Some few miles from Christiana, our next resting-place, we crossed the Vaal River, which is here a broad flowing stream some 200 yards in width, and continuing along its bank for some miles we arrived there at about seven o’clock.
BRONKHORST SPRUIT.
The coach was soon surrounded by the villagers, its arrival being looked upon as the event of the week.
Among the throng that came to meet the coach, I saw several gentlemen (?) whom I recognized as former residents of Kimberley, who had sought another sphere on account of the strictness of Ordinance 48, 1882 (Diamond Trade Act), and who were pursuing their peculiar line of business in a place where they were safe from the annoyance of inquisitive detectives asking unpleasant questions, and had chosen Christiana for their abode as being the nearest village in the Transvaal to the border of Griqualand West.[[98]] As soon as the coach stopped, we were pounced upon by a Health Officer, who forced us into a little triangular shed, reeking with burning brimstone, in order to fumigate us, the absurd idea having spread to the Transvaal that a couple of minutes’ exposure to sulphur fumes would kill the germs of small-pox, and so lessen the chance of our bringing this dreaded infection with us.
The official in question was not over exacting. He assured me in strict confidence, that the small-pox scare in Kimberley was nothing but a “doctor’s rush,” and to prove to us his belief in what he said, he was contented with a merely formal inhalation on our part of the unpleasant smoke, thus satisfying his conscience that he had done his duty. Two hotels, one or two stores, the Landtrost’s office and a few straggling houses, comprised everything that was to be seen.
Leaving this place, for six hours[[99]] until we arrive at Bloemhof, the road ran alongside the Vaal River. All the inhabitants of this small village, which was of about the same type as Christiana, were fast asleep when we drove up, so we merely remained there long enough to change horses.
This place leaped into notoriety some fourteen years ago, in consequence of being selected as the scene of the famous Bloemhof arbitration, otherwise known as the Keate award, a definition of boundaries which satisfied nobody. A handful of burnt brick houses, here one and there one with a plastered front, glaring out like spectres in the hazy moonlight and revealing a Gehenna of desolation and dust, is all that remains, so far as this Sleepy Hollow is concerned, “photographically limned on the tablets of my mind, when a yesterday has faded from its page,” as Gilbert (W.S., not the esteemed Kimberley attorney) observes in a well-known Bab ballad.
Stopping two or three times for the same purpose, first at Clarkson’s store, in front of which there is an immense lake some miles in circumference, and again at Maquassie’s Spruit, sixteen hours more jolting brought us to Klerksdorp, one of the most charming little villages that I have seen in this country. The pretty houses nestling among the fruit trees, and the roadside inn so clean and so comfortable, recalled pleasant memories of many an old English village.
Immediately before our arrival here we played the principal parts in a reproduction of the laughable farce “Fumigation.” as performed with such immense success in Kimberley, Christiana, etc. Here, however, the performance was decidedly unsuccessful, both the players, stage managers and prompters being far too sleepy to care whether anybody’s choking in the sulphurous exhalations of the “property” brazier was realistically rendered or a hollow mockery. Six hours more and we drove at a gallop into Potchefstroom, and drew up at the Royal Hotel. Learning the time the coach would start for Pretoria, and that I should have but three hours to look around, I started off at once to see the town, first attracted by the stately trees, towering at least sixty feet high, which lined the principal streets, giving an air of staidness and solidity to the little town, and at the same time inspiring an idea of well-to-do, if slightly humdrum, respectability and quietude, such as may be observed in many a New England village. The substantial brick built houses, too, surrounded by beautiful shrubs and graceful willows, the clear water from the Mori River running in sluits through every street, formed a striking contrast to the iron houses, the debris heaps and the dusty parched-up place that I had but two days left behind. Passing Reid’s store, which stands at one side of a market square, at least twenty acres in extent, with a plain and unimposing church. in the centre. I made my way to the Court-House at the opposite corner of the square, which, on the breaking out of the war, was one of the places held by our troops.