NOTE ON MR. G. J. LEE’S SPECIMENS OF FOSSIL WOOD FROM GRIQUALAND.
“Sir: The lignite from Kimberley mine, claim 196, consists of stems or branches converted into a brittle lignite, which still preserves the original size and form of the stems, and exhibits the internal structure peculiar to coniferæ. The wood cells have a single series of discs, as in the wood of the recent pines.
“The specimens from Kimberley mine, claim 165, are more altered, and approach the condition of our Paleozoic coal. The small portions which show structure (mother coal) consist of fragments of coniferous wood, exhibiting the disciferous wood tissue with the discs in single rows. The slides from the coal of Heilbron, Vaal River, Free State, consist of wood cells, with discs in single or double and opposite rows, as in the recent pines.
“W. Carruthers,
“Botanical Department, British Museum.”—Geological Magazine, 1879, June number, p. 286.
Note.—The Paleozoic coal mentioned above was found imbedded in sandstone similar to that of the shells.
CHAPTER XII.
THE PROCESS OF DIAMOND MINING FROM START TO DATE.—THE “LONG TOM.”—THE “CRADLE” AND THE “BABY.”—THE SORTING TABLE AND SCRAPERS.—VAN DOUSSA’S INVENTION. THE SCENE IN THE KIMBERLEY MINE.—THE ROAD’S “STAGES.” “WHIMS” AND “WHIPS.”—THE ROTARY WASHING MACHINE. THE CYLINDERS AND THE ELEVATORS.—SINGULAR MISTAKES. STATISTICS OF LABOR EMPLOYED.—STEAM POWER.—FUEL.—THE KIMBERLEY WATER-WORKS.
Very shortly after the discovery of diamonds on the banks of the Vaal River the diggers set themselves to solve the important question: How shall we win a maximum of diamonds with a minimum of labor? Sorting without mechanical appliances of any kind was indeed a weary and heart-sickening toil, especially when, as not very rarely happened, weeks elapsed without a single diamond being found to reward the digger for his almost ceaseless labor. Only the hope that “springs eternal in the human breast” enabled the searcher after precious stones to endure it; and so it was not long before inventions, which ingenuity brought to bear upon the object of answering the question above propounded, came into general use.
DIAMOND WASHING MACHINE.
First of all came the “Long Tom,” a trough fitted with ripples, into the head of which the gravel was thrown, and through which a constant flow of water drawn from the river was maintained, while the gravel was raked and the larger stones and pebbles removed, the fine gravel found behind the ripples being taken away to the sorting tables. To this contrivance succeeded the “cradle,” a wooden box placed upon rockers and pulsated upon a flat piece of ground or rock by means of a handle. The cradle contained three sieves, the first very coarse and the third extremely fine. Into the first the mud and gravel were poured, a constant flow of water being of course kept up. When the mud had disappeared the first sieve was hand-sorted, and loud indeed were the shouts of acclamation and universal was the adjournment to the nearest liquor tent when a diamond was found in this receptacle. The contents of sieves Nos. 2 and 3 were then emptied on different ends of the sorting table.
Both these appliances were introduced by old gold diggers, and were similar in construction to their Californian and Australian namesakes.
Third in order came the “baby,” so-called from its inventor, a Mr. Babe, an American. Three screens, somewhat similar to those used by bricklayers in making mortar, were suspended by reins (leather thongs) almost horizontally to four posts, and were kept in agitation by hand, the reins of course giving full play for “pulsation.” The subsequent process was nearly identical with that above described in connection with the cradle, which this machine indeed resembled in principle, though a decided improvement, as much more work could be accomplished with the aid of this invention than with the assistance of its predecessor.
Fourth in order came the “cylinder,” constructed of either wire sieving (10 inch mesh) or punched sheet iron fitted with lids, revolving on an axle, kept moving by a handle immersed in a tub of water. The gravel before being shut up in a cylinder was screened. This was found to be an excellent contrivance for saving labor, and was highly popular, as obviously the natives could have no opportunity of purloining diamonds from it, as it was only opened for the pouring out of the contents under the digger’s personal supervision, or perchance the observing eye of the partner of his joys and sorrows. It is perhaps unnecessary to add that after these machines had come into general use, many, especially the impecunious diggers, amongst whom were many Dutchmen, with overwhelmingly large families, did as best they could with a single sieve, which served as pulsator and everything beside. To-day even, many use this primitive appliance at the river.
Before passing on to the Dry Diggings and the systems that there prevailed, it may be as well to briefly describe the “sorting table.” The top of a packing-case balanced on a heap of gravel often had to serve this purpose in the early days of the river diggings, and beside it the digger knelt, crouched or sat, changing his position when it became too wearisome. The more affluent had a sorting table supported by legs, and covered with a sheet of iron, being slightly inclined from the digger, so that the water might not flow into his lap when the gravel was poured out in front of him. Those of my readers who visited the Cape court in the “Colinderies” have seen a sorting table almost if not quite identical with the best constructed of the early days. The “scraper,” too, which, though small in size and inexpensive in material, is yet an important instrument in diamond winning, has but little altered. This little wonder is not much to look at, being simply a piece of tin or iron about six to nine inches in width and three to four inches in height, with a straight edge and pointed ends. With this the sorter scrapes—scrapes—scrapes, pushing over the edge of his sorting table, garnets, jaspers, carbons, agates, pyrites, crystals and pebbles, which, however interesting to the scientist, are commercially valueless, until at last a diamond is found, and then the precious stone, large or small, is dropped into an unpretentious tin or perhaps a broken bottle, and the process goes on as before.
At the dry diggings sieving and hand-sorting were at first the usual methods employed, and it was long before even so much ingenuity as was required to construct an improved or altered cradle was brought into play. The processes named, however, being so wearisome and exhausting, they were at last abandoned; and among other labor-saving appliances one, for which much kudos was gained by the inventor or adapter—a Mr. Van Doussa—was largely used, but does not need detailed description, as it was simply a combination of the Long Tom and the cradle.
Before describing the elaborate washing machines, etc., in vogue to-day, I will proceed to give my readers some idea of the successive methods by which the diamondiferous soil has been removed from the claims for manipulation. The Kimberley mine attracting by its marvelous richness diggers from other mines was, at the time of its opening, and indeed still is, a wondrous hive of human industry. In the earliest days the sorting tables were placed in the claims themselves, and marvelous were the scenes that then might daily be observed. In a space of some dozen acres were often gathered together as many as ten thousand people; diggers with their wives, sisters and children, busily engaged in sorting; natives shoveling the earth into buckets ceaselessly, the whole scene dotted with myriad parasols and umbrellas of the most varied hues, and awnings of the most gayly-colored blankets. The example of Horace’s “magni formica laboris,” that insect to which Mr. Eugene Wrayburn objected to King Solomon referring him, was closely followed by thousands filled with sanguine hopes, some doomed to bitter disappointment, but full many destined in greater or lesser degree to have their realization.
After a time, however, as the claims were worked deeper, it was found more convenient to have the sorting tables placed outside the mine. I may here mention that in order to facilitate work, roads were reserved running across the mine from north to south. They were some fourteen in number, and 7½ feet being allowed from the claims on each side, were 15 feet broad. On these roads the native laborers tossed the ground, most of which was conveyed to the sorting tables outside the mine, but some to tables placed upon the sides of the road. The waste ground out of which the diamonds had been sorted was of course deposited outside the mine,[[31]] after having been conveyed along the roads in sacks or buckets, or sometimes in wheelbarrows or carts, by the “boys,”[[32]] the name by which the native employés were entitled.
As the mine became yet deeper the system of “benches” came into vogue. There were levels or terraces cut in the side of a claim, and on each of them was posted a native who shoveled up the ground thrown to him from the level below, until at last the precious soil reached the roadway, where a fourth or perhaps a fifth native was waiting to convey it to its destination. Of course the number of benches varied with the depth of the claim.
When yet more of the soil was excavated, another system had to be adopted, and then a post with a pulley attached was driven firmly into the road and the ground drawn up in buckets constructed of either hide or iron, whence it was tossed into carts drawn by horses or oxen, some of which, poor creatures, tumbled over into the claim, where they had to be slaughtered in order that their misery might be ended as soon as possible, while others were killed instantaneously. The loss of human life in these cases was, however, comparatively small.
This system, with the exception that many diggers used windlasses instead of posts and pulleys, prevailed until 1874, by which time the roads had fallen. This had long been foreseen, as isolated portions had long before crumbled away, the chasms being spanned by bridges erected at enormous expense. An entirely new system, therefore, had now to be introduced, and this took the form of “stayings.” They were, as a rule, three in number if the base or ground be counted, and may best be described as floors stoutly constructed, the first stage proper being placed at a height of about eight feet from the ground, the second about sixteen feet. Numerous standing wires were stretched from the claims and along these were drawn buckets containing the diamondiferous soil, one perchance bearing a fortune in its narrow space, literally a multum in parvo. The ground was hauled by windlasses worked by natives. So numerous were the wires that the mine seemed a yawning pit over which some Titanic spider had woven its web, while the noise of the wires was as loud as the din of the traffic in Cheapside or the Strand, the rattle of the machinery in a Lancashire factory, or, to be more imaginative, the roar of angry waves buffeting a rock-bound coast.
In their turn the stages were abandoned, for, as may be imagined, the process of hauling out ground by windlasses worked by hand was a slow process when the claims were worked to a depth of eighty feet or more. “Whims,”[[33]] worked by horses or mules, were substituted, and they were in general use until the reign of steam, which still continues.
In other chapters the geological characteristics of the diamonds are dealt with, and the best authorities quoted at considerable length; in this connection, therefore, it will suffice to say that the “yellow ground” only extends to a certain depth; this is friable, and was easily broken up by means of shovels and clubs known as “beaters.” Beneath this ground lies the hard blue, the discovery of which, as I mention elsewhere, caused no small consternation amongst the diggers, who feared when reaching it that they had come to what in alluvial gold digging would be called the “bed-rock.” This blue ground requires careful manipulation, and 1875 witnessed the general adoption of the “rotary” already introduced for the quicker manipulation of the blue. The machine in question may be thus briefly described: A species of “pay mill,” a round, stationary pan with two concentric rings of sheet iron about nine inches in height; in the centre an upright spindle driving six or eight arms, in which are fixed a number of flattish tynes, not unlike the prongs of a trident, placed in a diagonal direction. Into the circular trough formed by the concentric rings the ground was poured, water was supplied, and the mud kept in agitation by means of the tynes, the overflow passing through a small door or opening in the inner ring. This opening could be regulated by a slide according to the nature of the ground manipulated, rapidity of the revolution of the tynes, etc., etc. The machine was kept in work by means of cog-wheels at the top of the spindle. At opposite points of the circumference of the machine Kafirs were stationed to supply the motive power, and stood there turning and turning all day long. Later on horse power was used for turning the rotaries, which were much enlarged, and now are almost universally driven by steam power. These machines, originally about four feet in diameter, and capable of washing some forty loads per diem, are now made as much as fourteen feet in diameter and from 400 to 800 loads, according to the nature of the ground manipulated, can be washed daily by a single machine. A highly important adjunct to the washing machine proper is the cylinder, which was introduced after the discovery of the blue ground. This was frequently found to be too insufficiently disintegrated, even after long exposure on the depositing floors, to allow of its being rapidly washed without more or less serious loss of diamonds.[[34]] To prevent this loss the contrivance to which I allude was invented. It is a rotatory cylinder, fixed at an angle of some ten degrees, upon which a stream of water plays from a perforated tube directly above it. The upper part of the cylinder is of fine mesh, through which the finer particles of the wetted ground or mud fall upon a table, in the centre of which is an inclined trough leading to the washing machine, and along this the “magma” or slush mentioned flows by natural gravitation. The lower half of the cylinder is of coarser or more open mesh, allowing stones and larger lumps to fall upon the table to be swept off by sorters with watchful eyes for any large diamonds which may be present. This stuff is then generally treated as worthless and thrown away, but the yet larger lumps that issue from the mouth of the cylinder are, as a rule, taken back to the depositing sites for further exposure.
The mud which flows from the opening in the inner ring of the rotary is raised by small buckets (called elevators) on an endless chain to a height of some twenty-five feet, when it is ejected, the more solid portion flowing down screens, either to run down in “tailings” on the spot or into trucks to be emptied elsewhere. The uninitiated who visit a washing machine and elevator occasionally get an unpleasant surprise when their curiosity leads them to wander any distance from their guide, for the tailings, though solid enough at a distance from the flow from the elevator, are there almost liquid, though to the sight, by reason of the dry film at the surface, they appear literally terra firma. One unwary step and the too inquisitive visitor is up to his knees, waist, or even his neck, in a “slough of despond,” whence he is rescued possibly minus a boot or shoe by his apparently sympathizing though really much amused friends, a spectacle for gods or men.
I may here interpolate a few remarks as to the mistakes that were made, especially by the early diggers, as to the nature of the stone unearthed. Men unused to digging came and took out claims, especially in the Du Toit’s Pan mine, a mine which has from the first been renowned for large diamonds, and also for a considerable output of “crystals,” which are of no commercial value. A large crystal, showing all the angularity of the diamond and otherwise closely resembling it, often raises hopes soon doomed to be disappointed. A Boer (a true story for which I can vouch) arriving with his wagon, in which rode his wife and children, acquired a claim, and shouldering his pick, with shovel in hand, he started to work, and mirabile dictu, in an hour he discovered a huge stone. Delighted beyond measure at his glorious find, he yet deemed it prudent to conceal it from every one.
Packing up his goods and inspanning his oxen, he started for Port Elizabeth, where he had heard that the highest prices were paid for diamonds. A six weeks’ “trek” found him safely arrived at the bay, and with his gem in his pocket he sallied forth to the office of a well-known firm of buyers. He explained how he had become possessed of the priceless brilliant, how he had not shown it to a living soul and so forth, but when he produced the marvel of beauty, the merchant mercilessly shattered all his six weeks’ dreams by telling him that it was a “crystal,” and of no value whatever save as a curio!
To return to the subject of machinery. It was not, however, until after the share mania of 1880 and 1881, when many companies were floated, that much large machinery was imported from England. The small six and eight-horse power engines nevertheless began to give way to those of sixteen, twenty-four, and even sixty-horse power. The “blue” which had frightened the early diggers, too, and which had to be spread out on floors for miles around the various camps to disintegrate, at the great loss of time and money, about this period attracted considerable attention, it being thought possible that some other means of rendering it sufficiently pulverized for washing purposes might be discovered. A Mr. Cowan, a large digger at the time, spent several thousands of pounds in experimenting with steam, but to no avail. In releasing this “blue” from the mines, large quantities of gunpowder were used, until dynamite, of the estimated yearly value of £100,000, has been introduced into the system of mining within the last eighteen months or two years.
In consequence of the fall of reef in the Kimberley and De Beer’s mines, underground working has been resorted to, the open diggings in many instances having become practically unworkable in consequence of the enormous cost of hauling out the fallen reef. The diggings in the open unincumbered workings of the Kimberley mine before the disastrous fall of reef had attained to a depth of some 420 feet. By a system of “underground” mining the main difficulty in reaching the diamondiferous ground has been overcome, shafts have been sunk, tunnels made, and the precious “blue” again reached and hauled out. The richness of this “blue,” at the depth from which it has been brought, has again lifted the shareholders out of the mire of financial trouble in which they found themselves by reason of the great reef fall. From that time to the present, the Kimberley mine has been, comparatively speaking, relieved of its troubles. Shares in the various companies have risen, dividends have and are being paid regularly, and to human ken it would appear that the future of this mine, with still further improved working, which the exigencies of circumstances will suggest, is one of hope virtually assured.
The De Beer’s mine, the greater portion of which is now in the hands of a powerful company, with a capital of considerably over a million sterling, is fast coming to the fore. Large dividends have been paid, and tests made as to the future output. At a depth of 750 feet “blue” ground continues to be found in the shaft sunk for the purpose. Here also “underground” workings are going on apace with every probability of yielding for years to come handsome returns to investors.
In the Du Toit’s Pan and Bulfontein mines, companies which a short few years ago were non-dividend paying are forging to the front and their shares quietly approaching “par.” In the Du Toit’s Pan mine a test shaft of 450 feet below the open workings has been sunk, which proves that the dreaded reef is not increasing, and that the future is in a measure guaranteed.
The native labor of the diamond fields is drawn from an enormous extent of country, and includes nearly twenty different tribes, such as Zulus, Swazies, Basutos, Shangaans, Amatongas, Bechuanas, Metabélés, Mashonas, Makalolos, Korannas, Griquas, Fingoes, Pondos, Pondomise, Hottentots, etc. These number at the present time about 15,000, while the white employés can be estimated at about 3,000.[[35]]
Although no census has been taken it is estimated that the population consists of some 20,000 Kafirs, Malays, Indians, Arabs, Chinamen and other colored races, and about 6,000 whites, Colonials, English, French, German and Italians.
The number of steam engines at work in and around the four mines is computed at 350 with a nominal horse power of 5,000. Tramways of nearly 200 miles in the aggregate extent are in use, the trucks upon which are drawn by fully 3,000 horses and mules. To quote from the “Cape Official Handbook,” published in 1886, the annual expenditure in labor, material, etc., is not less than £2,000,000 sterling, distributed somewhat as follows:
| Wages, salaries, etc. | £1,000,000 |
| Fuel and water | 250,000 |
| Mining material and stores | 250,000 |
| Explosives | 100,000 |
| Forage and stable expenses | 125,000 |
| Rates, taxes, general expenses | 275,000 |
| £2,000,000 |
It will be remembered that the item of fuel is a most important one. Before the completion of the railway in 1885 and the consequent availability of coal at comparatively moderate rates, firewood for engine and household purposes was so greatly in demand that for a wagon-load weighing from 8,000 to 10,000 pounds as much as £45 was frequently paid, and a proportionate amount for smaller loads. Coal having now entered into competition by reason of cheaper transport the price of fuel has been greatly reduced, as may be readily imagined.
Through the wholesale consumption of growing timber, to which I have alluded, the country around has been denuded of wood, and the natural result of de-arborization has followed in continual droughts of frequent occurrence, nor has any effort been made so far to plant a new growth. This is greatly to be deplored; at the present moment fuel is brought by ox-wagons as far as 200 miles to the Kimberley market, which means some thirty-five days’ journey for the incoming and outgoing trips.
Water, too, is a most vital question on the fields. When the early diggers first came, as much as a shilling a bucket was given for that necessity, which had to be brought into the camp from springs four miles away. It soon became evident, however, that nature had stored an abundant reservoir. Wells were sunk, and a supply insured, which more or less sufficed many years afterward for all the purposes of manipulating the diamondiferous ground, as well as for household purposes. By the foresight of a respected citizen, Mr. Thomas Lynch, a scheme was started five years ago, which I successfully guided through the legislative council of Griqualand West, and which culminated in the floating of the Kimberley Waterworks Co., Limited. This company now brings in the water from the Vaal River, twenty miles away, and supplies not only most of the mining companies but also the private residences of Kimberley and the surrounding neighborhood. This company has had practically a monopoly, and the management of its affairs has been most judicious, but an opposition is now on foot for the separate supply of water to Du Toit’s Pan, Beaconsfield, and Bulfontein.
From the above particulars, which I have endeavored as far as possible to condense, my readers will, I trust, be able to form a tolerably adequate idea of the manner in which the mines of Griqualand West are worked.
CHAPTER XIII.
I. D. B.
POPULATION OF THE DIAMOND FIELDS.—KAFIR EATING-HOUSES AS DECOY PLACES.—RUMORS OF TRIBUTE IN DIAMONDS BY NATIVES TO THEIR CHIEFS.—INGENUITY OF NATIVE THIEVES.—CELEBRATED CASE, QUEEN VS. VOGEL.—“HAPPY CHILD OF HAM.”—GRADES THROUGH WHICH A STOLEN DIAMOND PASSES.—SPURIOUS NOTES AND GLASS DIAMONDS.—CASE BEFORE MR. JUSTICE DWYER AT BEAUFORT WEST.—HIGH HANDED CONDUCT OF DETECTIVE DEPARTMENT.—TWO BISHOPS AND A SENATOR SEARCHED.—FREETOWN AND OLIPHANSFONTEIN.—A STARTLING EXPOSURE.—TRIAL OF NOTORIOUS HIGHWAYMEN.—SOCIAL GRADES OF I. D. B.’S, OR ILLICIT DIAMOND BUYERS.
The diamond, from its value, its portability, and the ease with which it can be secreted, has offered in India, Brazil and the Cape, at all times, a great temptation to dishonesty to those engaged in winning it from the soil.
Whether we refer to the works of the English traveler, William Methold, who visited the mines near Golconda in 1622, (where there were 30,000 laborers then at work) and mentions that it was impossible to prevent the abstraction of diamonds; those of Tavernier, the French traveler, who visited the Indian mines in 1766; Mawes’ description of the Brazilian diggings in the same century, where, in spite of the strict watch maintained over the slaves employed, they managed to steal half of the diamonds produced, or we study contemporary literature with regard to the mines of Griqualand West, we find that although most severe punishments have always been inflicted with a view to stamp out theft, they have never hitherto been completely successful.
With this subject, however, I shall deal in a future chapter; in this I intend to treat of the rise and progress of the I. D. B. (illicit diamond buying) trade, and describe the various devices adopted by the black thieves and white receivers.
On the Vaal River diggings there was very little thieving. The semi-patriarchal state of society existing there was not conducive to such a crime, and moreover the natives had not yet acquired a knowledge of the value of diamonds or “klips”[[36]] as they were then termed. Each digger had brought from the Cape Colony, Natal, the Free State, or Transvaal, his own servants, hired for a stated time; he lived in their midst, gave them both food and physic with his own hands, temptation they were delivered from, as they dared not roam about, and they generally remained honest and faithful.
This state of things, however, did not last long, as dishonest white men and cute natives soon put the unsophisticated savage in the way they wished him to go; but it was not until a large population had gathered round the dry diggings, composed of the Du Toit’s Pan, Bulfontein, Old De Beers and the New Rush, or Kimberley mines, in 1870 and 1871, that diggers began to be alive to the enormous losses they were sustaining through the robberies of their native servants. At this time the white population might roundly be estimated at from 20,000 to 25,000, and the natives and colored people at from 40,000 to 50,000 souls, or to be within the mark say 60,000 altogether.
Now it could not be expected that this motley crew, gathered from all the four quarters of the globe, would be without some black sheep among them. This quickly became alarmingly apparent, for although the early diggers, attracted by the chance of sudden fortune, were mostly old, respectable colonists, Boers owning farms, and men who had lived in South Africa many years, yet very soon “camp followers,” as debased as any who ever hung on the rear of an army, began to arrive, drawn from the purlieus of European cities; London sending from Whitechapel and Petticoat Lane her quota of fried-fish dealers, old clo’ men, quondam fruit merchants, and “vill you buy a vatch” gentry, who speedily brought their home experience into profitable use.
The South African native, especially the Zulu, is, as a rule, naturally honest. The fact irresistibly forces upon us the conclusion, however reluctantly we may accept it, that the natives were first taught to thieve by white receivers of stolen goods.
In those days the Basutos, the Shangaans, the natives from the neighborhood of the Zambesi and the Limpopo, left their kraals and their happy hunting grounds in the far interior (allured by the glorious reports of the money which they could earn) to trudge hundreds of miles on foot for work in the mines, imbued with but one object, the height of their ambition, which was to become the proud possessor of a rifle or other gun.
The quicker this could be effected the sooner they could return to their homes; consequently the unscrupulous white man found apt scholars enough to his hand in these poor blacks, who rapidly learned to steal all the diamonds on which they could lay their fingers.
Then again, as another inducement to thieving, the raw native was enticed to the canteen to spend his money, and although at this time a strict law existed which prohibited any native being served with liquor without an order from his master, the keepers of low grog-shops evaded the law by keeping on hand a stock of false orders to suit any emergency, whilst the villainous compounds[[37]] they retailed lit up a fire which could be kept blazing by dishonesty only.
At that time also (and even now, though in fewer numbers) eating-houses were kept by white men specially for natives. Among such of course were honest men who stuck to their legitimate business, but the greater number were suspected, and in the majority of cases rightly, of keeping such houses simply to facilitate and conceal their illicit transactions, supplying free food merely to induce natives to bring them diamonds.
The business done in eating-houses of this description was reduced to a system. A native of one or the other tribes, whether a Shangaan, a Basuto, a Zulu, or a Ballapin, was kept in the pay of the proprietors, according to the habitués of their houses. These various touts would remain most of the day, especially at meal times, sitting at the different tables prepared for native customers eating or pretending to eat with them. These men were chosen for their shrewdness, and any strange native coming in for a meal would immediately be accosted in a friendly manner by an astute rascal of his own nationality. Where did he come from? what was he doing? who was his master? in what claim was he working? what diamonds was he finding? were questions the answers to which were soon wormed out of him.
If the native had any diamonds for sale he was at once introduced to the private room of the master, which was at the back. If the replies to the various questions put to him were not considered satisfactory, or if he were suspected of being a “trap,” the “tip” was very soon given. The tout would rap on his plate and call out for “inyama futi” (more meat) which was the signal generally agreed upon, when the suspected native would be summarily ejected. Sometimes the native (although offering a diamond for sale) would not give the name of his master, which was enough in itself to excite suspicion of his being a “trap.”
“Woolsack,” a clever native detective in the employ of a Mr. Fox, who was at the time the head of the diamond detectives, was several times caught in such attempts to “trap.” I remember on one occasion seeing him professionally after he had been beaten and tortured by one of these Kafir eating-house keepers until he revealed his master’s name. “Baas Fox.” having at last been wrung out of him, and the fact of his being a “trap” found out, he was, after being barbarously treated, tauntingly told to go and show his marks to his master.
His brutal assailant, though all the time inwardly chuckling over his narrow escape, was loud in his public expressions of satisfaction that he had caught and thrashed a nigger who had had, as he said, “the imperence to fancy that a respectable man like him would buy a ‘goniva.’”[[38]] The detectives, though well aware of everything, but not willing to expose their hand, had to look on, grin and leave unavenged this assault on their native servant. If brought into court, they knew too well it would merely be a case of white evidence versus black. The injuries shown would simply be the marks of condign punishment meted out to a native for imputed and apparent thieving, inflicted under a natural outburst of indignant honesty incapable of restraint. The magistrate, in the meantime, let him think what he might, would on the evidence have to discharge the prisoner, or at most inflict but a nominal punishment.
It has been stated, I may add, that certain chiefs required their subjects on their return home to bring them a tribute in diamonds. This I do not believe ever occurred to any great extent, if at all, as in 1872 a party of diggers to test this rumor, taking the law into their own hands, made a tour through a large portion of the Transvaal and Free State, overhauling thousands of natives homeward bound, without finding a single diamond on any one of them, although on one party numbering some 200 they found 197 guns, £3,000 in gold, and nearly two tons of gunpowder. In contradiction to this, however, the late Sir Bartle Frere told a deputation of the Kimberley Mining Board, which waited upon him during his visit to the Fields in 1880, that in coming down through the Transvaal several traders and other trustworthy people on whom he could rely had informed him that most of the chiefs, and in fact all the great ones, had stores of beautiful diamonds, which had been brought to them, a few at a time, by their young men on their return home from work at the Fields.
The native laborer at the present time through contaminating influences has become an adept, and will steal with an adroitness which almost defies detection.
In the Brazilian mines every precaution is taken to prevent thieving, but without entire success. A slave on finding a diamond is compelled at the moment of its discovery to notify the fact by holding it up between his finger and thumb. No slave is allowed to remain for any length of time at any one part of the long trough in which the soil is washed for fear he should plant a diamond for subsequent removal. In addition, all are narrowly searched, but in spite of this care the slaves hide diamonds in the sores on their bodies, which they produce by cutting nicks in their skins for this purpose, and ofttimes also swallow them, though when a negro is suspected of doing so the administration of strong purgatives, confinement in a bare room and severe punishment invariably follow.
Our free nigger is not a whit behind his South American cousin; he uses his nose, mouth, stomach, ears, toes and hair to conceal the diamonds that he steals, and at nightfall walks home from the mine or from the sorting table singing with an air of abandon which would “deceive the very elect,” the diamond being all the while secreted on his person. This, previous to the passing of the last Act, he could do with impunity, for the searching of servants, although it had been for years permissible to masters, vide Government Notice No. 14, 1872, was not as it is now conducted by a government staff. This was especially the case when native labor was scarce, for then any individual master was afraid to make an exception which could give offense, and which might deprive him at once of the whole of his laborers.
Again, if in working on the depositing floors, where the blue ground which contains the diamonds is exposed to the action of the atmosphere, a diamond should happen to be turned up which could be seen at a glance was too large or which there was no opportunity to secrete, the wily savage would cover it up quite nonchalantly, but at the same time would arrange the lumps of “blue” around in such a way that when night came and he returned, he could easily find the spot and secure the precious stone for himself.
Sometimes in the mines when they were worked deep another dodge would be resorted to. Suddenly, at a given signal, the whole of a gang working in one of the claims would yell out, and jump as if the reef surrounding them were falling. The overseer in charge would instinctively look up, while the boy who had given the false alarm would coolly stoop down and pocket some large diamond which he had just unearthed. Many a beautiful diamond, too, has frequently been recovered from a native’s pipe, which was diligently being puffed with all the air of innocence, and I have even heard of goats, feeding near the floors set apart for the depositing of “blue stuff,” being turned into accessories (after the fact!), the hair of these animals affording a hiding place for stolen diamonds which were thus carried into the “veldt” beyond, and refound by the thief (his day’s work being over) without any danger whatever of searching or detective interference.
The receiver, however, is worse than the thief. The devices by which the white scoundrel saves his skin are quite as curious a study as those resorted to by the original thief.
This trade gradually resolved itself into a fine art as the law against it became more penal.
Before the company mania commenced at the end of 1880, and when the mines were worked by individual diggers, many unprincipled persons, both black and white, used their digging operations and the fact of their possessing claims as cloaks to account for the possession of diamonds which they otherwise obtained by illicit dealing.
About 1876 a cause celébre brought this prominently before the public.
At that time claims in Bulfontein and Du Toit’s Pan cost little money in comparison with claims in the Kimberley mine, and a great many were owned by natives and colored people. This case, which attracted great public attention, was that of John Vogel, a colored man, tried on April 22d, 1876, before his Honor, Mr. Recorder Barry, and a jury. This man was charged with contravening section 17 of ordinance 27 of 1874: “The said John Vogel being then a registered claim-holder, and the said diamond (79¾ carats weight) not being found in ground worked by him, although sold by him in his name as a claim-holder.”
According to evidence brought forward it was proved that Vogel received £20 only from the white man who bought the diamond, whilst another Kafir who accompanied him received £305 in payment for the stone, Vogel evidently lending his. name as a registered claim-holder for the sum of £20. Vogel was proved to have been largely engaged in this “trade,” and on several occasions to have sold to the same buyer.
He was found guilty and sentenced to three years’ hard labor. After sentencing the prisoner, the recorder then called for the white diamond buyer, a well-known merchant, and said: “Your own register shows that you have been in the habit of buying from this man, by which you have encouraged him in his acts, while at the same time you have kept no books sufficient to prevent me from saying that your conduct is above suspicion.”
It will be seen that even at this time opportunities were taken to evade the law with every show of legality.
Some again would lease their claims to “swell niggers” (both white and black having an equal government right to obtain digging licenses and possess claims) with an understanding that they, the claim-holders, should receive a percentage of the finds, at the same time well knowing that the percentage would be a large one, most of the diamonds in fact thus obtained being stones illegally bought from natives with money these dishonest claim-holders would advance, nominally for honest enterprise, but virtually for illicit purposes.
Others would give an extravagant reward to their native servants for each diamond they brought as a reputed find while working, which was of course merely another mode of buying from natives without fear of detection.
In late years it has become a very general practice even among respectable diggers and companies to give a percentage to native servants on the value of any diamond which they may bring.
One company at Du Toit’s Pan in particular by this means increased their returns to such an extent that they found it paid them to promise each “Happy child of Ham” twenty-five per cent. commission on whatever gem he might unearth. This was brought to general notice by a well-known writer in the local press in the following verses, which were much quoted at the time:
I would not be a digger; No,
Nor yet an I. D. B.
In digging oft your moneys go,
The other’s felony.
But then, upon the other hand,
I should be quite content
If I only was a nigger, and
Got 25 per cent.
I’d not be a shareholder, or
Hold Atlas’s or Frere’s;
I am not even pining for
The scrip of great Be Beer’s.
In Kimberley the debts expand,
The loan, it isn’t lent;
So I’d rather be a nigger, and
Get 25 per cent.
I would not be a Chairman, or
Director of a Board,
For then I could not buy nice pipes,
Nor good Cape Smoke afford;
I might get nasty writs perhaps
When all my coin was spent;
I’d rather be a nigger, and
Get 25 per cent.
I wouldn’t be a Searcher, and
I wouldn’t be the Chief;
I wouldn’t hold the contract for
Removal of the reef;
I wouldn’t be Izdebski,[[39]] and
I wouldn’t crimes prevent;
I’d rather be a nigger, and
Get 25 per cent.
I wouldn’t be a Secretary
nor a Manager,
To be a toiling Overseer
I’d very much demur;
I wouldn’t build a crusher,
Nor such paltry things invent;
I’d rather be a nigger, and
Get 25 per cent.
I wouldn’t be proprietor
Of far-famed Kamfer’s Dam.[[40]]
Nor even Chairman of the French,
For all’s not real jam,
I’d scarcely purchase Centrals,
But I never should repent
If I only was a nigger, and
Got 25 per cent.
[No, ladies and gentlemen, many and many a time my mother has said: “’Arry, my angel-hearted boy, don’t let nothing never persuade you to be a Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, or a digger, or an England’s Only General, or a writer of novelettes in the “Independent,” or a Duke or a Marquis, or an Admiral of the Blue, or a Grand Old Man, or a President of the United States of America. Don’t you ruin yourself by being a Mayor or a Banker, or throw away your chances by marrying a Baroness Burdett-Coutts—or purchasing a 900 carat diamond found by an unknown Dutch farmer on an unknown Dutch farm when there is no secrecy about the matter from beginning to end.” “No, my beaming boy,” said the old lady, bless her heart! “You be a Christy Minstrel, and go work in the claims for your wages and 25 per cent.” I took the old lady’s advice, and—all together, if you please, gentlemen]
“I would not be an Hemperor,
I would not be a King,
I would not be a Hadmiral
Or hany sich a thing;
I wouldn’t be in Lowe’s Police
And live inside a tent;
I’d rather be a nigger, and
Get 25 per cent.”
To resume, when the company mania set in, the number of individual diggers gradually decreased. Further restrictions were also placed upon those remaining, as well as upon the managers and lessees of companies, by the passing of a new law in 1882, which law is at present in force.
By this act the digger or lessee is compelled to make a monthly return of all his finds, in which any discrepancy is detected at once by comparing it with a return (also required) from the various licensed buyers of their monthly purchases; and an excessive return of diamonds, or a succession of astounding washings up from notoriously poor or insufficiently worked ground, at once serves to arouse suspicion, and has already in several instances led to a conviction, especially as the private and moral character of each digger or lessee is more or less known to the detective department.
Some white men run the risk of buying direct from natives, and to those knowing Zulu, which is the language of which all natives gain a smattering, the conversation becomes highly amusing. The word diamond is never mentioned; for instance, an illicit will accost a native with the question: “Ipi inkonyama?” (where is the calf?) The native replies if he has no diamonds: “Inkonyama yalukile no mina” (the calf has strayed with its mother), or the white man asks: “Tzinyamazana zi kona na?” (are there any bucks?) and the native, having some diamonds secreted about him, replies: “Zi kona” (there are some). In this manner the secret of their being engaged in illicit traffic is kept from all but the initiated.
These various phases of the crime, and others that I shall describe, have been for years brought to the notice of the public by the local press. The Diamond Fields Advertiser, in a leading article once stated: “There is something terribly revolting about the extent of crime arising out of the I. D. B. calling in all its ramifications. Inducing servants to steal, murder, perjury, receiving stolen goods, white women prostituting themselves to Kafirs for payment in diamonds, little boys employed by mining companies taught to steal and supplied with false pockets in which to conceal the gems, bribes attempted on officers of law, and a thousand other crimes are practiced and gloried in by gangs of ruffians, whom the law seldom reaches.”
But it must not be supposed that many white men were or are foolish enough to buy direct from the raw native; unless the illicit buyer has “planted” his own gang of natives, or in other words educated thieves, on some company to bring him all the diamonds they can steal, he is very wary. One very curious case in point came to light in 1876, when the detective officers, searching among the “goods and chattels” of a man convicted for I. D. B., found, from memorandums in his possession, that he had no less than sixty natives “planted” on different claim-holders, whose sole object was to rob and bring the diamonds to their real master, who had engaged them for that purpose.
A diamond passed, in most instances, through four hands before it reached a legal holder.
1st. The raw Kafir—the thief. 2d. The swell native, or tout of 3d. The low white man, generally agent of 4th. A licensed diamond buyer.
On analyzing this series, it will be seen that the raw native, who is generally the worker in the mine or on the depositing floor, has only to evade the attention of the overseer to enable him to swallow or secrete about his person any diamond he may chance to expose. The lynx-eyed observation of his “brothers” is to him of no moment, for they are, as a rule, so true to each other that they never inform—brothers both in color and in crime. His work done, on returning home to his evening meal our subject’s real fun and excitement begin, in other words, the second scene of the illicit play now commences. His swell “brother” arrives, transmutes his ill-gotten diamonds into gold, leaving him to carouse far into the night and then “dream the happy hours away,” until the morning gives him again fresh opportunities for thieving.
Our low white man, in the meantime, with perfect confidence and security, is awaiting his native tout, “building castles in the air” on the possible profit of the night’s venture.
Now for the sequel, the last act of the drama. This man has an intimate friend, a licensed diamond buyer, a more cold-blooded but less plucky rascal than himself, whose honesty (!) and respectability (!) can be gauged by the fact that he buys next morning in his office, without any haggling and without even demanding the necessary permit, a collection of stones which he introduces in ordinary course to the trade as a “digger’s mixed parcel.” Sometimes, however, the raw native, unfortunately for himself, sells a diamond directly to the low white man, who (if the native be not a regular customer) takes advantage of his ignorance and pays him in frequent instances partly in good and partly in base coin. In this way spurious bank notes, of which the accompanying engraving is a fac-simile, and gilt medals in imitation of sovereigns with the inscription “Gone to Hanover,” are palmed off, and get into circulation. Again, some very honest licensed buyers would advance money to others lower in the social scale, but also licensed, who would run the risk of purchasing diamonds for them from any one, whether legally qualified to sell or not. Of course if any of these were trapped and the stone traced, the monied men could never be punished, as all their transactions, having been with licensed men, were perfectly legal. I may mention en passant that a great trade was done in gold at this time; certain well-known men, afterward company promoters and directors, trading in and selling on a Saturday night all the gold coins they could gather together during the week, at a premium of three or four per cent., to a class of men who could have no other but an illegal object in view. Such ramifications had this trade!
This is the game as it used to be played; now with the new law there is more difficulty, and the process is somewhat altered.
This law, passed in 1882, is more stringent than any of its predecessors. Its main feature is that the onus of proof of the legal possession of diamonds is thrown upon the individual in whose custody they may be found, and any person within the confines of Griqualand West may anywhere, at any time, be searched by the detective department, and if diamonds are found on his or her person must give an account of their legal ownership or be liable to fifteen years’ imprisonment, with hard labor. The detective department at the time when this law came into force received information which led it to the arrest of a most notorious illicit diamond buyer, who both in Kimberley and at Jagersfontein[[41]] (a celebrated mine in the Free State) had suffered for this crime. Acting on their information, the officers thought that, on searching this man, they would make a grand haul, when much to their disgust instead of finding diamonds galore they found simply pieces of glass most skillfully prepared in exact imitation of real stones, when of course their prize was lost, and the man, to their chagrin, had to be liberated.
These sham diamonds at first were brought out from Europe in all sizes, shapes and colors, but at the present time this internecine illicit trade, or fight among diamond thieves themselves, is waged to such an extent that the detective department know of at least four individuals on the Fields who are engaged in the manufacture of these spurious stones.
Fluoric acid is employed, so I am told, to partially dissolve the glass of which these are made into the shape required. As a matter of course the sale of these sham stones when effected in Griqualand West is hushed up.
The man taken in by purchasing a spurious diamond of this kind fondly imagines at the time that he is buying a real although stolen diamond under its value. He knows, if he be a licensed buyer, that he is contravening the law in buying of an unlicensed seller, and consequently, on finding out the deception which has been practiced upon him, dare not give the seller into custody for obtaining money under false pretences. He is well aware such a proceeding would merely reveal to the public his illicit connection; again, if an unlicensed diamond buyer, he naturally desires to keep the whole affair a secret.
It was not so, however, in the Cape Colony proper, Natal, Transvaal or the Free State, where the operation of the act was not in force prior to recent enactments, and the remark still applies to Natal and the Transvaal, where any one, morality being out of the question, can buy or sell a diamond legally. I use “legally” in the sense that the law cannot touch him. Of course buying goods well knowing them to be stolen is a crime in every civilized community, but in this particular instance, without the special enactments of the Cape Colony and Free State, one almost impossible to bring home to the criminal.
A curious case was tried in Beaufort West in 1884, which ended in the acquittal of the accused, a man well versed, not only in the mysteries of the I. D. B. trade, but also in the punishment attendant upon its detection. This man offered a certain Jew residing there one of these spurious diamonds for sale. This Jew would not purchase on his own judgment, but asked a friend to value the stone for him, which after buying on his advice for £280 he found out was merely a piece of glass not worth a farthing. Not living, however, in Griqualand West, where an unlicensed purchase would have been a crime, which might have consigned him to the Capetown Breakwater for fifteen years, but in the Cape Colony, where no restriction was then in force, he called in the assistance of the law, charged the man with obtaining money under false pretences, and the case came ultimately before Judge Dwyer at the circuit court held in that town.
The sale by the prisoner was of course duly proved. Judge Dwyer, however, directed the jury that as the purchaser had been guided in his opinion by his friend, it was a question for them to decide whether he had been misled or not by the statement of the accused. The jury, as I said before, acquitted the prisoner.
It is certainly a curious phase in this glass, or in thieves Latin “snyde diamond,” question, or, as I term it, in this internecine struggle for unlawful gain, that in this province neither the manufacturer nor the possessor of these spurious articles can be brought to justice. It is simply with them a game of “heads I win, tails you lose.”
The arts and sciences were also called into play to forward the ends of this nefarious trade.
The science of chemistry was even as far back as 1872 requisitioned by both legal and illegal sellers of diamonds. It had been discovered that the boiling of yellow stones in nitric acid would give them a frosted white appearance, and by this means increase their apparent value by twenty to forty shillings a carat, according to the size of the diamond operated upon.
Many very knowing ones were taken in by this at the time, the diamond buyer of the day, one Moritz Unger, even falling a victim to the deception. During the past thirteen years this imposition has been spasmodically revived, although at the time (1872) it was thought that the exposure would once and forever warn the diamond burner that his “little game was up.”
Although no community can hope to succeed whose prosperity depends upon unlawful enterprise, yet it is a fact that this new law, although it has failed to diminish diamond stealing one iota, has yet driven away the very men who formerly used to extravagantly patronize the retail stores, hotels, and theatres of the place, whilst Capetown and Port Elizabeth until quite recently (session of 1885) reaped the profits of this disgraceful and debasing trade.
Immediately on the promulgation of this law (48, 1882) the detective department was stimulated to fresh energy, which was shown by rash and indiscreet action. For a month or two the passenger coaches leaving for Port Elizabeth and Capetown were searched at Alexandersfontein, a noted hostelry about five miles distant from Kimberley, and the luggage of the passengers overhauled. On one occasion this indignity was thrust upon the Bishop of the Free State, the Bishop of the Transvaal and the Hon. A. Stead, who were all traveling by the same coach to Capetown. I believe I am correct in stating that only on one occasion was any arrest ever made. This outburst of detective enthusiasm, however, soon exhausted itself, and passengers now leave Kimberley as heretofore, without let or hindrance, either by coach or rail. At this time, the passage to the Colony being dangerous, and the outlet through the Free State being considered insecure, the illicit trade was removed to Christiana, in the Transvaal, and diamonds run in that direction were shipped through Natal.
When the judges in the Free State, however, gave a decided opinion that their law extended only to acknowledged diggings, and trapping was abolished by the Volksraad in that country, the trade was again brought to our very door, just as suddenly to recede when the Free State passed, in the last session of their Volksraad, a diamond law containing the onus probandi clause.
A new village called Free Town sprang up on the boundary, a mile or two distant from Du Toit’s Pan, inhabited chiefly by men whose acquaintance with the diamond law of Griqualand West had been of too intimate a character, while both there and at Oliphansfontein, another Free State village close by Griqualand West, diamonds were openly bought and sold. One or two Dutch homesteads in the neighborhood over the border, within easy reach of our mines, were rented by gangs of Griqualand West illicits in order to ply their trade with ease and impunity.
The detective department was again seized with another fit of zeal, and many mounted men patroled the roads to these villages, searching all comers and goers, whether male or female, whom they suspected of connection with this traffic. In spite of this diamonds were “run the blockade” in large quantities. The I. D. B. fraternity were not lacking in devices. The book post conveyed many a parcel. A large hole was cut in the pages of some novel or ready reckoner and the space filled with diamonds carefully packed. The parcel being properly wrapped and posted attracted no attention from the postal authorities.
Kafirs were employed as runners at night, in the day white horsemen nicknamed “troopers,” were paid to face the risks, the diamonds they carried being wrapped in lead so that they could be dropped in the grass if danger loomed in the distance and then recovered again at leisure. Others of this ilk again having swallowed the precious stones ran the gauntlet safely, in open defiance of the detectives, with the diamonds in their stomachs. Horses were fed with balls of meal containing diamonds, driven across the border before the very eyes of the detectives, where, in course of nature, the diamonds were restored to the hands of their keepers. Dogs, too, were starved until they bolted lumps of meat in which diamonds were imbedded. The value of these poor brutes not being great enough to save their lives their stomachs were soon ripped open on their arrival at Free Town, over the border. The tails of oxen and wings of fowls were often utilized, passing the border unsuspected and unexamined, while carrier pigeons instead of carrying valuable information were used to transport valuable diamonds to Free Town, in the Orange Free State, and Christiana, in the Transvaal.
Astonishing ingenuity in trying to run illicit diamonds out of the territory was displayed by some. One man named Phillips, an instance in point, was found guilty by the special court of illegal possession. The reports of the case supply the accompanying particulars.
Phillips showed great cleverness. He had the heels of his boots made hollow and filled up with rough diamonds, sealing them down with wax. The handles of his traveling trunk were also made to remove, empty spaces behind being constructed for the same purpose. In fact the man thought himself safe enough. The detective department, however, suspecting him, and failing in all efforts to trap, engaged a man to form a pseudo friendship with him, or in other words, to play the part of a Judas. To keep up the deception and disarm suspicion this secret agent was rushed and searched by a well-known detective, thus creating an apparent reason for a fellow feeling between the two. The result can easily be guessed—Convict No. — for ten long years to come has now seclusion and opportunity enough afforded him by the government to ponder over the folly of confiding too much in his fellow creatures. These boots were exhibited in the Capetown Industrial Exhibition of 1884 and excited much interest.
I have learned since, however, that similar devices were used in Australia during the gold mania.
The dishonest licensed buyer at this time adopted another dodge. In order to evade the law, show the detective department a correct monthly return as regards weight of diamonds, and so avoid suspicion, he would keep on hand a large stock of boart nominally accounted as diamonds, but worth some three shillings to five shillings only per carat. Thus, supposing he bought a large illicit stone, of course under its value, he would throw away a corresponding weight of boart, which he could easily afford to lose. By this means he was enabled to produce a correct register to the authorities and have as well the proper weight of diamonds on hand supposing the detective department at any moment demanded a search.
But toward the end of 1884 and the beginning of 1885 the so-called “legal” traffic at Free Town and Oliphansfontein, in the Free State, was seriously interfered with.
A number of desperadoes formed themselves into a gang to attack and rob the buyers in the Free State, the argument by which they justified themselves being that it was nothing but fair play to rob men of property which they had no right to possess, and thus mete out to such characters, unofficial, but at the same time retributive justice. In other words, they knew the diamonds which they might steal were simply illegal purchases from thieves working for companies in Griqualand West mines.
The head of this gang was an ex-police sergeant and detective named Mays. He committed many highway robberies on the border, but diamonds were his sole object, he despised money and other valuables as booty beneath his notice.
These, he argued, would simply reduce him to the level of an ordinary thief, which he prided himself he was not. The men he robbed were always treated well, and generally had the opportunity given them of buying back their diamonds at a cheap rate, which, knowing full well they themselves were thieves, they generally did, not courting publicity.
This was not always the case. A celebrated trial at Boshof, in the Free State, in March 1885, showed otherwise. One of these gentry who “speculated” in that country, named Kemp, caring nothing for the exposure of his nefarious trade, on being robbed near Oliphansfontein of 2,073 carats weight of diamonds, worth £4,000, which he was taking to Capetown, gave such information to the Free State authorities as led to the capture, trial, and conviction of the thieves, who proved to be rival “speculators” in the same line of business. So far, Kemp missed his object, which was more the recovery of his diamonds than the punishment of the highwaymen. The revelations on the trial were simply startling, implicating as they did supposed honorable men in Griqualand West.
Chief Justice Reitz, on sentencing the culprits, who were all found guilty, did so in plain words. Addressing each in turn, after asking them whether they had anything to say, said in Dutch, of which the following is a literal translation (to Scotty Smith): “It is a pity that a man of your appearance should deal in stolen property. There is no excuse for you; it is a gross crime. The boundary line is getting dangerous for our people. It is quite an accident that Kemp was not killed. I took you for a man who knew better. I will punish you severely.”
To Leigh he said: “You are a sergeant in the police, you are a protector of the public, and you come into another land to commit a robbery. You come with a dished-up story; better you had not told such a thing. You, a sergeant in the police, using a knobkerrie and revolver. You might, in the strict letter of the law, be hanged; but now-a-days a more lenient view is taken. You were stopped by an accident from being hauled up for murder.”
To Herman: “You are a mean little scoundrel, acting in that way whilst a fellow co-religionist was being robbed, and perhaps all but murdered; such a little fellow you are. You get used for paltry, mean things, and here you assist in a mean way in a serious crime.”
To Welford: “The evidence against you, I think, is conclusive, although you have a right to say there is a conspiracy against you; those can believe you who like. I believe you are the man who started the whole thing. I would not wonder if you first originated the matter. You see the result of commencing by virtually doing a business of theft, because you think the law here could not touch you. Such action leads me to be more severe in your case. I think you are all sensible people; you knew it all well; there is no plea of ignorance.”
The four prisoners were then sentenced to four years’ imprisonment each; with Scotty Smith and Arthur Gerald Leigh twenty-five lashes in addition.
So far as Kemp was concerned, the chief justice, adding injury to insult, refused his application for the return of the diamonds, giving as his reason that “Griqualand West was a civilized country with competent courts, and if these were his diamonds he could go to Kimberley, prove them to be his lawful property, and no doubt get them.”
Kemp, as Chief Justice Reitz advised him, in the following December brought an action against the chief of the Griqualand West detective department for the recovery of the diamonds, which resulted in a judgment of “absolution from the instance” with costs, the diamonds remaining in the care of the detective department. Judge President Buchanan, in giving this decision, distinctly stated that he did not believe Kemp, but allowed him another opportunity, if he chose, to prove the diamonds were not stolen property.
Kemp then noted an appeal, which came before the appeal court in January 1886, at Capetown. The Premier, Mr. Upington, who appeared for the detective department, said there was no proof that the diamonds were Kemp’s. He was another’s servant—a noted Free State (!) diamond buyer—had never been in possession of the diamonds, and was not entitled to sue. Mr. Leonard, the attorney general under the former (Scanlan) ministry, who appeared for Kemp, said he “would not ask the court to believe, as was attempted in the court below, that a thief could recover stolen property, but there was no proof that the diamonds in question were stolen.” The court, in giving judgment, held that there was no proof that the diamonds were Kemp’s property and dismissed the appeal, and the diamonds were forfeited to the Crown.
This decision was hailed with delight by the mining community, as it tended to overthrow a clique of pseudo-legal and illegal buyers, who had long worked in concert; therefore, at the present time, the Transvaal and Natal are the only territories where transactions in stolen diamonds are capable of not being criminally brought home to those engaged in them.
This so far is a faithful account of the I. D. B. trade and its various ramifications.
Sir Jacobus de Wet, when recorder of our high court, once solemnly termed this trade the “canker-worm of the community.” The truth of his words time has over and over again but too truly established, as this canker-worm is gnawing away the very vitals of Diamond Field society.
To fully explain my meaning, men in some instances, I am sorry to say, occupying a fair status in commerce, mining or society are introduced to the new arrival; they have an ostensible business, and nothing in their manner would betray, save to one endowed with all the concentrated astuteness of Scotland Yard, that they were mixed up directly or indirectly with the nefarious business. They are not incapable of showing acts of kindness to the tyro on the Fields even without an ulterior motive, and the new-comer does not find out the real character of his kind acquaintances very often until he has been the recipient of favors from them, when even if he would wish once for all to sever his connection with them, custom and gratitude alike tend to prevent the separation. Positive proof of their being implicated in the traffic, from the very nature of the case, is not forthcoming, and so the young man gives his friends the benefit of the doubt, continues the acquaintance, and though he may not be actually drawn into absolute crime or abnormal vice, is certain to prove a living example of the truthful saying: “Evil communications corrupt good manners.”
Business relations too, like poverty, make us acquainted with strange bed-fellows in this part of the world, and the well-paying client, patient or customer is not readily rejected, or shown that his fees or payments are unacceptable, without so deliberate an insult as most men would shrink from offering, without stronger grounds than the suspicion that they are not entirely clean-handed. Hence, before a man knows where he is, he may have become the daily associate of unconvicted criminals. Men who themselves would not risk any direct meddling with the traffic are strongly tempted by offers of large percentages for the loan of money, which they may shrewdly suspect, though they do not know, will be devoted to the purposes of the illicit traffic: needless to say, such persons are morally accessories before the fact. I have elsewhere mentioned how those who in former days were themselves recipients of stolen diamonds are in some instances now the loudest in condemning their successors in the business, and this is brought forward as an argument to prove that free trade in diamonds is justifiable, an obvious and pitiable fallacy which I am only too sorry to say imposes upon many. The disgrace attached to the jail-bird in other parts of the world, however truly he may have repented of the wickedness that he had committed, here amidst the great body of the population is rarely imposed on the I. D. B. who has served his time, and men of comparatively high standing feel no shame in hobnobbing with them in public bars. While I would be the last man in the world to cast in a man’s teeth the sins which he has expiated in prison, or to frustrate him in his effort to earn an honest living, yet it is manifest that there is an opposite extreme, and that to exalt a convicted felon into a martyr, or even to make him a bosom companion, can scarcely be regarded as a sign of high integrity.
There is no doubt the receivers of stolen diamonds have made the most money out of the mines. There is no moral difference between the Whitechapel old clo’ Jew who “runs the klips,” the Hebrew swell who keeps his carriage at the West End, by purchasing diamonds at half their value in Hatton Garden, the Christian who lends money for the purchase of stolen goods, and who every Sunday thanks God he is not as other men are, and the respectable (?) colonial merchant “buying on the quiet.” They are all as much thieves as the veriest pickpocket of St. Giles’. The moral condition of the diamond fields is such that, although a man may be known to be habitually engaged in the trade, he is openly received until the jail’s portals are some day suddenly thrown back at the bidding of the special court to receive yet another victim, an example of the old, old story.
In a succeeding chapter I shall give some individual cases illustrative of my theory, in the next I shall deal with the treatment that this increasing disease has demanded and received.
CHAPTER XIV.
DIAMOND LEGISLATION.—RESUME OF SIR H. BARKLY’S PROCLAMATIONS.—EPITOME OF THE ORDINANCES OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF GRIQUALAND WEST.—REVIEW OF THE ACTS PASSED BY THE CAPE ASSEMBLY.—DESCRIPTION OF THE TRAPPING SYSTEM.—ADOPTION OF THE “ONUS PROBANDI” CLAUSE BY THE ORANGE FREE STATE.—THE SEARCHING DEPARTMENT.—THE COMPOUND SYSTEM.
When the diamond mines of Griqualand West, viz. Du Toit’s Pan, Bulfontein, De Beer’s and Colesberg Kopje, (now the Kimberley mine), got into full work, diamond diggers soon found out that they were being robbed to an enormous extent. Unfortunately but too many white men were to be found ready to receive the stolen diamonds from the thieves, who, at all events in those days, were almost exclusively natives.[[42]] A strange infatuation seems always to have possessed those engaged in the pursuit of “the trade” as it is euphemistically termed, which even the stringent penalty of a possible fifteen years’ hard labor, the culmination of repeated legislation, does not seem to have sufficed to overcome. The first attempt to put a stop to these robberies by legislation was contained in a proclamation issued by Sir H. Barkly, on May 30th, 1872, in which every unauthorized buyer or seller was made liable to a fine not exceeding three times the value of the diamond or diamonds so bought, and in default of payment to imprisonment with or without hard labor for any period not exceeding two years.
Soon after, further precautionary measures were introduced, and the traffic in diamonds between the hours of sunrise and sunset and on Sundays was forbidden (vide government notice No. 69, July 29th, 1872). On Aug. 10th of the same year, Sir Henry Barkly issued a further proclamation, diamond stealing by natives and the purchase by unprincipled white men having immensely increased, in fact having become at this time even the curse of the Fields. By this proclamation, any dealer in wines, spirits, or malt liquors was unable to hold a license to trade in diamonds. This was amended on Sept. 17th, canteen-keepers only being disqualified, and not wholesale dealers. There was a further enactment that no person could be registered as the holder of a claim, unless he produced a certificate from a magistrate or justice of the peace certifying to his character; this, however, was always a mere form, and was never refused. Provision was also made for the registration of all servants, while power was given to any master, without the assistance of a constable, or for any constable without a warrant, to search the person, residence and property of any servant within two hours of the time he left the claim or sorting table; but on Sept. 17th this proviso was amended, and it was made lawful for a master to search his servant at any time whatever. If diamonds were found upon him, it was presumed that they were his master’s, and the punishment to which the servant was liable was imprisonment with or without hard labor for any period not exceeding twelve months, or to receive any number of lashes not exceeding fifty, or to such imprisonment and such whipping.
At the time this proclamation was issued native labor was in great demand on the fields, and consequently the power given to the master by law was seldom if ever exercised, as he knew the almost certain result would be the loss of all his servants. A change was made by this proclamation of Aug. 10th, 1872, so far as unauthorized buyers were concerned, their punishment upon conviction being fixed at a fine not exceeding £100 sterling, or to imprisonment with or without hard labor for any period not exceeding six months. The crime of inducing servants to steal was punished more severely. Lashes not exceeding fifty were provided for in the proclamation, and the imprisonment increased to a period not exceeding twelve months, or to such imprisonment and such whipping. Many white men received lashes under this clause, and amongst others a German, who on coming out of prison, retired to his native country with over £30,000!
The increasing desire for drink among natives was considered by the authorities in those days one of the greatest causes of the development of their thievish propensities, and the canteen keeper who bought a diamond of a native, or took diamonds in payment or pledge for liquor, in addition to the punishment already stated, forfeited his license and became incompetent to hold one in the future. A further discretionary power was given to the court by which any such person might be convicted, of forfeiting his right to any claims and expelling him from the territory; but the last proviso was laughed at by men who had contravened this law, as no punishment for returning to the province had ever been inserted by the framers. If stringent laws had been properly drafted and enforced in the early days of the Fields, the abominable illicit traffic might have been nipped in the bud.
A great deal of animosity toward the natives existed about this period. Part of this feeling was originated, I think, from many white men not possessed of claims being jealous of their black brethren digging at Du Toit’s Pan and Bulfontein, while the facility for dealing in stolen diamonds, afforded by their possessing a digger’s license, was also a factor in the ill-will felt and expressed.
A great mass meeting was held in the Market Square, Kimberley, on Friday, July 19th, 1872, to bring pressure to bear upon the three commissioners who administered the government, and get them to take away all claim licenses from black or colored men.
Two of these gentlemen, weakly desirous of popularity, gave way to the general outcry and suspended all claim licenses to natives by a proclamation issued on July 24th, which contained a reservation certainly, (which may be taken for what it is worth) allowing the issue of such licenses on production from the various digger committees of certificates of character and fitness; but this was a prerogative they were little likely to exercise owing to the strong feeling then existing.
John Cyprian Thompson, to whom I allude elsewhere, the dissentient, a good lawyer and a thorough Englishman, did not compromise himself by joining in this most illiberal proclamation. The subsequent action of Sir Henry Barkly tended to prove the correctness of Mr. Thompson’s opinion, for as soon as the proclamation reached Capetown his excellency canceled it by another of Aug. 10th, 1872. In this he stated that “as it is inconsistent with justice that persons against whom no specific charges have been brought should be deprived of their rights and properties, I do hereby revoke, cancel, and make void the said proclamation, and do declare that the same shall be of no force or effect whatever, and that all licenses suspended under and by virtue thereof shall be returned and the holders thereof placed, as far as possible, in the same position as if the said proclamation had not been issued.”
The question of granting licenses to natives, and other matters of the same kind, then attracted little attention from government until some time after Governor Southey’s arrival, when the due constitution of our own legislative council having taken place, an ordinance was passed (No. 21 of 1874) dealing more strictly with licensed dealers and brokers. Dealers’ licenses were increased, at the suggestion of certain of them who thought by this means to monopolize the trade, to £50 and brokers’ to £25 per annum; dealers were obliged to buy in licensed offices, and brokers could not get a license without a magistrate’s certificate, proving that they were not under tutelage, and producing two sureties. By another short Act (No. 31 of 1874) diamond dealers were compelled, under a penalty of £50 or in default three months’ imprisonment, to properly register and record all their purchases.
Again, while Sir J. D. Barry was acting administrator, another ordinance was passed (No. 4 of 1877) repealing 21 and 31 of 1874, re-enacting the main clauses but increasing the maximum punishment for a first offense to a fine of £500 and three years’ imprisonment, and for a second to £1,000 and seven years.
The most interesting point to observe in connection with the diamond trade ordinances is the gradual increase in their stringency, obviously the outcome of, and in direct ratio to, the growth of this illicit traffic; to bear this out, in 1880, when Mr. Rose Innes was administrator, the punishment of this crime was again increased to a maximum of five years’ imprisonment and £500 fine for the first, and ten years and £1,000 for the second offense, with six and twelve months in addition respectively if the fines were not paid.
I was vice-president of the legislative council of Griqualand West when this ordinance (No. 8 of 1880) was under discussion. At the time it seemed monstrous to me (these cases being left to the discretion of a single magistrate) that on the opinion of one man, without a jury, a fellow creature, possibly innocent, might be consigned to prison for ten long years. I spoke strongly on the matter, but it was argued that with a jury, the illicit traffic having so many ramifications (as the Spanish proverb has it, “by the parson’s skirts the devil gets into the belfry”), it would be almost impossible to gain a conviction.
To meet this emergency I proposed a three-judge court (the same principle that has since been adopted in Ireland with reference to the “Crimes act”), which suggestion was supported by the government, and now under the title of “The Special Court” criminals of this class appear before a just and strictly impartial tribunal
In 1880 (previous to high court with three judges being constituted) a special magistrate was appointed to act in conjunction with the Kimberley and Du Toit’s Pan magistrates to form the special court, but since our high court has been formed, and the Diamond Trade Act 48 of 1882 has become law, this office has been done away with, and one of the three judges now sits in turn as president of the special court.
The act just mentioned (48 of 1882) when it passed the Cape parliament might have been at once extended to the whole colony, but it was enforced by the government in Griqualand West only, consequently any one could buy or possess diamonds with impunity in the Cape Colony proper. As again in the Free State, although an ordinance was passed in the same year (No. 3 of 1882) of even greater severity, providing maximum penalties for its contravention of £2,000 fine, twenty years’ hard labor, 100 lashes, and last but not least the power to expel from the State all moral lepers in the shape of persons convicted outside the State in Griqualand West of I. D. B., their judges interpreted it not to extend beyond six miles from proclaimed diamond diggings; therefore so far as that State was concerned the free trade in diamonds was owing to an omission in and not a permission by the law.
FREE TOWN.[[43]]
The judges there seem to have been actuated by the sound legal principle that penal laws should be strictly or rather restrictively construed.
Again in Natal and the Transvaal no law connected with diamonds existed except one in the latter State, forbidding the purchase of diamonds or gold without a special license, or from a native, under a penalty of five years’ imprisonment, £1,000 fine and confiscation, an ordinance practically null and void, for these might be purchased without question from any white man on paying a duty of five per cent.; consequently the main illicit trade was done outside the confines of Griqualand West, where there was no danger of interference from the detectives when diamonds once were safely transported across the border.
The Volksraad, in the Transvaal, I ought not to omit mentioning, also passed a clause in their extradition laws against all offenders charged with contravening our diamond act, which, however, they expunged on May 26th, 1886, out of pique, because the Cape colonial government would not take off the tax on tobacco and produce; consequently Christiana, a town situated close to the borders of Griqualand West, is again the seat of much illicit trade.
Natal, however, like the Transvaal, wants some good “quid pro quo” before it will assist the Cape in suppressing this infamous trade. During the session of the legislative council 1885–86, when the “Post-office law amendment bill” was under discussion, in which power was asked to detain and open certain letters, great and unhappily successful opposition was made by certain members, Mr. Binnes, a rising legislator, terming the clause this “jesuitical clause,” and two other members expressing surprise at the “mean, sneaking power” which the government by a “sidewind” wished to gain. For a time at least, therefore, Natal has converted herself into a “thieves’ highway.” Again in the present session, 1886–87, a similar bill has been thrown out. This conduct on the part of Natal politicians is attributed to some ill-feeling with respect to custom dues, and was wholly unjustifiable, so much so that the sister colony by thus protecting the leeches that suck the life’s blood of our great industry, lays herself open to the charge of wilfully becoming particeps criminis.
These causes led to the most palpable, systematic and barefaced robberies, as may be readily imagined. So long as the Kafir thieves and white fences could in half an hour drive from Kimberley to the Free State, where no onus probandi of legal possession lay with the holders of diamonds, and whence a seaport could be reached without passing through any part of Griqualand West, the trade continued to thrive. Now, however, the injustice under which we were laboring is greatly diminished, first by the Free State Volksraad passing a law during the last session containing the much desired onus probandi clause, and second by our own parliament awakening to a sense of its duty and passing an act applying restrictions over the whole colony.[[44]]
The principal points in the Diamond Trade Act of 1882 are: (1st) That it shall not be lawful for any person to have in his possession any rough or uncut diamond, without being able to legally account for it; (2d) the punishment of those convicted under the act is increased to a maximum of fifteen years, the governor having at the termination of five years the power to remit the remainder of the sentence, on condition of the prisoner leaving the territory, with the alternative that if he return he can be rearrested and imprisoned for a term equal to the portion of his sentence unexpired at the time of his release; (3d) that none but a licensed person can export or import diamonds; (4th) that the chief of the detective department or police can stop any package in the post-office supposed to contain diamonds illegally, and warn the owner to be present at the examination, when if any unregistered diamonds be found, the owner is liable to the full penalty already mentioned; (5th) that a person finding a diamond must deliver it to the government, but to receive ten per cent. of the proceeds when the diamond is sold; (6th) that power under warrant is granted to detective officers and policemen to enter and search any suspected places, and in any highway, street, or public place, to arrest and search any suspected person, the onus probandi of legal possession resting on the suspected party if any diamonds be found; (7th) that diamond cutters must be licensed; (8th) that special permits must be obtained for washing débris; (9th) that every person is required by law to keep a register and to forward it monthly for examination to the chief of the detective department; (10th) that a special board be formed for protecting mining interests; (11th) that an accessory either before or after any contravention of the act can be charged and dealt with as a principal; (12th) and that a registration fee of one-half per cent. be levied on all exported diamonds.
These are the main additional clauses introduced into the law which is now in force; the remaining are not so important and refer to minor requirements, which have been reintroduced from repealed ordinances.
To go back a little, an ordinance was passed in July, 1880, when Mr. Rose Innes was administrator, providing for the searching of natives and others employed in the various mines. Owing to the want of unanimity between the four mining boards, no action was taken under this act until Feb. 1883, when the various mines were inclosed with wire fencing, searching houses at different outlets built, and a staff of men engaged to act as searchers.
These remained until February, 1884, under the detective department, the expenditure falling upon the different mines, the half per cent. registration fee on exported diamonds and the proceeds of those captured defraying a portion. The searching officers when under the detective department were excessive in number and extravagantly paid. The number and expense was ridiculous, eighty (80) searchers were employed in the four mines, and the expense was nearly two thousand pounds per month, for which they were supposed to examine all persons, white or black, leaving the mines, but this was done so hurriedly that the inspection became a mere farce. In January, 1886, the chief of the detective department reporting on this department gave it as his decided opinion that it had no effect on the theft of diamonds, and advised its discontinuance. Since this was written, however, great improvement in this department has taken place under Major Maxwell.
I am able to give my readers some statistics comprising the searching and detective expense of the four mines which are interesting, showing the cost of the detective department for the first twenty-seven months after the promulgation of the act, and that of the searching department for twenty-two months after its inauguration:
| September, 1882, to November, 1884. | |||
| 1 | Registration Fees | £38,145 | 14s. 2d. |
| 3 | Detectives’ Salaries | 24,906 | 19s. 6d. |
| 2 | Captured Diamonds (sold) | 30,671 | 12s. 3d. |
| 4 | Cost of Trap Stones (net) | 4,011 | 8s. 7d. |
| 5 | Bonuses to traps | 2,130 | 9s. 0d. |
| March, 1883, to November, 1884. | |||
| 1 | Searching Department | £39,578 | 14s. 6d. |
I have good authority for stating that the value of the diamonds seized in searching amounted to less than £200. It will, however, be argued that “prevention is better than cure,” and that the searching was to prevent the abstraction of diamonds from the mines. This, however, it failed to do, it only altered the channel by which they passed from the elevated to the underground railway, or in other words, from the pockets of the Kafirs to their stomachs.[[45]] In February, 1885, the various mining boards took the searching arrangements under their own supervision, and retrenchment is now the order of the day.
When Act 48 of 1882 was before the Cape assembly, its provisions were minutely discussed. Being at that time one of the members for Kimberley, I had the opportunity of bringing my influence to bear. I did not oppose exemplary penalties being enacted for this increasing crime, but I decidedly objected, and in this I was supported by Mr. Saul Solomon, to flogging being inflicted for what was not a crime against the person but against property. I was so far successful that such brutal ideas were expunged from the act. Mr. Scanlan (now Sir T. Scanlan), who was then premier, kindly assisted me, though I was at the time in opposition, in passing through the house the “ticket of leave” system, which I introduced into the second clause. In getting this inserted, I acted on the assurance of some diggers, and these, too, the most determined to stamp out I. D. B., that the object of their wish for increased length of punishment was not revenge for the loss that they had sustained (for which motive they were credited by many), but a desire to rid the place, for as long a period as possible, of men who were reducing Griqualand West simply to a hot-bed of thieves.
I should not be giving my readers an idea of all the legal machinery brought to bear in order to root out and bring to justice this class of criminal if I were to omit a description of the trapping system as now in vogue. The detective department is one entailing immense responsibility on its chief. When it is remembered that “the thief, the robber, the assassin, the harlot, the murderer, and every other conceivable criminal flourishes” on this sneaking crime, it may be asked, seeing none are trapped but those who are well known to be in “the trade,” why the parrot cry of its un-English-like character is raised by many against so necessary a routine.
The detective service consists of a chief, about twenty-five natives, chosen for their shrewdness, nine white men, known to the public as detectives, and several engaged on special secret service. These officers are all well paid, not only to secure the services of reliable men, but to compensate them for the risk they run, though as a rule, the diamond thief is the veriest of cowards.
When a man is daily seen drinking, gambling and riotously living, without any visible means of subsistence, when his character can be gauged by the company that he keeps, and the detective department receives private information, that man is trapped; but not before he has bought three times do the detectives “run him in.”
Such, at least, is the system, as it has been explained to me by those who should be thoroughly acquainted with it. On the other hand, I know of a case of a young ex-officer of volunteers, who in a drunken moment bought a stone not intended for him, and was brought to trial. The detectives all swore that he had never, so far as they were aware, purchased an illicit diamond before in his life, and the court, taking that view, sentenced him to only eighteen months’ imprisonment. He was, moreover, released before the expiration of his sentence.
The plan is as follows: The native who acts as the “trap” is thoroughly searched and then supplied with a diamond by the department. He starts on “his mission of mercy” followed by two or three detectives, who place themselves in different positions, so as to command a view of the premises where the transaction is expected to take place.
What follows is generally simple enough, the illicit buys the diamond and pays for it, when the Kafir gives a signal, and the detectives rush in and seize the man who is pointed out as the purchaser. The “trap” is again searched, when, as corroborative evidence, no diamond is found on him, but in its place, the money he has just received in payment for the “stone.” Convictions, however, are occasionally obtained when no money has passed, in which case, however, the evidence of the traps is required to be very strongly corroborated.
Black “traps” and white are employed by the detective department. The black trap is generally a native who does the dirty work purely as a matter of business, and is thoroughly honest; the white trap on the contrary is generally one who has been in the illicit trade himself, and either from avarice or motives of jealousy and revenge sells some former comrade to penal servitude and the breakwater.
In January, 1887, an instance occurred, showing that in spite of all the elaborate machinery of a rigid searching system, probably general if not universal, and the existence of the severe ordinance in question, etc., the native continues to steal diamonds. In a compound at Du Tot’s Pan, only a few months ago, the body of a native who died suddenly under suspicious circumstances was opened and a diamond of no less weight than sixty carats discovered therein.
The necessity for the extensive machinery and the enormous cost of the searching and detective departments will to my mind be done away with if the “compound system” inaugurated by the Central Co. in the Kimberley mine be carried out by other companies. In April, 1885, this company opened their buildings for native servants. I attended the opening ceremony, and to my surprise found a large yard some 150 yards square inclosed partly by buildings and the remainder by sheets of iron ten feet high. Within this inclosure were sleeping-rooms for 500 Kafirs, a magnificent kitchen and pantry, large baths, guard-room, dispensary and sick-ward, store and mess-rooms. There is no doubt that this arrangement will be the means of greatly decreasing the thieving by natives, but it opens up a great question connected with the business of the place, with respect to the “truck” system which must follow, and has yet to be threshed out.
During the fifteen years I have been on the Fields, I can conscientiously say, I have never known one single man found guilty who did not well deserve his punishment, though I have known many escape through the laudable determination of the judges to require most incontrovertible evidence before convicting.
I do not attempt for one moment to extenuate the crime or treat lightly the social ulcer which so undermines the moral health of the community, but I cannot help drawing attention, in connection with the subject of this chapter, to the 450 carat diamond which has just flashed like a meteor across the London market.
This is well known to have come from Jagersfontein. A whisper had never been heard of a diamond of such weight, such color and such brilliancy having been found there or in any other mine in the country, but a Port Elizabeth house quietly shipped it, and it was bought in London for £20,000 by a syndicate composed of men knowing the diamond fields intimately.
The actuality of this diamond came prominently before the public in a suit before the High Court of Griqualand West in October, 1886, in a case wherein the chief of the detective department was called to give evidence. During the course of this gentleman’s examination one of the judges said: “Do you know where that very large diamond produced in London some time ago came from?” “I do; from information received I could give your lordship the whole history of that stone from the time it left the ground until it reached Messrs. —— Bros.” This led to another question by one of the other two judges comprising the bench, which clinched the matter: “Was it a Griqualand West stone?” “No, it was not, my lord.”
These, perhaps, like the Pharisee, “thank God, that they are not as other men are.” But the question I would ask is this syndicate not the buyer, second hand, of stolen property?
“Conscentia mille testes.”
Even in England the crime of receiving stolen goods is heavily punishable, but in a case like this the worthies know well that it can never be brought home to them.
The charge has frequently been brought against the diggers that they had very considerably themselves to thank for the extent to which I. D. B. had spread. Had they taken proper precautions, it was urged, thefts would have minimized, and it was further pointed out, that though it might be true that if there were no receivers there would be no thieves, it is obviously true that if there were no thieves there could be no receivers. I cannot myself entirely acquit the diggers of the charge of culpable negligence. On the other hand, within the past three or four years there has been less ground for the accusation, as an elaborate searching system has been introduced. All the employés of the companies or individual diggers, white men under the rank of manager and colored men universally, are liable to be searched at any time. The white overseer even does not know when this may take place, as the order is secretly given from headquarters whom to search.
In connection with the searching of white men I may mention a lamentable occurrence that took place in the early part of 1884. A fiat went forth that they should be compelled to strip naked, and a natural feeling of indignation arose, as many of the overseers had been themselves pioneer diggers, and the majority of miners were men of undoubted respectability. A most regretable amount of ill-feeling arose between employers and employés, and though I believe the former were willing to forego the condition that absolute nudity would be required, yet the proviso that the boots should be removed was distasteful to the latter. At length a strike took place, to which, it is asserted, but with what amount of truth I cannot say, the men were urged on by unscrupulous outsiders, who had their own ends to serve. The first strike was of brief duration and passed over quietly, but the second, though also lasting a comparatively short time, was attended with fatal consequences. Briefly the circumstances were as follows: A considerable number of men were proceeding to the edge of the Kimberley mine to compel the French company to draw their fires. The men all distinctly assert they had no intention whatever of damaging the machinery or hauling gear of the company. A barricade had been erected by the servants of the company, behind which were armed policemen and certain diggers, etc., who had been sworn in as special constables. Various accounts are given as to how the affray began, at all events, though the police did not fire a single shot, the special constables shot dead on the spot four of the unfortunate men, who were buried next day, and another, who was an old patient of mine, died an hour or so after in my consulting-room, where he and a comrade who died a week after had been carried.
Great fears were entertained of a general riot; the canteens were ordered to be closed, the men who had fired the fatal shots were removed for safety to the jail, the government removed all firearms from the gun-stores, a corps of mounted specials was organized, while all save those whose passions were inflamed on one side or the other deeply deplored the sad events, and looked forward with the gravest apprehension to what a day or night might bring forth. The funerals of the fallen men were most impressive, hundreds, indeed I might say thousands, attending them, following most on foot, in slow procession to the solemn strains of the “Dead March in Saul.” Happily, however, there was no further bloodshed, and before a fortnight or three weeks were over, with but few exceptions, the men had returned to work and an amicable conclusion arrived at.
To proceed to the searching of natives, though there are certain differences in different mines, generally speaking the system is as follows: On arriving at the searching house they are compelled to divest themselves of their ordinary garb and pass through a central compartment in puris naturalibus, after which they assume working suits, needless to say absolutely pocketless. Their work over, they are first searched in the claims by the overseers and then are examined by the searching officers. They are stripped perfectly naked and compelled to leap over bars, and their hair, mouths, ears, etc., etc., carefully examined—no particularly pleasant duty for the searcher when the thermometer stands at perhaps 100° Fahrenheit in the shade.[[46]] There are grave doubts occasionally expressed as to the efficacy of this costly system, as comparatively few diamonds have ever been found in the searching houses, and the thievish native exercises an almost supernatural ingenuity in concealing his plunder, but the question is what diamonds have been prevented from being stolen rather than what stolen diamonds have been recovered.
Another system in which the supporters express a firm belief is that known as the compound system, which is shortly as follows. I have already described the Central Co.’s compound, but I will go a little more into detail: A company’s boys, instead of being allowed to wander about the town at their own sweet will, to feed at Kafir eating-houses (which are too frequently the favorite resorts of black I. D. B. runners, and whose proprietors are not invariably above reproach) and to drink at low canteens or smuggling dens, are confined to a company’s compound for two months, the period for which they now contract.
They are comfortably housed, and being unable to obtain the deleterious and adulterated liquor which has proved so many a native’s poison and death, are in the main much healthier than their uncompounded brethren, who spending two-thirds of their wages in drink on Saturday and Sunday are almost inanimate the following day and unable to work. It is needless to say that this system has aroused considerable opposition from the Kafir store-keepers, canteen-keepers and others whose purchasers are mainly natives, together with, it goes without saying, the I. D. B. gentry and a few who are neither I. D. B.’s, Kafir store-keepers nor the like, but who conceive that the system will tend to ruin the commerce of the town.[[47]] It is urged that the principle of “live and let live” was never more flagrantly outraged; that the bread is taken out of honest men’s mouths; that it is not by Kafirs, not even mainly by Kafirs, that diamonds are taken from the mines, and that it is a direct interference with the liberty of the subject. The last reason, however, is not a very cogent one against the subject, as the native agrees of his own accord to the contract, and philanthropists declare the compound to be an unmingled boon to the Kafir.
That it involves something allied to the “truck system” is apparently plain, as of course the necessities of life must be purchased in the compound, though it must be remembered that the legislative enactments which forbid the system in England were introduced to protect the employé whose wages were diminished by the unfair profits and the exorbitant interest charged by the “tommy shop,” not to protect the shopkeeper whose business was interfered with. Again, the wages are paid in cash, and the company’s store can in the event of the native failing to pay up at the end of the week merely, as I surmise, recover it by ordinary civil process. The companies disclaim all intention of making any profits for their shareholders by their shops in the compound, and are prepared to accept outside price-lists and distribute the profits among such institutions as the free hospital and the public library.
That those who have sunk their money, large or small, in the erection of Kafir stores and native bars feel the system a grievance I can readily understand, and for my part, on the principle of self-preservation being the first law of nature, am not disposed to blame them very much, if at all, for endeavoring to protect their interests by getting a bill introduced into parliament to abolish not the compound system, but to render it almost null and void by limiting the period during which the Kafirs can be kept in the compounds, through a clause principally to the effect that no goods can be vended there. A bill was introduced into the Cape parliament last year with this object, but a compromise, which is perhaps only temporary, was effected, and the bill withdrawn.
Most probably the matter will be brought before the house again next session, but I scarcely think it has much chance of passing; meanwhile the mining union has undertaken not to compound any white men, and to limit the period during which they keep the native compounded to two months only.
In concluding this chapter I shall take the opportunity of expressing my own views on the progressive legislation by which the late legislative council of Griqualand West and the Cape assembly since annexation have attempted to cope with this crime. After a long and thorough acquaintance with all classes of this community (for which, to a certain extent, I have to thank my profession), I have come to the conclusion that the punishments now inflicted are not adapted to the requirements of the case. The present judicial procedure of sentencing this class of prisoner to a long term of hard labor, during which its members learn advanced lessons in crime, and then turning them loose, further accomplished, upon the unfortunate digger, is to my mind not only a tax on the country, but also a calamity to Griqualand West. In my opinion a shorter period of imprisonment would suffice, but to this I would add a sequestration of all the culprit’s movable and immovable property, and banishment from the colony for at least twenty years, under pain of say fifteen years’ imprisonment with hard labor should he return previously. Criminals of this class, again, are tempted by the extra chances of sudden fortune which it presents.
Cases in which second convictions have taken place are numerous, in fact there seems to be a peculiar fascination which irresistibly attracts its devotees, and seems to render the majority of them almost incorrigible; consequently one of the best methods of protecting the mining community against these vampires is that they should be entirely beyond the reach of a species of temptation that they are unable to withstand.
There is one point, in addition, which I must not omit to mention in closing this chapter, and that is the readiness with which the present ministry (1885–86–87) recommend the governor of the colony to grant pardons to I. D. B.’s. “Petition-mongering, too, is a highly respectable business, for legislators of the land condescend to handle and flutter the interesting documents in the faces of sympathizers; cabinet ministers are not averse to joining in the game, and the stamp of the very highest authority is secured for it when his excellency the governor is persuaded into opening the doors of the jail and bidding the exultant illicit go forth once more, to lay his roguish hands on the hard-earned gains of the diamond digger.”
I have known cases of the most extraordinary character, one I will mention in particular. On the prisoner’s first conviction, he received a sentence of five years’ imprisonment, but was liberated after fifteen months’ incarceration, when, at once resuming the same sneaking kind of theft, he was caught again, and seven years awarded to him to ponder over his outrages. Mirabile dictu! thirteen months saw him, through his excellency the governor’s kindness, a free man once more; but with well-earned experience, as he now, the third time of asking, makes Free Town, in the adjoining republic, not Kimberley, the safe base of his dishonest operations. The hammer which shivered this man’s links must have been heavily weighted indeed! As he told me, one hammer, which of itself was not heavy enough to complete the work, weighed £850.
CHAPTER XV.
DESCRIPTION OF THE I. D. B.—PUBLIC MORALS.—THE MUSIC HALLS AND THEIR SONGS.—“M. L. A.’S AND M. L. C.’S IN LEAGUE WITH THIEVES AND RECEIVERS.”
Illicit diamond buyers are like the devils recorded in the gospel, whose name was “legion, for they were many.” The illicits are not only many in number, but also many in species.
The genus has little changed from the earlier times, for the I. D. B. was and is simply a receiver of stolen goods, well knowing them to be stolen, nothing more and nothing less. But the species of this genus are so numerous that their accurate categorist would almost rival a Linnæus or a Cuvier.
Some of the species are as extinct as the dodo; others have changed as remarkably as diseases, which once epidemic have become endemic, and members of the latter class, might, if classically inclined, appropriately quote, with reference to their altered position: “Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis.”
The I. D. B. of 1872 was not the I. D. B. of to-day; the I. D. B., whose canvas canteen, thronged by semi-nude Shangaans, Zulus, Basutos or Ballapins, was occasionally burnt over his head, was a different person in his modus operandi and manner of living from the “speculator” of 1885.
The “kopje walloper,” who was generally a gentleman of the Hebrew persuasion hailing from Petticoat Lane or the Minories, was one of those who, when diamond buying was as legal in the open air as in a properly registered office, used to haunt the edge of the mine. With satchel at side, well lined with gold and notes, sometimes on the chance of buying a diamond cheaply, trading on the ignorance of the finder, but generally with the view of tempting sorters to steal from the sorting table, he is now almost forgotten, although his moral counterpart exists to this day in the scoundrel who tempts, and but too often successfully, the white servants of a company or a claim-holder to become thieves, or to conveniently wink at the thieving of others.
The I. D. B. digger who could turn out as many diamonds in an afternoon’s wash-up as mealies on a cob, and by a marvelous dispensation of Providence was always hitting upon “splendid ground” in his claim, is now a rara avis, for the onus probandi of bona fide possession being now thrown upon the holders of rough and uncut diamonds, the digger who discovers priceless gems in notoriously worthless ground and by the aid of the poorest appliances runs a serious risk of being confronted with the judge of the special court.[[48]] To those unacquainted with diamond digging the awarding of a punishment for what might, at first sight, appear to be merely exceptional “luck” may seem more than Draconian, but this point will be referred to in a succeeding chapter.
The bogus licensed diamond buyer too who, frequently subsidised by some hidden man, merely pretended to transact legitimate business as a cloak for his illicit transactions, but did all that remunerated him in the “dead waist and middle of the night” is rapidly becoming extinct, owing to the stringent rules as to the proof of bona fide possession and the enforced registration of sale and purchase, though at the same time he is still extant in this year of grace, 1887. Like the cat employed by the ingenious monkey, however, in removing chestnuts from the fire, or the policeman in Gilbert’s opera, “his life is not a happy one.”
Again, the native claim-holder and digger who either bought a claim or was put into one to find diamonds, which, as a matter of fact, came from some other claim, perhaps some other mine, or even the river digging, now finds a more congenial occupation in running parcels over the Free State line or to Christiana in the Transvaal, or acting as an unlicensed diamond broker within the limits of the camp. “Jonas” and “Kleinboy” may still be seen with rings on their fingers and attired in a “masher” style which would not disgrace a West End tailor, but they are no longer diggers, though apparently their present occupation pays them handsomely enough.
Before the act of 1882 came into force Kimberley was a different place from what it is now—a nervous activity was universal. The booted and spurred I. D. B. could then be seen galloping on his well-groomed steed to his favorite resort, the canteen bars were thronged day and night, the billiard-rooms were crowded. The “Free and Easy,” too, had its frequenters, who were posted in all the comic songs of the day, and nightly twitted and tickled each other with the chorus of one at that time just out from home. These gentlemen evidently appropriated and appreciated the point of its refrain, singing with great gusto.
“They all do it, they all do it,
Though they very often rue it,”
as if their vile traffic and its consequences were one huge grim joke.[[49]]
At another music hall the song most in favor and nightly sung with immense éclat was one in which the adventures of a fortunate I. D. B. were told in the following doggerel, which was always sure of a vociferous encore, especially as many thought it had a peculiar local application:
“I’m shortly about to retire,
Then to Flo of course I’ll be wed,
I shall do the thing fine, buy shares in the mine
Or else float a company instead.
I’ll of course have a carriage and pair,
And later I shall not despair,
In the council I’ll get, and if you wait a bit
No doubt you will see me made mayor.”
The fact of a song like this being sung in public speaks volumes as to the utter demoralization which then existed in certain circles.
In their well-known houses of call the popping of champagne corks was like one continuous fusilade, and money flowed like water, for at this time the illicit buyer had little or no fear of a detective tapping him on the shoulder and asking him to account for the diamonds in his pocket.
Professor Darwin may write about the development of species, but if he resided here he might describe how an eminently respectable (?) member of society is evolved from a thief. There are I. D. B.’s and I. D. B.’s, all grades from high to low, from rich to poor, some accounted among the creme de la creme of Kimberley society, even pillars of this or that church, pious receivers and ex-receivers of stolen property well knowing it to be stolen, others buying from hand to mouth to ward off starvation.
The I. D. B. moving in society, probably now the manager of a digging company, or a licensed buyer, but nevertheless a rank hypocrite who has worked his way through all grades of rascality to a certain position, wishes by associating with men of acknowledged social status to avoid suspicion, and therefore, as a matter of tact, he rails against the illicit trade and preaches morality ad nauseam.
If he has money or influence he is surrounded by satellites, who shine but by a borrowed light, or to alter the simile, by dogs who support their miserable existence by licking up the “crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table.”
So powerful is the leaven of corruption engendered by this illicit system, that men, otherwise of undoubted probity, “kowtow” to the man whom in their heart of hearts they know to be, to quote thieves’ Latin, a simple “fence,” because they think that
“Thrift may follow fawning.”
From the passing of ordinance 48 of 1882 until the extension of that ordinance to the entire colony in the session of 1885, Capetown and Port Elizabeth were the head-centres of the I. D. B.’s, who, possessing capital, wished to evade the consequence of their nefarious trade. These scoundrels bought diamonds which were stolen and smuggled from Griqualand West, and men, supposed to be honorable (?) merchants, even members of the legislative assembly, were reported as trading with these characters in diamonds which they must have known to be stolen.
An apparently legal, though in reality a dishonest trade, was carried on by these men, who were described by the editor of the Orange Free State Advertiser as “M. L. A.’s and M. L. C.’s, in league with thieves and receivers of stolen property.”
The Diamond Trade extension act has however been of infinite service in checking the illicit traffic at the Bay and Capetown, though it has not entirely extinguished it.
As a matter of fact, there does not exist anywhere a more unredeemable set of miscreants than the arch-thieves who are at the head of the illicit diamond trade in South Africa.
Illicit diamond buying, like all crime the root of which is greed of money, tends to kill all humane instincts, and leaves those who practice it more selfish than the very brutes and absolutely dead to every better feeling.
The flattering unction which the confederates of the I. D. B. fraternity lay to their souls, if any grain of conscience remains, is that they are merely guilty of a revenue offense. It is therefore only to their cowardly fear of punishment that the law of the land must appeal if a stop is to be put to the wholesale system of robbery which they have organized and carried on so long with comparative impunity.
The I. D. B. now and then boasts in his cups that he has bought hand over fist, and cares nothing for, the adjective detective; but when the aforesaid adjective detective lightly lays his hands on his shoulder, he usually manifests the craven cowardice of a Noah Claypole rather than the bravery of a bold outlaw like Robin Hood, or the semi-chivalrous audacity and recklessness of a Claude Duval or a Dick Turpin.
CHAPTER XVI.
I. D. B.
TALES FROM REAL LIFE.—“THE MYSTIC THREE LETTERS.”—AN UNGRATEFUL HOUND.—A PLUCKY WOMAN.—NEMESIS.—TOO CLEVER BY HALF.—THE EARLY BIRD CATCHES THE WORM.—AN UNEXPECTED RECOVERY.—A DEATH-BED SCENE.
In connection with this nefarious traffic, this insidious disease I will term it, the nature of which I have, I hope, fully explained in a preceding chapter, I purpose appending a few examples, grave and gay, to illustrate the subject.
The stories are not without interest, illustrating as they do a certain phase of humanity, and at the same time possessing the merit of strict accuracy, as I have carefully excluded any narratives for the truth of which I am not, so far as is possible in such secret transactions, personally able to vouch.
While it is true that some slight freemasonry, not to speak of a frequent exhibition of what might fairly be termed freehanded generosity, undoubtedly exists or has existed among the fraternity of the mystic three letters, it must not for one moment be imagined that their moral sense prevents them cheating each other quite as remorselessly as the unfortunate digger or shareholder, on whose vitals they so long have “preyed” without ceasing. Men engaged in this traffic will rob one another, and there is no honor whatever among thieves of this class, their standard of morality being low indeed. Creatures of this type will often descend to any depth to gratify their sensual pleasure, and to satisfy their greed for gold. Examples have not been infrequent on the diamond fields of men employing Kafir females, on the one hand as touts for their infamous trade, and on the other to minister to the basest lusts of their nature. These unfortunate women are, as a rule, faithful to their protectors (Heaven save the mark!) combining at the same time the capacities of mistress, drudge and go-between. Their life is a terrible one, poor creatures, as this tale will show.
A certain gentleman, who boasted of his intimate acquaintance with the mysteries of one of the gayest capitals in Europe, was living not so long ago with a smart and not by any means repulsive-looking Fingo woman. About this time camp fever was very prevalent, and he fell under its influence. For days, nay, weeks, the disease held him in its grasp, and as day and night he tossed in wild delirium, hiding himself in the bedclothes to escape from the imaginary detectives who were conjured up by his disordered brain, his bedside was but seldom deserted by this loving example of native fidelity.
His trade connection with the “boys” employed in the mine had, however, to be kept together, and here it was that the faithful creature showed the devotion of her nature by running great risks in purchasing diamonds from the natives who had been in the habit of coming to her paramour. When this man rose from his bed of sickness, to his astonishment she presented him with hundreds of carats of valuable diamonds, but my readers will scarcely credit it when I tell them that no sooner was this despicable hound able to crawl than he sneaked away to Europe, taking with him the diamonds that she had bought, and leaving her penniless to starve or gain her living on the streets.
“Ingratum si dixeris omnia dices.”
As a pleasing contrast to the story I have just related, I have now to record an instance of woman’s fidelity and presence of mind when brought face to face with danger to those she loved.
A man, his wife, and child resided in Newton, a quarter of the camp, at one time at least, as thickly studded with swell I. D. B.’s “as the autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallambrosa.”
The husband was, not without reason, suspected of being what was euphemistically known as “in the trade.” So the detectives came to his house again and yet again, they emptied the sugar pots, they stuck their fingers in the pomatum, the pepper-boxes were turned topsy-turvy, making catarrh as universal in the house as cholera round Mecca; potatoes preparing for the diurnal tiffin were carefully diagnosed as to their diamondiferous capabilities, in fact Newton, the philosopher, suffered less from the incendiary propensities of his lap-dog than did Newton, the locality, from the “minions of the law.”
On one occasion when these gentlemen put in an appearance, a diamond of a large size was lying in the reticule of Mrs. —— upon the table. When about to rise and remove it, she was ordered by the officers to remain seated, whereupon she asked permission to send for a bottle of stout, a request at once acceded to. Hastily scribbling the words “Send bottle stout; keep bag till I come,” she rose and nonchalantly handed the message and reticule containing the diamond to her child, who toddled off to a neighboring canteen, where, as the mother knew, her husband was almost certain to be found. He, smelling a rat, made away with the stone, and the detectives very soon after left the house, baffled in their search, never dreaming of how they had been overreached. This woman’s presence of mind no doubt saved her husband many years in jail.
Though then notoriously “in the swim” they are now, having seen the error of their ways, earning an honest livelihood down Colony, and I am told often exhibit that “charity” which we are taught “covers a multitude of sins.”
In the case I will now mention Nemesis overtakes well-nigh all parties concerned.
About August, 188—, an individual over whose head was hanging a charge, not, however, connected with the diamond ordinance, determined to diminish his household expenses by sending his wife to Europe in charge of the proceeds of certain little private speculations which, it is needless for me to say, are never entered in the books of any mercantile firm. After selling off, he took apartments for his wife and another lady at a somewhat pretentious looking hotel in Kimberley.
All was going merrily as marriage bells are popularly supposed to do, the voyage was anticipated with eager delight, and a visit to an old friend in Hatton Garden was expected to prove highly remunerative; but “l’homme propose et Dieu dispose.”
The detective department, from “information received,” determined to make these ladies a domiciliary visit; so one afternoon, just as a nice little tiffin had been washed down with a glass of fine Clicquot, rendered still more delicious by the inspection of the glittering gems, which they had proudly been displaying to the longing eyes of the landlady, who had come in to remove the cloth, a sharp tap was heard at the door, and in walked the dreaded forms of two prominent detectives and a female searcher.
Quick as lightning the landlady whisked up the cloth, diamonds and all, leaving the room to give the officers the opportunity of a private and confidential interview with their startled guests. These gentlemen having explained the object of their visit politely introduced their female companion, and retired to smoke a cigar on the verandah.
The lady visitor, or rather the female searcher, at once took advantage of her position, and sarcastically remarked to her agitated “friends”: “Never mind, my dears, let down your hair; I have had finer ladies than you through my fingers before.”
After expressing satisfaction at the elegance of their coiffure, she then proceeded to admire their entire wardrobe, even the pretty little No. 2’s and silk stockings in which their tiny feet were encased did not escape attention.
Not finding any portion of their apparel encrusted with gems of purest ray, decidedly meant, in this case, to blush unseen, this “perfect lady” proceeded to express her appreciation of the delicate whiteness of their arms, somewhat marring their beauty, however, by leaving marks of sundry pinches which she inflicted to test the genuine nature of their plumpness.[[50]]
This interview being brought to a satisfactory or unsatisfactory conclusion, as the reader may elect to decide, the detectives and their coadjutrix took their departure. Forthwith the ladies rang the bell for the landlady, who promptly answered it, but wonderful to relate denied the most remote knowledge of the contents of the table-cloth, averring that when she shook it there was nothing but bread-crumbs to be seen.
What could be done? These ladies dare not appeal to the police, time pressed, their passages had been taken, so they were compelled to brave the perils of the deep, unsupported by the pleasing hope that they had cherished of a profitable visit to the horticultural domains of Hatton Garden, E. C.
Now would the reader be surprised to hear, that shortly after this incident, the husband of the landlady, whose eyesight had been so very defective, was suddenly seized with a desire to visit the Transvaal, possibly to investigate the gold-bearing qualities of that State, perhaps merely for an agreeable change. He did not, however, confine his peregrinations to the suzerainty, but proceeded to make an amateur survey of the proposed railway route between Pretoria and Delagoa Bay over the Lebombo Mountains. From the latter place he set sail for Rotterdam, which he reached in a much more satisfied frame of mind than his whilom lady boarders possessed on their arrival in London.
As all the world knows diamond cutters are to be found in considerable numbers in Holland, and it did not take him long to renew acquaintance with his old friends, some of whom were skilled in that trade. To one of these he intrusted the cutting of a valuable parcel of gems, which by an almost inexplicable coincidence was the exact counterpart of that which a few months before had disappeared so mysteriously at his antipodean hotel. Now, our Boniface was a gay old dog in his way, so he made up his mind to taste once more the long absent pleasures of the capitals of Europe, serenely conscious that a little extravagance was pardonable in a landlord whose very table linen produced more diamonds in one shaking than many a twelve-foot washing machine, worked by a Davy Paxman, would in thousands of revolutions. While enjoying the gayeties of Vienna, he received a telegram to the effect that his diamonds had been duly cut and were awaiting his disposal. So he at once returned to Holland, received his gems and secured the services of a well-known goldsmith for their setting, which proved in accordance with his orders both elaborate and costly. When all was completed he started once more for his South African home. Many a night, ere the billows rocked him to sleep, though congratulating himself on his lucky journey, he mentally execrated the tyranny of a government which he knew too well would on his arrival in Capetown heartlessly exact from him a certain duty of 30 per cent. ad valorem. The thought of this unwarrantable interference with the liberty of the subject haunted him continually, until one night as his cabin companion told me he was disturbed by a delighted chuckle followed by a semi-audible soliloquy: “Shtrike me dead, I’ve got it, pay the dam duty, not if I knowsh it, sho’elp me. I’ll risk it.”
Arrived at Capetown he induced a female passenger with whom he was acquainted, to conceal about her person the diamonds which already had had so strange a story, and thus endeavor to evade the eagle eyes of the revenue officials stationed at the dock entrance.
The attempt was unsuccessful, the diamonds were discovered and confiscated, and the fair contrabandista, having of course in self-defence revealed the owner, he was tried for the misdemeanor, when in addition to the loss of his jewelry he was sentenced to pay a heavy fine or in default of payment to endure a term of imprisonment.
For time he cared little, for character less, for money more, consequently as a matter of course the Capetown jail received within its walls a visitor who for several months had leisure to ruminate on the adage, “much will have more,” ofttimes more than it bargains for.
This same man on being liberated returned to the Fields, sunk lower and lower, until one day he was caught in “flagrante delicto” by the detective department. The breakwater at Capetown now is visited daily by the quondam tourist and the gradual progress of this valuable public work is materially assisted by the thews and sinews of our ingenious but not ingenuous hero.
As an illustration of the strange infatuation which this crime exercises over its votaries, how like the fascinated moth they flutter round the candle, singeing their wings, and what perfidy they can on occasions exhibit to one another, I will give a brief anecdote respecting a young man whom we shall call Silberfeldt.
Under the old diamond ordinance this bright specimen of humanity was trapped in the usual manner, caught red-handed by the detectives and sentenced to three years’ hard labor, of which time nearly two years were remitted in consequence of good conduct while in jail. Unwarned by this experience, ungrateful for the lenity shown him by the authorities, no sooner had he gained his liberty than he emulated the example of the scriptural sow and returned at once to his wallowing in the mire.
The further knowledge of the inner working of the I. D. B. craft, which he had gained during his temporary retirement from public life, had so increased his self-confidence that, considering himself now a veritable passed-master in its mysteries, he openly boasted there was not a man clever enough in all Griqualand West to catch him a second time; but unhappily for him, Ord 48, 1882, which throws upon the holders of diamonds the onus probandi of honest possession, had passed the Cape parliament, and had received Her Majesty’s sanction.
Too wary to be trapped by even the most astute detective, he nevertheless, with all his cunning, fell into the meshes of the law, and along with another was arrested under the section dealing with the offense of “illegal possession,” having been pounced upon one fine morning, when diamonds were found in the house where he and his companion were stopping.
The two were friends who had long been on terms of the greatest intimacy, and naturally they might have been expected to stick to each other through thick and through thin. When, however, they were placed in the dock and asked to plead, Silberfeldt at once, arrant coward as he was, exclaimed:
“Oh! your vorship, I don’t vant to plead, I’m going to turn Queensh evidensh.”
This vision of a traitor’s liberty, this desire to shelter himself and protect his own worthless skin by “rounding on his pal” was soon rudely ended by the magistrate, who intimated that the Crown was not in want of any “Queensh evidensh” in the case at all, or to slightly parody Oliver Goldsmith—
“When the culprit cried, oh, yes!
The court it cried, oh, no!”
After evidence of a most conclusive character had been given, the accused were duly committed for trial to the special court, where, strange to say, “one was taken and the other left,” with a cruel irony of fate, the one taken (to the breakwater for seven years) was the perfidious Silberfeldt, the one left (to the enjoyment of his liberty) was the friend who so narrowly escaped betrayal.
As an instance of the fact that in temporal matters at least “honesty” does not always appear to be “the best policy,” I recollect an instance of which the truth can be vouched.
One fine spring morning in September, 187–, a certain diamond buyer, whom we will call Gonivavitski, might have been seen marching up and down the Bulfontein road enjoying the early rays of the sun, reading the daily paper, yet still keeping a narrow watch on the canvas frame-house in which he conducted his licensed (?) dealings. Active, robust, cheery, though a rogue in spirit and grain, manliness appeared to beam from every line of his seemingly honest face. Our friend, too, was of a dogmatic turn of mind, insisted on “cleanliness being next to godliness,” and no firmer believer in the proverb that the “early bird catches the worm” could have been found in all Kimberley.
Just as he had finished the leading article he caught sight of one of his clients approaching in an opposite direction. G. started nervously, as he did not desire the visit of this especial gentleman in the daylight—in other words he only bought of “niggers” after dark—but his dusky acquaintance gave him a sly glance, as much as to say: “I fancy I’ve seen you before,” a quite sufficient hint that “something” (as illicit stones are often called “in the trade”) was in the immediate neighborhood, so G. could not resist the temptation.
Taking a bird’s-eye view of the situation, Gonivavitski hastily came up to the native, who, with a knowing leer, opened his hand, revealing a magnificent pure white diamond nearly the size of a plover’s egg.
“Mooi klippe baas!” (fine stone, master) said the nigger.
“Ya! kom hier sa, booi,” (yes, come this way, boy) said G. hurriedly, fearing observation.
The boy did as he was told, following the white man into his office, which was close by. The door was soon shut, the stone weighed and the bargain struck, the native starting off with the money at a round trot to join his “brothers,” who were waiting round the corner. But “conscience doth make cowards of us all,” and Mr. G. was not an exception; fearing that he had been watched, and regardful either of his spotless reputation, or of the pleasures of the “tronk”[[51]] looming in the future, started in hot pursuit and gave his late visitor into the custody of the first policeman he met.
“What’s up now?” said the guardian of law and order.
“Why, look here, this d—d thief of a nigger wants to sell me this ’ere,” was Gonivavitski’s answer, given in tones of simulated indignation.
“This ’ere,” however, was not the forty-carat white diamond of a few minutes before, G. was too clever for that, it was merely a piece of boart not worth a sovereign that he now produced.
A crowd soon gathered to watch the thief marched off to jail, the honest man following in his wake to lay the charge. Next day at the trial, a little perjury more or less was immaterial, the boy was sentenced to imprisonment and lashes, whilst Mr. G. in a few days found it necessary for the sake of his health to proceed to Europe, where he disposed of the diamond for a good round sum. With this addition to his former capital he returned to the Fields, where he still remains, boasting the possession of an ample fortune, gained, as he always says, by “’ard work and hearly rising.”
One of the most generally admitted apothegms of worldly wisdom is that “a man should always tell the truth to his doctor and his lawyer,” but like many far more valuable maxims it is frequently disregarded. An instance in which (albeit I am happy to say I have a tolerably good opinion of my fellow creatures) I could not place confidence in the statements of my patient, occurs to my mind in connection with the anecdotes of which this chapter is composed.
About two o’clock one morning in the year 1872 I was roused from the sleep I so much needed, as it was a sickly and busy season, by a hurried rapping at my front door. A doctor’s slumbers are through force of habit light, and in a few seconds my dressing-gown and slippers were assumed, and I hastened to answer the imperative summons of my visitor. A middle-aged citizen, whose reputation, although never openly impugned, was yet hardly enviable, greeted me in somewhat quavering accents, and with pallid cheeks desired my services without a moment’s delay. Having ushered him into my consulting-room I at once discovered the secret of his alarm. The sufferer informed me that “he had been discussing with some friends the means by which the rascally illicits evaded the law and concealed their ill-gotten gems on any sudden emergency, suiting the action to the word he had swallowed (or otherwise concealed from view) two sovs. and a diamond.”
I listened to the story with all becoming gravity, and proceeded to perform a surgical operation for the removal of the foreign substances, with the anatomical details of which it is wholly unnecessary to weary my readers. When relieved from his distress of mind and body he was desirous of further explaining the circumstances under which the sad occurrence took place, but as the subject did not particularly interest me I suggested that “time was on the wing,” which hint he promptly took, dividing the corpora delicti by leaving the gold with me and putting the diamond (a thirty-carat stone) in his pocket. Years afterward, when I heard that while sitting among the Dii majores of the Kimberley club this gentleman’s main topic of conversation was his extreme horror of the illicit traffic with its train of evils—I could not help calling to mind the episode of 1872. However, as we are told “the reformed rake makes the best husband,” I hope that my ex-patient believes all he now enunciates, and what is still more important has the courage of his opinions.
I shall finish these few sketches of I. D. B. with the recital of an incident which occurred to me personally: the moral to be gathered I leave to my readers.
As nearly as I can remember, it was late on a cold winter’s night in June, 187–, that I heard a tapping at my bedroom window. It was a dreadful night. The south wind was blowing the sand from the débris heaps in fitful gusts, whilst the dust clouds were careering along so thickly that to see but a yard or two ahead was impossible. To those who know the mine and its surroundings it will require but a slight stretch of imagination to picture the bottomless pit from which “all hell had broken loose.”
Mentally anathematizing my nocturnal visitor, I rose and opened the door, when a Kafir thrust into my hand a piece of paper on which was scrawled in pencil:
“Dry Diggings Hospital.
“Dr. Matthews. Sir:—Mr. O. J. is tossing about and very restless to-night, and says he must see you. Will you come quickly—I think he is dying?
“Yours obediently,
I. P.”
Though at the time one of the surgeons of the Dry Diggings hospital, yet as O. J. was not under my treatment I did not much relish the idea of a dreary walk at that time of night. Not wishing, however, to disappoint the poor fellow, who had once worked a claim for me and who was now, so I had heard, dead out of luck, having, as the American gold digger says, struck “the bed-rock,” I dressed quickly and trudged away through the heavy sand to the wattle and daub shanty which then did service as a hospital.
On my arrival the attendant guided me with his flickering candle down the long barn-like shed to the bedside of O. J. At a glance I saw that death had marked him for his own. Beads of cold sweat stood out on his forehead, whilst clammy hands and convulsive paroxysms of his throat showed the nearness of the end.
“Sie können Deutsch verstehen nicht wahr, Herr Doctor?” (You can understand German, can’t you, Doctor?)
I nodded assent, when continuing the conversation partly in that language and partly in English, evidently with the object of keeping the attendant ignorant of what was passing between us, he imploringly looked up and said: “Do tell me doctor how long I shall live, I can’t last long.” I shook my head doubtfully, when he gasped out in tones of agonized anxiety:
“I shan’t, I won’t, I can’t die without telling you how when I worked your and Mr. Lynch’s claim in No. 6 I robbed you of nearly all your diamonds! Oh! doctor, how I have hoped, how I have prayed God to let me live, to spare me to work again, to make up the wrong that I have done you.”
Entering further into details of how he had been tempted, and how he hoped, even if he never could work again, to repay me out of a remittance he expected from Europe, he suddenly seized my hand and in feeble accents, broken by the death-rattle in his throat, uttered these earnest words:
“YOU WILL FORGIVE ME THOUGH, WON’T YOU?”
Comforting him as well as I could, I assured him that, as far as I was concerned, he might bury the past in oblivion. Never shall I forget, to my dying day, the expression of intense relief which passed over his anxious face and the glow which came again to his pallid cheek by the assurance which I gave him.
As I was rising to bid him good night he again grasped my hand with both of his and piteously exclaimed:
“Don’t, don’t forget me, doctor, you’ll come, won’t you, and see me to-morrow?”
This I promised him, although with inward misgiving that his “to-morrow” would never come.
Instructing the attendant to pay special heed to the sufferer during the night, and again promising to return at sunrise, I trudged my weary way home.
Daylight saw me again at the hospital. Alas! Too late! No. 3 bed was empty! The troubled spirit had fled, its sins, I trust, blotted out for ever by a merciful and all-wise God!
Yet the wretch who tempted this poor fellow to steal diamonds, the sneaking creature who made him a thief and who profited by his thefts, I ofttimes meet strutting proudly about with an air of pharisaical honesty, to all outward appearance respectable and respected!
CHAPTER XVII.
DESCRIPTION OF THE COMPANY AND SHARE MANIA IN 1881.—EVENTS OF THE “BUBBLE YEAR.”—CAUSES WHICH BROUGHT THE MANIA ABOUT.—WHY COMPANIES WERE FIRST FORMED.—THE BARNATO CO.—THE CENTRAL CO.—THE FRANKFORT MINE.—THE COSMOPOLITAN CO.—WONDERFUL INVESTMENTS.—SLOW RETURN OF CONFIDENCE.
The “ten claim clause,” which was passed by the legislative council of Griqualand West under Governor Southey (vide clause 18, Ordinance 10, 1874), and prohibited any person, firm or joint-stock company to have registered in his name, or in the name of his or their accredited agent at any time within six months, reckoned from the date of the proclamation of a digging, more than one claim, and after that period more than ten claims, was brought forward by some interested men as the reason for the non-introduction of foreign capital into our digging operations.
The rescinding of this clause in 1876 (Ordinance 12, Nov. 20th) effected great changes, the alteration in the law throwing the road open for capitalists to buy out small holders in the Kimberley and other mines, virtually leading the way to the extraordinary mania for company-mongering and share-rigging which existed in 1880 and 1881.
The repeal of this clause, however, which had never been in favor with capitalists, because it obstructed them from “blocking” claims in the mines, was hailed by some with delight, by others with foreboding, as the latter believed it to prognosticate the approach of monopoly and the departure of the individual digger. This repeal initiated a most remarkable period in the history of the diamond fields, in which a mania for company promoting and for mad speculation seized the whole community, of which a repetition is now going on at the De Kaap gold fields. It may not perhaps be a matter of surprise that the inhabitants of a place, depending on a somewhat precarious industry and one of which the proceeds are so liable to fluctuation, should be more or less imbued with the spirit of gambling, nor is there anything unusual in the digger deserting his mining operations to endeavor to gain wealth in a more rapid manner by speculation. Such circumstances have been of frequent occurrence in America and Australia, where many a man who had been unlucky as a digger, using his acquired knowledge has realized a fortune by speculating in shares or claims.
In the case of the sudden rise of the share mania in Kimberley, the most extraordinary point was to be found in the fact that the place had long thrown off the habits and appearance of a digging camp, and had assumed the customs of a settled town, while all matters connected with share transactions were conducted in so systematic a manner that the event bore a close resemblance to one of those speculative fevers which occasionally seize the home Stock Exchange. Kimberley was not alone in this novel excitement; the infection spread throughout the whole of South Africa, share transactions were eagerly carried on in all the coast towns, and companies with large capitals were also formed to work the diamond mines in the Free State, at Jagersfontein, Koffyfontein and Oliphansfontein, and half a dozen others of which it can now only be said
“Gaudet cognomine terra.”
It is no easy matter to fully trace why the cause of this wild desire for speculation seized upon the community. It has often been stated that it was simply an endeavor on the part of interested persons on the diamond fields to defraud the outside public and get rid of their worthless property. This, however, was not the case, although it must be admitted that in many instances the actions of promoters of companies were far from honorable. A more feasible answer to the question will be found in the fact that for some time past there had existed in Kimberley, companies which, although registered under the limited liability act, were of a semi-private nature; for instance, the “Compagnie Française” (French Diamond Mining Company) and the Cape Diamond Mining Company, both of which had been formed in 1879, some three years after the “ten claim clause” had been abolished. These undertakings were believed to be most successful, and the general public on the Fields were eager to participate in the profits of similar enterprises. When this desire became apparent there were many claim-holders who were desirous of realizing some ready money, or paying off some existing mortgage, by the sale of a share in their diamond operations, and hence the creation of new joint-stock undertakings.
That the first companies on the Fields, the British and Central, were formed with a most legitimate object, it is quite impossible to deny, and the reason for their formation is most easily to be seen. As the mine attained a greater depth, the expenses of working naturally became larger; elaborate machinery had to be erected, and more European labor was therefore required. Under such circumstances it is not strange that many diggers found it to their advantage to amalgamate with their neighbors; moreover, it often occurred that those who formerly had been actively employed in the mine were desirous of entering into other pursuits, and yet were not willing to abandon all interest in digging operations; consequently the formation of joint-stock companies naturally suggested itself as a convenient way of meeting the requirements of the case. It was under such circumstances that the first companies in Kimberley were formed. The shares in these undertakings very seldom passed out of the hands of the original holders and the system gave every promise of success; it is true that there were prophets of evil, who were ready even in those days to declare that this step was one on the road to ruin, so far as the prosperity of Kimberley was concerned, yet for a time the results of these companies in most cases proved to be unmistakably satisfactory, and it was this bona fide success which encouraged the promotion of numerous other schemes which were shortly afterward introduced.
In the early part of the year 1881 there existed about a dozen companies in the Kimberley mine, the total capital of which amounted roundly to two millions and a half, and the shares in these undertakings were in the hands of the most successful diggers on the Fields. These shares had not, of course, been purchased with cash, but every claim-holder who put his claim ground into a company received a certain amount of scrip for his property. It is impossible to dispute the fact that claim property had risen enormously in value during the few years previous to the establishment of the first joint-stock undertaking, and it is manifest that if claims were incorporated in a company at a price on which they could yield a fair dividend, that price was a perfectly fair one. The non-success of many of the subsequent undertakings was mainly due to the fact that the promoters were blind to this very simple truth, and had forgotten, or had never known, the first principles which should govern joint-stock undertakings. In fact people who would never have dreamed of buying a share in a business at £1,000, which would only secure a return on five hundred, invested freely in shares in companies, the claims in which would have given an admirable return on a small capital, but a very poor one, if any at all, on the enormous sums at which they were put in.
When once the idea that the joint-stock system was the most advantageous method for working the mines gained a hold upon the community, the excitement became intense, company after company was formed, and the shares in every case were eagerly taken up by the public. When the formation of a new undertaking was announced, the applications universally doubled and trebled the number of shares proposed to be allotted, and in fact a premium was invariably offered to a successful applicant for the chance he had secured of obtaining a share in any new venture.
The different lists for share applications were filled with marvelous rapidity, and remained open but a very short time. Ebden Street, the “Rue Quincampoix”[[52]] of Kimberley, was filled from morning to night with a tumultuous and maddened crowd. The various offices of companies in formation were simply stormed, and those who could not get in at the door from the pressure of the crowd, threw their applications for shares (to which were attached cheques and bank notes) through the windows, trusting to chance that they might be picked up. It is difficult to picture the eagerness, the plots, the rage of the excited multitude bent on securing this, the magic scrip, which was to make the needy rich and the embarrassed free.
It was astonishing how the mania seized on all classes in Kimberley, from the highest to the lowest, just as Law’s scheme and the South Sea bubble did during the previous century; how every one, doctors and lawyers, masters and servants, shop-keepers and workmen, men of the pen and men of the sword, magistrates and I. D. B.’s, Englishmen and foreigners, rushed wildly into the wonderful game of speculation.
One financial agent told me he floated five companies in three weeks, viz.: The Fry’s Gully, Du Toit’s Pan; the De Beer’s Central, De Beer’s; the Barnato Co., Kimberley; the Frere Co., De Beer’s; and the Globe Co., Du Toit’s Pan; and that although the capital required for the five companies was £496,000 only, yet £1,230,000 passed through his hands in the short time I have mentioned.
Business of every kind was neglected, mining operations were all but suspended, the sole topic being the share market and the profits to be made there. Many made unexpected fortunes, and realized in a few months gains larger than those a whole lifetime of work and economy could have procured them had they continued their ordinary pursuits. Under these circumstances it was only natural that many owners of worthless ground took advantage of the general excitement to form companies which had hardly the remotest possibility of success; it was evident that it mattered very little to the general public, or the majority at all events, what the company was, what the value of the claims might be or where they were situated, so long as it was a diamond-mining company it was quite sufficient to command public favor. The public bought shares in the diamond-mining companies as to-day they are doing in the gold companies, not to obtain dividends on their capital invested, but for purposes of pure speculation.
One of the most flagrant instances of bogus company promoting which ever came under notice was the imposition attempted at a farm named Frankfort, situated in the Free State, about sixteen miles from Kimberley.
This farm was prospected, diamonds found (?), a mine surveyed, claims given out, dams dug, shafts sunk and machinery erected, simply to bolster up a gigantic swindle, which but for the outspoken opinion of a surveyor named Kitto would have been foisted, through a well known European firm, who merely awaited his report, on the English public for £450,000. To assist in gulling home investors an American adventurer was actually sent to England with a parcel of beautiful diamonds, certified by affidavit to have been found in this mine, in order that those concerned in introducing the scheme to the public might give visible and tangible proof of the enormous value of the property which they had for disposal. Mr. Kitto’s report, however, decided the fate of what he terms “one of the most shameful swindles ever attempted.”
Many a laughable story is told of how diamonds were turned out of, or—to be more accurate—put into this mine. One probable investor on going down a shaft to examine the ground at the bottom had a hail-storm of little diamonds showered on him (some of which lit on the brim of his hat) which were meant for him to unearth in the loose ground at the bottom. This wonderful discovery of the diamond’s new “locate” did not tend to increase this gentleman’s opinion of the proffered investment! On another occasion an astute matron interested in the swindle roundly bullied her servants for their carelessness in finding only seven diamonds instead of eight, with which she had “salted” the wash-up.
To make a long story short, the “best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley,” the bubble burst, and the proprietors of this wonderful mine allowed the knowledge of its startling richness to sink into oblivion, and found consolation and support in ministering to the bodily wants of those whom business or pleasure took to that worked-out and forsaken Golconda.
As another example of how things were managed in those days when the share mania was at its height, I may mention the case of a well-known citizen who conceived the happy idea of putting into a company certain claims in the Bulfontein mine which were then in his possession. These claims were twenty-six and one-half in number, and the services of an energetic promoter (who was to be paid £500 if he pushed the company through) having been secured, a prospectus pithily written was submitted to several well-known men who agreed to become provisional directors. The capital of the company was stipulated to be £30,000, in 6,000 shares of £5 each, of which £1 was payable on application, a similar sum to be paid on allotment. The vendor, however, reserved 3,000 shares for himself, so that only 3,000 were offered to the public. The modus operandi of floating this company was somewhat unique. It was known that locally the company could not go through, as the unkind assertion that “half of the ground was in the street” was generally believed, but that difficulty the diplomatic promoter overcame by sending copies of the prospectus to agents in the Colony and Natal fully a week before it was allowed to see the light of day on the Fields. This turned out to be a rather clever dodge, for, before its publication in the local prints, the secretary had in his possession sufficient applications by wire, the forms for which duly signed afterward came to hand, to insure the safety of the company. Locally there were but few applications. The first instalment of the company, however, was only just subscribed for and the share allotment made, when the collapse in the share market took place. What, however, is a singular thing in reference to this company is, that the money paid on application and that paid on allotment, which must have amounted to some thousands of pounds, has never yet been accounted for. The directors fell away one by one, no work was done or machinery ordered, and eventually the vendor became his own chairman, directors secretary, trustee, manager and the general multum in parvo of the Cosmopolitan Diamond Mining Company, Bulfontein mine! It has transpired that the shareholders’ money had not even been devoted to paying the licenses on the claims, for I find that up to Feb. 1887, there was an amount due to the London and South African Exploration Company (limited) of £2,008 for licenses on the claims from Sept. 1st, 1880. When this company was introduced to the public, one of the clauses of the prospectus read as follows:
“The well-known and regular returns of the Bulfontein mine are proverbial, and most of the companies recently formed at a very much higher rate per claim, are even now at a respectable premium; which, coupled with the fact that all difficulties and obstructions having been removed by the settlement arrived at between the claim-holders generally and the London and South African Exploration Company (limited), the provisional directors have all confidence in the future of this company.”
Although the vendor then stated that a settlement had been arrived at, yet in March, 1884, when sued by the London and South African Exploration Company for the rent which was due to them, this gentleman pleaded that the company had no title! Either his first statement in the prospectus or his last in pleading must have been audacious in the extreme.
The London and South African Exploration Company withdrew from the case, probably to bring it on again at a later period.[[53]] Some shareholders are asking what has become of the money, and whether the company should not be forced into liquidation, that the matter may be fully inquired into. The promoter of the company was never fully paid, and many outstanding accounts were never settled.
The floating of this company and its subsequent history forms a novel of itself, and is another proof of the loose manner in which important business involving thousands of pounds was transacted.
This was indeed a time when a visitor to Kimberley could not help being struck with the remarkable amount of business, legitimate and illegitimate, which was transacted in a place so lately a mere desert. As I have already mentioned the streets were thronged with an eager crowd, all engaged in the same pursuit, the purchase or sale of shares; a pursuit which each one firmly believed to be the high road to fortune. Well-nigh every conveyance which arrived on the Fields brought new comers, anxious to share in the supposed good fortune, all the hotels were crowded, and from every drinking bar might be heard the popping of champagne corks; for lucky speculators were lavish with their money, believing as they did that they had hit on an inexhaustible mine of wealth. Diggers who had hitherto scarcely managed to make both ends meet now imagined themselves wealthy, as their claims had been put into companies at a price sufficient to make them comfortable for life; men who before had been contented to work hard for five or six pounds a week secured positions as managers of companies with comparatively enormous salaries, clerks and shopmen became secretaries, and assumed all the dignity of their new positions, and lawyers were employed day and night, drawing up agreements and trust deeds. The insatiate thirst for speculation was not slaked by the opportunity afforded of drinking fortune’s drams in mining ventures alone. Although 113 of these were floated, yet some score of other schemes were thrown out as baits to catch the unwary investor. Brick, coal, laundry, transport, ironmongery, labor supply, theatres, clubs, hotels, aerated waters, in fact the prosecution of every conceivable industry was changed from private hands to those of managers and directors, some directors becoming veritable “guinea pigs,” occupying seats at as many as from ten to fifteen boards at the same time.
Extraordinary as it may seem, it is nevertheless a fact that in six months the nominal capital of the diamond mining companies rose from two millions and a half to over eight, and the companies in number from half a dozen to seventy-one; of these thirteen existed in the Kimberley mine, with a total capital of £2,685,000; eighteen at Du Toit’s Pan, with a capital of £2,200,750. De Beers had thirteen companies, whose united capital was £1,334,100, while at Bulfontein there were sixteen with the more moderate sum of £871,100. In addition to these there were about eleven companies formed to work the outside mines, and the capital required for this purpose was estimated at £923,000. Some idea of the large scale on which it was proposed to conduct these operations may be formed from the fact that the total sum proposed to be devoted to the purchase of machinery was no less than £650,700. Taking all these matters into consideration, it does not require very great experience in the art of finance to realize that the community of Kimberley was playing at a very dangerous game, and one which would sooner or later be attended with very serious results. Nor did the danger lie only in the fact that Kimberley speculated far beyond its capital, from the commencement to the end the hastily formed companies had but little chance of success, their very trust deeds being irregular. Again, the greed of the promoters exhausted the funds which should have been devoted to the development of the property, claims were put in at a price which rendered the payment of any but the most paltry dividends impossible, whilst the favoritism and nepotism of directors caused inefficient men to be appointed to posts the occupants of which should have had the utmost possible practical experience.
All this ought to have been clear to the old residents on the Fields, but for some unaccountable reason they seemed blind for the time to all principles of common sense; the Kimberley investor—I mean, of course, the bona fide investor and not the mere speculator in shares—seemed to throw his judgment aside altogether, and apparently believed that the “bonanza” from which he was to derive his future wealth was to be found in the ground, which, as he might have known, had scarcely paid for working in the hands of the individual digger, and could not be expected, even with the command of improved and costly machinery which capital could secure, to pay even decent dividends.
For many months, until June 1881, in fact, shares continued to advance in price to the most absurd premiums, and the most outrageous reports were taken as truths, while the influx of a considerable amount of money from colonial investors aided in fanning the breeze, which wafted the place on the rocks and breakers of financial distress.
The first check which the mania received was given by the sudden action taken by the local banks. The managers of these institutions had given way to the general excitement, and in fact had conduced to it by freely advancing money on all kinds of bogus paper, and now they suddenly became alive to the fact that the security of the scrip of mining companies might not be so sound as at first sight it appeared to be, and refused, for the future, to make any advances on this class of property.
A loud cry of indignation was immediately raised from every quarter, speculators who had been purchasing heavily and mortgaging their shares to purchase more, and who now found that their system would receive a fatal blow, naturally complained of these, as they termed them, “arbitrary and injudicious proceedings” on the part of the financial institutions.
By slow degrees the mania abated, at last shareholders commenced to realize the fact that they had invested beyond their means, and what made the matter more serious they found it impossible to sell at anything like the price at which they had purchased. The natural consequence of this was a material fall in nearly all classes of shares. In spite, however, of the tightness in the local money market, the community by no means lost entire confidence in their pet schemes. To show the justness of these opinions, I will mention one company in particular, the “Barnato.” This was the smallest company in the Kimberley mine, consisting of four claims only, and was introduced to the public in March, 1881, at the enormous sum of £25,000 a claim, with an addition of £15,000 for working expenses, almost double the value put by any other company on their claims. The application list for shares was open for an hour only, when the required capital was subscribed for twice over, and in two days the shares were at twenty-five per cent, premium, at which price they changed hands freely. The faith of the investors in this company’s shares was fully borne out. During the succeeding eighteen months (before the company’s claims were covered over with reef) it actually paid dividends on this exorbitant capital to the tune of thirty-one per cent., distributing among its shareholders no less a sum than £35,650. The Central Company also paid in dividends during the first three-quarters after its formation fifty-one per cent., reaching a grand total during its first two and a half years of some eighty per cent., the amount in figures amounting to £321,985, 18s. 6d. But the majority of companies never paid any dividend at all for years, and some are even now not out of debt.
When it became apparent that the place had not a sufficient amount of capital to support its enormous number of mining undertakings, many plans were formed for the introduction of capital from Europe, and in the hope of this object meeting with a successful issue, speculators still continued to buy and sell shares, but as time went on and it became perfectly clear that the hope of any benefit being derived from this source must be abandoned, the value of scrip gradually became lower and lower, until at last in many cases it was all but nil, and where there were calls unpaid a minus quantity.
The decline in the value of shares in the market was enormous. Central shares in the Kimberley mine, which had an easy sale in March, 1881, at £400[[54]] per share were in 1884 almost unsalable at £25. Rose Innes shares which were sought after at £53 sank to £5, and a similar fall also occurred in the shares of all the companies in the other mines of the province. In the mines of the Free State the depreciation in the value of shares was more extraordinary still. An instance I well remember. A friend of mine after years of application to business, combined with indomitable perseverance, amassed a large fortune, when he was tempted to speculate in the Koffyfontein mine, to which I have already alluded, during the months of June and July, 1881. He bought during the height of the mania 1,200 Koffyfontein shares at £28 each, which were afterward within two years realized in his estate at 6d a share. He thus lost over £30,000 on the one venture. This was far from being an unparalleled instance of men being completely ruined by the unprecedented fall which took place in shares at that time. Though the diamond mania did not convey such widespread disaster as the South Sea bubble or the Mississippi scheme, yet it will be years before the effect of the South African “bubble year” of 1881 is forgotten.
On the time arriving when dividends were expected to be declared, in but very few instances were the directors able to do so. Ground which had yielded well in the hands of private owners often proved entirely unremunerative under the joint-stock system, and the reason of this was evident; the digger when working on his own account required no office with a highly paid staff; he was his own manager and secretary, he looked keenly after his own interests, and would never have dreamed of trusting the most vital matters in his business to a possibly incompetent servant.
In spite of the fact that, generally speaking, the company system had proved a failure, but little attempt was made to mend matters. Things drifted from bad to worse, until at last Kimberley entered on the worst financial crisis that it had ever experienced. The companies with few exceptions were more or less in difficulties. Pressed for their liabilities by the banks, they had in turn to put the greatest pressure on such shareholders as had not paid all the instalments on their shares, and in very many cases their action was useless, as the shareholders were unable to meet the demands made on them. The consequence was that the companies had to go into liquidation and work in the mines came to a partial stand-still. Kimberley was no longer the Kimberley of the past.
It may be safely said that in its rash and reckless speculation Kimberley was almost guilty of financial suicide, for not only was an all but fatal blow given to the industry which supported the place, but all confidence in its resources was for a time destroyed in the minds of its colonial neighbors and the home investing public. The good, sound investments, yielding large returns, to be made here, would startle the quiet folk who are satisfied with the “three per cents.” As an instance of the dividend paying capacity of some companies some months ago, I cannot help mentioning the Elma at Old De Beers; in November, 1883, the market value of its £10 paid-up shares was from 16 shillings to 20 shillings, when with good management in less than eight months it paid a monthly dividend averaging from two to three per cent., or for the investor who was lucky enough to buy in at the low prices, at the rate of 360 per cent. per annum.
The fact of Griqualand with its incalculable mineral wealth being now united to the colony by the line of railway opened at the end of 1885,[[55]] the knowledge that owing to this the cost of the production of diamonds must be vastly diminished, together with the lessening of theft, which the extension of the Diamond Trade Act to the colony and the re-enactment of a similar ordinance by the government of the Free State must produce, will tend to give a spurt to digging operations.
I shall next treat of the political stages through which the Diamond Fields have passed from their discovery to the present time.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE DIAMOND FIELDS UNDER ADAM KOK, CORNELIUS KOK, “DAM KOK,” ANDREAS AND NICHOLAS WATERBOER.—THE DIAMOND FIELDS AND THEIR GOVERNMENTS.—THE HOISTING OF THE BRITISH FLAG.—THE KEATE AWARD.—RUSH FROM THE RIVER TO THE DRY DIGGINGS.—PNIEL DESERTED.—THE COMMENCEMENT OF DIAMOND STEALING.—JUDGE LYNCH PUTS IN AN APPEARANCE.—DISCOVERY OF THE KIMBERLEY MINE.—BRITISH RULE PROCLAIMED.—FREE STATE COURTS CLOSED.
After writing so far about the Diamond Fields, their past and present condition, the climate, the geology, and the peculiar crime and legislation there existing, I will now turn to the early history of a region which, if it had not been for the wonderful discovery of diamonds, would yet have been the home of the half-caste Griqua, the indolent Batlapin, the marauding Koranna, the pigmy Bushman or the pioneer Boer.
Griqualand West, the official name of this part of South Africa, is bounded N. E. by the Cape Colony, S. by the Orange River, N. by Bechuana Land, E. by the Orange Free State, and W. by the Kalahari Desert.
The chief inhabitants, the Griquas, are a mixed race, many of them half-castes, who came from the Cape Colony and settled near the Orange River under Adam Kok (himself a half-caste, his father being a Dutch Boer and his mother a Hottentot slave) in 1795, who in course of time resigned his chieftainship to his son Cornelius. Cornelius Kok, being absent from his people for some time, during which he visited Lord Caledon in Capetown, found, on his return in 1816, the Griquas settled down and his son, “Dam Kok,” reigning in his stead. Dam Kok, becoming restless about this time, left Griqua Town in 1819, dying subsequently at Philippolis in 1837. Andreas Waterboer, formerly a schoolmaster and preacher under the London missionaries at Griqua Town was, after “Dam Kok” left the district, unanimously chosen chief, and his appointment was confirmed in 1822 by Lord Charles Somerset, governor of the Cape. Andreas Waterboer then set about redressing wrongs, was both well-intentioned and useful to the British government, being a “friendly and sincere ally,” as well as hospitable and open-hearted to all visitors, and by these means so consolidated his power that he received a special recognition in the shape of a silver medal, which was sent him by Lord Charles Somerset. Notwithstanding this, although backed up by the English government and Sir George Cathcart, he was continually worried by land disputes with Cornelius Kok (whom, in 1838, he had deposed from his office of provisional captain) until his death on Dec. 13th, 1852, relieved him from further trouble. His son, Nicholas, who was then quite a boy, succeeded him. Troubles increased, the English abandoned the sovereignty (now the Orange Free State) in February 1854, and Nicholas Waterboer hemmed in, on the one side by the Transvaal and on the other by the Orange Free State, formally appointed David Arnott, on Sept. 1st, 1863, to act as his agent, which he had in reality been for some years. Long before even diamonds were discovered, the Orange Free State had insisted that there could be no question as to their right to all the country between the Orange and the Vaal Rivers, but as the district was of little value, no special steps had been taken by that government to insist on their so-called rights.
THE WATERBOER MEDAL.
When the first diamond was found in 1869, and attention consequently drawn to the discovery, as I have before stated, the banks of the Vaal became peopled with diggers and prospectors, and Waterboer, at once seeing his necessity to deal with this large and increasing influx, ceded all the land to which he laid claim, some 17,000 square miles, to the English, the allowance of £150 per annum, which the English government had paid to Adam Kok, Cornelius Kok, and then to Andreas, the father of Nicholas Waterboer, being increased to £250, and afterward, in 1877, to £1,000, with £500 a year to his widow after his death. The Orange Free State now asserted its rights, based upon its former demands of having purchased Adam Kok’s rights with the land in question. The misunderstanding resulting between the English government and the Orange Free State, ending in the former giving the latter a compensation of £90,000, I shall more fully explain further on, but I may say here that Nicholas Waterboer is a living example of the care (?) bestowed by the English government, as a rule, upon those aborigines it may take under its fostering care. Nicholas Waterboer, formerly the undisturbed possessor of this valuable tract of country, now ekes out a miserable existence at Griqua Town, having parted with his country, the farms allotted to him mortgaged, his pension swallowed up by hungry creditors, ruined both in body and estate, a drunkard and virtually a pauper! I endeavored both in the Griqualand West legislature and in the Cape house of assembly to obtain some information respecting this poor chief and the ultimate destination of his pension, but without success.
Any one asked to describe the policy of governments in the diamond fields under the British flag would give no better answer than “making pie-crust promises.” That was the policy of the first representative of British rule “under instruction,” and it has continued to be the most marked characteristics of his successors. Every new “hand” that has been intrusted with the reins of government started on his career by reversing the policy of his predecessors and making promises, which, if he ever meant to keep, he revoked shamelessly and recklessly, either to gratify his own caprice for party purposes, or under the “instruction” of the imperial nominee, whose seat is fixed in Capetown, and who puppet-like moves according to “wire.” It is therefore not to be wondered at if the inhabitants of the diamond fields have occasionally become furious and uncontrollable. The facts of the diamond field history speak for themselves. Early in 1871 there was a flutter amongst the population digging for diamonds on the banks of the river Vaal, occasioned by the announcement that Mr. John Campbell, an official of the Cape government, had arrived at Pniel to be British resident, to represent British rule under the Union Jack, to administer law and order, and to keep off at arms-length the two neighboring states, who were bent on getting the territorial rights in their own hands; the Free State claiming all the land on the near, and the Transvaal that on the off-side of the river.
The English were jubilant, the Dutch furious. Mr. Campbell did not venture to hoist the flag on the Pniel side, for Mr. Truter, a subject of the Free State, was already sitting there as the representative of the Free State and holding magisterial office under the flag of that republic. The great mass of the population moreover (which at that time could not have been less than 6,000 souls) was Dutch, the proportion being about two to one. The Klipdrift bank of the river was peopled chiefly by Englishmen who were determined to hold the territory on which they had settled against all comers; to preserve their nationality; to pay no tribute to any Dutch state, and to secure their position by the aid of British rule; so that, when Mr. Campbell arrived, they were quite ready to welcome him and to rally round the British flag.
A number of diggers went across the river to Pniel to escort Mr. Campbell across the Vall, and all who did not do so assembled at the landing place on the Klipdrift side to receive him. He landed in Klipdrift amidst the cheers of the populace; a procession was formed to accompany him to his quarters, and when a day or two after he met the diggers he was as prolific of promises as a bramble is of blackberries.
All the diggers’ committees then in existence bowed down to him, and he assured them that no private right either to land or to claims was to be disturbed, that British titles would be immediately given to those who had obtained land either by grant or purchase from the chiefs or their agents, and that the law would be administered precisely as in every other part of her Majesty’s dominions. Three commissioners, Messrs. H. Bowker, F. Orpen and Buyskes, were appointed by proclamation to deal with the land, holding their appointments from the high commissioner, and all parties holding documents showing them to have land claims were requested to send them in at once to the commissioners, so that they might have titles substituted for them.
The territory at this time no more belonged to the British government than it did to the Mikado. Nicholas Waterboer, the chief of the Griquas, had it is true tendered his rights to the British government, but that government had not come to terms or closed with him. There were disputes between Waterboer and Janje, the chief of the Korannas and Batlapins; while Botlisatsi, a brother of Mankoroane, was contending that he was the chief of his tribe, and that his land included Bloemhof and Christiana.
Beside this the chiefs had no individual rights to land beyond those given them by their counsellors who represented the tribes, the native law being that the land belonged to the tribe, and that none of it could be disposed of to private individuals. The white men who had been permitted to settle among them had none but squatters’ rights, though the Boers had come in, marked out farms without leave being asked or given, had laid down beacons and denied that any natives had any rights over the land. When ordered off they refused to go.
Mr. Campbell some little time after his arrival proceeded to settle civil claims and to try criminal offenses, when it was discovered that he held office under the joint authority of Waterboer and the British government. This was a dilemma never calculated upon. The Griquas not being British subjects declined to be made subject to British laws, and Mr. Campbell was instructed to administer Griqua laws for the Griquas whenever it was applicable to the cases before him, and to do his best to satisfy all suitors. So Mr. Campbell, who had positively no legal jurisdiction, mixed the Griqua and British-colonial law and got along as best he could. The Transvaal government persisted in its protests against the British government exhibiting itself on the Klipdrift side of the river, and threatened to drive English and natives out of the country and claimed the land as their own. It was ultimately arranged, however, that this land dispute should be settled by arbitration, and this brought about what is known as “the Keate award.”
An arbitration board of three was appointed, consisting of Mr. Campbell for the British government, Mr. Jeppe for the Transvaal, and Mr. Keate, then lieutenant governor of Natal, to act as referee. The arbitrators met at Bloemhof, and witnesses were called from all directions, Griquas, Korannas, Batlapins, Barolongs, Boers and Englishmen all giving evidence. Of course the Transvaal and English arbitrators could not agree, and after a very protracted sitting Mr. Jeppe went “huis toe,”[[56]] or home, Mr. Campbell following his example and returning to the diamond fields.
Lieut. Governor Keate then took the matter into his own hands, completed the arbitration and decided that the territory in dispute belonged to the native tribes, and that the Transvaal had no shadow of claim to it or any part of it. The award, however, did not deal with details, the whole of which and the conflicting claims of the natives were left to be settled in the future. No beacons were laid down by the arbitrators to prevent after disputes, and as may be supposed it was not long before the territorial and land questions bred troubles with which the civil powers were unable to cope without resorting to arms.
Mr. Campbell assured every one on his return that the British government had won the arbitration, and his reasons for so considering were that although the award was formally recorded for the natives the territory was sure to come into the hands of the British government. Those, therefore, who had lodged formal land claims were all the more eager for their titles to be registered.
The land commissioners as soon as they commenced discussing the principle upon which land should be dealt with came to loggerheads amongst themselves, Mr. Holden Bowker proposing that all the land at the disposal of the government should be given out on the Queenstown system, of which he was the author, to which suggestion his colleagues were opposed, each having a plan of his own. The “Queenstown system” of settling the land was granting to applicants land at a nominal rental, each grantee being bound to occupy the land personally, to keep a certain number of men provided with arms and liable to be called out when needed to go on commando, and to appear at an annual review to be held in the district.
The government to put an end to the wrangle informed the commissioners that it was not their duty to grant titles nor to settle the principle upon which the land was to be given out. Mr. F. T. Orpen, who had been nominated surveyor to government, declined to hold the office of commissioner any longer and sent in his resignation. He pointed out that it could not have been the original intention of the government that the commissioners should only collect the documents upon which land claims were founded, as one commissioner could have done that as well as three. There is little or no doubt, however, that the fault attached to this broken promise was committed at the instance of the imperial government, who had not yet settled with Waterboer, fearing the heavy responsibilities that would be involved in so doing.
This course of action made the Free State all the bolder in its demands and its authorities sent to Pniel demanding from the diggers the license money for claims and stands which, if paid, would have enriched the Free State treasury to the extent of at least £1,500 a month—the claim licenses being charged at a rate of 10s. each per month.
The Berlin missionaries, who laid claim to Pniel as their property, protested, and the English diggers, together with many of the Boers who hailed from the Cape Colony and were digging at Pniel at the time, refused to pay.
The Free State threatened force. The diggers laughed at the menace when the Free State government called out a commando, which was instantly responded to by the Boers, and quite an army of Vrijstaat cavalry came over the border and encamped on a flat situated close to the river, about three miles from the Pniel diggings. Tax-gatherers were sent in to warn the diggers that if they failed to pay the army would move in and smite them hip and thigh. Messages were returned more plain than polite.
At this time there were about 4,000 diggers at Pniel, so the Free Staters maintained “a masterly inactivity” for several weeks, when some of them rode into the camp and blustered considerably. The diggers simply regarded their invaders as so many butts for ridicule, and the natives, who thoroughly enjoyed the fun, added to the diggers’ amusement by jumping up behind the riders on the Boer volunteers’ horses, which were gorgeously caparisoned with navy-blue saddle-cloths richly adorned with embroidery of yellow and red braid, while other dusky humorists seized the tails of the horses, laughing and shouting with all the artless glee and abandon of the sons of Ham.
The “army” saw it was useless to attack Pniel and some of the wisest of them made their way back to their farms and donned their mole-skins again. The bulk of them thought, however, that they would try and force money out of the diggers at the smaller camps, and selected for the experiment Waldek’s plant (where a number of English colonists were at work) thinking to take them by surprise, but the Free State Boers have no more love for being taxed than have their brethren in the Transvaal or in the Cape Colony, and certain of them in kindly sympathy took care to let the Waldek’s plant diggers know of the movements of the army. When the warriors rode into Waldek’s plant they found themselves face to face with armed men behind two small field-pieces and were given to understand that if they did not wheel about and be off they would be fired at. The advice of Bombastes, “begone brave army and don’t kick up a row,” was given in sober earnest.
There was an immediate halt. A deputation was sent from the army to meet a deputation from the diggers, and a mutual understanding was arrived at that there should be no fighting. There was a general indulgence in the cups that cheer and also inebriate, and the Boer army returned as empty-handed as they came. Mr. Campbell did not venture to cross the river to the side where there was a Free State magistrate, nor yet did Mr. Truter, the Free State official, venture to steer his barque to the side where Mr. Campbell had hoisted the British flag.
When the diamonds were first discovered Sir Philip Wodehouse was governor and high commissioner of the South African colonies, but he was recalled before there was anything like a general rush to the fields, which only commenced in the beginning of 1870. Lieut. Governor Hay filled the acting appointment until Sir Henry Barkly became governor and high commissioner in 1870, and the latter had not been long in the Cape Colony before he came up; the Cape parliament having decided that he should, between the sessions of 1870 and 1871, make all the arrangements for annexing the diamond fields to the Cape Colony, and at that time the diggers looked on this annexation as inevitable.
Sir Henry went to the Klipdrift side of the river and was received with the most strongly-marked expressions of joyfulness at his arrival. Triumphal arches were erected and a banquet was given him, but he was very reticent and little information as to how the fields were to be governed was gleaned from him. The chief point of interest elicited from him being that the land would soon be given out.
This visit was followed by the establishment of a high court presided over by a single judge, Mr. Advocate Barry, (now Sir Jacob Dirk) president of the court of the eastern districts of the Cape Colony. Mr. J. Cyprian Thompson came as public prosecutor and there was soon a full bar, Mr. Campbell holding the position of resident magistrate and the late Mr. Giddy being civil commissioner.
The discovery of diamonds at Du Toit’s Pan and Bulfontein in 1870 caused a revolution in the order of things. The diamonds could at this time only be obtained at Pniel and the other river diggings by the troublesome operations of digging out and removing boulders of immense size, some of which were many tons in weight. The labor, as may be conceived, was tedious to a degree when the diamondiferous gravel had to be taken to the river, cradled, washed and sorted; all employed whites as well as blacks were standing in water half their time, and chills, ague and fever were the natural consequences. There was no water at the Du Toit’s Pan or Bulfontein, the diamonds were found near the surface, and the diamondiferous stuff only needed sieving before it was ready for the sorting table.
The rush from the river to what were called “the dry diggings” was one of the most remarkable ever recorded. In one week after the existence of diamonds at Du Toit’s Pan in payable quantities was assured, Pniel, which had grown into a town with a population of at least 3,000, and provided with shops, post-office, hotels, law courts, etc., became almost forsaken with nothing to be seen of its past glories, nothing left but the deep pits from which the boulders had been removed and a few straggling remains of roads and mud buildings. The population of Klipdrift had been reduced by at least one-half, but the houses and stores there being chiefly built of stone could not be removed; and here, too, were the English courts, the judge, the public prosecutor, the headquarters of the frontier mounted police, of which force a number had been moved up to the Fields together with the civil servants.
All that the English government claimed was the territory under the chieftainship of Waterboer. But the estate of Dorstfontein (Du Toit’s Pan) was the property of a citizen of the Free State, and he, as others had (although he was a British subject by birth), implicitly obeyed the laws of that state and was prepared still to be loyal to it and to submit to any digging laws that that government might pass and proclaim, and to pay any tax or royalty that the Free State Volksraad and government might see fit to demand. Mr. Truter, who had previously held his court at Pniel and hoisted the republican flag there, opened a court at Du Toit’s Pan, and English and Dutch alike respected his edicts and availed themselves of his court.
Happily for the diamond fields, diamonds were found on the Voornitzigt estate almost simultaneously with their discovery at Du Toit’s Pan, and this estate had been purchased by Mr. Alfred Ebden (now the Hon. Alfred Ebden, M. L. C.), of Old De Beers, on his first visit to Klipdrift, not with the remotest suspicion that there were rich diamond mines on it, but because of its close proximity to the already discovered diamond fields.
When diamonds were found on this estate there was less difficulty in the British government obtaining land for offices and courts than there had been before, Mr. Ebden being a British subject and therefore desirous that his property should be under his country’s flag, and he at once said that the government might take any ground which they might select as sites for the erection of buildings for official purposes.
At this time the local government was in the hands of three commissioners, Messrs. J. C. Thompson and Campbell and Commandant Bowker of the frontier mounted police, who were responsible to and acted under the instructions of the high commissioner. It was never clearly understood what their powers and duties were, nor could any one gather from their proceedings what it was intended they should do, except to act as buffers, so to speak, between the inhabitants and the high commissioner, and between the high commissioner and the president of the Free State. They continued their offices or “seat of government” as they called it, at Barkly, placing Mr. Giddy on the Voornitzigt estate as resident magistrate and civil commissioner, and appointing a small body of police to do his bidding, while they themselves paid periodical visits to the dry diggings, but never ventured into Du Toit’s Pan. When Bulfontein was found an attempt to gain possession of it was made by the Free State, but that was successfully resisted by the proprietors and diggers, who declined to permit what they called “the foreign yoke” to be placed about their necks. The high court, the post-office and all the English government offices were still centered in Klipdrift.
Whilst the river diggings existed it was not a public complaint that the natives stole diamonds. Occasionally a “nigger” was found to have concealed one, being egged on to the theft by some dishonest person who wanted to get diamonds cheaply.
When a diamond was discovered on a native he was “basted” with a sjambok. If he had disposed of it he was made to tell who bought it and the fellow was kicked out of the camp. The natives did not then know the value of diamonds, and they brought those which they found to their masters, but they were not allowed at the sorting tables and could only obtain diamonds from out of the claims. Very soon after the discovery of the dry diggings the character of the population underwent a change. Originally the diggers came from the colonies and adjoining states, and it was not until the early part of 1871 that Europeans came in any numbers. Then the class which in the slums of London live without labor began to put in an appearance, as I have mentioned before, and pitched their tents in these diamond fields.
From that time trouble began. They systematically bought stolen diamonds from natives or anybody, put up the niggers to all sorts of dodges by which their masters might be robbed, and on this becoming known Judge Lynch manifested his presence by the burning of the tents in which these evil doers resided, which blazed away night after night.
One man was taken to a tree and Judge Lynch delivered judgment against him to the effect that if he did not tell to whom he had sold the diamond he should be hung up by the neck until he was dead, and that such should be the fate of all buyers of stolen diamonds. The rope was put around the neck of the condemned thief, but the threat was not carried into effect, as those who were to perform the duty of executioners were told that they, living as they did under British laws, would be held guilty of murder if they carried out the sentence, and appalled at this they held their hands, and the native, for aught I know, lives to this day. White men keeping stores on the Voornitzigt estate were suspected, and one of them would no doubt have been torn to pieces had not some of his friends and companions come forward to save his life, when pale as death and shaking like an aspen leaf he declared that he was innocent. Nobody, however, believed in his innocence then, nor has he yet succeeded in convincing the old residents in his unsullied integrity. But by the skin of his teeth he escaped the vengeance of his justly infuriated enemies.
The firing of tents went on, and the commissioners had no power to interfere with any hope of preventing it; beyond a few policemen, they had no force at their command whatsoever, and hence could effect nothing themselves; they called, however, a meeting in front of the civil commissioners’ office, which was attended by many hundreds of diggers and others, the popular speakers saying that if the government would do nothing to protect their diamonds against thieves that they would take the law into their own hands. The commissioners were all present. Mr. Thompson, on the part of the commissioners, was the only one who was not trembling with fear. He said that he “would take care if any man, native or white man, was found either stealing diamonds, or in possession of stolen diamonds, he would punish him with the utmost severity of the law; but the law should not be that of Judge Lynch, and if he found a man setting a tent or other property on fire he would admit of no justification, and it would be useless for such a man to talk about stolen diamonds.” The learned gentleman would charge that man with arson, and he might be sure that he would receive the penalty provided by law for that crime.
He also said that the commissioners were considering what could be done to afford diggers protection, and would let them know when they had made up their minds. The meeting wanted to know if the commissioners would make up their minds by the following Monday. Mr. Campbell asked: “Will you promise not to set any more tents on fire until after Monday, and we will see what we can do?”
Mr. Thompson declined to be a party to any bargaining of that sort, and the meeting separated. There was no tent burning for some time after this.
Government by nominee commissioners was a mistake from the beginning. In both the elementary strength was lacking and the “main de fer” (certainly) and the “gant de soie” (probably) were both needed in dealing with so heterogeneous a community as that of the diamond fields. Sir Henry Barkly exerted himself to the utmost to make it work satisfactorily, but failed to do so. The system and the material were alike bad.
His excellency at that time thought that annexation would be perfected in the coming session of the Cape parliament, and was therefore anxious it should begin. That the commissioners must be got rid of was clear, as the diggers had shown themselves so completely dissatisfied with the existing order of things.
The land claimants had become clamorous for the titles which had been so long promised but were not yet forthcoming. The parliament of 1872 was convened but would have nothing to say to Sir Henry’s annexing proposals. This was another addition to the long list of promises which the people in the Fields had found to be violated.
The high commissioner was furious and would have liked to tell the honorable the house of assembly, his notions of the sense of honor possessed by M. L. A’s. who were in the majority. But scolding would not mend matters, and he therefore restrained himself from speaking out as he would liked to have done.
His excellency’s dispatches to the secretary of state for the colonies had inspired the imperial minister with confidence that the Fields would be readily taken over by the Colony, but when he found that was not to be he was no less furious than Sir Henry himself.
The adverse vote of the Cape legislature threw the onus of governing the Fields on the high commissioner himself; his correspondence with the president of the Free State was not only voluminous but provoked retorts from his honor which were not pleasant nor easy of reply, and personalities and loss of temper ensued; in fact the antagonism between these high officials was almost unprecedented, and existed for a considerable time.
The Boers of the Free State and all the Dutch in the Colony as well as in the Fields were in sympathy with the president, and they accused the high commissioner and the secretary of state for the colonies of having shamefully robbed the Free State of the territory for the sake of its diamonds. This charge, I may add, was believed in by a great many beside the Dutch, and it was asserted by some of the most influential journals in England that the home government would never have thought of setting up Waterboer’s claim to the territory in dispute had not diamonds been found to exist in it. This, however, was altogether untrue, for Sir Philip Wodehouse at the time when he was engaged in interviewing the British Kaffrarian annexation delegates at Aliwal North, who were opposed to the proposed absorption of their country by the Cape, was in correspondence with the president on the same subject, and complaining that the Boers of the Free State were encroaching upon Waterboer’s territory, and accused that state of having extended its boundaries beyond those marked out when the sovereignty was abandoned.
Moreover, long before any diamonds were discovered, Mr. David Arnott, the agent of Waterboer, had sent numberless protests to the Free State government respecting the Boer encroachments, and at a conference which had taken place on the same subject had produced evidence which he held to be more than sufficient to prove that Waterboer’s claim was incontestable.
On the 17th of July, 1871, the Colesberg Kopje, now the Kimberley mine, was discovered, and in November of the same year the whole of the diggings, without regard to title, were proclaimed to be under British rule. This was supposed to have been done in order to enable Sir Henry Barkly to perfect his arrangements for bringing about annexation during the session of parliament in 1872. His excellency little knew then how he was to be sold when the parliament met, but he afterward discovered, as we have seen, with how capricious and unreliable a house of representatives he had to deal.
The manner of proclaiming British rule was unique, to say the least of it. The commissioners who were still in power, and a good many not in power, were in a state of mental fever about the hoisting “the flag that braves” and proclaiming British rule. It was all very well for Sir Henry to instruct the commissioners to proclaim British rule, but who was to read the proclamation.
The Dutch in the Fields “swore with an oath or something as good,” that they would not be “brought under the British yoke,” as they called it, and threatened to take arms and “deluge the Fields with blood” if their state was deprived of the governing powers over the dry diggings. The English on the Fields contrasted the proportions of the Dutch and English populations, and the long odds against the latter if the Dutch should show fight. The most timid were sure that the Dutch would rise to a man, and the lives and property of the English would be sacrificed; and if the truth be told many an English colonist then in these diggings would as soon have seen the Free State as the English flag flying over them, and no wonder, seeing that imperial rule had been in several instances the cause of disaster to South Africa. It is hard sometimes for colonists to remain loyal and true to their nationality when they are treated with contumely, distrusted and scoffed at by the chief and subordinates of the imperial colonial department, as has occurred more than once in this colony.
However, the morning of the 17th of November broke upon the diamond fields—the day on which the Fields from Klipdrift to the Modder River, the whole area on which diamond diggings had been established, was to be proclaimed British. John Campbell, Esq., in his plaids and buckles, a model Highlander from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, slipped out of his office door, and with his colleagues was driven in a cart to the margin of the Colesberg Kopje. This illustrious commissioner, however, was not the man to “bell the cat;” that duty was taken upon himself by the late J.C. Thompson, then crown prosecutor and commissioner. The official car was surrounded by vehicles filled with loyals, loyals on horseback and loyals on foot, and Mr. Thompson read the proclamation from the scroll, which he unfolded and then nailed up to a hoarding close by. There had been a government Gazette published, but its place of publication had not as yet been moved to the dry diggings from Klipdrift, but whether the proclamation was gazetted or not I have never yet been able to discover, for when Mr. G. W. Murray asked for it, when he was a member of the legislative council, he was told by the government that the files had been lost!
Mr. Thompson, after nailing up a copy or the original proclamation, no one knew which, drove off in the triumphal British car to Du Toit’s Pan, followed by a long procession of horsemen and vehicles, amidst the shouts of the street mob and the melodious strains of an extemporized band, which, in honor of the occasion, was playing a colorable imitation of “The Campbells are coming.”
On reaching Du Toit’s Pan, Mr. Thompson repeated his proclaiming process there. The honorable gentleman unfolded a second scroll and read its contents, and then nailed up proclamation No. 2 on a hoarding. There was a great concourse of people who came to hear and see what was up. The multitude was a motley one. There were diggers Dutch and English, store-keepers and canteen-keepers, Dutch and English too, and diamond buyers with unmistakable Whitechapel marks or Bevis marks upon them, if the pun be pardonable. In the midst of the multitude stood the Free State magistrate and his clerk, both open-mouthed, very pale, and yet more astonished than pale. On referring to the paper on the hoarding, they found that Dutch as well as English had been enfolded in the arms of Britannia. There was no fighting, no bloodshed, but a good deal of tall talk. The Dutch authorities did not show bellicose intentions. The Dutch magistrate merely closed his court, locked his office door, put the key in his pocket, and paired off with his clerk to see the president to report the aggressive proceedings, and his place in Du Toit’s Pan “knew him no more forever.” The diggers went back to their work, after the customary indulgence in alcoholic stimulants. The general public exhibited few manifestations of joy, for it had even then begun to be whispered that if this were to be the prelude of annexing the Fields to the Cape, there was little in it for Griqualanders to glorify themselves over. A banquet was given at Benning & Martin’s hotel, Du Toit’s Pan, at which the officials secured front seats for themselves and their friends, and made the speeches of the evening, extolling themselves and each other, and becoming as full of loyal sentiments as they were of “Mumm.” From that day forth the rule was British, or supposed to be, but with the exception that the people had to pay more taxes there was nothing to indicate that “a vast, great, and glorious change” had taken place.
CHAPTER XIX.
SIR HENRY BARKLY PAYS THE FIELDS A SECOND VISIT.—PROMISES THAT THE FIELDS SHALL BE A CROWN COLONY WITH A LEGISLATURE OF ITS OWN.—LETTERS PATENT PROCLAIMING GRIQUALAND WEST A CROWN COLONY.—HONORABLE RICHARD SOUTHEY FIRST LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR.—AN INCIPIENT REVOLUTION.—THE COURT-HOUSE SURROUNDED BY AN ARMED BAND.—THE BLACK FLAG HOISTED.—THE REVOLT RIPENED.—COLONEL CROSSMAN.—THE CHANGES IN THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.—RECALL OF THE LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR.
As before mentioned, the Cape legislature of 1872 broke faith with Sir Henry Barkly, who was thereupon accused by his imperial masters of having failed to keep the parliament in hand. The violation of pledges and promises has been a prominent characteristic of the policies alike of the Cape parliament and of the colonial office, and in both cases it has been prolific of evil consequences.
Sir Henry Barkly, owing to the unstable and vacillating policy of the Cape parliament, found himself on the horns of a dilemma. The imperial government taunted him with having shown a want of diplomatic tact in dealing with the colonial legislature, while the latter repudiated the charge which Sir Henry Barkly brought against the legislative assembly, i.e., that of having broken faith with him. Nay, the two honorable houses went even further, they vowed and declared that they had never done or said anything to warrant his sending to the secretary of state for the colonies the dispatches that he had sent. Here was a gordian knot for a governor to loose. What was he to do? He could neither report upon the colonial secretary, nor tell the parliament what he thought of the latter functionary’s action; he virtually exclaimed: “A plague upon both your houses, I’ll go to the Fields again myself.” So he made up his mind to order the government coachman to inspan the traveling wagons, the panels of which, by the way, were ornamented with the royal arms painted by a Cape artist, whose idea of the lion and the unicorn was sublimely humorous—the lion having too much skull by half, and the horn of the unicorn being as crooked as a ram’s, or a satyr’s. His excellency told his executive, that it was as plain as the Cape flats that British rule could not be administered in the diamond fields by commissioners and law courts, and that he was about to proceed to the Fields in order to see how the British flag was to be kept flying over the diamond-digging community. But Sir Henry had been soundly abused by press and public, both in the colony and Griqualand West. The idea then prevailed at Capetown that the diggers would think no more of chopping off a governor’s head than they would of decapitating a domestic fowl. On the Fields there was universal dissatisfaction, the commissioners all the while remaining with virtually “no work to do.” The holders of claims at Klipdrift had had to pay surveyors’ expenses which they had never calculated upon having to pay, and also to meet other demands which they regarded as extortionate, if not almost fraudulent. There were transfer dues, stamp duties and such like, to be enacted in the not far distant future, and the aspect of affairs was not cheering. The Free State was wrathful and indignant, and the Boers there were threatening vengeance. The Dutch on the Fields complained loudly and bitterly of having to pay taxes to British extortioners and being forced to submit to law and order, and declared that the British embrace was too ursine a hug for their comfort.
Under these circumstances Sir Henry Barkly did not feel quite sure that his personal appearance on the Fields would not be made the occasion for an outbreak. Still go he must, and in order to ascertain how far he was risking his life he remained at a farm outside the camp on the first night of his arrival. The next morning, long before the breakfast hour, he saw scores of vehicles and horsemen coming over the hill leading to the homestead. It was an anxious moment. But there was the ring of the true British metal in the cheers of the horsemen as they neared the farm, and Sir Henry was soon convinced that his second visit was destined to prove even more acceptable to the Griqualanders than his first had been. The gubernatorial equipage, with Sir Henry and his adjutant, was soon on the move, and as the Fields bore in sight he could see Bulfontein and Du Toit’s Pan in holiday dress. There was bunting flying from every flag-post, and the margin of the mines was crowded with people, white and black. He was cheered all the way from his entry into the Fields until he reached his quarters in Kimberley; flags floated over his head, and triumphal arches spanned the roadways. On the day of his arrival he held a levee which was well attended, and he took care to have it generally known that he would receive as many deputations as liked to come to him to ventilate their grievances. Of grievances there were enough and to spare, in fact there was nobody without one, either real or imaginary. First and foremost of all was the land grievance. Legitimate claimants and land jobbers jostled each other without mercy and with scant courtesy. The diggers insisted that they had not been and were not protected as it was alleged they had been told they were to be. Diamond thieves, they asserted, were more pestilent than ever, having grown bolder and more unscrupulous, and the digging population suggested that if they had shown more regard for the protection of their own property than loyalty to the government diamond stealing would have been considerably diminished. The trading community also manifested extreme dissatisfaction, owing to the manner in which government contracts were given out, the belief prevailing amongst many that a system of favoritism if not of jobbery was in existence. The natural result of these real or alleged grievances was that the local government was in decidedly bad odor with the population generally.
The neighboring states had complained that guns and gunpowder were supplied to natives, and a deputation defending the system of supplying the natives with guns and gunpowder waited upon his excellency, who said that his attention had been called to the fact that more guns were supplied to natives than had been entered at the customs, where the duty was £1 per barrel, a fact which he could not understand. The deputation, however, explained it by the open ports, where no custom-houses were established, further asking Sir Henry to consider the number of small vessels which visited these ports from the Natal and Cape ports. The guns sold here were supplied to the dealers by the merchants, and the former paid the duty, although a large portion of it was lost to the government. The natives at that time came here more for the sake of getting guns than for money, and the deputation urged a sufficient amount of labor to work the diamondiferous soil could not be obtained if the supplying of guns to natives were prohibited. It was further pointed out to his excellency that the natives would even then continue to get guns from runners (smugglers), and that natives in the possession of the assegai, their national weapon, were more dangerous than when armed with guns. After hearing all the evidence and going into the question fully, Sir Henry Barkly decided that the gun trade must not be interfered with, and this opinion Governor Southey afterward endorsed.[[57]]
Sir Henry Barkly promised that British title should be immediately given to legitimate land claimants, that contracts for government supplies should be called for by public tender, and that all real grievances should be removed. Protection was promised to the diggers, and so his excellency became very popular indeed, a banquet followed by a ball was given to him at Kimberley on September 12th, 1872, and both were completely successful. The late Dr. Robertson, formerly of Fauresmith, O. F. S., filled the chair at the banquet and introduced Sir Henry Barkly to his entertainers in admirable style. The doctor’s speech in introducing the toast, “the health of Sir Henry Barkly, her Majesty’s high commissioner in South Africa and governor of the Cape Colony,” was couched in elegant and appropriate language, and his excellency’s reply was received with enthusiastic applause. He told the assembled guests that up to the time of his present visit he had had but a slight conception of the importance of the diamond fields, and had found them to be of such a character that he realized the fact that they could not be governed by three commissioners. The wealth, intelligence and numbers of this community must have something better in the shape of government. To think of governing them from Capetown was out of the question, and as he found they were entitled to a government of their own he would take care that they should have it. The Fields should be a crown colony with a lieutenant governor and a legislature on the same model and as liberal as that of Natal, and this he would bring about as quickly as the preliminaries could be arranged. The ball over, Sir Henry paid a visit to Barkly where he held another levee, and there also a banquet was given him. The streets were decorated with flags, and triumphal arches which formed a complete roofing all through the main street. Here, also, the gubernatorial promises gladdened the hearts of the populace, especially those which referred to the land titles. At the banquet, which was given in the main hall of the Barkly club, it was endeavored to get a pledge from his excellency that Barkly should be the seat of government, but the attempt was a vain one, his excellency contenting himself by saying that they had the high court there and all the government offices, and that he would not forget the old proverb: “Be sure you are off with the old love before you are on with the new.” In a very short time after this, however, the high court and the government offices were removed to Kimberley, and the seat of government established there.
On his excellency leaving the Fields to return home, he had additional proof of the loyalty which animated the great bulk of the diamond field people. He was escorted to Alexanderfontein by at least a thousand persons, and he expressed his gratification at the reception he had met with there, and gave it as his opinion that her Majesty had no more loyal people in her empire than in the diamond fields of South Africa.
The special mission of Sir Henry Barkly to South Africa was to reform the constitution of the Cape Colony by the introduction of responsible government. That colony had become troublesome to the imperial government, inasmuch as the old régime parliament which had full control over the government purse strings refused to pass the taxing measures necessary for the administration of the affairs of the country, and unfortunately for Sir Henry Barkly his executive was too much divided for him to move with reasonable expectation of success. The colonial secretary, Mr. Southey, was firmly opposed to the introduction of the measure into the parliament then assembled, as the country had never been consulted on the question, which he held ought not to be forced. That honorable gentleman held to the doctrine as laid down by John Stuart Mill, that before responsible government is introduced into a country the people must ask for it, and when it was decided by a majority to introduce it the colonial secretary entered his solemn protest on the minutes on constitutional grounds. This was awkward, but Sir Henry Barkly received imperial instructions that it must be introduced into the parliament, and that he must get it passed. Sir Henry Barkly knew that if he should fail he would be recalled in disgrace, and accordingly did introduce it in 1873 at an early session and managed to force it through the legislature, but when he called upon the Hon. Mr. Southey to take office, that gentleman flatly refused to do so. He would not attempt to form a ministry, and he would not take office either as premier or in any other capacity. It now became necessary for his excellency to consider what should be done with the Hon. Mr. Southey, and he was offered the lieutenant governorship of Griqualand West with an adequate salary, and the recommendation to take with him his long-tried confidential clerk in the colonial office, Mr. John Blades Currey. Mr. Southey accepted the appointment, and the inhabitants of Griqualand West, especially the old colonists residing on the Fields, received the intimation with extreme satisfaction, for Mr. Southey enjoyed the confidence of both East and West. On the lieutenant governor’s arrival here, on January 9th, 1873, he was received with manifestations of great joy. The people went out in great numbers to welcome him at Alexanderfontein; triumphal arches were erected; bands of music preceded the procession into the towns; a display of fireworks and an illumination were amongst the tokens of rejoicing, and he was entertained at a banquet in the Theatre Royal, which was crowded to excess.
An executive was created consisting of four members, viz.: the lieutenant governor, the secretary to government (Mr. Currey), the crown prosecutor (Mr. J. C. Thompson), and the treasurer general (the late Mr. R. W. H. Giddy). No constitution was proclaimed for some time after Mr. Southey’s arrival, and the Fields were governed by the lieutenant governor and his executive, legal enactments being made by means of proclamations. One of Mr. Richard Southey’s first proclamations, issued on Feb. 5th, 1873, almost immediately on his arrival, and which pleased the diggers very much, was one to restrain the jumping of claims. Previous to this, a claim in any one of the mines, which might be worth thousands of pounds, if left by its owner unworked for three days, could be legally seized by any man who could prove this neglect; but the proclamation containing the letters patent declaring the colony of Griqualand West a crown colony was not promulgated until the July 16th, 1873, when Klipdrift was rechristened Barkly and the “Colesberg Kopje” Kimberley. The new names were given in honor of the then secretary of state for the colonies, Lord Kimberley, and of Sir Henry Barkly. They were created electoral divisions, the third consisting of the outlying or agricultural districts, being grouped together under the name of Hay, in honor of Lieut. Governor Hay, who was the first to unfurl the British flag over the Diamond Fields. The chief town of the last-named division was Griquatown, in which the Griqua chief Waterboer resided.
THE VAAL RIVER DRIFT, NEAR BARKLY.
The constitution was, however, not received with anything like unanimous approval. The boundaries fixed were disputed by the neighboring States, and the enfranchisement and representation was by no means in accordance with the promises made by Sir Henry Barkly, inasmuch as it was not according to the Natal model. The legislative council was constituted on the deadlock principle, consisting as it did of eight members, four nominated by the general government and four elected by the voters, the lieutenant governor being president and having the casting vote. The governor had a power to veto in the first place, and the Queen in the second. At first it was said that no one would consent to be put into nomination for the four seats to be filled by the votes of the people. However, when the time of the elections came round, the seats were hotly contested. The council was first convened in 1873, but did not meet for business until January, 1874, when the elective members were Messrs. Green and Dr. Graham for Kimberley, Mr. Advocate Davison for Barkly, and Mr. David Arnott, the agent for Waterboer, to represent the electoral division of Hay. The first ordinance, viz. for the better regulation of diggings and mines, was promulgated on the 30th of the month named. The government and legislature for some time worked very well, but then a lack of cordiality among the members of the government themselves in the executive manifested itself, and there was as well no lack of revolutionary agitators to stir up the people to rebel against the government from the outside. Among the agitators were one or more generally accepted as Fenians, and several foreigners; the former with a hatred of British rule were bent on creating disturbances. They were joined by men who, although owning themselves British subjects, had party and personal ends to serve, dearer to them than their reverence for the crown. Leagues were formed and meetings were held, where sedition was loudly and plainly talked, mass meetings were convened on the market place, and the governor roundly abused. The lieutenant governor offered to receive deputations and to discuss matters, provided that the deputations should be composed of men who were known to be in the habit of conducting themselves in a becoming manner. But the agitators wanted their followers to come in large bodies, and this the lieutenant governor decided not to permit. The members of the league assembled armed for drill, and assumed a most warlike and threatening attitude. The lieutenant governor urged the necessity of the presence of a small body of her Majesty’s troops, and pointed out that moral force, the only force at his command, had no influence upon the men who, led by a clever and excitable digger named Aylward, were plotting against law and order. No attention whatever was paid to the suggestion of the lieutenant governor by the executive of the Cape Colony. There were no definite grievances brought forward by the men under arms, who were mere puppets in the hands of the riotously inclined wire-pullers. There were grievances, however, of a grave nature, and the non-fulfilment of promises respecting the land titles was the greatest of all. It is only right, however, to mention that the majority of the white population, aliens as well as British subjects, were thoroughly satisfied with Mr. Southey’s rule; and he had, during the time he was at the head of the government, done all in his power to make the people happy and prosperous, while the foundations of law and order had been so far as possible “both well and truly laid.” The social state of the Fields was excellent, and Government House was so thoroughly well-conducted that it led society with a genial and assuring hand. Balls and parties, indoor and outdoor pastimes and pleasures, afforded the recreation which the busy population required, and life in the Fields was generally pleasant and seemly.
Armed malcontents were now drilled in the public squares, and wherever they thought their proceedings would be most exasperating to the government and the loyal portion of the community.[[58]] This was kept up during the early part of 1875. Arms were imported from all directions and concealed in stores and licensed liquor shops, and in the month of April of that year the mob were led into open rebellion, the occasion chosen for the outbreak being the seizure of arms by the magistrate and police of Kimberley, and the arrest of the man on whose premises they were discovered. A body of armed men marched down to the magistrate’s office and demanded the release of the prisoner, the court-house being surrounded and an attack threatened should their demand be refused. A black flag to be hoisted on the edge of the Kimberley mine was to be the signal for the revolters to fire upon the court-house and government offices. The Kimberley prison was to be leveled to the ground, when, as the rebels calculated, the liberated prisoners would instantly swell their ranks and help to overthrow the government. The lieutenant governor refused to make any terms whatever with men under arms and ordered them to give up their weapons to the government. This they refused to do. The authorities were not, however, to be driven from the position they had assumed. A number of loyal inhabitants volunteered to assist the government, and the prison was guarded by these assisted by some of the police. Greatly to their credit the Germans then came forward almost to a man and joined the volunteers. Mr. James Anthony Froude, “the eminent historian,” as he is called, had paid a visit to South Africa at the instance of the Earl of Carnarvon, then secretary for the Colonies, to report on the chances of federating the whole of the Colonies and States under the British flag, and that gentleman, with his characteristic mental twist, took a most distorted view of everything he saw, and instead of supporting the lieutenant governor disparaged him, and actually held a conference with the rebel leaders. This conference did not take place in the presence of any of the authorities, and the insurgents declared at the time that their course of conduct had secured Mr. Froude’s[[59]] approval. This was before they broke out in actual revolt. A quotation from Mr. Froude’s writings, which appears in a book of which one of the most bitter opponents of the government is the author, strengthens the belief that Mr. Froude actually did encourage the rebels, whether intentionally or not. The passage is as follows: “The English government in taking up Waterboer’s cause, have distinctly broken a treaty which they renewed before in a most solemn manner, and the colonial office, it is painfully evident to me, has been duped by an ingenious conspiracy.”
The “ingenious conspiracy” was one of those flights of imagination in which the eminent historian occasionally indulges with most mischievous results to the colonies that he has visited and attempted to describe. There was no such thing as an “ingenious conspiracy to delude the colonial office,” as may be gathered from the facts before stated respecting the action of Sir Philip Wodehouse in the matter of the wrong done Waterboer by the Boers of the Free State. The chieftainship of Andreas Waterboer, the father of Nicholas, was confirmed by the British government before Nicholas was born, as is shown in the earlier portions of these pages. This is wandering from the subject of the revolt, but the necessity for this digression will be manifest to the reader.
The rebels had calculated that no magistrate would be found with sufficient courage to sit on the bench and try the arrested prisoner while the court-house was surrounded by men armed with guns and revolvers ready to fire at a given signal. They were mistaken, however, for the late Mr. Advocate Gray, then president magistrate of Du Toit’s Pan, took his seat on the bench, and then the Fenian leader, sword in hand, ordered the man appointed (one Albany Paddon[[60]]) to hoist the flag, which was accordingly done. There was no firing, though one gun was accidentally discharged. Some of the leaders began to reflect and came forward and entered into bail bonds for the prisoner. The rebels did not then, however, put down their arms. It was only after the high commissioner had threatened to send troops that they consented to do so. Colonel Crossman, who had been sent out as royal commissioner in Oct. 1875, to make inquiries and report, after taking evidence absolved the government of all blame. Then when the mischief had been done troops were sent up at an expense of £20,000, under the command of Sir Arthur Cunningham. Beyond showing that the imperial government were determined to uphold law and order, the troops did nothing but manœuvre in the market place, encamp at Barkly and attend balls and banquets given in their honor, as well as to fête the Diamond Fields horse, who had shortly before so gallantly fought under Sir Arthur in the war on the northeastern frontier, driving Kreli out of the country and bringing his tribe into subjection. The real grievance—and one destined to produce dire consequences upon the province—the delay in giving out titles and settling the land, had as yet found no remedy. Not even the chief Waterboer had been settled with, and Mankoroane, the chief of the Bechuanas, harassed on all sides by the Boers, had called upon the British government for protection, offering to make over his territory and people to the queen, as Waterboer had done before him. He, like Waterboer, had always been loyal to the British rule, and to use his own words: “I have always been true to the queen, have protected her people when they were in danger from the Boers, and now when my people are being crushed out of existence by the Boers the queen ought to protect me and my people.” The lieutenant governor was of the same opinion, and he suggested to the high commissioner that in justice and in policy the British government could not do better than annex Bechuanaland. His excellency further pointed out that to leave this fine country open was to pave the way for future troubles—which it has done. The high commissioner encouraged the scheme. Mankoroane and his councillors with a number of his people came down to Kimberley, if I recollect rightly, at the very time of Mr. Froude’s visit, and long conferences then took place between the chief and his advisers, and the lieutenant governor and his, the old chief being ultimately given to understand that he and his people and country were to be taken over, as Mr. Southey said, with the knowledge and consent of the high commissioner. This was another of the promises made only to be broken; and to prove beyond question that all the troubles predicted have come about, it is only necessary to allude to recent historical events culminating in Sir Charles Warren’s expedition to Bechuanaland. Mr. Southey had from the time of his taking office persistently requested the high commissioner to get the land question settled, and had sent warning after warning that delay in giving out the titles was fraught with the greatest possible danger. But the high commissioner was in the hands of the secretary of the colonies in the first place, and in the second his excellency had not mastered the situation. Then those who fomented discontent and disturbance had circulated, among other infamous slanders, that the lieutenant governor and the secretary to government were men bent on land-jobbing in their own interest and in the interest of their friends and political adherents.
In the session of 1875 the high commissioner, despite his previously issued reassuring proclamation to the effect that no private rights should be disturbed, sent up a land ordinance drafted in Capetown, and requested the lieutenant governor to introduce it to the legislative council and get it passed into law. This the lieutenant governor respectfully but firmly refused to do. By the draft ordinance a land court was to be created, and a judge appointed to decide upon the claims of every one, no matter whether his claims were disputed or not. Even Waterboer himself, from whom the government had derived all their territorial rights, was to be forced into court and pay the expenses himself, to prove that his private properties, farms, etc., belonged to him. The judge was, moreover, to have power to reduce the size of farms, and in no case to permit one to be given out of more than 6,000 acres in extent. The lieutenant governor held that by allowing this ordinance to pass into the statute book the government would be abrogating its especial function, which was to protect those who could produce unimpeachable titles, whether obtained by grant, purchase or other legitimate means. The cost of going to law to obtain them they, he said, ought not to be compelled to incur. The law courts ought not, he maintained, to be called upon to deal with any land claims excepting such as were in dispute. The executive government could deal with the undisputed claims, exchange British for existing titles, etc., thus saving expenditure and delay, while the high court was quite sufficient to deal with disputed claims.
The high commissioner paid no heed to the lieutenant governor’s remonstrance, but came from Capetown to the diamond fields and introduced the draft ordinance into the council himself, while presiding, as he was empowered to do, when in the province. The popularly elected members at first declared that they would not vote for the measure; nor would they even take their seats; which course, had it been adhered to by them, would have effectually prevented the measure being carried, as no business could be transacted unless two of the elected members were in their seats. The high commissioner, however, by the free use of his powerful influence, led the elected members to alter their determination, hinting that if they did not take their seats, a proceeding equivalent to assisting in passing the ordinance, he would dissolve the council, and every one saw that if the high commissioner could not control the council the constitution under which it was created would be abolished altogether. The members took their seats, and the ordinance was forced through and became law. The land court was established, and Mr. Advocate Stockenstrom, of the supreme court, who was then practicing at the bar of the court of the eastern districts, was appointed the judge.
Sir Henry Barkly, having forced his land bill through the council, returned to Capetown, leaving Mr. R. Southey at the head of the government.
The greatest possible disaffection toward the land court soon found expression on all sides. The editor of one of the newspapers, The Diamond News, criticised the decisions of the judge with great freedom, and amongst other remarks said that: “Judge Stockenstrom appeared to be performing his duties under instruction, and if he was not doing so he was incompetent for the office.” The editor was summoned before the court by Judge Stockenstrom, and was charged with contempt of court. He so ably defended himself that the judge withdrew the charge in a semi-apologetic manner, but that did not allay the dissatisfaction. The advocate of Waterboer, on the ground that his client had been grossly insulted by the judge, and could hope for nothing like justice in that land court, retired, with his client from the court, and refused to continue his case.
The final adjustment was intrusted to Major, now Gen. Sir Charles Warren, the land court having been abolished and the judge withdrawn. Mr. R. Southey, soon after the purchase of the farm Voornitzigt, which was sold to government for £100,000, was recalled, and that was the last of Lieut. Governor Southey in Griqualand West.
CHAPTER XX.
MR. JUSTICE BARRY ACTING ADMINISTRATOR.—ARRIVAL OF MAJOR LANYON.—PRINCIPAL EVENTS OF HIS ADMINISTRATION.—ANNEXATION BILL PASSED CAPE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY.—CRIMINAL PROSECUTION OF THE EDITOR OF THE “INDEPENDENT.”—ATTORNEY GENERAL SHIPPARD’S ARGUMENT AND ORATORY.—ACQUITTAL OF ACCUSED.—GREAT REJOICINGS.—ACTION AGAINST “INDEPENDENT.”—APOLOGY.
After the conclusion of the Southey régime, Mr. J. D. Barry, the recorder of the province, held the reins of government for a time, pending the arrival of Major Lanyon, an officer who had distinguished himself on Sir Garnet Wolseley’s staff in Ashantee.
The posts of lieutenant governor and colonial secretary were abolished, and Major Lanyon as administrator, with Mr. Francis Villiers as private secretary, conducted the affairs of the government. The principal matters of interest during his day in Griqualand West were the passing of the annexation bill through the Cape house of assembly, the disturbances of the natives, necessitating the expedition to Phokwane, the quelling of the Griqua revolt, the trial of the editor of the Independent and the passing of Mr. Geo. Bottomley’s bill amending the liquor ordinance.
There can be no doubt that the restless character of the diggers of the diamond fields which culminated in the rising on April 12th, 1875, had a good deal to do with the desire of the home government to get rid of the bother, annoyance and responsibility of governing so small, and at the same time so troublesome, a crown colony as Griqualand West. With that object a bill, of course at the instigation of the imperial authorities, was brought before the Cape assembly in June 1877, when a select committee was appointed, of which Mr. Richard Southey, formerly lieutenant governor of this territory, was appointed chairman, which had “instructions to restrict its inquiry to the number and description of the population, the extent and value of land, and the cultivation and other resources, the revenue and expenditure and general financial condition of the province.”
Major W. O. Lanyon, C. M. G., the administrator, went to Capetown and gave evidence before this committee; and although of course wishing to promote the desires of the imperial government, his answers to all the questions asked him evidently tended to make good what was generally understood to be his opinion, viz. that annexation was a doubtful measure at best, and that a province with mines of undisputed richness, whose only debts were £90,000 to the Free State, £16,000 to the imperial government for the expense of troops sent up there to quell the disturbances in 1875, and about £16,000 to the Standard Bank, was quite justified in retaining its own individuality. However, as will be seen in the sequel “Molteno (premier of the Cape Colony at the time) incorporated the major.”[[61]] The bill to annex Griqualand West to the Cape Colony passed the Cape assembly during the same session and received the queen’s assent in the following year, but became, so far as the inhabitants of the diamond fields were concerned, almost forgotten until the visit of Messrs. Sprigg and Upington in October, 1879, when Mr. J. Rose Innes, C. M. G., was acting administrator.
ANNEXATION.—MELANCHOLY END OF GRIQUALAND WEST. MOLTENO TO ENCORPORATE THE MAJOR.
“Affairs of State” did not run altogether smoothly in Griqualand West. When Major Lanyon returned he found that the late Mr. Advocate Davison, member for Barkly, had resigned his seat in the Griqualand West council and left for England, and there were but three elected members in council when he introduced his annexation motion, to which he desired to gain their assent. Mr. Advocate Halkett, the senior member for Kimberley, and Mr. R. W. Murray, the member for Hay, contended that before such a vastly important change was made as the annexation of the province to the Cape Colony, which involved the destruction of its constitution and government, there ought to be a full council to discuss the submitted resolution, and they therefore demanded that the seat for Barkly should be filled up. This the administrator refused to do, or rather implied that he had contemplated doing so, but had neglected it. He evidently was determined to get his motion carried, while the members for Kimberley and Hay were equally determined that if he should do so, it would be by his own casting vote alone; and knowing that they were masters of the situation, they bowed themselves out with the announcement that they would not return until all the constituencies were represented. They kept their word. There was no election for Barkly and no more sittings of that council, which was shortly afterward dissolved, and it was not until some months had passed that a new one was elected. There were three councils in all. The names of the first members have been before given; the elected members of the second council, which was elected after the arrival of Major Lanyon, were Messrs. Tucker and Gilfillan (Kimberley), Davison (Barkly), and Murray (Hay). A vacancy occurred through Mr. Henry Tucker becoming disqualified, and the late Mr. Halkett was elected in his place. The next council, which was elected on Nov. 30th, 1878, consisted of myself and Mr. Bottomley (Kimberley), Mr. J. Paddon (Barkly), and Mr. J. Orpen (Hay).
An act of the colonial legislature which is not put into force within three years of its having been assented to at home becomes a dead letter, and it was not until this period had nearly expired that the concluding scene was put on the stage of the little theatre of the Griqualand West council, under the management of Mr. J. Rose Innes, but this I will describe later on.
There is no hiding the fact that during Major Lanyon’s administratorship there was a good deal of hostile feeling shown against him in some quarters, which was fostered by many who held the opinion that the major was inclined to be more of a martinet than if he had had the training of an officer in a regiment other than one of those in which Charles Lever’s Major Monsoon would have found congenial companionship, and in politics at least his peculiar idiosyncrasies, as displayed toward opponents, would have caused the late Dr. Johnson, had he known the major, to admire his talents as a “good hater,” although at the same time he would not have found him wanting in that opposite quality which is said to naturally follow. I have often heard Major Lanyon say: “Gentlemen, if I have ever erred, it has been the fault of the head, not of the heart,” and I may here state that the gallant major’s abilities, which were of no mean order, and his honesty of purpose, always received due recognition. The want of tact of this administration, and the unfortunate personal leaning of its chief, were strikingly exemplified by a case in point, in the prosecution of the editor of the Independent for an alleged criminal libel published in the issue of that paper of Nov. 16th, 1876. At that time the trade in diamonds with roguish natives employed by diggers which unscrupulous persons carried on, though they must have well known these cheaply acquired gems to have been stolen, was, as it still is, the plague and disgrace of the community. Proclamations and ordinances of the severest character were leveled against it, but without appreciable effect. A few of the lesser culprits were caught, imprisoned, and in some cases flogged, but still the illicit trade (before fully described) flourished, and this too although the laws had been rendered so stringent and complex as to prove a trap for the innocent but unwary.
Out of the confused state of these laws two causes célebres arose, which excited much interest among the diggers and showed the continued lack of common sense displayed by the government in their policy and modes of procedure. In the first instance an old digger, who had made himself prominent in the prosecution of diamond thieves and had also materially assisted in the overthrow and subsequent recall of the Southey-Currey faction, had in a moment of forgetfulness purchased a small diamond without having a dealer’s license and without being able to produce his special permit to the magistrate as by law required. There was no pretence that the diamond had been stolen or improperly obtained, but nevertheless the unlucky purchaser of this “precious” stone was sentenced, if I remember rightly, to twelve months’ imprisonment without the option of a fine. Granting, for the sake of argument, that the punishment was technically commensurate with the offense, the ardor exhibited by the authorities in the original pursuit of a political foe, to the minds of the independent diggers, was anything but satisfactory. That the man had no license to purchase diamonds, and that his permit, if he ever had one, had been lost or mislaid was admitted, but when the prosecution sought to establish the fact of there having been no permit given by the production of a list kept in the Kimberley resident magistrate’s office, and manifestly a most careless one, in which there was no mention of the name of the accused, his attorney very properly if not conclusively contended that this evidence was not sufficiently formal upon which to found a conviction for a technical fault involving extremely severe punishment. He argued moreover that if one magistrate’s list of permits was produced, those of all other magistrates should be put in evidence also; that the list in question might be imperfect, and as it was not in the custody of the buyer, entries might have been confused, altered or annulled without his knowledge; in short that the rough list of a single magistrate was not sufficient evidence on which so heavy a punishment ought to be inflicted on any member of the body politic. A subordinate official, however, swore “by all his gods” that it was “impossible for a permit to have been issued to the prisoner without an entry having been made in his record book,” and upon the strength of that evidence the accused was accordingly “cast into prison.” But observe the sequel. The ink was scarcely dry upon the warrant which tore the unhappy culprit from his wife and family and confined him amidst the vilest criminals, when lo! a whisper went abroad that his excellency himself had also been purchasing diamonds without any license and without any record of the necessary permit. What was the inference? Mindful of the positive manner in which the keeper of the records had gravely sworn to the impossibility of any permits having been issued without an entry in the proper book, the editor of the Independent newspaper, which had taken up a position of uncompromising hostility toward diamond thieves, published in the public interest certain queries respecting the anomalous and unpleasant predicament in which the administrator might be placed. There was no contention that he had been guilty of any malum in se or of purchasing other than for his own private use and pleasure, but merely of malum prohibitum. The Draconian severity of the law and the apparent impropriety of the previous conviction was strikingly shown forth. The article was very aptly headed: “Where is this to end?” and at the moment it was a question difficult to answer. The administrator, nevertheless, very promptly set about his reply, and took active steps against the bold editor who had dared to “come between the wind and his nobility.”
It was impossible to conjure up any entry in the record of permits, for the book had been too carefully and publicly examined by hostile critics for that; but hey! presto! in a very few hours after the newspaper article had appeared, a notice said to have been inspired by the government was publicly issued, in which it was triumphantly stated that the versatile major was after all in possession of a permit which could be inspected, etc., etc.
Upon reading this the cognoscenti winked knowingly at each other. After such an astonishing announcement it would only be thought reasonable that the administrator, upon finding so striking a confirmation of the force of the argument of the prisoner’s attorney that the record was not infallible, would have taken some immediate steps toward a reconsideration and possible mitigation of a sentence passed under a harsh law.
No such thing happened, however. On the contrary, elated with the successful experiment of “breaking a butterfly on the wheel” in the recent prosecution, he at once caused the outspoken editor to be arrested for a criminal libel upon “his excellency,” the accused being temporarily liberated upon the modest bail of £6,000! which was at once found.
A preliminary examination before the magistrate followed, and the editor was fully committed for trial. It would perhaps not be judicious to refer too specifically to the adverse opinions which were entertained by an independent public with regard to this case. Lawyers have or used to have a saying that “the greater the truth the greater the libel.” Suffice it to say that public comments were far from flattering to Major Lanyon and the members of his executive.
When the day of trial arrived excitement was raised to a very high pitch. The court was crowded to overflowing, and large numbers of the diggers were anxiously awaiting the result in the market square in front of the court-house. The administrator was located during the trial in a private room which adjoined the court, where a dejeuner à la fourchette and subsequent refreshments were plenteously dispensed to some chosen supporters of the existing state of things.
The judge wore his severest frown; the government officials hovered round the precincts of the court, and with bated breath awaited the verdict, which was to clear their chief’s character from the calumnious breath of an audacious critic.
But the imprisoned editor saw no reason for apprehension. Fortunately for him his case had to be decided not by a military dictator, nor yet by a single judge or magistrate, but by the sound common sense and fair play of a jury. Mr. Shippard,[[62]] the acting attorney general, went heart and soul into the prosecution.
In a labored and somewhat silly harangue he recounted with much unction the obsolete and barbarous customs of the old Roman emperors in dealing with those whom they deemed guilty of seditious libel. As he gathered courage during the delivery of his diatribe, he overcame the natural hesitancy of his speech and became even eloquent. It is true that the act which had been attributed to the major was one which, as it had been contended for the defence in a previous case, did not amount to a morally criminal charge, and should not be proved or provable by a mere loosely kept note-book, or punished by imprisonment without option of a fine; in fact not that the major was guilty, but that the other man was morally if not legally innocent; further, it was urged that the whole matter amounted at the most to a mere technical omission of a purely formal character, which might inadvertently be committed by any usually law-abiding citizen.
But the engineer did not like to “be hoist with his own petard,” and the attorney general, with “Gallio-like” unconcern for anything but his “Dryasdust” antiquities, snorted forth his anathemas against the offending editor. He introduced into his remarks a plentiful sprinkling of Roman archæology and referred with ludicrous solemnity to the old world restrictions upon the freedom of public criticism. He spoke with grave gusto of the good old times of the Emperor Zeno, when slanderous accusations against the “purple” were punishable with death. He must have forgotten that in Zeno’s time offices of state were openly bought and sold, and life and death had their price.
Did the honorable attorney general wish to apply the whole theory and practice of the old Roman criminal law to the affairs of our days of steam power, telegraphs and independent press? It is difficult to say how far some men will ride their hobbies.
After he had done with Zeno’s time, however, he was compelled to admit that capital punishment for the offense under consideration had been “mercifully commuted to a public flogging,” and seemed to imply that some punishment of that nature would not be inapplicable to the case of the editor who had spoken so severely of his patron. In this style he poured forth the vials of his wrath until the amazed crowd of listening diggers were agape with astonishment at the righteous (and loudly expressed) indignation of the prosecuting barrister. The audience might not unreasonably have expected that the next authority to be quoted by the excited counsel would be the customs and maxims of that “beauteous, implacable tyrant,” the lamented Nero.
An amusing incident occurred when the court rose for luncheon. The editor was of course a prisoner, the responsibility of his sureties while he was out on bail having ceased upon his appearing and pleading to the indictment, but the judge, who, it is only fair to state, treated him with marked courtesy throughout the trial, permitted him to leave the court en parole, as it were, for luncheon.
With the jury it was quite different. The acting attorney general did not want to let them mix with the outside crowd who had already expressed their opinion of the proceedings pretty plainly, and accordingly at his instigation, or at least with his concurrence, the hapless jurors were locked up sans ceremonie until after luncheon. Notwithstanding all the perverse ingenuity of the prosecuting counsel, he could not persuade the jury to convict the prisoner. After a short deliberation the jury returned a verdict of “not guilty” which was received with loud acclamations both inside and outside the court, the delighted diggers carrying off the liberated editor on their shoulders to celebrate the victory in the “flowing bowl,” while the major, accompanied by his sympathizers, made a hurried exit from the back of the court and went home a “sadder and a wiser man.”
The administrator, however, brought a civil action against the proprietors of the newspaper for libel, laying his damages at £10,000; but after considerable skirmishing an apology was accepted, and so ended a most disagreeable affair to all parties concerned. Many squibs and cartoons were published at the time, the one which drew the greatest attention being the accompanying (page [298]), where Mr. Shippard and an editor well known in South Africa, formerly a member of the Cape house of assembly[[63]], Mr. R. W. Murray, are represented holding a skipping rope over which the major tumbles.
Note.—Sir Wm. Owen Lanyon, R. C. M. G., who had been suffering for some time from cancer in the throat, died at the Windsor Hotel, New York, on April 6th, 1887.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE GAIKA AND GEALEKA WAR.—COLONEL WARREN AND “OUR BOYS.”—WARREN’S BRILLIANT COUP.—THE RAPE OF THE GAIKA MATRONS.—SIGNAL VICTORY AT DEBE NEK.—COLONEL LANYON AND GASIBONE.—BLOODLESS VICTORY AT PHOKWANE.—RETURN OF VOLUNTEERS.—THE GRIQUALAND WEST WAR.—ENGAGEMENTS AT WITTEHUIS, LANGEBERG AND TAIKOON.—CRUEL APPRENTICESHIP OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN.—CLOSE OF THE GRIQUALAND WEST REBELLION.—KORANNAS AT THE SALT PAN.—HERMANUS LYNX AND HIS UNTIMELY DEATH.—MR. G. BOTTOMLEY’S LIQUOR BILL.
Before touching upon what I will term our local wars, that occurred during Major Lanyon’s term of office, I will very shortly refer to the fourth Kafir war in which the Cape Colony was engaged, and this I do because the contingent the Diamond Fields sent to assist in this campaign played a far from unimportant part.
This outbreak arose from a dispute between the Gealekas and their hereditary enemies, the Fingoes, the former looking with envy upon the tract of country across the Kei occupied by the latter, but which the former had at one time possessed. The war arose from an affray at a beer drinking bout in August 1877, the Gealekas attacking the Fingoes to revenge the murder of one of their friends, which had been committed in a scuffle at the feast which I have just mentioned. Directly after this, numerous incursions began to be made by the Gealekas into Fingoland, and old colonists could easily see that war was imminent, when in September Kreli could not be induced to meet Sir Bartle Frere, who at that time happened to be on the frontier.
Toward the latter end of the above-named year, the chiefs Kreli and Sandilli massed their followings in open rebellion against the government. Corps of volunteers were raised, and with the regiments of regulars in the Colony were marched against the savage hordes of the Kafir chiefs, under the control of General Thesiger, afterward Lord Chelmsford. The turn of the year came and no material change in the state of affairs had taken place. The Gaikas and the Gealekas were gradually creeping toward a fastness known as the Perie Bush. This bush is in reality a forest, in length some thirty miles and in width varying from two to seven, and terminating to the northwest in the Amatola mountains, an almost impassable range, contiguous to the old frontier town of Fort Beaufort. In consequence of the vast area to be covered by the troops, it was impossible to prevent the natives and their cattle in obtaining entrance into the bush.
Once there, they thought that they had an immunity from danger, for on the top of the range a vast plateau extends, where they might obtain luxuriant pasturage for their cattle and cool, refreshing springs of water for themselves. It almost appeared, as the first moon of 1878 rose upon that portion of the Colony, that the guerilla warfare would be interminable, and a cry for help was raised through the Colony, which reached the province of Griqualand West. One hundred and twenty of our young bloods volunteered for service five hundred miles away, and with that military ardor which characterizes all colonists, they slung their guns across their shoulders, sprang into the saddle, and were at once ready for the toilsome, dusty, wearisome journey by road to King William’s Town, for those were the days of no railways. Colonel Warren, now Sir Charles Warren, the chief commissioner of the metropolitan police, was their trusted leader. The force, though small, was plucky and inured to hardships, just the right stuff to fight the wily savage, whilst their commander was highly popular with his men. It was on Jan. 10th, 1878, that this compact band started from the Diamond Fields, and a fine sight it was when Colonel Lanyon, the administrator, made them a parting address at Du Toit’s Pan in the presence of at least 3,000, who had assembled to wish “our boys” “God speed.”
Marching some forty miles a day under a “sky of molten brass,” they arrived in King William’s Town on the 25th of the same month. At that time the chief Sandilli was on the move, so the Diamond Fields horse were stationed about fifty miles out of King William’s Town in conjunction with the hapless 24th, afterward annihilated at Isandhlwana during the now historical Zulu campaign. Patroling the country around was their main duty for some six weeks, during which time, although the commissariat department was fairly well attended to, much hardship was endured by reason of the daily rains and the inadequate tent provision supplied by the colonial government. Strange to say, little sickness was engendered, nor did the hardy fellows suffer subsequently from their exposure. The rebels having in the meantime congregated in the Perie Bush, an order was issued for the Diamond Fields horse to repair thither.
Just at this juncture the Pondoland difficulties were drawing to a crisis, and when the Hon. Mr. Lyttleton was deputed to go to Kokstadt, it was thought the little force under Colonel Warren would be ordered to escort him.
It turned out otherwise; the Diamond Fields horse was required for action, and all the men were delighted. They had not, they urged, come down country for escort duty, but to show their qualities as fighting men. At all events they had not long to wait, for after a short period of duty in the dense demesne of the Perie Bush a brush with the enemy took place. Such was the thick and jungle-like nature of the underwood, and such the natural advantages of the position which the enemy had chosen, that two officers of the corps, Captain Donovan and Lieutenant Ward, a gallant young fellow, well known in Kimberley, were shot by the savage horde, and there was no chance at that moment for their comrades to avenge their death. The little force bided its time. In a few days it was reported to Colonel Warren that a vast body of the enemy, advancing on foot, according to Kafir custom, in battalions, and headed by petty chiefs on horseback, were making for the Perie Bush. This was at an outlying station known as Debe Nek, midway between King William’s Town and Fort Beaufort, and in sight of the fastness wherein they believed their safety would be assured.
The Diamond Fields horse (increased at this time by colonial recruits) was detached, but yet there were fifty-seven men of the original corps who volunteered to go out to meet the enemy. The latter was estimated at 1,500, or in other words the odds were twenty-five to one against our men.
They came on, one huge phalanx, singing their war songs, and fired with an enthusiasm peculiar to the Kafir race. Taking in the situation at once Colonel Warren ordered his men to dismount and secure the protection of a wide sluit running to the left of the Fort Beaufort road. Telling off three or four to hold the horses, and holding fully a dozen himself, he ordered the men to commence firing, and many of the enemy fell, but, as the front row dropped, on came the vast mass behind.
As our brave fellows peppered away with the skill of sharp-shooters some seventy of the savage horde were laid low, and then dismay seized the remainder. From the advantageous position selected by Colonel Warren it was impossible for the enemy to know the strength of its opponents. Consternation, as I have said, seized the sable host, and like Sennacherib’s army they melted away even as snow, not, however, before several of the Diamond Fields horse got into hand-to-hand combat with them. Although the slaughter was great on the side of the rebels, yet of the little force under Colonel Warren only one man was wounded, who through his own neglect afterward succumbed. The news of this gallant defence filled the inhabitants of the Diamond Fields with exultation. Congratulations were telegraphed down to Colonel Warren and his men, while the friends of the brave band under him were highly delighted. The back of the rebellion had been virtually broken. The news spread, as news only can spread among Kafir tribes, and Colonel Warren was looked upon by the Kafirs as possessed of supernatural powers. It only required tact to complete the subjugation of the rebels, and the leader was not lacking in this quality. It had been known that the women folk of the Kafir tribes intrenched within the Perie Bush were habitually allowed free ingress and egress. This they made use of for the purpose of bringing supplies from King William’s Town.
Reporting this fact to the late Sir Bartle Frere, the then governor of the colony, Colonel Warren was advised to communicate with General Thesiger. That red-tape entangled officer, however, deigned no reply, and seeing the waste of public treasure involved by General Thesiger’s indifference, Colonel Warren decided to act, knowing full well, if successful, that he would have the full support of Sir Bartle Frere.
An opportunity of carrying out his plan quickly offered itself. Out of the Perie Bush, seeking supplies, and almost in a starving condition, came 600 women and children. Surrounded and made prisoners by the Diamond Fields horse they were fed and taken into King William’s Town and there handed over to the civil authorities, to be afterward sent to Capetown and apprenticed as domestic servants.
The husbands and fathers, rather than that those they held most dear should be separated from them, possibly for ever, appealed to the chiefs, some of whom perhaps were sufferers from Colonel Warren’s coup de main, and so ended the Gaika-Gealika rebellion.
This sudden termination to the war, however, I believe was also the termination in the friendship previously existing between General Thesiger and Colonel Warren.
About this time bad news was received from the northern border of Griqualand West. Bolasike Gasibone, it was reported, was committing acts of plunder and generally exhibiting a total disregard of the laws of meum and tuum, and in consequence Major Lanyon, the administrator of the province, left on January 21st, 1878, with 150 volunteers for Phokwane to punish him. The major was absent from Kimberley some twelve days, found that there had been no fighting, found no one with whom to fight, merely old women, children and cows; he collared the cows, and returned with the spoil to the diamond fields. Many laughed at the whole affair, but a more serious view was afterward presented for consideration when the Revs. Messrs. Bevan and Ashton, two well-known missionaries, appealed to the public for assistance for the poor natives, who, they stated, were starving. Major Lanyon to stay public indignation sent a so-called independent commission to report on the state of affairs, consisting of Mr. Lord, acting attorney general, a submissive admirer of every act of government, and Mr. Baillie, merely a subordinate in the survey department. The report framed was of almost interminable length, occupying fifteen pages in the government Gazette of March 16th, but before it was issued the public had openly expressed their anticipations respecting the document. The public was not, however, prepared for its “highfalutin” rhapsodies on the “duty of man,” nor for the strange citing of Holy Writ in its concluding sentence, in which natives, owners of the soil and living an independent pastoral life, were told, after all their cattle had been forcibly removed, “if any man will not work neither shall he eat.”
Two months later (April 13th, 1878), the administrator of the Transvaal solicited assistance against Sekukuni, and as preparations were being made to give him assistance news arrived of trouble on our southwestern border, which was confirmed by a dispatch on April 21st from Mr. H. B. Roper, the magistrate of Griqua Town. A call to arms was at once made and readily responded to. Major Lanyon again left Kimberley, in three days’ time, with 100 men for Koejas. As soon as he arrived at his destination he called upon the natives to put down their arms, which they refused to do, and as they occupied a position from which it was impossible to dislodge them without cannon, Major Maxwell was telegraphed to at King William’s Town to at once bring up some field-pieces. In the meantime volunteers were leaving Kimberley almost every day for the front to strengthen Major Lanyon.
During Major Lanyon’s encampment at Koejas the Griquas, who had up to that time remained quiet (the rebellion having broken out among a number of colonial Kafirs and Korannas living on the banks of the Orange River), rose en masse and besieged Griqua Town, which was surrounded by them for eight days. On the night of the eighth day Major Lanyon rode through them with twenty men undiscovered and joined some 100 volunteers who had managed, the same day, to get into Griqua Town from the Kimberley side. On the following day the rebels were completely routed at Driefontein in a decisive engagement which lasted twelve hours and driven into their fastnesses in the Langeberg. Major Maxwell, whose arrival was eagerly looked for, arrived at Koejas on May 25th with the cannon, just in the nick of time, as on the 31st 600 natives attacked the camp, when the guns which he had brought up materially assisted to secure the success of the day. During the time all these events had been occurring Colonel Warren and “our boys” had been burning to respond to the calls for assistance which had reached them from Griqualand West. They had heard how volunteers had been raised and had taken the field under the command of the administrator, and how the country on the southwestern border was in a state of tumult and insurrection. Springing to saddle the plucky band made forced marches, this time in the cold, pinching month of May. “The air bit shrewdly and ’twas bitter cold,” but with no covering save a blanket and the saddle for a pillow, they quickly reached the junction of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. Scarcely had the force (numbering then about 200 men) crossed the Vaal River than Colonel Warren scented the disaffected Griquas at Wittehuis, where they had “enschanged” themselves in a formidable position between the Kaap Range and the Vaal River. Here the rebels were attacked and routed, and after completing their defeat Colonel Warren and his men pushed on to Griqua Town.
Thence he and Major Lanyon proceeded to the Langeberg, where several engagements took place, in all of which the rebels were defeated. The most important of these skirmishes was that of Paarde-Kloop, at which an immense quantity of wagons, oxen, horses and sheep were captured. There is nothing which makes a native regret rebellion more than the loss of his worldly goods. Capture his stock and he is defeated.
After these engagements the administrator returned to Griqua Town, leaving Colonel Warren in command, and there received the sad intelligence of the skirmish at Manyeering, resulting in the death of Messrs. Paterson, Rawstorne and several other well-known persons. While proceeding as quickly as possible on his road to Kimberley, he was attacked by and succeeded in defeating a body of rebels at Campbell, some thirty miles from Kimberley, where he arrived in safety after being some two months absent from the seat of government.
Colonel Warren now made a detour, suspecting the enemy to be lodged in a mountain situated to the northeast, and distant from the Griqua Town road some twenty miles. Here he only found groups of chattering monkeys, instead of the Griquas he expected.
The rebels had fled!
TAIKOON PASS.
After remaining a few days in Kimberley to settle some urgent matters connected with the government, Major Lanyon proceeded to Bechuanaland, where he was joined by Colonel Warren, and where after the battle of Taikoon and other smart engagements the rebellion was finally crushed.
I may here say that the rebellion among the natives who were once, it must be kept in mind, the owners of the soil, arose with the white man from difficulties mainly respecting land, and from the dissatisfaction generally felt by a large proportion of them with Colonel Warren’s previous decisions in this regard, which had driven them to utter despair; for it was not until entreaties and even tears had failed to have any effect that they resorted to rebellion. Colonel Warren was by nature hasty beyond description, autocratic to a degree, and bigoted in the extreme.
The manner in which the natives had been treated both by Stockenstrom in the land court and afterward by Warren was freely commented upon by colonial statesmen. Mr. R. Southey, formerly lieutenant governor of Griqualand West, gave utterance to the following significant words in the Cape house of assembly, when speaking on the subject: “So gross was the injustice sustained by these people in the land court that had I been a Griqua, I too would have rebelled.”
Mr. H. B. Roper, now chief of the detective department and police commissioner of Kimberley, then the resident magistrate of Hay, was accused in an official dispatch by Colonel Warren of having been the sole cause of this war through his magisterial judgments, and every endeavor was made by interested officials to throw the entire blame of the war upon him. This official’s record books were subjected to the private scrutiny of the attorney general by the magistrate who succeeded him, who by this means wished to curry favor with the powers that used to be, but, although his sentences were found to be decidedly severe, they showed no taint of what could be construed into injustice, and the sinister scheme with respect to him fell through.
When Colonel Warren became acting administrator of Griqualand West, he published in the government Gazette the names of a commission which was to sit at various places and inquire into the causes of the war, but it never sat once.
And why?
Because it was found to be indubitably certain that the answer to every question as to the cause of the rebellion would be “land.”
In the month of August, 1878, all the volunteers, including “our boys,” returned to Kimberley, the latter having been more than nine months in the field, when the proceeds of the prizes captured throughout the campaign were equally distributed among them.
The reception given to the volunteers by the Kimberley people and the inhabitants of the Diamond Fields generally was most cordial and enthusiastic, reviews, balls and dinners being the order of the day.
As a resumé of the events of the war, I may here state there had been during the campaign fully twenty engagements, attended with considerable slaughter in the rebel ranks, from whom vast herds of cattle and numberless wagons were captured, while on the side of the volunteers the average loss amounted to little more than one man per engagement.
The rebellion brought attendant miseries in its train. The prisoners, including old men, women and children, were removed to Kimberley as soon as captured, and miserable objects they were.
In piercing cold weather, it being the middle of winter, with scarcely a stitch of clothes to their backs, they were sent up in wagon-loads, and penned like so many sheep in a yard adjoining the jail. In all they numbered some 700. During their confinement, extending over some fifty days, at the rate of three a day more than one-fifth died, and the survivors were exposed to public gaze in order that the townspeople might select those whom they chose for domestic service. The ravages of syphilis among these Griquas were perfectly astounding, scarcely a man, woman or child being free from its secondary effects. These prisoners of war, virtually slaves, soon one by one made their escape to their homes, and the government very wisely, on peace being proclaimed, did not enforce the terms of their apprenticeship.
But notwithstanding the victory achieved by our arms, native disturbances were not altogether finished. Shadows of a disturbance among the Korannas at the Salt Pan, near Christiana, darkening the air, Colonel Warren thought it better to nip any rising among these people in the bud. In this case there was “much ado about nothing.” The émeute commenced through a difference of opinion between a Koranna and a Dutch farmer concerning a cow, in which a German missionary took the part of the native.
The affair was so much magnified that Colonel Warren went up to Christiana accompanied by volunteers in January 1879, and sent for Hermanus Lynx, the captain of the tribe, and the German missionary to come before him. After inquiring into the affair Colonel Warren deemed it sufficient to put the missionary on his parole d’honneur, which parole the German missionary incontinently broke.
It then was deemed necessary to take more decisive steps, and a body of men were next day sent to the Salt Pan to arrest the “reverend” violator of the first law of honor, which was done, and he was brought back to Christiana, not, however, without the loss of one of the volunteers, who was killed by the accidental discharge of a gun by a Koranna.
After this all became quiet and the volunteers returned to Kimberley. The whole of the affair was much exaggerated, two men could just as satisfactorily have arranged the dispute between the Koranna and the Dutchman as two hundred.
Hermanus Lynx, the unfortunate captain of the Korannas, was confined for months a prisoner in the Kimberley jail, and Major Maxwell, the inspector of prisons, was compelled to state, when as vice-president of the legislative council I called for the papers in the case, “I have no warrant for his detention nor papers of any kind.” In a written statement which Hermanus Lynx afterward made, he imploringly said: “I want to know what I have done to merit my having been kept in prison for the past eight months. I have not committed theft nor killed any person.... I am not afraid.” As I have before mentioned I brought this poor fellow’s case before the council by asking the simple question: “For what crime and under what warrant is Hermanus Lynx confined a prisoner in the Kimberley jail?”
The illegality, the cruelty, with which this unfortunate chief had been treated would not bear exposure, consequently before the day came round on which my question must have been answered by the government Hermanus Lynx was a free man. This act of simple justice came too late to repair the injury done him. The government on his liberation supplied him with a tent, wagon and rations, but within a week he died on the banks of the Vaal River, ruined and heart-broken, having covered only twenty-five miles of his homeward journey.
Since the events chronicled in this chapter there has been no further disturbance among the natives in the country districts of Griqualand, for the possibly very excellent reason that there are no independent natives left.
About this time my colleague, Mr. George Bottomley, introduced an act into the legislative council amending the liquor laws of the province, which was much needed,[[64]] and I fathered a private bill authorizing the supply of Kimberley with water from the Vaal River; but with the exception of continued progressive diamond legislation (which has been elsewhere fully detailed) nothing further of particular moment came before the council that session.
CHAPTER XXII.
COLONEL WARREN AND MR. JUSTICE DE WET PUT THEIR HANDS TO THE PLOUGH.—VISIT OF MESSRS. SPRIGG AND UPINGTON. PIE-CRUST PROMISES.—MY PROTEST IN THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL AGAINST ANNEXATION.—DEPARTURE OF MR. ROSE INNES, C. M. G., LAST ACTING ADMINISTRATOR.—ELECTION FOR CAPE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY.
When Colonel Lanyon was sent by the imperial government to the Transvaal, Colonel (now Sir Charles) Warren was appointed acting administrator in Feb. 1879. His short “acting” career was characterized by procedures, which, if not strictly illegal, yet exhibited a great amount of impulsive self-will, which many times carried him a little too far. This was especially marked in his treatment of Mr. Advocate Lord, Q. C., the attorney general, which created for that gentleman, at the time, an immense amount of sympathy; Sir Bartle Frere, after he had fully studied both sides of the question, absolutely canceling the order suspending Mr. Lord from office, which he had made at the suggestion of the acting administrator. Such actions, however, caused less surprise when it was reported that Colonel Warren was also suffering from the effects of an accident, met with I believe, in the Perie Bush; but of this the public was not long kept in suspense, as a climax was reached in October of the same year, when the acting administrator had suddenly to leave the province, in the care of the government surgeon.
Griqualand West was then blessed (or cursed) with another acting administrator in the person of Mr. Justice de Wet (now Sir Jacobus), who administered the government until the arrival of his successor, Mr. Rose Innes, C. M. G., who in reality came like an assignee’s agent to wind up an estate, or in other words to prepare the territory for annexation.
To return to the visit of Messrs. Sprigg and Upington. As these gentlemen occupied the positions of premier and attorney general of the Cape Colony respectively, great importance was attached to their visit, as the conjecture was generally entertained that they had come to “spy out the land.” At a public dinner given them, these gentlemen gave forth what the inhabitants of the diamond fields thought no uncertain sound.
Mr. Sprigg, in his speech on the occasion, said: “That in the year 1878 the annexation act was returned with her Majesty’s assent, and it was signified to the governor of the colony that he was at liberty to put that annexation in force. The governor asked my advice on the matter, and I informed the governor of the Cape Colony and the governor of the province, when he was present himself, that I could not at that time advise that the act should be put in force, because I felt extreme unwillingness to annex any province to the Cape Colony against the wishes of the inhabitants;” while Mr. Upington was even more decided in his remarks, saying that: “He had seen it stated that his honorable friend and himself had come to Griqualand West with a view of doing something which, in the minds of some people at least, would be an injury to this province. He wished to give an emphatic denial to this statement.... They would seek to deal with the people of this province on the broad grounds of reason.... If they had intended to do anything against the wishes of the people why should they not have done it by a stroke of the pen in April 1878, or at any time down to the present day?... They had come to see the people and their representatives, to endeavor to come to a conclusion as to what would be the best for South Africa generally.” These utterances attracted much attention, but yet it was considered advisable to hold a public meeting and send a deputation to wait on Messrs. Sprigg and Upington. A meeting of 1,000 citizens was held in the Theatre Royal on Oct. 6th, 1879, when ten gentlemen, including the members of council, were chosen to form a deputation to wait on the above-named Cape ministers, but, as one of these, I came away as wise, after the interview, as before.
The inhabitants of Kimberley were, however, lulled into a sense of false security, in which they remained until Sir Bartle Frere electrified them by an unmistakable statement respecting annexation in his speech at the opening of the Cape assembly in 1880. In this speech he said: “In redemption of the undertaking given by the colonial legislature and confirmed by the colonial governor, we relieve her Majesty’s government of the responsibility of the administration of the affairs of Griqualand West. The bill passed for that purpose in 1879 will shortly be proclaimed, care being taken that the people of that important province shall not be left without legislation, at a time when a legislature in which they are not at present represented is actually in session.” What could be done? Remonstrances, petitions, public meetings, all had been tried and found to be of no avail. The elective members of the legislative council then made a move, and as a body supported a motion which I brought forward in June 1880, seconded by the member for Barkly, Mr. Paddon, to the effect “that in the opinion of this council the annexation by proclamation or otherwise of the province of Griqualand West to the Cape Colony would be detrimental to the best interests of the province, and opposed to the wishes of the inhabitants.” In a long and exhaustive speech I went through all the reasons against annexation, speeches to the same effect being made by the other elective members, when the attorney general, who no doubt had infinitely more respect at this time for the magnates of the Cape Colony than he had in 1884, when by bitter experience he found that it was vain to trust in “premiers,” proposed an amendment: “That in the absence of any public expression of opinion on the subject it is premature and unreasonable to ask this council to commit itself to the terms of the resolution, which is based upon the assumption that such opinion has been expressed,” and this was seconded by the treasurer general. On my calling for a division the president put the amendment—the president, the recorder, the attorney general, the treasurer general, in a word all the members of the government, voting for the amendment, and the elective members against, when the president, as a nominee of the Cape ministry, sent for a special object, exercised his right and gave the casting vote, which, of course, was in favor of the amendment, and against my motion—being “in keeping,” he said, “with the speech I considered it my duty to make.”
A fortnight after this a large meeting was held in the Theatre Royal, at which a resolution was passed approving of the action of the elective members, and thanking them for opposing the measure.
The position, however, was soon realized by many: That nolentes aut volentes we were to be cast off by the imperial government and absorbed into the unsympathetic Cape Colony; and perceiving that further opposition was useless, the inhabitants quietly accepted the inevitable, with the exception of a few stubborn spirits, myself among the number. Sept. 30th, 1880, the day on which was to be sounded the death-note of the autonomy of the province, at last arrived. The council met at the usual hour in the afternoon, but it could at once be seen that some unusual occurrence was expected. The acting administrator of the territory and president of the council, Mr. Rose Innes, C. M. G., sat at the head of the table, looking very solemn, while vis-à-vis at the foot I sat, supported by the members for Barkly and Hay. No member, either elective or non-elective, was absent. There was no vacant seat that day. The hall was crowded, many ladies coming to see the closing act of the drama which had for the last six years been produced under different managers in the small theatre of Griqualand West.
After prayers, the usual formal questions having been asked, I at once rose and read the accompanying protest against annexation:
“We, the undersigned, elective members for the Province of Griqualand West, having ascertained that it is in contemplation to enforce at an early date an act, No. 39, of 1877, entitled “To make Provision for the Annexation in this Colony, of the Province of Griqualand West,” hereby desire our protest against the same to be recorded on the minutes of this council previous to its dissolution, for the following reasons:
“1st. Because it was understood at the time the act was under discussion in the Cape parliament that it would be submitted to the legislative council of this province before any attempt would be made to promulgate it; Whereas this has not been done, neither have the wishes of the inhabitants of Griqualand West in any way been regarded—whether in respect to the expediency of annexation or the conditions upon which it should take place.
“2d. Because the measure of representation accorded under the act to the electoral divisions of the province is, we submit, in no way commensurate with its wealth, and with the intelligence and enterprise of its inhabitants, and judging from the past we have little hope in this respect of reasonable treatment in future at the hands of a Cape parliament.
“3d. Because the circumstances of this province differing entirely from those of the Cape Colony, demand the presence of a local government, with authority to deal at once with mining and other questions requiring immediate attention; consequently we anticipate that great injury will be done this province by the seat of government being removed so many hundred miles away.
“4th. Because the inhabitants of this province object to being mixed up in the party contentions of the Cape Colony, where the scramble for place and power seems to override all other considerations and to retard that progress which would otherwise ensue.
“5th. Because Her Majesty’s subjects in Griqualand West have in no way forfeited their right to be consulted as to the disposition of this province or the alteration of their political status; but, on the contrary, have shown their fitness for self-government by defending their country and even in assisting neighboring provinces during the late general war with the native tribes.
“6th. Because, although the people of this province are undoubtedly loyal to the Queen’s government, yet they do most strongly object to the action of the imperial authorities in thus handing them over to a government and a colony with which they have so little in common; and we, in our own name and in the names of our constituents, hereby hold both the imperial and colonial governments responsible for all untoward events and results which may follow on annexation.
“Therefore, for these above stated and other weighty reasons, we hereby request that this, our protest against the annexation of this province to the Cape Colony, may be recorded on the minutes of this council, and that a copy of the same may be forthwith forwarded to the colonial government and the secretary of state for the colonies.
“(Signed)
J. W. Matthews, V. P.
G. Bottomley.
I. Paddon.
H. Green.”
Then, as vice-president, I spoke against the measure and said, as reported in the local journals:
“In asking that this protest may be recorded on the minutes of the council, I may say I do so with a heavy heart, and that I find it difficult to restrain my feelings. It would seem that in the arrangements of this annexation all consideration for the welfare of this province has been overlooked. It was not so when Sir Henry Barkly was governor; he deprecated in the most emphatic manner possible the idea of governing this province from Capetown. Again, when Messrs. Sprigg and Upington were here recently, they saw, as Sir Henry Barkly had seen, the absurdity of such an idea, and in everything they said, both in private and public, they repudiated the suggestion of annexing this province to the Cape Colony. Mr. Upington was especially emphatic in his condemnation of such a policy. Is it not then a great outrage that in spite of all these protestations on the part of the Cape government we should be taken over without being consulted? It may be remembered that a public meeting which was called here to express sympathy with Sir Bartle Frere in connection with Zululand matters was very thinly attended, the people here showing by this their opinion of Sir B. Frere’s treatment of this province, and what they thought of the manner in which the petitions against annexation, emanating not only from the monied classes but also from the bone and sinew of the place, had been pigeon-holed and suppressed. There is no more right, there is no more reason, for us to be annexed to the Cape Colony to-day than there would be for Natal to be annexed to-morrow, which colony is simply nowhere in wealth and public enterprise as compared with this. [Loud applause.] We differ from Natal in many respects. I may remind you of one: when we were in danger, we defended ourselves with our own troops, and did not cry out for imperial assistance, we actually sent volunteers away to help the Cape Colony in its difficulties with Kreli and Sandilli, and are even now being called upon to assist in quelling a rebellion in Basutoland, the result of the latest blunder of the Cape ministry. [Hear, hear.]
“Some think that annexation will bring relief from the grievances under which we labor, but when they have to pay a tax on diamonds, have no administrator at hand to personally inspect and redress their complaints [hear, hear], what then?
“We may get a railway, but that is no certainty; we may get the advantage of a three-judge court, but these benefits are nothing in comparison to what we shall lose, when we lose our independence. For my part, I feel like a man who is unjustly charged with the commission of a crime. I feel like a man who has been wrongly convicted, but the jury have given their verdict and it remains with you, sir, as judge to-day to pass the sentence. As the mouthpiece of the law you must do its behests, but I protest against the passing of a sentence of capital punishment. [Loud applause.]
“So far as the elected members of this council are concerned they have done their duty to their constituents, they have resisted and protested to the best of their ability against annexation to the Cape Colony. I hope, however, sir, we shall soon recover our liberty under a wide scheme of confederation. I bow now to the inevitable. [Continued applause.]”
Messrs. Bottomley and Paddon, the junior member for Kimberley, and the member for Barkly, then also supported the protest which I had read, in short speeches, when Mr. Rose Innes, as if tired of the play, spoke the “tag” declaring the council dissolved, and the curtain dropped.
Thus was carried into effect the bill which three years before had passed the Cape assembly (No. 39, 1877), and which had nearly lapsed through effluxion of time. It was forced on with most unseemly haste at the finish, the provision in the 32d clause that the bill was to take effect when “all matters and things necessary to be done and to happen in order to enable the said annexation to be completed and perfected, have been done and happened,” being entirely ignored, the boundary line of the province, the most important “matter and thing” of all, not having been definitely settled.
Although we were taken over with all our liabilities and engagements, I am sorry to say repudiation has been, more or less, the favorite policy of the Cape government, so far as the “milch cow” of the colony is concerned.[[65]]
Mr. Rose Innes, C. M. G., having finished his work, left for Capetown, and Mr. P. A. Villiers, the acting colonial secretary, with all the public documents, title deeds and archives of the province soon followed in his wake, when instead of being a crown colony, with our own governor, and in direct communion with the imperial government, we found ourselves a portion of the colony of the Cape of Good Hope, and at the bidding of its responsible advisers!
Griqualand West was annexed to the Cape Colony in October 1880.
It was not until March 15th of the next year that an election took place for the return of two members to represent Kimberley in the Cape parliament. There were three candidates for the two seats. Mr. J. B. Robinson, Mr. George Bottomley, my former colleague, and myself. The excitement was most intense. The unlimited expenditure of money by the one, and the pertinacious sectarian adherents of the other, proved a formidable opposition, but the all-round support given the “red, white and blue” enabled me a second time to become the senior member for Kimberley. This election took place when the share mania was at its height, when money was very plentiful, and no ordinance being in existence forbidding brass bands, carriages, flags, rosettes, champagne and other little luxuries indulged in at such a time, the extravagant expenditure bore favorable (?) contrast with an English election in the “good old days.” As may well be imagined in a rich digging community some sharp practice occurred, but this was nothing in comparison with that which took place when the seat, which I afterward vacated, was filled up, for then the grave gave up her dead, the Capetown breakwater its convicts, and the natives “polled early and often” for the successful candidate!
The assembly was in session when Mr. J. B. Robinson and myself arrived in Capetown.
CHAPTER XXIII.
NATAL AGAIN.—COOLIE IMMIGRATION.—BISHOP COLENSO.—LAING’S NEK.—INGOGO.—MAJUBA.—INTERESTING INTERVIEW WITH GENERALS JOUBERT AND SMIT.—GRAVE-YARD AT MOUNT PROSPECT.—LADY FLORENCE DIXIE.—FIRST SESSION IN CAPE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY.
The first time I took my seat in the Cape house of assembly on April 5th, 1881, I listened to a debate on a motion introduced by the leader of the Dutch party, which confirmed me in the intention that I had previously formed of paying Natal a visit at the end of the session.
This debate was the first, I remember, which touched the question of Dutch feeling versus English, and was in reality the expression of a sense of gratitude by the Dutch party in the colony to the Gladstone ministry, for entering into negotiations with their brethren in the Transvaal after the defeat at Majuba, rather than allowing irritation at that defeat to prolong the war.
The debate led to the house agreeing to an amendment proposed by one of the members for Capetown, to the effect: “That this house desires to express its satisfaction at the cessation of hostilities in the Transvaal, and its earnest hope that all differences may be satisfactorily adjusted and a permanent peace established.”
Whilst listening to the various speakers, I became more than ever anxious to visit the scenes of the war just closed, and study on the spot the battlefields where in one campaign we had suffered three complete and disastrous defeats.
Before describing my visit to Natal, I must not forget to state that during the first session I sat in the Cape house of assembly the time was chiefly occupied by Basutoland affairs, and in discussing a vote of censure on the government with respect to the war in that country.
Being the senior member for Kimberley, and as it was not known to which side its members leaned, my speech on this subject excited considerable attention. It was generally expected that if the government were in the majority it would depend upon the votes of these members, and this conjecture proved correct, the result of the division being thirty-seven votes for the government and thirty-four against. The Sprigg ministry found, however, in a few days, that they could not carry on the government of the country, and resigned on May 9th. No business of any importance was transacted during this session after the resignation of the ministry, Mr. J. B. Robinson, my colleague, and I merely looking after the local interests of Griqualand West.
But to resume. Ten years had flown over since I had left Natal, and many striking events had occurred during that period. Langalibalele’s outbreak, his noble and successful defence by Bishop Colenso, Sir Benjamin Pine’s recall, Sir Garnet Wolseley’s five months’ politic interval, in which he “drowned the independence of the colony in sherry and champagne,” the Zulu war, and the dethronement of Cetywayo.
I was anxious as well to see what progress the colony had made in this interval, and once again have the pleasure of meeting the many old friends whom I possessed there. Consequently, when my parliamentary duties were over, I left Capetown in the S.S. Dunkeld on the 18th of June, and landed in Natal on the 23d. We arrived off the bluff in the middle of the night, and early dawn found me feasting my eyes once more on the glorious view of this land-locked bay, which recalled to memory many a pleasant scene of the past.
Gliding gently over the dreaded bar, and landing at daybreak, I made my way to the Royal Hotel, and after breakfast sallied forth to see what changes a decade had wrought. At every step I was agreeably surprised at the improvements which I saw. Streets, which ten years before were knee-deep in sand, I now found hardened, the town council having spent £40,000 merely in re-forming a few miles of the Musgrave Road leading to the Berea; trams hourly running, where in my time horses could barely walk. New buildings and fresh stores, a magnificent theatre, and a new town hall showing the progress of the place. All, however, were not satisfied. One old colonist I met frankly said, “Don’t be deceived, Doctor, there is no reality in what you see, all imperial money, another Zulu war would suit us just now.” I could not help thinking whether the signs I saw were the evidence of real progress or mere ephemeral prosperity, and I asked myself the question, “Has sugar, has coffee, has the Overberg trade done all this?” I knew that two recent and eminent visitors had taken a harsh view of Natal and Natalians, having formed but hurried opinions of the situation.
Froude and Archibald Forbes no doubt thought themselves competent to judge, but the one was just as far wrong, and acted as unfairly to the body of Natal colonists, when he said: “Many of these are no better than the mean whites in the Southern States of the Union,” as the other when he wrote that the leading attributes of Natal colonists are “untruthfulness, insobriety and swagger.” With due deference to Mr. Froude, I distinctly say from years of observation, there is no section in Natal low enough to be compared with the mean white of the Southern States, whom even the darkies themselves despise.
The mistake which both Froude and Forbes made was one which a well-known writer has described as the great error of the nineteenth century, viz, hasty generalization.
Resting a night I took train to Verulam, Victoria County, my old seat of practice. This line of rail was all new to me, having been laid since I left, though it ran through sugar and coffee plantations which I knew well. On arriving at Verulam I procured a horse and rode off to visit the various estates in the neighborhood: Redcliffe, the Grange, Ottawa, Hammonds, Waterloo, Trenance, Southburn, Sunderland, and others whose names have escaped my recollection, and their hospitable owners I saw again. Many of the estates, however, I found had been taken up by Mauritians, and the vacuum pan sugar boilers, as well as the field overseers, had mostly come from that island, in fact old residents told me that in the trains running to and from D’Urban there was now almost continually a complete babel of French, English, Hindustani and Kafir. I must say that I was disappointed with the general appearance of the coast. Coffee enterprise seemed dying out fast, no planting going on, the trees suffering from an insect, the “borer,” and from the leaf disease (Hemiteia Vastratrix), which has played such havoc in Ceylon. The extent of land under sugar had increased, but drought, low prices, and the competition of beet-root were making the planters look serious.
Another phase of affairs which struck me as assuming unmanageable proportions was the keen competition of the cheap-living Asiatic, who in the cultivation of small holdings could almost beat the European out of the field. When I saw these men, these crofters, themselves working their patches of ground, I was at once let into the secret of their success.
White men in Natal, as a rule, think manual labor in the fields derogatory. The only exception to this of which I ever knew was a settlement of Germans near D’Urban. From the feeling generally abroad I can easily understand the unpalatableness of Froude’s remarks when he wrote: “Here and there a farmer makes a fortune, but generally the whites will not work because they expect the blacks to work for them. The blacks will not work because they prefer to be idle, and so no one works at all.” After all there is a considerable stratum of truth running through this statement.
To return to the coolie question, Indians seem very loath to leave Natal. I find in the last Natal Blue Book that out of 33,343, comprising men of all castes landed from India since immigration began in 1860, only 2,141 have returned, the total number of Indians in the colony in 1884 being 27,276, of whom 17,241 were males and 10,035 females.
Gen. Sir J. J. Bissett, in an address to the electors of Alfred and Alexandra counties in June, 1884, recognizing the importance of this point, said: “With regard to coolies, I consider that they are introduced for a specific purpose, they should at the expiration of their term of indenture be required to return to India, subject to a maximum extension of term (say) to fifteen years in all. I consider that any benefit derived from them by a section of the community is very greatly counterbalanced by the injury their presence causes the colony, both directly and indirectly. I am also opposed to coolies holding land in this colony.”
In my opinion Sir J. J. Bissett’s views display a lamentable ignorance of the first principles of political economy, and are suitable to a timid mercantile community only, afraid of the further cheapening of articles of consumption. A great proportion of the Indians, both in the West Indies and in Natal, as soon as they have served their time and are free from their indentures, become in every sense thorough colonists; they buy property, invest their savings, “marry and are given in marriage,” and show no desire, as statistics prove, to return to India—differing entirely from the Chinese, whose sole object is to return home as soon as possible with every sixpence they can drain out of the country in which they have been living. To my mind the turning away of thrifty bread winners from a country sparsely populated by an infinitesimal working class of whites is the height of absurdity. There is not even the excuse on the ground of morality which the Americans have against the Chinese in California. Moreover, how would Sir J. J. Bissett treat the question of the increase in their population? Would the children born in Natal be allowed to remain there or not? Would he have the Indians under British rule treated in the same manner as the Dutch have since treated them in the Transvaal State, where, certainly without the “liberty, equality and fraternity” popularly supposed to pertain to republican ideas, they passed a law through the Volksraad, which was promulgated on June 10th, 1885, disqualifying “Coolies, Arabs, Malays and other Asiatics” from obtaining the right of citizenship, or from possessing landed property, and compelling them further, under penalty, not only to register themselves, and pay £25 for so doing, but also giving the government power to place them in locations;[[66]] or would he have them treated as they are in the other Dutch republic (the Free State), where it is contrary to law to let fixed property to Arabs, and where they cannot even procure a license to trade.
No! Thank God such outrages cannot be committed under the British flag! In Natal less false pride, greater economy and industry are all the requisites necessary to produce a competition vigorous enough to stem the tide of Asiatic intrusion. There is one fact, however, which Natal colonists have seriously to face which is that to every white man there are at least thirteen Kafirs and one Indian.
The great point to my mind is for the European element to retain the voting power within fixed limits.
After my visit to Victoria County I returned to D’Urban and took train to the capital, Pietermaritzburg. The railway again was all new to me. No pleasant rest at host Padley’s now, no exciting drive round the Inchanga, no gallop over Camperdown Flats! Simply a six hours’ monotonous railway trip.
The first sight I caught and the first hand I grasped on my arrival was that of good Bishop Colenso, who met me at the station. Ten years had passed since last we met, but how delighted was I to see the same penetrating eye, the same majestic figure, the same elastic step, and to hear the same cheery voice as in years gone by. I had a long talk with him and his talented and philanthropic daughter over the events which had occurred during the years that I had been absent from Natal. Church matters and matters of state kept us engaged until evening approached, when the bishop started for Bishopstowe, leaving me to spend the night with my friends in Pietermaritzburg. Bishop Colenso was indeed one of those few men “who never swam with the stream, who bravely strove to stem the current, and regardless alike of popular and aristocratic favor pleaded with his latest breath for what he thought to be right and just.”
Little did I think when he shook me by the hand on getting into his carriage that I should never see him again. It is a benign provision for us mortals that the future is wrapped in obscurity!
I left Pietermaritzburg the next day, June 30th, at 11 A. M., passed Howick and the magnificent falls of the Umgeni, and reached the Plough hotel, Estcourt, where I had a short rest. Leaving there at 2:30 in the morning I arrived at Ladysmith at noon, where we changed horses. The feeling against the “ignoble peace,” as it was called, I found increasing the nearer I approached the seat of the late war. In the hotel where the mail cart changed horses the landlord had just posted up the following notice:
Sacred to the memory of
HONOR,
The beloved wife of John Bull,
She died in the Transvaal and
Was buried at Candahar, March 1881.
Her end was peace.
and it was curious to see the soldiers and civilians crowding round the placard and to listen to their very candid if not complimentary remarks on the Gladstonian ministry.
Right opposite the hotel where we stopped was to be seen the large loop-holed laager, I should say, roughly speaking, about 300 yards square, which had been built by the villagers during the late scare. As we drove out of the village to Newcastle I saw how “in this weak, piping time of peace” the pomps of war could be utilized, for our parting recollection of Ladysmith was the sight of a large crowd of the youth and fashion of the neighborhood parading round a military band belonging to the troops stationed there, which was discoursing proud martial strains, a sorry satire on the situation!
In the afternoon, toiling up the Biggarsberg, we came upon a batch of Zulus, fine, strapping, jovial fellows, forming a large road party. At the moment what should appear in sight but two ambulance wagons full of our wounded men, just sufficiently recovered to be removed to one of the bare hospitals.
GRAVE-YARD AT MOUNT PROSPECT.—TOMBSTONES OF SIR POMEROY COLLEY AND COL. DEANE.
This sight was enough of itself to make all the Zulus stop work and “wau” with curiosity. Seeing some wounded men accompanying the ambulances one Zulu bursting with fun and grinning from ear to ear, shouted out, “Sakubona,” (“I see you,” a form of greeting) “Johnny! upi lo Dutchman?” (“Where is the Dutchman?”) of course a regular peal of laughter at once followed this sally of native wit. I can assure my readers, that as an Englishman I sincerely felt for our wounded soldiers thus tauntingly jeered at, and I was able to estimate the tremendous shock that our prestige had received among the aborigines. The Zulus recognized the situation at once, the only thing our poor fellows could do was to grind their teeth and curse their fate as they wearily trudged along, victims of vanity[[67]] and misjudgment, the defeated of Laing’s Nek, Ingogo and Majuba!
There is no doubt that the retrocession of the Transvaal was a violation of a series of guarantees which had been previously given. Not only Mr. Gladstone and Lord Kimberley, but also Sir Garnet Wolseley, Sir Bartle Frere, Sir Theo. Shepstone and Sir Owen Lanyon had over and over again declared that the Transvaal would remain English territory, and that under no circumstances could the annexation be reversed. These emphatic utterances were made long before the outbreak of hostilities, and consequently the withdrawal of English rule after the Dutch had gained four signal victories within nine weeks, could be interpreted only by both Dutch and natives as an act, not of principle and equity, but of weakness and defeat. My friend, Mr. C. K. White, one of the nominees appointed by Sir Garnet Wolseley to the legislative council, which he gave as a sop to the Transvaal Boers, in a letter at the time appealed to Mr. Gladstone in the following touching words: “If, sir, you had seen, as I have seen, promising young citizens of Pretoria dying of wounds received for their country, and if you had had the painful duty, as I have had, of bringing to their friends at home the last mementoes of the departed; if you had seen the privations and discomforts which delicate women and children bore without murmuring for upward of three months; if you had seen strong men crying like children at the cruel and undeserved desertion of England; if you had seen the long strings of half desperate loyalists, shaking the dust off their feet as they left the country, which I saw on my way to Newcastle; and if you yourself had invested your all on the strength of the word of England, and now saw yourself in a fair way of being beggared by the acts of the country in which you trusted, you would, sir, I think, be ‘pronounced,’ and England would ring with eloquent entreaties and threats which would compel a hearing.”
Mr. Gladstone, however, changed his previously declared convictions. On January 21st, 1880, he stated in the House of Commons: “I must look to the obligations entailed by the annexation, and if in my opinion, and in the opinion of many on this side of the house, wrong was done by the annexation itself, that would not warrant us in doing fresh, distinct and separate wrong by a disregard of the obligations which that annexation entailed;” or again on June 8th, 1880, when in answer to Messrs Kruger and Joubert who had written to him, asking him to rescind the annexation of the Transvaal, he said “our judgment is that the Queen cannot be advised to relinquish her sovereignty over the Transvaal.” Yet little more than a year saw this “pronounced” opinion totally changed, and all confidence in Mr. Gladstone and his ministry almost annihilated throughout the length and breadth of South Africa.
Proceeding on my journey I crossed the Ingagane, passed the forts in course of erection by our soldiers close to the river, the heliograph twinkling in the sun, and after a long, tiring journey arrived at Newcastle in the afternoon.
Newcastle lies on a large grassy plain and in the centre of a district containing no less than 1,350 square miles of workable coal[[68]] close to the surface; and in the near future destined to keep up the credit of its name when the mines have been properly opened up, it will be noted for this production, and then no doubt a railway to the coast being by that time un fait accompli will supply the traffic of the eastern seas.[[69]] Newcastle was in the zenith of its commercial prosperity during the late war, and even when I visited it its glory had not quite departed.
Wishing to proceed and see Majuba without loss of time, I found this would be an impossibility, at least for some days, had not Mr. Greenlees, an old resident, kindly given me his assistance and offered to drive me there himself the next day.
As a pleasurable interlude, especially in a place like Newcastle, a grand concert was advertised, which took place on the evening of my arrival, and the band of the 97th put forward as a special inducement. I went and saw a sight that I shall not soon forget. The “gods” were very uproarious and demonstrative, and not at all reticent in expressing their opinion. One singer, well known as a notorious bouncer about the power of England and the valor of her troops, on coming on was most cynically received. To me it was a mystery, but this was explained when he commenced to sing:
“In days of old, when knights were bold,
And barons held their sway;
A warrior bold, with spurs of gold,
Sang merrily his lay,”
for a terrific burst of pent-up anger seemed to thrill the “gods.” “Loop,” “Verdomde Englishman,” “Go and fight the Boers,” “Why did you run?” were the cries all round the hall, until the poor fellow slid away amidst the jeers and laughter of the audience.
Starting early in the morning, we were lucky enough to have as a companion a young colonial volunteer named Maclean, a relative of a former governor of Natal, who was one of the brave men who, after the day’s slaughter, stayed all night with the wounded on the battle field of Ingogo. Crossing the Incandu, our road lay past Fort Amiel, built during the Zulu war, and a twelve miles’ journey, ending in a precipitous rise, landed us on the plateau where the battle of Schuin’s Hooghte was fought. Then crossing the drift of the Ingogo, we breakfasted at Virmstone’s roadside inn on the bank of the river.
Just as we were once more inspanning to continue our journey, up rode Lady Florence Dixie and Sir Beaumont on their way to Newcastle. I was naturally pleased to have the opportunity of seeing a lady whose chivalrous defence of Cetywayo afterward had so much to do with his restoration, and with whose opinions on the late Zulu war and the treatment of the dethroned king I was so much in harmony. I may here mention that a few months later I had the pleasure of making Lady Florence Dixie’s personal acquaintance, when she and Sir Beaumont were passing through Kimberley.
But we had sixteen miles further to travel to Majuba, so on we went, leaving Mount Prospect and its cemetery on our right. We reached the foot of the mountain about 2 P. M. The views of Majuba from the road as we approached were simply grand, and it was hard to picture war and its horrors invading such a lovely spot!
I was again fortunate; at the regimental canteen at the bottom I met a corporal, who had been in all the three engagements, and persuaded him to guide us to the top, which he did, whiling away the tediousness of our mountain climb by relating his experience of the dreadful Sunday (never to be blotted out of South African history), and by recounting events of which he stated that he was an eye-witness, and which, whether his account was strictly correct or not, I prefer to leave unrecorded.
Greenlees, Maclean, myself and our guide all went up the same path, being the via dolorosa the English soldiers under Colley took on the ill-fated night of Feb. 26th, 1881, and not toiling, laden with ammunition and accoutrements, as they did, from 9:30 P. M. to near daybreak, but making the four miles’ circuitous ascent in three hours.[[70]] The top is just like a large soup plate, sinking down all round from the sides and flat at the bottom (about 420 yards long by 300 wide), so that no troops resting in the centre could see an enemy advancing up the sides of the mountain. Our guide told us the first intimation he got of the attack of the Dutch was from the consternation which seized every one, when the Boers, who had gained the summit from the Transvaal side, suddenly poured into them their first deadly general volley, although like other eye-witnesses he said there had been considerable desultory firing since daybreak.
This volley at once created such a panic that a regular stampede commenced, which the officers tried in vain to stop. It was sauve qui peut.
I had pointed out to me the perpendicular rocks, some as much as forty feet in height, where many of our men killed themselves jumping headlong down them in their mad retreat, bleeding, tumbling, dying one on the other.
There can be no excuse for the disaster of the day. The Boers themselves were astonished at their own success. Some apologists, I remember at the time, said our men were fatigued with the ascent, but yet they got to the top at 3 A. M., long before daybreak, and it was past mid-day when the Dutch fired the fatal volley which decided the issue of the day. Surely this gave hours enough for our soldiers to rest. Then who, I may ask, was responsible for the equipment of the expedition? Where were the Gatling guns and the rockets, which could have rained death and destruction on the Boer camp below? Why was no diversion made by us from our own camp at Mount Prospect? Who superintended the digging of the intrenchments(?) on Majuba? These and other questions will never now be answered. Again, about sixty Boers only gained the summit at first, therefore it could not be said our forces (554 rifles) were outnumbered.[[71]]
The very graves themselves bear silent witness to our blind retreat, for out of ninety-two killed that day only fifty-nine are buried on the top of the Majuba. The others, shot like game by the Boers in the wild run for life down the mountain sides, and who killed themselves in their panic-stricken flight, were buried below at the cemetery of Mount Prospect.
We remained at the top, enjoying a splendid bird’s-eye view of the Transvaal, the site of the Boer laager during the war, the battlefield of Laing’s Nek,[[72]] our own camp, etc., until the moon rose, when starting on our downward journey we reached the bottom at nine o’clock, and in half an hour were partaking of the hospitalities of Mrs. Greville’s hotel, where we discussed the merits of that eventful day, and the question of Dutch strategy versus English mismanagement far into the night.
Next day, before sunrise, I started for Mount Prospect, leaving my companions sleeping, overcome with the previous day’s exertions. A walk of three miles brought me to the cemetery, thirty yards long by twenty-six broad, which was surrounded by a double inclosure, the first built of sod, the second of stone.
The sunrise was magnificent, the air keenly crisp and clear, and the scenery, with Majuba filling up the background, I have never seen surpassed, but a more melancholy sight or one recalling sadder events to memory could not be seen the wide world over. Here in this little graveyard, all dead in vain, I saw quietly resting all that “outrageous” fortune had left of disappointed ambition, ruined hopes, and dreams of a glorious future! Far in the corner were the plain marble crosses erected to Sir Pomeroy Colley and Colonel Deane. Sir Pomeroy’s simply chronicled his death and burial, with the beautiful lines from “In Memoriam:”
“O for thy voice to soothe and bless—
What hope of answer or redress?
Behind the veil, behind the veil.”
while Colonel Deane’s spoke the truth of a valiant soldier “who fell in action at Laing’s Nek, at the head of a storming party, ten yards in front of the foremost man.” Alongside these were two little wooden crosses, pointing out the graves of Doctors Landon and Cornish. On Surgeon Major Cornish’s grave there was a beautiful wreath, with the touching words:
“Now the laborer’s task is o’er,
Now the battle’s day is passed;
Lands the voyager at last,
Safe upon that further shore.”
In fact the whole cemetery was like a garden of flowers, the graves covered with beautiful wreaths of immortelles, tributes from all parts.
I may here mention that I had the pleasure in August, 1886, just five years after making this visit and five years after the peace was signed, of being introduced at Barberton-the principal town on the Kaap gold fields, and elsewhere described—to Commandant General Piet Joubert and General Smit, who were the Boer commanders at Majuba. I had long been anxious to hear a viva voce statement of the Boer side of the question from some of the chief actors, and I eagerly seized the opportunity of “interviewing” the generals. On waiting on them according to appointment I was very courteously received. General Joubert I found to be a man who had seen some sixty summers, of middle height, with a tendency to corpulency, a greyish beard, sharp, dark eyes and a pleasing expression of countenance, though it was easy to see from his firm set mouth that he was a man possessed of great determination of character. There was no mistaking his nationality as his features were in the main those of the typical Boer. General Smit was taller, his features more regularly cut and of sterner cast, and with hair almost grey he looked just the determined man to lead a forlorn hope. General Joubert at once began the conversation by telling me that for some time he had considered it dangerous to allow the English forces the chance of obtaining the key to the position, which the occupation of Majuba certainly afforded, and acting on this idea he had determined to occupy the mountain, “but” he said, “before taking this step I was determined with the other commandants to make a thorough examination of the locality.” “All came to the opinion” continued General Joubert, “that the occupation of the mountain by the English was impossible, but I thought otherwise, and after this sent up a picket of fifty men each night. This was commenced on the Thursday night (Feb. 24th) preceding the eventful Sunday on which Majuba was fought, but by a remarkable act of Providence, the picket which was told off for duty on Saturday night, being composed of burghers newly arrived from Pretoria, lost the path up the mountain and spent the night encamped midway.”
“But,” I asked the general, “hadn’t Colley asked you to disarm?” “I will tell you,” he replied; “on Friday morning I received a message from General Colley calling on me to disarm, and saying he would send a dispatch to the imperial government representing the Boer grievances. I answered to the effect I could not do this without first getting permission of the chairman of the Triumvirate at Heidleberg, a process which would take four days. Now, I thought, all was right till Monday, and as a proof of my confidence, I even reduced my patrols. What made me also more certain was that on the next day I got a letter from President Brand telling me that there was every chance of negotiations for peace coming to a successful conclusion. I sat up late that night making copies of Brand’s letter to send to the Triumvirate at Heidleberg and to General Colley. On going to bed, I can assure you, I couldn’t sleep, my rest was uneasy and I tossed about till nearly four o’clock in the morning, when I called my boy to make a fire. Just as the day was dawning my wife, who had been with me only a few days, got up to make coffee. Going out of the tent she said, ‘see what lots of men are on the mountain!’ Suspecting nothing I merely said: ‘It is only our own people.’ She was not satisfied, however, but got my binocular, and looked again, when she called out excitedly: ‘Leave your writing! put down your pen! come here! the English are on the mountain!’ I ran out at once, there was no need for me to take the glass as I could plainly distinguish the English troops by their walk. I jumped on my horse, which like all other horses in the camp, according to general orders, was saddled at four in the morning, and rode at once to Franz Joubert[[73]] who had just come into laager the day before. ‘Now,’ I said, ‘didn’t I tell you the English would get up the mountain? Look, there they are.’ He wouldn’t believe me but insisted they were our own people. At this juncture I saw the men returning who should have formed the picket on Majuba the night before, and heard and saw two shots fired on them from the hill. I almost lost my temper. ‘Would our own people fire on us?’ I asked. ‘No! they are English, I say.’ When Franz Joubert calmly answered, ‘If that is so we shall have to get them down.’ Hurriedly telling him to go on up the mountain, while I would go back and send some more men, I galloped off to our laager. On my way I met my son with a message from General Smit advising me to come to Laing’s Nek at once as that might be attacked. So I left instructions for Veld Cornets Roos and Minnaar to attack Majuba on one side with about forty men, and the commandant of Utrecht with something like the same number would go up the other.”
“But tell me, general,” I said, “were the English fully aware that the Boers were really coming up the mountain to attack them?”
“Yes! of course they were, they knew it for eight hours, as it was five o’clock in the morning when they fired the first two shots, and it was one o’clock when we got to the top.”
“Then it was not, as it is alleged, a sudden attack in force which gained the day?”
The general smiled at my question. “How could it be when heavy firing was going on all the morning up to the very last moment.”
“When the top was gained by the Boers, what took place next?”
“There was no resistance, all was over in a minute or two.”
“But tell me, general, how do you account for the fact that 500 English should run before 60 Boers who had just had an eight-hours’ climb up the mountain?”
“I don’t wish to give any opinion,” said the general, looking serious indeed, “but I am certain the hand of God was with us all through.” Then waxing quite eloquent, he continued: “Men of mine, whom I knew were such cowards, that in Kafir wars even I have set them to cook the pots, advanced with determined step, impressed with the work before them, actuated, I am sure, by an Almighty power.”
Then, continuing the narrative, he told me how General Smit sent him word about three o’clock that Colley was killed and how he forwarded instructions that the body should be carefully guarded during the night with “all honor and respect,” and that the wounded should be laid together and covered up, the prisoners of war in the meantime being sent under escort to the Boer camp and transported the next day by wagon to Heidleberg.
Considering the state of utter demoralization in which our troops had apparently fallen at the time, the Boers having been victorious in every engagement of the campaign, all Englishmen may be glad that a sudden mist stopped the attack upon our camp at Mount Prospect, which General Smit told me the Boers had decided to make, or a yet more disastrous defeat would, I feel certain, have been chronicled. I was strongly impressed with the belief that General Joubert recognized a divine Providence in everything, as over and over again he said, “the hand of God was in it all.” I was also informed that when this sudden mist arose, hiding our camp completely from view, that he quietly said: “Look at the mist, the Lord won’t allow us to go;” seemingly, like Cromwell, he was a firm believer in the universality of divine interposition and so accepted the sudden mist as a command of the Deity! “Thus far shalt thou go and no further.”
General Joubert’s description of his interview with Gen. Sir Evelyn Wood, five days after Majuba, was very graphic. I asked the general to allow me to take notes, to which he consented—when lighting his pipe he began: “You must know, doctor, that five days after the fight General Wood sent to ask me if I would meet him half-way between the two camps. This I agreed to do, and we sent wagons and tents from both sides. There were myself, General Smit and Mr. Dirkhouse, as clerk on our side, and General Wood, General Buller and Major Fraser on the English. When I arrived, after wishing each other ‘good morning,’ General Wood asked me: ‘Have you authority to make peace?’ I answered, ‘Yes, on one condition;’ he said, ‘what is that?’ I replied, ‘the annexation of our country to be withdrawn.’ ‘Then,’ I added, ‘her Majesty’s troops can leave with honor, I want no more.’ ‘But if I sign such a peace, will all agree?’ inquired the general. ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘all must in accordance with our law.’ After some moments’ deliberation General Wood asked me whether or not I would make peace according to the terms offered in a letter sent by Mr. Kruger to General Colley through President Brand. I answered distinctly, ‘No.’ At last General Wood begged that the armistice might be extended to twenty days to give Mr. Kruger time to arrange about terms, when, after discussing the matter for some time, a further cessation of hostilities for eight days was agreed upon between us, and we left Buller and Fraser to draw up a document to that effect.
“As we were standing outside the tent while this document was being prepared, General Wood told me I should have to get away from the Nek, because it was English territory, but I said: ‘We don’t fight for ground, we don’t claim any; why should I go? If you mean to make peace, the closer we get the better.’ General Wood replied, ‘I shall have to force the place then and drive you away,’ and pointing to his breast, and counting his medals one after the other, said: ‘Look, there are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine medals, and if I pitch you out, another, which will make ten.’ I answered: ‘I must defend my country at all risks, and stand the consequences,’ He then looked straight at me and said: ‘Perchance you may kill me, but that is nothing; England has sixteen generals more.’ I then turned up my coat, and pointing to my breast, which was perfectly plain, said: ‘General, there is nothing here, and thank God, I want nothing behind that Nek there. I have not one single man to be killed for that. (I pointed to a medal on his breast.) We do not fight for glory, we fight for liberty, and for liberty every English general, I know, would also yield his life. We have not many generals, but although I and General Smit lead our men, each man knows he fights for himself and his country.’ General Wood then continued: ‘But what do you think of Colley going up the mountain?’ I answered: ‘I don’t know what to think; all I know is that I received letters from Brand and Colley only the day before, which tended to throw me off my guard, and while I was in the very act of writing answers Colley took the opportunity to go up the mountain.’ ‘And you drove him down?’ ‘I don’t say that, and I am glad no one behind that Nek says that either, but this I will say, that every man of mine when he looks at Majuba, when he looks at the top of that mountain there, thinks of nothing but the wondrous work of the Almighty.’ Wood seemed touched. ‘I am not an unbeliever; I also say my prayers,’ he ejaculated. ‘I am glad,’ I said, ‘to hear you say that, but do you know what we pray for? We don’t pray to conquer nations and annex countries; what we pray for is that Almighty God may so open the eyes of the gracious Queen of England that she and her counsellors may see what is justice and what is right, then we shall feel sure of our case and know that freedom to our country must come.’
“We then talked a little about Bronker’s Spruit and other incidents of the war, when, the document being finished, we went into the tent to sign it.”
Shortly after General Joubert concluded the above somewhat melo-dramatic description of his meeting with Sir Evelyn Wood, I took my leave, having spent a most interesting hour in the society of the generals.
Returning, however, to the description of my trip of 1881; when I got to the hotel I found all prepared for leaving, and after breakfast we started for Newcastle, intending to rest at Ingogo, as we had not time to visit Laing’s Nek (and moreover we could see the position from the road), where Colley’s first defeat took place on Jan. 28th, with a loss of 260 killed and wounded, and where Colonel Deane and Major Poole (Cetywayo’s old friend) were shot down. After a pleasant drive we crossed the Ingogo drift, the road gradually ascending until the plateau of Schuin’s Hooghte was reached, where Colley suffered his second defeat on Feb. 7th. Making a reconnaissance that morning with 273 of the 60th Rifles and 38 men of the mounted squadron from Mount Prospect, Colley was virtually lured to his destruction. The Boers retired before his advance, until having decoyed our troops to Schuin’s Hooghte, a high and perfectly unsheltered plateau, they opened a galling fire from the other side of the valley which intervened, a perfectly safe position for them. This was at 10:15 A. M., and until sundown our soldiers were nothing more or less than English targets for Dutch bullets. The field guns which Colley brought with him were useless; he had nothing to fire at but rocks, the Boers finding most excellent cover. The horses were shot down at the guns, the mules at the ambulance wagons, nothing living was safe for a moment from the Boers’ unerring aim. Maclean pointed out to me the exact stone, near the centre of the plateau, where Colley, Essex and Wilkinson took cover most of the day, and gave me a most vivid description of the field when, on a second visit next day, he found the place literally stormed by armies of cowardly vultures, attracted by the putrid effluvium from the rotting carcasses of the dead horses and mules. With my penknife I picked out splashes of lead from the crevices of the stones, as relics of the Boers’ accurate sighting. Wilkinson, brave young fellow, was drowned the same night in the Ingogo, when pluckily returning with comforts for the wounded, that river having become a sweeping torrent owing to the storm of rain which had been raging for some hours previous.
These poor fellows, left on the plateau in the rain, were totally deserted except by one or two, Parson Ritchie, Maclean and Dr. McGan, Colley having made good his retreat in the night with his troops and guns to Mount Prospect. There these men lay in a heap, the dying and the dead together, the pitchy darkness of that long, cold, wet, dreary night now and again relieved by vivid flashes of lurid lightning. Only 142[[74]] of our soldiers were sacrificed on this occasion. I went to look at one of the two inclosed grave-yards of these ill-fated men. In the corner of a little inclosure by the roadside I found tokens of the conflict and relics of our loss. The helmets of the dead soldiers, riddled with bullets, were promiscuously piled together, while all around could be seen traces of the desolation war had produced.
Turning to the Boer losses and casualties. The news of the Boers having taken the Amajuba mountain reached the Red Cross Association on March 6th, at Bethlehem, O. F. S., when its members at once left for Laing’s Nek, arriving there on March 16th. Dr. A. C. Daumas, in a report which he wrote to the secretary of the association, dated Aliwal North, July 29th, 1881, said:
“You may easily fancy what our astonishment was on being informed that although accepted with thanks, our services were by no means so urgent and necessary as we had at first supposed.
“In fact, the hospital established by Dr. Merinski, close to the camp, only contained in all one man sick and three wounded.”
Further on, in the same report, Dr. Daumas stated:
“It would be rather difficult to tell accurately the number of Boers encamped in this pass (Laing’s Nek), but I do not think I am far from the truth in estimating their number at 1,000 men.
“This small army subsisted there without the help of any commissariat; each man was obliged to provide himself with his own food, which consisted generally in a purely animal diet. He did not receive any pay, and had beside to get his accommodation at his own expense. His obedience to his commanders was absolute. The most perfect order prevailed in this camp, where, strange to say, there never was any drilling done. Far from being intoxicated with their victories, the Boers always showed themselves extremely modest, attributing all their successes to the protection of heaven.... But what remains to be explained is how an army of several thousand men may have been able to take the field and keep it during several months without commissariat, and especially without any medical service, and should not have been more subject to the class of diseases which are in time of war the ordinary sad attendants of all armies.
“Should not the reason of these facts lie in this, i.e., that owing to his sobriety and to the strength of his constitution the Boer has been able to resist the physical causes which produce those diseases; as also through his political faith, coupled with genuine religious faith, he has been able to bear up against the moral causes.”
There is no gainsaying the fact that all through the war the Boers had implicit faith in divine assistance.
Leaving Schuin’s Hooghte we hurried to Newcastle, and next day I left for Ladysmith, intending to catch the mail cart which runs from the Rising Sun to Bloemfontein, and so through the Free State to Kimberley.
Passing through Harrismith, the border town of the Free State, we came to Bethlehem, where I saw the handsome Dutch Church, just finished at a cost of £16,000, and passing Senekal at 5 A. M., nearly frozen in the pitch darkness, I arrived in Winburg at twelve, at noon. Dr. Dixon, the leading practitioner there, soon found me out, and dining at his table with some Kimberley speculators, on coal not diamonds bent, spent a very pleasant afternoon. The post-cart left at 6:30 P. M.; at eight next morning we were in Bloemfontein, and everything going favorably along, July 12th saw me once more on the diamond fields.
CHAPTER XXIV.
TRIP TO ROBBEN ISLAND.—DEAN NEWMAN’S DESCRIPTION THEREOF IN 1855.—OLD SOMERSET HOSPITAL.—LUNATICS AND LEPERS.—HORRIBLE SIGHTS.—LEPROSY AMONG ANIMALS.—DR. WYNNE’S OPINION.—MOURNFUL CASE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS.—DR. KEITH GUILD’S THEORY OF LEPROSY UNTENABLE.—ANNUAL COST OF LEPERS.—SEGREGATION ACT PASSED BY CAPE PARLIAMENT IN 1884.—DR. ROSS’ REPORT 1886.—VISIT TO CETYWAYO AND LANGIBALELE AT OUDE MOLEN.—MY WIFE’S INTERVIEW WITH CETYWAYO IN LONDON.
When not attending to my parliamentary duties during the session, I took the opportunity of visiting the various sights around Capetown, among others I went over to Robben Island and inspected the lunatic asylum and leper establishment, and to Oude Molen to see Cetywayo and Langibalele. As the treatment of lunatics had always been a branch of medical study in which I felt an especial interest, my readers can well understand it was not long before I paid a visit to Robben Island, where the principal of the three lunatic asylums, of which the Cape Colony boasts, is situated.
On applying to the under colonial secretary he gave me a pass for myself and my wife, by the Gun, a little steamer belonging to the government, which plies regularly twice a week to and from the island.
It was a fine morning when we left the Capetown pier, but a chopping sea soon told its tale, and we were all glad after an hour’s tossing to arrive at the landing place of the island, where we were carried ashore by the native boatmen employed by the government.
Here we were met by the late Dr. Biccard, the medical superintendent (formerly a member of the Cape assembly, before the advent of responsible government), who affording us every hospitality, showed us over the asylum after we had recovered from the effects of our trip across.
Robben Island is a sandy, dry, exposed little island in Table Bay, of about 3,000 acres in extent, distant from the mainland about six or seven miles, and covered with a short, thick bush, affording excellent cover to quails, pheasants and rabbits, all which game are found there in abundance.
It has been used as an asylum for lunatics and a refuge for lepers and pauper sick for nearly half a century, the removal of the unfortunates from the mainland being a suggestion of Mr. Montague, who was at the time colonial secretary—Sir P. Maitland communicating it to the home government as “a plan proposed by Mr. Montague.” Dean Newman in his memoirs of the last-named gentleman, written in 1855, gives a very graphic description of the island: “It is a spot of painful and touching interest still, the unapproachable asylum of the leper and the lunatic; the ultima linea verum, the last shore of the disabled sailor stranded there an utter wreck of humanity; the remote infirmary and resting place for decay and sickness hopelessly incurable! It seems a kind of half-way halt in departure from the world; for many of its sojourners have bidden the happy face of mankind and the spots of active life a long and last farewell;” and, after the sights I saw there, I felt I could fully endorse every one of the dean’s words.
Forty years ago old Somerset hospital was the only lunatic asylum in the colony, but the miserable accommodation it afforded and the wretchedness of its unfortunate inmates led Mr. Montague to recommend the establishment of a lunatic asylum on Robben Island.
To quote further from Dean Newman: “Robben Island appears destined, under all changes, to remain a spot of melancholy interest, cut off from the mainland by a wild sea, prevailing impetuous winds, and a distance of six miles—yet constantly in sight of it—it is a fit emblem of the miserable inhabitants who have in successive ages been transported there, severed from all association with the rest of their fellow men.
“For more than 150 years this island was the Dutch penal settlement and if the old record speaks truth most rigid were the punishments which were then inflicted. On the transference of the Cape to the English the island continued a convict station under British rule; but as we have seen there was no extraordinary desire manifested even then to make its discipline such as should reform the criminal or hold out to him the prospect of restoration to that society whose laws he had transgressed.
“When on a visit of inquiry to the island previous to the removal of the convicts he [Mr. Montague] noticed its healthy position and its fitness as a hospital for those whose complaints rendered it necessary for them to be removed from the less afflicted of their race.
“In his report on that occasion he thus refers to the suitableness of the island for patients and to the condition of the sick, diseased and insane who were under the charge of the government in different infirmaries, and establishments of the colony:
“‘As the salubrity of Robben Island has long been acknowledged, and there is abundance of stone, lime and labor on the spot to erect the necessary buildings, I would strongly recommend for your excellency’s serious consideration the expediency of removing the leper and pauper establishments of Hemet-au-Aarde and Port Elizabeth to Robben Island, also the pauper establishment of Capetown, and the lunatics at present confined in the Somerset hospital at Capetown.
“‘I have also visited the lunatics confined in the Somerset hospital; anything more wretched and inappropriate for its unfortunate inmates cannot be imagined than the lunatic wards; they are about fifty in number. There is no other lunatic asylum in this colony, and lunatics are sent to this one from all parts of the colony. It is quite impossible that the present mode of confining and treating these unhappy people can be much longer continued, a separate and proper building must very soon be erected for them somewhere, and I know of no place better suited for them than Robben Island.’”
When it was decided that the indigent and various patients in the hospitals of the colony should be removed to Robben Island, measures were promptly taken to erect suitable dwellings and infirmaries for their reception. The convicts were removed to road stations; the old convict buildings, which were much dilapidated, were pulled down, and this once barren scene, which had so long withered under the accursing influence of crime and the stern frown of retributive justice, began to smile under the beneficent influence of human kindness, sympathy and mercy.
There are now (1855) on the island about twenty buildings, with spacious apartments, airy, healthy and scrupulously clean. Externally the sunny, whitewashed appearance of the houses has an air of cheerfulness, and the neat church rising near them speaks of solace to the sick soul, as the rest of the institution does of care to the diseased body.
The establishment as reported in May, 1854, was:
| Men. | Women. | Children. | Total. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lepers | 38 | 20 | 8 | 66 |
| Lunatics | 49 | 53 | 4 | 106 |
| Chronic Sick | 106 | 21 | 2 | 129 |
| Total | 301 |
The division for the lunatics is commodious, well-arranged and striking from its great cleanliness; the chief occupation of those who are merely idiotic, or but periodically insane, being to keep it neat and wholesome. The sleeping compartments are ranged round two small court-yards, one for the men, the other for the women. In the day-time few of the lunatics are to be seen in the court-yard or dormitories, as the plan pursued by the medical officer is to allow all but the most violent and unsafe to roam at pleasure about the island. One is commonly set to watch another, and if you question A, whom you see on a strict and consequential lookout in some part of the island, on what he is so closely intent, with a sly smile he will point to B, and say, “I am taking care of that poor fellow;” but when you approach B and put a like interrogatory to him, he will tell you, casting a cunning glance at A, “I am looking after him, he is not quite right.” The less violent are used as servitors in the general establishment and perform much outdoor work about the island, and even take part in the management of the island boat which crossed to and fro to the mainland three times a week.
Amongst the most confirmed lunatics, who seldom go at large, are some painfully ludicrous cases. A sturdy black woman dressed in male appearance, if not absolutely in male attire, personates an African king, and certainly in words and imperious looks lords it over her subjects there, “in King Cambyses’ vein.” Another case from which the spectator almost religiously recoils is that of a little man from St. Helen’s, who is sane enough when spoken to on ordinary subjects, but if the Bible be mentioned, becomes instantly furious, and asserts that the New Testament (a copy of which he always has about him, and can read fluently in English and even quote with considerable correctness) is his gospel and that he is Jesus Christ. If reasoned with on this point he falls into such fierce paroxysms of wildness and violence as may well cause him to be taken for one of those demoniacs whom the merciful Saviour came to liberate and heal. But even with these most extreme cases, the lenient, judicious treatment which is practiced in this department, keeping the occasionally furious under close surveillance, rather than iron restraint, is found to answer far better than the old custom of the narrow cell, the griping gyve, and unmitigated confinement.
On a remarkably healthy and, as to aspect, cheerful spot near the sea, and commanding a fine view of Table Mountain and of the bold rocky coast behind it, are the buildings which contain the wards of chronic sick. Here are to be witnessed some of those sorrowful cases which are to be met with in all such asylums; such as slow wasting disease; the incurable maladies of the long sick, who have consulted many physicians and have been nothing bettered; the gradual sinking into the grave of those who have seemed for years upon its brink. For these, all that can be done is to relieve pain and make the last moments of life tranquil and free from want, and certainly at Robben Island this is done. The treatment, the dietary, the attendance, and even the kindness of one patient toward another, are here most praiseworthy.
I could see, on my visit, that although years have elapsed since this was written, every kindness was still shown by the officials to the unfortunates on Robben Island; still the surroundings were not such as could possibly tend to their recovery. The large ram-shackle buildings had an air of patchwork and decay, the yards were overcrowded, no employment or amusement could I see provided, except in the female ward, where I listened to one poor woman yawling out “Home, sweet home” on a piano more out of tune than her mind. A sad and sorry sight! Here, as in all similar institutions, there was every phase of this melancholy affliction to be observed. Since my visit Dr. Biccard has died, and the institution is now under the care of Dr. Ross, according to whose report last year there are now on the island 199 lunatics, some of whom have been there for thirty-five years. He states that but a small percentage of these cases can be looked upon as hopeful, owing to the length of time that has been allowed to elapse before they were brought under proper treatment. In one of his previous reports Dr. Ross observed: “If cases are treated within three months of the first attacks, four-fifths would recover, but if twelve months elapsed, four-fifths are incurable;” further, the material upon which to work is “very unpromising, and hence the fallacy of expecting European results when dealing with these life-long burdens on the country whose unsoundness of mind and unbridled passions render them equally unfit for liberty or neglect.”
I may also mention that there is under government supervision a hospital at Grahamstown, where last year 108 male and 67 female lunatics were in confinement, while old Somerset hospital is still used for chronic sick paupers, insane and female lepers, containing at the close of last year 55 male, 41 female lunatics, 141 chronic sick paupers, and 13 female lepers.
Leaving Dr. Biccard with the ladies, I walked on to inspect the lepers and the buildings in which they were housed. Here I saw human beings kenneled worse than dogs. In a long, low, thatched shed some forty poor creatures were stowed away. Both varieties of the disease, the tubercular and anæsthetic, could here be studied. Some I saw with their faces shiny, discolored and swollen, others with both hands and feet dropping off joint by joint; one man especially attracting my attention, whose nose, eyes, tongue and cheeks had all rotted away, and who, with a voice piping shrill and cracked, could barely make himself understood. He was a horrid, loathsome mass of putrid humanity. One fact, however, struck me at the time, that neither this man nor any of the other inmates complained of bodily pain. The building in which they were housed was such that I could not help picturing in my mind a spark igniting the thatch and a fire taking place in this hovel; how the poor wretches, sixty per cent. of whom were unable to leave their beds, would in their helplessness be burnt alive, possibly only too glad to find surcease of sorrow, at least in this world.
LEPER DEPARTMENT.—ROBBEN ISLAND.
Here were black, half-caste and white all mixed together in hideous confusion, but, thank heaven! no females; the latter had been removed, I learned, some time before to Old Somerset hospital, not alas, however, until cohabitation had produced its results in beings almost, I fear, inevitably doomed to a life worse than death, and recalling Coleridge’s lines in his “Ancient Mariner”
“The nightmare Death in life is she
Who chills men’s blood with cold.”
These woe-begone creatures were allowed to go to the mainland if they wished once every three months, according to the criminally absurd enactments then in force. Of this opportunity many availed themselves, never returning, but sowing the seeds of a disease, hereditary and possibly contagious, as some believe it to be, broadcast through the land with impunity.
The lepers were, as a rule, idle, insolent and insubordinate, and knowing the incurable nature of their disease reckless and desperate to a degree. Half-castes, Malays, especially those whose morality was below the average, or those whose diet was, as a rule, confined almost exclusively to fish, I was told were more susceptible to the disease than Europeans. On making inquiries I learned many horrible facts. Among others I found the bath-room and the kitchen to be identical, one place only being provided for them in which to live, eat, drink and sleep, the “wash” or refuse and almost certainly contaminated food actually being used to feed the pigs and poultry, and, “Horror on horror’s head” the miserable sufferers themselves could be seen rolling about in squalid filth, their clothes soaked and besmeared with the discharges from their festering sores. No one seemed to have power or inclination to manage them; neglected and forsaken, they were left to the charge of fellow lepers as helpless as themselves, Horace’s “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” never having a better exemplification.
Dr. Wynne, the assistant medical officer in charge, who has had considerable experience of this disease in Bulgaria and Constantinople, although not noticing among the common fowls the tender-footedness, bowing of the legs, incurvated claws, and the nodular articulations which are the earliest symptoms of the disease in animals, yet distinctly stated in evidence before a select committee of the house of assembly in 1883 that he had come across pigeons, mice, pheasants and turkeys unmistakably suffering from leprosy; and he further remarked at the time that “the communicableness of this disease to animals is a matter of great importance, for the reason that it may also be communicable to human beings through the agency of animals suffering from the disease being used as food.”
After seeing and conversing with these poor social outcasts, and at the same time having had convincing proofs afforded me every day, from outside sources, of the increase of leprosy among the lower and colored classes, I left the island with the conviction that nothing but complete segregation could ever stamp out this dreadful disease. The success which has since 1865 attended the complete isolation of affected persons in the Sandwich Islands, where leprosy was unknown before its introduction by the Chinese in 1848, as compared with the immense strides the disease was then making, should be an inducement to our legislators to adopt the most stringent measures here, the more especially seeing how widespread this terrible and loathsome disease is becoming. It may not be generally known, but it certainly bears out the generally received theory of the contagiousness of leprosy, that the apostle of the lepers of Molokai is beginning to pay the penalty of his heroism. Shut away from all civilized and healthy humanity, Father Damien has for years been a willing prisoner in the island in which are collected and confined the lepers of all the neighboring Sandwich group. For a long time, though cut off from the outward world, Father Damien continued in good health, though alone among the dead. But the stroke has fallen at last. In a letter written recently he says: “Impossible for me to go any more to Honolulu on account of the leprosy breaking out on me. The microbes have finally settled themselves in my left leg and my ear, and one eyebrow begins to fall. I expect soon to have my face disfigured. Having no doubt myself of the true character of my disease I feel calm, resigned and happier among my people. Almighty God knows what is best for my sanctification, and with that conviction I say daily a good ‘Fiat voluntas Tua.’” Where is the heroism which will vie with this? And does not Father Damien’s martyrdom tend to establish the contagious nature of the scourge?
The following extract from the “People’s Medical Adviser” (London), bearing upon the question, is interesting: “The following is a summary of an account in the New York Medical Record, of the first attempt to use a condemned criminal for the solution of an important and scientific question at the Sandwich Islands. It appears that more than two years ago the government procured the services of Dr. Edward Arning, for the purpose of having a thorough and scientific study made of leprosy. Attempts were made to cultivate the bacillus lepræ, which is uniformly found in the diseased parts, but not in the blood, by Kock’s method, using various media, but without success. Numerous inoculation experiments upon lower animals were made, but although the bacilli would grow at the points of inoculation for a long time, the animal never became infected. At last Dr. Arning obtained permission to make an inoculation upon a condemned criminal, whose sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life. With the convict’s written consent an inoculation of leprous matter was made in his arm, and bacilli were found in the sore or the scar up to fourteen months after the operation; no constitutional symptoms being observed. One further observation of importance was made by Dr. Arning; he found that in putrid leprous tissues, and even in the body of a leper who had been dead for three months, the bacilli were found in great numbers. This seems to bear against their specific pathogenetic function. Owing to difficulties with the health board, it is stated that it is highly probable Dr. Arning will be obliged to discontinue his work of research. With respect to the cultivation of bacillus, Dr. Neisser, of Breslau, appears to have been more successful than Dr. Arning, for he has recently stated that in a few cases he has observed an exceedingly slow growth, and he also claims to have recognized spores, which the Hawaiian observer has so far failed to do.”
I do not consider, however, that these experiments in any way prove the non-communicability of the disease, when we take into consideration the length of time (ten to fifty years) that leprosy takes to destroy the general run of its victims.
Not only can it be seen here and there over the whole Cape Colony, at Fort Beaufort, Malmesbury, Saldahna Bay, Caledon, Fraserburg, Calvenia, Clanwilliam, Hopetown, in Fingoland and Namaqualand, but even at Weeren and Alexandra County, especially in the Amapapeta location. In Natal its ravages are attracting attention among the members of my profession and philanthropists generally. In the latter colony a commission was appointed on January 27th, 1885, by Sir Henry Bulwer to inquire into the extent of leprosy then existing. The report of that commission was published in the Natal Government Gazette of September 23d, 1886, and conclusively demonstrated that leprosy was widely spread and was slowly increasing among the native population, and recommended as a means of checking the disease the enforcement of strict segregation. Surely some method for its arrest or eradication might be taken from the lessons taught by other countries and from experience of the past! After the crusades in the fifteenth century leprosy played sad havoc in Europe, but taking alarm in time the lepers were sought out and separated from their fellows, Norway being the only country in Europe where this system was not adopted, and while the disease has disappeared in other lands, in the last named, after the lapse of more than three hundred years, it still lives.[[75]] This disease is also found in Greenland, Iceland, where it is termed “likthra,” in Lapland and the Faroes, but in these more northern regions, as leprosy is not considered to be contagious, its victims are objects more of pity than disgust. I believe that many local, lay and professional men think it a far-off disease, entombed in biblical lore; if so let them at once disabuse their minds of this idea and learn that this awful malady is a rapidly increasing scourge of to-day, extending from the North Pole to the South, from Iceland to Australia, India and America; Africa and Arabia supplying their quota of victims. “It distorts and scars and hacks and maims and destroys its victims inch by inch, feature by feature, member by member, joint by joint, sense by sense, leaving him to cumber the earth and tell the horrid tale of a living death, till there is nothing human left of him. Eyes, voice, nose, toes, fingers, feet, hands, one after the other, are slowly deformed and rot away, until at the end of ten, fifteen or twenty years it may be, the wretched leper, afflicted,, in every sense, himself, and hateful to the sight, smell, hearing and touch of others, dies despised and the most abject of men.”
Dr. Keith Guild, M.D., district surgeon of East Griqualand, in a pamphlet published this year on leprosy, arrives at the conclusion that “leprosy is a blood poison arising from the combination of two other blood poisons, tubercular and syphilitic,” and goes on to assert that “leprosy among the natives of South Africa is neither more nor less than a form of tertiary syphilis.” There is a manifest inconsistency between these two statements, but if the latter be a correct one it must also apply to leprosy in general, which I myself would be very sorry for one moment to admit, for obvious reasons.
Looking upon this frightful picture, is it not time, I will ask, we were “up and doing” before it be too late?
To come down to figures: the cost of each leper on Robben Island is £63 per annum: while the total expenditure of the island annually, including lunatics in 1885, was £15,482, of which £5,000 was expended in salaries.
The following is a return of the leper patients admitted in the general infirmary, Robben Island, from the year 1845 to July 31, 1883, inclusive, the number remaining about the same, as fresh cases were only admitted as old ones died off:
| 1845 | 37 |
| 1846 | 35 |
| 1847 | 17 |
| 1848 | 26 |
| 1849 | 18 |
| 1850 | 14 |
| 1851 | 7 |
| 1852 | 13 |
| 1853 | 21 |
| 1854 | 14 |
| 1855 | 16 |
| 1856 | 15 |
| 1857 | 16 |
| 1858 | 19 |
| 1859 | 16 |
| 1860 | 13 |
| 1861 | 21 |
| 1862 | 22 |
| 1863 | 22 |
| 1864 | 12 |
| 1865 | 34 |
| 1866 | 19 |
| 1867 | 20 |
| 1868 | 21 |
| 1869 | 15 |
| 1870 | 24 |
| 1871 | 27 |
| 1872 | 17 |
| 1873 | 17 |
| 1874 | 19 |
| 1875 | 13 |
| 1876 | 17 |
| 1877 | 26 |
| 1878 | 19 |
| 1879 | 13 |
| 1880 | 15 |
| 1881 | 24 |
| 1882 | 21 |
| 1883—Jan. 1st to July 31st | 9 |
| Total | 744 |
After leaving these pitiable and miserable sights, Dr. Biccard invited our party to lunch, when we conversed with this genial old gentleman upon what we had seen, and over the past and future of the island. Then after enjoying a fragrant cigar with Dr. Wynne we returned to the mainland by the Gun on her afternoon trip.
Since our visit the government have decided to remove the lunatics to the mainland, having bought the farm Tokai near Capetown for that purpose, but at present the finances of the colony are at too low an ebb to warrant further expenditure, with a view to the introduction of any improved mode of treatment for these unfortunate people.
An act for the segregation of lepers has also been passed by the Cape legislative assembly (No. 8, 1884), which although a step in the right direction is exceedingly weak in some of its provisions. The main and vital point, compulsory removal, is altogether omitted, it being merely made lawful for the governor, on the certificate of a district surgeon or any other medical practitioner to the effect that a man or woman is a leper and the disease communicable, to authorize his or her removal, but no order is inserted in the ordinance that all lepers shall be brought before the district surgeon for such certificate, and that such certificate shall be acted upon.
Dr. Ross, the present superintendent of the island, states in his last report (1886) that “unless the segregation act includes a denial of all civil rights, the bastardy of all children born to lepers, and confiscation of their property for their public and special support and treatment, this horrible disease will never be stamped out.” Notwithstanding all the forcible lessons of the past I learn that the government (June 1886) are erecting wooden huts on the island at Murray’s Bay for the use of female lepers, thus holding out, as it were, a premium for the direct propagation of lepers; experience having shown that it is impossible to keep the sexes apart when located on the same island. The only saving clause is that very few children are born of leprous parents. I may here emphatically state my opinion that if strict segregation were enforced this dire disease would in half a century be a scourge of the past, and, I may add, that I am in accordance with all the best authorities in the belief that this is the only method by which this terrible and loathsome disease can ever be eradicated.
After spending a most agreeable and interesting day on the island, a pleasant hour’s sail brought us in the afternoon to the mainland, the sea having in the meantime become perfectly calm.
The next visit I made was to see trouble in a different guise, not the wasting of incurable disease, nor the visitation of a hopeless malady, but to see two men whose lives were being eaten away by the canker-worm of despair—Cetywayo and Langibalele! To those who have resided in South Africa during the last twenty years these names will recall many an anxious time to colonists, brought about, in my humble opinion, not by the desire of the colonists to do anything which was not legal and right—but in the first place by a want of tact in dealing with natives, and in the second from an uncontrollable infatuation seizing hold of one, spreading like an epidemic to all. Not two years had passed since “Cetywayo” had been in every one’s mouth, and had been the hero of the hour. Again had Bishop Colenso come forward to see fair play done to one whom he thought had been wrongly used, and again, as in Langibalele’s case, had he gained for himself the ill-will of the colonists. I had formed a decided opinion about these cases and was naturally anxious to study the “fons et origo mali” of each complication, and accompanied by my wife and various friends I paid Cetywayo several visits.
The drive of an hour in an open carriage, in such a climate as the Cape possesses on a fine winter afternoon, was pleasure enough to make even the Cape flats and bad roads enjoyable. Upon these despised flats, in an old Dutch house, with the usual lofty and spacious rooms, which, however desirable when adorned and well furnished, look gaunt and cheerless when neglected and empty, Cetywayo, the captive Zulu king, dragged out the weary days of his heart-breaking suspense. We were received by the king in a room that was bare save for a few chairs, and Cetywayo, a fine, large man, of dignified mien and sad, gentle expression, dressed in an ill-cut blue serge suit, and sitting ill at ease in an arm chair, looked a long way from being “at home.” He must have been a fine sight indeed in his royal kraal dressed in handsome umutye (tails, pronounced moochas) when in the height of his pride and state.
On one occasion being accompanied by Mr. Saul Solomon, M. L. A. (and “negrophilist” as he was by some called on account of his sympathy with and advocacy of the rights of the native, but a man and politician who had the welfare of his country as much at heart as the welfare of the native), we found on our arrival at Oude Molen that the interpreter was taking a walk, and a messenger was dispatched to call him. The king having evidently arranged himself to receive us, and growing impatient with the delay, came to the door and asked why we did not enter, my wife (who could speak Zulu) replied, “we are waiting for the interpreter.” Cetywayo answered, “what need for that when you can speak as well yourself,” and he insisted upon our entering then and there. Fortunately the interpreter arrived almost at once, and we did not run the risk of breaking any rule applying to visitors. Amongst other items of news we asked Cetywayo if he had learned from the newspapers (which he had translated to him every morning) that Mr. John Robinson (whom Cetywayo knew as a great supporter of Sir Bartle Frere) had been defeated in the election for the Natal legislative council, where he had held a seat for many years, when without speaking but uttering a soft pleased “Ah!” he shut his eyes, his face beamed, and passing his hand slowly across his mouth from one ear to the other, he gently drew in his breath as if drinking a long draught of some divine nectar. The news evidently gave him intense delight, and repeatedly jerking his thumb up and down he feelingly exclaimed: “What had I done to this man to make him my enemy, I have never even seen him?” and waxing warmer, he added: “Yes, Sir Bartle Frere is down and John Robinson is down too.”
We were told that Cetywayo enjoyed such visits as these, being a break in the monotony of his life. He was saved from vulgar curiosity by the government not allowing any one to visit him without a special permit. We found the women comprised in the household a great contrast to the quiet dignity of the king and his attendant chiefs; entering the room where they were at work making grass strainers and bead ornaments, they assailed us in loud, shrill voices, offering their wares for sale as if nothing more serious were on hand, being as keen to drive a good bargain as any professional peddler—it had not taken them long to learn the value of “filthy lucre.”
Walking on a few hundred yards we came next to the abode of a man who eight years before had set Natal in a blaze, had aroused the chivalrous feelings of its unswerving bishop, and had been the cause of its lieutenant governor’s recall!
Langibalele, or “the bright shining sun,” the cause of all this, we found sitting on the trunk of a tree at the side of a brick-built cottage, shading himself from the sun. Of middle height, blear-eyed, old, decrepit and almost in rags, he formed a sorry contrast to the dignified majesty of Cetywayo, whom we had just left.
I called to my recollection how, ignoring the orders of Sir Benjamin Pine, he had decamped[[76]] with his tribe and cattle over the Drakensberg into the Double Mountains of Basutoland, instead of answering a summons to come to Pietermaritzburg to explain the reason why the young men of his tribe had refused to register their guns; how made a prisoner by Jonathan Molappo, a Basuto chief, he was sentenced to convict labor for life and transported to Robben Island, and how Bishop Colenso, braving the prejudices of the Natal colonists, went to England, in the cause of justice and humanity, and exposed the whole matter,[[77]] that Langibalele’s sentence was reduced to twenty years’ safe custody on the mainland, and Sir B. Pine was recalled![[78]]
Shortly after parliament was prorogued Cetywayo had his heart’s desire gratified by being summoned to England, where his restoration to Zululand having been determined upon, the English government had thought it would be advisable to let him see some of the wonders of civilization before he resumed his power. The king was placed in the charge of Mr. Henrique Shepstone, a good Zulu linguist, and son of Sir Theophilus Shepstone, who was formerly secretary for native affairs in Natal. Cetywayo heroically bore the long sea voyage, being determined to leave no stone unturned by which he might possibly regain his forfeited position.
It may interest some to hear of him in London, so I will quote from a letter my wife’s description of a visit she paid to him as she passed through that city on her way to New York:
“I have just returned from making a call upon Cetywayo; it was a temptation after seeing him in his wretched Oude Molen quarters, just before I left Capetown, and knowing so well how he lived in his own uncivilized fashion, to see how he would look in a London drawing-room. Mr. Jonathan Peel was good enough to see our old friend, Mr. Henrique Shepstone, who is the special envoy in charge, and he most kindly arranged our visit.
“On our arrival we were received by Cetywayo with evident pleasure, who, seating himself on a sofa, waived us to chairs arranged in a circle before him. The three chiefs who had accompanied him were each seated in a corner of the room. One chief appeared to have three feet, as he had taken off one of his boots and carefully arranged it in line with his two feet—explaining to me in a tone of apology, that in walking the day before it had blistered his little toe. The poor fellows looked uncomfortable enough in European clothes, but there was no reason why they should have been rendered more ridiculous by wearing neckties with embroidered red rosebuds. Fancy sad, dignified Cetywayo with a red rosebud under his chin!
“Cetywayo opened the conversation by asking me how I came to be in London. I replied I had come as he had by steamer, and that I was shortly going further, to America, and I suggested that after he had seen England he should pay my country a visit. He looked at me, sadly shaking his head, and said: ‘I should not be here, were it not that I am as I am.’ I thought this answer for quiet dignity was simply perfect; it sounded even better in his beautiful Zulu than it does as I have translated it for you. Of course I could not allow him to dwell upon so painful a subject as his captivity, so I asked him if he had been much interested in the sights of London. Mr. Shepstone slyly remarked that the king was very anxious to see the German giantess on exhibition at the Alhambra, and that he expected to be altogether captivated. Cetywayo turned the joke by saying—‘he just says that about me, because he is in love with her himself.’ This fairly ‘brought down the house,’ and literally too, as Mr. Shepstone’s chair gave way under him at that moment, and this added to the general amusement. Cetywayo seeing a jet bracelet on Miss G.’s arm inquired the name of it, and declared his intention to take some ‘ujet’ ornaments back as presents for his wives. It struck me rather as ‘taking coals to Newcastle,’ as far as color went; but evidently his taste is neat, not gaudy. Cetywayo, growing restless, walked toward the window, when a shout from the crowd outside made him suddenly draw back, upon which one of the chiefs remarked, with the utmost disgust in his tones: ‘There they stand, from daylight till long after nightfall, and we don’t know what they want.’ Mr. Shepstone told us that at first Cetywayo was inclined to be very angry, deeming it great rudeness, but he had explained it to him that it was the delight they felt in seeing a ‘King,’ and this had somewhat appeased the poor captive. Mr. Shepstone now proposed that ‘the King’ should graciously indulge the people outside by returning to the window—which Cetywayo did, looking as if he felt they were making a fool of him, took off his smoking cap, and waited patiently while the crowd gaped and shouted ‘Hurrah!’ Shortly after this we left. Poor Cetywayo’s intense sadness, even when he laughed, made me feel quite sorry for him, even in spite of myself. You know I have never agreed with your absolute bearing toward his side of the Zulu war question. The friends who were with me, though biased against Cetywayo, admitted, after seeing him, that their feelings had become considerably modified.”
The subject of the Zulu war has been worn thread-bare by each party, for and against, from their own standpoint. Mr. John Dunn’s book is the last ray of light cast upon it. I shall not weary my readers by entering into the matter at any great length, but, as it were, take my stand between the two parties and express my humble opinion as a colonist of twenty-two years’ standing, and as one who has learned to appreciate and feel a sincere affection for the native. No one is really competent to judge this question, who does not understand—1st. The native character and the strictness of their etiquette in the reverence shown to superiors, breaches of which are no less important signs of troubles brewing than is the “small, black cloud, no larger than a man’s hand,” which precedes a storm, and—2nd. The defenceless state—indeed, the caged animal helplessness, of the Natal colonists. The Zulu appetite for “eating up”[[79]] was there without a doubt; Cetywayo having asked permission of the Natal government to “eat up” the Swazis. What more natural than that the colonists should fear that this unsatisfied appetite might be otherwise appeased upon the slightest provocation, and what could be more aggravating to the spirit of a proud, self-willed Zulu king, than the restraints civilization was seeking to impose upon him? The last two Zulu kings had been shrewd enough to see the advantages and protection which friendly relations with the English government afforded them, against their natural enemies, the Boers, with their grab-all policy. For this friendship and moral support, John Bull, of course, required some compensation—the abolition of cruelties toward Zulu subjects by their king, and the insuring of the safety of the Natal colonists, he thought not too much to demand. Alas! had there been a “Chinese Gordon” to tie what might have proved a gordian knot of mutual friendship and protection, all would have been well. But what happened? Who can take the responsibility of fixing blame upon any one individual, when so many “cooks” were engaged in “spoiling the broth,” either by omission or commission? Frere, Shepstone, Cetywayo, Dunn, Bulwer, Colenso and John Robinson, with his newspaper. It must be admitted that Cetywayo’s character was the natural result of inherited tendency. The absolute power, the custom of cold-blooded murders for trivial offenses, or rather, when convenient, suspected offenses, the immense standing army, the longing for wars and “dipping of assegais in blood,”[[80]] added to the haughty self-will and the insecurity of the position of an irresponsible despot, which a Zulu king enjoys, all made Cetywayo what he was, a neighbor to be feared.
Who shall bear the blame of the irritation caused Cetywayo by the “impudent behavior of messengers” sent to him by the Natal government, or the growing anger he felt toward the government and its messengers, on account of their “assuming authority not recognized by him”? I quote from Mr. Dunn’s book, who also says, Cetywayo despatched messengers with a letter to the Natal government stating his wish to go against the Amaswazi, and to this he received the following document:
“Reply of his excellency Sir Benjamin Chilley Campbell Pine, K.C.M.G., lieutenant governor of Natal, to Cetywayo, chief of the Zulu nation.
“Office of Secretary for Native Affairs,
“Oct. 22d, 1874.
“The lieutenant governor has received the letter sent by Cetywayo, and the reasons given for making war upon the Amaswazi.
“The lieutenant governor sees no cause whatever for making war, and informs Cetywayo that such an intention on the part of the Zulus meets with his entire disapproval.
“Cetywayo must also remember that the Amaswazi are almost entirely surrounded by white people who have settled in the country, and it will be impossible for the Zulus, if war is made, to avoid getting into difficulties with them.
“Many years ago the lieutenant governor sent a letter to the late King M’Pande, requesting him to allow the Amaswazi to live in peace from any further attacks of the Zulus; he promised to do so, and has kept his word.
“The lieutenant governor trusts that what he has said will be sufficient to deter Cetywayo and the Zulu nation from entertaining such a project.
“By command of his excellency,
“(Signed)
“J. W. Shepstone,
“Acting Secretary for Native Affairs.”
And John Dunn adds: “The above letter made the king change his plans, although it enraged him, as I could plainly see.” Again John Dunn says: “From this time the tone of Cetywayo toward the English government began to change, and I could see, from the constant secret meetings which took place, that his intention was to make war somewhere; but I did not for a moment believe it was his intention to fight against the English, although I could see that he was greatly exasperated at the tone of the government, assuming an authority over him that he did not think they had a right to do.”
Then if we consider the refusal of Cetywayo to give up the men who made a raid into Natal (see appendix, ultimatum, clause 10, etc.), but instead was busy massing his warriors, and further, the recollection still fresh in the memory of all (when my own father-in-law had to fly for his life), how Cetywayo’s uncles, Tchaka and Dingaan, had swept Natal time after time, until “before Tchaka was killed” by his brother Dingaan, “he was supposed to have destroyed a million of human beings,” who will blame the anxiety of the colonists, especially when at this time the native tribes in the Cape Colony and Griqualand West were all engaged in rebellion against the English government?
The next factor in this war was the annexation of the Transvaal by the English government, professedly as a protection against the natives. The land dispute between the Transvaal and Cetywayo (see appendix, ultimatum clause, 3 to 10) had to be taken with the republic, and now the task of appeasing both parties in the matter was more than any government could possibly accomplish. The delay in settling the disputed land question had led to an impatient act on Cetywayo’s part (see appendix, ultimatum, clause 4). The English government, knowing well all the weary years of waiting which Cetywayo had borne, might well overlook this action; but when it did at last appoint a commission to settle the question, Cetywayo received a part only of the land he claimed.
Whether the idea was right or wrong, that now the Transvaal had been annexed the view taken by the government was changed by self-interest, it is no less a fact that Cetywayo was disappointed, and fresh fuel had been added to his disaffection.
At this time Sir Bartle Frere had come upon the scene, confederation being his mission. The danger of an army of trained warriors, 50,000 strong, at the command of an uncivilized king, on the very border of little Natal, was a very great obstacle; and considering Cetywayo’s sullen attitude, what colony in its senses would agree to be confederated with a little colony having such a danger upon its borders? Time can never prove whether Sir Bartle Frere’s judgment was right or wrong in sending the ultimatum and outrageous demands to Cetywayo which forced the war upon him.
There was one man, Mr. John Dunn, who might from his thorough knowledge of the Zulus have averted this war; unfortunately his attempt was delayed until too late, (See appendix—John Dunn’s letter to the Aborigines’ Protection Society). In Mr. Dunn’s book,[[81]] which is very interesting reading, he does not tell us of any effort he made with the Natal government to prevent the war, and one cannot help wishing that he had gone earnestly and unceasingly to work, both with the English government and Cetywayo, with that persistency which surely tells in a good cause. Possibly John Dunn did not realize the situation in time.
CETYWAYO’S WAGON CROSSING THE INPOLOGI RIVER, ZULULAND.
The recollections of Isandhlwana, Zhlobane and Ulundi make one’s blood run cold; but terrible as this war was, the cruelty and wickedness of having brought it about, could time prove it to have been unnecessary, cannot compare, in my mind, with the cruelty and wickedness of the disastrous Zulu settlement by Sir Garnet Wolseley and the after neglect of the Zulu nation by the English government. It was “adding insult to injury” to place these people under petty chiefs, and the whole nation became demoralized. They would have respected their conquered king even if he had had to accede to all the demands of the ultimatum and to owe allegiance to the English government, and they could have accepted a conquering power more especially when that power was the marvelous English. This latter disposition is what they naturally would have expected. But to place them under petty chiefs was just to set them again at the old game of one chief “eating up” another until one became supreme. When at last Cetywayo was restored it was simple cruelty not to have established him firmly and protected him from all danger. Sad indeed would Bishop Colenso have been had he lived to see the restoration of Cetywayo for which he worked so earnestly. It was poor “justice” that left the king, having destroyed his power, to the mercy of his enemies, and to die very shortly from poison or a broken heart! No one could have expected Cetywayo to resume his old footing among his people through any love they bore him. What does any native chief ever do to make himself beloved? The Zulus possess a dog-like fidelity toward their chiefs, and they may be proud of their conquests, but when we consider that Cetywayo could hold his position by the utmost severity only, ruling by fear rather than love, we cannot be surprised that his restoration without support was an utter failure. Even upon Cetywayo’s death it would not have been too late for England to annex the Zulus and accept a noble mission. With the natural fidelity of the Zulus, how easy a matter, with firm, kind rule, to gain their love as well!
What a field for civilization and Christianity! Supposing a governor had been appointed, laws made to keep the Zulu country for the Zulus, and laws also for their moral good, such as no spirituous liquors allowed, etc., what might not have been made of them? What is the consequence of this shirking of responsibility? As Cetywayo received no material support from England his son and successor was foolish enough to appeal for help to his father’s old enemies, the covetous Boers, who true to their nature have managed to gain possession of the better half of Zululand, and nothing has been done for the improvement or benefit of that grand Zulu nation—the war has brought them ruin only, when it might so easily have resulted in good. England in shirking this responsibility appears to me in the same cruel, sinful light as a mother who leaves her helpless, illegitimate babe on the door-step of a stranger.[[82]]
CHAPTER XXV.
VISIT TO BASUTOLAND.—PITSO AT MASERU.—INTERVIEW WITH MASUPHA.—GENERAL GORDON’S APPOINTMENT.—PITSO AT LERIBE.—ROMA.—THE ROMAN CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT MISSIONS.—MAFETING.—EAST LONDON.—SIR DAVID WEDDERBURN.—ARRIVAL IN CAPETOWN.—CAPE ASSEMBLY RESIGNATION.
Some time before the opening of the fourth session of parliament in 1882, in course of correspondence with the Hon. Colonel Schermbrucker, M. L. C. for King William’s Town, I proposed to him that before parliament met we should make a tour through Basutoland, and see for ourselves the real position of affairs and the condition of the country, especially as so many conflicting statements were afloat. We agreed to meet at Maseru on March 1st, 1882. Determined that this appointment should be kept to the day, I left Kimberley at noon on Feb. 26th for Bloemfontein, en route to Basutoland.
Arriving at Boshof, a rising Free State town, in about six hours, we changed horses, and proceeding on our journey spent the whole of a delightful summer night, which a brilliant moon lit up as light as day, in speeding over the plains of the Free State. But what torture we suffered between this place and Bloemfontein! The wagonette in which we rode was sadly out of repair, and I thought myself lucky in getting the back seat, but, alas! being also the lid of a box, the hinges of which were broken, it was misplaced by any sudden jolt, so I found myself as often in the box as out of it.
I had not seen the neat little town of Bloemfontein for ten years, but I found it had not developed much during this interim. My previous errand had been of a very different kind. Then the whole of the state was in painful suspense on account of the critical state in which their president, Mr. (now Sir John) Brand, was lying. The executive, fearing the worst, determined to obtain further medical opinion upon his case, and sent to Kimberley for Dr. Dyer, a leading practitioner there, and myself, to post over with all speed. Our consultation with the president’s physicians was not hopeful, and we left, expecting the worst; however, some days after our return we learned that the disease had taken a favorable turn, and we had the satisfaction in a few mails to hear of the president’s gradual restoration to health.
During the few hours that I rested at Bloemfontein I had the pleasure of meeting his honor again, older and greyer certainly than he was ten years before, but looking full of health and vigor, “his age like a lusty winter, frosty but kindly.” He was sitting in his private room in the magnificent block of government buildings erected lately by the state. On introduction, he recognized me at once, spoke feelingly of the past when last we met, and asked me to dinner, an invitation which I was unable to accept, owing to my previous appointment with Colonel Schermbrucker on the first of March, which I had barely time enough to keep. I started the same afternoon in a special cart for Ladybrand, and traveled again the whole of the night. After “moving accidents by flood and field,” overturning the cart, losing the mules, getting wet through and nearly drowned in the Modder River, I at last outspanned for a couple of hours at Modderpoort, ten miles from Ladybrand, a mission station conducted by members of the Anglican brotherhood, who had been settled there since 1870. Father Douglas, the present head of the community, kindly showed me round the mission station. I saw the pretty stone church with its stained glass windows and solemn aisles, and the substantial mission house for the priests, but that which interested me most was the sight of the cave at the bottom of the garden in which during the early years of the mission Father Beckett, the founder, used to live. This good old priest, after years of arduous work, was called to his rest last year (in 1884), regretted by the whole country side.
MASERU, BASUTOLAND.
Bidding farewell to Father Douglas I reached Ladybrand at 6 P. M. “All’s well that ends well,” a good rest and sleep enabled me to start early next morning for Maseru, escorted by a well-known Basuto head man named Makolokolo, who with an escort of ten men had come to meet me. The scenery between Ladybrand and Maseru is magnificent, the mountains, with the grassy plains rolling between, to one who for years had seen nothing but heaps of diamond debris and tailings from washing machines seemed inexpressibly and over-poweringly grand. As we rode on to the drift of the Caledon we passed a long range of hills, where I saw the first signs of the war that had been raging. By faint curls of smoke high up the hillsides, mounting in the air, my attention was drawn to the presence of a number of refugee Basuto women and children living ensconced in caves, who had received permission from the Free State government to squat there pending the settlement of affairs.
Galloping quickly on, at ten o’clock I arrived at the drift of the Caledon River crossing to Maseru. I found the river running in torrents, the pont or horse ferry, damaged the day before, unworkable—in fact the late heavy rains had upset everything, but there, on the other side of the river, exact to the day and hour fixed months before, I could see my friend, the colonel, waiting. A hearty shout of recognition and welcome greeted me, and jumping into a boat I was safely landed on the other side, in Basutoland.
Our progress to Maseru from the Caledon River, about a mile, was one triumphal procession. As members of the Cape parliament who, the loyals knew by report, sympathized with their sufferings, Colonel Schermbrucker and myself were heartily welcomed by these poor broken-hearted people. They regarded us as men who would be able from personal knowledge and inspection to bring their cruel wrongs and sufferings before parliament, reveal their exact condition, and show the world, at least the South African world, the sad plight and the miserable state in which their loyalty and their belief in the flag of Old England had landed them.
Hundreds met us on the banks of the river; the crowd, “lumelaing” (saluting) us and singing and dancing their war dances, and increasing in numbers until our arrival at Mr. Trower’s store when we arranged with the leaders to have a meeting or pitso in the afternoon.
Maseru is a prettily situated village just on the confines of Basutoland, and during the war was an important rendezvous and depot. By good fortune I found an old brother, if not in arms in lancets, Dr. Cumming, stationed here, who invited me to accompany him to the camp of the Cape mounted rifles, when I spent a pleasant hour lunching with him and other members of the staff.
A splendid view of Maseru and the surrounding country is obtained from the high plain on which the camp was pitched.
From our open dining tent I could see on one side the winding Caledon, rushing along in torrents, on the other the grassy plain with the camp and its surroundings, whilst in front, below us, lay the pretty village of Maseru with its houses and stores, its trees and its gardens, and the residency which a short time before had witnessed a most plucky and successful defence against the attacking hordes of Masupha’s rebels. As a background to this lovely scene, three hills nicknamed by our troops, “the world, the flesh and the devil” completed the picture.
In the afternoon there was a large meeting of the loyal Basutos, and we heard from their own lips the story of their sufferings. Among the speakers was Sofonia Moshesh, whose magnificently built stone house I afterward saw in the distance when going to Thaba Bosigo, Makolokolo, a clever, far-seeing man, whose opinion was much thought of by the Basutos, Inodi, Jacob Matseke, N’tsane Moshesh, whose house surrounded by a forest of 2,000 gum trees is a sight ever to be remembered. The enthralled attention and eager anxiety of the assembly struck me very much, and it was impossible not to feel for men like Sofonia Moshesh and N’tsane Moshesh who had lost everything by their loyalty to the government. but who still trusted, still “hoped on” that justice would be done them.
The petition which was to be presented to parliament setting forth their grievances, and praying the house to allow three chiefs they had chosen to appear as their spokesmen at the bar of the house, was signed by all present, and the pitso broke up with loud cheers for the Queen.
After the pitso was over I walked up with Colonel Schermbrucker to the residency, saw how the place had been stormed and riddled by bullets on the day of the memorable attack on November 20th, 1880, and then went to see the accommodation provided for the “loyals,” of which we had heard so much. Tents all tattered and torn, affording no shelter from either the wind or weather, we found were the only housing provided for these loyal natives, who by obeying the orders of the government had been rendered destitute, robbed of their cattle, driven from their gardens and their fields, from house and home! We came away impressed with the fact that the conception formed by our loyal friends of England’s justice and power must be very mythical indeed.[[83]] Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s graphic and powerful description of the condition into which the province of Oude was brought by the emissaries of Warren Hastings is exceedingly applicable to the condition in which we found these deluded people. Well could they also say “this damp of death is the mere effusion of British amity! We sink under the pressure of their support!... They have embraced us with their protecting arms, and lo, these are the fruits of their alliance!”
Next day we rode through Ladybrand to Ficksburg, a distance of sixty miles, accompanied by Makolokolo and some ten mounted men. Arriving late, after a hard day’s ride through a country not at all interesting, we rested the night, having previously arranged to meet the chief, Jonathan (the late chief Molappo’s son), and his people at Leribe on the following day. Starting early next morning, we were met on this side of the Caledon drift by 200 of Jonathan’s men on horseback sent to escort us to Thlotsi Heights, the seat of the magistracy, and the place where hundreds of his men (loyals), driven from their homes by the rebel Basutos (like those whom we saw at Maseru), were squatting together depending on the government for food and protection.[[84]] Crossing the Caledon, the chief Jonathan met us, and Colonel Schermbrucker introduced me to him.
MOLAPPO’S HOUSE, NEAR LERIBE, BASUTOLAND.—INTERVIEW WITH LOYAL BASUTOS.
This chief is a noble specimen of the Mosuto, not very tall, but well made, though slightly stout, and with an intelligent and frank expression of countenance. He was attired in the undress uniform of a British officer and magnificently mounted. He conducted us to his house at Thlotsi Heights, where we had coffee and rested about an hour, when we started for Leribe. I shall never forget my ride. The whole of the Basutos who were at Thlotsi Heights joined us, every one mounted. Jonathan provided horses for Colonel Schermbrucker and myself, and we rode in front, Colonel Schermbrucker on one side, I on the other, the chief in the middle, with a cavalcade of at least 500 mounted men behind. The morning was bright and cheery, the air seemed charged with electric freshness, the grassy turf was like a spring-board, so never drawing rein, we raced along to Leribe, doing the nine miles in forty minutes.
On arrival I was astonished at what I saw; we off-saddled in front of two large stone houses,[[85]] built about ten years ago by Molappo, one for his white visitors, the other for his own use. The accompanying view I took at the time. The interior was beautifully furnished, and even pictures graced the walls, and this right in the heart of Basutoland, where civilization was supposed to have scarcely penetrated.
We rested a short time, were then invited to partake of what was really a fine dinner, after which we spoke to the large gathering of Basutos who had assembled to meet us, and listened to their mournful story, when after signing the petition[[86]] for me to present to parliament, the meeting broke up by singing the national anthem.
Mr. Maitin, the son of a much esteemed French missionary who interpreted for me, took at the time full notes of what the different speakers said. All their observations were to the point, and the quaint manner in which they were put well illustrated the shrewdness of the Basuto character, evidently wishing to imply only, amidst the tale of all their cruel sufferings, the one fact ever brought to the fore, “civis Anglicanus sum.” These notes he afterward sent to the Cape Times, from which paper I make a few extracts.
After giving some introductory remarks which I made to the large assembly, Mr. Maitin proceeds to report more in extenso what fell from the different natives of standing present.
Piet Makolokolo (to whom I have already referred as a man much trusted by the loyals), Sofonia, Kampa, Jacob Moseki, and other prominent men told their tale of suffering and neglect. Koadi’s and N’tsane Moshesh’s speeches, however, I give in full, as they contain the gist of what the other speakers said.
Koadi said: “I am very glad to see Dr. Matthews amongst us, and I was glad when he came to Maseru. I am very thirsty and I believe he can help in quenching my thirst. In short, I will state I agree entirely with what has been said by Sofonia, and with the petition which has just been read to us. We approve of what it contains. I ask you loyals if we speak truth in that petition? Your answer is ‘Yes.’ I will be short, as time is pressing. We are now in great misery. We are men who cried out to those in power to do something for us. Now I ask what are they going to do? I fully agree with Sofonia; he is right in saying the loyals are all crying, suffering, and in misery for their loyalty. He is right in saying before the rebellion we were rich, free, and independent, but now are poor and suffering.
“Yesterday some of my men came to me and complained of the bad tents, which do not afford shelter from the rain and cold, and reproached me with having persuaded them to follow the government. I do not say for a moment we have been wrong to remain faithful to the government. We all know that we received the Queen’s government from the hands of Moshesh, and as far as I am concerned I will be faithful to the government till the government casts me off. I have still, even now, great faith and hope, as I see a member of parliament amongst us, which proves to me that the colony will see us righted. As Sofonia says, we were killed because we were faithful. Must we die again? I hope if the first doctor fails the second will cure us. I think our petition contains all we wanted to say.”
Question from Dr. Matthews: “What has Koadi lost?” “I have only lost five head of cattle, taken from the Free State, but my people lost cattle and horses. My great loss is one greater than any amount of cattle, and that is my ground and my rights. Those who rebelled fought because they wanted the right of the ground, which I have lost, and which is my great loss. As a grandson of Moshesh I had rights and lands, with which I could do as I liked. When we were told about disarmament, before the rebellion, and were ordered to give up our guns, I came three times to Colonel Griffith, and told him I did not wish to separate myself from my gun, and he answered me by taking the Peace Preservation act, and saying, this is the law. I did not like to give up my gun, but I obeyed the law. Mr. Sprigg then came to Basutoland, and when Colonel Griffith informed us he was here I went to see him, and Colonel Griffith introduced me to the then colonial secretary; he asked me to state what I had lost, and he said that my property should be restored, and that the governor would protect my life and property. I will not relate how we were nearly destroyed, as Colonel Schermbrucker, who was our commandant, can witness on Oct. 20th, 1880; he has remained faithful to us during all our troubles. We hear it is peace, but we do not see it. I am glad Dr. Matthews took the trouble to come to us. I want to show him our food (an old biscuit was here produced); this is the food the government gives us, the government which promised us protection; we are often sick after eating this provision. The government was not able to protect us last year, so during the war we were well fed, but now this is the description of food we receive. I should like Dr. Matthews to take a walk and see our houses, huts and tents, and the manner in which we are now living, and, if he could go and see our old homes, villages, etc., and compare them. When you do compare them you will know who are the people who have suffered much, and what they have suffered. During the war the rebels did not suffer, because they had all our property and everything they wanted; they are still now the masters of the country, and of our property. We have been in this state of destitution for two years. Many of the present people are chiefs, but they are so badly dressed that you could take them for common people, and this is one of the results of their loyalty. It is a great pity that Dr. Matthews has not more time to spare, otherwise every one could speak to him. I blame Mr. Sprigg for our condition, because he made us promises, but it was not his fault if they were not carried out, because he had to go out of office; it was for his successors to fulfill those promises. I again thank Dr. Matthews for all his attention.”
N’tsane Moshesh followed in the same strain: “I greet Dr. Matthews and all the loyals. I cannot say how thankful I am that he has taken the trouble to come and see those men who remained faithful to the Queen. Moshesh handed over to the Queen his country and people, and here are the few people who remained faithful. I thank Dr. Matthews for coming here to see our miseries and to ascertain the true state of affairs. I endorse every word stated by Sofonia and Koadi. I have nothing to add. The petition contains the substance of our feelings, and every word of it is true, and I have only to thank Dr. Matthews for his trouble. I do not want him to think that because we are black we have no feelings. It is perfectly true what Koadi said—that we deceive our people, for they ask us now: ‘Where is the protection of the government?’ Another thing is, we speak only for Maseru, no loyal has been able to return to his home. Sofonia, Lefoyane, Koadi and myself were the first who said we would go back to our homes—we were anxious to do so, because we valued them. I went to my village according to Mr. Orpen’s[[87]] order, and found all my land divided between Theko Letsie and Mama Letsie; and who divided thus my property? who, but the man who calls himself the head of the loyals, Letsea, my brother! As it is stated, in the petition my ground, etc., cannot be valued in money, and I will never accept money as compensation. Cattle, horses, etc., are nothing, but to lose my rights as a chief grieves me. In cattle I lost 370 head—government gave me three! Every one knows how my village was planted with blue gum trees; there were 1,862 trees beside houses and other property, and now I live in a tent. I cannot state all that I would like to say as time is so pressing.”
After finishing this speech, all the Basutos, as I mentioned before, signed the petition, and I closed this most interesting interview by a few words of encouragement, to which Koadi, in the name of all present, replied: “I return thanks to Dr. Matthews for the loyals, and I am glad to hear there is hope of justice for them in the breast of Englishmen. We have heard of Moses, but we have no Moses, but perhaps you will be our Moses, and deliver us out of Egypt.”
The pitso being ended I rode back to Thlotse Heights, and bidding “good-bye” to Colonel Schermbrucker, who went to Ladybrand, I spent the night at the house of Dr. Taylor, the government surgeon. In the morning the chief Jonathan came to see me. We had a long talk on Basutoland affairs, and on leaving he presented me with a valuable pony as a memento of my visit. I left for Ficksburg next day and pushed through to Maseru, where I arrived late at night.
Before taking my trip to Leribe to interview Jonathan and his people I wrote a letter “greeting” to Masupha, asking him to grant me an audience, and also leave to visit “Thaba Bosigo” (the mountain of night), where he was living. On my return I found a message waiting me from Masupha, giving me the requested permission, and saying that he would be glad to see me. So early on the following morning (March 7th) I left Maseru with a native escort under Koadi, a grandson of Moshesh, passing the Berea on my left, which was the scene of the terrible disaster which befell Gen. Sir George Cathcart, then governor of the Cape Colony and high commissioner, in 1852, of which the following is a brief outline:
The general, at the instance of Mr. Commissioner Owen, then in the sovereignty (now the Free State), had advanced in November of that year with some 2,000 troops as far as the Berea to demand of Moshesh 10,000 head of cattle and 1,000 horses for not complying with an award of Major Warden’s forbidding him to cross over the border line between Basutoland and the sovereignty under penalty of giving offense to the Queen and incurring a severe penalty.
With the troops he had with him (Colonel Hare of the 73d regiment) taking the advance command, Sir George ascended the Berea mountain, the top of which forms a large plateau, in three places, to attack that wonderfully astute barbarian and punish him for breaking his agreement. There was a heavy mist on the mountain at the time, and our men mistaking the Basutos for so many cattle, on discovering their error fled panic-stricken. Some in retreating jumped over precipices in the mountains and were killed, while the others who escaped continued their flight far into the night to Platberg in the sovereignty. More than one hundred officers and men lost their lives on this occasion, and it is said that the general never returned to bury their bodies, this melancholy office being performed by the missionaries in the neighborhood. Moshesh, next day, diplomatic enough, was profuse in his excuses for the attack, and sent cattle as a token of his submission, which General Cathcart was only too glad to accept.
Going a little further I passed Boquatie, a curious village of people who came from the Vaal River in 1833, and at noon I arrived at the French Protestant mission station of the Rev. M. Jousse, situated in a lovely nook at the foot of Thaba Bosigo. Riding here from Maseru I was able to gain some insight into the richness and fertility of the country. For miles and miles, across a splendid valley, nothing could be seen but waving corn; its luxuriant growth, however, did not surprise me when on crossing the deep water gullies I could see no end to the depth of a continuous alluvial deposit. M. Jousse’s station was a sad sight to contemplate. Here was a church seated for 800, a boarding school with accommodation for fifty native girls, a day school, a mission house with every token of French elegance and polish, gardens with rare fruit trees and a yard around, kept scrupulously clean, while melancholy indeed was it to find all this virtually useless; the war had put a stop to the civilizing influence of the good missionary! The school was empty, the church deserted, he alone remaining at his post waiting until “wars and rumors of wars” had passed away.
M. Jousse accompanied me to Masupha’s and kindly interpreted for me. We found preparations had been made for our visit.
Under the shade of a spreading tree near his house skins had been laid and chairs arranged, Masupha showing unusual civility by receiving us at once. I had heard many reports of Masupha’s drinking habits, but he was quite sober. Of middle height, well dressed in European costume, a little beyond middle age, with a slight nervous twitching of the face, I now saw before me the man, black though he was, who had defied and was still defying the Cape government! Deep, clever and crafty, this was the man who had out-manœuvred ministers and statesmen! Lepocquo, with several other of Masupha’s sons and councillors, were present. Masupha freely went over the course late events had taken and closed our interview by saying: “As far as the loyals are concerned I will never have them back, before the war they were always quarreling, now it will be worse; as to the magistrates, they ran away of their own accord when the war began, it is now a question whether they should be allowed to return,” and, continuing, he said, “you talk about hut tax, refer this to a pitso of the nation, and as to guns, Sprigg has got five, he is kicked out,[[88]] so must the gun-tax be, too.”
I came away feeling that it would require millions of money and thousands of men to alter this wily chief’s determination to remain entirely independent. The Cape government had also become aware of the exigency of the case, and this led them to inquire whether her Majesty’s government would permit them to obtain the services of Maj. Gen. Charles George Gordon, C.B., R.E., “for the purpose of consultation as to the best measures to be adopted with reference to Basutoland,” and “to assist in terminating the war and administering Basutoland.” Chinese Gordon accepted the invitation of the Cape government, but found on his arrival in the colony that the only post offered him was that of commandant general of the colonial forces, a post he had refused two years before. Although General Gordon came to the Cape with the sole object of quelling the rebellion in Basutoland, yet he accepted this appointment, looking upon it merely as a temporary one until another position could be found for Mr. Orpen, who was then British resident in Basutoland. Gordon, on May 21st, addressed a minute to ministers on the Basutoland question. In this it could be seen he had intuitively grasped the position, and did not believe in setting up brother against brother, or in other words hounding on the Basutos to destroy one another. His various memoranda on this and other subjects were passed over in silence by the Cape government, although, believing in the opinion he had formed, he had offered to go and live as resident with Masupha for two years in order to settle matters.
About this time Mr. Sauer, secretary for native affairs, met General Gordon at King William’s Town and begged him to go with him to Basutoland. Gordon reluctantly consented, as he had formed an opinion diametrically opposed to Orpen’s policy, and thought his presence would be of no service; moreover, after his interview with Letsea (a chief supposed to be acting in concert with the government), he had become more convinced than ever that the government were taking steps in the wrong direction.
Mr. Sauer then persuaded him to visit Masupha, as a “private individual,” to see what could be done, but, can it be believed, at the very time General Gordon was undertaking this journey a force under another loyal chief, Lerothodi, Letsea’s son, was actually sent to attack Masupha.
By sheer force of character and moral power, which were his great levers, he disarmed Masupha’s suspicions of treachery as far as he, Gordon, was concerned, and was allowed by that chieftain to leave “the false position” into which the Cape government, or rather the acts of one of its ministers, had forced him.
ROMA MISSION STATION (ROMAN CATHOLIC), BASUTOLAND.
Gordon telegraphed his resignation to the Cape government as soon as he arrived at Aliwal North, which was accepted, and he soon after left the colony. The unnecessarily insulting and narrow-minded conclusion to the telegram sent to the general by the Cape premier, Mr. (now Sir Thomas) Scanlan, is now, since that hero’s lamented death, a subject of such world-wide ridicule that I may be excused quoting it once more: “I regret to record my conviction that your continuance in the position you occupy would not be conducive to public interest.” It will ever be a source of gratification to me that I had the opportunity of meeting this noble man.
To return to my narrative. M. Jousse accompanied me several miles on my road to Roma, the principal Roman Catholic mission station in Basutoland, which is built on land given to the Roman Catholic community by Moshesh in October, 1862. Our road ran around the foot of Thaba Bosigo by the pass where Wepener was shot in the Boer war with the Basutos, and past Job’s village, which fringed, so to speak, the mountain with cultivated trees and with houses built in European style. Passing St. Michael’s, another R. C. mission station, I descended into the valley and wound my way round to Roma. This station is most picturesquely situated. At its back a range of hills protects it from the south wind, while just in front a pretty mountain stream runs along, lazily turning a mill wheel as it courses by. The fathers (oblates of Mary) received me most hospitably. They showed me over the station, consisting of a fine mission house, two long double-storied buildings, one used as a dormitory for boys, of whom there are at least fifty resident, the other for girls, whose number, though about the same, varies.
These buildings, together with the necessary workshops and tools for teaching the boys various trades, a separate cottage for visitors, and a large church capable of holding 1,000 people, shaded by a perfect forest of gum trees, afford an example of what energy and perseverance can accomplish. I must not forget to mention as well that the garden in front of the mission house, arranged in beautiful terraces planted with orange trees, vines, fruit trees and flowers, conveys of itself at once the presence of refinement and civilization. I was fortunate enough to be in time for evening prayers, and heard the magnificent intoning of the Basuto boys, their voices severally blended being perfectly wonderful.
In Basutoland there are at the present time in connection with the French R. C. mission seven stations, five priests, three brothers and eighteen nuns, belonging to the community of sisters of the Saint Famille of Bordeaux, the first members of which sisterhood arrived at Roma in April, 1886, following Monseigneur Allard, the Rev. Mr. Gerard and Brother Bernard, who came up to Moshesh, the paramount chief of the Basutos, in October, 1862.
At Roma, the head station, named by Moshesh Motsi wa M’a Jesu, “the village of the Mother of Jesus,” there is every Sunday an average attendance at the church services of 800; and I am authentically told that the number of natives who every Sunday attend the different churches belonging to the mission throughout the country is at least 1,500. This is, however, nothing when compared with the attendance at the various grand feasts of the church, where at Roma alone it is no unusual circumstance for 6,000 or 8,000 to congregate. New Year’s day may be called their national fête. This year Letsea, the paramount chief of Basutoland, attended the ceremonies at Roma on that day, accompanied by an immense retinue of mounted followers; the throng was so great that a rustic altar was erected amongst the trees, “and a grand and singular spectacle it was,” the Rev. Father Deltour tells us, “to behold these thousands of sable figures, massed together under these trees anxious to witness the great act of Christian worship.” He further goes on to describe the incidents of the day: “Never in my life did I witness such perfect order and instant obedience in such a multitude. It was simply wonderful.” The paramount chief addressed the meeting in the following words, which I quote from a letter of the reverend father:
“‘I came to Roma, as the Rev. Father had invited me, and right glad am I that I did come and witness the work that is carried on in this mission. Here the Rev. Fathers and the Sisters sow the seed of peace and of religion. This is a village of peace and prayer. In their prayers they invoke the help of the Holy Virgin, as the Rev. Father has explained this morning; and in my opinion they are right. It is prayer that sustains our life. Basutos, be united to your chief, be one nation under one chief, or you will divide yourselves and be lost. Look at the stream which descends from the mountain; it gathers strength because its waters are not divided, but run compact toward that mighty something which I know not, and which is called the sea. Do likewise and you shall be strong. Let the Fathers and the Sisters pray for our Basutoland; let them pray for rain, which is so much wanted. Pula!’
“In response to the royal speech a tremendous ‘Pula’ burst forth from all, and was echoed far and wide by the surrounding mountains.
“After Letsea had spoken and the meeting was over, the cliffs and rocks of the mountain side almost in an instant were covered with spectators anxious to see the races, in which a hundred horses ran, in the presence of an excited multitude. As evening drew nigh and the sports were drawing to a conclusion, the mass of people retired, no visitors remaining in the village.”
The Basutos are, as a rule, in their heathen state, unreliable, lustful, intemperate and overbearing, and the work of the missionary as he strives to render them faithful, self-controlled and modest is an appalling task, but one undertaken in full faith of divine guidance.
The French Protestant mission, which has its headquarters in Paris, first began its operations in Basutoland at Morija in 1833. It possesses at the present time fourteen head stations and eighty-two out-stations, with a staff of twenty-one European missionaries and 122 native catechists and schoolmasters. In 1884 the number of church members was 4,988, and of day scholars in the schools 2,947.
At Morija, the head mission station, there is a training institution for young men who study for the Cape elementary teacher’s certificate, a Bible school for the education of catechists, together with a printing-press for the issue of a bimonthly periodical in Sesuto called “Leselinyana” (or Little Light). So it can be seen that Protestants are vying with Roman Catholics in spreading religious training and instruction among this people.
During the late war, however, there was a distinct difference to be noted between the influence exerted by the R. C. missionaries and the Protestant. The Protestant, as a rule, interfered and even still meddle with politics; they showed themselves partisans of the late Sprigg ministry, and the consequence was that their influence declined, their congregations fell away, and their schools became deserted. The R. C. priests on the contrary, ignoring politics entirely, feeling their duty to be more spiritual than temporal, were rewarded by having their schools and churches as well attended during as before the war. As an instance of the estimation in which they were held, two personal friends of mine, Fathers Libihan and Cretinon, in December, 1880, were ordered by their bishop to proceed to this very place, Roma, in the heart of Basutoland. The war was just then at its height, when having to pass Thaba Bosigo, where Masupha, the head centre of the rebellion, was living, they were hospitably received and entertained until the following morning. Though I am a Protestant myself, I cannot but recognize that this speaks volumes in favor of the non-political interference of my R. C. friends, and the esteem in which they were held by the Basutos. Let any Protestant missionary have attempted this at the time, his life would have paid the penalty of his temerity, and a just punishment, too, I should have considered it; the mixing of religion and politics among natives like Basutos, being, in my opinion, an unpardonable mistake. This difference between the conduct of these respective ministers with regard to public matters was recognized even by the Boers in their war of 1865–68.
Bidding the hospitable monks adieu, I left Roma next morning in a pouring rain, with the guides provided me by the chief Jonathan, having made all the arrangements to catch the Capetown steamer at East London.
Stopping at Khorokhoro to breakfast, I continued my journey through a country mountainous in the extreme.
Leaving the Morija mission station (French Protestant) on my left, I was caught in a fearful thunder-storm, the rain coming down in torrents, but I luckily found shelter in a hut in a small native village which lay in my road.
Entering, I found myself in the midst of a Basuto family, consisting of father, mother and seven little girls from four to twelve years of age. Here I had the opportunity afforded me of noting the truth of that which had often been told me concerning the rapid progress in learning, the precocity in fact, distinguishing Basuto children. If either Mr. Moody or Mr. Sankey had been with me, their hearts would have leaped with joy; here in the heart of Basutoland I found the noise of the outside storm drowned in the music of some of their popular hymns. The chief favorites, sung over and over again, were “Ntoa sa Balumeh” (Hold the Fort) and “Mali a Konyana” (The Blood of the Lamb). No sight ever impressed me more with the important position music and hymns hold as factors in the progress of evangelization.
Luther’s enemies once said that he worked more harm by his songs than his sermons, and I felt that the same might in the nineteenth century be repeated by enemies of the Christian faith concerning these two celebrated American revivalists. even in the wilds of Africa.
It would be impossible to picture or portray a more peculiar scene! Outside, the howling of the raging storm, the peals of rolling thunder, the flashes of vivid lightning and the plash of the torrents of rain; inside, the Basuto youngsters stark naked, myself and guides crouching over the fire drenched to the skin, while strains familiar in years gone by were sung with all the vigor and fervor of aboriginal youth! As soon as the storm had passed over I rode quickly to make up for lost time, and crossing the dangerous drift of the Salt River, rested at the Boleka ridge thirteen miles from Mafeting. This was as far as our forces ever advanced during the war. The road goes over a ridge which is not very steep, and is a gap in the mountain chain. At the village close to the roadside I saw many relics of the late war. Fragments of shells were lying about (this being the pass which our troops tried in vain to force), and I saw one unexploded sixty-eight-pound shell doing the peaceful duty of serving as a seat for a Kafir who in happy ignorance was sitting on it drying himself at a wood fire!
After a short rest for my horses and guides, I went over the ridge and passed by the deserted intrenchments where our troops had encamped in virtual idleness for months. A tedious ride brought me to Mafeting, which I did not reach until far into the night; when I was very fortunate in dropping upon an old friend, the late Captain Aschman, who gave me a “shake-down,” for which, as there was no inn in the village, I was sincerely thankful.
Next morning I visited the broken-down wattle huts and ragged tents where the loyals were herded together. I found them far worse off than their confrères at Maseru, and grave were their complaints against the government. The rations allowed them were not sufficient, they told me, to allay their hunger, and I personally saw some emaciated looking women collecting and eating the corn falling from the horses’ mangers. These unfortunate creatures, stung by our ingratitude, irritated by our injustice, hoping against hope, almost, despairing of relief and yet remaining loyal, were enough to excite the sympathy of any true man, and create a loathing of the cowardly panderers to expediency who were then conducting the government of the country.
Having thoroughly investigated the condition of these people, I next visited the cemetery, a short distance from the village, which is full of interest. Here many an old colonist, “sleeps the sleep that knows no waking.” Among the many monuments to men fallen in the late war is a fine stone pedestal erected in memory of the disastrous affair at Kalibani, which will ever be remembered in colonial annals as the place where, on Oct. 19th, 1880, thirty-five of the First Cape mounted yeomanry, men principally from Grahamstown and Albany, and who formed the advance guard of General Clark’s relief column, were cut to pieces. Every one of these unfortunate men, except one who was shot at a long range, were, as Surgeon Major Smith, now practicing in the Diamond Fields, who examined the bodies, told me, assegaied and hewed to pieces with the greatest brutality by the rebellious Basutos under the chief Mama.
A magnificent view of the surrounding mountainous country is obtained from this graveyard. The Kalibani mountain, the Kolo, the Boleka ridge, Tweefontein, Lerothodi’s village away in the distance, and close below Mafeting itself, pass as in a panorama before the view.
The mushroom-like prosperity of Mafeting, brought about by the share it received of the lavish expenditure of £6,000,000 of colonial money during the war, had, however, at the time of my visit, completely waned, and many had been sorely disappointed by the sudden cessation of hostilities.
Leaving this place in the afternoon I reached Wepener the same night, and after receiving the kind hospitality of Mr. Fraser, the merchant of the place, started again at daybreak, and arrived at Aliwal North after a long day’s drive. A good view of the town, which is of considerable importance, possessing a valuable library, a nice little club, large church and well-filled stores, is obtained before crossing the fine iron bridge leading over the Orange River.
Staying the night, noon next day found me sitting behind four horses on the road to Queenstown, where, after passing through Dordrecht, I arrived at six o’clock, just in time to catch the night train for East London, where I arrived next morning (March 13th). After a rest I went round the town, saw the sights, being particularly interested in the reclaiming of land which was going on under government direction at the mouth of the Buffalo River, and which, at some not far distant date, will be of great value. The next day I was invited to a large picnic given by one of the boating companies, at a delightful spot in a wooded glen about four miles from East London, on the banks of the Buffalo River. Glorious weather, good company, beautiful scenery, charming music, a fine lunch, sparkling champagne; everything harmonized to make a pleasant day. Colonel Schermbrucker and myself were called upon to speak, and we complied in a few words. Returning in the afternoon to East London I spent the night reveling in the mazy waltz at a ball given in the Mutual Hall, and sailed next morning in the Melrose for Port Elizabeth, where I transhipped to the Grantully Castle for Capetown.[[89]]
The opening of the Cape parliament following in a day or two, I found among the passengers ten fellow members of the house of assembly hailing from different parts of the colony, and proceeding to the performance of their legislative duties.
Among others on board I met Sir D. Wedderburn, since deceased, whose acquaintance I had formed in Kimberley, where I had the pleasure of entertaining him some few weeks before on his way round through Natal and the Free State.
Many a pleasant hour I spent talking over with him the various political topics of the day. His opinion of South African men and things had not been changed at all since I last saw him, and he told me “he had seen nothing in Africa which caused him in the least to alter the opinions he had formed before he came out.” I recollect his opinions on the then two all absorbing topics of the day, the Transvaal and the Zulu questions. These were very clear; he often said “we ought never to have fought for what we ought never to have taken,” adding in reference to the Zulu question, on which he had formed a decided opinion, “there was little pleasure in punishing men who bravely defended their native country.” Sir Bartle Frere’s “forward” policy found no supporter in him.
There was something irresistibly charming in meeting and discussing passing events with such a man. He impressed all who met him with the sincerity of his convictions and the honesty of his purpose.
Our journey, however, quickly drew to an end. The work of the session, we found on our arrival, had already commenced.
The main business transacted during this session was the passing through the house of assembly of an act, throwing further restrictions on the trade in diamonds, which I have already fully dealt with, the presenting of the petition of Jonathan Molappo, praying that a deputation of three Basutos might “plead their cause” at the bar of the house, which proved a profitless appeal, debates on Basutoland following ad nauseam, the grant of two extra members to represent Kimberley, and the introduction of the “Constitution Ordinance Amendment Bill,” allowing the Dutch language to be spoken in the house. This last measure met with no opposition, but became law on Jan. 14th, 1882. After this bill had gone through its various stages, Mr. Luttig, one of the Dutch members, rose and made the first speech in that language, expressing his gratification that no opposition was offered by his English speaking friends; but, though a Dutchman, he concluded by saying “that although it is my first speech in Dutch, it will most likely be my last, as I wish to promote harmony and good feeling, and when I speak, I wish my English friends who do not understand Dutch to know what I wish to convey.” This privilege has not since its concession been much used.
After the usual session in 1882, a short special session was held in January 1883, which was called to deal exclusively with the affairs of Basutoland, and arrange about the compensation of the “loyals” and other matters of importance. On my return to Kimberley in February after this special session, according to my previously expressed intention, I resigned my seat in the Cape house of assembly.
I then resumed full charge of my medical practice, until I met with a severe accident in December of the same year, when proceeding to inquire into some cases of suspected small-pox.
CHAPTER XXVI.
DESCRIPTION OF THE RELIGIOUS BODIES OF THE DIAMOND FIELDS FROM THE EARLIEST DAYS.—EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS.—THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.—ROMAN CATHOLICS FROM THE DEATH OF FATHER HIDIEN TO THAT OF FATHER WALSHE.—DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH.—DOPPERS.—WESLEYANS.—PRESBYTERIANS.—GERMAN LUTHERANS.—JEWS.—MAHOMETANS.—HINDUS.—“BISHOP MELLET.”—NATIVES.—NEGLECTED OPPORTUNITIES.—ADVENT OF SALVATION ARMY.—SUNDRY VISITORS.—BIRDS OF PASSAGE.
The average diamond digger, in the first wild rush, “the feverish race for wealth,” was not of a markedly irreligious disposition, as might have been expected, judging from the analogy of mining camps in other parts of the world.
The distance of the Vaal River from any colonial town, and the expense of reaching the diggings on its banks made it a matter of impossibility for men without means, either to reach the place or to support themselves after their arrival; hence, the first comers were, as a matter of course, above the general stamp of those who constitute a digging community. They were men, as a rule, well educated and well brought up, and it was not likely that they would altogether forget their early religious training or to allow these duties to lapse into utter neglect; but at the same time the results of the complete absence of women and children, and the sobering effect which their influence produces, was in the early days more or less observable.
The first clergymen of the Church of England who visited the new El Dorado, were Archdeacons Kitton and Croghan, of the diocese of Bloemfontein, who visited Klipdrift, on the Vaal River, in 1870, where amidst the most strange and unusual surroundings they held religious services for the diggers.
I have still a vivid recollection of the primitive state of things existing, even when I arrived some months afterward. On the first Sunday that I spent on the Diamond Fields in November 1871, I attended a “Church of England” service at the New Rush or Colesberg Kopje, as Kimberley was then called. This was held in a canvas tent billiard-room, situated near the spot where the “Blue Posts” still remains. On entering I beheld a full-robed clergyman officiating at one end of a billiard table, which served for his reading desk, whilst a large and attentive crowd sat around the other end, some on rude benches which were fixed along the walls, others perched upon gin cases, buckets reversed, or any other make-shift that came to hand. The congregation behaved with suitable decorum, but I confess it was not easy to keep the mind from wandering to the incongruity of the surroundings. Whilst the parson was earnestly engaged imploring our deliverance “from all the deceits of the world, the flesh and the devil,” I caught many an eye looking askance at the cues in the corner, no doubt indulging in reflections on the past, and in speculations as to the success or non-success of some match to be played in the future. Moreover, when the parson was praying or the people singing, it was not particularly edifying to be interrupted by the lively chaff and occasional bursts of blasphemy, which we could plainly hear through the canvas party-walls, which separated us from the adjoining bar and its half tipsy occupants. Defoe’s lines:
“Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The Devil always builds a chapel there.”
had here a liberal interpretation indeed—although I am not sure that they were strictly applicable in this instance, seeing that our parson had knowingly thrust himself into the devil’s own domain.
Notwithstanding these drawbacks, and despite the fiascos which resulted from our unfortunate attempts to properly render the appointed hymns, it was nevertheless refreshing to hear the grand old service once again and have the recollection of one’s early days brought back, even amidst such inharmonious concomitants.
The Rev. Canon Doxat was the first clergyman of the Church of England who took general charge of the diggings, and until his health gave way and he returned home invalided in 1877, both here, and in later years at Barkly, he was indefatigable in his work, whether as parish priest, attendant on the sick, or instructor of the young. The Rev. W. Rickards succeeded him at the dry diggings in 1871. During his rectorship a raw-brick structure, now a store, was erected in place of the canvas building which hitherto had done ecclesiastical duty, the congregation meanwhile growing rapidly in numbers and influence. During the whole of this period Mr. Rickards was also assiduous in pushing forward the cause of education, which had been much neglected. After this working minister’s leaving for England, three clergymen, the Revs. Messrs. Maude, Borton and Hanbury successively held the rectorship. During the incumbency of the first gentleman a new and larger church, of corrugated iron, was built in a more central part of the town, which, just on nearing its completion in 1879, was blown to the ground, a complete ruin, but it was quickly rebuilt, and opened for worship in 1880.[[90]] The church and schools during the incumbencies of these gentlemen gradually increased in numbers under the organization of the Right Rev. Allan B. Webb, D. D., bishop of Bloemfontein, under whose spiritual jurisdiction the English Church in Griqualand West was then placed. Bishop Webb, however, later on in 1882, resigned his see, and after an interval of three years the Rev. G. W. H. Knight-Bruce was appointed, last year (1886), to fill the vacant bishopric.
At the present time the Rev. Canon Gaul, who is rector of St. Cyprian’s and rural dean of Griqualand West and Bechuanaland, with four assistant priests, conducts the services of the church in Kimberley and Beaconsfield, while two native mission churches, one in Kimberley and one at Phokoane, in Bechuanaland, are ministered to by faithful and devoted clergy. I may add that several new churches and buildings are projected, but although the amount of money raised for church purposes during the year ending Easter, 1885, was £6,815, yet the church’s present financial condition still requires a zealous effort to be made by its supporters to clear it from the burden of debt.
The services, both at St. Cyprian’s, Kimberley, and at All Saints, Beaconsfield, may by some be considered of a High Church, if not ritualistic character, but although a tendency in that direction may exist, I am glad to state that these services are not conducted by High Church clergymen of an emasculate or hysterical type, men indulging in man millinery or ritualistic playthings, but by earnest, honest workers, in genuine sympathy with their fellow creatures.
Turning to the Roman Catholics, I am only doing justice to the memory of Father Hidien, the first Roman Catholic priest who visited the Fields, in stating that he was the leading figure in the religious world of the early days. Not only was he beloved by the members of his own faith, but a kindly disposition, never weary in well doing, and a boundless, practical charity, caused him to be revered by the members of every denomination. Dr. Allard, then bishop of, and who at the time visited the diggings, placed the Catholics on the Diamond Fields under his care, but this charge he did not long retain, for the summer of 1871, among its many victims, snatched away the good father from his work. Father Le Bihan, who had worked for several years among the natives of Basutoland, then came to take Father Hidien’s place. At that time the Catholics of Du Toit’s Pan, like the Hebrews of old in the desert, assembled for divine worship in a tent, while their priest, living in a tent wagon close by, was ready to follow his congregation wherever a new Rush might draw them.
When Colesberg Kopje (Kimberley mine) developed into a permanent digging, Father Le Bihan followed, and it was here through his instrumentality that a permanent church of wood and iron was erected. When this was out of debt, Father Le Bihan turned his attention to education, and built in an incredibly short space of time the three first schools in Griqualand West, one for boys, one for girls, and the third for infants. Just at this juncture Bishop Rickards paid the Fields a visit from Grahamstown, and at a banquet which was given in his honor on that occasion, I recollect that Mr. R. W. Murray, Sen., the vice-chairman, telling the company “that his experience of the Catholic church in South Africa was, that wherever the Catholics erected churches, schools at once followed, of which Kimberley was an instance in point.” The truth of the vice-chairman’s observations was felt by all. Later on the same evening the bishop responding to the special toast of “Education,” which had been entrusted to me, gave the first public intimation of his intention to introduce Trappist monks from a monastery in Algeria into South Africa, saying: “These would teach the sanctity of labor, and prepare the natives to receive the great truths of Christianity.” This scheme the bishop afterward endeavored to carry out, but the work at Dunbrodie, near Port Elizabeth, led to disappointment, the climate, drought and heat not favoring the efforts of the monks. Subsequently they removed to Mariann Hill, near Pinetown, in Natal, where every success is following their work.
Bishop Jolivet, however, soon discovered that Father Le Bihan’s labors could not longer be spared from the scene of his former triumphs, and Father Walshe took his place here in 1876, and entering at once heart and soul into the work of his predecessor, remained until the beginning of 1878. Then leaving he became a soldier of the cross in more senses than one, his tall form familiar alike to sick persons and young children and to prisoners and captives, his genial, happy disposition and his wonderful influence being transferred to scenes where his courageous devotion and his readiness at the call of duty could perhaps be even more appreciated than with us—as military chaplain during the Zulu war, the Sekukuni campaign and the Transvaal outbreak. He also was chaplain in the perhaps unnecessary, and to a certain section annoying, because bloodless, Bechuanaland expedition. He seemed to possess a charmed life. It mattered not to him whether he was cheering the wounded at Ulundi, regardless of the bullets raining around, or whether he was tending the sick in the beleagured fort of Lydenburg, duty was ever paramount, and he was indeed one of those
“Quos non profani tessera proclii
Duxit in bellum.”
It was my melancholy lot to see him (in consultation) during his last illness, bravely struggling for life against a severe attack of lung inflammation, which carried him off on Sept. 12th, 1885.
The Rev. Father Lenoir, the present parish priest, who succeeded Father Walshe in 1878, at once set to work with indomitable energy. Noticing the lack of opportunity which existed for the education of Roman Catholic girls, he built a convent, and with the hearty concurrence of Bishop Jolivet procured from Europe some Sisters of the Holy Family to assist in the meritorious work.
The ancient Greek proverb declares that “the beginning is the half of the whole,” or as the homely Saxon saw puts it, “Well begun and half done;” and now the Rev. Mother, Lady Superior, in a double sense of the word, and the Sisters of the Holy Family, perform their daily duties in buildings, which for Kimberley, a place but a few short years ago an uninhabited grassy plain, are simply magnificent.
Not content with this Father Lenoir commenced the construction in stone and brick of a building designed for a new church, the old one built by Father Le Bihan having become too small for the congregation. The foundation stone was laid by Bishop Jolivet on Nov. 1st, 1879, and in one year the most handsome sacred building in Kimberley was opened for divine worship. Father Lenoir told his congregation at the time that “nothing was too grand for the service of the Almighty,” and right well they had seconded his efforts, for this magnificent structure, possessing beautiful altar paintings and appurtenances which cost over £7,000, is entirely free from debt. A lesson from this might easily be learned by the members of the Church of England. In 1883 a new church and school were also erected at Beaconsfield.
These are under the care of the Sisters of the Holy Family and the priests of Kimberley, while a home for destitute children is in course of erection at Barkly.
The Indians as well, who have found their way here from Hindostan, Mauritius and Natal, of whom a considerable number are Roman Catholics, receive their share of attention, no less than 200 being taught at the mission school. I may mention in conclusion that not only in spiritual but also in temporal matters the Catholic priesthood has endeavored to forward the public welfare.
St. Mary’s Benefit Society, of which since its formation in 1876 I have had medical charge, contributes greatly to the assistance of any of its members who may be stricken down by disease, and also aids in Catholic matters generally, while at the same time its thorough organization and its deeds of charity are assisting to make Roman Catholicism influential in the country.
In the early days of the Diamond Fields, when Griqualand West, which comprises the four diamond mines of the world, was still the property of the Orange Free State, and the institutions of the place were administered by its officials, the Dutch people and language occupied a position of importance. The Dutch as a rule are highly conservative in their religious tendencies, and it can well be imagined the Dutch Reformed Church, with its synod and kirkraad, its ministers, elders and deacons was not long in following and taking care of its nomadic adherents. The Dutch Reformed Church, which is Calvinistic in doctrine, was founded in the Netherlands in the year 1579. It then accepted as its chief doctrinal standard the Belgic Confession, translated in 1562 from the “Confession de Foy” of Guido de Brès. This confession was revised at the synod of Dordrecht in the years 1618 and 1619, and since that time the standards of the Dutch Reformed Church have been the following, viz., 1. The Heidelberg Catechism, containing instructions in the Christian religion. 2. The Belgic Confession, with more elaborate details, and 3. The Canons of Dordrecht, which are mainly supplementary to the Belgic Confession.
The earliest congregation in South Africa of the members of the Dutch Reformed Church, a branch of the Church in Holland, was formed at the very commencement of the Cape Colony, the first minister coming from Holland in 1665 to attend to its wants.
The Dutch Reformed remained the Established Church of the Cape of Good Hope, notwithstanding the interim of English rule, which lasted from 1795 to 1802. In this latter year the Treaty of Amiens, having brought the Colony back to its former relationship with Holland, the administration of Cape affairs was resumed by the Dutch until 1806, when the Government of the Dutch was finally closed by the articles of capitulation agreed to at the foot of Sir Lowry’s Pass, and afterwards ratified at the Castle in Capetown in January of the same year between General Baird and General Janssens, the English and Dutch commanders. Public worship on that occasion received special mention. In the 8th Article of Capitulation it was stipulated that, “Public worship as now in use will also continue without interference.” And so it did, for the Dutch Reformed remained the Established Church in South Africa, and received state aid as well; no less than 30 congregations (until the passing of Saul Solomon’s “Voluntary Bill” in 1879 put an end to further state patronage) acquiring grants averaging £200 per annum each.
At the diggings on the Vaal River, the Dutch were not neglected by the pastors of their Church, ministers from the Cape Colony and the Orange Free State paying periodical visits to the camps. It was not, however, until there was a pretty certain prospect of the dry diggings becoming more than a passing dream that churches were built, congregations established, and ministers appointed, at Du Toit’s Pan and Kimberley in 1872. These congregations, which were large, numbering at Kimberley some 3500 souls, and at Du Toit’s Pan more than 1500, were in the first place independent, but became subject to the Synod of the “Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa,” (the official name for the Dutch Reformed Church of the Cape Colony,) when Griqualand West was annexed to the Cape Colony.
Owing to the decadence of mining by individual diggers, and the consequent falling away of the population, these churches have suffered much in the number of their adherents, the congregation of Kimberley now numbering about 1200 only and Du Toit’s Pan about 600 souls.
The Dutch Reformed Church has no missions standing in connection with the parish of Kimberley, as the field is already taken up by the Berlin Missionary Society, and the Wesleyans and Independent bodies, but they have a native church at Beaconsfield founded in 1878, and a church for colored people, with fine buildings and parsonage, built in 1883.
At Kimberley the Rev. J. D. Kestell, the present pastor, has for some years been most zealous in superintending the erection of the new church just completed, situated in the Newton Market Square.
This church is unrivalled on the Diamond Fields. Built solidly of brick in Roman style, it has a most commanding appearance, and its interior, with beautifully fitted pews and panelled ceiling, is a fine specimen of chaste simplicity of architecture. To crown all, it has little or no debt, although nearly £6000 has been spent on its construction. At Beaconsfield the Dutch Reformed Church has a fine building for divine worship, while both there and at Kimberley, as well as at the Mission School for colored people, the cause of education is not forgotten. Before concluding my description of the Dutch Reformed Church, I must not forget to mention a sight, which occasionally was beheld some ten years ago, flitting across the view like the spectre of a bygone age. This was a visitor who appeared as singular in his garb as a Quaker of the old school would be to twentieth century eyes, for with a peculiarly shaped black cloth tunic, long hair cut in a circle round his neck and forehead like a Russian Cossack, a rough beard, lips cleanly shaved, and a hat oval and low crowned with a tremendous broad green-lined brim, to shade his ruddy cheeks, he used to be the “observed of all observers.” This picture is that of a “dopper” farmer who used occasionally to be seen selling his corn on our market, but who, I fear, from his continued absence, has long since been gathered to the garner filled with “the bearded grain and the flowers that grow between.”
These “doppers,” relics of the past, of whom, I believe, President Kruger is a representative in the Transvaal, do not differ essentially from the members of the Dutch Reformed Church in doctrine; they are simply more conservative in feeling, less liberal in action, very jealous of innovation and entirely unprogressive in ideas.
This I think will give my readers a fair idea of the Dutch Reformed Church as it exists in South Africa at the present time.
A “DOPPER” BOER.
Among dissenting bodies, the Wesleyans are numerically the most important.
The first regular minister sent to hold service on the Diamond Fields was the Rev. I. Priestly, appointed by the English Conference in 1871. Previous to his arrival, however, the Rev. W. Wynne, who after a long interval has again resumed charge at Kimberley, conducted services in the various camps. During this interval, which extended over some twelve years, these services were carried on, among others, by the Rev. I. I. Calvert, well known through his labors in the Fiji Islands, and other talented and able men. As a proof of their energetic ministrations, up to the present time this body has steadily increased, and now, as the result of persistent work, in Kimberley alone, three English, one Dutch and one native Wesleyan church, under four European and one native minister, can be counted.
In Du Toit’s Pan there is an English as well as a native congregation, both under the charge of the Rev. B. Hayes. To show the hold which Wesleyanism has gained here I have carefully calculated the average Sunday attendance at the various Wesleyan chapels on the Fields, and find it to be nearly 2000, while I am also informed that 600 children regularly receive religious instruction.
In 1879 certain Presbyterians. Congregationalists, and a few Baptists, who had hitherto been worshipping with the Wesleyans, finding their numbers increasing, thought the time had arrived to constitute themselves into a separate Church. This was in due course accomplished, and although the Church that they formed had no connection with any Presbytery, being entirely self-governing, the title of Presbyterian was assumed. They possess a fine place of worship, and an average congregation of four hundred souls. The present minister is Mr. Lloyd, who displays great energy in the discharge of his duties, and has the satisfaction of knowing that his efforts are appreciated by large congregations.
The population of Kimberley, it is scarcely necessary for me to say, is made up of different nationalities, among which the German is one of the most segregative.
In one of the quiet thoroughfares leading to the mine, a neat little church may be seen, which on inquiry proves to be that belonging to the German Lutherans.
The Germans for the last ten years have been fortunate enough to be able to worship God in their own language, and from the inauguration of the Lutheran services they have been conducted by their present pastor, the Rev. C. Meyer, of the Berlin Missionary Society. The first services were held in the High Court, lent for the purpose, in January, 1875, and were continued there until the completion of the present church in October of the same year. The congregation naturally being confined within the limits of those speaking the German tongue, it is not large, numbering about 150. The German children in Kimberley as a rule go to English schools, but twice a week their pastor holds a class to which he gives instruction, through the medium of the German language.
The Germans are virtually “Strangers in a strange land,” but notwithstanding this, they have devoted a good deal of attention to the natives, and the resident church minister has at the present time a large native mission under his charge.
Another congregation, and one which comprises men born in the most distant and diverse parts of the world, is that of the Jewish people, who have for ages been known as judges and dealers in precious stones, and who, therefore, as may readily be conceived, muster in large numbers at the Diamond Mines of Brazil, and in still greater numbers at those of South Africa.
As soon as the wonderful finds on the Vaal River became known in Europe, many representatives of eminent English and continental Jewish firms, with, of course, others drawn from the Colony, appeared on the scene, and a Jewish circle was soon formed which at the present time numbers some 1400 souls, of which about 600 are adult males. On the Vaal River and in the first days of the Dry Diggings at Du Toit’s Pan and New Rush, the Jews had no rabbi or reader to conduct their services, nor had they a synagogue in which to read prayers with due solemnity. Consequently on holidays and festivals, of which there are six during the year, some large store or public hall was converted into a temporary synagogue where were duly explained the scrolls of the Sacred Law, and where three members of their community officiated by turns.
At that time no Sabbath holidays were kept, and if deaths occurred, or the anniversary of deaths was observed, prayers were read in some private house. When, too, the initiatory rite of circumcision had to be performed, a minister or rabbi, at a great expense, was sent for to Capetown or Port Elizabeth. The wealthy Jewish community of the Diamond Fields did not long allow this state of affairs to continue, but in 1876 built a synagogue at a cost of £3000 on ground given them by the London and South African Exploration Company. In course of time a rabbi was obtained from England, and a Hebrew school, attached to the synagogue, was duly instituted. This rabbi, the Rev. M. Mendelssohn, retired at the conclusion of the period of his engagement, and was succeeded by the Rev. A. Ornstein, a young but most energetic minister, in the month of August, 1881. The ministrations of this gifted and noble man lasted but too brief a time. He came here and found the Sabbath but rarely observed with any strictness, and in other respects too may be applied to him the words “his righteous soul was vexed with the iniquity of the wicked.” Undisturbed by the blazing heat of the African sun or the remonstrances of his friends, he pressed on his chosen path of self-denial and devotion, with the result that before a few short months had flown by he had fallen a victim to fever. His influence is not yet passed away, as the increased number of stores closed on the Hebrew Sabbath serve to testify.[[91]]
In connection with their synagogue the Jews have also two philanthropic Societies conferring monetary gifts and medical attendance on the deserving poor. Their charities, however, are not confined solely to their co-religionists, Jewish citizens having ever been found to the front in all works of charity.
Coming next to the Malays residing on the Diamond Fields: they form by no means an inconsiderable portion of the population, either in number, respectability or voting power. As long ago as the year 1871, three or four, more than ordinarily adventurous, could be seen digging at the Vaal River, and on the opening up of the Dry Diggings several might have been found at Du Toit’s Pan, but it is in late years only that the “Malay Camp” has grown to its present proportions, numbering now some 600 souls. The Malays on the Fields came of course originally from Capetown and Port Elizabeth. They mostly own and drive conveyances, and being also very expert masons are largely engaged in building operations. As a rule they are very healthy, not more than fifty deaths having occurred since the opening up of the Fields. They are honest, well-to-do, benevolent, respectful, affable, strictly sober, and, believing in predestination, they possess a remarkable serenity of mind in all the vicissitudes of fortune.
In Kimberley they have two mosques, one lately built, in which being Moslems, five times a day, as near as their avocations will permit them, they proclaim the two grand principles of their faith, the two grand dogmas of their religion, “Allah illah Allah Mahomet resoul Allah”—“There is one God and Mahomet is his prophet.”
As a body they follow out their religious observances with commendable regularity. Imaum Doud, whom I know well, is a most exemplary citizen. He has held the position of priest for the last eight years, yet no special respect is shown him on account of his “cloth,” for like all Moslem priests he is not paid, and has no authority, but is judged and held in general estimation simply for his piety and learning. Following out one of the most important duties of their religion, namely, that of performing a pilgrimage to Mecca, which is a duty incumbent on every Moslem once in his life to perform, unless poverty or sickness prevent, the Moslems of Griqualand West have in considerable numbers visited Arabia, no less than twenty having left Kimberley in one party in 1881. This a few years ago was a very expensive undertaking, the title of Hadji, which both men and women acquire by this pilgrimage, at that time costing each adult about £400. Now, however, rail and steam have reduced the expenses of this trip to about £100. Their funeral ceremonies, too, are carried out with exactness. After life has gone, the dead body is washed by one duly appointed, wrapped in grave clothing, no coffin being used, and then after the Koran has been read all night, the body is carried on a bier and buried on its left side in the grave. After certain ceremonies have been performed, the friends, wearing no signs of mourning, return and pray for seven nights in succession in the house of the deceased, while for forty consecutive days they religiously repair to the grave and pray over the remains of the departed.
The Moslems like the Jews circumcise their male children; swines’ flesh, as well as the flesh of most animals forbidden by the Mosaic law, is also prohibited. These disciples of Mahomet also believe in good and evil angels, in the immortality of the soul, in the general resurrection and judgment of the dead, in future rewards and punishments, and lastly in Heaven and Hell.
In perusing this short description, the question may naturally present itself to my readers, Whence did these Malays first come into the Cape Colony? I will answer this question very shortly. In the first place Europeans, going home from the East Indies, Malacca, Java, Sumatra, Celebes, the Philippines, etc., used to bring Malays as slaves as far as the Cape and there leave or sell them; secondly, the Dutch East India Co. supplied slaves to the burghers in order to cultivate on a more extended scale; thirdly, the Cape at that time was a convict station, to which many criminals were transported from the East; and lastly, free Malays returning from Holland, where they had gone as servants, on return often remained at the Cape, the Amsterdam authorities, in fact, recommending this line of action in 1656. It will be seen from this, that our Malay population, which numbers one-fifth of the inhabitants of Capetown, and about one-fifteenth or more of the Diamond Fields (white population), does not necessarily spring from either exiled, slave or criminal ancestry.
Before I conclude this brief description of our Malay fellow citizens, I may mention that they are exceedingly tenacious of their civil rights. An instance of this came personally within my knowledge. I have told my readers in a former chapter, something about the disease supposed by so many to be “small-pox,” which ran riot on the Fields in 1884. Now the Cape laws give power to the authorities to build lazarettos and forcibly remove all persons suffering from infections diseases, if they have not proper medical attendance and unless they obey strict quarantine laws. I was at the time of the last outbreak of so-called small-pox attending a well-to-do Malay suffering from the disease, and I took especial care that his friends obeyed the law to the very letter, as my patient had a great horror of being dragged from his home, and moreover was determined that the officer of the Board of Health should have no excuse for removing him. The health officer of the day, however, who was highly energetic (for which, so far he deserved due praise, if he was not too judicious), wishing to show his activity, attempted to drag this man against his will to the lazaretto. I happened very fortunately to arrive on the scene, just as this illegal attempt was being made by that officer, who assisted by about thirty police was dragging the sick man amidst the hoots and execrations of an infuriated mob through the streets into an ambulance. Knowing the law I at once advised the Malays to resist his removal pending an appeal to the magistrate, Mr. L. J. Truter, to whom a statement of the case was immediately sent. The magistrate saw at once the unlawfulness of the whole proceeding, gave instructions accordingly, and to my intense delight these myrmidons of the law who would not, who dare not, have attempted such officious illegality in the case of an European, had to slink away completely crestfallen. The man afterwards recovered, and to show his gratitude for my exertions both from a medical and civil point of view, organized the presentation of a silver cup to
J. W. Matthews, M.D.
“for his successful efforts in protecting
the Mussulman interest.”
This was presented to me at a large meeting of Malays in October, 1884.
A passing word would not be out of place concerning the Indians who are now on the fields in considerable numbers, say 700 to 1000 souls.
They possess no place of worship, that is the pure Hindu, the believer in Brahma, Siva and Vishnu, but the Mahomedan division have just built a mosque and sent specially to India to procure an Imaum who will conduct their services in the future with proper rites. In October, however, of each year the Mahometan party form large processions and make the air discordant by the beating of “tom-toms.”
They celebrate this feast a whole week with allegorical imagery, men painted and chained like tigers dancing about to harsh music. This forms not so much a religious as a historical festival, by which they commemorate the murder of two of Mahomet’s sons and at the same time rejoice at the beginning of another year and keep green the memory of their early days in India.
It is not to be supposed that all professors or expounders of “Holy Writ,” are immaculate. Some crave after position and power, some after ease and pleasure, some after luxury and wealth.
To the second class I have specified belonged the most eccentric individual, who has made a trade of religion, that I have ever met. This “Apostle of the Faith,” as he called himself, turned up at Du Toit’s Pan in the year 1876. He was an odd creature, wore black broadcloth, a white choker and a bell-topper hat. In those days, a tall beaver was as rare as was the existence of the conservative working man according to the imagination of Professor Rogers, therefore “Bishop” Mellett, in his singular get up, was quite the sensation for a time among the diggers.
“Was he a real live bishop?” some asked; “Where was his diocese?” others inquired; “Was he a greater knave than fool?” “Was he an impostor trading upon the artless boer, under the cloak of religion?” These were queries with which “his Reverence” was soon confronted. “His Lordship” was a short man, of some fifty years, with a good deal of doggedness in his weather-beaten features, while every now and then a nervous twitching of the lips was evident to the close observer. The wags of the place were determined before he left to have some fun at his expense, and invited him to lecture to them.
To this he cordially acquiesced, especially when a dinner to be given in his honor was hinted at, to enable him to fortify himself for the oratorical effort he was expected to make. At this dinner, given in the dining-room of the Royal Hotel, Du Toit’s Pan, there were many visitors from Kimberley, and the high jinks played upon the “bishop,” of which, by the way, he seemed to be perfectly unconscious, created considerable hilarity among the jovial crowd. Dinner over a procession was formed, and a march made to the new billiard-room just being built for a rival hostelry, the “Fox and Hounds,” where a temporary platform and reading desk had been erected for the occasion upon two empty beer barrels. Candles were stuck here and there around and business immediately began. The Chairman appointed was a Dr. Graham, the very broth of an educated but rollicking Irishman. Duly introducing the “Bishop,” that reverend gentleman rose, and at once commenced his lecture, but the “Bishop’s” knowledge of the English language being very imperfect, he was asked to speak in Dutch, which was very humorously interpreted by a Hollander who was present. About an hour’s rambling twaddle brought the lecturer to his seat, his discourse concluding with the information that he was prepared to answer any questions concerning Holy Writ which might be put to him. Many were the questions and curious; the audience relishing the fun and seemingly vying with each other in their endeavors to confuse him, but the question that took the first prize in public opinion was, “Will His Lordship kindly explain why corrugated iron is sometimes called Gospel Oak?” Well this fairly nonplussed the “Bishop,” as probably it will some of my readers. This is one of those jokes that requires an explanation. Corrugated iron was the material generally in use for building, and the favorite brand was “Gospel Oak,” so-called because the manufacturer’s works, situate somewhere in the vicinity of London, were so named. The efforts of the “Bishop” to explain made the thing more ludicrous, and just as he was in the throes of a learned disquisition upon something or other, out went the candles, upside-down was turned the platform, “his Lordship’s” bell-topper became irretrievably ruined, a few rotten eggs beplastered his sunburnt visage, and in less time than it takes to tell, the impudent hypocrite was seen slipping away, hurriedly scrambling through an open window to the rear of the premises. A “hue and cry” was raised, and the whilom bishop on being run to earth received the rough handling (which did not, however, go the length of physical violence) which my readers may imagine he would receive from a rough mining crowd. After getting as much fun as they wanted out of their victim, the affair wound up by escorting him into a neighboring canteen, where everybody, “bishop,” digger, diamond buyer, or loafer became just as “fou” as was compatible with walking to his respective bed. When the “bishop” got to his room in the hotel, however, a cruel practical joke awaited him. Worn out with excitement and fatigue he threw himself on his bed to sleep, but pins and needles had been stuck all over and at once out he bounded with miraculous agility. Then came through the open window such a roar of laughter that the “bishop” could see further trouble was looming in the distance, and “discretion” with him “being the better part of valor,” he donned his nether garments and with coat, handbag, umbrella and bible, he cleared out as fast through the friendly door as his legs could carry him, and has, mirabile dictu, never since been seen on the Fields. He was recognized, however, some few months ago in the Transvaal still carrying on his pious frauds. In pursuit of his ecclesiastical functions he goes from farm-house to farm-house, staying here a month and there a month, or as long as the farmer will keep him, and so he plays his hypocritical “part” among the ignorant and confiding boers.
Griqualand West has been, until the advent of the railway, at too great a distance from the large towns of the colony to entice many celebrities to come and see the mines, and visitors, especially those belonging to the religious world, have been few and far between.
Since the opening of the Colesberg Kopje, I can recollect only the spasmodic visits of one or two Bishops of the English Church, the short stay of a lecturing infidel and buffoon, whose name I will not advertise by mentioning, but who was publicly presented with a diamond ring by certain gentlemen possessed of more money than brains, the mission of Dr. Somerville in connection with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and the meteoric appearance of Father Henerberry, a second Father Matthew, who for fourteen days filled the Roman Catholic church to overflowing by his powerful crusade against drink. For some twelve months past the Salvation Army has been established, but contrary to expectations has attracted comparatively little attention of either a favorable or opposite character.
I should be shirking an evident duty if I were to omit calling attention to a matter which must ever hear witness against Kimberley and the surrounding camps, and that is the opportunity which for years the religious section of the inhabitants have thrown away of spreading the truths of the Gospel to the natives,[[92]] who have been attracted to their very doors from the far interior. I am within the mark when I compute that during the last sixteen years an average of at least 10,000 natives (new arrivals) has each year been drawn to work in our mines by the reports, carried from one to another by those returning, of the riches awaiting them. What a field for missionary enterprise has not this presented? Now, has not the chance been lost? What “glad tidings of great joy” might not even one or two in whom the seed thus sown had borne fruit, have spread on their return?
I am glad to notice, however, that at last proper advantage of this vast field for the propagation of the truths of the Gospel is about to be taken.
One important point must not be overlooked: every man in Kimberley even now is but a bird of passage, merely drawn by the chance of making money quickly as the first arrivals were, and then escaping from a place which possesses very few social attractions, and, in respect of natural beauty and comfort of dwellings, none—the impossibility of getting away felt by some, the desire for further accumulations evinced by others, keeping together a mixed and heterogeneous population such as could scarcely be found in any other country.
The rising generation is mostly to be pitied, doomed to spend their young lives in a place which in South Africa at least can only be exceeded in wretchedness by the Namaqualand copper mines. No trees, no grass, no carolling birds, no rippling brooks. Nature seems paralyzed or dead. No wonder the seeds of early piety are all blown to the winds, when God’s day is desecrated by the sight of the open offices in the diamond market (although fortunately on that day no business can be legally transacted), by the noise of continuous blasting in the mines, and the sight of railway drays laden with fruit and flowers running through the streets. At times the man of strong religious instincts feels sick at heart, and for the moment thinks that money alone is thought of—Regina Pecunia, the “Almighty Dollar,” the sole deity adored.
CHAPTER XXVII.
LAW AND LAWYERS ON THE FIELDS.—LAW IN THE EARLY DAYS.—ABSENCE OF CRIME AT THAT EPOCH.—THE MUTUAL HALL.—MAGISTERIAL JURISDICTION.—THE ATTORNEY-GENERALSHIP.—ATTORNEYS AND LAW AGENTS.—A SUDDEN DEATH.—CURIOUS NOMENCLATURE OF KAFIRS.—THE FATE OF “BRANDY AND SODA.”
Dean Swift says: “Law is a bottomless pit; it is a cormorant, a harpy that drowns everything.” And believing implicitly in his words, I will not weary my readers with any elaborate disquisition on the legislative enactments, etc., which served to make up the law under which we lived in the early days of the Diamond Fields. Suffice it to say, that to me it seemed a very medley of inconsistency, an olla podrida, a thing of shreds, of patches, making “confusion worse confounded.” Roman, Dutch, English Common. Colonial Statute Law and Proclamations of the local government were blended—no, I should rather say flung together in a fashion so devoid of system as to be absolutely chaotic. The laws of Griqualand West since annexation are now identical with Colonial Laws, with the exception of a few local enactments, but at the time they were sui generis, or rather, if I may be allowed, omnium genorum, homogeneity being remarkable for its entire absence. It speaks well for the contented nature of the diggers, that complaints against this anomalous condition of things were so little rife.
In the early days, a genuine brotherly feeling reigned among the diggers at Colesberg Kopje (Kimberley Mine), and though of course an occasional quarrel would arise, yet as a rule there was universal amity existing.
Such a crime as robbery was, for a long time, scarcely known. The digger left his tent all day with the entrance flaps merely tied down, and returned at night from his work in the mine with no apprehension as to the security of his goods and chattels. In those halcyon days, with scarcely an exception, the natives, who are often unjustly accused of naturally possessing thieving propensities, established the falsehood of the charge by living an honest and laborious life, faithfully carrying out their master’s behests, and never robbing him of a single splint.[[93]]
It is my firm conviction, (and it will be admitted that I have had extensive opportunities of judging), that the native laborers, who have been flocking at the rate of 30,000 per annum to the Diamond Fields, are, as a rule, sober, upright, and virtuous before they have been corrupted by the white men, who induce them to steal, or are demoralized by drinking the liquor supplied them by white men. Had it not been for the unscrupulous scoundrels who first introduced illicit diamond buying, and for the almost indiscriminate sale of liquor to natives, they would in all probability be still as honest as at the early period, when, except in trivial assault cases, they were very rarely brought before the Court.
Kimberley, at this time, was without any building set apart as a High Court. When the Judge came from Barkly on circuit, he sat in a large building called the Mutual Hall, which used to serve a variety of purposes, being fitted up for theatrical entertainments, which were frequently given there, while religions services were also held in it from time to time. I remember a trial for murder taking place in this building before Mr. Recorder Barry, the first judge on the Diamond Fields. The alleged facts of the case were briefly as follows: The accused, a man and a woman, had thrown the husband of the latter down the mine—the supposed motive for the crime being that a guilty intrigue which existed between them might be continued without interference. The discovery of certain suspicious circumstances had led to their arrest and committal.
All through the day the Judge and jury had sat hearing the evidence, but very few of the public had attended. As, however, night came on, and it became known that the Judge purposed sitting till the case was concluded, the Hall was quickly crowded with diggers.
Here were men begrimed with dust and coatless as they had hurried there, men who had removed the signs of their daily toil; the floor of the Hall was thronged so that none could move; on the window-sills stood men clinging to each other for support, and to the very girders of the roof a number of adventurous youths had climbed; a veritable sea of faces met the eye, as one gazed around. On the stage sat the Judge surrounded by the tawdry wings. Some were associated in the spectator’s minds with occasions widely different from the background. A glimmering light was shed by a row of flimsy Chinese lanterns suspended above, and on the Judge’s desk were a couple of glittering dips. In front sat the counsel at a table of rough planks, elevated chair high on liquor cases, and behind them were the prisoners mounted on boxes stamped with the battle-axe trade-mark, and bearing the inscription, Henessey’s XXX. As the night wore on, the excitement grew intense; the feelings of the public were dead against the prisoners, perhaps scarce a score in that vast crowd had a doubt as to their guilt or wished them to escape the murderer’s doom. The addresses of the counsel and the charge of the Judge were listened to in breathless silence, and then the wearied jury retired. Apparently some doubt existed in their minds, for the verdict of Not Guilty was returned.
The present High Court in Kimberley is a lofty and extensive building constructed of brick and stone, but for years after the Mutual Hall had been abandoned as a temple of Justice, the Judge or Judges sat in a wretched, tumble down shanty, which is still occupied by the Special Court for the trial of offences against the Diamond Trade Act.
The Resident Magistrate’s Court was the favorite arena of litigants in the early days, as there under Special Proclamations cases involving £500, when there was an acknowledged debt, and £250 in matters of disputed debt or damages, might be tried in a speedy and summary manner eminently satisfactory to those who abhorred the “law’s delays.” This extensive jurisdiction has since been largely reduced, with the result of vastly increased costs and other serious inconveniences to the honest man, who has unfortunately become entangled in the meshes of the law.
The first Recorder of the High Court of Griqualand West, as I have just said, was Mr. now Sir Jacob Dirk Barry, a scholar and jurist of no mean pretensions, and it is not too much to say that at each critical period of the history of the Fields, as the tent burnings and the rebellion already described, it was largely owing to Judge Barry’s firmness and earnestness in the endeavor to maintain obedience to law and order, that consequences which might have proved disastrous in the extreme were happily avoided. After Mr. Barry left there were several judges and acting judges appointed, until, annexation having taken place, a court of three judges was formed, of which Mr. Justice Buchanan was made President.
Of the first Attorney General, Mr. John Cyprian Thompson, I have but little to say, as ill-health almost from the time of his appointment prevented him from taking an active part in public affairs. To the superstitious it would have seemed as if there was a bar upon the Attorney-Generalship; since annexation the Crown Prosecutorship of Griqualand West, Mr. J. C. Thompson’s successor, Mr. S. G. Sheppard,[[94]] afterwards Judge and at present Administrator of the Crown Colony of British Bechuanaland, his relations with the other members of the Executive becoming somewhat strained, tendered his resignation. Mr. J. S. Lord, Q. C., who succeeded him, gave up his office in preference to either having to submit to undue interference in the performance of his office or else living in a continual state of “protest;” the next, who was the first Crown Prosecutor, was removed from his post, but hitherto the gentleman at present holding the appointment has maintained his relationship with the Attorney General without friction.
But in no British Colony, I should think, have so many enforced or semi enforced changes taken place among officials as in Griqualand West. In the short space of a decade there were three Resident Magistrates, a Clerk of the Peace, two Commissioners of Police and a Chief of the Detective Department, who were either removed from their respective offices or deemed it advisable to resign.
As my readers may conceive, the Diamond Fields attracted a certain number of barristers, many of whom must have made large sums of money. The fees paid by illicit diamond buyers, when a barrister was engaged for the defence, were, I believe, something enormous. These cases were but a small source of income compared with the long protracted lawsuits that used formerly to arise between various wealthy claim-holders, and subsequently after the claims had been put into companies between these bodies. In the early days there was a court specially established to adjudicate upon claims to unoccupied land situate in Griqualand West, and here several gentlemen of the long robe picked up gold and silver with rapidity. The cases from which the lawyers perhaps derived most emolument was a civil action brought by Isaac Sonnenberg and Edward Eager Hurley against Alfred Ebden, the registered proprietor of the farm on which are situated Kimberley mine and town—and another brought on behalf of the London and South African Exploration Co., Lim., against the government. In the first case Messrs. Sonnenberg and Hurley sought to oust Mr. A. Ebden from his farm on the ground that they had bought a prior and preferent claim, but their enterprise signally failed. In the latter case, the company gained their point and compelled the government to disgorge some portion of the rents and license moneys, which they had improperly received and retained.
Of attorneys there were enough and to spare, and their manner of conducting business, at least in the early days, was decidedly unique. The one grand characteristic that distinguished them was a phenomenal and perennial thirst, and the manful efforts which they made to quench it were worthy of a better cause. Should a clerk omit to dot an “i” or cross a “t,” your attorney would at once propose an adjournment to the nearest canteen while the error was being rectified. Was a case won? So joyful an occasion demanded a copious libation. Was a case lost? A cup of consolation was forthwith quaffed. Was a compromise agreed on? The prospect of renewed amity between the whilom litigants was surely worthy of a foaming bumper.
The “Green Bar”[[95]] was the green room of the Judicial Theatre. I have frequently even known adjournments of the Magistrate’s court for the evident if not the avowed purpose of liquidating some abstruse point of law. There was a vast amount of “bluff,” as it is vulgarly termed, and tall talk on the part of the attorneys in those days. I remember upon one occasion, a leading member of the side bar describing a respectable witness as having come into the court with the Bible in his hands and a lie on his lips, while the passages at arms between the practitioners seemed often acrimonious to a degree; but when the court rose, the feuds were forgotten and the contending parties again sped to the “Green Bar,” which possessed for them an absolutely magnetic attraction.
Of the law agents, a genus I think peculiar to South Africa, and in those days, at least, admitted without having to give the most infinitesimal proof of their legal knowledge, I shall not say much. Some were very good men and fair lawyers, but as a rule they consisted of “ne’er do wells,” who having failed in every thing turned to the law as a dernier ressort. The worst of them had no education, no brains, and no money, their sole stock in trade being an absolutely unlimited amount of arrogance which enabled them to prey upon the public. A few men of this class were, until recently, still to be found on the Diamond Fields.
The arrangements for juries were needlessly troublesome. Many classes of persons being exempt, the drawing for juries pressed heavily on the poor digger, who, while compelled to wait day after day in the precincts of the court, was beset with fears, not improbably well grounded, that his “boys” (native laborers) were appropriating to their own use any diamond they might discover. Despite the unpleasantness and loss entailed by serving on a jury, few diggers neglected to answer to their names.
For whatever reason the lawyers were not generally long-lived. I saw a list made out by a legal friend of mine, when in a somewhat gloomy frame of mind the other day, according to which some twenty had died since the opening of the Diamond Fields.
I cannot help here mentioning the sudden end of one of the leaders of the Bar at the time, and a man well known in South Africa. I was an eye-witness of the tragic occurrence. Mr. Advocate Walker, many years prior to the opening of the Diamond Fields, had enjoyed an extensive and lucrative practice in Natal, and at the time of which I am now speaking was conducting the defence of a case in which I was interested. Driving home from my consulting-room on the evening of the day before which the case was expected to be called, I pulled up at Mr. Walker’s house to have a final consultation on some points I thought of importance. I found him smoking his cigar by the fire, looking somewhat unwell, but without anything in his appearance to lead me to anticipate the awful catastrophe impending. I put my questions to him, and for an answer, Mr. W. extending his arms remarked, “Don’t bother, certain to win to-morrow.” As he uttered the last word, he gave a sudden start, bounded from his seat, while from his mouth a jet of bright crimson blood spurted against the wall opposite. For him to-morrow came not. He never spoke again. An aneurism of the heart had given way and in a few seconds he was a corpse. Ever since that melancholy event, I have experienced a sense of no little uneasiness when the probable results of “to-morrow” have been discounted “to-day.” As the poet says “to-morrows cheat us all,” and thus it was in the case of poor Walker.
On mentioning this incident to a friend of mine he drew my attention to the following exquisite lines, which I think are worthy of reproduction here:
“We will gather flowers to-morrow,
When the mist of rain is o’er,
When the air is warm and sunny,
And the tempest howls no more.”
But the flowers are parched and faded,
For the clouds have passed away,
And we leave them still ungathered,
Though to-morrow is to-day.
“We will climb the hills to-morrow,
In the morning cool and bright:
Who could scale those rugged mountains
In the noontide’s scorching light?”
But the snow-wreaths clothe the summits.
And the mists hang chill and gray,
And we leave the slopes untrodden,
Though to-morrow is to-day.
“We will lend an ear to-morrow
To our fallen sisters’ woes;
We can scarcely hear their voices
While the music comes and goes.”
But along the thorny highway
Still with weary feet they stray,
And we pass them by, unheeding,
Though to-morrow is to-day.
“We will leave our work to-morrow,
And with eager hands and strong,
We will lead the little children
Far away from paths of wrong.”
But our hands grow old and feeble,
And the work goes on for aye,
And the little children perish,
Though to-morrow is to-day.
“We will raise our eyes to-morrow
To the cross on Calvary’s brow;
At our feet the gold is sparkling,
So we cannot heed it now.”
But we clutch the glittering fragments,
‘Mid the dust, and mire, and clay,
And we cannot raise our eyelids,
Though to-morrow is to-day.
Brown Robin.—From Chambers’ Journal, March 19, 1887.
I may here, though not strictly connected with this subject, call attention to the strikingly curious names adopted by many Kafirs working on the Diamond Fields, and give some instances of the manner in which they attract public notice. Natives are by no means destitute of a sense of humor,[[96]] and very often when they have been working for an employer of passionate disposition, and have been addressed by him in no complimentary terms, they voluntarily retain as their appellation some abusive title, or strong objurgation of which he has made use in the course of his remonstrances. I have not infrequently known a magistrate, on asking a native prisoner his name, to receive the reply “G—d d—mn” or “Bl—dy Fool;” while one unfortunate fellow, when asked the same question in the charge office promptly answered, “Go to H—l,” and it was not until he had been twice or three times knocked down for his apparent insolence, that the Sergeant discovered that the native had simply given a truthful if startling answer to the question put to him. Such names as “Cape Smoke” (i.e., Colonial Brandy), “Pontac” and other alcoholic terms are not uncommon, while “Sixpence” is one of the most favorite names of the natives.
Perhaps one of the most singular illustrations of the eccentric nomenclature to which I allude, and the strangely incongruous circumstances under which instances of it occur, was given in the High Court some two or three years ago. The anecdote serves as an example of how, even in matters of most solemn, nay tragic import, a ludicrous element may be present.
A native named “Brandy and Soda” had been tried for murder and found guilty, if I recollect rightly, before Mr. Justice Buchanan, the Judge President. Awful as is the sentence, and heartless as the man must be who can hear it pronounced unmoved, yet many, by no means devoid of humanity, for a moment smiled, as the Judge, having assumed the black cap, thus addressed the prisoner: “Brandy and Soda, you have been found guilty by an impartial jury of the awful crime of wilful murder, upon the enormity of which it is unnecessary for me to dilate. ‘A life for a life’ is the law for both the black man and the white, and there is no alternative left me but to pronounce on you the sentence of death. The judgment of this court is that you, Brandy and Soda, be hanged by the neck till you are dead, and may,” etc.
In concluding these few remarks relative to the legal profession, I would disclaim any wish to infer that lawyers are not a necessity, far from it, but they are a necessity with which one would fain dispense. I would not wish to imply that the lawyers of Griqualand West are more unreasonably exacting than their brethren in other places, but this observation cannot be regarded as fulsome adulation or extravagant eulogy. It will, however, be evident. I could not advocate so extreme a measure as that proposed by Dick to Cade, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”[[97]]
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A SERIOUS ACCIDENT.—FELSTEAD’S.—DR. L. S. JAMESON.—TRIP TO THE TRANSVAAL.—MONS. GRANDIER.—UMBELINI AND CETYWAYO.—CHRISTIANA.—POTCHEFSTROOM.—PRETORIA.—THE ERSTE FABRIEKEN.—BATTLE-FIELD OF BRONKHORST SPRUIT.—BURGERS, SHEPSTONE AND LANYON.—MAPOCH AND MAMPOER.—START FOR NATAL.
Having now dwelt at some length on the three professions, Divinity, Law and Physic, as represented on the Diamond Fields, I will resume my personal narrative.
I have good personal reason for recollecting the outbreak of so-called small-pox, which (as the reader will remember) I have described in a previous chapter. The medical practitioners of the Diamond Fields were at the time for months in a state of the utmost excitement over the quæstio vexata of small-pox or no small-pox, and although the weight of evidence and the opinions of those whose qualifications and experience almost served to carry conviction was certainly in favor of the latter theory, yet on the opposite side were ranged, besides those to whom the public attributed (I trust and believe wrongly) interested motives, some men of undoubted ability in their profession and above the suspicion of maintaining the scare for the sake of their personal advantage. The authorities were naturally more or less in doubt also, for “who shall decide when doctors disagree?” and many were the commissions of doctors dispatched by Government to visit “Felstead’s,” a farm some eight miles from Kimberley, where a temporary hospital was erected, all natives coming from the Transvaal examined, and those found suffering from the disease isolated. On the morning of December 1, 1883, Dr. L. S. Jameson, one of the most able physicians in the Diamond Fields, in accordance with the request of government, drove out to the place in order to make an official report.
Our inspection over, we re-entered the vehicle and set out on our way home to breakfast, when my horses became unmanageable and dashed amidst a herd of cattle, with the result that the cart was overturned and Dr. L. S. Jameson thrown out with immense force some fifteen yards, happily without sustaining any hurt, while I was less fortunate, for though I fell out close beside the vehicle, I received such serious injuries (involving extravasation of blood upon the brain) that I remained for four or five days perfectly unconscious, and on coming to my senses found myself in the Carnavon Hospital, suffering from paralysis of the right side. Here let me briefly thank Mr. Denis Doyle, the able and energetic Sanitary Inspector of the Kimberley municipality, for the great and invaluable services which he rendered to me, so I am told, on the morning of my accident, by providing relays of natives to carry me to the hospital. I would also warmly thank those members of my own profession, especially Dr. L. S. Jameson, who took on himself the sole responsibility of my case, for their unremitting attention: the good sister Henrietta and kind sisters and nurses of the hospital, and the public of the Four Camps, who exhibited an earnest solicitude as to my condition, that deeply touched me and that I shall never forget. Immediately on my recovering sufficient strength to move about, I determined to take a tour through the Transvaal, a country that I had long been desirous of visiting, and I booked a seat for Pretoria in the coach leaving Kimberley on December 31, 1883. My friends, however, not thinking me strong enough to travel, caused me much vexation, by ingeniously contriving that I should miss the coach, and in consequence my journey was postponed for another week. However, I took good care that their over-solicitude, as I thought it, should not make me miss the coach a second time, and I left on January 7th.
Just as I was sitting in the coach, preparing to start, a bundle of letters was placed in my hand, including one from my wife, who was then visiting our children in Germany. Curiously enough this letter was written on the very day after my accident, and contained the following request, “Let me know if anything, however trivial, has happened to you to-day. I have a strange feeling that something, I know not what, has occurred, which makes me intensely anxious.” I do not intend to draw any deduction from what, after all. may have been a mere coincidence, but the facts, nevertheless, are as I have stated.
How many times before T returned to Kimberley, if my pride would have allowed me, should I not have freely admitted the folly of my journey! To a man who had sustained a shock to his nervous system such as I had, the bumping for nearly a fortnight in a four-horse coach along primitive South African roads, was naturally not the best course of curative treatment.
Leaving Kimberley early in the morning a long stage brought us to a roadside inn, which was, and is, I believe, kept by M. Grandier, formerly a trooper in Weatherly’s Horse during the Zulu war.
Taking out the horses we rested here some time, and I persuaded Mr. Grandier, whom I had met in Kimberley, to tell me the story of his narrow escape at Zlobani Mountain during the war with Cetywayo. The facts of his escape, as he related them to me, are indeed stranger than fiction. “I was a trooper,” said Mr. Grandier, “in Weatherly’s Horse, and I shall never forget the morning of the 28th of March, 1879, and the attack of the Zulus at Zlobani. Ah! Mon Dieu, Colonel Weatherly was a fine man; we worshipped him, and would have followed him to the jaws of death. It took us most difficult work to get to the top of the mountain; we were at it all night, but we accomplished it. We stopped at the top an hour or two, when Colonel Buller perceived the black hordes in thousands just like monkeys, climbing up on all sides to hem us in. The Colonel told us to get down as quickly as we could, and did not we ride! I shall never forget the last sight of my beloved old Colonel; the picture is still in my mind. It seems but yesterday I saw him in the distance surrounded by howling Kafirs, all hope lost, covering his son, a bright, fair-haired lad of fifteen, from the cruel assegais of his brutal foes. I jumped down the sides of rocks as big as this house, my little horse always landing on its legs, and at last, after many escapes from the Zulus, got safely to the bottom. Five or six of our fellows at once got hold of my stirrups, seized my horse’s tail, nearly dragging him to the ground, and so weighted the poor brute that he was done up in a mile or two, and I had to leave him. What did I do? I ran like the devil and managed to hide myself in some tall grass, when, as night was coming on, I thought I was safe. Four Zulus, however, spied me out; it was no use my resisting, so they seized and stripped me of everything. I never could tell why they did not kill me; the only thing they did was to drive me on in front of them, telling me to ‘hambake.’ Every moment I thought my last. After walking some miles, we stopped at the kraal of Umbelini, an ex-Swazi chief, half-way up the valley, who was one of Cetywayo’s adherents. How I wondered what would happen next! Naked as I was, they tied me to a post, when the women tore round me as if mad, spat in my face, and pulled out my beard, while the men formed a circle, and yelled and danced about me like very fiends! This lasted far into the morning, when, half dead from fatigue and terror though I was, a Zulu, who could speak a little Dutch, raised my hopes of life by telling me that I was meant as a present to Cetywayo. Resting a little they started me off with an escort, to a place which I afterwards found to be Ulundi, Cetywayo’s head kraal. I can assure you I was as naked as when I was born, and the broiling sun in the day and the cold at night almost drove me mad. At Cetywayo’s I was treated just as badly as at Umbelini’s. The women again acted as perfect devils from the pit below. Cetywayo was disappointed with me, did not believe I was unable from weakness to handle the two guns that he showed me and which had been taken at Isandhlwana. He told me to get back to Umbelini’s kraal (for the worst I presumed) as he found me of no use. Starting back with two Kafirs as a guard, at the close of the day I felt completely exhausted, when they allowed me to rest close by a mealie field on the banks of a stream. Fortunately for me my guards were nearly as much wearied as myself, and only too glad to take a rest. One sat down to snuff, while the other went to fetch water. A sudden idea struck me, and, making a regular leap for life, I jumped and seized an assegai lying on the ground, and in less than no time stabbed the Zulu who was engaged in snuffing, right through the heart. Then snatching one of the rifles that they had with them, I waited for the Zulu returning with the water, who, as soon as he caught sight of me, bolted into the long grass, leaving me free once more. The excitement gave me fresh strength to begin another fight for life, and, to make a long story short, in two or three days, after a desperate struggle, I got back to the camp at Kambula, much to the surprise of my comrades, who for eighteen days had given me up as lost. For weeks I suffered much from the exposure, but recovered sufficiently to get to Ulundi in time for the finish. I shall never, however, forget or get over my introduction to Cetywayo.”
The story and our lunch being finished, on we went to Christiana, my only companion in the coach being a Mr. Fowler, who was engaged by some English capitalists to report on certain properties in the Transvaal said to be auriferous. Obviously plain and straightforward, his manner commanded confidence, and his report of the places which he was specially engaged to examine, as I afterwards heard, was not of the glowing color that distinguished others which were made to home capitalists, by perhaps personally interested experts, as I then believed.
Some few miles from Christiana, our next resting-place, we crossed the Vaal River, which is here a broad flowing stream some 200 yards in width, and continuing along its bank for some miles we arrived there at about seven o’clock.
BRONKHORST SPRUIT.
The coach was soon surrounded by the villagers, its arrival being looked upon as the event of the week.
Among the throng that came to meet the coach, I saw several gentlemen (?) whom I recognized as former residents of Kimberley, who had sought another sphere on account of the strictness of Ordinance 48, 1882 (Diamond Trade Act), and who were pursuing their peculiar line of business in a place where they were safe from the annoyance of inquisitive detectives asking unpleasant questions, and had chosen Christiana for their abode as being the nearest village in the Transvaal to the border of Griqualand West.[[98]] As soon as the coach stopped, we were pounced upon by a Health Officer, who forced us into a little triangular shed, reeking with burning brimstone, in order to fumigate us, the absurd idea having spread to the Transvaal that a couple of minutes’ exposure to sulphur fumes would kill the germs of small-pox, and so lessen the chance of our bringing this dreaded infection with us.
The official in question was not over exacting. He assured me in strict confidence, that the small-pox scare in Kimberley was nothing but a “doctor’s rush,” and to prove to us his belief in what he said, he was contented with a merely formal inhalation on our part of the unpleasant smoke, thus satisfying his conscience that he had done his duty. Two hotels, one or two stores, the Landtrost’s office and a few straggling houses, comprised everything that was to be seen.
Leaving this place, for six hours[[99]] until we arrive at Bloemhof, the road ran alongside the Vaal River. All the inhabitants of this small village, which was of about the same type as Christiana, were fast asleep when we drove up, so we merely remained there long enough to change horses.
This place leaped into notoriety some fourteen years ago, in consequence of being selected as the scene of the famous Bloemhof arbitration, otherwise known as the Keate award, a definition of boundaries which satisfied nobody. A handful of burnt brick houses, here one and there one with a plastered front, glaring out like spectres in the hazy moonlight and revealing a Gehenna of desolation and dust, is all that remains, so far as this Sleepy Hollow is concerned, “photographically limned on the tablets of my mind, when a yesterday has faded from its page,” as Gilbert (W.S., not the esteemed Kimberley attorney) observes in a well-known Bab ballad.
Stopping two or three times for the same purpose, first at Clarkson’s store, in front of which there is an immense lake some miles in circumference, and again at Maquassie’s Spruit, sixteen hours more jolting brought us to Klerksdorp, one of the most charming little villages that I have seen in this country. The pretty houses nestling among the fruit trees, and the roadside inn so clean and so comfortable, recalled pleasant memories of many an old English village.
Immediately before our arrival here we played the principal parts in a reproduction of the laughable farce “Fumigation.” as performed with such immense success in Kimberley, Christiana, etc. Here, however, the performance was decidedly unsuccessful, both the players, stage managers and prompters being far too sleepy to care whether anybody’s choking in the sulphurous exhalations of the “property” brazier was realistically rendered or a hollow mockery. Six hours more and we drove at a gallop into Potchefstroom, and drew up at the Royal Hotel. Learning the time the coach would start for Pretoria, and that I should have but three hours to look around, I started off at once to see the town, first attracted by the stately trees, towering at least sixty feet high, which lined the principal streets, giving an air of staidness and solidity to the little town, and at the same time inspiring an idea of well-to-do, if slightly humdrum, respectability and quietude, such as may be observed in many a New England village. The substantial brick built houses, too, surrounded by beautiful shrubs and graceful willows, the clear water from the Mori River running in sluits through every street, formed a striking contrast to the iron houses, the debris heaps and the dusty parched-up place that I had but two days left behind. Passing Reid’s store, which stands at one side of a market square, at least twenty acres in extent, with a plain and unimposing church. in the centre. I made my way to the Court-House at the opposite corner of the square, which, on the breaking out of the war, was one of the places held by our troops.
Though nearly two years had elapsed since the cessation of hostilities, the place showed the signs of the past struggle, by its general air of desertion, and the poverty-stricken appearance of a whilom-beleagured town. On making my way in, I could see by the marks all round how the place had been riddled by bullets, and could imagine the hot fire to which it had been exposed. The hole in the door was pointed out to me, through which the bullet sped which killed Capt. Falls, on the very first day of the attack by the Boers.
COURT-HOUSE AT POTCHEFSTROOM, DEC., 1880, AFTER THE SIEGE.
After Capt. Falls’ death Colonel Clark, now Her Majesty’s representative in Basutoland, took command, and with the thirty-five men he had with him defended the building for three days, until the Boers fired the roof, and he was forced to surrender on December 20th.
The Boers, elated to a degree, outraged every rule of war, sentenced the men who had capitulated to hard labor and forced them to work in the trenches which they (the Boers) were digging in front of the fort, where some of our troops had taken shelter, and which they were defending. There, exposed to shot and shell, several lost their lives, killed by the bullets of their comrades in the fort, who knew them not. I next visited the fort itself, which had been the scene of so many painful events. In a space but twenty-five yards square were crammed during the siege nearly 300 souls, of whom about 100 only could bear arms, and here men, women and children remained cooped up from the date above mentioned until they surrendered on March 20th, evacuating the fort on the 23d. In the rear of the fort a stone enclosure was pointed out to me containing the graves of those who died during the four months’ siege. There is no doubt Cronjé, the Dutch commander, ought to have been severely brought to task, as he was guilty of a decided breach of the rules of war, in that he never informed the garrison, which when it surrendered had only a few rotten mealies left, of the armistice which had been agreed upon after Majuba, on the 6th of March, news of which he received in Potchefstroom on the 12th, and was published in the Staats Courant on the 16th. During the siege our losses were: one officer killed and four wounded, twenty-five rank and file killed, and forty-one wounded. The survivors after the surrender were marched to the Free State border and liberated.
There is no doubt that Potchefstroom, which at one time, when the Transvaal was divided into two Republics, was one of the seats of government, lost much by the war. When I was there all the men of business with whom I conversed, told me that property had immensely depreciated in value, and while walking round the town I myself saw proofs of this in the many houses that were tenantless: but although Mr. Robert Acult of the firm of Reid and Co., the largest merchants of the place, told me that business was decidedly reviving, yet the non-reappearance of any banking institutions since the war told me its own tale. One thing, however, I noticed, that to all appearance a friendly feeling seemed to exist among all classes.
“Time and tide wait for no man,” so the frantic blasts from the driver’s bugle announced the readiness of the coach for departure. Taking our seats, off we started for Pretoria at eleven o’clock—
“Smack went the whip, round went the wheels,
Never were folks so glad;”
for now at last we began to see “the beginning of the end.” The journey from Potchefstroom to Pretoria is excessively wearisome, and the country very level and tame. We saw nothing worthy of recording, unfortunately passing the celebrated caves of Wonderfontein[[100]] in the night—nothing to break the monotony of our journey, save the periodical changing of our horses, nothing to occupy our attention but the oft-repeated arguments, whether or not there was any improvement in the team, or the discussion whether time had been gained or lost. In fact we all felt an incessant longing for our journey’s end.
On arriving at Pretoria we drove at once to the Post-Office to deliver the mails, then going round to the principal hotel, Up with the lark, I made the round of the main part of Pretoria before breakfast. Just in front of the hostelry where I was stopping, the Market Square extended like a large grass plot, very little business evidently being transacted there, as grass was growing nearly all over. At one end there was a large Cathedral in course of erection,[[101]] which I was told would cost £20,000, and will be a decided ornament to the town when finished. The streets were all at right angles, lined in many places with large gum trees, while the houses, neat and cosy, had pretty, well-kept gardens in front, between which the rose hedges were blooming in prodigal profusion. I saw no public buildings in the place worthy the name. The government offices and banks, built merely of brick, had no pretensions to architecture whatever. Every thing seemed in a state of utter stagnation, very different, I was told, to the state of affairs under British rule, when building was going ahead and trade and speculation were brisk.
Gold was the theme of conversation at every meal, and seemed to have attracted to the place the few strangers whom I met at the hotel, mere speculators either in prospective gold concessions, or engaged in examining and certifying to the richness of gold fields about which, before they even had made an inspection, the “straight tip” had been given them as to the kind of report expected.
Here, visiting the capital town of the Transvaal, it was impossible not to look back and think over the causes which led to the late war. Any impartial observer of men and things could come to no other conclusion but that, if Sir Theophilus Shepstone had remained in the Transvaal, and had been allowed to finish that which he had so well commenced, the Transvaal would have been a British possession to-day. Sir Theophilus Shepstone, if not known personally, yet at least by name was familiar to every farmer in the State. There is no doubt that President Burgers was driven, at the time of Sir Theophilus Shepstone’s arrival, almost to despair. With a dissatisfied people, no money in the Treasury, the Sekukuni expedition a failure, Sir Theophilus Shepstone appeared on the scene just at the right moment. As proof of this, read Mr. Burgers’ speech in the Volksraad in March, 1877:
“You have lost the country by your own stupidity. It is not this Englishman, or that Englishman, it is you—you! who have sold the country for a soupie.[[102]] It is now too late, you have become a danger, and a nuisance, and, like Turkey, your prostrate carcase is infecting the air. England now says, as she said to Turkey, ‘Remove it at once, remove it, or we shall do it at your cost.’”
President Burgers again, in the very last speech he ever delivered to the members of the Volksraad, out-Heroded Herod in his disappointed (?) frankness—in fact the Transvaal’s most bitter foe could not have spoken more openly.
This is the peroration of his speech on that eventful occasion: “Gentlemen, I may say in conclusion that when you want presidents, when you want doctors, when you want clergymen, when you want surgeons, when you want any educated men whatever, you have to get them from abroad; but whenever I bring forward measures for railways, for education, and for other necessary advancements, you refuse to pass them or pay for them. I say emphatically your independence is not to be lost, but is lost.”[[103]]
Yet if Mr. Burgers had then or at any moment held up his little finger, Sir T. Shepstone must have gone back. Instead of that Mr. Burgers, knowing he would never be reelected President, saw in the arrival of the English an opportune solution of the difficulties of the Executive, and this, to my mind, was the secret of his advising the Boers not to resist, but simply to “Protest! protest, and never cease protesting!”
No wonder, in after years, the Transvaal Boers were furious and looked with disgust upon Mr. Burgers and his action and words, when they learned that in 1878 Sir Bartle Frere gave orders that Mr. Burgers was to be paid an allowance of £500 per annum, with arrears from April 12th, 1877, the day on which Sir T. Shepstone issued his Proclamation, taking over the country. This, when it became known in 1879, was looked upon by the Boers as a bribe to Mr. Burgers, and at any rate my readers must agree with me, that this allowance should have been paid out of Imperial funds, as the country was taken over for Imperial purposes.
Aristotle in his “Politics” states that revolutions are produced by trifles, but not out of trifles. The revolution in the Transvaal was precipitated by a trifle, but that trifle was led up to by a series of blunders to my mind quite unpardonable. The trifle to which I allude was the harsh treatment (as it was at the time considered by the Dutch) in the Potchefstroom district of a man named Bezuidenhout, who was summoned for certain taxes amounting to £27 5 0. Refusing to pay, his wagon was seized, and on the day appointed for its sale in the local market, Bezuidenhout drove it away in face of the authorities to his farm, and Commandant Haaf was sent to arrest him, but found him too well supported by his friends and had to retire. On account of this, the great mass meeting at Paarde Kraal was held on December 8th, 1880, which lasted until the 13th, when the Boers formed the solemn resolution of fighting for their independence.
But to return to Sir Theophilus Shepstone, in an address which he issued shortly after his arrival, addressed “To the Burgers of the Transvaal,” in April, 1877, he thus appealed to them:
“Some of you were among the old pioneers, many of whom I knew as acquaintances, and not a few as friends. Others of you are children of those who belonged to that adventurous band, but who have passed away.
“Practically, I am an Africander, as you are proud to call yourselves. I can speak in your language, and have spoken to hundreds of you on the subject of my mission. I therefore know the feelings of those who are against it as well as those who are for it.
“Has not the war with Sekukuni, whom you all consider to be but an insignificant enemy, and which is not yet settled as was supposed, dealt a fatal blow to the prestige of the Republic, to its financial condition, to its government, and to the credit of the country, and has it not caused disaster and ruin to many families which your government found itself powerless to remedy? You all know as well as I do, that it has.
“You are surrounded inside and outside your boundaries by at least one and a half million of natives, none of whom have been made firm friends by your past intercourse with them, and of these one of the weakest has dealt you a deadly blow. It follows, therefore, that you can neither sow nor reap except by the tacit permission of the native population, and they have lost the respect for you which they had for the pioneers.”
This plain unvarnished language had its effect. He was cordially received, and Her Majesty, in her prorogation speech, addressed to Parliament on the 14th of August, was able to say, “The Proclamation of my Sovereignty in the Transvaal has been received throughout the province with enthusiasm. It has also been accepted with marked satisfaction by the native chiefs and tribes; and the war, which threatened in its progress to compromise the safety of my subjects in South Africa, is happily brought to a close.”[[104]]
But concerning Sir Owen Lanyon, who followed Sir Theophilus Shepstone, the Boers knew nothing, and regarded him with suspicion. Then again his training was against him—he was too autocratic, too self-willed, his military style of discipline too severe, and these qualities, which were rapidly rendering him unpopular even as Administrator in Griqualand West, he still retained, and manifested in his new and larger sphere.
Sir Owen Lanyon was sworn in as Administrator of the Transvaal on March 4th, 1879, and during the very next month he begged Sir Bartle Frere, then in Natal, to come to Pretoria, and assist him in arranging affairs which were beginning to look serious. In fact from his arrival to his departure on April 8th, 1881, he was over-handicapped. Sir Owen Lanyon, to judge from his conduct in the Transvaal, seemed to think it necessary to remove all those who had supported Sir Theophilus Shepstone, and put his own men in their place.
The Hollanders, an important element, were exasperated by the removal of their countryman, Dr. Kissik, from the post of District Surgeon, to make room for an old Diamond Field favorite; the barristers were insulted by the appointment of an Attorney General ignorant of the Dutch language, and a man upon whom they looked down as merely a newspaper reporter, and an attorney’s clerk; and lastly, the entire country was aroused when, in face of direct promises to the contrary, Mr. De Wet, Recorder of Griqualand West, was raised to the post of Chief Justice over the head of Mr. Kotzé, who had the confidence and admiration of all parties.
While all these apparent trifles were accumulating, there was silently growing up a spirit of flunkeyism, which seems innate in English people. The Transvaal is essentially republican, and such a spirit was utterly unsuited to the ideas of the inhabitants. One correspondent in the Transvaal wrote to me at the time—“sycophancy and subserviency are in the ascendant, good independent men are shunted to make way for those who know how to truckle to the powers that be.”[[105]]
Sir Bartle Frere at once acceded to Sir Owen Lanyon’s request. Arriving in Pretoria from Natal on the 10th of April, 1879, after several conferences with the Boers, he almost reconciled them to annexation by telling them that they should have as free a constitution as their brethren in the Cape. Sir Garnet Wolseley, however, came out, superseded Sir Bartle Frere in the High Commissionership for South East Africa, and arriving just too late for Ulundi, and the overthrow of Cetywayo, came to the Transvaal, and was sworn in as Governor on September 29, 1879. Sir Garnet spoke just as strongly as Mr. Gladstone (whom I will quote anon) had written, concerning the impossibility of our retiring from the Transvaal, and both at Wakkerstroom, Standerton and Pretoria assured his hearers that the Transvaal would remain British “as long as the sun shone.”
To add insult to injury a constitution of merely government and nominee members was formed, which was laughed and jeered at by nearly the entire country, both Dutch and English.[[106]]
At this time the Volkstem, the organ of the Boers in Pretoria, urged the farmers not to give any excuse to Sir Garnet Wolseley to attack them, but simply to protest, passively resist, and follow out President Burgers’ advice in March, 1877, when he told them “Have patience, your plan is to protest, keep on protesting, and ‘alles zal recht kommen.’” The Dutch followed this advice for a time, as they did not forget the success which attended these tactics in Holland 300 years before, when under Counts Egmont and Horn, in 1566, they managed by a series of protests, to Madrid, to rid themselves of the Spaniards and Spanish rule.
Sir Garnet Wolseley then went home, and Sir Pomeroy Colley in March, 1880, succeeded him as High Commissioner for South Eastern Africa. Events rapidly culminated. On December 13th, the Triumvirate of Kruger, Joubert, and Pretorius being formed (Lanyon in Pretoria still being nominal administrator of the country), three commanders were organized, one of which went and met the 94th Regiment at Bronkhorst Spruit, another to Potchefstroom, where it besieged the Court-House and Fort, while the third made Heidelberg its headquarters.
So the war commenced.
The three months’ siege or investment of Pretoria by the Boers was a very tame affair indeed, the state of alarm the place was in being nothing but the direct consequence of the Boer success at Bronkhorst Spruit, which I shall presently describe. As soon as conductor Egerton brought into Pretoria the account of the disaster at this place, a grand meeting of the townspeople took place, and Sir W. Owen Lanyon at once placed Pretoria under martial law, all Dutch sympathizers being allowed but half an hour’s grace to clear out, bag and baggage; the Convent, the gaol close by with its yard, and the military camp were fortified, and to these places all the inhabitants of the town, about 3,000, were compelled to remove, and leave their homes to the mercy of any intruder.
Dr. Dyer, the District Surgeon of Pretoria under the Lanyon administration, in former years a practitioner at the Diamond Fields, and who when I saw him in Pretoria held the same appointment under the Boer government, very kindly spent the whole of Sunday morning in driving me around and pointing out the principal places of interest, at the same time giving me most interesting personal reminiscences of the siege, during which he was principal Civil Medical Officer. We drove first to the old military camp, and saw the long parallel rows of barrack buildings, built during the British occupation, but which then were all empty and forsaken. “It is impossible,” the Doctor said, “to picture what we went through, or to realize the contrast between the thronged busy place this was during the siege and the silence of to-day.”
Indeed it would be difficult to find a valid excuse for the action of the authorities at all in dragging the inhabitants away from their houses and homes, and penning them up like sheep together, were it not that a species of panic had come over all.
EXECUTION OF MAMPOER, NOV. 22, 1883.
Such was the terror and excitement existing that, although Pretoria had a garrison of 2,000 effective men, reckoning regulars and volunteers, yet a force of at the most 600 Boers kept them and the inhabitants shut up for months, like rats in a cage. This garrison made one or two sorties. On the 16th of January they had a fight at Elandsfontein, of which the less said the better, and another on February 12th, at Red House Kraal, situated the other side of the Six-mile Spruit, on the road to Natal. This was a Majuba in miniature; our troops, showing the white feather, made a regular skedaddle. Nixon, who has written a most interesting work on the Transvaal, and who was in Pretoria at the time, says he saw our men running away down the hills into Pretoria, as hard as their legs could carry them. Eighty Boers made 200 red coats take to their heels, and the remainder of a column, 900 strong, were, to the disgrace of our arms, ordered to retire. The Boers formed a supreme contempt of the “Rori Baajtes.” These disastrous occasions, though such exceptional instances in the long and glorious annals of British arms, suffice in no way to tarnish their brilliant lustre in the eyes of those better acquainted with European history than these uneducated Dutch farmers. But to return to my sight seeing. After leaving the late military camp, we went to the gaol. This is very well kept, and in first-rate order. I walked round and saw the additions which had been made to the yard during the siege, all now merely mementoes of the past. Among the prisoners in the gaol, my attention was drawn to one tall, princely looking native pacing his cell and clanking his chains with an air of haughty disdain. This was no other than Niabel, alias Mapoch, who with another chief, Mampoer, had been sentenced to death by the Transvaal government, but reprieved.
The story of Sekukuni’s murder, Mampoer’s execution and Mapoch’s imprisonment, reads like a novel. Sequati, a Bapedi chief on the northeastern border of the Transvaal, had two sons, Mampoer, a son by the royal mother, and Sekukuni, a son by a wife of inferior rank. They fought for the succession, when Sekukuni being victorious usurped the throne and Mampoer fled to Mapoch, a small chief in the Transvaal. As time went on Sekukuni would not pay taxes to the Boers.
Johannes, a petty chief, with whom in former years he had been on bad terms, but who, having made up the dispute, now resided near him, was the first to rebel against the Boers. Mampoer assisting them. Johannes was killed and his tribe utterly broken up. The Boers, following up their success, tried to subdue Sekukuni, but failed, their Amaswazi allies having left them, being utterly disgusted with their (the Boers’) cowardice.
President Burgers then went to the front himself, but all in vain. Deserted by the burghers, who raised the now proverbial cry of “huis toe,”[[107]] and broken-hearted, without adherents, without money, he had to return to Pretoria and leave Sekukuni virtually master of the situation. This ultimately led to Burgers’ downfall and the assertion of British authority, and here he learned from painful experience that “the Boers were not those of the great Trek, and he himself was not Ketief, Maritz, Pretorius the elder, or even Paul Kruger.”
After the British annexation of the Transvaal, Sekukuni did not come to any settlement, so when Sir Garnet Wolseley arrived in September, 1879, after the dethronement of Cetywayo, he at once sent a special envoy, dictating terms to Sekukuni, which the latter refused. This at once led to an attack upon his stronghold, which Sir Garnet Wolseley stormed and captured, supported by sixteen companies of infantry. 400 mounted men, two or three guns and 10,000 Swazi levies under Mampoer, and Sekukuni was taken prisoner. He remained prisoner as long as the English retained possession of the country, but the Boers specially stipulated for his release in the now celebrated convention of Pretoria (Article 23).[[108]] When Sir Garnet Wolseley gave Mampoer back the country which Sekukuni had usurped, knowing well that Sequati his father had in former years proclaimed him chief, Mampoer took over one of Sekukuni’s young girls for himself; but on Sekukuni’s release and return in terms of the convention, he demanded her back, and this led to another fight, wherein Sekukuni was killed. The Boers now accused Mampoer of murder and called upon him to surrender himself, but instead of this he took refuge with Mapoch, with whom the Boers had also a quarrel, as he would not acknowledge them or pay taxes. War was now declared against Mapoch (Niabel), who defended himself bravely for many months; but at last, worn out by hunger and want, he and 8,000 of his men, who were afterwards “apprenticed” into slavery, surrendered, and Mampoer and Mapoch both found themselves prisoners of war.[[109]]
They were tried and sentenced to death, and although Mr. Hudson, the British Resident, pressed upon the Boer Executive the desire of the English government that capital punishment should not be carried out, no notice was paid in the case of Mampoer, the sentence of Mapoch alone being commuted.
Mampoer with his dying breath said, “I have fought Sekukuni for the Dutch, I have fought him for the English, and now I am hanged for doing my duty.”
Poor fellow! his execution was a sad, brutal exhibition. Pretoria was full, even on my visit, of the accounts of the scene, how the rope round his neck broke, how he was hoisted again into position, and how the day of his execution was looked upon by the Boers as a gala day, and an opportunity of exhibiting their independence of the “verdomde Englishmen.” Even photographic art was called in to perpetuate this official murder, the accompanying view of the execution being openly sold in the streets of Pretoria.
When I saw Niabel, he knew I was an Englishman and a stranger, and by his manner evidently wished to show me plainly the contempt in which he held his captors. Leaving the gaol, Dr. Dyer drove me all round the outskirts of the town and then put me down at my hotel. Next day Mr. S. Marks, the managing director of the Eerste Fabrieken, a large distillery about nine miles from Pretoria on the Pienaars River, and who had been the originator of the French Diamond Mining Co. at Kimberley, kindly drove me out to see the factory. Immediately on crossing the Pienaars River, after an hour and a half’s pleasant drive, the distillery, malt-kilns and stores appeared in sight. The building, 210 feet long, 90 feet broad, and four stories high, was fitted up with the most powerful machinery made on the latest principles, and contained as well large store-rooms for spirits and grain. Every class of work I found done on the premises.
The establishment indeed made quite a village in itself. A fine block of buildings opposite the distillery contained the offices, store-rooms for material, carpenters’, blacksmiths’ and coopers’ shops, farm laborers’ houses and stables. More than this, the company had large tracts of land under cultivation, with oxen, cows, horses, and mules in numbers, farming being a branch of the business. After looking over the distillery I spent an agreeable half hour tasting the various liquors and liqueurs. These numbered at least forty, and were manufactured from four kinds of grain—mealies, rye, barley, and Kafir corn, and then flavored.
Mr. Stokes, the manager, was exceedingly kind, and invited Mr. Marks and myself to dinner in the evening, when I had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with his charming and accomplished wife. I could have fancied myself at the West end of London, in the midst of civilization, not in the centre of the Transvaal. The appointments of the table, the English trained waitresses, and the cooking were perfection. After coffee and a delicious cigar, we retired for the night, but I felt it would take a long time to efface from my mind this unexpected little glimpse of refinement and culture. On my return to Pretoria next day, I asked Mr. Fox, formerly a large Imperial contractor during the Zulu war, who had invited me to dine with him, to advise me where I could get horses and a conveyance to take me as far as the battlefield of Bronkhorst Spruit, when he very kindly offered to drive me there himself if I would start early next day, as that happened to be the only day he could spare from his many business engagements. I jumped at the chance, and, making all arrangements to start in the morning, I went to bed early in order to get a good night’s rest before this little drive of eighty-four miles. Mr. Fox, however, had some difficulty in arranging his horses, and we did not get away until ten o’clock. Driving out of Pretoria we had an extensive view of the lovely town. It was the middle of summer, and the trees and fields looked so pretty and so green, and the rose hedges in full bloom so lovely, I was perfectly enraptured, and fancied myself in old England again. Nothing of particular interest presented itself as we went along. The country for miles undulated in grassy plains, here and there diversified by ranges of hills. We passed the Eerste Fabrieken on our left, Mr. Steuben’s beautiful place “The Willows” on our right, when pushing along the horses, only outspanning for an hour in the veldt about half-way, arrived on the scene, so memorable at least in South African history, at five o’clock in the afternoon. Crossing Bronkhorst Spruit, the ground gradually rises, and on the right-hand side of the road, dotted here and there with mimosa and thorn trees, a very gradual eminence is formed, which was the point of vantage taken by the Boers in intercepting our troops en route from Leydenburg, and about to concentrate in Pretoria.
I had thoroughly posted myself in the occurrences of that eventful day, which I will shortly relate. The 94th Regiment, together with camp followers, numbering 267 souls in all, forming a cavalcade a mile and a quarter in length, was slowly dragging its way to Pretoria, when on approaching Bronkhorst Spruit at about half-past two o’clock in the afternoon of the 20th of December, 1880, certain mounted Dutch scouts were seen galloping along the top of a ridge near by. These men brought a message, requesting Colonel Anstruther, who was in command, not to advance any further pending an answer from Sir Owen Lanyon to an ultimatum which had been sent him. This he refused, when, without further ado, the Boers, about 500 strong, opened at once a murderous fire upon our men, who were totally unprepared for so sudden an attack. Down the bullets rained like hail, and our men, who lay on the ground without a particle of shelter, were picked off with deadly precision, until Col. Anstruther himself, mortally wounded, and most of his officers hors de combat, seeing the day was lost, surrendered to the Boers, after a fight lasting just twenty minutes.
After inspecting the ground and the relative positions the Dutch and English occupied during this short but disastrous fight, we visited the two principal places where our fallen soldiers lie buried. The larger of these we found enclosed by a high stone wall about eighteen yards long by twelve yards broad, and shaded by two beautiful mimosa trees. Here lay the last remains of fifty-eight N. C. officers and men of the 94th Regiment, and one N. C. officer, and one private Army Service Com. killed, as the tombstone erected to their memory states, in action on December 20, 1880. In another and smaller graveyard, some 100 yards nearer Pretoria, the officers who fell are buried. The wall surrounding these graves had just lately been repaired by order of the English government, and, as if purposely planted to keep the sun’s scorching rays from burning up the green grass waving over them, another large wild mimosa tree threw out the protection of its flowering branches.
I have good reason to remember my visit. Wishing to see the graves and read the inscriptions on Col. Anstruther’s tomb and those of the various officers buried alongside him, I clambered to the top of the wall about four feet in height, when in my weak state I reeled over, fell inside, and, fenced in as it were, it was some half hour before my companion, who himself had lost the use of one leg, was able to get me out. Here lie buried together five out of the nine officers who were in charge of the 94th Regiment, which as I said before was proceeding from Lydenburg to Pretoria. I had leisure enough you may imagine to copy their names. Neat little crosses at the head of each grave showed the burial-places of Lieut. Col. P. K. Anstruther, Capt. T. McSweeney, Capt. N. McLeod Nairne, Lieut. H. A. C. Harrison and E. T. Shaen Carter, transport staff. The four officers who escaped with their lives were Capt. Elliott, for whose subsequent and bloody murder in crossing the Vaal River two Boers were tried in Pretoria but acquitted; Lieut. Hume, Dr. Ward, and conductor Egerton, who, it will be remembered, had the good fortune to reach Pretoria in safety, with the regimental colors wrapped round his waist, being allowed by the Boers after the fight to proceed there in order to obtain medical assistance. Surgeon Major Comerford and Dr. Harvey Crow, the latter now in practice in Pretoria, whom I had the pleasure of meeting, went out immediately on Mr. Egerton’s bringing in the disastrous news, and attended to the wounded.
Such was the precision of the Boer fire, as Dr. Crow told me, that the bullet wounds averaged five per man; truly “every bullet” in this case had “its billet.”
The Boers had evidently taken especial care to choose the ground and measure the distance before our wagon-train appeared in sight.
I was told on good authority that many of our soldiers’ rifles were found after the fight actually sighted at 800 yards, whereas 300 would have been nearer the mark, and that this accounted for the few disasters among the Boers, who only acknowledged, at all events, to one man having been killed outright, to one dying of his wounds, and to five who were wounded but recovered.
It was just the same at Majuba, the sighting of the rifles of our men picked up by the enemy being woefully incorrect; it is therefore not difficult to account for the smallness of the Boer losses there also.
Col. Anstruther, who was in command, lingered six days, until death put an end to his sufferings, dying in his tent, as Dr. Crow told me, in presence of Drs. Comerford, Ward, and himself. Even in his official dispatch, written on his deathbed, Col. Anstruther never accused the Boers of having acted unfairly in the fight, although a rumor to that effect was freely circulated.
Dr. Crow wrote at the time a most touching account of his burial. He said, “Words fail to describe a scene so sad and so unique. The remains were placed on a stretcher and carried by four sergeants, three out of the four being wounded; while the majority of those who followed were wounded too, some on crutches, others wearing splints, others with bandaged heads, and some unable to walk, were carried on the backs of their more fortunate comrades. At the grave not a dry eye could be seen, and one and all seemed to think that a friend, a good man, and a soldier, in the widest and best sense of the term, was gone for ever from their midst.”
Mr. Nellmapius, the Portuguese Vice Consul, whose acquaintance I had formed on the diamond fields, and Mr. John Gray of Transpoort, who years before I had known as a sugar planter in Natal, with a few others, did all they could for the wounded, who for four months were kept and attended to under canvas.
The Boers, it is said, showed a good deal of kindness and attention to our wounded immediately after the fight; but a friend of mine who was there at the time, and with whom I discussed the question of the Boers and their motives, assured me they did not treat our wounded kindly from any feelings of sympathy, but from a fear of after consequences, should the tide of war flow against them, and it was that reason which made them leave us alone after the fight to sink or swim as best we might, without let or interference.
Turning our horses’ heads homewards, we just managed to drive a few miles on the road to Pretoria when darkness overtook us, and we outspanned near some Dutch wagons which were going up to Sekokoni’s country. I received great kindness from the Boer in charge, who, seeing I was far from well, insisted on my taking a sleep in his wagon until the moon rose, which it did about four o’clock in the morning, enabling us to continue our journey.
Whatever may be reported concerning the incivility and churlishness of the Boers, I only speak from my own experience when I say that during the whole of my trip I received nothing but kindness at their hands. I, however, treated them with proper courtesy, not as an inferior race, which so many English upstarts do, did not order when I should ask, nor forget that the farmer was to a certain extent my host. These Dutch farmers have become uncivil in their own defence. A good deal is due to the diamond fields, and the different classes they have attracted. On the coach arriving at a Dutch farm-house, where as a favor its passengers were allowed to rest, some among them would, too often, take unpardonable liberties, would order round the inmates, enter the gardens, break off branches of the trees, steal the fruit if ripe, if unripe pelt each other with it from sheer wantonness, and leave when they had caused the farmer all the damage and annoyance they could. No wonder that in time all strangers were treated alike with abrupt and scant courtesy. Pushing along when the moon rose, we drove to Zwart Kopje, close to which there is a nice farm-house surrounded by splendid fruit trees. This was the place where the first fight took place after Bronkhorst Spruit. Zwart Kopje at the time was a very strong position, but our troops were successful in dislodging the Laager which the Boers had formed there, losing, however, six men in the attempt, while our enemies lost three. Here we took a good rest; intending to make the “Eerste Fabrieken” the last stage before Pretoria; we did this and then resting a short time at Mundt’s farm, seeing some pretty girls and eating some delicious fruit, we arrived at Pretoria about six P. M., after a most delightful and interesting trip.
I need scarcely say that sleep soon fell upon me, but dreams of cruel disappointment, broken faith, ruined prospects, shattered fortunes, disgrace and despair, haunted me the livelong night, and when morning broke, I woke up with the stern fact forcing itself upon me, that all, alas! was but too true, the vivid dreams of the night being but phantasms of the day’s sober realities.
Even in Mr. Gladstone’s political manifesto, previous to the last general election but one, he thus attempted to excuse his disgraceful surrender to the Boers after the defeat at Majuba: “We have been severely condemned because, after supplying military means such as to place beyond doubt the superiority of the British power, we refused to prosecute a work of sanguinary subjugation.”
How Mr. Gladstone could write such misleading words, in the face of his own previously expressed opinion, in face of the distinct and positive answer he made Mr. Rylands in the House of Commons on January 22, 1881, that, “it was the resolute intention of the government to establish the British supremacy in the Transvaal in the first instance,” in the face of Bronkhorst Spruit, Laing’s Nek, Tugogo, and Majuba, four defeats, which entirely put an end to the belief in British superiority, not only in the minds of the Boers, but also in those of the natives, is difficult to understand.
The retrocession of the Transvaal will remain a blot on the Gladstone escutcheon which no amount of sophistry will ever be able to wipe out.
My medical friends were very kind; the luncheons, dinners, and suppers I ate, and the genial society I enjoyed at their hospitable boards, I shall never forget.
The mail cart I learned started for Natal the next evening, so I spent the day in taking my farewells and in preparing for my journey. The mail was, however, delayed, and did not leave until two o’clock in the morning, Dr. Crow very kindly sitting up to see me safely away. At last we started for Pieter Maritzburg, when bidding the genial doctor “Good bye” and Pretoria adieu we rattled away at full gallop, with 450 miles of South African road before us.
CHAPTER XXIX.
LEAVE PRETORIA.—A TRYING SITUATION.—HEIDELBERG, STANDERTON.—MICHAELSON’S.—BOER CAMP AT LAING’S NEK.—MAJUBA ONCE MORE.—NEWCASTLE.—MARITZBERG, PLOUGH HOTEL.—D’URBAN.—VOYAGE TO THE CAPE.—CURIOUS MENTAL PHENOMENON.—RETURN TO KIMBERLEY.
The mail cart by which I left Pretoria was so arranged that the passengers sat back to back, but as there was the driver besides myself only. I was obliged to sit at the back to preserve the balance. Feeling very weak I tied myself in with a rope, which, having passed round my waist, I fastened to either side of the tent of the cart, so that whatever might happen, I could not be thrown out. The road to Six Mile Spruit was very smooth, the night dark, and being dead tired out, I fell to sleep at once; Morpheus, however, did not long hold me in his arms, for my slumbers were soon disturbed. I was suddenly awakened to the fact that something had gone wrong. Collecting my scattered senses, I saw at once that the driver had outspanned the horses, and tied them up, two to each wheel, where, neighing and kicking with fright, they were pulling and swaying the cart about in opposite directions to get loose, till at last over it went, and all four horses tore themselves free and broke away at a bound. Fortunately uninjured, yet unable to get out by myself, I laid tied up fast in the cart, until at dawn of day the driver, who had been sleeping in the stable of a farm-house close by, came to inspan again. Seeing the cart upset, the horses gone, he naturally looked to see where I was, and releasing me from my awkward predicament, went to seek for his horses. The farmer himself next appeared on the scene, one of the fattest, jolliest, old fellows I have ever met. He paid me more kind attention than I could ever have expected, and insisted on my going to his house, where we drank cup after cup of coffee until the sun was well up. Von Schalkveigh, for that was his name, once an Old Colony farmer, had been loyal to the backbone during the war.
At last, the horses being found, my driver made up for lost time, and after two or three changes of animals, we drove up to the “Royal Hotel” at Heidelberg just as the rain was commencing to pour in torrents.
This is a neat village of about 250 inhabitants. The Blesbok Spruit, which nearly encircled it, formed quite a picture in the foreground, while the background was filled up by the hills over which we had just come. Heidelberg had always been described to me as an oasis in the desert, my informants applying that term to it both from its natural beauties and from the geniality of its residents. It did not take me long to find out it was a colony composed almost entirely of thrifty, well-to-do Scotchmen, who had chosen, with considerable cuteness, the best position for miles round on which to settle.
Mr. MacLaren, the “institution” of the place, a prosperous merchant, and I can say without fear of contradiction one of the most hospitable Scotchmen in South Africa, invited me to lunch. His kindness to the English officers brought here as prisoners of war, after the Dutch success at Majuba, was a matter of common report. It was well known if he had not entertained them as guests of his own, they would have been confined in the common gaol. Such kindness at such a time cannot be over estimated. Here the Boers had their headquarters during the war, the Dutch flag having been hoisted at the beginning of the revolt, without resistance or bloodshed, on Durgaan’s Day, December 16th, 1880.
During the war the Boers behaved very creditably to the townsfolk, treating them well and paying for everything which they got from the stores. Round about they made laagers to defend the place, possession of which our troops from force of circumstances were unable to even attempt to gain.
It was still raining when we drove away, and just as darkness was closing round we outspanned at a farm-house where we stayed the night. The next afternoon we came to Standerton on the Vaal River.
MONUMENT
ERECTED BY THE BOERS TO THEIR COMRADES (TWO) FALLEN AT MAJUBA, MICHAELSON’S, LAING’S
NEK, TRANSVAAL.
This village, with 300 regulars and 70 civilians, was invested by 700 Boers on December 24th, 1880, and for two months and a half, until the armistice was proclaimed, it was able to act on the defensive only.
Crossing the river, in a few hours we came to the residence and store of Mr. Michaelson, where we stopped the night. These had been used as hospitals by the Boers, from January 28th, 1880, to the close of the war. Here the road divides, one branch leading to Wakkerstroom, the other to Coldstream, and over Laing’s Nek into Natal.
Within forty yards of Mr. Michaelson’s house the Boers have erected a monument to their dead who fell at Majuba; on this every death which occurred on that day, so fatal to our arms and prestige in South Africa, is distinctly recorded.
The accompanying picture is from a sketch which I made on passing. When looking at this reminder of scenes gone by, I could not help thinking over our own dead, sleeping peacefully in the graveyard at Mount Prospect, just across the border, a few short miles away.
Mrs. Michaelson and her husband were very kind, invited me into their private house, gave me a good dinner and bed; but I had not long to rest, as Mr. Michaelson awoke me before daylight in the morning, the mail cart starting very early. Passing Coldstream, the sun was just rising as we came near on our left hand to the site of the Boer camp during the late war; and now, more vividly than on my former visit, seeing both sides of the situation, could I realize the fact that if the late Sir G. Pomeroy Colley had taken any rocket apparatus, or Gatling gun, with him on his ascent of Majuba, or even ordered a diversion to be made at Laing’s Nek, the Boer camp must have lain entirely at his mercy. The day would have been his own, Gladstone’s fit of repentance unnecessary, and the English flag would yet be flying over the Transvaal.
The morning, beautiful and clear after the night’s rain, enabled me, as the post-cart passed along the road winding at its base, distinctly to see every outline of Majuba once more, towering 3,000 feet above. It is one of the finest scenes in South Africa, and will well repay a visit, the more so as within a radius of ten miles the student can read three lessons in the history of his own time.
Away on our left we drove past the battlefield of Laing’s Nek, bid farewell to the resting-place of poor Colley at Mount Prospect, took a last look at the roadside inn, now alas! in ruins, where two and a half years before I had passed such pleasant hours, until arriving at the Ingogo drift, Vormstone gave me a splendid breakfast. An hour’s rest, off we went again, crossed the Ingogo and made the gradual ascent, which I have described before in another chapter, to the battlefield of Schuin’s Hooghte.
Here I got the post-cart driver to stay for a quarter of an hour, while I paid a second visit to the graveyard close to the road. I found everything just the same as when I was last there immediately after the war, except that close alongside a neat little monument had been erected in commemoration of those who fell on the field, and those who died, ignominiously deserted three short years before.
MONUMENT
ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF THE FALLEN (BRITISH) AT SCHUIN’S HOOGHTE. MAJUBA IN
THE DISTANCE.
Galloping down from Schuin’s Hooghte, a few miles more brought us to Newcastle, and as the mail for Maritzburg did not start till next day, I got a good rest. Everything in Newcastle had gone back. No signs of the lavish spending of Imperial money! No military camp with its reckless expenditure now. The fine hotel, which on my former visit was crowded with officers, contractors, sutlers and army hangers-on, had been burnt down, and was in ruins. “The place thereof shall know it no more for ever.” My old friend, Greenlees, invited me to dinner, but I noticed that he looked upon me with kindly pity, as one with whom cruel fortune had made merry, and not as
“A man that fortune’s buffets and rewards
Had ta’en with equal thanks.”
I left Newcastle early next morning, travelling over the same ground as I did years before, stayed at Ladysmith an hour or two, and tried to eat a most infamously served lunch in, I think, the “inn’s worst room,” and started again for Colenso, where I rested the night. At early dawn we were on the move. On we went, calling at Pinchin’s hotel at Estcourt, kept by a fellow passenger who came with me to Natal “two decades” before in the “Tugela” then away again past Howick and the beautiful falls of the Umgeni, to Maritzburg.
The railway embankment in course of construction showed me the rapid strides civilization was making, and was a proof that the iron horse would soon neigh at a distance of 100 miles from the seaboard. In former days I always went to the “Plough Hotel;” and, with a feeling I have of never forsaking old friends or places, I went there again, but the hotel had evidently been decorated (?) by contract for external show. The backyard was covered in with glass, the floor paved with tawdry tiles, and a few stunted plants sprouted in despair from green painted pots. Everything for mere meretricious effect. The bugs, mosquitoes, dirt and disorder of my bedroom were sufficient to drive me away to D’Urban next day. Before I went, however, I found opportunity to see a few friends whom I had known years before. Among them Mr. Henrique Shepstone, who in my Natal days was Coolie Immigration Agent, afterwards Judge Philip’s private secretary during the memorable trials in the Barbadoes, then Secretary of Native Affairs in the Transvaal during the Lanyon régime, and subsequently Imperial Government agent in charge of Cetywayo during his visit to London, but now the Hon. H. Shepstone, Secretary of Native Affairs, having lately been promoted by Sir H. Bulwer to this post, which was formerly held by his father, Sir Theophilus Shepstone. Mr. Polkinghoene, the Treasurer General, whose beautiful coffee estate on the banks of the Umhloti River I had often visited, was looking after the finances of his adopted country, while my old partner in planting when I was on the coast had forsaken the cure of coffee, and taken to the cure of souls!
Reclining in a luxurious railway carriage, I was able to look back on post-cart travelling and its miseries, thinking of Virgil’s “Forsitan hæc olim meminisse juvabit,” the present comfort making up for the disagreeables of the past. Every comfort or pain in this world is by comparison, and a first-class railway carriage seemed a very haven of rest after my 700 mile post-cart trip through Griqualand West, the Transvaal, and Natal. “Comparisons are odious,” but after the “Plough” at Maritzburg, the “Royal” at D’Urban, where I stayed, seemed a perfect paradise. I can scarcely tell how thoroughly I enjoyed my few days rest before the steamer “Asiatic” bore me to Capetown!
The Indian waiters robed in spotless white, the recherché bills of fare, the noble dining-room with punkahs in constant play, the beds supplied with mosquito curtains, the obliging landlord, the tout ensemble in fact, forced me, after an experience of nearly every large hotel in South Africa, to one conclusion, which was that the “Royal” at D’Urban was beyond any comparison the hotel of the country.
After a few days pleasant coasting, calling at East London, Port Elizabeth and Mossel Bay, meeting friends at every place, we anchored at last in Table Bay, but as the wind had suddenly commenced to blow great guns from the southeast, the Captain would not risk docking his steamer.
Expecting to meet my wife, who had cabled she was coming out, after hearing of my accident, I risked going ashore in a small boat, getting drenched through for my pains. “All’s well that ends well,” however, and on landing I found that she had arrived safely the day before in the “Athenian” and was awaiting me.
I was naturally very curious to learn what had caused her unaccountable anxiety, which I mentioned in my last chapter, as particular care had been taken to keep the fact of my accident from being cabled to her, and she had remained in entire ignorance of my condition until letters reached her. She told me that she was sitting alone reading, much interested in her book, when she felt a sharp thrill, like an electric shock, pass through her from head to foot. This distracted her attention for a moment, but as she was about to resume her book, she heard a voice distinctly say “Pray for Joe, pray for Joe.” This occurred on Sunday, December 2d, which was the day after my accident, and when in both Kimberley and Du Toit’s Pan prayers had been offered in many churches for my recovery.
In as far as I have read the accounts of such phenomena, this differs from them in some respects, and so I think may be interesting to members of the Psychical Research Society, and those engaged in investigating such mental phenomena or coincidences as clairvoyance, thought reading, etc.
Although I ought to have taken a longer rest from work, I could not hear inactivity, and resumed the practice of my profession on February 14th, 1884. This I continued as before until August, 1886, when, as I tell later on, I visited the Kaap Gold Fields.
CHAPTER XXX.
VISIT TO THE KAAP GOLD FIELDS.—CAVES AT WONDERFONTEIN.—THE DUIVEL’S KANTOOR—“THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH.”—BARBERTON AND ITS DEVELOPMENT.—COURSE OF GOLD DISCOVERIES.
During the course of the year 1886 certain events occurred which determined me upon visiting Europe, and possibly settling in America, but before deciding upon the exact date of my departure, I resolved to visit Barberton, the main town of the Kaap Valley Gold Fields, in the Transvaal, and learn for myself on the spot the truth or otherwise of the statements then being made about the Fields, and which were exciting such intense interest in the Cape Colony and Natal, and even were beginning to attract the attention of the European capitalists.
I left Kimberley with that object in view in August last, by the mail coach, which ran through as far as Marais’ Farm, a few hours beyond Middleburgh, a small town seventy miles from Pretoria, the capital of the state, and which may be remembered as a place of some importance during Sir Garnet Wolseley’s operations in the Sekukuni war. I trusted, though the mail-coach service ended there, that some favorable opportunity of getting on to Barberton, the chief mining town of the district, might present itself. The gold fields that I was especially desirous of visiting lie between the Godwaan plateau and the Makoujwa range of mountains, along the valley of the Kaap and Crocodile Rivers, about 240 miles east of Pretoria. The ground between Kimberley and Pretoria I had travelled over three years before and consequently was well acquainted with it. The country I found as naturally rich and as picturesque as on my former visit, but I could not detect any signs of progressive energy or life. Everybody seemed imbued with the same lethargy and lack of industry and enterprise. On my arrival at Pretoria, however, I found the town, or rather the bars of the European Hotel and the clubs, in a state of unnatural ferment, owing to the “boom” occasioned by the newly discovered gold deposit at Witwatersrand, a place some thirty-five miles distant.
The gold there, I was told, had been found in a well-cased conglomerate, and the yield per ton was reported to be something fabulous. As a natural result speculation of the wildest character was going on.
Before arriving at Potchefstroom, formerly the capital of the state, the coach passed Wonderfontein, a farm where we changed horses, and which now possesses a certain historical importance as being the main centre of the Boer deliberations during their late successful struggle for the independence of their country.
Here the driver of the coach was induced to wait an hour in order to give the passengers the opportunity of visiting a renowned cave in the vicinity.
A tedious drive all night had brought us at last, at ten o’clock in the morning, to Wonderfontein. During the last hour or so, when the rising sun with profuse splendor “tipped the hills with gold,” the scenery, which had been rather monotonous since daybreak, became lighted up by glimpses of the beautiful Mooi River, which we could see running like a thread of glittering silver at the foot of a high range of hills to join the Vaal River below Potchefstroom. Of a wonderful cave on this farm I had often heard, and long wished to see. Mr. V. Aswegen, a son-in-law of the late proprietor, very kindly consented to act as guide, and show us the subterranean wonders which he told us he had discovered seven years ago, when out hunting game, at the same time adding that the existence of the cave was but little known, not many visitors coming to the spot. On our arrival at the place pointed out to us by the guide (four miles from his house), which was surrounded by trees, we scrambled down a few feet into something like a pit twenty feet deep, and about thirty yards in diameter, having at one corner a little hole barely large enough to admit a man.
CAVE AT WONDERFONTEIN.
Through this we groped one at a time. We did not advance far before the pitchy darkness caused us to stop and light the candles and lamps with which each visitor had been provided. Then continuing our descent for twenty minutes at least, as it were into the bowels of the earth, we were suddenly ushered into a hall of dazzling whiteness, a scene of startling fairy-like beauty presenting itself which words fail me to describe. Passing on a few yards we found ourselves in a large amphitheatre, at least one hundred yards across, with a dome sixty feet in height, arching above. From this hung in profusion groups of glittering stalactites, like giant icicles, some being as much as thirty feet in length, others shorter, and all the color of driven snow, which, combined with the stalagmites growing as if out of the floor and in some cases meeting, produced an effect which was simply superb.
Stalactites are produced, I may state, by the percolation of water, holding some mineral matter in solution, through the rocky roofs of caverns; the evaporation of the water producing a deposit of the mineral matter, and gradually forming the long pendant cones. Large caves are found only in limestone regions, and chemistry shows that water holding lime in solution does so by virtue of the carbonic acid it contains, and will deposit the lime when the acid escapes.
Imagination here could revel at will, and play any freaks she chose. To the fancy were suggested vivid and varied scenes, while associations of all kinds—recollections of the past, and anticipations of the future—crowded on the spectator’s mind. In one corner the stalactites extended nearly to the ground, in circular pillars, and to the eye of fancy seemed like the carved confessionals in some continental cathedral, and it needed no great stretch of imagination to expect momentarily the appearance of the fair penitent and “holy friar.” A little further—still allowing fancy scope—there could be seen the pipes of a magnificent organ, extending to the dome, while, seemingly to prove that all was real, our guide ran his fingers over these vibrating pipes, bringing out a succession of tones both musical and clear. Looking on the other side of what I shall term this magnificent hall, the Roman Forum, with its eloquent speakers, and the noble orations they delivered in centuries gone by, were brought vividly to one’s memory by the very model of an ancient rostrum, standing ready for another Cicero again to mount and passionately declaim “Quosque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra.”
At the request of my companions I mounted this natural platform, when amid most enthusiastic plaudits from the friendly audience I spoke as felicitously as I could on the Transvaal and its resources, and dwelt upon the probable time, the countless ages, which had been consumed in the formation of the natural beauties we were viewing.
Before bidding farewell to this never-to-be-forgotten scene, we gathered together underneath the centre of the dome and sang “God save the Queen,” our guide, with the precision of a drummer, beating time on one of the pendant cones. I must not forget to mention that the echo which reverberated through this majestic hall reminded me most vividly of the Taj Mahal at Agra, and of the curious acoustic properties of that white marble mausoleum. But the distant notes of our driver’s bugle summoning us, we were suddenly reminded that we must again tempt the fortunes of “a cold, cold world,” and leave these mysterious caverns to the darkness of midnight and the silence of the grave.
After a day’s rest at Potchefstroom we went on to Pretoria (the seat of government since November, 1865), where we stayed the night, and started next morning for Marias’ Farm, sixty miles beyond Middleburg, where, as I have already told you. the mail service ceased. Here I and a fellow passenger were compelled to hire a special conveyance to take us on to the Duivel’s Kantoor, passing through the romantic Eland’s Valley and by the side of the Barret-Berlyn property. This village (the Kantoor), which is picturesquely situated at the very edge of the Drakensberg overlooking the Kaap Valley, was formerly the headquarters of the diggers for alluvial gold on the Godwaan plateau, and also the residence of the gold commissioner. I will refer to one of my letters for a description of the scene: “A short distance from the hotel where I am resting I have just seen one of the finest sights that has fallen to my lot to behold since I have been in South Africa. It is only a stone’s throw from the table where I am writing to the edge of the Drakensberg, but before the grand scene which I shall essay to describe to you bursts upon the view, the pathway twists and winds through such immense water-worn sandstone boulders, tossed as it were promiscuously around, and of every conceivable size and fantastic shape, that no wonder the illiterate and superstitious but God-fearing Boer imagined some supernatural power—the Devil himself, in fact—when in a capricious mood had taken a particular interest in the locality.
“You have not forgotten, I am sure, our trip to the Falls of the Tugela in 1870, where, in one unbroken sheet, we saw that river leap over the Drakensberg 1,800 feet. I can even now picture to myself the view from the top of the Berg, a spot where few save the prowling Bushmen, with their poisoned arrows, have ever been; and can well remember how I feasted my eyes on the vast expanse below, studded with the homesteads of enterprising British colonists. I have been, as you know, on Majuba’s heights, and have seen the rocks up which General Smith and his plucky band resolutely climbed on that eventful Sunday morning, performing one of the most heroic feats of modern times—and I have lingered for hours on Table Mountain, viewing the magnificent panorama of Capetown, with its docks and shipping, the picture framed on the one side by the green of its beautiful suburbs, and on the other by the blue of the mighty Ocean. But these all pale before the view of the Kaap Valley from the Duivel’s Kantoor.
“When I first reached the edge of the Berg, the Kaap Valley—2,000 feet below me, which I knew from report was some thirty miles in diameter and surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills—presented a weird and beautiful appearance, being entirely covered by a dense white mist, which seemed like some vast inland sea. At the same time the rising sun, topping the hills on the other side of the valley, added to the novelty of the scene by pouring its dissolving rays, through a clear and cloudless sky, on the misty surface which glittered like a mirror as it reflected back the golden sheen. By degrees, as the sun, rising higher in the heavens, became more powerful, the conical-shaped hills which dotted the valley began to pierce through the mist, and beautiful islands with their bays and inlets seemed traced as on a map before me. I could not leave the place—I seemed rooted to the spot; but after turning round for a few seconds a still greater surprise was in store, for during the brief period that my attention had been withdrawn, a change, as if by magic, had taken place. The ‘blanket’ or ‘table-cloth,’ as the mist is called, had suddenly disappeared, and the whole valley was exposed to view; only, however, hanging over the spruits and marking their courses, did it still remain.”
Ten or twelve years ago, I have been told, this valley was in many parts a complete swamp; it was, notwithstanding this however, a favorite resort in the winter for the Boers from the neighboring high lands who came to shoot the big game—the lions, tigers, buffaloes, and rhinoceri, with which it abounded; but my medical knowledge soon told me the reason why the Boers had formerly named this romantic valley “The Valley of the Shadow of Death,” for the stern reality forced itself upon me that the pestiferous breath of the rolling mist, that I had just so much admired, although beautiful and fair to view, was dangerous in the extreme, and would yet prove the “bed-rock” which full many an unlucky digger would be sure to “strike.”
BARBERTON, TRANSVAAL.
To the northeast I had pointed out to me the conical-shaped Spitzkop, which, with the Devil’s Knuckles, Mauch Berg, 8,725 feet high, and Macdonald’s Berg, mark the Lydenberg Gold Fields, and straight across to the south and southeast I could see Barberton, Moodie’s Lower Camp, Pretorius Kop and the Tafelberg, while the Makoujwa range, which forms the boundary between the Transvaal and Swaziland, formed the background to the scene. I am told there is an oil painting of this beautiful valley in the South Kensington Museum, painted by a Dutch artist as long ago as 1790. All the way on our road to Barberton, at which place it took us at least eight hours to arrive, we found the valley through which we passed uninhabited; yet there were at almost every few yards, in the shape of piles of stones, heaped together for mealie-garden clearings, evidences that this valley had but one generation back been enormously populated. In the early part of the century Umselikatzi, the late chief of the Matabeli—himself a Zulu, in fact a cousin of Chaka—was sent out of Zululand by Chaka, Cetywayo’s uncle, when he swept through Swaziland, and depopulated this valley, and, as one writer says, “they slew and slew until their arms were tired of killing,” then establishing himself in Matabele Land, beyond the Limpopo, set himself up as an independent monarch. This accounts very clearly for the fact that, although other tribes and languages intervene between the Zulu country and Matabele Land, yet nearly pure Zulu is even now spoken by the Matabeli.
The Kaap Valley after this became a species of “No Man’s Land,” and the habitat simply of refugee Kafirs and broken-up tribes, who acknowledged themselves subjects of the Swazi king and paid him tribute. The Swazis, however, from time to time, sent commanders further north, and made raids on Sekukuni’s Kafirs, or Bapedi, who, although they were once or twice successful in repulsing the invaders, were at last conquered, when the Swazis became paramount as far north as the Steelpoort River. This strip of land extending from the Makoujwa range to the river above-mentioned, including of course the Kaap Valley, was ceded to her Majesty’s government by the Swazi king; who, however, now declares that he never gave it to the Boers, who obtained it from us on the retrocession, but to her Majesty.
On my arrival at Barberton, which is the rendezvous of all the prospectors in the neighborhood, I found it to consist of a mining town of about 2,000 inhabitants, nestling at the foot of the steep range of hills which serves to divide the Transvaal from Swaziland. This place, which but a few months before had been a village with but one or two houses, before I left was the centre of a large and increasing population. Some idea may be formed when I tell you that the government has allotted 3,000 building stands on which there are hotels, stores, churches of different denominations, either completed or in course of erection, two stock exchanges, a club, a theatre, two music halls, three newspaper offices, three banks, a market-house, as well as large government buildings, comprising courts of law, post and telegraph offices, and last, but not least, that necessity of existence known in this country as a “tronk,” but elsewhere a prison—in fact, if it were not for the absence of the railway-engine and electric wire, none of the requirements of civilization would be wanting.
Some idea of the sudden rise of Barberton may be gained when a comparison is made of its past and present postal requirements. In March, 1886, the revenue from the sale of postage stamps amounted only to £24, while more than £1,000 worth were sold in December of the same year. During the same month the revenue from other sources amounted to over £16,000, and taking this as a fair monthly average at the present time, the revenue from Barberton and the Kaap Gold Fields alone is considerably greater than that of the whole state some two or three years ago.
Naturally, among a population composed of men of various types and nationalities, a great diversity of character must be found, hard-working men, sober toilers, drunken sots, worthless loafers, men of strict integrity, and others without a grain of honesty in their composition, are to be met with daily. Sad to say, a good many of those sent up to the Kaap Gold Fields to prospect, supported by syndicates in the Colony or Natal, never searched for the precious metal save in the billiard room, though as a change, now and then, they took an enjoyable picnic on the veldt at the expense of the confiding contributors to their outing.
It is a matter much to be regretted that strong drink, with its accompanying vices and crimes, and the diseases that its excess induces, especially in hot countries, always follows the advent of the Anglo-Saxon. In and around this small community canteens and low grog-shops absolutely swarm, the number of licensed houses in the district being over 200—or one grog-shop for every ten of its population. The state places no limit on the issue of licenses, either wholesale or retail; at present, until Barberton be declared a township, when a retail liquor license will cost £50, the one can be obtained for £12, and the other for £15, per annum, and Sunday trade is not restricted.
Barberton and the surrounding locality, in my opinion, would be as healthy and have as low a death-rate as any place in South Africa, the climate being both pleasant and invigorating, if only the simplest sanitary precautions[[110]] were adopted by the authorities, and the population generally were fairly abstemious.
I wish here to correct a most erroneous impression which seems to prevail through South Africa as to the danger of residence in Barberton during the summer months. The climate of Barberton is but little, if at all, more unhealthy than that of Kimberley, and I speak advisedly from professional experience gained in both places. The only real exception that can be taken against Barberton as compared with Kimberley is, that being some seven degrees nearer the equator, the heat is more intense, and consequently greater care has to be taken in avoiding its depressing influences than in the other locality named. Let me, therefore, beg of you to disabuse your minds of the belief that Barberton in summer-time is a hot-bed of malaria. I must confess that I started to Barberton with a certain amount of trepidation as to the possibility or probability of myself or my healthiest neighbors being stricken down without warning by an attack of fever, the picturing of whose virulency had led me to expect an active counterpart to the great plague of London. Other practitioners there have owned to similar preconceived notions, of which, like myself, they soon become disabused. As a matter of fact, nothing can be further from the truth. Malaria indisputably exists in the low-lying districts situated to the north of Barberton; but a residence in and about that district, when accompanied by reasonable precautions, is as safe for a healthy man, woman or child, as almost anywhere in South Africa.
The Transvaal government, urged on no doubt by the exaggerated reports of the unhealthiness of the town, has generously given £2,000 to assist in building a general hospital. Pending the completion of this building a neat little cottage hospital has been fitted up, a medical staff appointed, and, with two trained nurses from the Kimberley hospital, who have volunteered their services, the sick poor are now fairly comfortable. The reports circulated through South Africa concerning the insalubrity of the Fields are fearfully exaggerated, but they have already attracted a number of doctors, largely in excess of the requirements of the place.
It is amusing to note the mistakes of current journalism. For instance, in the last Christmas annual issued by the Natal Mercury appeared the following remarkable piece of information: “The Kantoor is regarded as the sanatorium of Barberton, and to it the inhabitants repair on the first symptoms of illness.” It is not necessary for me to tell you that the Kantoor is thirty-five miles distant from Barberton, and I should pity the poor patient who would have to “jog his bones over the stones” in order to seek renewed health in this so-called sanatorium.
But as far as the finding of gold is concerned, the wave of modern gold discovery in Southeast Africa has flowed in an entirely opposite direction from the course it might have been expected to take, commencing in the interior and proceeding by slow and measured steps in the direction of the coast.
BARBERTON.—FIRST GAOL AND HOSPITAL.
I may here just remind you of the unsuccessful expedition sent out in 1650 from Lisbon, under Francesco Barreto, to explore the gold fields of these regions, and en passant may mention that the yearly yield of gold exported at a somewhat later date by the Portuguese was more than a million pounds sterling in value, or, according to one authority, £3,000,000. Yet these matters I will not enter into fully now, but review at once the result of the work done in recent years.
Before proceeding further I may recall a fact that many may have forgotten, viz.: that the Transvaal Republic, under President Pretorius, made it penal for any one (£500 fine) finding precious stones or metals on his farm to reveal such discovery to any one except the government, and it was not until during the more liberal régime of President Burgers that this absurd piece of senile legislation was rescinded or fell into abeyance.
But as I say, to come to modern times—Mr. H. Hartley, the celebrated elephant hunter and explorer, while shooting in the Matabele country in 1866, was led to suspect the existence of gold in that country, and so excited was he from what he saw, and also from the current stories afloat, that on the next trip which he took in the following year he brought with him a young German traveller, the late Carl Mauch, to aid him in discovering the truth or falsehood of these reports. Mauch wrote in the most glowing terms of what he saw, and of the wonderful richness of the quartz that he found, the result being that after the formation of various colonial companies Sir John Swinburne and Capt. Levert, representing the London and Limpopo Mining Co., came out from England in 1868, fully equipped, and proceeded to the Tati gold fields, of which district Capt. Levert had got a grant from Umzelegatzi. These fields, extending from northwest to southeast, a distance of forty miles long by fourteen broad, are in 21° 27′ S. Lat., and 27° 40′ E. Long. There are on the settlement itself, according to Alfred G. Lock, F.R.G.S., eleven mines (in fact nine different companies were formed) from which gold has been taken, and these are all situated, he says, on workings sixty to seventy feet deep, of the age of which some idea may be gathered from the fact that trees from 150 to 200 years old are now growing within these ancient shafts. The workings of the Tati gold fields were continued by Sir John Swinburne, and afterwards by August Griete, for about three years, when they were abandoned. One Australian miner, however, remained behind, working on what was named the New Zealand Reef, and his efforts were sufficiently successful to induce Mr. D. Francis of Kimberley, to apply to Benguela, the Matabele king, for Sir J. Swinburne’s concession, which he obtained, but up to the present time operations have been conducted without much success,
The discovery of other gold fields 350 miles to the northeast of the Tati followed in a few weeks that of these fields. In October, 1868, McNeil of D’Urban, with other members of the D’Urban Volunteer Artillery, of which corps he was then Lieutenant, left Natal, went first to the Tati, and then proceeded to what were termed the Northern gold fields, but on fever breaking out among the party, and several dying, the survivors thought it more prudent to return.
In 1871, five years after Hartley’s discoveries, Mr. E. Button, a well-known Natal colonist who in 1868 and 1869 had prospected the country northeast of Lydenburg, nearly as far as the water-shed of the Zambezi, found gold upon his farm Eersteling, in the district of Marabastad, which was a new departure in gold discovery farther to the south.
Proceeding to England, he formed a company, The Transvaal Gold Mining Co., with a capital of £50,000, and returned to the Transvaal with a mining engineer of experience, and also with powerful machinery. Although troubled with many difficulties, but principally with water in his main shaft, he worked away with varying success until the Boer war of 1881 put an entire stop to his efforts. The Boers, in their desperate need at the time, made a complete wreck of his machinery, being constrained, through want of ammunition, to cut up even the stamper-rods of the battery, to mould into cannon balls.
The next move in a southerly direction was the finding of gold by Mr. Lachlan and others, in September, 1873, on the Blyde (or Joyful) River, at Pilgrims’ Rest, at Mac Mac; close by, and at Spitzkop, a solitary hill twenty miles distant. These alluvial diggings supported from 5 to 800 diggers, and Pilgrims’ Rest became for a time a place of considerable importance, until the principal creek being nearly worked out, and many diggers in consequence leaving, the government virtually drove the remainder away by granting a concession to a company formed by Mr. David Benjamin. This concession gave power to the company to remove all diggers on payment of compensation, which was made to the amount of £55,000. It is a subject of regret, however, that the same want of success has followed this company as that which has hitherto attended the Lisbon and Berlyn, the company in connection with which the name of Baron Grant has so prominently figured.
CHAPTER XXXI.
COURSE OF GOLD DISCOVERIES CONTINUED.—MOODIE’S SYNDICATE.—THEIR EXORBITANT DEMANDS AND THE RESULT.—BARBER BROS., AND THE UMVOTI REEF.—MAD SPECULATIONS.—FUTURE OF THE GOLD FIELDS.
Previous to this, in 1881, a long lull had taken place in gold discoveries in the Transvaal, owing to various causes, and among others to the war.
In consequence of rumors of gold having been found at Eland Hoet being in circulation, a number of men, including prospectors, diggers, and others, were attracted from Lydenburg and Pilgrims’ Rest to that district, and notwithstanding the fact that this swindle, as it was termed, was severely criticized in the public press, yet by this means the discovery of the Kaap gold fields was incidentally brought about.
Many of the diggers worked up the gullies, came on the Godwaan plateau, and ultimately the Kaapsche Hoop gold fields, still further south, with the Duivel’s Kantoor as its centre, became an established fact. With respect to the later gold discoveries in Swaziland I shall speak further on. The Duivel’s Kantoor, Devil’s Counting House, at which I have mentioned we rested a night, is now comparatively deserted, containing but half a dozen houses, and two canteens; but in June, 1882, before the Transvaal government, by granting a concession of most of the valuable mining land in the locality to a private company, drove the diggers away, this village was the prosperous business centre of at least 500 diggers, who were spread over the Godwaan plateau, an area of twenty-eight by fifteen miles.
After the concession, of which I have just spoken, was granted to the Barret-Berlyn Co., many of the diggers went down into the Kaap Valley and found alluvial gold at a spot afterwards named Jamestown, close to the Kaap River, in Lat. 25° 31′ S. and Long. 31° 26′ E., about sixteen miles from the present town of Barberton; and although nuggets up to 58 ozs. in weight were found by individual diggers, there still was no general or substantial success.
Jamestown, however, may take the credit to itself of being, as it has been styled, “the cradle of the country which was in future to populate our reefing districts.”
Some of the diggers becoming dissatisfied with their luck left the place, went in a southwest direction, and struck some very rich gold reefs, together with some insignificant alluvial diggings, on certain of the farms, thirteen in number, the property of Mr. G. P. Moodie, the Surveyor General of the Transvaal. The choice of the farms has since proved a very lucky stroke for Mr. Moodie, for although when he acquired them from the government he might possibly have looked forward, in the distant future, to a railway being constructed from Delagoa Bay to Pretoria, which would enhance their value, yet at the time he became their owner no one ever dreamt of the possibility of their being gold-bearing. This gentleman had made in 1870 and 1871 three official journeys from Pretoria to the coast, with the object of discovering the best line of road either for rail or wagon, and on his second journey he passed through this tract of country.
I may mention, in passing, that, touching the geology of the district, a late writer states that “the formation consists chiefly of argillaceous slates and schists, sandstones, and conglomerate, in some places disturbed by granite and traversed by quartz-reefs and igneous dykes. The reefs are for the most part vertical, and run almost due east and west, with a southerly inclination.”
But to return to the history of these gold fields, discovered on Mr. Moodie’s farms: In November, 1882, certain terms on which diggers were allowed to peg out claims on these properties were posted up at the Gold Commissioner’s office at the Kantoor by Mr. Moodie’s attorneys, and as a consequence many proceeded thither to prospect. Their reports being considered satisfactory, a general rush was made, for with the most crude and primitive appliances it soon became generally known that a comparatively large quantity of gold was being turned out. The number of diggers increased rapidly, spread out into three camps, and everything went on prosperously until towards the end of 1883, when Mr. Moodie disposed of his property to a Natal syndicate for £240,000. Before doing this he rescinded the terms which he had made with the diggers during the previous year, and the consequence was that great dissatisfaction was caused among them. The Natal directorate, evidently with the intention of squeezing out of the diggers all that they could get, and forgetting the possibility of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, immediately began to impose the most exorbitant taxes. They demanded £3 a month license money per claim, and a royalty of from 7½ to 4½ per cent. on all gold turned out. These changes, together with payments for wood, water, charcoal, grazing, and stand rents, soon was attended with the result that might have been foreseen—the diggers were led to prospect on the government farms adjoining, and situated to the northeast, on which in 1885 a public gold field was proclaimed.
In the winter of 1884, Messrs. Barber Bros., gentlemen well known in the Cape Colony, at the time joining business with pleasure, were shooting game in the Kaap Valley. In the month of August, they came to a stream known as the Umvoti Creek, about half a mile distant from the site of Barberton, a township which has since been named after them, when, on looking up the side of the steep ravine bordering it, they detected a quartz reef jutting out, which on examination showed visible gold. This, with the assistance of Mr. T. C. Rimer, who can well lay claim to be one of the pioneers of the Transvaal gold fields, they opened up, imported a ten-stamp battery (the first on the Kaap fields) and began, as soon as it was erected, to crush at once. From the moment their returns became known the death-knell of Moodie’s Co. was tolled, either as a paying investment, or as regards any further important increase in the prospecting or mining on their property, although the various sub-working companies, notwithstanding their being so heavily taxed, are in many instances doing fairly well. The diggers now made the rush to which I have above alluded, and left Moodie’s almost deserted, when the mountains and gorges, the rugged slopes and defiles along the Makoujwa range, became peopled by prospectors, attracted from all parts of South Africa, and many valuable properties were discovered; but it was not until “Bray’s Golden Quarry,” ten miles from Barberton, was found (May, 1885), that the South African world became awakened to the fact of the richness of the Transvaal as a gold-yielding country. This wonderful mine was, as the discoverer himself told me, accidentally found after five months prospecting on the Sheba range by Mr. Edwin Bray, whom I knew in 1871 as a pioneer diamond digger, and whose name will now forever stand associated with the development of this auriferous region. Although the company which he formed did not at the time possess its own machinery, and was for months compelled to send its quartz eight miles away over a rugged country to be crushed at an expense of at least one oz. of gold per ton, pending the completion of a tramway to the Queen’s River, yet it paid back in fifteen months 63½ per cent. of its capital in dividends; its £1 shares sold readily at £75 or over, and the return of its crushing averaged 7 oz. 3 dwts. per ton; and this, although from tests applied it had been proved that the refuse-tailings contained 4 oz. of gold per ton, lost through imperfect manipulation.
The sight of the quarry at once raised endless speculations in my mind as to the vastness of its wealth. To form even a remote idea was an impossibility. On the one hand I could look from the bottom of a deep, almost precipitous, ravine, where the reef could be measured 100 feet in thickness, and see towering between 400 and 500 feet above me the capping of the quartzite reef, lying at an angle of fifty degrees on the edge of the quarry proper, while on the other no limit to the extent of the reef hidden from view beneath my feet had yet been determined; neither had the length of the vein, although almost certain indications had been found that it extends nearly half a mile. I began to calculate what the return of this company will be with the 100 stamps about to be erected at daily work, until dreams of untold wealth came over me, from which I awoke to warmly congratulate my old friend on his marvellous success, which as one of the most active mineral prospectors in the Transvaal he so richly deserves. On my visit to Mr. Bray’s I noticed that the road to Sheba is dotted with canteens. Although the distance is only twelve miles, yet the inner man can be supported six or seven times before arrival at Eureka City, (within a stone’s throw of the Sheba Reef), and when there almost as many canteens as houses may be counted. Notwithstanding, however, the great amount of prospecting work which has been done, very few really payable gold reefs have been as yet struck. Speaking of prospectors’ work, I may state that on the day I left I counted in the Gold Co.’s office 513 registered blocks of amalgamated claims; but of these more anon. There can be no doubt that the precious metal exists in various degrees of richness in the quartz-veins that are to be seen all around the Kaap Valley, yet these have not been discovered in quantity rich enough to warrant the great influx of diggers and men of almost every trade or profession, or the absurd speculation in claims and shares which has taken place.
SHEBA REEF, BRAY’S GOLDEN QUARRY, BARBERTON.
The public have been warned over and over again that these are no “poor man’s diggings,” but at a distance the very name of gold serves to call up the most enchanting visions, and forbids the difference between alluvial diggings and quartz mining being sufficiently weighed. There is such a thing in this world as living on a name; many a “worthless son of a worthy sire” has found out this secret, and the name of Edwin Bray and the stupendous wealth of his quarry has tended to enable company on company to be floated which never will pay a dividend between this and the day of their liquidation. To Natal men the credit is certainly due of first developing the fields. The object which they had in view in forming companies was to found dividend paying concerns, with small capitals only sufficiently large to provide adequate machinery to develop the property; whereas some, though of course not all, of the other speculators, who came in at a later period, formed large companies, took in any number of claims, whether proved gold-bearing or not, so long as they would swell, with an appearance of justification, the enormous capital of their prospectuses, got thousands of pounds promotion money, and, by means of a nicely managed ring, ran up the shares to a premium and then sold out.
As time goes on I feel certain that many things will have to be rectified, none more so than the pegging out of claims by power-of-attorney. If this absurd system be continued, there is nothing to prevent the four hundred millions who inhabit the Celestial empire, or even the Man in the Moon and his family—could communication be established with Earth’s satellite—holding claims to the direct detriment of those whose energy, determination, and self-sacrifice have prompted them to seek their fortunes in this new El Dorado.
The Transvaal, however, will in a very short time create further sensations. On the Sheba Hill veins of antimony (stibnite), worth in the commercial world £33 per ton, have been found; and at the Komati, baryta, used for bleaching and for the adulteration of white lead, has been discovered; while in the other parts of the district horn-silver, or chloride of silver, possessing 78 per cent. of the real metal, has been unearthed. This is not the same as Mackay’s celebrated mine in America, the Comstock, which is argentite, sulphite of silver, commonly termed black silver, containing as much as 85 per cent. of silver, though it is, as will be seen, immensely valuable. Then again, both the blue and green carbonates of copper, as well as native copper, can be found in abundance, and the wonderful Albert Mine, with similar ones, situated near Pretoria, of fahlerz tetrahedrite, or grey copper ore, running from 113 to 200 ozs. of silver to the ton, must not be forgotten. Again, large coal deposits have been found at Ermelo and Bronkhorst Spruit and also at Wynoor’s Poort, about 100 miles from Barberton, the last named being very little inferior to Welsh coal. Colonel Warren,[[111]] formerly on Major-General George H. Thomas’s staff in the army of Tennessee, a practical geologist, also informed me he had discovered in the Transvaal, on his road up to the Barberton gold fields, petroleum shale which, he said, was almost a positive proof of the existence of petroleum, in what may prove to be highly payable quantities. These coal deposits will be of immense value when the different water-rights in the Kaap Valley are all taken up, as the necessary wood for feeding any large number of steam engines is not to be procured without great difficulty and serious expense.[[112]]
Some idea of the madness of the speculation that has lately existed may be formed, if it be taken into consideration that the inflated selling price of the scrip of different companies floated merely, not worked, exceeded £5,000,000, while their subscribed value is under £2,000,000. This has produced what I may term an abnormal and unnatural state of things, not only at De Kaap, but in various other parts of South Africa. It is important to bear in mind (January, 1887) that there are at present only ninety-seven stamps at work (I include those on Moodie’s), yielding a profit of about £160,000 a year; and investors and speculators will do well to remember that it will be at least eighteen months before an appreciable difference in their number can be made. If we as business men compare this return with the outlay of money which is taking place, we can at once see the ruinous scale on which business is conducted. As I told you, there are 513 amalgamated blocks in the proclaimed government gold fields, paying each, on an average, £10 a month duty to government; this is £61,560 a year. Then must be added the cost of working; put this at a very low estimate, say £20 per block, there is £123,120 more. I will not reckon the expenditure of those prospectors who have not pegged out, but take next the share list of companies floated. These amount to say roughly £1,800,000, but their inflated value is at least £5,000,000. Now surely these investors expect some interest on their capital, and if a modest 5 per cent. only be allowed, although all mining speculations ought to return at least 20 per cent, (and you will agree with me, the greater part of this capital will pay no interest for two years), we have a further loss of £250,000 a year to the investing public, or a total of £434,680 at the present time.
I saw the mania which occurred some years ago on the Diamond Fields, but there, even, nothing so outrageously absurd and preposterous happened as in this gold share mania. I remember the time when central shares in the Kimberley Mine, which in the height of the mania barely reached 300 per cent, rise, and were, moreover, at the very time paying over 50 per cent. interest on their subscribed value, falling on the collapse occurring from £400 to £26 per share, and, although the property is one of the richest in the world, yet it has taken years for it to regain its status. How then about gold shares running up from £1 to £25 per share, or 2,500 per cent. advance, which are not working, have no machinery, and cannot pay a dividend, if not for years, at least for months.
The great question is, What is to be the future of these fields? I must say that, after careful investigation, I am not sanguine as to the Kaap Valley being able to carry any large population for a long time to come, and even then the population will be purely a working one, men toiling for regular wages, miners, engineers, and skilled artisans employed by companies. The average English laborer will be driven out of the fields by native labor, 1,500 natives being at present employed, and there will be no such thing as a poor man jumping into a fortune except by some extraordinary stroke of luck. I cannot too strongly impress on those who are without capital, that Barberton is no place for them, that is, unless they are prepared to be contented with wages no better, proportionately, than they can earn in any other part of the world. The skilled artisan or experienced miner may be fortunate enough to obtain a succession of highly profitable engagements, but that is very far from being a certainty. Although I would not altogether wish to discourage those who are willing “to scorn delights and live laborious days,” and who possess certain special qualifications in technical knowledge, from visiting Barberton, even although their store of money almost reaches the vanishing point, yet I would bid the vast majority of those without capital to pause and ask themselves whether it is not better to “bear those ills” they “have, than fly to others that” they “know not of.” Were this an alluvial gold field my advice would no doubt be different.
A man who, fifteen years ago, would have found the dry diamond diggings a possible Golconda, would now, I will not for a moment say starve, if he be sober, honest and industrious, but will have long to wait before he comes within measurable distance of the realization of his hopes, if he should ever do so. At Kimberley the day of the individual digger, unless he should be a man of enormous capital, is past and gone. There is a curious analogy between the two places; that which the increased expense of working, together with the amalgamation of claims, has done for the former, the working out of the known alluvial fields has done for the latter. In fact, I am reluctantly compelled to admit, that I know of no poor man’s diggings of any sort in South Africa.
That some good and extremely profitable reefs have been found, I do not for one moment wish to deny, but as I have just now said, these can be counted on the fingers of one hand. That gold is here and in large quantities is true, but it requires gold to get it, and there is such a thing as paying a guinea for a sovereign.
The place is now mainly, if not entirely, subsisting on imported capital, and that intangible entity known as hope. For capitalists, who are choosing to risk their money in testing the value of the reef properties, this is all very well. What I want to do, is to caution against disappointment those who think they are on the high road to fortune, when with hammer, pick, and tent they start off prospecting.
In concluding the subject of the gold fields I will only say that I am afraid that great disappointment must be the lot of the many—I mean the many who seek the fields comparatively penniless, trusting to receive some sudden, unearned favor from the blind goddess, rather than determining to force a smile from her by earnest, honest toil.[[113]]
During my four months’ stay on these fields I pursued my profession and had many opportunities of seeing the country, being called on professional work in almost every direction, from Eureka City and the Sheba range to Moodie’s, and from the Kantoor to the Kami Klubane Beacon in Swaziland. And I also assisted in carrying out the hospital work, which was organized on a new footing while the larger government hospital was being built.
CHAPTER XXXII.
LEAVE BARBERTON.—STEYNSDORP.—KOMATI RIVER.—KING UMBANDINI’S KRAAL.—SWAZILAND.—THE DRINK CURSE AND ITS INEVITABLE RESULT.—INTERVIEW OF DR. CLARK, M. P., TRANSVAAL CONSUL-GENERAL IN ENGLAND, WITH UMBANDINI.—NATIONAL DANCE OF SWAZIES.—THE TEMBI.—DELAGOA BAY.
New Year’s day, 1887, found me for the first time for twenty-two years devoid of all care, whether business or professional, and imbued with one thought only, that of getting a thorough rest and change in Europe. Wishing before leaving the country to gain as intimate a knowledge as possible of the different railway routes to the coast, of which I had now seen all but one, I made up my mind to walk to Delagoa Bay, through Swaziland, see Steynsdorp, the headquarters of the Komati diggers, glance in passing at the formation of the country and the gold reefs, which Umbandini, the Swazi king, was so liberally giving away in concessions, and witness, if possible, the yearly dance of the Swazis, which is a red-letter day throughout the whole of their country. I chose eight natives to accompany me, mixing their nationality so as to avoid the chance of any collision on their part. I was especially fortunate in my induna (head man and guide), who was a tall, fine, strapping Swazi and knew every inch of the country from Barberton to Delagoa Bay, both main roads and bye-paths. Many tried to dissuade me from going, telling me that the journey, which round by the King’s kraal was about 200 miles, was too long and fatiguing, and that I should not find sufficient compensation for the risk of fever. But in answer to inquiries I made, I learned that there was no danger of fever except between the top of the Lebombo ridge and Delagoa Bay, and as the proprietor of the tug on the Tembi had proffered to carry me from the drift where the tug lay to Delagoa Bay, a distance of sixty miles by the river, I calculated that I should be exposed one day only to malarial poison. How I was disappointed in this promise I will tell in the next chapter. I allowed my natives to divide my luggage and provisions as they deemed best, one long headed fellow to my astonishment choosing the heaviest burden, saying, with a knowing look as he did so, “It is food, it will grow lighter every day.”
All being ready, we formed in procession (natives never walking in any way together except in single file), I myself bringing up the rear to prevent any of them lagging behind; and so we started from the Market Square, Barberton, at eight o’clock, A. M., on Monday, January 10th. Our road lay over the Makoujwa range, which we crossed a few miles from Barberton, at the Ivy Reef, feeling, when we had made this steep climb of 1,600 feet, that we had surmounted the first obstacle in our journey. We walked along all day, with short intervals of rest, traversing a bold and magnificently mountainous country, interspersed with stretches of fine forest, and watered by innumerable streams, which roll down through the large, deep dongas. I had hoped to reach the roadside accommodation house at the Komati River on my first night, but darkness coming on, we stayed at a Kafir kraal six miles on this side, and rising early got there to breakfast. Here the Komati, fifty yards wide, runs rapidly down its sloping bed, but with a wire rope thrown over to guide the wooden pontoon the passage across can nearly always be made. After crossing this river, we passed the ruins of hundreds of deserted stone kraals which extended for miles, and were the standing witnesses of the teeming population which years ago inhabited these valleys, before Umzilikatze made his murderous raids through Swaziland. Pushing on, we arrived at Steynsdorp in the mid-day. This little village, which is the centre of a population of 500 souls, lay at the end of a long valley through which the Umhbondisi Creek runs, and was increasing so rapidly that, at the time I passed, a government surveyor was busy laying out a township. Dotting the hills all round could be seen the tents of prospectors, some of whom had discovered valuable properties—in fact this district, where gold had been more or less sought for during the past eighteen months, was then just beginning to answer the expectations of its pioneers. After leaving Steynsdorp the country assumed a wilder aspect. The narrow and rugged paths, up and down which I had to clamber, in many places on the verge of precipitous krantzes, ran over the most picturesque country I had yet seen in South Africa, while the loud splash and hurrying dash of the mountain stream
“As some bright river, that, from fall to fall,
In many a maze descending,”
rushed down the hillsides, and debouched through the gorges, chanting incessantly one of Nature’s most melodious of lays. Suddenly a large tract of open country appeared to our view, and in front, but at least twenty miles away, we could see the large kraal to which we were bound. Journeying on with refreshed vigor we finished our seven hours’ weary walk about an hour or so before the sun went down, which left me time enough to become master of the whole situation. A most able and correct account of Swaziland, and the state of affairs then existing, lately appeared in one of the London papers, which I cannot do better than quote here:
KAFIR HUT.
“Swaziland is a small native state bounded on the north and west by the Transvaal; from its eastern border to the sea stretches the Portuguese territory of Delagoa Bay, and to the south lie the land of the Zulus and the colony of Natal. The Swazi King rules over a realm of about 9,000 square miles, containing a population of 50,000. His people are of the same Zulu race whose prowess has been proved on more than one ‘well foughten field,’ but of finer physique, and 15,000 warriors are at his beck and call. The country itself is mountainous and picturesque—a sort of East African Tyrol, with a genial climate, a fertile soil, and rich in undeveloped mineral treasures—gold, silver, copper, and coal. The coal measures extend over a large area, are found within forty miles of Delagoa Bay, and are connected with the sea by the Tembi, which, though not a large river, is navigable for small craft and might be utilized for an extensive trade in black diamonds. Swaziland is, moreover, well wooded and well watered, and altogether a most desirable possession, a fact of which Umbandini, its King, an intelligent savage of dark complexion and stalwart proportions, is fully aware.
FALLS BETWEEN BARBERTON AND THE KING’S KRAAL, SWAZILAND.
“So also are the Boers. They call it the land of Goshen, and covet it as eagerly as Ahab coveted the vineyard of Naboth. The Transvaal Government make pressing overtures to Umbandini to place himself under their protection, which would mean, of course, the practical surrender of his kingdom, while individual Boers are flocking uninvited into the country and gradually hemming it in on every side. But the King has a wholesome dread of the tender mercies of the Boers, and, fortunately for him, the London Convention of 1884 laid down the boundary line on the Transvaal side with such precision that little room is left for misunderstanding or dispute. Here, at least, the Boer Republic can allege no ostensibly fair or valid excuse for removing their neighbors’ landmarks. But the Boer trekkers, in dealings with the natives, are not much concerned to observe the law of meum and tuum; and in April, 1885, Sir Henry Bulwer wrote to Sir Hercules Robinson that he had received information to the effect ‘that the Boers are making great encroachments in Swaziland; that they appear to look upon the country as a winter grazing farm, and that they have gone so far as to beacon off some farms notwithstanding the protest of the Swazi king.’ On this, to put matters as briefly as possible, Sir Hercules Robinson requested the Transvaal government ‘to use every effort to prevent encroachments on the border,’ a move to which Mr. Joubert responded by denying the fact on the one hand, and on the other proposing to Umbandini to place himself and his country under Transvaal protection with Mr. Kiogh, Landdrost of Wakkerstroom, as nominal head and medium. This proposal the King and his indunas rejected. They preferred to place themselves under British protection, and to this effect a formal demand was forthwith made, accompanied by a request for the appointment of a British Resident, whose duty it would be to act as Umbandini’s adviser in all outside matters and give timely notice of Boer encroachments at headquarters.
“To this request no answer has yet been returned. It is understood, however, that Lords Granville and Rosebery had the subject under consideration at the time of their retirement from office, and it will be for Lord Salisbury’s government to give it their most serious attention, and decide whether the Boers shall or shall not be required to observe the terms of a convention which they deliberately accepted. The question is not of conquering or annexing Swaziland, or even of preventing the extinction of an interesting nationality, but of safeguarding British interests by compelling the Transvaal Republic to respect the integrity of a state whose independence we have virtually guaranteed. To effect this object nothing more is needed than the appointment of a Resident; for much as the Boers covet the land of Goshen, they have not the least idea of going to war with England and Umbandini to obtain it. Their policy is to cajole and coerce the king into accepting a formal protocol; and then gradually swallowing his kingdom as the anaconda swallows its prey. This consummation, besides being a severe diplomatic and moral defeat, would be fatal to the prosperity of Natal, and most detrimental to our commercial interests in that part of the world. It could hardly fail, moreover, to lead to serious complications. Gold seekers are already flocking in crowds to the ‘placers’ of the Transvaal; the time is not far distant when there will be a rush to the still richer fields of Swaziland. Most of the adventurers are English and American, and men of English blood have never yet submitted to the domination of an alien power. If their government should refuse to protect them they will protect themselves, possibly set up a government of their own, when difficulties might arise which it is not pleasant to contemplate. Prevention is better than cure, and it is significant of what is likely to befall, unless prompt action be taken, that in September, 1885, Sir Henry Bulwer transmitted a report ‘that the Boers had so overrun the Swazi country that they had only left the district immediately occupied by the king.’ A little later Colonel Cardew forwarded a communication to the effect that 200 Boers were occupying the Bomba range of mountains ‘on the strength of rights reputed to be acquired from the Portuguese,’ and according to recent advices, another body are trekking in the Lebombo range, close to the Swazi border.”
But to return to my own story: The kraal was in a state of complete confusion; the dance which was to take place on the next day seemed to have upset every thing and every body. The men and women were in a state of nervous excitement from beer and expectation; the young girls, lighthearted and merry, were laughing, darting hither and thither, coquetting with the young men, while the boys, sedately looking on with calm content, were enjoying the scene. Alas! this innocent pleasure was not all I saw. A few yards distant on the outside of the kraal, a crowd attracted my attention; there I found a tent which served as a canteen, and was surrounded with Swazis of both sexes, all of whom were buying spirits, chiefly gin, from the barman, or begging it from the few white men present. I particularly noticed one woman, not exactly besotted, but with an air of debauched voluptuousness in the sensual roll of her glaring eyes, suing importunately for drink, crying out again and again the only English word she knew “Canteen, Canteen,” being the one which from experience she had learned would be understood, and bring her the all-devouring firewater.
Close by, evidently a general favorite, and to whom considerable deference was shown by the natives, could be seen, edging his way into the tent, a bright little boy, who, I was told, was the king’s son. Although but a child not more than six years old, he too had learned to crave for this fluid perdition, and there he stood clamoring and entreating to be served, until a white man gave him fully half a pint of pure spirits, when immediately, without any ado, he swallowed it at one draught, slowly strutting away as if he had performed some feat of which he might well be proud. I did not remain long, soon seeing enough of this melancholy exhibition of growing depravity and demoralization to convince me that drink was eating into the vitals of the people and destroying the manhood of a fine race, and that nothing stood between them and utter ruin but the appointment of a British Resident,[[114]] of similar tact and determination to Colonel Clark, who has saved the Basuto nation from extermination by the same curse. I was very tired, and the sun sinking fast, suffusing the whole sky with lines of a ruddy, golden tint, made me tell my boys to prepare for the night’s rest. Before lying down to sleep, however, I strolled again round this immense kraal in order to form a more correct idea of its size, the number of its huts and the strength of its population. In the centre there was an immense cattle kraal, which I conjectured was not less than ten acres in extent, the huts, at least 600 in number, being placed in a circle around, according to Kafir custom.
Here preparations for the approaching yearly celebration and dance were being made, this festival being a “thanksgiving to the ground for once again giving its return.” Every one seemed happy and gay, and all I met were wound up to a high pitch of good-natured excitement, singing as they danced along, evidently looking forward to the morrow, to the all-important day when the fête would commence.
My “boys” had in the meantime made me some coffee, prepared my evening meal and laid out my karosses on the grass in readiness for the night’s slumbers. Sleep needed no wooing. When I awoke in the morning the sun was shining brightly overhead. “Umhlatuse,” my induna (head man), had got my coffee ready, troops of Swazi girls, lithe and handsome, could be seen racing back from the river where they had been to bathe, the whole kraal was astir, even the canteen was open, and some devout worshippers of Bacchus were already paying homage at his shrine. Presently, afar in the distance, could faintly be traced the dark outline of a moving mass of sable warriors, coming to make obeisance to their king and add to the day’s festivities. As the hours passed by, the large cattle kraal I have mentioned became the rendezvous of thousands of men of superb physique, dressed in gorgeous array, their shoulders resplendent with black and snow-white ostrich feathers, their waists girded with leopard skins, their necks encircled with cow tails, sakabula feathers (a species of finch) in circular bands around their heads, while handsome shields and assegais completed their festive attire. The married women, too, and girls vied with each other in the richness of their costumes, which according to their custom did not require to be so exact as to hide entirely the profusion of charms with which nature had endowed them. About mid-day, when the king, an intelligent but sensual middle-sized, and to appearance, middle-aged man, his light-copper-colored body, however, enveloped in rolls of fat, appeared with his retinue (having first bathed himself in sea water specially brought up for the occasion from the mouth of the “Usutii”), the commemoration began in earnest, for then with measured step and dignified air the thousands of men and women commenced dancing, advancing and retreating in perfect rythm, keeping time to a rich, deep, warlike song they were chanting in beautiful cadence. There were three regiments present that morning numbering at least 9,000 men, and with 3,000 women, as I have described, the scene was both sensual and sensuous.
On one side of the kraal, and built of green branches cut from neighboring trees, was a long enclosure, the interior of which was kept hidden from vulgar gaze, no one being allowed to enter. A trader, who was well known as being a confidant of the king, passing by at the time, gained me admittance for a moment, when a sight most unique presented itself. Kneeling and squatting on the grass were at least 150 boys eagerly tearing and devouring the flesh of an ox which had been pummeled to death the previous day. This operation is an old custom, and on this occasion, I was told, it took about forty young men, unarmed (not even with clubs), but merely striking the ox with their bare fists, fully an hour to accomplish. We had only a second of time allowed us by the guard at the entrance to peep in, as he was afraid some condign punishment for his temerity, in permitting such a contravention of all precedent as allowing us to enter, would befall him if he were discovered. Much to my regret I could not find any one who could explain the meaning of this rite. Retiring at once we spent several hours in walking around and mixing with the natives, my impromptu guide drawing my attention to the strong dialectic difference in the language as spoken by the Swazis and the pure Zulu, they being a branch of the Zulu nation, who settled in this region when Zenzamgakona was king, and he also kindly pointed out to me many men of importance. Among these I may mention Umbovane, the Swazi general who commanded the native levies which joined the forces under Sir Garnet Wolseley in the attack on Sekukuni, and Zuhlane, a man of commanding presence, who had been prime minister during two reigns and whose word is law. Although an old man, gray, wrinkled, blear-eyed and with an appearance of dissipation, yet he has well sustained a reputation among the Swazis for diplomatic tact and foresight. Umbovane has not even yet forgotten the greatness he had had “thrust upon him” seven years before, when Sir Garnet Wolseley invited him to dinner, after the successful attack in which he had assisted the 94th and 80th Regiments in the Transvaal.
The most engrossing subject of conversation even at this time, although two months had elapsed, was the visit of Dr. Clark, the Consul General in London for the Transvaal, and the interview he had had with the king on November 7th, 1886. This gentleman, as a member of the House of Commons and an Englishman, seems to have acted in the most extraordinary way—if Mr. Kannemeyer, an influential miner whom I knew well, and who was present at this interview, can have understood correctly. Dr. Clark, according to this gentleman’s description, seems all through to have acted as a paid agent of the Boers would have acted, and his disparaging remarks to the king about the English in the Transvaal war grated upon my informant’s ears. His evident object was to impress the king with the idea that the Dutch was the dominant power, and to imply that the king’s request for an English resident was not the wish of the nation, but was like the petition originally sent to the English government praying for the annexation of the Transvaal. This, he said, a few only had sent, a war resulted, and the Dutch got back their country; and then he further went on to say that he had been sent out to inquire from the king, personally, whether he was willing or not to hand over his country to the English government. The king then postponed the interview until next day, revolving in his mind whether Dr. Clark was or was not an ambassador from England, or as General Smith of Majuba history, in introducing Dr. Clark to the king, said, an induna (councillor) sent specially by the Queen. Next morning the king, in presence of his principal indunas, told him (Dr. Clark) that he had no wish to ask either the English or the Boers to take him over, but as he could neither read or write, he was treating for an honest white man to look after his interests. The conversation, as repeated to me, was a lengthy one, but to make a long story short, Dr. Clark expressed his pleasure at hearing this, and among other things cautioned the king against granting concessions of gold-bearing districts to white men, telling him he was giving away the independence of his country. “But,” said the king, “what am I to do? I am only keeping my promises.” Dr. Clark said: “You can easily get out of that difficulty; the Transvaal joins; you ask them to exchange an equal extent of grazing land for a similar extent of gold-bearing land already conceded.” The king and his councillors on hearing this burst out into a most sarcastic laugh, the king observing, “Why should I give stones with gold in them for grass? Have you anything more to say?” and then rising bid the deputation “good-bye.” After Dr. Clark, General Smith and their interpreter had gone, the king, turning to the other white men at his kraal remarked, “He says he comes from the Queen; but he pleads for the Transvaal, that is clear!”
Listening to these interesting statements of eye-witnesses, time flew rapidly by. On inquiry I learned that this dance would be kept up for two or three days, and as I had yet more than 100 miles to walk before reaching Delagoa Bay, and was anxious to catch the mail steamer to England, I collected my servants, and taking a last look at the crowd, who were all engaged as eagerly as ever, started off again late in the afternoon.
After walking about three miles I passed a fine brick-built store, owned by an enterprising trader named Colenbrander. A little further brought me to the favorite kraal of the king, where he chiefly resides, when, darkness overtaking me, I selected a spot under a large shady tree where we spent the night, sleeping round a blazing fire. The air of this elevated region is stimulating in the extreme; the dryness of the transparent atmosphere acting like a charm on the nervous system—every breath a draught of sparkling Burgundy or Champagne! Though ready for sleep as each nightfall came around, I never felt the exhaustion such as a low country produces. We started early next morning and walked on without resting until the middle of the day, when we came to a kraal where we were kindly received. Here we rested a couple of hours during the intense heat, refreshing ourselves with cool delicious “amasi” (sour milk), which we were fortunate enough to procure from the natives. Leaving this place just before sundown we struck the wagon-road running between the Tembi and New Scotland in Natal, which was as smooth and level as any colonial road I have seen. Between the kraal where I saw the king and my joining the main road, the country was mountainous, but the cross foot-path or “short cut” by which my guides brought me ran chiefly along the mountain ridges, thus giving views diversified and grand. I was much struck by the absence of all animal life—no birds, game, no animals either wild or tame, added to the beauty of the landscape, or relieved the monotony of our journey through these parts.
We were now able to walk much more quickly and more easily, so pushing along far into the night we again slept in the “veldt.” Resting uneasily, I persuaded my “boys” to start early, which we did by the light of the moon at three in the morning. The Lebombo range, some twenty miles distant, over which we had yet to climb, was ever before us and present to our view, walling in as it were the vast flat, thickly covered with mimosa trees, across which our road led us, while at our back lay the Umzimbi range of mountains we had journeyed over the day before, the towering summit of Mananga closing up the scene. About noon we arrived at the foot of the Lebombo range, where we stopped an hour for rest and refreshment; after that, a stiff climb and the summit of the Lebombo was reached. We walked on a few miles, then another night in the open and another day’s weary walk over a most precipitous country! I shall not forget in a hurry the descent of a tremendously steep and stony ravine, at the bottom of which ran the Umnyama, a rapid mountain stream, nor the wading through, nor the ascent beyond! The night rapidly came on, and everything was wrapped in a thick mist, when fortunately for us we fell into a foot-path, which led us to a house where we were most hospitably received and cared for until the morning.
Sunrise saw us all ready to start. A short walk through the veldt brought us to the main road along which the descent of the Lebombo range is made by the easiest gradients. On reaching the bottom and entering the valley below, the narrow road bordered by groves of trees, with the grass growing exuberantly rank, winded and turned like an English lane, the glaring sun and stillness of the air meanwhile making the stifling heat almost unbearable. Tramping on until the sun was nearly overhead we rested during the mid-day on the banks of a stream of crystal water which, murmuring its sweet music unseen through the forest glen, suddenly appeared flowing along its bed across our path. But as I had determined to reach the Tembi that night, where I was promised that a tug, which plied between this and Delagoa Bay. would be placed at my disposal, and many a long mile having yet to be covered, my readers can well suppose that not much time was lost. Everything in this world has an end, and so had this long day. I cannot describe the almost unutterable relief the faint shimmer of the river I had so long expected to see gave me, as in the clouded starlight I caught the first view of its waters. I eagerly looked for the steam-tug, which to my intense delight I found moored to the banks, but never did I more fully appreciate the truth of the saying in Holy Writ, that “Man is born to trouble” as when my hopes were suddenly shattered by learning from the only white man there, who, by the way, I found tossing in semi-delirium from malarial fever, that the master of the boat was away. I saw at once that there was no other alternative left me but to cross the Tembi and continue my walk next day. The poor fever-stricken fellow was very kind and invited me into his tent, where he gave me refreshment and a shake-down, and nothing gave me more pleasure than that this attention I was able in some measure to repay by persuading him to accept some medicine which I had brought with me to take in the case of a similar emergency.
The Tembi, a tidal estuary about one hundred yards broad, is here sixty miles from the sea, and has an ebb and flow of some eight feet. I got four of my boys to carry me across early next morning when it was fordable, and began what I thought would be my last day’s journey. Our path, a narrow Kafir one, lay for miles over what seemed an endless plain, where silence the most profound reigned supreme, and the thick tambooti grass waving far over our heads, the dew falling off like rain, and soaking us through and through. After four hours’ incessant walking, the monotony of the path being here and there broken by glimpses of the dark flowing Tembi, the landscape changed and we came to a part which I can compare only to an English park, interspersed ever and anon with cool and shady groves. Here we began to come across indications of an increased population; passing through tracts of cultivated land on which the mealies were growing most luxuriantly. Suddenly we arrived at a large Kafir kraal. The style of the huts was different from that of the Swazis or the Zulus, and showed at once we were among a different race from that we had left a few miles back beyond the Lebombo mountains. Entering one of the huts I was taken by surprise at seeing a Banyan (Arab trader) sitting on the floor and articles of European merchandise exposed for sale. This man could not speak a word of English, but my boys soon found means to communicate with him, or he perhaps guessed their requirements, as in less than a minute the main curse of civilization in the shape of brandy was introduced. This spirit, I afterwards learned, was imported in large quantities at a cheap rate from Chicago, and I could see was fast working its full share of evil among these Amatonga tribes.
The blazing sun, and the puffs of heated air every now and again blowing across our path, tempted us, later in the afternoon, to halt at another kraal. The head man at once came out and offered to sell us many delicacies which we had not tasted for days. Fresh milk, honey, eggs, etc., were brought us, but when a haunch of venison was produced, my boys fell into such raptures that I could not resist buying it and staying to let them cook it, making up my mind to divide the journey and arrive at Delagoa Bay the next day. By sundown our luxurious repast was finished, and we all lay down to sleep under the branches of a large tree that stood in the centre of the kraal. The misery and discomfort of that sultry night will ever remain a vivid memory. After a few hours’ rest I was roused up by the patter of heavy rain-drops on the leaves of the tree above, and the almost pitchy darkness, now and again illuminated by flashes of lightning, told me a storm was brewing. To what agony and well-nigh maddening torture was I not awakened! All around, advancing and retreating. buzzing and singing like a swarm of angry bees, were millions on millions of mosquitoes, which, as if suffering from unappeasable hunger and insatiable thirst, were stinging, biting, and sucking my blood, pitiless creatures that they were! Now I began to understand why some would rather hear the lion’s roar than the hum of the mosquito, as from the one prudence or courage could be a defence, while nothing but some “mean” contrivance, as grease, sand, smoky smudge or nets could be a protection from the other. So insignificant an assailant, yet so venomous and intolerable a little demon, is he! My clothes, I soon found, were useless, as these “swamp angels” revelling in the prospect of the “Carnival of Blood” in store, pierced their powerful, insinuating barbs through everything I had on, although, seeing the small proportion of them that could ever have tasted human blood, I thought that so many need not have made merry at my expense.
To lie down again and sleep was an utter impossibility, to rouse my natives from the state of perfect oblivion into which their supper had assisted them seemed cruel, and to remain at the mercy of my tormentors was too great an act of self-denial to exercise. The struggle in my mind was not long. I roused them quickly up, when piteous were their complaints, until the jingle of gold silenced their reluctance to moving on. The rain had ceased, but yet the night was densely overcast. Not a foot-path could be seen. Not a breath stirred the thick and stifling air, a dead stillness prevailed, the flame of my candle even burning without a flicker, and so carrying it, unprotected in my hand, I pantingly led the way for hours. Again the sullen drops of rain fell here and there, and my poor candle did not long escape—one big drop, and darkness covered all. I had now to trust to the bare feet and tact of the South African native to keep me in the narrow path, and my confidence was not misplaced, the light of the candle after all being no real loss. The rain now began to pour down in driving torrents, as it can do in the tropics only, the heavy leaden clouds shutting out the faintest streak of light, while to add to the novelty of the situation our path led us into dense bush through which we groped in line, holding on, as we walked, to one another, until daybreak. The incessant rain still continuing, and my boys seeing a kraal in the distance, made up their minds they would take shelter and with until the worst had passed. For a long time I could not dissuade them from stopping, but shivering and shaking as I was in all my limbs from the cold and rain, and in the centre of one of the most malarious districts in South Africa, I knew that delay meant fever, so on I determined to go. Money again proved successful in providing the “sinews of war.” Soon we came to some low marshy ground which the Tembi overflows according to the tide. Through these I had to wade, when on crossing one part which did not present anything particular to my attention. I suddenly sank up to my waist in the alluvial deposit. Umhlatusi quickly pulled me out, but not before the stinking malaria I had stirred up thoroughly sickened me. A little further on we ascended a bank bordering this morass, and then crossing a narrow, flat and climbing a sandy ridge struck the shores of the Tembi near its mouth, Lourenço Marques lying exactly opposite, two miles away.
Taking a ferry-boat we sailed across, and a few minutes more saw me snugly ensconced in Mr. Otto Berg’s hotel, nine days from Barberton.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
LOURENÇO MARQUES.—THE CHANGES IT HAS SEEN.—HARBOR.—CLIMATE.—RAILWAY PLANT IMPORTED BY PRESIDENT BURGERS.—ADVANTAGES OF THE DELAGOA BAY ROUTE TO THE GOLD FIELDS.
Lourenço Marques, the name given by the Portuguese to the town they have built at the head of Delagoa Bay, is the most southerly point of their possessions, which have a long coast line extending northwards 1,100 miles. Delagoa Bay, which is one of the finest harbors in the world, was discovered by the Portuguese in 1544, who realizing its importance at once took possession and erected a fort and factories. It was early converted into a penal settlement, which by strict letter of the law it still remains, although at the present time the authorities at Lisbon have ceased to use it for that purpose. The white population does not number I should think more than one hundred souls,[[115]] and this is comprised of government officials, officers commanding the garrison, which is composed of black troops from Mozambique or Goa, merchants and their clerks, and the staff of the Eastern Telegraph Company. The town lies quite low, almost level with the beach, and contains a fine government house (the Governor Senor Antonio de Azevedo Vasconcellos, to whom I paid my respects, is very popular), several well-built trading establishments, a handsome church and hospital and a good hotel. The telegraph station is situated on a bold headland facing, at a considerable elevation, the Indian Ocean, and commands a splendid view of the peninsula of Inyack, the Elephant Islands, and the Maputa country across the Tembi. Delagoa Bay has seen many changes. In 1721 and 1735 the Dutch encroached upon the Portuguese, but had ultimately to retire; again in 1777 an Austrian trading company, which had established itself there, was driven out by the Portuguese Governor General who came from Goa; then in 1796 the place was taken and destroyed by the French. Once more, in 1833, the fortress was besieged and the town entirely sacked by Kafirs; after this, in 1850, internal dissensions almost ruined the place, until at last a threatened annexation by the English led to a dispute in 1861, which was not decided until Marshal MacMahon, Duc de Magenta, to whom the question had been referred, decided in favor of the Portuguese in 1875.
The climate of this part of the coast has always been considered unhealthy, nearly all the Europeans staying here for any length of time contracting malarial fever of a rather severe type. This is due to noxious exhalations from certain swamps which surround one part of the town, and to the imprisoned air which is wafted across the Tembi whenever a south wind blows from the Maputa territory. Indeed, most of the inhabitants suffer from this fever more or less, and have a ghastly, woe-begone expression, or as one rather humorous observer remarked to me, “they all look like corpses out for a holiday.”
In walking round the town I came suddenly upon some monuments of the past, partially buried in sand, which recalled to my memory those words of Juvenal, where he says, “Monuments themselves memorials need”—for there was no one there to tell me that the tons of railway material I saw piled and left to rust and decay, were all that was left by which the grand railway scheme of President Burgers, and his bright hopes of the future, could be remembered.
These relics convinced me more than ever that Burgers was a man ahead of his time, and the present justifies the opinions he formed years ago. When he went to Europe in 1875 to raise capital to construct the line from Delagoa Bay to the Drakensberg, all other schemes,[[116]] Moodie’s included, having failed, so sanguine was he of the future that although he obtained only £79,136 of the £300,000 he required, yet he spent £63,200 in railway material alone. The sequel is now a matter of history, how on his return he found all in disorder, the government credit gone, Sekukuni in rebellion, the burghers dissatisfied, and, to crown everything, he was not so shrewd without being able to see indications looming in the not far-off future, that the government of the State would soon be wrested from his grasp.
I also saw the railway embankments about seven miles in length which were in course of construction by the Portuguese to the Komati River, near which their territory ends and the Transvaal commences. This work I was informed was being executed by the Portuguese government with money which had been deposited by a Colonel McMurdo as security for commencing the line of which he had got a concession in 1883, but which he had not begun, and so probably has forfeited.
On my arrival in England early this year, 1887, I came to the conclusion that this work will now be prosecuted with vigor, as I learned that a company had been successfully floated to continue the formation of the line, and rumors were afloat in commercial circles that another company would at once complete it to Barberton. I have just at hand on going to the press the following letter from a friend in Barberton in which he says, “About forty miles of the earthwork of the railway is already completed. The contractors have found it quite easy to obtain labor.” The intervening country from Barberton to Pretoria, in the one direction, and from Kimberley to Pretoria on the other, would then only remain to complete a grand circular trunk line which would tap every important district and centre in South Africa. Geographically nothing could be grander, and as a work of utility few schemes present promise of greater good to the whole country; as it would be, to my mind, the salvation of South Africa from native wars and rapacious coast middlemen, it would prove a great factor in the future amelioration of the native races,[[117]] while further it would tend in time to a confederation of interests in South Africa, “a consummation devoutly to be wish’d.”
So far as Barberton and the Kaap gold fields are concerned, Delagoa Bay must be their port of the future, even in spite of the frantic efforts Natal is now making. It is only necessary to consider for a single moment the mileage from the different ports to see this. Whereas the distance from Delagoa Bay is, roughly speaking, only 130 miles, that from D’Urban, the Port of Natal, is 450, and that from Capetown about 1,300. The ad valorem duty at these ports also contrasts very unfavorably with the Portuguese port—Capetown collecting 15, Natal 7, while Delagoa Bay collects 3 per cent. only.
During the last session of the Natal legislative council, with a hopeless bid to catch the Barberton trade, this sapient body took off its export duty of 9/ per gallon on spirits, which formerly was a great article of export, hoping by this suicidal policy, together with sundry other minor concessions, to retain the trade, instead of, in my opinion, “making hay while the sun shines,” or in other words getting the most out of their rum traffic pending the inevitable, when the Delagoa Bay railway is completed.
There are no engineering difficulties whatever to be overcome on the Delagoa Bay route until near the approach to Barberton, and these, engineers tell me, could be easily surmounted. The much-talked-of ascent of the Lebombo range can also be made by the most insignificant gradients, and the Komati River can be bridged with facility; so that there is every probability of the shriek of the railway-whistle being heard, as once at a public dinner at Barberton I told my hearers, in less than eighteen months. This, as a matter of course, will materially promote the development and advancement of the gold fields, the difficulty and delay attendant upon the importation of machinery will be removed, and the thorough opening up of the Kaap gold fields will mark another era in the history of South Africa.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
L’ENVOI.
I had not long to wait for the Dunkeld, the coasting steamer which runs between Capetown and Mozambique, and after a day and a half’s pleasant sail I landed once more in D’Urban. Here I remained a few days only, pending the arrival of the next steamer, but long enough to find to my cost that I had not crossed the alluvial flats of the Maputa country with impunity. A sudden attack of malarial fever almost prevented me from prosecuting my journey, as I was scarcely able to embark when the time came for me to leave, and on reaching Port Elizabeth I was obliged to go into hospital. A few days’ care enabled me to continue my homeward journey, although, as is usual with this fever, I am yet reminded at intervals of its pertinacity when once it has gained a hold upon the system. The results of this fever are usually so serious and fatal that I have been fortunate in escaping so lightly.
Leaving Capetown on February 16th, by the S. S. Northam, and bidding a regretful adieu to South Africa, I naturally, when I saw its shores receding, turned my thoughts to the future, to the country to which I was bound, and to the new interests among which I should be thrown.
There is always something sad, as it seems to me, in closing any of the chapters of the book of one’s existence. It may be oftentimes that the change of scene has been eagerly looked forward to, that labors once congenial, have proved irksome and well-nigh intolerable, that one has anticipated release from their bondage with the same feelings as—if the professional simile be pardonable—the long bed-ridden patient expects the hour when he may be allowed to move about again, and yet, nevertheless, there is even, with the most joyful hopes for the future, a certain feeling of regret. “Old custom” has made sweet what would otherwise seem undesirable, and doubtless had the prisoner of Chillon suddenly been set free, even after but a few months’ captivity, his delight at release would not have been unmingled with an unreasoning, wistful regard for the very manacles that had bound him. How much more, therefore, must I experience this sense of sadness, as I conclude these volumes, the elaboration of which has been with me a labor of love, since I was inspired with the hope that their publication would serve to destroy many a foolish prejudice against these sunny lands, and was vain enough to trust that they would aid in attracting the attention of philanthropists, capitalists, and intending emigrants, to what Lady Florence Dixie entitled “The Land of Misfortune,” apt enough perhaps at the time that her work was published, but now, I both hope and believe, likely to prove a misnomer.
The regret that I feel, as I write these brief concluding words, is intensified by the thought that I have left, perhaps forever, a country where I have found many friends among literally all “sorts and conditions of men;” among men of every nationality, of hues and natures the most diverse, from the stout and stalwart yeoman of England to the pallid yet skillful and versatile disciple of Confucius—from the acute, sharp-witted, and business-like “stranger” hailing from the land of “Stars and Stripes” to the sturdy Basuto; from the Scandinavian with his bright complexion and sunny hair to those “images of God carved in ebony,” the warlike Zulus; from the bright, laughing-eyed sons of the Emerald Isle, to the dusky worshippers of Vishnu and Siva; from the keen and cultured member of the Hebrew race, with all its marvellous history, to the pious adherents of the Prophet of Allah; and from the Africander, descended from brave men and noble women who left all they held most dear on earth for the sake of their faith, to the native toiler in the mines, who has traversed hundreds of miles in his journey, from his home in the far interior. Among all, I repeat, have I found many friends, and I cannot leave them without penning these few words of affectionate farewell—words which if wearisome (being purely personal) to the general reader will, I trust, be accepted in the spirit in which they are written by my South African friends.
That I have once and again struck out fairly from the shoulder at various shams and swindles, all who have had the patience to so far follow me will perceive, but they will, I hope, also perceive that I have been ever ready to give credit where credit was due.
This book would be incomplete without a few words on the all-important subject of emigration. Poverty, as it is known in England and the Old World, is very rare—I mean of course poverty among those who are, in the time-honored phrase, at once “able and willing to work.” That there are abundant instances of those who prefer frequenting the public-house to attending to their daily labor is a sad truth, and that there have been, are, and will be, cases of undeserved misfortune is equally an obvious matter of fact. But to those who have a trade at their fingers’ end, or do not fear work, manual or mental, have grit or religious principle enough in them to resist the temptations which, as will be seen by those who have perused these chapters, are sure to beset them, I would say, Come to South Africa—not to be disappointed if after five or six months you are little better off than when you came, but to have a tolerable certainty of gaining, without a constant dread of work falling short, a decent and respectable living. Of the opportunities that present themselves to capitalists it is not necessary to speak, as those who have read the chapters dealing with the diamond mines and the gold fields will form their own conclusions. This at least may be said, that the man with capital, if he has good advisers, need not fear but that in almost any part of South Africa (unless indeed he choose to gamble in scrip when the best of advisers may be occasionally off their stroke) he will receive returns for his expended capital, such as he would hardly in his most sanguine moments imagine in a day-dream at home. The bona fide investor (as opposed to the speculator) will probably find that a visit to the diamond or gold fields will repay him not only well, but handsomely. To the average Englishman South Africa has been more or less a terra incognito, and the idea prevailed that it was throughout infested with venomous reptiles and colossal lions, while malarial fevers were only an unavoidable evil. On this subject at least I can speak more or less ex cathedra. While the summer months, as in all subtropical climates, are trying and mean, if more than the usual amount of rest—I do not mean sleep—be not taken, there will be an excessive expenditure of vital force, with the consequent unlikelihood of longevity; yet those who are willing to exercise a little care in dietary, etc., need be under little or no apprehension of the various local fevers; while as I have pointed out, and as will be endorsed by some of the most distinguished members of my profession, so far as chest complaints are concerned, the climate of South Africa surpasses that of southern France and at least equals Madeira.
I have but once more to bid farewell to my old friends, and my new friends, the gentle readers with whom I am unacquainted, and to express the hope that they will peruse, if not with profit at all events with some interest, these leaves from a diary of Twenty Years in South Africa.
