After finishing my studies in Scotland I visited London at the end of the autumn of 1864 for the purpose of appearing before the examining board of the Apothecaries’ Hall, when I found myself the guest of a brother-in-law, a popular non-conformist preacher in one of the populous suburbs of that city. During my stay with him I happened to hear one evening that an emigrant ship appointed to sail next day to Port Natal would most probably be detained by the sudden illness of the surgeon superintendent who had governmental charge. The vacancy was offered to me on condition that I should at once pass the official examination required of every medical man before he can be legally entrusted with the care of government emigrants. Early next morning, therefore, I appeared before Mr. Le Gros Clark, the appointed examiner, and successfully passing this extra examination joined on the same afternoon the good ship Tugela, Captain Stewart, bound with emigrants to Port Natal, South Africa. Sailing at once, I had for the first time an opportunity to look round at my fellow voyagers, who were chiefly composed of honest English yeomen with their families seeking to better their fortunes. The officers as time went on I found to be good men and true, the chief especially, whose sterling qualities, of which but a few years after he gave signal proof, I soon learned to appreciate. His memory is now all that remains; yet many of my readers and especially of my fellow passengers will have recognized in the noble hero of the Northfleet, the same Knowles of the Tugela, who on the fatal night of January 22d, 1873, when his ship lay at anchor between Folkestone and Dungeness, with 400 men, women and children on board, bound for Tasmania, was run into and sunk by a foreign steamer. I remember reading how chivalrously he endeavored to rescue the women and children, and how with his revolver he shot down those who in a cowardly manner tried to seize the boats. As said at the time, “he died at his post, sinking with his ship, having acted with a calmness, promptitude and decision that will cover his memory with honor.”
The position of medical superintendent on board an emigrant ship I soon found was in one sense no sinecure, but I quickly learned the art of adjusting opposing social elements, and lulling the brewing storms, which, as there was neither sickness nor accident during our voyage, were the only cases (?) about which I was consulted.
Time dragged slowly on. Since bidding “good-bye” to old England on December 3d, 1864, the eighty-four days we spent together on board the Tugela passed monotonously yet pleasantly enough, our enforced idleness being broken only by alternate storms and calms, the distant view of passing ships, and the comparatively uninteresting episodes of emigrant life, until on Sunday morning, February 5th, 1865, the “golden shores” of the Promised Land to which we were bound, burst upon our view. Running before a fair wind in sight of land, we feasted our eyes for a few hours, as we sailed along at a distance of one or two miles, on the lofty cliffs with their grass-clad, table-topped summits, which command the mouth of the Umzimvubu, the “Gates” of St. John’s River, and excited were the discussions we indulged in about the reported resources and fertility of the land to which we were destined. We were a long time, however, in coasting to Natal, and it can well be imagined how our desire and curiosity increased. At last the early morn of February 25th found us laying at anchor outside the bar of the harbor of Natal. Words cannot depict the intentness with which we surveyed the bluff, standing like a sentinel on guard at the south entrance of the bay, and admired the tropical vegetation with which it was clothed from base to summit; neither can I put into words the interest we felt as we gazed at the rolling breakers, and the eager anxiety with which we watched the sluggish approach of the lighter destined to land us on the shores of a new country. As all the emigrants under my charge landed in good health after the long voyage, the gratification that I felt was very great. I will not attempt to describe the hearty greetings of friends long separated, the tender embraces of husband and wife, of parent and child, again united, nor the shy, coy, loving looks of some, which threw out a suggestion of an anticipated happy future.
Passing my luggage through the custom-house, I rode up to D’Urban from the point along a deep, sandy bush path, skirted on both sides by a tangled mass of tropical vegetation, forming a dense undergrowth to fine forest trees, and went to the “Royal,” kept at that time by a good fellow named Jessup, who years afterward “played the part of a Boniface,” as the saying is, at the diamond fields.
Having a few days to wait here until the next mail steamer sailed to England, I happened in conversation casually to hear of a vacancy in the Natal government medical service, caused by the sudden death of a district surgeon in Victoria County, the most enterprising and rising portion of the whole colony. The following morning, while taking breakfast, two gentlemen, whom I afterward knew as large sugar planters on the coast, joined the table and began talking over the events of the week. “So he’s dead at last,” said one. “Yes, and who’ll take his place, I wonder?” said the other. After some further conversation, I gathered that the report I had heard of the sudden death of a doctor was correct, and that it was about him they were conversing. The chief speaker continued: “He made £700 a year, but could have made double if he’d liked.” Hearing all this, I introduced myself and told them who I was, when, with colonial frankness, they both strongly urged me to apply at once to the government for the appointment.
I did not require to think twice over the matter, visions of £1,000 a year at two-and-twenty floated temptingly before me, so deciding at once, I determined to go to the capital, Pietermaritzburg, and see Colonel Maclean, who was acting governor at the time. This I did next day, and the colonel gave me the acting appointment.
Being anxious as quickly as possible to see the district and people among whom, for at least a time, I had thrown my lot, immediately on my return to D’Urban I lost no time in visiting Verulam, the chief town of Victoria County, which was founded, I was told, in 1850 by a party of Wesleyan pioneers. Riding four miles through terrible sand, I crossed the Umgeni by a beautiful iron-girder bridge, afterward washed away by a sudden rising of the river in August, 1868, passed Jackson’s coffee estate and some extensive bush clearings, and then a few miles more brought me to Lovatt’s well-known roadside inn. All the way to Verulam, the place of my future residence, the landscape was studded near and far with thick forests, interspersed with sugar and coffee plantations, forming lovely little views; here and there, too, I could see smoke curling up from the fires where the planters were burning the timber in the forest, and many a time I halted my horse to watch around the blazing logs the groups of lithe, active, happy natives, laughing, singing and working by turn—a novel sight, indeed, to one accustomed to English coldness and stolidity.
Leaving behind Lister’s pretty coffee trees and banana groves, Smerdon’s mill and extensive sugar fields, I crossed the Umhlanga River, so named by the Kafirs from the reeds on its banks, which nearly hide it from view, and ascending a steep cutting along the side of a hill named Kaht’s Kop, caught sight at last, at a turn of the road, of the village of Verulam, lying snugly ensconced in a hollow among the hills on the banks of the Umhloti River. Another mile brought me to my journey’s end. Turning the sharp corner of a neglected graveyard, a pretty church on one side of the road, and on the other a sweet little thatched cottage, literally smothered with honeysuckles, and which I soon learned was the parsonage, greeted my view.
Putting up my horse at the inn, I called and paid my respects to the resident magistrate, Dr. Blaine, a member of my own profession. After lunching with him, we walked round the village, and he introduced me to the principal inhabitants, not omitting the worthy vicar, the Rev. W. A. Elder, and his wife, who were kind enough to invite me to take up my residence with them. A few more days saw me settled down, and I commenced regular practice in the county on April 3d, 1865.
Sugar was at that time paying handsomely and coffee promising well, and consequently good wages were given to native laborers; yet the planters, although surrounded by a large Kafir population, were never able to rely on obtaining a regular supply of labor, as the native was too independent, the young men merely working until they were able to save enough money to buy cattle sufficient to pay for a wife. The consequence was that the planters, although surrounded by hundreds of thousands of natives, had been compelled, about six years before my arrival, to organize a system of coolie immigration from India. One of the agreements they were obliged to enter into with the Indian government was that regular medical supervision should be provided for all immigrants; and to defray this cost, the planter was authorized to make a deduction of one shilling a month from the wages of each coolie.