Chapter Twelve.
The diamond fields of South Africa, though of recent discovery, have eclipsed all others in the world, both in richness and extent. One of the first diamonds found, worth 125,000 dollars, named the “Star of South Africa,” is owned by the Countess of Dudley, its weight being 46.5 carats. The colour of the Kimberley diamonds makes them much more valuable than those of Dutoitspan or Bulfontein. Those found in the latter mines are larger, but yellow or slightly coloured; all the mines seem inexhaustible. The largest diamond ever found in South Africa came from the Dutoitspan mine in 1885 and weighed 404 carats, but was spotted and of a yellowish tinge. Every man interested in these mines expects and hopes daily to “go one better.”
American products are liked, our carriages and heavy wagons wearing better in the hot, dry climate than those of English manufacture. Corn comes from home to these shores in ship-loads, and the American light and strong furniture is liked.
Mark Twain’s and Bret Harte’s writings are universally read, and the South Africans say that all they need to open up the country’s interests is about “twenty-five ship-loads of live Yankees.”
Some of the houses are furnished beautifully with American furniture. One lady’s bedroom I entered had blue silk and lace coverlet and hangings to an elegant black walnut bed, marble-topped dressing bureau, and the remainder of the room furnished in keeping; but there is no satisfaction in furnishing a house richly or dressing elaborately, on account of the great dust storms. They come up suddenly, without the slightest warning, obscuring the light of day. Solid moving columns of red sand, resembling water-spouts, are whirled round and round and blow like a tornado over the town. These sand storms are quite a feature of Kimberley and a very disagreeable one, but they clear the air of any pestilence. The climate, though scorchingly hot during the middle of the day, is otherwise a very pleasant and healthy one.
A low camp fever is prevalent during the summer months, but it comes more from the defective sanitary arrangements than from any fault of the climate. Women and children succumb to this African fever very quickly in the hot summer, when the air quivers with the heat; the only hope of recovery is in being taken away immediately from “the camp” to Bloourfontin, a beautiful town in the Orange Free State, or to breathe the sea air. The nights everywhere in South Africa away from the immediate coast line are invariably cool, no matter how hot it has been during the day, so that one can always obtain a comfortable night’s rest. But that delightful twilight hour, so much enjoyed at home, is not known here, the sinking of the sun being followed immediately by darkness.
A beautiful black Newfoundland dog attached itself to us, and was as faithful a body guard as any human being, for when once outside the door at night, no one dared to come within his reach, and when we went out of an evening he was locked in to guard the house.
One evening on returning home from a social gathering we found the lock had been broken, the act evidently the work of a white man bent on robbery during our absence; but Hector’s growls had frightened him away. We had no fears after that of its being attempted again, but we reckoned without our host. One evening, a week later, we made preparations to go out, but as soon as Hector saw us putting on our wraps, he watched his opportunity and slipped out. No coaxing could bring him back, and so he followed our cart. This time the burglars did not hurry about their work, but made a most leisurely examination and overhauling of our belongings.
We returned to a house which was a scene of the greatest confusion. Every trunk was empty, with its contents piled up on the floor; every pocket in dress and cloak turned inside out, and all jewellery and souvenirs that had not been locked up in the safe, of course, gone. We did not let it frighten us, for, after notifying the police, we shut and barricaded the doors and sat up till dawn; but there is no use denying the fact that if a mouse had made its appearance we should have screamed.
Many balls are held during the cool winter evenings, a few of which we attended; one, conducted under the auspices of the ubiquitous Freemasons, was held in the Iron Theatre building, and a very brilliant affair it was. There were four hundred and fifty invitations, of course many more gentlemen than ladies being present, but it was interesting to see what an elegant company assembled so many hundreds of miles from the nearest point of civilisation. Many of the ladies were attired in London or Parisian imported costumes of satin and lace; some of the wives and daughters of the wealthier residents being literally ablaze with diamonds, the result of their husbands’, or fathers’, own pick and shovel, which they had had cut and set during one of their numerous trips to Europe. It was when returning from this ball at three o’clock in the morning that we first visited the mine by moonlight, and it may be said without hesitation that such another sight cannot be found in any other part of the world.
The moon and stars seem to shine with a brighter light in the magnificently clear atmosphere than they do in our northern hemisphere, and the ghastly shadows cast by the immense perpendicular and horizontal excavations in the mine gave a weird look to a scene the impression of which can never be effaced. The moonlit chasm resembled a vast deserted city that had slowly crumbled into ruins.
Another interesting feature of Kimberley is the arrival of the interior traders’ wagon trains, for every wagon is full of precious and various wealth, the result of a long, risky venture. Not infrequently the costly wares are sold by auction, in the morning market, and the tusks, teeth, skins, horns and feathers are spread out upon the ground as if they were no better than field stuff or garden produce.
It is no uncommon thing to see wagon cargoes worth 50,000 dollars exhibited for sale in this unceremonious way, amidst a crowd of onlookers, some of whom look almost as wild as the animals which produced the barbaric spoils, and as black as coal. Professional hunters also bring the result of their trips, though the labour of getting together the skins and ivory is yearly becoming greater, as the game is driven farther and farther north. No doubt the rapid increase in the value of farm produce will tend to lessen the inducements to hunting. Civilisation and barbarism are such mixed quantities in this land that it seems as if the former will never conquer the latter.
The inhabitants of Kimberley, numbering 20,000 whites, are determined to make a fine city of it. The old one-storey iron and canvas houses were being moved aside for larger and finer dwelling-houses.
Capital was being invested in water-works which would bring the water in pipes from the Vaal River, some seventeen miles away. Government was putting up stone buildings for post-office and telegraph offices. Churches were towering up above the surrounding dwelling-houses and stores. A club-house, the finest in the country, was built at a cost of 90,000 dollars, and they still keep on improving the streets, which extend over twenty miles. There are some very fine jewellery stores and dry goods houses, as attractive as any in American cities of double its population. An air of activity pervades the place. Thirty-two electric Brush lights, of two thousand candle power, light up the city.
Wishing to see how far civilisation had crept into the interior and also to breathe the wonderful air of the Transvaal for a little while, we left our house in charge of our worthy housekeeper and drove away from the coach office early one bright summer’s morning.