Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

HON: J. W. MATTHEWS M.D. M.L.C.
VICE-PRESIDENT.

HON: G. BOTTOMLEY M.L.C.
KIMBERLEY.

HON: JOHN PADDON M.L.C.
BARKLY.

HON: HENRY GREEN M.L.C.
HAY.

HON: JAMES ROSE INNES. C.M.G.
PRESIDENT.

HON: F. J. VILLIERS.
ACTING COL^L. SEC^Y.

HON: H. B. WRIGHT.
TREASURER GEN^L.

HON: LEIGH HOSKYNS.
ATTORNEY GEN^L.

M^R. ADVOCATE LANGE.
CLERK.

INCWADI YAMI
OR
TWENTY YEARS’ PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
IN
SOUTH AFRICA

BY

J. W. MATTHEWS, M.D.

Late Vice-President of the Legislative Council of South Africa, and late Senior Member for Kimberley in the Cape House of Assembly

LONDON

SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON

ST. DUNSTAN’S HOUSE

FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E. C.

1887

[ALL RIGHTS RESERVED]

To

MY FELLOW COLONISTS OF SOUTH AFRICA

AND ESPECIALLY TO

MY FRIENDS ON THE DIAMOND FIELDS

WHO HAVE ON TWO SEPARATE OCCASIONS RETURNED ME AT

THE HEAD OF THE POLL TO REPRESENT THEM IN THE

COUNCILS OF THEIR COUNTRY, I RESPECTFULLY

DEDICATE THE FOLLOWING NOTES FROM

AN EXPERIENCE GAINED DURING

TWENTY YEARS

OF, I HOPE, A NOT ALTOGETHER USELESS LIFE AMONG THEM.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE MOUTH OF THE UMZIMVUBU—“GATES” OF ST. JOHN’S RIVER, NATAL.

PORT NATAL AND THE TOWN OF D’URBAN.

CHAPTER I.
LEAVE ENGLAND, 1864, AS SURGEON SUPERINTENDENT OF THE “TUGELA.”—CAPTAIN KNOWLES OF THE “NORTHFLEET.”—FIRST SIGHT OF LAND.—MOUTH OF THE UMZIMVUBU.—LAND IN NATAL.—GOVERNOR MACLEAN.—RECEIVE APPOINTMENT AS DISTRICT SURGEON OF VICTORIA COUNTY.—SETTLE AT VERULAM.

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.

I soon became acquainted with all the planters in my division of the county, and found that a regular visit once a month to each estate, combined with the exigencies of a private practice, kept me busy, “week in, week out, from morn till night.”

The planter of those days I found an excellent type of colonist. He was generally a man of means, well educated, “a good fellow,” young, and drawn from the English upper middle class. In some few individual cases there might be a want of ballast, but colonial experience, soon gained, supplied the deficiency. My range of practice extended from the cotton company’s plantation at the Umhlali to Kennedy’s sugar estate on the Umgeni River, a district forty-five miles long, and extending inland, as a rule, about seven miles. Within this area I attended, as nearly as I can remember, twenty-five estates, employing on an average 1,600 indentured coolies. When, after a long absence, I visited Verulam this year, I found matters greatly altered. Hospitals had been built there and at Avoca, a village some twelve miles distant, to which any important cases from the surrounding estates were sent. My old district had been divided into three medical circles, with three doctors to do the work which I used to do single-handed.

CHAPTER II.
PREVAILING DISEASES IN NATAL.—INCIDENT AT MR. TOM MILNER’S, REDCLIFFE.—INTERESTING MEDICO-LEGAL CASE.—COFFEE PLANTING.—MARRIAGE.—REV. D. LINDLEY, D.D.—HIS EARLY WORK.—BISHOP COLENSO AND THE REV. W. A. ELDER.—OUTBREAK OF THE DIAMOND FEVER.—SAIL FOR INDIA.

The climate of Natal I found extremely healthy, the average death-rate being only 16 per 1000 among the white population, while among the natives, judging from all inquiries, I do not think it amounted to half that number, though this is more or less surmise, as unfortunately among the latter no official returns were kept.

During my practice in Victoria County, extending over six years, I do not think there were twenty deaths among the white population, and as for the coolies, the change from India seemed to give them a new lease of life.

Inflammation of the lungs, bronchitis and other chest complaints were rare, and when they did occur were seldom fatal, the principal diseases of importance being dysentery, low malarial fever (bilio-remittent) and a peculiar form of hœmaturia, due to a parasite named the Distoma hæmatobium, introduced into the system by the drinking of impure water. I must not forget also to mention that an outbreak of diphtheria took place before my arrival in 1859, which was the first time this disease was known in Natal, and also that every now and then a severe form of chicken-pox broke out among the Kafirs, which more than once gave occasion for alarm, the malady having been mistaken for small-pox. Asiatic cholera and hydrophobia have never been known.

Although not dangerous to life, yet as peculiar to this colony, I ought to mention the Natal sore, a species of inflammatory boil, of a low congestive nature, with which new arrivals were almost always troubled.

These sores were often produced by the irritating bite of an insect known under the name of the tick (ixodes), of which there are different species, and also by the bite of the mosquito.

Specimens of the larger species of tick having fastened upon animals in such places as the ear, mane, etc., where they could not be rubbed off, become gorged with blood to the size of haricot beans. Those which attack men are much smaller. Ticks have no wings, no eyes, no mouth, merely legs, a pair of sharp, delicate lancets, and a pipe or rostrum covered over externally with small reflexed teeth, which they plunge into the skin, and then suck away, holding on by their barbs. Dr. Mann, formerly superintendent of education in Natal, writes: “this much, however, must be said even for these blind, bloodthirsty insects, their reality is not so bad as their reputation;” so that again we have an instance of an enemy of man not being so black as he is painted.

In 1869 I treated many cases of malarial fever in Victoria County, most of them, however, occurring close to lagoons on the coast, and though I met with other scattered cases of it in the country, this was the only outbreak which could be entitled absolutely epidemic.

I recollect in May of that year I had 120 cases among the whites and coolies on a sugar estate, which was situated on the sea-coast, near the mouth of the Umgeni River; but the fever was confined to this estate and Verulam, where I had four cases, the total mortality, to the best of my recollection, numbering nine.

The cases of dysentery, on the other hand, were often perfectly intractable, and would sometimes yield to no mode of treatment, and this was especially the case at the end of summer, when the experience of a sudden chill would almost certainly induce the disease. Sickness was most prevalent, if care were not taken, at the change of the seasons, and when rains of an exceptional character took place, cases both of fever and dysentery of a severe type were always expected. After the disastrous flood of August, 1868, these expectations were realized to an unusual extent. This great flood lasted from August 28th to the 31st, inclusive, the downfall of rain being greater than the oldest inhabitants could recollect, 15.60 inches falling in 48 hours, and 17.11 inches during the four days that the storm continued.

I had a very narrow escape at the time, when going to visit the manager of Fenton Vacy, a sugar estate about four miles from Verulam. This gentleman had been under my care for some days, suffering from a most acute attack of dysentery, from which, I regret to say, he eventually died.

A tremendous rain, which at the time I allude to had continued two days, had caused the rivers along the coast to rise from twenty to thirty feet, washing away both the cane from the fields and the coffee trees from the hillsides. In addition, it carved out impassable gullies in the roads, and choking up the rivers themselves with the carcasses of dead oxen, broken reeds and trunks of trees, flooded the surrounding lands, and brought everything to a stand-still. Notwithstanding the terrible driving storm, I did not like the poor fellow to die all alone, without a last effort to save him, so mounting one of my best horses, I rode as far on the way as Mr. Tom Milner’s, one of Natal’s oldest sugar planters, at Redcliffe, where I had to cross a stream at a drift close in front of his mill. When I arrived there, the water was running like a mill-race, but as Fenton Vacy lay on the other side, I determined to make an attempt to get through. In the Field, some time after, I read a full and accurate account of my adventure, names only being altered, written by a visitor who was stopping for a few days at Redcliffe, and as the article contains an accurate description of the class of rain storms to which Natal is occasionally liable, I shall take the liberty of reproducing it. The writer says:

“After spending a few pleasant days at the Royal Hotel, D’Urban, I was told that a trip to Victoria County was the thing every one ought to do, and that the planters were always glad to receive visitors lately out from England. Accordingly, having had a horse lent me, I started on a little tour, intending to visit some of the principal estates. The chief caution the old hands gave me at D’Urban was, ‘Look out for the rains, and when they come, don’t attempt crossing any river by yourself,’ the soundness of which advice I had ample means of testing before my return.

“The first river on my road was the Umgeni, stretching across which was an iron bridge, at this time a good forty feet above the stream, which was running rapidly but smoothly out to sea, distant some half mile or so. This bridge had been erected at great cost and trouble, and was pronounced to be strong enough to resist any flood.

“After a day’s hard riding I arrived at a sugar estate in Victoria County, and received from its owner a pressing invitation to remain a day or two and look round the place.

“All the week heavy showers had been falling, off and on, yet there was nothing to indicate alarm to an uninitiated eye. But after dinner, while we were sitting in the verandah enjoying our pipes and watching the clouds as they swept past, my host suddenly exclaimed: ‘If this east wind lasts through the night, we shall have a flood before three days are over, if not sooner. It was just such a night as this ten years ago, and very much the same time of year (about the middle of August), when we had one of the worst floods that have occurred in the colony. That stream which you crossed to-day, near our mill, rose a good thirty or forty feet, and you will notice to-morrow that we have made that allowance in choosing a site for our buildings. I don’t believe it ever has risen more than this; but if it ever should, it will carry everything before it.’

“Next morning, Melville, my host, was up before me, pacing the verandah, and grumbling to himself. On my asking ‘What’s the matter?’ he came out with ‘Don’t you see, or didn’t you hear, that, just after we turned in last night, one of the most tremendous storms we have had for years came on? It’s been raining bucketfuls all night! And there’s that manager of mine, sleeping down close alongside the reservoir and mill, has never rung the bell yet to muster all hands, when he ought to have had every man out half an hour ago, looking after the drains and water courses. If you want to see a flood, you have got here just in time.’

“The house stood on a hill about three hundred yards from the mill and the other premises, which consisted of manager’s house, engineer’s cottage, coolie and Kafir huts. Hurrying down there as fast as possible, we found all the men quiet enough, although the waters and river were beginning to show what might happen.

“To supply a water-power mill, which did duty partly as a cane-crusher, though used chiefly for grinding corn, there was a large reservoir, close to the manager’s cottage and considerably above the level of the mill and other buildings. On nearing this we found the banks overflowing, and the water between it and the mill nearly knee deep. Even this overflow was enough to frighten us; but we both turned white when Melville said: ‘If those banks give way, everything must go—mill, sugar, engine-house, and every one within reach; so look out that we don’t find ourselves amongst the number.’ The first thing was to ring the bell and muster all hands. There were about 100 coolies and 200 Kafirs, headed by the manager, who by this time was up, and the engineer, the two forming the whole white staff upon the place. Then there was a little excitement about volunteers to get a rope across the river, this being a usual precaution of Melville in heavy weather. Two trees on either side were reserved for this special purpose, and it was accomplished with great difficulty and not a moment too soon.

“IN A PARLOUS STATE.”

“All that day we never left the precincts of the mill. It took us all we knew to keep the water under, and to cut drains and cross-drains in all directions. Several times during the heaviest showers we were nearly beat, for the water came down, not in streams, but in sheets, and with such force that it was difficult to stand against it. At one time some of us were completely knocked off our feet and carried against the mill wall, where it was nearly waist high. Fortunately these violent rushes came but seldom, and lasted only a few minutes; for the buildings, being of light construction, could not have resisted such a current long, especially as the river itself at these times rose to within a few feet of the main works. We were thus kept constantly on the move till about 4 P. M., when the rains moderated somewhat; and about six o’clock Melville said we might knock off work, as he considered the premises safe, though the damage done was considerable, and the place looked as if a party of sappers and miners had been out under training.

“That night the rain stopped as suddenly as it had come on; and by the following morning the temporarily made drains and water courses were nearly dry, and the river much fallen, though still looking impassable. Whilst we were putting things a little ship-shape—laying out wet goods to dry, repairing roads and broken-down huts—Melville suddenly looked up and said: ‘Here is our doctor coming down the hill, and you may depend he is going to see a poor fellow on the next estate, who is dying of dysentery, though I don’t know how he intends getting across the stream.’ The sight of Dr. Hardy, who was a general favorite, brought everybody down to the banks, where, after a good deal of shouting and gesticulation across the foaming river, it was made out that Melville’s surmise was correct, and that the doctor intended crossing to visit his patient, who was, he feared, dying of dysentery, which Melville assured me was only too prevalent in the neighborhood; and, after a considerable amount of talking—the whites on this side trying to dissuade him from the attempt, as one of the most extreme danger, we saw him quietly take off his clothes and hand them to his native outrider, who was kneeling down imploring him in the most piteous manner not to go; at least so we judged from his attitude, and learnt afterward that our surmise was correct. Then, having only a thin cotton shirt on, without a moment’s hesitation he seized fast hold of the rope, which was trembling and vibrating with the force of the current, being in the middle quite under water, and commenced his perilous attempt. So long as the rope was out of the water he got on fairly; but when he reached the part under water the struggle for life began, and a desperate one it was, for on getting a little more than half-way his strength suddenly collapsed, and for a few seconds he remained quite stationary. Then, suddenly plucking up his courage and making one more desperate effort, he succeeded in turning over on his back, getting each arm round the rope, with his hands clasped over his breast. In this position he remained perfectly helpless, unable to make another move. We also observed a sudden change of his countenance take place; this, a few seconds before so full of daring and confidence was now pale and relaxed, the eyes closed, and the lips of a livid hue; his legs and body were entirely at the mercy of the water, the arms alone, happily, continuing rigidly locked round the rope. It is difficult to describe our feelings as we stood watching these outward signs of departing strength. Melville began frantically rushing up and down, offering hundreds of rupees to any one who would save the doctor, but of the three hundred niggers not a man moved. It seemed hard indeed to let a man die like this. So, it appears, thought and felt the manager; for, with an exclamation of horror, he got on the rope before any one could stop him, and struck out for the doctor, whom he very quickly reached, when, speaking a few encouraging words, he so far revived him by voice and gesture as to get about a yard nearer the shore; but the struggle was so fierce, the water so merciless, and the doctor so exhausted, that they could do no more, and the manager also found his strength and nerve fail him. Our feelings were now doubly intensified; for, instead of one man’s life trembling in the balance, there were two. For a short time both seemed lost, as, owing to the additional weight and strain upon the rope, they were more under water than above, each wave completely covering them. Suddenly, without a cry or a kick, the manager threw his hands up, and was in a moment carried like a log yards down the stream. Then indeed broke out cries and shrieks and yells from men, women, and even children, of ‘Save the master! Save the master!’ some in English, some in Hindostanee, and some in Kafir; and poor Melville was speechless.

“A little lower down the stream was a wide open space, which was called the drift, and through which the main road passed when the water was low. A general rush now took place there, as the only possible chance of picking up the floating body was at this spot. Two or three Kafirs of the Basuto tribe waded boldly half-way into this boiling torrent, joined hands, and the outside one, by a dextrous leap at the right moment, caught the upraised arm of the drowning man within a few feet of a mass of rocks and boulders, which must have caused instant death, and, amidst the cheers and shouts of all, landed him safe. Meanwhile, the doctor still continued clinging with a death-like grasp to the rope, it being in fact difficult to judge if life remained at all. But now, whether the example set by the manager stimulated others, or whether perhaps they felt some little shame, several men, headed by the engineer (who could not swim a stroke), succeeded in reaching him, and by dint of united efforts they brought him to land, also alive, but considerably more like drowned than the other. Both men, with the help of brandy and water, lots of rubbing, and the other usual remedies, after a time recovered; and in about two hours’ time Dr. H. felt able, accompanied by Melville, to go on his road to Lime Hill, which they reached only in time to find his patient rapidly sinking, and to receive his few last words, for he died that same evening before they left the house.”

On arriving home next morning, I found a vivid account of my adventure had reached the village. My faithful attendant in those days was a young native, both of whose arms I had amputated owing to an accident in a sugar-mill. This lad, seeing me struggling in the torrent, ran away in affright, making sure I should be drowned, and told my wife and every one he met what he had seen; consequently, on my return I received hearty congratulations from all sides on my lucky escape.

Years after, on the diamond fields, many a diamond this honest boy brought me when superintending my native servants, the loss of his arms having apparently sharpened his discerning faculties. Poor fellow, at last he gave way to that insidious enemy of the native, “Cape smoke,”[^[1]] which, to our eternal disgrace, is sowing destruction and misery broadcast among them. One morning he had suddenly disappeared, never to return, but whether murdered or not I never could find out.

While I held the government appointment in Verulam, many curious cases, from a medico-legal point of view, came under my notice. The story of Kongota, the Kafir witch doctor, I have told in another chapter, but I will here relate a case which nearly terminated tragically to all parties concerned, and which occurred on the very same estate that I have just mentioned.

One fine moonlight night (if I remember rightly, in July, 1869) word was hurriedly brought to the magistracy that a most shocking murder had been committed and another attempted on the Fenton Vacy sugar estate. As district surgeon I rode out at once, and on my arrival found all the coolies in a terrible state of agitation, gathered in a crowd round a small syringa tree, to which they had securely bound one of their fellow laborers, who was pointed out to me as the chief actor in the tragedy which had just been enacted. In a hut close by was the body of the murdered man, his brains protruding from gashes in his skull, and in a house adjoining the cause of all could be seen in the person of a young and pretty coolie girl, with both her ears chopped off, moaning most pitifully.

As no investigation could be made that night, everything was left in the charge of the police until the morning, when I again, with the magistrate, visited the plantation. At the edge of a stream close by I was shown the spot where the man’s body had been found, and a large cane knife, with which the murderous deed had been done, was produced, having been fished up by the coolies from the bed of a rivulet some thirty yards distant.

The theory set up was the following: The man whom I had seen tied to the tree the night before was known to be madly in love with the murdered man’s wife, who, however, rejected all his advances; and he, it was supposed, out of revenge, had murdered her husband, and then attempted to murder her—a theory which seemed feasible enough. On going to the dead man’s house to see his body again before burial, I found all arranged most neatly, the body cold and stiff was laid out in white clothing; and as the deceased had been a Roman Catholic during life, a large cross of wild flowers was laid on his breast.

On looking at the gashes on the skull, of which there were six, through which, as I have already said, the brains were oozing, I was at once struck with the fact that they were all parallel, and this at once raised a doubt in my mind that perchance after all no murder had been committed, as it would have been impossible for these wounds not to have crossed one another, if only in a small degree. I ordered the man to be undressed, his burial robes to be removed, and examined him more minutely, when I fancied I detected a faint murmur over his heart. Giving further instructions, I returned again in the evening, and found the man actually alive and muttering to himself. To make a long story short, he made a most extraordinary recovery. In a few days he was able to give a lucid account of the whole affair—how, jealous of his wife, he seized her when grinding chilies, and chopped off her ears; then he described how he ran to the river’s brink, sat on the stone where he was found, and made a desperate attempt, with both hands, cleaver-fashion, to hack his skull to pieces with the cane knife which had been recovered, and which he had spasmodically thrown away. This fully accounted for the parallel longitudinal gashes, which had led me to doubt that a murder had been committed.

My fortunate observation virtually saved two lives, as the funeral procession standing outside his house was merely waiting my sanction for the burial of the body; when in due course of law, on the strength of the circumstantial evidence alone, the unfortunate but innocent admirer of the wife of the would-be suicide would have paid the extreme penalty of the law for his rash infatuation.

My readers may imagine the joy of the suspected murderer when I told him, whilst awaiting in the Verulam jail an examination into his case, the above facts proving his innocence. This, I may say, he had throughout persistently and consistently maintained. The all-important question for him of homicide or suicide was thus luckily and happily answered.

After practicing for some months in the division I applied for a confirmation of the acting appointment, which Gen. Sir J. J. Bisset gave me in April, 1866.

I now felt more secure of my position in the county, and as a result decided, in conjunction with a clerical friend, to commence a coffee plantation near Verulam. This progressed very satisfactorily for two seasons, when my partner, wishing again to join the ministry, from which for a time he had retired, we sold off, in order to dissolve our partnership, the estate we had bought, and on which we had already made extensive clearings and planted thirty acres of coffee. This did not deter me from another attempt at coffee planting, which I was again doomed to forsake before the trees got into bearing, as on my return, after my trip to India in 1871, I determined to go to the diamond fields, where I had already, as I mention later, sent a party to dig for me. I do not wish to dwell on matters which are not of public interest, yet I cannot help mentioning, en passant, that to an accident I owe the honor of becoming the son-in-law of one “whose name is still held in high respect in Natal, among British colonists, Boers and Zulus, and who belongs indeed to the very first rank of South African missionaries.”[^[2]] Making a professional visit to the Inanda Mission Station (American) I met my “fate,” and in April, 1867, I married Dr. Lindley’s fifth daughter.

During the interim which elapsed from my first visit to the Inanda and my marriage, I had ample opportunity to observe the interest which Dr. Lindley took in the welfare, both temporal and spiritual, of the natives, and the unceasing efforts that he made for their advancement. The early work of the American missionaries reads like a novel. I will here give a short resumé of their mission to the interior more than fifty years ago, and the cause of its collapse at that time. The reason of my introducing this sketch is the general unacquaintance of colonists with the first steps of these noble men, these honored pioneers of Christianity.

FALLS OF THE UMZINYATI, NEAR INANDA, NATAL

On Dec. 3d, 1834, the Burlington left Boston with a party consisting of six missionaries and their wives, of which the late Dr. Lindley, my father-in-law, was one, and arrived safely in Capetown on Feb. 5th, 1835, when three of their number, including Dr. Lindley, started almost at once for the interior. Seven weeks’ wagon traveling brought them to Griquatown, where they rested five months, arriving at Kuruman early in 1836. Here Dr. Lindley formed the acquaintance of the late Dr. Moffat, and received much advice from him as to his future course of action. Leaving Dr. Wilson behind with the ladies he went forward in company with Mr. Venables to Mosega, in Klein Mariko, the headquarters of Mosilikatze, chief of the Matabélé tribe, styled by Moffat the Napoleon of the desert, whose permission to advance had already been obtained. This position, about two hours from Zeerust, in the Transvaal Republic, was the place upon which they had fixed to build a station and commence their good work, a French mission having some short time before been expelled from the same locality by Mosilikatze.

INANDA: THE MISSIONARY STATION OF REV. D. LINDLEY.

The district was well chosen, and the spot where they settled, still called Zenderling’s Post (Missionaries’ Post), was situated in a charming, well-watered valley, embosomed in the hills in the district of Marico, near Magaliesberg, in latitude 25°, 27′, longitude 27°, 47′. Here, on June 15th, 1836, they commenced their labors, which, however, were soon to be brought to a tragic end. Mosilikatze did not approve of the teaching of the missionaries, which reflected to a certain extent on his own actions, forbade his people to listen to them, and himself left Mosega. Still these devoted men and women prayed and hoped that more favorable opportunities would arise; for, to add to their misfortunes at the time, a fever, obstinate and distressing, laid low many of their families—caused partly by the climate, and partly by the damp floors of the mud houses, which they had hastily built. Yet neither the distrust or suspicion entertained by Mosilikatze, or the ravages and deaths caused by the fever, drove them from the work to which they had devoted themselves.

I must now go back a few months, and ask my readers to study the previous state of affairs. During the winter of 1836, the Dutch in the Cape Colony, disgusted by the treatment, which, in their opinion, they were subjected to, and tired of British rule, determined to seek for “pastures new,” and consequently they made preparations all over the eastern and midland districts to emigrate. Some left for Natal, some trekked northward and crossed over the Vaal River, when Mosilikatze, becoming jealous of his rights, which had not been consulted, with his Matabélé warriors nearly annihilated several small parties of Boers, killing altogether twenty white men and twenty-six natives, taking away their horses, cattle and sheep. This, as may be imagined, roused a feeling of revenge, and as soon as possible a force large enough to punish Mosilikatze was got together, consisting of 107 farmers, and nearly the same number of Griquas and Korannas.

This organized reprisal left Thaba Nchu on Jan. 3d, 1837, and passing through a country almost depopulated, where scarcely a single man was to be seen, came to Mosega on Jan. 17th. All unexpected and unseen, at the very earliest dawn, the Boers fell upon the inhabitants of that most beautiful valley, and so sudden and so secret was the attack that the missionaries were taken as much by surprise as the natives, not knowing anything until they heard the whistle of the bullets flying around. “The Matabélé soldiers grasped their spears and shields and rushed forward, but volleys of slugs from the long elephant guns of the farmers drove them back in confusion. The commanding officer of these natives was away, and there was no one of sufficient authority to restore order. The warriors took to flight, and were hunted by the farmers until the sun was high overhead, when it was computed that at least 450 must have been slain,”[^[3]] shot down on that bloody morn ere the sun could reach the meridian. Such a cold-blooded massacre, so one-sided an affair was it, that not a single man, either European or native, on the Boer side was touched. My wife’s mother has often pictured to me how, lying in bed, where for nine weeks she had been prostrated by rheumatic fever, her room was one morning suddenly filled by swarms of wounded, bleeding, helpless women and children, imploring her assistance and trying to escape from the inhuman butchery outside, but to no effect, as they were remorselessly shot down even at her bedside; in fact, “the outhouse in which their servants slept was literally shot to pieces.”[^[4]] The Boers having set fire to about fifteen villages in the valley, then thought it advisable to retire with about 7,000 head of cattle they had found (!) and as Mary Moffat, writing to her father at the time, said: “Pillaged the (missionaries’) house before their eyes, and when they left, the Boers were still in the house, packing up all their horses could carry.” On leaving they urged, even used threats to force, the missionaries to leave with them, which they did, “submitting to whatever the Boers wished;” for removed far from civilization, shocked with the bloody sight just enacted, afraid of their own lives, and convinced that for years the introduction of Christianity had been postponed, they thought it the best thing to do. In after years (1859) the fact of the American Mission leaving Mosega with the conquerors, instead of remaining with the conquered, was often used by the Matabélé as an argument against allowing missionaries to again build in the country, as they were certain it would only be a matter of time before other white men would come, and their land would be taken away from them.

Mrs. Lindley was forced from her bed, and with a child in her lap rode for twenty-three hours on horseback without stopping. Mr. Grout, in his work on Zululand, says: “To their fear of being followed by a host of exasperated savages, to the unceasing cry of cattle, and to all the tumult of irregular, excited soldiery, add the want of proper food, especially for the sick; the absence of a road, save such as the open field affords; the want of a bridge or a boat on the now swollen streams; the want of a dry suit for the women and children, who had to be floated across the Orange River on a bundle of reeds, keeping only head and shoulders above water; then, forthwith out of the river, add a night of Egyptian darkness, through all the hours of which no sleep can be had, save that which comes in spite of torrents of rain, thunder and lightning, and all the noise of the motley group by which they are surrounded—and you have some idea of what fell to the lot of the missionaries, Lindley, Venables, Wilson and their families, on the journey.”

In coming down to the coast, not knowing the passes of the Drakensberg, they made a circuit around by Grahamstown of something like 1,500 miles, and reached Natal at the end of July.[^[5]] This account may read as fiction in the present day, but it is notwithstanding a “romance in real life;” what the early missionaries suffered and endured to propagate the truths of divine religion among the heathen in former days, we can now with difficulty conceive. Dr. Lindley, on his return from Mosega, founded a mission station at Ifumi, at the south side of D’Urban, but owing to the rupture between Durgaan, the Zulu king, and the Boers, together with the murder of Retief and party, on February 6th, 1838, who had gone to ask the Zulu king’s permission to settle on the south side of the Tugela, the American missionaries considered it prudent to leave Natal for a time. Dr. Lindley, however, remained behind, but after the burning of his station at Ifumi, and after experiencing many dangers, he escaped on board the Comet, a little schooner, lying in the D’Urban harbor, and after first visiting Delagoa Bay, landed at Port Elizabeth on June 22d, 1838. Here he remained twelve months, until peace was restored by the complete overthrow of Durgaan, when he returned to Natal, and commenced, with the approval of his Board, to labor among the Dutch; and was the first to take over the pastoral care of the emigrant farmers.

The Rev. John McCarter says: “As pastor he labored amongst the emigrants for seven years (1840–1847) having as parish all Natal, together with the surrounding territories and the Transvaal Republic. Thousands of children were christened by him; his headquarters were Pietermaritzburg, Winburg, and Potchefstroom. It was thus that in 1843 the congregations of Winburg and Pietermaritzburg were amalgamated. Dr. Lindley himself mentioned to the writer, that at all times and places his words were listened to with the greatest concern, and the particular tenderness with which after his departure the memory of Lindley was continually held in these regions by those who knew him, witness what great good his labors brought about.”[^[6]] In 1847 Dr. Lindley resumed his connection with the American Board, beginning his work again among the Zulus at the Inanda. In that year he was appointed with Dr. Adams, by the Colonial authorities, on a commission to see justice done to the natives, the instructions given to them being “that there should not be in the eye of the law any distinction or disqualification whatever, founded on mere distinction of color, origin, language or creed, but that the protection of the law, in letter and in substance, shall be extended impartially to all alike.”

Carrying out these principles Dr. Lindley worked zealously at the Inanda for twelve years, until he visited America in 1859. Returning in 1863, he again resumed the duties to which he had devoted so much of his life and energy. His success at Inanda was great and marked, and after working another decade, he returned to America in 1873, and resting from his labors, died in 1880.

Let me ask my readers to turn to another section of the Christian world, in which a not altogether unimportant part was played in the little church at Verulam. It will be remembered that I had taken up my abode with the Rev. W. A. Elder, the Church of England clergyman, and as it was at this time that the excitement over Bishop Colenso and his “heresies” was at its height, I was in the centre of a very hot-bed of opposition to him, the worthy vicar being most submissively orthodox.

After Bishop Colenso had published his work on the Pentateuch, which horrified the orthodox and excluded the bishop from almost all the church pulpits in England, he returned to the colony in November, 1865, and visited Verulam. The Rev. W. A. Elder thought fit, sincerely believing he was discharging a religious duty, to oppose his bishop conducting service in the church on one of his visitation tours, and this resulted in a scene, which took place on Sunday morning, Sept. 30th, 1866, not easily to be effaced from the memory of those who beheld it. As had always been the case when the bishop made his periodical visitations, the church was crowded, but even the earliest arrivals that morning found the rector waiting in the chancel, which in this simple building was merely a space railed off from the body of the church by a low wooden balustrade. Just before the usual time for the commencement of the service the bishop came in, walked up the middle aisle, advanced toward the chancel, and was about to enter, when Mr. Elder confronted him. Standing directly in the way, he read a protest against the bishop taking any part in the service, giving his reasons at considerable length. The bishop, who had a very commanding presence, stood while the document was being read with unmoved dignity. When it was finished, he made no reply, and did not show any consciousness of having even heard it. He made no sign of assent or dissent, his looks betrayed no emotion, but opening the gate of the rude screen he passed inside. For a moment Mr. Elder seemed as if he would stand where he was to block the bishop’s passage, but happily he made no attempt by physical force to prevent his entering, and he sat down again at his own side of the Holy Table.

A few minutes of anxious suspense on the part of the congregation followed, but as the incumbent made no signs of commencing the service, the bishop rose from a little covered wooden box on which he had been sitting, and with his well-toned voice in musical rythm, unshaken by anger or agitation, read out the text that precedes the Exhortation: “When the wicked man turneth away from the wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.” Mr. Elder then at once left the church, and the bishop conducted the beautiful offices of Morning Prayer according to the rules of the Church of England, and delivered a most impressive and beautiful sermon.

It was not until some years after this occurrence that Bishop Colenso’s legal position was satisfactorily defined. Some little time after this, I was chosen one of the church-wardens, and on Mr. Elder’s leaving the country for England, previous to the bishop appointing another incumbent in his place, I read, in my official capacity, the church prayers to the congregation every Sunday morning. In addition to this rather novel experience, the government, about this time, during the absence of Dr. Blaine on leave, appointed me acting resident magistrate; so I acquired, during my residence in Natal, a varied experience which has since stood me in good stead. Everything went on swimmingly for the first few years, fine seasons, auspicious rains, plentiful crops, good prices, money plentiful, we had races, balls, concerts, sports, a fine regiment of mounted volunteers, all wealthy planters; in fact the Victoria County planter was renowned through the colony for his geniality and open-handed hospitality. Unfortunately, however, at last a wave of depression flowed over Natal, the planting interest came almost to its last gasp through bad seasons and the usurious rates of interest which the planters had to pay for advances against their crops. This, of course, affected me more or less seriously, as no more coolies were introduced, the sugar planters not being able to bear the expense, and those in the colony at the time by degrees becoming free, and thus relieved from compulsory taxation for medical attendance, my income diminished in proportion.

Just at this time (the end of 1870) the discovery of diamonds in Griqualand West, on the banks of the Vaal River, began to excite attention, and digging parties to search for these precious stones were formed both in the Cape Colony and Natal. We quiet folks in Verulam caught the fever, which was very contagious, as a proof of which one morning after breakfast I had no difficulty in organizing a company to proceed to the Vaal River, of which Mr. G. I. Lee, afterward chairman of the diggers’ committee, Kimberley mining board, and a member of many scientific societies, consented to take charge. At the same time I sent off a party on my own account, consisting of three white men and twelve Zulus with wagon, oxen, tools and provisions for six months’ consumption, intending in a few months to take a trip and see the dry diggings myself; but my anticipations of visiting Griqualand West and the Vaal were unexpectedly deferred for a year, as, in connection with the Natal government, I took the first ship-load of return coolies back to India. Many a pleasant day-dream this venture gave me during my long voyage of the immense fortune awaiting my return, and many a night, too, did I dream of Sindbad the Sailor, his second voyage and walk through the valley studded with diamonds. How these dreams were rudely broken, I will tell in another chapter, but before doing so, will devote a few pages to a description of Zulu customs and the scenery of the colony.

SCENE IN NATAL—FAMILY GROUP OF ZULUS.

CHAPTER III.
ZULU CUSTOMS.—UKULOBOLA.—UMKOSI.—INTEYEZI.—INSOMYAMA.—KAFIR DOCTORS.—FATE OF THE WITCH DOCTOR, KONGOTA, AND HIS VICTIMS.—BISHOP CALLOWAY AND ZULU “FOLK-LORE.”

While acting as district surgeon at Verulam under Dr. Blaine’s magistracy, my connection with the government, as a matter of course, enabled me to gain an insight into native customs, with which I should not otherwise have had the opportunity of becoming acquainted. I had further the good fortune of being associated in these matters with a gentleman who thoroughly understood the Kafir language and character, and whose ability has since been recognized by his promotion to an important magistracy by the Natal government. I allude to Mr. J. C. C. Chadwick, then clerk to the resident magistrate at Verulam, Victoria County. This gentleman published in 1879 some commentaries on native laws, customs and usages,[^[7]] which are very interesting.

There are many customs among the Zulus of Natal which are known only to the natives themselves or to those who have given great study to the subject. Some—among others Mr. F. B. Fynney, who now occupies an important official position under the Natal government, but whom I knew as a sugar planter on the coast—think that the Zulus must have had at one time an intimate connection with the Hebrew nation, as many of their customs are decidedly similar to those practiced by the Jews, to whom possibly they may have been in bondage in the past ages. Amongst the usages to which Mr. Fynney draws particular attention in support of this opinion, is the custom which the maidens follow of proceeding annually to the hills to mourn or wail, thus reminding one forcibly of Jephthah’s daughter. That they have a distinct religious trust, and acknowledge both the existence of a supreme being, who created all things, and who is endowed with infinite power, and that they also believe in another world and a hereafter, he has no doubt. One thing is certain—they are exceptionally superstitious, believe in signs, omens and supernatural agencies. Nothing, in fact, according to them, happens by chance. They even offer sacrifices to propitiate a supreme deity, whom not having seen, they yet believe. Then, too, they have their “lesser gods,” the spirits of their deceased ancestors; they have their conscience, their sense of right and wrong, and their laws and customs to regulate their social life. There is no denying the fact that a broad idea of a supreme divinity circulates among them, and, as the Right Rev. Henry Calloway, Bishop of St. John’s, who has devoted great study to the subject, says: “The existence of the religious instincts in the natives, of those germs of religious truth—which, among Christian people with a divine revelation, have been developed into so glorious a religion—is evident from the readiness with which, under proper teaching, they accept the fact of the creating power continued to be manifested in Providence; and that that creating power is our Father in heaven.”

The Rev. Dr. Lindley as well, after forty years’ experience among the natives of South Africa, always expressed to me his belief in the easy and gradual improvability of the native when not exposed to the contaminating influence of the low white colonist, and to the coarse materialism presented to him to copy.

While I was district surgeon the customs of the natives interested me very much, and I will mention those which most attracted my notice. Ukulobola, or the practice of giving cattle to the father or guardian of a girl or widow, on her marriage, by her husband, is one of the oldest laws among the natives of South Africa. Looking at the practice from an Englishman’s point of view, it is tantamount to the purchase and sale of women, but it does not bear the same construction in the native mind, for it is by them considered as compensation for the loss of a daughter’s services at an age when, by her usefulness and affection, she might give some return for the care and attention which she received in childhood. Moreover, the girl glories in it as a proof of her worth, while the man himself would not value a wife who cost nothing. The intended son-in-law, when engaged to a girl, generally begins to pay the necessary cattle in instalments, and as he has to run the risk of their dying, their sickness and death very often delay the marriage. If an engagement is broken off the suitor gets back all the cattle he may have paid on account; again, if a wife die without issue the husband can claim the cattle he has paid, or the father must give him another girl instead; but if the husband die while the wife is still young, a younger brother takes the wife, or she returns home, and the husband’s estate receives back the cattle, supposing the wife has borne no children.

Their law of inheritance is a study in itself. A Natal Kafir looks upon any money or goods he may acquire as valuable only as a means of acquiring cattle, by possession of which he may obtain wives. Land they do not claim individually, and they set value on it only as the common right of their tribe. The head man of a kraal is a patriarch indeed, and is responsible for the good behavior of the members of it. If he has a son who is married, that son cannot, during his father’s lifetime, say which of his wives shall be his Ikohlo (right-hand wife), or which his Iquadi (left-hand wife), but his father, after due consideration, chooses them for him, and when once appointed neither their position nor that of their children can be altered, however badly they may behave. The Inkosikazi is the wife of the greatest rank, her hut is placed in the centre opposite the gateway of the kraal, and her eldest son is heir. The hut of the right-hand wife is placed to the right side, that of the left-hand wife to the left of that of the “inkosikazi,” and of course they occupy the next position to that of the chief wife. If male issue fail the chief wife, the eldest son of the “ikohlo,” or right-hand wife, can only succeed to the chieftainship in event of male issue failing all the wives of the left-hand side. The head of the kraal is entitled to receive all the earnings of his sons or daughters, but he is expected to start his sons in life, or in other words, to find their marriage portion. The following diagram shows the position of the chief huts in a kraal:

Generally when the head of a kraal dies, the heir leaves the kraal to the chief wife and to the “iquadi,” his younger brothers remaining, and if any of his father’s widows are young enough, his uncles or some other man is appointed to raise up seed to his (the heir’s) house. This custom is called Ukungena, but is now modified by allowing the widow, if she chooses, to marry some other man; if so, however, the new husband must pay a marriage consideration to the estate of the deceased husband.

The chase, too, has its rules, as also has the Umkosi, or dance of first fruits, a festival before the celebration of which, at the chief’s kraal, the first fruits of the season cannot be eaten. A large bull is killed by the young warriors of the tribe, which is skinned, cut up, and cooked, when the doctors first eat a portion, and then the chief does likewise, but in doing so spits out some in the direction of the country of each of his enemies, or rather of each independent government situated around him; for instance, Cetywayo, the King of the Zulus, used to spit toward Natal, the Transvaal, and the Swazi country, and utter the names of the Governor of Natal, the Administrator of the Transvaal, and the King of the Swazies, a custom equivalent to our drinking confusion to all the Queen’s enemies and singing:

“Confound their politics,

Frustrate their knavish tricks.”

The flesh after this is all cut up, thrown into the air, and all the men, like hungry dogs, scramble to catch the pieces.

Next day the chief and all the men of the tribe dance in the kraal, when, adjourning to a neighboring stream, the chief bathes, the ceremony of “Umkosi” is finished, and the tribe can partake of the first fruits of the season.

I may also mention the Inteyezi, or the sprinkling of warriors with a decoction of herbs and roots to make them fierce and brave, the eating of Insomyama, or the choicest meat, which, being consumed only in the house of the head of the family, at once establishes the superiority of the house, and consequently is very important evidence in trying cases of disputed inheritance. Then again there is the penalty of damages in the shape of an ox, which every man must pay who applies to another the defamatory term Umtagati[^[8]] or to a girl of Isiropo,[^[9]] and, further, there is the difference between the English and native laws of evidence, which, as I am not a lawyer, I will discreetly pass over.

The intimate acquaintance I made, however, with the customs of the native doctors (I suppose on account of its connection with my own profession) many a time afforded me food for contemplation and discussion.

It may not be out of the way here for me to mention the different recognized kinds of doctors (izinyanga): 1st, the wizard or diviner (inyanga gokubula); 2d, the rain doctor; 3d, the lightning and hail doctor; 4th, the medicine doctor (inyanga yokwelapa).

ZULU “MASHERS.”

The wizard or witch doctor is a very cunning, shrewd fellow, and he must also be a doctor of medicine. The profession is not, however, confined to the male sex, for as many women as men are engaged in its mysteries; but to describe how the patients are gulled, and how the very secrets about which they consult the doctor he manages to ascertain from themselves, in what a professional manner they are duped, and how the doctor’s riches and reputation increase, would take up too much time. Rain doctors are supposed to have the power of causing rain to fall, and are appealed to after a long drought, but they are clever enough never to commence their incantations until indications of rain are discernible, and consequently they are always sure of success. Next come the lightning doctors, who dance around the kraals they have been summoned to defend, brandishing their assegais during the flashes and violence of the storm in a manner that suggests insanity to the European observer. Naturally they are more frequently successful than unsuccessful. The hail doctors, again, believe that by burning medicine while the hail is yet distant they diminish its power, and that when they leave their huts to command it to depart it will return whence it came. It must be understood that these doctors are not to be regarded as opponents of the heavens, but simply as mediators. Bishop Calloway says that many heathen have asked him to pray for rain, because he was one whose office it was Ukumelana nenkosi—to contend with God—and who was under the protection of heaven, and safe so long as he was observant of the laws of his office. Last, but not least, is the medicine doctor. Sickness, the natives believe, is always caused by an enemy, or by the will of the spirits of their departed ancestors or relatives who generally protect them from harm, but, who being sometimes angry, allow sickness to overtake them, or the machinations of their enemies to prevail. The doctor’s father and grandfather have generally been in the profession before him, and the secrets of the healing art have thus been handed down from generation to generation, though in some instances he is a self-taught man, who has picked up some knowledge of diseases, roots and herbs by observation and experience; but no faith, whatever, is reposed in a doctor or diviner who happens to be fat. The medicines employed are mostly innocent, but still many powerful drugs are included in their pharmacopœia, for instance, they use the male fern (inkomankoma, lastred felix mas) as a remedy for tape-worm, emetics by the gallon for slight ailments, and as correctives after their beer-drinking orgies, other medicaments so powerful that whole families, both black and white, have been carried off by their felonious administration; but their useful medicines are so mixed up with useless adulterations that in most cases it would be better for the patient to “throw physic to the dogs.” It used to be the case of “no cure, no pay;” for, according to their law, if the patients died, or did not recover until another medical man had been called in, the doctor got no payment; but in Natal, now, on first attendance the doctor requires a preliminary fee of ten shillings, nominally to buy medicine, but at the same time he stipulates for receiving a bullock in case of a cure being effected. As a rule they administer harmless drugs, thinking it safest to believe in the motto of “vis medicatrix naturæ,” for there is no doubt the majority are the most arrant quacks ever known. Some, who rank high in the profession, travel from place to place, and as the result of their skill and knowledge of human nature, return home after an absence of months, or it may be years, rich in the possession of large herds of cattle. The doctor of medicine is also often a witch doctor, and so combines in one a knowledge of the two branches of the profession.

A case[^[10]] occurred toward the end of 1866, in which I was engaged as government surgeon, which at the time created an immense sensation in Natal. It elucidates what I have just said of witch and medicine doctoring being often combined. I think the story of the tragedy will not be uninteresting to my readers.

Information was brought to the resident magistrate’s court at Verulam that a native had been severely assaulted in a location some miles away, and I was ordered by the resident magistrate, together with the clerk of the court, to proceed to the wounded man’s kraal and investigate the matter. Our path to the kraal, the home of the dying man, led through the passes of one of the wildest, most rugged and most picturesque regions to be found in the whole of Natal. Here, owing to the proximity of the sea, we found the vegetation clothing the rocky defile to be most luxuriantly dense and tropical. Tramping along the narrow Kafir path in order to reach our destination, we had to push aside fantastic wreaths of tangled convolvuli, force our way past festoons of monkey rope parasites and other climbers, and whilst avoiding the wild date tree on the one hand, had on the other to shun the prickly thorns of the crimson-fruited amatungulu. Our tardy progress scared the barking baboon in his rocky home, startled the chattering monkey from his lofty perch and the timid buck from his grassy lair, whilst the brilliant-plumaged uqualaquala and other feathered denizens of the bush flew away, alarmed at our approach. To describe the lovely, ever-changing scenery which broke upon our view is almost impossible; the majestic milk wood, the deadly euphorbia, the quaint Kafir boom, the spreading fan-palm, the aloe, cactus and wild banana, all lending their presence to produce an effect not easily to be effaced. Woe betide us, however, if we did not keep a sharp lookout for the deadly snakes coiled in the long grass at our feet, or for those which, hanging like green tendrils from the trees above, were ever ready to drop upon our heads.

On our arrival we found the man reported as seriously assaulted, whose name, by the way, was Umjaba, sitting quietly smoking bhang at the gate of his kraal, with a blanket round his shoulders, seemingly astonished at the excitement that he was creating.

On my asking him, through the court interpreter who accompanied us, what was the matter, he denied that any assault whatever had been committed on him, and as he neither showed me nor could I see any marks on his person, we returned to Verulam.

Next morning, however, news was brought to the magistracy that he was dead, and I was again ordered out to examine the body and report upon the circumstances. The facts which I gathered were as follows:

Two months before, somewhere about the end of the year 1866, a native doctor of the Amatonga tribe named Kongota, accompanied by a young native who carried his pack of medicines and charms, came to the kraal of an elderly native named Nokahlela, who resided in the Inanda division, not far from Verulam.

As is customary amongst natives, the doctor was well received and hospitably entertained by Nokahlela and his family, which consisted of several wives and children of all ages, from infants in arms to grown up sons and daughters.

It happened that shortly before the arrival of the doctor there had been a death in the family of one of the wives of either the head of the kraal or one of his sons. As is usual amongst the natives, the death was of course not attributed to natural causes, but was firmly believed to be attributable to the sorceries of some evil-disposed person, as I have mentioned above, generally termed an Umtagati, and Nokahlela and his family had some slight suspicion of a neighbor of theirs named Umjaba, with whom they had had some disagreement. All these facts and suspicions the wily doctor soon succeeded in finding out, and determined to turn to his own advantage.

About this time a child of Umjaba’s sickened and died, and the doctor, Kongota, who, if I recollect aright, had been called in to attend this child, ascertained that Umjaba was quite ready to suspect his neighbor Nokahlela of having brought about the infant’s death, and he therefore made it his business to encourage the suspicion. When he found that the suspicions he had encouraged were sufficiently strong, he boldly told Umjaba that they were well founded; in fact, that by the practice of his art and the power that he possessed of holding familiar intercourse with the spirits of the departed he had ascertained that it was an absolute fact that the child’s death was caused by the witchcraft of Nokahlela, and that if he wished to be revenged for the murder of his child he, Kongota, for a consideration could make that revenge easy to him. Having thus “sown the good seed,” he departed and returned to Nokahlela’s kraal.

Kongota then proceeded to fan Nokahlela’s suspicions as to the cause of the death of his wife, until he succeeded in convincing him that the death was caused by Umjaba, and having done so, he confirmed Nokahlela’s belief in the same manner as he had that of Umjaba. The two men were now both in the mood in which the doctor wished them to be—ready to undertake almost anything that promised revenge for the supposed injuries which each firmly believed that he had suffered at the hands of the other.

For the consideration of a fine young cow, Kongota promised to procure for Nokahlela the most complete satisfaction. Let us see how he fulfilled his promise. According to primitive native law, an “Umtagati” caught in the act of placing, during the night-time, at his intended victim’s kraal, charms or medicines with the supposed object of causing death or injury, could be seized and killed in the most cruel manner, viz., by being pierced with sharp-pointed sticks, without even the form of a trial. It was the gratification of treating his enemy in this manner that Kongota promised to Nokahlela.

In furtherance of his plan, he now returned to Umjaba and sold him for a head of cattle what he assured him was a most deadly charm. It looked like fine, bright gunpowder, and was in reality the seed of the wild spinach, and perfectly harmless. This he told him he had only to sprinkle at the door of each hut of his enemy in such a manner that no one could leave the huts without passing over it, and the death of every one of the inmates would result. Umjaba hesitated for some time, as he was afraid that he might be detected before he had effected his purpose, but on Kongota offering to accompany him on the midnight expedition he agreed to undertake it. The time was fixed and Kongota left him in order, as he said, to prepare the way for him to carry out his design. On the night following he promised to call for him and accompany him on his errand of mercy!

AMACI KAFIR DANCE.—ALFRED COUNTY, NATAL.

The doctor had now only to instruct his friend Nokahlela to receive his nocturnal visitor, and then to reap his reward. This was soon done; Nokahlela made the necessary preparations for giving Umjaba a proper and fitting reception, and the doctor returned to the kraal of his dupe at the appointed time. They were to start together about midnight. When the hour approached, Umjaba, who felt rather uneasy about the possible consequences of the enterprise, armed himself with an assegai and a knobkerrie, that he might be able to defend himself in case of necessity; but the doctor, not approving of these warlike preparations, and thinking no doubt that he might receive a stray thrust or blow himself when his treachery was discovered, assured him that such precautions were utterly needless, as he had so charmed the kraal that all its inmates were wrapped in the profoundest slumber, that not a dog would bark, or a cat mew, and stated, moreover, that it was contrary to all precedent to carry weapons when engaged on such an undertaking. Thus reassured, and seeing that the doctor carried no weapon, Umjaba sallied forth to his doom, preceded by his treacherous adviser. On arriving at the gate of the kraal the doctor entered first, and observing the young men of Nokahlela’s kraal lying on each side of the entrance, ready to seize upon their victim, he whispered to them that Umjaba was following him unarmed, and hurried on to a hut at the further side of the inclosure, which he quickly entered, and wherein he took care to remain until after the tragedy so soon to be enacted outside should be finished.

Umjaba had no sooner entered than he was seized and secured by Nokahlela and his sons (six in all) who took him outside the gate, and at once inflicted on him the usual punishment awarded to abatagati, driving the pointed sticks right up into his bowels. He was then carried back and placed on the ground near his own kraal, where he was found the next morning by his family. As I have said, information was given to the authorities, and according to instruction I made my first visit to the spot early next day, where we found Umjaba apparently quite sensible, but who obstinately refused to give any information that would throw any light upon the matter. On my second visit, as I have already mentioned, I found the hapless Umjaba a corpse. On making a post-mortem examination I discovered and removed three pointed sticks, each at least a foot in length, which had been driven through the lower part of his body, right into the bowels, out of view, and the agony of which, although it must have been almost insufferable, he had possessed the stoicism to conceal. Suspicion, however, fell upon the family of Nokahlela, and they were all arrested, together with the doctor, Kongota; when the servant of the doctor, who had himself taken no part in the affair, gave information against the others, which resulted in the conviction of Nokahlela, his five sons, and last, but not least, doctor Kongota himself, and they were all sentenced to death. The doctor, Nokahlela and his eldest son were hanged, and the others were imprisoned for a long term of years, the sentences of death passed upon them being commuted by the governor.

There was for a long time great difficulty in getting evidence in this case. This was caused by the doctor having administered a dose of the already-mentioned spinach seed to every one in Nokahlela’s kraal who knew anything about the matter, telling them after they had swallowed the medicine that if ever they opened their mouths to say anything to any of the authorities concerning what they knew, they would surely that moment die. This kept them all quiet for a long while, until the doctor’s servant, who perhaps from his familiarity with the doctor had less faith in the potency of his medicines, told the Induna[^[11]] of the magistrate’s court that he would tell if he were not afraid of dying. N-capai, the “induna,” assured him that he had nothing to fear from the doctor’s medicine, though he had everything to fear from the law if he concealed from the authorities anything with which he ought to acquaint them. He then made a clean breast of everything, and thus revealed the whole plot.

Umjaba, though he lived more than thirty hours after receiving these dreadful injuries, maintained silence to the last upon the whole matter. I suppose he considered that he had been rightly served for what he had attempted to do, and that there was no use in saying anything about the affair; but it always seemed to me a pity that Nokahlela and his eldest son suffered the extreme penalty of the law, as they were simply dupes in the hands of the doctor, and acted according to Kafir custom. The doctor justly met his fate.

This story in “real life” illustrates the power which witchcraft still exercises among the natives, and the vast field that yet lies open for the teaching of the missionary and the civilizing power of the white man.

During the six years I was in the Natal government service I had many other opportunities afforded me of observing the effects of native customs; but I will not tire my readers with more of these stories, as they serve but to further illustrate the effects of superstition ingrafted on ignorance.

Bishop Calloway, the greatest authority now living on the Zulu language, twenty years ago interested himself in collecting the “folk-lore” current among the Zulus, and endeavored to save from oblivion the popular traditions, religious legends and superstitions of that people, and “not to leave our children,” as he says, “to mourn, as our ancestors have left us, that the people have died away and the language become confined to a few mountain fastnesses or a few old men and women before we have gathered up what might be known of their past.” His collection of nursery tales (Izniganekwane) and the tradition of creation (Ukulunkulu) are exceedingly interesting to any student of “folk-lore” literature, the precision and exactness of the language showing that the Zulu is the highly elaborated language of a people at once superstitious, grave and clever, pastoral and agricultural; and also that the language is one in which thoughts and ideas on any subject can be clearly expressed.

CHAPTER IV.
TRIP TO THE TUGELA.—MARITZBURG.—BISHOP COLENSO.—UMGENI FALLS.—ESTCOURT LIDGETTON.—CURIOUS ABSENCE OF FISH IN MOOI RIVER.—CAPT. ALLISON’S BORDER RESIDENCY.—USIDINANE’S CANNIBAL CAVES.— MONT AUX SOURCES.—UMBUNDI’S PASS.—RETURN JOURNEY.

After five years’ work without any intermission, I made arrangements early in 1870 to take a trip up country as far as the Drakensberg, a range of mountains which divides Natal from the Free State and Basutoland. I proposed to visit Captain Allison “at home” in his border residency, to see the celebrated falls, where I had been told the Tugela, rushing over awe-inspiring and romantic precipices, leaps 1,500 feet at a bound, then to visit the Mont aux sources, where from one single spot the Tugela issues forth on its course to Natal, the Elands River to the Free State, the Caledon to Basutoland, and the Orange River through the Cape Colony to the Atlantic Ocean; and further to explore the cannibal caves of Usidinane, situated in the heart of Putini’s tribe and Langalibalela’s location.

My wife, myself, Captain Hill, of the Victoria mounted rifles, an amateur photographer and four natives formed our party. Getting the wagons, oxen and provisions all in readiness, we left Verulam on March 3d.

UMZABA’S KRAAL, 1867.

The country between D’Urban and Maritzburg, the capital of the Natal colony, ascends gradually from the sea level to an elevation of over 2,000 feet, sometimes in gentle slopes, sometimes in abrupt and rugged steps. Our road lay through the village of Pinetown, a noted health resort, round the cuttings of that precipitous height called Bothas Hill, which afforded glimpses in the far distance of the fantastic mountains, with their volcanic cones and extinct craters, of the Inanda location, and the gloomy defiles through which the Umgeni River could be seen twisting and winding. Then passing the Inchanga cutting, with huge blocks of granite hundreds of tons in weight studding the foreground, and Camperdown, a hamlet consisting of two or three homesteads and a third-rate roadside inn, we at last reached Maritzburg, some fifty miles from the coast. Here we remained over Sunday, and of course went to the cathedral and heard Bishop Colenso preach. The sacred edifice was crowded, as we were told it always was when this revered prelate occupied the pulpit; and I may here say that his noble and commanding presence, an attraction in itself, added greatly to the fascination of his eloquence. The sermon that the bishop gave us on the morning on which I heard him dealt with the trials and sufferings of Christ. In vain I looked out for heretical doctrines, but seldom has it been my privilege to listen to a sermon so devout in spirit and withal so orthodox.

It was difficult indeed, seeing and hearing him, to realize the opposition with which he was then meeting, or to comprehend the presumption, I might say the gnarling, that characterized the majority of his revilers.

While walking round the city I noticed that everything looked clean and cheerful. The streams of water running in open sluits along the side of the foot-paths, the clusters of weeping willows, the rows of stately syringas, and the pretty villas nestling in clumps of the densest foliage, conveyed the impression of ease and comfort. I also visited the various public buildings, including the banks, schools, library and hospital. On my last evening in Maritzburg, spending a few hours at the Victoria club, I met Judge Phillips (subsequently promoted to a similar judicial office in Cyprus), who, when talking over the route which I intended to take, told me that after reaching the summit of the Drakensberg and visiting the falls of the Tugela, I ought to come down again into Natal through a pass named after a certain chief Umbundi, “where,” he said, “you will have, if my information be correct, to pick your way through a forest of magnificent cypress trees such as you have never before seen.” I thanked him at the time for his information, and often since have I been glad that I took the judge’s suggested route, where, as he told me I should and as will be seen later, I found one of the grandest and most novel sights in South Africa. Next day, we left Maritzburg and ascended the Town Hill. Here we noticed the terraced character of the country, for this road rising step by step, at least 1,500 feet, landed us fairly on the plateau which forms the midland districts of Natal, where the long, rolling, grassy sweeps are the principal features of the landscape.

The cracks of the long whip, the shouts of the driver, the regular times to outspan and inspan, to eat and sleep, are the only events to break the monotony of a wagon journey. The power of the trusty wagon whip, with its crack so “loud and sharp,” has so bewitchingly been sung by Mr. Charles Barter, one of Natal’s oldest colonists, that I need not offer any excuse for reproducing it here. Many a time, to the tune of the “Fine old English Gentleman,” have I listened to the lay.

Britannia’s three great colonies, though children of one mother,

Yet each in habits as in soil, must differ from the other,

And each some symbol vaunts to show—the rapture of her soil,

A humble household symbol of her settlers’ honest toil.

So we along the Southern Coast, let none who hear deride,

Will sing our trusty wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow hide,

Will sing our trusty wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow hide.

Through many a dreary wilderness, o’er many a barren moor,

From Western Cape to fair Natal first trekked the stalwart Boer,

His was the white-capt wagon, his was the steady team,

And he cut the lash from the reeking hide of the sea-cow by the stream.

And the savage quaked when first he heard up steep Quathlamba’s side,

The crack of our dreaded wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow hide,

The crack of our dreaded wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow hide.

The Australian boasts his stock-whip stout, with which in mad career

He urges o’er the boundless plain the wild unbroken steer,

Or drives his herds to pastures new in swift and headlong flight,

Down many a stony torrent bed, o’er many a rocky height.

But though loud and sharp its cracks resound adown the mountain’s side,

Yet it cannot match our wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow hide,

Yet it cannot match our wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow hide.

By Canada’s backwoodsman aye the narrow axe is borne,

Fit emblem of his wooded home—no theme for jest or scorn,

Right well her darksome forests know the sway of its fateful stroke,

As in answering crash comes thundering down tall pine or stately oak.

We may not scorn the narrow axe, the bold backwoodsman’s pride,

But we’ll shout ha! ha! for our wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow hide,

But we’ll shout ha! ha! for our wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow hide.

Then here’s to the tree our gardens yield, the tapering light bamboo,

And here’s to the hand that can wield it well, gin his heart be leal and true,

And here’s to the slow and steady team that all the livelong day,

Through rough and smooth, with even pace, still plod their onward way,

And here’s to the Vorslacht’s clap, which wakes the echoes far and wide.

Then hurrah! hurrah! for our wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow hide,

Then hurrah! hurrah! for our wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cowhide.

But the rest from work did us all good. About thirteen miles from Maritzburg we made a halt in order to see the beautiful falls of the Umgeni, which are close to the drift where we crossed. The river here has worn its way through piles of columnar basalt to the edge of an awful precipice, where in one terrific leap of 372 feet it has for countless ages fallen into the broad, deep pool below, the encircling rocks around being clothed with trees, exotic ferns and flowers both beautiful and rare. Many a tale was told us of “moving accidents by flood and field,” of the sudden, tumultuous rush of waters when a flood came down, of belated wayfarers and of rash unfortunates washed over into the abyss. Leaving the pretty village adjacent to the falls, with its church and wayside inn, reminding one of old England, we went on, still ascending, another 1,600 feet to the Karkloof. I must not forget to mention that a few miles before we came to this range we passed Lidgetton, where the early settlers under the Burns’ scheme were first located. Here our attention was drawn to the gentle puffs of smoke lazily curling up from the steam mills working away in the forest, where, almost unseen by mortal eye, they were turning out the timber from which the colony obtains most of its best wagon material.

Trekking slowly, we crossed the Bushman River, the natives, seeing our wagons from a distance, bringing chickens, marrows, pumpkins, and milk for sale, until we came to the village of Estcourt, prettily situated on its banks, where I enjoyed a nice plunge in the river, which here purls over a pebbly bottom in a clear and crystal stream. Curiously enough, the Mooi River, a few miles nearer the Drakensberg, is shunned by any species of fish for miles, while in this river they abound. Here we were awakened one night, having outspanned late, by the noise as of dogs licking out the pots under our wagon, but as we had no dogs with us, we could not make it out, until our natives next morning, from foot-prints they saw, told us that hyenas had been prowling all round us, which was in this part of Natal a matter of unusual occurrence.

Pushing on, our next stage was Colenso, where the Tugela, beginning to assume grand proportions, courses swiftly to the sea; here, leaving the main road, we turned to the left, and trekking thirty miles further along a by-road but little used, came at last to the picturesque cottage where Captain Allison was living, seven miles from the spot where the Tugela falls over the perpendicular face of the berg. After cordial greetings we rested for the night, being most kindly entertained by Mrs. Allison and her daughters. The place seemed an “oasis in the desert,” for here, far away from the civilized world, we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a circle as highly cultured as they were truly hospitable. While fully acquainted, out of the world as their residence might seem, with the latest sensations in literature, and doings of the fashionable world in European capitals, our delightful host and hostess had not neglected the study of the zoology of the colony, as their small but carefully selected menagerie of cranes, mahens, quaggas, baboons, etc., was sufficient to prove. Next day, with native police and horses which our host had kindly provided, off we started before the sun was hot to visit the Cannibal caves of Usidinane. I recollect, even now, what a merry party we were that morning, and how we made the mountains ring with our joyous shouts and mirth. Our guides, infected with our exuberant spirits, chanted a war-song as they marched jauntily along in single file leading the way, while we, riding behind, followed them by a Kafir path which led over broken ridges up the steep, water-worn side of a rugged mountain. After climbing some frightful ledges on its face, we suddenly found ourselves in front of the entrance to the Cannibal caves of the once so-much-talked-of Usidinane. This man, now a petty chief, though formerly not possessing any tribal rights, used some sixty years ago to live in these caves with his father and other natives, who, as well as himself, were driven by starvation to become cannibals when the country was overrun by the impis and invading legions of the Zulu king, Chaka, and the war-cries of that despot’s braves reverberated through the mountains. Usidinane is still living, at an advanced age, in charge of a few descendants of these cannibals, who, when Natal became tranquilized, came forth from the shelter they had sought, and occupied ground in the immediate vicinity, and are now called by the tribal name of Amazizi. Off-saddling on our arrival at the caves, before we commenced our exploration, we greedily set to work and ate up all the provisions we had brought, the keen mountain air having made us ravenously hungry.

My wife, though an excellent horsewoman, was greatly fatigued, so we determined, the day being far spent before our examination of the caverns was finished, to remain all night in them and return next morning. With the caves themselves I was rather disappointed, as they were merely like huge lime quarries scooped out in the rocks, yet evidence was not wanting of their having been tenanted by human beings, the charred ceilings and the vestiges of fire and bone-ash being distinctly to be seen in their gloomy recesses. It is to my mind an interesting fact that human flesh is never anywhere chosen by man from a sense of preference—either necessity, not depravity, compels—or revenge, not appetite, prompts its use. Some savages consume human flesh as a sacred rite, a part of their religion in honor of the dead, some as a sentiment of affection, and others again with the idea that principles such as courage and honor are conveyed from the dead to the living.[^[12]]

Colonel Bowker, whose name is so honorably associated with Basutoland, in an article communicated to the Cape Monthly, in 1869, describing a visit to the Putiasana Caves, in that country, says: “There was but little disguising it [cannibalism], and the people when questioned spoke freely of it, as first a necessity and then a choice,” but this I think was simply native braggadocio. Charles Waterton, in his “Natural History Essays,” bears out my opinion. In his essay on “Cannibalism,” he says: “Before I can bring my mind to believe in the existence of cannibalism such as I have defined it at the commencement of these fugitive notes (the feeding of man upon man incited solely by the calls of hunger) I must be convinced that there really does exist a human being, no matter in what part of the world, who will slay his fellow man without any provocation having been offered or any excitement produced, but that he is known to deprive him of his life merely for a supply of daily food, just exactly with the same feelings and with no other than we should shoot a hare or a pheasant to entertain a dinner party.”[^[13]] I have quoted this eminent author verbatim, and though there appears to be an omission of some such word as “not only,” his meaning is sufficiently evident.

When the sun went down the night became bitterly cold, so lighting a large wood fire, we sat round its crackling flames, which threw a lurid glare on as motley a group as that cave had ever held within its walls. White and black, male and female, horses and dogs. There we might have been seen, clustered all night round the embers of the dying fire, dozing and “dreaming” anything but “the happy hours away.” At early dawn, all shivering and shaking, hungry and tired, we began our return to Captain Allison’s, where our native servants, not knowing what had become of us, were overjoyed on our arrival.

FALLS OF THE UMGENI, HOWICK, NEAR PIETERMARITZBURG.

From the place where we were outspanned we could see standing out in bold relief some few miles away the magnificent panorama of the Drakensberg range, the white silver streak of the Tugela dashing down the mighty cliffs and dark, buttressed precipices in front, breaking into “snow-white foam, leaping from rock to rock like the mountain chamois,” and in the far distance, filling up the background of the picture, the towering crests 10,000 feet high, of Champagne Castle and Giant’s Castle, the highest summits of the range.

Resting a day and enjoying the inspection of Captain Allison’s stock, admiring his horses, trying their speed and jumping powers in hurdle-racing over the veldt, and indulging in a little long-range rifle practice, I made all arrangements to leave my wife at the foot of the mountain, ascend and see the falls from the plateau, which, although extending far backward into the Free State, is terminated so abruptly in front by the precipitous cliffs of the ever-frowning Drakensberg. Captain Hill being taken suddenly unwell, I started with three of the guides who had previously accompanied me to the Cannibal caves and some of my own “boys.” Climbing over a spur of the Drakensberg at Olivier’s Hock, I struck a lovely valley on the south side of a branch of the Eland’s River; but as the water was low at the time I was able to follow its meanderings for several miles. Jumping from boulder to boulder over the water holes in its course, I ascended the rocky bed of what was then a simple, gentle stream flowing along with quiet delight and singing the same old song to which generations (for this country had once been thickly populated) long since dead and gone had listened.

Suddenly, my guides, pointing to a large sandstone cliff up high in the banks overlooking the river, suggested that we should rest. Scrambling up we came to a large cave, when, to my intense surprise and delight, a perfect picture gallery presented itself, the whole of the walls being covered with rude Bushman drawings of bucks, elephants and men in different positions, gloriously promiscuous but remarkably graphic. The wild, the untamed Bushman I have never seen. Small and repulsive, he lives entirely by hunting with the bow and poisoned arrow, and although a few still lurk in the inaccessible cliffs of the Drakensberg range, which I was gradually nearing, the majority have been driven away by advancing civilization to the borders of Damara land and Lake Ngami. On again, after a rest of a couple of hours a few miles brought us to the pass, where the final struggle had to be made. What I had hitherto gone through was child’s play compared to the task now in front. Large perpendicular rocks, which to clamber over seemed almost an impossibility, stood in the way, as if blocking our further advance, and the pass itself contracting in width toward its summit, shut out the light and cast a weird and gloomy shadow over the scene.

At last, dead tired out, we gained the top of the mighty Quathlamba, 10,000 feet above the sea. Walking on a few hundred yards through the scarlet and purple heather, which here carpeted the summit, level like those of most mountains in Africa, I came almost at once to the banks of the long looked for Tugela, flowing quietly past to the tremendous brink, over which it was so soon to madly plunge and disappear. At a point in the semicircle of crags surrounding the falls I sat down with my “boys” all around me to admire the glories of a scene which they apparently enjoyed as much as I. Never anywhere, either before or since, have I beheld such a glorious sight, or one of such stupendous magnificence and savage grandeur. Neither cloud nor mist obscured our view, and there we sat perfectly entranced, never thinking of the flight of time, drinking in the beauty of the landscape, which lay stretched out, a glorious phantasmagoria, thousands of feet below.

Drinking a bottle of champagne, which at Captain Allison’s suggestion I had brought with me to the top, I, with the natives’ assistance, set to work and built a cairn, as a memento of the occasion, in the centre of which I placed the empty bottle with a minute of my visit inside; long ere this, however, I expect some wandering Bushman or Mosuto in his curiosity has leveled our handiwork to the ground, and felt the pangs of bitter disappointment on uncorking the bottle! The next thing was to prepare for the night. If it were cold in the caves below, what was it here? When the sun went down I had to crouch over a fire which some of the “boys” had contrived to light, though fuel was not easily found, while the others were busy making me a bed out of some dry heather which they had been gathering.

Turning in among this and the long grass they had cut, “tired nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep,” soon covered me over “like a cloak,” and in a few seconds I was indifferent to everything here below.

Early astir, we were welcomed by a most glorious sunrise, “the powerful king of day rejoicing in the east,” pouring forth a flood of beams tinted with such grandly gorgeous hues that with difficulty could I tear myself away after casting “one longing, lingering look” behind at a vista of such beauty as it may perhaps never again be my lot to behold. But before bidding this scene adieu, most likely for ever, the natives, by my order, pushed to the edge of the precipice a large boulder which they rolled over the face of the cliff, whilst I, with a stop watch, lying over the precipice with one of my men to hold me, lest I should become dizzy, marked the time the faint sound of its striking the rocks below came back to my ear. This I tried several times with the same result—twelve seconds—thus proving that the Tugela here falls in one unbroken sheet 1,600 feet.[^[14]] After a cup of coffee, following out one of my original intentions, I spent some time in searching for the fossil remains of the large dinosaur, a gigantic reptile, which had been obtained in these mountains, but without success. At last we set off to find Umbundi’s pass, leading to the Ulandi valley, named so by the Kafirs after one of the peaks of the berg, by which route I hoped we should return to the wagons. Following for two or three miles the edge of the Drakensberg, Captain Allison’s police found out the pass for which we were looking. We hastened on and coming to its entrance, immediately commenced our descent. It was a narrow gorge, a perfect chink in the mountain, and the pathway leading down by a gradual slope, we could see was nothing more than the acute angle formed by the meeting together of the opposite sides of the ravine. We left the top about 10 A. M., and progressed very satisfactorily for two hours, the scenery becoming at every step more fascinating, sublime and majestic.

We appeared to be gradually leaving the world behind and sinking down to unfathomable depths, while the cliffs above, majestically towering on each side, one after another disappeared from our view as we pursued our devious course.

“Echo to echo, groan for groan,

From deep to deep replies.”

At last we came to a sudden stop, an incident which will remain engraved on my memory as long as I live.

We were brought to a stand-still by a steep, smoothly-worn chasm in the rock, having a large and apparently deep pool of water, as clear as crystal and as transparent and sparkling as glass at its base. How to get past this obstacle was the question! None of my guides would venture to drop over into the pool, and as the sides were equally precipitous, we resolved, after mature deliberation, to turn back, and ascending again, creep along a narrow ridge running longitudinally with the pass but some 300 feet higher up the mountain sides. Thus avoiding the pool, we hoped once more to descend and regain the more beaten track which we had been obliged to leave. This we did in safety after experiencing immense difficulty and danger. The mountain ledge to which we had climbed, and along which we had contrived to limp our way, not being more than a yard wide, and being studded with large, slippery stones and bordered by precipitous cliffs both above and below, sloping at an angle of 45°. As we descended from this giddy height, we at once found ourselves in the forest of cypress trees (Cupressus Wellingtona, so-called after a botanist of that name) which I have before mentioned. These trees,[^[15]] clothed in their sombre funereal foliage, seemed altogether out of place, all the rest of nature seeming bright and gay, while they appeared doleful and sad. Making our way for some distance through what I may call this hypochondriacal freak of nature, we saw at last signs of returning life and animation, the sheep and goats browsing on the hillsides and the lowing cattle and neighing horses grazing on the “veldt” below. I breathed freely once more when we emerged from Umbundi’s gloomy pass into the valley of rare beauty and attraction leading to Captain Allison’s, and wound our way through the kraals of the Amangwani tribe, who people that locality, and I can assure my readers that I felt relieved when, after a long day of danger and excitement, I found myself safe at his hospitable house once more.

THE FALLS OF THE TUGELA, DRAKENSBERG.

To my intense disappointment, I found that through some mistake all my party had left six hours before my return, leaving me to follow alone; so bidding Captain Allison and his family farewell, I rode after the wagons, but it was not until two next morning I caught them up outspanned nine miles beyond Colenso.

Nothing of particular moment occurred during our return to Verulam, where I shortly resumed practice, much invigorated by the change.

CHAPTER V.
TAKING A HOLIDAY.—LIFE ON BOARD THE “RED RIDING HOOD.” MAURITIUS.—MADRAS.—CALCUTTA.

Having heard of the safe arrival at the Vaal River, of my diamond venture which I mentioned in my second chapter, and being sanguine of its success, I determined to accept an offer to take charge, as government medical superintendent, of a detachment of time-expired coolies returning to India. It had always been a cherished wish of mine to see that historical land, and this presented a most favorable opportunity for me to gratify that desire.

After getting leave of absence from the Natal government, and securing the services of a locum tenens for my private practice, I started Feb. 10th, 1871, on a journey which proved so full of incident that I am irresistibly tempted to quote from letters which I wrote to my wife at the time describing the journey.

It is true that neither the sacred land of the Ganges nor “Araby the blest” is situated in Natal or the Cape Colony, and therefore the description of my adventures in these countries is not strictly appropriate to a journal of “Twenty Years in South Africa,” but as my experiences were at the time the comment of the Indian and Natalian press, I venture to reproduce them at the risk of any charges of wandering from my subject or of egotism, though I admit they might fairly enough be brought against me.

Bidding farewell to all at Verulam I spent the night in D’Urban, as the shipment of the coolies was not to take place until early next morning.

These immigrants, now homeward bound, had been the first shipped to the colony, arriving there by the Truro, Nov. 17th, 1860, ten years before, and were now returning in the Red Riding Hood, formerly one of the smartest tea clippers in the China trade. They were all got safely aboard by noon, though the skipper did not heave anchor until evening.

With a favorable wind we left the shores of Natal. What we suffered and endured, the characteristics of our passengers, our disappointing quarantine at Mauritius, our arrival at Madras, the continuation of the voyage to Calcutta and my own subsequent experience in Arabia, en route to Marseilles, the story of which is contained in the following letters, will, I trust, induce my readers to pardon the digression.

“On Board the ‘Red Riding Hood, Feb. 22d, 1871.

“My Dear ——: ‘A life on the ocean wave, a home on the rolling deep,’ sounds very exciting and spirit stirring when sung on shore, but all the excitement and enthusiasm vanish when one gets to sea on board a ship with some 400 coolies, men, women and children, as companions. Yet it was a sight worth seeing to behold the shipment at the outer anchorage when we left of the lame, the blind, the paralytic, the epileptic, the lepers without toes and the lepers without fingers.

“When the captain came off, he had got an absurd idea into his head that as he had been obliged by the surveyors to separate part of the hold for the women, that perforce the women must go there and leave their husbands. This I strenuously opposed, and was supported by Davis and Mason.[^[16]] Now as there are not any single women on board, such conduct on his part was preposterous. We telegraphed from the ship to Pietermaritzberg, and got back an answer: ‘Make an amicable arrangement’. The captain being simply obstinate, I became obstinate, too, when, after haggling about the matter for four hours, he gave in and I had my wish, and we got under way about six o’clock, losing an anchor in the attempt; there was a rolling sea on, but very fine weather otherwise, or I do not know what we should have done. The scene on deck it is impossible to describe! Women lay about like logs in helpless, speechless agony, children crying and yelling, and the men, of course, doing the best they could for themselves.

“I felt like Job, ‘leave me alone, for all is vanity.’ However, I recollected that old Job said this only when he was in the dumps, so I felt almost inclined to laugh at my own self-inflicted misery in taking the appointment.

“The whole of that week continued fine, and by degrees we got affairs into working order. The ‘tween decks,’ where the coolies are berthed, has port holes all along, and wind-sails are carried for ventilation, so that the air can be kept pretty fresh. On deck there is a large open kitchen built of brick, about twelve feet long and seven wide, where their food is cooked. I have two interpreters, two ‘sirdars,’ four cooks and six ‘topasses,’ or scavengers, under me. The coolies ‘fare sumptuously every day;’ they make most delicious curries of their allowance, which is rice, fish, tamarinds, turmeric, dholl, ghee, oil, mustard and pepper, as well as a sheep every Sunday. I can tell you they do not get such feeding in Natal. A meal such as I have described they get twice a day—at 9 A. M. and 3 P. M. At these times we get them all on deck, and they present a funny sight, the different family groups around their plates, helping themselves with their fingers out of the same pannikin. Here and there a wife, more attentive than the rest, feeds her husband, rolling the rice into balls and popping them into his mouth. Of course, among such a motley crew, we have some curious characters; one, styling himself ‘a Roman Catholic priest to his own countrymens’ is a curiosity—blind of one eye, a face with a sanctimonious leer, expressing, ‘What a fool you are to believe me,’ grizzly locks and a jagged beard, presenting a grotesquely solemn appearance. He sits day after day telling his beads and singing hymns. He has got a written paper with him to the following effect: ‘Gentlemens and Ladys, I beg to inform that I am a very poor old man; I have lost my sight and i can only see with my one eye and i have got small childrens to feed, so i hope gentlemens and kind ladys will help me and my childrens, it will be great favour to you, and God will bless you all and your families. I am your poor old man Antony, a Roman Catholic priest for my own countrymens.’

“I give him an approving nod when I see him, a little grog to keep his throat moist, and in return get the advantage of his petitions to the Throne of Grace, morning, noon and night.

“The familiarity of these semi-Christians with Holy Writ is something ludicrous. ‘How are you getting on this morning, Interpreter?’ I said to-day. ‘Very well, thank you; by the favor of the Lord Christ first, and secondly by favor of your honor.’ You see the relative position I hold here. Another, an old woman, who boasts of ‘Coffee Lister’ as her former master, continually holds up to me a rotten old blanket and says: ‘Present from the Natal government; good government, very!’ but adds, if I will give her a blanket, she ‘will pray the good Lord for me, my wifes [sic] and my families.’ We have also tailors, barbers, washermen and jewelers with us, who all do a roaring trade.

UMBUNDI’S PASS, DRAKENSBERG RANGE.

“But to proceed with my description of the ship and its ‘cargo.’ It is hard work to make them keep clean; they seem to abhor cold water. There is, however, on board a strong force pump, which enables me to do my duty. Every other morning I have the men brought forward and stripped, then I have the sea water pumped on them ad libitum.

“As a body they have a large amount of money with them. The Calcutta coolies, especially some of them, have as much as £50, £70 and £100 each, one man has £300, showing very forcibly the result of industry and sobriety, or rather ‘taking care of the pence, and leaving the pounds to take care of themselves’! Domestic squabbles are of frequent occurrence. One little wretch of a woman leads a stalwart six-footer an awful life—all day long she is nagging at him, but at night she excels, for she yells, and shouts, and chatters, and cries, enough to deafen one. Last night she pealed out a regular triple bob-major from her belfry, but so discordantly that for the first time I had a patient in hospital! I relieved him for once of his better half, locking her up for the night by herself in the dark, to brew mischief for the morrow, and pull her own hair instead of that of her husband. She came out this morning, however, considerably subdued.

“Feb. 27th.—Since writing the above we have made scarcely any progress, and are just now drifting in an entirely opposite direction to the one we wish to take, and are some 600 miles distant from Mauritius.

“March 4th, 9 A. M.—Just arrived off Port Louis, have anchored, and the health officer has been alongside, and who should he be but an old fellow-student of mine. We were told that Paris capitulated on Jan. 26th, 1871, but nothing further, as we are quarantined because we have coolies on board. We have, however, from the Bell buoy a good view of the harbor and town of Port Louis, as well as of the Pieter Botte mountain, which, I believe, has been ascended two or three times. It has a curious summit, which it is almost an impossibility to ascend, though this has been accomplished by flying a kite over, and so getting ropes across. Things seem very different here from Natal, and on an older and more established footing. After waiting until 3 o’clock, no permit has come for us to go on shore, but water has come alongside, at least the authorities left it about 200 yards from us and we had to fetch it, all the crew leaving the water boat. Why such absurd regulations should exist, when our ship is perfectly healthy and from a healthy port, I cannot possibly understand. We might surely have all the plagues of Egypt on board, combined with a mixture of cholera, yellow fever and small-pox, to account for the way we are treated. They even float a letter to us, in a boat with a tow line; like Mr. Meagles in ‘Little Dorrit,’ it is enough to make one ‘Allong and Marshong,’ and fume and swear; but so it is.

“The master of the quarantine boat will come presently to get paid for the water, and he takes away any letters, and this among others....

“At Sea, March 16th, 1871.

“My Dear ——: In my letter to you from Mauritius, which I suppose you will have long ago received, you saw that I was much disappointed by not getting on shore through the quarantine regulations, which are very strictly carried out. Round about Mauritius there are several islands, viz., Flat Island, where a quarantine station is, Round Island, where a light-house stands 365 feet above the level of the sea, behind these Sugar Loaf Island, which rises with precipitous cliffs, and is merely a bare rock, also the Islôt Gabriel. In sailing without steam, vessels come to Port Louis at the windward side (east) of the island, and sail in a kind of channel between these islands and the mainland, as I will call it. We sighted the south corner of Mauritius about 4 P. M., but kept off until daybreak next morning (Saturday) when we made for our anchorage at the Bell buoy about three-quarters of a mile from the shore. The coasting round the island which we made was very pleasant. It was a beautiful sunshiny morning, with a gentle eight knots an hour breeze. We passed the Gunner’s Quoin, near which the English landed when they took the island from the French, Nov. 29th, 1810, and very close to it we went, within a stone’s throw. It is a large bluff which juts out with perpendicular cliffs all around. The water is deep enough, but it would be a frightful place to run against in the night. After rounding this headland we stood closer in, and got pretty views of the island, and the district of Pamplemouse, the background being closed in by the lofty mountains, of which the Pieter Botte forms one of the principal features, towering 2,676 feet above the sea like a Titanic obelisk. We could see the green fields where ‘de sugar cane grows,’ the mills with their smoky chimneys, the houses of the planters, with their steep thatched roofs, beautiful verandahs and grassy lawns, well cut and kept, running down in some places to the beach. As I gazed I pictured to myself the poor groaning coolies, doomed to sweat in the mills and to toil painfully in the fields; yet this even was a far easier task than to conceive how the ‘Reaper, whose name is Death,’ who during the last few years has been stalking through this island,[^[17]] could ever have used his sickle so keenly in such a pleasant place. We were soon at Port Louis, passing by a barque from Newcastle, N. S. W., and anchored just opposite a fort bristling with guns, over which the Union Jack, ‘The flag that’s braved a thousand years, the battle and the breeze,’ was proudly flying.

“‘From Hull, Hell and Halifax, “Good Lord deliver us,”’ the thieves in the good old days used to devoutly pray. If they could have had my experience their litany would have been ‘From all sailing ships, coolie ships and Scotch ships, “Spare us good Lord.”’ The captain of this ship is a Scotchman, his mate is Scotch too. The former seems impressed with the idea that every one he comes in contact with has a design upon him, and he is also morbidly impressed with the pleasing delusion that all government officers are his servants, paid to wait on him. I can here see and learn to my cost how to save money. The flour we are using is quite sour, but still the cask must be finished before another is opened; the potatoes are old and unfit to eat; the salt beef is salt indeed, and the tongues are positively rotten—so that to eat them is an impossibility—but when drowned in vinegar and encased in mustard it is wonderful what an active imagination might not fancy them to be. The butter is rancid; the tin soups splendid emetics; the biscuit so hard that my poor teeth refuse to do duty; the water so putrid that I find it advisable to hold my nose and gulp it down. This style of living has considerably reduced me, but I don’t grumble, as I see it would be useless, I rather chuckle internally. The mate is a young, pig-headed, uncouth block of humanity, that wants licking into shape with a cat-o’-nine tails, his principal delight consists in calling those under him very pet names indeed. The second mate is a decent fellow, young, a colonial, born in Tobago.

“We found we should have to remain three days before permission would be given us to go on shore, so we got some water off under quarantine regulations, having an officer in a boat sailing round and round us continually at a distance of 200 yards, to see that no one had any communication with us. With a glass we could see into portions of Port Louis. This town lies at the foot of an amphitheatre of hills, and seems quietly nestled under their protecting wings. On the one side of the town lies the fort, with earthworks for defence, on the other is the quarter inhabited by the black population, thousands of whose little shanties we could see, built on the slope of the hill, and surrounded with trees. Further on we had pointed out to us the railway company’s works and the railway, with a fine viaduct crossing a deep ravine. The Pieter Botte mountain, though not the highest in the island, is very conspicuous. We weighed anchor at 10:30 P. M., and got at last fair away for India. One event has occurred to break the monotony of our journey, viz., the death of an old coolie woman. Her body was committed to the deep without any religious ceremony the morning after her decease, so that now, instead of

“‘Shaking on her restless pillow,

Her head heaves with the heaving billow;

and will continue to do so, I think, until the sea is called upon to deliver up its dead, as we buried her in about 1,600 to 2,000 fathoms of water, the bottom of which I do not suppose she will ever reach. She has one son on board, who takes the matter very calmly, Mahomed in the Koran giving good hopes of the future bliss of the faithful, of which she, I am sure, was one, praying devoutly every morning with her face turned to Mecca. In fact, these people would put to shame thousands of Europeans in the way they observe their religious rites. Going along the deck at sunrise, I can see some with their faces turned to Mecca, others worshipping the sun, looking intently at it, and returning thanks that they are permitted to see his glorious light once more, others calling on the beneficent deity, Vishnu, whereas I am afraid those who ought to know better omit to do anything of the sort.

“March 27th.—Since writing last we have had three more deaths—a man, a woman and a child. Before they were committed to the deep they were neatly sewn up in long canvas bags. The man, when he was put overboard, seemed unwilling to leave us. He got caught on a chain level with the waves, and at the speed we were going, with his back bent tightly across it, he stuck for a long time, it seeming impossible to shake him off! The poor woman was a Christian, and my Roman Catholic friend came to the front in full force. It was quite refreshing to see the energy he exhibited and the gusto with which he repeated his prayers and told his beads. He evidently seemed to appreciate the opportunity which providence had afforded him of showing his peculiar powers. I do not know whether you have seen any one buried at sea, but on me the peculiar, solemn plash which the body gives when it touches the water, has even a more impressive effect than when the earth thrown on a coffin-lid rattles a doleful accompaniment to the refrain, ‘ashes to ashes and dust to dust.’

“31st.—Weather is still continuing very calm. The coolies yesterday determined to make a grand offering to the Deity. All shades of religious opinions merged their differences, Mussulmen, Brahmins, Christians, all contributing something to propitiate the Almighty Power which ‘unseen they feel.’ You may laugh, but I also contributed, when after a prayer to Allah and his prophet Mahomed, we all shouted a grand ‘Hurrah!’—an unanimous shout it was. After this the money offering was tied up in a bag and fastened to the top of the mainmast, in ‘sure and certain hope’ of a fair wind resulting. Strange to say, such has followed, and this morning we are bowling along at ten knots an hour.

“April 8th.—Yesterday we sighted Ceylon, and during the day sailed slowly past it at a good distance from its shores, which with a glass I could see to be magnificently wooded. The first conquerors of Ceylon were Portuguese, the Dutch took it from them, and the English in turn drove out the latter, and have held it ever since, which, mutatis mutandis, is about the history of all our colonies.

“The highest mountain in Ceylon is called Adam’s Peak, about 7,000 feet above the sea, which we could see dimly in the far background. Nearer us, we saw ‘Westminster Abbey,’ some 2,000 feet high, and much closer to the coast. We are now within 300 miles of Madras.

“April 11th.—Madras is a splendid place to look at from shipboard. I go ashore this morning. Surf-boats came early alongside, curious looking things, about forty feet long, very light, not drawing more than two feet of water, and manned by thirteen to sixteen coolies, with long oars. We saw also some catamarans, these being made of three logs of wood just tied together, and it is perfectly astonishing to see how they go along over the surf, paddled by two Hindoos. Well, the captain and myself went ashore, to dance attendance at the halls of the great. How it would open some of the Natal people’s eyes if they could only see how things are done here! to see the Hindoo clerks in the merchants’ houses, in the custom-house, everywhere; fine tall men, some young, some old and venerable, all arrayed in spotless white, with matchless turbans.

SUMMIT OF PIETER BOTTE MOUNTAIN. 2,676 FEET HIGH.

“The luxury, the silent evidence of wealth and prosperity which one sees everywhere, is very great in contrast with poor little Natal. The office of the agent of the ship is as grand a building as the D’Urban court-house, and far more luxuriously fitted up, punkahs playing all day, and diffusing a cooling breeze. Nobody thinks of walking; in cabs and carriages by hundreds the black and white are all riding. It is rather curious to see the old chimney pot again; it seems the correct thing here for ‘dress,’ that is the band and the park after the sea breeze sets in, say at 5 P. M. I went this afternoon to the people’s park to see the menagerie. They possess some splendid lions, tigers, jackals, monkeys, etc., but I could not stop to hear the band, as my time was limited.

“The collector of customs and the port doctor are coming off to-morrow morning at 7 o’clock to pass the coolies. I expect the captain will want me to go with him to Calcutta.

Off Saugor Light-house, River Hooghly, April 21st, 1871.

“My Dear ——: I hope you have received a note informing you of my coming on here from Madras. I will now endeavor to follow my own footsteps over again on paper. On the Tuesday morning I landed at Madras. It is a large city, built right on the sea-beach, facing the rolling surf; it seems a mystery that anybody should ever have thought of founding a city on such a site, but in the days when the old East India Company was merely a mercantile, cotton buying and speculating firm, before it thought, by mixing itself in native broils, to increase its power, this was done, as much, no doubt as anything for the purpose of opposing some of the aggressions which the French at Pondicherry, some sixty miles to the south, were then making, for the French taught us the plan of ‘protecting’ the natives. It was entirely in this Presidency that Lord Clive, from being a mere clerk, achieved his early renown, and managed before he was twenty-seven to retire on £40,000 a year.

“Well, the town and suburbs extend some four or five miles along the beach. Talk about hardening the D’Urban streets, but to harden these must have cost a mint of money. They are all around for miles as level as a billiard table, or if you would prefer the simile, as flat as a grave-stone—the game, you know, gets finished at both places! The merchants’ offices, post-office, telegraph office, Supreme Court, are all near the pier, and to the rear and southward of these is the native town. These public buildings are all fine ones, though the dust and glare give the outside of them a parched appearance; inside, however, they are got up ‘regardless of expense.’ Comfort must be thought of in this climate. Further still to the south, say a mile, is Fort St. George. This is the first fort I have been in, and it seemed to my inexperienced eye to be impregnable, bastion on bastion, fosse on fosse. The fort is lit with gas, and inside, which comprises, I should imagine, some thousands of acres, there are the government buildings, mint, soldiers’ quarters and arsenal. Here during the mutiny came all the white people and the Eurasians, as they call half-castes. There is also an American Ice Co., with a magnificent ice-house some 200 feet high.

“Then I went to a native bazaar, where you may buy anything from a work on medicine down to a pair of slippers. I was much struck with the familiarity of these natives with English, nearly every man talks it, and the hundreds of carriage drivers all speak it well. I afterward visited the Mount Road, where all the aristocratic shops are, and where the elite do dwell, saw the governor’s house, then the general hospital, a fine building, which I went round with Dr. Chipperfield, a very nice man, who pointed me out many interesting cases. On Sunday morning, at half-past five, I was on the pier to catch the ship’s boat, got on board, and we set sail at once. While I was waiting Lord Napier, the Governor, came down with his staff; he looked quite pale and worn.

“It was most interesting to watch the Mausurah boatmen on their catamarans, shooting through the surf, and difficult to realize that before the building of the pier at Madras everybody and everything had to be landed through this surf; now this pier, which is of light iron girder work, projects beyond, and passengers and cargo can be landed on it, which is a great convenience. Guessing roughly, it is 600 to 700 yards long, and during a terrible typhoon which raged here some two years ago a French vessel ran right through the middle of it.

“Our captain, going up the Bay of Bengal, got very drunk. He managed to crawl out of his berth yesterday the first time since leaving Madras. As the fellow is detested, it afforded amusement (as his suffering was self-inflicted) to hear him sighing, hiccoughing and groaning with remorse of mind and stomach, unable to eat, afraid to drink and just strong enough to call in whispers ‘Steward.’ I advised a little brandy, ‘a hair of the dog that bit him,’ but recollecting his greed, on second consideration, I thought it would be a double lesson and that I could inflict a little more mental torture by ordering champagne, stimulating his stomach and teaching his pocket a lesson at the same time. We have fine weather this morning, but contrary winds, and are tacking about, whilst tugs are provokingly steaming past us, and puffing at us as if in derision.

“Saturday, April 22d.—When I wrote the foregoing yesterday, I did not anticipate such a night as we have just passed. Anchored in these roads (Saugor) for the night; at about 8 P. M. a regular north easter came on. In my life, so far, I have never experienced anything like it; it was accompanied by thunder and lightning. The crashes of thunder made the ship groan again, and the lightning was like a continuous exhibition of lime-light, the flashes succeeding one another with such terrible quickness that I could, I think, have read with ease, excepting that perhaps the light might have been too luridly bright. Then the wind, I cannot describe—when I tell you that it whistled through the bare rigging so that I could not hear myself speak on the poop, may give you some faint idea of its power. The moaning and sighing was painfully weird and dismal, reminding me of my feelings long ago, when first reading ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ where Legree is worked upon by the moaning in the keyhole up stairs; but to add to all this were the cries and entreaties of the coolies to obtain freedom, the captain having battened them down in their quarters. Well, it blew strong and stronger, faces began to get long and longer, the captain looked as if he would give anything to get the tug, which in his meanness he had that afternoon refused, and I began to think that what appears to be to man’s advantage may in the long run prove his ruin, and to wish that I had stopped in Madras.

“The anchor began to drag, excitement increasing, all hands to let down a second, I knew too well we had not a third (you will recollect we lost it at Natal), so now our hopes were centred in either the gale moderating, or the anchors holding true. The worst thing for us was the wind was against the tide, and tended to make us run over our anchors and snap the cables. After about two hours’ anxiety the wind gradually declined, but the thunder and lightning continued all night. This morning we have taken the tug for £50 to Calcutta, some sixty miles, so if all is well we shall be there to-night. ‘They that go down to the sea in ships, see the wonders of the deep!’

“Sunday, 23d.—We did not get down to Calcutta last night on account of a two hours’ detention in the river by another squall, and we anchored about seven miles to the south. This morning we started at 4 A. M. and arrived at the coolie depot at 7 A. M. The Protector was not long in coming on board, and in an hour the ship was emptied of its living, noisy, restless, filthy freight. Here ends the first chapter of my coolie experiences, and the second will never open.

“India is a wonderful country, and Calcutta is a prince of cities, ought I to say queen? It is lit with gas, and water is laid on to the dwellings, up stairs and down; the houses are simply magnificent, and here a man can see that it is possible not only to exist, but to live. From Saugor to Calcutta, say 100 miles or more, as far inland as I could see, the river’s banks were inhabited by a teeming population. I speak truly when I say that every inch of ground was occupied. This delta must give support to thousands upon thousands. It is easy in observing this dense population to see how cholera, fever and dysentery must play frightful havoc when they rage amongst it, and to picture what terrible loss of life the failure of one season’s rice crop would produce. The country is exceedingly low and flat, and there is an embankment at each side of the river to restrain any extraordinary rise. In the great cyclone in 1864 there was a great storm wave forty feet high which swept over the whole of this country—a regular deluge, the only wonder was how even one soul escaped. The pilot told me that he came down next day in a steamer, and though the river is a mile wide at Diamond Harbor, and continues to increase seaward, he could see nothing but the dead bodies of men, women and children, cattle and horses. From his description the sight must have been a truly appalling one. Ships drawing some fourteen feet and twenty feet water were driven three miles inland and left high and dry.

“I have been driving about all day seeing the streets, shops, etc.; there are here 25,000 white and more than a million colored inhabitants. There is no such thing as walking, as the sun is overpowering, and you feel as if it would knock you down, so powerful is it. The Government House, where Lord Mayo resides, is a magnificent palace. He and all the aristocracy are gone away to Simla, in the Himalayas, for the hot season. I also visited the museum, but it is badly kept, and there is not much to see, but the native bazaars are the most wonderful places that I ever was in—narrow streets, full of small shops, each crammed with merchandise of every description. A man, to all appearance caged in a den, turns out and shows you cashmere shawls worth thousands of rupees, another one jewelry, another silks, another Japan and China curiosities—the business done being astonishing. I have made up my mind to take a trip up country before I leave India, and visit the principal memorable scenes of the Indian mutiny—Cawnpore, Arrah, Lucknow, Agra, not omitting the Holy City of Benares, the head centre of Brahminism, to which all good Hindoos make a pilgrimage at least once in their lives.

CHAPTER VI.
TRIP TO BENARES.—CAWNPORE.—AGRA.—HOMEWARD VOYAGE IN THE S. S. “VIXEN.”—DISTRESS.—PERILOUS TRAMP.—ADEN AT LAST.—SUEZ CANAL.—ENGLAND.—AFRICA ONCE MORE.

Having finished all the “red tape” (which the nature of my peculiar charge demanded) with Dr. Grant, the coolie emigration agent in Calcutta, I made arrangements with the captain of the Vixen, then lying in the Hooghly, to take medical charge of his steamer on her return voyage through the Suez Canal to England.

As she did not sail until the 6th of the month (May), I found I had time enough left to visit, as I had proposed to myself, the principal scenes of the Indian mutiny. After spending several days in Calcutta, I left Hourah, where the station of the East Indian Railway is, at the other side of the river, and took a return ticket allowing me to stop anywhere en route to Agra and back.

If I were to describe the whole of my trip, of which I wrote a full account at the time, I am afraid I should weary my readers, the circumstances and places connected with the memorable outbreak of the Indian mutiny being too well known to bear repetition.

I may, however, briefly state that I visited the French settlement of Chandernagore, twenty-two miles from Calcutta, like a French oasis in an English desert, or a French desert in an English oasis, as my readers may prefer, being only two miles long by one broad, and passing by numberless stations, rested at Dinapore, and then went straight on to Benares, the Holy City. Here the bridge of boats across the Ganges, the thousands of temples and mosques, especially the Doorga Khoud, or monkey temple, and its chattering, grinning crew of sacred inhabitants, the numberless splendid ghats along the river side, with thousands of men and women bathing and praying, the Lingam, or well of life, at which all pilgrims drink, the burning “ghat” where bodies after being reduced to ashes are committed to the Holy River, and the Mosque of Aurunzebe, kept me well employed for a day or two. I then visited Mirzapore, Allahabad, a great railway centre, and came on to Cawnpore, saw, of course, the Memorial Garden, the well down which “a great company of Christian people, chiefly women and children,” the dying and the dead, were thrown by the order of Nana Sahib, and then branched off to Lucknow. Never shall I forget the scene presented by the Kaiser Bagh, the great work of the ex-king’s reign, and its gardens, the Secunderbagh, where the 93d Highlanders and 53d foot, in fearful revenge, bayoneted to a man 2,000 rebel Sepoys, the fantastic Martiniere, a school founded by an eccentric Frenchman formerly in the service of the Hon. East India Co., about eighty-five years ago, the Residency, where for five long months a little band of noble hearts held out, and the room where the shell burst that was the death of Sir Henry Lawrence. I walked along the portico so graphically pictured by Trevelyan in his “Cawnpore,” which called to my mind the passage where he says: “Still, amidst the fantastic edifices of Lucknow, hard by a shattered gateway, rise or lie prostrate the pillars of a grass-grown portico. Beneath that verandah, in the July evening, preferring the risk of the hostile missiles to the confinement of a stifling cellar, was dying Henry Lawrence, the man who tried to do his duty.... An Englishman does not require any extraneous incentives to emotion when, leaning against the beams of that archway, he recalls who have thereby gone in and out, bent on what errands and thinking what thoughts. Between those doorposts have walked Peel and Havelock, and gentle Outram and stout Sir Colin, heroes who no longer tread the earth.” The ruins of the Residency and the adjoining houses have been allowed to remain as far as possible in the state they were left after “the relief.” To describe, however, the cemetery close by, with its beautifully cut green-grass turf, to picture the tombstones to loved husbands, erected by devoted wives, and recount their deeply touching inscriptions, to portray the monuments in remembrance of comrades in arms carried away by war, cholera, dysentery and fever, or to tell of others, on which were written all manner of poetical extracts and quotations from Holy Writ, would be an impossibility. Full of melancholy memories is the spot, and it was with a sense of relief I left the mournful scene. I then started for Agra, 906 miles by railway from Calcutta, visited the fort overlooking the Jumna, saw the celebrated bath with its mimic cascades in the Monarch’s Palace, and then drove to the Taj Mahal, a mausoleum built by the Shah Jehan for the tomb of his favorite Begum, which was finished just forty years ago at a cost of £3,000,000, heard the delicious undulations and marvelous acoustic properties of its dome, dwelt with astonishment on the jeweler’s inlaid work of jasper, agate, cornelian and other precious stones in the fine, white polished marble, and admired the noble cypress trees growing in the gardens. After resting here a day or two I returned to Calcutta well pleased with my excursion.

Leaving by the Vixen, we steamed down the Bay of Bengal and stayed for a few hours at Madras, on leaving which place our troubles began.

Accidents were continually happening to the engines, delays were constantly occurring, the wind was against us, until matters culminated as I will allow my letter to tell.

“In The Red Sea, June 20th, 1871.

“My Dear ——: Since writing to you from Calcutta we have been dragging along a weary existence in such a steamer! what with opposing currents, head winds and weak power, we only just managed to make Cape Guardafui, when our coal ran short, such a game! hen-coops, wooden boxes, spare spars, cabin partitions, then the masts were burned to keep us going. At last the captain sent the chief officer away in an open boat to Aden, which was distant some forty miles, on Sunday evening the 4th, to try and obtain a tug or coal. After he left, the steamer would not even steer under the sail she carried, but drifted down on the Arabian coast, until we were compelled to anchor on Wednesday, about 9 A. M. The captain and myself, with four boatmen, at once went on shore to see what the country was like and to see if wood was procurable. As you can imagine, distilling water with spars worth from £20 to £50 each was not a paying game. We landed and found low brushwood which would answer the purpose, and immediately signaled the steamer for another boat and a working party to come off; we then walked in the direction of some lofty mountains inland, when we saw the natives, roving Arabs and Somalis, coming down in force; the captain and I approached them. There was nothing else to be done, for we were too far from the boats to retire, and found them all more or less armed, the majority with old-fashioned matchlocks. Of course we did not relish these appearances, as in addition they had large knives stuck in their girdles, and all the books of sailing directions for this coast characterize them as bloody, cut-throat, treacherous wretches. One of the boatmen, however, who came on shore with us, on seeing them, ran off to the beach. Luckily for us the second boat had just arrived, and meeting the crew he told them of our situation, and they came running to our assistance. This had a salutary effect upon them, and gave us an opportunity to retire. As matters on board were proceeding to extremities, and seeing there was a doubt whether the mate had got to land or not, I volunteered, with the second steward and two darkies, to walk to Aden. The captain said the distance was about sixty miles, but we found it, however, in the long run, to be nearer 160. These Arabs seemed of two parties, and one of the more friendly made signs in the direction of Aden, as if he would accompany us there.

“Persuading the captain to let me go, away I went with my companions at 3 P. M., armed, but with very little water or provisions, as I fully anticipated reaching Aden, by walking all night, at about ten o’clock next day. We walked at a good pace, as we were going through a country peopled by tribes not to be depended on, keeping the sea-beach in order to push through and get past a point where probably they might intercept us. We walked until after dark, took a rest and bath in the sea, and then pushing on, as we heard guns firing in the pitchy darkness both on our right and left. The phosphorescence of the breaking surf casting a lurid glare over all. Our guide seemed uneasy, fired his gun, and then away he went. We thought we were in a regular trap; lying down on the sand, straining our eyes in the dismal darkness, we talked over the folly of our starting, asked ourselves who would thank us if we got our throats cut, and then, seeing our revolvers all right, we determined to sell our lives as dearly as we could if attacked. After an hour’s anxious watching and waiting for the moon, up came three camels with the guide whom we had suspected of playing us false. He urged us to hurry on, which you may guess we did, not stopping until 2:30 next morning, nearly done up. Stretching ourselves out, sleep wanted no wooing. I was off in a minute, and from the appearance of the moon must have slept about an hour, when we were awakened by a terrible hot wind. You cannot imagine anything like it; my hair was dry as stubble in a few moments, nearly stifled, suffocated, the only shelter I could get was to the ‘leeward’ of a camel. This wind continued for an hour, when we saddled up and away again. Let me tell you what camel riding is like. If you can fancy yourself in a blanket, with a man at each end holding it, and shaking you continually from one to the other, you may have some faint conception, but mounting is the worst. The camels are made to squat on their bellies to enable you to get up, otherwise a ladder would be needed. Well, when you are in the saddle, which is generally a most clumsy, primitive arrangement, the camel gets on its knees, which sends you backward, then up go the hind legs, and you get a contra pitch forward, and just as you are anticipating to salute your mother earth, he raises his fore legs, tosses you backward again, and you find yourself mounted. One of my black companions had a young, frisky camel which when he jumped on it made these movements so quickly that number two generally sent him over the camel’s head or left him hanging on by his legs, heels up, head down, round his neck. It is always to me intensely ludicrous to hear a nigger swear in English, and I think the most rigid Puritan would have laughed, at any rate in his sleeve, to hear this darkie ‘G-d d—n this young fellow (as he termed the camel) to ——!’ and consign himself, the ship, the country, the water, or rather the want of it, to eternal perdition, which he did with a gusto perfectly exhilarating.

“We journeyed along on this day (Thursday) without intermission, alternately riding and walking, under a blazing sun, whose piercing rays almost struck us to the ground, blistering and swelling our backs and feet even through our boots and clothes, until 11 A. M., when our guide told us we were approaching the confines of a friendly sultan, who rejoiced in the name of Hyder, surnamed the ‘six-fingered,’ on account of this work of supererogation accomplished by nature on his behalf. Sending on a messenger to apprise his highness of our coming, we gradually came in sight of a large mud fort, with some buildings alongside, a small mosque, with date trees around, and the remains of what once must have been a large city. Off-saddling at a distance of about 200 yards, a messenger came to us from the sultan, shook hands with us all, and then taking mine in his, like two schoolboys, we advanced a short distance, stood in line, fired a salute, and then walked up to be presented. The sultan, who was a fine-looking fellow, stood outside a small tent (which was matted inside and had carpets for himself and his visitors) with a body-guard on each side of about thirty men. All tattered and torn, dirty, sunburnt and unshaven, we were sad specimens indeed of Englishmen. I felt, for my part, somewhat ashamed of myself. He, however, received us most graciously, shook hands and invited us in, coffee was served in little cups, as hot and bitter as Cayenne pepper, and cold water was also supplied, a beverage which I never before so truly appreciated. Milk, dates, goat’s flesh, round cakes made of grain, were given us as well. Did not we eat!—no questions as to knives, forks, plates or dishes—our black friend simultaneously falling to. It is in cases like this only that one appreciates a man as a man; my hard-swearing friend being a regular good fellow.

“After this, the sultan, whom we managed to understand, expressed his pleasure at our having escaped with our lives from the tribes inhabiting the locality where we landed and through which we had passed, and wished me to give him a written acknowledgment of our having left his place in safety, so that if anything befell us between there and Aden, he would have this paper to show the English government. Moreover, as he lived a mile from the sea, and possessed boats, he offered to send a boat’s crew of ten men to the steamer at once, to give the shadow, if not the reality of his protection, and also offered us a boat to Aden. As I was suspicious, I declined giving him the document he wanted until we were in the boat, but he pressed very much for it, so at last I gave it him, but started immediately, so that we might get clear of his people if he meant treachery. Arriving at the beach, the boat getting ready to take us to Aden was such a small, leaky, crazy thing, and the sea was running so high outside and the surf breaking so heavily on the beach, that I demurred going in it. Fancy spending two days and a night in an open boat of that description. For my own part I would ten times sooner get shot at on land with a chance of escape than be upset at sea, and finish my career with a stomach full of salt water. So we started away again with the camels, getting water at a well close by to take with us, which we carried in skins tied to their sides. Most of these people had never seen a white man before. We saw some women at this well, not bad looking; one of them had a baby, which she carried in a sort of triangular flat wicker basket under her arm. She was quite afraid of me when I went near to look at it. Pushing on until long after sunset, and striking inland for a few miles from the coast, we came at last to a camp of Bedouins in a district of bare sand (with a little low bush interspersed), drifted into mounds like snow driven by the wind. There were also, here and there, the dry beds of rivulets, which in the wet season take the water of the hills to the sea. Here we rested for the night, and a lovely night it was, magnificently starlight and the atmosphere beautifully clear. Lying down, in less than a minute I was oblivious to everything here below. I left one of the darkies to keep watch, but starting up in a short time, I found the revolvers I had laid at my head gone and the nigger fast asleep. Presently our Arab guide, seeing me moving, came back with them from an adjoining camp-fire of Bedouins, where he had been exhibiting them and his knowledge of firearms at the same time, and what was better still, brought with him some goats’ milk and dates. Next morning the camels were lost, and we did not start until 7 o’clock. The intermediate time we occupied in rifle and pistol practice with the Arabs who came flocking around us at daybreak. They were very civil, seeing we had one of the sultan’s men with us. We took away a small goat on credit, as between this and Aden we understood we should get no more food. Another frightful, scorching day (Friday) succeeded, but there was nothing for it but to go on.

“My companion, who at the beginning of the trip had been very lively, continually singing ‘Up in a balloon, boys; up in a balloon,’ had come down from his lofty aspirations to the level of this world again, and a little below. The ‘Dead March in Saul’ would now have been too quick for him to march to. My black friend’s oaths were getting less fervid, and your humble servant was beginning to feel as if he would have liked to ‘rest in peace.’ However, being the head of the party he had the morale to keep up, so on we went; at 1.30 P. M., after six and a half hours killing exposure, we arrived at a small, squalid, mud-built village of Arabs. Everything was baked and parched as if it had been exposed for months to the blast of a large furnace. They were the most dirty, diseased, wretched-looking, poverty-stricken creatures I ever saw; I cannot picture the place to you, the frightful glare of a copper sky, the monotonous, ever-present sand, no vegetation, no shade, no living creature, save here and there a wretched camel, a fit accompaniment to the general misery, the place seemed perfectly God-forsaken! We got into the empty upper story of a mud house, and water was brought, of which we drank greedily. The news of our arrival spread fast, the room was rapidly filled with men and boys, quite amazed at seeing us, especially the steward, whose red hair excited a good deal of curiosity. Getting them out as best we could we managed to secure a short sleep, during which they killed and cooked the goat we had brought, so that with a little rice we made a tolerable meal. Here we got a change of camels and drivers, and started again at 3 P. M. to a well at some distance to get water, the all-essential for travel in this country. We found it very good and cold, the well being at least 140 feet deep, the sides surrounded by marble slabs which were worn into deep grooves, like the flutings of an Ionic pillar by the incessant friction of the ropes, which for centuries had drawn out the leather bags filled with the precious fluid. After leaving the well a further six hours’ march brought us to another camp of Arabs, where we only rested from nine until twelve, then off again; no rest for the wicked. My back, with constant work, was beginning to feel stiff, and my head to ache—unfortunately we had nothing to eat, and were yet a long way from Aden. At about 10 A. M. (Saturday) we came to another Arab mud fort, but could get nothing to eat or drink but some filthy water, so black and putrid that after each draught I vomited and vomited again, and some millet seed which we managed to fry. Proceeding after an hour’s delay, we struck the sea-beach at noon, and saw the rock of Aden, our haven of rest, looming like a giant spectre in the distance, right opposite to us across a large bay. The sea breeze was very pleasant and took away the feeling of intense heat.

“Here we rested to bathe, and then drawing our belts as tightly as possible across our empty stomachs we jogged wearily along for many an hour. To our great delight we came across some mussels, which we greedily swallowed without calling for pepper or vinegar! This was the most tedious day yet, no food, no water, and this great rock like a nightmare confronting us in the distance, and to which we seemed never to get any nearer. The camels were tiring, and we dare not walk on and leave them, on account of the prowling Somali fishermen. However, after resisting time after time the imploring entreaties of my companions to stop, threatening to leave them and push on alone, we came at 1 A. M. on Sunday to the gates of Aden, found them locked, threw ourselves down on the roadside, drank until nearly bursting at a well of brackish water, and slept a dreamless sleep after our twenty-five hours of travel and exposure. I am thankful that I have a spirit of dogged perseverance, or we should never have got there that night at all. The more the poor devils prayed to rest the more I was determined to go on. The steward had forgotten his songs, even Snowball, as we called the darkie, had almost ceased to swear, and his final oath, which came rolling out when he laid himself down to rest, had a pious, subdued tone of thankfulness in it. Next morning, up with the sun, we entered Aden as soon as the military opened the gates, when we fortunately met the agent of the steamer, a Parsee, in his carriage, who told us the chief officer having got to Aden in safety, had taken assistance to the steamer, and she had just arrived. He drove us to his house, where we had a glorious bath and a hearty meal, told us of the astonishment expressed in Aden at our journey, and the speculations made as to our ever arriving. We found the government authorities had been communicated with, and in fact we were the lions of the hour. Everybody congratulated us, and the ovation we received on returning to the steamer amply repaid us for the dangers we had passed. Lieutenant Prideaux, one of the captives during the late Abyssinian war, who was acting Political Resident at the time, sent for me to tell my tale, observing that no white man had done what we had done or been through these tribes since 1845. We stayed in Aden a few hours while the steamer finished coaling, and amused ourselves walking around one of the most heaven-forsaken places conceivable.

“Picture to yourself the crater of a volcano with a town built in the centre, to which access can be gained only through a gap, so to speak, in the wall, conjure up in your imagination a place where sometimes a shower of soothing rain never falls for years together, and then you can fancy Aden. I send you a photograph of the tanks built to catch and preserve the rain when it does fall.”

I shall not weary my readers with the details of my succeeding letter, as I should be merely re-treading familiar ground, but I may simply mention that waiting at Aden for a day to coal, we steamed slowly up the Red Sea without any incident worthy of note occurring, until arriving at Ismailia in the Suez Canal, where we remained over the night. This gave me an opportunity of landing, seeing the place and the beautiful house and gardens of Ferdinand de Lesseps. We stopped the next night at Port Said to take in more coal, and continuing our voyage arrived at Malta on June 30th.

Leaving the Vixen there I proceeded to England, via Marseilles and Paris, as quickly as I could, as I did not wish to overstep my leave of absence from the Natal government.

While in England I proceeded to the north, saw the faces of old friends once more, but as “time and tide wait for no man,” I tore myself away from old associations, and arranged to return to Africa in the Celt, one of the Union Company’s steamers. We sailed at the end of September, 1871. Fifteen years ago! It is wonderful what competition has done during these few years in improving the speed and style of the steamers on this route. Thirty-six long, dreary days we spent then on the Celt between Southampton and the Cape, now a little more than half this time suffices.

Hurrying on to Natal by the coasting steamer I arrived there after an absence of nine months, finding all well; but alas! the fortune I expected from my diamond venture was non est. No news whatever had been received from the men I had sent up country. This fact combined with the glowing accounts of the richness of the Colesberg Kopje (now the Kimberley mine), the rapid fortunes made there, and the depressed state of affairs in Natal, decided me to throw up my government appointment, and test my luck in the new El Dorado.

CHAPTER VII.
LEAVE NATAL.—FIRST IMPRESSION OF THE DIAMOND FIELDS.—SICKNESS AT THE DRY DIGGINGS.—FATHER HIDIEN.—HOSPITAL ARRANGEMENTS.—QUACKS.—MEDICAL REGISTRATION IN SOUTH AFRICA.—CURIOUS DECISION OF CAPETOWN MEDICAL BOARD.—A “MENDACIOUS” AND “DISHONEST” PRACTITIONER.—SANITARY CONDITION OF KIMBERLEY IN 1878.—THREATENED SMALL-POX IN 1882.—SO-CALLED SMALL-POX IN 1883 AND 1884.—MADMEN and their treatment.—CLIMATE OF GRIQUALAND WEST.

On returning to Natal after my trip to the East, I could at once see that this bright little colony had entered on a cycle of depression. This, as I have mentioned before, combined with other inducements, and the fact that the diamond fields afforded a wider scope for practice than the ever-decreasing population of Victoria County, determined me to sever my connection, at least for a time, with a district of which I shall always retain a most pleasing recollection.

I left for the Fields in the beginning of December, 1871, taking the usual route by Walsh’s passenger cart, via Pietermaritzburg, Harrismith and Bloemfontein to Du Toit’s Pan.

As I passed through Pietermaritzburg I called upon Lieut. Governor Keate, who inquired into the particulars of my adventure in Arabia, of which he had heard. He kindly granted me the further extension of leave from my official duties in Natal for which I asked, as I intended, if I did not like the diamond fields, to return. Crossing the river Umgeni at Howick, and passing through the small villages of Estcourt and Colenso, we came at last, after three days’ post-cart traveling, to the foot of the Drakensberg. The road winding up the mountain was very steep, but in first-rate order and repair. The road parties of native laborers which each chief has to supply in rotation to the government, for, I believe, a period of six months, at a fixed rate of pay, were evidently doing their work well, but nevertheless the climb was a fearful strain on our horses.

FIRST “HOME” ON THE DIAMOND FIELDS, FEBRUARY 1872. TRAVELING WAGON AND TENTS.

We arrived in safety at Harrismith, the first town of the Orange Free State, lying within a few miles of the top of the Drakensberg, and next day, after a splendid drive at a hand gallop all the way, over a road as flat as a bowling alley, with a perfect Jehu at the reins named Brandon, the heedless scion of a good old Irish family, came late in the evening to Bethlehem, a quiet Dutch town, with two or three English stores, where we rested for a few hours. Then inspanning again, on we drove past Senekal, a wretched little place of about 100 inhabitants, and Winburg, the centre of a fine grazing district, to Bloemfontein, the capital of the state. Here Mr. Brand, the President, since knighted (1882) by the English government for his services in the settlement of the Transvaal difficulties, after the war resided, as did also a bishop of the Anglican communion,[^[18]] but as it was dark when we arrived, I saw nothing of the city. I heard, however, sufficient reports of the dreadful havoc that fever of a remittent type was making among the residents on the diamond fields to make me anxious to arrive there as quickly as possible. We started next morning in the moonlight at 3 o’clock, and drove through, some seventy miles, to Du Toit’s Pan in one day. A long, dusty, tiring day it was, and as if to prove that “coming events cast their shadows before,” we met three or four ox wagons bringing away sick diggers from the fields, who had been stricken down by the prevailing fever.

The sun had long set when we neared Du Toit’s Pan, yet the camp, as seen in the distance was one blaze of light. The stores and canteens were open, thronged with customers, while the canvas tents of the diggers, some lit up with candles, some with wood fires, and others blazing with paraffin lamps, studded the surroundings of the mine as with a constellation of stars. When we arrived at Benning & Martin’s, the hotel of the day, the scene was one which almost baffles description. Clusters of men, work being ended, crowded round the post-cart to see the new arrivals, others thronged the adjacent liquor-bars, while every one showed signs of hurrying bustle and feverish excitement. After some refreshment, I took a short stroll through the camp. Novel sights and grotesque scenes met my view at every turn, the lights in the tents throwing “shadows on the wall,” in some cases of the most laughable description.

KIMBERLEY MINE—FIRST STAGE, 1871.

I shall never forget my first night on the diamond fields. When I returned to the hotel I inquired for a bed, but was assured that not one could be had for love or money. Martin, the landlord, however, made me up a shake-down as a favor, on the end of the long dining table, where amidst shouts of “play or take miss” from a party of excited loo players alongside I soon fell asleep. At an early hour on the following morning I took one of the many passenger carts plying to the New Rush, otherwise called Colesberg Kopje (Kimberley), and after a drive of about two miles wended my way to the mine on foot, along roads ankle deep in sand, bordered with stores and canteens built of iron, and with canvas tents of all sizes and shapes fixed promiscuously around.

Arriving at the edge of the mine I paused to observe the novel sight which met my eyes. In those days roadways extending from one side of the mine to the other were the scenes of constant traffic, the diggers carting along them the diamondiferous soil from the claims to sort it on their various depositing grounds. Carts, horses, mules, oxen and men crowded these narrow roads, on each side of which the claims were scarcely less thronged. The tout ensemble was most interesting. Every patch of ground was occupied, the whole resembling a hive of busy human bees, bustling and elbowing, creeping and climbing, shoveling and sieving, to gather, if possible, honey from each opening flower, or, to abandon metaphor, to turn out a diamond from each bucketful of soil hauled to the surface. Not less than 10,000 natives, and from 4,000 to 5,000 white men, I should think, were busily at work the morning on which I first saw the diggings.

I knew that the Natal Verulam Co. had claims in No. 3 Road, and on inquiry I was directed to their manager, Mr. G. J. Lee, afterward for a long period chairman of the Kimberley mining board. Just at the moment I found him one of his native servants had turned out a thirty carat diamond from a sieve which he was shaking, and having a slight tinge of superstition in my nature, I at once accepted this as an omen of good luck. While I was looking at the claims belonging to this company my ears were all at once assailed by a deafening roar, for without any warning all the natives in and around the mine ceased work and yelled out at the top of their voices: “Hullah!” “Hullah!” Such a babel I had never heard before, and on turning round I discovered that a lady standing behind me, who had come to see the mine, was the innocent cause of all the disturbance. On inquiry I learnt this was nothing new, but that the natives from the interior, who perchance had never seen a white woman before they came to the diggings, were in the habit of taking this method of expressing their surprise and pleasure. Patti, Nillson, or Marie Rozé never, I am sure, had a more enthusiastic greeting.

With Mr. Lee’s kind assistance, I got suitable quarters on the same day, and next morning commenced professional work. At that time there were only two qualified men on the fields, but of quacks “enough and to spare.” It did not take long for me to settle down into practice, and in fewer hours than those who cast their lot in communities where they are personally unknown, and where competition is keener, take years to establish themselves, I found myself with as much as I could do, my arrival being looked forward to by many Natalian friends, who seemed only too glad to see me among them once more.

The great majority of those who consulted me were suffering from camp fever, as it was termed, which was malarial, aggravated by exposure to the sun, tent life, bad water, obtained in the early days from exposed dams or polluted springs, imperfectly tinned meat and fish, a scarcity of vegetables, and last but not least by strong drink. Intemperance was and is, though not now to so great an extent, the curse of the diamond fields. I feel certain that, out of the number of cases (which during an extensive medical practice of fifteen years’ duration) I have attended among the white population on the fields, at least seventy per cent. can be traced either directly or indirectly to excessive indulgence in alcohol, while the name is legion of the innocent natives who have been poisoned by the vile preparations passing under the name of brandy. The only treatment for the local fever which could be relied on, and one by which its relapsing tendency could be thwarted, I soon discovered was to order the patient’s removal to a distance away from the malarial taint, the sea-side if possible, as soon as the more urgent symptoms were abated, as only through an entire change of air could complete restoration to health be expected within a reasonable time. The railway even in this matter has come to our help, as on the first approach of the fever, the desired change can be obtained in a couple of days, or even less, and a threatened attack possibly averted. Cases of typhoid fever sometimes occurred, while dysentery, usually of a mild type, also existed. Pneumonia, croup, diphtheria, and in fact the majority of the other diseases with which practitioners most commonly come in contact, were rare, a physician’s practice in the early days on the fields being almost a specialty. This, to a great extent, could be accounted for by the population of the diggings being comprised of healthy and hearty men, mostly in the prime of life. Accidents too were few and far between, the mine not being deep enough for the falls of reef or diamondiferous soil to be dangerous, and no underground workings existing, the dangers of steam, blasting powder and dynamite were as yet unknown.

In 1871 the fields were abounding, as I have said, in quacks, but since then the qualified medical men have increased from two to twenty-two.

The river diggings having existed for some time, matters there had assumed more of a settled appearance than at the dry diggings. A wattle and daub house, originally built for the Rev. Mr. Sadler, a clergyman of the Church of England, ministering there, was converted into the first temporary hospital, but being found too small a more permanent building was erected, which again in course of time made way in 1873 for a fine stone structure, which was unfortunately consumed by fire, and remained some time in ruins before it was rebuilt. It is now chiefly used as a convalescent home. The Diamond News of the day bitterly attacked me, because I pointed out the folly of spending money in erecting permanent buildings at Klipdrift, a place which was becoming rapidly more or less deserted by the digging community. The absurdity as well as the cost of sending men with broken limbs, and suffering with fever, jogging twenty-five miles over broken roads to a hospital, never seemed to strike those who, having property at Klipdrift, were attempting at the time to bolster up the place in contradistinction to what were termed the dry diggings.

The Dry Diggings were not, however, entirely without any hospital accommodation. A large marquee was erected in 1871 at Du Toit’s Pan, under the auspices of Father Hidien, the first Roman Catholic priest on the diamond fields, who himself a short time afterward fell a victim to his never ceasing devotion. I heard many accounts, when I arrived, of his unbounded charity and tender care of the sick. I will relate one incident which came under my especial notice, and which occurred toward the very end of his unselfish career. Not long before he himself was fatally stricken with fever, an unfortunate white man, a perfect fever wreck, covered with frightful sores and merely a living skeleton, came to him for relief. Father Hidien took charge of him, and several times a day, as no nurse could be got, would, with his own hands, wash his ulcerous wounds. In the first stage of fever, until weakness bound the kind father to his bed, he continued with unflagging zeal to relieve, as far as he could, the sufferings of this afflicted creature; but as the ravages of disease made increasing strides and the visits of the priest, as a matter of course, grew fewer and fewer, it was pitiable to hear this unfortunate fellow, who was lying in a small bell-tent near, make the air resound with his unceasing cries for the good father’s help. Thus he continued to beg and implore him to come to his side until he was told that the parting spirit of his Samaritan comforter had gone to the land of the “Hereafter,” whither he himself followed in but a few short hours.

It was not until the arrival in 1872 of Dr. Dyer, who had been in the government service of the Cape Colony, that two long, cool wattle and daub buildings were erected near the race-course, providing beds for about twenty patients. Dr. Dyer, Dr. Grimmer and myself attended to this hospital gratuitously for some time. Everything in those days was of the most primitive description. A large tent served as a dead-house, and I well remember, on one of my morning visits wishing to see the body of a patient who I was informed had died during the night, finding on going into this tent merely the trunk of the poor fellow’s body left; the prowling, ravenous dogs, which then roamed about, having devoured the poor man’s limbs, which they had torn in pieces from his body.

The first case of lunacy which ever came to my notice in Griqualand West I also saw here. Divisions constructed of mud and wattles were placed between the beds to promote extra privacy in certain cases, so this lunatic when brought in was placed in one of these inclosures. There was but one white man and his wife to superintend everything. The first time I saw this poor fellow I found him raving mad, without an attendant, or even a straight-jacket, tied down with ropes, struggling in his wild delirium. The scene, but for its sadness, would have been ludicrously grotesque. The madman having managed to withe his body round, and having gnawed a hole through the mud wall, and head all the time popping in and out like a “Jack in a box,” was attempting to worry the patient in the next bed, the latter though almost frightened to death, being too weak to move away. The whole place was a chamber of horrors worthy of the pencil of a Gustave Doré. Although the management was much to blame, and the public were apathetic, yet the doctors attending did not escape public criticism. I can even now call to mind one very scathing attack, which I believe had much to do with the removal of the building, in which Hood’s lines were applied to them:

“’Twas strange, although they got no fees,

How still they watched by two’s and three’s,

But Jack a very little ease

Obtained from them.

In fact, he did not find M. D.’s

Worth one D. M.”

At the time, also, I wrote to the Diamond Field giving a description of the wretchedness of the place, and did what I could to promote improvement.

The hospital, which was established at the jail, and which was entirely under government control, was even worse than the Dry Diggings hospital which I have just described. At the risk of being a little tedious I will give an extract from a description of this place which I wrote to the Diamond News July 7th, 1873.

“This so-called hospital is a tent about 12 feet by 9 feet in size without even a fly. Through this during the rains the water beats, and through the rents, which I also saw, the piercing wind on these cold nights blows as through a funnel on the poor wretched sinners within. It is not difficult for residents on these fields to picture further what the state of such a tent must be, after a blazing sun has poured its rays on it for hours in summer. Let us enter. Here a sight presents itself which I wish I could adequately describe. On the bare floor, deep in dust and sand, lie huddled together black and white, criminals and honest men, no beds, no bedsteads, some with only a blanket round them, and in this sorry plight they remain during the rains, exposed to the chance of the water every now and then washing, as it has done, right through, making the place rather a hot-bed of disease, than a refuge for the sick—the floor of the tent being lower than the surrounding ground. Here in the middle of the tent lay, with but an apology for a bed between his body and the ‘cold, cold ground,’ and with an old piece of zinc roofing at his head to prevent it from pushing through the canvas, a poor emaciated black, whose leg had lately been amputated; in one corner a poor blind creature sat piteously complaining, whilst in another corner a crouching native was busily engaged ridding himself of vermin!

“I need not particularise further. One white man there was, however, who told me he had been there twelve months. No doubt he could, if he would, ‘a tale unfold’ of misery and woe. Strewed in motley confusion on this dusty floor could be seen old clothes stinking with dirt, boots and shoes, crutches and soap, tobacco and tea-cups, salt and pipes, pans, buckets, a chamber utensil, half eaten provisions, an empty bottle holding a half burnt candle, and, as if in sorry burlesque, three or four Bibles provided with considerable forethought, no doubt to teach the unfortunate inmates the advantages of being ‘patient and long suffering in all their afflictions.’”

The miseries of these places, the exposés that took place, as well as the out-of-the-way situation of the Dry Diggings hospital, led the Southey government to see the necessity of increased and better accommodation, and a new hospital was built on the road between Kimberley and Du Toit’s Pan in 1874. Two or three days before it was to be given over by the contractors a serious fire broke out and destroyed more than half the building. The government, being short of funds, did not rebuild the part burned down, but made the portion which had escaped suffice for the wants of the community; and in Jan., 1875, the sole medical charge was given to the government officer, Dr. Dyer and myself being retained as consultants. The medical care of the patients was however in Jan., 1882 transferred from the hands of the government district surgeon to that of a purely resident surgeon, whose sole duty it was simply to attend to the hospital, government at this time resigning the management to a local board.

In 1876 the nursing care of the institution was undertaken by a certain sisterhood[^[19]] of nurses and associates, under the superintendence of their head, Sister Louise, and it is impossible to speak in terms of too high commendation either of her management or of that of Sister Henrietta, who succeeded her, and who still retains that office and administers its important duties in a manner which I cannot too highly praise.

The hospital received considerable addition in 1876, and again in 1882 had a large wing, an isolation ward and an extensive native ward added. The medical tax, passed by the legislative council of Griqualand West (No. 2, 1874) of one shilling per month payable by each native, was received by the diggers, when it became law, with much disapprobation. It was consequently allowed to remain in abeyance by the Griqualand West government, until hospital matters came under the management of the local board, which I have before mentioned, in 1882. Then it was revived, and has been since paid by the diggers and companies, without demur, the amount being as a general rule deducted from the natives’ wages. The amount has varied from £10,000 in 1882 to £6,000 in 1885. The Kimberley hospital is now larger than any institution in the colony, its working staff numbering over fifty, and it contains sixty-six surgical[^[20]] and forty-two medical beds for natives, twenty-nine for poor whites, twenty for paying whites, and an isolation ward with four beds. The number of cases treated here is enormous, the capital operations for the last quarter in 1885 counting forty-four, and the admissions amounting, during the same year, to 709 Europeans and 1,019 natives.

Returning to the early days of field life, the quacks soon found it advisable to take flight, as a steady influx of regularly qualified men was appearing on the scene, the only one retaining any kind of ground being a non-qualified homeopath. This quack was always, however, cautious enough to consult with qualified practitioners when his cases were in extremis, and by this means he escaped any penalty of the law, and procured a death certificate in proper order.

It seems passing strange, that in a sparsely populated though widely extended country or congeries of States, that a man possessing indubitable qualifications for the exercise of his profession, should be put to such frequent and utterly unnecessary annoyance in the matter of medical registration as sometimes occurs in South Africa. A physician or surgeon before he can legally recover his fees in every part of South Africa, requires, as there are five separate States, to be registered in no less than five different places. I was early taught this in a rather rough way; one of the advantages which confederation would bring being vividly placed before me in a very practical manner. In 1873 I attended a man and his family at Du Toit’s Pan, and as I found that no inclination existed to pay my fees, amounting to some eighty guineas; I sued for the amount, but was non-suited by the magistrate, on the exception being raised, that I was not a legal medical practitioner in that part of South Africa, not being registered in Griqualand West or the Cape Colony. As I was registered in England and Natal, I had neglected to comply with this form in Griqualand West, and consequently had to suffer.

The law courts of this territory have also decided another important point in medical law, agreeing in their judgment with English precedent. A medical man whose only qualification was the diploma of the Edinburgh College of Surgeons sued a patient for his attendance, who pleaded that he being a simple surgeon could not charge for a medical case, and the High Court sustained the exception. To the astonishment, however, of nearly all the faculty in South Africa, the medical board in Capetown after this, decided, entirely ultra vires, to grant permission to “Edinbro’” Surgeons, to practice medicine; consequently South Africa now is an Alsatia, to which all semi-qualified men can flee who find it impossible to enter the army or navy, or even obtain any poor-law appointment in England. Feeling myself interested in this matter, and being desirous of obtaining authoritative news from the “head centre” I telegraphed on May 23d, 1884 to the late Dr. Ebden, who held the position as president of the medical board in Capetown, to inquire “if the board intended to doubly qualify simple surgeons,” and received the astounding reply: “Board considers Edinburgh surgeons entitled to practice medicine.” It would be curious to fathom the reason why this preference was given to men holding Scotch diplomas! Quite independently of the fact that this abnormal announcement is contrary to all law, and contrary to the powers vested in the medical board, it is an injustice to the colonists themselves, and unfair to the rising generation of the country. In Europe there are at the present time more than one hundred and fifty medical students, sons of South African colonists, the majority of whom are receiving a university education. Can it be fair to these that they should be pitted against semi-qualified English adventurers?

The necessity of a medical act in South Africa, with proper penal clauses, becomes every day more apparent. The South African Medical Journal in 1884, on giving a resumé of that year’s events of interest, drew public attention to one glaring instance, which had to pass unpunished. In mentioning the case of two medical men, this journal observes: “The latter, a L. R. C. S. of Edinburgh only, had been practicing as a physician, although gazetted as a surgeon only. He had aggravated this by repeatedly signing his name with M. D. and F. R. C. P., a proceeding which was not only mendacious, but dishonest.” But yet this dishonesty had to remain without the infliction of any fine. This case is one among many, which shows the urgency of legislation in this direction.

Since the creation of a municipality in Kimberley in 1878, and the consequent introduction of sanitary regulations, duly enforced by law when necessary, the death-rate has very considerably diminished. The late Dr. Shillito and the writer, in March, 1879, prepared an exhaustive report for the mayor and town council on the sanitary condition of Kimberley. The death-rate at that time was enormous, as can be seen from the following table, which is a copy of that which we then furnished:

At that time Kimberley was perfectly honeycombed with cesspools. We drew attention in our report to the evil effects of the existing system, and to the manner in which these had revealed themselves two years before, when an epidemic of puerperal fever and erysipelas robbed the community of many valuable lives, and we further showed that there was always existing a remitten fever of a dysenteric and typhoid tendency, which could in some measure be attributed to this defective sanitary condition. Our report led to the adoption of the “Pail system,” and the night-soil is now taken away regularly and buried some distance from the town, the consequence of which is that the death-rate from disease has diminished more than one-third, and the sanitary condition of Kimberley is to my own knowledge as good as that of any town in South Africa.

Kimberley, notwithstanding its improved sanitary condition, was in 1883 and 1884 visited by a disastrous outbreak of disease, which cost the community much, both in life and money. In May, 1882, small-pox was brought to South Africa by the steamship Drummond Castle, and spreading, proved very fatal in the Capetown Peninsula (Capetown to Simon’s Town), 4,000, less or more, succumbing to its ravages. Great apprehension was felt in Kimberley lest the disease might be communicated by the passenger wagons coming up from Capetown. Terror seized upon the digging community, and a quarantine station was immediately established at the Modder River, some thirty miles from the mines. Every care was taken, and all passengers were fumigated with sulphur before they were permitted to enter Kimberley. As the result, seven cases of small-pox were detected and detained for treatment, and all those traveling by the same wagons were kept in quarantine twenty-one days.

These efforts, which lasted from Sept. 1882 to March 1883, were entirely successful, and not one single case of small-pox broke out in Kimberley. This threatened invasion put the ratepayers to an expense of nearly £13,000, which, however, was a mere bagatelle compared with the outlay which the epidemic disease that broke out on the fields in 1883, 1884 and 1885 entailed. This came from another and quite unexpected quarter, and was not imported seaward. A certain body of Kafirs, who were coming to Kimberley to seek for work, were attacked at Klerksdorp, in the Transvaal, a small town near Potchefstroom, with symptoms resembling small-pox. The doctors there declared the disease to be aggravated chicken-pox, when the Transvaal government, not being satisfied, Dr. Dyer, who had been promoted to the chief medical office under the Transvaal government, was sent from Pretoria to report direct. In this report, dated Oct. 25th, 1883, he gave it as his opinion (concurred in by Dr. Francis, the special commissioner of the Orange Free State), that the natives were suffering merely from a severe form of chicken-pox, termed by them “Isi-mun-qu-mun-gwane.” These natives were then allowed to proceed on their road to the diamond mines, but of the sixteen who left Klerksdorp four only reached Felstead’s, a store about nine miles from Kimberley, when, the survivors being too weak to proceed, information of the fact was brought by passers-by. An outcry was soon raised, they were visited by medical men, materials to erect shelter for them were immediately sent out, a doctor appointed, and all the precautions commenced to be taken, which afterward led to so much expense. The civil commissioner at once (Nov. 3d, 1883,) appointed a board of six medical men to report on the disease, who after a prolonged inquiry left matters in statu quo, three averring that the outbreak was small-pox, and the others (myself among the number) arriving at a contrary opinion. Government then sent a physician from Capetown to investigate matters, who on Dec. 6th, 1883, declared the disease to be small-pox; so those declaring the outbreak to be a “bullous disease, allied to pemphigus,” and not contagious, as well as those declaring the disease to be a Kafir pox,[^[21]] or an aggravated form of chicken-pox, were outvoted. It was during one of my visits, accompanied by Dr. L. S. Jameson, to further examine into this outbreak that I met with the nearly fatal accident which I mention elsewhere.

I will not weary my lay readers by entering upon a medical discussion, but may refer my professional brethren to a verbatim report published by the Diamond Fields Advertiser in a book form, of the case of Regina vs. Wolff, where Dr. Wolff, an American physician of more than average skill, was charged with failing to report the existence of “small-pox” in the hospital of which he had then charge, in which the whole matter is carefully discussed. The outbreak of pemphigus or small-pox, which lasted in its virulent form from Nov. 1883, to Dec. 1884, cost the inhabitants of Kimberley and the mines of Griqualand West the large sum of £37,503, 15s. 11d. Medical services were paid for at an extravagant rate, two medical men alone drawing the sum of £3,320, 10s. 6d., and what with the erection of iron hospitals, fumigating houses, dispensaries, ambulance wagons, horses and highly paid officials the outbreak was an expensive luxury to Griqualand West as long as it continued. The Dutch, also taking alarm, stationed patrols on all the roads leading from Kimberley to the Free State, excepting four, on which they erected fumigating stations just outside our boundary. At these stations they fumigated all Kafirs and others passing along, charging those not resident in the State, whether white or black. Some idea of the extent of this charge on the population may be formed from the fact that at the Reit Pass station alone 11,570 were fumigated in three months. Of the folly and uselessness I will remain silent. When the outbreak first appeared, the “Act to amend the law relating to Public Health,” No. 4, 1883, giving power to levy rates, and also for framing regulations for vaccination and quarantining was the only ordinance which applied, but in 1884 a special act was passed (Nov. 10th, 1884), giving the Board of Health power to levy rates on boroughs and mines, and to defray expenses. This was followed in 1885 by ordinance No. 41, by which the government was empowered to pay one-half of all moneys expended on account of small-pox; though previous to this the government had acted with great liberality, having defrayed one-third of every expense. The total number of cases reported from Nov. 1st, 1883, to Jan. 1st, 1885, the months during which the epidemic was at its height, was 2,311, and the number of deaths 700, or say 32.02 per cent. The proportion of white cases as against colored was very marked, the number of white being 400, with 51 deaths, or 12.07 per cent., and of colored 1,911, with 649 deaths, or 35.42 per cent. A second attempt to revive the scare was made toward the end of 1885, but this did not succeed, although twenty-five colored and one white man were sent to the lazaretto, alleged to be suffering from small-pox. A special commission to examine-these patients was sent out, on my describing a visit I had made to this lazaretto, and on my drawing public attention to the absurdity of the whole affair. This commission, although chosen from medical men believing in the small-pox theory, actually certified that half of the patients they saw in the lazaretto were not suffering from small-pox at all. My readers from this will be able to form an estimate of the cruel acts perpetrated at the time by ignorant officials, and to judge how, taking the small-pox view of the case, a loathsome disease would be propagated amongst healthy persons—how the innocent and guilty would suffer alike. After this exposure small-pox rapidly died out. The lazaretto is now removed to the west side of the mine, and the buildings surrounded by grounds, twenty-two acres in extent, are stationed on a high plateau on the road to Schmidt’s Drift. At present Kimberley is perfectly free from any cases of this disease.

In the beginning of this chapter I made mention of the first lunatic I ever saw in Griqualand West, who, as he belonged to the police, was removed, I believe, to Capetown, but ever since then, both before annexation and since, lunatics as a rule, up to a very short time back, have been left to drag out their weary existences, the victims of heart-curdling neglect, in the common jail. In August, 1885, I took occasion, when speaking on the subject of lunacy, to lay bare before the Kimberley public some of the scenes day by day enacted in their prison (their lunatic asylum?). In the course of a lecture I then delivered, I spoke thus on the subject:

“Here in the middle of the nineteenth century, in an era of boasted civilization, the only care we can give our lunatics, except in Capetown and Grahams town, is to herd them with criminals, and to chain and handcuff them with brutal severity, pending an official order for removal, which may never come. It is a painful thought, that among the poorer patients, who from the ills of life suffer mental alienation; fathers depressed from loss or anxiety, mothers from exhaustion resulting from the rearing of a large family, the young man from vice, dissipation or disappointed hopes, and the foreigner among strangers, looking wistfully back to his native home—that these, all suffering from diseases which might possibly have been stayed, should be thrust into jails without attendants, simply put in irons if violent, and almost compelled through sheer inhumanity and neglect to suffer the misery of incurable lunacy!

“As I have just said, in all colonial towns except two, as far as I can learn, the jail is the receptacle of the lunatic. Kimberley, with its vast wealth, with its go-ahead citizens, is no exception. What tales the walls of its jail could tell! One poor black, to my certain knowledge, has been locked within its gates for twelve long years, and there you can see him—to-morrow if you like—bemoaning his fate, and cursing the government in the same breath! A poor white girl, the daughter of a man whom old residents must remember well in the palmy days of the Diamond News, has day after day, and every day since 1876, paced like a caged tigress up and down a small court-yard, panting for freedom, and growling in despair! One poor girl, black her skin may be, is handcuffed, so I learnt, for days together, to prevent her from stripping herself of all she wears. Two women I saw there myself, not three days ago, clad simply in nature’s garb, as naked as when born. A patient of my own was taken to this comfortless place some few months ago. His case wanted thoughtful care and instant attention. Red tape, however, consumed weeks of valuable time, the chance of cure was risked, and he, poor fellow, instead of being cared for by skilled attendants, was thrust handcuffed into a cell, ironically called padded, the floor left bare, on which he might have battered out his brains, had he chosen, in the frenzy of his despair! On another occasion, in that very same cell, a lunatic was confined one night not very long before. Upon the jailer paying his visit in the morning he looked anxiously round for the man that had been committed to his care the previous evening. To his astonishment, where do you think he found him? I will tell you. During the long, dreary watches of the night, the poor fellow, to escape from some imaginary foe, had scooped out with his nails a hole large and deep enough in which to hide, and there he found him, crouching like a wild beast in his lair. I saw this hole myself on a visit I afterward paid him. I will here ask you one question, who ought to inquire into these matters? Who is answerable for this shameful neglect?”

This account created quite a sensation, and was at once taken notice of by the government, who removed all but one lunatic, about whom there was some local quibble, to the asylum at Grahamstown. Some idea may be formed of the responsibility falling upon the shoulders of the Governor of the Kimberley jail when I inform my readers that during the last fourteen years 67,000 convicted prisoners have passed through his hands.

This chapter would be incomplete without a few words respecting the climate of Griqualand West. Taken as a whole it is very salubrious, and especially adapted to those suffering from lung disease, as the country being almost entirely devoid of timber or vegetation permits free currents of air to prevail, a condition which is very favorable to consumptive patients. Although the changes of temperature are very sudden and great, yet with proper care little harm is done, as the excessive dryness of the soil and atmosphere enables the residents to withstand with but little inconvenience a heat which would be quite unbearable in a moist climate. The rain, too, when it comes, generally falls in sharp and heavy showers.

The drinking water is upon the whole good, though that of the deep wells is rather hard, and in the shallow ones brackish, but the water now brought in from the Vaal River through the enterprise of Chevalier Lynch by means of pipes is soft and very wholesome.

The elevation of Griqualand West of about 4,000 feet above the sea appears to give it the air of a mountainous region, the ozone being constant, and ranging from 3.5 to 9.5 degrees on a scale of ten, the average being about five degrees.

In Kimberley the north wind is the prevailing one. From a report of 4,452 observations taken by Mr. G. J. Lee, F. R. Met. S., in 1885, in 681 cases it was due north; next in order came northeast and south winds, of about equal frequency, and next, with comparatively little difference, were winds from the northwest and southwest. As can be imagined Griqualand West is very dry.

It will be seen from the table below that there has been one year only during the last nine in which the rainfall came up to or exceeded twenty-five inches, which is about the English average: 1877, 13.58 inches; 1878, 9.34; 1879, 19.38; 1880, 15.43; 1881, 30.30; 1882, 14.77; 1883, 13.63; 1884, 20.46, and 73 days on which rain fell; 1885, 9.77, and 74 days on which rain fell.

In some months no rain falls at all. The following is a tabulated list of the months, during the last eight years, in which this has occurred: June, 1877; June, 1878; October, 1879; July, 1880; August, 1880; September, 1880; July, 1881; September, 1881; June, 1883; December, 1883; July, 1884; August, 1884; July, 1885.

During the year 1885 there were ninety-two days on which lightning was seen, seventy-four on which dew fell, two hundred and eighty-eight days on which there were clouds, and seven days on which ice was seen, although in the outskirts of Kimberley ice was much more frequent. I have given monthly returns in the accompanying table:

The barometric pressure for the year 1883 appears to have been at its maximum in June, in which month the reading was 26.177 inches, and the minimum, which was 25.849 inches, occurred in January, while the mean for the year was 25.988 inches. All these readings are corrected to 32° F.

The heat experienced in Griqualand West is sometimes very excessive, when I state that the maximum summer heat of the day in the shade during the months of November and December was in the year 1883, 107°, in 1884, 102°, and last year 104°, whilst during the month of December, 1885, the ordinary bright bulb thermometer in the sun attained the height of 116.25°, and the blackened bulb in vacuo 174.6°, my readers may form some idea of the great range of temperature to which residents are exposed, especially if they contrast this with the minimum during the winter months, July and August, of 26° in 1884, and of 28.25° in 1885. At the same time it is interesting to note that the highest mean of absolute maximum temperature was 78.98° in December and the absolute minimum 52.52° in June. I have often conversed on this subject with one of the early Vaal River diggers, who told me that in September, 1870, he several times found the thermometer in his tent in the early morning standing at 32°, and at mid-day registering 112°, and on one occasion in 1870 it was as low as 17°.

KIMBERLEY MINE—MIDDLE STAGE, 1875.

In the winter there is a great difference between the temperature upon the grass and that upon the bare soil. Wagoners are fully aware of this, for when on a cold, frosty night their oxen go astray, they look for them upon roads, or bare patches of ground, as they know where the instinct of the animals will lead them, the oxen appearing intuitively to know that the grass favors radiation and causes intense cold. I have often indeed known the temperature on the grass to be as low as 16°, or even 13°, when the temperature on the bare ground around was above freezing point. Any one living near the diamond mines can relate the scores of cases in which natives during the last ten years have lain down upon the veldt (grass) to sleep away their drunken carousals, and have been found stiff and dead in the morning.

Although “Afric’s sunny fountains” (comparatively few in number, however, on our high plateau) have, in good old Bishop Heber’s beautiful hymn, “rolled down their golden sand,” yet visitors who come out under the belief that pajamas, mosquito nets, and the lightest silken gossamers, etc., are sufficient to keep out the cold, would be astonished to find, as they might do, from time to time, pea-jacketed and ulstered individuals of varying ages heartily enjoying games of snowball under the supposed burning sun.

The dust storms, to which we are liable all the year round, are our greatest trial, sweeping over the country like a very sirocco, burning, blinding and choking up everything in their fury. Occasionally, to change the scene, we have storms of hail, with stones sometimes of extraordinary size, two and two and a half inches in diameter, whilst whirlpools ofttimes sweep and circle round, to relieve the monotony of the landscape.

Yet, notwithstanding these drawbacks, and the great variations in the climate, and putting aside preventible diseases, arising from defective sanitation, and reckless exposure, the climate is on the whole very fairly healthy for Europeans.

In the early days of the Fields the gambling spirit so infatuated many of the diggers, that, not satisfied with the excitement of the day’s luck, or ill-luck in the mine, they would prolong the accidents of fortune far into the night. In my next chapter I will give an account of that period.

CHAPTER VIII.
GAMBLING AT THE DIAMOND FIELDS.—MR. DODD’S ADVICE ON GAMBLING.—SPECULATIVE VALUE OF DIGGING.—THE FIELDS IN THE EARLY DAYS.—GAMBLING HELLS IN 1872.—MR. JONES “AT HOME.”—GOVERNOR SOUTHEY’S PROCLAMATION.—EXODUS TO THE FREE STATE.—RONDO EN COLO.—COLLAPSE.

“Chance, my dear Bob, chance is ten times a more intoxicating liquor than champagne, and, once take to ‘dramming’ with fortune, you may bid a long adieu to sobriety! I do not speak here of the terrible infatuation of play, and the almost utter impossibility of resisting it, but I allude to what is infinitely worse—the certainty of your applying play theories and play tactics to every event and circumstance of real life.”—James Dodd to Robert Doolan, Esq.—Lever.

If Mr. Dodd’s advice upon the subject of play, and his contention as to its worst results be correct, and I think no one can fairly contradict him, how much stronger is the position if the converse of the proposition be taken. The latter was the case, however, in the infancy of the diamond fields. There the daily work was one continual game at hazard with Dame Fortune. The “hard-up” and disconsolate digger of to-day might be Chance’s chosen favorite to-morrow. One blow of the pick, one turn of the shovel, might disclose for him a treasure exceeding his wildest imaginings, the difference between the precarious business of digging for diamonds and gambling at a faro table, in fact, being a moral difference only. Hence that hope which “springs eternal in the human breast” buoyed him up under all difficulties and prevented his ever yielding to absolute despair. But at the same time it tended to weaken the force of his moral character; he was compelled by circumstances to confront, and in a measure calculate upon, the chances, and probabilities of his daily avocations; he had to begin with that state of mind in which Mr. Dodd’s gambler is supposed to finish; and there is little ground, therefore, for surprise that, when turning from labor to leisure, the digger’s favorite recreations should be those of the gamester.

His surroundings, moreover, were depressing in the extreme. Even when mitigated by the company of a “chum,” tent life, upon mere bread and meat, with indifferent coffee, and no rational amusements at command, was not exhilarating. Is it wonderful, therefore, that the gregarious instinct of man should have led the diggers to while away the dreariness of their idle hours at the hotels or gambling saloons? Even of happy England did not Shenstone say:

“Whoe’er has traveled life’s dull round,

Whate’er his stages may have been,

Must sigh to think he still has found

His warmest welcome at an inn?”

And accordingly, in all mining camps, the two great social evils have always been drinking and gambling. The diamond fields were not singular in this respect, for the digger only followed the example of his Australian and Californian brother when he allowed his appetite for drink and his passion for play to run riot. The canteens and gambling saloons supplied the opportunities, and on the principle of “vires acquirit eundo”—reached such dire proportions as to call for legislative interference.

Of the evils of the drink traffic I may speak elsewhere. With regard to the other social evil I may mention that it first took firm hold of the community by the establishment of a saloon under the auspices of two partners, who had discarded the legitimate but slower processes of their ordinary digging operations for the more rapid if less regular method of making a fortune over “the board of green cloth.” There were many others, who all ran the game openly, engaged in this nefarious occupation, but I select these men, as they probably made the largest fortune in their business, if such it may be called, retiring in a few months with £40,000. The games most in vogue at this “hell” were “roulette,” “rouge-et-noir,” “trente-et-quarante” and “faro,” all of which, I must admit, were conducted in a perfectly honorable manner, and the legitimate odds invariably given the players. On the other hand the smaller fry of the hell-keepers descended to very low dodges indeed. One modest young man who kept a roulette table had four “zeros” and a “crown and feather” for himself, with thirty-six numbers for his patrons, whilst he would lay only thirty to one against any individual number, thus securing for himself in any event an advantage of some thirty-three per cent. upon each spin of the table, if luck were in other respects even. Another gentleman (?), by mechanical devices, as actually robbed his patrons as if he had knocked them down and rifled their pockets. This thief had the alternate divisions between the colors on his revolving ribbed wheel of fortune so contrived that he could direct the ball, by a right or left spin, on to such color as might suit his pocket best. I also heard of a still bolder spirit, who, becoming alarmed at the constancy with which one player persisted in backing the number 13, quietly called in the painter’s art to erase the dangerous figure and paint a second 31. He then allowed the player, who must have been strangely short-sighted, to continue backing his favorite number “13” for some nights afterward, no doubt looking upon this man’s infatuation as a certain annuity, before the fraud was discovered. This was “heads I win and tails you lose” with a vengeance for the banker. There were other devices which it is unnecessary for me to refer to here, but which all tended to increase the odds against the players.

Let me give a sketch of one eventful evening in a gambling saloon of the olden days: We approached a corrugated iron building of no great architectural pretensions, from whence came sounds of lively music and the hum of many voices alternating with an almost complete stillness, which was broken only by the ominous croak of the croupier or the reckless oaths of the losers. Upon entering we encountered an individual (technically called a “bonnet”) whose hateful duty it was to tempt men to play by the lavish way in which he staked money which to all appearance was his own, and to seduce the unwary into the meshes of his employer’s net. On this occasion I recollect the proprietor of the hell, no doubt urged on by an ardent thirst for gold, but who, however, was exceedingly anxious to preserve his incognito, passing himself off as an active business agent in claim matters, actually acting as a bonnet at his own “hell;” losing and winning hundreds with the greatest nonchalance. His manner was cheerful in the extreme, and as the night was yet young, the players scanty and the stakes small, he was free to inveigle our humble selves into play.

With a princely air, which ill became his vulgar exterior, he called for champagne, which we declined to drink, preferring to take a modest glass of spirits. He then politely offered other refreshments of a more solid nature, which we also refused, and finally suggested that we should “watch a game.” He declined to receive the payment that we offered, so led by curiosity we turned our attention to the tables, which by this time were surrounded by an eager throng of players. A motley crew they were, indeed. Old men and boys, the inveterate and apparently unmoved gambler and the nervous and manifestly excited tyro; the honest and dishonest, the mean and generous, the cowardly and brave; all classes were there. Some clad in decent clothes, but many in shirt sleeves and rough garb, just as they had come from the mine, had notes of large amounts in their hands, whilst bundles of them protruded from their pockets. Some again had but little money, and staked warily, frequently referring to the state of their finances; others had no funds at all, and simply looked on from sheer infatuation, having nothing, staking nothing, neither winning nor losing, but meddling and advising bystanders as to the best form and chance of play, until significantly warned by an attendant to keep silence. All, however, were beset by the “auri sacra fames,” and flocked like sheep round the croupier’s table, where it was not until after much crushing and grumbling that a new-comer who had evidently some considerable money to sacrifice at Dame Fortune’s shrine was admitted to the charmed circle. He was addressed as Captain H. by surrounding friends, and we watched his play with considerable interest, as despite a calm exterior his anxiety to win was evidently most intense. Play continued with varying success for some time, until his rolls having dwindled away, it seemed that H. had come down to his last £10 note. This he flung on the “red” with a look of sheer despair, and awaited the issue with an agony of expression that was painful to witness. “Red” would have proved his salvation, but alas! once more “black” was in the ascendant, and H. was “played out.” With a muttered oath, but without any words intelligible to the bystanders, he darted outside the saloon into the open. Those absorbed in play merely jeered at his sudden departure; their hearts had become hardened to such scenes, but even to their callous temperaments came a sudden sickening chill as the report of a pistol rang out clearly through the midnight air. Their unspoken thoughts found language as a chance passer-by excitedly rushed in, telling them that Captain H. had shot himself and was lying smothered in blood, dead in the road. It was too true. H. had solved life’s mysteries by one mad act, and had added another name to the long death-roll of fickle Fortune’s victims!

Shortly after this the laws against gambling were altered and rendered much more stringent by a government proclamation signed by Richard Southey and dated, 17th March 1873.

Prior to this, however, and whilst the gambling hells were in full swing, there had been rusting in the legal armory of the government a weapon which surely ought to have been sufficient to deal to some extent with the gambling nuisance. On June 2d, 1872, the government had already recognized the extent and growth of this evil, and with a view of lessening it, I find that the commissioners issued a notice, which was published in the Gazette, prohibiting lotteries and fining offenders twenty-five rix dollars over and above the forfeiture of the property played for, with an alternative of being severely flogged. Tavern keepers and publicans who had broken the act were also forever precluded from holding licenses. This latter notice caused the hell-keepers and their patrons to observe more caution, but it was merely an improvement on the surface, for the former speedily constituted so-called “clubs,” where gambling went on as freely as ever. A notice such as the following

was the next move of the “hell” keepers, and in spite of the government notice aforesaid of June 22d, they managed by means of this subterfuge to carry on their “little game” for a month or two longer, until the proclamation, on the arrival of Governor Southey, appeared in the Gazette on March 17th, 1873, which put an end to this disgraceful state of things.

No sooner had the governmental fiat against gambling gone forth than the sporting fraternity set their brains to work to devise some plan for rendering the new law abortive. The digging camps being close to the Orange Free State border, arrangements were made with the owner of Wessel’s farm, which is some six miles from Du Toit’s Pan, and in the Free State, to continue operations there. This is the locality which afterward became so notorious as a sort of harbor of refuge and base of operations for the illicit diamond trade of Griqualand West. To this rural retreat were transported roulette wheels and other gambling implements, and play was there recommenced, but without much success. Men who might succumb to temptation when it was thrust under their very noses were not weak or wicked enough to make active search for it; so the suburban “hell” died a natural death.

Your professional gamblers are, however, very pertinacious men, and whilst casting about for a new idea they decided to introduce “rondo en colo,” a game which combined the simplicity of “pitch and toss” with a capability for investing an unlimited amount of money. It had the further merit, moreover, of being an absolute certainty for the banker. In the other games which had previously been the fashion there was always a chance, though a tolerably remote one, of breaking the bank, or, at least, of winning greater or less sums from the establishment, but in “rondo en colo” all this was changed. The hawk had been forbidden to prey upon the doves, so he set the latter on to pluck each other, whilst he seized upon the feathers.

The modus operandi was as follows: The banker or croupier, who at this game required little or no capital, having secured the use of a billiard table, seated himself opposite to one of the middle pockets, and spread out upon the table in front of himself a semicircular piece of oil-cloth, upon the edge of which were painted the numbers one to eight, and certain other marks and combinations peculiar to the game. A round stick like a large ruler was provided, by which eight glass balls were propelled in an even line from one of the end pockets to its diagonal opposite at the other end of the table, and the stakes were won or lost according to the manner in which the balls were deposited in or near to the object pocket. One of the bystanders would stake say five pounds on the oil-cloth with a view of betting either on the number of balls that would run into the object pocket, or as to whether that number would be odd or even. If another bystander felt inclined to take up the bet he covered the stakes by placing an equal amount on the billiard cloth opposite to the sum already deposited upon the board. If the money were not covered there was no bet made. When a sufficient number of couples had backed their opinions the balls were rolled to the object pocket, the stakes were awarded according to the event, and last, but not least of all, the stakes were handed over to the winner by the banker, who, however, carefully deducted his five per cent, on the cast.

Of science there was none, the bank was sure to win. In fact if some unfortunate wight had the good fortune to win £100 for say twenty times, and then had ill-luck enough to back a losing event for £100 for twenty times following, the banker’s commissions of five per cent. would have swallowed up an amount exceeding the capital with which he commenced. This combination of safety and simplicity for the banker, however, failed to convince the authorities as to either the fairness or the legality of the game, and accordingly one busy evening when the game was in full blast, a tall, gaunt figure, with eagle eye and Roman nose, well known to all old residents on the Fields at the time, although since dead, suddenly came down upon the gamblers like “a wolf on the fold,” seizing all the money and dispersing the men, taking the proprietor into custody.

Curses both loud and deep greeted this summary proceeding, but it was all of no avail. The law took its course, a prosecution followed, at which divers ingenious arguments were raised for the defence by the late Mr. T. Mortimer Siddall, a most able lawyer, but all to no purpose. The new proclamation was so stringently worded as to preclude all loopholes of escape; every possible legal presumption was evidently to be construed against the accused; and a conviction and the heavy fine of £300 followed. This tolled the death-knell of public gambling at the Diamond Fields.

The prosecution could not, however, stop private gambling, nor in fact is such a desirable result practicable, for since the publication of the new law I have heard of very high play taking place. But though I have since known hundreds and occasionally thousands of pounds to change hands in private houses, the gambling nuisance is no longer flaunted before sober and respectable citizens, or what is of more importance, under the very eyes of those feebly pliant mortals who yield to the slightest solicitations of the gambling ogre.

The class of “wasters” which public gambling bred and fostered were a distinct outrage upon society. How could an honest and industrious but unlucky digger fail to draw invidious comparisons between his own hard lot and the “purple and fine linen” style of life which apparently marked the “rake’s progress” of the professed gambler? Had not some such proclamation been issued, I feel confident that episodes like that related in Bret Harte’s “Outcasts of Poker Flat” might have marked the progress of the fields, though I doubt whether any of the gamblers of that time would have compared very favorably with “John Oakhurst, gentleman.” The legitimate diamond industry afforded ample scope for the most enthusiastic speculator, and there was no need of any adventitious aid to add to the uncertainties of digging life.

In closing this chapter I may just draw attention to the fact that a new scheme, the “totalisator,” inciting and encouraging gambling on the South African race-courses has been introduced (1885). This, though it protects backers of horses from levanting bookmakers, and affords the current and proper odds on each race, ought at once to be stopped.[^[22]] Its very existence proves the truth of the old saying that “one man may steal a horse, while another dare not look in at the stable door.”

I may further relate, in order to show the harm which legalized lotteries do to the moral tone of a community, that at the spring meeting, 1885, of the Griqualand West Turf Club, a thousand pound lottery was so rapidly subscribed that a second was started and filled almost at once, the club receiving 10 per cent. of the winner’s money. At the Capetown autumn meeting in 1886 a somewhat similar lottery was started, when a well-known Kimberley gentleman chanced to draw the favorite, and the news of his luck soon spread. Judge of his surprise on receiving a telegram from the horse’s owner, a supposed honorable man, to the following effect: “My horse sure of a place, will you give a third of prize? Otherwise I shall scratch him.” The Kimberley gentleman did not see his way to accede to this modest request, and preferred, much to the disgust of the too astute owner, to publish his telegram in both the Kimberley and Capetown newspapers. This course of action caused the question of the legality of these race lotteries to be raised in parliament, but the premier’s reply at the time was considered to be vague, and was severely commented upon by the press of the colony.

CHAPTER IX.
O’REILLY’S ACCOUNT OF NIEKERK.—DR. ATHERSTONE AND THE FIRST DIAMOND.—THE RIVER DIGGINGS.—INFLUX OF POPULATION.—THE DRY DIGGINGS.—DISCOVERY OF THE KIMBERLEY MINE.—EARLY DISCOMFORTS OF THE DIGGERS.— PRESENT CONDITION OF KIMBERLEY.

It is already a matter of history how in 1867 the first diamond was discovered in South Africa—not in the bed of a river or in the bowels of the earth, but among the playthings of a Boer’s child in a farm-house near the Orange River in the Hopetown district.

It is curious to note how—to slightly alter Pope—“great events from trivial causes spring.” In the same manner that the discovery of diamonds in Brazil and the opening up of the mines in that country virtually closed the Indian mines, so the diamond mines of Griqualand West have almost put a stop to the Brazilian trade.

There is a certain spice of romance about the story of the finding of the first diamond in South Africa, as told to me by a former patient of mine, Mr. John O’Reilly, who was the principal agent interested in the discovery, and who thus achieved for himself a historic name in connection with the development of South Africa. I took down from his own lips the following graphic account of the finding of this gem, which differs in some particulars from the version that has been frequently given:

KIMBERLEY MINE—PRESENT STAGE, 1886.

“It is nine years ago, you know, Doctor,” he said, “since I first lit upon the diamond which led to the finding and development of this wonderful place. I was trading around as usual, never dreaming of anything particular occurring, when in October, 1867, I outspanned at a farm belonging to a Boer named Niekerk, close to the Orange River. His youngsters, when I came there, were playing with pebbles just like the ‘alleytors and commoners’ beloved by Master Bardell in Pickwick, and their father was standing alongside watching them. Seeing me looking on, he pointed out one stone prettier than the rest in the hand of a little Griqua servant boy who was minding his children, and said: ‘Dars a mooi klippe voor en borst spelt’ (there’s a pretty stone for a woman’s brooch). I had a diamond ring on my finger, and I fancied I could see some resemblance to the cut stone; and taking it from the boy I tried to scratch my initials on the window pane, as I had somewhere seen that this was one of the tests of a diamond. As soon as I found that the stone would cut glass I offered to give Niekerk, if he would allow me to take it away, one-half of what I might get for it, supposing it proved to be a diamond. This he jumped at. I at once inspanned my oxen into my wagon, and went to Hopetown, our trading centre at that time. When I got there I showed it to Solomon, the store-keeper, you must know him, who chaffed me and laughing bet me a dozen of beer that it wasn’t worth anything, and that I must be an utter idiot to bother about such a mare’s nest. From Hopetown I trekked on to Colesberg, where I took another opinion. I asked the resident magistrate this time. He wasn’t sure what it was, but advised me to send it to Capetown. I didn’t care, however, to do that, so I sent it to Grahamstown instead, where Dr. Atherstone lived, who knows all about such things. When I arrived there myself shortly afterward and saw him he said there was no doubt it was a diamond, and a good one too. Dr. Atherstone sent it to Sir Philip Wodehouse, then Governor, who bought it for £500, half of which I gave, as promised, to Niekerk.

“You ask me how Dr. Atherstone found out what it was. Well, I’ll tell you what Dr. Atherstone told me. He said he took the stone round to all the jewelers in Grahamstown, and that their files couldn’t touch it; and this with something about specific gravity I didn’t at that time understand, made him feel certain it was a diamond. The discovery created an enormous sensation? You are right, it did; and if it had not been for that little bit of luck on the Orange River, diamond digging in Africa might still be unknown, and the country would never have made the progress it has.

“When people in the colony began to think that there was a chance of more diamonds being found where this one came from, numerous parties of fortune hunters came up and began to search along the banks of the Orange River, and afterward those of the Vaal. This is the way that the first diggers came here.”

It is now seventeen years ago since Mr. Southey, then colonial secretary, laid the second diamond which had been found, on the table of the House of the Cape assembly, with the prophetic remark: “Gentlemen, this is the rock on which the future success of South Africa will be built.” There is not a man who knows this gentleman but rejoices that he still lives, ripe in years, to see the continued fulfillment of his remarkable prediction.

To cross the Orange River in those days was to go beyond the confines of civilization; but the diamond is a wonderful magnet, and as the news spread a large population of many thousands soon collected. The influx, as time went on, became of the most cosmopolitan character, North, South, East and West adding their quota, gold diggers came from the gulches of California and the creeks of Australia, “Cousin Jacks” from Cornwall, diamond buyers and speculators from London, Paris and Amsterdam, “tinkers, tailors, soldiers, sailors, ploughboys, apothecaries and thieves,” eager at all cost to embrace this chance of sudden wealth. Hardships were endured, money risked, labor spent. Some were lucky, others unlucky. The life on the river, however, is spoken of by the “old hands” as one of happy memory. I should think that thirty different sites were “rushed” by the early diggers on the Vaal,[^[23]] and although Pinel and Klipdrift were the principal, yet the banks of the river for at least seventy miles of its course were more or less prospected and worked. As I will presently show, the river diggings after the discovery of diamonds at Du Toit’s Pan and the other three mines became rapidly deserted, until at the present time there are not more than 400 diggers altogether on the banks. The diggings are all in alluvial soil. No great finds are made. The diggers, however, enjoy a healthy, happy existence, surrounded by the beauties of nature, on the banks of a broad and majestic river, which in the early days bore on its broad bosom a perfect flotilla of ferry boats plying for hire day and night, and which even now, on the birthday of our beloved queen and other public holidays, may be seen in goodly numbers, with “youth at the prow and pleasure at the helm,” a very different form of life from the dust and discomfort of the dry diggings. The returns from these diggings are at present about £50,000 per annum.

While men were busily engaged in scraping away among the pebbles of the Vaal River, prospecting was going on some twenty miles southward. The first dry diggings struck were those of Du Toit’s Pan in the middle of 1870, which were worked chiefly by the Dutch, who at that time never thought of testing the ground to a greater depth than eighteen inches or two feet, and who, when they came upon calcareous tufa, abandoned their operations. Shortly afterward, on the adjoining farm, Bulfontein, and within gunshot range of Du Toit’s Pan, diamonds were found in the very plaster which lined the walls of the homestead. Hearing this, many diggers moved over from Du Toit’s Pan and proved the diamondiferous character of this farm, the returns from which, however, were found not to be equal to those of the former place, while a month or two later another diggings named Old De Beers, and situated about a couple of miles north of Du Toit’s Pan, were also opened up. An occurrence which has proved of absorbing interest to the whole of South Africa took place about this time. In July a young man of the name of Rawstorne, who came up from Colesberg in the Cape Colony, was out shooting, and becoming somewhat weary, rested himself under the shades of a thorn bush, and scratching the ground, from, force of habit and to pass the time away, unearthed a beautiful diamond. Highly elated with his unexpected success, when he returned after his day’s amusement to his friends at Old De Beers, he told them of his luck. Next day, the news having got abroad, the locality was “rushed” and hundreds of claims pegged out. The other diggings very soon became practically deserted. Men packed up their belongings, moved their tents, and sought the “New Rush,” and, almost as if by magic, in the very place where but a few days before deer had been quietly browsing, hundreds of diggers could be seen. This famous “Kopje” is now the Kimberley mine, the richness of which it is impossible to estimate. When this mine was first opened the claims were laid out in an oblong of 30 from north to south and 28 from east to west, making in all upon the original plan 840 claims of 30 feet square (Rhynland measure), giving 961 English square feet to each claim. After the whole of the claims were measured and given out, hundreds of others were marked off and worked. Some were very soon abandoned as worthless, but others equally worthless were worked, the owners for some time hoping that a change for the better would take place, and that they would become remunerative. These extended far into the present site of the township, and much valuable time was lost in testing them.

At the present time out of the 420 claims originally worked 339⅕ only remain, and the holdings by various diggers, which at that time amounted to over 1,100, are now reduced to twenty-two companies and individuals. In the same manner Old De Beers with its 592, Du Toit’s Pan with its 1,417, and Bulfontein with its 799 claims, are represented by 6, 34, and 21 holdings respectively.[^[24]]

No more wretched existence can be imagined than that endured by the early diggers. As I have already mentioned, a malarial fever raged, water was dear and bad, being carted in barrels from adjacent farms, (after even wells were dug it was sold for as much as 10s. per barrel) and so scarce that I have seen diggers wash in soda water which had been imported 700 miles from Capetown. Vegetables were also extremely dear and almost unprocurable, cauliflowers being retailed at 20s. each and cabbages at 8s., fleas and flies abounded, sand-storms blew in blind fury, and of amusements there were none; yet notwithstanding all these drawbacks, sociability ruled throughout the camps, and a helping hand was always thrown out by a lucky digger to assist his less fortunate brother.

Crime was nearly unknown. As I have mentioned elsewhere, the fields were too far inland and the cost of travel too great to induce any not honestly inclined to suffer the privations and incur the expense necessary to get there. Men would leave their tents for hours, even days, and yet find everything intact on their return, such was the quiet and order which reigned through the camp.

DRYING FLOOR FOR BLUE GROUND, CENTRAL COMPANY, KIMBERLEY MINE.

But as time went on, and as transport became easier, cheaper and quicker, the fields became the rendezvous of, I should say, nearly all the light-fingered gentry and desperadoes that Africa contained; and as a consequence instances of illicit diamond buying, robberies and assaults became comparatively numerous, in fact Kimberley became “civilized.”

At the present day churches and chapels, a theatre and library, a municipal council, with a mayor, a properly drilled police force, a well-kept cemetery, the electric light, a race-course and grand stand, public gardens, with tastefully laid out grounds, an admirably arranged and conducted hospital for whites and blacks, a noble court of justice, a comfortably arranged post-office, telegraphic office, and other public buildings, with last, but not least, a large railway station (which for the present is the terminus of the iron way to the interior), are manifestations of the strides which, thanks to the discovery of the diamond, civilization has made in a region which a few short years ago was simply the hunting field of the untutored savage or the nomadic boer. Barkly, which I have already mentioned, Hebron, Likatlong, Boetsap, Douglas and Campbell are the other towns of the territory, though the Langeberg and some other parts are inhabited; but the description of a late writer that “they are poor—are almost waterless—the trading and mission stations occupied as a rule by the most depraved of the human race, things whose language is a curse or a click, whose forms are inferior to those of apes, and whose doom is extinction,” is perhaps a little too severe on the aborigines of this country.

CHAPTER X.
GEOLOGY OF THE MINE AND SURROUNDINGS.—SECTION OF REEF STRATA.—SURFACE SOIL.—CALCAREOUS TUFA.—LIGHT COLORED SHALES.—BLACK CARBONIFEROUS SHALE.—LIMONITE. LANDSLIPS.—BURNING REEF.—SULPHUR VAPORS.—NATIVES AFRAID TO WORK.—COAL PLANTS.—FIRE AND CHOKE-DAMP.—IGNEOUS ROCKS.—CONTRACTION AND EXPANSION OF MINE.—STRATA OF MINE ITSELF.—RED SAND.—TUFA.—YELLOW GROUND.—BLUE GROUND.—RICH AND POOR CLAIMS.—REMARKABLE BOULDERS.—GREASY SLIPS.—MESSRS. MASKELYNE AND FLIGHT’S OBSERVATIONS.

Any work dealing with Kimberley would be incomplete that did not treat of the geology of the mine. For many years I have had the pleasure of an intimate acquaintance with Mr. George J. Lee, who has made the mineralogy of the Kimberley mine his special study, and who has been, as I have already mentioned, in Kimberley since the mine opened. To his kindness I am indebted for most of the information and for the drawings in the two following chapters.

In the first of these I propose to give an account of the geological formation, not only inside, but also as revealed by shafts sunk by the Kimberley mining board and the Central and French companies, outside the mine.

The depth of the lowest working, either within or without the mine, is now about 550 feet, whilst that of the deepest trial shaft is 620 feet.

A section of the strata in the Mining Board shaft, about 700 feet from the north side of the mine, I will now describe, which strata, I may tell my readers, vary very little at any point in the vicinity, so far at least as is shown by the examination of the other shafts.

The surface soil, which has an average depth of six feet, is a bright red ferruginous sand, composed of somewhat fine rounded grains of quartz. Next a thin layer of calcareous tufa is found in some places, but not invariably; then follows a layer of laminated trap or blue whin, evidently an intrusive rock varying in thickness and depth in different localities. This layer, which is of a very decomposed and friable character, runs down diagonally in some parts, in broad sheets through the blue shale. A very even layer of light colored shales, on an average twenty-five feet thick and very soapy to the touch, comes next. These shales are of various colors, as pale bluish white, olive, yellow, gray, etc., and the laminæ are often thickly marked with different designs formed by decomposed iron, probably pyrites. Some of these markings are very delicate and beautiful, often resembling minute ferns or algæ, and in this bed various fossils have been found.

Beneath these we have a vast layer of blackish, or neutral tint, carboniferous shale, containing four or five seams of “iron band” (bog iron ore, or limonite) from one inch to one foot in thickness. The nodules forming these “bands” are very full of cavities, and are of different colors, yellow, red, and blue, with a dull appearance and rather soft. In some specimens the colors are beautifully bright, especially in the cavities. Many fossils have been found in this shale as well at all depths.

Very many nodules of a similar shale, but harder, varying in size from an inch to one or two feet in diameter, are found imbedded in this rock, or “main reef” as the miners term it, in contradistinction to “floating reef,” an erratic rock which will be mentioned when we come to describe the diamondiferous ground. These nodules often assume the forms of casts of shells, such as those of oysters, mussels, etc., and give the idea that the main body of the reef was formed from the grinding down of an older rock, of which these nodules are the remains, an assumption which there is much further internal evidence to show in all probability to be correct.

It may be as well here to mention that all the above shales, after drying by exposure to the air, disintegrate and form a fine friable mould, or even mud after much rain has fallen. This property of becoming friable after exposure is the cause of the frequency of “land slips” falling into the mine. When a fall or slip does take place, the bulk of such mass is usually in very small pieces, not in large solid blocks, which would be the case if the reef were not of a nature so extremely rotten and easily decomposed.

When these shales have been much exposed to the weather and the rain has penetrated to some depth, or when after a fall of rain upon friable reef this is covered up by another slip, a very interesting chemical process is set up, viz.: the decomposition of the iron pyrites which is very plentifully distributed throughout the black shales. This decomposition sets up such an intense combustion that the shale débris becomes red hot. This combustion I have known to last for months, even years, and the sulphurous acid gas evolved to be so plentiful that in damp weather or before and after sunrise it could be seen for many miles. To strangers looking into the mine this “burning reef” is a very startling sight, and many visitors of a superstitious turn of mind have often precipitately left in affright, on being jokingly told by miners when the latter were questioned about the heat, smoke and pungent sulphur smells—that the “Old Gentleman” was trying to break loose, or that they had come so near the “Old Gentleman” that he was now showing his anger. This and similar stories have often sufficed to scare away simple farmers from the place.

On many parts of the reef the surface becomes heated to such an extent that articles placed upon it are almost at once destroyed. Laborers cannot work upon it at all without thick boots, and these even are destroyed in a few hours, while in many cases natives cannot by any inducement be persuaded to go near.

The sudden combustion of coal in ships is caused by the very same agents, moisture and insufficient ventilation. These set up chemical change in the iron pyrites contained in the coal, and thus cause the explosions or fires at sea of which we frequently hear. This process of nature for reducing the iron pyrites is daily being imitated by the smelters in Spain and other countries, in the preliminary process for the reduction of the sulphur in copper ores, or copper pyrites.

Some of the crystals of iron pyrites found in the reef shale are so very beautiful and perfect that they have been set in pins and other ornaments.

After the black shale reef has been ignited by the above chemical means, and has cooled, it is as red as an ordinary clay flower-pot. It may be that the promoters of a brick company that was started here for the purpose of manufacturing bricks from the shales of the Kimberley mine, took their idea from the appearance of the shales when thus burnt by nature. The bricks made from reef, after being pounded and ground by heavy steam machinery, were latterly turned out of a very good quality, but the company collapsed, probably because they could not sell enough bricks to make it pay, as the high price of fuel rendered it necessary to charge £11, 10s. per 1,000, a nearly prohibitive price for ordinary building work.[^[25]]

I may here mention that several narrow streaks of coal varying from an inch up to one of eight inches in thickness, discovered in the French shaft, have been found in the black shale. This coal partakes of the nature both of anthracitic and bituminous coal, the former quality predominating, but I may say, that even if it were found in quantity, it would only be suitable for specially constructed furnaces, as it is very refractory.

No “structure” or organic remains have been discovered in any specimen of coal found in the reef of which I am aware, but many coal plants have been found in the reef itself, and specimens have been deposited in various museums.

Some years ago the olive-colored shales of the reef at the southeast of the mine very frequently cracked, making great fissures at the surface. These often remained open for months and even years, until the whole mass of reef which was thus detached from the main body, gradually slid down to a solid bearing. In doing so, when the moving mass was heavy enough, the pressure upon the particles of rock within the fissure was so great that a fine, smooth and shiny face or a light gray color was made, entering many feet, with streaks or grooves running down, glistening and lustrous, the prismatic colors of which could then be seen for weeks together if viewed from a suitable position. When seen to advantage the sight was really charming, and could never be forgotten by those who had the good fortune to view it. But the first shower of rain would disintegrate the striated face of the rock, and by this means destroy the beautiful play of light described.

In the drives and deep workings in the black shale the miners are troubled both with fire-damp and choke-damp, and many accidents, more or less serious, have occurred therefrom through their ignorance.

The black shale is water bearing, and wells sunk in it to a depth of eighty feet or more yield in most cases a good supply.

I have, I think, for the present done with the sedimentary formations, and come now to the igneous rocks below them.

The first rock under the black shale gone through, as shown in the diagram, is a light gray volcanic rock, three feet thick, with a specific gravity of 2.815. The body of the rock is of a light bluish gray color, and contains beside other minerals nodules of quartz, agates and jasper, from the size of a mustard seed to that of a walnut.

Next is found eight feet of a compact augitic or hornblendic rock, of a deeper gray color and very tough, then a seamy rock resembling basaltic trap, which was only worked to a depth of four feet in the shaft shown in the section, but is of unknown depth, for, since the Mining Board shaft was abandoned, others have been sunk, one by the French company, and another to a depth of 620 feet by the Central company, and they both are still in this same rock.

This rock contains very numerous nodules of quartz (amygdaloidal), some of which are split into flakes, and others completely fractured. Many of these are white in color and semi-opaque; others have a red skin (jasper), with transparent white quartz within, while others are entirely red. There are also many small, dead grain-like nodules of a white color, as well as ribbon and other agates. In some of the deeper portions of this rock are many small fissures, presenting somewhat the appearance of having been caused by shrinkage; these, in most cases, are distinct from each other, and are filled with white crystallized calcite, or carbonate of lime. Some of the layers of this rock vary in color, and a very compact fine-grained specimen of a reddish color contains amongst other minerals rhombic crystallized carbonate of lime, white; very brilliant iron pyrites, and a mineral looking very much like galena, but harder, of a dark steel gray color, very brilliant, and easily separated into small cubes and laminæ. This is probably specular iron ore. Another mineral has also been found in small quantities, running in veins in the stone, which upon the top appears as having been fused and run, like tin or lead. It is sectile, and of the color of pale bell metal. Very many forms of crystallized carbonate of lime, including “dog-tooth” spar of a pale yellow color are found both in the hard and soft reef, and zeolites of various colors and species, bristling upon and within cavities of the rock. The reef as a whole is fairly even all around the mine, but at the southeast it is very much contorted in the upper layers.

The wall formed by the hard rock around the mine is very compact and smooth, and runs inward in some places as much as 30° or 40°, but in others very much less. This naturally causes a cutting out of the claims or a contraction of the mine, but it is said that the blue ground of the Kimberley Central company is now gaining again, and this state of things may also take place with other claims in the Kimberley mine at different depths. (See illustration.)

I think this is a fairly full and accurate description of the geological strata outside of the Kimberley mine. I shall now pass on and give a description of the formation of the interior of the mine.

When the place was first prospected there was little to distinguish it from the surrounding country, but in the eyes of the experts of those days the slightest difference was enough to urge them to seek, “fossick,” or prospect for diamonds, that is to say, scratch or dig up the surface, sieve and sort it, and sink small trial shafts, when if diamonds or good indications were not discovered at a moderate depth, the place was abandoned, and the prospector tried or “fossicked” elsewhere. A digger would pitch upon what appeared to him to be a likely spot, when, if after passing the red sand and the lime or calcareous tufa, he came to shale, he abandoned his “prospect” as useless; but if, on the other hand, after going below the lime he came to “yellow ground,” a substance something like greenish compact wood ashes, he would continue his work for some time, in the full expectation of being rewarded in the end by a good find. But in many cases this desired result was not attained, although the digger had every encouragement to persevere by finding garnets of various kinds, the pyrope garnet, usually called a ruby, especially giving him encouragement to proceed with his work; epidote, pisolites, talc ilmenite, called by the diggers carbon, iron pyrites, ice spar, zircon, and various other minerals; still after all his perseverance, and after finding all these indications, and sinking to a depth very often of twenty or thirty feet, not a single diamond would be found, he would abandon the place, when possibly after a time it would be tried again by other parties of diggers, but with no better result.

The surface, as already stated in the description of the reef, was a red, sandy soil of an almost uniform depth of six feet, followed by a layer of calcareous tufa and one of yellow diamondiferous soil, averaging in thickness sixty-five feet.

In the red sand diamonds were frequently found, especially when it was mixed with nodules of calcareous tufa which had been thrown out by the ant-bear (Myrmecophaga jubata) in making its enormous burrow, but the distribution of the diamonds which were picked up on the surface of a large tract of country was mostly attributed to birds. Coming next to the tufa bed proper, this was of a thickness from two to eight feet, but was not a compact homogeneous mass, but composed of honeycombed nodules and masses impacted together, which required much labor to break out. Some diggers smashed up all the nodules thus broken out with sledge hammers, or the sides of their picks, and sometimes, but very rarely, they were rewarded by finding diamonds.

When the yellow ground was arrived at, which, as already stated, was of an average depth of sixty-five feet, and contained many nodules of calcareous tufa of all sizes, the color was of a pale yellowish green, but when it became dry it was somewhat of the color of bath-brick, very friable, and appeared much like fine wood-ash pressed together. It could be broken up to a fine powder with very little beating either with sticks or shovels. Most of this yellow ground was sorted dry, as washing was not practiced at the dry diggings at that time.

Some few feet, perhaps eight or ten, before the yellow ground joined the blue, a very gradual change of color took place from yellow to a lightish green, then light greenish blue, gradually darkening to blue; but still a line of demarcation of the two kinds of ground could easily be made out.

The top of the blue bed was not a level surface, but full of heavings and billows like a choppy cross sea. From the crest of a rise to the bottom of a hollow was about six feet; and the distance from crest to crest from thirty feet to sixty or more.

At this junction there was found in many instances a thin layer of porous soil holding water in the hollows or wave bottoms. This proved to be merely catch water, as after a short time it was invariably removed in the ordinary course of work, which would not have been the case had it been derived from perennial springs, yet this at the time created considerable alarm. All or most of the water that now finds its way into the mine, is through the main reef.

To turn again to the blue ground, it is mixed with small rounded stones of basalt and small angular fragments of carboniferous shale, as well as with many other minerals which I shall mention further on.

The blue ground is rather hard and tough when wet, but easily broken when it becomes dry, when the same characteristics which the black reef presents here show themselves in pulverizing when again wetted, much after the manner of quicklime, but differing from it in not developing heat. This property is made use of by the miners to release the diamonds.

Miles of country may be seen covered with blue lumps spread out to a thickness of from one to two feet, awaiting rain, or for the purpose of being watered by means of carts and water-hose, after which process it is rolled and harrowed by means similar to those used in dressing ploughed fields. The diggers used to employ gangs of natives to beat and break up this diamondiferous ground with picks and wooden beaters, yet the dusky native found time with eagle eye to watch his chance to steal. In this way it was thought the majority of the largest stones were lost to their rightful owners—but of this in another chapter.

The specific gravity of blue ground from claim No. 132 at about 170 feet from the surface was 2.268, air being 60° Fahr., and barometric pressure 25.83 inches. A cubic foot of wet blue ground would therefore weigh 141.34 lbs. The density varies slightly in different parts of the same claim and in different localities of the same mine.

The greatest depth to which the blue has been worked in the open is 420 feet, and underground by means of shafts and drives about 620 feet. The deepest trial shaft, as I have already stated, is 620 feet, and still no change is found in the character of the ground, except that it is a little denser and harder to work, and in most cases is also richer in diamonds.

It is a curious fact that when a claim was first opened out and found to be rich in diamonds, it generally remained so right down, and in like manner poor claims remained poor.

But bad or poor layers for a time changed this rule, so far as rich claims were concerned, for after some feet had been passed, say ten to thirty feet, a change for the better would invariably take place, so that in the long run a close estimate of what a claim would yield could be made. At the present time claims which were enormously rich at the surface, notably those now forming the Northeast company, were then and are now amongst the richest claims in the mine. I may also note that a belt existed around the mine adjoining the reef, from one-quarter to half a claim in width, which was invariably poor.

Poor surface claims often became changed to rich ones owing to the vicinity of a wall of floating reef, and it was often found that after months, even years, had been spent in working down a claim unprofitably, it would suddenly alter to a payable or probably a rich one, for at a varying depth alongside the floating reef, or after the reef had been removed, I have many a time known a change for the better to take place, and the owner, who had been almost reduced to the verge of bankruptcy, to be soon set upon his legs again.

Some of the claims at the west of the mine never paid the expense of working at the surface, nor even in the yellow ground below, and remain absolutely worthless to this day, although the blue ground has been reached, worked, and tested. About five claims in the very centre of the mine were proverbially poor, vast quantities of erratic boulders being mixed up with, and in some cases almost displacing, the yellow and blue ground. Some of these fragments of rock were of immense size, weighing thousands of tons, and at the same time were so solid that they had to be blasted to pieces. They consisted for the most part of dark and light colored shales, whinstone or basaltic boulders, and large masses of fine-grained micaceous sandstone, containing fragments of coal and remains of a fossil reptile. Much lignite in large stems and branches was also found amongst the boulders and in the blue. When this floating reef was removed, many feet of unprofitable blue had also to be removed before payable ground was reached, but when all the poor ground was taken away, the junction of which with the richer ground was very perceptible by a change of color, the remaining blue did not differ in average return of diamonds from the rich claims surrounding it.

Several remarkable detached boulders were found. One in No. 3 road south, of such a large size that it covered the two claims of a well-known digger named Olsen, Nos. 136 and 166. It was a pudding-stone, its chief constituent being grayish white crystals and fragments of feldspar, transparent and translucent, concreted together with carbonate of lime. This “erratic” contained also nodules of quartz, crystals of iron pyrites, and many small cavities filled with diamondiferous soil of a light brownish gray color.

Again in Nos. 8 and 9 roads south, there was an isolated basaltic boulder, nearly round, of gigantic proportions. It almost filled up claims 432 and 433 in road No. 8, and claims 462 and 463 in road No. 9, and measured in diameter 70 feet, 35 feet in the yellow ground and the same in the blue below. It was much decomposed, and large flakes or layers frequently fell away into neighboring claims, causing many lawsuits. The claim-holders burrowed round this piece of rock as long as they possibly could, but at last they had to face the expense of breaking it up and removing it. The upper portion of this stone in the yellow ground had a yellow, and the lower portion in the blue a blue tint, showing that the same cause which affected the coloring of the diamondiferous ground also affected the imbedded “erratic.”

The floating reef proper in the Kimberley mine extended from the southeast to the northwest; but there was also a large patch of floating reef running north and south in No. 8 road.

The width of this reef varied from five feet to forty feet, and the average depth was about 200 feet. It was formed of a light olive-gray colored laminated shale, with a few rounded stones and angular pieces of basaltic rock, as well as occasional fragments of fine grained sandstone. These walls of shale were for the most part compact and unbroken, with a few straggling pieces of various sizes in the immediate vicinity. This rock was totally different from any forming the walls of the mine, and no similar shale has been recognized to my knowledge in any part of the country.

At the southwest of the mine, in ground at that time belonging to Messrs. Lewis and Marks, there was a large floating reef composed of disintegrated igneous rock, resembling dolerite, which commenced near the main reef, and which jutted out to a distance of 120 feet in a northwesterly direction; this was a different rock from that forming the walls of the mine or any discoverable in the adjacent country.

Veins or seams of crystallized carbonate of lime frequently run through the blue ground in all directions, in sheets more or less broad, and varying in thickness from a mere trace to two or three inches. The calcite is covered with a coating of a grayish white substance, very soapy to the touch, resembling steatite. Some of this lime contained cavities, having a fine deposit of iron pyrites which exhibited the most brilliant iridescence conceivable. One specimen which I saw was so beautiful that it was thought even worthy of presentation to royalty, and the owner gave it to Captain Harrell (formerly Cis-Molappo commissioner) for the purpose, but through some blundering or other it never reached its destination. Eventually, I believe, Captain Harrell, with the consent of the donor, caused it to be deposited in the South Kensington Museum.

When Sir Henry Barkly was here in 1872 this was shown him, and he confessed it to be unique, in his opinion, and the prettiest specimen of the kind he had ever seen.

When a wall or block of blue ground is dressed down and left standing with such a vein—or greasy slip, as it is termed—in it, it becomes highly dangerous, as all above the vein (at times an immense mass) is liable to come down without a moment’s warning.

In 1874 an account of the chemical and optical properties of the yellow and blue ground, and the contained minerals was given in London to the members of one of the learned associations there by Prof. N. Story-Maskelyne, F. R. S., keeper, and the late Dr. W. Flight, assistant, of the mineral department, British Museum, and although rather technical in character will no doubt be interesting to those who would like to make themselves acquainted with the formation of the diamond mines. Extracts from this account will show the nature of the rock commonly but erroneously called the matrix of the diamond, and also furnish a list of minerals found in the samples furnished to the above mentioned scientists. Alluding to the yellow and blue these gentlemen say:

“Ground mass, pulverulent, soapy, light yellowish in the upper, and of an olive-green to bluish gray color in the lower regions of the excavations, is a hydrated bronzite. Through it is disseminated a considerable amount of vermiculite.... In this ground mass fragments of shale and a micaceous looking mineral—sometimes an important constituent.... It is a mineral of the vermiculite group.... Ferriferous eustatite (bronzite), prismatic crystals of a bright green color not infrequent, of the size of canary seeds—colored brilliant green by nickel.... Hornblendic mineral accidental—closely resembling smaragdite garnet. Ilmenite.[^[26]]... Diallage much altered, opaline silica, sometimes resembling hornstone. Calcite. Bronzite, small bright green crystals, with something of an emerald tint, prismatic; angle 87° 20′. Hydrated bronzite; drab (or pale buff tint) much broken up, and cemented by calcite in bar-like forms, resembling feldspar.... Through it is disseminated a considerable amount of vermiculite—vaalite—surface of a fine bluish green like that of clinochlore, giving color to the mass. Hexagonal prisms 60° and 120°, resembling halite. Garnet zircon, brownish white. Hornblende crystals, with the appearance of smaragdite. Grossular garnet. Brilliant little black tourmalines. Smaragdite:—brilliant grayish green fragments of crystal, angle 125° 15′ equal to hornblende type. Olivine, steatite; variety of vermiculite, or a ferriferous eustatite or bronzite. Transparent striated mineral, of fibrous irregular outline, augitic cleavage; pale brown, in some lights a violet tinge. Between the fibres minute bars of brown vaalite, but tolerably free from calcite; occasionally associated with a yellow wax-like substance, probably opal. This striated mineral may be regarded as made up of

“The base of the rock[^[27]] consists of the same ingredients as that described above, the mass of it being the hydrated bronzite. The rock is further very full of fragments of the shale, which has been altered, but still contains carbon; indeed the character of the rock is almost that of a breccia, in which these masses of shale are cemented by hydrated bronzite containing the vaalite and the bright green bronzite, with ilmenite and the other minerals associated with it.... The several minerals composing the rocks, exhibit this undoubtedly once igneous rock in the light of a bronzite rock, converted into a magnesium silicate, which has the chemical character of a hydrated bronzite.... The steatite like magma in which the other minerals and shale fragments are contained may have originated in an augitic mineral, but this is not very probable. The alterations that have ensued from the shattering of the eustatite rock, at a period subsequent to its becoming solidified, having aided in effecting the hydration that has so largely changed it from an eustatite rock into a mixture of eustatite with a hydrated eustatite, a combination which, both in its composition and structure, recalls vividly to the mind the similar mixture of the former mineral with the so-called pseudophite in which it occurs at Zdar, in Moravia.”

From the foregoing description a fair idea may be arrived at of both the formation and appearance of this mine, which may fairly lay claim to be one of the wonders of the world. In the next chapter I will give the principal theories concerning the origin of this mine.

CHAPTER XI.
SOURCE OF DIAMONDIFEROUS SOIL.—EXTRACT FROM MESSRS. BAIN, URE, DANA AND OSBORNE’S GEOLOGICAL THESES.—VARIOUS THEORIES ADVANCED—NONE ENTIRELY SATISFACTORY OR CONCLUSIVE.—THE ORIGIN OF THE PRECIOUS STONE VEILED IN MYSTERY.

The extracts in the previous chapter, taken from the papers of the afore-mentioned mineralogists, show, there can be no doubt, that the diamondiferous soil of the diamond mines of South Africa is, for the most part, the débris of an igneous rock; but little or no idea is given how the mines became filled with the soil. Although I am unable to throw any additional light upon this very difficult subject, I nevertheless am of opinion that this chapter would be incomplete without giving a few more extracts from previous writers. I may mention, however, that scarcely a sufficient number of facts have as yet been gathered to enable geologists to offer any theory of the formation of the diamond mines that will carry conviction with it.

In a report to Col. Charles Warren, acting administrator of Griqualand West, by Mr. T. C. Kitto, a mining engineer who was then visiting the province, and who previously had some experience in Brazil, and which report was published in the local government Gazette of July, 1879, he states: “I shall at once assume the Kimberley mine formation to be the result of earthquakes and volcanic agency. That the De Beers, Du Toit’s Pan, and Bulfontein belong to the same group; that the diamond deposit has been ejected from below, and that the diamonds were formed previous to their final deposition in the crater.”

Another geologist, Mr. Thos. Bain, district inspector P. W. D., “considers the numerous superficial deposits of calcareous tufa are the detritus of the tertiary deposits,” as the following quotation from Silver’s “Hand Book of South Africa” suffices to show: “In reference to the beds of clay-stone porphyry before mentioned, Mr. Bain supposes them to be the products of a vast volcano situated somewhere in the Drakensberg range, whose products spread ruin and desolation over the carboniferous forests for hundreds and thousands of square miles, and were afterward swept away by the action of water, except what yet remains of the débris in those porphyry dykes, and the greenstone tops of the multitudinous hillocks and kopjes in the region toward the north. The elevated plateaus of Hantam, Roggeveldt, Nieuweld and Sneeuwberg form its inland boundaries. This immense desert, as geology tells us, was once a great lake, bordered by an umbrageous flora, whose former existence can only now be attested by the petrified monocotyledons buried in its finely laminated slates, and whose waters were crowded with the numerous adentulous animals or the varied family of dicynodons and other saurian reptiles found in no other part of the globe.”

I give another extract from this admirable guide book of South Africa, as bearing upon this subject: “In the part of Namaqualand called Bushmanland, and which is a vast table-land about 3,000 feet above the sea, are immense deposits of what Mr. Dunn calls glacial conglomerate. These extend westward into the sovereignty (Free State), and in them in a sort of tufaceous limestone deposit seem to occur the diamond deposits which have made that region so famous.”

Dr. Ure, in his “Dictionary of Arts, Mines and Manufactures,” states: “The ground in which diamonds are found in the mines of Brazil is a solid or friable conglomerate, consisting

[Description]

Dr. Ure, in his “Dictionary of Arts, Mines and Manufactures,” states: “The ground in which diamonds are found in the mines of Brazil is a solid or friable conglomerate, consisting chiefly of a ferruginous sand, which incloses fragments of various magnitude of yellow and bluish quartz, of schistose jasper, and grains of gold disseminated with ologist iron ore, all mineral matters different from those that constitute the neighboring mountains. This conglomerate, or species of pudding-stone, almost always superficial, occurs sometimes at a considerable height on the mountainous table-land.”

Dana says: “The original rock in which diamonds are found in Brazil appears to be either a kind of laminated granular quartz called itacolumite, or a ferruginous quartzose conglomerate. The itacolumite occurs in the Urals, and diamonds have been found in it, and it is also abundant in Georgia and North Carolina, where diamonds have also been found, while in India the rock is a quartzose conglomerate.”

The following extract which also bears upon the subject is from a report by Mr. C. F. Osborne, M. E. on the Knysna gold fields, and may prove both interesting and valuable, and this I have taken from a blue book of the Cape parliament of May, 1886:

“The mineral character of the rocks is in some respects peculiar, and they differ much in reality and very much in appearance, from the gold-bearing rocks of Australia or California, and even from those of the Transvaal; and the average Australian digger, judging from appearances merely, would doubtless, at first sight and without trial, pronounce them non-auriferous.... There are several reasons why these rocks present such a difference in appearance from those of the gold-bearing countries I have named. One is that the principal gold-bearing rock here is itacolumite, a rock which does not exist, or is very sparingly developed, in Australia, the Transvaal, and in the greater part of California, but which is abundant and characteristic of the gold regions in Russia.”

I will not dilate upon the above extracts as to the source of the diamondiferous soil, and will pass on to the origin of the diamonds themselves. All authorities state that the diamond is intimately connected with gold and platinum, but I cannot find any record which convinces me of the diamond having been found in the matrix—that is to say, in the rock in which it was originally formed—as all the formation in which the diamond has been found appear to have been the detritus of older rocks, in which it by some means or other had become imbedded during the formation of the newer one.

In “Precious Stones and Metals,” by C. W. King, M. A., which is a very learned and exhaustive work, I find the following: “Pliny remarks that the diamond is the companion of gold, and seems only to be produced in gold itself. He is here correct, although perhaps it may be but by an accidental coincidence; for all the diamond mines, the discovery of which is recorded, have been brought to light in pursuit of alluvial gold washings.”[^[28]] Mr. King proceeds to remark: “The British Museum, amongst the native diamonds, exhibits an octahedral diamond attached to alluvial gold; and, strange confirmation of the ancient idea as to their affinity, not only is the primary crystal of that metal also the octahedron, but also its secondary modifications exactly correspond with those of the diamond. Modern science has made no further advance toward the solution of this problem beyond that propounded as a certainty in the ancient ‘Timæus.’”

The theory of the Oriental philosophers upon this subject is thus elegantly condensed in the tetrastich of Akbar’s poet laureate, Sheik Fizee, which formed the legend on the obverse of his chief gold piece:

“The sun from whom the seven seas obtain pearls,

The black stone from his rays obtains the jewel;

The mine from the correcting influence of his beams obtains gold;

And the gold is ennobled by the impression of Shah Akbar!”

It is interesting to confront the latest modern with this the most ancient explanation of the method pursued by nature in producing the diamond. Prof. Maskelyne remarks: “Of the numerous solutions of this problem one possesses peculiar interest, viz.: that considering diamonds as deposits on the cooling of fused metals (or other substances) surcharged with carbon.... Graphite, boron and silicon are formed on the cooling of aluminium surcharged with these elements; and the same elements—in other respects so closely grouped with carbon—separate in the adamantine form seen under analogous circumstances. The latter are crystallized, indeed, in different systems from the diamond, but they possess many of its characters in a remarkable degree.”

Prof. Maskelyne also observes: “Gold seems in every diamond country to be either the associate or the not distant neighbor of the diamond. In the diamond, splinters of ferruginous quartz have been found. A high antiquity, and an origin perhaps contemporaneous and not improbably connected with the geological distribution of gold in the quartz-veins, may be inferred from these facts.... In Brazil it has been traced to its rock home in the itacolumite (a micaceous quartzose schist often containing talcose minerals, and intersected by quartz-veins) and also in hornblende, also continuous with the itacolumite. But whether these are the parent rocks—or whether they are metamorphic in nature—its origin comes from an earlier state of the materials that have been transmuted by time and the play of chemical and physical forces into itacolumite and hornblende slate, we are not in a position to declare.”

“Until lately the diamond had never been traced to its matrix, but this has now been done, in at least two instances in Brazil.” The writer above quoted says: “The first was in 1839, and the rock which contained it was described by M. P. Chasseau (Bull. de l’Acad. Royale, Bruxelles, viii., 331) as grès psammite, a sort of sandy freestone, the locality being the Serro di Santantonio di Grammagoa.

“The discoverers of the deposit took from it many diamonds, as the rock was soft; but deeper, it became harder, and consequently more difficult to work. As many as 2,000 persons from all parts came to the place; but they dug without order or plan, and, undermining the rock, part of it fell down. They still drew a profit from breaking the fragments and extracting the diamonds. We cannot say how long this was continued. M. Chasseau’s paper was written in 1841, and the deposit in question, as far as we can learn, is only again mentioned by M. Semonosoffin in the ‘Annales des Mines,’ 1842. But we know that in 1855 Mr. T. Redington, a native of Cornwall, was employed by the Vice-President of the Province of Minas Geraes to trace the course and tributaries of the principal river of the diamond district, so as to find the rock from whence the diamond came. Amongst other localities he visited San Joao, about twenty miles north of Diamantina, and here found a vein yielding diamonds, which had for about eight years previously been wrought by the natives. This he began to work, and though the number, size and qualities of the stones found have never been made public, he was still engaged upon it only some few months since, and probably is so at this moment. No doubt these, examples will stimulate others to attempt similar discoveries.”

Says Garcias: “It seems to me quite a miracle how these gems, which might be expected to be produced in the deepest bowels of the earth, and in the space of many years, should on the contrary be generated almost on the surface of the ground, and come to perfection in an interval of two or three years, for in the mines, this year for instance, at a depth of a cubit, you will dig and find diamonds: let two years pass and mining in the same place you will again find diamonds. But it is agreed that the largest are only found under the bottom of the rock.”

It is singular that in the early days of the dry diggings the diggers used in joke to express the very same opinions as I have quoted above, for they often unearthed diamonds coated with a thin, dark mineral crust, which disguised merely the shape of the diamond, not the color and lustre. Many diamonds were lost through this. After some months, exposure, or the attrition caused in again disturbing the soil in which they had been lying, the whole or part of the coating was so rubbed off that the diamond and its lustre became exposed to the digger’s delighted gaze. Most probably the idea of the ancients, as to the growth of diamonds, originated in the same or a closely similar manner.

Dana says: “The origin of the diamond has been a subject of speculation, and it is the prevalent opinion that the carbon, like that of coal, is of vegetable origin. Some crystals have been found with black uncrystallized particles or seams within, looking like coal, and this fact has been supposed to prove their vegetable origin.”

I take the following “New facts concerning the Diamond” from the Quarterly Journal of Science, Oct. 1873:

[Description]

“Whilst our knowledge of the modes of formation of other gems is so rapidly advancing that the time does not seem to be very distant when the chemist in his laboratory will be able to produce them artificially if not in large at all events in microscopic crystals—the origin and mode of formation of the diamond is shrouded in apparently inexplicable mystery. It is even undecided whether the diamond is of igneous or vegetable origin, whether its nature is mineral or organic. Some diamonds appear to have been soft, as they are superficially impressed by sand and crystals; others contain crystals of other minerals, germs of plants, and fragments of vegetation. Professor Goppert has a diamond containing dendrites, such as occurs on minerals of aqueous origin, and there is at Berlin a diamond which contains bodies resembling protococcus pluvialis, and another containing green corpuscles linked together, closely resembling polinogtœa macrococca. (Palmoglœa Micrographic Dictionary.) Sir John Herschel quotes the case of a Bahia diamond mentioned by Harting, which contained well-formed filaments of iron pyrites. Messrs. Sorby and Baker have shown that the diamond may contain cavities entirely or partially filled with a liquid, probably condensed carbonic acid, and that the black specks in diamonds are really crystals which are sometimes surrounded by contraction cracks, a black cross appearing under polarised light. Sir David Brewster has likewise pointed out that the diamond possesses strata of different reflective powers. M. Damour states that diamonds sometimes contain spangles of gold in their cavities.... When shielded from contact with the air, the diamond may be exposed to the highest temperature of our furnaces without undergoing alteration, at least in the case of the colorless diamond; of colored diamonds more will be said hereafter.... A crystal of diamond, inclosed in a piece of dense coke and placed in a plumbago crucible packed with charcoal powder, was heated for half an hour in one of Siemens’ regenerative furnaces to the temperature at which cast-iron melts, without undergoing any change whatever. Another diamond, a cut (rose) diamond, which was inclosed in a crucible as before and heated for ten minutes in the furnace to a temperature at which wrought-iron melts, retained its form and the smoothness of its facets but became quite black and opaque, and exhibited a strong metallic lustre. The black portion formed a distinct layer of the thickness of a hair covering the unaltered substance within. These results confirm those of Schrötter, and appear to justify the view that diamond, though it undergoes no change when exposed to the greatest heat of a porcelain furnace or that at which cast-iron melts, is slowly converted at the temperature of molten wrought-iron into graphite. G. Rose states that some of the specimens of diamond in the Berlin collection appear quite black by reflected, though translucent by transmitted light, and that this black substance lying in the little irregularities of the surface is found by its behavior in fused nitre to be graphite. The relative ease with which graphite and diamond burn was determined by exposing them to the same temperature for the same time, when the following amounts of the three specimens were consumed:

“In a superb cut diamond weighing between six and seven carats, the brilliancy of the stone was decidedly increased after the operation. The loss of brilliancy observed by Mr. Schrötter is a proof, in M. Baumhauer’s opinion, that notwithstanding the precautions employed, the diamond had come in contact with the oxygen of the air, or else that at so elevated a temperature a reducing action had been effected upon the magnesia (in which the diamond had been packed) by the diamond, which had then been superficially burnt by the oxygen of that earth.

A diamond which presented to the naked eye an appearance of dirty green was treated in a similar manner; examination with a lens showed that the color did not extend to the entire stone, but was confined to small portions, which formed small green clouds in the centre of the mass. After heating to a white heat in hydrogen, the brilliancy of the surface remained as before; the transparency was rather increased than diminished, but the green hue was transformed into pale yellow. Another small diamond, of so dark a green as to approach black, and almost opaque, assumed a violet hue, retaining, however, its brilliancy, and becoming more translucid. A small cubic diamond of light green color preserved its brilliancy and transparency intact, but lost its color completely. No difference in its weight before and after the operation could be perceived.

“Brown diamonds lose most of their color when heated to whiteness in hydrogen; they generally assume a grayish tint, and in all cases the shade is much lighter, and on examination with a lens they appear limpid, with black spots. Diamonds with a yellow tint, such as Cape diamonds almost invariably are, scarcely lose any portion of their natural color.... Several experiments were made by von Baumhauer, in concert with M. Daniels, upon gray diamonds, in the hope that the effect of heat would, by removing their color, add to their value; but, unfortunately, the desired result was not achieved, as the diamonds presented after treatment the same grayish appearance as before. Very different results are obtained when, instead of heating the diamond in an atmosphere of hydrogen, it is heated in contact with the air. It is unnecessary to employ a white heat, or to subject the diamond to it for so long a time, in order to render it dull, and consequently opaque; this being the result of positive combustion, which is proved by its loss of weight after the operation.

“This combustion is, however, quite superficial, as shown by M. Daniels, who found that when repolished the diamond recovered completely its transparency and its water; it was, moreover, remarked by Mr. G. Rose that if the diamond which had become dull was moistened with essence of turpentine, it reassumed its transparency and retained it so long as its surface continued moist. The diamond may also be heated in an atmosphere of oxygen.... In this case the stone obtains a vivid state of incandescence, and burns with a dazzling flame long before the platinum crucible has attained a reddish white heat. In most cases after the lamp has been withdrawn and the crucible is no longer red hot, the diamond continues to burn for some time, and presents the appearance of vivid light upon a dark ground. When the diamond is very small combustion may even continue until it is entirely consumed, and it is then seen to dart a more vivid flame at the last moment, like a burning match, the instant previous to extinction. When the stone is of considerable size the heat produced by combustion is insufficient to maintain it after the removal of the lamp, and it ceases in a few moments, notwithstanding the oxygen which continues to flow into the crucible. Although this last experiment has been repeated several times by these experimentalists, no other result has been observed than tranquil combustion of the diamond; such phenomena as turning black, transformation into coke, change of the state of aggregation, bubbling up, melting or softening, rounding of corners and angles, were in no case presented to our notice. Once only in experimenting upon an opaque grayish diamond, a few sparks were emitted, but these were evidently due to the presence of some foreign elements incorporated with the whole. Neither did the diamonds burst or split, save in one case, where such was foreseen by M. Daniels: a stone evidently composed of two diamonds joined together, upon the first application of heat broke with considerable violence into two fragments, each constituting a decided crystal.... All that took place in the crucible could be distinctly seen through the sheet of mica, and thus ample evidence was obtained that the diamond, while in a state of combustion, is surrounded by a small flame, the exterior envelope of which is a violet-blue, similar to that produced by oxide of carbon in a state of combustion.

“This is especially the case when the diamond is rather large, when the lamp has been withdrawn and the platinum has ceased to glow; the diamond is then seen upon the black ground of the crucible, brilliant with vivid white light, and surrounded by a zone or aureole somewhat less bright, its exterior edge being a blue-violet color. Some highly interesting microscopic observations relative to the dull surface of diamonds which have undergone partial combustion have been communicated by Mr. G. Rose; he has discovered on them regular triangular markings that resemble those occurring in abundance on the fine crystals from the Vaal River, and recall the faces formed on planes of crystals, soluble in acid, by the slow and imperfect etching action of such a re-agent, as, for example, the action of hydrogen chloride on calcite. Like them these depressions on the diamond bear an exact relation to its crystalline form, and are determined by certain definite faces, their sides being parallel to the edges of the octahedral faces of the crystal. Measurement with the goniometer shows them to belong to the icositetrahedron, the faces of which have not been met with on diamond. These symmetrically shaped pits can easily be seen by heating a thin plate of boart in a blow-pipe flame and examining it under the microscope.

“By prolonged heating several small triangular pits will often merge into one large one. A crystal of diamond, even when so reduced in size by oxidation as to be only visible with difficulty, continues to exhibit sharp edges and angles. A dodecahedron, with very rounded faces but smooth and brilliant surface, also exhibited the triangular pits often very distinctly; moreover, it had a brown color, which was not destroyed by heat, and must therefore be of a totally different nature from that of the topaz or smoky quartz.”

The above copious extracts by no means exhaust the very interesting and valuable particulars to be found in the article, and I would advise all interested in the matter to purchase this issue of the magazine, if still in print, and read for themselves.

It is a well-known fact that river diamonds and the diamonds of each mine are quite distinct in character from each other. The Old De Beer’s stones are much more like those of the river than are those of Kimberley. An experienced buyer can tell at a glance in most cases where a diamond was found, and many buyers, diggers and other experts have on oath expressed their conviction as to the source of certain stones before courts of law.

There are no rents or large fissures in the hard containing rocks of the Kimberley mine, but the joints and bedding remain undisturbed, thus showing that earthquakes have not acted upon them, at least to any appreciable extent.

There can be little doubt but that the pits or craters were formed by volcanic agency, but it does not follow that the contents thereof were thrown up at one and the same time, nor indeed that the present contents were derived from the craters at all. After denudation had taken place, calcareous tufa was deposited from the waters, and then the ferruginous red sand. It does not appear probable, as suggested by Mr. Kitto, that “the diamond was formed by a rock being crushed between other rocks previously to its being brought to the surface by volcanic agency,” as the rock would thus be merely broken into small fragments, whereas it is in the form of an impalpable powder, intimately mixed with boulders, nodules and crystals of foreign rocks.

[Description]

[Pl. III.]

Had diamonds been formed in this rock, and the rock crushed, the brittle diamond would not, in my opinion, have escaped being also crushed. It seems a more feasible theory that the rock when first elevated was in a heated state, and brought into contact with water then covering the land, and the sudden cooling caused its sudden disintegration, and that the diamonds and other materials foreign to it got mixed with it subsequently. However, in either case, the diamonds and other materials contained therein would still have to be accounted for, and it does not appear probable that these should have all been formed with or within one single rock, or that they are all of the same period and were elevated at one and the same time.

If diamonds were formed by heat, it was not in the Kimberley mine, as the shale walls and the agglomerate within the mine show no signs of having there been subjected to any great heat; on the contrary, water and air seem to have been here the active agents.

From the foregoing extracts it will be seen that no theory as to the formation of the diamond hitherto advanced is completely, if at all satisfactory, and the mystery, if penetrable, must be left to the geologist of the future.

GEOLOGY, FOSSILS, Etc.
DESCRIPTION OF PLATES.

[PLATE I.]

Fig. 1. Scale ¹⁄₆₀ inch to the foot. This represents a section of a shaft sunk by the Kimberley Mining Board, at the N. E. of and about 700 feet from the then margin of the mine. The section was taken by Mr. Geo. Jas. Lee, a gentleman who was at one time chairman of the mining board, and who, when it finally decided to abandon the shaft named in 1878, took the section of which the accompanying diagram or illustration gives an accurate representation.

The dip of the strata is about 2°.5 N. N. W.

(a) Represents a heap of diamondiferous débris from the yellow ground of the mine, 14 feet in depth.

(b) Surface red sand, 6 feet thick. There was no calcareous tufa underlying the red sand here, as is usually the case within the mine proper and its immediate vicinity.

(c) Jointed trap, or blue whin, 15 feet.

(d) Light colored shales; bluish white, olive yellow, gray, etc., 25 feet. This layer, surrounding and joining the mine, is 50 feet thick, and contains many fossils, some of which are shown in the following plates.

(e) Black, or bluish black carboniferous shale, containing four or five “iron bands,” or limonite (marked f), from 1 inch to 1 foot thick. This layer is 225 feet thick, and in addition to many fossils also contains numerous flat-rounded pieces of black shale, of a harder nature than the body of the reef, and generally with a septum dividing the nodules. Water has evidently worn the masses down on each side of this hard division, often giving them the appearance of oyster, mussel and other shells, also of fish and other forms. One such stone amongst many (marked with an arrow) was found just above the hard rock, which here commences.

(g) A trachyitic breccia of specific gravity 2.815. This is of a very tough, horny nature, and of a pale bluish gray color, sprinkled with small particles, both angular and round, of a darker color (3 feet).

(h) Compact augitic, or hornblendic, very tough (8 feet).

(i) Seamy do. do., closely resembling basaltic trap, 4 feet worked, but of unknown depth. The total depth of the working represented in the diagram is 300 feet, and was the deepest working in the Kimberley mine at the time that it was abandoned.[^[29]]

Fig. 2. This represents a diagrammatic section of the interior of the Kimberley mine, from the surface to a depth of about 300 feet, and made up as follows:

(a) Grass, etc.

(b) Red sand as in Fig. 1, 6 feet.

(c) Calcareous tufa, 6 feet.

(d) Yellow diamondiferous ground, 25 feet. At the junction of the “yellow” and “blue” the change of color previously alluded to is shown, and also the porous layer with water oozing from it, and trickling down the “face” of the claim.

(e) “Blue ground” with various “greasy seams;”

(f) and boulders.

[PLATE II.]

Fig. 1. Hind feet and portion of the vertebræ of a fossil Dicynodont reptile (Owen), natural size. Found by Capt. Jas. Scott Helps, in the white shale in a cutting 50 feet deep, at the east of Kimberley mine, facing claim .018, and 40 feet back from the margin of the mine, measuring from the surface.

The above was drawn by Mr. Geo. Jas. Lee, in Jan. 1878, soon after it was found. The above specimen, together with three others, were presented by Mr. Geo. Jas. Lee to the trustees of the British Museum, and were, I believe, submitted to Professor Owen, who has now for some years past been engaged preparing a monogram upon the Dicynodonts. From the Photographic News of Oct. 16th, 1885, I take the following: “The British Association meeting at Aberdeen. In the Geological section, Dr. R. H. Fraquair described a new and very remarkable reptile, lately found in the Elgin sandstone, entirely from a photograph of the specimen submitted to him by Professor Judd. He was able to assign the creature to the genus Dicynodon, which characterizes similar sandstones in South Africa.” There are no sandstones, however, near the Kimberley mine, but the casts of Dicynodons have been found both within and without the mine, and also in fragments of white shale upon the surface of the ground a few hundred yards away from the mine. In Mr. Ralph Tate’s “Historical Geology,” the following passage occurs:— “Reptiliferous Sandstones of Morayshire: Geologists have maintained, on stratigraphical grounds, that the Reptiliferous Sandstones are of the age of the Old Red Sandstone; but the intervention of a conglomerate implies a stratigraphical break, and a lapse of time of indefinite extent; and the paleontological evidence favors the supposition that these sandstones are of Triassic age.” In the light colored shales to which I allude, and nearly in the same place, a fragment of a fossil fish (Palæoniscus) of Triassic age was found, and was presented to the British Museum. I may here repeat a passage from Mr. W. S. Dowel’s paper, already quoted in this chapter: “Professor Liversidge describes the geological formation of the district (Bingera, 350 miles north of Sydney, Australia) as being of the Devonian or Carboniferous age, but when making a visit in 1873 he was unable, in consequence of want of time, and wet weather, to secure fossils in order to verify his opinion. Since then Mr. Donald Porter and others have discovered fossils and indications that clearly go to show that the professor was correct in the opinions he had formed respecting the nature of the geological stratification and the age to which it belonged.”

Fig. 2. Portion of a fossil leaf, natural size, found by Mr. Geo. Jas. Lee on Oct. 13th, 1880, in the white shale from the Kimberley mine, at a depth of about 50 feet, facing road 9, south. Length (as restored), 2¹⁄₂₀ inches; apex (restored), ¹⁷⁄₄₀ inch; width (entire), 1¼ inches.

I must leave it for fossil botanists to determine the name of this leaf, but should it turn out to be identical with Heer’s “Populus primæva” (which I believe it to be), “from the Urgonian Pattorfick, Greenland, described twelve years ago (1875) and still remains (in 1885) the sole representative of this sub-class in any formation below the cenomanian and the most ancient dicotyledon known.” It is a very valuable specimen, and almost unique, and must be a source of great satisfaction to the fortunate finder, as well as geologists in general. Unfortunately at this time I have no books of reference upon this subject by me, nor have I seen a report of Heer’s discovery, therefore I must leave the classification of the above leaf entirely in the hands of experts in fossil botany.

A photograph of the impression of the leaf has also been taken, of which Fig. 3 is a copy. An impression of the upper and under surface of the leaf was found to have been very perfectly preserved as a hollow mould when the block of shale containing it was split in halves.

[PLATE III.]

Fig. 1. This is a photograph of a portion of the stem of a Sigillaria, found in a fragment of black, or carboniferous shale, in the centre of the north margin of the Kimberley mine, at a depth of about 100 feet. This probably is a new, or at all events a hitherto undescribed species.

Other very perfect casts of Sigillariæ, as well as of Lepidodendra, have also been found in the black shale. In the same shale, and about the same locality, an imprint of a species of large reptile was found, probably of the order Crocodilia. The imprint was very perfect, and many feet in length, but unfortunately the native workmen then engaged in throwing down this “reef” had thrown down to the bottom of the mine every vestige of the fossil, before a friend of the writer requested Mr. William McHardy (then and now manager of the Central company) to procure a specimen for him. Mr. McHardy saw this cast himself and informed my friend of the find, and at his request (my friend’s) he at once returned to save it, but unfortunately not a vestige of it was to be found, the natives having thrown a vast quantity of reef down, so that the proverbial needle in the bottle of hay was easily discernible in comparison with my friend’s fossil cayman. Other interesting fossils have been found in these shales, and have been deposited by their owners in various museums in Europe and America.

This concludes an account of all the fossils in the shales of which I can give any authenticated delineation, but I may mention that dendrites are very common in the light shales, caused by iron stains, mostly of a dark red color. I have already stated in the body of the chapter relating to the Kimberley mine that coal, from a mere trace in thickness to eight or ten inches, has been found in the black shales surrounding the mine.

From the above-mentioned facts, I am inclined to believe that the exposed strata of the Kimberley mine extends from below the carboniferous in the primary rocks to the triassic in the secondary rocks, of course excluding the tufa and red sand, which would be much more recent, and from which I have not heard of any fossils being found.

[PLATE IV.]

Fig. 1. This shows a transverse section of a fragment of lignite found in the Kimberley mine, in Claim 165, at a depth of 140 feet, and embedded in “blue ground” or diamondiferous soil. Color, jet black.

a.a. Junction of two annual layers, or rings.

b.b. Fissure through medullary ray.

c.c. Portion of medullary ray.

Average of internal diameter of tubes, ¹⁄₁₀₀₀ inch.

Internal diameter of large tube, ¹⁄₈₀₀ inch. Number of layers from outside to centre of stem from which the section was taken, 48; and the remains of the bark still adhering to the specimen, ¼ inch thick. The above was drawn on Sept. 18th, 1877, by Mr. Geo. Jas. Lee, F. R. Met. Soc.; F. R. M. S., with the aid of neutral tint glass, 10 inches from the paper, and with ½ inch object glass, and A, eye piece, and magnified 121½ times, but here reduced to about 82.6 times.

The hardness of the lignite found in the Kimberley mine varies from that of soft charcoal to that of calcite, with which mineral it is mostly impregnated; the deepest being the hardest on account of containing more lime, and having undergone a greater change. It has been found in various parts of the mine, and at different depths. It has been also found in all the other mines, and in several instances large portions of stems, branches and roots were discovered. A specimen from De Beers mine was as hard as flint, but still retained its black color. In a specimen of a supposed root from De Beers mine the cells were square, instead of being circular, as in the figure.

I may here observe that “fossilized wood,” looking much like chalcedony or agate, is plentiful all over South Africa, and in the “Bush” (forest) of the Boston saw-mills, in Natal, not far from the river Umkomaas, inland to the north of Pietermaritzburg, whole stems of gigantic fossilized trees are to be found—and of the hardness of silex lying upon the ground. So far as I am aware the whole of such specimens are identical with the lignite of the Kimberley mine, thus tending to show that at one time this vast continent was/covered with forests of gigantic pine trees. The question at once arises, what has become of those forests? Have they been turned into coal in the place where they grew? or have they been washed into an ancient ocean and thus transported to some distant place? I think the answer must be that the greater portion have been washed away, and the remainder, the extent of which it is impossible to estimate, turned into coal and silicated wood, in, or nearly in situ. Fossil botanists will notice with interest the absence of distortion in the cells in the section delineated above, as evincing the fact that they have not been submitted to any great pressure.

Many of the specimens when found exhibited very evident signs of having been much rolled about and water worn, by their rounded ends, and the absence of attached branches, twigs, bark fruit and leaves, none of which have been found but the stems, larger branches and roots, with the exception of a portion of bark on the piece of the stem from which the above section was taken.

I must here draw the attention of my scientific readers to the great similarity to the section here depicted, and to a similar section of Greenland coal, as figured in the “Micrographic Dictionary,” 3d edition, 1875. The only apparent difference is in the slight distortion of the cells in the coal from Greenland.

[Description]

Fig. 2. This shows a vertical radial section of the same lignite as that of Fig. 1, and drawn upon a slightly smaller scale, and by the same means, by Mr. Lee.

Diameter of pits or glands, rather less than ¹⁄₁₀₀₀ an inch, or ¹¹⁄₁₂ of ¹⁄₁₀₀₀ = .000916 of an inch.

Centre bright spot of gland ⅔ less than the gland.

The above section shows a single and double row of glands, by means of which Mr. W. Carruthers classifies this lignite as being derived from recent pines. (For Mr. Carruthers’ report and that of other authorities of the British Museum, see end of this section.) I may here state that I have seen many very beautiful sections of coal made by Mr. G. J. Lee, obtained by him from various parts of the Cape Colony and the Free State, and they all more or less show the single and double row of pit arrangement, the only difference being that the pits or glands are much smaller, as are also the tubes.

Vertical tangental sections are also the same as in the lignite, which exhibit the usual characteristics of sections of pine, in showing the usual reticulated and oval resin cells. In some sections the open network of the cells is very beautifully preserved.

The general reader would hardly thank me for further geological disquisitions, which I therefore abandon, though with a certain amount of reluctance.

Fig. 3. Remains of a shell, natural size, found by Mr. Hugh Cowan, in February, 1878, in his claim 163, imbedded in solid “blue ground,” 205 feet deep.

The color of the body of the shell is pale lavender, with white convolutions. Drawn by Mr. Lee, and presented by him to the British Museum.

It will be noticed that the above specimen was much broken and water worn. The outside of the shell was highly polished, and the broken edges much rounded.

Fig. 4. These are representations of the natural size of two bivalve shells, drawn by Mr. G. J. Lee, and found by Mr. James Beningfield in his claims 150 and 377 in the Kimberley mine.

These shells were of an olive-green color, and imbedded in fine clay sandstone. They were given by Mr. Beningfield to Mr. Lee, who presented them to the British Museum, the receipt of which was never acknowledged by the Museum authorities. I therefore fear that they have been lost.

I am not aware whether the above are marine or fresh-water shells. Several other specimens of shells have been found by Mr. James Beningfield, who has unfortunately mislaid or lost them, and I have heard of other diggers having also found specimens, but I have not had the good fortune to see them. The above were evidently found in “erratics,” but that found by Mr. Cowan was undoubtedly found in the solid diamondiferous ground.

EXTRACTS FROM GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE.

“Fossils from the Diamond Field, South Africa.—Mr. George J. Lee, of Kimberley, Griqualand West, has forwarded through His Excellency, Colonel Lanyon, the Governor of the colony, to Sir Joseph D. Hooker, C. B., for presentation to the British Museum, part of a carbonized[^[30]] branch of a coniferous tree, found 195 feet below the surface in claim 196; a fragment of a fossil fish (palæoniscus) of Triassic age; and four casts of portions of the vertebral columns and ribs, and a foot of a small dicynodont reptile, preserved as hollow moulds, in finely laminated and friable shale. Also numerous pyritised bodies, possibly replacing some organism. The reptilian remains have been submitted to Professor Owen, C.B., who will notice them more fully hereafter. The fossil wood will be examined by Mr. W. Carruthers, F. R. S.—Geological Magazine, April number, p. 192, Decade II., Vol. VI., 1879.”

NOTE ON MR. G. J. LEE’S SPECIMENS OF FOSSIL WOOD FROM GRIQUALAND.

“Sir: The lignite from Kimberley mine, claim 196, consists of stems or branches converted into a brittle lignite, which still preserves the original size and form of the stems, and exhibits the internal structure peculiar to coniferæ. The wood cells have a single series of discs, as in the wood of the recent pines.

“The specimens from Kimberley mine, claim 165, are more altered, and approach the condition of our Paleozoic coal. The small portions which show structure (mother coal) consist of fragments of coniferous wood, exhibiting the disciferous wood tissue with the discs in single rows. The slides from the coal of Heilbron, Vaal River, Free State, consist of wood cells, with discs in single or double and opposite rows, as in the recent pines.

“W. Carruthers,

“Botanical Department, British Museum.”—Geological Magazine, 1879, June number, p. 286.

Note.—The Paleozoic coal mentioned above was found imbedded in sandstone similar to that of the shells.

CHAPTER XII.
THE PROCESS OF DIAMOND MINING FROM START TO DATE.—THE “LONG TOM.”—THE “CRADLE” AND THE “BABY.”—THE SORTING TABLE AND SCRAPERS.—VAN DOUSSA’S INVENTION. THE SCENE IN THE KIMBERLEY MINE.—THE ROAD’S “STAGES.” “WHIMS” AND “WHIPS.”—THE ROTARY WASHING MACHINE. THE CYLINDERS AND THE ELEVATORS.—SINGULAR MISTAKES. STATISTICS OF LABOR EMPLOYED.—STEAM POWER.—FUEL.—THE KIMBERLEY WATER-WORKS.

Very shortly after the discovery of diamonds on the banks of the Vaal River the diggers set themselves to solve the important question: How shall we win a maximum of diamonds with a minimum of labor? Sorting without mechanical appliances of any kind was indeed a weary and heart-sickening toil, especially when, as not very rarely happened, weeks elapsed without a single diamond being found to reward the digger for his almost ceaseless labor. Only the hope that “springs eternal in the human breast” enabled the searcher after precious stones to endure it; and so it was not long before inventions, which ingenuity brought to bear upon the object of answering the question above propounded, came into general use.

DIAMOND WASHING MACHINE.

First of all came the “Long Tom,” a trough fitted with ripples, into the head of which the gravel was thrown, and through which a constant flow of water drawn from the river was maintained, while the gravel was raked and the larger stones and pebbles removed, the fine gravel found behind the ripples being taken away to the sorting tables. To this contrivance succeeded the “cradle,” a wooden box placed upon rockers and pulsated upon a flat piece of ground or rock by means of a handle. The cradle contained three sieves, the first very coarse and the third extremely fine. Into the first the mud and gravel were poured, a constant flow of water being of course kept up. When the mud had disappeared the first sieve was hand-sorted, and loud indeed were the shouts of acclamation and universal was the adjournment to the nearest liquor tent when a diamond was found in this receptacle. The contents of sieves Nos. 2 and 3 were then emptied on different ends of the sorting table.

Both these appliances were introduced by old gold diggers, and were similar in construction to their Californian and Australian namesakes.

Third in order came the “baby,” so-called from its inventor, a Mr. Babe, an American. Three screens, somewhat similar to those used by bricklayers in making mortar, were suspended by reins (leather thongs) almost horizontally to four posts, and were kept in agitation by hand, the reins of course giving full play for “pulsation.” The subsequent process was nearly identical with that above described in connection with the cradle, which this machine indeed resembled in principle, though a decided improvement, as much more work could be accomplished with the aid of this invention than with the assistance of its predecessor.

Fourth in order came the “cylinder,” constructed of either wire sieving (10 inch mesh) or punched sheet iron fitted with lids, revolving on an axle, kept moving by a handle immersed in a tub of water. The gravel before being shut up in a cylinder was screened. This was found to be an excellent contrivance for saving labor, and was highly popular, as obviously the natives could have no opportunity of purloining diamonds from it, as it was only opened for the pouring out of the contents under the digger’s personal supervision, or perchance the observing eye of the partner of his joys and sorrows. It is perhaps unnecessary to add that after these machines had come into general use, many, especially the impecunious diggers, amongst whom were many Dutchmen, with overwhelmingly large families, did as best they could with a single sieve, which served as pulsator and everything beside. To-day even, many use this primitive appliance at the river.

Before passing on to the Dry Diggings and the systems that there prevailed, it may be as well to briefly describe the “sorting table.” The top of a packing-case balanced on a heap of gravel often had to serve this purpose in the early days of the river diggings, and beside it the digger knelt, crouched or sat, changing his position when it became too wearisome. The more affluent had a sorting table supported by legs, and covered with a sheet of iron, being slightly inclined from the digger, so that the water might not flow into his lap when the gravel was poured out in front of him. Those of my readers who visited the Cape court in the “Colinderies” have seen a sorting table almost if not quite identical with the best constructed of the early days. The “scraper,” too, which, though small in size and inexpensive in material, is yet an important instrument in diamond winning, has but little altered. This little wonder is not much to look at, being simply a piece of tin or iron about six to nine inches in width and three to four inches in height, with a straight edge and pointed ends. With this the sorter scrapes—scrapes—scrapes, pushing over the edge of his sorting table, garnets, jaspers, carbons, agates, pyrites, crystals and pebbles, which, however interesting to the scientist, are commercially valueless, until at last a diamond is found, and then the precious stone, large or small, is dropped into an unpretentious tin or perhaps a broken bottle, and the process goes on as before.

At the dry diggings sieving and hand-sorting were at first the usual methods employed, and it was long before even so much ingenuity as was required to construct an improved or altered cradle was brought into play. The processes named, however, being so wearisome and exhausting, they were at last abandoned; and among other labor-saving appliances one, for which much kudos was gained by the inventor or adapter—a Mr. Van Doussa—was largely used, but does not need detailed description, as it was simply a combination of the Long Tom and the cradle.

Before describing the elaborate washing machines, etc., in vogue to-day, I will proceed to give my readers some idea of the successive methods by which the diamondiferous soil has been removed from the claims for manipulation. The Kimberley mine attracting by its marvelous richness diggers from other mines was, at the time of its opening, and indeed still is, a wondrous hive of human industry. In the earliest days the sorting tables were placed in the claims themselves, and marvelous were the scenes that then might daily be observed. In a space of some dozen acres were often gathered together as many as ten thousand people; diggers with their wives, sisters and children, busily engaged in sorting; natives shoveling the earth into buckets ceaselessly, the whole scene dotted with myriad parasols and umbrellas of the most varied hues, and awnings of the most gayly-colored blankets. The example of Horace’s “magni formica laboris,” that insect to which Mr. Eugene Wrayburn objected to King Solomon referring him, was closely followed by thousands filled with sanguine hopes, some doomed to bitter disappointment, but full many destined in greater or lesser degree to have their realization.

After a time, however, as the claims were worked deeper, it was found more convenient to have the sorting tables placed outside the mine. I may here mention that in order to facilitate work, roads were reserved running across the mine from north to south. They were some fourteen in number, and 7½ feet being allowed from the claims on each side, were 15 feet broad. On these roads the native laborers tossed the ground, most of which was conveyed to the sorting tables outside the mine, but some to tables placed upon the sides of the road. The waste ground out of which the diamonds had been sorted was of course deposited outside the mine,[^[31]] after having been conveyed along the roads in sacks or buckets, or sometimes in wheelbarrows or carts, by the “boys,”[^[32]] the name by which the native employés were entitled.

As the mine became yet deeper the system of “benches” came into vogue. There were levels or terraces cut in the side of a claim, and on each of them was posted a native who shoveled up the ground thrown to him from the level below, until at last the precious soil reached the roadway, where a fourth or perhaps a fifth native was waiting to convey it to its destination. Of course the number of benches varied with the depth of the claim.

When yet more of the soil was excavated, another system had to be adopted, and then a post with a pulley attached was driven firmly into the road and the ground drawn up in buckets constructed of either hide or iron, whence it was tossed into carts drawn by horses or oxen, some of which, poor creatures, tumbled over into the claim, where they had to be slaughtered in order that their misery might be ended as soon as possible, while others were killed instantaneously. The loss of human life in these cases was, however, comparatively small.

This system, with the exception that many diggers used windlasses instead of posts and pulleys, prevailed until 1874, by which time the roads had fallen. This had long been foreseen, as isolated portions had long before crumbled away, the chasms being spanned by bridges erected at enormous expense. An entirely new system, therefore, had now to be introduced, and this took the form of “stayings.” They were, as a rule, three in number if the base or ground be counted, and may best be described as floors stoutly constructed, the first stage proper being placed at a height of about eight feet from the ground, the second about sixteen feet. Numerous standing wires were stretched from the claims and along these were drawn buckets containing the diamondiferous soil, one perchance bearing a fortune in its narrow space, literally a multum in parvo. The ground was hauled by windlasses worked by natives. So numerous were the wires that the mine seemed a yawning pit over which some Titanic spider had woven its web, while the noise of the wires was as loud as the din of the traffic in Cheapside or the Strand, the rattle of the machinery in a Lancashire factory, or, to be more imaginative, the roar of angry waves buffeting a rock-bound coast.

In their turn the stages were abandoned, for, as may be imagined, the process of hauling out ground by windlasses worked by hand was a slow process when the claims were worked to a depth of eighty feet or more. “Whims,”[^[33]] worked by horses or mules, were substituted, and they were in general use until the reign of steam, which still continues.

In other chapters the geological characteristics of the diamonds are dealt with, and the best authorities quoted at considerable length; in this connection, therefore, it will suffice to say that the “yellow ground” only extends to a certain depth; this is friable, and was easily broken up by means of shovels and clubs known as “beaters.” Beneath this ground lies the hard blue, the discovery of which, as I mention elsewhere, caused no small consternation amongst the diggers, who feared when reaching it that they had come to what in alluvial gold digging would be called the “bed-rock.” This blue ground requires careful manipulation, and 1875 witnessed the general adoption of the “rotary” already introduced for the quicker manipulation of the blue. The machine in question may be thus briefly described: A species of “pay mill,” a round, stationary pan with two concentric rings of sheet iron about nine inches in height; in the centre an upright spindle driving six or eight arms, in which are fixed a number of flattish tynes, not unlike the prongs of a trident, placed in a diagonal direction. Into the circular trough formed by the concentric rings the ground was poured, water was supplied, and the mud kept in agitation by means of the tynes, the overflow passing through a small door or opening in the inner ring. This opening could be regulated by a slide according to the nature of the ground manipulated, rapidity of the revolution of the tynes, etc., etc. The machine was kept in work by means of cog-wheels at the top of the spindle. At opposite points of the circumference of the machine Kafirs were stationed to supply the motive power, and stood there turning and turning all day long. Later on horse power was used for turning the rotaries, which were much enlarged, and now are almost universally driven by steam power. These machines, originally about four feet in diameter, and capable of washing some forty loads per diem, are now made as much as fourteen feet in diameter and from 400 to 800 loads, according to the nature of the ground manipulated, can be washed daily by a single machine. A highly important adjunct to the washing machine proper is the cylinder, which was introduced after the discovery of the blue ground. This was frequently found to be too insufficiently disintegrated, even after long exposure on the depositing floors, to allow of its being rapidly washed without more or less serious loss of diamonds.[^[34]] To prevent this loss the contrivance to which I allude was invented. It is a rotatory cylinder, fixed at an angle of some ten degrees, upon which a stream of water plays from a perforated tube directly above it. The upper part of the cylinder is of fine mesh, through which the finer particles of the wetted ground or mud fall upon a table, in the centre of which is an inclined trough leading to the washing machine, and along this the “magma” or slush mentioned flows by natural gravitation. The lower half of the cylinder is of coarser or more open mesh, allowing stones and larger lumps to fall upon the table to be swept off by sorters with watchful eyes for any large diamonds which may be present. This stuff is then generally treated as worthless and thrown away, but the yet larger lumps that issue from the mouth of the cylinder are, as a rule, taken back to the depositing sites for further exposure.

The mud which flows from the opening in the inner ring of the rotary is raised by small buckets (called elevators) on an endless chain to a height of some twenty-five feet, when it is ejected, the more solid portion flowing down screens, either to run down in “tailings” on the spot or into trucks to be emptied elsewhere. The uninitiated who visit a washing machine and elevator occasionally get an unpleasant surprise when their curiosity leads them to wander any distance from their guide, for the tailings, though solid enough at a distance from the flow from the elevator, are there almost liquid, though to the sight, by reason of the dry film at the surface, they appear literally terra firma. One unwary step and the too inquisitive visitor is up to his knees, waist, or even his neck, in a “slough of despond,” whence he is rescued possibly minus a boot or shoe by his apparently sympathizing though really much amused friends, a spectacle for gods or men.

I may here interpolate a few remarks as to the mistakes that were made, especially by the early diggers, as to the nature of the stone unearthed. Men unused to digging came and took out claims, especially in the Du Toit’s Pan mine, a mine which has from the first been renowned for large diamonds, and also for a considerable output of “crystals,” which are of no commercial value. A large crystal, showing all the angularity of the diamond and otherwise closely resembling it, often raises hopes soon doomed to be disappointed. A Boer (a true story for which I can vouch) arriving with his wagon, in which rode his wife and children, acquired a claim, and shouldering his pick, with shovel in hand, he started to work, and mirabile dictu, in an hour he discovered a huge stone. Delighted beyond measure at his glorious find, he yet deemed it prudent to conceal it from every one.

Packing up his goods and inspanning his oxen, he started for Port Elizabeth, where he had heard that the highest prices were paid for diamonds. A six weeks’ “trek” found him safely arrived at the bay, and with his gem in his pocket he sallied forth to the office of a well-known firm of buyers. He explained how he had become possessed of the priceless brilliant, how he had not shown it to a living soul and so forth, but when he produced the marvel of beauty, the merchant mercilessly shattered all his six weeks’ dreams by telling him that it was a “crystal,” and of no value whatever save as a curio!

To return to the subject of machinery. It was not, however, until after the share mania of 1880 and 1881, when many companies were floated, that much large machinery was imported from England. The small six and eight-horse power engines nevertheless began to give way to those of sixteen, twenty-four, and even sixty-horse power. The “blue” which had frightened the early diggers, too, and which had to be spread out on floors for miles around the various camps to disintegrate, at the great loss of time and money, about this period attracted considerable attention, it being thought possible that some other means of rendering it sufficiently pulverized for washing purposes might be discovered. A Mr. Cowan, a large digger at the time, spent several thousands of pounds in experimenting with steam, but to no avail. In releasing this “blue” from the mines, large quantities of gunpowder were used, until dynamite, of the estimated yearly value of £100,000, has been introduced into the system of mining within the last eighteen months or two years.

In consequence of the fall of reef in the Kimberley and De Beer’s mines, underground working has been resorted to, the open diggings in many instances having become practically unworkable in consequence of the enormous cost of hauling out the fallen reef. The diggings in the open unincumbered workings of the Kimberley mine before the disastrous fall of reef had attained to a depth of some 420 feet. By a system of “underground” mining the main difficulty in reaching the diamondiferous ground has been overcome, shafts have been sunk, tunnels made, and the precious “blue” again reached and hauled out. The richness of this “blue,” at the depth from which it has been brought, has again lifted the shareholders out of the mire of financial trouble in which they found themselves by reason of the great reef fall. From that time to the present, the Kimberley mine has been, comparatively speaking, relieved of its troubles. Shares in the various companies have risen, dividends have and are being paid regularly, and to human ken it would appear that the future of this mine, with still further improved working, which the exigencies of circumstances will suggest, is one of hope virtually assured.

The De Beer’s mine, the greater portion of which is now in the hands of a powerful company, with a capital of considerably over a million sterling, is fast coming to the fore. Large dividends have been paid, and tests made as to the future output. At a depth of 750 feet “blue” ground continues to be found in the shaft sunk for the purpose. Here also “underground” workings are going on apace with every probability of yielding for years to come handsome returns to investors.

In the Du Toit’s Pan and Bulfontein mines, companies which a short few years ago were non-dividend paying are forging to the front and their shares quietly approaching “par.” In the Du Toit’s Pan mine a test shaft of 450 feet below the open workings has been sunk, which proves that the dreaded reef is not increasing, and that the future is in a measure guaranteed.

The native labor of the diamond fields is drawn from an enormous extent of country, and includes nearly twenty different tribes, such as Zulus, Swazies, Basutos, Shangaans, Amatongas, Bechuanas, Metabélés, Mashonas, Makalolos, Korannas, Griquas, Fingoes, Pondos, Pondomise, Hottentots, etc. These number at the present time about 15,000, while the white employés can be estimated at about 3,000.[^[35]]

Although no census has been taken it is estimated that the population consists of some 20,000 Kafirs, Malays, Indians, Arabs, Chinamen and other colored races, and about 6,000 whites, Colonials, English, French, German and Italians.

The number of steam engines at work in and around the four mines is computed at 350 with a nominal horse power of 5,000. Tramways of nearly 200 miles in the aggregate extent are in use, the trucks upon which are drawn by fully 3,000 horses and mules. To quote from the “Cape Official Handbook,” published in 1886, the annual expenditure in labor, material, etc., is not less than £2,000,000 sterling, distributed somewhat as follows:

It will be remembered that the item of fuel is a most important one. Before the completion of the railway in 1885 and the consequent availability of coal at comparatively moderate rates, firewood for engine and household purposes was so greatly in demand that for a wagon-load weighing from 8,000 to 10,000 pounds as much as £45 was frequently paid, and a proportionate amount for smaller loads. Coal having now entered into competition by reason of cheaper transport the price of fuel has been greatly reduced, as may be readily imagined.

Through the wholesale consumption of growing timber, to which I have alluded, the country around has been denuded of wood, and the natural result of de-arborization has followed in continual droughts of frequent occurrence, nor has any effort been made so far to plant a new growth. This is greatly to be deplored; at the present moment fuel is brought by ox-wagons as far as 200 miles to the Kimberley market, which means some thirty-five days’ journey for the incoming and outgoing trips.

Water, too, is a most vital question on the fields. When the early diggers first came, as much as a shilling a bucket was given for that necessity, which had to be brought into the camp from springs four miles away. It soon became evident, however, that nature had stored an abundant reservoir. Wells were sunk, and a supply insured, which more or less sufficed many years afterward for all the purposes of manipulating the diamondiferous ground, as well as for household purposes. By the foresight of a respected citizen, Mr. Thomas Lynch, a scheme was started five years ago, which I successfully guided through the legislative council of Griqualand West, and which culminated in the floating of the Kimberley Waterworks Co., Limited. This company now brings in the water from the Vaal River, twenty miles away, and supplies not only most of the mining companies but also the private residences of Kimberley and the surrounding neighborhood. This company has had practically a monopoly, and the management of its affairs has been most judicious, but an opposition is now on foot for the separate supply of water to Du Toit’s Pan, Beaconsfield, and Bulfontein.

From the above particulars, which I have endeavored as far as possible to condense, my readers will, I trust, be able to form a tolerably adequate idea of the manner in which the mines of Griqualand West are worked.

CHAPTER XIII.
I. D. B.
POPULATION OF THE DIAMOND FIELDS.—KAFIR EATING-HOUSES AS DECOY PLACES.—RUMORS OF TRIBUTE IN DIAMONDS BY NATIVES TO THEIR CHIEFS.—INGENUITY OF NATIVE THIEVES.—CELEBRATED CASE, QUEEN VS. VOGEL.—“HAPPY CHILD OF HAM.”—GRADES THROUGH WHICH A STOLEN DIAMOND PASSES.—SPURIOUS NOTES AND GLASS DIAMONDS.—CASE BEFORE MR. JUSTICE DWYER AT BEAUFORT WEST.—HIGH HANDED CONDUCT OF DETECTIVE DEPARTMENT.—TWO BISHOPS AND A SENATOR SEARCHED.—FREETOWN AND OLIPHANSFONTEIN.—A STARTLING EXPOSURE.—TRIAL OF NOTORIOUS HIGHWAYMEN.—SOCIAL GRADES OF I. D. B.’S, OR ILLICIT DIAMOND BUYERS.

The diamond, from its value, its portability, and the ease with which it can be secreted, has offered in India, Brazil and the Cape, at all times, a great temptation to dishonesty to those engaged in winning it from the soil.

Whether we refer to the works of the English traveler, William Methold, who visited the mines near Golconda in 1622, (where there were 30,000 laborers then at work) and mentions that it was impossible to prevent the abstraction of diamonds; those of Tavernier, the French traveler, who visited the Indian mines in 1766; Mawes’ description of the Brazilian diggings in the same century, where, in spite of the strict watch maintained over the slaves employed, they managed to steal half of the diamonds produced, or we study contemporary literature with regard to the mines of Griqualand West, we find that although most severe punishments have always been inflicted with a view to stamp out theft, they have never hitherto been completely successful.

With this subject, however, I shall deal in a future chapter; in this I intend to treat of the rise and progress of the I. D. B. (illicit diamond buying) trade, and describe the various devices adopted by the black thieves and white receivers.

On the Vaal River diggings there was very little thieving. The semi-patriarchal state of society existing there was not conducive to such a crime, and moreover the natives had not yet acquired a knowledge of the value of diamonds or “klips”[^[36]] as they were then termed. Each digger had brought from the Cape Colony, Natal, the Free State, or Transvaal, his own servants, hired for a stated time; he lived in their midst, gave them both food and physic with his own hands, temptation they were delivered from, as they dared not roam about, and they generally remained honest and faithful.

This state of things, however, did not last long, as dishonest white men and cute natives soon put the unsophisticated savage in the way they wished him to go; but it was not until a large population had gathered round the dry diggings, composed of the Du Toit’s Pan, Bulfontein, Old De Beers and the New Rush, or Kimberley mines, in 1870 and 1871, that diggers began to be alive to the enormous losses they were sustaining through the robberies of their native servants. At this time the white population might roundly be estimated at from 20,000 to 25,000, and the natives and colored people at from 40,000 to 50,000 souls, or to be within the mark say 60,000 altogether.

Now it could not be expected that this motley crew, gathered from all the four quarters of the globe, would be without some black sheep among them. This quickly became alarmingly apparent, for although the early diggers, attracted by the chance of sudden fortune, were mostly old, respectable colonists, Boers owning farms, and men who had lived in South Africa many years, yet very soon “camp followers,” as debased as any who ever hung on the rear of an army, began to arrive, drawn from the purlieus of European cities; London sending from Whitechapel and Petticoat Lane her quota of fried-fish dealers, old clo’ men, quondam fruit merchants, and “vill you buy a vatch” gentry, who speedily brought their home experience into profitable use.

The South African native, especially the Zulu, is, as a rule, naturally honest. The fact irresistibly forces upon us the conclusion, however reluctantly we may accept it, that the natives were first taught to thieve by white receivers of stolen goods.

In those days the Basutos, the Shangaans, the natives from the neighborhood of the Zambesi and the Limpopo, left their kraals and their happy hunting grounds in the far interior (allured by the glorious reports of the money which they could earn) to trudge hundreds of miles on foot for work in the mines, imbued with but one object, the height of their ambition, which was to become the proud possessor of a rifle or other gun.

The quicker this could be effected the sooner they could return to their homes; consequently the unscrupulous white man found apt scholars enough to his hand in these poor blacks, who rapidly learned to steal all the diamonds on which they could lay their fingers.

Then again, as another inducement to thieving, the raw native was enticed to the canteen to spend his money, and although at this time a strict law existed which prohibited any native being served with liquor without an order from his master, the keepers of low grog-shops evaded the law by keeping on hand a stock of false orders to suit any emergency, whilst the villainous compounds[^[37]] they retailed lit up a fire which could be kept blazing by dishonesty only.

At that time also (and even now, though in fewer numbers) eating-houses were kept by white men specially for natives. Among such of course were honest men who stuck to their legitimate business, but the greater number were suspected, and in the majority of cases rightly, of keeping such houses simply to facilitate and conceal their illicit transactions, supplying free food merely to induce natives to bring them diamonds.

The business done in eating-houses of this description was reduced to a system. A native of one or the other tribes, whether a Shangaan, a Basuto, a Zulu, or a Ballapin, was kept in the pay of the proprietors, according to the habitués of their houses. These various touts would remain most of the day, especially at meal times, sitting at the different tables prepared for native customers eating or pretending to eat with them. These men were chosen for their shrewdness, and any strange native coming in for a meal would immediately be accosted in a friendly manner by an astute rascal of his own nationality. Where did he come from? what was he doing? who was his master? in what claim was he working? what diamonds was he finding? were questions the answers to which were soon wormed out of him.

If the native had any diamonds for sale he was at once introduced to the private room of the master, which was at the back. If the replies to the various questions put to him were not considered satisfactory, or if he were suspected of being a “trap,” the “tip” was very soon given. The tout would rap on his plate and call out for “inyama futi” (more meat) which was the signal generally agreed upon, when the suspected native would be summarily ejected. Sometimes the native (although offering a diamond for sale) would not give the name of his master, which was enough in itself to excite suspicion of his being a “trap.”

“Woolsack,” a clever native detective in the employ of a Mr. Fox, who was at the time the head of the diamond detectives, was several times caught in such attempts to “trap.” I remember on one occasion seeing him professionally after he had been beaten and tortured by one of these Kafir eating-house keepers until he revealed his master’s name. “Baas Fox.” having at last been wrung out of him, and the fact of his being a “trap” found out, he was, after being barbarously treated, tauntingly told to go and show his marks to his master.

His brutal assailant, though all the time inwardly chuckling over his narrow escape, was loud in his public expressions of satisfaction that he had caught and thrashed a nigger who had had, as he said, “the imperence to fancy that a respectable man like him would buy a ‘goniva.’”[^[38]] The detectives, though well aware of everything, but not willing to expose their hand, had to look on, grin and leave unavenged this assault on their native servant. If brought into court, they knew too well it would merely be a case of white evidence versus black. The injuries shown would simply be the marks of condign punishment meted out to a native for imputed and apparent thieving, inflicted under a natural outburst of indignant honesty incapable of restraint. The magistrate, in the meantime, let him think what he might, would on the evidence have to discharge the prisoner, or at most inflict but a nominal punishment.

It has been stated, I may add, that certain chiefs required their subjects on their return home to bring them a tribute in diamonds. This I do not believe ever occurred to any great extent, if at all, as in 1872 a party of diggers to test this rumor, taking the law into their own hands, made a tour through a large portion of the Transvaal and Free State, overhauling thousands of natives homeward bound, without finding a single diamond on any one of them, although on one party numbering some 200 they found 197 guns, £3,000 in gold, and nearly two tons of gunpowder. In contradiction to this, however, the late Sir Bartle Frere told a deputation of the Kimberley Mining Board, which waited upon him during his visit to the Fields in 1880, that in coming down through the Transvaal several traders and other trustworthy people on whom he could rely had informed him that most of the chiefs, and in fact all the great ones, had stores of beautiful diamonds, which had been brought to them, a few at a time, by their young men on their return home from work at the Fields.

The native laborer at the present time through contaminating influences has become an adept, and will steal with an adroitness which almost defies detection.

In the Brazilian mines every precaution is taken to prevent thieving, but without entire success. A slave on finding a diamond is compelled at the moment of its discovery to notify the fact by holding it up between his finger and thumb. No slave is allowed to remain for any length of time at any one part of the long trough in which the soil is washed for fear he should plant a diamond for subsequent removal. In addition, all are narrowly searched, but in spite of this care the slaves hide diamonds in the sores on their bodies, which they produce by cutting nicks in their skins for this purpose, and ofttimes also swallow them, though when a negro is suspected of doing so the administration of strong purgatives, confinement in a bare room and severe punishment invariably follow.

Our free nigger is not a whit behind his South American cousin; he uses his nose, mouth, stomach, ears, toes and hair to conceal the diamonds that he steals, and at nightfall walks home from the mine or from the sorting table singing with an air of abandon which would “deceive the very elect,” the diamond being all the while secreted on his person. This, previous to the passing of the last Act, he could do with impunity, for the searching of servants, although it had been for years permissible to masters, vide Government Notice No. 14, 1872, was not as it is now conducted by a government staff. This was especially the case when native labor was scarce, for then any individual master was afraid to make an exception which could give offense, and which might deprive him at once of the whole of his laborers.

Again, if in working on the depositing floors, where the blue ground which contains the diamonds is exposed to the action of the atmosphere, a diamond should happen to be turned up which could be seen at a glance was too large or which there was no opportunity to secrete, the wily savage would cover it up quite nonchalantly, but at the same time would arrange the lumps of “blue” around in such a way that when night came and he returned, he could easily find the spot and secure the precious stone for himself.

Sometimes in the mines when they were worked deep another dodge would be resorted to. Suddenly, at a given signal, the whole of a gang working in one of the claims would yell out, and jump as if the reef surrounding them were falling. The overseer in charge would instinctively look up, while the boy who had given the false alarm would coolly stoop down and pocket some large diamond which he had just unearthed. Many a beautiful diamond, too, has frequently been recovered from a native’s pipe, which was diligently being puffed with all the air of innocence, and I have even heard of goats, feeding near the floors set apart for the depositing of “blue stuff,” being turned into accessories (after the fact!), the hair of these animals affording a hiding place for stolen diamonds which were thus carried into the “veldt” beyond, and refound by the thief (his day’s work being over) without any danger whatever of searching or detective interference.

The receiver, however, is worse than the thief. The devices by which the white scoundrel saves his skin are quite as curious a study as those resorted to by the original thief.

This trade gradually resolved itself into a fine art as the law against it became more penal.

Before the company mania commenced at the end of 1880, and when the mines were worked by individual diggers, many unprincipled persons, both black and white, used their digging operations and the fact of their possessing claims as cloaks to account for the possession of diamonds which they otherwise obtained by illicit dealing.

About 1876 a cause celébre brought this prominently before the public.

At that time claims in Bulfontein and Du Toit’s Pan cost little money in comparison with claims in the Kimberley mine, and a great many were owned by natives and colored people. This case, which attracted great public attention, was that of John Vogel, a colored man, tried on April 22d, 1876, before his Honor, Mr. Recorder Barry, and a jury. This man was charged with contravening section 17 of ordinance 27 of 1874: “The said John Vogel being then a registered claim-holder, and the said diamond (79¾ carats weight) not being found in ground worked by him, although sold by him in his name as a claim-holder.”

According to evidence brought forward it was proved that Vogel received £20 only from the white man who bought the diamond, whilst another Kafir who accompanied him received £305 in payment for the stone, Vogel evidently lending his. name as a registered claim-holder for the sum of £20. Vogel was proved to have been largely engaged in this “trade,” and on several occasions to have sold to the same buyer.

He was found guilty and sentenced to three years’ hard labor. After sentencing the prisoner, the recorder then called for the white diamond buyer, a well-known merchant, and said: “Your own register shows that you have been in the habit of buying from this man, by which you have encouraged him in his acts, while at the same time you have kept no books sufficient to prevent me from saying that your conduct is above suspicion.”

It will be seen that even at this time opportunities were taken to evade the law with every show of legality.

Some again would lease their claims to “swell niggers” (both white and black having an equal government right to obtain digging licenses and possess claims) with an understanding that they, the claim-holders, should receive a percentage of the finds, at the same time well knowing that the percentage would be a large one, most of the diamonds in fact thus obtained being stones illegally bought from natives with money these dishonest claim-holders would advance, nominally for honest enterprise, but virtually for illicit purposes.

Others would give an extravagant reward to their native servants for each diamond they brought as a reputed find while working, which was of course merely another mode of buying from natives without fear of detection.

In late years it has become a very general practice even among respectable diggers and companies to give a percentage to native servants on the value of any diamond which they may bring.

One company at Du Toit’s Pan in particular by this means increased their returns to such an extent that they found it paid them to promise each “Happy child of Ham” twenty-five per cent. commission on whatever gem he might unearth. This was brought to general notice by a well-known writer in the local press in the following verses, which were much quoted at the time:

I would not be a digger; No,

Nor yet an I. D. B.

In digging oft your moneys go,

The other’s felony.

But then, upon the other hand,

I should be quite content

If I only was a nigger, and

Got 25 per cent.

I’d not be a shareholder, or

Hold Atlas’s or Frere’s;

I am not even pining for

The scrip of great Be Beer’s.

In Kimberley the debts expand,

The loan, it isn’t lent;

So I’d rather be a nigger, and

Get 25 per cent.

I would not be a Chairman, or

Director of a Board,

For then I could not buy nice pipes,

Nor good Cape Smoke afford;

I might get nasty writs perhaps

When all my coin was spent;

I’d rather be a nigger, and

Get 25 per cent.

I wouldn’t be a Searcher, and

I wouldn’t be the Chief;

I wouldn’t hold the contract for

Removal of the reef;

I wouldn’t be Izdebski,[^[39]] and

I wouldn’t crimes prevent;

I’d rather be a nigger, and

Get 25 per cent.

I wouldn’t be a Secretary

nor a Manager,

To be a toiling Overseer

I’d very much demur;

I wouldn’t build a crusher,

Nor such paltry things invent;

I’d rather be a nigger, and

Get 25 per cent.

I wouldn’t be proprietor

Of far-famed Kamfer’s Dam.[^[40]]

Nor even Chairman of the French,

For all’s not real jam,

I’d scarcely purchase Centrals,

But I never should repent

If I only was a nigger, and

Got 25 per cent.

[No, ladies and gentlemen, many and many a time my mother has said: “’Arry, my angel-hearted boy, don’t let nothing never persuade you to be a Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, or a digger, or an England’s Only General, or a writer of novelettes in the “Independent,” or a Duke or a Marquis, or an Admiral of the Blue, or a Grand Old Man, or a President of the United States of America. Don’t you ruin yourself by being a Mayor or a Banker, or throw away your chances by marrying a Baroness Burdett-Coutts—or purchasing a 900 carat diamond found by an unknown Dutch farmer on an unknown Dutch farm when there is no secrecy about the matter from beginning to end.” “No, my beaming boy,” said the old lady, bless her heart! “You be a Christy Minstrel, and go work in the claims for your wages and 25 per cent.” I took the old lady’s advice, and—all together, if you please, gentlemen]

“I would not be an Hemperor,

I would not be a King,

I would not be a Hadmiral

Or hany sich a thing;

I wouldn’t be in Lowe’s Police

And live inside a tent;

I’d rather be a nigger, and

Get 25 per cent.”

To resume, when the company mania set in, the number of individual diggers gradually decreased. Further restrictions were also placed upon those remaining, as well as upon the managers and lessees of companies, by the passing of a new law in 1882, which law is at present in force.

By this act the digger or lessee is compelled to make a monthly return of all his finds, in which any discrepancy is detected at once by comparing it with a return (also required) from the various licensed buyers of their monthly purchases; and an excessive return of diamonds, or a succession of astounding washings up from notoriously poor or insufficiently worked ground, at once serves to arouse suspicion, and has already in several instances led to a conviction, especially as the private and moral character of each digger or lessee is more or less known to the detective department.

Some white men run the risk of buying direct from natives, and to those knowing Zulu, which is the language of which all natives gain a smattering, the conversation becomes highly amusing. The word diamond is never mentioned; for instance, an illicit will accost a native with the question: “Ipi inkonyama?” (where is the calf?) The native replies if he has no diamonds: “Inkonyama yalukile no mina” (the calf has strayed with its mother), or the white man asks: “Tzinyamazana zi kona na?” (are there any bucks?) and the native, having some diamonds secreted about him, replies: “Zi kona” (there are some). In this manner the secret of their being engaged in illicit traffic is kept from all but the initiated.

These various phases of the crime, and others that I shall describe, have been for years brought to the notice of the public by the local press. The Diamond Fields Advertiser, in a leading article once stated: “There is something terribly revolting about the extent of crime arising out of the I. D. B. calling in all its ramifications. Inducing servants to steal, murder, perjury, receiving stolen goods, white women prostituting themselves to Kafirs for payment in diamonds, little boys employed by mining companies taught to steal and supplied with false pockets in which to conceal the gems, bribes attempted on officers of law, and a thousand other crimes are practiced and gloried in by gangs of ruffians, whom the law seldom reaches.”

But it must not be supposed that many white men were or are foolish enough to buy direct from the raw native; unless the illicit buyer has “planted” his own gang of natives, or in other words educated thieves, on some company to bring him all the diamonds they can steal, he is very wary. One very curious case in point came to light in 1876, when the detective officers, searching among the “goods and chattels” of a man convicted for I. D. B., found, from memorandums in his possession, that he had no less than sixty natives “planted” on different claim-holders, whose sole object was to rob and bring the diamonds to their real master, who had engaged them for that purpose.

A diamond passed, in most instances, through four hands before it reached a legal holder.

1st. The raw Kafir—the thief. 2d. The swell native, or tout of 3d. The low white man, generally agent of 4th. A licensed diamond buyer.

On analyzing this series, it will be seen that the raw native, who is generally the worker in the mine or on the depositing floor, has only to evade the attention of the overseer to enable him to swallow or secrete about his person any diamond he may chance to expose. The lynx-eyed observation of his “brothers” is to him of no moment, for they are, as a rule, so true to each other that they never inform—brothers both in color and in crime. His work done, on returning home to his evening meal our subject’s real fun and excitement begin, in other words, the second scene of the illicit play now commences. His swell “brother” arrives, transmutes his ill-gotten diamonds into gold, leaving him to carouse far into the night and then “dream the happy hours away,” until the morning gives him again fresh opportunities for thieving.

Our low white man, in the meantime, with perfect confidence and security, is awaiting his native tout, “building castles in the air” on the possible profit of the night’s venture.

Now for the sequel, the last act of the drama. This man has an intimate friend, a licensed diamond buyer, a more cold-blooded but less plucky rascal than himself, whose honesty (!) and respectability (!) can be gauged by the fact that he buys next morning in his office, without any haggling and without even demanding the necessary permit, a collection of stones which he introduces in ordinary course to the trade as a “digger’s mixed parcel.” Sometimes, however, the raw native, unfortunately for himself, sells a diamond directly to the low white man, who (if the native be not a regular customer) takes advantage of his ignorance and pays him in frequent instances partly in good and partly in base coin. In this way spurious bank notes, of which the accompanying engraving is a fac-simile, and gilt medals in imitation of sovereigns with the inscription “Gone to Hanover,” are palmed off, and get into circulation. Again, some very honest licensed buyers would advance money to others lower in the social scale, but also licensed, who would run the risk of purchasing diamonds for them from any one, whether legally qualified to sell or not. Of course if any of these were trapped and the stone traced, the monied men could never be punished, as all their transactions, having been with licensed men, were perfectly legal. I may mention en passant that a great trade was done in gold at this time; certain well-known men, afterward company promoters and directors, trading in and selling on a Saturday night all the gold coins they could gather together during the week, at a premium of three or four per cent., to a class of men who could have no other but an illegal object in view. Such ramifications had this trade!

This is the game as it used to be played; now with the new law there is more difficulty, and the process is somewhat altered.

This law, passed in 1882, is more stringent than any of its predecessors. Its main feature is that the onus of proof of the legal possession of diamonds is thrown upon the individual in whose custody they may be found, and any person within the confines of Griqualand West may anywhere, at any time, be searched by the detective department, and if diamonds are found on his or her person must give an account of their legal ownership or be liable to fifteen years’ imprisonment, with hard labor. The detective department at the time when this law came into force received information which led it to the arrest of a most notorious illicit diamond buyer, who both in Kimberley and at Jagersfontein[^[41]] (a celebrated mine in the Free State) had suffered for this crime. Acting on their information, the officers thought that, on searching this man, they would make a grand haul, when much to their disgust instead of finding diamonds galore they found simply pieces of glass most skillfully prepared in exact imitation of real stones, when of course their prize was lost, and the man, to their chagrin, had to be liberated.

These sham diamonds at first were brought out from Europe in all sizes, shapes and colors, but at the present time this internecine illicit trade, or fight among diamond thieves themselves, is waged to such an extent that the detective department know of at least four individuals on the Fields who are engaged in the manufacture of these spurious stones.

Fluoric acid is employed, so I am told, to partially dissolve the glass of which these are made into the shape required. As a matter of course the sale of these sham stones when effected in Griqualand West is hushed up.

The man taken in by purchasing a spurious diamond of this kind fondly imagines at the time that he is buying a real although stolen diamond under its value. He knows, if he be a licensed buyer, that he is contravening the law in buying of an unlicensed seller, and consequently, on finding out the deception which has been practiced upon him, dare not give the seller into custody for obtaining money under false pretences. He is well aware such a proceeding would merely reveal to the public his illicit connection; again, if an unlicensed diamond buyer, he naturally desires to keep the whole affair a secret.

It was not so, however, in the Cape Colony proper, Natal, Transvaal or the Free State, where the operation of the act was not in force prior to recent enactments, and the remark still applies to Natal and the Transvaal, where any one, morality being out of the question, can buy or sell a diamond legally. I use “legally” in the sense that the law cannot touch him. Of course buying goods well knowing them to be stolen is a crime in every civilized community, but in this particular instance, without the special enactments of the Cape Colony and Free State, one almost impossible to bring home to the criminal.

A curious case was tried in Beaufort West in 1884, which ended in the acquittal of the accused, a man well versed, not only in the mysteries of the I. D. B. trade, but also in the punishment attendant upon its detection. This man offered a certain Jew residing there one of these spurious diamonds for sale. This Jew would not purchase on his own judgment, but asked a friend to value the stone for him, which after buying on his advice for £280 he found out was merely a piece of glass not worth a farthing. Not living, however, in Griqualand West, where an unlicensed purchase would have been a crime, which might have consigned him to the Capetown Breakwater for fifteen years, but in the Cape Colony, where no restriction was then in force, he called in the assistance of the law, charged the man with obtaining money under false pretences, and the case came ultimately before Judge Dwyer at the circuit court held in that town.

The sale by the prisoner was of course duly proved. Judge Dwyer, however, directed the jury that as the purchaser had been guided in his opinion by his friend, it was a question for them to decide whether he had been misled or not by the statement of the accused. The jury, as I said before, acquitted the prisoner.

It is certainly a curious phase in this glass, or in thieves Latin “snyde diamond,” question, or, as I term it, in this internecine struggle for unlawful gain, that in this province neither the manufacturer nor the possessor of these spurious articles can be brought to justice. It is simply with them a game of “heads I win, tails you lose.”

The arts and sciences were also called into play to forward the ends of this nefarious trade.

The science of chemistry was even as far back as 1872 requisitioned by both legal and illegal sellers of diamonds. It had been discovered that the boiling of yellow stones in nitric acid would give them a frosted white appearance, and by this means increase their apparent value by twenty to forty shillings a carat, according to the size of the diamond operated upon.

Many very knowing ones were taken in by this at the time, the diamond buyer of the day, one Moritz Unger, even falling a victim to the deception. During the past thirteen years this imposition has been spasmodically revived, although at the time (1872) it was thought that the exposure would once and forever warn the diamond burner that his “little game was up.”

Although no community can hope to succeed whose prosperity depends upon unlawful enterprise, yet it is a fact that this new law, although it has failed to diminish diamond stealing one iota, has yet driven away the very men who formerly used to extravagantly patronize the retail stores, hotels, and theatres of the place, whilst Capetown and Port Elizabeth until quite recently (session of 1885) reaped the profits of this disgraceful and debasing trade.

Immediately on the promulgation of this law (48, 1882) the detective department was stimulated to fresh energy, which was shown by rash and indiscreet action. For a month or two the passenger coaches leaving for Port Elizabeth and Capetown were searched at Alexandersfontein, a noted hostelry about five miles distant from Kimberley, and the luggage of the passengers overhauled. On one occasion this indignity was thrust upon the Bishop of the Free State, the Bishop of the Transvaal and the Hon. A. Stead, who were all traveling by the same coach to Capetown. I believe I am correct in stating that only on one occasion was any arrest ever made. This outburst of detective enthusiasm, however, soon exhausted itself, and passengers now leave Kimberley as heretofore, without let or hindrance, either by coach or rail. At this time, the passage to the Colony being dangerous, and the outlet through the Free State being considered insecure, the illicit trade was removed to Christiana, in the Transvaal, and diamonds run in that direction were shipped through Natal.

When the judges in the Free State, however, gave a decided opinion that their law extended only to acknowledged diggings, and trapping was abolished by the Volksraad in that country, the trade was again brought to our very door, just as suddenly to recede when the Free State passed, in the last session of their Volksraad, a diamond law containing the onus probandi clause.

A new village called Free Town sprang up on the boundary, a mile or two distant from Du Toit’s Pan, inhabited chiefly by men whose acquaintance with the diamond law of Griqualand West had been of too intimate a character, while both there and at Oliphansfontein, another Free State village close by Griqualand West, diamonds were openly bought and sold. One or two Dutch homesteads in the neighborhood over the border, within easy reach of our mines, were rented by gangs of Griqualand West illicits in order to ply their trade with ease and impunity.

The detective department was again seized with another fit of zeal, and many mounted men patroled the roads to these villages, searching all comers and goers, whether male or female, whom they suspected of connection with this traffic. In spite of this diamonds were “run the blockade” in large quantities. The I. D. B. fraternity were not lacking in devices. The book post conveyed many a parcel. A large hole was cut in the pages of some novel or ready reckoner and the space filled with diamonds carefully packed. The parcel being properly wrapped and posted attracted no attention from the postal authorities.

Kafirs were employed as runners at night, in the day white horsemen nicknamed “troopers,” were paid to face the risks, the diamonds they carried being wrapped in lead so that they could be dropped in the grass if danger loomed in the distance and then recovered again at leisure. Others of this ilk again having swallowed the precious stones ran the gauntlet safely, in open defiance of the detectives, with the diamonds in their stomachs. Horses were fed with balls of meal containing diamonds, driven across the border before the very eyes of the detectives, where, in course of nature, the diamonds were restored to the hands of their keepers. Dogs, too, were starved until they bolted lumps of meat in which diamonds were imbedded. The value of these poor brutes not being great enough to save their lives their stomachs were soon ripped open on their arrival at Free Town, over the border. The tails of oxen and wings of fowls were often utilized, passing the border unsuspected and unexamined, while carrier pigeons instead of carrying valuable information were used to transport valuable diamonds to Free Town, in the Orange Free State, and Christiana, in the Transvaal.

Astonishing ingenuity in trying to run illicit diamonds out of the territory was displayed by some. One man named Phillips, an instance in point, was found guilty by the special court of illegal possession. The reports of the case supply the accompanying particulars.

Phillips showed great cleverness. He had the heels of his boots made hollow and filled up with rough diamonds, sealing them down with wax. The handles of his traveling trunk were also made to remove, empty spaces behind being constructed for the same purpose. In fact the man thought himself safe enough. The detective department, however, suspecting him, and failing in all efforts to trap, engaged a man to form a pseudo friendship with him, or in other words, to play the part of a Judas. To keep up the deception and disarm suspicion this secret agent was rushed and searched by a well-known detective, thus creating an apparent reason for a fellow feeling between the two. The result can easily be guessed—Convict No. — for ten long years to come has now seclusion and opportunity enough afforded him by the government to ponder over the folly of confiding too much in his fellow creatures. These boots were exhibited in the Capetown Industrial Exhibition of 1884 and excited much interest.

I have learned since, however, that similar devices were used in Australia during the gold mania.

The dishonest licensed buyer at this time adopted another dodge. In order to evade the law, show the detective department a correct monthly return as regards weight of diamonds, and so avoid suspicion, he would keep on hand a large stock of boart nominally accounted as diamonds, but worth some three shillings to five shillings only per carat. Thus, supposing he bought a large illicit stone, of course under its value, he would throw away a corresponding weight of boart, which he could easily afford to lose. By this means he was enabled to produce a correct register to the authorities and have as well the proper weight of diamonds on hand supposing the detective department at any moment demanded a search.

But toward the end of 1884 and the beginning of 1885 the so-called “legal” traffic at Free Town and Oliphansfontein, in the Free State, was seriously interfered with.

A number of desperadoes formed themselves into a gang to attack and rob the buyers in the Free State, the argument by which they justified themselves being that it was nothing but fair play to rob men of property which they had no right to possess, and thus mete out to such characters, unofficial, but at the same time retributive justice. In other words, they knew the diamonds which they might steal were simply illegal purchases from thieves working for companies in Griqualand West mines.

The head of this gang was an ex-police sergeant and detective named Mays. He committed many highway robberies on the border, but diamonds were his sole object, he despised money and other valuables as booty beneath his notice.

These, he argued, would simply reduce him to the level of an ordinary thief, which he prided himself he was not. The men he robbed were always treated well, and generally had the opportunity given them of buying back their diamonds at a cheap rate, which, knowing full well they themselves were thieves, they generally did, not courting publicity.

This was not always the case. A celebrated trial at Boshof, in the Free State, in March 1885, showed otherwise. One of these gentry who “speculated” in that country, named Kemp, caring nothing for the exposure of his nefarious trade, on being robbed near Oliphansfontein of 2,073 carats weight of diamonds, worth £4,000, which he was taking to Capetown, gave such information to the Free State authorities as led to the capture, trial, and conviction of the thieves, who proved to be rival “speculators” in the same line of business. So far, Kemp missed his object, which was more the recovery of his diamonds than the punishment of the highwaymen. The revelations on the trial were simply startling, implicating as they did supposed honorable men in Griqualand West.

Chief Justice Reitz, on sentencing the culprits, who were all found guilty, did so in plain words. Addressing each in turn, after asking them whether they had anything to say, said in Dutch, of which the following is a literal translation (to Scotty Smith): “It is a pity that a man of your appearance should deal in stolen property. There is no excuse for you; it is a gross crime. The boundary line is getting dangerous for our people. It is quite an accident that Kemp was not killed. I took you for a man who knew better. I will punish you severely.”

To Leigh he said: “You are a sergeant in the police, you are a protector of the public, and you come into another land to commit a robbery. You come with a dished-up story; better you had not told such a thing. You, a sergeant in the police, using a knobkerrie and revolver. You might, in the strict letter of the law, be hanged; but now-a-days a more lenient view is taken. You were stopped by an accident from being hauled up for murder.”

To Herman: “You are a mean little scoundrel, acting in that way whilst a fellow co-religionist was being robbed, and perhaps all but murdered; such a little fellow you are. You get used for paltry, mean things, and here you assist in a mean way in a serious crime.”

To Welford: “The evidence against you, I think, is conclusive, although you have a right to say there is a conspiracy against you; those can believe you who like. I believe you are the man who started the whole thing. I would not wonder if you first originated the matter. You see the result of commencing by virtually doing a business of theft, because you think the law here could not touch you. Such action leads me to be more severe in your case. I think you are all sensible people; you knew it all well; there is no plea of ignorance.”

The four prisoners were then sentenced to four years’ imprisonment each; with Scotty Smith and Arthur Gerald Leigh twenty-five lashes in addition.

So far as Kemp was concerned, the chief justice, adding injury to insult, refused his application for the return of the diamonds, giving as his reason that “Griqualand West was a civilized country with competent courts, and if these were his diamonds he could go to Kimberley, prove them to be his lawful property, and no doubt get them.”

Kemp, as Chief Justice Reitz advised him, in the following December brought an action against the chief of the Griqualand West detective department for the recovery of the diamonds, which resulted in a judgment of “absolution from the instance” with costs, the diamonds remaining in the care of the detective department. Judge President Buchanan, in giving this decision, distinctly stated that he did not believe Kemp, but allowed him another opportunity, if he chose, to prove the diamonds were not stolen property.

Kemp then noted an appeal, which came before the appeal court in January 1886, at Capetown. The Premier, Mr. Upington, who appeared for the detective department, said there was no proof that the diamonds were Kemp’s. He was another’s servant—a noted Free State (!) diamond buyer—had never been in possession of the diamonds, and was not entitled to sue. Mr. Leonard, the attorney general under the former (Scanlan) ministry, who appeared for Kemp, said he “would not ask the court to believe, as was attempted in the court below, that a thief could recover stolen property, but there was no proof that the diamonds in question were stolen.” The court, in giving judgment, held that there was no proof that the diamonds were Kemp’s property and dismissed the appeal, and the diamonds were forfeited to the Crown.

This decision was hailed with delight by the mining community, as it tended to overthrow a clique of pseudo-legal and illegal buyers, who had long worked in concert; therefore, at the present time, the Transvaal and Natal are the only territories where transactions in stolen diamonds are capable of not being criminally brought home to those engaged in them.

This so far is a faithful account of the I. D. B. trade and its various ramifications.

Sir Jacobus de Wet, when recorder of our high court, once solemnly termed this trade the “canker-worm of the community.” The truth of his words time has over and over again but too truly established, as this canker-worm is gnawing away the very vitals of Diamond Field society.

To fully explain my meaning, men in some instances, I am sorry to say, occupying a fair status in commerce, mining or society are introduced to the new arrival; they have an ostensible business, and nothing in their manner would betray, save to one endowed with all the concentrated astuteness of Scotland Yard, that they were mixed up directly or indirectly with the nefarious business. They are not incapable of showing acts of kindness to the tyro on the Fields even without an ulterior motive, and the new-comer does not find out the real character of his kind acquaintances very often until he has been the recipient of favors from them, when even if he would wish once for all to sever his connection with them, custom and gratitude alike tend to prevent the separation. Positive proof of their being implicated in the traffic, from the very nature of the case, is not forthcoming, and so the young man gives his friends the benefit of the doubt, continues the acquaintance, and though he may not be actually drawn into absolute crime or abnormal vice, is certain to prove a living example of the truthful saying: “Evil communications corrupt good manners.”

Business relations too, like poverty, make us acquainted with strange bed-fellows in this part of the world, and the well-paying client, patient or customer is not readily rejected, or shown that his fees or payments are unacceptable, without so deliberate an insult as most men would shrink from offering, without stronger grounds than the suspicion that they are not entirely clean-handed. Hence, before a man knows where he is, he may have become the daily associate of unconvicted criminals. Men who themselves would not risk any direct meddling with the traffic are strongly tempted by offers of large percentages for the loan of money, which they may shrewdly suspect, though they do not know, will be devoted to the purposes of the illicit traffic: needless to say, such persons are morally accessories before the fact. I have elsewhere mentioned how those who in former days were themselves recipients of stolen diamonds are in some instances now the loudest in condemning their successors in the business, and this is brought forward as an argument to prove that free trade in diamonds is justifiable, an obvious and pitiable fallacy which I am only too sorry to say imposes upon many. The disgrace attached to the jail-bird in other parts of the world, however truly he may have repented of the wickedness that he had committed, here amidst the great body of the population is rarely imposed on the I. D. B. who has served his time, and men of comparatively high standing feel no shame in hobnobbing with them in public bars. While I would be the last man in the world to cast in a man’s teeth the sins which he has expiated in prison, or to frustrate him in his effort to earn an honest living, yet it is manifest that there is an opposite extreme, and that to exalt a convicted felon into a martyr, or even to make him a bosom companion, can scarcely be regarded as a sign of high integrity.

There is no doubt the receivers of stolen diamonds have made the most money out of the mines. There is no moral difference between the Whitechapel old clo’ Jew who “runs the klips,” the Hebrew swell who keeps his carriage at the West End, by purchasing diamonds at half their value in Hatton Garden, the Christian who lends money for the purchase of stolen goods, and who every Sunday thanks God he is not as other men are, and the respectable (?) colonial merchant “buying on the quiet.” They are all as much thieves as the veriest pickpocket of St. Giles’. The moral condition of the diamond fields is such that, although a man may be known to be habitually engaged in the trade, he is openly received until the jail’s portals are some day suddenly thrown back at the bidding of the special court to receive yet another victim, an example of the old, old story.

In a succeeding chapter I shall give some individual cases illustrative of my theory, in the next I shall deal with the treatment that this increasing disease has demanded and received.

CHAPTER XIV.
DIAMOND LEGISLATION.—RESUME OF SIR H. BARKLY’S PROCLAMATIONS.—EPITOME OF THE ORDINANCES OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF GRIQUALAND WEST.—REVIEW OF THE ACTS PASSED BY THE CAPE ASSEMBLY.—DESCRIPTION OF THE TRAPPING SYSTEM.—ADOPTION OF THE “ONUS PROBANDI” CLAUSE BY THE ORANGE FREE STATE.—THE SEARCHING DEPARTMENT.—THE COMPOUND SYSTEM.

When the diamond mines of Griqualand West, viz. Du Toit’s Pan, Bulfontein, De Beer’s and Colesberg Kopje, (now the Kimberley mine), got into full work, diamond diggers soon found out that they were being robbed to an enormous extent. Unfortunately but too many white men were to be found ready to receive the stolen diamonds from the thieves, who, at all events in those days, were almost exclusively natives.[^[42]] A strange infatuation seems always to have possessed those engaged in the pursuit of “the trade” as it is euphemistically termed, which even the stringent penalty of a possible fifteen years’ hard labor, the culmination of repeated legislation, does not seem to have sufficed to overcome. The first attempt to put a stop to these robberies by legislation was contained in a proclamation issued by Sir H. Barkly, on May 30th, 1872, in which every unauthorized buyer or seller was made liable to a fine not exceeding three times the value of the diamond or diamonds so bought, and in default of payment to imprisonment with or without hard labor for any period not exceeding two years.

Soon after, further precautionary measures were introduced, and the traffic in diamonds between the hours of sunrise and sunset and on Sundays was forbidden (vide government notice No. 69, July 29th, 1872). On Aug. 10th of the same year, Sir Henry Barkly issued a further proclamation, diamond stealing by natives and the purchase by unprincipled white men having immensely increased, in fact having become at this time even the curse of the Fields. By this proclamation, any dealer in wines, spirits, or malt liquors was unable to hold a license to trade in diamonds. This was amended on Sept. 17th, canteen-keepers only being disqualified, and not wholesale dealers. There was a further enactment that no person could be registered as the holder of a claim, unless he produced a certificate from a magistrate or justice of the peace certifying to his character; this, however, was always a mere form, and was never refused. Provision was also made for the registration of all servants, while power was given to any master, without the assistance of a constable, or for any constable without a warrant, to search the person, residence and property of any servant within two hours of the time he left the claim or sorting table; but on Sept. 17th this proviso was amended, and it was made lawful for a master to search his servant at any time whatever. If diamonds were found upon him, it was presumed that they were his master’s, and the punishment to which the servant was liable was imprisonment with or without hard labor for any period not exceeding twelve months, or to receive any number of lashes not exceeding fifty, or to such imprisonment and such whipping.

At the time this proclamation was issued native labor was in great demand on the fields, and consequently the power given to the master by law was seldom if ever exercised, as he knew the almost certain result would be the loss of all his servants. A change was made by this proclamation of Aug. 10th, 1872, so far as unauthorized buyers were concerned, their punishment upon conviction being fixed at a fine not exceeding £100 sterling, or to imprisonment with or without hard labor for any period not exceeding six months. The crime of inducing servants to steal was punished more severely. Lashes not exceeding fifty were provided for in the proclamation, and the imprisonment increased to a period not exceeding twelve months, or to such imprisonment and such whipping. Many white men received lashes under this clause, and amongst others a German, who on coming out of prison, retired to his native country with over £30,000!

The increasing desire for drink among natives was considered by the authorities in those days one of the greatest causes of the development of their thievish propensities, and the canteen keeper who bought a diamond of a native, or took diamonds in payment or pledge for liquor, in addition to the punishment already stated, forfeited his license and became incompetent to hold one in the future. A further discretionary power was given to the court by which any such person might be convicted, of forfeiting his right to any claims and expelling him from the territory; but the last proviso was laughed at by men who had contravened this law, as no punishment for returning to the province had ever been inserted by the framers. If stringent laws had been properly drafted and enforced in the early days of the Fields, the abominable illicit traffic might have been nipped in the bud.

A great deal of animosity toward the natives existed about this period. Part of this feeling was originated, I think, from many white men not possessed of claims being jealous of their black brethren digging at Du Toit’s Pan and Bulfontein, while the facility for dealing in stolen diamonds, afforded by their possessing a digger’s license, was also a factor in the ill-will felt and expressed.

A great mass meeting was held in the Market Square, Kimberley, on Friday, July 19th, 1872, to bring pressure to bear upon the three commissioners who administered the government, and get them to take away all claim licenses from black or colored men.

Two of these gentlemen, weakly desirous of popularity, gave way to the general outcry and suspended all claim licenses to natives by a proclamation issued on July 24th, which contained a reservation certainly, (which may be taken for what it is worth) allowing the issue of such licenses on production from the various digger committees of certificates of character and fitness; but this was a prerogative they were little likely to exercise owing to the strong feeling then existing.

John Cyprian Thompson, to whom I allude elsewhere, the dissentient, a good lawyer and a thorough Englishman, did not compromise himself by joining in this most illiberal proclamation. The subsequent action of Sir Henry Barkly tended to prove the correctness of Mr. Thompson’s opinion, for as soon as the proclamation reached Capetown his excellency canceled it by another of Aug. 10th, 1872. In this he stated that “as it is inconsistent with justice that persons against whom no specific charges have been brought should be deprived of their rights and properties, I do hereby revoke, cancel, and make void the said proclamation, and do declare that the same shall be of no force or effect whatever, and that all licenses suspended under and by virtue thereof shall be returned and the holders thereof placed, as far as possible, in the same position as if the said proclamation had not been issued.”

The question of granting licenses to natives, and other matters of the same kind, then attracted little attention from government until some time after Governor Southey’s arrival, when the due constitution of our own legislative council having taken place, an ordinance was passed (No. 21 of 1874) dealing more strictly with licensed dealers and brokers. Dealers’ licenses were increased, at the suggestion of certain of them who thought by this means to monopolize the trade, to £50 and brokers’ to £25 per annum; dealers were obliged to buy in licensed offices, and brokers could not get a license without a magistrate’s certificate, proving that they were not under tutelage, and producing two sureties. By another short Act (No. 31 of 1874) diamond dealers were compelled, under a penalty of £50 or in default three months’ imprisonment, to properly register and record all their purchases.

Again, while Sir J. D. Barry was acting administrator, another ordinance was passed (No. 4 of 1877) repealing 21 and 31 of 1874, re-enacting the main clauses but increasing the maximum punishment for a first offense to a fine of £500 and three years’ imprisonment, and for a second to £1,000 and seven years.

The most interesting point to observe in connection with the diamond trade ordinances is the gradual increase in their stringency, obviously the outcome of, and in direct ratio to, the growth of this illicit traffic; to bear this out, in 1880, when Mr. Rose Innes was administrator, the punishment of this crime was again increased to a maximum of five years’ imprisonment and £500 fine for the first, and ten years and £1,000 for the second offense, with six and twelve months in addition respectively if the fines were not paid.

I was vice-president of the legislative council of Griqualand West when this ordinance (No. 8 of 1880) was under discussion. At the time it seemed monstrous to me (these cases being left to the discretion of a single magistrate) that on the opinion of one man, without a jury, a fellow creature, possibly innocent, might be consigned to prison for ten long years. I spoke strongly on the matter, but it was argued that with a jury, the illicit traffic having so many ramifications (as the Spanish proverb has it, “by the parson’s skirts the devil gets into the belfry”), it would be almost impossible to gain a conviction.

To meet this emergency I proposed a three-judge court (the same principle that has since been adopted in Ireland with reference to the “Crimes act”), which suggestion was supported by the government, and now under the title of “The Special Court” criminals of this class appear before a just and strictly impartial tribunal

In 1880 (previous to high court with three judges being constituted) a special magistrate was appointed to act in conjunction with the Kimberley and Du Toit’s Pan magistrates to form the special court, but since our high court has been formed, and the Diamond Trade Act 48 of 1882 has become law, this office has been done away with, and one of the three judges now sits in turn as president of the special court.

The act just mentioned (48 of 1882) when it passed the Cape parliament might have been at once extended to the whole colony, but it was enforced by the government in Griqualand West only, consequently any one could buy or possess diamonds with impunity in the Cape Colony proper. As again in the Free State, although an ordinance was passed in the same year (No. 3 of 1882) of even greater severity, providing maximum penalties for its contravention of £2,000 fine, twenty years’ hard labor, 100 lashes, and last but not least the power to expel from the State all moral lepers in the shape of persons convicted outside the State in Griqualand West of I. D. B., their judges interpreted it not to extend beyond six miles from proclaimed diamond diggings; therefore so far as that State was concerned the free trade in diamonds was owing to an omission in and not a permission by the law.

FREE TOWN.[^[43]]

The judges there seem to have been actuated by the sound legal principle that penal laws should be strictly or rather restrictively construed.

Again in Natal and the Transvaal no law connected with diamonds existed except one in the latter State, forbidding the purchase of diamonds or gold without a special license, or from a native, under a penalty of five years’ imprisonment, £1,000 fine and confiscation, an ordinance practically null and void, for these might be purchased without question from any white man on paying a duty of five per cent.; consequently the main illicit trade was done outside the confines of Griqualand West, where there was no danger of interference from the detectives when diamonds once were safely transported across the border.

The Volksraad, in the Transvaal, I ought not to omit mentioning, also passed a clause in their extradition laws against all offenders charged with contravening our diamond act, which, however, they expunged on May 26th, 1886, out of pique, because the Cape colonial government would not take off the tax on tobacco and produce; consequently Christiana, a town situated close to the borders of Griqualand West, is again the seat of much illicit trade.

Natal, however, like the Transvaal, wants some good “quid pro quo” before it will assist the Cape in suppressing this infamous trade. During the session of the legislative council 1885–86, when the “Post-office law amendment bill” was under discussion, in which power was asked to detain and open certain letters, great and unhappily successful opposition was made by certain members, Mr. Binnes, a rising legislator, terming the clause this “jesuitical clause,” and two other members expressing surprise at the “mean, sneaking power” which the government by a “sidewind” wished to gain. For a time at least, therefore, Natal has converted herself into a “thieves’ highway.” Again in the present session, 1886–87, a similar bill has been thrown out. This conduct on the part of Natal politicians is attributed to some ill-feeling with respect to custom dues, and was wholly unjustifiable, so much so that the sister colony by thus protecting the leeches that suck the life’s blood of our great industry, lays herself open to the charge of wilfully becoming particeps criminis.

These causes led to the most palpable, systematic and barefaced robberies, as may be readily imagined. So long as the Kafir thieves and white fences could in half an hour drive from Kimberley to the Free State, where no onus probandi of legal possession lay with the holders of diamonds, and whence a seaport could be reached without passing through any part of Griqualand West, the trade continued to thrive. Now, however, the injustice under which we were laboring is greatly diminished, first by the Free State Volksraad passing a law during the last session containing the much desired onus probandi clause, and second by our own parliament awakening to a sense of its duty and passing an act applying restrictions over the whole colony.[^[44]]

The principal points in the Diamond Trade Act of 1882 are: (1st) That it shall not be lawful for any person to have in his possession any rough or uncut diamond, without being able to legally account for it; (2d) the punishment of those convicted under the act is increased to a maximum of fifteen years, the governor having at the termination of five years the power to remit the remainder of the sentence, on condition of the prisoner leaving the territory, with the alternative that if he return he can be rearrested and imprisoned for a term equal to the portion of his sentence unexpired at the time of his release; (3d) that none but a licensed person can export or import diamonds; (4th) that the chief of the detective department or police can stop any package in the post-office supposed to contain diamonds illegally, and warn the owner to be present at the examination, when if any unregistered diamonds be found, the owner is liable to the full penalty already mentioned; (5th) that a person finding a diamond must deliver it to the government, but to receive ten per cent. of the proceeds when the diamond is sold; (6th) that power under warrant is granted to detective officers and policemen to enter and search any suspected places, and in any highway, street, or public place, to arrest and search any suspected person, the onus probandi of legal possession resting on the suspected party if any diamonds be found; (7th) that diamond cutters must be licensed; (8th) that special permits must be obtained for washing débris; (9th) that every person is required by law to keep a register and to forward it monthly for examination to the chief of the detective department; (10th) that a special board be formed for protecting mining interests; (11th) that an accessory either before or after any contravention of the act can be charged and dealt with as a principal; (12th) and that a registration fee of one-half per cent. be levied on all exported diamonds.

These are the main additional clauses introduced into the law which is now in force; the remaining are not so important and refer to minor requirements, which have been reintroduced from repealed ordinances.

To go back a little, an ordinance was passed in July, 1880, when Mr. Rose Innes was administrator, providing for the searching of natives and others employed in the various mines. Owing to the want of unanimity between the four mining boards, no action was taken under this act until Feb. 1883, when the various mines were inclosed with wire fencing, searching houses at different outlets built, and a staff of men engaged to act as searchers.

These remained until February, 1884, under the detective department, the expenditure falling upon the different mines, the half per cent. registration fee on exported diamonds and the proceeds of those captured defraying a portion. The searching officers when under the detective department were excessive in number and extravagantly paid. The number and expense was ridiculous, eighty (80) searchers were employed in the four mines, and the expense was nearly two thousand pounds per month, for which they were supposed to examine all persons, white or black, leaving the mines, but this was done so hurriedly that the inspection became a mere farce. In January, 1886, the chief of the detective department reporting on this department gave it as his decided opinion that it had no effect on the theft of diamonds, and advised its discontinuance. Since this was written, however, great improvement in this department has taken place under Major Maxwell.

I am able to give my readers some statistics comprising the searching and detective expense of the four mines which are interesting, showing the cost of the detective department for the first twenty-seven months after the promulgation of the act, and that of the searching department for twenty-two months after its inauguration:

I have good authority for stating that the value of the diamonds seized in searching amounted to less than £200. It will, however, be argued that “prevention is better than cure,” and that the searching was to prevent the abstraction of diamonds from the mines. This, however, it failed to do, it only altered the channel by which they passed from the elevated to the underground railway, or in other words, from the pockets of the Kafirs to their stomachs.[^[45]] In February, 1885, the various mining boards took the searching arrangements under their own supervision, and retrenchment is now the order of the day.

When Act 48 of 1882 was before the Cape assembly, its provisions were minutely discussed. Being at that time one of the members for Kimberley, I had the opportunity of bringing my influence to bear. I did not oppose exemplary penalties being enacted for this increasing crime, but I decidedly objected, and in this I was supported by Mr. Saul Solomon, to flogging being inflicted for what was not a crime against the person but against property. I was so far successful that such brutal ideas were expunged from the act. Mr. Scanlan (now Sir T. Scanlan), who was then premier, kindly assisted me, though I was at the time in opposition, in passing through the house the “ticket of leave” system, which I introduced into the second clause. In getting this inserted, I acted on the assurance of some diggers, and these, too, the most determined to stamp out I. D. B., that the object of their wish for increased length of punishment was not revenge for the loss that they had sustained (for which motive they were credited by many), but a desire to rid the place, for as long a period as possible, of men who were reducing Griqualand West simply to a hot-bed of thieves.

I should not be giving my readers an idea of all the legal machinery brought to bear in order to root out and bring to justice this class of criminal if I were to omit a description of the trapping system as now in vogue. The detective department is one entailing immense responsibility on its chief. When it is remembered that “the thief, the robber, the assassin, the harlot, the murderer, and every other conceivable criminal flourishes” on this sneaking crime, it may be asked, seeing none are trapped but those who are well known to be in “the trade,” why the parrot cry of its un-English-like character is raised by many against so necessary a routine.

The detective service consists of a chief, about twenty-five natives, chosen for their shrewdness, nine white men, known to the public as detectives, and several engaged on special secret service. These officers are all well paid, not only to secure the services of reliable men, but to compensate them for the risk they run, though as a rule, the diamond thief is the veriest of cowards.

When a man is daily seen drinking, gambling and riotously living, without any visible means of subsistence, when his character can be gauged by the company that he keeps, and the detective department receives private information, that man is trapped; but not before he has bought three times do the detectives “run him in.”

Such, at least, is the system, as it has been explained to me by those who should be thoroughly acquainted with it. On the other hand, I know of a case of a young ex-officer of volunteers, who in a drunken moment bought a stone not intended for him, and was brought to trial. The detectives all swore that he had never, so far as they were aware, purchased an illicit diamond before in his life, and the court, taking that view, sentenced him to only eighteen months’ imprisonment. He was, moreover, released before the expiration of his sentence.

The plan is as follows: The native who acts as the “trap” is thoroughly searched and then supplied with a diamond by the department. He starts on “his mission of mercy” followed by two or three detectives, who place themselves in different positions, so as to command a view of the premises where the transaction is expected to take place.

What follows is generally simple enough, the illicit buys the diamond and pays for it, when the Kafir gives a signal, and the detectives rush in and seize the man who is pointed out as the purchaser. The “trap” is again searched, when, as corroborative evidence, no diamond is found on him, but in its place, the money he has just received in payment for the “stone.” Convictions, however, are occasionally obtained when no money has passed, in which case, however, the evidence of the traps is required to be very strongly corroborated.

Black “traps” and white are employed by the detective department. The black trap is generally a native who does the dirty work purely as a matter of business, and is thoroughly honest; the white trap on the contrary is generally one who has been in the illicit trade himself, and either from avarice or motives of jealousy and revenge sells some former comrade to penal servitude and the breakwater.

In January, 1887, an instance occurred, showing that in spite of all the elaborate machinery of a rigid searching system, probably general if not universal, and the existence of the severe ordinance in question, etc., the native continues to steal diamonds. In a compound at Du Tot’s Pan, only a few months ago, the body of a native who died suddenly under suspicious circumstances was opened and a diamond of no less weight than sixty carats discovered therein.

The necessity for the extensive machinery and the enormous cost of the searching and detective departments will to my mind be done away with if the “compound system” inaugurated by the Central Co. in the Kimberley mine be carried out by other companies. In April, 1885, this company opened their buildings for native servants. I attended the opening ceremony, and to my surprise found a large yard some 150 yards square inclosed partly by buildings and the remainder by sheets of iron ten feet high. Within this inclosure were sleeping-rooms for 500 Kafirs, a magnificent kitchen and pantry, large baths, guard-room, dispensary and sick-ward, store and mess-rooms. There is no doubt that this arrangement will be the means of greatly decreasing the thieving by natives, but it opens up a great question connected with the business of the place, with respect to the “truck” system which must follow, and has yet to be threshed out.

During the fifteen years I have been on the Fields, I can conscientiously say, I have never known one single man found guilty who did not well deserve his punishment, though I have known many escape through the laudable determination of the judges to require most incontrovertible evidence before convicting.

I do not attempt for one moment to extenuate the crime or treat lightly the social ulcer which so undermines the moral health of the community, but I cannot help drawing attention, in connection with the subject of this chapter, to the 450 carat diamond which has just flashed like a meteor across the London market.

This is well known to have come from Jagersfontein. A whisper had never been heard of a diamond of such weight, such color and such brilliancy having been found there or in any other mine in the country, but a Port Elizabeth house quietly shipped it, and it was bought in London for £20,000 by a syndicate composed of men knowing the diamond fields intimately.

The actuality of this diamond came prominently before the public in a suit before the High Court of Griqualand West in October, 1886, in a case wherein the chief of the detective department was called to give evidence. During the course of this gentleman’s examination one of the judges said: “Do you know where that very large diamond produced in London some time ago came from?” “I do; from information received I could give your lordship the whole history of that stone from the time it left the ground until it reached Messrs. —— Bros.” This led to another question by one of the other two judges comprising the bench, which clinched the matter: “Was it a Griqualand West stone?” “No, it was not, my lord.”

These, perhaps, like the Pharisee, “thank God, that they are not as other men are.” But the question I would ask is this syndicate not the buyer, second hand, of stolen property?

“Conscentia mille testes.”

Even in England the crime of receiving stolen goods is heavily punishable, but in a case like this the worthies know well that it can never be brought home to them.

The charge has frequently been brought against the diggers that they had very considerably themselves to thank for the extent to which I. D. B. had spread. Had they taken proper precautions, it was urged, thefts would have minimized, and it was further pointed out, that though it might be true that if there were no receivers there would be no thieves, it is obviously true that if there were no thieves there could be no receivers. I cannot myself entirely acquit the diggers of the charge of culpable negligence. On the other hand, within the past three or four years there has been less ground for the accusation, as an elaborate searching system has been introduced. All the employés of the companies or individual diggers, white men under the rank of manager and colored men universally, are liable to be searched at any time. The white overseer even does not know when this may take place, as the order is secretly given from headquarters whom to search.

In connection with the searching of white men I may mention a lamentable occurrence that took place in the early part of 1884. A fiat went forth that they should be compelled to strip naked, and a natural feeling of indignation arose, as many of the overseers had been themselves pioneer diggers, and the majority of miners were men of undoubted respectability. A most regretable amount of ill-feeling arose between employers and employés, and though I believe the former were willing to forego the condition that absolute nudity would be required, yet the proviso that the boots should be removed was distasteful to the latter. At length a strike took place, to which, it is asserted, but with what amount of truth I cannot say, the men were urged on by unscrupulous outsiders, who had their own ends to serve. The first strike was of brief duration and passed over quietly, but the second, though also lasting a comparatively short time, was attended with fatal consequences. Briefly the circumstances were as follows: A considerable number of men were proceeding to the edge of the Kimberley mine to compel the French company to draw their fires. The men all distinctly assert they had no intention whatever of damaging the machinery or hauling gear of the company. A barricade had been erected by the servants of the company, behind which were armed policemen and certain diggers, etc., who had been sworn in as special constables. Various accounts are given as to how the affray began, at all events, though the police did not fire a single shot, the special constables shot dead on the spot four of the unfortunate men, who were buried next day, and another, who was an old patient of mine, died an hour or so after in my consulting-room, where he and a comrade who died a week after had been carried.

Great fears were entertained of a general riot; the canteens were ordered to be closed, the men who had fired the fatal shots were removed for safety to the jail, the government removed all firearms from the gun-stores, a corps of mounted specials was organized, while all save those whose passions were inflamed on one side or the other deeply deplored the sad events, and looked forward with the gravest apprehension to what a day or night might bring forth. The funerals of the fallen men were most impressive, hundreds, indeed I might say thousands, attending them, following most on foot, in slow procession to the solemn strains of the “Dead March in Saul.” Happily, however, there was no further bloodshed, and before a fortnight or three weeks were over, with but few exceptions, the men had returned to work and an amicable conclusion arrived at.

To proceed to the searching of natives, though there are certain differences in different mines, generally speaking the system is as follows: On arriving at the searching house they are compelled to divest themselves of their ordinary garb and pass through a central compartment in puris naturalibus, after which they assume working suits, needless to say absolutely pocketless. Their work over, they are first searched in the claims by the overseers and then are examined by the searching officers. They are stripped perfectly naked and compelled to leap over bars, and their hair, mouths, ears, etc., etc., carefully examined—no particularly pleasant duty for the searcher when the thermometer stands at perhaps 100° Fahrenheit in the shade.[^[46]] There are grave doubts occasionally expressed as to the efficacy of this costly system, as comparatively few diamonds have ever been found in the searching houses, and the thievish native exercises an almost supernatural ingenuity in concealing his plunder, but the question is what diamonds have been prevented from being stolen rather than what stolen diamonds have been recovered.

Another system in which the supporters express a firm belief is that known as the compound system, which is shortly as follows. I have already described the Central Co.’s compound, but I will go a little more into detail: A company’s boys, instead of being allowed to wander about the town at their own sweet will, to feed at Kafir eating-houses (which are too frequently the favorite resorts of black I. D. B. runners, and whose proprietors are not invariably above reproach) and to drink at low canteens or smuggling dens, are confined to a company’s compound for two months, the period for which they now contract.

They are comfortably housed, and being unable to obtain the deleterious and adulterated liquor which has proved so many a native’s poison and death, are in the main much healthier than their uncompounded brethren, who spending two-thirds of their wages in drink on Saturday and Sunday are almost inanimate the following day and unable to work. It is needless to say that this system has aroused considerable opposition from the Kafir store-keepers, canteen-keepers and others whose purchasers are mainly natives, together with, it goes without saying, the I. D. B. gentry and a few who are neither I. D. B.’s, Kafir store-keepers nor the like, but who conceive that the system will tend to ruin the commerce of the town.[^[47]] It is urged that the principle of “live and let live” was never more flagrantly outraged; that the bread is taken out of honest men’s mouths; that it is not by Kafirs, not even mainly by Kafirs, that diamonds are taken from the mines, and that it is a direct interference with the liberty of the subject. The last reason, however, is not a very cogent one against the subject, as the native agrees of his own accord to the contract, and philanthropists declare the compound to be an unmingled boon to the Kafir.

That it involves something allied to the “truck system” is apparently plain, as of course the necessities of life must be purchased in the compound, though it must be remembered that the legislative enactments which forbid the system in England were introduced to protect the employé whose wages were diminished by the unfair profits and the exorbitant interest charged by the “tommy shop,” not to protect the shopkeeper whose business was interfered with. Again, the wages are paid in cash, and the company’s store can in the event of the native failing to pay up at the end of the week merely, as I surmise, recover it by ordinary civil process. The companies disclaim all intention of making any profits for their shareholders by their shops in the compound, and are prepared to accept outside price-lists and distribute the profits among such institutions as the free hospital and the public library.

That those who have sunk their money, large or small, in the erection of Kafir stores and native bars feel the system a grievance I can readily understand, and for my part, on the principle of self-preservation being the first law of nature, am not disposed to blame them very much, if at all, for endeavoring to protect their interests by getting a bill introduced into parliament to abolish not the compound system, but to render it almost null and void by limiting the period during which the Kafirs can be kept in the compounds, through a clause principally to the effect that no goods can be vended there. A bill was introduced into the Cape parliament last year with this object, but a compromise, which is perhaps only temporary, was effected, and the bill withdrawn.

Most probably the matter will be brought before the house again next session, but I scarcely think it has much chance of passing; meanwhile the mining union has undertaken not to compound any white men, and to limit the period during which they keep the native compounded to two months only.

In concluding this chapter I shall take the opportunity of expressing my own views on the progressive legislation by which the late legislative council of Griqualand West and the Cape assembly since annexation have attempted to cope with this crime. After a long and thorough acquaintance with all classes of this community (for which, to a certain extent, I have to thank my profession), I have come to the conclusion that the punishments now inflicted are not adapted to the requirements of the case. The present judicial procedure of sentencing this class of prisoner to a long term of hard labor, during which its members learn advanced lessons in crime, and then turning them loose, further accomplished, upon the unfortunate digger, is to my mind not only a tax on the country, but also a calamity to Griqualand West. In my opinion a shorter period of imprisonment would suffice, but to this I would add a sequestration of all the culprit’s movable and immovable property, and banishment from the colony for at least twenty years, under pain of say fifteen years’ imprisonment with hard labor should he return previously. Criminals of this class, again, are tempted by the extra chances of sudden fortune which it presents.

Cases in which second convictions have taken place are numerous, in fact there seems to be a peculiar fascination which irresistibly attracts its devotees, and seems to render the majority of them almost incorrigible; consequently one of the best methods of protecting the mining community against these vampires is that they should be entirely beyond the reach of a species of temptation that they are unable to withstand.

There is one point, in addition, which I must not omit to mention in closing this chapter, and that is the readiness with which the present ministry (1885–86–87) recommend the governor of the colony to grant pardons to I. D. B.’s. “Petition-mongering, too, is a highly respectable business, for legislators of the land condescend to handle and flutter the interesting documents in the faces of sympathizers; cabinet ministers are not averse to joining in the game, and the stamp of the very highest authority is secured for it when his excellency the governor is persuaded into opening the doors of the jail and bidding the exultant illicit go forth once more, to lay his roguish hands on the hard-earned gains of the diamond digger.”

I have known cases of the most extraordinary character, one I will mention in particular. On the prisoner’s first conviction, he received a sentence of five years’ imprisonment, but was liberated after fifteen months’ incarceration, when, at once resuming the same sneaking kind of theft, he was caught again, and seven years awarded to him to ponder over his outrages. Mirabile dictu! thirteen months saw him, through his excellency the governor’s kindness, a free man once more; but with well-earned experience, as he now, the third time of asking, makes Free Town, in the adjoining republic, not Kimberley, the safe base of his dishonest operations. The hammer which shivered this man’s links must have been heavily weighted indeed! As he told me, one hammer, which of itself was not heavy enough to complete the work, weighed £850.

CHAPTER XV.
DESCRIPTION OF THE I. D. B.—PUBLIC MORALS.—THE MUSIC HALLS AND THEIR SONGS.—“M. L. A.’S AND M. L. C.’S IN LEAGUE WITH THIEVES AND RECEIVERS.”

Illicit diamond buyers are like the devils recorded in the gospel, whose name was “legion, for they were many.” The illicits are not only many in number, but also many in species.

The genus has little changed from the earlier times, for the I. D. B. was and is simply a receiver of stolen goods, well knowing them to be stolen, nothing more and nothing less. But the species of this genus are so numerous that their accurate categorist would almost rival a Linnæus or a Cuvier.

Some of the species are as extinct as the dodo; others have changed as remarkably as diseases, which once epidemic have become endemic, and members of the latter class, might, if classically inclined, appropriately quote, with reference to their altered position: “Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis.”

The I. D. B. of 1872 was not the I. D. B. of to-day; the I. D. B., whose canvas canteen, thronged by semi-nude Shangaans, Zulus, Basutos or Ballapins, was occasionally burnt over his head, was a different person in his modus operandi and manner of living from the “speculator” of 1885.

The “kopje walloper,” who was generally a gentleman of the Hebrew persuasion hailing from Petticoat Lane or the Minories, was one of those who, when diamond buying was as legal in the open air as in a properly registered office, used to haunt the edge of the mine. With satchel at side, well lined with gold and notes, sometimes on the chance of buying a diamond cheaply, trading on the ignorance of the finder, but generally with the view of tempting sorters to steal from the sorting table, he is now almost forgotten, although his moral counterpart exists to this day in the scoundrel who tempts, and but too often successfully, the white servants of a company or a claim-holder to become thieves, or to conveniently wink at the thieving of others.

The I. D. B. digger who could turn out as many diamonds in an afternoon’s wash-up as mealies on a cob, and by a marvelous dispensation of Providence was always hitting upon “splendid ground” in his claim, is now a rara avis, for the onus probandi of bona fide possession being now thrown upon the holders of rough and uncut diamonds, the digger who discovers priceless gems in notoriously worthless ground and by the aid of the poorest appliances runs a serious risk of being confronted with the judge of the special court.[^[48]] To those unacquainted with diamond digging the awarding of a punishment for what might, at first sight, appear to be merely exceptional “luck” may seem more than Draconian, but this point will be referred to in a succeeding chapter.

The bogus licensed diamond buyer too who, frequently subsidised by some hidden man, merely pretended to transact legitimate business as a cloak for his illicit transactions, but did all that remunerated him in the “dead waist and middle of the night” is rapidly becoming extinct, owing to the stringent rules as to the proof of bona fide possession and the enforced registration of sale and purchase, though at the same time he is still extant in this year of grace, 1887. Like the cat employed by the ingenious monkey, however, in removing chestnuts from the fire, or the policeman in Gilbert’s opera, “his life is not a happy one.”

Again, the native claim-holder and digger who either bought a claim or was put into one to find diamonds, which, as a matter of fact, came from some other claim, perhaps some other mine, or even the river digging, now finds a more congenial occupation in running parcels over the Free State line or to Christiana in the Transvaal, or acting as an unlicensed diamond broker within the limits of the camp. “Jonas” and “Kleinboy” may still be seen with rings on their fingers and attired in a “masher” style which would not disgrace a West End tailor, but they are no longer diggers, though apparently their present occupation pays them handsomely enough.

Before the act of 1882 came into force Kimberley was a different place from what it is now—a nervous activity was universal. The booted and spurred I. D. B. could then be seen galloping on his well-groomed steed to his favorite resort, the canteen bars were thronged day and night, the billiard-rooms were crowded. The “Free and Easy,” too, had its frequenters, who were posted in all the comic songs of the day, and nightly twitted and tickled each other with the chorus of one at that time just out from home. These gentlemen evidently appropriated and appreciated the point of its refrain, singing with great gusto.

“They all do it, they all do it,

Though they very often rue it,”

as if their vile traffic and its consequences were one huge grim joke.[^[49]]

At another music hall the song most in favor and nightly sung with immense éclat was one in which the adventures of a fortunate I. D. B. were told in the following doggerel, which was always sure of a vociferous encore, especially as many thought it had a peculiar local application:

“I’m shortly about to retire,

Then to Flo of course I’ll be wed,

I shall do the thing fine, buy shares in the mine

Or else float a company instead.

I’ll of course have a carriage and pair,

And later I shall not despair,

In the council I’ll get, and if you wait a bit

No doubt you will see me made mayor.”

The fact of a song like this being sung in public speaks volumes as to the utter demoralization which then existed in certain circles.

In their well-known houses of call the popping of champagne corks was like one continuous fusilade, and money flowed like water, for at this time the illicit buyer had little or no fear of a detective tapping him on the shoulder and asking him to account for the diamonds in his pocket.

Professor Darwin may write about the development of species, but if he resided here he might describe how an eminently respectable (?) member of society is evolved from a thief. There are I. D. B.’s and I. D. B.’s, all grades from high to low, from rich to poor, some accounted among the creme de la creme of Kimberley society, even pillars of this or that church, pious receivers and ex-receivers of stolen property well knowing it to be stolen, others buying from hand to mouth to ward off starvation.

The I. D. B. moving in society, probably now the manager of a digging company, or a licensed buyer, but nevertheless a rank hypocrite who has worked his way through all grades of rascality to a certain position, wishes by associating with men of acknowledged social status to avoid suspicion, and therefore, as a matter of tact, he rails against the illicit trade and preaches morality ad nauseam.

If he has money or influence he is surrounded by satellites, who shine but by a borrowed light, or to alter the simile, by dogs who support their miserable existence by licking up the “crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table.”

So powerful is the leaven of corruption engendered by this illicit system, that men, otherwise of undoubted probity, “kowtow” to the man whom in their heart of hearts they know to be, to quote thieves’ Latin, a simple “fence,” because they think that

“Thrift may follow fawning.”

From the passing of ordinance 48 of 1882 until the extension of that ordinance to the entire colony in the session of 1885, Capetown and Port Elizabeth were the head-centres of the I. D. B.’s, who, possessing capital, wished to evade the consequence of their nefarious trade. These scoundrels bought diamonds which were stolen and smuggled from Griqualand West, and men, supposed to be honorable (?) merchants, even members of the legislative assembly, were reported as trading with these characters in diamonds which they must have known to be stolen.

An apparently legal, though in reality a dishonest trade, was carried on by these men, who were described by the editor of the Orange Free State Advertiser as “M. L. A.’s and M. L. C.’s, in league with thieves and receivers of stolen property.”

The Diamond Trade extension act has however been of infinite service in checking the illicit traffic at the Bay and Capetown, though it has not entirely extinguished it.

As a matter of fact, there does not exist anywhere a more unredeemable set of miscreants than the arch-thieves who are at the head of the illicit diamond trade in South Africa.

Illicit diamond buying, like all crime the root of which is greed of money, tends to kill all humane instincts, and leaves those who practice it more selfish than the very brutes and absolutely dead to every better feeling.

The flattering unction which the confederates of the I. D. B. fraternity lay to their souls, if any grain of conscience remains, is that they are merely guilty of a revenue offense. It is therefore only to their cowardly fear of punishment that the law of the land must appeal if a stop is to be put to the wholesale system of robbery which they have organized and carried on so long with comparative impunity.

The I. D. B. now and then boasts in his cups that he has bought hand over fist, and cares nothing for, the adjective detective; but when the aforesaid adjective detective lightly lays his hands on his shoulder, he usually manifests the craven cowardice of a Noah Claypole rather than the bravery of a bold outlaw like Robin Hood, or the semi-chivalrous audacity and recklessness of a Claude Duval or a Dick Turpin.

CHAPTER XVI.
I. D. B.
TALES FROM REAL LIFE.—“THE MYSTIC THREE LETTERS.”—AN UNGRATEFUL HOUND.—A PLUCKY WOMAN.—NEMESIS.—TOO CLEVER BY HALF.—THE EARLY BIRD CATCHES THE WORM.—AN UNEXPECTED RECOVERY.—A DEATH-BED SCENE.

In connection with this nefarious traffic, this insidious disease I will term it, the nature of which I have, I hope, fully explained in a preceding chapter, I purpose appending a few examples, grave and gay, to illustrate the subject.

The stories are not without interest, illustrating as they do a certain phase of humanity, and at the same time possessing the merit of strict accuracy, as I have carefully excluded any narratives for the truth of which I am not, so far as is possible in such secret transactions, personally able to vouch.

While it is true that some slight freemasonry, not to speak of a frequent exhibition of what might fairly be termed freehanded generosity, undoubtedly exists or has existed among the fraternity of the mystic three letters, it must not for one moment be imagined that their moral sense prevents them cheating each other quite as remorselessly as the unfortunate digger or shareholder, on whose vitals they so long have “preyed” without ceasing. Men engaged in this traffic will rob one another, and there is no honor whatever among thieves of this class, their standard of morality being low indeed. Creatures of this type will often descend to any depth to gratify their sensual pleasure, and to satisfy their greed for gold. Examples have not been infrequent on the diamond fields of men employing Kafir females, on the one hand as touts for their infamous trade, and on the other to minister to the basest lusts of their nature. These unfortunate women are, as a rule, faithful to their protectors (Heaven save the mark!) combining at the same time the capacities of mistress, drudge and go-between. Their life is a terrible one, poor creatures, as this tale will show.

A certain gentleman, who boasted of his intimate acquaintance with the mysteries of one of the gayest capitals in Europe, was living not so long ago with a smart and not by any means repulsive-looking Fingo woman. About this time camp fever was very prevalent, and he fell under its influence. For days, nay, weeks, the disease held him in its grasp, and as day and night he tossed in wild delirium, hiding himself in the bedclothes to escape from the imaginary detectives who were conjured up by his disordered brain, his bedside was but seldom deserted by this loving example of native fidelity.

His trade connection with the “boys” employed in the mine had, however, to be kept together, and here it was that the faithful creature showed the devotion of her nature by running great risks in purchasing diamonds from the natives who had been in the habit of coming to her paramour. When this man rose from his bed of sickness, to his astonishment she presented him with hundreds of carats of valuable diamonds, but my readers will scarcely credit it when I tell them that no sooner was this despicable hound able to crawl than he sneaked away to Europe, taking with him the diamonds that she had bought, and leaving her penniless to starve or gain her living on the streets.

“Ingratum si dixeris omnia dices.”

As a pleasing contrast to the story I have just related, I have now to record an instance of woman’s fidelity and presence of mind when brought face to face with danger to those she loved.

A man, his wife, and child resided in Newton, a quarter of the camp, at one time at least, as thickly studded with swell I. D. B.’s “as the autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallambrosa.”

The husband was, not without reason, suspected of being what was euphemistically known as “in the trade.” So the detectives came to his house again and yet again, they emptied the sugar pots, they stuck their fingers in the pomatum, the pepper-boxes were turned topsy-turvy, making catarrh as universal in the house as cholera round Mecca; potatoes preparing for the diurnal tiffin were carefully diagnosed as to their diamondiferous capabilities, in fact Newton, the philosopher, suffered less from the incendiary propensities of his lap-dog than did Newton, the locality, from the “minions of the law.”

On one occasion when these gentlemen put in an appearance, a diamond of a large size was lying in the reticule of Mrs. —— upon the table. When about to rise and remove it, she was ordered by the officers to remain seated, whereupon she asked permission to send for a bottle of stout, a request at once acceded to. Hastily scribbling the words “Send bottle stout; keep bag till I come,” she rose and nonchalantly handed the message and reticule containing the diamond to her child, who toddled off to a neighboring canteen, where, as the mother knew, her husband was almost certain to be found. He, smelling a rat, made away with the stone, and the detectives very soon after left the house, baffled in their search, never dreaming of how they had been overreached. This woman’s presence of mind no doubt saved her husband many years in jail.

Though then notoriously “in the swim” they are now, having seen the error of their ways, earning an honest livelihood down Colony, and I am told often exhibit that “charity” which we are taught “covers a multitude of sins.”

In the case I will now mention Nemesis overtakes well-nigh all parties concerned.

About August, 188—, an individual over whose head was hanging a charge, not, however, connected with the diamond ordinance, determined to diminish his household expenses by sending his wife to Europe in charge of the proceeds of certain little private speculations which, it is needless for me to say, are never entered in the books of any mercantile firm. After selling off, he took apartments for his wife and another lady at a somewhat pretentious looking hotel in Kimberley.

All was going merrily as marriage bells are popularly supposed to do, the voyage was anticipated with eager delight, and a visit to an old friend in Hatton Garden was expected to prove highly remunerative; but “l’homme propose et Dieu dispose.”

The detective department, from “information received,” determined to make these ladies a domiciliary visit; so one afternoon, just as a nice little tiffin had been washed down with a glass of fine Clicquot, rendered still more delicious by the inspection of the glittering gems, which they had proudly been displaying to the longing eyes of the landlady, who had come in to remove the cloth, a sharp tap was heard at the door, and in walked the dreaded forms of two prominent detectives and a female searcher.

Quick as lightning the landlady whisked up the cloth, diamonds and all, leaving the room to give the officers the opportunity of a private and confidential interview with their startled guests. These gentlemen having explained the object of their visit politely introduced their female companion, and retired to smoke a cigar on the verandah.

The lady visitor, or rather the female searcher, at once took advantage of her position, and sarcastically remarked to her agitated “friends”: “Never mind, my dears, let down your hair; I have had finer ladies than you through my fingers before.”

After expressing satisfaction at the elegance of their coiffure, she then proceeded to admire their entire wardrobe, even the pretty little No. 2’s and silk stockings in which their tiny feet were encased did not escape attention.

Not finding any portion of their apparel encrusted with gems of purest ray, decidedly meant, in this case, to blush unseen, this “perfect lady” proceeded to express her appreciation of the delicate whiteness of their arms, somewhat marring their beauty, however, by leaving marks of sundry pinches which she inflicted to test the genuine nature of their plumpness.[^[50]]

This interview being brought to a satisfactory or unsatisfactory conclusion, as the reader may elect to decide, the detectives and their coadjutrix took their departure. Forthwith the ladies rang the bell for the landlady, who promptly answered it, but wonderful to relate denied the most remote knowledge of the contents of the table-cloth, averring that when she shook it there was nothing but bread-crumbs to be seen.

What could be done? These ladies dare not appeal to the police, time pressed, their passages had been taken, so they were compelled to brave the perils of the deep, unsupported by the pleasing hope that they had cherished of a profitable visit to the horticultural domains of Hatton Garden, E. C.

Now would the reader be surprised to hear, that shortly after this incident, the husband of the landlady, whose eyesight had been so very defective, was suddenly seized with a desire to visit the Transvaal, possibly to investigate the gold-bearing qualities of that State, perhaps merely for an agreeable change. He did not, however, confine his peregrinations to the suzerainty, but proceeded to make an amateur survey of the proposed railway route between Pretoria and Delagoa Bay over the Lebombo Mountains. From the latter place he set sail for Rotterdam, which he reached in a much more satisfied frame of mind than his whilom lady boarders possessed on their arrival in London.

As all the world knows diamond cutters are to be found in considerable numbers in Holland, and it did not take him long to renew acquaintance with his old friends, some of whom were skilled in that trade. To one of these he intrusted the cutting of a valuable parcel of gems, which by an almost inexplicable coincidence was the exact counterpart of that which a few months before had disappeared so mysteriously at his antipodean hotel. Now, our Boniface was a gay old dog in his way, so he made up his mind to taste once more the long absent pleasures of the capitals of Europe, serenely conscious that a little extravagance was pardonable in a landlord whose very table linen produced more diamonds in one shaking than many a twelve-foot washing machine, worked by a Davy Paxman, would in thousands of revolutions. While enjoying the gayeties of Vienna, he received a telegram to the effect that his diamonds had been duly cut and were awaiting his disposal. So he at once returned to Holland, received his gems and secured the services of a well-known goldsmith for their setting, which proved in accordance with his orders both elaborate and costly. When all was completed he started once more for his South African home. Many a night, ere the billows rocked him to sleep, though congratulating himself on his lucky journey, he mentally execrated the tyranny of a government which he knew too well would on his arrival in Capetown heartlessly exact from him a certain duty of 30 per cent. ad valorem. The thought of this unwarrantable interference with the liberty of the subject haunted him continually, until one night as his cabin companion told me he was disturbed by a delighted chuckle followed by a semi-audible soliloquy: “Shtrike me dead, I’ve got it, pay the dam duty, not if I knowsh it, sho’elp me. I’ll risk it.”

Arrived at Capetown he induced a female passenger with whom he was acquainted, to conceal about her person the diamonds which already had had so strange a story, and thus endeavor to evade the eagle eyes of the revenue officials stationed at the dock entrance.

The attempt was unsuccessful, the diamonds were discovered and confiscated, and the fair contrabandista, having of course in self-defence revealed the owner, he was tried for the misdemeanor, when in addition to the loss of his jewelry he was sentenced to pay a heavy fine or in default of payment to endure a term of imprisonment.

For time he cared little, for character less, for money more, consequently as a matter of course the Capetown jail received within its walls a visitor who for several months had leisure to ruminate on the adage, “much will have more,” ofttimes more than it bargains for.

This same man on being liberated returned to the Fields, sunk lower and lower, until one day he was caught in “flagrante delicto” by the detective department. The breakwater at Capetown now is visited daily by the quondam tourist and the gradual progress of this valuable public work is materially assisted by the thews and sinews of our ingenious but not ingenuous hero.

As an illustration of the strange infatuation which this crime exercises over its votaries, how like the fascinated moth they flutter round the candle, singeing their wings, and what perfidy they can on occasions exhibit to one another, I will give a brief anecdote respecting a young man whom we shall call Silberfeldt.

Under the old diamond ordinance this bright specimen of humanity was trapped in the usual manner, caught red-handed by the detectives and sentenced to three years’ hard labor, of which time nearly two years were remitted in consequence of good conduct while in jail. Unwarned by this experience, ungrateful for the lenity shown him by the authorities, no sooner had he gained his liberty than he emulated the example of the scriptural sow and returned at once to his wallowing in the mire.

The further knowledge of the inner working of the I. D. B. craft, which he had gained during his temporary retirement from public life, had so increased his self-confidence that, considering himself now a veritable passed-master in its mysteries, he openly boasted there was not a man clever enough in all Griqualand West to catch him a second time; but unhappily for him, Ord 48, 1882, which throws upon the holders of diamonds the onus probandi of honest possession, had passed the Cape parliament, and had received Her Majesty’s sanction.

Too wary to be trapped by even the most astute detective, he nevertheless, with all his cunning, fell into the meshes of the law, and along with another was arrested under the section dealing with the offense of “illegal possession,” having been pounced upon one fine morning, when diamonds were found in the house where he and his companion were stopping.

The two were friends who had long been on terms of the greatest intimacy, and naturally they might have been expected to stick to each other through thick and through thin. When, however, they were placed in the dock and asked to plead, Silberfeldt at once, arrant coward as he was, exclaimed:

“Oh! your vorship, I don’t vant to plead, I’m going to turn Queensh evidensh.”

This vision of a traitor’s liberty, this desire to shelter himself and protect his own worthless skin by “rounding on his pal” was soon rudely ended by the magistrate, who intimated that the Crown was not in want of any “Queensh evidensh” in the case at all, or to slightly parody Oliver Goldsmith—

“When the culprit cried, oh, yes!

The court it cried, oh, no!”

After evidence of a most conclusive character had been given, the accused were duly committed for trial to the special court, where, strange to say, “one was taken and the other left,” with a cruel irony of fate, the one taken (to the breakwater for seven years) was the perfidious Silberfeldt, the one left (to the enjoyment of his liberty) was the friend who so narrowly escaped betrayal.

As an instance of the fact that in temporal matters at least “honesty” does not always appear to be “the best policy,” I recollect an instance of which the truth can be vouched.

One fine spring morning in September, 187–, a certain diamond buyer, whom we will call Gonivavitski, might have been seen marching up and down the Bulfontein road enjoying the early rays of the sun, reading the daily paper, yet still keeping a narrow watch on the canvas frame-house in which he conducted his licensed (?) dealings. Active, robust, cheery, though a rogue in spirit and grain, manliness appeared to beam from every line of his seemingly honest face. Our friend, too, was of a dogmatic turn of mind, insisted on “cleanliness being next to godliness,” and no firmer believer in the proverb that the “early bird catches the worm” could have been found in all Kimberley.

Just as he had finished the leading article he caught sight of one of his clients approaching in an opposite direction. G. started nervously, as he did not desire the visit of this especial gentleman in the daylight—in other words he only bought of “niggers” after dark—but his dusky acquaintance gave him a sly glance, as much as to say: “I fancy I’ve seen you before,” a quite sufficient hint that “something” (as illicit stones are often called “in the trade”) was in the immediate neighborhood, so G. could not resist the temptation.

Taking a bird’s-eye view of the situation, Gonivavitski hastily came up to the native, who, with a knowing leer, opened his hand, revealing a magnificent pure white diamond nearly the size of a plover’s egg.

“Mooi klippe baas!” (fine stone, master) said the nigger.

“Ya! kom hier sa, booi,” (yes, come this way, boy) said G. hurriedly, fearing observation.

The boy did as he was told, following the white man into his office, which was close by. The door was soon shut, the stone weighed and the bargain struck, the native starting off with the money at a round trot to join his “brothers,” who were waiting round the corner. But “conscience doth make cowards of us all,” and Mr. G. was not an exception; fearing that he had been watched, and regardful either of his spotless reputation, or of the pleasures of the “tronk”[^[51]] looming in the future, started in hot pursuit and gave his late visitor into the custody of the first policeman he met.

“What’s up now?” said the guardian of law and order.

“Why, look here, this d—d thief of a nigger wants to sell me this ’ere,” was Gonivavitski’s answer, given in tones of simulated indignation.

“This ’ere,” however, was not the forty-carat white diamond of a few minutes before, G. was too clever for that, it was merely a piece of boart not worth a sovereign that he now produced.

A crowd soon gathered to watch the thief marched off to jail, the honest man following in his wake to lay the charge. Next day at the trial, a little perjury more or less was immaterial, the boy was sentenced to imprisonment and lashes, whilst Mr. G. in a few days found it necessary for the sake of his health to proceed to Europe, where he disposed of the diamond for a good round sum. With this addition to his former capital he returned to the Fields, where he still remains, boasting the possession of an ample fortune, gained, as he always says, by “’ard work and hearly rising.”

One of the most generally admitted apothegms of worldly wisdom is that “a man should always tell the truth to his doctor and his lawyer,” but like many far more valuable maxims it is frequently disregarded. An instance in which (albeit I am happy to say I have a tolerably good opinion of my fellow creatures) I could not place confidence in the statements of my patient, occurs to my mind in connection with the anecdotes of which this chapter is composed.

About two o’clock one morning in the year 1872 I was roused from the sleep I so much needed, as it was a sickly and busy season, by a hurried rapping at my front door. A doctor’s slumbers are through force of habit light, and in a few seconds my dressing-gown and slippers were assumed, and I hastened to answer the imperative summons of my visitor. A middle-aged citizen, whose reputation, although never openly impugned, was yet hardly enviable, greeted me in somewhat quavering accents, and with pallid cheeks desired my services without a moment’s delay. Having ushered him into my consulting-room I at once discovered the secret of his alarm. The sufferer informed me that “he had been discussing with some friends the means by which the rascally illicits evaded the law and concealed their ill-gotten gems on any sudden emergency, suiting the action to the word he had swallowed (or otherwise concealed from view) two sovs. and a diamond.”

I listened to the story with all becoming gravity, and proceeded to perform a surgical operation for the removal of the foreign substances, with the anatomical details of which it is wholly unnecessary to weary my readers. When relieved from his distress of mind and body he was desirous of further explaining the circumstances under which the sad occurrence took place, but as the subject did not particularly interest me I suggested that “time was on the wing,” which hint he promptly took, dividing the corpora delicti by leaving the gold with me and putting the diamond (a thirty-carat stone) in his pocket. Years afterward, when I heard that while sitting among the Dii majores of the Kimberley club this gentleman’s main topic of conversation was his extreme horror of the illicit traffic with its train of evils—I could not help calling to mind the episode of 1872. However, as we are told “the reformed rake makes the best husband,” I hope that my ex-patient believes all he now enunciates, and what is still more important has the courage of his opinions.

I shall finish these few sketches of I. D. B. with the recital of an incident which occurred to me personally: the moral to be gathered I leave to my readers.

As nearly as I can remember, it was late on a cold winter’s night in June, 187–, that I heard a tapping at my bedroom window. It was a dreadful night. The south wind was blowing the sand from the débris heaps in fitful gusts, whilst the dust clouds were careering along so thickly that to see but a yard or two ahead was impossible. To those who know the mine and its surroundings it will require but a slight stretch of imagination to picture the bottomless pit from which “all hell had broken loose.”

Mentally anathematizing my nocturnal visitor, I rose and opened the door, when a Kafir thrust into my hand a piece of paper on which was scrawled in pencil:

“Dry Diggings Hospital.

“Dr. Matthews. Sir:—Mr. O. J. is tossing about and very restless to-night, and says he must see you. Will you come quickly—I think he is dying?

“Yours obediently,

I. P.”

Though at the time one of the surgeons of the Dry Diggings hospital, yet as O. J. was not under my treatment I did not much relish the idea of a dreary walk at that time of night. Not wishing, however, to disappoint the poor fellow, who had once worked a claim for me and who was now, so I had heard, dead out of luck, having, as the American gold digger says, struck “the bed-rock,” I dressed quickly and trudged away through the heavy sand to the wattle and daub shanty which then did service as a hospital.

On my arrival the attendant guided me with his flickering candle down the long barn-like shed to the bedside of O. J. At a glance I saw that death had marked him for his own. Beads of cold sweat stood out on his forehead, whilst clammy hands and convulsive paroxysms of his throat showed the nearness of the end.

“Sie können Deutsch verstehen nicht wahr, Herr Doctor?” (You can understand German, can’t you, Doctor?)

I nodded assent, when continuing the conversation partly in that language and partly in English, evidently with the object of keeping the attendant ignorant of what was passing between us, he imploringly looked up and said: “Do tell me doctor how long I shall live, I can’t last long.” I shook my head doubtfully, when he gasped out in tones of agonized anxiety:

“I shan’t, I won’t, I can’t die without telling you how when I worked your and Mr. Lynch’s claim in No. 6 I robbed you of nearly all your diamonds! Oh! doctor, how I have hoped, how I have prayed God to let me live, to spare me to work again, to make up the wrong that I have done you.”

Entering further into details of how he had been tempted, and how he hoped, even if he never could work again, to repay me out of a remittance he expected from Europe, he suddenly seized my hand and in feeble accents, broken by the death-rattle in his throat, uttered these earnest words:

“YOU WILL FORGIVE ME THOUGH, WON’T YOU?”

Comforting him as well as I could, I assured him that, as far as I was concerned, he might bury the past in oblivion. Never shall I forget, to my dying day, the expression of intense relief which passed over his anxious face and the glow which came again to his pallid cheek by the assurance which I gave him.

As I was rising to bid him good night he again grasped my hand with both of his and piteously exclaimed:

“Don’t, don’t forget me, doctor, you’ll come, won’t you, and see me to-morrow?”

This I promised him, although with inward misgiving that his “to-morrow” would never come.

Instructing the attendant to pay special heed to the sufferer during the night, and again promising to return at sunrise, I trudged my weary way home.

Daylight saw me again at the hospital. Alas! Too late! No. 3 bed was empty! The troubled spirit had fled, its sins, I trust, blotted out for ever by a merciful and all-wise God!

Yet the wretch who tempted this poor fellow to steal diamonds, the sneaking creature who made him a thief and who profited by his thefts, I ofttimes meet strutting proudly about with an air of pharisaical honesty, to all outward appearance respectable and respected!

CHAPTER XVII.
DESCRIPTION OF THE COMPANY AND SHARE MANIA IN 1881.—EVENTS OF THE “BUBBLE YEAR.”—CAUSES WHICH BROUGHT THE MANIA ABOUT.—WHY COMPANIES WERE FIRST FORMED.—THE BARNATO CO.—THE CENTRAL CO.—THE FRANKFORT MINE.—THE COSMOPOLITAN CO.—WONDERFUL INVESTMENTS.—SLOW RETURN OF CONFIDENCE.

The “ten claim clause,” which was passed by the legislative council of Griqualand West under Governor Southey (vide clause 18, Ordinance 10, 1874), and prohibited any person, firm or joint-stock company to have registered in his name, or in the name of his or their accredited agent at any time within six months, reckoned from the date of the proclamation of a digging, more than one claim, and after that period more than ten claims, was brought forward by some interested men as the reason for the non-introduction of foreign capital into our digging operations.

The rescinding of this clause in 1876 (Ordinance 12, Nov. 20th) effected great changes, the alteration in the law throwing the road open for capitalists to buy out small holders in the Kimberley and other mines, virtually leading the way to the extraordinary mania for company-mongering and share-rigging which existed in 1880 and 1881.

The repeal of this clause, however, which had never been in favor with capitalists, because it obstructed them from “blocking” claims in the mines, was hailed by some with delight, by others with foreboding, as the latter believed it to prognosticate the approach of monopoly and the departure of the individual digger. This repeal initiated a most remarkable period in the history of the diamond fields, in which a mania for company promoting and for mad speculation seized the whole community, of which a repetition is now going on at the De Kaap gold fields. It may not perhaps be a matter of surprise that the inhabitants of a place, depending on a somewhat precarious industry and one of which the proceeds are so liable to fluctuation, should be more or less imbued with the spirit of gambling, nor is there anything unusual in the digger deserting his mining operations to endeavor to gain wealth in a more rapid manner by speculation. Such circumstances have been of frequent occurrence in America and Australia, where many a man who had been unlucky as a digger, using his acquired knowledge has realized a fortune by speculating in shares or claims.

In the case of the sudden rise of the share mania in Kimberley, the most extraordinary point was to be found in the fact that the place had long thrown off the habits and appearance of a digging camp, and had assumed the customs of a settled town, while all matters connected with share transactions were conducted in so systematic a manner that the event bore a close resemblance to one of those speculative fevers which occasionally seize the home Stock Exchange. Kimberley was not alone in this novel excitement; the infection spread throughout the whole of South Africa, share transactions were eagerly carried on in all the coast towns, and companies with large capitals were also formed to work the diamond mines in the Free State, at Jagersfontein, Koffyfontein and Oliphansfontein, and half a dozen others of which it can now only be said

“Gaudet cognomine terra.”

It is no easy matter to fully trace why the cause of this wild desire for speculation seized upon the community. It has often been stated that it was simply an endeavor on the part of interested persons on the diamond fields to defraud the outside public and get rid of their worthless property. This, however, was not the case, although it must be admitted that in many instances the actions of promoters of companies were far from honorable. A more feasible answer to the question will be found in the fact that for some time past there had existed in Kimberley, companies which, although registered under the limited liability act, were of a semi-private nature; for instance, the “Compagnie Française” (French Diamond Mining Company) and the Cape Diamond Mining Company, both of which had been formed in 1879, some three years after the “ten claim clause” had been abolished. These undertakings were believed to be most successful, and the general public on the Fields were eager to participate in the profits of similar enterprises. When this desire became apparent there were many claim-holders who were desirous of realizing some ready money, or paying off some existing mortgage, by the sale of a share in their diamond operations, and hence the creation of new joint-stock undertakings.

That the first companies on the Fields, the British and Central, were formed with a most legitimate object, it is quite impossible to deny, and the reason for their formation is most easily to be seen. As the mine attained a greater depth, the expenses of working naturally became larger; elaborate machinery had to be erected, and more European labor was therefore required. Under such circumstances it is not strange that many diggers found it to their advantage to amalgamate with their neighbors; moreover, it often occurred that those who formerly had been actively employed in the mine were desirous of entering into other pursuits, and yet were not willing to abandon all interest in digging operations; consequently the formation of joint-stock companies naturally suggested itself as a convenient way of meeting the requirements of the case. It was under such circumstances that the first companies in Kimberley were formed. The shares in these undertakings very seldom passed out of the hands of the original holders and the system gave every promise of success; it is true that there were prophets of evil, who were ready even in those days to declare that this step was one on the road to ruin, so far as the prosperity of Kimberley was concerned, yet for a time the results of these companies in most cases proved to be unmistakably satisfactory, and it was this bona fide success which encouraged the promotion of numerous other schemes which were shortly afterward introduced.

In the early part of the year 1881 there existed about a dozen companies in the Kimberley mine, the total capital of which amounted roundly to two millions and a half, and the shares in these undertakings were in the hands of the most successful diggers on the Fields. These shares had not, of course, been purchased with cash, but every claim-holder who put his claim ground into a company received a certain amount of scrip for his property. It is impossible to dispute the fact that claim property had risen enormously in value during the few years previous to the establishment of the first joint-stock undertaking, and it is manifest that if claims were incorporated in a company at a price on which they could yield a fair dividend, that price was a perfectly fair one. The non-success of many of the subsequent undertakings was mainly due to the fact that the promoters were blind to this very simple truth, and had forgotten, or had never known, the first principles which should govern joint-stock undertakings. In fact people who would never have dreamed of buying a share in a business at £1,000, which would only secure a return on five hundred, invested freely in shares in companies, the claims in which would have given an admirable return on a small capital, but a very poor one, if any at all, on the enormous sums at which they were put in.

When once the idea that the joint-stock system was the most advantageous method for working the mines gained a hold upon the community, the excitement became intense, company after company was formed, and the shares in every case were eagerly taken up by the public. When the formation of a new undertaking was announced, the applications universally doubled and trebled the number of shares proposed to be allotted, and in fact a premium was invariably offered to a successful applicant for the chance he had secured of obtaining a share in any new venture.

The different lists for share applications were filled with marvelous rapidity, and remained open but a very short time. Ebden Street, the “Rue Quincampoix”[^[52]] of Kimberley, was filled from morning to night with a tumultuous and maddened crowd. The various offices of companies in formation were simply stormed, and those who could not get in at the door from the pressure of the crowd, threw their applications for shares (to which were attached cheques and bank notes) through the windows, trusting to chance that they might be picked up. It is difficult to picture the eagerness, the plots, the rage of the excited multitude bent on securing this, the magic scrip, which was to make the needy rich and the embarrassed free.

It was astonishing how the mania seized on all classes in Kimberley, from the highest to the lowest, just as Law’s scheme and the South Sea bubble did during the previous century; how every one, doctors and lawyers, masters and servants, shop-keepers and workmen, men of the pen and men of the sword, magistrates and I. D. B.’s, Englishmen and foreigners, rushed wildly into the wonderful game of speculation.

One financial agent told me he floated five companies in three weeks, viz.: The Fry’s Gully, Du Toit’s Pan; the De Beer’s Central, De Beer’s; the Barnato Co., Kimberley; the Frere Co., De Beer’s; and the Globe Co., Du Toit’s Pan; and that although the capital required for the five companies was £496,000 only, yet £1,230,000 passed through his hands in the short time I have mentioned.

Business of every kind was neglected, mining operations were all but suspended, the sole topic being the share market and the profits to be made there. Many made unexpected fortunes, and realized in a few months gains larger than those a whole lifetime of work and economy could have procured them had they continued their ordinary pursuits. Under these circumstances it was only natural that many owners of worthless ground took advantage of the general excitement to form companies which had hardly the remotest possibility of success; it was evident that it mattered very little to the general public, or the majority at all events, what the company was, what the value of the claims might be or where they were situated, so long as it was a diamond-mining company it was quite sufficient to command public favor. The public bought shares in the diamond-mining companies as to-day they are doing in the gold companies, not to obtain dividends on their capital invested, but for purposes of pure speculation.

One of the most flagrant instances of bogus company promoting which ever came under notice was the imposition attempted at a farm named Frankfort, situated in the Free State, about sixteen miles from Kimberley.

This farm was prospected, diamonds found (?), a mine surveyed, claims given out, dams dug, shafts sunk and machinery erected, simply to bolster up a gigantic swindle, which but for the outspoken opinion of a surveyor named Kitto would have been foisted, through a well known European firm, who merely awaited his report, on the English public for £450,000. To assist in gulling home investors an American adventurer was actually sent to England with a parcel of beautiful diamonds, certified by affidavit to have been found in this mine, in order that those concerned in introducing the scheme to the public might give visible and tangible proof of the enormous value of the property which they had for disposal. Mr. Kitto’s report, however, decided the fate of what he terms “one of the most shameful swindles ever attempted.”

Many a laughable story is told of how diamonds were turned out of, or—to be more accurate—put into this mine. One probable investor on going down a shaft to examine the ground at the bottom had a hail-storm of little diamonds showered on him (some of which lit on the brim of his hat) which were meant for him to unearth in the loose ground at the bottom. This wonderful discovery of the diamond’s new “locate” did not tend to increase this gentleman’s opinion of the proffered investment! On another occasion an astute matron interested in the swindle roundly bullied her servants for their carelessness in finding only seven diamonds instead of eight, with which she had “salted” the wash-up.

To make a long story short, the “best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley,” the bubble burst, and the proprietors of this wonderful mine allowed the knowledge of its startling richness to sink into oblivion, and found consolation and support in ministering to the bodily wants of those whom business or pleasure took to that worked-out and forsaken Golconda.

As another example of how things were managed in those days when the share mania was at its height, I may mention the case of a well-known citizen who conceived the happy idea of putting into a company certain claims in the Bulfontein mine which were then in his possession. These claims were twenty-six and one-half in number, and the services of an energetic promoter (who was to be paid £500 if he pushed the company through) having been secured, a prospectus pithily written was submitted to several well-known men who agreed to become provisional directors. The capital of the company was stipulated to be £30,000, in 6,000 shares of £5 each, of which £1 was payable on application, a similar sum to be paid on allotment. The vendor, however, reserved 3,000 shares for himself, so that only 3,000 were offered to the public. The modus operandi of floating this company was somewhat unique. It was known that locally the company could not go through, as the unkind assertion that “half of the ground was in the street” was generally believed, but that difficulty the diplomatic promoter overcame by sending copies of the prospectus to agents in the Colony and Natal fully a week before it was allowed to see the light of day on the Fields. This turned out to be a rather clever dodge, for, before its publication in the local prints, the secretary had in his possession sufficient applications by wire, the forms for which duly signed afterward came to hand, to insure the safety of the company. Locally there were but few applications. The first instalment of the company, however, was only just subscribed for and the share allotment made, when the collapse in the share market took place. What, however, is a singular thing in reference to this company is, that the money paid on application and that paid on allotment, which must have amounted to some thousands of pounds, has never yet been accounted for. The directors fell away one by one, no work was done or machinery ordered, and eventually the vendor became his own chairman, directors secretary, trustee, manager and the general multum in parvo of the Cosmopolitan Diamond Mining Company, Bulfontein mine! It has transpired that the shareholders’ money had not even been devoted to paying the licenses on the claims, for I find that up to Feb. 1887, there was an amount due to the London and South African Exploration Company (limited) of £2,008 for licenses on the claims from Sept. 1st, 1880. When this company was introduced to the public, one of the clauses of the prospectus read as follows:

“The well-known and regular returns of the Bulfontein mine are proverbial, and most of the companies recently formed at a very much higher rate per claim, are even now at a respectable premium; which, coupled with the fact that all difficulties and obstructions having been removed by the settlement arrived at between the claim-holders generally and the London and South African Exploration Company (limited), the provisional directors have all confidence in the future of this company.”

Although the vendor then stated that a settlement had been arrived at, yet in March, 1884, when sued by the London and South African Exploration Company for the rent which was due to them, this gentleman pleaded that the company had no title! Either his first statement in the prospectus or his last in pleading must have been audacious in the extreme.

The London and South African Exploration Company withdrew from the case, probably to bring it on again at a later period.[^[53]] Some shareholders are asking what has become of the money, and whether the company should not be forced into liquidation, that the matter may be fully inquired into. The promoter of the company was never fully paid, and many outstanding accounts were never settled.

The floating of this company and its subsequent history forms a novel of itself, and is another proof of the loose manner in which important business involving thousands of pounds was transacted.

This was indeed a time when a visitor to Kimberley could not help being struck with the remarkable amount of business, legitimate and illegitimate, which was transacted in a place so lately a mere desert. As I have already mentioned the streets were thronged with an eager crowd, all engaged in the same pursuit, the purchase or sale of shares; a pursuit which each one firmly believed to be the high road to fortune. Well-nigh every conveyance which arrived on the Fields brought new comers, anxious to share in the supposed good fortune, all the hotels were crowded, and from every drinking bar might be heard the popping of champagne corks; for lucky speculators were lavish with their money, believing as they did that they had hit on an inexhaustible mine of wealth. Diggers who had hitherto scarcely managed to make both ends meet now imagined themselves wealthy, as their claims had been put into companies at a price sufficient to make them comfortable for life; men who before had been contented to work hard for five or six pounds a week secured positions as managers of companies with comparatively enormous salaries, clerks and shopmen became secretaries, and assumed all the dignity of their new positions, and lawyers were employed day and night, drawing up agreements and trust deeds. The insatiate thirst for speculation was not slaked by the opportunity afforded of drinking fortune’s drams in mining ventures alone. Although 113 of these were floated, yet some score of other schemes were thrown out as baits to catch the unwary investor. Brick, coal, laundry, transport, ironmongery, labor supply, theatres, clubs, hotels, aerated waters, in fact the prosecution of every conceivable industry was changed from private hands to those of managers and directors, some directors becoming veritable “guinea pigs,” occupying seats at as many as from ten to fifteen boards at the same time.

Extraordinary as it may seem, it is nevertheless a fact that in six months the nominal capital of the diamond mining companies rose from two millions and a half to over eight, and the companies in number from half a dozen to seventy-one; of these thirteen existed in the Kimberley mine, with a total capital of £2,685,000; eighteen at Du Toit’s Pan, with a capital of £2,200,750. De Beers had thirteen companies, whose united capital was £1,334,100, while at Bulfontein there were sixteen with the more moderate sum of £871,100. In addition to these there were about eleven companies formed to work the outside mines, and the capital required for this purpose was estimated at £923,000. Some idea of the large scale on which it was proposed to conduct these operations may be formed from the fact that the total sum proposed to be devoted to the purchase of machinery was no less than £650,700. Taking all these matters into consideration, it does not require very great experience in the art of finance to realize that the community of Kimberley was playing at a very dangerous game, and one which would sooner or later be attended with very serious results. Nor did the danger lie only in the fact that Kimberley speculated far beyond its capital, from the commencement to the end the hastily formed companies had but little chance of success, their very trust deeds being irregular. Again, the greed of the promoters exhausted the funds which should have been devoted to the development of the property, claims were put in at a price which rendered the payment of any but the most paltry dividends impossible, whilst the favoritism and nepotism of directors caused inefficient men to be appointed to posts the occupants of which should have had the utmost possible practical experience.

All this ought to have been clear to the old residents on the Fields, but for some unaccountable reason they seemed blind for the time to all principles of common sense; the Kimberley investor—I mean, of course, the bona fide investor and not the mere speculator in shares—seemed to throw his judgment aside altogether, and apparently believed that the “bonanza” from which he was to derive his future wealth was to be found in the ground, which, as he might have known, had scarcely paid for working in the hands of the individual digger, and could not be expected, even with the command of improved and costly machinery which capital could secure, to pay even decent dividends.

For many months, until June 1881, in fact, shares continued to advance in price to the most absurd premiums, and the most outrageous reports were taken as truths, while the influx of a considerable amount of money from colonial investors aided in fanning the breeze, which wafted the place on the rocks and breakers of financial distress.

The first check which the mania received was given by the sudden action taken by the local banks. The managers of these institutions had given way to the general excitement, and in fact had conduced to it by freely advancing money on all kinds of bogus paper, and now they suddenly became alive to the fact that the security of the scrip of mining companies might not be so sound as at first sight it appeared to be, and refused, for the future, to make any advances on this class of property.

A loud cry of indignation was immediately raised from every quarter, speculators who had been purchasing heavily and mortgaging their shares to purchase more, and who now found that their system would receive a fatal blow, naturally complained of these, as they termed them, “arbitrary and injudicious proceedings” on the part of the financial institutions.

By slow degrees the mania abated, at last shareholders commenced to realize the fact that they had invested beyond their means, and what made the matter more serious they found it impossible to sell at anything like the price at which they had purchased. The natural consequence of this was a material fall in nearly all classes of shares. In spite, however, of the tightness in the local money market, the community by no means lost entire confidence in their pet schemes. To show the justness of these opinions, I will mention one company in particular, the “Barnato.” This was the smallest company in the Kimberley mine, consisting of four claims only, and was introduced to the public in March, 1881, at the enormous sum of £25,000 a claim, with an addition of £15,000 for working expenses, almost double the value put by any other company on their claims. The application list for shares was open for an hour only, when the required capital was subscribed for twice over, and in two days the shares were at twenty-five per cent, premium, at which price they changed hands freely. The faith of the investors in this company’s shares was fully borne out. During the succeeding eighteen months (before the company’s claims were covered over with reef) it actually paid dividends on this exorbitant capital to the tune of thirty-one per cent., distributing among its shareholders no less a sum than £35,650. The Central Company also paid in dividends during the first three-quarters after its formation fifty-one per cent., reaching a grand total during its first two and a half years of some eighty per cent., the amount in figures amounting to £321,985, 18s. 6d. But the majority of companies never paid any dividend at all for years, and some are even now not out of debt.

When it became apparent that the place had not a sufficient amount of capital to support its enormous number of mining undertakings, many plans were formed for the introduction of capital from Europe, and in the hope of this object meeting with a successful issue, speculators still continued to buy and sell shares, but as time went on and it became perfectly clear that the hope of any benefit being derived from this source must be abandoned, the value of scrip gradually became lower and lower, until at last in many cases it was all but nil, and where there were calls unpaid a minus quantity.

The decline in the value of shares in the market was enormous. Central shares in the Kimberley mine, which had an easy sale in March, 1881, at £400[^[54]] per share were in 1884 almost unsalable at £25. Rose Innes shares which were sought after at £53 sank to £5, and a similar fall also occurred in the shares of all the companies in the other mines of the province. In the mines of the Free State the depreciation in the value of shares was more extraordinary still. An instance I well remember. A friend of mine after years of application to business, combined with indomitable perseverance, amassed a large fortune, when he was tempted to speculate in the Koffyfontein mine, to which I have already alluded, during the months of June and July, 1881. He bought during the height of the mania 1,200 Koffyfontein shares at £28 each, which were afterward within two years realized in his estate at 6d a share. He thus lost over £30,000 on the one venture. This was far from being an unparalleled instance of men being completely ruined by the unprecedented fall which took place in shares at that time. Though the diamond mania did not convey such widespread disaster as the South Sea bubble or the Mississippi scheme, yet it will be years before the effect of the South African “bubble year” of 1881 is forgotten.

On the time arriving when dividends were expected to be declared, in but very few instances were the directors able to do so. Ground which had yielded well in the hands of private owners often proved entirely unremunerative under the joint-stock system, and the reason of this was evident; the digger when working on his own account required no office with a highly paid staff; he was his own manager and secretary, he looked keenly after his own interests, and would never have dreamed of trusting the most vital matters in his business to a possibly incompetent servant.

In spite of the fact that, generally speaking, the company system had proved a failure, but little attempt was made to mend matters. Things drifted from bad to worse, until at last Kimberley entered on the worst financial crisis that it had ever experienced. The companies with few exceptions were more or less in difficulties. Pressed for their liabilities by the banks, they had in turn to put the greatest pressure on such shareholders as had not paid all the instalments on their shares, and in very many cases their action was useless, as the shareholders were unable to meet the demands made on them. The consequence was that the companies had to go into liquidation and work in the mines came to a partial stand-still. Kimberley was no longer the Kimberley of the past.

It may be safely said that in its rash and reckless speculation Kimberley was almost guilty of financial suicide, for not only was an all but fatal blow given to the industry which supported the place, but all confidence in its resources was for a time destroyed in the minds of its colonial neighbors and the home investing public. The good, sound investments, yielding large returns, to be made here, would startle the quiet folk who are satisfied with the “three per cents.” As an instance of the dividend paying capacity of some companies some months ago, I cannot help mentioning the Elma at Old De Beers; in November, 1883, the market value of its £10 paid-up shares was from 16 shillings to 20 shillings, when with good management in less than eight months it paid a monthly dividend averaging from two to three per cent., or for the investor who was lucky enough to buy in at the low prices, at the rate of 360 per cent. per annum.

The fact of Griqualand with its incalculable mineral wealth being now united to the colony by the line of railway opened at the end of 1885,[^[55]] the knowledge that owing to this the cost of the production of diamonds must be vastly diminished, together with the lessening of theft, which the extension of the Diamond Trade Act to the colony and the re-enactment of a similar ordinance by the government of the Free State must produce, will tend to give a spurt to digging operations.

I shall next treat of the political stages through which the Diamond Fields have passed from their discovery to the present time.

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE DIAMOND FIELDS UNDER ADAM KOK, CORNELIUS KOK, “DAM KOK,” ANDREAS AND NICHOLAS WATERBOER.—THE DIAMOND FIELDS AND THEIR GOVERNMENTS.—THE HOISTING OF THE BRITISH FLAG.—THE KEATE AWARD.—RUSH FROM THE RIVER TO THE DRY DIGGINGS.—PNIEL DESERTED.—THE COMMENCEMENT OF DIAMOND STEALING.—JUDGE LYNCH PUTS IN AN APPEARANCE.—DISCOVERY OF THE KIMBERLEY MINE.—BRITISH RULE PROCLAIMED.—FREE STATE COURTS CLOSED.

After writing so far about the Diamond Fields, their past and present condition, the climate, the geology, and the peculiar crime and legislation there existing, I will now turn to the early history of a region which, if it had not been for the wonderful discovery of diamonds, would yet have been the home of the half-caste Griqua, the indolent Batlapin, the marauding Koranna, the pigmy Bushman or the pioneer Boer.

Griqualand West, the official name of this part of South Africa, is bounded N. E. by the Cape Colony, S. by the Orange River, N. by Bechuana Land, E. by the Orange Free State, and W. by the Kalahari Desert.

The chief inhabitants, the Griquas, are a mixed race, many of them half-castes, who came from the Cape Colony and settled near the Orange River under Adam Kok (himself a half-caste, his father being a Dutch Boer and his mother a Hottentot slave) in 1795, who in course of time resigned his chieftainship to his son Cornelius. Cornelius Kok, being absent from his people for some time, during which he visited Lord Caledon in Capetown, found, on his return in 1816, the Griquas settled down and his son, “Dam Kok,” reigning in his stead. Dam Kok, becoming restless about this time, left Griqua Town in 1819, dying subsequently at Philippolis in 1837. Andreas Waterboer, formerly a schoolmaster and preacher under the London missionaries at Griqua Town was, after “Dam Kok” left the district, unanimously chosen chief, and his appointment was confirmed in 1822 by Lord Charles Somerset, governor of the Cape. Andreas Waterboer then set about redressing wrongs, was both well-intentioned and useful to the British government, being a “friendly and sincere ally,” as well as hospitable and open-hearted to all visitors, and by these means so consolidated his power that he received a special recognition in the shape of a silver medal, which was sent him by Lord Charles Somerset. Notwithstanding this, although backed up by the English government and Sir George Cathcart, he was continually worried by land disputes with Cornelius Kok (whom, in 1838, he had deposed from his office of provisional captain) until his death on Dec. 13th, 1852, relieved him from further trouble. His son, Nicholas, who was then quite a boy, succeeded him. Troubles increased, the English abandoned the sovereignty (now the Orange Free State) in February 1854, and Nicholas Waterboer hemmed in, on the one side by the Transvaal and on the other by the Orange Free State, formally appointed David Arnott, on Sept. 1st, 1863, to act as his agent, which he had in reality been for some years. Long before even diamonds were discovered, the Orange Free State had insisted that there could be no question as to their right to all the country between the Orange and the Vaal Rivers, but as the district was of little value, no special steps had been taken by that government to insist on their so-called rights.

THE WATERBOER MEDAL.

When the first diamond was found in 1869, and attention consequently drawn to the discovery, as I have before stated, the banks of the Vaal became peopled with diggers and prospectors, and Waterboer, at once seeing his necessity to deal with this large and increasing influx, ceded all the land to which he laid claim, some 17,000 square miles, to the English, the allowance of £150 per annum, which the English government had paid to Adam Kok, Cornelius Kok, and then to Andreas, the father of Nicholas Waterboer, being increased to £250, and afterward, in 1877, to £1,000, with £500 a year to his widow after his death. The Orange Free State now asserted its rights, based upon its former demands of having purchased Adam Kok’s rights with the land in question. The misunderstanding resulting between the English government and the Orange Free State, ending in the former giving the latter a compensation of £90,000, I shall more fully explain further on, but I may say here that Nicholas Waterboer is a living example of the care (?) bestowed by the English government, as a rule, upon those aborigines it may take under its fostering care. Nicholas Waterboer, formerly the undisturbed possessor of this valuable tract of country, now ekes out a miserable existence at Griqua Town, having parted with his country, the farms allotted to him mortgaged, his pension swallowed up by hungry creditors, ruined both in body and estate, a drunkard and virtually a pauper! I endeavored both in the Griqualand West legislature and in the Cape house of assembly to obtain some information respecting this poor chief and the ultimate destination of his pension, but without success.

Any one asked to describe the policy of governments in the diamond fields under the British flag would give no better answer than “making pie-crust promises.” That was the policy of the first representative of British rule “under instruction,” and it has continued to be the most marked characteristics of his successors. Every new “hand” that has been intrusted with the reins of government started on his career by reversing the policy of his predecessors and making promises, which, if he ever meant to keep, he revoked shamelessly and recklessly, either to gratify his own caprice for party purposes, or under the “instruction” of the imperial nominee, whose seat is fixed in Capetown, and who puppet-like moves according to “wire.” It is therefore not to be wondered at if the inhabitants of the diamond fields have occasionally become furious and uncontrollable. The facts of the diamond field history speak for themselves. Early in 1871 there was a flutter amongst the population digging for diamonds on the banks of the river Vaal, occasioned by the announcement that Mr. John Campbell, an official of the Cape government, had arrived at Pniel to be British resident, to represent British rule under the Union Jack, to administer law and order, and to keep off at arms-length the two neighboring states, who were bent on getting the territorial rights in their own hands; the Free State claiming all the land on the near, and the Transvaal that on the off-side of the river.

The English were jubilant, the Dutch furious. Mr. Campbell did not venture to hoist the flag on the Pniel side, for Mr. Truter, a subject of the Free State, was already sitting there as the representative of the Free State and holding magisterial office under the flag of that republic. The great mass of the population moreover (which at that time could not have been less than 6,000 souls) was Dutch, the proportion being about two to one. The Klipdrift bank of the river was peopled chiefly by Englishmen who were determined to hold the territory on which they had settled against all comers; to preserve their nationality; to pay no tribute to any Dutch state, and to secure their position by the aid of British rule; so that, when Mr. Campbell arrived, they were quite ready to welcome him and to rally round the British flag.

A number of diggers went across the river to Pniel to escort Mr. Campbell across the Vall, and all who did not do so assembled at the landing place on the Klipdrift side to receive him. He landed in Klipdrift amidst the cheers of the populace; a procession was formed to accompany him to his quarters, and when a day or two after he met the diggers he was as prolific of promises as a bramble is of blackberries.

All the diggers’ committees then in existence bowed down to him, and he assured them that no private right either to land or to claims was to be disturbed, that British titles would be immediately given to those who had obtained land either by grant or purchase from the chiefs or their agents, and that the law would be administered precisely as in every other part of her Majesty’s dominions. Three commissioners, Messrs. H. Bowker, F. Orpen and Buyskes, were appointed by proclamation to deal with the land, holding their appointments from the high commissioner, and all parties holding documents showing them to have land claims were requested to send them in at once to the commissioners, so that they might have titles substituted for them.

The territory at this time no more belonged to the British government than it did to the Mikado. Nicholas Waterboer, the chief of the Griquas, had it is true tendered his rights to the British government, but that government had not come to terms or closed with him. There were disputes between Waterboer and Janje, the chief of the Korannas and Batlapins; while Botlisatsi, a brother of Mankoroane, was contending that he was the chief of his tribe, and that his land included Bloemhof and Christiana.

Beside this the chiefs had no individual rights to land beyond those given them by their counsellors who represented the tribes, the native law being that the land belonged to the tribe, and that none of it could be disposed of to private individuals. The white men who had been permitted to settle among them had none but squatters’ rights, though the Boers had come in, marked out farms without leave being asked or given, had laid down beacons and denied that any natives had any rights over the land. When ordered off they refused to go.

Mr. Campbell some little time after his arrival proceeded to settle civil claims and to try criminal offenses, when it was discovered that he held office under the joint authority of Waterboer and the British government. This was a dilemma never calculated upon. The Griquas not being British subjects declined to be made subject to British laws, and Mr. Campbell was instructed to administer Griqua laws for the Griquas whenever it was applicable to the cases before him, and to do his best to satisfy all suitors. So Mr. Campbell, who had positively no legal jurisdiction, mixed the Griqua and British-colonial law and got along as best he could. The Transvaal government persisted in its protests against the British government exhibiting itself on the Klipdrift side of the river, and threatened to drive English and natives out of the country and claimed the land as their own. It was ultimately arranged, however, that this land dispute should be settled by arbitration, and this brought about what is known as “the Keate award.”

An arbitration board of three was appointed, consisting of Mr. Campbell for the British government, Mr. Jeppe for the Transvaal, and Mr. Keate, then lieutenant governor of Natal, to act as referee. The arbitrators met at Bloemhof, and witnesses were called from all directions, Griquas, Korannas, Batlapins, Barolongs, Boers and Englishmen all giving evidence. Of course the Transvaal and English arbitrators could not agree, and after a very protracted sitting Mr. Jeppe went “huis toe,”[^[56]] or home, Mr. Campbell following his example and returning to the diamond fields.

Lieut. Governor Keate then took the matter into his own hands, completed the arbitration and decided that the territory in dispute belonged to the native tribes, and that the Transvaal had no shadow of claim to it or any part of it. The award, however, did not deal with details, the whole of which and the conflicting claims of the natives were left to be settled in the future. No beacons were laid down by the arbitrators to prevent after disputes, and as may be supposed it was not long before the territorial and land questions bred troubles with which the civil powers were unable to cope without resorting to arms.

Mr. Campbell assured every one on his return that the British government had won the arbitration, and his reasons for so considering were that although the award was formally recorded for the natives the territory was sure to come into the hands of the British government. Those, therefore, who had lodged formal land claims were all the more eager for their titles to be registered.

The land commissioners as soon as they commenced discussing the principle upon which land should be dealt with came to loggerheads amongst themselves, Mr. Holden Bowker proposing that all the land at the disposal of the government should be given out on the Queenstown system, of which he was the author, to which suggestion his colleagues were opposed, each having a plan of his own. The “Queenstown system” of settling the land was granting to applicants land at a nominal rental, each grantee being bound to occupy the land personally, to keep a certain number of men provided with arms and liable to be called out when needed to go on commando, and to appear at an annual review to be held in the district.

The government to put an end to the wrangle informed the commissioners that it was not their duty to grant titles nor to settle the principle upon which the land was to be given out. Mr. F. T. Orpen, who had been nominated surveyor to government, declined to hold the office of commissioner any longer and sent in his resignation. He pointed out that it could not have been the original intention of the government that the commissioners should only collect the documents upon which land claims were founded, as one commissioner could have done that as well as three. There is little or no doubt, however, that the fault attached to this broken promise was committed at the instance of the imperial government, who had not yet settled with Waterboer, fearing the heavy responsibilities that would be involved in so doing.

This course of action made the Free State all the bolder in its demands and its authorities sent to Pniel demanding from the diggers the license money for claims and stands which, if paid, would have enriched the Free State treasury to the extent of at least £1,500 a month—the claim licenses being charged at a rate of 10s. each per month.

The Berlin missionaries, who laid claim to Pniel as their property, protested, and the English diggers, together with many of the Boers who hailed from the Cape Colony and were digging at Pniel at the time, refused to pay.

The Free State threatened force. The diggers laughed at the menace when the Free State government called out a commando, which was instantly responded to by the Boers, and quite an army of Vrijstaat cavalry came over the border and encamped on a flat situated close to the river, about three miles from the Pniel diggings. Tax-gatherers were sent in to warn the diggers that if they failed to pay the army would move in and smite them hip and thigh. Messages were returned more plain than polite.

At this time there were about 4,000 diggers at Pniel, so the Free Staters maintained “a masterly inactivity” for several weeks, when some of them rode into the camp and blustered considerably. The diggers simply regarded their invaders as so many butts for ridicule, and the natives, who thoroughly enjoyed the fun, added to the diggers’ amusement by jumping up behind the riders on the Boer volunteers’ horses, which were gorgeously caparisoned with navy-blue saddle-cloths richly adorned with embroidery of yellow and red braid, while other dusky humorists seized the tails of the horses, laughing and shouting with all the artless glee and abandon of the sons of Ham.

The “army” saw it was useless to attack Pniel and some of the wisest of them made their way back to their farms and donned their mole-skins again. The bulk of them thought, however, that they would try and force money out of the diggers at the smaller camps, and selected for the experiment Waldek’s plant (where a number of English colonists were at work) thinking to take them by surprise, but the Free State Boers have no more love for being taxed than have their brethren in the Transvaal or in the Cape Colony, and certain of them in kindly sympathy took care to let the Waldek’s plant diggers know of the movements of the army. When the warriors rode into Waldek’s plant they found themselves face to face with armed men behind two small field-pieces and were given to understand that if they did not wheel about and be off they would be fired at. The advice of Bombastes, “begone brave army and don’t kick up a row,” was given in sober earnest.

There was an immediate halt. A deputation was sent from the army to meet a deputation from the diggers, and a mutual understanding was arrived at that there should be no fighting. There was a general indulgence in the cups that cheer and also inebriate, and the Boer army returned as empty-handed as they came. Mr. Campbell did not venture to cross the river to the side where there was a Free State magistrate, nor yet did Mr. Truter, the Free State official, venture to steer his barque to the side where Mr. Campbell had hoisted the British flag.

When the diamonds were first discovered Sir Philip Wodehouse was governor and high commissioner of the South African colonies, but he was recalled before there was anything like a general rush to the fields, which only commenced in the beginning of 1870. Lieut. Governor Hay filled the acting appointment until Sir Henry Barkly became governor and high commissioner in 1870, and the latter had not been long in the Cape Colony before he came up; the Cape parliament having decided that he should, between the sessions of 1870 and 1871, make all the arrangements for annexing the diamond fields to the Cape Colony, and at that time the diggers looked on this annexation as inevitable.

Sir Henry went to the Klipdrift side of the river and was received with the most strongly-marked expressions of joyfulness at his arrival. Triumphal arches were erected and a banquet was given him, but he was very reticent and little information as to how the fields were to be governed was gleaned from him. The chief point of interest elicited from him being that the land would soon be given out.

This visit was followed by the establishment of a high court presided over by a single judge, Mr. Advocate Barry, (now Sir Jacob Dirk) president of the court of the eastern districts of the Cape Colony. Mr. J. Cyprian Thompson came as public prosecutor and there was soon a full bar, Mr. Campbell holding the position of resident magistrate and the late Mr. Giddy being civil commissioner.

The discovery of diamonds at Du Toit’s Pan and Bulfontein in 1870 caused a revolution in the order of things. The diamonds could at this time only be obtained at Pniel and the other river diggings by the troublesome operations of digging out and removing boulders of immense size, some of which were many tons in weight. The labor, as may be conceived, was tedious to a degree when the diamondiferous gravel had to be taken to the river, cradled, washed and sorted; all employed whites as well as blacks were standing in water half their time, and chills, ague and fever were the natural consequences. There was no water at the Du Toit’s Pan or Bulfontein, the diamonds were found near the surface, and the diamondiferous stuff only needed sieving before it was ready for the sorting table.

The rush from the river to what were called “the dry diggings” was one of the most remarkable ever recorded. In one week after the existence of diamonds at Du Toit’s Pan in payable quantities was assured, Pniel, which had grown into a town with a population of at least 3,000, and provided with shops, post-office, hotels, law courts, etc., became almost forsaken with nothing to be seen of its past glories, nothing left but the deep pits from which the boulders had been removed and a few straggling remains of roads and mud buildings. The population of Klipdrift had been reduced by at least one-half, but the houses and stores there being chiefly built of stone could not be removed; and here, too, were the English courts, the judge, the public prosecutor, the headquarters of the frontier mounted police, of which force a number had been moved up to the Fields together with the civil servants.

All that the English government claimed was the territory under the chieftainship of Waterboer. But the estate of Dorstfontein (Du Toit’s Pan) was the property of a citizen of the Free State, and he, as others had (although he was a British subject by birth), implicitly obeyed the laws of that state and was prepared still to be loyal to it and to submit to any digging laws that that government might pass and proclaim, and to pay any tax or royalty that the Free State Volksraad and government might see fit to demand. Mr. Truter, who had previously held his court at Pniel and hoisted the republican flag there, opened a court at Du Toit’s Pan, and English and Dutch alike respected his edicts and availed themselves of his court.

Happily for the diamond fields, diamonds were found on the Voornitzigt estate almost simultaneously with their discovery at Du Toit’s Pan, and this estate had been purchased by Mr. Alfred Ebden (now the Hon. Alfred Ebden, M. L. C.), of Old De Beers, on his first visit to Klipdrift, not with the remotest suspicion that there were rich diamond mines on it, but because of its close proximity to the already discovered diamond fields.

When diamonds were found on this estate there was less difficulty in the British government obtaining land for offices and courts than there had been before, Mr. Ebden being a British subject and therefore desirous that his property should be under his country’s flag, and he at once said that the government might take any ground which they might select as sites for the erection of buildings for official purposes.

At this time the local government was in the hands of three commissioners, Messrs. J. C. Thompson and Campbell and Commandant Bowker of the frontier mounted police, who were responsible to and acted under the instructions of the high commissioner. It was never clearly understood what their powers and duties were, nor could any one gather from their proceedings what it was intended they should do, except to act as buffers, so to speak, between the inhabitants and the high commissioner, and between the high commissioner and the president of the Free State. They continued their offices or “seat of government” as they called it, at Barkly, placing Mr. Giddy on the Voornitzigt estate as resident magistrate and civil commissioner, and appointing a small body of police to do his bidding, while they themselves paid periodical visits to the dry diggings, but never ventured into Du Toit’s Pan. When Bulfontein was found an attempt to gain possession of it was made by the Free State, but that was successfully resisted by the proprietors and diggers, who declined to permit what they called “the foreign yoke” to be placed about their necks. The high court, the post-office and all the English government offices were still centered in Klipdrift.