The period mainly dealt with is that magical one when South Africa unnoted and obscure was startled from the simplicity of her bucolic life by the discovery of gold and diamonds. This was, of course, some years before the fountains of her boundless potential wealth had become fully unsealed. I was one of that band of light-hearted, haphazard pioneers who, rejoicing in youthful energy and careless of their own interests, unwittingly laid the foundation upon which so many great fortunes have been built.
An ancient myth relates how the god Dionysus decreed that everything touched by Midas, the Phrygian king, should turn into gold, but the effect was so disastrous that Midas begged for a reversal of the decree. The prayer was granted, conditionally upon the afflicted king bathing in the River Pactolus.
South Africa may, in a sense, be paralleled with Midas both as regards the bane of gold and the antidote of bathing but her Pactolus has been one of blood.
Midas again got into trouble by, refusing to adjudge in the matter of musical merit between Pan and Apollo, and this time was punished by having his ears changed into those of an ass.
Our choice lies before us; may we avoid the ass's ears by boldly making a decision. May we evade a worse thing by unhesitatingly giving our award in favor of Apollo.
With this apologia I submit my humble gleanings from fields on which no more the sun will shine, to the indulgent sympathy of readers.
W. C. S.
PORT ELIZABETH, SOUTH AFRICA, January, 1913.