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

by J. W. Matthews

A tedious drive all night had brought us at last, at ten o’clock in the morning, to Wonderfontein. During the last hour or so, when the rising sun with profuse splendor “tipped the hills with gold,” the scenery, which had been rather monotonous since daybreak, became lighted up by glimpses of the beautiful Mooi River, which we could see running like a thread of glittering silver at the foot of a high range of hills to join the Vaal River below Potchefstroom. Of a wonderful cave on this farm I had often heard, and long wished to see. Mr. V. Aswegen, a son-in-law of the late proprietor, very kindly consented to act as guide, and show us the subterranean wonders which he told us he had discovered seven years ago, when out hunting game, at the same time adding that the existence of the cave was but little known, not many visitors coming to the spot. On our arrival at the place pointed out to us by the guide (four miles from his house), which was surrounded by trees, we scrambled down a few feet into something like a pit twenty feet deep, and about thirty yards in diameter, having at one corner a little hole barely large enough to admit a man.

CAVE AT WONDERFONTEIN.

Through this we groped one at a time. We did not advance far before the pitchy darkness caused us to stop and light the candles and lamps with which each visitor had been provided. Then continuing our descent for twenty minutes at least, as it were into the bowels of the earth, we were suddenly ushered into a hall of dazzling whiteness, a scene of startling fairy-like beauty presenting itself which words fail me to describe. Passing on a few yards we found ourselves in a large amphitheatre, at least one hundred yards across, with a dome sixty feet in height, arching above. From this hung in profusion groups of glittering stalactites, like giant icicles, some being as much as thirty feet in length, others shorter, and all the color of driven snow, which, combined with the stalagmites growing as if out of the floor and in some cases meeting, produced an effect which was simply superb.

Stalactites are produced, I may state, by the percolation of water, holding some mineral matter in solution, through the rocky roofs of caverns; the evaporation of the water producing a deposit of the mineral matter, and gradually forming the long pendant cones. Large caves are found only in limestone regions, and chemistry shows that water holding lime in solution does so by virtue of the carbonic acid it contains, and will deposit the lime when the acid escapes.

Imagination here could revel at will, and play any freaks she chose. To the fancy were suggested vivid and varied scenes, while associations of all kinds—recollections of the past, and anticipations of the future—crowded on the spectator’s mind. In one corner the stalactites extended nearly to the ground, in circular pillars, and to the eye of fancy seemed like the carved confessionals in some continental cathedral, and it needed no great stretch of imagination to expect momentarily the appearance of the fair penitent and “holy friar.” A little further—still allowing fancy scope—there could be seen the pipes of a magnificent organ, extending to the dome, while, seemingly to prove that all was real, our guide ran his fingers over these vibrating pipes, bringing out a succession of tones both musical and clear. Looking on the other side of what I shall term this magnificent hall, the Roman Forum, with its eloquent speakers, and the noble orations they delivered in centuries gone by, were brought vividly to one’s memory by the very model of an ancient rostrum, standing ready for another Cicero again to mount and passionately declaim “Quosque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra.”

At the request of my companions I mounted this natural platform, when amid most enthusiastic plaudits from the friendly audience I spoke as felicitously as I could on the Transvaal and its resources, and dwelt upon the probable time, the countless ages, which had been consumed in the formation of the natural beauties we were viewing.

Before bidding farewell to this never-to-be-forgotten scene, we gathered together underneath the centre of the dome and sang “God save the Queen,” our guide, with the precision of a drummer, beating time on one of the pendant cones. I must not forget to mention that the echo which reverberated through this majestic hall reminded me most vividly of the Taj Mahal at Agra, and of the curious acoustic properties of that white marble mausoleum. But the distant notes of our driver’s bugle summoning us, we were suddenly reminded that we must again tempt the fortunes of “a cold, cold world,” and leave these mysterious caverns to the darkness of midnight and the silence of the grave.

After a day’s rest at Potchefstroom we went on to Pretoria (the seat of government since November, 1865), where we stayed the night, and started next morning for Marias’ Farm, sixty miles beyond Middleburg, where, as I have already told you. the mail service ceased. Here I and a fellow passenger were compelled to hire a special conveyance to take us on to the Duivel’s Kantoor, passing through the romantic Eland’s Valley and by the side of the Barret-Berlyn property. This village (the Kantoor), which is picturesquely situated at the very edge of the Drakensberg overlooking the Kaap Valley, was formerly the headquarters of the diggers for alluvial gold on the Godwaan plateau, and also the residence of the gold commissioner. I will refer to one of my letters for a description of the scene: “A short distance from the hotel where I am resting I have just seen one of the finest sights that has fallen to my lot to behold since I have been in South Africa. It is only a stone’s throw from the table where I am writing to the edge of the Drakensberg, but before the grand scene which I shall essay to describe to you bursts upon the view, the pathway twists and winds through such immense water-worn sandstone boulders, tossed as it were promiscuously around, and of every conceivable size and fantastic shape, that no wonder the illiterate and superstitious but God-fearing Boer imagined some supernatural power—the Devil himself, in fact—when in a capricious mood had taken a particular interest in the locality.

“You have not forgotten, I am sure, our trip to the Falls of the Tugela in 1870, where, in one unbroken sheet, we saw that river leap over the Drakensberg 1,800 feet. I can even now picture to myself the view from the top of the Berg, a spot where few save the prowling Bushmen, with their poisoned arrows, have ever been; and can well remember how I feasted my eyes on the vast expanse below, studded with the homesteads of enterprising British colonists. I have been, as you know, on Majuba’s heights, and have seen the rocks up which General Smith and his plucky band resolutely climbed on that eventful Sunday morning, performing one of the most heroic feats of modern times—and I have lingered for hours on Table Mountain, viewing the magnificent panorama of Capetown, with its docks and shipping, the picture framed on the one side by the green of its beautiful suburbs, and on the other by the blue of the mighty Ocean. But these all pale before the view of the Kaap Valley from the Duivel’s Kantoor.