Incwadi Yami; or, twenty years' personal experience in South Africa

by J. W. Matthews

There was an immediate halt. A deputation was sent from the army to meet a deputation from the diggers, and a mutual understanding was arrived at that there should be no fighting. There was a general indulgence in the cups that cheer and also inebriate, and the Boer army returned as empty-handed as they came. Mr. Campbell did not venture to cross the river to the side where there was a Free State magistrate, nor yet did Mr. Truter, the Free State official, venture to steer his barque to the side where Mr. Campbell had hoisted the British flag.

When the diamonds were first discovered Sir Philip Wodehouse was governor and high commissioner of the South African colonies, but he was recalled before there was anything like a general rush to the fields, which only commenced in the beginning of 1870. Lieut. Governor Hay filled the acting appointment until Sir Henry Barkly became governor and high commissioner in 1870, and the latter had not been long in the Cape Colony before he came up; the Cape parliament having decided that he should, between the sessions of 1870 and 1871, make all the arrangements for annexing the diamond fields to the Cape Colony, and at that time the diggers looked on this annexation as inevitable.

Sir Henry went to the Klipdrift side of the river and was received with the most strongly-marked expressions of joyfulness at his arrival. Triumphal arches were erected and a banquet was given him, but he was very reticent and little information as to how the fields were to be governed was gleaned from him. The chief point of interest elicited from him being that the land would soon be given out.

This visit was followed by the establishment of a high court presided over by a single judge, Mr. Advocate Barry, (now Sir Jacob Dirk) president of the court of the eastern districts of the Cape Colony. Mr. J. Cyprian Thompson came as public prosecutor and there was soon a full bar, Mr. Campbell holding the position of resident magistrate and the late Mr. Giddy being civil commissioner.

The discovery of diamonds at Du Toit’s Pan and Bulfontein in 1870 caused a revolution in the order of things. The diamonds could at this time only be obtained at Pniel and the other river diggings by the troublesome operations of digging out and removing boulders of immense size, some of which were many tons in weight. The labor, as may be conceived, was tedious to a degree when the diamondiferous gravel had to be taken to the river, cradled, washed and sorted; all employed whites as well as blacks were standing in water half their time, and chills, ague and fever were the natural consequences. There was no water at the Du Toit’s Pan or Bulfontein, the diamonds were found near the surface, and the diamondiferous stuff only needed sieving before it was ready for the sorting table.

The rush from the river to what were called “the dry diggings” was one of the most remarkable ever recorded. In one week after the existence of diamonds at Du Toit’s Pan in payable quantities was assured, Pniel, which had grown into a town with a population of at least 3,000, and provided with shops, post-office, hotels, law courts, etc., became almost forsaken with nothing to be seen of its past glories, nothing left but the deep pits from which the boulders had been removed and a few straggling remains of roads and mud buildings. The population of Klipdrift had been reduced by at least one-half, but the houses and stores there being chiefly built of stone could not be removed; and here, too, were the English courts, the judge, the public prosecutor, the headquarters of the frontier mounted police, of which force a number had been moved up to the Fields together with the civil servants.

All that the English government claimed was the territory under the chieftainship of Waterboer. But the estate of Dorstfontein (Du Toit’s Pan) was the property of a citizen of the Free State, and he, as others had (although he was a British subject by birth), implicitly obeyed the laws of that state and was prepared still to be loyal to it and to submit to any digging laws that that government might pass and proclaim, and to pay any tax or royalty that the Free State Volksraad and government might see fit to demand. Mr. Truter, who had previously held his court at Pniel and hoisted the republican flag there, opened a court at Du Toit’s Pan, and English and Dutch alike respected his edicts and availed themselves of his court.

Happily for the diamond fields, diamonds were found on the Voornitzigt estate almost simultaneously with their discovery at Du Toit’s Pan, and this estate had been purchased by Mr. Alfred Ebden (now the Hon. Alfred Ebden, M. L. C.), of Old De Beers, on his first visit to Klipdrift, not with the remotest suspicion that there were rich diamond mines on it, but because of its close proximity to the already discovered diamond fields.

When diamonds were found on this estate there was less difficulty in the British government obtaining land for offices and courts than there had been before, Mr. Ebden being a British subject and therefore desirous that his property should be under his country’s flag, and he at once said that the government might take any ground which they might select as sites for the erection of buildings for official purposes.

At this time the local government was in the hands of three commissioners, Messrs. J. C. Thompson and Campbell and Commandant Bowker of the frontier mounted police, who were responsible to and acted under the instructions of the high commissioner. It was never clearly understood what their powers and duties were, nor could any one gather from their proceedings what it was intended they should do, except to act as buffers, so to speak, between the inhabitants and the high commissioner, and between the high commissioner and the president of the Free State. They continued their offices or “seat of government” as they called it, at Barkly, placing Mr. Giddy on the Voornitzigt estate as resident magistrate and civil commissioner, and appointing a small body of police to do his bidding, while they themselves paid periodical visits to the dry diggings, but never ventured into Du Toit’s Pan. When Bulfontein was found an attempt to gain possession of it was made by the Free State, but that was successfully resisted by the proprietors and diggers, who declined to permit what they called “the foreign yoke” to be placed about their necks. The high court, the post-office and all the English government offices were still centered in Klipdrift.