South Africa, vol. II.

by Anthony Trollope

Who can doubt but that work is the great civilizer of the world,—work and the growing desire for those good things which work only will bring? If there be one who does he should come here to see how those dusky troops of labourers, who ten years since were living in the wildest state of unalloyed savagery, whose only occupation was the slaughter of each other in tribal wars, each of whom was the slave of his Chief, who were subject to the dominion of most brutalizing and cruel superstitions, have already put themselves on the path towards civilization. They are thieves no doubt;—that is they steal diamonds though not often other things. They are not Christians. They do not yet care much about breeches. They do not go to school. But they are orderly. They come to work at six in the morning and go away at six in the evening. They have an hour in the middle of the day, and know that they have to work during the other hours. They take their meals regularly and, what is the best of all, they are learning to spend their money instead of carrying it back to their Chiefs.

Civilization can not come at once. The coming I fear under any circumstances must be slow. But this is the quickest way towards it that has yet been found. The simple teaching of religion has never brought large numbers of Natives to live in European habits; but I have no doubt that European habits will bring about religion. The black man when he lives with the white man and works under the white man’s guidance will learn to believe really what the white man really believes himself. Surely we should not expect him to go faster. But the missionary has endeavoured to gratify his own soul by making here and there a model Christian before the pupil has been able to understand any of the purposes of Christianity. I have not myself seen the model Christian perfected; but when I have looked down into the Kimberley mine and seen three or four thousand of them at work,—although each of them would willingly have stolen a diamond if the occasion came,—I have felt that I was looking at three or four thousand growing Christians.

Because of this I regard Kimberley as one of the most interesting places on the face of the earth. I know no other spot on which the work of civilizing a Savage is being carried on with so signal a success. The Savages whom we have encountered in our great task of populating the world have for the most part eluded our grasp by perishing while we have been considering how we might best deal with them. Here, in South Africa, a healthy nation remains and assures us by its prolific tendency that when protected from self-destruction by our fostering care it will spread and increase beneath our hands. But what was to be done with these people? Having found that they do not mean to die, by what means might we instruct them how to live? Teach them to sing hymns, and all will be well. That is one receipt. Turn them into slaves, and make them work. That is another receipt. Divide the land with them, and let them live after their own fashions;—only subject to some little control from us. That was a third. The hymns have done nothing. The slavery was of course impossible. And that division of land has been, perhaps not equally futile, but insufficient for the growing needs of the people;—insufficient also for our own needs. Though we abuse the Kafir we want his service, and we want more than our share of his land. But that which no effort of intelligence could produce has been brought about by circumstances. The Diamond Fields have been discovered and now there are ten thousand of these people receiving regular wages and quite capable of rushing to a magistrate for protection if they be paid a shilling short on Saturday night.

This the diamonds have done, and it is the great thing which they have done. We have fair reason to believe that other similar industries will arise. There are already copper mines at work in Namaqualand, on the western coast of South Africa, in which the Natives are employed, and lead mines in the Transvaal. There are gold fields in the Transvaal at which little is now being done, because the difficulties of working them are at present overwhelming. But as years roll quickly on these, too, will become hives of coloured labour, and in this way Kimberleys will arise in various parts of the continent.

I cannot say that Kimberley is in other respects an alluring town;—perhaps as little so as any town that I have ever visited. There are places to which men are attracted by the desire of gain which seem to be so repulsive that no gain can compensate the miseries incidental to such an habitation. I have seen more than one such place and have wondered that under any inducement men should submit themselves, their wives and children to such an existence. I remember well my impressions on reaching Charles Dickens’ Eden at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and my surprise that any human being should have pitched his tent in a place so unwholesome and so hideous. I have found Englishmen collected on the Musquito Coast, a wretched crew; and having been called on by untoward Fate and a cruel Government to remain a week at Suez have been driven to consider whether life would have been possible there for a month. During my sojourn at Kimberley, though I was the recipient of the kindest hospitality and met two or three whom I shall ever remember among the pleasant acquaintances of my life,—yet the place itself was distasteful to me in the extreme. When I was there the heat was very great, the thermometer registering 160 in the sun, and 97 in the shade. I was not absolutely ill, but I was so nearly ill that I was in fear the whole time. Perhaps having been in such personal discomfort, I am not a fair judge of the place. But an atmosphere composed of dust and flies cannot be pleasant,—of dust so thick that the sufferer fears to remove it lest the raising of it may aggravate the evil, and of flies so numerous that one hardly dares to slaughter them by the ordinary means lest their dead bodies should be noisome. When a gust of wind would bring the dust in a cloud hiding everything, a cloud so thick that it would seem that the solid surface of the earth had risen diluted into the air, and when flies had rendered occupation altogether impossible, I would be told, when complaining, that I ought to be there, in December say, or February,—at some other time of the year than that then present,—if I really wanted to see what flies and dust could do. I sometimes thought that the people of Kimberley were proud of their flies and their dust.

And the meat was bad, the butter uneatable, vegetables a rarity,—supplied indeed at the table at which I sat but supplied at a great cost. Milk and potatoes were luxuries so costly that one sinned almost in using them. A man walking about with his pocket full of diamonds would not perhaps care for this; but even at Kimberley there are those who have fixed incomes,—an unfortunate Deputy Governor or the like,—to whom sugar at 2s. 6d. a pound and other equally necessary articles in the same proportion, must detract much from the honour and glory of the position. When I was there “transport,” no doubt, was unusually high. Indeed, as I arrived, there were muttered threats that “transport” would be discontinued altogether unless rain would come. For the understanding of this it must be known that almost everything consumed at Kimberley has to be carried up from the coast, five hundred miles, by ox-waggons, and that the oxen have to feed themselves on the grasses along the road. When there has been a period of drought there are no grasses, and when there are no grasses the oxen will die instead of making progress. Periods of drought are by no means uncommon in South Africa. When I was at Kimberley there had been a period of drought for many months. There had, indeed, been no rain to speak of for more than a year. As one consequence of this the grocers were charging 2s. 6d. a pound for brown sugar. Even the chance of such a state of things militates very much against the comfort of a residence.

I do not think that there is a tree to be seen within five miles of the town. When I was there I doubt whether there was a blade of grass within twenty miles, unless what might be found on the very marge of the low water of the Vaal river. Every thing was brown, as though the dusty dry uncovered ugly earth never knew the blessing of verdure. To ascertain that the roots of grass were remaining one had to search the ground. There is to be a park; and irrigation has been proposed so that the park may become green;—but the park had not as yet progressed beyond the customary brown. In all Kimberley and its surroundings there was nothing pretty to meet the eye;—except, indeed, women’s faces which were as bright there as elsewhere. It was a matter of infinite regret to me that faces so bright should be made to look out on a world so ugly.

The town is built of corrugated iron. My general readers will probably not have seen many edifices so constructed. But even in England corrugated iron churches have been erected, when the means necessary for stone buildings have been temporarily wanting; and I think I have seen the studios of photographers made of the same material. It is probably the most hideous that has yet come to man’s hands;—but it is the most portable and therefore in many localities the cheapest,—in some localities the only material possible. It is difficult to conceive the existence of a town in which every plank used has had to be dragged five hundred miles by oxen; but such has been the case at Kimberley. Nor can bricks be made which will stand the weather because bricks require to be burned and cannot well be burned without fuel. Fuel at Kimberley is so expensive a luxury that two thoughts have to be given to the boiling of a kettle. Sun-burned bricks are used and form the walls of which the corrugated iron is the inside casing; but sun-burned bricks will not stand the weather and can only be used when they are cased. Lath and plaster for ceilings there is little or none. The rooms are generally covered with canvas which can be easily carried. But a canvas ceiling does not remain long clean, or even rectilinear. The invincible dust settles upon it and bulges it, and the stain of the dust comes through it. Wooden floors are absolutely necessary for comfort and cleanliness; but at Kimberley it will cost £40 to floor a moderate room. The consequence is that even people who are doing well with their diamonds live in comfortless houses, always meaning to pack up and run after this year, or next year, or perhaps the year after next. But if they have done ill with their diamonds they remain till they may do better; and if they have done well then there falls upon them the Auri sacra fames. When £30,000 have been so easily heaped together why not have £60,000;—and when £60,000 why not £100,000? And then why spend money largely in this state of trial, in a condition which is not intended to be prolonged,—but which is prolonged from year to year by the desire for more? Why try to enjoy life here, this wretched life, when so soon there is a life coming which is to be so infinitely better? Such is often the theory of the enthusiastic Christian,—not however often carried out to its logical conclusions. At such a place as Kimberley the theory becomes more lively; but the good time is postponed till the capacity for enjoying it is too probably lost.

The town of Kimberley is chiefly notable for a large square,—as large perhaps as Russell Square. One or two of the inhabitants asked me whether I was not impressed by the grandeur of its dimensions so as to feel that there was something of sublimity attached to it! “I thought it very ugly at first,” said one lady who had been brought out from England to make her residence among the diamonds;—“but I have looked at it now till I have to own its magnificence.” I could not but say that corrugated iron would never become magnificent in my eyes. In Kimberley there are two buildings with a storey above the ground, and one of these is in the square. This is its only magnificence. There is no pavement. The roadway is all dust and holes. There is a market place in the midst which certainly is not magnificent. Around are the corrugated iron shops of the ordinary dealers in provisions. An uglier place I do not know how to imagine. When I was called upon to admire it, I was lost in wonder; but acknowledged that it was well that necessity should produce such results.

I think that none of the diamond dealers live in the square. The various diamond shops to which I was taken were near the mine, or in the streets leading down from the mine to the square. These were little counting houses in which the dealers would sit, generally two together, loosely handling property worth many thousands of pounds. I was taken to them to see diamonds, and saw diamonds without stint. It seemed that one partner would buy while another would sort and pack. Parcel after parcel was opened for me with almost as little reserve as was exhibited when Lothair asked for pearls. Lothair was an expected purchaser; while the diamond dealer knew that nothing was to be made by me. I could not but think how easy it would be to put just one big one into my pocket. The dealers, probably, were careful that I did nothing of the kind. The stones were packed in paper parcels, each parcel containing perhaps from fifty to two hundred according to their size. Then four or five of these parcels would be fitted into a paper box,—which would again be enclosed in a paper envelope. Without other safeguard than this the parcels are registered and sent by post, to London, Paris, or Amsterdam as the case may be. By far the greater number go to London. The mails containing these diamonds then travel for six days and six nights on mail carts to Capetown,—for four-fifths of the way without any guard, and very frequently with no one on the mail cart except the black boy who drives it. The cart travels day and night along desolate roads and is often many miles distant from the nearest habitation. Why the mails are not robbed I cannot tell. The diamond dealers say that the robber could not get away with his plunder, and would find no market for it were he to do so. They, however, secure themselves by some system of insurance. I cannot but think that the insurers, or underwriters, will some day find themselves subjected to a heavy loss. A great robbery might be effected by two persons, and the goods which would be so stolen are of all property the most portable. Thieves with a capital,—and thieves in these days do have capital,—might afford to wait, and diamonds in the rough can not be traced. I should have thought that property of such immense value would have paid for an armed escort. The gold in Australia, which is much less portable, is always accompanied by an escort.[9]