"Though the foreigner and his money were welcome to the Boer, yet he was persistently denied a voice in the government of the community—a vote even in matters most concerning himself—indeed all rights as a citizen. Heavy duties were imposed on the articles most necessary to the development of the mining industry. Monopolies were often unjustly obtained by those having interest with the Government. Concessions were granted only after large consideration to a Government not wholly free from a taint of bribery."
South Africa is not only a land of gold. It is even more famous for its diamonds; and the richest mines in the whole world for these precious stones are located in that country. Some of the most fabulous stories have been told by travelers of their experiences in the early mining days of South Africa, and such books as "King Solomon's Mines," and others have served to awaken a lively interest and induce adventurous spirits to go to that land.
Diamonds for Toys
The use the Boers had for diamonds when they took their wagons and oxen and moved north from Cape Colony 700 miles, to find a country where they could subjugate the natives and live in a Paradise of Great Game, was to amuse their children with the pretty stones,—certain glittering pebbles that sparkled as the young Boers, without the least comprehension of the prodigality of Nature, rolled on the grass and sand. If it had not been for the revelations of the riches of Africa by travelers from foreign lands, the Boer boys would still have had a monopoly of diamonds for toys, and but a dim consciousness of their bucolic magnificence. Boers are very queer people. Their idea of a next-door neighbor is that he must keep his hut and wagon at least three miles away. A closer approach makes a crowd; the air and the soil become impure, and the Boer is stifled in the midst of his own splendors. He is the most conservative citizen in the world. He estimates his own inherent, individual imperialism so extravagantly, that the rights of men without big wagons with tents on them, and long strings of oxen with long horns, fade into speculative insignificance. The Boers did not believe in diamonds—for they are not decorators of their persons—until they found others making money by mining them, and even then they only took a feeble interest in the work and were willing to rent a few square miles of each of their farms to those who were, with labor and capital, seeking the beautiful crystals. The Boer talent, according to the testimony of their lives, was in the multiplication of cattle, the shooting of wild beasts good to eat, occasional encounters with lions, and hunting parties that pursued the hippopotamus in the marshy lakes. As a matter of military science, they were educated in making forts out of their big wagons to repel the black warriors opposed to invasion by the drivers of horned cattle and dwellers in houses on wheels.
President Kruger
President Kruger is a power, because he is representative of his people. He is a great chief for the reason that a big savage becomes a leader and the headman of a tribe on account of his superior strength. In his youth he was the swiftest and longest winded runner and the champion rifleman in his part of the country, and it is the favorite tradition of his admirers that once when a youth he was pursued by a lion, and the brute incontinently ran away when the man of destiny turned upon him and looked him in the eye. His attitude towards gold is a distinction in which those who celebrate his virtues take special pride. It is well known that his capital city, Pretoria, is built on a gold mine, and a few years ago there was a revolutionary proposition made in Mr. Kruger's alleged parliament—even that of opening the neighboring land to prospectors seeking gold! The powerful President crushed out the insidious proposal.
"The Transvaal and the Boers," an interesting volume by William Garrett Fisher, says of the pre-eminence of Mr. Kruger in the official decision settling this matter that the great and good man said, with the wisdom inherited from generations of ancestors who had studied the encyclopedias of Nature:
"Stop and think what you are doing before you open fresh gold fields. Look at Johannesburg, what a nuisance and expense it has been to us! We have enough gold and gold seekers in this country already; for all you know there may be a second Rand at your very feet."
These momentous words in the aid of higher destinies were addressed to the Volksraad, and there was no more countenancing the idea of digging for gold.
Gold Found in 1854