Impressions of South Africa

by Viscount James Bryce Bryce

In the last chapter I have brought the reader back to the sea from the inland country we have spent three chapters in traversing. Now, while the German steamer is threading her way to the open ocean through the shoals that surround the entrance to the harbour of Beira, the traveller as he gazes on the receding shore tries to sum up his impressions regarding the economic prospects as well of Mashonaland as of the other territories of the British South Africa Company. I will shortly state these impressions.

The regions over which the British flag flies between the Transvaal Republic to the south and the territories of Germany and of the Congo State to the north, fall into three parts. The first is the country north of the Zambesi. The easternmost section of this northerly region is Nyassaland, of which I need say nothing, because it has been admirably described by the distinguished officer (Sir H. H. Johnston) who administered it for some years. The central and western sections, which are under the control of the Company, are still too little known for an estimate of their value to be formed. Though some parts are more than 4000 feet above sea-level, most of the country lies below that line, which is, roughly speaking, the line at which malarial fevers cease to be formidable. Most of it, therefore, is not likely to be fit for European colonization, and the heat is of course such as to put European labour out of the question. Considerable tracts are, however, believed to be fertile, and other tracts good for pasture, while there is some evidence of the existence of gold and other minerals. The least valuable region is believed to be that north of the Middle Zambesi, where there are some dry and almost barren districts. Taking it all in all, it is a country well worth having; but its resources will have to be turned to account entirely through black labour; and as it is not likely to attract any Europeans, except gold-prospectors, until the unoccupied lands south of the Zambesi have been fully taken up, its development belongs to a comparatively distant future.

The second region—that which lies south of the Upper Zambesi, north-west of Matabililand—is equally little known, and, so far as known, is not attractive. Most of it is comparatively low; much of it is arid; some parts, especially those round Lake Ngami, are marshy and therefore malarious. It is thinly peopled, has not been ascertained to possess any mineral wealth, and lies far from any possible market. Parts of it may turn out to afford good pasture, but for the present little is said or thought about it, and no efforts have been made to develop it.

The third region comprises Matabililand and Mashonaland, that is, the country between the Transvaal Republic and the valley of the Middle Zambesi, all of which is now administered by the Company. What there is to say about its prospects may be summed up under three heads—health, wealth, and peace. It is on these three things that its future welfare depends.

Health.—A large part of the country, estimated at nearly 100,000 square miles, belongs to the Upper South African plateau, and has an elevation of at least 3000 feet above the sea; and of this area about 26,000 square miles have an elevation of 4000 feet or upward. This height, coupled with fresh easterly breezes and dry weather during eight months in the year, gives the country a salubrious and even bracing climate. The sun's heat is tempered, even in summer, by cool nights, and in winter by cold winds, so that European constitutions do not, as in India, become enervated and European muscles flaccid. It is not necessary to send children home to England when they reach five or six years of age; for they grow up as healthy as they would at home. Englishmen might, in many districts, work with their hands in the open air, were they so disposed; it is pride and custom, rather than the climate, that forbid them to do so. So far, therefore, the country, is one in which an indigenous white population might renew itself from generation to generation.

Wealth.—It was the hope of finding gold that drew the first British pioneers to these regions; it is that hope which keeps settlers there, and has induced the ruling Company to spend very large sums in constructing railways, as well as in surveying, policing, and otherwise providing for the administration of the country. The great question, therefore, is, How will the gold-reefs turn out? There had been formed before the end of 1895 more than two hundred Development Companies, most of them gold-mining undertakings, and others were being started up till the eve of the native outbreak in March, 1896. Very many reefs had been prospected and an immense number of claims registered. The places in which actual work had been done in the way of sinking shafts and opening adits were, of course, much fewer, yet pretty numerous. Most of these were in Manicaland, near Mtali, or to the north and west of Fort Salisbury, or to the south-east of Gwelo, in the Selukwe district. No one of these workings was on a large scale, and at two or three only had stamping machinery been set up, owing, so I was told, to the practically prohibitive cost of transport from the sea. Accordingly, there were very few, if any, workings where enough ore had been extracted and treated to warrant any confident predictions as to the productivity of the claim. Numerous as the claims are, the value of all, or nearly all, remained uncertain.

It must be remembered that in these mining districts the gold occurs in quartz-reefs. Comparatively little is found in alluvial deposits, which in California and Australia and the Ural mountains have often been more important than the quartz-reefs. None at all is found diffused equally through a stratum of rock, as in the Transvaal. Now, quartz-reef mining is proverbially uncertain. The reefs vary not only in thickness, but also in depth, and it is not yet certain that any go very far beneath the surface. So, too, even when the reef itself is persistent in width and in depth, its auriferous quality varies greatly. What is called the "shoot" of gold may be rich for some yards, and then become faint or wholly disappear, perhaps to reappear some yards farther. Thus there must be a good deal of quartz crushed at different points before it can be determined what number of pennyweights or ounces to the ton a given reef, or a given part of a reef, is likely to yield.

In this uncertainty and deficiency of practical tests, people have fallen back upon the ancient workings as evidence of the abundance of the precious metal. I have already mentioned how numerous these workings are over the country, and how fully they appear to confirm the stories as to the gold which was brought down in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to Sofala and the other Portuguese ports. It is argued that if gold was so extensively worked in time past by rude races possessing only primitive methods and few tools, the reefs must have been rich, and that it is extremely improbable that all, or nearly all, the gold should have been already extracted. The old workings were open, excavated down from the surface, and they usually stopped when water was reached. Is there not every reason to think that in many places the reefs go deeper, and that our improved scientific appliances will enable us to extract far more of the metal than the old miners could get by their simple breaking and washing of the quartz? No doubt the old workings were carried on by labour incomparably cheaper than could now be obtained; but against this may be set the greater efficiency of the machinery which will be at the disposal of the miner when transportation facilities have been provided.

Arguments of this kind are resorted to only because the data which experiment has hitherto supplied are insufficient. I found much difference of opinion in the country itself regarding the value of the reefs. Some mining engineers took a less sanguine view of the reefs they had examined than did the general public in Fort Salisbury or Bulawayo, and (it need hardly be said) a much less sanguine view than the prospectuses of the companies conveyed to investors at home. On the other hand, results had been actually obtained in some other places which promised extremely well if the rest of the reef proved equal to the portion sampled. Men of what is called in America "a conservative temper" seemed to think that there is "payable gold," probably plenty of gold, in the country, and that out of the many companies formed to work the claims a fair, but by no means a large, proportion will turn out sound undertakings. I doubt if it will be possible to say anything more positive until stamping batteries have been erected and a considerable quantity of quartz has been treated. This process can hardly begin till the railways to Bulawayo and Mtali have been opened, and those interested may therefore have to wait till 1899 or 1900 before they can feel sure as to the value of their properties.[57]

Other minerals besides gold have been found. There is iron in many places, copper in others. Coal has been proved to exist, of good if not first-rate quality, on the edge of the Zambesi Valley south of the Victoria Falls, and further east, to the north of Gwelo, and if the gold-reefs turn out well it will certainly be worked. Indeed, railways have now (1899) been decided on to connect Bulawayo and Gwelo with these coal basins. It may be added that a railway is now being constructed from Bulawayo to Gwelo and Fort Salisbury, and that there is a prospect of another being pushed on to the Zambesi and the boundary of northern Rhodesia at the south end of Lake Tanganyika. A line is also to be made from Bulawayo south-east into the Gwanda mining district for a distance of 110 miles.