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

by J. W. Matthews

The discovery of other gold fields 350 miles to the northeast of the Tati followed in a few weeks that of these fields. In October, 1868, McNeil of D’Urban, with other members of the D’Urban Volunteer Artillery, of which corps he was then Lieutenant, left Natal, went first to the Tati, and then proceeded to what were termed the Northern gold fields, but on fever breaking out among the party, and several dying, the survivors thought it more prudent to return.

In 1871, five years after Hartley’s discoveries, Mr. E. Button, a well-known Natal colonist who in 1868 and 1869 had prospected the country northeast of Lydenburg, nearly as far as the water-shed of the Zambezi, found gold upon his farm Eersteling, in the district of Marabastad, which was a new departure in gold discovery farther to the south.

Proceeding to England, he formed a company, The Transvaal Gold Mining Co., with a capital of £50,000, and returned to the Transvaal with a mining engineer of experience, and also with powerful machinery. Although troubled with many difficulties, but principally with water in his main shaft, he worked away with varying success until the Boer war of 1881 put an entire stop to his efforts. The Boers, in their desperate need at the time, made a complete wreck of his machinery, being constrained, through want of ammunition, to cut up even the stamper-rods of the battery, to mould into cannon balls.

The next move in a southerly direction was the finding of gold by Mr. Lachlan and others, in September, 1873, on the Blyde (or Joyful) River, at Pilgrims’ Rest, at Mac Mac; close by, and at Spitzkop, a solitary hill twenty miles distant. These alluvial diggings supported from 5 to 800 diggers, and Pilgrims’ Rest became for a time a place of considerable importance, until the principal creek being nearly worked out, and many diggers in consequence leaving, the government virtually drove the remainder away by granting a concession to a company formed by Mr. David Benjamin. This concession gave power to the company to remove all diggers on payment of compensation, which was made to the amount of £55,000. It is a subject of regret, however, that the same want of success has followed this company as that which has hitherto attended the Lisbon and Berlyn, the company in connection with which the name of Baron Grant has so prominently figured.

CHAPTER XXXI.
COURSE OF GOLD DISCOVERIES CONTINUED.—MOODIE’S SYNDICATE.—THEIR EXORBITANT DEMANDS AND THE RESULT.—BARBER BROS., AND THE UMVOTI REEF.—MAD SPECULATIONS.—FUTURE OF THE GOLD FIELDS.

Previous to this, in 1881, a long lull had taken place in gold discoveries in the Transvaal, owing to various causes, and among others to the war.

In consequence of rumors of gold having been found at Eland Hoet being in circulation, a number of men, including prospectors, diggers, and others, were attracted from Lydenburg and Pilgrims’ Rest to that district, and notwithstanding the fact that this swindle, as it was termed, was severely criticized in the public press, yet by this means the discovery of the Kaap gold fields was incidentally brought about.

Many of the diggers worked up the gullies, came on the Godwaan plateau, and ultimately the Kaapsche Hoop gold fields, still further south, with the Duivel’s Kantoor as its centre, became an established fact. With respect to the later gold discoveries in Swaziland I shall speak further on. The Duivel’s Kantoor, Devil’s Counting House, at which I have mentioned we rested a night, is now comparatively deserted, containing but half a dozen houses, and two canteens; but in June, 1882, before the Transvaal government, by granting a concession of most of the valuable mining land in the locality to a private company, drove the diggers away, this village was the prosperous business centre of at least 500 diggers, who were spread over the Godwaan plateau, an area of twenty-eight by fifteen miles.

After the concession, of which I have just spoken, was granted to the Barret-Berlyn Co., many of the diggers went down into the Kaap Valley and found alluvial gold at a spot afterwards named Jamestown, close to the Kaap River, in Lat. 25° 31′ S. and Long. 31° 26′ E., about sixteen miles from the present town of Barberton; and although nuggets up to 58 ozs. in weight were found by individual diggers, there still was no general or substantial success.