7th December.—We got into broken, mountainous, and bushy country, and descended the Devil’s Pass, a hundred and seventeen miles from Salisbury a long descent among granite koppies and shady woods. A lion had been seen on the road the previous day here, but we saw nothing, though we used all our eyes. I biked the afternoon trek, and got thoroughly drenched by a downpour in doing so. Next day I went to look for lions in most liony–looking country, but only saw one solitary steinbuck—which I shot.
9th December.—Umtali at last! A small town in a green basin among the mountains. A pretty, but dull place. “A fair field and no favour” is the reception with which Sir Wilfred Lawson would meet were he to come here. The surrounding greenery and its backing of wooded hills remind one of beautiful Sierra Leone. And, if the fever fiend be absent, still the drink fiend is there in his place.
Although we found rooms engaged for us at one of the hotels, we prepared to camp just outside the town. And we certainly are most comfortable in camp. The General lives in my little Cabul tent, and we other four fill a bell–tent. Our dining–room is a space between two waggons, roofed in with a roomy “buck–sail.” Our table is a door laid on a trestle bedstead from a looted farm. And when we dine, we might imagine ourselves in a room, did not the lanterns light up in strong relief the massive wheels and under–carriages of the waggons on either side of us. Our conversation, too, is nearly drowned by the crunching of the mules feeding at their manger, which is hung along the dissel–boom (pole), and he who sits at the head of the table stands a good chance of being landed by a kick which he is well within reach of.
To–night we had to dinner “Maori” B., who was with me with the Native Levy in Zululand in 1888. Celebrated over Africa for his yarns of fighting and adventure. Originally of a fine old Irish family—arrested, while a schoolboy from Cheltenham on his way to shoot at Wimbledon, on suspicion of being a Fenian; enlisted as a gunner; blew up his father with a squib cigar; shot his man in a duel in Germany; biked into the Lake of Geneva; went to New Zealand, where for twelve years he fought the Maoris; ate a child when starving; and afterwards hunted the bushrangers in Australia; took a schooner in search of a copper island, or anything else of value; next, a Papal Zouave; under Colonel Dodge, in America, he fought the Sioux. When with Pullein’s corps in South Africa, his men shot at him while bathing; he beat them with an ox–yoke; they stole an ostrich and hid it; a row among themselves followed, begun by a Kentish navvy, who complained he did not get his fair share of the “duck.” B. denies that in the Maori war the Maoris displayed a flag of truce for more ammunition, but to ask the troops to stop firing shells into town, so as to let them have water—“else how can you expect us to fight?” they said. Then he became gold–digger; later, fought in the Galeka war, then the Zulu, Dinizulu, first Matabele campaigns, and lastly the present operations, in which he is a major in the Umtali forces.
Maori B——e
10th December.—The General and our party went out to the Pennalonga Mine, seven miles through pretty wooded hills, every one of which showed signs of having been prospected. At the mine, Jeffreys, the manager, and his bright bride did us right hospitably, and after lunch we went over part of the mine. Their working is simple: having found the reef in a watercourse in the mountain–side, they have followed it with “drives” both ways, and have met it with other drives from the opposite side of the hill. The ore (of “gallina”) containing something much over 20 oz. of silver and 11 dwt. of gold, a lot of it very pretty with the garnet–like crystals of chromate of lead. We walked into one adit about four hundred feet, and saw the working; cross–cuts showed the reef eighteen feet across. The air was not very good, and we could with great difficulty keep our candles alight.
They have just put up a 5–stamp battery to be worked with a turbine, the water being led from the top of the mountain above the mill by pipes which are now being laid, so that in a short time the mine should be in full work. The only obstruction at present is the famine price of food, which prevents the Company employing sufficient black labour (which they have to feed).
There are several other mines in the valley, but none so forward as this, though one has a splendid waterfall to supply its power in the future.