Incwadi Yami; or, twenty years' personal experience in South Africa

by J. W. Matthews

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]

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

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.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

SCENE IN NATAL—FAMILY GROUP OF ZULUS.

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:

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).

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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°.

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

[Description]

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:

[Description]

“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.

[Description]

[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.

[Description]

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.