GETTING TO THE GOLDEN CITY
So utter, and for the time being so ludicrously complete, was the
collapse of our adversaries' defence, that on that first night within
the Transvaal border we lay down to rest on the open veldt without any
slightest shelter, but also without any slightest fear, save only the
fear of catching cold; and slept as undisturbed as though we had been
slumbering amid hoar-frost and heather on the famous Fox Hills near
Aldershot. On that particular Sunday night our tentless camp was
visited by ten or twelve degrees of frost, so that when the morning
dawned my wraps were as hoary as the hair of their owner is ever
likely to become.
[Sidenote: _An elaborate night toilet._]
But then as the night, so must the nightdress be; and my personal
toilet was arranged in the following tasteful fashion. Every garment
worn during the heat of the day was of course worn throughout the
chilly night, including boots; for at that season of the year we
regularly went to bed with our boots on. Indeed the often footsore men
were expressly forbidden to take them off at night, lest a possible
night attack should find them in that important respect unready. Over
the tunic was put a sweater, and over that a greatcoat, with a hideous
woollen helmet as a crown of glory for the head, and a regulation
blanket wrapped round the waist and legs. Then on the least rugged bit
of ground within reach a waterproof sheet was spread, and on that was
planted the "bag blanket," into which I carefully crept, having first
thrown over it an old mackintosh as some small protection from the
heavy evening dew and the early morning frost. So whether the ground
proved rough as a nutmeg-grater or ribbed like a gridiron, I soon said
good-night to the blushing stars above me and to the acres of
slumbering soldiers all around. After that, few of us were in fit
condition to judge whether there were ten degrees of frost or twelve
till five o'clock next morning, when we sat on the whitened ground to
breakfast by starlight. At that unkindly hour the least acute observer
of Nature's varying moods could not fail to note that a midwinter dawn
five thousand feet above the sea-level can even in South Africa be
bitingly severe.
[Sidenote: _Capturing Clapham Junction._]
After two more days of heavy marching we found abundant and beautiful
spar stones springing up out of the barren veldt, as in my native
Cornwall; and we needed no seer to assure us that the vast and
invaluable mining area of Johannesburg was close at hand. Presently we
passed one big set of mining machinery after another, each with its
huge heap of mine refuse. If only some clotted cream had been
purchasable at one of the wayside houses, or a dainty pasty had
anywhere appeared in sight, I could almost have fancied myself close
to Camborne.
Instead, however, of marching straight towards Johannesburg, we
suddenly pounced on Elandsfontein, the most supremely important
railway junction in all South Africa--its Clapham Junction--and
following swiftly in the footsteps of Henry's mounted infantry took
its defenders delightfully by surprise. The Gordons on our far left
had about a hundred casualties, and the C.I.V.'s on our right,
fighting valiantly, were also hard hit, but the Guards escaped
unscathed. Shots enough, however, were fired to lead us to expect a
serious fight, and to necessitate a further exhausting march of five
or six miles, out and back, amid the mine heaps lying just beyond the
junction. Fortunately, the fight proved no fight, but only a further
flight; though the end of a specially heavy day's task brought with
it, none the less, an abounding recompense. Whilst most of the Boers
precipitately vanished, those unable to get away gave themselves up as
prisoners of war, and thus without further effort we secured a
position of vast strategic importance, including the terminus of the
railway line leading to Natal; but it was also the terminus of the
long line from Johannesburg and the regions beyond; so that there was
now no way of escape for any of the rolling stock thereon. It might
peradventure be destroyed before the troops could rescue it, but got
away for the further service of the Boers it could not be. Among other
acquisitions we captured at Elandsfontein a capitally equipped
hospital train, hundreds of railway trucks laden more or less with
valuable stores, and half a dozen locomotives with full head of steam
on; so that had we arrived a little less suddenly, locomotives, trains
and empty trucks would all have eluded our grasp and got safely to
Pretoria. It was indeed an invaluable haul, especially for haulage
purposes, and we had tramped 130 miles in the course of a single week
to secure it!
[Sidenote: _Dear diet and dangerous._]
Long after dark, weary and footsore and famished, we stumbled back
three miles to our chosen camping ground. Since the previous evening
some of the Scots Guards had managed to secure only a hasty drink of
coffee, so they told me, as their sole rations for the four-and-twenty
hours; but they seemed as happy as they were hungry, like men proudly
conscious that they had done a good day's work that brought them, so
they fondly supposed, perceptibly nearer home. Assisted by many an
undesirable expletive, they staggered and darkly groped their way over
some of the very roughest ground we had thus far been required to
traverse; they got repeatedly entangled in a profusion of barbed wire;
scrambled into deep railway ditches, then scrambled out again; till at
last they reached their appointed resting-place, and in dead darkness
proceeded as best they could to cook their dinners.
Greatly to our surprise the people, who seemed mostly Dutch or of
Dutch relationship, received us like those in the Orange Free State
towns, with demonstrative kindness; and in many a case brought out
their last loaf as a most welcome gift to the just then almost
ravenous soldiery. Every scrap of available provisions was eagerly
bought up, and here as elsewhere honestly paid for, often at prices
that seemed far from honest. Months after at this very place I learned
that eggs were being sold at from ten to fifteen shillings a dozen,
and fowls at seven shillings a-piece!
An Australian correspondent of the _London Times_ declares that as it
was with us, so was it with the troops that he accompanied. About the
very time we reached this Germiston Junction, his men, he says, were
practically starving; and any other army in the world would have
commandeered whatever food came in its way. He was with Rundle's
Brigade, "the starving Eighth" as they were well called, seeing that
for a while they were rationed on one and a half biscuits a day. Yet
they gave Mr Stead's "ill-treated women" two shillings a loaf for
bread that sixpence would have well paid for, and no one was allowed
to bring foodstuffs away from any farmhouse without getting a written
receipt from the vendor. If the military police caught a ragged
Leinster packing a chicken down his trouser leg through a big hole in
the seat, and he could not show a receipt for the bird, away went the
man's purchase to the nearest Field Hospital. To this same
representative of the Press the wife of a farmer still out fighting
our troops naively said, "For goodness sake do keep those wicked
Colonials away; I am terrified of them" (he was himself a
Colonial)--"but I am so glad when the English come; they pay me so
well." That was the experience of almost all who had anything to sell,
alike in town and country; and this particular Frau confessed to
having made a profit of ten clear pounds in a single week out of the
bread sold to the British soldiers. It is said, however, that in some
cases when they asked for bread our men got a bullet. Around many a
farmstead there hovered far worse dangers than the danger of being
fleeced.
[Sidenote: _No wages but the Sjambok._]
At Elandsfontein an almost frantic welcome was awarded us by the
crowds of Kaffirs that eagerly watched our coming. As we marched
through their Location almost the only darkie I spoke to happened to
be a well-dressed intelligent Wesleyan, who said to me, "Good Boss, we
are truly glad that you have come; for the last seven months the Boers
have made us work without any wages except the sjambok across our
backs." It is only fair to add that the burghers on commando during
those same seven months were supposed to receive no wages; and the
Kaffirs, who were commandeered for various kinds of service in
connection with the war, could scarcely expect the Boer Government to
deal more generously with them. From the very beginning, however, the
Kaffirs in the Transvaal were often made to feel that their condition
was near akin to that of slaves. The clauses in the Sand River
Convention which were intended to be the Magna Charta of their
liberties proved a delusion and a snare. Recent years, however, have
effected immense improvements in their relative position and
importance. Since the mines were opened their labour has been keenly
competed for, and a more considerate feeling concerning them pervades
all classes; but they are still regarded by many of their masters as
having no actual rights either in Church or State. So when a
victorious English army appeared upon the scene they fondly thought
the day of their full emancipation had dawned, and in wildly excited
accents they shouted as we passed, "=_Vic_toria! _Vic_toria!="
Whereupon our scarcely less excited lads in responsive shouts replied,
"=_Pre_toria! _Pre_toria!="
Surely never was the inner meaning and significance of a great
historic event more aptly voiced. The natives beheld in the advent of
English rule the promise of ampler liberty and enlightenment under
Victoria the Good; but the hearts of the soldiers were set on the
speedy capture of Pretoria, as the crowning outcome of all their toil,
and their probable turning-point towards home. Well said both!
Pretoria! Victoria!
[Sidenote: _The Gold Mines._]
Lord Roberts' rapid march rescued from impending destruction the
costly machinery and shafting of the Witwaterrand gold mines, in which
capital to the extent of many millions had been sunk, and out of which
many hundreds of millions are likely to be dug. By some strange freak
of nature this lofty ridge, lying about 6000 feet above the sea level,
and forming a narrow gold-bearing bed over a hundred miles long, is by
universal confession the richest treasure-house the ransackers of the
whole earth have yet brought to light. "The wealth of Ormuz or of
Ind," immortalised by Milton's most majestic epic, the wealth of the
Rand completely eclipses, and nothing imagined in the glowing pages of
the "Arabian Nights" rivals in solid worth the sober realities now
being unearthed along this uninviting ridge. It fortunately was not in
the power of the Boer Government to carry off this as yet ungarnered
treasure, or it would certainly have shared the fate of the cart-loads
of gold in bar and coin with which President Kruger decamped from
Pretoria; but it is beyond all controversy that many of that
Government's officials favoured the proposal to wreck, as far as
dynamite could, both the machinery and mines in mere wanton revenge on
the hated Outlanders that mainly owned them. That policy was thwarted
by the swiftfootedness of the troops, and by the tactfulness of
Commandant Krause, through whose arranging Johannesburg was peacefully
surrendered; but who now, by some strange irony of fate, lies a felon
in an English jail!
Nevertheless, later on enough mischief of this type was done to
demonstrate how deadly a blow a few desperate men might have dealt at
the chief industry of South Africa; and concerning it Sir Alfred
Milner wrote as follows:--
Fortunately the damage done to the mines has not been large
relatively to the vast total amount of the fixed capital sunk in
them. The mining area is excessively difficult to guard against
purely predatory attacks having no military purpose, because it
is, so to speak, "all length and no breadth," one long thin line
stretching across the country from east to west for many miles.
Still, garrisoned as Johannesburg now is, it is only possible
successfully to attack a few points in it. Of the raids hitherto
made, and they have been fairly numerous, only one resulted in
any serious damage. In that instance the injury done to the
single mine attacked amounted to L200,000, and it is estimated
that the mine is put out of working for two years. This mine is
only one out of a hundred, and is not by any means one of the
most important. These facts may afford some indication of the
ruin which might have been inflicted, not only on the Transvaal
and all South Africa, but on many European interests, if that
general destruction of mine works which was contemplated just
before our occupation of Johannesburg had been carried out.
However serious in some respects may have been the military
consequences of our rapid advance to Johannesburg, South Africa
owes more than is commonly recognised to that brilliant dash put
forward by which the vast mining apparatus, the foundation of
all her wealth, was saved from the ruin threatening it.
That this wonderful discovery of wealth was indirectly the main cause
of the war is undeniable. But for the gold the children of "Oden the
Goer," whose ever restless spirit has sent them round the globe, would
never have found their way in any large numbers to the Transvaal.
There would have been no overmastering Outlander element, no incurable
race competitions and quarrels, no unendurable wrongs to redress; the
Boer Republic might again have become bankrupt, or broken up into
rival chieftaincies as of old, but it could not have become a menace
to Great Britain, and would never have rallied the whole Empire to
repel its assault on the Empire. It is too usually with blood that
gold is bought!
[Sidenote: _The Soldiers' share._]
The war was practically the purchase price of this prodigious wealth,
but it effected no transfer in the ownership. It may have in part to
provide for the expenses of the war, but it is not claimed by the
British Government as part of the spoils of war; and when Local
Government is granted it will still be included in local assets. The
capitalists, colonists and Kaffirs who live and thrive through the
mines will thrive yet more as the result of juster laws, ample
security, and a more honest administration; but the soldiers whose
heroism brought to pass the change profit nothing by it. The niggers
driving our carts were paid L4 a month, while the khaki men who did
the actual fighting were required to content themselves with anything
over about fifteen pence a day.
When Cortez, with his accompanying Spaniards, discovered Mexico, he
sent word to its ruler, Montezuma, that his men were suffering from a
peculiar form of heart disease which only gold could cure; so he
desired him of his royal bounty to send them gold and still more gold.
In the end those Spanish leeches drained the country dry; though when
convoying their treasure across the sea no small portion of it was
seized by English warships, and shared as loot among the captors.
After the treasure ship _Hermione_ had thus been secured off Cadiz by
the _Actaean_ and the _Favorite_, each captain received L65,000 as
prize-money (so Fitchett tells us); each lieutenant, L13,000; each
petty officer, L2000; and each seaman, L500. Our fighting men and
officers found in the Transvaal vastly ampler wealth, but no such luck
and no such loot. Well would it be, however, if these mining
Directorates when about to declare their next dividends should bethink
them generously of the widows and orphans of those whose valour and
strong-footedness rescued their mines from imminent plunder and
destruction.
[Sidenote: _The Golden City._]
Johannesburg, which we entered unopposed on May 31st, though it covers
an enormous area and contains several fine buildings, is only fourteen
years old, and consequently is still very largely in the corrugated
iron stage of development which is always unlovely, and in this case
proved specially so. Many of the houses were deserted, most of the
stores were roughly barricaded, and there were signs not a few of
recent violence and wholesale theft, at which none need wonder. Long
before the war broke out there was presented to President Kruger and
his Raad a petition for redress of grievances signed, as already
stated, by adult male Outlanders that are said to have outnumbered the
total Boer male population at that time of the whole Transvaal. Most
of those who signed were resident on the Rand; and as soon as war hove
in sight these "undesirables" were hurried across the border, leaving
behind them in many cases well-furnished houses and well-stocked
shops. More than ten thousand of them took up arms in defence of the
Empire, and what befell their property is best told by the one
Wesleyan minister who was privileged to remain all the time in the
town, was the first to greet me when with the Guards I marched into
the Market Square, and soon after established our first Wesleyan
Soldiers' Home in the Transvaal. He, the Rev. S. L. Morris, on that
point writes as follows:--
President Kruger proclaimed Sunday, May 27th, and the two
following days, as days of humiliation and prayer. Notices to
this effect were sent to officials and ministers, and doubtless
there were many who devoutly followed the directions. The conduct
of one large section of the Dutch people of Johannesburg was,
however, very strange. In Johannesburg, as in Pretoria, the last
ten years have seen the development of special locations where
the lowest class of Dutch people reside. For the most part these
are the families of landless Boers. Until recent years they lived
as squatters on the farms of their more thrifty compatriots.
Their life then was one of progressive degradation. Under the
Kruger policy hundreds of such families were encouraged to settle
in the neighbourhood of the towns. Plots of ground were given
them, and there they built rough shanties, and formed communities
which were a South African counterpart to the submerged tenth of
England. There was this difference, that these _bywoners_ became
a great strength to the Kruger party. The males of sixteen years
of age and upwards had all the privileges which were denied to
the most influential of the _Uitlanders_. It was the votes of
Vrededorp, the poor Dutch quarter, that decided the
representation of Johannesburg in the Volksraad. On the days of
humiliation and prayer, when the army under Lord Roberts was
within twenty miles of Johannesburg, the families of these poor
burghers broke into the commissariat stores of their own
Government, into the food depots from which doles had been
distributed, and into private stores; taking away to their homes,
goods, clothing and provisions of all sorts. Those who witnessed
the invasion of the great goods sheds where the Republican
commissariat had its headquarters say that the people defied the
officials, daring them to shoot them. I met many of these people
returning to their homes laden with spoils. Sometimes there was a
wheelbarrow heaped up with sacks of flour, or tins of biscuits,
or preserved meat. Men, women, children and Kaffir "boys" trudged
along with similar articles, or with bundles of boots and
clothing. Dr Krause, the commandant, did his best to secure order
and to repress looting, but he lacked the reliable agents who
alone could have controlled the people. This sort of thing was
going on on Monday and Tuesday, May 28th and 29th. But for the
astonishing marches by which Lord Roberts paralysed opposition,
and which enabled him to summon the town to surrender on the
Wednesday morning, it is hard to say what limit could have been
put to the disorder. In all probability the dangerous section of
the large Continental element in the population would have broken
out into crime. Looting had hitherto been confined to the
property which was left unprotected, and few unoccupied houses
had not been ransacked; but had the British occupation been
delayed a few days the consequences would have been disastrous.
[Sidenote: _Astonishing the Natives._]
As on that Thursday morning we tramped steadily from Germiston to
Johannesburg we were greatly surprised to find near each successive
mine crowds of natives all with apparently well oiled faces that
literally shone in the sunlight; but natives of every conceivable
shade of sableness, and in some cases of almost every permissible
approach to nudity. They were for the most part what are called "raw
Kaffirs"; and as we were astonished at their numbers after so many
months of war and consequent stoppage of work, so were they also
astonished at our numbers, and confided to our native minister their
wonder at finding there were so many Englishmen in all the world as
they that day saw upon the Rand. It was a vitally important object
lesson that by this time has made its beneficent influence felt among
all the tribes of the South African sub-continent.
About noon, so Mr Morris told me, a company of Lancers came into the
open space in front of the Court-house, and formed a hollow square
around the flagstaff. Not long after Lord Roberts with his Staff, and
Commandant Krause, rode into the square; then the Vierkleur slid down
the staff, and instantly after up went Lady Roberts' little silken
Union Jack. The British flag floated at last over this essentially
British town, the sure pledge as we hope of honest government and of
equal rights alike for Briton and for Boer. It was two o'clock before
the Guards' Brigade reached this saluting point, but till nearly
midnight one continuous stream of men and horses, of guns and
ambulances, passed through the streets to their respective camping
grounds. These well fagged troops by their fitness, even more than by
their numbers, astonished many an onlooker who was by no means a "raw
Kaffir"; and one old Dutchman expressed the thought of many minds when
he said, "You seem able to turn out soldiers by machinery, _all of the
same age_!"
My excellent host of that red-letter day adds: "It is intensely
gratifying to be able, after the lapse of more than nine months, to
give our soldiers the same good name that was so well deserved then.
To deny that there had been any offences would be ridiculous; but the
absence of serious crime, and more particularly of gross offences,
must be acknowledged to confer upon our South African army a unique
distinction." That witness is true!