
any man will not work neither shall he eat.”

Two months later (April 13th, 1878), the administrator of the Transvaal
solicited assistance against Sekukuni, and as preparations were being
made to give him assistance news arrived of trouble on our southwestern
border, which was confirmed by a dispatch on April 21st from Mr. H. B.
Roper, the magistrate of Griqua Town. A call to arms was at once made
and readily responded to. Major Lanyon again left Kimberley, in three
days’ time, with 100 men for Koejas. As soon as he arrived at his
destination he called upon the natives to put down their arms, which
they refused to do, and as they occupied a position from which it was
impossible to dislodge them without cannon, Major Maxwell was
telegraphed to at King William’s Town to at once bring up some
field-pieces. In the meantime volunteers were leaving Kimberley almost
every day for the front to strengthen Major Lanyon.

During Major Lanyon’s encampment at Koejas the Griquas, who had up to
that time remained quiet (the rebellion having broken out among a number
of colonial Kafirs and Korannas living on the banks of the Orange
River), rose _en masse_ and besieged Griqua Town, which was surrounded
by them for eight days. On the night of the eighth day Major Lanyon rode
through them with twenty men undiscovered and joined some 100 volunteers
who had managed, the same day, to get into Griqua Town from the
Kimberley side. On the following day the rebels were completely routed
at Driefontein in a decisive engagement which lasted twelve hours and
driven into their fastnesses in the Langeberg. Major Maxwell, whose
arrival was eagerly looked for, arrived at Koejas on May 25th with the
cannon, just in the nick of time, as on the 31st 600 natives attacked
the camp, when the guns which he had brought up materially assisted to
secure the success of the day. During the time all these events had been
occurring Colonel Warren and “our boys” had been burning to respond to
the calls for assistance which had reached them from Griqualand West.
They had heard how volunteers had been raised and had taken the field
under the command of the administrator, and how the country on the
southwestern border was in a state of tumult and insurrection. Springing
to saddle the plucky band made forced marches, this time in the cold,
pinching month of May. “The air bit shrewdly and ’twas bitter cold,” but
with no covering save a blanket and the saddle for a pillow, they
quickly reached the junction of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. Scarcely had
the force (numbering then about 200 men) crossed the Vaal River than
Colonel Warren scented the disaffected Griquas at Wittehuis, where they
had “enschanged” themselves in a formidable position between the Kaap
Range and the Vaal River. Here the rebels were attacked and routed, and
after completing their defeat Colonel Warren and his men pushed on to
Griqua Town.

Thence he and Major Lanyon proceeded to the Langeberg, where several
engagements took place, in all of which the rebels were defeated. The
most important of these skirmishes was that of Paarde-Kloop, at which an
immense quantity of wagons, oxen, horses and sheep were captured. There
is nothing which makes a native regret rebellion more than the loss of
his worldly goods. Capture his stock and he is defeated.

After these engagements the administrator returned to Griqua Town,
leaving Colonel Warren in command, and there received the sad
intelligence of the skirmish at Manyeering, resulting in the death of
Messrs. Paterson, Rawstorne and several other well-known persons. While
proceeding as quickly as possible on his road to Kimberley, he was
attacked by and succeeded in defeating a body of rebels at Campbell,
some thirty miles from Kimberley, where he arrived in safety after being
some two months absent from the seat of government.

Colonel Warren now made a detour, suspecting the enemy to be lodged in a
mountain situated to the northeast, and distant from the Griqua Town
road some twenty miles. Here he only found groups of chattering monkeys,
instead of the Griquas he expected.

The rebels had fled!

[Illustration:

TAIKOON PASS.
]

After remaining a few days in Kimberley to settle some urgent matters
connected with the government, Major Lanyon proceeded to Bechuanaland,
where he was joined by Colonel Warren, and where after the battle of
Taikoon and other smart engagements the rebellion was finally crushed.

I may here say that the rebellion among the natives who were once, it
must be kept in mind, the owners of the soil, arose with the white man
from difficulties mainly respecting land, and from the dissatisfaction
generally felt by a large proportion of them with Colonel Warren’s
previous decisions in this regard, which had driven them to utter
despair; for it was not until entreaties and even tears had failed to
have any effect that they resorted to rebellion. Colonel Warren was by
nature hasty beyond description, autocratic to a degree, and bigoted in
the extreme.

The manner in which the natives had been treated both by Stockenstrom in
the land court and afterward by Warren was freely commented upon by
colonial statesmen. Mr. R. Southey, formerly lieutenant governor of
Griqualand West, gave utterance to the following significant words in
the Cape house of assembly, when speaking on the subject: “So gross was
the injustice sustained by these people in the land court that had I
been a Griqua, I too would have rebelled.”

Mr. H. B. Roper, now chief of the detective department and police
commissioner of Kimberley, then the resident magistrate of Hay, was
accused in an official dispatch by Colonel Warren of having been the
sole cause of this war through his magisterial judgments, and every
endeavor was made by interested officials to throw the entire blame of
the war upon him. This official’s record books were subjected to the
private scrutiny of the attorney general by the magistrate who succeeded
him, who by this means wished to curry favor with the powers that used
to be, but, although his sentences were found to be decidedly severe,
they showed no taint of what could be construed into injustice, and the
sinister scheme with respect to him fell through.

When Colonel Warren became acting administrator of Griqualand West, he
published in the government _Gazette_ the names of a commission which
was to sit at various places and inquire into the causes of the war, but
it never sat once.

And why?

Because it was found to be indubitably certain that the answer to every
question as to the cause of the rebellion would be “land.”

In the month of August, 1878, all the volunteers, including “our boys,”
returned to Kimberley, the latter having been more than nine months in
the field, when the proceeds of the prizes captured throughout the
campaign were equally distributed among them.

The reception given to the volunteers by the Kimberley people and the
inhabitants of the Diamond Fields generally was most cordial and
enthusiastic, reviews, balls and dinners being the order of the day.

As a _resumé_ of the events of the war, I may here state there had been
during the campaign fully twenty engagements, attended with considerable
slaughter in the rebel ranks, from whom vast herds of cattle and
numberless wagons were captured, while on the side of the volunteers the
average loss amounted to little more than one man per engagement.

The rebellion brought attendant miseries in its train. The prisoners,
including old men, women and children, were removed to Kimberley as soon
as captured, and miserable objects they were.

In piercing cold weather, it being the middle of winter, with scarcely a
stitch of clothes to their backs, they were sent up in wagon-loads, and
penned like so many sheep in a yard adjoining the jail. In all they
numbered some 700. During their confinement, extending over some fifty
days, at the rate of three a day more than one-fifth died, and the
survivors were exposed to public gaze in order that the townspeople
might select those whom they chose for domestic service. The ravages of
syphilis among these Griquas were perfectly astounding, scarcely a man,
woman or child being free from its secondary effects. These prisoners of
war, virtually slaves, soon one by one made their escape to their homes,
and the government very wisely, on peace being proclaimed, did not
enforce the terms of their apprenticeship.

But notwithstanding the victory achieved by our arms, native
disturbances were not altogether finished. Shadows of a disturbance
among the Korannas at the Salt Pan, near Christiana, darkening the air,
Colonel Warren thought it better to nip any rising among these people in
the bud. In this case there was “much ado about nothing.” The _émeute_
commenced through a difference of opinion between a Koranna and a Dutch
farmer concerning a cow, in which a German missionary took the part of
the native.

The affair was so much magnified that Colonel Warren went up to
Christiana accompanied by volunteers in January 1879, and sent for
Hermanus Lynx, the captain of the tribe, and the German missionary to
come before him. After inquiring into the affair Colonel Warren deemed
it sufficient to put the missionary on his _parole d’honneur_, which
parole the German missionary incontinently broke.

It then was deemed necessary to take more decisive steps, and a body of
men were next day sent to the Salt Pan to arrest the “reverend” violator
of the first law of honor, which was done, and he was brought back to
Christiana, not, however, without the loss of one of the volunteers, who
was killed by the accidental discharge of a gun by a Koranna.

After this all became quiet and the volunteers returned to Kimberley.
The whole of the affair was much exaggerated, two men could just as
satisfactorily have arranged the dispute between the Koranna and the
Dutchman as two hundred.

Hermanus Lynx, the unfortunate captain of the Korannas, was confined for
months a prisoner in the Kimberley jail, and Major Maxwell, the
inspector of prisons, was compelled to state, when as vice-president of
the legislative council I called for the papers in the case, “I have no
warrant for his detention nor papers of any kind.” In a written
statement which Hermanus Lynx afterward made, he imploringly said: “I
want to know what I have done to merit my having been kept in prison for
the past eight months. I have not committed theft nor killed any
person.... I am not afraid.” As I have before mentioned I brought this
poor fellow’s case before the council by asking the simple question:
“For what crime and under what warrant is Hermanus Lynx confined a
prisoner in the Kimberley jail?”

The illegality, the cruelty, with which this unfortunate chief had been
treated would not bear exposure, consequently before the day came round
on which my question must have been answered by the government Hermanus
Lynx was a free man. This act of simple justice came too late to repair
the injury done him. The government on his liberation supplied him with
a tent, wagon and rations, but within a week he died on the banks of the
Vaal River, ruined and heart-broken, having covered only twenty-five
miles of his homeward journey.

Since the events chronicled in this chapter there has been no further
disturbance among the natives in the country districts of Griqualand,
for the possibly very excellent reason that there are no independent
natives left.

About this time my colleague, Mr. George Bottomley, introduced an act
into the legislative council amending the liquor laws of the province,
which was much needed,[64] and I fathered a private bill authorizing the
supply of Kimberley with water from the Vaal River; but with the
exception of continued progressive diamond legislation (which has been
elsewhere fully detailed) nothing further of particular moment came
before the council that session.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXII.
COLONEL WARREN AND MR. JUSTICE DE WET PUT THEIR HANDS TO THE
PLOUGH.—VISIT OF MESSRS. SPRIGG AND UPINGTON. PIE-CRUST PROMISES.—MY
PROTEST IN THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL AGAINST ANNEXATION.—DEPARTURE OF MR.
ROSE INNES, C. M. G., LAST ACTING ADMINISTRATOR.—ELECTION FOR CAPE HOUSE
OF ASSEMBLY.

When Colonel Lanyon was sent by the imperial government to the
Transvaal, Colonel (now Sir Charles) Warren was appointed acting
administrator in Feb. 1879. His short “acting” career was characterized
by procedures, which, if not strictly illegal, yet exhibited a great
amount of impulsive self-will, which many times carried him a little too
far. This was especially marked in his treatment of Mr. Advocate Lord,
Q. C., the attorney general, which created for that gentleman, at the
time, an immense amount of sympathy; Sir Bartle Frere, after he had
fully studied both sides of the question, absolutely canceling the order
suspending Mr. Lord from office, which he had made at the suggestion of
the acting administrator. Such actions, however, caused less surprise
when it was reported that Colonel Warren was also suffering from the
effects of an accident, met with I believe, in the Perie Bush; but of
this the public was not long kept in suspense, as a climax was reached
in October of the same year, when the acting administrator had suddenly
to leave the province, in the care of the government surgeon.

Griqualand West was then blessed (or cursed) with another acting
administrator in the person of Mr. Justice de Wet (now Sir Jacobus), who
administered the government until the arrival of his successor, Mr. Rose
Innes, C. M. G., who in reality came like an assignee’s agent to wind up
an estate, or in other words to prepare the territory for annexation.

To return to the visit of Messrs. Sprigg and Upington. As these
gentlemen occupied the positions of premier and attorney general of the
Cape Colony respectively, great importance was attached to their visit,
as the conjecture was generally entertained that they had come to “spy
out the land.” At a public dinner given them, these gentlemen gave forth
what the inhabitants of the diamond fields thought no uncertain sound.

Mr. Sprigg, in his speech on the occasion, said: “That in the year 1878
the annexation act was returned with her Majesty’s assent, and it was
signified to the governor of the colony that he was at liberty to put
that annexation in force. The governor asked my advice on the matter,
and I informed the governor of the Cape Colony and the governor of the
province, when he was present himself, that I could not at that time
advise that the act should be put in force, because I felt extreme
unwillingness to annex any province to the Cape Colony against the
wishes of the inhabitants;” while Mr. Upington was even more decided in
his remarks, saying that: “He had seen it stated that his honorable
friend and himself had come to Griqualand West with a view of doing
something which, in the minds of some people at least, would be an
injury to this province. He wished to give an emphatic denial to this
statement.... They would seek to deal with the people of this province
on the broad grounds of reason.... If they had intended to do anything
against the wishes of the people why should they not have done it by a
stroke of the pen in April 1878, or at any time down to the present
day?... They had come to see the people and their representatives, to
endeavor to come to a conclusion as to what would be the best for South
Africa generally.” These utterances attracted much attention, but yet it
was considered advisable to hold a public meeting and send a deputation
to wait on Messrs. Sprigg and Upington. A meeting of 1,000 citizens was
held in the Theatre Royal on Oct. 6th, 1879, when ten gentlemen,
including the members of council, were chosen to form a deputation to
wait on the above-named Cape ministers, but, as one of these, I came
away as wise, after the interview, as before.

The inhabitants of Kimberley were, however, lulled into a sense of false
security, in which they remained until Sir Bartle Frere electrified them
by an unmistakable statement respecting annexation in his speech at the
opening of the Cape assembly in 1880. In this speech he said: “In
redemption of the undertaking given by the colonial legislature and
confirmed by the colonial governor, we relieve her Majesty’s government
of the responsibility of the administration of the affairs of Griqualand
West. The bill passed for that purpose in 1879 will shortly be
proclaimed, care being taken that the people of that important province
shall not be left without legislation, at a time when a legislature in
which they are not at present represented is actually in session.” What
could be done? Remonstrances, petitions, public meetings, all had been
tried and found to be of no avail. The elective members of the
legislative council then made a move, and as a body supported a motion
which I brought forward in June 1880, seconded by the member for Barkly,
Mr. Paddon, to the effect “that in the opinion of this council the
annexation by proclamation or otherwise of the province of Griqualand
West to the Cape Colony would be detrimental to the best interests of
the province, and opposed to the wishes of the inhabitants.” In a long
and exhaustive speech I went through all the reasons against annexation,
speeches to the same effect being made by the other elective members,
when the attorney general, who no doubt had infinitely more respect at
this time for the magnates of the Cape Colony than he had in 1884, when
by bitter experience he found that it was vain to trust in “premiers,”
proposed an amendment: “That in the absence of any public expression of
opinion on the subject it is premature and unreasonable to ask this
council to commit itself to the terms of the resolution, which is based
upon the assumption that such opinion has been expressed,” and this was
seconded by the treasurer general. On my calling for a division the
president put the amendment—the president, the recorder, the attorney
general, the treasurer general, in a word all the members of the
government, voting for the amendment, and the elective members against,
when the president, as a nominee of the Cape ministry, sent for a
special object, exercised his right and gave the casting vote, which, of
course, was in favor of the amendment, and against my motion—being “in
keeping,” he said, “with the speech I considered it my _duty_ to make.”

A fortnight after this a large meeting was held in the Theatre Royal, at
which a resolution was passed approving of the action of the elective
members, and thanking them for opposing the measure.

The position, however, was soon realized by many: That _nolentes aut
volentes_ we were to be cast off by the imperial government and absorbed
into the unsympathetic Cape Colony; and perceiving that further
opposition was useless, the inhabitants quietly accepted the inevitable,
with the exception of a few stubborn spirits, myself among the number.
Sept. 30th, 1880, the day on which was to be sounded the death-note of
the autonomy of the province, at last arrived. The council met at the
usual hour in the afternoon, but it could at once be seen that some
unusual occurrence was expected. The acting administrator of the
territory and president of the council, Mr. Rose Innes, C. M. G., sat at
the head of the table, looking very solemn, while _vis-à-vis_ at the
foot I sat, supported by the members for Barkly and Hay. No member,
either elective or non-elective, was absent. There was no vacant seat
that day. The hall was crowded, many ladies coming to see the closing
act of the drama which had for the last six years been produced under
different managers in the small theatre of Griqualand West.

After prayers, the usual formal questions having been asked, I at once
rose and read the accompanying protest against annexation:

“We, the undersigned, elective members for the Province of Griqualand
West, having ascertained that it is in contemplation to enforce at an
early date an act, No. 39, of 1877, entitled “To make Provision for
the Annexation in this Colony, of the Province of Griqualand West,”
hereby desire our protest against the same to be recorded on the
minutes of this council previous to its dissolution, for the following
reasons:

“1st. Because it was understood at the time the act was under
discussion in the Cape parliament that it would be submitted to the
legislative council of this province before any attempt would be made
to promulgate it; Whereas this has not been done, neither have the
wishes of the inhabitants of Griqualand West in any way been
regarded—whether in respect to the expediency of annexation or the
conditions upon which it should take place.

“2d. Because the measure of representation accorded under the act to
the electoral divisions of the province is, we submit, in no way
commensurate with its wealth, and with the intelligence and enterprise
of its inhabitants, and judging from the past we have little hope in
this respect of reasonable treatment in future at the hands of a Cape
parliament.

“3d. Because the circumstances of this province differing entirely
from those of the Cape Colony, demand the presence of a local
government, with authority to deal at once with mining and other
questions requiring immediate attention; consequently we anticipate
that great injury will be done this province by the seat of government
being removed so many hundred miles away.

“4th. Because the inhabitants of this province object to being mixed
up in the party contentions of the Cape Colony, where the scramble for
place and power seems to override all other considerations and to
retard that progress which would otherwise ensue.

“5th. Because Her Majesty’s subjects in Griqualand West have in no way
forfeited their right to be consulted as to the disposition of this
province or the alteration of their political status; but, on the
contrary, have shown their fitness for self-government by defending
their country and even in assisting neighboring provinces during the
late general war with the native tribes.

“6th. Because, although the people of this province are undoubtedly
loyal to the Queen’s government, yet they do most strongly object to
the action of the imperial authorities in thus handing them over to a
government and a colony with which they have so little in common; and
we, in our own name and in the names of our constituents, hereby hold
both the imperial and colonial governments responsible for all
untoward events and results which may follow on annexation.

“Therefore, for these above stated and other weighty reasons, we
hereby request that this, our protest against the annexation of this
province to the Cape Colony, may be recorded on the minutes of this
council, and that a copy of the same may be forthwith forwarded to the
colonial government and the secretary of state for the colonies.

“(Signed)

J. W. MATTHEWS, V. P.
G. BOTTOMLEY.
I. PADDON.
H. GREEN.”

Then, as vice-president, I spoke against the measure and said, as
reported in the local journals:

“In asking that this protest may be recorded on the minutes of the
council, I may say I do so with a heavy heart, and that I find it
difficult to restrain my feelings. It would seem that in the
arrangements of this annexation all consideration for the welfare of
this province has been overlooked. It was not so when Sir Henry Barkly
was governor; he deprecated in the most emphatic manner possible the
idea of governing this province from Capetown. Again, when Messrs.
Sprigg and Upington were here recently, they saw, as Sir Henry Barkly
had seen, the absurdity of such an idea, and in everything they said,
both in private and public, they repudiated the suggestion of annexing
this province to the Cape Colony. Mr. Upington was especially emphatic
in his condemnation of such a policy. Is it not then a great outrage
that in spite of all these protestations on the part of the Cape
government we should be taken over without being consulted? It may be
remembered that a public meeting which was called here to express
sympathy with Sir Bartle Frere in connection with Zululand matters was
very thinly attended, the people here showing by this their opinion of
Sir B. Frere’s treatment of this province, and what they thought of
the manner in which the petitions against annexation, emanating not
only from the monied classes but also from the bone and sinew of the
place, had been pigeon-holed and suppressed. There is no more right,
there is no more reason, for us to be annexed to the Cape Colony
to-day than there would be for Natal to be annexed to-morrow, which
colony is simply nowhere in wealth and public enterprise as compared
with this. [Loud applause.] We differ from Natal in many respects. I
may remind you of one: when we were in danger, we defended ourselves
with our own troops, and did not cry out for imperial assistance, we
actually sent volunteers away to help the Cape Colony in its
difficulties with Kreli and Sandilli, and are even now being called
upon to assist in quelling a rebellion in Basutoland, the result of
the latest blunder of the Cape ministry. [Hear, hear.]

“Some think that annexation will bring relief from the grievances
under which we labor, but when they have to pay a tax on diamonds,
have no administrator at hand to personally inspect and redress their
complaints [hear, hear], what then?

“We may get a railway, but that is no certainty; we may get the
advantage of a three-judge court, but these benefits are nothing in
comparison to what we shall lose, when we lose our independence. For
my part, I feel like a man who is unjustly charged with the commission
of a crime. I feel like a man who has been wrongly convicted, but the
jury have given their verdict and it remains with you, sir, as judge
to-day to pass the sentence. As the mouthpiece of the law you must do
its behests, but I protest against the passing of a sentence of
capital punishment. [Loud applause.]

“So far as the elected members of this council are concerned they have
done their duty to their constituents, they have resisted and
protested to the best of their ability against annexation to the Cape
Colony. I hope, however, sir, we shall soon recover our liberty under
a wide scheme of confederation. I bow now to the inevitable.
[Continued applause.]”

Messrs. Bottomley and Paddon, the junior member for Kimberley, and the
member for Barkly, then also supported the protest which I had read, in
short speeches, when Mr. Rose Innes, as if tired of the play, spoke the
“tag” declaring the council dissolved, and the curtain dropped.

Thus was carried into effect the bill which three years before had
passed the Cape assembly (No. 39, 1877), and which had nearly lapsed
through effluxion of time. It was forced on with most unseemly haste at
the finish, the provision in the 32d clause that the bill was to take
effect when “all matters and things necessary to be done and to happen
in order to enable the said annexation to be completed and perfected,
have been done and happened,” being entirely ignored, the boundary line
of the province, the most important “matter and thing” of all, not
having been definitely settled.

Although we were taken over with all our liabilities and engagements, I
am sorry to say repudiation has been, more or less, the favorite policy
of the Cape government, so far as the “milch cow” of the colony is
concerned.[65]

Mr. Rose Innes, C. M. G., having finished his work, left for Capetown,
and Mr. P. A. Villiers, the acting colonial secretary, with all the
public documents, title deeds and archives of the province soon followed
in his wake, when instead of being a crown colony, with our own
governor, and in direct communion with the imperial government, we found
ourselves a portion of the colony of the Cape of Good Hope, and at the
bidding of its responsible advisers!

Griqualand West was annexed to the Cape Colony in October 1880.

It was not until March 15th of the next year that an election took place
for the return of two members to represent Kimberley in the Cape
parliament. There were three candidates for the two seats. Mr. J. B.
Robinson, Mr. George Bottomley, my former colleague, and myself. The
excitement was most intense. The unlimited expenditure of money by the
one, and the pertinacious sectarian adherents of the other, proved a
formidable opposition, but the all-round support given the “red, white
and blue” enabled me a second time to become the senior member for
Kimberley. This election took place when the share mania was at its
height, when money was very plentiful, and no ordinance being in
existence forbidding brass bands, carriages, flags, rosettes, champagne
and other little luxuries indulged in at such a time, the extravagant
expenditure bore favorable (?) contrast with an English election in the
“good old days.” As may well be imagined in a rich digging community
some sharp practice occurred, but this was nothing in comparison with
that which took place when the seat, which I afterward vacated, was
filled up, for then the grave gave up her dead, the Capetown breakwater
its convicts, and the natives “polled early and often” for the
successful candidate!

The assembly was in session when Mr. J. B. Robinson and myself arrived
in Capetown.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXIII.
NATAL AGAIN.—COOLIE IMMIGRATION.—BISHOP COLENSO.—LAING’S
NEK.—INGOGO.—MAJUBA.—INTERESTING INTERVIEW WITH GENERALS JOUBERT AND
SMIT.—GRAVE-YARD AT MOUNT PROSPECT.—LADY FLORENCE DIXIE.—FIRST SESSION
IN CAPE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY.

The first time I took my seat in the Cape house of assembly on April
5th, 1881, I listened to a debate on a motion introduced by the leader
of the Dutch party, which confirmed me in the intention that I had
previously formed of paying Natal a visit at the end of the session.

This debate was the first, I remember, which touched the question of
Dutch feeling _versus_ English, and was in reality the expression of a
sense of gratitude by the Dutch party in the colony to the Gladstone
ministry, for entering into negotiations with their brethren in the
Transvaal after the defeat at Majuba, rather than allowing irritation at
that defeat to prolong the war.

The debate led to the house agreeing to an amendment proposed by one of
the members for Capetown, to the effect: “That this house desires to
express its satisfaction at the cessation of hostilities in the
Transvaal, and its earnest hope that all differences may be
satisfactorily adjusted and a permanent peace established.”

Whilst listening to the various speakers, I became more than ever
anxious to visit the scenes of the war just closed, and study on the
spot the battlefields where in one campaign we had suffered three
complete and disastrous defeats.

Before describing my visit to Natal, I must not forget to state that
during the first session I sat in the Cape house of assembly the time
was chiefly occupied by Basutoland affairs, and in discussing a vote of
censure on the government with respect to the war in that country.

Being the senior member for Kimberley, and as it was not known to which
side its members leaned, my speech on this subject excited considerable
attention. It was generally expected that if the government were in the
majority it would depend upon the votes of these members, and this
conjecture proved correct, the result of the division being thirty-seven
votes for the government and thirty-four against. The Sprigg ministry
found, however, in a few days, that they could not carry on the
government of the country, and resigned on May 9th. No business of any
importance was transacted during this session after the resignation of
the ministry, Mr. J. B. Robinson, my colleague, and I merely looking
after the local interests of Griqualand West.

But to resume. Ten years had flown over since I had left Natal, and many
striking events had occurred during that period. Langalibalele’s
outbreak, his noble and successful defence by Bishop Colenso, Sir
Benjamin Pine’s recall, Sir Garnet Wolseley’s five months’ politic
interval, in which he “drowned the independence of the colony in sherry
and champagne,” the Zulu war, and the dethronement of Cetywayo.

I was anxious as well to see what progress the colony had made in this
interval, and once again have the pleasure of meeting the many old
friends whom I possessed there. Consequently, when my parliamentary
duties were over, I left Capetown in the S.S. _Dunkeld_ on the 18th of
June, and landed in Natal on the 23d. We arrived off the bluff in the
middle of the night, and early dawn found me feasting my eyes once more
on the glorious view of this land-locked bay, which recalled to memory
many a pleasant scene of the past.

Gliding gently over the dreaded bar, and landing at daybreak, I made my
way to the Royal Hotel, and after breakfast sallied forth to see what
changes a decade had wrought. At every step I was agreeably surprised at
the improvements which I saw. Streets, which ten years before were
knee-deep in sand, I now found hardened, the town council having spent
£40,000 merely in re-forming a few miles of the Musgrave Road leading to
the Berea; trams hourly running, where in my time horses could barely
walk. New buildings and fresh stores, a magnificent theatre, and a new
town hall showing the progress of the place. All, however, were not
satisfied. One old colonist I met frankly said, “Don’t be deceived,
Doctor, there is no reality in what you see, all imperial money, another
Zulu war would suit us just now.” I could not help thinking whether the
signs I saw were the evidence of real progress or mere ephemeral
prosperity, and I asked myself the question, “Has sugar, has coffee, has
the Overberg trade done all this?” I knew that two recent and eminent
visitors had taken a harsh view of Natal and Natalians, having formed
but hurried opinions of the situation.

Froude and Archibald Forbes no doubt thought themselves competent to
judge, but the one was just as far wrong, and acted as unfairly to the
body of Natal colonists, when he said: “Many of these are no better than
the mean whites in the Southern States of the Union,” as the other when
he wrote that the leading attributes of Natal colonists are
“untruthfulness, insobriety and swagger.” With due deference to Mr.
Froude, I distinctly say from years of observation, there is no section
in Natal low enough to be compared with the mean white of the Southern
States, whom even the darkies themselves despise.

The mistake which both Froude and Forbes made was one which a well-known
writer has described as the great error of the nineteenth century, viz,
hasty generalization.

Resting a night I took train to Verulam, Victoria County, my old seat of
practice. This line of rail was all new to me, having been laid since I
left, though it ran through sugar and coffee plantations which I knew
well. On arriving at Verulam I procured a horse and rode off to visit
the various estates in the neighborhood: Redcliffe, the Grange, Ottawa,
Hammonds, Waterloo, Trenance, Southburn, Sunderland, and others whose
names have escaped my recollection, and their hospitable owners I saw
again. Many of the estates, however, I found had been taken up by
Mauritians, and the vacuum pan sugar boilers, as well as the field
overseers, had mostly come from that island, in fact old residents told
me that in the trains running to and from D’Urban there was now almost
continually a complete babel of French, English, Hindustani and Kafir. I
must say that I was disappointed with the general appearance of the
coast. Coffee enterprise seemed dying out fast, no planting going on,
the trees suffering from an insect, the “borer,” and from the leaf
disease (_Hemiteia Vastratrix_), which has played such havoc in Ceylon.
The extent of land under sugar had increased, but drought, low prices,
and the competition of beet-root were making the planters look serious.

Another phase of affairs which struck me as assuming unmanageable
proportions was the keen competition of the cheap-living Asiatic, who in
the cultivation of small holdings could almost beat the European out of
the field. When I saw these men, these crofters, themselves working
their patches of ground, I was at once let into the secret of their
success.

White men in Natal, as a rule, think manual labor in the fields
derogatory. The only exception to this of which I ever knew was a
settlement of Germans near D’Urban. From the feeling generally abroad I
can easily understand the unpalatableness of Froude’s remarks when he
wrote: “Here and there a farmer makes a fortune, but generally the
whites will not work because they expect the blacks to work for them.
The blacks will not work because they prefer to be idle, and so no one
works at all.” After all there is a considerable stratum of truth
running through this statement.

To return to the coolie question, Indians seem very loath to leave
Natal. I find in the last Natal Blue Book that out of 33,343, comprising
men of all castes landed from India since immigration began in 1860,
only 2,141 have returned, the total number of Indians in the colony in
1884 being 27,276, of whom 17,241 were males and 10,035 females.

Gen. Sir J. J. Bissett, in an address to the electors of Alfred and
Alexandra counties in June, 1884, recognizing the importance of this
point, said: “With regard to coolies, I consider that they are
introduced for a specific purpose, they should at the expiration of
their term of indenture be required to return to India, subject to a
maximum extension of term (say) to fifteen years in all. I consider that
any benefit derived from them by a section of the community is very
greatly counterbalanced by the injury their presence causes the colony,
both directly and indirectly. I am also opposed to coolies holding land
in this colony.”

In my opinion Sir J. J. Bissett’s views display a lamentable ignorance
of the first principles of political economy, and are suitable to a
timid mercantile community only, afraid of the further cheapening of
articles of consumption. A great proportion of the Indians, both in the
West Indies and in Natal, as soon as they have served their time and are
free from their indentures, become in every sense thorough colonists;
they buy property, invest their savings, “marry and are given in
marriage,” and show no desire, as statistics prove, to return to
India—differing entirely from the Chinese, whose sole object is to
return home as soon as possible with every sixpence they can drain out
of the country in which they have been living. To my mind the turning
away of thrifty bread winners from a country sparsely populated by an
infinitesimal working class of whites is the height of absurdity. There
is not even the excuse on the ground of morality which the Americans
have against the Chinese in California. Moreover, how would Sir J. J.
Bissett treat the question of the increase in their population? Would
the children born in Natal be allowed to remain there or not? Would he
have the Indians under British rule treated in the same manner as the
Dutch have since treated them in the Transvaal State, where, certainly
without the “liberty, equality and fraternity” popularly supposed to
pertain to republican ideas, they passed a law through the Volksraad,
which was promulgated on June 10th, 1885, disqualifying “Coolies, Arabs,
Malays and other Asiatics” from obtaining the right of citizenship, or
from possessing landed property, and compelling them further, under
penalty, not only to register themselves, and pay £25 for so doing, but
also giving the government power to place them in locations;[66] or
would he have them treated as they are in the other Dutch republic (the
Free State), where it is contrary to law to let fixed property to Arabs,
and where they cannot even procure a license to trade.

No! Thank God such outrages cannot be committed under the British flag!
In Natal less false pride, greater economy and industry are all the
requisites necessary to produce a competition vigorous enough to stem
the tide of Asiatic intrusion. There is one fact, however, which Natal
colonists have seriously to face which is that to every white man there
are at least thirteen Kafirs and one Indian.

The great point to my mind is for the European element to retain the
voting power within fixed limits.

After my visit to Victoria County I returned to D’Urban and took train
to the capital, Pietermaritzburg. The railway again was all new to me.
No pleasant rest at host Padley’s now, no exciting drive round the
Inchanga, no gallop over Camperdown Flats! Simply a six hours’
monotonous railway trip.

The first sight I caught and the first hand I grasped on my arrival was
that of good Bishop Colenso, who met me at the station. Ten years had
passed since last we met, but how delighted was I to see the same
penetrating eye, the same majestic figure, the same elastic step, and to
hear the same cheery voice as in years gone by. I had a long talk with
him and his talented and philanthropic daughter over the events which
had occurred during the years that I had been absent from Natal. Church
matters and matters of state kept us engaged until evening approached,
when the bishop started for Bishopstowe, leaving me to spend the night
with my friends in Pietermaritzburg. Bishop Colenso was indeed one of
those few men “who never swam with the stream, who bravely strove to
stem the current, and regardless alike of popular and aristocratic favor
pleaded with his latest breath for what he thought to be right and
just.”

Little did I think when he shook me by the hand on getting into his
carriage that I should never see him again. It is a benign provision for
us mortals that the future is wrapped in obscurity!

I left Pietermaritzburg the next day, June 30th, at 11 A. M., passed
Howick and the magnificent falls of the Umgeni, and reached the Plough
hotel, Estcourt, where I had a short rest. Leaving there at 2:30 in the
morning I arrived at Ladysmith at noon, where we changed horses. The
feeling against the “ignoble peace,” as it was called, I found
increasing the nearer I approached the seat of the late war. In the
hotel where the mail cart changed horses the landlord had just posted up
the following notice:

Sacred to the memory of
HONOR,
The beloved wife of John Bull,
She died in the Transvaal and
Was buried at Candahar, March 1881.
Her end was peace.

and it was curious to see the soldiers and civilians crowding round the
placard and to listen to their very candid if not complimentary remarks
on the Gladstonian ministry.

Right opposite the hotel where we stopped was to be seen the large
loop-holed laager, I should say, roughly speaking, about 300 yards
square, which had been built by the villagers during the late scare. As
we drove out of the village to Newcastle I saw how “in this weak, piping
time of peace” the pomps of war could be utilized, for our parting
recollection of Ladysmith was the sight of a large crowd of the youth
and fashion of the neighborhood parading round a military band belonging
to the troops stationed there, which was discoursing proud martial
strains, a sorry satire on the situation!

In the afternoon, toiling up the Biggarsberg, we came upon a batch of
Zulus, fine, strapping, jovial fellows, forming a large road party. At
the moment what should appear in sight but two ambulance wagons full of
our wounded men, just sufficiently recovered to be removed to one of the
bare hospitals.

[Illustration:

GRAVE-YARD AT MOUNT PROSPECT.—TOMBSTONES OF SIR POMEROY COLLEY AND
COL. DEANE.
]

This sight was enough of itself to make all the Zulus stop work and
“wau” with curiosity. Seeing some wounded men accompanying the
ambulances one Zulu bursting with fun and grinning from ear to ear,
shouted out, “Sakubona,” (“I see you,” a form of greeting) “Johnny! upi
lo Dutchman?” (“Where is the Dutchman?”) of course a regular peal of
laughter at once followed this sally of native wit. I can assure my
readers, that as an Englishman I sincerely felt for our wounded soldiers
thus tauntingly jeered at, and I was able to estimate the tremendous
shock that our prestige had received among the aborigines. The Zulus
recognized the situation at once, the only thing our poor fellows could
do was to grind their teeth and curse their fate as they wearily trudged
along, victims of vanity[67] and misjudgment, the defeated of Laing’s
Nek, Ingogo and Majuba!

There is no doubt that the retrocession of the Transvaal was a violation
of a series of guarantees which had been previously given. Not only Mr.
Gladstone and Lord Kimberley, but also Sir Garnet Wolseley, Sir Bartle
Frere, Sir Theo. Shepstone and Sir Owen Lanyon had over and over again
declared that the Transvaal would remain English territory, and that
under _no_ circumstances could the annexation be reversed. These
emphatic utterances were made long before the outbreak of hostilities,
and consequently the withdrawal of English rule after the Dutch had
gained four signal victories within nine weeks, could be interpreted
only by both Dutch and natives as an act, not of principle and equity,
but of weakness and defeat. My friend, Mr. C. K. White, one of the
nominees appointed by Sir Garnet Wolseley to the legislative council,
which he gave as a sop to the Transvaal Boers, in a letter at the time
appealed to Mr. Gladstone in the following touching words: “If, sir, you
had seen, as I have seen, promising young citizens of Pretoria dying of
wounds received for their country, and if you had had the painful duty,
as I have had, of bringing to their friends at home the last mementoes
of the departed; if you had seen the privations and discomforts which
delicate women and children bore without murmuring for upward of three
months; if you had seen strong men crying like children at the cruel and
undeserved desertion of England; if you had seen the long strings of
half desperate loyalists, shaking the dust off their feet as they left
the country, which I saw on my way to Newcastle; and if you yourself had
invested your all on the strength of the word of England, and now saw
yourself in a fair way of being beggared by the acts of the country in
which you trusted, you would, sir, I think, be ‘pronounced,’ and England
would ring with eloquent entreaties and threats which would compel a
hearing.”

Mr. Gladstone, however, changed his previously declared convictions. On
January 21st, 1880, he stated in the House of Commons: “I must look to
the obligations entailed by the annexation, and if in my opinion, and in
the opinion of many on this side of the house, wrong was done by the
annexation itself, that would not warrant us in doing fresh, distinct
and separate wrong by a disregard of the obligations which that
annexation entailed;” or again on June 8th, 1880, when in answer to
Messrs Kruger and Joubert who had written to him, asking him to rescind
the annexation of the Transvaal, he said “our judgment is that the Queen
cannot be advised to relinquish her sovereignty over the Transvaal.” Yet
little more than a year saw this “pronounced” opinion totally changed,
and all confidence in Mr. Gladstone and his ministry almost annihilated
throughout the length and breadth of South Africa.

Proceeding on my journey I crossed the Ingagane, passed the forts in
course of erection by our soldiers close to the river, the heliograph
twinkling in the sun, and after a long, tiring journey arrived at
Newcastle in the afternoon.

Newcastle lies on a large grassy plain and in the centre of a district
containing no less than 1,350 square miles of workable coal[68] close to
the surface; and in the near future destined to keep up the credit of
its name when the mines have been properly opened up, it will be noted
for this production, and then no doubt a railway to the coast being by
that time _un fait accompli_ will supply the traffic of the eastern
seas.[69] Newcastle was in the zenith of its commercial prosperity
during the late war, and even when I visited it its glory had not quite
departed.

Wishing to proceed and see Majuba without loss of time, I found this
would be an impossibility, at least for some days, had not Mr.
Greenlees, an old resident, kindly given me his assistance and offered
to drive me there himself the next day.

As a pleasurable interlude, especially in a place like Newcastle, a
grand concert was advertised, which took place on the evening of my
arrival, and the band of the 97th put forward as a special inducement. I
went and saw a sight that I shall not soon forget. The “gods” were very
uproarious and demonstrative, and not at all reticent in expressing
their opinion. One singer, well known as a notorious bouncer about the
power of England and the valor of her troops, on coming on was most
cynically received. To me it was a mystery, but this was explained when
he commenced to sing:

“In days of old, when knights were bold,
And barons held their sway;
A warrior bold, with spurs of gold,
Sang merrily his lay,”

for a terrific burst of pent-up anger seemed to thrill the “gods.”
“Loop,” “Verdomde Englishman,” “Go and fight the Boers,” “Why did you
run?” were the cries all round the hall, until the poor fellow slid away
amidst the jeers and laughter of the audience.

Starting early in the morning, we were lucky enough to have as a
companion a young colonial volunteer named Maclean, a relative of a
former governor of Natal, who was one of the brave men who, after the
day’s slaughter, stayed all night with the wounded on the battle field
of Ingogo. Crossing the Incandu, our road lay past Fort Amiel, built
during the Zulu war, and a twelve miles’ journey, ending in a
precipitous rise, landed us on the plateau where the battle of Schuin’s
Hooghte was fought. Then crossing the drift of the Ingogo, we
breakfasted at Virmstone’s roadside inn on the bank of the river.

Just as we were once more inspanning to continue our journey, up rode
Lady Florence Dixie and Sir Beaumont on their way to Newcastle. I was
naturally pleased to have the opportunity of seeing a lady whose
chivalrous defence of Cetywayo afterward had so much to do with his
restoration, and with whose opinions on the late Zulu war and the
treatment of the dethroned king I was so much in harmony. I may here
mention that a few months later I had the pleasure of making Lady
Florence Dixie’s personal acquaintance, when she and Sir Beaumont were
passing through Kimberley.

But we had sixteen miles further to travel to Majuba, so on we went,
leaving Mount Prospect and its cemetery on our right. We reached the
foot of the mountain about 2 P. M. The views of Majuba from the road as
we approached were simply grand, and it was hard to picture war and its
horrors invading such a lovely spot!

I was again fortunate; at the regimental canteen at the bottom I met a
corporal, who had been in all the three engagements, and persuaded him
to guide us to the top, which he did, whiling away the tediousness of
our mountain climb by relating his experience of the dreadful Sunday
(never to be blotted out of South African history), and by recounting
events of which he stated that he was an eye-witness, and which, whether
his account was strictly correct or not, I prefer to leave unrecorded.

Greenlees, Maclean, myself and our guide all went up the same path,
being the _via dolorosa_ the English soldiers under Colley took on the
ill-fated night of Feb. 26th, 1881, and not toiling, laden with
ammunition and accoutrements, as they did, from 9:30 P. M. to near
daybreak, but making the four miles’ circuitous ascent in three
hours.[70] The top is just like a large soup plate, sinking down all
round from the sides and flat at the bottom (about 420 yards long by 300
wide), so that no troops resting in the centre could see an enemy
advancing up the sides of the mountain. Our guide told us the first
intimation he got of the attack of the Dutch was from the consternation
which seized every one, when the Boers, who had gained the summit from
the Transvaal side, suddenly poured into them their first deadly general
volley, although like other eye-witnesses he said there had been
considerable desultory firing since daybreak.

This volley at once created such a panic that a regular stampede
commenced, which the officers tried in vain to stop. It was _sauve qui
peut_.

I had pointed out to me the perpendicular rocks, some as much as forty
feet in height, where many of our men killed themselves jumping headlong
down them in their mad retreat, bleeding, tumbling, dying one on the
other.

There can be no excuse for the disaster of the day. The Boers themselves
were astonished at their own success. Some apologists, I remember at the
time, said our men were fatigued with the ascent, but yet they got to
the top at 3 A. M., long before daybreak, and it was past mid-day when
the Dutch fired the fatal volley which decided the issue of the day.
Surely this gave hours enough for our soldiers to rest. Then who, I may
ask, was responsible for the equipment of the expedition? Where were the
Gatling guns and the rockets, which could have rained death and
destruction on the Boer camp below? Why was no diversion made by us from
our own camp at Mount Prospect? Who superintended the digging of the
intrenchments(?) on Majuba? These and other questions will never now be
answered. Again, about sixty Boers only gained the summit at first,
therefore it could not be said our forces (554 rifles) were
outnumbered.[71]

The very graves themselves bear silent witness to our blind retreat, for
out of ninety-two killed that day only fifty-nine are buried on the top
of the Majuba. The others, shot like game by the Boers in the wild run
for life down the mountain sides, and who killed themselves in their
panic-stricken flight, were buried below at the cemetery of Mount
Prospect.

We remained at the top, enjoying a splendid bird’s-eye view of the
Transvaal, the site of the Boer laager during the war, the battlefield
of Laing’s Nek,[72] our own camp, etc., until the moon rose, when
starting on our downward journey we reached the bottom at nine o’clock,
and in half an hour were partaking of the hospitalities of Mrs.
Greville’s hotel, where we discussed the merits of that eventful day,
and the question of Dutch strategy _versus_ English mismanagement far
into the night.

Next day, before sunrise, I started for Mount Prospect, leaving my
companions sleeping, overcome with the previous day’s exertions. A walk
of three miles brought me to the cemetery, thirty yards long by
twenty-six broad, which was surrounded by a double inclosure, the first
built of sod, the second of stone.

The sunrise was magnificent, the air keenly crisp and clear, and the
scenery, with Majuba filling up the background, I have never seen
surpassed, but a more melancholy sight or one recalling sadder events to
memory could not be seen the wide world over. Here in this little
graveyard, all dead in vain, I saw quietly resting all that “outrageous”
fortune had left of disappointed ambition, ruined hopes, and dreams of a
glorious future! Far in the corner were the plain marble crosses erected
to Sir Pomeroy Colley and Colonel Deane. Sir Pomeroy’s simply chronicled
his death and burial, with the beautiful lines from “In Memoriam:”

“O for thy voice to soothe and bless—
What hope of answer or redress?
Behind the veil, behind the veil.”

while Colonel Deane’s spoke the truth of a valiant soldier “who fell in
action at Laing’s Nek, at the head of a storming party, ten yards in
front of the foremost man.” Alongside these were two little wooden
crosses, pointing out the graves of Doctors Landon and Cornish. On
Surgeon Major Cornish’s grave there was a beautiful wreath, with the
touching words:

“Now the laborer’s task is o’er,
Now the battle’s day is passed;
Lands the voyager at last,
Safe upon that further shore.”

In fact the whole cemetery was like a garden of flowers, the graves
covered with beautiful wreaths of immortelles, tributes from all parts.

I may here mention that I had the pleasure in August, 1886, just five
years after making this visit and five years after the peace was signed,
of being introduced at Barberton-the principal town on the Kaap gold
fields, and elsewhere described—to Commandant General Piet Joubert and
General Smit, who were the Boer commanders at Majuba. I had long been
anxious to hear a _viva voce_ statement of the Boer side of the question
from some of the chief actors, and I eagerly seized the opportunity of
“interviewing” the generals. On waiting on them according to appointment
I was very courteously received. General Joubert I found to be a man who
had seen some sixty summers, of middle height, with a tendency to
corpulency, a greyish beard, sharp, dark eyes and a pleasing expression
of countenance, though it was easy to see from his firm set mouth that
he was a man possessed of great determination of character. There was no
mistaking his nationality as his features were in the main those of the
typical Boer. General Smit was taller, his features more regularly cut
and of sterner cast, and with hair almost grey he looked just the
determined man to lead a forlorn hope. General Joubert at once began the
conversation by telling me that for some time he had considered it
dangerous to allow the English forces the chance of obtaining the key to
the position, which the occupation of Majuba certainly afforded, and
acting on this idea he had determined to occupy the mountain, “but” he
said, “before taking this step I was determined with the other
commandants to make a thorough examination of the locality.” “All came
to the opinion” continued General Joubert, “that the occupation of the
mountain by the English was impossible, but I thought otherwise, and
after this sent up a picket of fifty men each night. This was commenced
on the Thursday night (Feb. 24th) preceding the eventful Sunday on which
Majuba was fought, but by a remarkable act of Providence, the picket
which was told off for duty on Saturday night, being composed of
burghers newly arrived from Pretoria, lost the path up the mountain and
spent the night encamped midway.”

“But,” I asked the general, “hadn’t Colley asked you to disarm?” “I will
tell you,” he replied; “on Friday morning I received a message from
General Colley calling on me to disarm, and saying he would send a
dispatch to the imperial government representing the Boer grievances. I
answered to the effect I could not do this without first getting
permission of the chairman of the Triumvirate at Heidleberg, a process
which would take four days. Now, I thought, all was right till Monday,
and as a proof of my confidence, I even reduced my patrols. What made me
also more certain was that on the next day I got a letter from President
Brand telling me that there was every chance of negotiations for peace
coming to a successful conclusion. I sat up late that night making
copies of Brand’s letter to send to the Triumvirate at Heidleberg and to
General Colley. On going to bed, I can assure you, I couldn’t sleep, my
rest was uneasy and I tossed about till nearly four o’clock in the
morning, when I called my boy to make a fire. Just as the day was
dawning my wife, who had been with me only a few days, got up to make
coffee. Going out of the tent she said, ‘see what lots of men are on the
mountain!’ Suspecting nothing I merely said: ‘It is only our own
people.’ She was not satisfied, however, but got my binocular, and
looked again, when she called out excitedly: ‘Leave your writing! put
down your pen! come here! the _English_ are on the mountain!’ I ran out
at once, there was no need for me to take the glass as I could plainly
distinguish the English troops by their walk. I jumped on my horse,
which like all other horses in the camp, according to general orders,
was saddled at four in the morning, and rode at once to Franz
Joubert[73] who had just come into laager the day before. ‘Now,’ I said,
‘didn’t I tell you the English would get up the mountain? Look, there
they are.’ He wouldn’t believe me but insisted they were our own people.
At this juncture I saw the men returning who should have formed the
picket on Majuba the night before, and heard and saw two shots fired on
them from the hill. I almost lost my temper. ‘Would our own people fire
on us?’ I asked. ‘No! they are English, I say.’ When Franz Joubert
calmly answered, ‘If that is so we shall _have_ to get them down.’
Hurriedly telling him to go on up the mountain, while I would go back
and send some more men, I galloped off to our laager. On my way I met my
son with a message from General Smit advising me to come to Laing’s Nek
at once as that might be attacked. So I left instructions for Veld
Cornets Roos and Minnaar to attack Majuba on one side with about forty
men, and the commandant of Utrecht with something like the same number
would go up the other.”

“But tell me, general,” I said, “were the English fully aware that the
Boers were really coming up the mountain to attack them?”

“Yes! of course they were, they knew it for eight hours, as it was five
o’clock in the morning when they fired the first two shots, and it was
one o’clock when we got to the top.”

“Then it was not, as it is alleged, a sudden attack in force which
gained the day?”

The general smiled at my question. “How could it be when heavy firing
was going on all the morning up to the very last moment.”

“When the top was gained by the Boers, what took place next?”

“There was no resistance, all was over in a minute or two.”

“But tell me, general, how do you account for the fact that 500 English
should run before 60 Boers who had just had an eight-hours’ climb up the
mountain?”

“I don’t wish to give any opinion,” said the general, looking serious
indeed, “but I am certain the hand of God was with us all through.” Then
waxing quite eloquent, he continued: “Men of mine, whom I knew were such
cowards, that in Kafir wars even I have set them to cook the pots,
advanced with determined step, impressed with the work before them,
actuated, I am sure, by an Almighty power.”

Then, continuing the narrative, he told me how General Smit sent him
word about three o’clock that Colley was killed and how he forwarded
instructions that the body should be carefully guarded during the night
with “all honor and respect,” and that the wounded should be laid
together and covered up, the prisoners of war in the meantime being sent
under escort to the Boer camp and transported the next day by wagon to
Heidleberg.

Considering the state of utter demoralization in which our troops had
apparently fallen at the time, the Boers having been victorious in every
engagement of the campaign, all Englishmen may be glad that a sudden
mist stopped the attack upon our camp at Mount Prospect, which General
Smit told me the Boers had decided to make, or a yet more disastrous
defeat would, I feel certain, have been chronicled. I was strongly
impressed with the belief that General Joubert recognized a divine
Providence in everything, as over and over again he said, “the hand of
God was in it all.” I was also informed that when this sudden mist
arose, hiding our camp completely from view, that he quietly said: “Look
at the mist, the Lord won’t allow us to go;” seemingly, like Cromwell,
he was a firm believer in the universality of divine interposition and
so accepted the sudden mist as a command of the Deity! “Thus far shalt
thou go and no further.”

General Joubert’s description of his interview with Gen. Sir Evelyn
Wood, five days after Majuba, was very graphic. I asked the general to
allow me to take notes, to which he consented—when lighting his pipe he
began: “You must know, doctor, that five days after the fight General
Wood sent to ask me if I would meet him half-way between the two camps.
This I agreed to do, and we sent wagons and tents from both sides. There
were myself, General Smit and Mr. Dirkhouse, as clerk on our side, and
General Wood, General Buller and Major Fraser on the English. When I
arrived, after wishing each other ‘good morning,’ General Wood asked me:
‘Have you authority to make peace?’ I answered, ‘Yes, on one condition;’
he said, ‘what is that?’ I replied, ‘the annexation of our country to be
withdrawn.’ ‘Then,’ I added, ‘her Majesty’s troops can leave with honor,
I want no more.’ ‘But if I sign such a peace, will all agree?’ inquired
the general. ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘all _must_ in accordance with _our_ law.’
After some moments’ deliberation General Wood asked me whether or not I
would make peace according to the terms offered in a letter sent by Mr.
Kruger to General Colley through President Brand. I answered distinctly,
‘No.’ At last General Wood begged that the armistice might be extended
to twenty days to give Mr. Kruger time to arrange about terms, when,
after discussing the matter for some time, a further cessation of
hostilities for eight days was agreed upon between us, and we left
Buller and Fraser to draw up a document to that effect.

“As we were standing outside the tent while this document was being
prepared, General Wood told me I should have to get away from the Nek,
because it was English territory, but I said: ‘_We_ don’t fight for
ground, _we_ don’t claim any; why should I go? If you _mean_ to make
peace, the closer we get the better.’ General Wood replied, ‘I shall
have to force the place then and drive you away,’ and pointing to his
breast, and counting his medals one after the other, said: ‘Look, there
are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine medals, and if
I pitch you out, another, which will make ten.’ I answered: ‘I must
defend my country at all risks, and stand the consequences,’ He then
looked straight at me and said: ‘Perchance you may kill me, but that is
nothing; England has sixteen generals more.’ I then turned up my coat,
and pointing to _my_ breast, which was perfectly plain, said: ‘General,
there is nothing here, and thank God, I want nothing behind that Nek
there. I have not one single man to be killed for that. (I pointed to a
medal on his breast.) _We_ do not fight for glory, _we_ fight for
liberty, and for liberty every English general, I know, would also yield
his life. We have not many generals, but although I and General Smit
lead our men, each man knows he fights for himself and his country.’
General Wood then continued: ‘But what do you think of Colley going up
the mountain?’ I answered: ‘I don’t know what to think; all I know is
that I received letters from Brand and Colley only the day before, which
tended to throw me off my guard, and while I was in the very act of
writing answers Colley took the opportunity to go up the mountain.’ ‘And
you drove him down?’ ‘I don’t say that, and I am glad no one behind that
Nek says that either, but this I will say, that every man of mine when
he looks at Majuba, when he looks at the top of that mountain there,
thinks of nothing but the wondrous work of the Almighty.’ Wood seemed
touched. ‘I am not an unbeliever; I also say my prayers,’ he ejaculated.
‘I am glad,’ I said, ‘to hear you say that, but do you know what we pray
for? We don’t pray to conquer nations and annex countries; what we pray
for is that Almighty God may so open the eyes of the gracious Queen of
England that she and her counsellors may see what is justice and what is
right, then we shall feel sure of our case and know that freedom to our
country must come.’

“We then talked a little about Bronker’s Spruit and other incidents of
the war, when, the document being finished, we went into the tent to
sign it.”

Shortly after General Joubert concluded the above somewhat melo-dramatic
description of his meeting with Sir Evelyn Wood, I took my leave, having
spent a most interesting hour in the society of the generals.

Returning, however, to the description of my trip of 1881; when I got to
the hotel I found all prepared for leaving, and after breakfast we
started for Newcastle, intending to rest at Ingogo, as we had not time
to visit Laing’s Nek (and moreover we could see the position from the
road), where Colley’s first defeat took place on Jan. 28th, with a loss
of 260 killed and wounded, and where Colonel Deane and Major Poole
(Cetywayo’s old friend) were shot down. After a pleasant drive we
crossed the Ingogo drift, the road gradually ascending until the plateau
of Schuin’s Hooghte was reached, where Colley suffered his second defeat
on Feb. 7th. Making a _reconnaissance_ that morning with 273 of the 60th
Rifles and 38 men of the mounted squadron from Mount Prospect, Colley
was virtually lured to his destruction. The Boers retired before his
advance, until having decoyed our troops to Schuin’s Hooghte, a high and
perfectly unsheltered plateau, they opened a galling fire from the other
side of the valley which intervened, a perfectly safe position for them.
This was at 10:15 A. M., and until sundown our soldiers were nothing
more or less than English targets for Dutch bullets. The field guns
which Colley brought with him were useless; he had nothing to fire at
but rocks, the Boers finding most excellent cover. The horses were shot
down at the guns, the mules at the ambulance wagons, nothing living was
safe for a moment from the Boers’ unerring aim. Maclean pointed out to
me the exact stone, near the centre of the plateau, where Colley, Essex
and Wilkinson took cover most of the day, and gave me a most vivid
description of the field when, on a second visit next day, he found the
place literally stormed by armies of cowardly vultures, attracted by the
putrid effluvium from the rotting carcasses of the dead horses and
mules. With my penknife I picked out splashes of lead from the crevices
of the stones, as relics of the Boers’ accurate sighting. Wilkinson,
brave young fellow, was drowned the same night in the Ingogo, when
pluckily returning with comforts for the wounded, that river having
become a sweeping torrent owing to the storm of rain which had been
raging for some hours previous.

These poor fellows, left on the plateau in the rain, were totally
deserted except by one or two, Parson Ritchie, Maclean and Dr. McGan,
Colley having made good his retreat in the night with his troops and
guns to Mount Prospect. There these men lay in a heap, the dying and the
dead together, the pitchy darkness of that long, cold, wet, dreary night
now and again relieved by vivid flashes of lurid lightning. _Only_
142[74] of our soldiers were sacrificed on this occasion. I went to look
at one of the two inclosed grave-yards of these ill-fated men. In the
corner of a little inclosure by the roadside I found tokens of the
conflict and relics of our loss. The helmets of the dead soldiers,
riddled with bullets, were promiscuously piled together, while all
around could be seen traces of the desolation war had produced.

Turning to the Boer losses and casualties. The news of the Boers having
taken the Amajuba mountain reached the Red Cross Association on March
6th, at Bethlehem, O. F. S., when its members at once left for Laing’s
Nek, arriving there on March 16th. Dr. A. C. Daumas, in a report which
he wrote to the secretary of the association, dated Aliwal North, July
29th, 1881, said:

“You may easily fancy what our astonishment was on being informed that
although accepted with thanks, our services were by no means so urgent
and necessary as we had at first supposed.

“In fact, the hospital established by Dr. Merinski, close to the camp,
only contained in all one man sick and three wounded.”

Further on, in the same report, Dr. Daumas stated:

“It would be rather difficult to tell accurately the number of Boers
encamped in this pass (Laing’s Nek), but I do not think I am far from
the truth in estimating their number at 1,000 men.

“This small army subsisted there without the help of any commissariat;
each man was obliged to provide himself with his own food, which
consisted generally in a purely animal diet. He did not receive any
pay, and had beside to get his accommodation at his own expense. His
obedience to his commanders was absolute. The most perfect order
prevailed in this camp, where, strange to say, there never was any
drilling done. Far from being intoxicated with their victories, the
Boers always showed themselves extremely modest, attributing all their
successes to the protection of heaven.... But what remains to be
explained is how an army of several thousand men may have been able to
take the field and keep it during several months without commissariat,
and especially without any medical service, and should not have been
more subject to the class of diseases which are in time of war the
ordinary sad attendants of all armies.

“Should not the reason of these facts lie in this, _i.e._, that owing
to his sobriety and to the strength of his constitution the Boer has
been able to resist the physical causes which produce those diseases;
as also through his political faith, coupled with genuine religious
faith, he has been able to bear up against the moral causes.”

There is no gainsaying the fact that all through the war the Boers had
implicit faith in divine assistance.

Leaving Schuin’s Hooghte we hurried to Newcastle, and next day I left
for Ladysmith, intending to catch the mail cart which runs from the
Rising Sun to Bloemfontein, and so through the Free State to Kimberley.

Passing through Harrismith, the border town of the Free State, we came
to Bethlehem, where I saw the handsome Dutch Church, just finished at a
cost of £16,000, and passing Senekal at 5 A. M., nearly frozen in the
pitch darkness, I arrived in Winburg at twelve, at noon. Dr. Dixon, the
leading practitioner there, soon found me out, and dining at his table
with some Kimberley speculators, on coal not diamonds bent, spent a very
pleasant afternoon. The post-cart left at 6:30 P. M.; at eight next
morning we were in Bloemfontein, and everything going favorably along,
July 12th saw me once more on the diamond fields.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXIV.
TRIP TO ROBBEN ISLAND.—DEAN NEWMAN’S DESCRIPTION THEREOF IN 1855.—OLD
SOMERSET HOSPITAL.—LUNATICS AND LEPERS.—HORRIBLE SIGHTS.—LEPROSY AMONG
ANIMALS.—DR. WYNNE’S OPINION.—MOURNFUL CASE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS.—DR.
KEITH GUILD’S THEORY OF LEPROSY UNTENABLE.—ANNUAL COST OF
LEPERS.—SEGREGATION ACT PASSED BY CAPE PARLIAMENT IN 1884.—DR. ROSS’
REPORT 1886.—VISIT TO CETYWAYO AND LANGIBALELE AT OUDE MOLEN.—MY WIFE’S
INTERVIEW WITH CETYWAYO IN LONDON.

When not attending to my parliamentary duties during the session, I took
the opportunity of visiting the various sights around Capetown, among
others I went over to Robben Island and inspected the lunatic asylum and
leper establishment, and to Oude Molen to see Cetywayo and Langibalele.
As the treatment of lunatics had always been a branch of medical study
in which I felt an especial interest, my readers can well understand it
was not long before I paid a visit to Robben Island, where the principal
of the three lunatic asylums, of which the Cape Colony boasts, is
situated.

On applying to the under colonial secretary he gave me a pass for myself
and my wife, by the _Gun_, a little steamer belonging to the government,
which plies regularly twice a week to and from the island.

It was a fine morning when we left the Capetown pier, but a chopping sea
soon told its tale, and we were all glad after an hour’s tossing to
arrive at the landing place of the island, where we were carried ashore
by the native boatmen employed by the government.

Here we were met by the late Dr. Biccard, the medical superintendent
(formerly a member of the Cape assembly, before the advent of
responsible government), who affording us every hospitality, showed us
over the asylum after we had recovered from the effects of our trip
across.

Robben Island is a sandy, dry, exposed little island in Table Bay, of
about 3,000 acres in extent, distant from the mainland about six or
seven miles, and covered with a short, thick bush, affording excellent
cover to quails, pheasants and rabbits, all which game are found there
in abundance.

It has been used as an asylum for lunatics and a refuge for lepers and
pauper sick for nearly half a century, the removal of the unfortunates
from the mainland being a suggestion of Mr. Montague, who was at the
time colonial secretary—Sir P. Maitland communicating it to the home
government as “a plan proposed by Mr. Montague.” Dean Newman in his
memoirs of the last-named gentleman, written in 1855, gives a very
graphic description of the island: “It is a spot of painful and touching
interest still, the unapproachable asylum of the leper and the lunatic;
the _ultima linea verum_, the last shore of the disabled sailor stranded
there an utter wreck of humanity; the remote infirmary and resting place
for decay and sickness hopelessly incurable! It seems a kind of half-way
halt in departure from the world; for many of its sojourners have bidden
the happy face of mankind and the spots of active life a long and last
farewell;” and, after the sights I saw there, I felt I could fully
endorse every one of the dean’s words.

Forty years ago old Somerset hospital was the only lunatic asylum in the
colony, but the miserable accommodation it afforded and the wretchedness
of its unfortunate inmates led Mr. Montague to recommend the
establishment of a lunatic asylum on Robben Island.

To quote further from Dean Newman: “Robben Island appears destined,
under all changes, to remain a spot of melancholy interest, cut off from
the mainland by a wild sea, prevailing impetuous winds, and a distance
of six miles—yet constantly in sight of it—it is a fit emblem of the
miserable inhabitants who have in successive ages been transported
there, severed from all association with the rest of their fellow men.

“For more than 150 years this island was the Dutch penal settlement and
if the old record speaks truth most rigid were the punishments which
were then inflicted. On the transference of the Cape to the English the
island continued a convict station under British rule; but as we have
seen there was no extraordinary desire manifested even then to make its
discipline such as should reform the criminal or hold out to him the
prospect of restoration to that society whose laws he had transgressed.

* * * * *

“When on a visit of inquiry to the island previous to the removal of the
convicts he [Mr. Montague] noticed its healthy position and its fitness
as a hospital for those whose complaints rendered it necessary for them
to be removed from the less afflicted of their race.

* * * * *

“In his report on that occasion he thus refers to the suitableness of
the island for patients and to the condition of the sick, diseased and
insane who were under the charge of the government in different
infirmaries, and establishments of the colony:

“‘As the salubrity of Robben Island has long been acknowledged, and
there is abundance of stone, lime and labor on the spot to erect the
necessary buildings, I would strongly recommend for your excellency’s
serious consideration the expediency of removing the leper and pauper
establishments of Hemet-au-Aarde and Port Elizabeth to Robben Island,
also the pauper establishment of Capetown, and the lunatics at present
confined in the Somerset hospital at Capetown.

“‘I have also visited the lunatics confined in the Somerset hospital;
anything more wretched and inappropriate for its unfortunate inmates
cannot be imagined than the lunatic wards; they are about fifty in
number. There is no other lunatic asylum in this colony, and lunatics
are sent to this one from all parts of the colony. It is quite
impossible that the present mode of confining and treating these
unhappy people can be much longer continued, a separate and proper
building must very soon be erected for them somewhere, and I know of
no place better suited for them than Robben Island.’”

When it was decided that the indigent and various patients in the
hospitals of the colony should be removed to Robben Island, measures
were promptly taken to erect suitable dwellings and infirmaries for
their reception. The convicts were removed to road stations; the old
convict buildings, which were much dilapidated, were pulled down, and
this once barren scene, which had so long withered under the accursing
influence of crime and the stern frown of retributive justice, began to
smile under the beneficent influence of human kindness, sympathy and
mercy.

There are now (1855) on the island about twenty buildings, with spacious
apartments, airy, healthy and scrupulously clean. Externally the sunny,
whitewashed appearance of the houses has an air of cheerfulness, and the
neat church rising near them speaks of solace to the sick soul, as the
rest of the institution does of care to the diseased body.

The establishment as reported in May, 1854, was:

Men. Women. Children. Total.
Lepers 38 20 8 66
Lunatics 49 53 4 106
Chronic Sick 106 21 2 129
————
Total 301

The division for the lunatics is commodious, well-arranged and striking
from its great cleanliness; the chief occupation of those who are merely
idiotic, or but periodically insane, being to keep it neat and
wholesome. The sleeping compartments are ranged round two small
court-yards, one for the men, the other for the women. In the day-time
few of the lunatics are to be seen in the court-yard or dormitories, as
the plan pursued by the medical officer is to allow all but the most
violent and unsafe to roam at pleasure about the island. One is commonly
set to watch another, and if you question A, whom you see on a strict
and consequential lookout in some part of the island, on what he is so
closely intent, with a sly smile he will point to B, and say, “I am
taking care of that poor fellow;” but when you approach B and put a like
interrogatory to him, he will tell you, casting a cunning glance at A,
“I am looking after him, he is not quite right.” The less violent are
used as servitors in the general establishment and perform much outdoor
work about the island, and even take part in the management of the
island boat which crossed to and fro to the mainland three times a week.

Amongst the most confirmed lunatics, who seldom go at large, are some
painfully ludicrous cases. A sturdy black woman dressed in male
appearance, if not absolutely in male attire, personates an African
king, and certainly in words and imperious looks lords it over her
subjects there, “in King Cambyses’ vein.” Another case from which the
spectator almost religiously recoils is that of a little man from St.
Helen’s, who is sane enough when spoken to on ordinary subjects, but if
the Bible be mentioned, becomes instantly furious, and asserts that the
New Testament (a copy of which he always has about him, and can read
fluently in English and even quote with considerable correctness) is
_his_ gospel and that he is Jesus Christ. If reasoned with on this point
he falls into such fierce paroxysms of wildness and violence as may well
cause him to be taken for one of those demoniacs whom the merciful
Saviour came to liberate and heal. But even with these most extreme
cases, the lenient, judicious treatment which is practiced in this
department, keeping the occasionally furious under close surveillance,
rather than iron restraint, is found to answer far better than the old
custom of the narrow cell, the griping gyve, and unmitigated
confinement.

On a remarkably healthy and, as to aspect, cheerful spot near the sea,
and commanding a fine view of Table Mountain and of the bold rocky coast
behind it, are the buildings which contain the wards of chronic sick.
Here are to be witnessed some of those sorrowful cases which are to be
met with in all such asylums; such as slow wasting disease; the
incurable maladies of the long sick, who have consulted many physicians
and have been nothing bettered; the gradual sinking into the grave of
those who have seemed for years upon its brink. For these, all that can
be done is to relieve pain and make the last moments of life tranquil
and free from want, and certainly at Robben Island this is done. The
treatment, the dietary, the attendance, and even the kindness of one
patient toward another, are here most praiseworthy.

I could see, on my visit, that although years have elapsed since this
was written, every kindness was still shown by the officials to the
unfortunates on Robben Island; still the surroundings were not such as
could possibly tend to their recovery. The large ram-shackle buildings
had an air of patchwork and decay, the yards were overcrowded, no
employment or amusement could I see provided, except in the female ward,
where I listened to one poor woman yawling out “Home, sweet home” on a
piano more out of tune than her mind. A sad and sorry sight! Here, as in
all similar institutions, there was every phase of this melancholy
affliction to be observed. Since my visit Dr. Biccard has died, and the
institution is now under the care of Dr. Ross, according to whose report
last year there are now on the island 199 lunatics, some of whom have
been there for thirty-five years. He states that but a small percentage
of these cases can be looked upon as hopeful, owing to the length of
time that has been allowed to elapse before they were brought under
proper treatment. In one of his previous reports Dr. Ross observed: “If
cases are treated within three months of the first attacks, four-fifths
would recover, but if twelve months elapsed, four-fifths are incurable;”
further, the material upon which to work is “very _unpromising_, and
hence the fallacy of expecting European results when dealing with these
life-long burdens on the country whose unsoundness of mind and unbridled
passions render them equally unfit for liberty or neglect.”

I may also mention that there is under government supervision a hospital
at Grahamstown, where last year 108 male and 67 female lunatics were in
confinement, while old Somerset hospital is still used for chronic sick
paupers, insane and female lepers, containing at the close of last year
55 male, 41 female lunatics, 141 chronic sick paupers, and 13 female
lepers.

Leaving Dr. Biccard with the ladies, I walked on to inspect the lepers
and the buildings in which they were housed. Here I saw human beings
kenneled worse than dogs. In a long, low, thatched shed some forty poor
creatures were stowed away. Both varieties of the disease, the
tubercular and anæsthetic, could here be studied. Some I saw with their
faces shiny, discolored and swollen, others with both hands and feet
dropping off joint by joint; one man especially attracting my attention,
whose nose, eyes, tongue and cheeks had all rotted away, and who, with a
voice piping shrill and cracked, could barely make himself understood.
He was a horrid, loathsome mass of putrid humanity. One fact, however,
struck me at the time, that neither this man nor any of the other
inmates complained of bodily pain. The building in which they were
housed was such that I could not help picturing in my mind a spark
igniting the thatch and a fire taking place in this hovel; how the poor
wretches, sixty per cent. of whom were unable to leave their beds, would
in their helplessness be burnt alive, possibly only too glad to find
surcease of sorrow, at least in this world.

[Illustration:

LEPER DEPARTMENT.—ROBBEN ISLAND.
]

Here were black, half-caste and white all mixed together in hideous
confusion, but, thank heaven! no females; the latter had been removed, I
learned, some time before to Old Somerset hospital, not alas, however,
until cohabitation had produced its results in beings almost, I fear,
inevitably doomed to a life worse than death, and recalling Coleridge’s
lines in his “Ancient Mariner”

“The nightmare Death in life is she
Who chills men’s blood with cold.”

These woe-begone creatures were allowed to go to the mainland if they
wished once every three months, according to the criminally absurd
enactments then in force. Of this opportunity many availed themselves,
never returning, but sowing the seeds of a disease, hereditary and
possibly contagious, as some believe it to be, broadcast through the
land with impunity.

The lepers were, as a rule, idle, insolent and insubordinate, and
knowing the incurable nature of their disease reckless and desperate to
a degree. Half-castes, Malays, especially those whose morality was below
the average, or those whose diet was, as a rule, confined almost
exclusively to fish, I was told were more susceptible to the disease
than Europeans. On making inquiries I learned many horrible facts. Among
others I found the bath-room and the kitchen to be identical, one place
only being provided for them in which to live, eat, drink and sleep, the
“wash” or refuse and almost certainly contaminated food actually being
used to feed the pigs and poultry, and, “Horror on horror’s head” the
miserable sufferers themselves could be seen rolling about in squalid
filth, their clothes soaked and besmeared with the discharges from their
festering sores. No one seemed to have power or inclination to manage
them; neglected and forsaken, they were left to the charge of fellow
lepers as helpless as themselves, Horace’s “Quis custodiet ipsos
custodes?” never having a better exemplification.

Dr. Wynne, the assistant medical officer in charge, who has had
considerable experience of this disease in Bulgaria and Constantinople,
although not noticing among the common fowls the tender-footedness,
bowing of the legs, incurvated claws, and the nodular articulations
which are the earliest symptoms of the disease in animals, yet
distinctly stated in evidence before a select committee of the house of
assembly in 1883 that he had come across pigeons, mice, pheasants and
turkeys unmistakably suffering from leprosy; and he further remarked at
the time that “the communicableness of this disease to animals is a
matter of great importance, for the reason that it may also be
communicable to human beings through the agency of animals suffering
from the disease being used as food.”

After seeing and conversing with these poor social outcasts, and at the
same time having had convincing proofs afforded me every day, from
outside sources, of the increase of leprosy among the lower and colored
classes, I left the island with the conviction that nothing but complete
segregation could ever stamp out this dreadful disease. The success
which has since 1865 attended the complete isolation of affected persons
in the Sandwich Islands, where leprosy was unknown before its
introduction by the Chinese in 1848, as compared with the immense
strides the disease was then making, should be an inducement to our
legislators to adopt the most stringent measures here, the more
especially seeing how widespread this terrible and loathsome disease is
becoming. It may not be generally known, but it certainly bears out the
generally received theory of the contagiousness of leprosy, that the
apostle of the lepers of Molokai is beginning to pay the penalty of his
heroism. Shut away from all civilized and healthy humanity, Father
Damien has for years been a willing prisoner in the island in which are
collected and confined the lepers of all the neighboring Sandwich group.
For a long time, though cut off from the outward world, Father Damien
continued in good health, though alone among the dead. But the stroke
has fallen at last. In a letter written recently he says: “Impossible
for me to go any more to Honolulu on account of the leprosy breaking out
on me. The microbes have finally settled themselves in my left leg and
my ear, and one eyebrow begins to fall. I expect soon to have my face
disfigured. Having no doubt myself of the true character of my disease I
feel calm, resigned and happier among my people. Almighty God knows what
is best for my sanctification, and with that conviction I say daily a
good ‘Fiat voluntas Tua.’” Where is the heroism which will vie with
this? And does not Father Damien’s martyrdom tend to establish the
contagious nature of the scourge?

The following extract from the “People’s Medical Adviser” (London),
bearing upon the question, is interesting: “The following is a summary
of an account in the New York _Medical Record_, of the first attempt to
use a condemned criminal for the solution of an important and scientific
question at the Sandwich Islands. It appears that more than two years
ago the government procured the services of Dr. Edward Arning, for the
purpose of having a thorough and scientific study made of leprosy.
Attempts were made to cultivate the _bacillus lepræ_, which is uniformly
found in the diseased parts, but not in the blood, by Kock’s method,
using various media, but without success. Numerous inoculation
experiments upon lower animals were made, but although the bacilli would
grow at the points of inoculation for a long time, the animal never
became infected. At last Dr. Arning obtained permission to make an
inoculation upon a condemned criminal, whose sentence was commuted to
imprisonment for life. With the convict’s written consent an inoculation
of leprous matter was made in his arm, and bacilli were found in the
sore or the scar up to fourteen months after the operation; no
constitutional symptoms being observed. One further observation of
importance was made by Dr. Arning; he found that in putrid leprous
tissues, and even in the body of a leper who had been dead for three
months, the bacilli were found in great numbers. This seems to bear
against their specific pathogenetic function. Owing to difficulties with
the health board, it is stated that it is highly probable Dr. Arning
will be obliged to discontinue his work of research. With respect to the
cultivation of bacillus, Dr. Neisser, of Breslau, appears to have been
more successful than Dr. Arning, for he has recently stated that in a
few cases he has observed an exceedingly slow growth, and he also claims
to have recognized spores, which the Hawaiian observer has so far failed
to do.”

I do not consider, however, that these experiments in any way prove the
non-communicability of the disease, when we take into consideration the
length of time (ten to fifty years) that leprosy takes to destroy the
general run of its victims.

Not only can it be seen here and there over the whole Cape Colony, at
Fort Beaufort, Malmesbury, Saldahna Bay, Caledon, Fraserburg, Calvenia,
Clanwilliam, Hopetown, in Fingoland and Namaqualand, but even at Weeren
and Alexandra County, especially in the Amapapeta location. In Natal its
ravages are attracting attention among the members of my profession and
philanthropists generally. In the latter colony a commission was
appointed on January 27th, 1885, by Sir Henry Bulwer to inquire into the
extent of leprosy then existing. The report of that commission was
published in the Natal Government _Gazette_ of September 23d, 1886, and
conclusively demonstrated that leprosy was widely spread and was slowly
increasing among the native population, and recommended as a means of
checking the disease the enforcement of strict segregation. Surely some
method for its arrest or eradication might be taken from the lessons
taught by other countries and from experience of the past! After the
crusades in the fifteenth century leprosy played sad havoc in Europe,
but taking alarm in time the lepers were sought out and separated from
their fellows, Norway being the only country in Europe where this system
was not adopted, and while the disease has disappeared in other lands,
in the last named, after the lapse of more than three hundred years, it
still lives.[75] This disease is also found in Greenland, Iceland, where
it is termed “likthra,” in Lapland and the Faroes, but in these more
northern regions, as leprosy is not considered to be contagious, its
victims are objects more of pity than disgust. I believe that many
local, lay and professional men think it a far-off disease, entombed in
biblical lore; if so let them at once disabuse their minds of this idea
and learn that this awful malady is a rapidly increasing scourge of
to-day, extending from the North Pole to the South, from Iceland to
Australia, India and America; Africa and Arabia supplying their quota of
victims. “It distorts and scars and hacks and maims and destroys its
victims inch by inch, feature by feature, member by member, joint by
joint, sense by sense, leaving him to cumber the earth and tell the
horrid tale of a living death, till there is nothing human left of him.
Eyes, voice, nose, toes, fingers, feet, hands, one after the other, are
slowly deformed and rot away, until at the end of ten, fifteen or twenty
years it may be, the wretched leper, afflicted,, in every sense,
himself, and hateful to the sight, smell, hearing and touch of others,
dies despised and the most abject of men.”

Dr. Keith Guild, M.D., district surgeon of East Griqualand, in a
pamphlet published this year on leprosy, arrives at the conclusion that
“leprosy is a blood poison arising from the combination of two other
blood poisons, tubercular and syphilitic,” and goes on to assert that
“leprosy among the natives of South Africa is neither more nor less than
a form of tertiary syphilis.” There is a manifest inconsistency between
these two statements, but if the latter be a correct one it must also
apply to leprosy in general, which I myself would be very sorry for one
moment to admit, for obvious reasons.

Looking upon this frightful picture, is it not time, I will ask, we were
“up and doing” before it be too late?

To come down to figures: the cost of each leper on Robben Island is £63
per annum: while the total expenditure of the island annually, including
lunatics in 1885, was £15,482, of which £5,000 was expended in salaries.

The following is a return of the leper patients admitted in the general
infirmary, Robben Island, from the year 1845 to July 31, 1883,
inclusive, the number remaining about the same, as fresh cases were only
admitted as old ones died off:

1845 37
1846 35
1847 17
1848 26
1849 18
1850 14
1851 7
1852 13
1853 21
1854 14
1855 16
1856 15
1857 16
1858 19
1859 16
1860 13
1861 21
1862 22
1863 22
1864 12
1865 34
1866 19
1867 20
1868 21
1869 15
1870 24
1871 27
1872 17
1873 17
1874 19
1875 13
1876 17
1877 26
1878 19
1879 13
1880 15
1881 24
1882 21
1883—Jan. 1st to July 31st 9
———
Total 744

After leaving these pitiable and miserable sights, Dr. Biccard invited
our party to lunch, when we conversed with this genial old gentleman
upon what we had seen, and over the past and future of the island. Then
after enjoying a fragrant cigar with Dr. Wynne we returned to the
mainland by the _Gun_ on her afternoon trip.

Since our visit the government have decided to remove the lunatics to
the mainland, having bought the farm Tokai near Capetown for that
purpose, but at present the finances of the colony are at too low an ebb
to warrant further expenditure, with a view to the introduction of any
improved mode of treatment for these unfortunate people.

An act for the segregation of lepers has also been passed by the Cape
legislative assembly (No. 8, 1884), which although a step in the right
direction is exceedingly weak in some of its provisions. The main and
vital point, compulsory removal, is altogether omitted, it being merely
made lawful for the governor, on the certificate of a district surgeon
or any other medical practitioner to the effect that a man or woman is a
leper and the disease communicable, to authorize his or her removal, but
no order is inserted in the ordinance that _all_ lepers shall be brought
before the district surgeon for such certificate, and that such
certificate shall be acted upon.

Dr. Ross, the present superintendent of the island, states in his last
report (1886) that “unless the segregation act includes a denial of all
civil rights, the bastardy of all children born to lepers, and
confiscation of their property for their public and special support and
treatment, this horrible disease will never be stamped out.”
Notwithstanding all the forcible lessons of the past I learn that the
government (June 1886) are erecting wooden huts on the island at
Murray’s Bay for the use of female lepers, thus holding out, as it were,
a premium for the direct propagation of lepers; experience having shown
that it is impossible to keep the sexes apart when located on the same
island. The only saving clause is that very few children are born of
leprous parents. I may here emphatically state my opinion that if strict
segregation were enforced this dire disease would in half a century be a
scourge of the past, and, I may add, that I am in accordance with all
the best authorities in the belief that this is the only method by which
this terrible and loathsome disease can ever be eradicated.

After spending a most agreeable and interesting day on the island, a
pleasant hour’s sail brought us in the afternoon to the mainland, the
sea having in the meantime become perfectly calm.

The next visit I made was to see trouble in a different guise, not the
wasting of incurable disease, nor the visitation of a hopeless malady,
but to see two men whose lives were being eaten away by the canker-worm
of despair—Cetywayo and Langibalele! To those who have resided in South
Africa during the last twenty years these names will recall many an
anxious time to colonists, brought about, in my humble opinion, not by
the desire of the colonists to do anything which was not legal and
right—but in the first place by a want of tact in dealing with natives,
and in the second from an uncontrollable infatuation seizing hold of
one, spreading like an epidemic to all. Not two years had passed since
“Cetywayo” had been in every one’s mouth, and had been the hero of the
hour. Again had Bishop Colenso come forward to see fair play done to one
whom he thought had been wrongly used, and again, as in Langibalele’s
case, had he gained for himself the ill-will of the colonists. I had
formed a decided opinion about these cases and was naturally anxious to
study the “fons et origo mali” of each complication, and accompanied by
my wife and various friends I paid Cetywayo several visits.

The drive of an hour in an open carriage, in such a climate as the Cape
possesses on a fine winter afternoon, was pleasure enough to make even
the Cape flats and bad roads enjoyable. Upon these despised flats, in an
old Dutch house, with the usual lofty and spacious rooms, which, however
desirable when adorned and well furnished, look gaunt and cheerless when
neglected and empty, Cetywayo, the captive Zulu king, dragged out the
weary days of his heart-breaking suspense. We were received by the king
in a room that was bare save for a few chairs, and Cetywayo, a fine,
large man, of dignified mien and sad, gentle expression, dressed in an
ill-cut blue serge suit, and sitting ill at ease in an arm chair, looked
a long way from being “at home.” He must have been a fine sight indeed
in his royal kraal dressed in handsome umutye (tails, pronounced
moochas) when in the height of his pride and state.

On one occasion being accompanied by Mr. Saul Solomon, M. L. A. (and
“negrophilist” as he was by some called on account of his sympathy with
and advocacy of the rights of the native, but a man and politician who
had the welfare of his country as much at heart as the welfare of the
native), we found on our arrival at Oude Molen that the interpreter was
taking a walk, and a messenger was dispatched to call him. The king
having evidently arranged himself to receive us, and growing impatient
with the delay, came to the door and asked why we did not enter, my wife
(who could speak Zulu) replied, “we are waiting for the interpreter.”
Cetywayo answered, “what need for that when you can speak as well
yourself,” and he insisted upon our entering then and there. Fortunately
the interpreter arrived almost at once, and we did not run the risk of
breaking any rule applying to visitors. Amongst other items of news we
asked Cetywayo if he had learned from the newspapers (which he had
translated to him every morning) that Mr. John Robinson (whom Cetywayo
knew as a great supporter of Sir Bartle Frere) had been defeated in the
election for the Natal legislative council, where he had held a seat for
many years, when without speaking but uttering a soft pleased “Ah!” he
shut his eyes, his face beamed, and passing his hand slowly across his
mouth from one ear to the other, he gently drew in his breath as if
drinking a long draught of some divine nectar. The news evidently gave
him intense delight, and repeatedly jerking his thumb up and down he
feelingly exclaimed: “What had I done to this man to make him my enemy,
I have never even seen him?” and waxing warmer, he added: “Yes, Sir
Bartle Frere is _down_ and John Robinson is _down_ too.”

We were told that Cetywayo enjoyed such visits as these, being a break
in the monotony of his life. He was saved from vulgar curiosity by the
government not allowing any one to visit him without a special permit.
We found the women comprised in the household a great contrast to the
quiet dignity of the king and his attendant chiefs; entering the room
where they were at work making grass strainers and bead ornaments, they
assailed us in loud, shrill voices, offering their wares for sale as if
nothing more serious were on hand, being as keen to drive a good bargain
as any professional peddler—it had not taken them long to learn the
value of “filthy lucre.”

Walking on a few hundred yards we came next to the abode of a man who
eight years before had set Natal in a blaze, had aroused the chivalrous
feelings of its unswerving bishop, and had been the cause of its
lieutenant governor’s recall!

Langibalele, or “the bright shining sun,” the cause of all this, we
found sitting on the trunk of a tree at the side of a brick-built
cottage, shading himself from the sun. Of middle height, blear-eyed,
old, decrepit and almost in rags, he formed a sorry contrast to the
dignified majesty of Cetywayo, whom we had just left.

I called to my recollection how, ignoring the orders of Sir Benjamin
Pine, he had decamped[76] with his tribe and cattle over the Drakensberg
into the Double Mountains of Basutoland, instead of answering a summons
to come to Pietermaritzburg to explain the reason why the young men of
his tribe had refused to register their guns; how made a prisoner by
Jonathan Molappo, a Basuto chief, he was sentenced to convict labor for
life and transported to Robben Island, and how Bishop Colenso, braving
the prejudices of the Natal colonists, went to England, in the cause of
justice and humanity, and exposed the whole matter,[77] that
Langibalele’s sentence was reduced to twenty years’ safe custody on the
mainland, and Sir B. Pine was recalled![78]

Shortly after parliament was prorogued Cetywayo had his heart’s desire
gratified by being summoned to England, where his restoration to
Zululand having been determined upon, the English government had thought
it would be advisable to let him see some of the wonders of civilization
before he resumed his power. The king was placed in the charge of Mr.
Henrique Shepstone, a good Zulu linguist, and son of Sir Theophilus
Shepstone, who was formerly secretary for native affairs in Natal.
Cetywayo heroically bore the long sea voyage, being determined to leave
no stone unturned by which he might possibly regain his forfeited
position.

It may interest some to hear of him in London, so I will quote from a
letter my wife’s description of a visit she paid to him as she passed
through that city on her way to New York:

“I have just returned from making a call upon Cetywayo; it was a
temptation after seeing him in his wretched Oude Molen quarters, just
before I left Capetown, and knowing so well how he lived in his own
uncivilized fashion, to see how he would look in a London
drawing-room. Mr. Jonathan Peel was good enough to see our old friend,
Mr. Henrique Shepstone, who is the special envoy in charge, and he
most kindly arranged our visit.

“On our arrival we were received by Cetywayo with evident pleasure,
who, seating himself on a sofa, waived us to chairs arranged in a
circle before him. The three chiefs who had accompanied him were each
seated in a corner of the room. One chief appeared to have three feet,
as he had taken off one of his boots and carefully arranged it in line
with his two feet—explaining to me in a tone of apology, that in
walking the day before it had blistered his little toe. The poor
fellows looked uncomfortable enough in European clothes, but there was
no reason why they should have been rendered more ridiculous by
wearing neckties with embroidered red rosebuds. Fancy sad, dignified
Cetywayo with a red rosebud under his chin!

“Cetywayo opened the conversation by asking me how I came to be in
London. I replied I had come as he had by steamer, and that I was
shortly going further, to America, and I suggested that after he had
seen England he should pay my country a visit. He looked at me, sadly
shaking his head, and said: ‘I should not be here, were it not that I
am as I am.’ I thought this answer for quiet dignity was simply
perfect; it sounded even better in his beautiful Zulu than it does as
I have translated it for you. Of course I could not allow him to dwell
upon so painful a subject as his captivity, so I asked him if he had
been much interested in the sights of London. Mr. Shepstone slyly
remarked that the king was very anxious to see the German giantess on
exhibition at the Alhambra, and that he expected to be altogether
captivated. Cetywayo turned the joke by saying—‘he just says that
about me, because he is in love with her himself.’ This fairly
‘brought down the house,’ and literally too, as Mr. Shepstone’s chair
gave way under him at that moment, and this added to the general
amusement. Cetywayo seeing a jet bracelet on Miss G.’s arm inquired
the name of it, and declared his intention to take some ‘ujet’
ornaments back as presents for his wives. It struck me rather as
‘taking coals to Newcastle,’ as far as color went; but evidently his
taste is neat, not gaudy. Cetywayo, growing restless, walked toward
the window, when a shout from the crowd outside made him suddenly draw
back, upon which one of the chiefs remarked, with the utmost disgust
in his tones: ‘There they stand, from daylight till long after
nightfall, and we don’t know what they want.’ Mr. Shepstone told us
that at first Cetywayo was inclined to be very angry, deeming it great
rudeness, but he had explained it to him that it was the delight they
felt in seeing a ‘King,’ and this had somewhat appeased the poor
captive. Mr. Shepstone now proposed that ‘the King’ should graciously
indulge the people outside by returning to the window—which Cetywayo
did, looking as if he felt they were making a fool of him, took off
his smoking cap, and waited patiently while the crowd gaped and
shouted ‘Hurrah!’ Shortly after this we left. Poor Cetywayo’s intense
sadness, even when he laughed, made me feel quite sorry for him, even
in spite of myself. You know I have never agreed with your absolute
bearing toward his side of the Zulu war question. The friends who were
with me, though biased against Cetywayo, admitted, after seeing him,
that their feelings had become considerably modified.”

[Illustration: CETYWAYO]

The subject of the Zulu war has been worn thread-bare by each party, for
and against, from their own standpoint. Mr. John Dunn’s book is the last
ray of light cast upon it. I shall not weary my readers by entering into
the matter at any great length, but, as it were, take my stand between
the two parties and express my humble opinion as a colonist of
twenty-two years’ standing, and as one who has learned to appreciate and
feel a sincere affection for the native. No one is really competent to
judge this question, who does not understand—1st. The native character
and the strictness of their etiquette in the reverence shown to
superiors, breaches of which are no less important signs of troubles
brewing than is the “small, black cloud, no larger than a man’s hand,”
which precedes a storm, and—2nd. The defenceless state—indeed, the caged
animal helplessness, of the Natal colonists. The Zulu appetite for
“eating up”[79] was there without a doubt; Cetywayo having asked
permission of the Natal government to “eat up” the Swazis. What more
natural than that the colonists should fear that this unsatisfied
appetite might be otherwise appeased upon the slightest provocation, and
what could be more aggravating to the spirit of a proud, self-willed
Zulu king, than the restraints civilization was seeking to impose upon
him? The last two Zulu kings had been shrewd enough to see the
advantages and protection which friendly relations with the English
government afforded them, against their natural enemies, the Boers, with
their grab-all policy. For this friendship and moral support, John Bull,
of course, required some compensation—the abolition of cruelties toward
Zulu subjects by their king, and the insuring of the safety of the Natal
colonists, he thought not too much to demand. Alas! had there been a
“Chinese Gordon” to tie what might have proved a gordian knot of mutual
friendship and protection, all would have been well. But what happened?
Who can take the responsibility of fixing blame upon any one individual,
when so many “cooks” were engaged in “spoiling the broth,” either by
omission or commission? Frere, Shepstone, Cetywayo, Dunn, Bulwer,
Colenso and John Robinson, with his newspaper. It must be admitted that
Cetywayo’s character was the natural result of inherited tendency. The
absolute power, the custom of cold-blooded murders for trivial offenses,
or rather, _when convenient_, suspected offenses, the immense standing
army, the longing for wars and “dipping of assegais in blood,”[80] added
to the haughty self-will and the insecurity of the position of an
irresponsible despot, which a Zulu king enjoys, all made Cetywayo what
he was, a neighbor to be feared.

Who shall bear the blame of the irritation caused Cetywayo by the
“impudent behavior of messengers” sent to him by the Natal government,
or the growing anger he felt toward the government and its messengers,
on account of their “assuming authority not recognized by him”? I quote
from Mr. Dunn’s book, who also says, Cetywayo despatched messengers with
a letter to the Natal government stating his wish to go against the
Amaswazi, and to this he received the following document:

“Reply of his excellency Sir Benjamin Chilley Campbell Pine, K.C.M.G.,
lieutenant governor of Natal, to Cetywayo, chief of the Zulu
nation.

“OFFICE OF SECRETARY FOR NATIVE AFFAIRS,
“Oct. 22d, 1874.

“The lieutenant governor has received the letter sent by Cetywayo, and
the reasons given for making war upon the Amaswazi.

“The lieutenant governor sees no cause whatever for making war, and
informs Cetywayo that such an intention on the part of the Zulus meets
with his entire disapproval.

“Cetywayo must also remember that the Amaswazi are almost entirely
surrounded by white people who have settled in the country, and it will
be impossible for the Zulus, if war is made, to avoid getting into
difficulties with them.

“Many years ago the lieutenant governor sent a letter to the late King
M’Pande, requesting him to allow the Amaswazi to live in peace from any
further attacks of the Zulus; he promised to do so, and has kept his
word.

“The lieutenant governor trusts that what he has said will be sufficient
to deter Cetywayo and the Zulu nation from entertaining such a project.

“By command of his excellency,

“(Signed)

“J. W. SHEPSTONE,
“Acting Secretary for Native Affairs.”

And John Dunn adds: “The above letter made the king change his plans,
although it enraged him, as I could plainly see.” Again John Dunn says:
“From this time the tone of Cetywayo toward the English government began
to change, and I could see, from the constant secret meetings which took
place, that his intention was to make war somewhere; but I did not for a
moment believe it was his intention to fight against the English,
although I could see that he was greatly exasperated at the tone of the
government, assuming an authority over him that he did not think they
had a right to do.”

Then if we consider the refusal of Cetywayo to give up the men who made
a raid into Natal (see appendix, ultimatum, clause 10, etc.), but
instead was busy massing his warriors, and further, the recollection
still fresh in the memory of all (when my own father-in-law had to fly
for his life), how Cetywayo’s uncles, Tchaka and Dingaan, had swept
Natal time after time, until “before Tchaka was killed” by his brother
Dingaan, “he was supposed to have destroyed a million of human beings,”
who will blame the anxiety of the colonists, especially when at this
time the native tribes in the Cape Colony and Griqualand West were all
engaged in rebellion against the English government?

The next factor in this war was the annexation of the Transvaal by the
English government, professedly as a protection against the natives. The
land dispute between the Transvaal and Cetywayo (see appendix, ultimatum
clause, 3 to 10) had to be taken with the republic, and now the task of
appeasing both parties in the matter was more than any government could
possibly accomplish. The delay in settling the disputed land question
had led to an impatient act on Cetywayo’s part (see appendix, ultimatum,
clause 4). The English government, knowing well all the weary years of
waiting which Cetywayo had borne, might well overlook this action; but
when it did at last appoint a commission to settle the question,
Cetywayo received a part only of the land he claimed.

Whether the idea was right or wrong, that now the Transvaal had been
annexed the view taken by the government was changed by self-interest,
it is no less a fact that Cetywayo was disappointed, and fresh fuel had
been added to his disaffection.

At this time Sir Bartle Frere had come upon the scene, confederation
being his mission. The danger of an army of trained warriors, 50,000
strong, at the command of an uncivilized king, on the very border of
little Natal, was a very great obstacle; and considering Cetywayo’s
sullen attitude, what colony in its senses would agree to be
confederated with a little colony having such a danger upon its borders?
Time can never prove whether Sir Bartle Frere’s judgment was right or
wrong in sending the ultimatum and outrageous demands to Cetywayo which
forced the war upon him.

There was one man, Mr. John Dunn, who _might_ from his thorough
knowledge of the Zulus have averted this war; unfortunately his attempt
was delayed until too late, (See appendix—John Dunn’s letter to the
Aborigines’ Protection Society). In Mr. Dunn’s book,[81] which is very
interesting reading, he does not tell us of any effort he made with the
Natal government to prevent the war, and one cannot help wishing that he
had gone earnestly and unceasingly to work, both with the English
government and Cetywayo, with that persistency which surely tells in a
good cause. Possibly John Dunn did not realize the situation in time.

[Illustration:

CETYWAYO’S WAGON CROSSING THE INPOLOGI RIVER, ZULULAND.
]

The recollections of Isandhlwana, Zhlobane and Ulundi make one’s blood
run cold; but terrible as this war was, the cruelty and wickedness of
having brought it about, could time prove it to have been unnecessary,
cannot compare, in my mind, with the cruelty and wickedness of the
disastrous Zulu settlement by Sir Garnet Wolseley and the after neglect
of the Zulu nation by the English government. It was “adding insult to
injury” to place these people under petty chiefs, and the whole nation
became demoralized. They _would_ have respected their conquered king
even if he had had to accede to all the demands of the ultimatum and to
owe allegiance to the English government, and they _could_ have accepted
a conquering power more especially when that power was the marvelous
English. This latter disposition is what they naturally would have
expected. But to place them under petty chiefs was just to set them
again at the old game of one chief “eating up” another until one became
supreme. When at last Cetywayo was restored it was simple cruelty not to
have established him firmly and protected him from all danger. Sad
indeed would Bishop Colenso have been had he lived to see the
restoration of Cetywayo for which he worked so earnestly. It was poor
“justice” that left the king, having destroyed his power, to the mercy
of his enemies, and to die very shortly from poison or a broken heart!
No one could have expected Cetywayo to resume his old footing among his
people through any love they bore him. What does any native chief ever
do to make himself beloved? The Zulus possess a dog-like fidelity toward
their chiefs, and they may be proud of their conquests, but when we
consider that Cetywayo could hold his position by the utmost severity
only, ruling by fear rather than love, we cannot be surprised that his
restoration without support was an utter failure. Even upon Cetywayo’s
death it would not have been too late for England to annex the Zulus and
accept a noble mission. With the natural fidelity of the Zulus, how easy
a matter, with firm, kind rule, to gain their love as well!

What a field for civilization and Christianity! Supposing a governor had
been appointed, laws made to keep the Zulu country for the Zulus, and
laws also for their moral good, such as no spirituous liquors allowed,
etc., what might not have been made of them? What is the consequence of
this shirking of responsibility? As Cetywayo received no material
support from England his son and successor was foolish enough to appeal
for help to his father’s old enemies, the covetous Boers, who true to
their nature have managed to gain possession of the better half of
Zululand, and nothing has been done for the improvement or benefit of
that grand Zulu nation—the war has brought them ruin only, when it might
so easily have resulted in good. England in shirking this responsibility
appears to me in the same cruel, sinful light as a mother who leaves her
helpless, illegitimate babe on the door-step of a stranger.[82]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXV.
VISIT TO BASUTOLAND.—PITSO AT MASERU.—INTERVIEW WITH MASUPHA.—GENERAL
GORDON’S APPOINTMENT.—PITSO AT LERIBE.—ROMA.—THE ROMAN CATHOLIC AND
PROTESTANT MISSIONS.—MAFETING.—EAST LONDON.—SIR DAVID
WEDDERBURN.—ARRIVAL IN CAPETOWN.—CAPE ASSEMBLY RESIGNATION.

Some time before the opening of the fourth session of parliament in
1882, in course of correspondence with the Hon. Colonel Schermbrucker,
M. L. C. for King William’s Town, I proposed to him that before
parliament met we should make a tour through Basutoland, and see for
ourselves the real position of affairs and the condition of the country,
especially as so many conflicting statements were afloat. We agreed to
meet at Maseru on March 1st, 1882. Determined that this appointment
should be kept to the day, I left Kimberley at noon on Feb. 26th for
Bloemfontein, _en route_ to Basutoland.

Arriving at Boshof, a rising Free State town, in about six hours, we
changed horses, and proceeding on our journey spent the whole of a
delightful summer night, which a brilliant moon lit up as light as day,
in speeding over the plains of the Free State. But what torture we
suffered between this place and Bloemfontein! The wagonette in which we
rode was sadly out of repair, and I thought myself lucky in getting the
back seat, but, alas! being also the lid of a box, the hinges of which
were broken, it was misplaced by any sudden jolt, so I found myself as
often in the box as out of it.

I had not seen the neat little town of Bloemfontein for ten years, but I
found it had not developed much during this interim. My previous errand
had been of a very different kind. Then the whole of the state was in
painful suspense on account of the critical state in which their
president, Mr. (now Sir John) Brand, was lying. The executive, fearing
the worst, determined to obtain further medical opinion upon his case,
and sent to Kimberley for Dr. Dyer, a leading practitioner there, and
myself, to post over with all speed. Our consultation with the
president’s physicians was not hopeful, and we left, expecting the
worst; however, some days after our return we learned that the disease
had taken a favorable turn, and we had the satisfaction in a few mails
to hear of the president’s gradual restoration to health.

During the few hours that I rested at Bloemfontein I had the pleasure of
meeting his honor again, older and greyer certainly than he was ten
years before, but looking full of health and vigor, “his age like a
lusty winter, frosty but kindly.” He was sitting in his private room in
the magnificent block of government buildings erected lately by the
state. On introduction, he recognized me at once, spoke feelingly of the
past when last we met, and asked me to dinner, an invitation which I was
unable to accept, owing to my previous appointment with Colonel
Schermbrucker on the first of March, which I had barely time enough to
keep. I started the same afternoon in a special cart for Ladybrand, and
traveled again the whole of the night. After “moving accidents by flood
and field,” overturning the cart, losing the mules, getting wet through
and nearly drowned in the Modder River, I at last outspanned for a
couple of hours at Modderpoort, ten miles from Ladybrand, a mission
station conducted by members of the Anglican brotherhood, who had been
settled there since 1870. Father Douglas, the present head of the
community, kindly showed me round the mission station. I saw the pretty
stone church with its stained glass windows and solemn aisles, and the
substantial mission house for the priests, but that which interested me
most was the sight of the cave at the bottom of the garden in which
during the early years of the mission Father Beckett, the founder, used
to live. This good old priest, after years of arduous work, was called
to his rest last year (in 1884), regretted by the whole country side.

[Illustration:

MASERU, BASUTOLAND.
]

Bidding farewell to Father Douglas I reached Ladybrand at 6 P. M. “All’s
well that ends well,” a good rest and sleep enabled me to start early
next morning for Maseru, escorted by a well-known Basuto head man named
Makolokolo, who with an escort of ten men had come to meet me. The
scenery between Ladybrand and Maseru is magnificent, the mountains, with
the grassy plains rolling between, to one who for years had seen nothing
but heaps of diamond debris and tailings from washing machines seemed
inexpressibly and over-poweringly grand. As we rode on to the drift of
the Caledon we passed a long range of hills, where I saw the first signs
of the war that had been raging. By faint curls of smoke high up the
hillsides, mounting in the air, my attention was drawn to the presence
of a number of refugee Basuto women and children living ensconced in
caves, who had received permission from the Free State government to
squat there pending the settlement of affairs.

Galloping quickly on, at ten o’clock I arrived at the drift of the
Caledon River crossing to Maseru. I found the river running in torrents,
the pont or horse ferry, damaged the day before, unworkable—in fact the
late heavy rains had upset everything, but there, on the other side of
the river, exact to the day and hour fixed months before, I could see my
friend, the colonel, waiting. A hearty shout of recognition and welcome
greeted me, and jumping into a boat I was safely landed on the other
side, in Basutoland.

Our progress to Maseru from the Caledon River, about a mile, was one
triumphal procession. As members of the Cape parliament who, the loyals
knew by report, sympathized with their sufferings, Colonel Schermbrucker
and myself were heartily welcomed by these poor broken-hearted people.
They regarded us as men who would be able from personal knowledge and
inspection to bring their cruel wrongs and sufferings before parliament,
reveal their exact condition, and show the world, at least the South
African world, the sad plight and the miserable state in which their
loyalty and their belief in the flag of Old England had landed them.

Hundreds met us on the banks of the river; the crowd, “lumelaing”
(saluting) us and singing and dancing their war dances, and increasing
in numbers until our arrival at Mr. Trower’s store when we arranged with
the leaders to have a meeting or _pitso_ in the afternoon.

Maseru is a prettily situated village just on the confines of
Basutoland, and during the war was an important rendezvous and depot. By
good fortune I found an old brother, if not in arms in lancets, Dr.
Cumming, stationed here, who invited me to accompany him to the camp of
the Cape mounted rifles, when I spent a pleasant hour lunching with him
and other members of the staff.

A splendid view of Maseru and the surrounding country is obtained from
the high plain on which the camp was pitched.

From our open dining tent I could see on one side the winding Caledon,
rushing along in torrents, on the other the grassy plain with the camp
and its surroundings, whilst in front, below us, lay the pretty village
of Maseru with its houses and stores, its trees and its gardens, and the
residency which a short time before had witnessed a most plucky and
successful defence against the attacking hordes of Masupha’s rebels. As
a background to this lovely scene, three hills nicknamed by our troops,
“the world, the flesh and the devil” completed the picture.

In the afternoon there was a large meeting of the loyal Basutos, and we
heard from their own lips the story of their sufferings. Among the
speakers was Sofonia Moshesh, whose magnificently built stone house I
afterward saw in the distance when going to Thaba Bosigo, Makolokolo, a
clever, far-seeing man, whose opinion was much thought of by the
Basutos, Inodi, Jacob Matseke, N’tsane Moshesh, whose house surrounded
by a forest of 2,000 gum trees is a sight ever to be remembered. The
enthralled attention and eager anxiety of the assembly struck me very
much, and it was impossible not to feel for men like Sofonia Moshesh and
N’tsane Moshesh who had lost everything by their loyalty to the
government. but who still trusted, still “hoped on” that justice would
be done them.

The petition which was to be presented to parliament setting forth their
grievances, and praying the house to allow three chiefs they had chosen
to appear as their spokesmen at the bar of the house, was signed by all
present, and the pitso broke up with loud cheers for the Queen.

After the pitso was over I walked up with Colonel Schermbrucker to the
residency, saw how the place had been stormed and riddled by bullets on
the day of the memorable attack on November 20th, 1880, and then went to
see the accommodation provided for the “loyals,” of which we had heard
so much. Tents all tattered and torn, affording no shelter from either
the wind or weather, we found were the only housing provided for these
loyal natives, who by obeying the orders of the government had been
rendered destitute, robbed of their cattle, driven from their gardens
and their fields, from house and home! We came away impressed with the
fact that the conception formed by our loyal friends of England’s
justice and power must be very mythical indeed.[83] Richard Brinsley
Sheridan’s graphic and powerful description of the condition into which
the province of Oude was brought by the emissaries of Warren Hastings is
exceedingly applicable to the condition in which we found these deluded
people. Well could they also say “this damp of death is the mere
effusion of British amity! We sink under the pressure of their
support!... They have embraced us with their protecting arms, and lo,
these are the fruits of their alliance!”

Next day we rode through Ladybrand to Ficksburg, a distance of sixty
miles, accompanied by Makolokolo and some ten mounted men. Arriving
late, after a hard day’s ride through a country not at all interesting,
we rested the night, having previously arranged to meet the chief,
Jonathan (the late chief Molappo’s son), and his people at Leribe on the
following day. Starting early next morning, we were met on this side of
the Caledon drift by 200 of Jonathan’s men on horseback sent to escort
us to Thlotsi Heights, the seat of the magistracy, and the place where
hundreds of his men (loyals), driven from their homes by the rebel
Basutos (like those whom we saw at Maseru), were squatting together
depending on the government for food and protection.[84] Crossing the
Caledon, the chief Jonathan met us, and Colonel Schermbrucker introduced
me to him.

[Illustration:

MOLAPPO’S HOUSE, NEAR LERIBE, BASUTOLAND.—INTERVIEW WITH LOYAL
BASUTOS.
]

This chief is a noble specimen of the Mosuto, not very tall, but well
made, though slightly stout, and with an intelligent and frank
expression of countenance. He was attired in the undress uniform of a
British officer and magnificently mounted. He conducted us to his house
at Thlotsi Heights, where we had coffee and rested about an hour, when
we started for Leribe. I shall never forget my ride. The whole of the
Basutos who were at Thlotsi Heights joined us, every one mounted.
Jonathan provided horses for Colonel Schermbrucker and myself, and we
rode in front, Colonel Schermbrucker on one side, I on the other, the
chief in the middle, with a cavalcade of at least 500 mounted men
behind. The morning was bright and cheery, the air seemed charged with
electric freshness, the grassy turf was like a spring-board, so never
drawing rein, we raced along to Leribe, doing the nine miles in forty
minutes.

On arrival I was astonished at what I saw; we off-saddled in front of
two large stone houses,[85] built about ten years ago by Molappo, one
for his white visitors, the other for his own use. The accompanying view
I took at the time. The interior was beautifully furnished, and even
pictures graced the walls, and this right in the heart of Basutoland,
where civilization was supposed to have scarcely penetrated.

We rested a short time, were then invited to partake of what was really
a fine dinner, after which we spoke to the large gathering of Basutos
who had assembled to meet us, and listened to their mournful story, when
after signing the petition[86] for me to present to parliament, the
meeting broke up by singing the national anthem.

Mr. Maitin, the son of a much esteemed French missionary who interpreted
for me, took at the time full notes of what the different speakers said.
All their observations were to the point, and the quaint manner in which
they were put well illustrated the shrewdness of the Basuto character,
evidently wishing to imply only, amidst the tale of all their cruel
sufferings, the one fact ever brought to the fore, “civis Anglicanus
sum.” These notes he afterward sent to the Cape _Times_, from which
paper I make a few extracts.

After giving some introductory remarks which I made to the large
assembly, Mr. Maitin proceeds to report more _in extenso_ what fell from
the different natives of standing present.

Piet Makolokolo (to whom I have already referred as a man much trusted
by the loyals), Sofonia, Kampa, Jacob Moseki, and other prominent men
told their tale of suffering and neglect. Koadi’s and N’tsane Moshesh’s
speeches, however, I give in full, as they contain the gist of what the
other speakers said.

Koadi said: “I am very glad to see Dr. Matthews amongst us, and I was
glad when he came to Maseru. I am very thirsty and I believe he can help
in quenching my thirst. In short, I will state I agree entirely with
what has been said by Sofonia, and with the petition which has just been
read to us. We approve of what it contains. I ask you loyals if we speak
truth in that petition? Your answer is ‘Yes.’ I will be short, as time
is pressing. We are now in great misery. We are men who cried out to
those in power to do something for us. Now I ask what are they going to
do? I fully agree with Sofonia; he is right in saying the loyals are all
crying, suffering, and in misery for their loyalty. He is right in
saying before the rebellion we were rich, free, and independent, but now
are poor and suffering.

“Yesterday some of my men came to me and complained of the bad tents,
which do not afford shelter from the rain and cold, and reproached me
with having persuaded them to follow the government. I do not say for a
moment we have been wrong to remain faithful to the government. We all
know that we received the Queen’s government from the hands of Moshesh,
and as far as I am concerned I will be faithful to the government till
the government casts me off. I have still, even now, great faith and
hope, as I see a member of parliament amongst us, which proves to me
that the colony will see us righted. As Sofonia says, we were killed
because we were faithful. Must we die again? I hope if the first doctor
fails the second will cure us. I think our petition contains all we
wanted to say.”

Question from Dr. Matthews: “What has Koadi lost?” “I have only lost
five head of cattle, taken from the Free State, but my people lost
cattle and horses. My great loss is one greater than any amount of
cattle, and that is my ground and my rights. Those who rebelled fought
because they wanted the right of the ground, which I have lost, and
which is my great loss. As a grandson of Moshesh I had rights and lands,
with which I could do as I liked. When we were told about disarmament,
before the rebellion, and were ordered to give up our guns, I came three
times to Colonel Griffith, and told him I did not wish to separate
myself from my gun, and he answered me by taking the Peace Preservation
act, and saying, this is the law. I did not like to give up my gun, but
I obeyed the law. Mr. Sprigg then came to Basutoland, and when Colonel
Griffith informed us he was here I went to see him, and Colonel Griffith
introduced me to the then colonial secretary; he asked me to state what
I had lost, and he said that my property should be restored, and that
the governor would protect my life and property. I will not relate how
we were nearly destroyed, as Colonel Schermbrucker, who was our
commandant, can witness on Oct. 20th, 1880; he has remained faithful to
us during all our troubles. We hear it is peace, but we do not see it. I
am glad Dr. Matthews took the trouble to come to us. I want to show him
our food (an old biscuit was here produced); this is the food the
government gives us, the government which promised us protection; we are
often sick after eating this provision. The government was not able to
protect us last year, so during the war we were well fed, but now this
is the description of food we receive. I should like Dr. Matthews to
take a walk and see our houses, huts and tents, and the manner in which
we are now living, and, if he could go and see our old homes, villages,
etc., and compare them. When you do compare them you will know who are
the people who have suffered much, and what they have suffered. During
the war the rebels did not suffer, because they had all our property and
everything they wanted; they are still now the masters of the country,
and of our property. We have been in this state of destitution for two
years. Many of the present people are chiefs, but they are so badly
dressed that you could take them for common people, and this is one of
the results of their loyalty. It is a great pity that Dr. Matthews has
not more time to spare, otherwise every one could speak to him. I blame
Mr. Sprigg for our condition, because he made us promises, but it was
not his fault if they were not carried out, because he had to go out of
office; it was for his successors to fulfill those promises. I again
thank Dr. Matthews for all his attention.”

N’tsane Moshesh followed in the same strain: “I greet Dr. Matthews and
all the loyals. I cannot say how thankful I am that he has taken the
trouble to come and see those men who remained faithful to the Queen.
Moshesh handed over to the Queen his country and people, and here are
the few people who remained faithful. I thank Dr. Matthews for coming
here to see our miseries and to ascertain the true state of affairs. I
endorse every word stated by Sofonia and Koadi. I have nothing to add.
The petition contains the substance of our feelings, and every word of
it is true, and I have only to thank Dr. Matthews for his trouble. I do
not want him to think that because we are black we have no feelings. It
is perfectly true what Koadi said—that we deceive our people, for they
ask us now: ‘Where is the protection of the government?’ Another thing
is, we speak only for Maseru, no loyal has been able to return to his
home. Sofonia, Lefoyane, Koadi and myself were the first who said we
would go back to our homes—we were anxious to do so, because we valued
them. I went to my village according to Mr. Orpen’s[87] order, and found
all my land divided between Theko Letsie and Mama Letsie; and who
divided thus my property? who, but the man who calls himself the head of
the loyals, Letsea, my brother! As it is stated, in the petition my
ground, etc., cannot be valued in money, and I will never accept money
as compensation. Cattle, horses, etc., are nothing, but to lose my
rights as a chief grieves me. In cattle I lost 370 head—government gave
me three! Every one knows how my village was planted with blue gum
trees; there were 1,862 trees beside houses and other property, and now
I live in a tent. I cannot state all that I would like to say as time is
so pressing.”

After finishing this speech, all the Basutos, as I mentioned before,
signed the petition, and I closed this most interesting interview by a
few words of encouragement, to which Koadi, in the name of all present,
replied: “I return thanks to Dr. Matthews for the loyals, and I am glad
to hear there is hope of justice for them in the breast of Englishmen.
We have heard of Moses, but we have no Moses, but perhaps you will be
our Moses, and deliver us out of Egypt.”

The pitso being ended I rode back to Thlotse Heights, and bidding
“good-bye” to Colonel Schermbrucker, who went to Ladybrand, I spent the
night at the house of Dr. Taylor, the government surgeon. In the morning
the chief Jonathan came to see me. We had a long talk on Basutoland
affairs, and on leaving he presented me with a valuable pony as a
memento of my visit. I left for Ficksburg next day and pushed through to
Maseru, where I arrived late at night.

Before taking my trip to Leribe to interview Jonathan and his people I
wrote a letter “greeting” to Masupha, asking him to grant me an
audience, and also leave to visit “Thaba Bosigo” (the mountain of
night), where he was living. On my return I found a message waiting me
from Masupha, giving me the requested permission, and saying that he
would be glad to see me. So early on the following morning (March 7th) I
left Maseru with a native escort under Koadi, a grandson of Moshesh,
passing the Berea on my left, which was the scene of the terrible
disaster which befell Gen. Sir George Cathcart, then governor of the
Cape Colony and high commissioner, in 1852, of which the following is a
brief outline:

The general, at the instance of Mr. Commissioner Owen, then in the
sovereignty (now the Free State), had advanced in November of that year
with some 2,000 troops as far as the Berea to demand of Moshesh 10,000
head of cattle and 1,000 horses for not complying with an award of Major
Warden’s forbidding him to cross over the border line between Basutoland
and the sovereignty under penalty of giving offense to the Queen and
incurring a severe penalty.

With the troops he had with him (Colonel Hare of the 73d regiment)
taking the advance command, Sir George ascended the Berea mountain, the
top of which forms a large plateau, in three places, to attack that
wonderfully astute barbarian and punish him for breaking his agreement.
There was a heavy mist on the mountain at the time, and our men
mistaking the Basutos for so many cattle, on discovering their error
fled panic-stricken. Some in retreating jumped over precipices in the
mountains and were killed, while the others who escaped continued their
flight far into the night to Platberg in the sovereignty. More than one
hundred officers and men lost their lives on this occasion, and it is
said that the general never returned to bury their bodies, this
melancholy office being performed by the missionaries in the
neighborhood. Moshesh, next day, diplomatic enough, was profuse in his
excuses for the attack, and sent cattle as a token of his submission,
which General Cathcart was only too glad to accept.

Going a little further I passed Boquatie, a curious village of people
who came from the Vaal River in 1833, and at noon I arrived at the
French Protestant mission station of the Rev. M. Jousse, situated in a
lovely nook at the foot of Thaba Bosigo. Riding here from Maseru I was
able to gain some insight into the richness and fertility of the
country. For miles and miles, across a splendid valley, nothing could be
seen but waving corn; its luxuriant growth, however, did not surprise me
when on crossing the deep water gullies I could see no end to the depth
of a continuous alluvial deposit. M. Jousse’s station was a sad sight to
contemplate. Here was a church seated for 800, a boarding school with
accommodation for fifty native girls, a day school, a mission house with
every token of French elegance and polish, gardens with rare fruit trees
and a yard around, kept scrupulously clean, while melancholy indeed was
it to find all this virtually useless; the war had put a stop to the
civilizing influence of the good missionary! The school was empty, the
church deserted, he alone remaining at his post waiting until “wars and
rumors of wars” had passed away.

M. Jousse accompanied me to Masupha’s and kindly interpreted for me. We
found preparations had been made for our visit.

Under the shade of a spreading tree near his house skins had been laid
and chairs arranged, Masupha showing unusual civility by receiving us at
once. I had heard many reports of Masupha’s drinking habits, but he was
quite sober. Of middle height, well dressed in European costume, a
little beyond middle age, with a slight nervous twitching of the face, I
now saw before me the man, black though he was, who had defied and was
still defying the Cape government! Deep, clever and crafty, this was the
man who had out-manœuvred ministers and statesmen! Lepocquo, with
several other of Masupha’s sons and councillors, were present. Masupha
freely went over the course late events had taken and closed our
interview by saying: “As far as the loyals are concerned I will never
have them back, before the war they were always quarreling, now it will
be worse; as to the magistrates, they ran away of their own accord when
the war began, it is now a question whether they should be allowed to
return,” and, continuing, he said, “you talk about hut tax, refer this
to a pitso of the nation, and as to guns, Sprigg has got five, he is
kicked out,[88] so must the gun-tax be, too.”

I came away feeling that it would require millions of money and
thousands of men to alter this wily chief’s determination to remain
entirely independent. The Cape government had also become aware of the
exigency of the case, and this led them to inquire whether her Majesty’s
government would permit them to obtain the services of Maj. Gen. Charles
George Gordon, C.B., R.E., “for the purpose of consultation as to the
best measures to be adopted with reference to Basutoland,” and “to
assist in terminating the war and administering Basutoland.” Chinese
Gordon accepted the invitation of the Cape government, but found on his
arrival in the colony that the only post offered him was that of
commandant general of the colonial forces, a post he had refused two
years before. Although General Gordon came to the Cape with the sole
object of quelling the rebellion in Basutoland, yet he accepted this
appointment, looking upon it merely as a temporary one until another
position could be found for Mr. Orpen, who was then British resident in
Basutoland. Gordon, on May 21st, addressed a minute to ministers on the
Basutoland question. In this it could be seen he had intuitively grasped
the position, and did not believe in setting up brother against brother,
or in other words hounding on the Basutos to destroy one another. His
various memoranda on this and other subjects were passed over in silence
by the Cape government, although, believing in the opinion he had
formed, he had offered to go and live as resident with Masupha for two
years in order to settle matters.

About this time Mr. Sauer, secretary for native affairs, met General
Gordon at King William’s Town and begged him to go with him to
Basutoland. Gordon reluctantly consented, as he had formed an opinion
diametrically opposed to Orpen’s policy, and thought his presence would
be of no service; moreover, after his interview with Letsea (a chief
_supposed_ to be acting in concert with the government), he had become
more convinced than ever that the government were taking steps in the
wrong direction.

Mr. Sauer then persuaded him to visit Masupha, as a “private
individual,” to see what could be done, but, can it be believed, at the
very time General Gordon was undertaking this journey a force under
another loyal chief, Lerothodi, Letsea’s son, was actually sent to
attack Masupha.

By sheer force of character and moral power, which were his great
levers, he disarmed Masupha’s suspicions of treachery as far as he,
Gordon, was concerned, and was allowed by that chieftain to leave “the
false position” into which the Cape government, or rather the acts of
one of its ministers, had forced him.

[Illustration:

ROMA MISSION STATION (ROMAN CATHOLIC), BASUTOLAND.
]

Gordon telegraphed his resignation to the Cape government as soon as he
arrived at Aliwal North, which was accepted, and he soon after left the
colony. The unnecessarily insulting and narrow-minded conclusion to the
telegram sent to the general by the Cape premier, Mr. (now Sir Thomas)
Scanlan, is now, since that hero’s lamented death, a subject of such
world-wide ridicule that I may be excused quoting it once more: “I
regret to record my conviction that your continuance in the position you
occupy would not be conducive to public interest.” It will ever be a
source of gratification to me that I had the opportunity of meeting this
noble man.

To return to my narrative. M. Jousse accompanied me several miles on my
road to Roma, the principal Roman Catholic mission station in
Basutoland, which is built on land given to the Roman Catholic community
by Moshesh in October, 1862. Our road ran around the foot of Thaba
Bosigo by the pass where Wepener was shot in the Boer war with the
Basutos, and past Job’s village, which fringed, so to speak, the
mountain with cultivated trees and with houses built in European style.
Passing St. Michael’s, another R. C. mission station, I descended into
the valley and wound my way round to Roma. This station is most
picturesquely situated. At its back a range of hills protects it from
the south wind, while just in front a pretty mountain stream runs along,
lazily turning a mill wheel as it courses by. The fathers (oblates of
Mary) received me most hospitably. They showed me over the station,
consisting of a fine mission house, two long double-storied buildings,
one used as a dormitory for boys, of whom there are at least fifty
resident, the other for girls, whose number, though about the same,
varies.

These buildings, together with the necessary workshops and tools for
teaching the boys various trades, a separate cottage for visitors, and a
large church capable of holding 1,000 people, shaded by a perfect forest
of gum trees, afford an example of what energy and perseverance can
accomplish. I must not forget to mention as well that the garden in
front of the mission house, arranged in beautiful terraces planted with
orange trees, vines, fruit trees and flowers, conveys of itself at once
the presence of refinement and civilization. I was fortunate enough to
be in time for evening prayers, and heard the magnificent intoning of
the Basuto boys, their voices severally blended being perfectly
wonderful.

In Basutoland there are at the present time in connection with the
French R. C. mission seven stations, five priests, three brothers and
eighteen nuns, belonging to the community of sisters of the Saint
Famille of Bordeaux, the first members of which sisterhood arrived at
Roma in April, 1886, following Monseigneur Allard, the Rev. Mr. Gerard
and Brother Bernard, who came up to Moshesh, the paramount chief of the
Basutos, in October, 1862.

At Roma, the head station, named by Moshesh Motsi wa M’a Jesu, “the
village of the Mother of Jesus,” there is every Sunday an average
attendance at the church services of 800; and I am authentically told
that the number of natives who every Sunday attend the different
churches belonging to the mission throughout the country is at least
1,500. This is, however, nothing when compared with the attendance at
the various grand feasts of the church, where at Roma alone it is no
unusual circumstance for 6,000 or 8,000 to congregate. New Year’s day
may be called their national fête. This year Letsea, the paramount chief
of Basutoland, attended the ceremonies at Roma on that day, accompanied
by an immense retinue of mounted followers; the throng was so great that
a rustic altar was erected amongst the trees, “and a grand and singular
spectacle it was,” the Rev. Father Deltour tells us, “to behold these
thousands of sable figures, massed together under these trees anxious to
witness the great act of Christian worship.” He further goes on to
describe the incidents of the day: “Never in my life did I witness such
perfect order and instant obedience in such a multitude. It was simply
wonderful.” The paramount chief addressed the meeting in the following
words, which I quote from a letter of the reverend father:

“‘I came to Roma, as the Rev. Father had invited me, and right glad am
I that I did come and witness the work that is carried on in this
mission. Here the Rev. Fathers and the Sisters sow the seed of peace
and of religion. This is a village of peace and prayer. In their
prayers they invoke the help of the Holy Virgin, as the Rev. Father
has explained this morning; and in my opinion they are right. It is
prayer that sustains our life. Basutos, be united to your chief, be
one nation under one chief, or you will divide yourselves and be lost.
Look at the stream which descends from the mountain; it gathers
strength because its waters are not divided, but run compact toward
that mighty something which I know not, and which is called the sea.
Do likewise and you shall be strong. Let the Fathers and the Sisters
pray for our Basutoland; let them pray for rain, which is so much
wanted. Pula!’

“In response to the royal speech a tremendous ‘Pula’ burst forth from
all, and was echoed far and wide by the surrounding mountains.

“After Letsea had spoken and the meeting was over, the cliffs and
rocks of the mountain side almost in an instant were covered with
spectators anxious to see the races, in which a hundred horses ran, in
the presence of an excited multitude. As evening drew nigh and the
sports were drawing to a conclusion, the mass of people retired, no
visitors remaining in the village.”

The Basutos are, as a rule, in their heathen state, unreliable, lustful,
intemperate and overbearing, and the work of the missionary as he
strives to render them faithful, self-controlled and modest is an
appalling task, but one undertaken in full faith of divine guidance.

The French Protestant mission, which has its headquarters in Paris,
first began its operations in Basutoland at Morija in 1833. It possesses
at the present time fourteen head stations and eighty-two out-stations,
with a staff of twenty-one European missionaries and 122 native
catechists and schoolmasters. In 1884 the number of church members was
4,988, and of day scholars in the schools 2,947.

At Morija, the head mission station, there is a training institution for
young men who study for the Cape elementary teacher’s certificate, a
Bible school for the education of catechists, together with a
printing-press for the issue of a bimonthly periodical in Sesuto called
“Leselinyana” (or Little Light). So it can be seen that Protestants are
vying with Roman Catholics in spreading religious training and
instruction among this people.

During the late war, however, there was a distinct difference to be
noted between the influence exerted by the R. C. missionaries and the
Protestant. The Protestant, as a rule, interfered and even still meddle
with politics; they showed themselves partisans of the late Sprigg
ministry, and the consequence was that their influence declined, their
congregations fell away, and their schools became deserted. The R. C.
priests on the contrary, ignoring politics entirely, feeling their duty
to be more spiritual than temporal, were rewarded by having their
schools and churches as well attended during as before the war. As an
instance of the estimation in which they were held, two personal friends
of mine, Fathers Libihan and Cretinon, in December, 1880, were ordered
by their bishop to proceed to this very place, Roma, in the heart of
Basutoland. The war was just then at its height, when having to pass
Thaba Bosigo, where Masupha, the head centre of the rebellion, was
living, they were hospitably received and entertained until the
following morning. Though I am a Protestant myself, I cannot but
recognize that this speaks volumes in favor of the non-political
interference of my R. C. friends, and the esteem in which they were held
by the Basutos. Let any Protestant missionary have attempted this at the
time, his life would have paid the penalty of his temerity, and a just
punishment, too, I should have considered it; the mixing of religion and
politics among natives like Basutos, being, in my opinion, an
unpardonable mistake. This difference between the conduct of these
respective ministers with regard to public matters was recognized even
by the Boers in their war of 1865–68.

Bidding the hospitable monks adieu, I left Roma next morning in a
pouring rain, with the guides provided me by the chief Jonathan, having
made all the arrangements to catch the Capetown steamer at East London.

Stopping at Khorokhoro to breakfast, I continued my journey through a
country mountainous in the extreme.

Leaving the Morija mission station (French Protestant) on my left, I was
caught in a fearful thunder-storm, the rain coming down in torrents, but
I luckily found shelter in a hut in a small native village which lay in
my road.

Entering, I found myself in the midst of a Basuto family, consisting of
father, mother and seven little girls from four to twelve years of age.
Here I had the opportunity afforded me of noting the truth of that which
had often been told me concerning the rapid progress in learning, the
precocity in fact, distinguishing Basuto children. If either Mr. Moody
or Mr. Sankey had been with me, their hearts would have leaped with joy;
here in the heart of Basutoland I found the noise of the outside storm
drowned in the music of some of their popular hymns. The chief
favorites, sung over and over again, were “Ntoa sa Balumeh” (Hold the
Fort) and “Mali a Konyana” (The Blood of the Lamb). No sight ever
impressed me more with the important position music and hymns hold as
factors in the progress of evangelization.

Luther’s enemies once said that he worked more harm by his songs than
his sermons, and I felt that the same might in the nineteenth century be
repeated by enemies of the Christian faith concerning these two
celebrated American revivalists. even in the wilds of Africa.

It would be impossible to picture or portray a more peculiar scene!
Outside, the howling of the raging storm, the peals of rolling thunder,
the flashes of vivid lightning and the plash of the torrents of rain;
inside, the Basuto youngsters stark naked, myself and guides crouching
over the fire drenched to the skin, while strains familiar in years gone
by were sung with all the vigor and fervor of aboriginal youth! As soon
as the storm had passed over I rode quickly to make up for lost time,
and crossing the dangerous drift of the Salt River, rested at the Boleka
ridge thirteen miles from Mafeting. This was as far as our forces ever
advanced during the war. The road goes over a ridge which is not very
steep, and is a gap in the mountain chain. At the village close to the
roadside I saw many relics of the late war. Fragments of shells were
lying about (this being the pass which our troops tried in vain to
force), and I saw one unexploded sixty-eight-pound shell doing the
peaceful duty of serving as a seat for a Kafir who in happy ignorance
was sitting on it drying himself at a wood fire!

After a short rest for my horses and guides, I went over the ridge and
passed by the deserted intrenchments where our troops had encamped in
virtual idleness for months. A tedious ride brought me to Mafeting,
which I did not reach until far into the night; when I was very
fortunate in dropping upon an old friend, the late Captain Aschman, who
gave me a “shake-down,” for which, as there was no inn in the village, I
was sincerely thankful.

Next morning I visited the broken-down wattle huts and ragged tents
where the loyals were herded together. I found them far worse off than
their _confrères_ at Maseru, and grave were their complaints against the
government. The rations allowed them were not sufficient, they told me,
to allay their hunger, and I personally saw some emaciated looking women
collecting and eating the corn falling from the horses’ mangers. These
unfortunate creatures, stung by our ingratitude, irritated by our
injustice, hoping against hope, almost, despairing of relief and yet
remaining loyal, were enough to excite the sympathy of any true man, and
create a loathing of the cowardly panderers to expediency who were then
conducting the government of the country.

Having thoroughly investigated the condition of these people, I next
visited the cemetery, a short distance from the village, which is full
of interest. Here many an old colonist, “sleeps the sleep that knows no
waking.” Among the many monuments to men fallen in the late war is a
fine stone pedestal erected in memory of the disastrous affair at
Kalibani, which will ever be remembered in colonial annals as the place
where, on Oct. 19th, 1880, thirty-five of the First Cape mounted
yeomanry, men principally from Grahamstown and Albany, and who formed
the advance guard of General Clark’s relief column, were cut to pieces.
Every one of these unfortunate men, except one who was shot at a long
range, were, as Surgeon Major Smith, now practicing in the Diamond
Fields, who examined the bodies, told me, assegaied and hewed to pieces
with the greatest brutality by the rebellious Basutos under the chief
Mama.

A magnificent view of the surrounding mountainous country is obtained
from this graveyard. The Kalibani mountain, the Kolo, the Boleka ridge,
Tweefontein, Lerothodi’s village away in the distance, and close below
Mafeting itself, pass as in a panorama before the view.

The mushroom-like prosperity of Mafeting, brought about by the share it
received of the lavish expenditure of £6,000,000 of colonial money
during the war, had, however, at the time of my visit, completely waned,
and many had been sorely disappointed by the sudden cessation of
hostilities.

Leaving this place in the afternoon I reached Wepener the same night,
and after receiving the kind hospitality of Mr. Fraser, _the_ merchant
of the place, started again at daybreak, and arrived at Aliwal North
after a long day’s drive. A good view of the town, which is of
considerable importance, possessing a valuable library, a nice little
club, large church and well-filled stores, is obtained before crossing
the fine iron bridge leading over the Orange River.

Staying the night, noon next day found me sitting behind four horses on
the road to Queenstown, where, after passing through Dordrecht, I
arrived at six o’clock, just in time to catch the night train for East
London, where I arrived next morning (March 13th). After a rest I went
round the town, saw the sights, being particularly interested in the
reclaiming of land which was going on under government direction at the
mouth of the Buffalo River, and which, at some not far distant date,
will be of great value. The next day I was invited to a large picnic
given by one of the boating companies, at a delightful spot in a wooded
glen about four miles from East London, on the banks of the Buffalo
River. Glorious weather, good company, beautiful scenery, charming
music, a fine lunch, sparkling champagne; everything harmonized to make
a pleasant day. Colonel Schermbrucker and myself were called upon to
speak, and we complied in a few words. Returning in the afternoon to
East London I spent the night reveling in the mazy waltz at a ball given
in the Mutual Hall, and sailed next morning in the _Melrose_ for Port
Elizabeth, where I transhipped to the _Grantully Castle_ for
Capetown.[89]

The opening of the Cape parliament following in a day or two, I found
among the passengers ten fellow members of the house of assembly hailing
from different parts of the colony, and proceeding to the performance of
their legislative duties.

Among others on board I met Sir D. Wedderburn, since deceased, whose
acquaintance I had formed in Kimberley, where I had the pleasure of
entertaining him some few weeks before on his way round through Natal
and the Free State.

Many a pleasant hour I spent talking over with him the various political
topics of the day. His opinion of South African men and things had not
been changed at all since I last saw him, and he told me “he had seen
nothing in Africa which caused him in the least to alter the opinions he
had formed before he came out.” I recollect his opinions on the then two
all absorbing topics of the day, the Transvaal and the Zulu questions.
These were very clear; he often said “we ought never to have fought for
what we ought never to have taken,” adding in reference to the Zulu
question, on which he had formed a decided opinion, “there was little
pleasure in punishing men who bravely defended their native country.”
Sir Bartle Frere’s “forward” policy found no supporter in him.

There was something irresistibly charming in meeting and discussing
passing events with such a man. He impressed all who met him with the
sincerity of his convictions and the honesty of his purpose.

Our journey, however, quickly drew to an end. The work of the session,
we found on our arrival, had already commenced.

The main business transacted during this session was the passing through
the house of assembly of an act, throwing further restrictions on the
trade in diamonds, which I have already fully dealt with, the presenting
of the petition of Jonathan Molappo, praying that a deputation of three
Basutos might “plead their cause” at the bar of the house, which proved
a profitless appeal, debates on Basutoland following _ad nauseam_, the
grant of two extra members to represent Kimberley, and the introduction
of the “Constitution Ordinance Amendment Bill,” allowing the Dutch
language to be spoken in the house. This last measure met with no
opposition, but became law on Jan. 14th, 1882. After this bill had gone
through its various stages, Mr. Luttig, one of the Dutch members, rose
and made the first speech in that language, expressing his gratification
that no opposition was offered by his English speaking friends; but,
though a Dutchman, he concluded by saying “that although it is my first
speech in Dutch, it will most likely be my last, as I wish to promote
harmony and good feeling, and when I speak, I wish my English friends
who do not understand Dutch to know what I wish to convey.” This
privilege has not since its concession been much used.

After the usual session in 1882, a short special session was held in
January 1883, which was called to deal exclusively with the affairs of
Basutoland, and arrange about the compensation of the “loyals” and other
matters of importance. On my return to Kimberley in February after this
special session, according to my previously expressed intention, I
resigned my seat in the Cape house of assembly.

I then resumed full charge of my medical practice, until I met with a
severe accident in December of the same year, when proceeding to inquire
into some cases of suspected small-pox.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXVI.
DESCRIPTION OF THE RELIGIOUS BODIES OF THE DIAMOND FIELDS FROM THE
EARLIEST DAYS.—EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS.—THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.—ROMAN
CATHOLICS FROM THE DEATH OF FATHER HIDIEN TO THAT OF FATHER
WALSHE.—DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH.—DOPPERS.—WESLEYANS.—PRESBYTERIANS.—GERMAN
LUTHERANS.—JEWS.—MAHOMETANS.—HINDUS.—“BISHOP MELLET.”—NATIVES.—NEGLECTED
OPPORTUNITIES.—ADVENT OF SALVATION ARMY.—SUNDRY VISITORS.—BIRDS OF
PASSAGE.

The average diamond digger, in the first wild rush, “the feverish race
for wealth,” was not of a markedly irreligious disposition, as might
have been expected, judging from the analogy of mining camps in other
parts of the world.

The distance of the Vaal River from any colonial town, and the expense
of reaching the diggings on its banks made it a matter of impossibility
for men without means, either to reach the place or to support
themselves after their arrival; hence, the first comers were, as a
matter of course, above the general stamp of those who constitute a
digging community. They were men, as a rule, well educated and well
brought up, and it was not likely that they would altogether forget
their early religious training or to allow these duties to lapse into
utter neglect; but at the same time the results of the complete absence
of women and children, and the sobering effect which their influence
produces, was in the early days more or less observable.

The first clergymen of the Church of England who visited the new El
Dorado, were Archdeacons Kitton and Croghan, of the diocese of
Bloemfontein, who visited Klipdrift, on the Vaal River, in 1870, where
amidst the most strange and unusual surroundings they held religious
services for the diggers.

I have still a vivid recollection of the primitive state of things
existing, even when I arrived some months afterward. On the first Sunday
that I spent on the Diamond Fields in November 1871, I attended a
“Church of England” service at the New Rush or Colesberg Kopje, as
Kimberley was then called. This was held in a canvas tent billiard-room,
situated near the spot where the “Blue Posts” still remains. On entering
I beheld a full-robed clergyman officiating at one end of a billiard
table, which served for his reading desk, whilst a large and attentive
crowd sat around the other end, some on rude benches which were fixed
along the walls, others perched upon gin cases, buckets reversed, or any
other make-shift that came to hand. The congregation behaved with
suitable decorum, but I confess it was not easy to keep the mind from
wandering to the incongruity of the surroundings. Whilst the parson was
earnestly engaged imploring our deliverance “from all the deceits of the
world, the flesh and the devil,” I caught many an eye looking askance at
the cues in the corner, no doubt indulging in reflections on the past,
and in speculations as to the success or non-success of some match to be
played in the future. Moreover, when the parson was praying or the
people singing, it was not particularly edifying to be interrupted by
the lively chaff and occasional bursts of blasphemy, which we could
plainly hear through the canvas party-walls, which separated us from the
adjoining bar and its half tipsy occupants. Defoe’s lines:

“Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The Devil always builds a chapel there.”

had here a liberal interpretation indeed—although I am not sure that
they were strictly applicable in this instance, seeing that our parson
had knowingly thrust himself into the devil’s own domain.

Notwithstanding these drawbacks, and despite the fiascos which resulted
from our unfortunate attempts to properly render the appointed hymns, it
was nevertheless refreshing to hear the grand old service once again and
have the recollection of one’s early days brought back, even amidst such
inharmonious concomitants.

The Rev. Canon Doxat was the first clergyman of the Church of England
who took general charge of the diggings, and until his health gave way
and he returned home invalided in 1877, both here, and in later years at
Barkly, he was indefatigable in his work, whether as parish priest,
attendant on the sick, or instructor of the young. The Rev. W. Rickards
succeeded him at the dry diggings in 1871. During his rectorship a
raw-brick structure, now a store, was erected in place of the canvas
building which hitherto had done ecclesiastical duty, the congregation
meanwhile growing rapidly in numbers and influence. During the whole of
this period Mr. Rickards was also assiduous in pushing forward the cause
of education, which had been much neglected. After this working
minister’s leaving for England, three clergymen, the Revs. Messrs.
Maude, Borton and Hanbury successively held the rectorship. During the
incumbency of the first gentleman a new and larger church, of corrugated
iron, was built in a more central part of the town, which, just on
nearing its completion in 1879, was blown to the ground, a complete
ruin, but it was quickly rebuilt, and opened for worship in 1880.[90]
The church and schools during the incumbencies of these gentlemen
gradually increased in numbers under the organization of the Right Rev.
Allan B. Webb, D. D., bishop of Bloemfontein, under whose spiritual
jurisdiction the English Church in Griqualand West was then placed.
Bishop Webb, however, later on in 1882, resigned his see, and after an
interval of three years the Rev. G. W. H. Knight-Bruce was appointed,
last year (1886), to fill the vacant bishopric.

At the present time the Rev. Canon Gaul, who is rector of St. Cyprian’s
and rural dean of Griqualand West and Bechuanaland, with four assistant
priests, conducts the services of the church in Kimberley and
Beaconsfield, while two native mission churches, one in Kimberley and
one at Phokoane, in Bechuanaland, are ministered to by faithful and
devoted clergy. I may add that several new churches and buildings are
projected, but although the amount of money raised for church purposes
during the year ending Easter, 1885, was £6,815, yet the church’s
present financial condition still requires a zealous effort to be made
by its supporters to clear it from the burden of debt.

The services, both at St. Cyprian’s, Kimberley, and at All Saints,
Beaconsfield, may by some be considered of a High Church, if not
ritualistic character, but although a tendency in that direction may
exist, I am glad to state that these services are not conducted by High
Church clergymen of an emasculate or hysterical type, men indulging in
man millinery or ritualistic playthings, but by earnest, honest workers,
in genuine sympathy with their fellow creatures.

Turning to the Roman Catholics, I am only doing justice to the memory of
Father Hidien, the first Roman Catholic priest who visited the Fields,
in stating that he was the leading figure in the religious world of the
early days. Not only was he beloved by the members of his own faith, but
a kindly disposition, never weary in well doing, and a boundless,
practical charity, caused him to be revered by the members of every
denomination. Dr. Allard, then bishop of, and who at the time visited
the diggings, placed the Catholics on the Diamond Fields under his care,
but this charge he did not long retain, for the summer of 1871, among
its many victims, snatched away the good father from his work. Father Le
Bihan, who had worked for several years among the natives of Basutoland,
then came to take Father Hidien’s place. At that time the Catholics of
Du Toit’s Pan, like the Hebrews of old in the desert, assembled for
divine worship in a tent, while their priest, living in a tent wagon
close by, was ready to follow his congregation wherever a new Rush might
draw them.

When Colesberg Kopje (Kimberley mine) developed into a permanent
digging, Father Le Bihan followed, and it was here through his
instrumentality that a permanent church of wood and iron was erected.
When this was out of debt, Father Le Bihan turned his attention to
education, and built in an incredibly short space of time the three
first schools in Griqualand West, one for boys, one for girls, and the
third for infants. Just at this juncture Bishop Rickards paid the Fields
a visit from Grahamstown, and at a banquet which was given in his honor
on that occasion, I recollect that Mr. R. W. Murray, Sen., the
vice-chairman, telling the company “that his experience of the Catholic
church in South Africa was, that wherever the Catholics erected
churches, schools at once followed, of which Kimberley was an instance
in point.” The truth of the vice-chairman’s observations was felt by
all. Later on the same evening the bishop responding to the special
toast of “Education,” which had been entrusted to me, gave the first
public intimation of his intention to introduce Trappist monks from a
monastery in Algeria into South Africa, saying: “These would teach the
sanctity of labor, and prepare the natives to receive the great truths
of Christianity.” This scheme the bishop afterward endeavored to carry
out, but the work at Dunbrodie, near Port Elizabeth, led to
disappointment, the climate, drought and heat not favoring the efforts
of the monks. Subsequently they removed to Mariann Hill, near Pinetown,
in Natal, where every success is following their work.

Bishop Jolivet, however, soon discovered that Father Le Bihan’s labors
could not longer be spared from the scene of his former triumphs, and
Father Walshe took his place here in 1876, and entering at once heart
and soul into the work of his predecessor, remained until the beginning
of 1878. Then leaving he became a soldier of the cross in more senses
than one, his tall form familiar alike to sick persons and young
children and to prisoners and captives, his genial, happy disposition
and his wonderful influence being transferred to scenes where his
courageous devotion and his readiness at the call of duty could perhaps
be even more appreciated than with us—as military chaplain during the
Zulu war, the Sekukuni campaign and the Transvaal outbreak. He also was
chaplain in the perhaps unnecessary, and to a certain section annoying,
because bloodless, Bechuanaland expedition. He seemed to possess a
charmed life. It mattered not to him whether he was cheering the wounded
at Ulundi, regardless of the bullets raining around, or whether he was
tending the sick in the beleagured fort of Lydenburg, duty was ever
paramount, and he was indeed one of those

“Quos non profani tessera proclii
Duxit in bellum.”

It was my melancholy lot to see him (in consultation) during his last
illness, bravely struggling for life against a severe attack of lung
inflammation, which carried him off on Sept. 12th, 1885.

The Rev. Father Lenoir, the present parish priest, who succeeded Father
Walshe in 1878, at once set to work with indomitable energy. Noticing
the lack of opportunity which existed for the education of Roman
Catholic girls, he built a convent, and with the hearty concurrence of
Bishop Jolivet procured from Europe some Sisters of the Holy Family to
assist in the meritorious work.

The ancient Greek proverb declares that “the beginning is the half of
the whole,” or as the homely Saxon saw puts it, “Well begun and half
done;” and now the Rev. Mother, Lady Superior, in a double sense of the
word, and the Sisters of the Holy Family, perform their daily duties in
buildings, which for Kimberley, a place but a few short years ago an
uninhabited grassy plain, are simply magnificent.

Not content with this Father Lenoir commenced the construction in stone
and brick of a building designed for a new church, the old one built by
Father Le Bihan having become too small for the congregation. The
foundation stone was laid by Bishop Jolivet on Nov. 1st, 1879, and in
one year the most handsome sacred building in Kimberley was opened for
divine worship. Father Lenoir told his congregation at the time that
“nothing was too grand for the service of the Almighty,” and right well
they had seconded his efforts, for this magnificent structure,
possessing beautiful altar paintings and appurtenances which cost over
£7,000, is entirely free from debt. A lesson from this might easily be
learned by the members of the Church of England. In 1883 a new church
and school were also erected at Beaconsfield.

These are under the care of the Sisters of the Holy Family and the
priests of Kimberley, while a home for destitute children is in course
of erection at Barkly.

The Indians as well, who have found their way here from Hindostan,
Mauritius and Natal, of whom a considerable number are Roman Catholics,
receive their share of attention, no less than 200 being taught at the
mission school. I may mention in conclusion that not only in spiritual
but also in temporal matters the Catholic priesthood has endeavored to
forward the public welfare.

St. Mary’s Benefit Society, of which since its formation in 1876 I have
had medical charge, contributes greatly to the assistance of any of its
members who may be stricken down by disease, and also aids in Catholic
matters generally, while at the same time its thorough organization and
its deeds of charity are assisting to make Roman Catholicism influential
in the country.

In the early days of the Diamond Fields, when Griqualand West, which
comprises _the_ four diamond mines of the world, was still the property
of the Orange Free State, and the institutions of the place were
administered by its officials, the Dutch people and language occupied a
position of importance. The Dutch as a rule are highly conservative in
their religious tendencies, and it can well be imagined the Dutch
Reformed Church, with its synod and kirkraad, its ministers, elders and
deacons was not long in following and taking care of its nomadic
adherents. The Dutch Reformed Church, which is Calvinistic in doctrine,
was founded in the Netherlands in the year 1579. It then accepted as its
chief doctrinal standard the Belgic Confession, translated in 1562 from
the “Confession de Foy” of Guido de Brès. This confession was revised at
the synod of Dordrecht in the years 1618 and 1619, and since that time
the standards of the Dutch Reformed Church have been the following,
viz., 1. The Heidelberg Catechism, containing instructions in the
Christian religion. 2. The Belgic Confession, with more elaborate
details, and 3. The Canons of Dordrecht, which are mainly supplementary
to the Belgic Confession.

The earliest congregation in South Africa of the members of the Dutch
Reformed Church, a branch of the Church in Holland, was formed at the
very commencement of the Cape Colony, the first minister coming from
Holland in 1665 to attend to its wants.

The Dutch Reformed remained the Established Church of the Cape of Good
Hope, notwithstanding the interim of English rule, which lasted from
1795 to 1802. In this latter year the Treaty of Amiens, having brought
the Colony back to its former relationship with Holland, the
administration of Cape affairs was resumed by the Dutch until 1806, when
the Government of the Dutch was finally closed by the articles of
capitulation agreed to at the foot of Sir Lowry’s Pass, and afterwards
ratified at the Castle in Capetown in January of the same year between
General Baird and General Janssens, the English and Dutch commanders.
Public worship on that occasion received special mention. In the 8th
Article of Capitulation it was stipulated that, “Public worship as now
in use will also continue without interference.” And so it did, for the
Dutch Reformed remained the Established Church in South Africa, and
received state aid as well; no less than 30 congregations (until the
passing of Saul Solomon’s “Voluntary Bill” in 1879 put an end to further
state patronage) acquiring grants averaging £200 per annum each.

At the diggings on the Vaal River, the Dutch were not neglected by the
pastors of their Church, ministers from the Cape Colony and the Orange
Free State paying periodical visits to the camps. It was not, however,
until there was a pretty certain prospect of the dry diggings becoming
more than a passing dream that churches were built, congregations
established, and ministers appointed, at Du Toit’s Pan and Kimberley in
1872. These congregations, which were large, numbering at Kimberley some
3500 souls, and at Du Toit’s Pan more than 1500, were in the first place
independent, but became subject to the Synod of the “Dutch Reformed
Church in South Africa,” (the official name for the Dutch Reformed
Church of the Cape Colony,) when Griqualand West was annexed to the Cape
Colony.

Owing to the decadence of mining by individual diggers, and the
consequent falling away of the population, these churches have suffered
much in the number of their adherents, the congregation of Kimberley now
numbering about 1200 only and Du Toit’s Pan about 600 souls.

The Dutch Reformed Church has no missions standing in connection with
the parish of Kimberley, as the field is already taken up by the Berlin
Missionary Society, and the Wesleyans and Independent bodies, but they
have a native church at Beaconsfield founded in 1878, and a church for
colored people, with fine buildings and parsonage, built in 1883.

At Kimberley the Rev. J. D. Kestell, the present pastor, has for some
years been most zealous in superintending the erection of the new church
just completed, situated in the Newton Market Square.

This church is unrivalled on the Diamond Fields. Built solidly of brick
in Roman style, it has a most commanding appearance, and its interior,
with beautifully fitted pews and panelled ceiling, is a fine specimen of
chaste simplicity of architecture. To crown all, it has little or no
debt, although nearly £6000 has been spent on its construction. At
Beaconsfield the Dutch Reformed Church has a fine building for divine
worship, while both there and at Kimberley, as well as at the Mission
School for colored people, the cause of education is not forgotten.
Before concluding my description of the Dutch Reformed Church, I must
not forget to mention a sight, which occasionally was beheld some ten
years ago, flitting across the view like the spectre of a bygone age.
This was a visitor who appeared as singular in his garb as a Quaker of
the old school would be to twentieth century eyes, for with a peculiarly
shaped black cloth tunic, long hair cut in a circle round his neck and
forehead like a Russian Cossack, a rough beard, lips cleanly shaved, and
a hat oval and low crowned with a tremendous broad green-lined brim, to
shade his ruddy cheeks, he used to be the “observed of all observers.”
This picture is that of a “dopper” farmer who used occasionally to be
seen selling his corn on our market, but who, I fear, from his continued
absence, has long since been gathered to the garner filled with “the
bearded grain and the flowers that grow between.”

These “doppers,” relics of the past, of whom, I believe, President
Kruger is a representative in the Transvaal, do not differ essentially
from the members of the Dutch Reformed Church in doctrine; they are
simply more conservative in feeling, less liberal in action, very
jealous of innovation and entirely unprogressive in ideas.

This I think will give my readers a fair idea of the Dutch Reformed
Church as it exists in South Africa at the present time.

[Illustration:

A “DOPPER” BOER.
]

Among dissenting bodies, the Wesleyans are numerically the most
important.

The first regular minister sent to hold service on the Diamond Fields
was the Rev. I. Priestly, appointed by the English Conference in 1871.
Previous to his arrival, however, the Rev. W. Wynne, who after a long
interval has again resumed charge at Kimberley, conducted services in
the various camps. During this interval, which extended over some twelve
years, these services were carried on, among others, by the Rev. I. I.
Calvert, well known through his labors in the Fiji Islands, and other
talented and able men. As a proof of their energetic ministrations, up
to the present time this body has steadily increased, and now, as the
result of persistent work, in Kimberley alone, three English, one Dutch
and one native Wesleyan church, under four European and one native
minister, can be counted.

In Du Toit’s Pan there is an English as well as a native congregation,
both under the charge of the Rev. B. Hayes. To show the hold which
Wesleyanism has gained here I have carefully calculated the average
Sunday attendance at the various Wesleyan chapels on the Fields, and
find it to be nearly 2000, while I am also informed that 600 children
regularly receive religious instruction.

In 1879 certain Presbyterians. Congregationalists, and a few Baptists,
who had hitherto been worshipping with the Wesleyans, finding their
numbers increasing, thought the time had arrived to constitute
themselves into a separate Church. This was in due course accomplished,
and although the Church that they formed had no connection with any
Presbytery, being entirely self-governing, the title of Presbyterian was
assumed. They possess a fine place of worship, and an average
congregation of four hundred souls. The present minister is Mr. Lloyd,
who displays great energy in the discharge of his duties, and has the
satisfaction of knowing that his efforts are appreciated by large
congregations.

The population of Kimberley, it is scarcely necessary for me to say, is
made up of different nationalities, among which the German is one of the
most segregative.

In one of the quiet thoroughfares leading to the mine, a neat little
church may be seen, which on inquiry proves to be that belonging to the
German Lutherans.

The Germans for the last ten years have been fortunate enough to be able
to worship God in their own language, and from the inauguration of the
Lutheran services they have been conducted by their present pastor, the
Rev. C. Meyer, of the Berlin Missionary Society. The first services were
held in the High Court, lent for the purpose, in January, 1875, and were
continued there until the completion of the present church in October of
the same year. The congregation naturally being confined within the
limits of those speaking the German tongue, it is not large, numbering
about 150. The German children in Kimberley as a rule go to English
schools, but twice a week their pastor holds a class to which he gives
instruction, through the medium of the German language.

The Germans are virtually “Strangers in a strange land,” but
notwithstanding this, they have devoted a good deal of attention to the
natives, and the resident church minister has at the present time a
large native mission under his charge.

Another congregation, and one which comprises men born in the most
distant and diverse parts of the world, is that of the Jewish people,
who have for ages been known as judges and dealers in precious stones,
and who, therefore, as may readily be conceived, muster in large numbers
at the Diamond Mines of Brazil, and in still greater numbers at those of
South Africa.

As soon as the wonderful finds on the Vaal River became known in Europe,
many representatives of eminent English and continental Jewish firms,
with, of course, others drawn from the Colony, appeared on the scene,
and a Jewish circle was soon formed which at the present time numbers
some 1400 souls, of which about 600 are adult males. On the Vaal River
and in the first days of the Dry Diggings at Du Toit’s Pan and New Rush,
the Jews had no rabbi or reader to conduct their services, nor had they
a synagogue in which to read prayers with due solemnity. Consequently on
holidays and festivals, of which there are six during the year, some
large store or public hall was converted into a temporary synagogue
where were duly explained the scrolls of the Sacred Law, and where three
members of their community officiated by turns.

At that time no Sabbath holidays were kept, and if deaths occurred, or
the anniversary of deaths was observed, prayers were read in some
private house. When, too, the initiatory rite of circumcision had to be
performed, a minister or rabbi, at a great expense, was sent for to
Capetown or Port Elizabeth. The wealthy Jewish community of the Diamond
Fields did not long allow this state of affairs to continue, but in 1876
built a synagogue at a cost of £3000 on ground given them by the London
and South African Exploration Company. In course of time a rabbi was
obtained from England, and a Hebrew school, attached to the synagogue,
was duly instituted. This rabbi, the Rev. M. Mendelssohn, retired at the
conclusion of the period of his engagement, and was succeeded by the
Rev. A. Ornstein, a young but most energetic minister, in the month of
August, 1881. The ministrations of this gifted and noble man lasted but
too brief a time. He came here and found the Sabbath but rarely observed
with any strictness, and in other respects too may be applied to him the
words “his righteous soul was vexed with the iniquity of the wicked.”
Undisturbed by the blazing heat of the African sun or the remonstrances
of his friends, he pressed on his chosen path of self-denial and
devotion, with the result that before a few short months had flown by he
had fallen a victim to fever. His influence is not yet passed away, as
the increased number of stores closed on the Hebrew Sabbath serve to
testify.[91]

In connection with their synagogue the Jews have also two philanthropic
Societies conferring monetary gifts and medical attendance on the
deserving poor. Their charities, however, are not confined solely to
their co-religionists, Jewish citizens having ever been found to the
front in all works of charity.

Coming next to the Malays residing on the Diamond Fields: they form by
no means an inconsiderable portion of the population, either in number,
respectability or voting power. As long ago as the year 1871, three or
four, more than ordinarily adventurous, could be seen digging at the
Vaal River, and on the opening up of the Dry Diggings several might have
been found at Du Toit’s Pan, but it is in late years only that the
“Malay Camp” has grown to its present proportions, numbering now some
600 souls. The Malays on the Fields came of course originally from
Capetown and Port Elizabeth. They mostly own and drive conveyances, and
being also very expert masons are largely engaged in building
operations. As a rule they are very healthy, not more than fifty deaths
having occurred since the opening up of the Fields. They are honest,
well-to-do, benevolent, respectful, affable, strictly sober, and,
believing in predestination, they possess a remarkable serenity of mind
in all the vicissitudes of fortune.

In Kimberley they have two mosques, one lately built, in which being
Moslems, five times a day, as near as their avocations will permit them,
they proclaim the two grand principles of their faith, the two grand
dogmas of their religion, “Allah illah Allah Mahomet resoul
Allah”—“There is one God and Mahomet is his prophet.”

As a body they follow out their religious observances with commendable
regularity. Imaum Doud, whom I know well, is a most exemplary citizen.
He has held the position of priest for the last eight years, yet no
special respect is shown him on account of his “cloth,” for like all
Moslem priests he is not paid, and has no authority, but is judged and
held in general estimation simply for his piety and learning. Following
out one of the most important duties of their religion, namely, that of
performing a pilgrimage to Mecca, which is a duty incumbent on every
Moslem once in his life to perform, unless poverty or sickness prevent,
the Moslems of Griqualand West have in considerable numbers visited
Arabia, no less than twenty having left Kimberley in one party in 1881.
This a few years ago was a very expensive undertaking, the title of
Hadji, which both men and women acquire by this pilgrimage, at that time
costing each adult about £400. Now, however, rail and steam have reduced
the expenses of this trip to about £100. Their funeral ceremonies, too,
are carried out with exactness. After life has gone, the dead body is
washed by one duly appointed, wrapped in grave clothing, no coffin being
used, and then after the Koran has been read all night, the body is
carried on a bier and buried on its left side in the grave. After
certain ceremonies have been performed, the friends, wearing no signs of
mourning, return and pray for seven nights in succession in the house of
the deceased, while for forty consecutive days they religiously repair
to the grave and pray over the remains of the departed.

The Moslems like the Jews circumcise their male children; swines’ flesh,
as well as the flesh of most animals forbidden by the Mosaic law, is
also prohibited. These disciples of Mahomet also believe in good and
evil angels, in the immortality of the soul, in the general resurrection
and judgment of the dead, in future rewards and punishments, and lastly
in Heaven and Hell.

In perusing this short description, the question may naturally present
itself to my readers, Whence did these Malays first come into the Cape
Colony? I will answer this question very shortly. In the first place
Europeans, going home from the East Indies, Malacca, Java, Sumatra,
Celebes, the Philippines, etc., used to bring Malays as slaves as far as
the Cape and there leave or sell them; secondly, the Dutch East India
Co. supplied slaves to the burghers in order to cultivate on a more
extended scale; thirdly, the Cape at that time was a convict station, to
which many criminals were transported from the East; and lastly, free
Malays returning from Holland, where they had gone as servants, on
return often remained at the Cape, the Amsterdam authorities, in fact,
recommending this line of action in 1656. It will be seen from this,
that our Malay population, which numbers one-fifth of the inhabitants of
Capetown, and about one-fifteenth or more of the Diamond Fields (white
population), does not necessarily spring from either exiled, slave or
criminal ancestry.

Before I conclude this brief description of our Malay fellow citizens, I
may mention that they are exceedingly tenacious of their civil rights.
An instance of this came personally within my knowledge. I have told my
readers in a former chapter, something about the disease supposed by so
many to be “small-pox,” which ran riot on the Fields in 1884. Now the
Cape laws give power to the authorities to build lazarettos and forcibly
remove all persons suffering from infections diseases, if they have not
proper medical attendance and unless they obey strict quarantine laws. I
was at the time of the last outbreak of so-called small-pox attending a
well-to-do Malay suffering from the disease, and I took especial care
that his friends obeyed the law to the very letter, as my patient had a
great horror of being dragged from his home, and moreover was determined
that the officer of the Board of Health should have no excuse for
removing him. The health officer of the day, however, who was highly
energetic (for which, so far he deserved due praise, if he was not too
judicious), wishing to show his activity, attempted to drag this man
against his will to the lazaretto. I happened very fortunately to arrive
on the scene, just as this illegal attempt was being made by that
officer, who assisted by about thirty police was dragging the sick man
amidst the hoots and execrations of an infuriated mob through the
streets into an ambulance. Knowing the law I at once advised the Malays
to resist his removal pending an appeal to the magistrate, Mr. L. J.
Truter, to whom a statement of the case was immediately sent. The
magistrate saw at once the unlawfulness of the whole proceeding, gave
instructions accordingly, and to my intense delight these myrmidons of
the law who would not, who dare not, have attempted such officious
illegality in the case of an European, had to slink away completely
crestfallen. The man afterwards recovered, and to show his gratitude for
my exertions both from a medical and civil point of view, organized the
presentation of a silver cup to

J. W. MATTHEWS, M.D.
“for his successful efforts in protecting
the Mussulman interest.”

This was presented to me at a large meeting of Malays in October, 1884.

A passing word would not be out of place concerning the Indians who are
now on the fields in considerable numbers, say 700 to 1000 souls.

They possess no place of worship, that is the pure Hindu, the believer
in Brahma, Siva and Vishnu, but the Mahomedan division have just built a
mosque and sent specially to India to procure an Imaum who will conduct
their services in the future with proper rites. In October, however, of
each year the Mahometan party form large processions and make the air
discordant by the beating of “tom-toms.”

They celebrate this feast a whole week with allegorical imagery, men
painted and chained like tigers dancing about to harsh music. This forms
not so much a religious as a historical festival, by which they
commemorate the murder of two of Mahomet’s sons and at the same time
rejoice at the beginning of another year and keep green the memory of
their early days in India.

It is not to be supposed that all professors or expounders of “Holy
Writ,” are immaculate. Some crave after position and power, some after
ease and pleasure, some after luxury and wealth.

To the second class I have specified belonged the most eccentric
individual, who has made a trade of religion, that I have ever met. This
“Apostle of the Faith,” as he called himself, turned up at Du Toit’s Pan
in the year 1876. He was an odd creature, wore black broadcloth, a white
choker and a bell-topper hat. In those days, a tall beaver was as rare
as was the existence of the conservative working man according to the
imagination of Professor Rogers, therefore “Bishop” Mellett, in his
singular get up, was quite the sensation for a time among the diggers.

“Was he a real live bishop?” some asked; “Where was his diocese?” others
inquired; “Was he a greater knave than fool?” “Was he an impostor
trading upon the artless boer, under the cloak of religion?” These were
queries with which “his Reverence” was soon confronted. “His Lordship”
was a short man, of some fifty years, with a good deal of doggedness in
his weather-beaten features, while every now and then a nervous
twitching of the lips was evident to the close observer. The wags of the
place were determined before he left to have some fun at his expense,
and invited him to lecture to them.

To this he cordially acquiesced, especially when a dinner to be given in
his honor was hinted at, to enable him to fortify himself for the
oratorical effort he was expected to make. At this dinner, given in the
dining-room of the Royal Hotel, Du Toit’s Pan, there were many visitors
from Kimberley, and the high jinks played upon the “bishop,” of which,
by the way, he seemed to be perfectly unconscious, created considerable
hilarity among the jovial crowd. Dinner over a procession was formed,
and a march made to the new billiard-room just being built for a rival
hostelry, the “Fox and Hounds,” where a temporary platform and reading
desk had been erected for the occasion upon two empty beer barrels.
Candles were stuck here and there around and business immediately began.
The Chairman appointed was a Dr. Graham, the very broth of an educated
but rollicking Irishman. Duly introducing the “Bishop,” that reverend
gentleman rose, and at once commenced his lecture, but the “Bishop’s”
knowledge of the English language being very imperfect, he was asked to
speak in Dutch, which was very humorously interpreted by a Hollander who
was present. About an hour’s rambling twaddle brought the lecturer to
his seat, his discourse concluding with the information that he was
prepared to answer any questions concerning Holy Writ which might be put
to him. Many were the questions and curious; the audience relishing the
fun and seemingly vying with each other in their endeavors to confuse
him, but the question that took the first prize in public opinion was,
“Will His Lordship kindly explain why _corrugated iron_ is sometimes
called Gospel Oak?” Well this fairly nonplussed the “Bishop,” as
probably it will some of my readers. This is one of those jokes that
requires an explanation. Corrugated iron was the material generally in
use for building, and the favorite brand was “Gospel Oak,” so-called
because the manufacturer’s works, situate somewhere in the vicinity of
London, were so named. The efforts of the “Bishop” to explain made the
thing more ludicrous, and just as he was in the throes of a learned
disquisition upon something or other, out went the candles, upside-down
was turned the platform, “his Lordship’s” bell-topper became
irretrievably ruined, a few rotten eggs beplastered his sunburnt visage,
and in less time than it takes to tell, the impudent hypocrite was seen
slipping away, hurriedly scrambling through an open window to the rear
of the premises. A “hue and cry” was raised, and the whilom bishop on
being run to earth received the rough handling (which did not, however,
go the length of physical violence) which my readers may imagine he
would receive from a rough mining crowd. After getting as much fun as
they wanted out of their victim, the affair wound up by escorting him
into a neighboring canteen, where everybody, “bishop,” digger, diamond
buyer, or loafer became just as “fou” as was compatible with walking to
his respective bed. When the “bishop” got to his room in the hotel,
however, a cruel practical joke awaited him. Worn out with excitement
and fatigue he threw himself on his bed to sleep, but pins and needles
had been stuck all over and at once out he bounded with miraculous
agility. Then came through the open window such a roar of laughter that
the “bishop” could see further trouble was looming in the distance, and
“discretion” with him “being the better part of valor,” he donned his
nether garments and with coat, handbag, umbrella and bible, he cleared
out as fast through the friendly door as his legs could carry him, and
has, _mirabile dictu_, never since been seen on the Fields. He was
recognized, however, some few months ago in the Transvaal still carrying
on his pious frauds. In pursuit of his ecclesiastical functions he goes
from farm-house to farm-house, staying here a month and there a month,
or as long as the farmer will keep him, and so he plays his hypocritical
“part” among the ignorant and confiding boers.

Griqualand West has been, until the advent of the railway, at too great
a distance from the large towns of the colony to entice many celebrities
to come and see the mines, and visitors, especially those belonging to
the religious world, have been few and far between.

Since the opening of the Colesberg Kopje, I can recollect only the
spasmodic visits of one or two Bishops of the English Church, the short
stay of a lecturing infidel and buffoon, whose name I will not advertise
by mentioning, but who was publicly presented with a diamond ring by
certain gentlemen possessed of more money than brains, the mission of
Dr. Somerville in connection with the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel, and the meteoric appearance of Father Henerberry, a second
Father Matthew, who for fourteen days filled the Roman Catholic church
to overflowing by his powerful crusade against drink. For some twelve
months past the Salvation Army has been established, but contrary to
expectations has attracted comparatively little attention of either a
favorable or opposite character.

I should be shirking an evident duty if I were to omit calling attention
to a matter which must ever hear witness against Kimberley and the
surrounding camps, and that is the opportunity which for years the
religious section of the inhabitants have thrown away of spreading the
truths of the Gospel to the natives,[92] who have been attracted to
their very doors from the far interior. I am within the mark when I
compute that during the last sixteen years an average of at least 10,000
natives (new arrivals) has each year been drawn to work in our mines by
the reports, carried from one to another by those returning, of the
riches awaiting them. What a field for missionary enterprise has not
this presented? Now, has not the chance been lost? What “glad tidings of
great joy” might not even one or two in whom the seed thus sown had
borne fruit, have spread on their return?

I am glad to notice, however, that at last proper advantage of this vast
field for the propagation of the truths of the Gospel is about to be
taken.

One important point must not be overlooked: every man in Kimberley even
now is but a bird of passage, merely drawn by the chance of making money
quickly as the first arrivals were, and then escaping from a place which
possesses very few social attractions, and, in respect of natural beauty
and comfort of dwellings, none—the impossibility of getting away felt by
some, the desire for further accumulations evinced by others, keeping
together a mixed and heterogeneous population such as could scarcely be
found in any other country.

The rising generation is mostly to be pitied, doomed to spend their
young lives in a place which in South Africa at least can only be
exceeded in wretchedness by the Namaqualand copper mines. No trees, no
grass, no carolling birds, no rippling brooks. Nature seems paralyzed or
dead. No wonder the seeds of early piety are all blown to the winds,
when God’s day is desecrated by the sight of the open offices in the
diamond market (although fortunately on that day no business can be
legally transacted), by the noise of continuous blasting in the mines,
and the sight of railway drays laden with fruit and flowers running
through the streets. At times the man of strong religious instincts
feels sick at heart, and for the moment thinks that money alone is
thought of—_Regina Pecunia_, the “Almighty Dollar,” the sole deity
adored.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXVII.
LAW AND LAWYERS ON THE FIELDS.—LAW IN THE EARLY DAYS.—ABSENCE OF CRIME
AT THAT EPOCH.—THE MUTUAL HALL.—MAGISTERIAL JURISDICTION.—THE
ATTORNEY-GENERALSHIP.—ATTORNEYS AND LAW AGENTS.—A SUDDEN DEATH.—CURIOUS
NOMENCLATURE OF KAFIRS.—THE FATE OF “BRANDY AND SODA.”

Dean Swift says: “Law is a bottomless pit; it is a cormorant, a harpy
that drowns everything.” And believing implicitly in his words, I will
not weary my readers with any elaborate disquisition on the legislative
enactments, etc., which served to make up the law under which we lived
in the early days of the Diamond Fields. Suffice it to say, that to me
it seemed a very medley of inconsistency, an olla podrida, a thing of
shreds, of patches, making “confusion worse confounded.” Roman, Dutch,
English Common. Colonial Statute Law and Proclamations of the local
government were blended—no, I should rather say flung together in a
fashion so devoid of system as to be absolutely chaotic. The laws of
Griqualand West since annexation are now identical with Colonial Laws,
with the exception of a few local enactments, but at the time they were
_sui generis_, or rather, if I may be allowed, _omnium genorum_,
homogeneity being remarkable for its entire absence. It speaks well for
the contented nature of the diggers, that complaints against this
anomalous condition of things were so little rife.

In the early days, a genuine brotherly feeling reigned among the diggers
at Colesberg Kopje (Kimberley Mine), and though of course an occasional
quarrel would arise, yet as a rule there was universal amity existing.

Such a crime as robbery was, for a long time, scarcely known. The digger
left his tent all day with the entrance flaps merely tied down, and
returned at night from his work in the mine with no apprehension as to
the security of his goods and chattels. In those halcyon days, with
scarcely an exception, the natives, who are often unjustly accused of
naturally possessing thieving propensities, established the falsehood of
the charge by living an honest and laborious life, faithfully carrying
out their master’s behests, and never robbing him of a single
splint.[93]

It is my firm conviction, (and it will be admitted that I have had
extensive opportunities of judging), that the native laborers, who have
been flocking at the rate of 30,000 per annum to the Diamond Fields,
are, as a rule, sober, upright, and virtuous before they have been
corrupted by the white men, who induce them to steal, or are demoralized
by drinking the liquor supplied them by white men. Had it not been for
the unscrupulous scoundrels who first introduced illicit diamond buying,
and for the almost indiscriminate sale of liquor to natives, they would
in all probability be still as honest as at the early period, when,
except in trivial assault cases, they were very rarely brought before
the Court.

Kimberley, at this time, was without any building set apart as a High
Court. When the Judge came from Barkly on circuit, he sat in a large
building called the Mutual Hall, which used to serve a variety of
purposes, being fitted up for theatrical entertainments, which were
frequently given there, while religions services were also held in it
from time to time. I remember a trial for murder taking place in this
building before Mr. Recorder Barry, the first judge on the Diamond
Fields. The alleged facts of the case were briefly as follows: The
accused, a man and a woman, had thrown the husband of the latter down
the mine—the supposed motive for the crime being that a guilty intrigue
which existed between them might be continued without interference. The
discovery of certain suspicious circumstances had led to their arrest
and committal.

All through the day the Judge and jury had sat hearing the evidence, but
very few of the public had attended. As, however, night came on, and it
became known that the Judge purposed sitting till the case was
concluded, the Hall was quickly crowded with diggers.

Here were men begrimed with dust and coatless as they had hurried there,
men who had removed the signs of their daily toil; the floor of the Hall
was thronged so that none could move; on the window-sills stood men
clinging to each other for support, and to the very girders of the roof
a number of adventurous youths had climbed; a veritable sea of faces met
the eye, as one gazed around. On the stage sat the Judge surrounded by
the tawdry wings. Some were associated in the spectator’s minds with
occasions widely different from the background. A glimmering light was
shed by a row of flimsy Chinese lanterns suspended above, and on the
Judge’s desk were a couple of glittering dips. In front sat the counsel
at a table of rough planks, elevated chair high on liquor cases, and
behind them were the prisoners mounted on boxes stamped with the
battle-axe trade-mark, and bearing the inscription, Henessey’s XXX. As
the night wore on, the excitement grew intense; the feelings of the
public were dead against the prisoners, perhaps scarce a score in that
vast crowd had a doubt as to their guilt or wished them to escape the
murderer’s doom. The addresses of the counsel and the charge of the
Judge were listened to in breathless silence, and then the wearied jury
retired. Apparently some doubt existed in their minds, for the verdict
of Not Guilty was returned.

The present High Court in Kimberley is a lofty and extensive building
constructed of brick and stone, but for years after the Mutual Hall had
been abandoned as a temple of Justice, the Judge or Judges sat in a
wretched, tumble down shanty, which is still occupied by the Special
Court for the trial of offences against the Diamond Trade Act.

The Resident Magistrate’s Court was the favorite arena of litigants in
the early days, as there under Special Proclamations cases involving
£500, when there was an acknowledged debt, and £250 in matters of
disputed debt or damages, might be tried in a speedy and summary manner
eminently satisfactory to those who abhorred the “law’s delays.” This
extensive jurisdiction has since been largely reduced, with the result
of vastly increased costs and other serious inconveniences to the honest
man, who has unfortunately become entangled in the meshes of the law.

The first Recorder of the High Court of Griqualand West, as I have just
said, was Mr. now Sir Jacob Dirk Barry, a scholar and jurist of no mean
pretensions, and it is not too much to say that at each critical period
of the history of the Fields, as the tent burnings and the rebellion
already described, it was largely owing to Judge Barry’s firmness and
earnestness in the endeavor to maintain obedience to law and order, that
consequences which might have proved disastrous in the extreme were
happily avoided. After Mr. Barry left there were several judges and
acting judges appointed, until, annexation having taken place, a court
of three judges was formed, of which Mr. Justice Buchanan was made
President.

Of the first Attorney General, Mr. John Cyprian Thompson, I have but
little to say, as ill-health almost from the time of his appointment
prevented him from taking an active part in public affairs. To the
superstitious it would have seemed as if there was a bar upon the
Attorney-Generalship; since annexation the Crown Prosecutorship of
Griqualand West, Mr. J. C. Thompson’s successor, Mr. S. G. Sheppard,[94]
afterwards Judge and at present Administrator of the Crown Colony of
British Bechuanaland, his relations with the other members of the
Executive becoming somewhat strained, tendered his resignation. Mr. J.
S. Lord, Q. C., who succeeded him, gave up his office in preference to
either having to submit to undue interference in the performance of his
office or else living in a continual state of “protest;” the next, who
was the first Crown Prosecutor, was removed from his post, but hitherto
the gentleman at present holding the appointment has maintained his
relationship with the Attorney General without friction.

But in no British Colony, I should think, have so many enforced or semi
enforced changes taken place among officials as in Griqualand West. In
the short space of a decade there were three Resident Magistrates, a
Clerk of the Peace, two Commissioners of Police and a Chief of the
Detective Department, who were either removed from their respective
offices or deemed it advisable to resign.

As my readers may conceive, the Diamond Fields attracted a certain
number of barristers, many of whom must have made large sums of money.
The fees paid by illicit diamond buyers, when a barrister was engaged
for the defence, were, I believe, something enormous. These cases were
but a small source of income compared with the long protracted lawsuits
that used formerly to arise between various wealthy claim-holders, and
subsequently after the claims had been put into companies between these
bodies. In the early days there was a court specially established to
adjudicate upon claims to unoccupied land situate in Griqualand West,
and here several gentlemen of the long robe picked up gold and silver
with rapidity. The cases from which the lawyers perhaps derived most
emolument was a civil action brought by Isaac Sonnenberg and Edward
Eager Hurley against Alfred Ebden, the registered proprietor of the farm
on which are situated Kimberley mine and town—and another brought on
behalf of the London and South African Exploration Co., Lim., against
the government. In the first case Messrs. Sonnenberg and Hurley sought
to oust Mr. A. Ebden from his farm on the ground that they had bought a
prior and preferent claim, but their enterprise signally failed. In the
latter case, the company gained their point and compelled the government
to disgorge some portion of the rents and license moneys, which they had
improperly received and retained.

Of attorneys there were enough and to spare, and their manner of
conducting business, at least in the early days, was decidedly unique.
The one grand characteristic that distinguished them was a phenomenal
and perennial thirst, and the manful efforts which they made to quench
it were worthy of a better cause. Should a clerk omit to dot an “i” or
cross a “t,” your attorney would at once propose an adjournment to the
nearest canteen while the error was being rectified. Was a case won? So
joyful an occasion demanded a copious libation. Was a case lost? A cup
of consolation was forthwith quaffed. Was a compromise agreed on? The
prospect of renewed amity between the whilom litigants was surely worthy
of a foaming bumper.

The “Green Bar”[95] was the green room of the Judicial Theatre. I have
frequently even known adjournments of the Magistrate’s court for the
evident if not the avowed purpose of liquidating some abstruse point of
law. There was a vast amount of “bluff,” as it is vulgarly termed, and
tall talk on the part of the attorneys in those days. I remember upon
one occasion, a leading member of the side bar describing a respectable
witness as having come into the court with the Bible in his hands and a
lie on his lips, while the passages at arms between the practitioners
seemed often acrimonious to a degree; but when the court rose, the feuds
were forgotten and the contending parties again sped to the “Green Bar,”
which possessed for them an absolutely magnetic attraction.

Of the law agents, a genus I think peculiar to South Africa, and in
those days, at least, admitted without having to give the most
infinitesimal proof of their legal knowledge, I shall not say much. Some
were very good men and fair lawyers, but as a rule they consisted of
“ne’er do wells,” who having failed in every thing turned to the law as
a _dernier ressort_. The worst of them had no education, no brains, and
no money, their sole stock in trade being an absolutely unlimited amount
of arrogance which enabled them to prey upon the public. A few men of
this class were, until recently, still to be found on the Diamond
Fields.

The arrangements for juries were needlessly troublesome. Many classes of
persons being exempt, the drawing for juries pressed heavily on the poor
digger, who, while compelled to wait day after day in the precincts of
the court, was beset with fears, not improbably well grounded, that his
“boys” (native laborers) were appropriating to their own use any diamond
they might discover. Despite the unpleasantness and loss entailed by
serving on a jury, few diggers neglected to answer to their names.

For whatever reason the lawyers were not generally long-lived. I saw a
list made out by a legal friend of mine, when in a somewhat gloomy frame
of mind the other day, according to which some twenty had died since the
opening of the Diamond Fields.

I cannot help here mentioning the sudden end of one of the leaders of
the Bar at the time, and a man well known in South Africa. I was an
eye-witness of the tragic occurrence. Mr. Advocate Walker, many years
prior to the opening of the Diamond Fields, had enjoyed an extensive and
lucrative practice in Natal, and at the time of which I am now speaking
was conducting the defence of a case in which I was interested. Driving
home from my consulting-room on the evening of the day before which the
case was expected to be called, I pulled up at Mr. Walker’s house to
have a final consultation on some points I thought of importance. I
found him smoking his cigar by the fire, looking somewhat unwell, but
without anything in his appearance to lead me to anticipate the awful
catastrophe impending. I put my questions to him, and for an answer, Mr.
W. extending his arms remarked, “Don’t bother, certain to win
to-morrow.” As he uttered the last word, he gave a sudden start, bounded
from his seat, while from his mouth a jet of bright crimson blood
spurted against the wall opposite. For him to-morrow came not. He never
spoke again. An aneurism of the heart had given way and in a few seconds
he was a corpse. Ever since that melancholy event, I have experienced a
sense of no little uneasiness when the probable results of “to-morrow”
have been discounted “to-day.” As the poet says “to-morrows cheat us
all,” and thus it was in the case of poor Walker.

On mentioning this incident to a friend of mine he drew my attention to
the following exquisite lines, which I think are worthy of reproduction
here:

“We will gather flowers to-morrow,
When the mist of rain is o’er,
When the air is warm and sunny,
And the tempest howls no more.”
But the flowers are parched and faded,
For the clouds have passed away,
And we leave them still ungathered,
Though to-morrow is to-day.

“We will climb the hills to-morrow,
In the morning cool and bright:
Who could scale those rugged mountains
In the noontide’s scorching light?”
But the snow-wreaths clothe the summits.
And the mists hang chill and gray,
And we leave the slopes untrodden,
Though to-morrow is to-day.

“We will lend an ear to-morrow
To our fallen sisters’ woes;
We can scarcely hear their voices
While the music comes and goes.”
But along the thorny highway
Still with weary feet they stray,
And we pass them by, unheeding,
Though to-morrow is to-day.

“We will leave our work to-morrow,
And with eager hands and strong,
We will lead the little children
Far away from paths of wrong.”
But our hands grow old and feeble,
And the work goes on for aye,
And the little children perish,
Though to-morrow is to-day.

“We will raise our eyes to-morrow
To the cross on Calvary’s brow;
At our feet the gold is sparkling,
So we cannot heed it now.”
But we clutch the glittering fragments,
‘Mid the dust, and mire, and clay,
And we cannot raise our eyelids,
Though to-morrow is to-day.
BROWN ROBIN.—_From Chambers’ Journal, March 19, 1887._

I may here, though not strictly connected with this subject, call
attention to the strikingly curious names adopted by many Kafirs working
on the Diamond Fields, and give some instances of the manner in which
they attract public notice. Natives are by no means destitute of a sense
of humor,[96] and very often when they have been working for an employer
of passionate disposition, and have been addressed by him in no
complimentary terms, they voluntarily retain as their appellation some
abusive title, or strong objurgation of which he has made use in the
course of his remonstrances. I have not infrequently known a magistrate,
on asking a native prisoner his name, to receive the reply “G—d d—mn” or
“Bl—dy Fool;” while one unfortunate fellow, when asked the same question
in the charge office promptly answered, “Go to H—l,” and it was not
until he had been twice or three times knocked down for his apparent
insolence, that the Sergeant discovered that the native had simply given
a truthful if startling answer to the question put to him. Such names as
“Cape Smoke” (_i.e._, Colonial Brandy), “Pontac” and other alcoholic
terms are not uncommon, while “Sixpence” is one of the most favorite
names of the natives.

Perhaps one of the most singular illustrations of the eccentric
nomenclature to which I allude, and the strangely incongruous
circumstances under which instances of it occur, was given in the High
Court some two or three years ago. The anecdote serves as an example of
how, even in matters of most solemn, nay tragic import, a ludicrous
element may be present.

A native named “Brandy and Soda” had been tried for murder and found
guilty, if I recollect rightly, before Mr. Justice Buchanan, the Judge
President. Awful as is the sentence, and heartless as the man must be
who can hear it pronounced unmoved, yet many, by no means devoid of
humanity, for a moment smiled, as the Judge, having assumed the black
cap, thus addressed the prisoner: “Brandy and Soda, you have been found
guilty by an impartial jury of the awful crime of wilful murder, upon
the enormity of which it is unnecessary for me to dilate. ‘A life for a
life’ is the law for both the black man and the white, and there is no
alternative left me but to pronounce on you the sentence of death. The
judgment of this court is that you, Brandy and Soda, be hanged by the
neck till you are dead, and may,” etc.

In concluding these few remarks relative to the legal profession, I
would disclaim any wish to infer that lawyers are not a necessity, far
from it, but they are a necessity with which one would fain dispense. I
would not wish to imply that the lawyers of Griqualand West are more
unreasonably exacting than their brethren in other places, but this
observation cannot be regarded as fulsome adulation or extravagant
eulogy. It will, however, be evident. I could not advocate so extreme a
measure as that proposed by Dick to Cade, “The first thing we do, let’s
kill all the lawyers.”[97]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXVIII.
A SERIOUS ACCIDENT.—FELSTEAD’S.—DR. L. S. JAMESON.—TRIP TO THE
TRANSVAAL.—MONS. GRANDIER.—UMBELINI AND
CETYWAYO.—CHRISTIANA.—POTCHEFSTROOM.—PRETORIA.—THE ERSTE
FABRIEKEN.—BATTLE-FIELD OF BRONKHORST SPRUIT.—BURGERS, SHEPSTONE AND
LANYON.—MAPOCH AND MAMPOER.—START FOR NATAL.

Having now dwelt at some length on the three professions, Divinity, Law
and Physic, as represented on the Diamond Fields, I will resume my
personal narrative.

I have good personal reason for recollecting the outbreak of so-called
small-pox, which (as the reader will remember) I have described in a
previous chapter. The medical practitioners of the Diamond Fields were
at the time for months in a state of the utmost excitement over the
_quæstio vexata_ of small-pox or no small-pox, and although the weight
of evidence and the opinions of those whose qualifications and
experience almost served to carry conviction was certainly in favor of
the latter theory, yet on the opposite side were ranged, besides those
to whom the public attributed (I trust and believe wrongly) interested
motives, some men of undoubted ability in their profession and above the
suspicion of maintaining the scare for the sake of their personal
advantage. The authorities were naturally more or less in doubt also,
for “who shall decide when doctors disagree?” and many were the
commissions of doctors dispatched by Government to visit “Felstead’s,” a
farm some eight miles from Kimberley, where a temporary hospital was
erected, all natives coming from the Transvaal examined, and those found
suffering from the disease isolated. On the morning of December 1, 1883,
Dr. L. S. Jameson, one of the most able physicians in the Diamond
Fields, in accordance with the request of government, drove out to the
place in order to make an official report.

Our inspection over, we re-entered the vehicle and set out on our way
home to breakfast, when my horses became unmanageable and dashed amidst
a herd of cattle, with the result that the cart was overturned and Dr.
L. S. Jameson thrown out with immense force some fifteen yards, happily
without sustaining any hurt, while I was less fortunate, for though I
fell out close beside the vehicle, I received such serious injuries
(involving extravasation of blood upon the brain) that I remained for
four or five days perfectly unconscious, and on coming to my senses
found myself in the Carnavon Hospital, suffering from paralysis of the
right side. Here let me briefly thank Mr. Denis Doyle, the able and
energetic Sanitary Inspector of the Kimberley municipality, for the
great and invaluable services which he rendered to me, so I am told, on
the morning of my accident, by providing relays of natives to carry me
to the hospital. I would also warmly thank those members of my own
profession, especially Dr. L. S. Jameson, who took on himself the sole
responsibility of my case, for their unremitting attention: the good
sister Henrietta and kind sisters and nurses of the hospital, and the
public of the Four Camps, who exhibited an earnest solicitude as to my
condition, that deeply touched me and that I shall never forget.
Immediately on my recovering sufficient strength to move about, I
determined to take a tour through the Transvaal, a country that I had
long been desirous of visiting, and I booked a seat for Pretoria in the
coach leaving Kimberley on December 31, 1883. My friends, however, not
thinking me strong enough to travel, caused me much vexation, by
ingeniously contriving that I should miss the coach, and in consequence
my journey was postponed for another week. However, I took good care
that their over-solicitude, as I thought it, should not make me miss the
coach a second time, and I left on January 7th.

Just as I was sitting in the coach, preparing to start, a bundle of
letters was placed in my hand, including one from my wife, who was then
visiting our children in Germany. Curiously enough this letter was
written on the very day after my accident, and contained the following
request, “Let me know if anything, however trivial, has happened to you
to-day. I have a strange feeling that something, I know not what, has
occurred, which makes me intensely anxious.” I do not intend to draw any
deduction from what, after all. may have been a mere coincidence, but
the facts, nevertheless, are as I have stated.

How many times before T returned to Kimberley, if my pride would have
allowed me, should I not have freely admitted the folly of my journey!
To a man who had sustained a shock to his nervous system such as I had,
the bumping for nearly a fortnight in a four-horse coach along primitive
South African roads, was naturally not the best course of curative
treatment.

Leaving Kimberley early in the morning a long stage brought us to a
roadside inn, which was, and is, I believe, kept by M. Grandier,
formerly a trooper in Weatherly’s Horse during the Zulu war.

Taking out the horses we rested here some time, and I persuaded Mr.
Grandier, whom I had met in Kimberley, to tell me the story of his
narrow escape at Zlobani Mountain during the war with Cetywayo. The
facts of his escape, as he related them to me, are indeed stranger than
fiction. “I was a trooper,” said Mr. Grandier, “in Weatherly’s Horse,
and I shall never forget the morning of the 28th of March, 1879, and the
attack of the Zulus at Zlobani. Ah! Mon Dieu, Colonel Weatherly was a
fine man; we worshipped him, and would have followed him to the jaws of
death. It took us most difficult work to get to the top of the mountain;
we were at it all night, but we accomplished it. We stopped at the top
an hour or two, when Colonel Buller perceived the black hordes in
thousands just like monkeys, climbing up on all sides to hem us in. The
Colonel told us to get down as quickly as we could, and did not we ride!
I shall never forget the last sight of my beloved old Colonel; the
picture is still in my mind. It seems but yesterday I saw him in the
distance surrounded by howling Kafirs, all hope lost, covering his son,
a bright, fair-haired lad of fifteen, from the cruel assegais of his
brutal foes. I jumped down the sides of rocks as big as this house, my
little horse always landing on its legs, and at last, after many escapes
from the Zulus, got safely to the bottom. Five or six of our fellows at
once got hold of my stirrups, seized my horse’s tail, nearly dragging
him to the ground, and so weighted the poor brute that he was done up in
a mile or two, and I had to leave him. What did I do? I ran like the
devil and managed to hide myself in some tall grass, when, as night was
coming on, I thought I was safe. Four Zulus, however, spied me out; it
was no use my resisting, so they seized and stripped me of everything. I
never could tell why they did not kill me; the only thing they did was
to drive me on in front of them, telling me to ‘hambake.’ Every moment I
thought my last. After walking some miles, we stopped at the kraal of
Umbelini, an ex-Swazi chief, half-way up the valley, who was one of
Cetywayo’s adherents. How I wondered what would happen next! Naked as I
was, they tied me to a post, when the women tore round me as if mad,
spat in my face, and pulled out my beard, while the men formed a circle,
and yelled and danced about me like very fiends! This lasted far into
the morning, when, half dead from fatigue and terror though I was, a
Zulu, who could speak a little Dutch, raised my hopes of life by telling
me that I was meant as a present to Cetywayo. Resting a little they
started me off with an escort, to a place which I afterwards found to be
Ulundi, Cetywayo’s head kraal. I can assure you I was as naked as when I
was born, and the broiling sun in the day and the cold at night almost
drove me mad. At Cetywayo’s I was treated just as badly as at
Umbelini’s. The women again acted as perfect devils from the pit below.
Cetywayo was disappointed with me, did not believe I was unable from
weakness to handle the two guns that he showed me and which had been
taken at Isandhlwana. He told me to get back to Umbelini’s kraal (for
the worst I presumed) as he found me of no use. Starting back with two
Kafirs as a guard, at the close of the day I felt completely exhausted,
when they allowed me to rest close by a mealie field on the banks of a
stream. Fortunately for me my guards were nearly as much wearied as
myself, and only too glad to take a rest. One sat down to snuff, while
the other went to fetch water. A sudden idea struck me, and, making a
regular leap for life, I jumped and seized an assegai lying on the
ground, and in less than no time stabbed the Zulu who was engaged in
snuffing, right through the heart. Then snatching one of the rifles that
they had with them, I waited for the Zulu returning with the water, who,
as soon as he caught sight of me, bolted into the long grass, leaving me
free once more. The excitement gave me fresh strength to begin another
fight for life, and, to make a long story short, in two or three days,
after a desperate struggle, I got back to the camp at Kambula, much to
the surprise of my comrades, who for eighteen days had given me up as
lost. For weeks I suffered much from the exposure, but recovered
sufficiently to get to Ulundi in time for the finish. I shall never,
however, forget or get over _my_ introduction to Cetywayo.”

The story and our lunch being finished, on we went to Christiana, my
only companion in the coach being a Mr. Fowler, who was engaged by some
English capitalists to report on certain properties in the Transvaal
said to be auriferous. Obviously plain and straightforward, his manner
commanded confidence, and his report of the places which he was
specially engaged to examine, as I afterwards heard, was not of the
glowing color that distinguished others which were made to home
capitalists, by perhaps personally interested experts, as I then
believed.

Some few miles from Christiana, our next resting-place, we crossed the
Vaal River, which is here a broad flowing stream some 200 yards in
width, and continuing along its bank for some miles we arrived there at
about seven o’clock.

[Illustration:

BRONKHORST SPRUIT.
]

The coach was soon surrounded by the villagers, its arrival being looked
upon as _the_ event of the week.

Among the throng that came to meet the coach, I saw several gentlemen
(?) whom I recognized as former residents of Kimberley, who had sought
another sphere on account of the strictness of Ordinance 48, 1882
(Diamond Trade Act), and who were pursuing their peculiar line of
business in a place where they were safe from the annoyance of
inquisitive detectives asking unpleasant questions, and had chosen
Christiana for their abode as being the nearest village in the Transvaal
to the border of Griqualand West.[98] As soon as the coach stopped, we
were pounced upon by a Health Officer, who forced us into a little
triangular shed, reeking with burning brimstone, in order to fumigate
us, the absurd idea having spread to the Transvaal that a couple of
minutes’ exposure to sulphur fumes would kill the germs of small-pox,
and so lessen the chance of our bringing this dreaded infection with us.

The official in question was not over exacting. He assured me in strict
confidence, that the small-pox scare in Kimberley was nothing but a
“doctor’s rush,” and to prove to us his belief in what he said, he was
contented with a merely formal inhalation on our part of the unpleasant
smoke, thus satisfying his conscience that he had done his duty. Two
hotels, one or two stores, the Landtrost’s office and a few straggling
houses, comprised everything that was to be seen.

Leaving this place, for six hours[99] until we arrive at Bloemhof, the
road ran alongside the Vaal River. All the inhabitants of this small
village, which was of about the same type as Christiana, were fast
asleep when we drove up, so we merely remained there long enough to
change horses.

This place leaped into notoriety some fourteen years ago, in consequence
of being selected as the scene of the famous Bloemhof arbitration,
otherwise known as the Keate award, a definition of boundaries which
satisfied nobody. A handful of burnt brick houses, here one and there
one with a plastered front, glaring out like spectres in the hazy
moonlight and revealing a Gehenna of desolation and dust, is all that
remains, so far as this Sleepy Hollow is concerned, “photographically
limned on the tablets of my mind, when a yesterday has faded from its
page,” as Gilbert (W.S., not the esteemed Kimberley attorney) observes
in a well-known Bab ballad.

Stopping two or three times for the same purpose, first at Clarkson’s
store, in front of which there is an immense lake some miles in
circumference, and again at Maquassie’s Spruit, sixteen hours more
jolting brought us to Klerksdorp, one of the most charming little
villages that I have seen in this country. The pretty houses nestling
among the fruit trees, and the roadside inn so clean and so comfortable,
recalled pleasant memories of many an old English village.

Immediately before our arrival here we played the principal parts in a
reproduction of the laughable farce “Fumigation.” as performed with such
immense success in Kimberley, Christiana, etc. Here, however, the
performance was decidedly unsuccessful, both the players, stage managers
and prompters being far too sleepy to care whether anybody’s choking in
the sulphurous exhalations of the “property” brazier was realistically
rendered or a hollow mockery. Six hours more and we drove at a gallop
into Potchefstroom, and drew up at the Royal Hotel. Learning the time
the coach would start for Pretoria, and that I should have but three
hours to look around, I started off at once to see the town, first
attracted by the stately trees, towering at least sixty feet high, which
lined the principal streets, giving an air of staidness and solidity to
the little town, and at the same time inspiring an idea of well-to-do,
if slightly humdrum, respectability and quietude, such as may be
observed in many a New England village. The substantial brick built
houses, too, surrounded by beautiful shrubs and graceful willows, the
clear water from the Mori River running in sluits through every street,
formed a striking contrast to the iron houses, the debris heaps and the
dusty parched-up place that I had but two days left behind. Passing
Reid’s store, which stands at one side of a market square, at least
twenty acres in extent, with a plain and unimposing church. in the
centre. I made my way to the Court-House at the opposite corner of the
square, which, on the breaking out of the war, was one of the places
held by our troops.

Though nearly two years had elapsed since the cessation of hostilities,
the place showed the signs of the past struggle, by its general air of
desertion, and the poverty-stricken appearance of a whilom-beleagured
town. On making my way in, I could see by the marks all round how the
place had been riddled by bullets, and could imagine the hot fire to
which it had been exposed. The hole in the door was pointed out to me,
through which the bullet sped which killed Capt. Falls, on the very
first day of the attack by the Boers.

[Illustration:

COURT-HOUSE AT POTCHEFSTROOM, DEC., 1880, AFTER THE SIEGE.
]

After Capt. Falls’ death Colonel Clark, now Her Majesty’s representative
in Basutoland, took command, and with the thirty-five men he had with
him defended the building for three days, until the Boers fired the
roof, and he was forced to surrender on December 20th.

The Boers, elated to a degree, outraged every rule of war, sentenced the
men who had capitulated to hard labor and forced them to work in the
trenches which they (the Boers) were digging in front of the fort, where
some of our troops had taken shelter, and which they were defending.
There, exposed to shot and shell, several lost their lives, killed by
the bullets of their comrades in the fort, who knew them not. I next
visited the fort itself, which had been the scene of so many painful
events. In a space but twenty-five yards square were crammed during the
siege nearly 300 souls, of whom about 100 only could bear arms, and here
men, women and children remained cooped up from the date above mentioned
until they surrendered on March 20th, evacuating the fort on the 23d. In
the rear of the fort a stone enclosure was pointed out to me containing
the graves of those who died during the four months’ siege. There is no
doubt Cronjé, the Dutch commander, ought to have been severely brought
to task, as he was guilty of a decided breach of the rules of war, in
that he never informed the garrison, which when it surrendered had only
a few rotten mealies left, of the armistice which had been agreed upon
after Majuba, on the 6th of March, news of which he received in
Potchefstroom on the 12th, and was published in the _Staats Courant_ on
the 16th. During the siege our losses were: one officer killed and four
wounded, twenty-five rank and file killed, and forty-one wounded. The
survivors after the surrender were marched to the Free State border and
liberated.

There is no doubt that Potchefstroom, which at one time, when the
Transvaal was divided into two Republics, was one of the seats of
government, lost much by the war. When I was there all the men of
business with whom I conversed, told me that property had immensely
depreciated in value, and while walking round the town I myself saw
proofs of this in the many houses that were tenantless: but although Mr.
Robert Acult of the firm of Reid and Co., the largest merchants of the
place, told me that business was decidedly reviving, yet the
non-reappearance of any banking institutions since the war told me its
own tale. One thing, however, I noticed, that to all appearance a
friendly feeling seemed to exist among all classes.

“Time and tide wait for no man,” so the frantic blasts from the driver’s
bugle announced the readiness of the coach for departure. Taking our
seats, off we started for Pretoria at eleven o’clock—

“Smack went the whip, round went the wheels,
Never were folks so glad;”

for now at last we began to see “the beginning of the end.” The journey
from Potchefstroom to Pretoria is excessively wearisome, and the country
very level and tame. We saw nothing worthy of recording, unfortunately
passing the celebrated caves of Wonderfontein[100] in the night—nothing
to break the monotony of our journey, save the periodical changing of
our horses, nothing to occupy our attention but the oft-repeated
arguments, whether or not there was any improvement in the team, or the
discussion whether time had been gained or lost. In fact we all felt an
incessant longing for our journey’s end.

On arriving at Pretoria we drove at once to the Post-Office to deliver
the mails, then going round to the principal hotel, Up with the lark, I
made the round of the main part of Pretoria before breakfast. Just in
front of the hostelry where I was stopping, the Market Square extended
like a large grass plot, very little business evidently being transacted
there, as grass was growing nearly all over. At one end there was a
large Cathedral in course of erection,[101] which I was told would cost
£20,000, and will be a decided ornament to the town when finished. The
streets were all at right angles, lined in many places with large gum
trees, while the houses, neat and cosy, had pretty, well-kept gardens in
front, between which the rose hedges were blooming in prodigal
profusion. I saw no public buildings in the place worthy the name. The
government offices and banks, built merely of brick, had no pretensions
to architecture whatever. Every thing seemed in a state of utter
stagnation, very different, I was told, to the state of affairs under
British rule, when building was going ahead and trade and speculation
were brisk.

Gold was the theme of conversation at every meal, and seemed to have
attracted to the place the few strangers whom I met at the hotel, mere
speculators either in prospective gold concessions, or engaged in
examining and certifying to the richness of gold fields about which,
before they even had made an inspection, the “straight tip” had been
given them as to the kind of report expected.

Here, visiting the capital town of the Transvaal, it was impossible not
to look back and think over the causes which led to the late war. Any
impartial observer of men and things could come to no other conclusion
but that, if Sir Theophilus Shepstone had remained in the Transvaal, and
had been allowed to finish that which he had so well commenced, the
Transvaal would have been a British possession to-day. Sir Theophilus
Shepstone, if not known personally, yet at least by name was familiar to
every farmer in the State. There is no doubt that President Burgers was
driven, at the time of Sir Theophilus Shepstone’s arrival, almost to
despair. With a dissatisfied people, no money in the Treasury, the
Sekukuni expedition a failure, Sir Theophilus Shepstone appeared on the
scene just at the right moment. As proof of this, read Mr. Burgers’
speech in the Volksraad in March, 1877:

“You have lost the country by your own stupidity. It is not this
Englishman, or that Englishman, it is you—you! who have sold the country
for a soupie.[102] It is now too late, you have become a danger, and a
nuisance, and, like Turkey, your prostrate carcase is infecting the air.
England now says, as she said to Turkey, ‘Remove it at once, remove it,
or we shall do it at your cost.’”

President Burgers again, in the very last speech he ever delivered to
the members of the Volksraad, out-Heroded Herod in his disappointed (?)
frankness—in fact the Transvaal’s most bitter foe could not have spoken
more openly.

This is the peroration of his speech on that eventful occasion:
“Gentlemen, I may say in conclusion that when you want presidents, when
you want doctors, when you want clergymen, when you want surgeons, when
you want any educated men whatever, you have to get them from abroad;
but whenever I bring forward measures for railways, for education, and
for other necessary advancements, you refuse to pass them or pay for
them. I say emphatically your independence is not _to be_ lost, but _is_
lost.”[103]

Yet if Mr. Burgers had then or at any moment held up his little finger,
Sir T. Shepstone _must_ have gone back. Instead of that Mr. Burgers,
knowing he would never be reelected President, saw in the arrival of the
English an opportune solution of the difficulties of the Executive, and
this, to my mind, was the secret of his advising the Boers not to
resist, but simply to “Protest! protest, and never cease protesting!”

No wonder, in after years, the Transvaal Boers were furious and looked
with disgust upon Mr. Burgers and his action and words, when they
learned that in 1878 Sir Bartle Frere gave orders that Mr. Burgers was
to be paid an allowance of £500 per annum, with arrears from April 12th,
1877, the day on which Sir T. Shepstone issued his Proclamation, taking
over the country. This, when it became known in 1879, was looked upon by
the Boers as a bribe to Mr. Burgers, and at any rate my readers must
agree with me, that this allowance should have been paid out of Imperial
funds, as the country was taken over for Imperial purposes.

Aristotle in his “Politics” states that revolutions are produced _by_
trifles, but not _out of_ trifles. The revolution in the Transvaal was
precipitated by a trifle, but that trifle was led up to by a series of
blunders to my mind quite unpardonable. The trifle to which I allude was
the harsh treatment (as it was at the time considered by the Dutch) in
the Potchefstroom district of a man named Bezuidenhout, who was summoned
for certain taxes amounting to £27 5 0. Refusing to pay, his wagon was
seized, and on the day appointed for its sale in the local market,
Bezuidenhout drove it away in face of the authorities to his farm, and
Commandant Haaf was sent to arrest him, but found him too well supported
by his friends and had to retire. On account of this, the great mass
meeting at Paarde Kraal was held on December 8th, 1880, which lasted
until the 13th, when the Boers formed the solemn resolution of fighting
for their independence.

But to return to Sir Theophilus Shepstone, in an address which he issued
shortly after his arrival, addressed “To the Burgers of the Transvaal,”
in April, 1877, he thus appealed to them:

“Some of you were among the old pioneers, many of whom I knew as
acquaintances, and not a few as friends. Others of you are children of
those who belonged to that adventurous band, but who have passed away.

“Practically, I am an Africander, as you are proud to call yourselves. I
can speak in your language, and have spoken to hundreds of you on the
subject of my mission. I therefore know the feelings of those who are
against it as well as those who are for it.

* * * * *

“Has not the war with Sekukuni, whom you all consider to be but an
insignificant enemy, and which is not yet settled as was supposed, dealt
a fatal blow to the prestige of the Republic, to its financial
condition, to its government, and to the credit of the country, and has
it not caused disaster and ruin to many families which your government
found itself powerless to remedy? You all know as well as I do, that it
has.

* * * * *

“You are surrounded inside and outside your boundaries by at least one
and a half million of natives, none of whom have been made firm friends
by your past intercourse with them, and of these one of the weakest has
dealt you a deadly blow. It follows, therefore, that you can neither sow
nor reap except by the tacit permission of the native population, and
they have lost the respect for you which they had for the pioneers.”

This plain unvarnished language had its effect. He was cordially
received, and Her Majesty, in her prorogation speech, addressed to
Parliament on the 14th of August, was able to say, “The Proclamation of
my Sovereignty in the Transvaal has been received throughout the
province with enthusiasm. It has also been accepted with marked
satisfaction by the native chiefs and tribes; and the war, which
threatened in its progress to compromise the safety of my subjects in
South Africa, is happily brought to a close.”[104]

But concerning Sir Owen Lanyon, who followed Sir Theophilus Shepstone,
the Boers knew nothing, and regarded him with suspicion. Then again his
training was against him—he was too autocratic, too self-willed, his
military style of discipline too severe, and these qualities, which were
rapidly rendering him unpopular even as Administrator in Griqualand
West, he still retained, and manifested in his new and larger sphere.

Sir Owen Lanyon was sworn in as Administrator of the Transvaal on March
4th, 1879, and during the very next month he begged Sir Bartle Frere,
then in Natal, to come to Pretoria, and assist him in arranging affairs
which were beginning to look serious. In fact from his arrival to his
departure on April 8th, 1881, he was over-handicapped. Sir Owen Lanyon,
to judge from his conduct in the Transvaal, seemed to think it necessary
to remove all those who had supported Sir Theophilus Shepstone, and put
his own men in their place.

The Hollanders, an important element, were exasperated by the removal of
their countryman, Dr. Kissik, from the post of District Surgeon, to make
room for an old Diamond Field favorite; the barristers were insulted by
the appointment of an Attorney General ignorant of the Dutch language,
and a man upon whom they looked down as merely a newspaper reporter, and
an attorney’s clerk; and lastly, the entire country was aroused when, in
face of direct promises to the contrary, Mr. De Wet, Recorder of
Griqualand West, was raised to the post of Chief Justice over the head
of Mr. Kotzé, who had the confidence and admiration of all parties.

While all these apparent trifles were accumulating, there was silently
growing up a spirit of flunkeyism, which seems innate in English people.
The Transvaal is essentially republican, and such a spirit was utterly
unsuited to the ideas of the inhabitants. One correspondent in the
Transvaal wrote to me at the time—“sycophancy and subserviency are in
the ascendant, good independent men are shunted to make way for those
who know how to truckle to the powers that be.”[105]

Sir Bartle Frere at once acceded to Sir Owen Lanyon’s request. Arriving
in Pretoria from Natal on the 10th of April, 1879, after several
conferences with the Boers, he almost reconciled them to annexation by
telling them that they should have as free a constitution as their
brethren in the Cape. Sir Garnet Wolseley, however, came out, superseded
Sir Bartle Frere in the High Commissionership for South East Africa, and
arriving just too late for Ulundi, and the overthrow of Cetywayo, came
to the Transvaal, and was sworn in as Governor on September 29, 1879.
Sir Garnet spoke just as strongly as Mr. Gladstone (whom I will quote
anon) had written, concerning the impossibility of our retiring from the
Transvaal, and both at Wakkerstroom, Standerton and Pretoria assured his
hearers that the Transvaal would remain British “as long as the sun
shone.”

To add insult to injury a constitution of merely government and nominee
members was formed, which was laughed and jeered at by nearly the entire
country, both Dutch and English.[106]

At this time the _Volkstem_, the organ of the Boers in Pretoria, urged
the farmers not to give any excuse to Sir Garnet Wolseley to attack
them, but simply to protest, passively resist, and follow out President
Burgers’ advice in March, 1877, when he told them “Have patience, your
plan is to protest, keep on protesting, and ‘alles zal recht kommen.’”
The Dutch followed this advice for a time, as they did not forget the
success which attended these tactics in Holland 300 years before, when
under Counts Egmont and Horn, in 1566, they managed by a series of
protests, to Madrid, to rid themselves of the Spaniards and Spanish
rule.

Sir Garnet Wolseley then went home, and Sir Pomeroy Colley in March,
1880, succeeded him as High Commissioner for South Eastern Africa.
Events rapidly culminated. On December 13th, the Triumvirate of Kruger,
Joubert, and Pretorius being formed (Lanyon in Pretoria still being
nominal administrator of the country), three commanders were organized,
one of which went and met the 94th Regiment at Bronkhorst Spruit,
another to Potchefstroom, where it besieged the Court-House and Fort,
while the third made Heidelberg its headquarters.

So the war commenced.

The three months’ siege or investment of Pretoria by the Boers was a
very tame affair indeed, the state of alarm the place was in being
nothing but the direct consequence of the Boer success at Bronkhorst
Spruit, which I shall presently describe. As soon as conductor Egerton
brought into Pretoria the account of the disaster at this place, a grand
meeting of the townspeople took place, and Sir W. Owen Lanyon at once
placed Pretoria under martial law, all Dutch sympathizers being allowed
but half an hour’s grace to clear out, bag and baggage; the Convent, the
gaol close by with its yard, and the military camp were fortified, and
to these places all the inhabitants of the town, about 3,000, were
compelled to remove, and leave their homes to the mercy of any intruder.

Dr. Dyer, the District Surgeon of Pretoria under the Lanyon
administration, in former years a practitioner at the Diamond Fields,
and who when I saw him in Pretoria held the same appointment under the
Boer government, very kindly spent the whole of Sunday morning in
driving me around and pointing out the principal places of interest, at
the same time giving me most interesting personal reminiscences of the
siege, during which he was principal Civil Medical Officer. We drove
first to the old military camp, and saw the long parallel rows of
barrack buildings, built during the British occupation, but which then
were all empty and forsaken. “It is impossible,” the Doctor said, “to
picture what we went through, or to realize the contrast between the
thronged busy place this was during the siege and the silence of
to-day.”

Indeed it would be difficult to find a valid excuse for the action of
the authorities at all in dragging the inhabitants away from their
houses and homes, and penning them up like sheep together, were it not
that a species of panic had come over all.

[Illustration:

EXECUTION OF MAMPOER, NOV. 22, 1883.
]

Such was the terror and excitement existing that, although Pretoria had
a garrison of 2,000 effective men, reckoning regulars and volunteers,
yet a force of at the most 600 Boers kept them and the inhabitants shut
up for months, like rats in a cage. This garrison made one or two
sorties. On the 16th of January they had a fight at Elandsfontein, of
which the less said the better, and another on February 12th, at Red
House Kraal, situated the other side of the Six-mile Spruit, on the road
to Natal. This was a Majuba in miniature; our troops, showing the white
feather, made a regular skedaddle. Nixon, who has written a most
interesting work on the Transvaal, and who was in Pretoria at the time,
says he saw our men running away down the hills into Pretoria, as hard
as their legs could carry them. Eighty Boers made 200 red coats take to
their heels, and the remainder of a column, 900 strong, were, to the
disgrace of our arms, ordered to retire. The Boers formed a supreme
contempt of the “Rori Baajtes.” These disastrous occasions, though such
exceptional instances in the long and glorious annals of British arms,
suffice in no way to tarnish their brilliant lustre in the eyes of those
better acquainted with European history than these uneducated Dutch
farmers. But to return to my sight seeing. After leaving the late
military camp, we went to the gaol. This is very well kept, and in
first-rate order. I walked round and saw the additions which had been
made to the yard during the siege, all now merely mementoes of the past.
Among the prisoners in the gaol, my attention was drawn to one tall,
princely looking native pacing his cell and clanking his chains with an
air of haughty disdain. This was no other than Niabel, alias Mapoch, who
with another chief, Mampoer, had been sentenced to death by the
Transvaal government, but reprieved.

The story of Sekukuni’s murder, Mampoer’s execution and Mapoch’s
imprisonment, reads like a novel. Sequati, a Bapedi chief on the
northeastern border of the Transvaal, had two sons, Mampoer, a son by
the royal mother, and Sekukuni, a son by a wife of inferior rank. They
fought for the succession, when Sekukuni being victorious usurped the
throne and Mampoer fled to Mapoch, a small chief in the Transvaal. As
time went on Sekukuni would not pay taxes to the Boers.

Johannes, a petty chief, with whom in former years he had been on bad
terms, but who, having made up the dispute, now resided near him, was
the first to rebel against the Boers. Mampoer assisting them. Johannes
was killed and his tribe utterly broken up. The Boers, following up
their success, tried to subdue Sekukuni, but failed, their Amaswazi
allies having left them, being utterly disgusted with their (the Boers’)
cowardice.

President Burgers then went to the front himself, but all in vain.
Deserted by the burghers, who raised the now proverbial cry of “huis
toe,”[107] and broken-hearted, without adherents, without money, he had
to return to Pretoria and leave Sekukuni virtually master of the
situation. This ultimately led to Burgers’ downfall and the assertion of
British authority, and here he learned from painful experience that “the
Boers were not those of the great Trek, and he himself was not Ketief,
Maritz, Pretorius the elder, or even Paul Kruger.”

After the British annexation of the Transvaal, Sekukuni did not come to
any settlement, so when Sir Garnet Wolseley arrived in September, 1879,
after the dethronement of Cetywayo, he at once sent a special envoy,
dictating terms to Sekukuni, which the latter refused. This at once led
to an attack upon his stronghold, which Sir Garnet Wolseley stormed and
captured, supported by sixteen companies of infantry. 400 mounted men,
two or three guns and 10,000 Swazi levies under Mampoer, and Sekukuni
was taken prisoner. He remained prisoner as long as the English retained
possession of the country, but the Boers specially stipulated for his
release in the now celebrated convention of Pretoria (Article 23).[108]
When Sir Garnet Wolseley gave Mampoer back the country which Sekukuni
had usurped, knowing well that Sequati his father had in former years
proclaimed him chief, Mampoer took over one of Sekukuni’s young girls
for himself; but on Sekukuni’s release and return in terms of the
convention, he demanded her back, and this led to another fight, wherein
Sekukuni was killed. The Boers now accused Mampoer of murder and called
upon him to surrender himself, but instead of this he took refuge with
Mapoch, with whom the Boers had also a quarrel, as he would not
acknowledge them or pay taxes. War was now declared against Mapoch
(Niabel), who defended himself bravely for many months; but at last,
worn out by hunger and want, he and 8,000 of his men, who were
afterwards “apprenticed” into slavery, surrendered, and Mampoer and
Mapoch both found themselves prisoners of war.[109]

They were tried and sentenced to death, and although Mr. Hudson, the
British Resident, pressed upon the Boer Executive the desire of the
English government that capital punishment should not be carried out, no
notice was paid in the case of Mampoer, the sentence of Mapoch alone
being commuted.

Mampoer with his dying breath said, “I have fought Sekukuni for the
Dutch, I have fought him for the English, and now I am hanged for doing
my duty.”

Poor fellow! his execution was a sad, brutal exhibition. Pretoria was
full, even on my visit, of the accounts of the scene, how the rope round
his neck broke, how he was hoisted again into position, and how the day
of his execution was looked upon by the Boers as a gala day, and an
opportunity of exhibiting their independence of the “verdomde
Englishmen.” Even photographic art was called in to perpetuate this
official murder, the accompanying view of the execution being openly
sold in the streets of Pretoria.

When I saw Niabel, he knew I was an Englishman and a stranger, and by
his manner evidently wished to show me plainly the contempt in which he
held his captors. Leaving the gaol, Dr. Dyer drove me all round the
outskirts of the town and then put me down at my hotel. Next day Mr. S.
Marks, the managing director of the Eerste Fabrieken, a large distillery
about nine miles from Pretoria on the Pienaars River, and who had been
the originator of the French Diamond Mining Co. at Kimberley, kindly
drove me out to see the factory. Immediately on crossing the Pienaars
River, after an hour and a half’s pleasant drive, the distillery,
malt-kilns and stores appeared in sight. The building, 210 feet long, 90
feet broad, and four stories high, was fitted up with the most powerful
machinery made on the latest principles, and contained as well large
store-rooms for spirits and grain. Every class of work I found done on
the premises.

The establishment indeed made quite a village in itself. A fine block of
buildings opposite the distillery contained the offices, store-rooms for
material, carpenters’, blacksmiths’ and coopers’ shops, farm laborers’
houses and stables. More than this, the company had large tracts of land
under cultivation, with oxen, cows, horses, and mules in numbers,
farming being a branch of the business. After looking over the
distillery I spent an agreeable half hour tasting the various liquors
and liqueurs. These numbered at least forty, and were manufactured from
four kinds of grain—mealies, rye, barley, and Kafir corn, and then
flavored.

Mr. Stokes, the manager, was exceedingly kind, and invited Mr. Marks and
myself to dinner in the evening, when I had the pleasure of becoming
acquainted with his charming and accomplished wife. I could have fancied
myself at the West end of London, in the midst of civilization, not in
the centre of the Transvaal. The appointments of the table, the English
trained waitresses, and the cooking were perfection. After coffee and a
delicious cigar, we retired for the night, but I felt it would take a
long time to efface from my mind this unexpected little glimpse of
refinement and culture. On my return to Pretoria next day, I asked Mr.
Fox, formerly a large Imperial contractor during the Zulu war, who had
invited me to dine with him, to advise me where I could get horses and a
conveyance to take me as far as the battlefield of Bronkhorst Spruit,
when he very kindly offered to drive me there himself if I would start
early next day, as that happened to be the only day he could spare from
his many business engagements. I jumped at the chance, and, making all
arrangements to start in the morning, I went to bed early in order to
get a good night’s rest before this little drive of eighty-four miles.
Mr. Fox, however, had some difficulty in arranging his horses, and we
did not get away until ten o’clock. Driving out of Pretoria we had an
extensive view of the lovely town. It was the middle of summer, and the
trees and fields looked so pretty and so green, and the rose hedges in
full bloom so lovely, I was perfectly enraptured, and fancied myself in
old England again. Nothing of particular interest presented itself as we
went along. The country for miles undulated in grassy plains, here and
there diversified by ranges of hills. We passed the Eerste Fabrieken on
our left, Mr. Steuben’s beautiful place “The Willows” on our right, when
pushing along the horses, only outspanning for an hour in the veldt
about half-way, arrived on the scene, so memorable at least in South
African history, at five o’clock in the afternoon. Crossing Bronkhorst
Spruit, the ground gradually rises, and on the right-hand side of the
road, dotted here and there with mimosa and thorn trees, a very gradual
eminence is formed, which was the point of vantage taken by the Boers in
intercepting our troops en route from Leydenburg, and about to
concentrate in Pretoria.

I had thoroughly posted myself in the occurrences of that eventful day,
which I will shortly relate. The 94th Regiment, together with camp
followers, numbering 267 souls in all, forming a cavalcade a mile and a
quarter in length, was slowly dragging its way to Pretoria, when on
approaching Bronkhorst Spruit at about half-past two o’clock in the
afternoon of the 20th of December, 1880, certain mounted Dutch scouts
were seen galloping along the top of a ridge near by. These men brought
a message, requesting Colonel Anstruther, who was in command, not to
advance any further pending an answer from Sir Owen Lanyon to an
ultimatum which had been sent him. This he refused, when, without
further ado, the Boers, about 500 strong, opened at once a murderous
fire upon our men, who were totally unprepared for so sudden an attack.
Down the bullets rained like hail, and our men, who lay on the ground
without a particle of shelter, were picked off with deadly precision,
until Col. Anstruther himself, mortally wounded, and most of his
officers hors de combat, seeing the day was lost, surrendered to the
Boers, after a fight lasting just twenty minutes.

After inspecting the ground and the relative positions the Dutch and
English occupied during this short but disastrous fight, we visited the
two principal places where our fallen soldiers lie buried. The larger of
these we found enclosed by a high stone wall about eighteen yards long
by twelve yards broad, and shaded by two beautiful mimosa trees. Here
lay the last remains of fifty-eight N. C. officers and men of the 94th
Regiment, and one N. C. officer, and one private Army Service Com.
killed, as the tombstone erected to their memory states, in action on
December 20, 1880. In another and smaller graveyard, some 100 yards
nearer Pretoria, the officers who fell are buried. The wall surrounding
these graves had just lately been repaired by order of the English
government, and, as if purposely planted to keep the sun’s scorching
rays from burning up the green grass waving over them, another large
wild mimosa tree threw out the protection of its flowering branches.

I have good reason to remember my visit. Wishing to see the graves and
read the inscriptions on Col. Anstruther’s tomb and those of the various
officers buried alongside him, I clambered to the top of the wall about
four feet in height, when in my weak state I reeled over, fell inside,
and, fenced in as it were, it was some half hour before my companion,
who himself had lost the use of one leg, was able to get me out. Here
lie buried together five out of the nine officers who were in charge of
the 94th Regiment, which as I said before was proceeding from Lydenburg
to Pretoria. I had leisure enough you may imagine to copy their names.
Neat little crosses at the head of each grave showed the burial-places
of Lieut. Col. P. K. Anstruther, Capt. T. McSweeney, Capt. N. McLeod
Nairne, Lieut. H. A. C. Harrison and E. T. Shaen Carter, transport
staff. The four officers who escaped with their lives were Capt.
Elliott, for whose subsequent and bloody murder in crossing the Vaal
River two Boers were tried in Pretoria but acquitted; Lieut. Hume, Dr.
Ward, and conductor Egerton, who, it will be remembered, had the good
fortune to reach Pretoria in safety, with the regimental colors wrapped
round his waist, being allowed by the Boers after the fight to proceed
there in order to obtain medical assistance. Surgeon Major Comerford and
Dr. Harvey Crow, the latter now in practice in Pretoria, whom I had the
pleasure of meeting, went out immediately on Mr. Egerton’s bringing in
the disastrous news, and attended to the wounded.

Such was the precision of the Boer fire, as Dr. Crow told me, that the
bullet wounds averaged five per man; truly “every bullet” in this case
had “its billet.”

The Boers had evidently taken especial care to choose the ground and
measure the distance before our wagon-train appeared in sight.

I was told on good authority that many of our soldiers’ rifles were
found after the fight actually sighted at 800 yards, whereas 300 would
have been nearer the mark, and that this accounted for the few disasters
among the Boers, who only acknowledged, at all events, to one man having
been killed outright, to one dying of his wounds, and to five who were
wounded but recovered.

It was just the same at Majuba, the sighting of the rifles of our men
picked up by the enemy being woefully incorrect; it is therefore not
difficult to account for the smallness of the Boer losses there also.

Col. Anstruther, who was in command, lingered six days, until death put
an end to his sufferings, dying in his tent, as Dr. Crow told me, in
presence of Drs. Comerford, Ward, and himself. Even in his official
dispatch, written on his deathbed, Col. Anstruther never accused the
Boers of having acted unfairly in the fight, although a rumor to that
effect was freely circulated.

Dr. Crow wrote at the time a most touching account of his burial. He
said, “Words fail to describe a scene so sad and so unique. The remains
were placed on a stretcher and carried by four sergeants, three out of
the four being wounded; while the majority of those who followed were
wounded too, some on crutches, others wearing splints, others with
bandaged heads, and some unable to walk, were carried on the backs of
their more fortunate comrades. At the grave not a dry eye could be seen,
and one and all seemed to think that a friend, a good man, and a
soldier, in the widest and best sense of the term, was gone for ever
from their midst.”

Mr. Nellmapius, the Portuguese Vice Consul, whose acquaintance I had
formed on the diamond fields, and Mr. John Gray of Transpoort, who years
before I had known as a sugar planter in Natal, with a few others, did
all they could for the wounded, who for four months were kept and
attended to under canvas.

The Boers, it is said, showed a good deal of kindness and attention to
our wounded immediately after the fight; but a friend of mine who was
there at the time, and with whom I discussed the question of the Boers
and their motives, assured me they did not treat our wounded kindly from
any feelings of sympathy, but from a fear of after consequences, should
the tide of war flow against them, and it was that reason which made
them leave us alone after the fight to sink or swim as best we might,
without let or interference.

Turning our horses’ heads homewards, we just managed to drive a few
miles on the road to Pretoria when darkness overtook us, and we
outspanned near some Dutch wagons which were going up to Sekokoni’s
country. I received great kindness from the Boer in charge, who, seeing
I was far from well, insisted on my taking a sleep in his wagon until
the moon rose, which it did about four o’clock in the morning, enabling
us to continue our journey.

Whatever may be reported concerning the incivility and churlishness of
the Boers, I only speak from my own experience when I say that during
the whole of my trip I received nothing but kindness at their hands. I,
however, treated them with proper courtesy, not as an inferior race,
which so many English upstarts do, did not order when I should ask, nor
forget that the farmer was to a certain extent my host. These Dutch
farmers have become uncivil in their own defence. A good deal is due to
the diamond fields, and the different classes they have attracted. On
the coach arriving at a Dutch farm-house, where as a favor its
passengers were allowed to rest, some among them would, too often, take
unpardonable liberties, would order round the inmates, enter the
gardens, break off branches of the trees, steal the fruit if ripe, if
unripe pelt each other with it from sheer wantonness, and leave when
they had caused the farmer all the damage and annoyance they could. No
wonder that in time all strangers were treated alike with abrupt and
scant courtesy. Pushing along when the moon rose, we drove to Zwart
Kopje, close to which there is a nice farm-house surrounded by splendid
fruit trees. This was the place where the first fight took place after
Bronkhorst Spruit. Zwart Kopje at the time was a very strong position,
but our troops were successful in dislodging the Laager which the Boers
had formed there, losing, however, six men in the attempt, while our
enemies lost three. Here we took a good rest; intending to make the
“Eerste Fabrieken” the last stage before Pretoria; we did this and then
resting a short time at Mundt’s farm, seeing some pretty girls and
eating some delicious fruit, we arrived at Pretoria about six P. M.,
after a most delightful and interesting trip.

I need scarcely say that sleep soon fell upon me, but dreams of cruel
disappointment, broken faith, ruined prospects, shattered fortunes,
disgrace and despair, haunted me the livelong night, and when morning
broke, I woke up with the stern fact forcing itself upon me, that all,
alas! was but too true, the vivid dreams of the night being but
phantasms of the day’s sober realities.

Even in Mr. Gladstone’s political manifesto, previous to the last
general election but one, he thus attempted to excuse his disgraceful
surrender to the Boers after the defeat at Majuba: “We have been
severely condemned because, after supplying military means such as to
place beyond doubt the superiority of the British power, we refused to
prosecute a work of sanguinary subjugation.”

How Mr. Gladstone could write such misleading words, in the face of his
own previously expressed opinion, in face of the distinct and positive
answer he made Mr. Rylands in the House of Commons on January 22, 1881,
that, “it was the resolute intention of the government to establish the
British supremacy in the Transvaal in the first instance,” in the face
of Bronkhorst Spruit, Laing’s Nek, Tugogo, and Majuba, four defeats,
which entirely put an end to the belief in British superiority, not only
in the minds of the Boers, but also in those of the natives, is
difficult to understand.

The retrocession of the Transvaal will remain a blot on the Gladstone
escutcheon which no amount of sophistry will ever be able to wipe out.

My medical friends were very kind; the luncheons, dinners, and suppers I
ate, and the genial society I enjoyed at their hospitable boards, I
shall never forget.

The mail cart I learned started for Natal the next evening, so I spent
the day in taking my farewells and in preparing for my journey. The mail
was, however, delayed, and did not leave until two o’clock in the
morning, Dr. Crow very kindly sitting up to see me safely away. At last
we started for Pieter Maritzburg, when bidding the genial doctor “Good
bye” and Pretoria adieu we rattled away at full gallop, with 450 miles
of South African road before us.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXIX.
LEAVE PRETORIA.—A TRYING SITUATION.—HEIDELBERG,
STANDERTON.—MICHAELSON’S.—BOER CAMP AT LAING’S NEK.—MAJUBA ONCE
MORE.—NEWCASTLE.—MARITZBERG, PLOUGH HOTEL.—D’URBAN.—VOYAGE TO THE
CAPE.—CURIOUS MENTAL PHENOMENON.—RETURN TO KIMBERLEY.

The mail cart by which I left Pretoria was so arranged that the
passengers sat back to back, but as there was the driver besides myself
only. I was obliged to sit at the back to preserve the balance. Feeling
very weak I tied myself in with a rope, which, having passed round my
waist, I fastened to either side of the tent of the cart, so that
whatever might happen, I could not be thrown out. The road to Six Mile
Spruit was very smooth, the night dark, and being dead tired out, I fell
to sleep at once; Morpheus, however, did not long hold me in his arms,
for my slumbers were soon disturbed. I was suddenly awakened to the fact
that something had gone wrong. Collecting my scattered senses, I saw at
once that the driver had outspanned the horses, and tied them up, two to
each wheel, where, neighing and kicking with fright, they were pulling
and swaying the cart about in opposite directions to get loose, till at
last over it went, and all four horses tore themselves free and broke
away at a bound. Fortunately uninjured, yet unable to get out by myself,
I laid tied up fast in the cart, until at dawn of day the driver, who
had been sleeping in the stable of a farm-house close by, came to inspan
again. Seeing the cart upset, the horses gone, he naturally looked to
see where I was, and releasing me from my awkward predicament, went to
seek for his horses. The farmer himself next appeared on the scene, one
of the fattest, jolliest, old fellows I have ever met. He paid me more
kind attention than I could ever have expected, and insisted on my going
to his house, where we drank cup after cup of coffee until the sun was
well up. Von Schalkveigh, for that was his name, once an Old Colony
farmer, had been loyal to the backbone during the war.

At last, the horses being found, my driver made up for lost time, and
after two or three changes of animals, we drove up to the “Royal Hotel”
at Heidelberg just as the rain was commencing to pour in torrents.

This is a neat village of about 250 inhabitants. The Blesbok Spruit,
which nearly encircled it, formed quite a picture in the foreground,
while the background was filled up by the hills over which we had just
come. Heidelberg had always been described to me as an oasis in the
desert, my informants applying that term to it both from its natural
beauties and from the geniality of its residents. It did not take me
long to find out it was a colony composed almost entirely of thrifty,
well-to-do Scotchmen, who had chosen, with considerable cuteness, the
best position for miles round on which to settle.

Mr. MacLaren, the “institution” of the place, a prosperous merchant, and
I can say without fear of contradiction one of the most hospitable
Scotchmen in South Africa, invited me to lunch. His kindness to the
English officers brought here as prisoners of war, after the Dutch
success at Majuba, was a matter of common report. It was well known if
he had not entertained them as guests of his own, they would have been
confined in the common gaol. Such kindness at such a time cannot be over
estimated. Here the Boers had their headquarters during the war, the
Dutch flag having been hoisted at the beginning of the revolt, without
resistance or bloodshed, on Durgaan’s Day, December 16th, 1880.

During the war the Boers behaved very creditably to the townsfolk,
treating them well and paying for everything which they got from the
stores. Round about they made laagers to defend the place, possession of
which our troops from force of circumstances were unable to even attempt
to gain.

It was still raining when we drove away, and just as darkness was
closing round we outspanned at a farm-house where we stayed the night.
The next afternoon we came to Standerton on the Vaal River.

[Illustration:

MONUMENT

ERECTED BY THE BOERS TO THEIR COMRADES (TWO) FALLEN AT MAJUBA,
MICHAELSON’S, LAING’S
NEK, TRANSVAAL.
]

This village, with 300 regulars and 70 civilians, was invested by 700
Boers on December 24th, 1880, and for two months and a half, until the
armistice was proclaimed, it was able to act on the defensive only.

Crossing the river, in a few hours we came to the residence and store of
Mr. Michaelson, where we stopped the night. These had been used as
hospitals by the Boers, from January 28th, 1880, to the close of the
war. Here the road divides, one branch leading to Wakkerstroom, the
other to Coldstream, and over Laing’s Nek into Natal.

Within forty yards of Mr. Michaelson’s house the Boers have erected a
monument to their dead who fell at Majuba; on this every death which
occurred on that day, so fatal to our arms and prestige in South Africa,
is distinctly recorded.

The accompanying picture is from a sketch which I made on passing. When
looking at this reminder of scenes gone by, I could not help thinking
over our own dead, sleeping peacefully in the graveyard at Mount
Prospect, just across the border, a few short miles away.

Mrs. Michaelson and her husband were very kind, invited me into their
private house, gave me a good dinner and bed; but I had not long to
rest, as Mr. Michaelson awoke me before daylight in the morning, the
mail cart starting very early. Passing Coldstream, the sun was just
rising as we came near on our left hand to the site of the Boer camp
during the late war; and now, more vividly than on my former visit,
seeing both sides of the situation, could I realize the fact that if the
late Sir G. Pomeroy Colley had taken any rocket apparatus, or Gatling
gun, with him on his ascent of Majuba, or even ordered a diversion to be
made at Laing’s Nek, the Boer camp must have lain entirely at his mercy.
The day would have been his own, Gladstone’s fit of repentance
unnecessary, and the English flag would yet be flying over the
Transvaal.

The morning, beautiful and clear after the night’s rain, enabled me, as
the post-cart passed along the road winding at its base, distinctly to
see every outline of Majuba once more, towering 3,000 feet above. It is
one of the finest scenes in South Africa, and will well repay a visit,
the more so as within a radius of ten miles the student can read three
lessons in the history of his own time.

Away on our left we drove past the battlefield of Laing’s Nek, bid
farewell to the resting-place of poor Colley at Mount Prospect, took a
last look at the roadside inn, now alas! in ruins, where two and a half
years before I had passed such pleasant hours, until arriving at the
Ingogo drift, Vormstone gave me a splendid breakfast. An hour’s rest,
off we went again, crossed the Ingogo and made the gradual ascent, which
I have described before in another chapter, to the battlefield of
Schuin’s Hooghte.

Here I got the post-cart driver to stay for a quarter of an hour, while
I paid a second visit to the graveyard close to the road. I found
everything just the same as when I was last there immediately after the
war, except that close alongside a neat little monument had been erected
in commemoration of those who fell on the field, and those who died,
ignominiously _deserted_ three short years before.

[Illustration:

MONUMENT

ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF THE FALLEN (BRITISH) AT SCHUIN’S HOOGHTE.
MAJUBA IN
THE DISTANCE.
]

Galloping down from Schuin’s Hooghte, a few miles more brought us to
Newcastle, and as the mail for Maritzburg did not start till next day, I
got a good rest. Everything in Newcastle had gone back. No signs of the
lavish spending of Imperial money! No military camp with its reckless
expenditure now. The fine hotel, which on my former visit was crowded
with officers, contractors, sutlers and army hangers-on, had been burnt
down, and was in ruins. “The place thereof shall know it no more for
ever.” My old friend, Greenlees, invited me to dinner, but I noticed
that he looked upon me with kindly pity, as one with whom cruel fortune
had made merry, and not as

“A man that fortune’s buffets and rewards
Had ta’en with equal thanks.”

I left Newcastle early next morning, travelling over the same ground as
I did years before, stayed at Ladysmith an hour or two, and tried to eat
a most infamously served lunch in, I think, the “inn’s worst room,” and
started again for Colenso, where I rested the night. At early dawn we
were on the move. On we went, calling at Pinchin’s hotel at Estcourt,
kept by a fellow passenger who came with me to Natal “two decades”
before in the “_Tugela_” then away again past Howick and the beautiful
falls of the Umgeni, to Maritzburg.

The railway embankment in course of construction showed me the rapid
strides civilization was making, and was a proof that the iron horse
would soon neigh at a distance of 100 miles from the seaboard. In former
days I always went to the “Plough Hotel;” and, with a feeling I have of
never forsaking old friends or places, I went there again, but the hotel
had evidently been decorated (?) by contract for external show. The
backyard was covered in with glass, the floor paved with tawdry tiles,
and a few stunted plants sprouted in despair from green painted pots.
Everything for mere meretricious effect. The bugs, mosquitoes, dirt and
disorder of my bedroom were sufficient to drive me away to D’Urban next
day. Before I went, however, I found opportunity to see a few friends
whom I had known years before. Among them Mr. Henrique Shepstone, who in
my Natal days was Coolie Immigration Agent, afterwards Judge Philip’s
private secretary during the memorable trials in the Barbadoes, then
Secretary of Native Affairs in the Transvaal during the Lanyon régime,
and subsequently Imperial Government agent in charge of Cetywayo during
his visit to London, but now the Hon. H. Shepstone, Secretary of Native
Affairs, having lately been promoted by Sir H. Bulwer to this post,
which was formerly held by his father, Sir Theophilus Shepstone. Mr.
Polkinghoene, the Treasurer General, whose beautiful coffee estate on
the banks of the Umhloti River I had often visited, was looking after
the finances of his adopted country, while my old partner in planting
when I was on the coast had forsaken the cure of coffee, and taken to
the cure of souls!

Reclining in a luxurious railway carriage, I was able to look back on
post-cart travelling and its miseries, thinking of Virgil’s “Forsitan
hæc olim meminisse juvabit,” the present comfort making up for the
disagreeables of the past. Every comfort or pain in this world is by
comparison, and a first-class railway carriage seemed a very haven of
rest after my 700 mile post-cart trip through Griqualand West, the
Transvaal, and Natal. “Comparisons are odious,” but after the “Plough”
at Maritzburg, the “Royal” at D’Urban, where I stayed, seemed a perfect
paradise. I can scarcely tell how thoroughly I enjoyed my few days rest
before the steamer “_Asiatic_” bore me to Capetown!

The Indian waiters robed in spotless white, the _recherché_ bills of
fare, the noble dining-room with punkahs in constant play, the beds
supplied with mosquito curtains, the obliging landlord, the _tout
ensemble_ in fact, forced me, after an experience of nearly every large
hotel in South Africa, to one conclusion, which was that the “Royal” at
D’Urban was beyond any comparison _the_ hotel of the country.

After a few days pleasant coasting, calling at East London, Port
Elizabeth and Mossel Bay, meeting friends at every place, we anchored at
last in Table Bay, but as the wind had suddenly commenced to blow great
guns from the southeast, the Captain would not risk docking his steamer.

Expecting to meet my wife, who had cabled she was coming out, after
hearing of my accident, I risked going ashore in a small boat, getting
drenched through for my pains. “All’s well that ends well,” however, and
on landing I found that she had arrived safely the day before in the
“_Athenian_” and was awaiting me.

I was naturally very curious to learn what had caused her unaccountable
anxiety, which I mentioned in my last chapter, as particular care had
been taken to keep the fact of my accident from being cabled to her, and
she had remained in entire ignorance of my condition until letters
reached her. She told me that she was sitting alone reading, much
interested in her book, when she felt a sharp thrill, like an electric
shock, pass through her from head to foot. This distracted her attention
for a moment, but as she was about to resume her book, she heard a voice
distinctly say “Pray for Joe, _pray for Joe_.” This occurred on Sunday,
December 2d, which was the day after my accident, and when in both
Kimberley and Du Toit’s Pan prayers had been offered in many churches
for my recovery.

In as far as I have read the accounts of such phenomena, this differs
from them in some respects, and so I think may be interesting to members
of the Psychical Research Society, and those engaged in investigating
such mental phenomena or coincidences as clairvoyance, thought reading,
etc.

Although I ought to have taken a longer rest from work, I could not hear
inactivity, and resumed the practice of my profession on February 14th,
1884. This I continued as before until August, 1886, when, as I tell
later on, I visited the Kaap Gold Fields.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXX.
VISIT TO THE KAAP GOLD FIELDS.—CAVES AT WONDERFONTEIN.—THE DUIVEL’S
KANTOOR—“THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH.”—BARBERTON AND ITS
DEVELOPMENT.—COURSE OF GOLD DISCOVERIES.

During the course of the year 1886 certain events occurred which
determined me upon visiting Europe, and possibly settling in America,
but before deciding upon the exact date of my departure, I resolved to
visit Barberton, the main town of the Kaap Valley Gold Fields, in the
Transvaal, and learn for myself on the spot the truth or otherwise of
the statements then being made about the Fields, and which were exciting
such intense interest in the Cape Colony and Natal, and even were
beginning to attract the attention of the European capitalists.

I left Kimberley with that object in view in August last, by the mail
coach, which ran through as far as Marais’ Farm, a few hours beyond
Middleburgh, a small town seventy miles from Pretoria, the capital of
the state, and which may be remembered as a place of some importance
during Sir Garnet Wolseley’s operations in the Sekukuni war. I trusted,
though the mail-coach service ended there, that some favorable
opportunity of getting on to Barberton, the chief mining town of the
district, might present itself. The gold fields that I was especially
desirous of visiting lie between the Godwaan plateau and the Makoujwa
range of mountains, along the valley of the Kaap and Crocodile Rivers,
about 240 miles east of Pretoria. The ground between Kimberley and
Pretoria I had travelled over three years before and consequently was
well acquainted with it. The country I found as naturally rich and as
picturesque as on my former visit, but I could not detect any signs of
progressive energy or life. Everybody seemed imbued with the same
lethargy and lack of industry and enterprise. On my arrival at Pretoria,
however, I found the town, or rather the bars of the European Hotel and
the clubs, in a state of unnatural ferment, owing to the “boom”
occasioned by the newly discovered gold deposit at Witwatersrand, a
place some thirty-five miles distant.

The gold there, I was told, had been found in a well-cased conglomerate,
and the yield per ton was reported to be something fabulous. As a
natural result speculation of the wildest character was going on.

Before arriving at Potchefstroom, formerly the capital of the state, the
coach passed Wonderfontein, a farm where we changed horses, and which
now possesses a certain historical importance as being the main centre
of the Boer deliberations during their late successful struggle for the
independence of their country.

Here the driver of the coach was induced to wait an hour in order to
give the passengers the opportunity of visiting a renowned cave in the
vicinity.

A tedious drive all night had brought us at last, at ten o’clock in the
morning, to Wonderfontein. During the last hour or so, when the rising
sun with profuse splendor “tipped the hills with gold,” the scenery,
which had been rather monotonous since daybreak, became lighted up by
glimpses of the beautiful Mooi River, which we could see running like a
thread of glittering silver at the foot of a high range of hills to join
the Vaal River below Potchefstroom. Of a wonderful cave on this farm I
had often heard, and long wished to see. Mr. V. Aswegen, a son-in-law of
the late proprietor, very kindly consented to act as guide, and show us
the subterranean wonders which he told us he had discovered seven years
ago, when out hunting game, at the same time adding that the existence
of the cave was but little known, not many visitors coming to the spot.
On our arrival at the place pointed out to us by the guide (four miles
from his house), which was surrounded by trees, we scrambled down a few
feet into something like a pit twenty feet deep, and about thirty yards
in diameter, having at one corner a little hole barely large enough to
admit a man.

[Illustration:

CAVE AT WONDERFONTEIN.
]

Through this we groped one at a time. We did not advance far before the
pitchy darkness caused us to stop and light the candles and lamps with
which each visitor had been provided. Then continuing our descent for
twenty minutes at least, as it were into the bowels of the earth, we
were suddenly ushered into a hall of dazzling whiteness, a scene of
startling fairy-like beauty presenting itself which words fail me to
describe. Passing on a few yards we found ourselves in a large
amphitheatre, at least one hundred yards across, with a dome sixty feet
in height, arching above. From this hung in profusion groups of
glittering stalactites, like giant icicles, some being as much as thirty
feet in length, others shorter, and all the color of driven snow, which,
combined with the stalagmites growing as if out of the floor and in some
cases meeting, produced an effect which was simply superb.

Stalactites are produced, I may state, by the percolation of water,
holding some mineral matter in solution, through the rocky roofs of
caverns; the evaporation of the water producing a deposit of the mineral
matter, and gradually forming the long pendant cones. Large caves are
found only in limestone regions, and chemistry shows that water holding
lime in solution does so by virtue of the carbonic acid it contains, and
will deposit the lime when the acid escapes.

Imagination here could revel at will, and play any freaks she chose. To
the fancy were suggested vivid and varied scenes, while associations of
all kinds—recollections of the past, and anticipations of the
future—crowded on the spectator’s mind. In one corner the stalactites
extended nearly to the ground, in circular pillars, and to the eye of
fancy seemed like the carved confessionals in some continental
cathedral, and it needed no great stretch of imagination to expect
momentarily the appearance of the fair penitent and “holy friar.” A
little further—still allowing fancy scope—there could be seen the pipes
of a magnificent organ, extending to the dome, while, seemingly to prove
that all was real, our guide ran his fingers over these vibrating pipes,
bringing out a succession of tones both musical and clear. Looking on
the other side of what I shall term this magnificent hall, the Roman
Forum, with its eloquent speakers, and the noble orations they delivered
in centuries gone by, were brought vividly to one’s memory by the very
model of an ancient rostrum, standing ready for another Cicero again to
mount and passionately declaim “Quosque tandem abutere, Catilina,
patientia nostra.”

At the request of my companions I mounted this natural platform, when
amid most enthusiastic plaudits from the friendly audience I spoke as
felicitously as I could on the Transvaal and its resources, and dwelt
upon the probable time, the countless ages, which had been consumed in
the formation of the natural beauties we were viewing.

Before bidding farewell to this never-to-be-forgotten scene, we gathered
together underneath the centre of the dome and sang “God save the
Queen,” our guide, with the precision of a drummer, beating time on one
of the pendant cones. I must not forget to mention that the echo which
reverberated through this majestic hall reminded me most vividly of the
Taj Mahal at Agra, and of the curious acoustic properties of that white
marble mausoleum. But the distant notes of our driver’s bugle summoning
us, we were suddenly reminded that we must again tempt the fortunes of
“a cold, cold world,” and leave these mysterious caverns to the darkness
of midnight and the silence of the grave.

After a day’s rest at Potchefstroom we went on to Pretoria (the seat of
government since November, 1865), where we stayed the night, and started
next morning for Marias’ Farm, sixty miles beyond Middleburg, where, as
I have already told you. the mail service ceased. Here I and a fellow
passenger were compelled to hire a special conveyance to take us on to
the Duivel’s Kantoor, passing through the romantic Eland’s Valley and by
the side of the Barret-Berlyn property. This village (the Kantoor),
which is picturesquely situated at the very edge of the Drakensberg
overlooking the Kaap Valley, was formerly the headquarters of the
diggers for alluvial gold on the Godwaan plateau, and also the residence
of the gold commissioner. I will refer to one of my letters for a
description of the scene: “A short distance from the hotel where I am
resting I have just seen one of the finest sights that has fallen to my
lot to behold since I have been in South Africa. It is only a stone’s
throw from the table where I am writing to the edge of the Drakensberg,
but before the grand scene which I shall essay to describe to you bursts
upon the view, the pathway twists and winds through such immense
water-worn sandstone boulders, tossed as it were promiscuously around,
and of every conceivable size and fantastic shape, that no wonder the
illiterate and superstitious but God-fearing Boer imagined some
supernatural power—the Devil himself, in fact—when in a capricious mood
had taken a particular interest in the locality.

“You have not forgotten, I am sure, our trip to the Falls of the Tugela
in 1870, where, in one unbroken sheet, we saw that river leap over the
Drakensberg 1,800 feet. I can even now picture to myself the view from
the top of the Berg, a spot where few save the prowling Bushmen, with
their poisoned arrows, have ever been; and can well remember how I
feasted my eyes on the vast expanse below, studded with the homesteads
of enterprising British colonists. I have been, as you know, on Majuba’s
heights, and have seen the rocks up which General Smith and his plucky
band resolutely climbed on that eventful Sunday morning, performing one
of the most heroic feats of modern times—and I have lingered for hours
on Table Mountain, viewing the magnificent panorama of Capetown, with
its docks and shipping, the picture framed on the one side by the green
of its beautiful suburbs, and on the other by the blue of the mighty
Ocean. But these all pale before the view of the Kaap Valley from the
Duivel’s Kantoor.

“When I first reached the edge of the Berg, the Kaap Valley—2,000 feet
below me, which I knew from report was some thirty miles in diameter and
surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills—presented a weird and beautiful
appearance, being entirely covered by a dense white mist, which seemed
like some vast inland sea. At the same time the rising sun, topping the
hills on the other side of the valley, added to the novelty of the scene
by pouring its dissolving rays, through a clear and cloudless sky, on
the misty surface which glittered like a mirror as it reflected back the
golden sheen. By degrees, as the sun, rising higher in the heavens,
became more powerful, the conical-shaped hills which dotted the valley
began to pierce through the mist, and beautiful islands with their bays
and inlets seemed traced as on a map before me. I could not leave the
place—I seemed rooted to the spot; but after turning round for a few
seconds a still greater surprise was in store, for during the brief
period that my attention had been withdrawn, a change, as if by magic,
had taken place. The ‘blanket’ or ‘table-cloth,’ as the mist is called,
had suddenly disappeared, and the whole valley was exposed to view;
only, however, hanging over the spruits and marking their courses, did
it still remain.”

Ten or twelve years ago, I have been told, this valley was in many parts
a complete swamp; it was, notwithstanding this however, a favorite
resort in the winter for the Boers from the neighboring high lands who
came to shoot the big game—the lions, tigers, buffaloes, and rhinoceri,
with which it abounded; but my medical knowledge soon told me the reason
why the Boers had formerly named this romantic valley “The Valley of the
Shadow of Death,” for the stern reality forced itself upon me that the
pestiferous breath of the rolling mist, that I had just so much admired,
although beautiful and fair to view, was dangerous in the extreme, and
would yet prove the “bed-rock” which full many an unlucky digger would
be sure to “strike.”

[Illustration:

BARBERTON, TRANSVAAL.
]

To the northeast I had pointed out to me the conical-shaped Spitzkop,
which, with the Devil’s Knuckles, Mauch Berg, 8,725 feet high, and
Macdonald’s Berg, mark the Lydenberg Gold Fields, and straight across to
the south and southeast I could see Barberton, Moodie’s Lower Camp,
Pretorius Kop and the Tafelberg, while the Makoujwa range, which forms
the boundary between the Transvaal and Swaziland, formed the background
to the scene. I am told there is an oil painting of this beautiful
valley in the South Kensington Museum, painted by a Dutch artist as long
ago as 1790. All the way on our road to Barberton, at which place it
took us at least eight hours to arrive, we found the valley through
which we passed uninhabited; yet there were at almost every few yards,
in the shape of piles of stones, heaped together for mealie-garden
clearings, evidences that this valley had but one generation back been
enormously populated. In the early part of the century Umselikatzi, the
late chief of the Matabeli—himself a Zulu, in fact a cousin of Chaka—was
sent out of Zululand by Chaka, Cetywayo’s uncle, when he swept through
Swaziland, and depopulated this valley, and, as one writer says, “they
slew and slew until their arms were tired of killing,” then establishing
himself in Matabele Land, beyond the Limpopo, set himself up as an
independent monarch. This accounts very clearly for the fact that,
although other tribes and languages intervene between the Zulu country
and Matabele Land, yet nearly pure Zulu is even now spoken by the
Matabeli.

The Kaap Valley after this became a species of “No Man’s Land,” and the
habitat simply of refugee Kafirs and broken-up tribes, who acknowledged
themselves subjects of the Swazi king and paid him tribute. The Swazis,
however, from time to time, sent commanders further north, and made
raids on Sekukuni’s Kafirs, or Bapedi, who, although they were once or
twice successful in repulsing the invaders, were at last conquered, when
the Swazis became paramount as far north as the Steelpoort River. This
strip of land extending from the Makoujwa range to the river
above-mentioned, including of course the Kaap Valley, was ceded to her
Majesty’s government by the Swazi king; who, however, now declares that
he never gave it to the Boers, who obtained it from us on the
retrocession, but to her Majesty.

On my arrival at Barberton, which is the rendezvous of all the
prospectors in the neighborhood, I found it to consist of a mining town
of about 2,000 inhabitants, nestling at the foot of the steep range of
hills which serves to divide the Transvaal from Swaziland. This place,
which but a few months before had been a village with but one or two
houses, before I left was the centre of a large and increasing
population. Some idea may be formed when I tell you that the government
has allotted 3,000 building stands on which there are hotels, stores,
churches of different denominations, either completed or in course of
erection, two stock exchanges, a club, a theatre, two music halls, three
newspaper offices, three banks, a market-house, as well as large
government buildings, comprising courts of law, post and telegraph
offices, and last, but not least, that necessity of existence known in
this country as a “tronk,” but elsewhere a prison—in fact, if it were
not for the absence of the railway-engine and electric wire, none of the
requirements of civilization would be wanting.

Some idea of the sudden rise of Barberton may be gained when a
comparison is made of its past and present postal requirements. In
March, 1886, the revenue from the sale of postage stamps amounted only
to £24, while more than £1,000 worth were sold in December of the same
year. During the same month the revenue from other sources amounted to
over £16,000, and taking this as a fair monthly average at the present
time, the revenue from Barberton and the Kaap Gold Fields alone is
considerably greater than that of the whole state some two or three
years ago.

Naturally, among a population composed of men of various types and
nationalities, a great diversity of character must be found,
hard-working men, sober toilers, drunken sots, worthless loafers, men of
strict integrity, and others without a grain of honesty in their
composition, are to be met with daily. Sad to say, a good many of those
sent up to the Kaap Gold Fields to prospect, supported by syndicates in
the Colony or Natal, never searched for the precious metal save in the
billiard room, though as a change, now and then, they took an enjoyable
picnic on the veldt at the expense of the confiding contributors to
their outing.

It is a matter much to be regretted that strong drink, with its
accompanying vices and crimes, and the diseases that its excess induces,
especially in hot countries, always follows the advent of the
Anglo-Saxon. In and around this small community canteens and low
grog-shops absolutely swarm, the number of licensed houses in the
district being over 200—or one grog-shop for every ten of its
population. The state places no limit on the issue of licenses, either
wholesale or retail; at present, until Barberton be declared a township,
when a retail liquor license will cost £50, the one can be obtained for
£12, and the other for £15, per annum, and Sunday trade is not
restricted.

Barberton and the surrounding locality, in my opinion, would be as
healthy and have as low a death-rate as any place in South Africa, the
climate being both pleasant and invigorating, if only the simplest
sanitary precautions[110] were adopted by the authorities, and the
population generally were fairly abstemious.

I wish here to correct a most erroneous impression which seems to
prevail through South Africa as to the danger of residence in Barberton
during the summer months. The climate of Barberton is but little, if at
all, more unhealthy than that of Kimberley, and I speak advisedly from
professional experience gained in both places. The only real exception
that can be taken against Barberton as compared with Kimberley is, that
being some seven degrees nearer the equator, the heat is more intense,
and consequently greater care has to be taken in avoiding its depressing
influences than in the other locality named. Let me, therefore, beg of
you to disabuse your minds of the belief that Barberton in summer-time
is a hot-bed of malaria. I must confess that I started to Barberton with
a certain amount of trepidation as to the possibility or probability of
myself or my healthiest neighbors being stricken down without warning by
an attack of fever, the picturing of whose virulency had led me to
expect an active counterpart to the great plague of London. Other
practitioners there have owned to similar preconceived notions, of
which, like myself, they soon become disabused. As a matter of fact,
nothing can be further from the truth. Malaria indisputably exists in
the low-lying districts situated to the north of Barberton; but a
residence in and about that district, when accompanied by reasonable
precautions, is as safe for a healthy man, woman or child, as almost
anywhere in South Africa.

The Transvaal government, urged on no doubt by the exaggerated reports
of the unhealthiness of the town, has generously given £2,000 to assist
in building a general hospital. Pending the completion of this building
a neat little cottage hospital has been fitted up, a medical staff
appointed, and, with two trained nurses from the Kimberley hospital, who
have volunteered their services, the sick poor are now fairly
comfortable. The reports circulated through South Africa concerning the
insalubrity of the Fields are fearfully exaggerated, but they have
already attracted a number of doctors, largely in excess of the
requirements of the place.

It is amusing to note the mistakes of current journalism. For instance,
in the last Christmas annual issued by the _Natal Mercury_ appeared the
following remarkable piece of information: “The Kantoor is regarded as
the sanatorium of Barberton, and to it the inhabitants repair on the
first symptoms of illness.” It is not necessary for me to tell you that
the Kantoor is thirty-five miles distant from Barberton, and I should
pity the poor patient who would have to “jog his bones over the stones”
in order to seek renewed health in this so-called sanatorium.

But as far as the finding of gold is concerned, the wave of modern gold
discovery in Southeast Africa has flowed in an entirely opposite
direction from the course it might have been expected to take,
commencing in the interior and proceeding by slow and measured steps in
the direction of the coast.

[Illustration:

BARBERTON.—FIRST GAOL AND HOSPITAL.
]

I may here just remind you of the unsuccessful expedition sent out in
1650 from Lisbon, under Francesco Barreto, to explore the gold fields of
these regions, and _en passant_ may mention that the yearly yield of
gold exported at a somewhat later date by the Portuguese was more than a
million pounds sterling in value, or, according to one authority,
£3,000,000. Yet these matters I will not enter into fully now, but
review at once the result of the work done in recent years.

Before proceeding further I may recall a fact that many may have
forgotten, _viz._: that the Transvaal Republic, under President
Pretorius, made it penal for any one (£500 fine) finding precious stones
or metals on his farm to reveal such discovery to any one except the
government, and it was not until during the more liberal _régime_ of
President Burgers that this absurd piece of senile legislation was
rescinded or fell into abeyance.

But as I say, to come to modern times—Mr. H. Hartley, the celebrated
elephant hunter and explorer, while shooting in the Matabele country in
1866, was led to suspect the existence of gold in that country, and so
excited was he from what he saw, and also from the current stories
afloat, that on the next trip which he took in the following year he
brought with him a young German traveller, the late Carl Mauch, to aid
him in discovering the truth or falsehood of these reports. Mauch wrote
in the most glowing terms of what he saw, and of the wonderful richness
of the quartz that he found, the result being that after the formation
of various colonial companies Sir John Swinburne and Capt. Levert,
representing the London and Limpopo Mining Co., came out from England in
1868, fully equipped, and proceeded to the Tati gold fields, of which
district Capt. Levert had got a grant from Umzelegatzi. These fields,
extending from northwest to southeast, a distance of forty miles long by
fourteen broad, are in 21° 27′ S. Lat., and 27° 40′ E. Long. There are
on the settlement itself, according to Alfred G. Lock, F.R.G.S., eleven
mines (in fact nine different companies were formed) from which gold has
been taken, and these are all situated, he says, on workings sixty to
seventy feet deep, of the age of which some idea may be gathered from
the fact that trees from 150 to 200 years old are now growing within
these ancient shafts. The workings of the Tati gold fields were
continued by Sir John Swinburne, and afterwards by August Griete, for
about three years, when they were abandoned. One Australian miner,
however, remained behind, working on what was named the New Zealand
Reef, and his efforts were sufficiently successful to induce Mr. D.
Francis of Kimberley, to apply to Benguela, the Matabele king, for Sir
J. Swinburne’s concession, which he obtained, but up to the present time
operations have been conducted without much success,

The discovery of other gold fields 350 miles to the northeast of the
Tati followed in a few weeks that of these fields. In October, 1868,
McNeil of D’Urban, with other members of the D’Urban Volunteer
Artillery, of which corps he was then Lieutenant, left Natal, went first
to the Tati, and then proceeded to what were termed the Northern gold
fields, but on fever breaking out among the party, and several dying,
the survivors thought it more prudent to return.

In 1871, five years after Hartley’s discoveries, Mr. E. Button, a
well-known Natal colonist who in 1868 and 1869 had prospected the
country northeast of Lydenburg, nearly as far as the water-shed of the
Zambezi, found gold upon his farm Eersteling, in the district of
Marabastad, which was a new departure in gold discovery farther to the
south.

Proceeding to England, he formed a company, The Transvaal Gold Mining
Co., with a capital of £50,000, and returned to the Transvaal with a
mining engineer of experience, and also with powerful machinery.
Although troubled with many difficulties, but principally with water in
his main shaft, he worked away with varying success until the Boer war
of 1881 put an entire stop to his efforts. The Boers, in their desperate
need at the time, made a complete wreck of his machinery, being
constrained, through want of ammunition, to cut up even the stamper-rods
of the battery, to mould into cannon balls.

The next move in a southerly direction was the finding of gold by Mr.
Lachlan and others, in September, 1873, on the Blyde (or Joyful) River,
at Pilgrims’ Rest, at Mac Mac; close by, and at Spitzkop, a solitary
hill twenty miles distant. These alluvial diggings supported from 5 to
800 diggers, and Pilgrims’ Rest became for a time a place of
considerable importance, until the principal creek being nearly worked
out, and many diggers in consequence leaving, the government virtually
drove the remainder away by granting a concession to a company formed by
Mr. David Benjamin. This concession gave power to the company to remove
all diggers on payment of compensation, which was made to the amount of
£55,000. It is a subject of regret, however, that the same want of
success has followed this company as that which has hitherto attended
the Lisbon and Berlyn, the company in connection with which the name of
Baron Grant has so prominently figured.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXI.
COURSE OF GOLD DISCOVERIES CONTINUED.—MOODIE’S SYNDICATE.—THEIR
EXORBITANT DEMANDS AND THE RESULT.—BARBER BROS., AND THE UMVOTI
REEF.—MAD SPECULATIONS.—FUTURE OF THE GOLD FIELDS.

Previous to this, in 1881, a long lull had taken place in gold
discoveries in the Transvaal, owing to various causes, and among others
to the war.

In consequence of rumors of gold having been found at Eland Hoet being
in circulation, a number of men, including prospectors, diggers, and
others, were attracted from Lydenburg and Pilgrims’ Rest to that
district, and notwithstanding the fact that this _swindle_, as it was
termed, was severely criticized in the public press, yet by this means
the discovery of the Kaap gold fields was incidentally brought about.

Many of the diggers worked up the gullies, came on the Godwaan plateau,
and ultimately the Kaapsche Hoop gold fields, still further south, with
the Duivel’s Kantoor as its centre, became an established fact. With
respect to the later gold discoveries in Swaziland I shall speak further
on. The Duivel’s Kantoor, Devil’s Counting House, at which I have
mentioned we rested a night, is now comparatively deserted, containing
but half a dozen houses, and two canteens; but in June, 1882, before the
Transvaal government, by granting a concession of most of the valuable
mining land in the locality to a private company, drove the diggers
away, this village was the prosperous business centre of at least 500
diggers, who were spread over the Godwaan plateau, an area of
twenty-eight by fifteen miles.

After the concession, of which I have just spoken, was granted to the
Barret-Berlyn Co., many of the diggers went down into the Kaap Valley
and found alluvial gold at a spot afterwards named Jamestown, close to
the Kaap River, in Lat. 25° 31′ S. and Long. 31° 26′ E., about sixteen
miles from the present town of Barberton; and although nuggets up to 58
ozs. in weight were found by individual diggers, there still was no
general or substantial success.

Jamestown, however, may take the credit to itself of being, as it has
been styled, “the cradle of the country which was in future to populate
our reefing districts.”

Some of the diggers becoming dissatisfied with their luck left the
place, went in a southwest direction, and struck some very rich gold
reefs, together with some insignificant alluvial diggings, on certain of
the farms, thirteen in number, the property of Mr. G. P. Moodie, the
Surveyor General of the Transvaal. The choice of the farms has since
proved a very lucky stroke for Mr. Moodie, for although when he acquired
them from the government he might possibly have looked forward, in the
distant future, to a railway being constructed from Delagoa Bay to
Pretoria, which would enhance their value, yet at the time he became
their owner no one ever dreamt of the possibility of their being
gold-bearing. This gentleman had made in 1870 and 1871 three official
journeys from Pretoria to the coast, with the object of discovering the
best line of road either for rail or wagon, and on his second journey he
passed through this tract of country.

I may mention, in passing, that, touching the geology of the district, a
late writer states that “the formation consists chiefly of argillaceous
slates and schists, sandstones, and conglomerate, in some places
disturbed by granite and traversed by quartz-reefs and igneous dykes.
The reefs are for the most part vertical, and run almost due east and
west, with a southerly inclination.”

But to return to the history of these gold fields, discovered on Mr.
Moodie’s farms: In November, 1882, certain terms on which diggers were
allowed to peg out claims on these properties were posted up at the Gold
Commissioner’s office at the Kantoor by Mr. Moodie’s attorneys, and as a
consequence many proceeded thither to prospect. Their reports being
considered satisfactory, a general rush was made, for with the most
crude and primitive appliances it soon became generally known that a
comparatively large quantity of gold was being turned out. The number of
diggers increased rapidly, spread out into three camps, and everything
went on prosperously until towards the end of 1883, when Mr. Moodie
disposed of his property to a Natal syndicate for £240,000. Before doing
this he rescinded the terms which he had made with the diggers during
the previous year, and the consequence was that great dissatisfaction
was caused among them. The Natal directorate, evidently with the
intention of squeezing out of the diggers all that they could get, and
forgetting the possibility of killing the goose that lays the golden
eggs, immediately began to impose the most exorbitant taxes. They
demanded £3 a month license money per claim, and a royalty of from 7½ to
4½ per cent. on all gold turned out. These changes, together with
payments for wood, water, charcoal, grazing, and stand rents, soon was
attended with the result that might have been foreseen—the diggers were
led to prospect on the government farms adjoining, and situated to the
northeast, on which in 1885 a public gold field was proclaimed.

In the winter of 1884, Messrs. Barber Bros., gentlemen well known in the
Cape Colony, at the time joining business with pleasure, were shooting
game in the Kaap Valley. In the month of August, they came to a stream
known as the Umvoti Creek, about half a mile distant from the site of
Barberton, a township which has since been named after them, when, on
looking up the side of the steep ravine bordering it, they detected a
quartz reef jutting out, which on examination showed visible gold. This,
with the assistance of Mr. T. C. Rimer, who can well lay claim to be one
of the pioneers of the Transvaal gold fields, they opened up, imported a
ten-stamp battery (the first on the Kaap fields) and began, as soon as
it was erected, to crush at once. From the moment their returns became
known the death-knell of Moodie’s Co. was tolled, either as a paying
investment, or as regards any further important increase in the
prospecting or mining on their property, although the various
sub-working companies, notwithstanding their being so heavily taxed, are
in many instances doing fairly well. The diggers now made the rush to
which I have above alluded, and left Moodie’s almost deserted, when the
mountains and gorges, the rugged slopes and defiles along the Makoujwa
range, became peopled by prospectors, attracted from all parts of South
Africa, and many valuable properties were discovered; but it was not
until “Bray’s Golden Quarry,” ten miles from Barberton, was found (May,
1885), that the South African world became awakened to the fact of the
richness of the Transvaal as a gold-yielding country. This wonderful
mine was, as the discoverer himself told me, accidentally found after
five months prospecting on the Sheba range by Mr. Edwin Bray, whom I
knew in 1871 as a pioneer diamond digger, and whose name will now
forever stand associated with the development of this auriferous region.
Although the company which he formed did not at the time possess its own
machinery, and was for months compelled to send its quartz eight miles
away over a rugged country to be crushed at an expense of at least one
oz. of gold per ton, pending the completion of a tramway to the Queen’s
River, yet it paid back in fifteen months 63½ per cent. of its capital
in dividends; its £1 shares sold readily at £75 or over, and the return
of its crushing averaged 7 oz. 3 dwts. per ton; and this, although from
tests applied it had been proved that the refuse-tailings contained 4
oz. of gold per ton, lost through imperfect manipulation.

The sight of the quarry at once raised endless speculations in my mind
as to the vastness of its wealth. To form even a remote idea was an
impossibility. On the one hand I could look from the bottom of a deep,
almost precipitous, ravine, where the reef could be measured 100 feet in
thickness, and see towering between 400 and 500 feet above me the
capping of the quartzite reef, lying at an angle of fifty degrees on the
edge of the quarry proper, while on the other no limit to the extent of
the reef hidden from view beneath my feet had yet been determined;
neither had the length of the vein, although almost certain indications
had been found that it extends nearly half a mile. I began to calculate
what the return of this company will be with the 100 stamps about to be
erected at daily work, until dreams of untold wealth came over me, from
which I awoke to warmly congratulate my old friend on his marvellous
success, which as one of the most active mineral prospectors in the
Transvaal he so richly deserves. On my visit to Mr. Bray’s I noticed
that the road to Sheba is dotted with canteens. Although the distance is
only twelve miles, yet the inner man can be supported six or seven times
before arrival at Eureka City, (within a stone’s throw of the Sheba
Reef), and when there almost as many canteens as houses may be counted.
Notwithstanding, however, the great amount of prospecting work which has
been done, very few really payable gold reefs have been as yet struck.
Speaking of prospectors’ work, I may state that on the day I left I
counted in the Gold Co.’s office 513 registered blocks of amalgamated
claims; but of these more anon. There can be no doubt that the precious
metal exists in various degrees of richness in the quartz-veins that are
to be seen all around the Kaap Valley, yet these have not been
discovered in quantity rich enough to warrant the great influx of
diggers and men of almost every trade or profession, or the absurd
speculation in claims and shares which has taken place.

[Illustration:

SHEBA REEF, BRAY’S GOLDEN QUARRY, BARBERTON.
]

The public have been warned over and over again that these are no “poor
man’s diggings,” but at a distance the very name of _gold_ serves to
call up the most enchanting visions, and forbids the difference between
alluvial diggings and quartz mining being sufficiently weighed. There is
such a thing in this world as living on a name; many a “worthless son of
a worthy sire” has found out this secret, and the name of Edwin Bray and
the stupendous wealth of his quarry has tended to enable company on
company to be floated which never will pay a dividend between this and
the day of their liquidation. To Natal men the credit is certainly due
of first developing the fields. The object which they had in view in
forming companies was to found dividend paying concerns, with small
capitals only sufficiently large to provide adequate machinery to
develop the property; whereas some, though of course not all, of the
other speculators, who came in at a later period, formed large
companies, took in any number of claims, whether proved gold-bearing or
not, so long as they would swell, with an appearance of justification,
the enormous capital of their prospectuses, got thousands of pounds
promotion money, and, by means of a nicely managed ring, ran up the
shares to a premium and then sold out.

As time goes on I feel certain that many things will have to be
rectified, none more so than the pegging out of claims by
power-of-attorney. If this absurd system be continued, there is nothing
to prevent the four hundred millions who inhabit the Celestial empire,
or even the Man in the Moon and his family—could communication be
established with Earth’s satellite—holding claims to the direct
detriment of those whose energy, determination, and self-sacrifice have
prompted them to seek their fortunes in this new El Dorado.

The Transvaal, however, will in a very short time create further
sensations. On the Sheba Hill veins of antimony (stibnite), worth in the
commercial world £33 per ton, have been found; and at the Komati,
baryta, used for bleaching and for the adulteration of white lead, has
been discovered; while in the other parts of the district horn-silver,
or chloride of silver, possessing 78 per cent. of the real metal, has
been unearthed. This is not the same as Mackay’s celebrated mine in
America, the Comstock, which is argentite, sulphite of silver, commonly
termed black silver, containing as much as 85 per cent. of silver,
though it is, as will be seen, immensely valuable. Then again, both the
blue and green carbonates of copper, as well as native copper, can be
found in abundance, and the wonderful Albert Mine, with similar ones,
situated near Pretoria, of fahlerz tetrahedrite, or grey copper ore,
running from 113 to 200 ozs. of silver to the ton, must not be
forgotten. Again, large coal deposits have been found at Ermelo and
Bronkhorst Spruit and also at Wynoor’s Poort, about 100 miles from
Barberton, the last named being very little inferior to Welsh coal.
Colonel Warren,[111] formerly on Major-General George H. Thomas’s staff
in the army of Tennessee, a practical geologist, also informed me he had
discovered in the Transvaal, on his road up to the Barberton gold
fields, petroleum shale which, he said, was almost a positive proof of
the existence of petroleum, in what may prove to be highly payable
quantities. These coal deposits will be of immense value when the
different water-rights in the Kaap Valley are all taken up, as the
necessary wood for feeding any large number of steam engines is not to
be procured without great difficulty and serious expense.[112]

Some idea of the madness of the speculation that has lately existed may
be formed, if it be taken into consideration that the inflated selling
price of the scrip of different companies floated merely, not worked,
exceeded £5,000,000, while their subscribed value is under £2,000,000.
This has produced what I may term an abnormal and unnatural state of
things, not only at De Kaap, but in various other parts of South Africa.
It is important to bear in mind (January, 1887) that there are at
present only ninety-seven stamps at work (I include those on Moodie’s),
yielding a profit of about £160,000 a year; and investors and
speculators will do well to remember that it will be at least eighteen
months before an appreciable difference in their number can be made. If
we as business men compare this return with the outlay of money which is
taking place, we can at once see the ruinous scale on which business is
conducted. As I told you, there are 513 amalgamated blocks in the
proclaimed government gold fields, paying each, on an average, £10 a
month duty to government; this is £61,560 a year. Then must be added the
cost of working; put this at a very low estimate, say £20 per block,
there is £123,120 more. I will not reckon the expenditure of those
prospectors who have not pegged out, but take next the share list of
companies floated. These amount to say roughly £1,800,000, but their
inflated value is at least £5,000,000. Now surely these investors expect
some interest on their capital, and if a modest 5 per cent. only be
allowed, although all mining speculations ought to return at least 20
per cent, (and you will agree with me, the greater part of this capital
will pay no interest for two years), we have a further loss of £250,000
a year to the investing public, or a total of £434,680 at the present
time.

I saw the mania which occurred some years ago on the Diamond Fields, but
there, even, nothing so outrageously absurd and preposterous happened as
in this gold share mania. I remember the time when central shares in the
Kimberley Mine, which in the height of the mania barely reached 300 per
cent, rise, and were, moreover, at the very time paying over 50 per
cent. interest on their subscribed value, falling on the collapse
occurring from £400 to £26 per share, and, although the property is one
of the richest in the world, yet it has taken years for it to regain its
status. How then about gold shares running up from £1 to £25 per share,
or 2,500 per cent. advance, which are not working, have no machinery,
and cannot pay a dividend, if not for years, at least for months.

The great question is, What is to be the future of these fields? I must
say that, after careful investigation, I am not sanguine as to the Kaap
Valley being able to carry any large population for a long time to come,
and even then the population will be purely a working one, men toiling
for regular wages, miners, engineers, and skilled artisans employed by
companies. The average English laborer will be driven out of the fields
by native labor, 1,500 natives being at present employed, and there will
be no such thing as a poor man jumping into a fortune except by some
extraordinary stroke of luck. I cannot too strongly impress on those who
are without capital, that Barberton is no place for them, that is,
unless they are prepared to be contented with wages no better,
proportionately, than they can earn in any other part of the world. The
skilled artisan or experienced miner may be fortunate enough to obtain a
succession of highly profitable engagements, but that is very far from
being a certainty. Although I would not altogether wish to discourage
those who are willing “to scorn delights and live laborious days,” and
who possess certain special qualifications in technical knowledge, from
visiting Barberton, even although their store of money almost reaches
the vanishing point, yet I would bid the vast majority of those without
capital to pause and ask themselves whether it is not better to “bear
those ills” they “have, than fly to others that” they “know not of.”
Were this an alluvial gold field my advice would no doubt be different.

A man who, fifteen years ago, would have found the dry diamond diggings
a possible Golconda, would now, I will not for a moment say starve, if
he be sober, honest and industrious, but will have long to wait before
he comes within measurable distance of the realization of his hopes, if
he should ever do so. At Kimberley the day of the individual digger,
unless he should be a man of enormous capital, is past and gone. There
is a curious analogy between the two places; that which the increased
expense of working, together with the amalgamation of claims, has done
for the former, the working out of the known alluvial fields has done
for the latter. In fact, I am reluctantly compelled to admit, that I
know of no poor man’s diggings of any sort in South Africa.

That some good and extremely profitable reefs have been found, I do not
for one moment wish to deny, but as I have just now said, these can be
counted on the fingers of one hand. That gold is here and in large
quantities is true, but it requires gold to get it, and there is such a
thing as paying a guinea for a sovereign.

The place is now mainly, if not entirely, subsisting on imported
capital, and that intangible entity known as hope. For capitalists, who
are choosing to risk their money in testing the value of the reef
properties, this is all very well. What I want to do, is to caution
against disappointment those who think they are on the high road to
fortune, when with hammer, pick, and tent they start off prospecting.

In concluding the subject of the gold fields I will only say that I am
afraid that great disappointment must be the lot of the many—I mean the
many who seek the fields comparatively penniless, trusting to receive
some sudden, unearned favor from the blind goddess, rather than
determining to force a smile from her by earnest, honest toil.[113]

During my four months’ stay on these fields I pursued my profession and
had many opportunities of seeing the country, being called on
professional work in almost every direction, from Eureka City and the
Sheba range to Moodie’s, and from the Kantoor to the Kami Klubane Beacon
in Swaziland. And I also assisted in carrying out the hospital work,
which was organized on a new footing while the larger government
hospital was being built.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXII.
LEAVE BARBERTON.—STEYNSDORP.—KOMATI RIVER.—KING UMBANDINI’S
KRAAL.—SWAZILAND.—THE DRINK CURSE AND ITS INEVITABLE RESULT.—INTERVIEW
OF DR. CLARK, M. P., TRANSVAAL CONSUL-GENERAL IN ENGLAND, WITH
UMBANDINI.—NATIONAL DANCE OF SWAZIES.—THE TEMBI.—DELAGOA BAY.

New Year’s day, 1887, found me for the first time for twenty-two years
devoid of all care, whether business or professional, and imbued with
one thought only, that of getting a thorough rest and change in Europe.
Wishing before leaving the country to gain as intimate a knowledge as
possible of the different railway routes to the coast, of which I had
now seen all but one, I made up my mind to walk to Delagoa Bay, through
Swaziland, see Steynsdorp, the headquarters of the Komati diggers,
glance in passing at the formation of the country and the gold reefs,
which Umbandini, the Swazi king, was so liberally giving away in
concessions, and witness, if possible, the yearly dance of the Swazis,
which is a red-letter day throughout the whole of their country. I chose
eight natives to accompany me, mixing their nationality so as to avoid
the chance of any collision on their part. I was especially fortunate in
my _induna_ (head man and guide), who was a tall, fine, strapping Swazi
and knew every inch of the country from Barberton to Delagoa Bay, both
main roads and bye-paths. Many tried to dissuade me from going, telling
me that the journey, which round by the King’s kraal was about 200
miles, was too long and fatiguing, and that I should not find sufficient
compensation for the risk of fever. But in answer to inquiries I made, I
learned that there was no danger of fever except between the top of the
Lebombo ridge and Delagoa Bay, and as the proprietor of the tug on the
Tembi had proffered to carry me from the drift where the tug lay to
Delagoa Bay, a distance of sixty miles by the river, I calculated that I
should be exposed one day only to malarial poison. How I was
disappointed in this promise I will tell in the next chapter. I allowed
my natives to divide my luggage and provisions as they deemed best, one
long headed fellow to my astonishment choosing the heaviest burden,
saying, _with a knowing look as he did so_, “It is food, it will grow
lighter every day.”

All being ready, we formed in procession (natives never walking in any
way together except in single file), I myself bringing up the rear to
prevent any of them lagging behind; and so we started from the Market
Square, Barberton, at eight o’clock, A. M., on Monday, January 10th. Our
road lay over the Makoujwa range, which we crossed a few miles from
Barberton, at the Ivy Reef, feeling, when we had made this steep climb
of 1,600 feet, that we had surmounted the first obstacle in our journey.
We walked along all day, with short intervals of rest, traversing a bold
and magnificently mountainous country, interspersed with stretches of
fine forest, and watered by innumerable streams, which roll down through
the large, deep dongas. I had hoped to reach the roadside accommodation
house at the Komati River on my first night, but darkness coming on, we
stayed at a Kafir kraal six miles on this side, and rising early got
there to breakfast. Here the Komati, fifty yards wide, runs rapidly down
its sloping bed, but with a wire rope thrown over to guide the wooden
pontoon the passage across can nearly always be made. After crossing
this river, we passed the ruins of hundreds of deserted stone kraals
which extended for miles, and were the standing witnesses of the teeming
population which years ago inhabited these valleys, before Umzilikatze
made his murderous raids through Swaziland. Pushing on, we arrived at
Steynsdorp in the mid-day. This little village, which is the centre of a
population of 500 souls, lay at the end of a long valley through which
the Umhbondisi Creek runs, and was increasing so rapidly that, at the
time I passed, a government surveyor was busy laying out a township.
Dotting the hills all round could be seen the tents of prospectors, some
of whom had discovered valuable properties—in fact this district, where
gold had been more or less sought for during the past eighteen months,
was then just beginning to answer the expectations of its pioneers.
After leaving Steynsdorp the country assumed a wilder aspect. The narrow
and rugged paths, up and down which I had to clamber, in many places on
the verge of precipitous krantzes, ran over the most picturesque country
I had yet seen in South Africa, while the loud splash and hurrying dash
of the mountain stream

“As some bright river, that, from fall to fall,
In many a maze descending,”

rushed down the hillsides, and debouched through the gorges, chanting
incessantly one of Nature’s most melodious of lays. Suddenly a large
tract of open country appeared to our view, and in front, but at least
twenty miles away, we could see the large kraal to which we were bound.
Journeying on with refreshed vigor we finished our seven hours’ weary
walk about an hour or so before the sun went down, which left me time
enough to become master of the whole situation. A most able and correct
account of Swaziland, and the state of affairs then existing, lately
appeared in one of the London papers, which I cannot do better than
quote here:

[Illustration:

KAFIR HUT.
]

“Swaziland is a small native state bounded on the north and west by
the Transvaal; from its eastern border to the sea stretches the
Portuguese territory of Delagoa Bay, and to the south lie the land of
the Zulus and the colony of Natal. The Swazi King rules over a realm
of about 9,000 square miles, containing a population of 50,000. His
people are of the same Zulu race whose prowess has been proved on more
than one ‘well foughten field,’ but of finer physique, and 15,000
warriors are at his beck and call. The country itself is mountainous
and picturesque—a sort of East African Tyrol, with a genial climate, a
fertile soil, and rich in undeveloped mineral treasures—gold, silver,
copper, and coal. The coal measures extend over a large area, are
found within forty miles of Delagoa Bay, and are connected with the
sea by the Tembi, which, though not a large river, is navigable for
small craft and might be utilized for an extensive trade in black
diamonds. Swaziland is, moreover, well wooded and well watered, and
altogether a most desirable possession, a fact of which Umbandini, its
King, an intelligent savage of dark complexion and stalwart
proportions, is fully aware.

[Illustration:

FALLS BETWEEN BARBERTON AND THE KING’S KRAAL, SWAZILAND.
]

“So also are the Boers. They call it the land of Goshen, and covet it
as eagerly as Ahab coveted the vineyard of Naboth. The Transvaal
Government make pressing overtures to Umbandini to place himself under
their protection, which would mean, of course, the practical surrender
of his kingdom, while individual Boers are flocking uninvited into the
country and gradually hemming it in on every side. But the King has a
wholesome dread of the tender mercies of the Boers, and, fortunately
for him, the London Convention of 1884 laid down the boundary line on
the Transvaal side with such precision that little room is left for
misunderstanding or dispute. Here, at least, the Boer Republic can
allege no ostensibly fair or valid excuse for removing their
neighbors’ landmarks. But the Boer trekkers, in dealings with the
natives, are not much concerned to observe the law of _meum_ and
_tuum_; and in April, 1885, Sir Henry Bulwer wrote to Sir Hercules
Robinson that he had received information to the effect ‘that the
Boers are making great encroachments in Swaziland; that they appear to
look upon the country as a winter grazing farm, and that they have
gone so far as to beacon off some farms notwithstanding the protest of
the Swazi king.’ On this, to put matters as briefly as possible, Sir
Hercules Robinson requested the Transvaal government ‘to use every
effort to prevent encroachments on the border,’ a move to which Mr.
Joubert responded by denying the fact on the one hand, and on the
other proposing to Umbandini to place himself and his country under
Transvaal protection with Mr. Kiogh, Landdrost of Wakkerstroom, as
nominal head and medium. This proposal the King and his _indunas_
rejected. They preferred to place themselves under British protection,
and to this effect a formal demand was forthwith made, accompanied by
a request for the appointment of a British Resident, whose duty it
would be to act as Umbandini’s adviser in all outside matters and give
timely notice of Boer encroachments at headquarters.

“To this request no answer has yet been returned. It is understood,
however, that Lords Granville and Rosebery had the subject under
consideration at the time of their retirement from office, and it will
be for Lord Salisbury’s government to give it their most serious
attention, and decide whether the Boers shall or shall not be required
to observe the terms of a convention which they deliberately accepted.
The question is not of conquering or annexing Swaziland, or even of
preventing the extinction of an interesting nationality, but of
safeguarding British interests by compelling the Transvaal Republic to
respect the integrity of a state whose independence we have virtually
guaranteed. To effect this object nothing more is needed than the
appointment of a Resident; for much as the Boers covet the land of
Goshen, they have not the least idea of going to war with England and
Umbandini to obtain it. Their policy is to cajole and coerce the king
into accepting a formal protocol; and then gradually swallowing his
kingdom as the anaconda swallows its prey. This consummation, besides
being a severe diplomatic and moral defeat, would be fatal to the
prosperity of Natal, and most detrimental to our commercial interests
in that part of the world. It could hardly fail, moreover, to lead to
serious complications. Gold seekers are already flocking in crowds to
the ‘placers’ of the Transvaal; the time is not far distant when there
will be a rush to the still richer fields of Swaziland. Most of the
adventurers are English and American, and men of English blood have
never yet submitted to the domination of an alien power. If their
government should refuse to protect them they will protect themselves,
possibly set up a government of their own, when difficulties might
arise which it is not pleasant to contemplate. Prevention is better
than cure, and it is significant of what is likely to befall, unless
prompt action be taken, that in September, 1885, Sir Henry Bulwer
transmitted a report ‘that the Boers had so overrun the Swazi country
that they had only left the district immediately occupied by the
king.’ A little later Colonel Cardew forwarded a communication to the
effect that 200 Boers were occupying the Bomba range of mountains ‘on
the strength of rights reputed to be acquired from the Portuguese,’
and according to recent advices, another body are trekking in the
Lebombo range, close to the Swazi border.”

But to return to my own story: The kraal was in a state of complete
confusion; the dance which was to take place on the next day seemed to
have upset every thing and every body. The men and women were in a state
of nervous excitement from beer and expectation; the young girls,
lighthearted and merry, were laughing, darting hither and thither,
coquetting with the young men, while the boys, sedately looking on with
calm content, were enjoying the scene. Alas! this innocent pleasure was
not all I saw. A few yards distant on the outside of the kraal, a crowd
attracted my attention; there I found a tent which served as a canteen,
and was surrounded with Swazis of both sexes, all of whom were buying
spirits, chiefly gin, from the barman, or begging it from the few white
men present. I particularly noticed one woman, not exactly besotted, but
with an air of debauched voluptuousness in the sensual roll of her
glaring eyes, suing importunately for drink, crying out again and again
the only English word she knew “Canteen, Canteen,” being the one which
from experience she had learned would be understood, and bring her the
all-devouring firewater.

Close by, evidently a general favorite, and to whom considerable
deference was shown by the natives, could be seen, edging his way into
the tent, a bright little boy, who, I was told, was the king’s son.
Although but a child not more than six years old, he too had learned to
crave for this fluid perdition, and there he stood clamoring and
entreating to be served, until a white man gave him fully half a pint of
pure spirits, when immediately, without any ado, he swallowed it at one
draught, slowly strutting away as if he had performed some feat of which
he might well be proud. I did not remain long, soon seeing enough of
this melancholy exhibition of growing depravity and demoralization to
convince me that drink was eating into the vitals of the people and
destroying the manhood of a fine race, and that nothing stood between
them and utter ruin but the appointment of a British Resident,[114] of
similar tact and determination to Colonel Clark, who has saved the
Basuto nation from extermination by the same curse. I was very tired,
and the sun sinking fast, suffusing the whole sky with lines of a ruddy,
golden tint, made me tell my boys to prepare for the night’s rest.
Before lying down to sleep, however, I strolled again round this immense
kraal in order to form a more correct idea of its size, the number of
its huts and the strength of its population. In the centre there was an
immense cattle kraal, which I conjectured was not less than ten acres in
extent, the huts, at least 600 in number, being placed in a circle
around, according to Kafir custom.

Here preparations for the approaching yearly celebration and dance were
being made, this festival being a “thanksgiving to the ground for once
again giving its return.” Every one seemed happy and gay, and all I met
were wound up to a high pitch of good-natured excitement, singing as
they danced along, evidently looking forward to the morrow, to the
all-important day when the fête would commence.

My “boys” had in the meantime made me some coffee, prepared my evening
meal and laid out my karosses on the grass in readiness for the night’s
slumbers. Sleep needed no wooing. When I awoke in the morning the sun
was shining brightly overhead. “Umhlatuse,” my _induna_ (head man), had
got my coffee ready, troops of Swazi girls, lithe and handsome, could be
seen racing back from the river where they had been to bathe, the whole
kraal was astir, even the canteen was open, and some devout worshippers
of Bacchus were already paying homage at his shrine. Presently, afar in
the distance, could faintly be traced the dark outline of a moving mass
of sable warriors, coming to make obeisance to their king and add to the
day’s festivities. As the hours passed by, the large cattle kraal I have
mentioned became the rendezvous of thousands of men of superb physique,
dressed in gorgeous array, their shoulders resplendent with black and
snow-white ostrich feathers, their waists girded with leopard skins,
their necks encircled with cow tails, sakabula feathers (a species of
finch) in circular bands around their heads, while handsome shields and
assegais completed their festive attire. The married women, too, and
girls vied with each other in the richness of their costumes, which
according to their custom did not require to be so exact as to hide
entirely the profusion of charms with which nature had endowed them.
About mid-day, when the king, an intelligent but sensual middle-sized,
and to appearance, middle-aged man, his light-copper-colored body,
however, enveloped in rolls of fat, appeared with his retinue (having
first bathed himself in sea water specially brought up for the occasion
from the mouth of the “Usutii”), the commemoration began in earnest, for
then with measured step and dignified air the thousands of men and women
commenced dancing, advancing and retreating in perfect rythm, keeping
time to a rich, deep, warlike song they were chanting in beautiful
cadence. There were three regiments present that morning numbering at
least 9,000 men, and with 3,000 women, as I have described, the scene
was both sensual and sensuous.

On one side of the kraal, and built of green branches cut from
neighboring trees, was a long enclosure, the interior of which was kept
hidden from vulgar gaze, no one being allowed to enter. A trader, who
was well known as being a confidant of the king, passing by at the time,
gained me admittance for a moment, when a sight most unique presented
itself. Kneeling and squatting on the grass were at least 150 boys
eagerly tearing and devouring the flesh of an ox which had been pummeled
to death the previous day. This operation is an old custom, and on this
occasion, I was told, it took about forty young men, unarmed (not even
with clubs), but merely striking the ox with their bare fists, fully an
hour to accomplish. We had only a second of time allowed us by the guard
at the entrance to peep in, as he was afraid some condign punishment for
his temerity, in permitting such a contravention of all precedent as
allowing us to enter, would befall him if he were discovered. Much to my
regret I could not find any one who could explain the meaning of this
rite. Retiring at once we spent several hours in walking around and
mixing with the natives, my impromptu guide drawing my attention to the
strong dialectic difference in the language as spoken by the Swazis and
the pure Zulu, they being a branch of the Zulu nation, who settled in
this region when Zenzamgakona was king, and he also kindly pointed out
to me many men of importance. Among these I may mention Umbovane, the
Swazi general who commanded the native levies which joined the forces
under Sir Garnet Wolseley in the attack on Sekukuni, and Zuhlane, a man
of commanding presence, who had been prime minister during two reigns
and whose word is law. Although an old man, gray, wrinkled, blear-eyed
and with an appearance of dissipation, yet he has well sustained a
reputation among the Swazis for diplomatic tact and foresight. Umbovane
has not even yet forgotten the greatness he had had “thrust upon him”
seven years before, when Sir Garnet Wolseley invited him to dinner,
after the successful attack in which he had assisted the 94th and 80th
Regiments in the Transvaal.

The most engrossing subject of conversation even at this time, although
two months had elapsed, was the visit of Dr. Clark, the Consul General
in London for the Transvaal, and the interview he had had with the king
on November 7th, 1886. This gentleman, as a member of the House of
Commons and an Englishman, seems to have acted in the most extraordinary
way—if Mr. Kannemeyer, an influential miner whom I knew well, and who
was present at this interview, can have understood correctly. Dr. Clark,
according to this gentleman’s description, seems all through to have
acted as a paid agent of the Boers would have acted, and his disparaging
remarks to the king about the English in the Transvaal war grated upon
my informant’s ears. His evident object was to impress the king with the
idea that the Dutch was the dominant power, and to imply that the king’s
request for an English resident was not the wish of the nation, but was
like the petition originally sent to the English government praying for
the annexation of the Transvaal. This, he said, a few only had sent, a
war resulted, and the Dutch got back their country; and then he further
went on to say that he had been sent out to inquire from the king,
personally, whether he was willing or not to hand over his country to
the English government. The king then postponed the interview until next
day, revolving in his mind whether Dr. Clark was or was not an
ambassador from England, or as General Smith of Majuba history, in
introducing Dr. Clark to the king, said, an _induna_ (councillor) sent
specially by the Queen. Next morning the king, in presence of his
principal _indunas_, told him (Dr. Clark) that he had no wish to ask
either the English or the Boers to take him over, but as he could
neither read or write, he was treating for an honest white man to look
after his interests. The conversation, as repeated to me, was a lengthy
one, but to make a long story short, Dr. Clark expressed his pleasure at
hearing this, and among other things cautioned the king against granting
concessions of gold-bearing districts to white men, telling him he was
giving away the independence of his country. “But,” said the king, “what
am I to do? I am only keeping my promises.” Dr. Clark said: “You can
easily get out of that difficulty; the Transvaal joins; you ask them to
exchange an equal extent of grazing land for a similar extent of
gold-bearing land already conceded.” The king and his councillors on
hearing this burst out into a most sarcastic laugh, the king observing,
“Why should I give stones with gold in them for grass? Have you anything
more to say?” and then rising bid the deputation “good-bye.” After Dr.
Clark, General Smith and their interpreter had gone, the king, turning
to the other white men at his kraal remarked, “He says he comes from the
Queen; but he pleads for the _Transvaal_, that is clear!”

Listening to these interesting statements of eye-witnesses, time flew
rapidly by. On inquiry I learned that this dance would be kept up for
two or three days, and as I had yet more than 100 miles to walk before
reaching Delagoa Bay, and was anxious to catch the mail steamer to
England, I collected my servants, and taking a last look at the crowd,
who were all engaged as eagerly as ever, started off again late in the
afternoon.

After walking about three miles I passed a fine brick-built store, owned
by an enterprising trader named Colenbrander. A little further brought
me to the favorite kraal of the king, where he chiefly resides, when,
darkness overtaking me, I selected a spot under a large shady tree where
we spent the night, sleeping round a blazing fire. The air of this
elevated region is stimulating in the extreme; the dryness of the
transparent atmosphere acting like a charm on the nervous system—every
breath a draught of sparkling Burgundy or Champagne! Though ready for
sleep as each nightfall came around, I never felt the exhaustion such as
a low country produces. We started early next morning and walked on
without resting until the middle of the day, when we came to a kraal
where we were kindly received. Here we rested a couple of hours during
the intense heat, refreshing ourselves with cool delicious “amasi” (sour
milk), which we were fortunate enough to procure from the natives.
Leaving this place just before sundown we struck the wagon-road running
between the Tembi and New Scotland in Natal, which was as smooth and
level as any colonial road I have seen. Between the kraal where I saw
the king and my joining the main road, the country was mountainous, but
the cross foot-path or “short cut” by which my guides brought me ran
chiefly along the mountain ridges, thus giving views diversified and
grand. I was much struck by the absence of all animal life—no birds,
game, no animals either wild or tame, added to the beauty of the
landscape, or relieved the monotony of our journey through these parts.

We were now able to walk much more quickly and more easily, so pushing
along far into the night we again slept in the “veldt.” Resting
uneasily, I persuaded my “boys” to start early, which we did by the
light of the moon at three in the morning. The Lebombo range, some
twenty miles distant, over which we had yet to climb, was ever before us
and present to our view, walling in as it were the vast flat, thickly
covered with mimosa trees, across which our road led us, while at our
back lay the Umzimbi range of mountains we had journeyed over the day
before, the towering summit of Mananga closing up the scene. About noon
we arrived at the foot of the Lebombo range, where we stopped an hour
for rest and refreshment; after that, a stiff climb and the summit of
the Lebombo was reached. We walked on a few miles, then another night in
the open and another day’s weary walk over a most precipitous country! I
shall not forget in a hurry the descent of a tremendously steep and
stony ravine, at the bottom of which ran the Umnyama, a rapid mountain
stream, nor the wading through, nor the ascent beyond! The night rapidly
came on, and everything was wrapped in a thick mist, when fortunately
for us we fell into a foot-path, which led us to a house where we were
most hospitably received and cared for until the morning.

Sunrise saw us all ready to start. A short walk through the veldt
brought us to the main road along which the descent of the Lebombo range
is made by the easiest gradients. On reaching the bottom and entering
the valley below, the narrow road bordered by groves of trees, with the
grass growing exuberantly rank, winded and turned like an English lane,
the glaring sun and stillness of the air meanwhile making the stifling
heat almost unbearable. Tramping on until the sun was nearly overhead we
rested during the mid-day on the banks of a stream of crystal water
which, murmuring its sweet music unseen through the forest glen,
suddenly appeared flowing along its bed across our path. But as I had
determined to reach the Tembi that night, where I was promised that a
tug, which plied between this and Delagoa Bay. would be placed at my
disposal, and many a long mile having yet to be covered, my readers can
well suppose that not much time was lost. Everything in this world has
an end, and so had this long day. I cannot describe the almost
unutterable relief the faint shimmer of the river I had so long expected
to see gave me, as in the clouded starlight I caught the first view of
its waters. I eagerly looked for the steam-tug, which to my intense
delight I found moored to the banks, but never did I more fully
appreciate the truth of the saying in Holy Writ, that “Man is born to
trouble” as when my hopes were suddenly shattered by learning from the
only white man there, who, by the way, I found tossing in semi-delirium
from malarial fever, that the master of the boat was away. I saw at once
that there was no other alternative left me but to cross the Tembi and
continue my walk next day. The poor fever-stricken fellow was very kind
and invited me into his tent, where he gave me refreshment and a
shake-down, and nothing gave me more pleasure than that this attention I
was able in some measure to repay by persuading him to accept some
medicine which I had brought with me to take in the case of a similar
emergency.

The Tembi, a tidal estuary about one hundred yards broad, is here sixty
miles from the sea, and has an ebb and flow of some eight feet. I got
four of my boys to carry me across early next morning when it was
fordable, and began what I thought would be my last day’s journey. Our
path, a narrow Kafir one, lay for miles over what seemed an endless
plain, where silence the most profound reigned supreme, and the thick
tambooti grass waving far over our heads, the dew falling off like rain,
and soaking us through and through. After four hours’ incessant walking,
the monotony of the path being here and there broken by glimpses of the
dark flowing Tembi, the landscape changed and we came to a part which I
can compare only to an English park, interspersed ever and anon with
cool and shady groves. Here we began to come across indications of an
increased population; passing through tracts of cultivated land on which
the mealies were growing most luxuriantly. Suddenly we arrived at a
large Kafir kraal. The style of the huts was different from that of the
Swazis or the Zulus, and showed at once we were among a different race
from that we had left a few miles back beyond the Lebombo mountains.
Entering one of the huts I was taken by surprise at seeing a Banyan
(Arab trader) sitting on the floor and articles of European merchandise
exposed for sale. This man could not speak a word of English, but my
boys soon found means to communicate with him, or he perhaps guessed
their requirements, as in less than a minute the main curse of
civilization in the shape of brandy was introduced. This spirit, I
afterwards learned, was imported in large quantities at a cheap rate
from Chicago, and I could see was fast working its full share of evil
among these Amatonga tribes.

The blazing sun, and the puffs of heated air every now and again blowing
across our path, tempted us, later in the afternoon, to halt at another
kraal. The head man at once came out and offered to sell us many
delicacies which we had not tasted for days. Fresh milk, honey, eggs,
etc., were brought us, but when a haunch of venison was produced, my
boys fell into such raptures that I could not resist buying it and
staying to let them cook it, making up my mind to divide the journey and
arrive at Delagoa Bay the next day. By sundown our luxurious repast was
finished, and we all lay down to sleep under the branches of a large
tree that stood in the centre of the kraal. The misery and discomfort of
that sultry night will ever remain a vivid memory. After a few hours’
rest I was roused up by the patter of heavy rain-drops on the leaves of
the tree above, and the almost pitchy darkness, now and again
illuminated by flashes of lightning, told me a storm was brewing. To
what agony and well-nigh maddening torture was I not awakened! All
around, advancing and retreating. buzzing and singing like a swarm of
angry bees, were millions on millions of mosquitoes, which, as if
suffering from unappeasable hunger and insatiable thirst, were stinging,
biting, and sucking my blood, pitiless creatures that they were! Now I
began to understand why some would rather hear the lion’s roar than the
hum of the mosquito, as from the one prudence or courage could be a
defence, while nothing but some “mean” contrivance, as grease, sand,
smoky smudge or nets could be a protection from the other. So
insignificant an assailant, yet so venomous and intolerable a little
demon, is he! My clothes, I soon found, were useless, as these “swamp
angels” revelling in the prospect of the “Carnival of Blood” in store,
pierced their powerful, insinuating barbs through everything I had on,
although, seeing the small proportion of them that could ever have
tasted human blood, I thought that so many need not have made merry at
my expense.

To lie down again and sleep was an utter impossibility, to rouse my
natives from the state of perfect oblivion into which their supper had
assisted them seemed cruel, and to remain at the mercy of my tormentors
was too great an act of self-denial to exercise. The struggle in my mind
was not long. I roused them quickly up, when piteous were their
complaints, until the jingle of gold silenced their reluctance to moving
on. The rain had ceased, but yet the night was densely overcast. Not a
foot-path could be seen. Not a breath stirred the thick and stifling
air, a dead stillness prevailed, the flame of my candle even burning
without a flicker, and so carrying it, unprotected in my hand, I
pantingly led the way for hours. Again the sullen drops of rain fell
here and there, and my poor candle did not long escape—one big drop, and
darkness covered all. I had now to trust to the bare feet and tact of
the South African native to keep me in the narrow path, and my
confidence was not misplaced, the light of the candle after all being no
real loss. The rain now began to pour down in driving torrents, as it
can do in the tropics only, the heavy leaden clouds shutting out the
faintest streak of light, while to add to the novelty of the situation
our path led us into dense bush through which we groped in line, holding
on, as we walked, to one another, until daybreak. The incessant rain
still continuing, and my boys seeing a kraal in the distance, made up
their minds they would take shelter and with until the worst had passed.
For a long time I could not dissuade them from stopping, but shivering
and shaking as I was in all my limbs from the cold and rain, and in the
centre of one of the most malarious districts in South Africa, I knew
that delay meant fever, so on I determined to go. Money again proved
successful in providing the “sinews of war.” Soon we came to some low
marshy ground which the Tembi overflows according to the tide. Through
these I had to wade, when on crossing one part which did not present
anything particular to my attention. I suddenly sank up to my waist in
the alluvial deposit. Umhlatusi quickly pulled me out, but not before
the stinking malaria I had stirred up thoroughly sickened me. A little
further on we ascended a bank bordering this morass, and then crossing a
narrow, flat and climbing a sandy ridge struck the shores of the Tembi
near its mouth, Lourenço Marques lying exactly opposite, two miles away.

Taking a ferry-boat we sailed across, and a few minutes more saw me
snugly ensconced in Mr. Otto Berg’s hotel, nine days from Barberton.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXIII.
LOURENÇO MARQUES.—THE CHANGES IT HAS SEEN.—HARBOR.—CLIMATE.—RAILWAY
PLANT IMPORTED BY PRESIDENT BURGERS.—ADVANTAGES OF THE DELAGOA BAY ROUTE
TO THE GOLD FIELDS.

Lourenço Marques, the name given by the Portuguese to the town they have
built at the head of Delagoa Bay, is the most southerly point of their
possessions, which have a long coast line extending northwards 1,100
miles. Delagoa Bay, which is one of the finest harbors in the world, was
discovered by the Portuguese in 1544, who realizing its importance at
once took possession and erected a fort and factories. It was early
converted into a penal settlement, which by strict letter of the law it
still remains, although at the present time the authorities at Lisbon
have ceased to use it for that purpose. The white population does not
number I should think more than one hundred souls,[115] and this is
comprised of government officials, officers commanding the garrison,
which is composed of black troops from Mozambique or Goa, merchants and
their clerks, and the staff of the Eastern Telegraph Company. The town
lies quite low, almost level with the beach, and contains a fine
government house (the Governor Senor Antonio de Azevedo Vasconcellos, to
whom I paid my respects, is very popular), several well-built trading
establishments, a handsome church and hospital and a good hotel. The
telegraph station is situated on a bold headland facing, at a
considerable elevation, the Indian Ocean, and commands a splendid view
of the peninsula of Inyack, the Elephant Islands, and the Maputa country
across the Tembi. Delagoa Bay has seen many changes. In 1721 and 1735
the Dutch encroached upon the Portuguese, but had ultimately to retire;
again in 1777 an Austrian trading company, which had established itself
there, was driven out by the Portuguese Governor General who came from
Goa; then in 1796 the place was taken and destroyed by the French. Once
more, in 1833, the fortress was besieged and the town entirely sacked by
Kafirs; after this, in 1850, internal dissensions almost ruined the
place, until at last a threatened annexation by the English led to a
dispute in 1861, which was not decided until Marshal MacMahon, Duc de
Magenta, to whom the question had been referred, decided in favor of the
Portuguese in 1875.

The climate of this part of the coast has always been considered
unhealthy, nearly all the Europeans staying here for any length of time
contracting malarial fever of a rather severe type. This is due to
noxious exhalations from certain swamps which surround one part of the
town, and to the imprisoned air which is wafted across the Tembi
whenever a south wind blows from the Maputa territory. Indeed, most of
the inhabitants suffer from this fever more or less, and have a ghastly,
woe-begone expression, or as one rather humorous observer remarked to
me, “they all look like corpses out for a holiday.”

In walking round the town I came suddenly upon some monuments of the
past, partially buried in sand, which recalled to my memory those words
of Juvenal, where he says, “Monuments themselves memorials need”—for
there was no one there to tell me that the tons of railway material I
saw piled and left to rust and decay, were all that was left by which
the grand railway scheme of President Burgers, and his bright hopes of
the future, could be remembered.

These relics convinced me more than ever that Burgers was a man ahead of
his time, and the present justifies the opinions he formed years ago.
When he went to Europe in 1875 to raise capital to construct the line
from Delagoa Bay to the Drakensberg, all other schemes,[116] Moodie’s
included, having failed, so sanguine was he of the future that although
he obtained only £79,136 of the £300,000 he required, yet he spent
£63,200 in railway material alone. The sequel is now a matter of
history, how on his return he found all in disorder, the government
credit gone, Sekukuni in rebellion, the burghers dissatisfied, and, to
crown everything, he was not so shrewd without being able to see
indications looming in the not far-off future, that the government of
the State would soon be wrested from his grasp.

I also saw the railway embankments about seven miles in length which
were in course of construction by the Portuguese to the Komati River,
near which their territory ends and the Transvaal commences. This work I
was informed was being executed by the Portuguese government with money
which had been deposited by a Colonel McMurdo as security for commencing
the line of which he had got a concession in 1883, but which he had not
begun, and so probably has forfeited.

On my arrival in England early this year, 1887, I came to the conclusion
that this work will now be prosecuted with vigor, as I learned that a
company had been successfully floated to continue the formation of the
line, and rumors were afloat in commercial circles that another company
would at once complete it to Barberton. I have just at hand on going to
the press the following letter from a friend in Barberton in which he
says, “About forty miles of the earthwork of the railway is already
completed. The contractors have found it quite easy to obtain labor.”
The intervening country from Barberton to Pretoria, in the one
direction, and from Kimberley to Pretoria on the other, would then only
remain to complete a grand circular trunk line which would tap every
important district and centre in South Africa. Geographically nothing
could be grander, and as a work of utility few schemes present promise
of greater good to the whole country; as it would be, to my mind, the
salvation of South Africa from native wars and rapacious coast
middlemen, it would prove a great factor in the future amelioration of
the native races,[117] while further it would tend in time to a
confederation of interests in South Africa, “a consummation devoutly to
be wish’d.”

So far as Barberton and the Kaap gold fields are concerned, Delagoa Bay
must be their port of the future, even in spite of the frantic efforts
Natal is now making. It is only necessary to consider for a single
moment the mileage from the different ports to see this. Whereas the
distance from Delagoa Bay is, roughly speaking, only 130 miles, that
from D’Urban, the Port of Natal, is 450, and that from Capetown about
1,300. The ad valorem duty at these ports also contrasts very
unfavorably with the Portuguese port—Capetown collecting 15, Natal 7,
while Delagoa Bay collects 3 per cent. only.

During the last session of the Natal legislative council, with a
hopeless bid to catch the Barberton trade, this sapient body took off
its export duty of 9/ per gallon on spirits, which formerly was a great
article of export, hoping by this suicidal policy, together with sundry
other minor concessions, to retain the trade, instead of, in my opinion,
“making hay while the sun shines,” or in other words getting the most
out of their rum traffic pending the inevitable, when the Delagoa Bay
railway is completed.

There are no engineering difficulties whatever to be overcome on the
Delagoa Bay route until near the approach to Barberton, and these,
engineers tell me, could be easily surmounted. The much-talked-of ascent
of the Lebombo range can also be made by the most insignificant
gradients, and the Komati River can be bridged with facility; so that
there is every probability of the shriek of the railway-whistle being
heard, as once at a public dinner at Barberton I told my hearers, in
less than eighteen months. This, as a matter of course, will materially
promote the development and advancement of the gold fields, the
difficulty and delay attendant upon the importation of machinery will be
removed, and the thorough opening up of the Kaap gold fields will mark
another era in the history of South Africa.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXIV.
L’ENVOI.

I had not long to wait for the _Dunkeld_, the coasting steamer which
runs between Capetown and Mozambique, and after a day and a half’s
pleasant sail I landed once more in D’Urban. Here I remained a few days
only, pending the arrival of the next steamer, but long enough to find
to my cost that I had not crossed the alluvial flats of the Maputa
country with impunity. A sudden attack of malarial fever almost
prevented me from prosecuting my journey, as I was scarcely able to
embark when the time came for me to leave, and on reaching Port
Elizabeth I was obliged to go into hospital. A few days’ care enabled me
to continue my homeward journey, although, as is usual with this fever,
I am yet reminded at intervals of its pertinacity when once it has
gained a hold upon the system. The results of this fever are usually so
serious and fatal that I have been fortunate in escaping so lightly.

Leaving Capetown on February 16th, by the S. S. _Northam_, and bidding a
regretful adieu to South Africa, I naturally, when I saw its shores
receding, turned my thoughts to the future, to the country to which I
was bound, and to the new interests among which I should be thrown.

There is always something sad, as it seems to me, in closing any of the
chapters of the book of one’s existence. It may be oftentimes that the
change of scene has been eagerly looked forward to, that labors once
congenial, have proved irksome and well-nigh intolerable, that one has
anticipated release from their bondage with the same feelings as—if the
professional simile be pardonable—the long bed-ridden patient expects
the hour when he may be allowed to move about again, and yet,
nevertheless, there is even, with the most joyful hopes for the future,
a certain feeling of regret. “Old custom” has made sweet what would
otherwise seem undesirable, and doubtless had the prisoner of Chillon
suddenly been set free, even after but a few months’ captivity, his
delight at release would not have been unmingled with an unreasoning,
wistful regard for the very manacles that had bound him. How much more,
therefore, must I experience this sense of sadness, as I conclude these
volumes, the elaboration of which has been with me a labor of love,
since I was inspired with the hope that their publication would serve to
destroy many a foolish prejudice against these sunny lands, and was vain
enough to trust that they would aid in attracting the attention of
philanthropists, capitalists, and intending emigrants, to what Lady
Florence Dixie entitled “The Land of Misfortune,” apt enough perhaps at
the time that her work was published, but now, I both hope and believe,
likely to prove a misnomer.

The regret that I feel, as I write these brief concluding words, is
intensified by the thought that I have left, perhaps forever, a country
where I have found many friends among literally all “sorts and
conditions of men;” among men of every nationality, of hues and natures
the most diverse, from the stout and stalwart yeoman of England to the
pallid yet skillful and versatile disciple of Confucius—from the acute,
sharp-witted, and business-like “stranger” hailing from the land of
“Stars and Stripes” to the sturdy Basuto; from the Scandinavian with his
bright complexion and sunny hair to those “images of God carved in
ebony,” the warlike Zulus; from the bright, laughing-eyed sons of the
Emerald Isle, to the dusky worshippers of Vishnu and Siva; from the keen
and cultured member of the Hebrew race, with all its marvellous history,
to the pious adherents of the Prophet of Allah; and from the Africander,
descended from brave men and noble women who left all they held most
dear on earth for the sake of their faith, to the native toiler in the
mines, who has traversed hundreds of miles in his journey, from his home
in the far interior. Among all, I repeat, have I found many friends, and
I cannot leave them without penning these few words of affectionate
farewell—words which if wearisome (being purely personal) to the general
reader will, I trust, be accepted in the spirit in which they are
written by my South African friends.

That I have once and again struck out fairly from the shoulder at
various shams and swindles, all who have had the patience to so far
follow me will perceive, but they will, I hope, also perceive that I
have been ever ready to give credit where credit was due.

This book would be incomplete without a few words on the all-important
subject of emigration. Poverty, as it is known in England and the Old
World, is very rare—I mean of course poverty among those who are, in the
time-honored phrase, at once “able and willing to work.” That there are
abundant instances of those who prefer frequenting the public-house to
attending to their daily labor is a sad truth, and that there have been,
are, and will be, cases of undeserved misfortune is equally an obvious
matter of fact. But to those who have a trade at their fingers’ end, or
do not fear work, manual or mental, have grit or religious principle
enough in them to resist the temptations which, as will be seen by those
who have perused these chapters, are sure to beset them, I would say,
Come to South Africa—not to be disappointed if after five or six months
you are little better off than when you came, but to have a tolerable
certainty of gaining, without a constant dread of work falling short, a
decent and respectable living. Of the opportunities that present
themselves to capitalists it is not necessary to speak, as those who
have read the chapters dealing with the diamond mines and the gold
fields will form their own conclusions. This at least may be said, that
the man with capital, if he has good advisers, need not fear but that in
almost any part of South Africa (unless indeed he choose to gamble in
scrip when the best of advisers may be occasionally off their stroke) he
will receive returns for his expended capital, such as he would hardly
in his most sanguine moments imagine in a day-dream at home. The bona
fide investor (as opposed to the speculator) will probably find that a
visit to the diamond or gold fields will repay him not only well, but
handsomely. To the average Englishman South Africa has been more or less
a _terra incognito_, and the idea prevailed that it was throughout
infested with venomous reptiles and colossal lions, while malarial
fevers were only an unavoidable evil. On this subject at least I can
speak more or less _ex cathedra_. While the summer months, as in all
subtropical climates, are trying and mean, if more than the usual amount
of rest—I do not mean sleep—be not taken, there will be an excessive
expenditure of vital force, with the consequent unlikelihood of
longevity; yet those who are willing to exercise a little care in
dietary, etc., need be under little or no apprehension of the various
local fevers; while as I have pointed out, and as will be endorsed by
some of the most distinguished members of my profession, so far as chest
complaints are concerned, the climate of South Africa surpasses that of
southern France and at least equals Madeira.

I have but once more to bid farewell to my old friends, and my new
friends, the gentle readers with whom I am unacquainted, and to express
the hope that they will peruse, if not with profit at all events with
some interest, these leaves from a diary of TWENTY YEARS IN SOUTH
AFRICA.

[Illustration]

APPENDIX.

COMPARATIVE YEARLY EXPORTS OF DIAMONDS FROM THE
PROMULGATION OF ACT 48, 1882, TO DECEMBER 31ST,
1886.
│ │ │ │ │ │
───────────┼────────────┼──────────┴──┴──┼────┴──
│ Carats. │Declared Value. │Average
│ │ │ per
│ │ │ cent.
───────────┼────────────┼──────────┬──┬──┼────┬──
1882 Four │ 796,546⅝│£1,156,273│14│ 6│ 29/│
months │ │ │ 1│ │ │
1883 │ 2,413,953⅜│ 2,742,521│ 1│ 0│ 22/│8
1884 │ 2,263,686⅝│ 2,807,288│ 3│ 4│ 23/│9
1885 │ 2,440,788⅜│ 2,492,755│13│ 2│ 20/│5
1886 │3,135,432⁶⁄₈│ 3,507,210│14│ 0│ 22/│4
───────────┼────────────┼──────────┼──┼──┼────┼──
Total, │ 11,050,407⅜│12,706,049│ 6│ 0│ 23/│
───────────┴────────────┴──────────┴──┴──┴────┴──

CLAUSE II.—OF R. SOUTHEY’S (LIEUT. GOV. OF GRIQUALAND WEST) DESPATCH
DATED APR. 11TH, 1874, TO SIR HENRY BARKLY, K. C. B., G. C. M. G., GOV.
OF CAPE COLONY.

“A policy under which people who desire to leave the country with their
wives and children and stock, because they regard the exceptional laws
to which they are made subject as oppressive and intolerable, and who
while endeavoring to carry their desire into effect peaceably may be
pursued by armed forces, may have all their property confiscated, their
women and children captured and placed in forced servitude with their
white fellow-subjects, and be themselves thereafter tried for rebellion,
under savage instead of civilized laws, is to my mind a most
objectionable policy, and one which should be superseded as quickly as
possible.”

PETITION OF JONATHAN MOLAPO AND OTHER BASUTO CHIEFS. PRESENTED 21ST
MARCH, 1882, BY J. W. MATTHEWS, M. L. A., SENIOR MEMBER FOR KIMBERLEY.

_To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the Honourable House of
Assembly of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, now in Parliament
Assembled._

The humble Petition of the undersigned chiefs, sons and grandsons of the
late Paramount Chief Moshesh, their councillors, headmen and followers,
humbly sheweth,—

1st. That the Peace Preservation Act was proclaimed law in Basutoland by
her Majesty’s High Commissioner and Governor of the Colony of the Cape
of Good Hope, from 21st May, 1880.

2d. That thereupon your petitioners, her Majesty’s loyal native subjects
of the Basuto nation, did obey the said law, and surrendered their guns,
her most gracious Majesty the Queen having been pleased previously to
command their obedience, and to assure them most graciously of her deep
interest in the welfare of her Majesty’s Basuto subjects, for proof of
which your petitioners beg to refer to Earl Kimberley’s letter of 13th
May, 1880, to his Excellency the Governor, Sir Bartle Frere, which was
duly communicated to your petitioners by the Governor’s agent and chief
magistrate in Basutoland, Colonel C. D. Griffith, C.M.G.

3d. That, owing to influences and wicked dispositions, which are now
matters of history, the greater portion of her Majesty’s subjects in
Basutoland, misled by the chiefs Lerothodi, Masupha, Joel Molapo, and
other minor chiefs, rebelled against her Majesty’s commands, took up
arms, slaughtered numbers of her Majesty’s loyal and obedient subjects
for having obeyed her Majesty’s commands, and carried on open war
against her Majesty’s colonial forces.

4th. That your petitioners, at the risk of their lives, and with the
loss and sacrifice of all they had been possessed of before the
rebellion, in cattle, sheep, horses, grain, wagons, ploughs, houses,
lands and various other properties, remained faithful to her most
gracious Majesty throughout the rebellion, and at her Majesty’s call did
even enroll themselves for active service, fighting her Majesty’s
battles against their rebellious countrymen at Kalabani, Lerothodi’s
Village, Mafeting, Makwai’s Berg, Kolo, Tweefontein, Boleka, Maseru,
Thlotse Heights, Mohalie’s Hoek and Quithing, in all of which the loyal
Basuto subjects of her Majesty acquitted themselves to the satisfaction
of the Commandant General of Colonial forces, as is most abundantly
testified to in numerous dispatches, and in the official lists of killed
and wounded.

5th. That in the month of April, 1881, and after open war had been
carried on for nine months, negotiations were entered into between her
Majesty’s Governor and High Commissioner and the Basuto chiefs then in
rebellion, when your petitioners, knowing the character, feelings, and
real objects of the rebel chiefs, as in duty bound, made humble petition
to his Excellency the Governor, setting forth their apprehensions in
regard to the consequences to themselves and their country that would
assuredly arise from any arrangement which would not include a perfect
submission of the rebels and the maintenance of a force sufficient to
enforce such submission, to which they never received a reply, nor even
acknowledgment.

6th. That subsequently, an agreement having been come to between his
Excellency the Governor on one part, and the rebel chiefs of the Basutos
on the other part, a document was published in the English language, but
never publicly given out in Sesuto, bearing the signature of her
Majesty’s Governor, Sir Hercules George Robert Robinson, G. C. M. G.,
known as the Governor’s Award, bearing date 29th April, 1881, and by
which an end was put to actual hostilities in Basutoland.

7th. That the Governor’s Award having become known to your petitioners,
they, feeling alarmed at and grieved with the apparent want of any
tangible provision whereby the carrying out of the Award could if
required be actually enforced, and further foreseeing great troubles and
miseries to themselves arising from such a state of things, again
approached his Excellency the Governor by humble petition of 11th of
May, 1881, setting forth all their apprehensions and grievances, to
which humble petition they never received either a reply or
acknowledgment.

8th. That subsequently, to wit, on the 25th August, 1881, a change of
government took place in Basutoland, Mr. J. M. Orpen succeeding Colonel
C. D. Griffith, C. M. G., in the office of Governor’s agent, and from
the first day when Mr. J. M. Orpen took over the government of
Basutoland, your petitioners are grieved to say their rights and
interests as her Majesty’s loyal and obedient subjects were ignored,
they themselves were treated in every respect as if they had committed a
crime by remaining loyal, whereas the rebels were encouraged in every
way, and treated with a deference and submission as if their act of
rebellion had been a virtuous and meritorious one; and the Colonial
forces were gradually withdrawn from Basutoland, whilst it was a
notorious fact that the rebels had not in any way complied with the
conditions of the Award.

9th. That notwithstanding the open defiance of the Queen’s authority
throughout Basutoland; notwithstanding the notorious anarchy which
prevailed from one end of the country to the other; notwithstanding the
persistent, obstinate refusal of complying in fact with his Excellency’s
Award on the part of all the rebel chiefs; notwithstanding the repeated
insults and injuries inflicted upon and forcible expulsion by the rebels
of such of your petitioners as, in accordance with Mr. Orpen’s desires,
had tried to reoccupy their former grounds; notwithstanding the direct
insults and affronts offered frequently to the Queen’s representative
and her magistrates in this country by the rebels; and notwithstanding
the earnest reports of those magistrates in Basutoland who, from many
years’ experience in the country, were best able to advise the
government as to the real state of affairs; yet, the Acting Governor’s
agent continued and persisted in officially reporting to the government
that matters were satisfactory, that things were quieting down, that the
Loyals’ cattle were being gradually restored, and that, more
particularly in Mafeting and Leribe districts, the Loyals had returned
and still were returning to live amongst the rebels, by whom they were
well received, all of which official reports were diametrically opposed
to real fact.

10th. That consequently, and as a natural sequence of such a policy, the
conditions of the Governor’s Award remained unfulfilled in almost every
particular clause thereof: the cattle fine was only partially complied
with, no guns were surrendered, gun licences were taken up in,
comparatively speaking, few instances, and then only without even the
production, much less the surrender, of a single gun, and on payment of
such insignificant sums, that in many instances even the sum of two
shillings and sixpence sterling was accepted, instead of one pound as
laid down in the Award; the great bulk of the cattle, almost all the
horses, all the sheep and goats, and every description of movable and
immovable property belonging to your petitioners, and which, according
to the Award, should have been restored to them, were retained in the
hands of the rebels, who refused to give them up; not a single sixpence
of compensation was made to traders and others for losses inflicted upon
them during the rebellion, and your petitioners being debarred from
re-entering upon their lands and houses, were kept in the greatest
misery, depending upon government rations, scarcely adequate to maintain
themselves and their families, cooped up within confined areas around
the fortified camps of the diverse seats of magistrates in Basutoland.

11th. That under these heartrending sufferings, and exposed daily to
insults and injuries, not only on the part of the rebel Basutos, but,
they grieve to say it, under continued pressure and insults heaped upon
them by and through the acting Governor’s agent, your petitioners never
swerving from their loyalty to her Majesty’s government, again, and for
the third time, approached most humbly his Excellency the Governor by
respectful petition of 20th October, 1881, setting forth again their
miseries and grievances, and representing the true state of affairs in
Basutoland, to which humble petition they have never received either
reply or acknowledgment; but the said petition, for reasons unknown to
your petitioners, was held back by the acting Governor’s agent, from the
20th of October to the end of November or beginning of December, and,
subsequently, your petitioners were harassed and persecuted beyond
measure by the acting Governor’s agent, who persisted in representing
what is absolutely untrue—that your petitioners had been instigated by
some white man to petition his Excellency; that the petition had been
made by the said white man, and that its contents were not true, whereas
the said petition was the cry from the hearts of your petitioners, and
contained nothing but what was absolutely and strictly true; saying
which, according to truth, your petitioners nevertheless humbly maintain
that they have a perfect and constitutional right to ask any man, white
or black, to draft, write, or translate such letters or petitions as
they may deem expedient to address to the authorities in matters
concerning their interests, and that neither the Governor’s agent nor
any other official person serving in the government, has a right to
object to or to discredit such documents bearing your petitioners’
signatures in any way whatever, on account of such having been drafted,
written, or translated for them at their own request by any person
whatsoever.

12th. That all the grievances and miseries of your petitioners remaining
unredressed to the present day, the Governor’s Award being succeeded by
an Ultimatum, which holds out the eventuality of an entire cancellation
of the Award, whereby your petitioners, after having been dealt with
more harshly and unjustly ever since they ventured to exercise their
undoubted rights as free subjects of her Majesty the Queen, to petition
his Excellency the Governor, would now be cast away entirely, and
deprived even of the most solemn acknowledgment of their most sacred
rights, which had been clearly laid down in the Award, and all their
most humble petitions having been studiously ignored, your petitioners
have but one anchor of hope left to them, to which last anchor they
would now cling by approaching most humbly and yet most hopefully your
Honourable House with their cries for justice.

13th. That your petitioners, before the rebellion, were possessed, in
round numbers, of 28,000 head of cattle, 7,000 horses, 29,000 sheep and
goats, 200 wagons, 400 ploughs, 12,000 bags of grain, and property of
other description to the amount of £12,000 sterling, all of which losses
have been duly registered at the diverse magistracies, and the lists of
which losses will be found on official record, besides the value of
their lands and the great comfort of their families, and tribal rights
and positions, which cannot possibly be valued in money, and all of
which they sacrificed in order to remain loyal subjects and faithful to
her Majesty’s commands.

14th. That your petitioners, taking all the obligations of loyal
subjects upon themselves, are fully aware that they owe, and they are
fully prepared to maintain, that loyalty, as a moral obligation towards
their most gracious Sovereign Lady the Queen, even in adversity, and
they would cheerfully bear all their losses without a murmur, nor would
they dare to trouble her most gracious Majesty’s government with their
complaints and prayers for redress, if they knew or were told by her
Majesty’s government that the power of the government had ceased to be
strong enough to carry out her Majesty’s promise of protection, or to
enforce the terms of the Award given by her Majesty’s Governor of the
Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, in which case your petitioners would
loyally sympathise with her Majesty’s adversities in her dominions in
South Africa, and, although poor and miserable by the misfortunes of
war, they would nevertheless rally round her Majesty’s throne, and,
being unable to give any more, they would at least offer their last drop
of blood in the defence of her Majesty’s prestige and in the maintenance
of her Majesty’s rule in South Africa; but

15th. That your petitioners’ faith in the might and good faith of her
Majesty’s all-powerful rule over her glorious Empire throughout the
world has not in the least been shaken by recent events in Basutoland;
and they being convinced of this power, and fully confident that their
interests are now as dear to her Majesty as they were when Earl
Kimberley expressed her Majesty’s sentiments towards your petitioners in
his letter of the 13th May, 1880; and further knowing that the justice
of your petitioners’ claim to be reinstated in all the rights and
properties lost by reason of their loyalty during the late rebellion has
been clearly laid down in his Excellency’s Award, and was acknowledged
as indisputable by both the last and the present responsible Ministers
of the Cape Colony, and being fully convinced that all their present
miseries and wretched situation is exclusively due to the mistaken
policy adopted by the present government of Basutoland in dealing with
the rebellious chiefs.

Your petitioners, therefore, approach your Honourable House most humbly
and most hopefully, and pray that it may please your Honourable House to
inquire into your petitioners’ case, and if it so please your Honourable
House to permit your petitioners to plead their cause at the bar of your
Honourable House, by a deputation of three chiefs whom your petitioners
have chosen as their spokesmen, and to grant generally such relief to
your petitioners as your Honourable House may deem meet, and in duty
bound will ever pray.

JONATHAN MOLAPO,
_Chief of the Leribe District_.
MOKHETHI MOSHESH,
HADIYANA MOSHESHOE,
(And 896 others).

BASUTOLAND, _March 14, 1882_.

PROTEST AGAINST ANNEXATION PRESENTED BY PRESIDENT BURGERS TO SIR
THEOPHILUS SHEPSTONE ON APRIL 12TH, 1877.

_Whereas_ I, Thomas Francois Burgers, State President of the South
African Republic, have received a despatch (dated the 9th inst.) from
her British Majesty’s Special Commissioner, Sir Theophilus Shepstone,
informing me that his Excellency has resolved, in the name of her
Majesty’s government, to bring the South African Republic by annexation
under the authority of the British crown; and whereas I have not the
power to draw the sword with good success for the defence of the
independence of this state against a superior power like that of
England, and moreover feel totally disinclined, in consideration of the
welfare of the whole of South Africa, to involve its white inhabitants
in a disastrous war by any hostile action on my part, without having
employed beforehand all means to secure the rights of the people in a
peaceful way: Therefore, I do hereby, in the name and by authority of
the government and the people of the South African Republic, solemnly
protest against the intended annexation.

Given under my hand and under the seal of the state, at the government
office at Pretoria, on this the 11th day of April, in the year 1877.

PROCLAMATION.

_Whereas_ her Majesty’s Special Commissioner, Sir Theophilus
Shepstone, has thought fit, in spite of my solemn protest entered
yesterday against his Excellency’s intention communicated to me by
missive dated 9th of April, to carry out that intention, and has
to-day proclaimed the authority of her Britannic Majesty’s government
over the South African Republic; and

_Whereas_ the government has decided to submit provisionally under
protest for the purpose of, in the meantime, sending to Europe and
America a deputation, in the persons of Messrs. S. J. P. Kruger and E.
P. Jorissen, for the purposes of defending the right of the people and
for endeavoring to arrive at a peaceful solution of the matter:

Now, therefore, I, Thomas Francois Burgers, State President of the
South African Republic, hereby, on behalf and by advice of the
executive, command all officials, burghers and inhabitants, to abstain
from every word and every deed of violence by which the work of the
deputation may be made fruitless, and I exhort all burghers and
inhabitants to assist in maintaining the decision of the government
and in the preservation of order and the prevention of bloodshed.

THOS. BURGERS,
_State President_.

GOVERNMENT OFFICE, Victoria, _April 12, 1877_.

Shortly after the proclamations were read, most of the officials
assembled in the Volksraadszaal, where his Honor the President addressed
them, in a state of great emotion, very nearly in the following words:

“Gentlemen, officials of the South African Republic: You are no
strangers in the land. You also know what the government has resolved to
do. We bow only to the superior power. We submit because we cannot
successfully draw the sword against that superior power, because by
doing so we would only plunge the country into deeper miseries and
disasters. We have resolved to appeal to England herself; and if we get
no redress there, then we will seek the friendly intervention of other
powers that have acknowledged our independence. I have called you
together to make one request to you: continue to occupy your offices in
abeyance of the result of this appeal. No other oath of office will be
demanded from you, and you can continue to serve under the oath once
sworn to the Republic. I have pledged my word for you, and I know I can
depend upon you that you will not disappoint me. Serve the new
government with the same honesty and fidelity with which you have served
our government, for by that you will serve the people. I am leaving my
office under protest on behalf of myself, of the government, of the
officials, of the Volksraad, and of the people. Grant me therefore this
one favor, that you serve the people so long, and redeem the pledge that
I have given for you. I thank you for the fidelity which you have shown
me in your posts as officials. I leave my office with the certainty that
I have not offended any one of you willfully, and if I have perhaps done
so from weakness, I ask you to forgive me.”

Mr. Consul of Belgium: “You are the only representative of a foreign
power present here to-day. You know what has happened here to-day, and
you know also what has caused this event, and of course you will
communicate every thing to your government. I thank your government,
your king, your people and yourself, for the brotherly hand offered by
Belgium to this youthful Republic. Be you my spokesman to your king and
people, and tell them that, although the government be altered, yet the
people remain. Meanwhile I request you, Mr. Consul, that you remain here
at your post until the result of the protest shall be known. And now,
gentlemen, for the moment I leave the scene. I wish you God’s richest
blessing. Farewell. Be true to yourselves, to the people and to the
government.”

Mr. Swart briefly addressed his Honor in a few words of farewell,
uttering the hope that the day may soon come when we would again welcome
him as head of the state. He then handed to his Honor the key of the
government office.

His Honor said: “Here is the key of our office. I hand it over to the
superior power and thereby give it into the hands of God, who will at
the proper time deliver it to the right man. I order you—it is my last
order—to deliver it to the chief of the new government and conduct
yourselves worthily as men and officers. Farewell.”

THE ZULU ULTIMATUM.
_Message from his Excellency the Lieutenant Governor of Natal to
Cetywayo, King of the Zulus and chief men of the Zulu nation._

1. The Lieutenant Governor of Natal sends, in the name of the Queen’s
High Commissioner, these further words to the Zulu king and nation.

2. These are the words of the High Commissioner and they are sent by the
Lieutenant Governor, through the same officers who delivered the words
of the Award in respect of the disputed boundary question, namely:—The
Hon. John Wesley Shepstone, Secretary of Native Affairs, Natal; the Hon.
Charles Brownlie, Resident Commissioner for Native Affairs in the Cape
Colony, at present attached to the staff of the High Commissioner; Mr.
Henry Francis Fynn, Resident Magistrate, Umsinga Division, Natal; and
Colonel Forester Walker, of her Majesty’s Scots Guards, lately attached
to the staff of the High Commissioner; to be delivered by them to the
Zulu representatives, that they may be duly communicated to the king and
council and people of the Zulu nation.

3. The king and nation will recognize in the Award that has just been
given on the matter of the disputed boundary, the determination of the
British government to give effect to the words which have been spoken at
different times by its representatives in this country regarding the
matter.

4. The dispute respecting the boundary was one that had existed for many
years. It was a question between the government of the Transvaal
Republic and the Zulu nation. The latter made many and frequent
representations to the Natal government on the subject. The government
of Natal was always anxious that the dispute should be settled by
peaceful means, and always counselled the Zulu king accordingly. It
considered that the dispute might be and could be settled properly and
satisfactorily, by means of an impartial inquiry; and was always ready
to use its good offices for that purpose. The opportunity for doing so,
however, did not occur. The years passed without any settlement of the
question, and at length last year the Transvaal came under British rule.
Now when that took place, the Zulu king, if he trusted the British
government, had every reason to believe that whatever rights the Zulus
might have in the disputed territory would be investigated and accorded
to them. But, without waiting, the king sent armed Zulus on to the
disputed territory, and by threats obliged the European settlers in it
to leave their homes. This proceeding on the part of the Zulu king might
well have been resented by the English government: but having regard to
the promises and words of its representatives in times past, and
desirous to avoid all appearance of prejudging a long-standing question
in which its own interests had become involved, it withheld its hand in
order that the inquiry so long spoken of might be held.

5. The inquiry was instituted by the government of Natal, and was held
by trusty persons appointed by the Lieutenant Governor of Natal. It was
held in the presence of the representatives both of the Transvaal
government and the Zulu king and nation, and all that was said and put
forward in support of these claims by both parties was heard and
considered.

6. It is clear from the inquiry that some negotiations took place
between Cetywayo and the Boers in 1861. Cetywayo’s right of succession
to the late king Panda was then very uncertain. Two other sons of Panda
were in the hands of the Boers, and the evidence goes to show that
certain promises to cede land were made by Cetywayo, partly in order to
obtain the surrender of these two sons of Panda, and partly in
consideration of presents of cattle.

7. What were the extent and character of the promises made by Cetywayo
has since been disputed, but promises of some sort there undoubtedly
were. Certain land was also beaconed off, but no recognition or
confirmation of the cessions said to have been promised appears ever to
have been given by the king Panda, or by the great council of the Zulus,
and accordingly the commissioners who inquired into the dispute, after
careful deliberation, recorded their finding against any authoritative
or sufficient cession of that land having been made by the king or
nation. This decision has been accepted by the High Commissioner and has
now been communicated to the Zulu king and nation. This Award assigns as
belonging to the Zulu nation, and as subject to the Zulu king, a great
portion of the disputed land claimed by the king, which lies between the
Buffalo and Pongola Rivers.

8. But while the British government in this way gives up to the Zulu
king and nation land which is thought by the commissioners to be by
strict right belonging to the Zulus, and while the British government
has, and always will have, a due regard for it, at the same time will
strictly require all that is due to its own honors and the just rights
and interests of the Queen’s subjects.

9. It has already been intimated in connection with the Award, which was
an Award regarding the territory lying on this or the south side of the
Pongola River, that on the other, or north side of that river, the Zulu
king must not, as he has of late appeared inclined to do, attempt to
take any action in respect of that territory, as if he had any right or
jurisdiction there, but that if the king has, or thinks he has, any
claim of any nature in that direction, he must state them to the British
government, by whom they will be duly considered.

10. The High Commissioner has under his consideration the proceedings
connected with the outrage that was committed some months ago in Natal
territory by Zulu subjects, the sons, relatives and people of the Zulu
chief Sirayo. This has been a grievous and gross outrage committed on
British territory. Mehlokazulu, Inkumbokazulu and Tyekwana, sons of
Sirayo, and Zuluhlenza, a brother of Sirayo, with a large number of
armed attendants, crossed the Buffalo River into Natal territory in two
parties, and by force and violence took out of Natal territory two Zulu
women. Having taken these women back into the Zulu country, they there,
as it is reported, killed them.

11. The Lieutenant Governor of Natal, when he heard of these
occurrences, sent messages, one on the 1st and another on the 6th of
August, to the king, stating what had occurred, and requesting that the
sons and relatives of Sirayo, the ringleaders of the outrages, should be
given up to the Natal government for punishment for the offences
committed by them in Natal territory. Cetywayo, in reply, admitted that
Sirayo’s people had done wrong, but he has endeavored to make light of
the offence, and he has not given up the men as desired. Instead of
doing this, they sent £50, which he wished the Natal government to
accept as a fine in lieu of the punishment of Sirayo’s people. The money
was not accepted, and the king was told that such a fine would be no
punishment for those guilty of the offence, and no reparation for the
outrage. The king said, however, that he would lay the matter and demand
of the Lieutenant Governor before his great council; but many weeks have
passed and no further intimation has been received by the Natal
government to show that the king has laid the matter before the council,
or what the deliberations of the council has been.

12. Her Majesty’s High Commissioner has now therefore to require that
the Zulu king will forthwith send in to the Natal government for trial
under the laws of the Colony, for the offence committed by them in the
Colony, the persons of Mehlokazulu, Inkumbokazulu, and Tyekwana, the
sons of Sirayo, and also Zuluhlenza, the brother of Sirayo, who was
wrongly accused, as he was not one of the party who came into Natal
territory, but was at Umhlan-den-Hlorn at the time; he is accordingly
exempted from this demand, but the others now demanded must be sent in
and delivered over to the Natal authorities within twenty days from the
date that this demand is made. The Zulu king is required, in addition,
to pay to the British government a fine of 500 head of cattle for the
outrage, and for his delay in complying with the request of the Natal
government. These cattle must also be sent in within the period above
named.

13. There has also been another offence committed by Zulu subjects on
the persons of British subjects at Middle Drift on the Tugela River,
below Fort Buckingham. These two British subjects, Messrs. Smith and
Deighton, were, while at or near the drift in the month of September
last, surrounded by a party of fifteen Zulus who, armed with guns and
assegais, in an excited state, took hold of the two white men, and made
them sit down, demanding what they were doing there, as the ground
belonged to Cetywayo. Gradually the Zulus became more quiet, and after
detaining the two white men for an hour and a half, or thereabouts, they
allowed them to go. This interference with and treatment of two British
subjects was an interference and treatment which was unwarrantable. It
was an offence against the persons of two British subjects which cannot
be passed over without notice, and as a punishment for the offence, and
a warning against the commission of similar offences in the future, the
High Commissioner requires that a fine of 100 head of cattle shall be
paid to the British government. This fine must also be paid within the
period of twenty days from the date of the communication being made.

14. The two cases referred to have been cases of offence—one of them of
a most serious and outrageous nature—committed by individual Zulu
subjects on British territory, or against the persons of British
subjects, for which it has been found necessary to demand that
reparation shall be made in the manner above stated.

15. There is also the case of Umbelini, a Swazi refugee living in the
Zulu country, who is charged with having recently made a murderous raid
into the country north of the Pongola River, which is claimed as British
territory by the Transvaal government. It will be necessary for the
offenders in this case to be given up to be tried by the Transvaal
courts for the offence of which they have been accused, and a further
communication will be made to Cetywayo when the Transvaal government has
stated who, besides Umbelini, must be given up to be tried.

16. But beyond these matters which relate to certain offences committed
by certain Zulu subjects against the British government, the attention
of her Majesty’s Commissioner has of necessity been given to the state
of government and the state of affairs in the Zulu country, as affecting
both the conditions of the Zulu people and the peace and safety of the
Queen’s dominions lying adjacent to Zululand, and of other tribes and
peoples, the allies or friendly neighbors of the British government.

17. In the time of the late king Panda the relations of the British
government and the Zulus had always been of a friendly nature. The
English government and the Zulus were near neighbors, and all the Zulu
nation can bear witness that the English government never did anything
unfriendly, or showed in any way otherwise than most friendly and well
disposed towards the Zulus. Panda, it is well known, was established in
the chieftainship by the Dutch emigrant farmers, who defeated the Zulu
king Dingaan. It was after this that the English came into Natal and
established relations with Panda and the Zulu nation.

18. Panda’s reign was a more peaceful one than those of his
predecessors, and his rule was milder and more tolerant. He encouraged
trade. He allowed Christian missionaries to settle on the land, and set
aside stations for them and gave them land, and there was good promise
of an improvement in the condition of the Zulu people.

19. Unhappily, during the latter part of his reign, and when he became
old, trouble came upon the land in consequence of the difference between
Cetywayo and his brothers as to who should be successor to the king.

20. Panda had always behaved in a loyal and friendly manner to the
British government, and when, on account of the continued excitement and
uneasiness in the Zulu country, he asked the Natal government to
interfere, the government sent Mr. Shepstone, the Secretary for Native
Affairs, to recommend Panda to nominate a successor, and so remove the
uncertainty on that point, and the cause of dispute among the brothers.
The result was the nomination of the house of Cetywayo, which, settling
the dispute of succession, gave quiet again to the Zulu country.

21. After the death of Panda, the sons of the late king, and the headmen
of the Zulu nation, assembled and sent messengers to the government of
Natal saying that the nation found itself wandering because of the death
of the king. “There was no king,” they said, and the messengers brought
from the nation four oxen, representing the “Head of the king” to the
Natal government. They further asked that Mr. Shepstone, who had been
present at the nomination of Cetywayo, might go and establish what was
wanted, and, at the same time, breathe the spirit by which the nation
should be governed. They said, moreover, it was the will of the nation
that the new king should be the son of the British government.

22. The government of Natal had no wish to mix itself up with these
arrangements of the Zulu people; but eventually it consented and sent
Mr. Shepstone to take part in the installation. It was the wish of
Cetywayo that this should be done—it was the wish of the whole Zulu
nation. In consenting to this, the British government had no selfish
object of any kind. It did not seek to obtain a single foot of land for
itself, nor any advantage nor any privilege whatever. It wanted nothing
for itself, and demanded nothing for itself. Its only motive in
complying with the wish of the Zulu nation, and in taking part in the
coronation of the new king, was that in doing so it might help to assure
the peace of the Zulu country and promote in some degree the welfare of
the Zulu people.

23. In taking part, therefore, the only conditions it made were in favor
of the good government of the people. At a formal meeting held previous
to the installation between Mr. Shepstone, Cetywayo and the headmen of
the Zulu nation, several matters were discussed, chief among which were
certain regulations or laws for the better government of the Zulu
people, which were to be proclaimed on the occasion of the installation.
Subsequently, on the day of the installation, the laws were formally
proclaimed by Mr. Shepstone.

24. It was proclaimed:

1. That the indiscriminate shedding of blood should cease in the land.

2. That no Zulu should be condemned without open trial and the public
examination of witnesses, for and against, and that he should have the
right of appeal to the king.

3. That no Zulu’s life should be taken without the previous knowledge
and consent of the king, after such trial has taken place, and the
right of appeal had been allowed to be exercised.

4. That for common crimes, the loss of property, all or a portion,
should be substituted for the punishment of death.

25. Now these laws were formally proclaimed by Mr. Shepstone, who
represented the British government in Natal, and proclaimed with the
formal consent of Cetywayo, of the chief men of the nation, and of the
natives then assembled. It was not done as a mere idle ceremony or form:
it was not done in secret but in public; it was not done in the dark,
but in the open day; it was not done in solitude, but at the royal
kraal, in the presence and the hearing of the king, the chiefs and the
assembled people. They were laws for the good government of the Zulu
people. The subject of them had been carefully and deliberately
discussed beforehand between the British representatives and Cetywayo
and his councillors, and agreed upon, and then afterwards, in the
hearing and presence of the people, the laws had been solemnly affirmed.

26. These laws for the well-being of the Zulu people were the conditions
required by the British government, in return for the countenance and
support given by it to the new Zulu king, by the presence of its
representative, and by his taking part in the king’s coronation; and
once spoken as they were, they cannot be broken without compromising the
dignity, the good faith, and the honor of the British government.

27. The British government now asks, How has it been in this matter?
Have the promises then made been kept? Have the laws which were then
proclaimed been observed? Let the Zulu king answer!

28. There is but one answer. The king and people know very well that the
promises have not been kept. They know that these laws have not been
observed, but that they have been broken time after time, and that they
are almost daily broken in the Zulu country. They know very well that
the lives of hundreds of Zulu people, men, women, old and young, have
been taken since that day without any trial at all, that the
indiscriminate shedding of blood has not ceased, and that the killing of
Zulu people has gone on as if no promise had ever been made, and no law
ever proclaimed.

29. Hence it is that all Zulus live in fear to lose their lives any day.
No man knows when he may be suddenly set upon and killed, and all
belonging to him destroyed or taken away.

30. How can these things be? Were the words which were spoken at the
coronation mere empty words, meaning nothing? The Zulu king knows that
it is not so, and that it cannot be so. The British government in Natal
did not want, and it did not ask, to take any part in the installation
of Panda’s successor. It wished well to the Zulu country and the Zulu
people, but for itself it wished for nothing, it asked for nothing. It
was Cetywayo himself, it was the Zulu nation assembled together, that
sent to the government to ask it to take part. Even then the government
did not desire to take any part in what was being done, but it consented
to do so, asking nothing for itself, but asking certain conditions for
the good of the Zulu people.

31. The conditions which it asked were conditions for the protection of
the lives of the Zulu people, that they might not be condemned and slain
without trial, without knowing what their offence was, without cause,
and without chance of justice. These were the laws proclaimed.

32. The British government cannot, then, allow that the words which were
once spoken on its part should be empty words, or that the promises
which were made to it, and for which it became the mouthpiece and the
guarantee to the whole Zulu nation, should be treated as if they were
mere idleness and empty sound. But for five years they have been so
treated, and now it can be no longer so.

33. The promises have not been kept, and how is it possible they can be
kept so long as the present system of government is maintained by the
king?

34. The present system of government is destroying the country. All the
young men, all the able-bodied men of the country, are taken as
soldiers. They are taken from their homes at an age when they are
becoming useful to their parents, and are kept for several years in the
compulsory service of the king. They are not allowed to marry, as the
other men around them, as in Natal, as among the Amaswagi, as among the
Amapondo. They cannot marry when they desire to do so, but they must
await the permission of the king, and they are often kept for seven
years without the permission to do so. They are not allowed to labor for
themselves, or to plant, or to reap, or to live in quiet and in peace
with their families and relatives. They are constantly summoned up to
the king’s kraals, as if for war, although there is no enemy to fight
with, and thus they come to fight among themselves, and blood is shed,
and there is distress and moaning in the land; or they are sent out in
parties to surround the kraals of those who have given offence to the
king, or who are accused by private enemies, and who then, without trial
and without a word, are killed, their kraals laid desolate, and their
families, and all they have, carried off and destroyed.

35. Thus the army is made an instrument, not for the defence of the
country but for the oppression of the people. All the best interests of
the Zulu country and the happiness of the Zulu people are sacrificed in
order that the king may keep up this large army. For what purpose is
this army kept up? Is there an enemy? Where is the enemy? Cetywayo knows
very well that there is no enemy, and that there is no occasion for this
large army. In the days of Chaka or Dingaan it might be different, but
now on all sides of the Zulu country is the territory of the British
government, or of its allies and friendly neighbors. The king knows very
well that the British government is a peaceful and friendly power, and
that it wishes well to the Zulu people, and that it wishes them to live
in peace and comfort. The king knows this well, for did not his father
live to become an old man under the shelter of the British government,
and has not Cetywayo himself grown up to manhood under the eye of the
English?

36. With regard to the native neighboring tribes, the Basuto, Amapondo,
the Amaswagi, and others, they are either the subjects or the allies or
neighbors of the British government, and the Zulu king knows he has
nothing to fear from them. They are, besides, peaceful people and not
given to war and aggression.

37. For what purpose then does the Zulu king keep up this large army,
which brings so much hardship and so much misery upon the Zulu people
themselves? It can serve no good purpose. It can be made of no use,
except it be used for the oppression of the Zulu people or for
aggression upon British subjects or the allies and neighbors of the
British government.

38. There is, therefore, no real need for the army. The present system
is working the destruction of the Zulu people. The army was used against
the very people of the country to which it belongs. It is the strength
of the nation destroying the nation itself.

39. Let the natives say if this is not so? Besides, while the king keeps
up this army, while he is continually calling it together, it is
impossible for his neighbors to feel secure. They never know what may
happen, and the British government is obliged to keep large numbers of
the Queen’s troops in Natal and the Transvaal in order to protect
British subjects against the dangers of a possible aggression by the
Zulu king.

40. This state of things cannot last. It is dangerous to the peace of
all the countries adjoining Zululand, and it is hurtful to the Zulu
people themselves. The British government cannot allow it to continue.
It has become absolutely necessary that some change should be made.

41. It is necessary that the military system which is at present kept up
by the king should be done away with as a bad and hurtful one, and that
he should instead adopt such military regulations as may be decided on
after consultation with the great council of the Zulus, and with the
representatives of the British government.

42. It is necessary that the Zulu army, as it is now, shall be
disbanded, and that the men shall return to their homes.

43. Let the obligation on every able-bodied man to come out for the
defence of his country, when it is needed, remain, but until then let it
be that every man shall live, if he please, quietly at his own home.

44. Let every man then be free to remain at his home, and let him plant
and sow, and reap and tend his cattle, and let him live in peace and
with his family.

45. Let him not be called out for war or for fighting or for assembling
in regiments, except with the permission of the great council of the
nation assembled, and with the consent also of the British government.

46. Let every man, when he comes to man’s estate, be free to marry. Let
him not wait for years before he gets permission to do this, for
oftentimes the king forgets to give the permission, and the years pass
on and the man becomes old. But let him be free to marry when he
pleases, as it is in Natal.

47. So will the king have contented subjects.

48. Then with respect to the promises made at the coronation, let rules
at once be laid down that any Zulu, man or woman, old or young, who is
accused of any crime, be tried by properly appointed indunas before
punishment, that no one may be punished without cause, and that the life
of no one be taken until the offence of which he is accused be heard
openly against him; and on answers given by him in self-defence, in
order that those by whom he is tried may say whether he is guilty or not
before he is punished: and if any one is declared guilty let him not be
killed before the king has given his consent, and until the person
declared guilty has been able to make an appeal to the king.

49. Thus it was promised it should be at the time of the coronation, but
the promises have not been kept.

50. But in future it will be necessary that the promises be kept, for
the British government holds itself bound to see that this is so; and in
order that they may be kept, and that the laws regarding them may be
duly carried out, the Queen’s High Commissioner, on behalf of the
British government, will appoint an officer as his deputy to reside in
the Zulu country, or on its immediate borders, who will be the eyes and
ears and mouth of the British government towards the Zulu king and the
great council of the nation.

51. What words the king or the council of the nation may desire to say
to the British government can then be said through this officer, and
also what words the British government may desire to say to the king and
the great council can be said through him, so that all misunderstanding
and questions that arise between the two countries, or between the
subjects of the two countries, may be dealt with and settled through
this one officer speaking with the king and the great council.

52. This officer will see that the rules regarding the trials of all
Zulus before punishment are kept, and that no man is killed without
trial, but that all men may have an opportunity of answering the
accusations brought against them, and if need be of appealing to the
king.

53. He will see also that the arrangements to be made regarding the army
are carried out; that no one is called out for war without necessity;
that all men are allowed to live at their homes in peace; and that every
young man is free to marry. So will it be well with the Zulu people.

54. The late king Panda allowed several European missionaries to settle
in Zululand. Cetywayo also allowed them to stay in the country, but
during the last two years some of the natives living on the mission
stations were killed without trial, or form of trial, and others were
terrified, and thus the missionaries have, most of them, been obliged to
abandon their stations; and the High Commissioner desires that all those
missionaries who, until the last year, lived in the Zulu country and
occupied stations, as also the natives belonging to the stations, be
allowed to return and occupy their stations. He desires also that all
missionaries be allowed to teach, as in Panda’s time, and that no Zulu
shall be punished for listening to them. If any Zulu wishes, of his own
choice, to listen to the missionary he is free to do so. If any native
living on a mission station does wrong, he will be liable to punishment,
but he must be tried first.

55. If any case of dispute occurs in which any of the missionaries, or
in which any European is concerned, such dispute should be heard by the
king in public and in the presence of the British resident; and no
sentence of expulsion from Zululand shall be carried out until it has
been communicated by the king to the Resident, and until it has been
approved by the Resident.

56. These are the words of her Majesty’s High Commissioner, which the
Lieutenant Governor of Natal sends to the Zulu king and the chief men of
the nation, and for the whole Zulu nation,

57. These are the conditions which her Majesty’s High Commissioner, in
the name of the British government, considers necessary for the
establishment of a satisfactory state of things in the Zulu country, and
for the peace and safety of the adjoining countries. Let, therefore, the
king and the chief men of the nation consider them, and let them give
their answer regarding them within thirty days from the day on which
this communication is made to the Zulu representatives, in order that
her Majesty’s High Commissioner may then know if the king and the great
council agree to the words which are here given, and will give effect to
these conditions, which are necessary both for the peace and safety of
the Queen’s subjects and allies and also for the safety and welfare of
the Zulu people, to which the Queen’s government wishes well.

(Signed)
HENRY BULWER,
_Lieutenant Governor_.

JOHN DUNN’S LETTER.
_To the Aborigines Protection Society_—

I beg to write, for the information of your honorable Society, and state
that I am an Englishman by birth, and have been a resident of the Zulu
country, and living among the Zulus, for the last twenty years, and I
can confidently say that there is no white man in this part of South
Africa so fitted to judge of their feelings towards the English race as
I am.

I would not now address your honorable Society if it were not that I
have noticed a very strong, wrong and arbitrary feeling gaining ground
against the Zulu nation on the side of the white population in this part
of South Africa. A strong feeling of color and jealousy I cannot
understand, unless it is on account of the independency of the Zulu
race, a feeling taken up without any just cause, and that feeling is now
on the verge of breaking out on the pretext of a false claim of land
boundary; a claim pretended to being upheld for the Dutch Boers, who are
no friends of the English race, and are well known in this part of South
Africa for their encroaching propensities on any land belonging to the
natives of this country, to evade English laws, on the pretext of
getting permission to graze cattle, on the grass becoming scarce on
their own farms, and afterwards claiming the land. A claim in which the
Natal government have always upheld the Zulus, and now, since the
annexation of the Transvaal (in 1877), the head of the government there,
who professed to side with the Zulus while he was in Natal, has now
turned round and claimed for the Dutch a country thickly inhabited by
the Zulus.

I write this for the information of your honorable Society, in the hope
that you will try and put a stop to proceedings which will, if carried
out, be the cause of bloodshed in an unjust cause, as I can assure you
nothing but the grossest act of encroachment and oppression will cause
the Zulus to take up arms against the English race, who wish to live at
peace with them, not being ripe enough for civilization or civilized
laws.

The standard rule that is gone by against the black races in this part
of South Africa is the Amaxosa, or Cape Frontier Kafir, who is not to be
compared to the Zulu; nothing but forced Christianity or civilization
will spoil the Zulus, and the class of foreign missionaries we have in
the country does more injury than good to them. Let them say what they
like in their reports to the societies, they make no converts to their
faith, besides the pretended ones or vagabonds, who imagine that by
being clothed and under the garb of Christianity they will be exempt
from all king’s service and laws of the country, and be allowed to roam
about and do as they please.

The Zulu nation, judiciously dealt with, would remain a firm ally and
friend to the English, and it would be a shame for any false notions of
power on the English side to take advantage of such power, and destroy
the Zulu race, which would undoubtedly be the case if they were
overthrown; they would then become a lot of bold rogues, and eventually
give much trouble.

One of the most unfair features in the case is this, that the head of
the Transvaal government (Sir T. Shepstone) has always advised Cetywayo
to remain quiet, and not to go to war with the Boers in disputing the
boundary, promising him to see him righted, when, if it had been left to
the Zulus and Boers themselves, I am sure the Boers would have got the
worst of it. He now turns round and is prepared to fight himself, when
he knows he is only too well backed up by England for the Dutch, England
not knowing the real facts.

The Zulus acknowledge no individual title to land, permission only being
given to squat, the land being looked on as belonging to the squatter
only so long as he occupies it.

But before sending the above letter, I thought I would consult Mr. H.
Escombe, and he advised me not to send the letter, as he had no doubt it
was the intention of the English government to disarm all the native
tribes in South Africa, and that I would only be making a fool of
myself, or words to that effect, but at the same time advising me to
wait the arrival of Mr. I. Sanderson, who was editor of the _Natal
Colonist_, a colonial newspaper, now defunct, and who was expected out
from England shortly. I acted on Mr. Escombe’s advice, and on the
arrival of Mr. Sanderson had a conversation with him, and gave him the
letter. He pretended to think well of my proposal, but before he had
time to carry it out, affairs, as regards Zulu matters, came to a
crisis, and Mr. Sanderson died shortly afterwards, and so ended this
matter.

APPENDIX TO GOLD FIELDS CHAPTER.

The following _resumé_ of the opinions of Dr. Schenk, a geologist who
has paid several professional visits and has lately made researches at
the gold fields, an account of which, I believe, he purposes shortly to
publish in Germany, is taken from the letter of a correspondent in the
Pretoria _Volkstem_ under date February, 1887, and will be perused with
considerable interest by geologists.

The Barberton formation, the doctor said, consisted of very old and in
most instances highly metamorphosed rocks, composed of slate and
sandstone, with interposed eruptive rocks of greenstone (diorite,
serpentine, etc.). These rocks are highly erected, dipping invariably at
great angles, often perpendicular, and run from east to west. In this
formation the gold-bearing veins or reefs are situated, and these with
few exceptions run in the same direction (this is, for instance, the
case with the reefs at Moodie’s and with the Sheba, etc.), nearly always
accompanying the eruptive rocks. The gold, in the doctor’s opinion, came
from the interior of the earth with the eruptive rocks to the surface,
and was therefore concentrated in these reefs, which consist of quartz,
and often contain iron along with the gold. This formation probably
corresponds in age with the Silurian formation of Europe, and is found
also in Swaziland, Zoutpansberg, and the recently discovered gold fields
of the Tugela. There is no young formation overlying these rocks at
Barberton, but in the Drakensberg and at Witwatersrand a younger
formation lies unconformably over the older rocks. This the doctor
concluded to be of Devonian age. It consists of large beds of sandstone,
with here and there slate and greenstone. This younger formation had
subsequently been folded in the same way as the Barberton rocks, though
not so highly erected. The Barberton formation, he is inclined to think,
proceeds beneath this formation in a westerly direction to Witwatersrand
and thence to Bechuanaland. Regarding the presence of the
before-mentioned younger formation, he considered it was due to the
overflowing of this part of the country by the sea, which by wearing
away the higher portions of the mountains, and destroying their rock,
including the gold-bearing reefs, formed a more level plain and covered
it with the destroyed masses of the old formation. This new formation,
therefore, was simply a re-deposit of the old one under a different
appearance. The sandstone schists abounding at Witwatersrand were no
doubt formed of the softer rocks, while the conglomerate resulted from
the destruction of the hard reefs before alluded to; these probably
having been reduced, by the action of the water, to sand and pebbles,
which afterwards became cemented into a solid mass. The conglomerate of
Witwatersrand, Dr. Schenk further observed, is imbedded in the
sandstone, to form a series of large belts, the extremities of which are
at the surface. His reasons for coming to this conclusion were that at
Witwatersrand the conglomerate dipped to the south, while between
Heidelberg and the Vaal (southward of the Rand) it dipped to the north,
or in an exactly opposite direction, and between these places it lay
more horizontally, thus affording grounds for supposing that the
conglomerate at one place is connected with that at the other. The
doctor, in conclusion, remarked that the Witwatersrand conglomerate was
a most peculiar formation, and that he had never before seen anything of
the kind. It did not, in his opinion, run into a reef, as many old
diggers and others seem to suppose; but the reefs from which it
originated, and which he judged to be the continuation of the Barberton
reefs running through this place, he considers to be somewhere in the
vicinity of the conglomerate, but at a considerable depth from the
surface.

-----

Footnote 1:

A brandy of great strength, never matured, and frequently adulterated
with most noxious substances by unscrupulous canteen-keepers and
illicit liquor dealers.

Footnote 2:

“South African Mission Fields.”—Carlyle, Nesbet & Co. 1878.

Footnote 3:

“Boers and Bantu.”—By George McCall Theal.

Footnote 4:

“Lives of R. and M. Moffat.” 1885.

Footnote 5:

Dr. Lindley told me that he was reduced to such straits during this
tedious land journey that, on one occasion, all he had left to support
life for a whole week was a few handsful of sugar eaten from time to
time.

Footnote 6:

“John McCarter. Dertien Jaren Herder en Leeraar in die Kerk.”
Amsterdam, Höveker & Zoon.

Footnote 7:

“Commentaries on Native Laws, Customs and Usages, with some Remarks on
Interpretation and Annexation.”—By John Courtenay Chasman Chadwick, J.
P., Attorney at Law, Maritzburg, Vanse, Slatter & Co.

Footnote 8:

Umtagati, one highly criminal, a murderer, poisoner.

Footnote 9:

Isiropo, unchaste, not a virgin.

Footnote 10:

Circuit Court D’Urban, before his Lordship, Justice Phillips, Feb.
12th, 1867. Trial of Nokahlela, Gumaudi, Matyobani, Umguquini,
Pambili, Umgabuka and Kongota.

Footnote 11:

The chief native adviser.

Footnote 12:

According to the _Statesman_ of India, no Chinese soldier in Tonquin
during the late war lost an opportunity to eat the flesh of a fallen
French foe—believing that human flesh, especially that of foreign
warriors, is the best possible stimulant for a man’s courage.

Footnote 13:

Again, Hibbert, in his “Lectures on Religion in Mexico and Peru,”
asserts that cannibalism was once universal in our race, arguing that
all primitive sacrifices were originally suggested by the idea that
the Divine Being had the same tastes and proclivities as we ourselves.
The Rev. W. R. Blackett, M. A., in relation to this, says: “This is a
remarkable _bouleversement_ of reasoning. It might perhaps be safer to
argue that, as human sacrifices have been universal and cannibalism
has not, the aim of sacrifice could not be merely to gratify supposed
human tastes in the deities to whom they were offered.”

Footnote 14:

According to Mr. Surveyor A. Moor, the top of the falls above the
level of the administrator’s residence, which is seventeen miles
(horizontal) distant, is 5,643 feet, and the height of the falls
themselves 1,862.5 feet.

Footnote 15:

The cypress trees in the cathedral grounds in Maritzburg are grown
from seed collected in this pass by Captain Allison, and presented by
him to the dean and chapter.

Footnote 16:

The acting resident magistrate at D’Urban and coolie immigration
agent.

Footnote 17:

Remittent fever of a virulent and exceptionally fatal type had been
prevalent in Mauritius for a considerable period some year or two
previously.

Footnote 18:

Many of my readers will be familiar with the unhappy dissensions which
used to exist in the Church of England in South Africa. These partly
arose out of Bishop Colenso’s (Bishop of Natal) orthodoxy being
impugned, and partly from the ritualistic practices the opposite
section indulged in. The particulars of the dispute, which for years
occupied the attention of the gentlemen of the long robe, are too long
and perplexing for me to enter into. Suffice it to say that, though
beyond all doubt both parties were convinced they had right on their
side, yet to lovers of the good old Church the dissensions were much
to be regretted. Bishop Colenso, however, in the long run gained the
day.

Footnote 19:

The Anglican Sisterhood of St. Michael and All Angels.

Footnote 20:

Since enlarged.

Footnote 21:

Kafir pox, a varicelloid disease, believed to attack only natives,
also known as “Watcht en beitje” pock (Dutch, “wait a bit”), as it
delayed them on their road.

Footnote 22:

An Act to legalize gambling by this means came before the legislative
council this year (1887) but was rejected. The arguments “for and
against” were very funny. One Dutch legislator, when the subject was
under debate, brought forward as a clinching argument that “when Jonah
was on board a vessel on his way to Nineveh it was decided by a
totalisator that he should be thrown overboard,” while another (who
had a large open Bible before him) referred to the Revelations, where,
he said, it was pointed out that “roovers, woekeraars, and spelers,”
could not enter the kingdom of heaven. He said God’s Holy Word did not
justify gambling, and where could they get a better authority than the
Bible? The name “totalisator” was in itself so big a word to pronounce
that he often wondered that people’s tongues did not twist in
pronouncing it (loud laughter).

Footnote 23:

It may be interesting to my readers to mention that “Vaal” means dun
or mud color, the tint of the river, especially noticeable during
flushes, when so much clay from the banks is held in suspension,
though at no period has the stream the crystal clearness of the Isis
or the Cam. The inhabitants of the banks are facetiously nicknamed
_Vaal penses_, in meaning much the same as “yellow bellies,” the
designation applied with rustic humor to the dwellers on the fens in
Lincolnshire by the agricultural population of the surrounding
districts.

Footnote 24:

August 1886. Since then many more amalgamations of companies have
taken place.

Footnote 25:

The recent extension of the railway to Kimberley has of course much
reduced the price of fuel, though it is even at this day so high that
the home manufacturers or householders would shudder to contemplate
paying half the price.

Footnote 26:

Vulgarly called carbon by the diggers.

Footnote 27:

Diamondiferous soil.

Footnote 28:

This was written before the discovery of the Cape diamond fields.

Footnote 29:

The French and Central companies of the Kimberley mine have sunk
shafts comparatively recently about 620 feet deep (in 1886), and are
still in this rock. It is of various textures and colors, and contains
agates, jasper, calcite, iron pyrites and various other minerals.

Footnote 30:

Resembling charcoal in its mineral condition.

Footnote 31:

This waste ground accumulated in vast masses or heaps, one of these
being known by the Scriptural name of Mount Ararat.

Footnote 32:

These boys were known by the oddest of names. One unfortunate native,
arrested for some trivial offense, when asked his name in the Charge
Office replied “Go to h——!” and gave the same when interrogated the
second time, on which the sergeant in charge knocked him down, but
regretted doing so when he found that that was really the name which
had been bestowed on him by his master. Only a few months since
another native arraigned gave his name as “B——y fool.” On being asked
by the magistrate who gave him that name, he replied that he chose it
himself.

Footnote 33:

Instead of “whims,” in which the horses trot round in a circle, some
of the diggers used “whips” in which the horses trot backward and
forward.

Footnote 34:

Much of the debris of the early days pays handsomely to rewash with
the present improved machinery, and licenses authorizing such washing
are issued by the chief of the detective department. It is believed
that the privilege has been frequently abused and made a cloak for the
illicit traffic in diamonds.

Footnote 35:

The De Beers’ Mining Co. of De Beers’ Mine, Limited.

Footnote 36:

Dutch for stones.

Footnote 37:

The public press repeatedly drew attention to the “poison” that was
retailed to the natives, and I well remember the following sarcastic
lines that were published about this time:

“The best of all methods, so others maintain,
To free them from ignorance’ yoke,
And enable them civilized freedom to gain,
Is simply to give them ‘Cape Smoke;’[118]
When mixed with tobacco, red pepper and lime,
With dagga and vitriol, too,
The draught is delicious, enchanting, sublime—
Why, it even would civilize _you_!”

Footnote 38:

Slang Jewish expression for an illicit or stolen diamond.

Footnote 39:

A noted detective officer.

Footnote 40:

A very much overrated mine, five miles from Kimberley, rushed on the
last Sunday in April, 1876.

Footnote 41:

In the session of 1885 the diamond trade act was extended, with but
trifling alterations, to the entire of Cape Colony, which in spite of
all the efforts of unscrupulous men, who are themselves well known to
be in the trade, still remains in force.

Footnote 42:

Some idea of the extent to which this organized system of robbery is
carried on may be formed, when I tell my readers that since the
passing of the diamond trade act in 1882 up to Dec. 31st, 1885, 19,272
carats of diamonds, valued at £37,829 have been recovered by the
detective department.

Footnote 43:

“Over the Free State line,
Whatever is yours is mine.
If I’ve a stone
Its all my own,
No ‘John Fry’[119] shall make me groan
Over the Free State line.
I’ll never have cause to pine,
The I. D. B. is happy and free,
Over the Free State line.”

Footnote 44:

The Gold Law No. 6, passed July 30, 1885. Clause 78 reads as follows:
“78. Any person purchasing, trading or receiving rough gold or uncut
precious stones from colored persons, either on a proclaimed public
field, or elsewhere within the limits of the South African Republic,
shall be fined a sum not exceeding £1,000 and imprisonment for a
period of not more than five years, with or without hard labor, beside
the forfeiture of such rough precious metal or uncut precious stones
to the State.”

Footnote 45:

See further particulars at end of chapter.

Footnote 46:

As an instance of what risks they will run I may mention that in
November, 1886, on a post-mortem being made on a native who died under
suspicious circumstances at Du Toit’s Pan a sixty carat rough diamond
was found in his stomach.

Footnote 47:

I should not omit here to mention that this clique which arrogates to
itself the name of the “Mercantile Community” is powerful enough to
send their representatives not only to parliament, but to the town
council.

Footnote 48:

Three of these cases have occurred in which conviction followed, and
the offenders received sentences varying from five to ten years’
imprisonment.

Footnote 49:

I must here warn my readers against falling into the mistake of
supposing that I attribute the depression of trade now existing to the
absence of the enterprising and formerly ubiquitous illicit, many
causes having conduced to bring about the present stagnation.

Footnote 50:

While I am given to understand that this female searcher acted with
some brutality on this occasion, I have not the slightest doubt that
such violence was quite unauthorized by the authorities.

Footnote 51:

Jail.

Footnote 52:

The celebrated street in Paris during the rage of Law’s Mississippi
scheme.

Footnote 53:

The South African Exploration Company did this in the early part of
this year, and recovered £696 and interest at the rate of 6 per cent,
from the defendant.

Footnote 54:

A great change has again taken place. The Rose Innes has been
incorporated with the Central, and the shares of the latter company in
the spring of 1886 were selling at about £160, though nine or ten
months previously they were down as low as £20, and no demand even at
that.

Footnote 55:

The soundness of the investment of money in our Diamond Mining scrip
under the diminished cost of working, owing to the extension of the
railway, the increased care taken in the searching department, and
consequently increased yield of diamonds, has been lately much taken
advantage of by European capitalists, and at the present time I have
never, for years, known the Fields in a more prosperous condition.

Footnote 56:

A favorite Boer expression when abandoning an expedition.

Footnote 57:

Lieut. Governor Southey in a long dispatch dated Kimberley, April
11th, 1874, in reply to a dispatch from Sir Henry Barkly of March
11th, the same year, and which was written after Langalibalele had
attempted to escape from Natal, said in clause

“15. The alterations and changes made by the Cape government, and with
which I am desired to co-operate, are made avowedly at the instance of
the Natal government; and you have furnished me with an extract from
one of that government’s communications upon the subject. I should
have been glad to have been permitted to peruse the whole of the
letter, as I have reason to believe that they attribute their late
troubles, in a large degree, to the facility with which natives can
obtain guns in this province, instead of, as in my opinion they should
do, attributing them to their own mismanagement and mistaken policy.

“16. It is not true that (as the colonial secretary of Natal
erroneously alleges) arms and ammunition at the diamond fields pass
more readily from the diggers to the natives than specie; the natives
receive their wages invariably in specie, they are paid weekly, and
the usual rate of pay is ten shillings for the week. Those who obtain
guns purchase them as a rule just before leaving for their homes, and
only after producing the permits to purchase which the law requires.
Comparatively speaking, but few Natal or Basuto natives come here; the
great bulk of our native laborers come from the interior northward of
the South African Republic, and considerably beyond the legitimate
boundaries of that state, and their guns are not acquired for war
purposes, but for purposes connected with legitimate and beneficial
trade.

“17. I cannot concur in the opinion of the lieutenant governor of
Natal that the acquisition of arms by the natives of the interior, who
come here and work in the mines, is fraught with danger to the peace
of South Africa, and I am unable to see why we should cherish a
friendly feeling with the neighboring republics any more than with the
various native tribes. I should consider it very undesirable to
purchase the friendly feeling of those republics at the expense of
injustice or oppression toward her Majesty’s own subjects or
unfriendly acts toward the aboriginal inhabitants of the country. I
may here state that the native tribes of the interior have ever
evinced the greatest possible friendliness toward us, and English
travelers, English traders and English missionaries have invariably
been received and treated with all respect by them, while on the other
hand the governments of the republics have on several occasions been
charged with unfriendliness toward us, in official documents addressed
to them by her Majesty’s representatives in South Africa. I believe we
shall best exhibit our friendliness toward the republics by setting
them an example of justice and toleration, and that we should act an
unfriendly part if we pandered to their prejudices or supported them
in oppressing the native population.”

Footnote 58:

I have even seen the rebels drilling in the market square with their
rifles, at four in the afternoon, ordered to “Right about face,”
“Present arms,” so that their rifles would point straight at the
government offices.

Footnote 59:

I recollect at the time calling upon Mr. Froude, who was a _guest_ at
Government House.

Footnote 60:

Who at once ran away to escape the punishment he deserved.

Footnote 61:

As far as Major Lanyon was personally concerned, future events proved
that it had not mattered to him whether the bill passed or not.

Footnote 62:

See chapter 25.

Footnote 63:

And, as my readers will have noticed, of the Griqualand West
legislative council as well.

Footnote 64:

To Englishmen this act contained a curious clause. No person within
the province could sell or barter to any native (except under certain
provisos) any liquor of an intoxicating nature, and my readers can at
once realize the difficulty of logically reconciling the anomaly of
allowing a man a voice in the government of his country and precluding
him from the right of purchasing a glass of beer.

Footnote 65:

An expression applied to Griqualand West by the Hon. I. X. Merriman, a
Cape colonial politician.

Footnote 66:

Curiously enough the sixteen petitions, signed by 1,218 persons,
presented to the Volksraad praying for this law were couched in
precisely the _same_ terms; they all complained of the _same_
nuisance, and each alleged that on the _same_ day the _same_ decision
had been arrived at in the different places from which the petitions
came, although in many of these districts not a single coolie or Arab
was living. This law, as the _Volkstem_ (the principal newspaper in
the Transvaal) says, is not only “ineffectual, but pernicious and
condemnable.” See copy of law in appendix.

Footnote 67:

This is the motive generally attributed to the late Sir Pomeroy Colley
in making the ascent of Majuba during the absence of Sir Evelyn Wood.

Footnote 68:

In Great Britain the coal measures have an extent only of 11,859
square miles, in France of 1,719, and in Spain of 3,408.

Footnote 69:

In July, 1886, the Kimberley papers gave publicity to a rumor that a
ring had been formed by the proprietors of collieries in England,
alarmed at the growth of the coal mining industry in Natal, to
undersell for an indefinite period, and by these means strangle
competition.

Footnote 70:

Majuba is 6,000 feet above the sea and 3,000 feet above Mount
Prospect.

Footnote 71:

Our total losses at Majuba were 6 officers killed, 9 wounded and 6
prisoners; non-commissioned officers and men, 86 killed, 125 wounded,
53 prisoners.

Footnote 72:

The official reasons, or rather the official excuses, for the loss of
the day, are a transparent gloss, intended to hide gross mismanagement
on the one hand and a panic-stricken retreat on the other. They are
the following, extracted from the _Gazette_: (1) The slopes below the
brow of the plateau were too steep to be searched by our fire, and
cover existed up to the brow; (2) the rocky ridge we occupied in
second line, though the best we had time to hold, did not cover more
than fifty yards to its front, as the plateau rolled continuously to
the brow; (2a) the men were too exhausted to intrench, and hardly fit
to fight; (3) when the Boers gained the last ridge ours had to descend
almost impassable slopes, and many were shot in doing so.

Footnote 73:

Boer commandment at Bronker’s Spruit.

Footnote 74:

Sixty-six officers and men killed sixty seven wounded, and nine
missing.

Footnote 75:

Mrs. Charles Garnett.—A Visit to the Leper Hospital of Bergen.—“Sunday
Magazine,” May 1886.

Footnote 76:

In the last session of the Natal legislative council the vote for
Langibalele’s support was reduced from £500 per annum to £50. He has
now returned, but has only to thank the financial state of Natal for
his “ticket of leave!”

Footnote 77:

See Appendix.

Footnote 78:

He showed that the “record” of the trial, which lasted four days, was
simply an ex-parte statement of evidence taken from witnesses, called
by the crown, examined by the crown prosecutor and cross-examined by
nobody! Not a single witness was called for the defence, the prisoner
having been kept in solitary confinement from the time of his arrival
(Dec. 31st), and not allowed to speak to any one, white or black, who
might try to find witnesses for him.

Footnote 79:

Native term for wiping out their enemies.

Footnote 80:

Warriors not being allowed to marry until they had drawn blood on the
battlefield.

Footnote 81:

“John Dunn, Cetywayo and the Three Generals.” 1886. Natal Printing and
Publishing Co. Pietermaritzburg, Natal.

Footnote 82:

Since writing the above England has decided to annex what remains of
Zululand.

Footnote 83:

For petition see appendix.

Footnote 84:

At this time there was daily issued here and at Mafeting 3,930 full
rations.

Footnote 85:

Since burnt by the rebels.

Footnote 86:

The petition, which was signed by Jonathan Molappo, Mokhethi Moshesh,
Iladiyane Mosheshoe and 896 others, I brought away with me and
presented to the Cape legislative assembly on March 21st, 1882. In the
appendix will be found a copy of the petition itself.

Footnote 87:

The political resident at that period.

Footnote 88:

A few months previously the Sprigg ministry had been defeated, session
of 1881.

Footnote 89:

Since the time I was in Basutoland Colonel Clark, who, during the
Transvaal war, after Captain Falls’ death, surrendered the court-house
at Potchefstroom, when it was set fire to by the Boers, has been
appointed agent in Basutoland. This imperial appointment was made
early in 1884 when the colonial government was relieved of its
responsibility in that country by the home government.

Since Colonel Clark has been in Basutoland the amount paid in taxes
has greatly increased, for whereas at first the receipts were at the
rate of £450 a year only, they now, Masupha having agreed also to pay
hut tax, exceed £5,000 per annum. But from the best authority I learn
that Colonel Clark’s power, although he is personally liked by the
Basutos, is merely nominal, and they would even now be too wide-awake
to pay taxes, if they were not afraid of the confiscation, or in other
words of the robbery, of their cattle by their chiefs, and if they did
not fear the personal vengeance which would result on their resisting;
they prefer, therefore, to buy the semblance of British authority at
the rate of £1 a year per hut, rather than have their cattle stolen
without any redress whatever.

Footnote 90:

The average Sunday attendance at St. Cyprian’s is now 500 at morning
and 700 at evening service; the congregation having more than doubled
within the last five years, though the population of Kimberley has
certainly diminished. This fact must be subject of great gratification
to the clergy of this church. The new church at Beaconsfield (Du
Toit’s Pan), named All Saints, is a very handsome stone and brick
structure, and the lately consecrated bishop laid the foundation stone
of a new church (St. Alban’s) at De Beer’s, about the end of September
1883. There is also a small church (St. Augustine’s) situated at the
west end of Kimberley, the present incumbent of which is the Hon. and
Rev. Mr. Lyttleton.

Footnote 91:

A magnificent monument to the late Mr. Ornstein, subscribed to by
members of all denominations on the Diamond Fields, was consecrated in
October, 1886.

Footnote 92:

The South African native has no religion, worships no God, and his
only idea of spiritual life is that his soul, when he dies, takes up
its abode in a snake, and that the spirits of his ancestors have the
power of working good or evil, or of causing sickness and death.

Footnote 93:

A fractured diamond.

Footnote 94:

This gentleman’s forte was Roman Dutch law. During his residence on
the Diamond Fields he acquired the soubriquet of “Emphytensis” in
consequence of his efforts to establish the practical identity of a
certain Roman leasehold tenure of that name, and the quit-tenure of
the Cape Colony, thus attempting to establish the rights of the Crown
to all diamond and precious stones. His endeavors were, however,
without avail, and he was laughed at for his pains.

Footnote 95:

A noted hostelry near the court-house.

Footnote 96:

This is exemplified in the names by which white people of any
importance are known among them. For instance, a pompous friend of
mine, now an important government official in Natal, was known by the
natives as “Totovian” (Intotoviane) after a most offensively
odoriferous grasshopper with which he waged incessant war. But the
most biting example of native sarcasm, I think, consisted in the name
applied by them to a florin (2s. piece) that of “Scotchman.” This
conveyed, in one word, their appreciation of the Scotch cheese-paring
tendency; as they were shrewd enough to observe, that in cases where
an Englishman would give half a crown, his Highland neighbor would
give only two shillings.

Footnote 97:

Shakespere.—Henry VI., Part ii., Act iv., Scene 2.

Footnote 98:

This class of scoundrel gave Christiana the fictitious appearance of a
population, but this is more fully explained in the chapter on Diamond
Legislation.

Footnote 99:

_I.e._, thirty-six miles, for so are distances reckoned in South
Africa.

Footnote 100:

These I describe in the account of another journey to the Transvaal.

Footnote 101:

This beautiful building has since been completed.

Footnote 102:

Literally, a dram of liquor—meaning a trifle.

Footnote 103:

In pondering over the state of matters then existing it was impossible
for me not to picture in my mind the change time had wrought! A few
short years before, I had seen and listened to Thomas Francois
Burgers, full of eager anticipation of the future before him, speak
most hopefully of the Transvaal, at a banquet given in his honor at
Kimberley, as he passed through to assume the “dictatorship” of that
republic. And when, in touching upon some observation I had made in
proposing the toast of “the press,” he had emphasized the fact that
“the pen was mightier than the sword.” And now, his expectations
unrealized, his fond hopes withered, his ambition blighted,
broken-down in health and spirits, it was not to be wondered at that
he made no strenuous opposition to the advent of British rule.

Footnote 104:

Sir Theophilus Shepstone arrived in Pretoria with his twenty-five
policemen in January, 1877. He announced to President Burgers that
unless he could make arrangements that would be satisfactory to the
Imperial government with regard to the government of the Transvaal he
was authorized to annex it as a portion of Her Majesty’s dominions.
President Burgers called a special session of the Volksraad, and
proposed a new constitution, but that did not meet with the approval
of the British Commissioner, and on the 12th of April, 1877, as I have
mentioned before, the country was proclaimed British territory, and
Sir T. Shepstone assumed the administration of affairs. He continued
to hold that position until the 18th of December, 1878, when he left
for Zululand in consequence of the threatening aspect of native
affairs there. The government was administered for a time by the
senior military officer before the arrival of Colonel Lanyon. Sir T.
Shepstone never returned.

Footnote 105:

Mr. Christian Maasdorp, now nominated to a seat on the Eastern
District’s bench, but who then held the commission as Attorney
General, resigned “when he found it impossible (vide Transvaal
_Advertiser_, November 20th, 1885) to countenance the chicane and
tyranny of the Lanyon administration.”

Footnote 106:

Sir Garnet Wolseley was assisted by an executive council consisting of
Colonel Lanyon, administrator, Colonel Harrison, commanding H. M.
troops, Mr. Melmoth Osborne, Colonial Secretary, Mr. C. G. Maasdorp,
Attorney General, and Mr. H. C. Shepstone, Secretary for native
affairs. There were also three non-official members, viz., Messrs. J.
Marais, J. C. Holtshausen, and J. S. Joubert, who with the members of
the government composed the Executive Council under the Constitution
promulgated on November 8th, 1879. A legislative assembly was at the
same time called into being by the Wolseley constitution, and the
under-mentioned gentlemen were nominated: viz., Messrs. J. R. White,
O. W. A. Forsman, J. A. Esterhuizen, A. H. Stander and J. H. Nel. The
last session of the legislative assembly concluded very shortly before
the war broke out, which put an end to the constitution and British
authority at one fell swoop.

Footnote 107:

“To our homes.”

Footnote 108:

_Convention of Pretoria_, Article 23: If not released before the
taking effect of this Convention, Sekukuni, and those of his followers
who have been imprisoned with him, will be forthwith released, and the
boundaries of his location will be defined by the Native Location
Commission in the manner indicated in the last preceding article.

Footnote 109:

The first Sekukuni war broke out in October, 1876, the treaty of peace
being signed February 5th, 1877. The second Sekukuni war, begun under
the Shepstone administration in March, 1878, resulted in the complete
destruction (under Sir G. Wolseley) of the tribe, and the capture of
the chief, who was held a prisoner of war, as I have mentioned, until
the convention of Pretoria was signed in August, 1881. The Mapoch
(Niabel) and Mampoer war commenced near the end of 1882 and was about
ten months in duration. Mapoch surrendered 12th of July, 1883, to
General Joubert, who had conducted the operations against both chiefs.

Footnote 110:

The Government is wakening to this fact and is beginning to take
active measures.

Footnote 111:

I regret to learn that this gentleman, who was much esteemed in
Barberton, is recently dead.

Footnote 112:

One of the latest analyses gives Welsh coal 81.0 carbon, 6.40 ash;
Transvaal 77.20 carbon, 7.20 ash.

Footnote 113:

The truth of my prognostications has, I am sorry to say, become to a
certain extent verified even before my ink is dry.

Footnote 114:

In the appointment of a British Resident care will have to be
exercised that no one interested in the gold speculations of the
country be nominated.

Footnote 115:

The census returns of the entire population in 1864, twenty-three
years ago, was 1098.

Footnote 116:

In the concession granted in 1873 to Moodie for a railway from Delagoa
Bay to Pretoria, a grant also was made him of 850 farms of 6,000 acres
each, in case he should be successful. Curiously enough these were the
very farms on which the present Kaap gold fields are situated.

Footnote 117:

This was brought forward very prominently in the report of the select
committee on Railway to Delagoa Bay, appointed by resolution of the
House of Assembly, 5th of April, 1880, C. K. White, chairman.

Footnote 118:

Cape Brandy.

Footnote 119:

Chief detective officer at the South African Diamond Fields.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. P. 228, added missing footnote anchor.
2. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
3. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
4. Re-indexed footnotes using numbers and collected together at the end
of the last chapter.
5. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
6. Denoted superscripts by a caret before a single superscript
character or a series of superscripted characters enclosed in
curly braces, e.g. M^r. or M^{ister}.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Incwadi Yami: or twenty years' personal experience in South Africa" ***

Home