I was naturally very curious to learn what had caused her unaccountable anxiety, which I mentioned in my last chapter, as particular care had been taken to keep the fact of my accident from being cabled to her, and she had remained in entire ignorance of my condition until letters reached her. She told me that she was sitting alone reading, much interested in her book, when she felt a sharp thrill, like an electric shock, pass through her from head to foot. This distracted her attention for a moment, but as she was about to resume her book, she heard a voice distinctly say “Pray for Joe, pray for Joe.” This occurred on Sunday, December 2d, which was the day after my accident, and when in both Kimberley and Du Toit’s Pan prayers had been offered in many churches for my recovery.
In as far as I have read the accounts of such phenomena, this differs from them in some respects, and so I think may be interesting to members of the Psychical Research Society, and those engaged in investigating such mental phenomena or coincidences as clairvoyance, thought reading, etc.
Although I ought to have taken a longer rest from work, I could not hear inactivity, and resumed the practice of my profession on February 14th, 1884. This I continued as before until August, 1886, when, as I tell later on, I visited the Kaap Gold Fields.
CHAPTER XXX.
VISIT TO THE KAAP GOLD FIELDS.—CAVES AT WONDERFONTEIN.—THE DUIVEL’S KANTOOR—“THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH.”—BARBERTON AND ITS DEVELOPMENT.—COURSE OF GOLD DISCOVERIES.
During the course of the year 1886 certain events occurred which determined me upon visiting Europe, and possibly settling in America, but before deciding upon the exact date of my departure, I resolved to visit Barberton, the main town of the Kaap Valley Gold Fields, in the Transvaal, and learn for myself on the spot the truth or otherwise of the statements then being made about the Fields, and which were exciting such intense interest in the Cape Colony and Natal, and even were beginning to attract the attention of the European capitalists.
I left Kimberley with that object in view in August last, by the mail coach, which ran through as far as Marais’ Farm, a few hours beyond Middleburgh, a small town seventy miles from Pretoria, the capital of the state, and which may be remembered as a place of some importance during Sir Garnet Wolseley’s operations in the Sekukuni war. I trusted, though the mail-coach service ended there, that some favorable opportunity of getting on to Barberton, the chief mining town of the district, might present itself. The gold fields that I was especially desirous of visiting lie between the Godwaan plateau and the Makoujwa range of mountains, along the valley of the Kaap and Crocodile Rivers, about 240 miles east of Pretoria. The ground between Kimberley and Pretoria I had travelled over three years before and consequently was well acquainted with it. The country I found as naturally rich and as picturesque as on my former visit, but I could not detect any signs of progressive energy or life. Everybody seemed imbued with the same lethargy and lack of industry and enterprise. On my arrival at Pretoria, however, I found the town, or rather the bars of the European Hotel and the clubs, in a state of unnatural ferment, owing to the “boom” occasioned by the newly discovered gold deposit at Witwatersrand, a place some thirty-five miles distant.
The gold there, I was told, had been found in a well-cased conglomerate, and the yield per ton was reported to be something fabulous. As a natural result speculation of the wildest character was going on.
Before arriving at Potchefstroom, formerly the capital of the state, the coach passed Wonderfontein, a farm where we changed horses, and which now possesses a certain historical importance as being the main centre of the Boer deliberations during their late successful struggle for the independence of their country.
Here the driver of the coach was induced to wait an hour in order to give the passengers the opportunity of visiting a renowned cave in the vicinity.