The railway from Chimoyo to the sea had in 1895 one of the narrowest

gauges in the world (two feet), and its tiny locomotives and cars wore

almost a toy air. It has since been widened to the three feet six gauge

of the other South African lines. The construction was difficult, for

the swampy lands along the coast are largely under water during the

rains, but the gain to the country has been enormous. Not only has the

railway abridged the toilsome and costly ox transport of goods from

Beira to the edge of the high country--a transport whose difficulty lay

not merely in the badness of the track through ground almost impassable

during and after the rains, but also in the prevalence of the

tsetse-fly, whose bite is fatal to cattle. It has enabled travellers to

cross in a few hours one of the most unhealthy regions in the world,

most of which is infested by fevers in and after the wet season, and the

lower parts of which are so malarious that few who spend three nights in

them, even in the dry season, escape an attack. The banks of the rivers

and other damper spots will continue to breed this curse of maritime

Africa, although things will doubtless improve when the country grows

more settled, and the marshes have been drained, and the long grass has

been eaten down by cattle; for when the tsetse-fly has ceased to be

dangerous cattle may come in. It appears that the fly kills cattle not

by anything poisonous in its bite, but because it communicates to them a

minute parasite which lives in the blood of some kinds of game, and

which is more pernicious to cattle than it is to the game. Accordingly,

when the game vanishes, the fly either vanishes also or becomes

comparatively harmless. Already places once infested by it have by the

disappearance of the game become available for ranching. Recent

researches seem to have shown that malarial fevers in man are also due

to an animal parasite: and this discovery is thought to damp the hope,

which I remember to have heard Mr. Darwin express, that the

fever-stricken regions of the tropics might become safe by ascertaining

what the fever microbe is and securing men against it by inoculation.

Those, however, who hold that this parasite is carried into the blood of

man by a mosquito seem to entertain some hope that drainage may in some

places almost expunge the mosquito. The railway was made entirely by

native labour gathered from the surrounding regions, and the contractors

told me they had less difficulty with the Kafirs than they expected. It

paid, however, a heavy toll in European life. Not one of the engineers

and foremen escaped fever, and many died. The risk for those employed on

the line is of course now much slighter, because the worst spots are

known and there are now houses to sleep in.

Shortly after leaving Chimoyo the train ran through a swarm of locusts

miles long. It was a beautiful sight. The creatures flash like red

snowflakes in the sun; the air glitters with their gauzy wings. But it

is also terrible. An earthquake or a volcanic eruption is hardly more

destructive and hardly more irresistible. The swarms may be combated

when the insect walks along the ground, for then trenches may be dug

into which the advancing host falls. But when it flies nothing can stop

it. It is noteworthy that for eighteen years prior to the arrival of the

British pioneers in 1890 there had been no great swarms. Since that year

there have been several; so the Kafir thinks that it is the white man's

coming that has provoked the powers of evil to send this plague as well

as the murrain.

We ran down the one hundred and eighteen miles from Chimoyo to

Fontesvilla during the afternoon and night, halting for three or four

hours for dinner at a clearing where an inn and store have been built.

The pace was from ten to fifteen miles an hour. After the first twenty

miles, during which one still has glimpses of the strange isolated peaks

that spring up here and there from the plain, the scenery becomes rather

monotonous, for the line runs most of the way through thick forest, the

trees higher than those of the interior, yet not of any remarkable

beauty. For the last twenty-five miles the railway traverses a dead and

dreary flat. The gentle rise of the ground to the west conceals even the

outlying spurs of the great range behind, and to the north and south

there is an unbroken level. The soil is said to be generally poor, a

very thin layer of vegetable mould lying over sand, and the trees are

few and seldom tall. It is a country full of all sorts of game, from

buffaloes, elands, and koodoos downward to the small antelopes; and as

game abounds, so also do lions abound. The early morning is the time

when most of these creatures go out to feed, and we strained our eyes as

soon as there was light enough to make them out from the car windows.

But beyond some wild pig and hartebeest, and a few of the smaller

antelopes, nothing could be discerned upon the pastures or among the

tree clumps. Perhaps the creatures have begun to learn that the railroad

brings their enemies, and keep far away from it. A year after our visit

the murrain, to which I have already referred, appeared in this region,

and wrought fearful devastation among the wild animals, especially the

buffaloes.

The railway now runs all the way to the port of Beira, but in October,

1895, came to an end at a place called Fontesvilla, on the Pungwe River,

near the highest point to which the tide rises. We had therefore to take

to the water in order to reach Beira, where a German steamer was timed

to call two days later; and our friends in Mashonaland had prepared us

to expect some disagreeable experiences on the river, warning us not to

assume that twelve or fourteen hours would be enough, even in a steamer,

to accomplish the fifty miles of navigation that lie between Fontesvilla

and the sea. They had been specially insistent that we should remain in

Fontesvilla itself no longer than was absolutely necessary; for

Fontesvilla has the reputation of being the most unhealthy spot in all

this unhealthy country. We were told that the preceding year had been a

salubrious one, for only forty-two per cent. of the European residents

had died. There may have been in these figures, when closely

scrutinized, some element of exaggeration, but the truth they were

intended to convey is beyond dispute; and the bright young assistant

superintendent of the railroad was mentioned, with evident wonder, as

the only person who had been more than three months in the place without

a bad attack of fever. Fontesvilla has not the externals of a

charnel-house. It consists of seven or eight scattered frame houses,

with roofs of corrugated iron, set in a dull, featureless flat on the

banks of a muddy river. The air is sultry and depressing, but has not

that foul swamp smell with which Poti, on the Black Sea, reeks, the most

malarious spot I had ever before visited. Nor was there much stagnant

water visible; indeed, the ground seemed dry, though there are marshes

hidden among the woods on the other side of the river. As neither of the

steamers that ply on the Pungwe could come up at neap tides, and with

the stream low,--for the rains had not yet set in,--the young

superintendent (to whose friendly help we were much beholden) had

bespoken a rowboat to come up for us from the lower part of the river.

After waiting from eight till half-past ten o'clock for this boat, we

began to fear it had failed us, and, hastily engaging a small two-oared

one that lay by the bank, set off in it down the stream. Fortunately

after two and a half miles the other boat, a heavy old tub, was seen

slowly making her way upward, having on board the captain of the little

steam-launch, the launch herself being obliged to remain much lower down

the river. We transferred ourselves and our effects to this boat, and

floated gaily down, thinking our troubles over.

The Pungwe is here about one hundred yards wide, but very shallow, and

with its water so turbid that we could not see the bottom where the

depth exceeded two feet. It was noon; the breeze had dropped, and the

sun was so strong that we gladly took refuge in the little cabin or

rather covered box--a sort of hen coop--at the stern. The stream and the

tide were with us, and we had four native rowers, but our craft was so

heavy that we accomplished less than two miles an hour. As the channel

grew wider and the current spread itself hither and thither over sand

banks, the bed became more shallow, and from time to time we grounded.

When this happened, the native rowers jumped into the water and pushed

or pulled the boat along. The farther down we went, and the more the

river widened, so much the more often did we take the bottom, and the

harder did we find it to get afloat again. Twelve miles below

Fontesvilla, a river called the Bigimiti comes in on the right, and at

its mouth we took on board a bold young English sportsman with the skin

of a huge lion. Below the confluence, where a maze of sand banks

encumbers the channel, we encountered a strong easterly breeze. The big

clumsy boat made scarcely any way against it, and stuck upon the sand so

often that the Kafirs, who certainly worked with a will, were more than

half the time in the water up to their knees, tugging and shoving to get

her off. Meanwhile the tide, what there was of it, was ebbing fast, and

the captain admitted that if we did not get across these shoals within

half an hour we should certainly lie fast upon them till next morning at

least, and how much longer no one could tell. It was not a pleasant

prospect, for we had no food except some biscuits and a tin of cocoa,

and a night on the Pungwe, with pestiferous swamps all round, meant

almost certainly an attack of fever. Nothing, however, could be done

beyond what the captain and the Kafirs were doing, so that suspense was

weighted by no sense of personal responsibility. We moved alternately

from stern to bow, and back from bow to stern, to lighten the boat at

one end or the other, and looked to windward to see from the sharp curl

of the waves whether the gusts which stopped our progress were

freshening further. Fortunately they abated. Just as the captain seemed

to be giving up hope--the only fault we had with him was that his face

revealed too plainly his anxieties--we felt ourselves glide off into a

deeper channel; the Kafirs jumped in and smote the dark-brown current

with their oars, and the prospect of a restful night at Beira rose once

more before us. But our difficulties were not quite over, for we

grounded several times afterwards, and progress was so slow that it

seemed very doubtful whether we should find and reach before dark the

little steam-launch that had come up to meet us.

Ever since my childish imagination had been captivated by the picture of

Africa's sunny fountains rolling down their golden sand, the idea of

traversing a tropical forest on the bosom of a great African river had

retained its fascination. Here at last was the reality, and what a

dreary reality! The shallow, muddy stream, broken into many channels,

which inclosed low, sandy islets, had spread to a width of two miles.

The alluvial banks, rising twenty feet in alternate layers of sand and

clay, cut off any view of the country behind. All that could be seen was

a fringe of thick, low trees, the edge of the forest that ran back from

the river. Conspicuous among them was the ill-omened "fever tree," with

its gaunt, bare, ungainly arms and yellow bark--the tree whose presence

indicates a pestilential air. Here was no luxuriant variety of form, no

wealth of colour, no festooned creepers nor brilliant flowers, but a

dull and sad monotony, as we doubled point after point and saw reach

after reach of the featureless stream spread out before us. Among the

trees not a bird was to be seen or heard; few even fluttered on the

bosom of the river. We watched for crocodiles sunning themselves on the

sandspits, and once or twice thought we saw them some two hundred yards

away, but they had always disappeared as we drew nearer. The beast is

quick to take alarm at the slightest noise, and not only the paddles of

a steamer, but even the plash of oars, will drive him into the water.

For his coyness we were partly consoled by the gambols of the

river-horses. All round the boat these creatures were popping up their

huge snouts and shoulders, splashing about, and then plunging again into

the swirling water. Fortunately none rose quite close to us, for the

hippopotamus, even if he means no mischief, may easily upset a boat when

he comes up under it, or may be induced by curiosity to submerge it with

one bite of his strong jaws, in which case the passengers are likely to

have fuller opportunities than they desire of becoming acquainted with

the crocodiles.

Among such sights the sultry afternoon wore itself slowly into night,

and just as dark fell--it falls like a stage curtain in these

latitudes--we joyfully descried the steam-launch waiting for us behind a

sandy point. Once embarked upon her, we made better speed through the

night. It was cloudy, with a struggling moon, which just showed us a

labyrinth of flat, densely wooded isles, their margins fringed with

mangrove trees. Exhausted by a journey of more than thirty hours without

sleep, we were now so drowsy as to be in constant danger of falling off

the tiny launch, which had neither seats nor bulwarks, and even the

captain's strong tea failed to rouse us. Everything seemed like a

dream--this lonely African river, with the faint moonlight glimmering

here and there upon its dark bosom, while the tree tops upon untrodden

islets flitted past in a slow, funereal procession, befitting a land of

silence and death.

At last, when it was now well past midnight, a few lights were seen in

the distance, and presently we were at Beira. As we touched the shore we

were told that the German steamer had already arrived, two days before

her time, and was to start in the morning at ten o'clock. So we made

straight for her, and next day at noon sailed for Delagoa Bay.

Beira stands on a sand-spit between the ocean and the estuary of the

Pungwe River. Though the swamps come close up to it, the town itself is

tolerably healthy at all seasons, because the strong easterly breeze

blows from the sea three days out of four. Before 1890 there was hardly

even a house, and its quick growth is entirely due to its having been

discovered to possess the best harbour on the coast, and to be therefore

the fittest point of departure from the sea for the territories of the

British South African Company.

In old days the chief Portuguese settlement on this part of the coast

was at Sofala, a few miles farther to the south, which had been visited

by Vasco da Gama in A.D. 1502, and where the Portuguese built a fort in

1505. It was then an Arab town, and famous as the place whence most of

the gold brought down from the interior was exported. Now it has shrunk

to insignificance, and Beira will probably become the most important

haven on the coast between Delagoa Bay, to the south, and Dar-es-Salaam,

the head-quarters of German administration, to the north. It may,

however, be rivalled by Pemba Bay north of the Zambesi, from which it is

proposed to run a railway to the south end of Lake Nyassa. The anchorage

in the estuary behind the sand-spit is spacious and sheltered, and the

outrush of the tide from the large estuary keeps down, by its constant

scour, accumulations of sand upon the bar. The rise of tide at this part

of the coast, from which Madagascar is only four hundred miles distant,

is twenty-two feet, and the channel of approach, though narrow and

winding (for the coast is shallow and there are shoals for six or eight

miles out), is tolerably well buoyed and not really difficult. The

railway terminus is placed at a point within the harbour where the

sand-spit joins the mainland.

The journey which I have described, with all its difficulties, first on

the river between Beira and Fontesvilla, and then again on the track

between Chimoyo and Mtali, has since my visit become a thing of the

past. Early in 1896 the railway was opened from Fontesvilla to Beira, so

that the tedious and vexatiously uncertain voyage up or down the Pungwe

River is now superseded by a more swift if less exciting form of travel.

And the permanent way was rapidly laid from Chimoyo northward, so that

trains were running all the way from the sea to Fort Salisbury by the

middle of 1899. Should the resources of Mashonaland turn out within the

next few years to be what its more sanguine inhabitants assert, its

progress will be enormously accelerated by this line, which will give a

far shorter access to South Central Africa than can be had by the rival

lines that start from Cape Town, from Durban, and from Delagoa Bay.

[Footnote 52: This chief was the restive chief mentioned on the last

preceding page. He joined in the rising of 1896, and was, I believe,

taken prisoner and shot.]

[Footnote 53: It was here only, on the banks of a stream, that I

observed the extremely handsome arboraceous St.-John's-wort (_Hypericum

Schimperi_), mentioned in Chapter IV.]

[Footnote 54: It is in the midst of this scenery that new Mtali has been

built.]

[Footnote 55: _Law Reports_ for 1893, A. C., p. 602.]

[Footnote 56: It is in these woods that the honey bird is found, whereof

the tale is told that it hunts about for the nests of wild bees in the

hollows of trees, and when it has found one, flies close to a man so as

to attract his notice, then flutters in front of him to the nest, and

waits for him to take the honey out of the hollow (which it cannot

itself reach), expecting and receiving a share of the spoil.]

CHAPTER XVII

OBSERVATIONS ON THE RESOURCES AND FUTURE OF MATABILILAND AND MASHONALAND

In the last chapter I have brought the reader back to the sea from the

inland country we have spent three chapters in traversing. Now, while

the German steamer is threading her way to the open ocean through the

shoals that surround the entrance to the harbour of Beira, the traveller

as he gazes on the receding shore tries to sum up his impressions

regarding the economic prospects as well of Mashonaland as of the other

territories of the British South Africa Company. I will shortly state

these impressions.

The regions over which the British flag flies between the Transvaal

Republic to the south and the territories of Germany and of the Congo

State to the north, fall into three parts. The first is the country

north of the Zambesi. The easternmost section of this northerly region

is Nyassaland, of which I need say nothing, because it has been

admirably described by the distinguished officer (Sir H. H. Johnston)

who administered it for some years. The central and western sections,

which are under the control of the Company, are still too little known

for an estimate of their value to be formed. Though some parts are more

than 4000 feet above sea-level, most of the country lies below that

line, which is, roughly speaking, the line at which malarial fevers

cease to be formidable. Most of it, therefore, is not likely to be fit

for European colonization, and the heat is of course such as to put

European labour out of the question. Considerable tracts are, however,

believed to be fertile, and other tracts good for pasture, while there

is some evidence of the existence of gold and other minerals. The least

valuable region is believed to be that north of the Middle Zambesi,

where there are some dry and almost barren districts. Taking it all in

all, it is a country well worth having; but its resources will have to

be turned to account entirely through black labour; and as it is not

likely to attract any Europeans, except gold-prospectors, until the

unoccupied lands south of the Zambesi have been fully taken up, its

development belongs to a comparatively distant future.

The second region--that which lies south of the Upper Zambesi,

north-west of Matabililand--is equally little known, and, so far as

known, is not attractive. Most of it is comparatively low; much of it is

arid; some parts, especially those round Lake Ngami, are marshy and

therefore malarious. It is thinly peopled, has not been ascertained to

possess any mineral wealth, and lies far from any possible market. Parts

of it may turn out to afford good pasture, but for the present little is

said or thought about it, and no efforts have been made to develop it.

The third region comprises Matabililand and Mashonaland, that is, the

country between the Transvaal Republic and the valley of the Middle

Zambesi, all of which is now administered by the Company. What there is

to say about its prospects may be summed up under three heads--health,

wealth, and peace. It is on these three things that its future welfare

depends.

_Health._--A large part of the country, estimated at nearly 100,000

square miles, belongs to the Upper South African plateau, and has an

elevation of at least 3000 feet above the sea; and of this area about

26,000 square miles have an elevation of 4000 feet or upward. This

height, coupled with fresh easterly breezes and dry weather during eight

months in the year, gives the country a salubrious and even bracing

climate. The sun's heat is tempered, even in summer, by cool nights, and

in winter by cold winds, so that European constitutions do not, as in

India, become enervated and European muscles flaccid. It is not

necessary to send children home to England when they reach five or six

years of age; for they grow up as healthy as they would at home.

Englishmen might, in many districts, work with their hands in the open

air, were they so disposed; it is pride and custom, rather than the

climate, that forbid them to do so. So far, therefore, the country, is

one in which an indigenous white population might renew itself from

generation to generation.

_Wealth._--It was the hope of finding gold that drew the first British

pioneers to these regions; it is that hope which keeps settlers there,

and has induced the ruling Company to spend very large sums in

constructing railways, as well as in surveying, policing, and otherwise

providing for the administration of the country. The great question,

therefore, is, How will the gold-reefs turn out? There had been formed

before the end of 1895 more than two hundred Development Companies, most

of them gold-mining undertakings, and others were being started up till

the eve of the native outbreak in March, 1896. Very many reefs had been

prospected and an immense number of claims registered. The places in

which actual work had been done in the way of sinking shafts and opening

adits were, of course, much fewer, yet pretty numerous. Most of these

were in Manicaland, near Mtali, or to the north and west of Fort

Salisbury, or to the south-east of Gwelo, in the Selukwe district. No

one of these workings was on a large scale, and at two or three only had

stamping machinery been set up, owing, so I was told, to the practically

prohibitive cost of transport from the sea. Accordingly, there were

very few, if any, workings where enough ore had been extracted and

treated to warrant any confident predictions as to the productivity of

the claim. Numerous as the claims are, the value of all, or nearly all,

remained uncertain.

It must be remembered that in these mining districts the gold occurs in

quartz-reefs. Comparatively little is found in alluvial deposits, which

in California and Australia and the Ural mountains have often been more

important than the quartz-reefs. None at all is found diffused equally

through a stratum of rock, as in the Transvaal. Now, quartz-reef mining

is proverbially uncertain. The reefs vary not only in thickness, but

also in depth, and it is not yet certain that any go very far beneath

the surface. So, too, even when the reef itself is persistent in width

and in depth, its auriferous quality varies greatly. What is called the

"shoot" of gold may be rich for some yards, and then become faint or

wholly disappear, perhaps to reappear some yards farther. Thus there

must be a good deal of quartz crushed at different points before it can

be determined what number of pennyweights or ounces to the ton a given

reef, or a given part of a reef, is likely to yield.

In this uncertainty and deficiency of practical tests, people have

fallen back upon the ancient workings as evidence of the abundance of

the precious metal. I have already mentioned how numerous these workings

are over the country, and how fully they appear to confirm the stories

as to the gold which was brought down in the sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries to Sofala and the other Portuguese ports. It is argued that if

gold was so extensively worked in time past by rude races possessing

only primitive methods and few tools, the reefs must have been rich, and

that it is extremely improbable that all, or nearly all, the gold should

have been already extracted. The old workings were open, excavated down

from the surface, and they usually stopped when water was reached. Is

there not every reason to think that in many places the reefs go deeper,

and that our improved scientific appliances will enable us to extract

far more of the metal than the old miners could get by their simple

breaking and washing of the quartz? No doubt the old workings were

carried on by labour incomparably cheaper than could now be obtained;

but against this may be set the greater efficiency of the machinery

which will be at the disposal of the miner when transportation

facilities have been provided.

Arguments of this kind are resorted to only because the data which

experiment has hitherto supplied are insufficient. I found much

difference of opinion in the country itself regarding the value of the

reefs. Some mining engineers took a less sanguine view of the reefs they

had examined than did the general public in Fort Salisbury or Bulawayo,

and (it need hardly be said) a much less sanguine view than the

prospectuses of the companies conveyed to investors at home. On the

other hand, results had been actually obtained in some other places

which promised extremely well if the rest of the reef proved equal to

the portion sampled. Men of what is called in America "a conservative

temper" seemed to think that there is "payable gold," probably plenty of

gold, in the country, and that out of the many companies formed to work

the claims a fair, but by no means a large, proportion will turn out

sound undertakings. I doubt if it will be possible to say anything more

positive until stamping batteries have been erected and a considerable

quantity of quartz has been treated. This process can hardly begin till

the railways to Bulawayo and Mtali have been opened, and those

interested may therefore have to wait till 1899 or 1900 before they can

feel sure as to the value of their properties.[57]

Other minerals besides gold have been found. There is iron in many

places, copper in others. Coal has been proved to exist, of good if not

first-rate quality, on the edge of the Zambesi Valley south of the

Victoria Falls, and further east, to the north of Gwelo, and if the

gold-reefs turn out well it will certainly be worked. Indeed, railways

have now (1899) been decided on to connect Bulawayo and Gwelo with these

coal basins. It may be added that a railway is now being constructed

from Bulawayo to Gwelo and Fort Salisbury, and that there is a prospect

of another being pushed on to the Zambesi and the boundary of northern

Rhodesia at the south end of Lake Tanganyika. A line is also to be made

from Bulawayo south-east into the Gwanda mining district for a distance

of 110 miles.

Regarding the pastoral and agricultural capabilities of the country

there need be little doubt. All of it, except those lower grounds to the

north and south-east which are infested by the tsetse-fly, is fit for

cattle; some parts, such as the Matoppo Hills in Matabililand and still

more the Inyanga plateau in Mashonaland (mentioned in the last preceding

chapter), offer excellent pasture. The "high veldt" of central

Matabililand is no less available for sheep. Most of the cattle that

were on the land have perished in the recent murrain. But this plague

will pass by and may not return for many years, perhaps for centuries,

and the animals that will be brought in to restock the country will

probably be of better breeds. The quality of the soil for the purposes

of tillage has been tested by Europeans in a few places only. Much of

it is dry; much of it, especially where the subjacent rock is granitic,

is thin or sandy. Still, after allowing for these poorer tracts, there

remains an immense area of land which is fit to raise cereals and some

subtropical crops such as cotton. The immediate question is not,

therefore, as to the productive capacities of the country, but as to the

existence of a market for the products themselves. Nearly all staple

food-stuffs have of late years become so cheap in the markets of Europe

and North America, owing to the bringing under cultivation of so much

new land and the marvellous reduction in the cost of ocean carriage,

that in most of such articles Mashonaland, even with a railway to the

sea, could not at present compete successfully in those markets with

India and South America and the western United States. It is therefore

to consumers nearer at hand that the country must look. If gold-mining

prospers, population will rapidly increase, and a market will be created

at the agriculturists' own door. If, on the other hand, the reefs

disappoint the hopes formed of them, and the influx of settlers is too

small to create any large demand, tillage will spread but little, and

the country will be left to be slowly occupied by ranchmen. Thus the

growth of population and the prosperity of every industry will depend

upon the extent to which gold-mining can be profitably developed. Of

course I speak only of the near future. However rich some of the reefs

may turn out, they will be exhausted within a few decades, and the

country will have to depend on its other resources. However

unremunerative the reefs may prove, these other resources will in the

long run assure to it a settled white population and a reasonable

measure of prosperity. But these are days in which we all have learned

to take short views of life for nations and countries as well as for our

individual selves, and unquestionably the more or less of gold in its

quartz will for this country make all the difference between its speedy

and its slow development.

_Peace._--Thirdly, there remains the question whether the natives can be

kept quiet. The first occupation of Mashonaland was so tranquil, the

first conquest of the Matabili so swift and easy, that everybody

perceives that some further trouble ought to have been expected before

British control could be deemed secure. Now there has been a second

struggle and a pacification if not a victory. Has the suppression of the

revolt given permanent security? Are the natives at last aware that the

superiority of intelligence and organization on the part of the whites

more than counterbalances their own immense preponderance in numbers, a

preponderance of fully one hundred to one? No one will speak confidently

on this point who remembers how implicit and how vain was the confidence

felt in 1895 that the natives were contented and submissive. There was

some little risk of trouble in the spring of 1899 among the Matabili,

but the unrest became known in time, and is believed to have subsided.

On the whole, there is reason to think that if the natives are ruled in

a prudent and friendly spirit, making due allowance for their often

unreasonable alarms and suspicions, no fresh rising need be feared. The

chief aim of the ruling officials should be to draw and not to drive

them to labour, and to keep in check those white adventurers who hang

about the frontiers of civilization and sometimes ill-use or defraud the

Kafir in a way which makes him hostile to the next whites, however well

intentioned, who come into his neighbourhood. It may be some years yet

before the natives will seek work at the mines to the extent desired,

for they dislike underground labour. They were reported in 1899 to be

still deaf to the mine-owners' blandishments, although the average wage

is L2 a month; and the want of labour is assigned as a cause why many

mines said to be promising have made little progress. But policy, as

well as humanity and justice, forbids any resort to compulsion. Though

it is quite true that the native hates to see the white men come in,

disturb his old way of life, and take the best land, still I doubt if

anything less than some positive grievance, such as forced labour or the

taking of cattle, will be likely to rouse him to another attack on the

strangers. Should such an attack occur, it would be less formidable than

that of 1896. The tribal system, already weakened, tends among the

Matabili to dissolve still further, as was seen by the absence of

notable leaders and the general want of plan and co-operation in the

late conflict. Among the Mashonas each village is independent, so that a

combined effort is still less to be feared.[58] Moreover the completion

of the two railways to Bulawayo on the western and Fort Salisbury on the

eastern side of the country now enables reinforcements to be rapidly

sent up from the coast, and has removed the only danger that really

threatened the whites in 1896--their isolation from help and from

supplies of ammunition and of food.

What, then, are the general conclusions to which this rapid survey

leads? I will summarise them.

1. Though parts of the country will remain malarious, great areas will

be sufficiently healthy to enable a large white population to grow up

and maintain itself on the soil in vigour of mind and body. In this

sense it will be a "white man's country."

2. The black population is, however, likely to remain by far the more

numerous element, partly because it is better fitted for the malarious

and the hottest regions, and partly because here, as elsewhere in South

Africa, it is by the blacks that nearly all manual labour will continue

to be done. In this sense, that of numerical preponderance, the country,

and of course especially the parts of it which lie near to and north of

the Zambesi, will be a "black man's country."

3. The material progress of the country, and the more or less rapid

increase of its white population, will depend, in the first instance, on

the greater or less success with which gold-mining is prosecuted. If the

reefs turn out well, growth will be rapid; if not, it will be slow. But

in the long run the soil and the climate will be the main factors in

material and social prosperity. These give abundant grounds for hope.

The rainfall is larger than in the interior of Cape Colony, and much of

the soil will therefore be more productive. Therewith other industries

will spring up; and some of them will remain even when mining has

declined.

4. The political future will depend upon the growth of population, as

that depends upon the development of material resources. Should there be

a large and steady influx of white settlers, there must before long come

a demand for self-governing institutions. To concede these institutions

will be in the well-established line of British Colonial policy, and the

question will then arise whether the country, or the more settled parts

of it, should form a separate Colony or be incorporated with Cape Colony

(as British Bechuanaland recently was). That one found in 1895 very

little disposition among the white settlers to grumble at the

administration seemed chiefly due to the great personal popularity of

the genial Administrator, Dr. L. S. Jameson.

5. In 1898 the government and administration of the region south of the

Zambesi, _i.e._, Matabililand and Mashonaland, theretofore in the hands

of the British South Africa Company, were re-settled by an Order in

Council (Southern Rhodesia Order in Council, October 20th, 1898). It

vests authority in an Administrator appointed by the Company (with the

approval of the Secretary of State for the Colonies), a Resident

Commissioner, appointed by the Secretary of State and reporting directly

to him, an Executive Council of four persons appointed by the Company,

together with the senior and any other Administrators and the Resident

Commissioner, and a Legislative Council consisting, besides the

Commissioner and Administrators, of nine members, five appointed by the

Company, and four elected by the registered voters in electoral

districts. The Resident Commissioner, though entitled to be present and

speak at meetings, has no vote. Legislative Ordinances may be vetoed by

the High Commissioner for South Africa or by the Secretary of State. The

police (a force of 1,200 is now maintained) are under the orders of the

High Commissioner. There are various provisions for the protection of

the natives, and the recognition of native law; and it is provided (Sec.

47) that any "customs duties to be levied are not to exceed the duties

levied at the commencement of the Order by the South African Customs

Union Tariff, or by the Customs Union Convention of May, 1898, whichever

are higher."

This form of government is evidently provisional, and questions must

arise in the future, regarding the political constitution to be given to

this region and the relations of the Company to it, which will present

much difficulty.

The country lying north of the Zambesi has been divided into two

districts, North East Rhodesia and North West Rhodesia, each of which is

placed under an Administrator appointed by the Company, the extreme

North Western strip, towards the Portuguese territory, remaining

meantime under the more direct authority of the High Commissioner. It

is understood that these areas also are to be regulated by Orders in

Council.

6. Leaving out of sight the still unsettled problem of the mineral

wealth of these territories, they are in other respects one of the most

promising parts of South Africa. I have remarked that as regards pasture

and agriculture they are superior to the inland parts of Cape Colony.

They are in these points also superior to the Transvaal, and still more

plainly superior to the neighbouring possessions of Germany and

Portugal. Portuguese East Africa is fever-stricken. German East Africa

is in many places barren and almost everywhere malarious. German

South-west Africa is largely desert, much of it an arid and

irreclaimable desert.

To the English race in South Africa the acquisition of these regions, or

at least of the parts south of the Zambesi, has been an immense

political and economic advantage. It has established their predominance

and provided a security against any serious attempt to dislodge them. A

philosophic observer without predilections for any one state or people

would, it is conceived, hold that the English race is more likely to

serve what are termed the interests of civilization in this part of

Africa than is any other race. The Portuguese have neither energy nor

capital. The Germans, with energy and with capital, have not the

requisite practice in independent colonization, nor perhaps the taste

for it. The South African Dutch Boers, who have within the last

seventeen years been more than once on the point of occupying the

country, are, with all their good qualities, a backward people, who, had

they prevailed, would have done little more than squat here and there

over the country with their cattle, and carry on an incessant desultory

war with the natives. Whether it is really desirable that the waste

lands of the world should be quickly brought under settled order and

have their resources developed with all possible speed, is a question

on which much might be said. But assuming, as most men, perhaps too

hastily, do assume, that this sudden development is desirable, the

English are the people most likely to carry it out effectively, and the

strong and strenuous man who, with little encouragement from the

government of his country, founded the British South Africa Company and

acquired these territories for his countrymen, took one of the most

fateful steps that statesman or conqueror has ever taken in the African

continent.

[Footnote 57: The above was written in 1897. The subsequent extension of

the railway from Mafeking to Bulawayo stimulated production, and in

July, 1899, there were 115 stamps at work on the gold reefs, and the

total value of the gold produced in Matabililand and Mashonaland

(including the Tati concessions) was given by the Bulawayo Chamber of

Mines as L192,679 for the preceding ten months. The average wages paid

to natives were L2 a month. Some reefs are stated to have been worked to

a depth of 500 feet.]

[Footnote 58: This very isolation and independence of the small native

communities in Mashonaland retarded the pacification of the country

during 1896-97. There were hardly any influential chiefs with whom to

treat. But since 1897 it has been perfectly quiet.]

CHAPTER XVIII

THROUGH NATAL TO THE TRANSVAAL

There are two ways of reaching the Witwatersrand goldfields, now the

central point of attraction in South Africa, from the south-east coast.

One route starts from Delagoa Bay, a place of so much importance as to

deserve a short description. It is a piece of water protected from the

ocean by Inyack Island, and stretching some twenty miles or more north

and south. At the north end, where two rivers discharge their waters

into it, is an almost landlocked inlet, on the east side of which stands

the town of Lourenco Marques, so called from the Portuguese captain who

first explored it in 1544, though it had been visited in 1502 by Vasco

da Gama. The approach to this harbour is long and circuitous, for a

vessel has to wind hither and thither to avoid shoals; and as the

channel is ill-buoyed, careful captains sometimes wait for the tide to

be at least half full before they cross the shallowest part, where there

may be only twenty feet of water at low tide. Within the harbour there

is plenty of good deep anchorage opposite the town, and a still more

sheltered spot is found a little farther up the inlet in a sort of

lagoon. The town, which is growing fast, but still in a rough and

unsightly condition, runs for half a mile along the bay front, while

behind a suburb is built up the slope of a hill facing to the west. The

site looks healthy enough, though it would have been better to plant

the houses nearer to the high point which shields the anchorage. But

behind the town to the east and north there are large swamps, reeking

with malaria; and the residents have, therefore, though of course much

less in the dry season, to be on their guard against fever, which,

indeed, few who remain for a twelvemonth escape. The Portuguese

Government is unfortunately hard pressed for money and has not been able

to complete the projected quays, nor even to provide a custom-house and

warehouses fit to receive and store the goods intended for the

Transvaal, which are now discharged here in large quantities. In

November, 1895, everything was in confusion, and the merchants loud in

their complaints. Business is mostly in English and German, scarcely at

all in Portuguese, hands. With better management and the expenditure of

a little money, both the approach to the harbour and the town itself

might be immensely improved; and although the country round is not

attractive, being mostly either sandy or marshy, the trade with the

Transvaal goldfields seems so certain to develop and maintain itself

that expenditure would be well bestowed. It has often been suggested

that Great Britain should buy or lease the place (over which she has a

right of pre-emption), but the sensitive pride of Portugal might refuse

any offer. Nevertheless, it needs no great boldness to foretel that some

day it will come into British hands.

The other port which now competes for the Transvaal trade with Delagoa

Bay is Durban, the largest town in the British Colony of Natal. It

stands on a sandy flat from which a spit of land runs out into the sea

between the open ocean and the harbour. The harbour is commodious, but

the bar on the channel connecting it with the ocean formerly made it

unavailable except for vessels of light draft. Although much had been

done by the Colony to deepen the channel, the largest steamers were (in

1895) still forced to lie out in the ocean a mile or two away, and as

there is usually a swell, in which the little steam-tenders pitch about

pretty freely, the process of disembarkation is trying to many

passengers. There is, however, good reason to hope that the bar

difficulties may ultimately be overcome, as they have already been

greatly reduced: and the harbour, once you are within it, is perfectly

sheltered.

Durban is a neat and, in some parts, even handsome town, incomparably

superior to Lourenco Marques, with wide and well-kept streets, to which

the use of slender jinrickshas (drawn by active Zulus or Indians)

instead of cabs, as well as the number of white-clad coolies in the

streets, gives a curious Eastern touch, in keeping with the

semi-tropical vegetation. The climate is sultry during three months, but

very agreeable for the rest of the year. Many of the whites,

however,--there are 14,000 of them, and about the same number of Kafirs

and immigrants from India, live on the hill of Berea to the north of the

town, where the sea breeze gives relief even in the hottest weather.

This suburb of Berea is one of the prettiest spots in South Africa. The

name, of which the origin seems to have been forgotten by the citizens

of to-day, comes from a missionary settlement planted here in very early

days, and called after the Berea mentioned in Acts xvii. 10, 11. It has

been skilfully laid out in winding roads, bordered by tasteful villas

which are surrounded by a wealth of trees and flowering shrubs, and

command admirable views of the harbour, of the bold bluff which rises

west of the harbour, and of the ocean. The municipality bought the land,

and by selling or leasing it in lots at increased prices has secured a

revenue which keeps local taxation at a very low figure, and has enabled

many town improvements to be made and many enterprises to be worked for

the benefit of the citizens. Durban has been a pioneer of what is

called, in its extremer forms, municipal socialism; and enjoys the

reputation of being the best managed and most progressive town in all

South Africa. It possesses among other things a fine town-hall with a

lofty tower, built by the exertions of the present mayor, a deservedly

respected Scotch merchant.

East of Durban a low and fertile strip of country stretches along the

coast, most of which is occupied by sugar plantations, tilled by coolies

brought from India, because the native Kafir does not take kindly to

steady labour. North of the town the country rises, and here the patient

industry of other Indians has formed a great mass of gardens, where

sub-tropical and even some tropical fruits are grown in great

quantities, and have now begun to be exported to Europe. Across this

high ground, and through and over the still higher hills which rise

farther inland, the railway takes its course, often in steep inclines,

to the town of Pietermaritzburg, eighty miles distant, where the

Governor dwells, and a small British garrison is placed. Durban was from

the first an English town, and the white people who inhabit it are

practically all English. Maritzburg was founded by the emigrant Boers

who left Cape Colony in the Great Trek of 1836, and descended hither

across the Quathlamba Mountains in 1838. Its population is, however,

nowadays much more British than Boer, but the streets retain an

old-fashioned half-Dutch air; and the handsome Parliament House and

Government Offices look somewhat strange in a quiet and straggling

country town. Its height above the sea (2500 feet) and its dry climate

make it healthy, though, as it lies in a hollow among high hills, it is

rather hotter in summer than suits English tastes. The surrounding

country is pretty, albeit rather bare; nor is the Australian wattle, of

which there are now large plantations in the neighbourhood, a very

attractive tree.

This seems the fittest place for a few words on the public life of

Natal, the British Colony which has been the latest to receive

responsible self-government. This gift was bestowed upon it in 1893,

not without some previous hesitation, for the whole white population was

then about 46,000, and the adult males were little over 15,000. However,

the system then established seems to be working smoothly. There is a

cabinet of five ministers, with two Houses of Legislature, an Assembly

of thirty-seven, and a Council of eleven members, the former elected for

four years at most (subject to the chance of a dissolution), the latter

appointed by the Governor for ten years. No regular parties have so far

been formed, nor can it yet be foreseen on what lines they will form

themselves, for the questions that have chiefly occupied the legislature

are questions on which few differences of principle have as yet emerged.

All the whites are agreed in desiring to exclude Kafirs and newcomers

from India from the electoral franchise. All seemed in 1895 to be agreed

in approving the tariff, which was for revenue only; and Natal had then

one of the lowest among the tariffs in force in British Colonies. (The

ordinary _ad valorem_ rate was five per cent.) In 1898, however, Natal

entered the South African Customs Union previously consisting of Cape

Colony, the Orange Free State, Basutoland, and Bechuanaland, and the

tariff of that Union, as fixed in 1898, was higher and to some extent

protective. Even between the citizens of English and those of Dutch

origin, the latter less than one-fourth of the whole, and living chiefly

in the country, there has been but little antagonism, for the Dutch,

being less numerous than in Cape Colony, are much less organized. Among

the English, British sentiment is strong, for the war of 1881 with the

Transvaal people not merely re-awakened the memories of the Boer siege

of Durban in 1842, but provoked an anti-Boer feeling, which was kept in

check only by the necessity of conciliating the Transvaal government in

order to secure as large as possible a share of the import trade into

that country. As the Natal line of railway is a competitor for this

trade with the Cape lines, as well as with the line from Delagoa Bay,

there is a keen feeling of rivalry toward Cape Colony, which is thought

to have been unfriendly in annexing the native territories of Griqualand

East and Pondoland, which lie to the west of Natal, and which the latter

Colony had hoped some day or other to absorb. When her hopes of

territorial extension were closed on that side, Natal began to cast

longing eyes on Zululand, a hilly region of rich pastures which is at

present directly administered by the Imperial Government, and which

contains not only some gold-reefs of still unascertained value, but also

good beds of coal. Ultimately in 1897, the home government consented to

allow Natal to absorb both Zululand and the Tonga country all the way

north to the Portuguese frontier.

The political life of Natal flows in a tranquil current, because the

population is not merely small, but also scattered over a relatively

wide area, with only two centres of population that rise above the rank

of villages. The people, moreover, lead an easy and quiet life. They are

fairly well off, occupying large cattle-farms, and with no great

inducement to bring a great deal of land under tillage, because the

demand for agricultural produce is still comparatively small. Not much

over one-fortieth part of the surface is cultivated, of which about two

hundred thousand acres are cultivated by Europeans, of course by the

hands of coloured labourers. Sugar is raised along the coast, and tea

has lately begun to be grown. The Natalians have, perhaps, become the

less energetic in developing the natural resources of their country

because thrice in their recent history the equable course of development

has been disturbed. In 1870 many of the most active spirits were drawn

away to the newly-discovered diamond-fields of Kimberley. In 1879 the

presence of the large British force collected for the great Zulu war

created a sudden demand for all sorts of food-stuffs and forage, which

disappeared when the troops were removed; and since 1886 the rapid

growth of the Witwatersrand gold-fields, besides carrying off the more

adventurous spirits, has set so many people speculating in the shares of

mining companies that steady industry has seemed a slow and tame affair.

At present not many immigrants come to Natal to settle down as farmers;

and the Colony grows but slowly in wealth and population. Nevertheless,

its prosperity in the long run seems assured. It is more favoured by

soil and by sky than most parts of Cape Colony. It has an immense

resource in its extensive coal-fields. Its ocean trade and railway

traffic are increasing. In proximity to these coal-fields it has

deposits of iron which will one day support large industrial

communities. And its inhabitants are of good, solid stuff, both English,

Dutch, and German, for there are many German immigrants. No British

Colony can show a population of better quality, and few perhaps one

equally good.

Besides the railway question, which is bound up with the problem of the

port of Durban and its bar, the question which has most interest for the

people of Natal is that of the coloured population, Kafir and Indian.

The Kafirs, mostly of Zulu race, number 460,000, about ten times the

whites, who are estimated at 50,000. Nearly all live under tribal law in

their own communities, owning some cattle, and tilling patches of land

which amount in all to about 320,000 acres. The law of the Colony wisely

debars them from the use of European spirits. A few of the children are

taught in mission schools,--the only educational machinery provided for

them,--and a very few have been converted to Christianity, but the vast

majority are little influenced by the whites in any way. They are

generally peaceable, and perpetrate few crimes of violence upon whites;

but however peaceable they may have shown themselves, their numerical

preponderance is disquieting. A Kafir may, by the Governor's gift,

obtain the electoral suffrage when he has lived under European law for

at least seven years; but it has been bestowed on extremely few, so that

in fact the native does not come into politics at all. The Indian

immigrants, now reckoned at 50,000, are of two classes. Some are

coolies, who have been imported from India under indentures binding them

to work for a term of years, chiefly on the sugar plantations of the

coast. Many of these return at the expiration of the term, but more have

remained, and have become artisans in the towns or cultivators of garden

patches. The other class, less numerous, but better educated and more

intelligent, consists (besides some free immigrants of the humbler

class) of so-called "Arabs"--Mahommedans, chiefly from Bombay and the

ports near it, or from Zanzibar--who conduct retail trade, especially

with the natives, and sometimes become rich. Clever dealers, and willing

to sell for small profits, they have practically cut out the European

from business with the native, and thereby incurred his dislike. The

number of the Indians who, under the previous franchise law, were

acquiring electoral rights had latterly grown so fast that, partly owing

to the dislike I have just mentioned, partly to an honest apprehension

that the Indian element, as a whole, might become unduly powerful in the

electorate, an Act was in 1894 passed by the colonial legislature to

exclude them from the suffrage. The home government was not quite

satisfied with the terms in which this Act was originally framed, but in

1897 approved an amended Act which provides that no persons shall be

hereafter admitted to be electors "who (not being of European origin)

are natives or descendants in the male line of natives of countries

which have not hitherto possessed elective representative institutions

founded on the parliamentary franchise, unless they first obtain from

the Governor in Council an order exempting them from the provisions of

this Act." Under this statute the right of suffrage will be withheld

from natives of India and other non-European countries, such as China,

which have no representative government, though power is reserved for

the government to admit specially favoured persons. In 1897 another Act

was passed (and approved by the home government) which permits the

colonial executive to exclude all immigrants who cannot write in

European characters a letter applying to be exempted from the provisions

of the law. It is intended by this measure to stop the entry of

unindentured Indian immigrants of the humbler class.

I have referred particularly to this matter because it illustrates one

of the difficulties which arise wherever a higher and a lower, or a

stronger and a weaker, race live together under a democratic government.

To make race or colour or religion a ground of political disability runs

counter to what used to be deemed a fundamental principle of democracy,

and to what has been made (by recent amendments) a doctrine of the

American Constitution. To admit to full political rights, in deference

to abstract theory, persons who, whether from deficient education or

want of experience as citizens of a free country, are obviously unfit to

exercise political power is, or may be, dangerous to any commonwealth.

Some way out of the contradiction has to be found, and the democratic

Southern States of the North American Union and the oligarchical

Republic of Hawaii (now (1899) annexed to the United States), as well as

the South African Colonies, have all been trying to find such a way. The

problem has in 1899 presented itself in an acute form to the United

States, who having taken hold of the Philippine Isles, perceive the

objections to allowing the provisions of their Federal Constitution to

have effect there, but have not yet decided how to avoid that result.

Natal, where the whites are in a small minority, now refuses the

suffrage to both Indians and Kafirs; while Cape Colony, with a much

larger proportion of whites excludes the bulk of her coloured people by

the judicious application of an educational and property qualification.

The two Boer Republics deny the supposed democratic principle, and are

therefore consistent in denying all political rights to people of

colour. The Australian Colonies have taken an even more drastic method.

Most of them forbid the Chinese to enter the country, and admit the

dark-skinned Polynesian only as a coolie labourer, to be sent back when

his term is complete. France, however, is more indulgent, and in some of

her tropical Colonies extends the right of voting, both for local

assemblies and for members of the National Assembly in France, to all

citizens, without distinction of race or colour.

Maritzburg is a cheerful little place, with an agreeable society,

centred in Government House, and composed of diverse elements, for the

ministers of state and other officials, the clergy, the judges, and the

officers of the garrison, furnish a number, considerable for so small a

town, of capable and cultivated men. There are plenty of excursions, the

best of which is to the beautiful falls of the Umgeni at Howick, where a

stream, large after the rains, leaps over a sheet of basalt into a noble

_cirque_ surrounded by precipices. Passing not far from these falls, the

railway takes its course northward to the Transvaal border. The line

climbs higher and higher, and the country, as one recedes from the sea,

grows always drier and more bare. The larger streams flow in channels

cut so deep that their water is seldom available for irrigation; but

where a rivulet has been led out over level or gently sloping ground,

the abundance of the crop bears witness to the richness of the soil and

the power of the sun. The country is everywhere hilly, and the scenery,

which is sometimes striking, especially along the banks of the Tugela

and the Buffalo rivers, would be always picturesque were it not for the

bareness of the foregrounds, which seldom present anything except

scattered patches of thorny wood to vary the severity of the landscape.

Toward the base of the great Quathlamba or Drakensberg Range, far to the

west of the main line of railway, there is some very grand scenery, for

the mountains which on the edge of Basutoland rise to a height of 10,000

feet break down toward Natal in tremendous precipices. At the little

town of Ladysmith a railway diverges to the Orange Free State, whose

frontier here coincides with a high watershed, crossed by only a few

passes. A considerable coal-field lies near the village appropriately

named Newcastle, and there are valuable deposits near the village of

Dundee also, whither a branch line which serves the collieries turns off

to the east at a spot called Glencoe, south of Newcastle. Travelling

steadily to the north, the country seems more and more a wilderness, in

which the tiny hamlets come at longer and longer intervals. The

ranching-farms are very large,--usually six thousand acres,--so there

are few settlers; and the Kafirs are also few, for this high region is

cold in winter, and the dry soil does not favour cultivation. At last,

as one rounds a corner after a steep ascent, a bold mountain comes into

sight, and to the east of it, connecting it with a lower hill, a ridge

or neck, pierced by a tunnel. The ridge is Laing's Nek, and the mountain

is Majuba Hill, spots famous in South African history as the scenes of

the battles of 1881 in the Transvaal War of Independence. Few conflicts

in which so small a number of combatants were engaged have so much

affected the course of history as these battles; and the interest they

still excite justifies a short description of the place.

Laing's Nek, a ridge 5500 feet above the sea and rising rather steeply

about 300 feet above its southern base, is close to the Quathlamba

watershed, which separates the streams that run south into the Indian

Ocean from those which the Vaal on the north carries into the Orange

River and so to the Atlantic. It is in fact on the south-eastern edge of

that great interior table-land of which I have so often spoken. Across

it there ran in 1881, and still runs, the principal road from Natal into

the Transvaal Republic,--there was no railway here in 1881,--and by it

therefore the British forces that were proceeding from Natal to

reconquer the Transvaal after the outbreak of December, 1880, had to

advance to relieve the garrisons beleaguered in the latter country.

Accordingly, the Boer levies, numbering about a thousand men, resolved

to occupy it, and on January 27 they encamped with their waggons just

behind the top of the ridge. The frontier lies five miles farther to the

north, at the village of Charleston, so that at the Nek itself they were

in the territory of Natal. The British force of about one thousand men,

with a few guns, arrived the same day at a point four miles to the

south, and pitched their tents on a hillside still called Prospect Camp,

under the command of General Sir George Colley, a brave officer, well

versed in the history and theory of war, but with little experience of

operations in the field. Undervaluing the rude militia opposed to him,

he next day attacked their position on the Nek in front; but the British

troops, exposed, as they climbed the slope, to a well-directed fire from

the Boers, who were in perfect shelter along the top of the ridge,

suffered so severely that they had to halt and retire before they could

reach the top or even see their antagonists. A monument to Colonel

Deane, who led his column up the slope and fell there pierced by a

bullet, marks the spot. Three weeks later (after an unfortunate skirmish

on the 8th), judging the Nek to be impregnable in front, for his force

was small, but noting that it was commanded by the heights of Majuba

Hill, which rise 1500 feet above it on the west, the British general

determined to seize that point. Majuba is composed of alternate strata

of sandstone and shale lying nearly horizontal and capped--as is often

the case in these mountains--by a bed of hard igneous rock (a

porphyritic greenstone). The top is less than a mile in circumference,

depressed some sixty or seventy feet in the centre, so as to form a sort

of saucer-like basin. Here has been built a tiny cemetery, in which some

of the British soldiers who were killed lie buried, and hard by on the

spot where he fell, is a stone in memory of General Colley. The hill

proper is nearly nine hundred feet above its base, and the base about

six hundred feet above Laing's Nek, with which it is connected by a

gently sloping ridge less than a mile long. It takes an hour's steady

walking to reach the summit from the Nek; the latter part of the ascent

being steep, with an angle of from twenty to thirty degrees, and here

and there escarped into low faces of cliff in which the harder sandstone

strata are exposed.

The British general started on the night of Saturday, February 26, from

Prospect Camp, left two detachments on the way, and reached the top of

the hill, after some hard climbing up the steep west side, at 3 A.M.,

with something over four hundred men. When day broke, at 5 A.M., the

Boers below on the Nek were astonished to see British redcoats on the

sky-line of the hill high above them, and at first, thinking their

position turned, began to inspan their oxen and prepare for a retreat.

Presently, when no artillery played upon them from the hill, and no sign

of a hostile movement came from Prospect Camp in front of them to the

south, they took heart, and a small party started out, moved along the

ridge toward Majuba Hill, and at last, finding themselves still

unopposed, began to mount the hill itself. A second party supported this

forlorn hope, and kept up a fire upon the hill while the first party

climbed the steepest parts. Each set of skirmishers, as they came within

range, opened fire at the British above them, who, exposed on the upper

slope and along the edge of the top, offered an easy mark, while the

Boers, moving along far below, and in places sheltered by the

precipitous bits of the slope, where the hard beds of sandstone run in

miniature cliffs along the hillside, did not suffer in the least from

the irregular shooting which a few of the British tried to direct on

them. Thus steadily advancing, and firing as they advanced, the Boers

reached at last the edge of the hilltop, where the British had neglected

to erect any proper breastworks or shelter, and began to pour in their

bullets with still more deadly effect upon the hesitating and already

demoralized troops in the saucer-like hollow beneath them. A charge with

the bayonet might even then have saved the day. But though the order was

given to fix bayonets, the order to charge did not follow. General

Colley fell shot through the head, while his forces broke and fled down

the steep declivities to the south and west, where many were killed by

the Boer fire. The British loss was ninety-two killed, one hundred and

thirty-four wounded, and fifty-nine taken prisoners; while the Boers,

who have given their number at four hundred and fifty, lost only one man

killed and five wounded. No wonder they ascribed their victory to a

direct interposition of Providence on their behalf.

The British visitor, to whom this explanation does not commend itself,

is stupefied when he sees the spot and hears the tale. Military

authorities, however, declare that it is an error to suppose that the

occupants of a height have, under circumstances like those of this

fight, the advantage which a height naturally seems to give them. It is,

they say, much easier for skirmishers to shoot from below at enemies

above, than for those above to pick off skirmishers below; and this fact

of course makes still more difference when the attacking force are

accustomed to hill-shooting, and the defenders above are not. But

allowing for both these causes, the attack could not have succeeded had

Laing's Nek been assailed from the front by the forces at Prospect Camp,

and probably would never have been made had the British on the hill

taken the offensive early in the day.

We reached the top of the mountain in a dense cloud, which presently

broke in a furious thunderstorm, the flash and the crash coming together

at the same moment, while the rain quickly turned the bottom of the

saucer-like hollow almost into a lake. When the storm cleared away, what

a melancholy sight was this little grassy basin strewn with loose

stones, and bearing in its midst the graves of the British dead enclosed

within a low wall! A remote and silent place, raised high in air above

the vast, bare, brown country which stretched away east, south, and west

without a trace of human habitation. A spot less likely to have become

the scene of human passion, terror and despair can hardly be imagined.

Yet it has taken its place among the most remarkable battlefields in

recent history, and its name has lived, and lives to-day, in men's minds

as a force of lamentable potency.

Crossing Laing's Nek,--the top of which few future travellers will

tread, because the railway passes in a tunnel beneath it,--one comes out

on the north upon the great rolling plateau which stretches to the

Zambesi in one direction and to the Atlantic in another. Four or five

miles further, a little beyond the village of Charleston, one leaves

Natal and enters the South African Republic; and here is the actual

watershed which divides the upper tributaries of the Orange River from

the streams which flow to the Indian Ocean. The railway had just been

completed at the time of our visit, and though it was not opened for

traffic till some weeks later, we were allowed to run over it to the

point where it joins the great line from Cape Town to Pretoria. The

journey was attended with some risk, for in several places the permanent

way had sunk, and in others it had been so insecurely laid that our

locomotive and car had to pass very slowly and cautiously. The country

is so sparsely peopled that if one did not know it was all taken up in

large grazing-farms, one might suppose it still a wilderness. Here and

there a few houses are seen, and one place, Heidelberg, rises to the

dignity of a small town, being built at the extreme south-eastern end of

the great Witwatersrand gold-basin, where a piece of good reef is

worked, and a mining population has begun to gather. The country is all

high, averaging 5000 feet above sea level, and is traversed by ridges

which rise some 500 to 1000 feet more. It is also perfectly bare, except

for thorny mimosas scattered here and there, with willows fringing the

banks of the few streams.

Great is the contrast when, on reaching Elandsfontein, on the main line

of railway, one finds one's self suddenly in the midst of the stir and

bustle of industrial life. Here are the tall chimneys of engine-houses;

here huge heaps of refuse at the shafts of the mines mark the direction

across the country of the great gold-reef. Here, for the first time

since he quitted the suburbs of Cape Town, the traveller finds himself

again surrounded by a dense population, filled with the eagerness, and

feeling the strain and stress, of an industrial life like that of the

manufacturing communities of Europe or of North America. Fifteen years

ago there was hardly a sign of human occupation. The Boer ranchman sent

out his native boys to follow the cattle as they wandered hither and

thither, seeking scanty pasturage among the stones, and would have been

glad to sell for a hundred pounds the land on which Johannesburg now

stands, and beneath which some of the richest mines are worked.

The Witwatersrand (Whitewatersridge) is a rocky ridge rising from one to

two or three hundred feet above the level of the adjoining country and

running nearly east and west about thirty miles. Along its southern

slope the richest reefs or beds containing gold (except that near the

village of Heidelberg) have been found; but the whole gold-basin, in

various parts of which payable reefs have been proved to exist and are

being worked, is nearly one hundred and thirty miles long by thirty

miles wide. It is called a basin because the various out-cropping reefs

represent approximately the rim of a basin, and dip to a common centre.

But there are many "faults" which have so changed the positions of the

reefs in different places as largely to obliterate the resemblance

indicated by the term. It would be impossible to give either a

geological account of the district or a practical description of the

methods of working without maps and plans and a number of details

unsuitable to this book; so I will mention merely a few salient facts,

referring the curious reader to the elaborate treatise of Messrs. Hatch

and Chalmers published in 1895.

The Rand gold-mining district at present consists of a line of mines

both east and west of Johannesburg, along the outcrop of the principal

reefs. It is about forty-six miles long, but "gold does not occur

continuously in payable quantities over that extent, the 'pay-ore' being

found in irregular patches, and (less frequently) in well-defined

'pay-shoots' similar to those which characterize quartz-veins."[59]

There are also a few scattered mines in other parts of the basin. On

this line there are two principal reefs--the Main Reef, with its

so-called "leader," a thin bed just outside, and parallel to it, and the

South Reef, with several others which are at present of much less

importance. The term "reef" means a bed or stratum of rock, and these

Rand reefs are beds of a sort of conglomerate, consisting of sandy and

clayey matter containing quartz pebbles. The pebbles are mostly small,

from the size of a thrush's egg up to that of a goose's egg, and contain

no gold. The arenaceous or argillaceous stuff in which they lie embedded

is extremely hard, and strongly impregnated with iron, usually in the

form of iron pyrites, which binds it together. It is in this stuff, or

sandy and ferreous cement, that the gold occurs. The Boers call the

conglomerate "_banket_" (accented on the last syllable), which is their

name for a kind of sweetmeat, because the pebbles lying in the cement

are like almonds in the sugary substance of the sweetmeat. The gold is

pretty equably diffused in the form of crystals or (less often) of

flakes--crystals of such extremely small size as to be very rarely

visible to the naked eye. Here and there, however, the banket is

traversed by thin veins of quartz rock, and nuggets, mostly quite small,

are occasionally found in this quartz.

The "Main Reef series" consists of several parallel beds of varying size

and thickness, which have not been correlated throughout their entire

length; at some points two may be workable; at others three. The Main

Reef bed varies from one to twenty feet in thickness; its "leader,"

which is richer in gold, from three inches to three feet; and the South

Reef, also generally rich, from three inches to six feet. The Main Reef

proper, however, is of too low an ore grade to be profitably worked

under present economic conditions, though at two or three mines a

percentage of it is milled in conjunction with the richer ore from the

other beds.

Where these beds come to the surface, they are inclined, or "dip," as

geologists say, at an angle of from 60 deg. to 30 deg., and the shafts are now

usually sunk to follow the line of dip. But as they are followed down

into the earth, the angle diminishes to 30 deg. or 25 deg., and it appears

certain that at a still greater depth they will be found to lie nearly

horizontal. This fact is extremely important, because it promises to

make a much larger part of the beds available than would be the case if

they continued to plunge downward at a high angle, since in that case

they would soon attain a depth at which mining would be impossible,

because the heat would be too great, and probably unprofitable also,

because the cost of raising the ore would be extremely heavy. The

greatest depth to which workings have been carried is about 2400 feet,

but skilled engineers think it possible to work as deep as 5000 feet,

though labour becomes more difficult above the temperature of 100 deg.

Fahrenheit, which is reached at 3000 feet beneath the surface. No

difficulty from temperature has been felt at 2,400 feet, and the water

is found to give little trouble; indeed a very experienced engineer (to

whose courtesy I am indebted for these facts) tells me that he thinks

most of the water comes from the surface, and can be taken up in the

upper levels of the mine which is being worked at the depth mentioned. I

have given these details in order to show how enormous a mass of ore

remains to be extracted when the deep workings, which are still in their

infancy, have been fairly entered upon. But a still more remarkable fact

is that the auriferous banket beds appear, so far as they have been

followed by deep borings, to retain, as they descend into the earth, not

only their average thickness, but also their average mineral quality.

Here is the striking feature of the Rand gold-beds, which makes them, so

far as we know, unique in the world.

Everywhere else gold-mining is a comparatively hazardous and uncertain

enterprise. Where the metal is found in alluvial deposits, the deposits

usually vary much in the percentage of gold to the ton of soil which

they yield, and they are usually exhausted in a few years. Where it

occurs in veins of quartz-rock (the usual matrix), these veins are

generally irregular in their thickness, often coming abruptly to an end

as one follows them downward, and still more irregular and uncertain in

the percentage of gold to rock. For a few yards your quartz-reef may be

extremely rich, and thereafter the so-called "shoot" may stop, and the

vein contain so little gold as not to pay the cost of working. But in

the Witwatersrand basin the precious metal is so uniformly and equally

distributed through the auriferous beds that when you have found a

payable bed you may calculate with more confidence than you can anywhere

else that the high proportion of gold to rock will be maintained

throughout the bed, not only in its lateral extension, which can be

easily verified, but also as it dips downwards into the bowels of the

earth. It is, therefore, not so much the richness of this

gold-field--for the percentage of metal to rock is seldom very high, and

the cost of working the hard rock and disengaging the metal from the

minerals with which it is associated are heavy items--as the comparative

certainty of return, and the vast quantity of ore from which that return

may be expected, that have made the Rand famous, have drawn to it a

great mass of European capital and a large population, and have made the

district the object of political desires, ambition, and contests which

transcend South Africa and have threatened to become a part of the game

which the great powers of Europe are playing on the chessboard of the

world.

It is believed that the banket or conglomerate beds are of marine

origin, but it does not follow that the gold was deposited _pari passu_

with the deposition of the beds, for it may have been--and skilled

opinion inclines to this view--carried into the conglomerate seams

subsequently to their deposit. In this respect they resemble auriferous

veins of quartz, though in these banket reefs the gold-bearing solutions

would seem to have come up through the interstitial spaces of the

conglomerate instead of in the more or less open fissures of the

gold-bearing quartz-veins. The chemical conditions under which gold is

thus deposited are still conjectural. Gold has long been known to exist

in sea-water, in the form of an iodide or a chloride; and one skilful

metallurgist at Johannesburg told me that he believed there was as much

gold in a cubic mile of sea-water as the whole then annual output of

the Rand, that is to say, nearly L8,000,000.

Had these deposits been discovered a century ago, few, if any of them,

would have been worth working, because miners did not then possess the

necessary means for extracting the gold from its intractable matrix. It

is the progress of chemical science which, by inventing new processes,

such as the roasting with chlorine, the treatment in vats with cyanide,

and the application of electrical currents, has made the working

profitable. The expenses of working out the gold per ton of ore sank

from L1 15_s._ 5_d._ per ton in 1892 to L1 8_s._ 1_d._ in 1898, while

the dividends rose from 8_s._ per ton to 13_s._ 2_d._; and the

proportion of gold won which was paid in dividends rose from 19 to 32

per cent. Further improvements in the processes of reduction will

doubtless increase the mining area, by making it worth while to develop

mines where the percentage of metal to rock is now too small to yield a

dividend. Improvements, moreover, tend to accelerate the rate of

production, and thereby to shorten the life of the mines; for the more

profitable working becomes, the greater is the temptation to work as

fast as possible and get out the maximum of ore. The number of stamps at

work in milling the ore rose from 3740 in 1896 to 5970 in August, 1899.

The total sum annually paid in dividends, which had in 1892 been

L794,464, had in 1898 risen to L4,847,505.

The duration of the mines, as a whole, is therefore a difficult problem,

for it involves the question whether many pieces of reef, which are now

little worked or not worked at all, will in future be found worth

working, owing to cheapened appliances and to a larger yield of gold per

ton of rock, in which case the number of mines may be largely increased,

and reefs now neglected be opened up when the present ones have been

exhausted. The view of the most competent specialists seems to be that,

though many of what are now the best properties will probably be worked

out in twenty or thirty years, the district, as a whole, may not be

exhausted for at least fifty, and possibly even for seventy or eighty,

years to come. And the value of the gold to be extracted within those

fifty years has been roughly estimated at about L700,000,000, of which

at least L200,000,000 will be clear profit, the balance going to pay the

cost of extraction. In 1896 the value of the Witwatersrand gold output

was L7,864,341.[60] In 1898 it was L15,141,376; and in the first eight

months of 1899 L12,485,032. Assuming a production of L15,000,000 a year,

this would exhaust the field in about forty-six years; but it is, of

course, quite impossible to predict what the future rate of production

will be, for that must depend not only on the progress of mechanical and

chemical science, but (as we shall presently see) to some extent also

upon administrative and even political conditions. In the five years

preceding 1896 the production had increased so fast (at the rate of

about a million sterling per annum) that, even under the conditions

which existed in 1895, every one expected a further increase, and (as

already noted), the product of 1898 exceeded L15,000,000. With more

favourable economic and administrative conditions it will doubtless for

a time go still higher. The South African Republic now stands first

among the gold-producing countries, having passed the United States,

which stands a little behind her, Australasia being a good third, and

the Russian Empire a bad fourth. The total annual output of gold for the

whole world was in 1898 about L59,617,955.

Among the economic conditions I have referred to, none is more

important than the supply and the wages of labour. On the Rand, as in

all South African mines of every kind, unskilled manual labour is

performed by Kafirs, whites--together with a few half-breeds and Indian

coolies--being employed for all operations, whether within the mine or

above the ground, which require intelligence and special knowledge.

The number of natives regularly employed was in 1896 47,000, the total

employed altogether during the year 70,000. In 1898 these numbers had

risen to 67,000 and 88,000 respectively. The average monthly wage of a

native was in 1896 L3 0_s._ 10_d._ and in 1898 L2 9_s._ 9_d._ The number

of whites employed was in 1896 7,430 (average monthly wage L24), in 1898

9,476 (average monthly wage L26). Whites would be still more largely

employed if they would work harder, but they disdain the more severe

kinds of labour, thinking those fit only for Kafirs. The native workmen

are of various tribes, Basutos, Zulus, Shanganis, and Zambesi boys being

reckoned the best. Most of them come from a distance, some from great

distances, and return home when they have saved the sum they need to

establish themselves in life. The dream of the mine manager is to cut

down the cost of native labour by getting a larger and more regular

supply, as well as by obtaining cheaper maize to feed the workmen, for

at present, owing to the customs duties on food-stuffs, the cost of

maize--nearly all of which is imported--is much higher than it need be.

So white labour might be much cheapened, while still remaining far

better paid than in Europe, by a reduction of the customs tariff, which

now makes living inordinately dear. Heavy duties are levied on machinery

and chemicals; and dynamite is costly, the manufacture of it having been

constituted a monopoly granted to a single person. Of all these things,

loud complaints are heard, but perhaps the loudest are directed against

the rates of freight levied by the railways, and especially by the

Netherlands Company, which owns the lines inside the Transvaal State

itself.

Even apart from the question of railway freights, Johannesburg believed

in 1895 that better legislation and administration might reduce the cost

of production by twenty or thirty per cent., a difference which would of

course be rapidly felt in the dividends of the mines that now pay, and

which would enable many now unprofitable mines to yield a dividend and

many mines to be worked which are now not worth working.[61] However

this may be, an examination of the figures I have given will show how

great has been the development of the industry during the last eight

years, how largely the dividends have grown and how much the cost of

production has been reduced. Thus in spite of the difficulties

mentioned, the profits made have greatly increased, and the shareholder

has fared well.

There is nothing in the natural aspect of the mining belt to distinguish

it from the rest of the Transvaal plateau. It is a high, dry, bare,

scorched, and windy country, and Johannesburg, its centre, stands in one

of the highest, driest, and windiest spots, on the south slope of the

Witwatersrand ridge, whose top rises some 150 feet above the business

quarters. Founded in 1886, the town has now a population exceeding

100,000, more than half of them whites. In 1896 the census (probably

very imperfect) showed within a radius of three miles 50,000 whites,

42,000 Kafirs, and 6000 Asiatics. Though it is rapidly passing from the

stage of shanties and corrugated iron into that of handsome streets

lined with tall brick houses, it is still rough and irregular, ill

paved, ill lighted, with unbuilt spaces scattered about and good houses

set down among hovels.

Another element of unloveliness is supplied by the mines themselves, for

the chief reefs run quite close to the southern part of the town, and

the huge heaps of "waste rock" or refuse and so-called "tailings", the

machinery which raises, crushes, and treats the ore, and the tall

chimneys of the engine houses, are prominent objects in the suburbs.

There is not much smoke; but to set against this there is a vast deal of

dust, plenty from the streets, and still more from the tailings and

other heaps of highly comminuted ore-refuse. The streets and roads

alternate between mud for the two wet months, and dust in the rest of

the year; and in the dry months not only the streets, but the air is

full of dust, for there is usually a wind blowing. But for this dust,

and for the want of proper drainage and a proper water-supply, the place

would be healthy, for the air is dry and bracing. But there had been up

to the end of 1895 a good deal of typhoid fever and a great deal of

pneumonia, often rapidly fatal. In the latter part of 1896 the mortality

was as high as 58 per thousand.[62]

It is a striking contrast to pass from the business part of the town to

the pretty suburb which lies to the north-east under the steep ridge of

the Witwatersrand, where the wealthier residents have erected charming

villas and surrounded them with groves and gardens. Less pretty, but far

more striking, is the situation of a few of the outlying country houses

which have been built to the north, on the rocky top or along the

northern slope of the same ridge. These have a noble prospect over

thirty or forty miles of rolling country to the distant Magaliesberg.

East and west the horizon is closed by long ranges of blue hills, while

beneath, some large plantations of trees, and fields cultivated by

irrigation, give to the landscape a greenness rare in this arid land.

Standing on this lonely height and looking far away towards the Limpopo

and Bechuanaland, it is hard to believe that such a centre of restless

and strenuous life as Johannesburg is so near at hand. The prospect is

one of the finest in this part of Africa; and it is to be hoped that a

tract on these breezy heights will, before building has spread further,

be acquired by the town as a public park.

Though in its general aspect Johannesburg comes nearer to one of the new

mining cities of Western America than to any place in Europe, yet in

many points it is more English than American, as it is far more English

than Dutch. Indeed, there is nothing to remind the traveller that he is

in a Dutch country except the Dutch names of the streets on some of the

street corners. The population--very mixed, for there are Germans,

Italians, and French, as well as some natives of India--is practically

English-speaking, for next in number to the colonial English and the

recent immigrants from Great Britain come the Australians and Americans,

who are for all social purposes practically English. It is a busy,

eager, restless, pleasure-loving town, making money fast and spending it

lavishly, filled from end to end with the fever of mining speculation.

This pursuit concentrates itself in one spot where two of the principal

streets meet, and where a part of one of them is inclosed within low

chains, so as to make a sort of inclosure, in which those who traffic in

gold shares meet to buy and sell. "Between the chains" is the local

expression for the mining exchange, or share market, and a sensitive and

unstable market it is. It had been "booming" for most of the year, and

many stocks stood far too high. But while we were there what is called a

"slump" occurred, and it was pretty to study the phenomenon on the

countenances between the chains.

The passion of the people for sport, and especially for racing, is

characteristically English. The gambling-saloon is less conspicuous than

in Transatlantic mining-camps, and there are fewer breaches of public

order. Decorum is not always maintained. When I was there, a bout of

fisticuffs occurred between the ex-head of the town police and his

recently appointed successor, and the prowess of the former delighted a

large ring of English spectators who gathered round the combatants. But

one hears of no shootings at-sight or lynchings; and considering the

great number of bad characters who congregate at places of this kind, it

was surprising that the excess of crime over other South African towns

(in which there is very little crime among the whites) should not have

been larger. Partly, perhaps, because the country is far from Europe,

the element of mere roughs and rowdies, of scalawags, hoodlums, and

larrikins, is smaller than in the mining districts of the Western United

States, and the proportion of educated men unusually large. The best

society of the place--of course not very numerous--is cultivated and

agreeable. It consists of men of English or Anglo-Jewish race--including

Cape Colonists and Americans, with a few Germans, mostly of Jewish

origin. I should conjecture the English and colonial element to compose

seven-tenths of the white population, the American and German about

one-tenth each, while Frenchmen and other European nations make up the

residue. There are hardly any Boers or Hollanders, except Government

officials; and one feels one's self all the time in an English, that is

to say, an Anglo-Semitic town. Though there are some 50,000 Kafirs, not

many are to be seen about the streets. The Boer farmers of the

neighbourhood drive their waggons in every morning, laden with

vegetables. But there are so few of the native citizens of the South

African Republic resident in this its largest town that the traveller

cannot help fancying himself in the Colony; and it was only natural that

the English-speaking people, although newcomers, should feel the place

to be virtually their own.

Great is the change when one passes from the busy Johannesburg to the

sleepy Pretoria, the political capital of the country, laid out

forty-three years ago, and made the seat of government in 1863. The

little town--it has about 12,000 inhabitants, two-thirds of whom are

whites--lies in a warm and well watered valley--about thirty miles

N.N.E. of Johannesburg. The gum-trees and willows that have grown up

swiftly in the gardens and along the avenues embower it; and the views

over the valley from the low hills--most of them now (since the middle

of 1896) crowned by batteries of cannon--that rise above the suburbs are

pleasing. But it has neither the superb panoramic prospect nor the sense

of abounding wealth and strenuous life that make Johannesburg striking.

The streets are wide, and after rain so muddy as to be almost

impassable; the houses irregular, yet seldom picturesque. Nothing could

be less beautiful than the big Dutch church, which occupies the best

situation, in the middle of the market square. There is, however, one

stately and even sumptuous building, that which contains the Government

Offices and chambers of the legislature. It is said to have cost

L200,000. The room in which the Volksraad (_i.e._, the First or chief

Volksraad) meets is spacious and handsome. It interests the visitor to

note that on the right hand of the chair of the presiding officer there

is another chair, on the same level, for the President of the Republic,

while to the right there are seats for the five members of the Executive

Council, and to the left five others for the heads of the administrative

departments, though none of these eleven is a member of the Raad.

We had expected to find Pretoria as Dutch as Johannesburg is English.

But although there is a considerable Boer and Hollander population, and

one hears Dutch largely spoken, the general aspect of the town is

British colonial; and the British-colonial element is conspicuous and

influential. Having little trade and no industry, Pretoria exists

chiefly as the seat of the administration and of the courts of law. Now

the majority of the bar are British-colonials from Cape Colony or

England. The large interests involved in the goldfields, and the

questions that arise between the companies formed to work them, give

abundant scope for litigation, and one whole street, commonly known as

the Aasvogelsnest (Vulture's Nest), is filled with their offices. They

and the judges, the most distinguished of whom are also either colonial

Dutchmen or of British origin, are the most cultivated and (except as

regards political power) the leading section of society. It is a real

pleasure to the European traveller to meet so many able and well-read

men as the bench and bar of Pretoria contain; and he finds it odd that

many of them should be excluded from the franchise and most of them

regarded with suspicion by the ruling powers. Johannesburg (with its

mining environs) has nearly all the industry and wealth, and half the

whole white population of the Transvaal--a country, be it remembered, as

large as Great Britain. Pretoria and the lonely country to the north,

east, and west[63] have the rest of the population and all the power. It

is true that Pretoria has also a good deal of the intelligence. But this

intelligence is frequently dissociated from political rights.

President Kruger lives in a house which the Republic has presented to

him, five minutes' walk from the public offices. It is a long, low

cottage, like an Indian bungalow, with nothing to distinguish it from

other dwellings. The President has, however, a salary of L7,000 a year,

besides an allowance, commonly called "coffee money," to enable him to

defray the expenses of hospitality. Just opposite stands the little

chapel of the so-called Dopper sect in which he occasionally preaches.

Like the Scotch of former days, the Boers have generally taken more

interest in ecclesiastical than in secular politics. A sharp contest has

raged among them between the party which desires to be in full communion

with the Dutch Reformed Church of Cape Colony and the party which

prefers isolation, distrusting (it would seem unjustly) the strict

orthodoxy of that church. The Doppers (dippers, _i.e._ Baptists) are

still more stringent in their adherence to ancient ways. When I asked

for an account of their tenets, I was told that they wore long

waistcoats and refused to sing hymns. They are, in fact, old-fashioned

Puritans in dogmatic beliefs and social usages, and, as in the case of

the more extreme Puritans of the seventeenth century, this theological

stringency is accompanied by a firmness of character which has given

them a power disproportionate to their numbers.

Quiet as Pretoria is, the echoes of the noisy Rand are heard in it, and

the Rand questions occupy men's minds. But outside Pretoria the country

is lonely and silent, like all other parts of the Transvaal, except the

mining districts. Here and there, at long, intervals, you come upon a

cluster of houses--one can hardly call them villages. If it were not for

the mines, there would not be one white man to a square mile over the

whole Republic.

[Footnote 59: Mr. J. Hays Hammond, the eminent mining engineer, in

_North American Review_ for February, 1897.]

[Footnote 60: The total output of the Californian gold deposits up to

the end of 1896 was L256,000,000. The total gold output of the Transvaal

was in 1898 $78,070,761 (about L16,000,000), that of the United States

$65,082,430. I take these and the other recent figures from a report by

Mr. Hammond to the Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa Company.]

[Footnote 61: A little French book (_L'Industrie Miniere au Transvaal_,

published in 1897), which presents a careful examination of these

questions, calculated at about thirty per cent. of the expenditure the

savings in production which better legislation and administration might

render possible.]

[Footnote 62: There are towns in England where the rate is only 13 per

thousand.]

[Footnote 63: There are some mines of gold and coal in other parts,

mostly on the east side of the country, with a small industrial

population consisting chiefly of recent immigrants.]

CHAPTER XIX

THE ORANGE FREE STATE

In the last preceding chapter I have carried the reader into the

Transvaal through Natal, because this is the most interesting route. But

most travellers in fact enter _via_ Cape Colony and the Orange Free

State, that State lying between the north-eastern frontier of the Colony

and the south-eastern frontier of the Transvaal. Of the Free State there

is not much to say; but that little needs to be said, because this

Republic is a very important factor in South African politics, and

before coming to its politics the reader ought to know something of its

population. I have already (Chapter V) summarized its physical features

and have referred (Chapter XI) to the main incidents in its history.

Physically, there is little to distinguish it from the regions that

bound it to the east, north, and west. Like them, it is level or

undulating, dry, and bare--in the main a land of pasture. One

considerable diamond mine is worked in the west, (at Jagersfontein) and

along the banks of the Caledon River there lies one rich agricultural

district. But the land under cultivation is less than one per cent, of

the whole area. There are no manufactures, and of course very little

trade; so the scanty population increases slowly. It is a country of

great grassy plains, brilliantly green and fresh after rain has fallen,

parched and dusty at other times, but able to support great numbers of

cattle and sheep. Rare farmhouses and still rarer villages are scattered

over this wide expanse, which, in the north-east, toward Natal, rises

into a mountainous region. The natives (most of them of Bechuana stock)

are nearly twice as numerous as the whites. Some live on a large

Barolong reservation, where they till the soil and keep their cattle in

their own way. The rest are scattered over the country, mostly employed

as herdsmen to the farmers. Save on the reservation, they cannot own

land or travel without a pass, and of course they are not admitted to

the electoral franchise. They seem, however, to be fairly well treated,

and are perfectly submissive. Their wages average thirty shillings a

month. Native labour has become so scarce that no farmer is now

permitted to employ more than twenty-five. Of the whites, fully

two-thirds are of Dutch origin, and Dutch is pretty generally spoken.

English, however, is understood by most people, and is the language most

commonly used in the larger villages. The two races have lived of late

years in perfect harmony, for there has never been any war between the

Free State and Great Britain. As the tendency of the English citizens to

look to Cape Colony has been checked by the sentiment of independence

which soon grew up in this little Republic, and by their attachment to

its institutions, so the knowledge of the Dutch citizens that the

English element entertains this sentiment and attachment has prevented

the growth of suspicion among the Dutch, and has knitted the two races

into a unity which is generally cordial.[64] Nevertheless, so much Dutch

feeling remained slumbering, that when it had been reawakened by Dr.

Jameson's expedition into the Transvaal in December, 1895, the scale

was decisively turned in favour of one out of the two candidates at the

election of a President which followed shortly thereafter, by the fact

that the one belonged to a Dutch, the other to a Scottish family. Both

were able and experienced men, the former (Mr. Steyn) a judge, the

latter (Mr. Fraser) Speaker of the Volksraad. It may be added that the

proximity of the Colony, and the presence of the large English element,

have told favourably upon the Dutch population in the way of stimulating

their intelligence and modifying their conservatism, while not injuring

those solid qualities which make them excellent citizens. The desire for

instruction is far stronger among them than it is in the Transvaal.

Indeed, there is no part of South Africa where education is more valued

and more widely diffused.

The only place that can be called a town is Bloemfontein, the seat of

government, which stands on the great trunk-line of railway from Cape

Town to Pretoria, seven hundred and fifty miles from the former and two

hundred and ninety from the latter town. It is what the Germans call a

"freundliches Staedtchen," a bright and cheerful little place with 3,300

white and 2,500 black inhabitants, nestling under a rocky kopje, and

looking out over illimitable plains to the east and south. The air is

dry and bracing, and said to be especially beneficial to persons

threatened with pulmonary disease. As it is one of the smallest, so it

is one of the neatest and, in a modest way, best appointed capitals in

the world. It has a little fort, originally built by the British

government, with two Maxim guns in the Arsenal, a Protestant Episcopal

and a Roman Catholic cathedral as well as Dutch Reformed churches, all

kinds of public institutions, a spacious market square, with a good club

and an excellent hotel, wide and well-kept streets, gardens planted with

trees that are now so tall as to make the whole place seem to swim in

green, a national museum, and a very handsome building for the

legislature, whose principal apartment is as tasteful, well-lighted, and

well-arranged as any I have seen in any British Colony or American

State. The place is extremely quiet, and people live very simply, though

not cheaply, for prices are high, and domestic service so dear and

scarce as to be almost unprocurable. Every one is above poverty, but

still further removed from wealth. It looks, and one is told that it is,

the most idyllic community in Africa, worthy to be the capital of this

contented and happy State. No great industries have come into the Free

State to raise economic strife. No capitalists tempt the virtue of

legislators, or are forced to buy off the attacks of blackmailers. No

religious animosities divide Christians, for there is perfect religious

freedom. No difficulties as to British suzerainty exist, for the

Republic is absolutely independent. No native troubles have arisen. No

prize is offered to ambition. No political parties have sprung up.

Taxation is low, and there is no public debt. The arms of the State are

a lion and a lamb standing on opposite sides of an orange-tree, with the

motto, "Freedom, Immigration, Patience, Courage", and though the lion

has, since 1871, ceased to range over the plains, his pacific attitude

beside the lamb on this device happily typifies the harmony which has

existed between the British and Dutch elements, and the spirit of

concord which the late President Brand so well infused into the public

life of his Republic. In the Orange Free State I discovered, in 1895,

the kind of commonwealth which the fond fancy of the philosophers of

last century painted. It is an ideal commonwealth, not in respect of any

special excellence in its institutions, but because the economic and

social conditions which have made democracy so far from an unmixed

success in the American States and in the larger Colonies of Britain,

not to speak of the peoples of Europe, whether ancient or modern, have

not come into existence here, while the external dangers which for a

time threatened the State have, years ago, vanished away like clouds

into the blue.[65]

Although, however, the political constitution of the Free State is not

the chief cause of the peace and order which the State enjoys, it may

claim to be well suited to the community which lives happily under it.

It is a simple constitution, and embodied in a very short, terse, and

straightforward instrument of sixty-two articles, most of them only a

few lines in length.

The governing authorities are the President, the Executive Council, and

the Volksraad or elective popular assembly. Citizenship belongs to all

white persons born in the State, or who have resided in it for three

years and have made a written promise of allegiance, or have resided one

year and possess real property of the value of one hundred and fifty

pounds sterling, a liberality which is in marked contrast to the

restrictions imposed upon new comers by the laws of the Transvaal. Thus,

practically, all the male white inhabitants are citizens, with full

rights of suffrage--subject to some small property qualifications for

new comers which it is hardly worth while to enumerate.

The President is elected by the citizens for five years and is

re-eligible. He can sit and speak but cannot vote in the Volksraad, is

responsible to it and has the general control of the administration.

The Executive Council consists of five members--besides the

President--viz., the State Secretary and the Magistrate of Bloemfontein,

both of whom are appointed by the President and confirmed by the

Volksraad, and three other members chosen by the Volksraad. It is

associated with the President for divers purposes, but has not proved to

be an important or influential body.

The Volksraad is elected by all the citizens for four years, half of

the members retiring every two years. It has only one chamber, in which

there sit at present fifty-eight members. It is the supreme legislative

authority, meeting annually, and in extra sessions when summoned, and

its consent is required to the making of treaties and to a declaration

of war. The President has no veto on its acts, and the heads of the

executive departments do not sit in it.

The obligation of military service is universal on all citizens between

the ages of sixteen and sixty.

The constitution can be altered by the Volksraad, but only by a

three-fourths majority in two consecutive annual sessions. It is

therefore a Rigid constitution, like that of the United States and that

of Switzerland.

This simple scheme of government seems calculated to throw nearly all

the power in the hands of the legislature, leaving the President

comparatively weak. Nevertheless, in point of fact the Presidents have

been very important figures, partly because there have been no parties

in the legislature, and therefore no party leaders. From 1863 till his

death in 1888, the whole policy of the State was guided by President

Brand, a lawyer from the Cape, whom the people elected for five

successive terms. His power of sitting in and addressing the Volksraad

proved to be of the utmost value, for his judgment and patriotism

inspired perfect confidence. His successor, Mr. F. W. Reitz, who at the

time of my visit (November, 1895) had just been obliged by ill-health to

retire from office, enjoyed equal respect, and when he chose to exert

it, almost equal influence with the legislature, and things went

smoothly under him. I gathered that Judge Steyn, who was elected

President early in 1896, was similarly respected for his character and

abilities, and was likely to enjoy similar weight. So the Speaker of the

legislature has been an influential person, because his office devolves

upon him functions which the absence of a Cabinet makes important. The

fact is that in every government, give it what form you please, call it

by what name you will, individual men are the chief factors, and if the

course of things is such that the legislature does not become divided

into parties and is not called on to produce conspicuous leaders,

general leadership will fall to the executive head if he is fit to

assume it, and legislative leadership to the chairman of the assembly.

Were questions to arise splitting up the people and the legislature into

factions, the situation would change at once. Oratorical gifts and

legislative strategy would become valuable, and the President or the

Speaker of the assembly might be obscured by the chiefs of the parties.

The people of the Free State were well satisfied with their

constitution, and showed little disposition to alter it. Some of the

wisest heads, however, told me that they thought two improvements were

needed: a provision that amendments to the constitution, after having

passed the Volksraad, should be voted on by the people (as in the Swiss

Referendum), and a provision securing to the judges their salaries, and

their independence of the Volksraad. It is interesting to notice that

both here and in the Transvaal the gravest constitutional questions that

have arisen turn on the relations between the legislative and the

judicial departments. Some years ago the Free State Volksraad claimed

the right to commit a person to prison for contempt, and to direct the

State attorney to prosecute him. The Chief Justice, a distinguished

lawyer, and his colleagues felt bound to resist what they thought an

unconstitutional stretch of power by the Raad. At first they seemed

likely to be defeated, but by using their opportunities of charging

juries to insist on their views they brought public opinion round to

their side, and the Raad ultimately retired from the position it had

taken up, leaving the question of right undetermined. It has never been

definitely settled whether the courts of law are in the Free State (as

in the United States), the authorized interpreters of the constitution,

though upon principle it would seem that they are. These South African

Constitutions were drafted by simple men in an untechnical way, so that

many legal points obvious to the minds of English or American lawyers

were left untouched, and have now to be settled either on principle or

according to the will of what may happen to be the predominant power for

the time being. It is, perhaps, better that they should remain in

abeyance until public opinion has grown more instructed and has had

fuller opportunities of considering them.

Small as is the white population of the Orange Free State, its

geographical position and the high average quality of its citizens

secure for it a position of great significance in South African

politics; and the attitude it might take would be an important factor in

any dispute between the British Government and the Transvaal Republic.

The troubles of December, 1895, drew it nearer to the Transvaal, for the

Free State Boers have strong political sympathy with their northern

kinsfolk. They were, at the time of my visit, far from approving the

policy of mere resistance to reform which President Kruger has taken up;

and seemed quite indisposed to support the Transvaal if it should take

any course at variance with its treaty engagements.[66] To this topic I

may have occasion presently to return. Meanwhile I pass on to describe

the native State which lies nearest to the Free State, which has been

most closely connected with its fortunes, and which in one respect

furnishes a parallel to it, having been of late years the most quiet and

contented among native communities.

[Footnote 64: Mr. Brand was chosen President when practising law in Cape

Colony; and afterwards accepted, with the full assent of his citizens, a

British order of knighthood.]

[Footnote 65: Revising this book in October, 1899, I leave the above

passage as it was written in 1897, grieving to think that it describes

what has now become a past, and that the future is likely to have far

other things in store.]

[Footnote 66: I leave this as written in 1897. The invasion of the

Transvaal in December, 1895, led to the conclusion of an alliance

between the Free State and that Republic, whereby each bound itself to

defend the other if attacked. The Free State has accordingly now

(October, 1899), when hostilities have broken out between Britain and

the Transvaal, thrown in its lot with its sister Republic. This is what

every one who knew its history and the character of its people must have

expected.]

CHAPTER XX

BASUTOLAND

Basutoland is a comparatively small territory (10,300 square miles)

somewhat larger than Wales or Massachusetts. It is nearly all

mountainous, and contains the highest summits in South Africa, some of

them reaching 11,000 feet. Few European travellers visit it, for it lies

quite away from the main routes; it has no commercial importance, and

its white population is extremely small, the land being reserved for the

natives alone. We were attracted to it by what we had heard of the

scenery; but found when we came to traverse it, that the social

conditions were no less interesting than the landscapes.

The easiest approach is from Bloemfontein. Starting from that pleasant

little town one bright November morning on the top of the Ladybrand

coach, we drove over wide and nearly level stretches of pasture-land,

which now, after the first rains, were vividly green, and beginning to

be dotted with flowers. The road was only a track, rough and full of

ruts, and the coach, drawn by eight horses, was an old one, whose

springs had lost whatever elasticity they might once have possessed, so

that it was only by holding tight on to the little rail at the back of

the seat that we could keep our places. The incessant pitching and

jolting would have been intolerable on an ordinary drive; but here the

beauty of the vast landscape, the keen freshness of the air, and the

brilliance of the light made one forget every physical discomfort. About

noon, after crossing the muddy flood of the Modder River, whose channel,

almost dry a month before, had now been filled by the rains, we entered

a more hilly region, and came soon after noon to the village of Thaba

'Ntshu, called from the bold rocky peak of that name, which is a

landmark for all the country round, and is famous in history as the

rallying-point of the various parties of emigrant Boers who quitted Cape

Colony in the Great Trek of 1836-37. Near it is a large native

reservation, where thousands of Barolong Kafirs live, tilling the better

bits of soil and grazing their cattle all over the rolling pastures.

Some ten or fifteen miles farther the track reaches the top of a long

ascent, and a magnificent prospect is revealed to the south-east of the

noble range of the Maluti Mountains, standing out in the dazzling

clearness of this dry African air, yet mellowed by distance to tints of

delicate beauty. We were reminded of the view of the Pyrenees from Pau,

where, however, the mountains are both nearer and higher than here, and

of the view of the Rocky Mountains from Calgary, on the Canadian Pacific

Railway. From this point onward the road mounts successive ridges,

between which lie rich hollows of agricultural land, and from the tops

of which nearer and nearer views of the Maluti range are gained. There

was hardly a tree visible, save those which Europeans have planted round

the farmhouses that one finds every seven or eight miles; and I dare say

the country would be dreary in the dry season or in dull grey weather.

But as we saw it, the wealth of sunlight, the blue of the sky above, the

boundless stretches of verdure beneath, made the drive a dream of

delight. When the sun sank the constellations came out in this pure, dry

African air with a brilliance unknown to Europe; and we tired our eyes

in gazing on the Centaur and the Argo and those two Magellanic clouds by

which one finds the position of the southern pole. Soon after dark we

came to the top of the last high hill, and saw what seemed an abyss

opening beneath. The descent was steep, but a beaten track led down it,

reputed the most dangerous piece of road in the Free State; and the

driver regaled us with narratives of the accidents that had taken place

on the frequent occasions when the coach had been upset, adding,

however, that nobody ever had been or would be killed while he held the

reins. He proved as good as his word, and brought us safely to Ladybrand

at 9 P.M., after more than twelve hours of a drive so fatiguing that

only the marvellously bracing air enabled us to feel none the worse for

it.

Ladybrand is a pretty little hamlet lying at the foot of the great

flat-topped hill, called the Plaat Berg, which the perilous road

crosses, and looking out from groves of Australian gum-trees, across

fertile corn-fields and meadows, to the Caledon River and the ranges of

Basutoland. A ride of eight miles brings one to the ferry (which in the

dry season becomes a shallow ford) across this stream, and on the

farther shore one is again under the British flag at Maseru, the

residence of the Imperial Commissioner who supervises the administration

of the country, under the direction of the High Commissioner for South

Africa. Here are some sixty Europeans--officials, police, and

store-keepers--and more than two thousand natives. Neither here nor

anywhere else in Basutoland is there an inn; those few persons who visit

the country find quarters in the stores which several whites have been

permitted to establish, unless they have, as we had, the good fortune to

be the guests of the Commissioner.

Basutoland is the Switzerland of South Africa and, very appropriately,

is the part of South Africa where the old inhabitants, defended by their

hills, have retained the largest measure of freedom. Although most of it

is covered with lofty mountains, it has, like Switzerland, one

comparatively level and fertile tract--that which lies along the left

bank of the Caledon River. Morija, the oldest French mission station,

lies in a pretty hollow between five and six thousand feet above the

sea,--nearly all Basutoland is above 5000 feet,--some sixteen miles

south-east from Maseru. Groves of trees and luxuriant gardens give

softness and verdure to the landscape, and among them the mission houses

and schools, and printing-house whence Basuto books are issued, lie

scattered about, up and down the slopes of the hill. Though there are

plenty of streams in Basutoland, there is hardly any swampy ground, and

consequently little or no fever, so the missionaries invalided from the

Zambesi frequently come here to recruit. The station of Morija has been

for many years past directed by French-Swiss pastors, but the schools

have been under the charge of Scottish Presbyterian clergymen, of course

in the service of the Paris Society, and they gave us a hearty welcome.

They have large and flourishing schools, from which a considerable

number of young Kafirs go out every year among their countrymen and

become an effective civilizing influence. There is among the Bantu

tribes so little religion, in the European sense of the word, that the

natives seem never to have felt the impulse to persecute, and hardly

ever to obstruct the preaching of Christianity. When opposition comes,

it comes from the witch-doctor or medicine-man, who feels his craft in

danger, seldom from the chief. Here most of the leading men have been

and still are on good terms with the missionaries. The Paramount Chief

of the whole country lives three miles from Morija, at Matsieng, where

he has established, as the wont of the Kafirs is, a new kraal on the top

of a breezy hill, forsaking the residence of his father in the valley

beneath. Here we visited him.