THE TRANSVAAL GOLD-FIELDS.
BY ONE ON THE SPOT.
The gold-fields of the Transvaal, which have been heard of by fits and starts during the last twelve years, have of late begun to excite considerable attention both at home and in South Africa; and as the future of the Transvaal, and indeed a great portion of South-eastern Africa, depends very much on their proper development, a short description of the gold-bearing region may prove interesting to readers of this Journal.
Gold has been found scattered over a considerable extent of country here, and indeed is known to extend up to the Zambesi; but the part most frequented by the gold-seeker is a belt of country running almost north and south, commencing on the Kaap River, a few miles east of the village of Middleburg, in the Transvaal, and terminating about ten miles north of Pilgrim’s Rest, in the Lydenburg district. The principal ‘farms’ on which gold has been found in the Lydenburg district are Pilgrim’s Rest, Berlin, Lisbon, Graskop, Mac-Mac, Spitzkop, Elandsdrift, and Hendriksdal—these so-called ‘farms’ being merely tracts of ground surveyed, but in scarcely any case used for actual farming purposes. There are numerous other ‘farms’ on which gold has been found; but the above-named have, up to the present time, produced the largest quantity. From the Kaap River gold-fields, about fifty miles from Lydenburg, a considerable quantity of gold has also been extracted, partly on unallotted government ground, and partly from the ‘farms’ of private owners; but this district has not been so extensively worked of late, owing to its unhealthiness in the lower reaches of the river, and also to the difficulty of working in such a broken country.
At the present time, comparatively little work is being carried on in either of the above districts, from causes which will be explained presently; but that gold exists in considerable quantities, there is not the shadow of a doubt, as the returns of banks and merchants for native gold purchased can show; and although no capitalists have until recently made their appearance on the gold-fields, yet several exceptionally lucky diggers who came here with nothing beyond experience and stout hearts, have realised a competence, in spite of the disadvantages and troubles which such a rough life implies.
All the gold hitherto found, with very few exceptions, has been of the kind known as alluvial—that is, existing in the ground, and capable of being extracted by means of water alone, without the intervention of machinery; but at present there are two Companies with machinery starting work-crushing quartz, the returns from which are looked forward to with much interest, as it will then be seen whether it will pay to import machinery on a large scale or not. When the gold-bearing ground lies at a comparatively low level, enabling water from any of the numerous streams running through the country to be brought on it, the process of gold-washing is very simple, the ground being merely picked loose and thrown into the water, or washed away by the water, which is then conducted through a long box, or race, about eighteen inches in width and depth, open on top, and paved with hard rock or quartz on the bottom, falling gradually for a distance of from twenty to two hundred feet in length, according to the strength of the stream running through the ground, and the quantity of ground washed per day. Once or twice a day the water is turned off from this race and a small stream of clean water run through it; the race is then carefully examined from end to end; and any nuggets or particles of gold which, by the action of the water and their greater specific gravity, may have been deposited in the ripples or inequalities of the bottom-paving, are then picked up, and the work resumed. In cases where the gold is of a fine nature, and liable to be carried away if the race alone were used, the coarser stones are sifted from the ground, and the combined ground and water run over coarse blankets, which, from the nature of their texture, catch all the fine particles of gold and allow the lighter soil to flow away. These blankets are periodically washed out; and the fine particles of gold resulting are combined with quicksilver, which, from its affinity to gold, brings the whole into one mass, which is then placed in a retort, and the quicksilver evaporated off and recaught for future use, leaving the gold in a solid mass behind.
The above process, costing very little in the way of outlay, has been of necessity almost the only one adopted by the diggers, who for the most part have been working-men, with little or no money; and in cases where the alluvial ground has lain so high above the level of the rivers as to prevent it being worked in the same way, the only difference has been that the ground has had to be excavated and brought to the water-race by carting or otherwise, the process of washing being the same. But in the case of quartz containing gold, the quartz has to be reduced almost to a powder in water by means of machinery; the crushed quartz then flows over plates coated with quicksilver, which catch the greater part of the gold; and that which escapes the quicksilver is caught by means of the blankets before mentioned, which receive it after passing the silvered plates.
It has struck many people who are acquainted with gold-mining in both Australia and California, that in no two places in the Transvaal are the indications of gold the same. In one place it is in vain to look for it except on the top of a hill; in another, the valley alone will yield gold; and not a few geologists and so-called mining experts who have visited the gold-fields lately, for the purpose of reporting on properties for intending purchasers, have been much at fault regarding the possibility of finding payable gold, and confessed that it is necessary to spend a considerable time before a property can be even cursorily examined. In most cases, it seems that the diggers themselves, through their actual experience, are better acquainted with the payable and non-payable ground than any stranger, however experienced otherwise, can be.
From 1873, the gold-laws of the Transvaal permitted a digger to take out a license for a claim on any gold-bearing property held to be the property of the government, and the digger paying the amount of this license for his right to dig for gold. When a claim was exhausted or found not payable, the digger was at liberty to abandon it and mark out another, in the event of this other not being occupied. This law, in a sparsely populated country, where scarcely any agriculture was carried on, worked very well and harmoniously; but on the retrocession of the Transvaal by the British government, a new order of things sprang into existence. In order to increase the revenue—which fell rapidly off on the departure of the British government, and has in consequence caused a widespread distress ever since amongst those who were the first to rise against British authority—the Volksraad or Boer Parliament granted concessions for every manufacture that could be carried on in the Transvaal—that is, allowing one man, on the payment of a certain sum per annum, the sole right to manufacture spirits; another, gunpowder; another, wool, &c.—in each case imposing a countervailing duty on articles of the same kind coming from Europe, so as, if possible, to insure the sale of the Transvaal-made article. It is to be remarked, en passant, that the European articles, though thus hampered, still continue to have by far the largest sale. Amongst other concessions, a gold concession law was passed, specifying that the owner of any gold-bearing farm could, on the payment of a sum to be agreed upon per annum, obtain the sole right to work for gold on his farm, on condition that he compensated any diggers who might be on his property, working under the old government license.
The consequence of the promulgation of this last law has been that nearly every owner of a gold-bearing farm who could pay a year or two’s concession rental for his property, has taken out a concession, with the idea of disposing of both concession and farm at a high profit in the European market, and in few cases with the intention of digging for gold. As nothing is stated in the gold concessions about the time in which the original diggers are to be compensated, or any fixed basis on which their claims are to be valued, this has almost led to a dead-lock in the gold production, and caused much litigation in the High Court at Pretoria. The diggers decline to enhance the value of any concessionaire’s property by further exploring and opening it up, and the concessionaires in but few cases have the capital wherewith to compensate the diggers. As European investors, however, are not so easily influenced by a high-flown prospectus as formerly, it is probable that before long the owners of the farms bearing gold will see the propriety of again throwing them open at a rental to diggers, and thereby increasing their own revenue and that of the country generally; for, with a large mining population, both merchants and farmers find a ready sale for their goods and produce; the natives are taught to work, which is by far the most civilising influence that can be brought to bear upon them; and money will be circulated in a country where the want of it has never been felt more than at present.
There is not throughout the country what can be called a mining town, the nearest approach to one being Pilgrim’s Rest, about thirty-five miles from the district of Lydenburg. This is on the property of a London firm, who appear to be sparing no expense, either in money or machinery, to test their property thoroughly. The town is situated in a most picturesque valley, reminding one more of Switzerland than South Africa; and the old fashion amongst Australians and Californians of giving odd names to places is observable here, in such names as Jerusalem Gully, Tiger Creek, &c. As usual, the Scotsman is here in force, as may be naturally expected in the most out-of-the-way place where there is a chance of making money. Indeed, one of the camps near Pilgrim’s Rest is named Mac-Mac, after the number of Macs who formerly lived there; one of them, who is buried near here, being the unfortunate Mac whose strange story was related in the account of St Kilda published some years ago in this Journal.
The country, although very picturesque and well watered in the valleys, is very rough to travel over, and, without exception, has the worst roads traversing it in South Africa. From Lydenburg to Spitzkop, another mining camp, the road would make a London cab-driver’s hair stand on end; and the trouble and danger of conveying machinery along these roads by the cumbersome bullock-wagon can only be understood by those having experience of South Africa. From May till October it is possible to obtain goods from Delagoa Bay through the Portuguese port of Lorenco Marques, the road being fairly good in that direction; but during the remainder of the year, the dreaded tsetse fly abounds on the road, and the rivers are so swollen by the rains that transport is impossible.
Those Companies intending to start work on the gold-fields are endeavouring to arrange to work their machinery by water-power, the cost of fuel being very great here. Timber exists in considerable quantities in the kloofs or valleys of the mountains, but of a kind of little use for fuel, and almost inaccessible. Coal is found near Middleburg; but the cost of transport along these roads would almost prevent its use, although the distance does not exceed one hundred miles. Water, apparently, will be the greatest difficulty in regard to any scheme of comprehensive working here, as for gold-working generally it is necessary to obtain a good water-supply at a high level, which is extremely difficult to obtain. There are numerous streams in the valleys; but their sources at a high level are very few, and owing to the broken and diversified nature of the ground, would cost large sums of money to convey to any distance.
One very striking instance of perseverance in the above way is that of a miner over sixty years of age, who, unaided, has spent five years in bringing a watercourse on towards his claims at Spitzkop, and expects to take three years longer to finish it. In spite of numerous difficulties in the way of rocks and boulders, he has steadily persevered, and has now got through the worst of the work, and makes good progress, taking his age into consideration. The length of this watercourse will be about eleven miles when finished, although the distance from point to point does not exceed four.
The diggers are a wonderfully law-abiding community as a whole; and it is astonishing to see what a slender staff under the Boer government is employed to maintain order, one solitary constable at Pilgrim’s Rest being sufficient for twenty miles round. Much trouble was caused from 1876 to 1879 through the war with the native chief Secocoeni, and digging operations were almost suspended; but his defeat by Sir Garnet Wolseley in 1879 left them free to work again until the end of 1880, when the war between the Boers and the British caused another cessation of work. All these things, together with their present troubles with the concessionaires, before alluded to, would naturally lead one to expect impatience and turbulence amongst a community many of whom come from Australian and Californian diggings, where the revolver is the readiest argument; but, strange to say, it is not the case here.
Unless the working of the gold-fields brings more money into the country, it is very difficult to see what the future of the Transvaal will be. The late war with the native chief Mapoch has considerably impoverished the people; the exports of the country are very trifling, and the low state of the market at the Diamond Fields has done away with a large source of income in the sale of produce and coal. The revenue of the country has steadily fallen since the retirement of the British troops; the natives are either unable or unwilling to pay taxes; and the Boers themselves, with very few exceptions, wish the British were back again. Pretoria and Potchefstroom, the two principal towns, look almost deserted, and have numerous empty buildings. When we add to this the high price of living, owing to the duties imposed on goods, &c., the lookout does not seem cheerful. It is not probable that the British government will again resume its sway here, even if invited unanimously by the Boers, but it is possible that some system of Union or Confederation will before long take place amongst the different states of South Africa; and should the railway be constructed from Delagoa Bay, viâ Pretoria, to Kimberley, it is certain that the country would benefit much by the improved means of communication. These, however, are prospects of the far future; and until the gold-fields are further developed by the present owners, and the government capable of paying its way and seeing its course fairly before it on a firm basis, it would be unwise for intending investors to place too much faith on the representations of promoters. Gold is in the Transvaal, and in considerable quantities, but not everywhere, and as yet comparatively little real exploration has been carried on below the surface to any depth. The crushing now commencing at Pilgrim’s Rest and Ross Hill will be the first real test as to the gold in the quartz, and it is to be hoped will be satisfactory to those who have had the courage to lead the way.