Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer

by W. C. Scully

One weird circumstance connected with these fatalities was this; in some instances the temperature of the bodies would rise after death and continue to rise for several hours. This, I have been told, was due to the fever ferment in the blood and tissues developing unchecked, and its products setting up strong chemical action. It was hard, in these instances, to believe that death had actually taken place, so attempts at resuscitation used to be resorted to. I was afterwards told by a medical man from Barberton that a similar phenomenon was noticed there in fever cases the temperature sometimes rising after death to 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

Pilgrim's Rest, during the first few years after gold had been discovered there, was an interesting and delightful place. Those whose experience of mining camps is limited to ones in which the syndicate or the company holds sway, can form no idea of the life of a community where the individual digger is dominant. I am prepared to maintain that life was healthier, saner, and on the whole more generally satisfactory at Pilgrim's Rest in the early seventies than it is in any South African community today. There was, of course, the inevitable percentage of loafers, idlers, and scoundrels, but these were kept in their proper place. Public opinion was a very effective force; in matters affecting the general welfare of the community, opinion quickly translated itself into action when the occasion demanded it. Thus the blackguards knew perfectly well that if official justice occasionally halted, its unofficial equivalent was apt to be short, sharp, and decisive in its operation. The prison was a bell-tent containing two sets of stocks. Under ordinary circumstances a prisoner was accommodated by having both his legs secured. However, occasionally, when an unusually large number of culprits were run in, they had to be content with only one wooden anklet apiece. No color line was drawn, except, to a certain extent, in the matter of the application of the "cat." Natives and colored men were flogged for whatever offence they happened to be found guilty of. Europeans were fined, with the alternative of imprisonment, except in the case of a serious offence such as tent-robbing, for instance. For such a crime, an almost unpardonable one in a scattered r mining camp, where tents had very often to be left unprotected the white man got his five and twenty as a matter of course. I only knew of one case of tent-robbing by a native. This was in the early days. The culprit was shot on the spot and thrown down a disused shaft. No questions on the subject were asked.

I will illustrate what I mean by saying that no color line was drawn. I once had a mate, John Cameron, a Highlander from Skye. John usually became inebriated on Saturday night, but would turn up very early on Sunday morning. One such morning he did not appear. While I was at breakfast a passing digger told me that my mate was in gaol for assaulting a policeman.

I started off to see what could be done. The gaol was about four miles from where I lived. I arrived there in due course. There was no one to prevent my entering, for the prisoners were secured so well in the heavy, iron-bound stocks that escape was an impossibility. I found poor John secured by one foot and lying on the ground between two similarly secured Kaffirs. He was in a horrid condition, as, being a powerful man, it had been found necessary to stun him with a club before his arrest could be effected.

It was a fortunate circumstance that I knew Major Macdonald, the Gold Commissioner, fairly well, and that he was owing to a successful game of poker the previous night in an unusually good temper. He penciled an order for John's release. After some difficulty I found the gaoler and got him although with a bad grace, for John had acted in a really outrageous manner to obey the order.

All nationalities were represented among the diggers, but English South Africans predominated. Soon, however, an increasing population of Australian, New Zealand, and Californian miners poured in. The "field" was a rich one. The "lead," which zigzagged perplexingly down between the valley terraces, carried plenty of gold. It was, of course, uneven, some parts of it being much richer than others but I do not think that there was any portion of the lead which it did not pay to work. But the lead and the bed of the creek in which the water actually ran zigzagged quite independently of each other. That is to say, at the time when the gold was carried down and distributed by water along the bottom of the valley countless ages ago, the stream then flowing although it followed the same general direction took in detail a course quite different from the one it followed when the busy gold seekers defaced its banks in the days I write of.

Much more gold was found than is generally supposed. I remember four very quiet, reticent men who worked out three and a half rather shallow claims just in front of what was known as the Middle Camp. They never spoke of what they were finding and it would have been a most serious breach of local etiquette to make any inquiry upon such a subject but upon leaving they authorized the manager of the bank to make public the fact that they had divided, on dissolution of the partnership, gold to the value of 35,000. Many others also did well, but none to the same extent as the partnership referred to. Some very large nuggets were found. I personally handled one which weighed 10 lb. It was unearthed by the late John Barrington, afterwards of Knysna.

The wild peaches which grew so plentifully in the vicinity of the Blyde River Valley were a godsend to indigent "Pilgrims." How the trees originated is a mystery. But there they were, on the "flats" of Pilgrim's Creek, along the Blyde River terraces and in many of the surrounding Valleys, groves of trees bearing luscious peaches of the yellow clingstone variety. Although the trees were ungrafted, unpruned, and, in fact, had not been interfered with by meddling man since the germination of the stones that gave them auspicious birth, the size and flavor of the fruit were ail that could be desired.

One gold-bearing creek was called "Peach Tree," on account of the number of trees there growing. Near the upper end of the worked portion of Pilgrim's Creek was a dense orchard that bore splendidly. But, alas! they grew over "pay dirt," and in consequence were ruthlessly uprooted. I am positive that the occurrence of these trees was quite adventitious; they did not appear to have been planted with any regard to order, nor as a rule were they found in localities suitable for homesteads.

I have often speculated as to the origin of these peach-trees. Did some thoughtful old voortrekker carry peach stones in his pocket, and, as Admiral Rodney was wont to do with acorns, plant them here and there for the benefit of posterity? Or did some small boy voortrekker, munching, from the pocket of his blesbuck-skin jacket, dried fruit sent up by some kind tante from the far south, carelessly throw aside a stone which had been accidentally included, and was that the ancestor of those trees which used to afford us so many delightful feasts?