A passing word would not be out of place concerning the Indians who are now on the fields in considerable numbers, say 700 to 1000 souls.
They possess no place of worship, that is the pure Hindu, the believer in Brahma, Siva and Vishnu, but the Mahomedan division have just built a mosque and sent specially to India to procure an Imaum who will conduct their services in the future with proper rites. In October, however, of each year the Mahometan party form large processions and make the air discordant by the beating of “tom-toms.”
They celebrate this feast a whole week with allegorical imagery, men painted and chained like tigers dancing about to harsh music. This forms not so much a religious as a historical festival, by which they commemorate the murder of two of Mahomet’s sons and at the same time rejoice at the beginning of another year and keep green the memory of their early days in India.
It is not to be supposed that all professors or expounders of “Holy Writ,” are immaculate. Some crave after position and power, some after ease and pleasure, some after luxury and wealth.
To the second class I have specified belonged the most eccentric individual, who has made a trade of religion, that I have ever met. This “Apostle of the Faith,” as he called himself, turned up at Du Toit’s Pan in the year 1876. He was an odd creature, wore black broadcloth, a white choker and a bell-topper hat. In those days, a tall beaver was as rare as was the existence of the conservative working man according to the imagination of Professor Rogers, therefore “Bishop” Mellett, in his singular get up, was quite the sensation for a time among the diggers.
“Was he a real live bishop?” some asked; “Where was his diocese?” others inquired; “Was he a greater knave than fool?” “Was he an impostor trading upon the artless boer, under the cloak of religion?” These were queries with which “his Reverence” was soon confronted. “His Lordship” was a short man, of some fifty years, with a good deal of doggedness in his weather-beaten features, while every now and then a nervous twitching of the lips was evident to the close observer. The wags of the place were determined before he left to have some fun at his expense, and invited him to lecture to them.
To this he cordially acquiesced, especially when a dinner to be given in his honor was hinted at, to enable him to fortify himself for the oratorical effort he was expected to make. At this dinner, given in the dining-room of the Royal Hotel, Du Toit’s Pan, there were many visitors from Kimberley, and the high jinks played upon the “bishop,” of which, by the way, he seemed to be perfectly unconscious, created considerable hilarity among the jovial crowd. Dinner over a procession was formed, and a march made to the new billiard-room just being built for a rival hostelry, the “Fox and Hounds,” where a temporary platform and reading desk had been erected for the occasion upon two empty beer barrels. Candles were stuck here and there around and business immediately began. The Chairman appointed was a Dr. Graham, the very broth of an educated but rollicking Irishman. Duly introducing the “Bishop,” that reverend gentleman rose, and at once commenced his lecture, but the “Bishop’s” knowledge of the English language being very imperfect, he was asked to speak in Dutch, which was very humorously interpreted by a Hollander who was present. About an hour’s rambling twaddle brought the lecturer to his seat, his discourse concluding with the information that he was prepared to answer any questions concerning Holy Writ which might be put to him. Many were the questions and curious; the audience relishing the fun and seemingly vying with each other in their endeavors to confuse him, but the question that took the first prize in public opinion was, “Will His Lordship kindly explain why corrugated iron is sometimes called Gospel Oak?” Well this fairly nonplussed the “Bishop,” as probably it will some of my readers. This is one of those jokes that requires an explanation. Corrugated iron was the material generally in use for building, and the favorite brand was “Gospel Oak,” so-called because the manufacturer’s works, situate somewhere in the vicinity of London, were so named. The efforts of the “Bishop” to explain made the thing more ludicrous, and just as he was in the throes of a learned disquisition upon something or other, out went the candles, upside-down was turned the platform, “his Lordship’s” bell-topper became irretrievably ruined, a few rotten eggs beplastered his sunburnt visage, and in less time than it takes to tell, the impudent hypocrite was seen slipping away, hurriedly scrambling through an open window to the rear of the premises. A “hue and cry” was raised, and the whilom bishop on being run to earth received the rough handling (which did not, however, go the length of physical violence) which my readers may imagine he would receive from a rough mining crowd. After getting as much fun as they wanted out of their victim, the affair wound up by escorting him into a neighboring canteen, where everybody, “bishop,” digger, diamond buyer, or loafer became just as “fou” as was compatible with walking to his respective bed. When the “bishop” got to his room in the hotel, however, a cruel practical joke awaited him. Worn out with excitement and fatigue he threw himself on his bed to sleep, but pins and needles had been stuck all over and at once out he bounded with miraculous agility. Then came through the open window such a roar of laughter that the “bishop” could see further trouble was looming in the distance, and “discretion” with him “being the better part of valor,” he donned his nether garments and with coat, handbag, umbrella and bible, he cleared out as fast through the friendly door as his legs could carry him, and has, mirabile dictu, never since been seen on the Fields. He was recognized, however, some few months ago in the Transvaal still carrying on his pious frauds. In pursuit of his ecclesiastical functions he goes from farm-house to farm-house, staying here a month and there a month, or as long as the farmer will keep him, and so he plays his hypocritical “part” among the ignorant and confiding boers.
Griqualand West has been, until the advent of the railway, at too great a distance from the large towns of the colony to entice many celebrities to come and see the mines, and visitors, especially those belonging to the religious world, have been few and far between.
Since the opening of the Colesberg Kopje, I can recollect only the spasmodic visits of one or two Bishops of the English Church, the short stay of a lecturing infidel and buffoon, whose name I will not advertise by mentioning, but who was publicly presented with a diamond ring by certain gentlemen possessed of more money than brains, the mission of Dr. Somerville in connection with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and the meteoric appearance of Father Henerberry, a second Father Matthew, who for fourteen days filled the Roman Catholic church to overflowing by his powerful crusade against drink. For some twelve months past the Salvation Army has been established, but contrary to expectations has attracted comparatively little attention of either a favorable or opposite character.
I should be shirking an evident duty if I were to omit calling attention to a matter which must ever hear witness against Kimberley and the surrounding camps, and that is the opportunity which for years the religious section of the inhabitants have thrown away of spreading the truths of the Gospel to the natives,[[92]] who have been attracted to their very doors from the far interior. I am within the mark when I compute that during the last sixteen years an average of at least 10,000 natives (new arrivals) has each year been drawn to work in our mines by the reports, carried from one to another by those returning, of the riches awaiting them. What a field for missionary enterprise has not this presented? Now, has not the chance been lost? What “glad tidings of great joy” might not even one or two in whom the seed thus sown had borne fruit, have spread on their return?