As we went along the road we met a detachment of the 13th regiment marching back from Pretoria to Newcastle. There seemed to be going on a great moving of troops hither and thither, which no doubt had been made necessary by the annexation. And these marchings were never made without accidents of flood and field. On this occasion sixteen waggon-oxen had died on the road. The soldiers had to carry their tents and belongings with them, and the bullocks therefore were essential to these movements. When I saw the big waggons, and the dead oxen, and remembered that every man there in a red coat had been extracted from our population at home with the greatest difficulty, and brought to that spot at an enormous cost, and that this had been done for no British purpose, I own that I asked myself some questions as to the propriety of our position in the Transvaal which I found it difficult to answer;—as for instance whether it is necessary that the troubles of the world at large should be composed and set to rights by the soldiers of a nation so very little able to provide an army as Great Britain. But the severity of these thoughts was much mitigated when the two officers in command walked across to us while we were outspanning in the veld, and offered us bitter beer. The Transvaal would never have known even the taste of bitter beer had it not been for the British army. Talk of a fountain in the desert! What fountain can be compared to that kettle full of Bass which the orderly who followed our two new friends carried in his hand. “Do not look at it,” said the donor as the beverage was poured out. “The joltings of the journey have marred its brightness. But you will find that the flavour is all there.”
The only place on the road worthy to be called a town is Heidelberg and this does not contain above two or three hundred inhabitants. It is the capital of a district of the same name of which the entire population is about 2,000. The district is larger than an ordinary English county, comprising a compact area about 80 miles long by 60 broad, and yet it is returned as having no other village within its boundaries except the so called town of Heidelberg. But the place has an air of prosperity about it and contains two or three mercantile firms which are really doing a large business. In these places the shops, or stores, are very much more extensive than would be any such depôts in English villages of the same size;—so much so that comfortable fortunes may be made in a comparatively short time. As the Boers are the chief customers, it is evident that they are learning to spend their money, and are gradually departing from the old Boer law that the farm should supply everything needed for life.
At Heidelberg we found a good Inn,—a good Inn that is for the Transvaal:—but the landlord at once told us that he had got no forage. Our first work therefore was to go about into the town and beg. This we did successfully, a merchant of the place consenting to let us have enough for our immediate requirements, out of his private store. But for this we must have used the reserve supply we carried with us, and have gone on upon our road to look for more.
The Inn I have said was good. There was a large room in which a public table was kept and at which a very good dinner was provided at half-past six, and a very good breakfast at eight the next morning. There was a pretty little sitting room within which any lady might make herself comfortable. The bed and bedroom were clean and sweet. But there was only one bed tendered for the use of two of us, and a slight feeling seemed to exist that we were fastidious in requiring more. As more was not forthcoming my unfortunate companion had to lie upon the ground.
At Heidelberg we were nearly on the highest table ground of the Transvaal. From thence there is a descent to Pretoria,—not great indeed for Pretoria is 4,450 feet above the sea,—but sufficient to produce an entire change of climate. On the High Veld, as it is called, the characteristics of the country are all those belonging to the temperate zone,—such, indeed, as are the characteristics of our own country at home. Wheat will grow if planted in the late autumn and will ripen in the summer. But as the hill is turned, down to Pretoria, tropical influences begin to prevail. Apples are said to thrive well, but so also do oranges. And wheat will not live through the droughts of the winter without irrigation. Irrigation for wheat must be costly, and consequently but little wheat is grown. Wheat sown in the spring is, I am told, subject to rust. Mealies, or Indian corn, will thrive here, and almost all kinds of fruit. The gardens produce all kinds of vegetables, when irrigation is used.
We descended into Pretoria through a “poort” or opening between the hills and the little town with its many trees smiled upon us in the sun. It lies in a valley on a high plateau, just as Grahamstown does, and is surrounded by low hills. As we were driven into the town I congratulated myself on having come to the end of my journey. To reach Pretoria had been my purpose, and now I was at Pretoria. My further troubles would be confined to my journey home which I intended to commence after a week’s delay at the capital of our new Colony. Hitherto my work had been not very uncomfortable and certainly not unprosperous.
CHAPTER II.
THE TRANSVAAL.—ITS HISTORY.
The Transvaal as its name plainly indicates is the district lying north or beyond the Vaal river. The Orange river as it runs down to the sea from the Diamond Fields through the inhospitable and little known regions of Bushmansland and Namaqualand used to be called the Gariep and is made up of two large rivers which, above their junction, were known as the Gariep Kye and the Knu Gariep,—the tawny and the orange coloured. The former which is the larger of the two is now known as the Vaal, and the latter as the Orange. The Vaal rises in the Drakenberg mountains and is the northern border of the Orange Free State or Republic. The country therefore beyond that river received its present name very naturally.
This southern boundary of the Transvaal has always been marked clearly enough, but on every other side there are and have been doubts and claims which are great difficulties to the administrator of the new Colony. To the west are the Zulus who are, at this moment, claiming lands which we also claim. Then above them, to the north-west are the Portuguese who are not perhaps likely to extend their demands for inland territory, but who are probably quite as much in doubt as we are as to any defined boundary between them and the natives.[1] To the north I think I may say that no one yet knows how far the Transvaal goes. The maps give the Limpopo river as a boundary, but I think Sir Theophilus Shepstone will own that Great Britain cannot, should she wish to do so, make good her claim to lordship over the native races up to the Limpopo without a considerable amount of —— arrangement with the tribes. And yet the matter is one that must be settled with accuracy because of the hut tax. From the natives living under the protection of the British Crown in the other colonies of South Africa a direct tax is levied,—10s. or 14s.,—on each hut occupied, and it is indispensable to the Government of the new Colony that the same system shall be introduced there. We cannot govern the country without a revenue, and from our black subjects this is the only means of collecting a revenue,—till we begin to make something out of their taste for strong drinks. It was inaccuracy as to their northern and north-eastern boundaries which brought the South African or Transvaal Republic to that ruin which induced us to seize it;—or, in other words, the lands which the Dutch claimed the natives claimed also, and these claims were so ambiguous, so progressive, so indefinite, that to have yielded to them would have been to give up the whole country. Sicocoeni who was the Chief most specially hostile to the Republic in its last days claimed even the site on which stood Pretoria the capital, where the Volksraad or Parliament of the Republic sat. In dealing with the Natives as to boundaries nothing can be got by yielding. Nor does it seem possible to trust to abstract justice. Between Sicocoeni and Mr. Burgers, the last President of the Republic, it would have been impossible for abstract justice to have drawn a true line so confused had the matter become. It can only be done by a strong hand, and can only be done well by a strong hand guided by a desire equally strong to do what is right. As an Englishman I feel sure that we shall have the one, and, again as Englishman, I trust that we shall have the other. The habitations of hundreds of thousands of Natives are concerned. I find that the coloured population of our new Colony is variously stated at numbers ranging from 250,000 to 800,000. It is all guess work;—but there is no doubt that the multitude of human beings concerned is very great. Were we to annex everything included in the Dutch maps of the Transvaal, the true number would probably be much greater than the larger of those above given. You, my readers, probably think that the more we include the better for them, even though they should be made to pay a tax of 10s. a hut. So do I. But they don’t. They want to be independent,—as are the Zulus down on the sea coast. It is therefore impossible not to perceive a difficulty. A line to the North and North-East must be drawn;—but no possible line will satisfy the natives. To the West and North-West the matter is probably as doubtful, though not as difficult. The numbers are fewer and the people less warlike. But to the South-West there is another problem to be solved. There is a territory North by West of the Vaal river, including the little town of Bloomhof, which we, by British award declared to be independent. Governor Keate of Natal was appointed as arbitrator to draw a line between the Republic and the natives, and he declared this territory to be a portion of Bechuanaland. But the Transvaal, rejecting Governor Keate’s award, took the territory and governed it. Are we now to reject it and give it back to the Bechuanas, or are we to keep it as part of the annexed Colony? This also will add something to the difficulty of defining our new possession.
The history of the European occupation of the Transvaal is the same as the history of all South Africa during this century. The Dutch have been ever running away from the English, and the English have sometimes pursued them and sometimes determined that they should go whither they would and be no longer accounted as British subjects. They have certainly been a most stiff-necked people with whom to deal,—and we by their inability to amalgamate with ourselves have been driven into vacillations which have not always been very creditable to our good sense. We have been too masterful and yet not masterful enough. In Natal as we have seen, we would not allow them to form a Republic or to throw off their British allegiance. Across the Orange river we have fought them and reduced them,—at Boom Plaats, as I shall describe when giving the little history of the Orange Free State,—and then have bid them go their own way and shift for themselves.