Letter 12.
Port Elizabeth—Algoa Bay—Diamonds—Kafir Nobility.
Port Elizabeth may be described as the first-born city of the Eastern Province of the Cape of Good Hope. It came into being in 1820. It is now a flourishing seaport, full of energetic, busy, money-making men. It is the principal seaport of the Eastern Province, and the nearest point on the coast to the Diamond-fields—420 miles from De Beer’s New Rush, a distance which was traversed in about six days by coaches.
Among its more useful enterprises it has the honour of having sent out one pioneer of future commercial prosperity in the Eastern Province, for Port Elizabeth is the starting-point of one branch of that great railway system which is to revolutionise Africa. I do not say South Africa, but advisedly use the title of wider scope.
It is not every day that one can boast of having handled a tumbler full of diamonds. Being anxious to see a mass of those precious gems in an uncut condition, I appealed to a friend who had come out with me in the “Windsor Castle.”
He introduced me to a broker, who took me into a back office, opened a strong-box, took out a small packet, and, untying it, poured out a tumblerful of diamonds! They ranged from the size of a pin-head to that of a bean, and were varied in shade, from pure crystal to straw-colour. The broker then opened one or two separate parcels, each of which contained a specially large or fine diamond, varying in size from a pea to a hazelnut.
“That one,” he said, “may be worth four hundred pounds, and this, perhaps about five or six hundred.”
Looking at them, it was difficult to believe that they were other than paltry pebbles; yet these were the things for which men left home and kindred, pushed into the wilds of a savage land, toiled and moiled in the Great Pit at Kimberley, and too often sacrificed health, happiness, and life itself. Judging them from their looks, I would not have given sixpence for the entire lot—so true is it that we do wrong in judging uncut gems, as well as unknown men, by the “outward appearance.”
A very striking, and rather unfortunate instance of this false style of judgment occurred not many days afterwards in reference to some Kafir princes and chiefs: it was on the occasion of my quitting Port Elizabeth for Capetown.
We were to have started on a Saturday afternoon, but a gale said “no,” and we left on Sunday morning. Even then, although the gale had abated, a surf so magnificent was rolling into Algoa Bay that no ship’s boat could approach the jetty. This obliged the passengers to go off to the steamer in a surf-boat. Of course the boat could not approach nearer the dry sand than fifty yards or so. There she heaved about in oceans of boiling foam, while Kafirs carried us on board one by one. The Kafirs bore the women in their strong arms as children are carried, and put them over the gunwale tenderly, but the men were made to sit on their shoulders, as one sits on horseback, and were treated with less ceremony. A giant in ebony carried me off, and trotted as he went, to the delight of some of his comrades; but I was accustomed to riding, and patted his black head approvingly.