The altitude of the Transvaal above sea-level is one of its most
important features in connection with its climate and vegetation; there
is no portion below 2890 feet, except at the northern extremity along
the Limpopo river, where the elevation is lowered on that river to 1560
feet. The other portions of the republic average 4000 feet between the
mountain ranges that traverse the country. In the north-east division,
north of the Olifants river, the Zoutpansberg range, the Tweedeberg, the
Derd mountains, the latter being within a few miles on the south side of
the Limpopo river, with the Matin hills, near which the Tave river
flows, vary considerably in altitude from 3700 to 4500, mostly of
sandstone formation. The eastern portion through which the Pafure river
flows is called Basoetla, occupied by the Mantatees, Knobnoses, and
other tribes, in large and numerous kraals along the streams; Albasini's
town being situated on the south side of Zoutpansberg.
The country is rich in corn-land and fine grasses, splendid forests of
timber, of which the famous baobab tree is very common and of immense
size, the bark of which is used for making sacks, blankets, and other
useful articles; cobalt, iron, copper, and lead, are found in great
quantities, and also gold in the more southern portion.
North of the Olifants river, and south of Albasinis, is the mountain
range called Matzatzes mountain, 4700 feet above the sea-level. The
district is called Splelunken, where sugar and coffee is cultivated, and
fine farms occupy a large extent of country. South of this mountain is
the district of Batlokoa, also occupied by the Mantatees, who are
sometimes called Mahows. In the Bakhalaka district, south of the above,
is Marabas Stad, Eersteling Gold Company, and many good farms. The
tributaries, Lehtaba the Little, Lehtaba the Great, Letsitee, Sumbane,
Salati, all branches of the Olifants river, rise in these two districts,
passing through as wild and picturesque a country as an explorer can
desire to visit--beautiful isolated hills of every form, particularly
down near Pikiones Kop and the Nunkula hills, where copper and gold have
been found. Game of every description roam these extensive and splendid
forests. Lions, tigers, and wolves, besides a host of tiger-cats and
other animals, are plentiful. The country has never been prospected,
but there is every indication of extensive gold-fields some day being
discovered.
On the north of this last-named district is the district of
Baramapulana, which includes Schoemansdal, through which the Sand,
Houdl, and Brack flow to the Limpopo. The hills are also of sandstone.
To the west of this region is the Bamalitsi district, and to the east
Bamapela, all within the Zoutpansberg division, and through nearly the
central portion the tropic of Capricorn runs. The Maalaqueen or
Nylstroom, an extensive river rising in the mountains round Nylstroom,
flows north through Makapans Poort, past Potgieter Rust for eighty
miles, and through Blaauwberg, a lofty range, and on through a dense and
beautiful forest for nearly 100 miles, entering the Limpopo. The forest
is full of game of every kind; the natives live on the river-banks. The
tsetse-fly, being so common, prevents the country being occupied by the
white man, as no horse or any description of cattle can live where they
are.
South of this district is the Waterberg division, in which are situated
the rivers Palala, Pongola or sand river, with its many branches, rising
in the Waterberg and Hangklip mountains, a hilly and wild country, in
which is situated Nylstroom, and the river Matlabatse rises in the
Marikele mountains of 3970 feet, and is a continuation of the Makapan
mountains from Makapans Poort, running in a west-south-west direction to
Wittefontein and Dwaarsberg, crossing the Limpopo and Great Marico into
Bechuanaland, and there spreads out into many spurs in that country.
Granite is found at the junction of the Limpopo and Great Marico, and
down those rivers, sandstone, limestone and slate are found in the
last-named mountains.
South of Waterberg is the Rustenberg district, in which is situated the
towns of Zeerust and Rustenberg, with many villages. To the north of
the latter town is Pilansberg, where one of the upper branches of the
Limpopo rises, forming the Elands river. The Great Marico rises in the
Rustenberg district, on the central watershed at Doorm Kop, where there
is a lovely waterfall of some seventy feet, falling down a steep bank
into a deep kloof of most beautiful scenery. A few miles north of this
is Bray's lead-mine, which is very rich in silver, producing over fifty
pounds to the ton. The mine is situated about twenty miles to the
north-east of Lichtenberg, and about twenty-eight miles south-east of
Zeerust. The country is very pretty and picturesque, with many fine
fountains, beautiful grass-lands, and richly-wooded hills. Marico
district is one of the most valuable portions of the Transvaal, being
situated on the main transport roads to the interior from Cape Colony,
Orange Free State, Transvaal, and Natal; besides being rich in lead,
there is copper and gold, and any quantity of iron, oxide of iron, and
many-coloured ochres.
The town of Zeerust, which is in the Marico district, is very pleasantly
situated on the Little Marico river, on the south side of a pretty range
of hills, close to a picturesque poort, through which the Little Marico
runs to Great Marico, and where I have had many pleasant days' sport in
fishing and shooting, before Zeerust town was ever built. The first
bricks were laid in the erection of an extensive laager by the Boers in
1865, and the town was commenced in 1868. It is now a considerable
commercial centre, with many good stores. The rapid increase of the
town after British annexation, and the extensive trade carried on by the
English traders with the interior, made the town one of great importance
to the Transvaal. Since, the retrocession nearly every store is closed,
and the town is comparatively deserted. The last lion shot in this
district was in the above-named poort in 1869. Eighteen miles to the
north-west of Zeerust is the large Kaffir station, Rinokano, and a
mission station under the Rev. Mr. Jansen, pleasantly situated at the
head of the Notuane river, between long ranges of hills that run at the
back of Zeerust.
The old chief Moelo lived here for many years, and at his death, his son
Moelo and his nephew Copane disputed the chieftainship. The people
divided, and eventually it was settled by the British Government, in
1879, that one should rule at the station, and the other should form a
kraal and rule more to the north. Forty years ago the elephant,
rhinoceros, giraffe, and other large game were plentiful all over these
hills and plains; now a few bush-buck, springbok, and other small game
are found, but it is a hard day's work to shoot one now. The beautiful
springs that flow through this part of the country are utilised to some
extent in irrigation, and for turning small mills for grinding the corn.
There are many extensive and valuable farms in the Marico district.
Oranges, lemons, pomegranates, and all English fruit grow to perfection.
Peaches are so plentiful that I have frequently fed the pigs with them.
I am writing of the country twenty years ago, when not one-fourth of
the population lived in the country that are now occupying the land.
There was no town then; Zeerust, Jacobsdale, Lichtenberg, were not
thought of. There were five Boers who possessed all the land round the
country, and some of these farms contained 460,000 acres or 30,000
morgen; they were five of the Boers who fled from the Orange River
sovereignty after Boomplaat's affair, treked as far as Marico, where
they divided the country between them, and which they or their
descendants still hold. In this district are the ancient stone kraals
mentioned in an early chapter; but it requires a fuller description to
show that these extensive kraals must have been erected by a white race
who understood building in stone and at right angles, with door-posts,
lintels and sills, and it required more than Kaffir skill to erect the
stone huts, with stone circular roofs, beautifully formed, and most
substantially erected; strong enough, if not disturbed, to last 1000
years, as the walls and roofs of the huts were two feet in thickness,
built of partly hewn stone. The divisional walls and outer wall were
five and six feet in thickness, and at the present time five feet in
height at places, the upper stones having fallen; and now large trees
are growing through the walls. But in no case have I discovered any
trace of mortar or any implements. Plenty of broken crockery is found
in the ground when it is turned up, but none on the surface. Kaffirs
have never been known to build their huts with stone, or make fences at
right angles, everything with them is round; they will have stone walls
round their huts, but nothing more.
There are extensive remains of ancient diggings to be found all over the
country, which proves that at one time all this part of Africa has been
prospected, and what favours this view is, that where there is a smooth
natural rock exposed above the ground, extensive carvings of animals are
cut deep into it, which nothing but a hard cold-chisel could make any
impression on this igneous rock, that is as hard as steel, and which, I
believe, were executed by the people who built those stone huts. There
are also small furnaces still remaining in some of the remote nooks, out
of the way of being destroyed by the people or oxen; but for what
purpose they were made cannot be discovered, all we know is that large
quantities of lead and copper are found in the neighbourhood; and close
to them is a lofty hill in which are found thousands of perfect cubes,
from an eighth of an inch to an inch square, which when broken show a
bright colour between brass and gold, which, I conclude, is iron
pyrites: they have a rich brown colour on the surface. Gold I have
found in this locality when prospecting, which I well remember, as in
consequence of a fall from a quartz reef I smashed a watch. I had
occasion to go frequently to Marico, as there were many roads branching
off in all directions--one called the river road to Mongwato, three to
the Bechuana chief, others to Kuruman, the Colony, also to Pretoria and
Potchefstroom.
Zeerust is about ninety miles to the west of Rustenberg; the latter is a
small town surrounded by hills, and where some fifty of our troops were
in a laager or small fort during the whole of the Boer rebellion. It is
situated on the Hex river, a tributary of the Limpopo. About twenty
miles south of Rustenberg, on the road to Potchefstroom, at Blaawabank,
are gold-diggings, but it is not a paying affair. The country is wild
and picturesque. Old remains of copper-mines are to be seen a little
south of the town.
Forty miles to the east is Pretoria, the capital of the republic and
seat of Government. It is pleasantly situated between low ranges of
metamorphic hills that run east and west, and is south of the
Magalisberg mountains seven miles. The city is built on an open plain,
that gradually slopes towards the north, supplied with beautiful
fountains that rise a few miles on the south of the town, the water
falling into the Apes river. An isolated hill, about three miles on the
east of the town, is a conspicuous object in the landscape. The streets
run parallel; the market-square is open, with the Dutch church in the
centre; there are several good hotels and a cathedral; Bishop Bousefield
lives in a snug house, with very fine blue gum trees in front. Many
large stores were erected during the British occupation; but at the
retrocession the greater number were deserted, and a general exodus of
the English took place, for it was impossible to live under the new
state of affairs. The town in 1875 was not one-fourth the size it was
when the Transvaal was returned to the Boers in 1881. Mr. Burgers was
then president, and he laboured hard to improve the country; but the
people were not to be moved, and no advance in civilising them could be
made. There was no money in the country, except a little English gold,
everything was by barter until 1865, when paper money was issued, called
bluebacks, to the extent of 10,000 pounds, and from time to time fresh
issues were made to meet the expenses of the State. They varied in
value, viz. in 2 shillings 6 pence, and 1 pound 5 shillings notes, but
commercially the 1 pound 5 shilling notes were only worth two to three
shillings. I had many of them, which I took at that price, and disposed
of them for the same; but if you had to pay the Government tax the full
price was allowed, for they could not refuse their own notes.
The country is open and free from any extensive wood, and the climate is
suitable to produce every kind of vegetation. In the spring of the year
the thick rose-hedges which divide the gardens give a very pleasing
appearance to the town, when they are in full bloom. The extensive
barracks and fortifications erected by the British Government on the
south of the town, at a cost of over 100,000 pounds, have been made a
present to the Boer Government for their disloyalty to British rule.
The Roman Catholics have a convent with several nuns, which at the
outbreak of the rebellion was taken possession of and strongly
fortified. The nuns and lady superior were placed in a corner of one of
the buildings. All the rest of the establishment was taken, and
converted into a kind of barrack for the volunteers of Pretoria, formed
into four companies, of which I unfortunately belonged to Number 4,
where we had to do sentry night and day. Our bed was a waterproof sheet
on the bare stone floors, and as the convent swarmed with fleas of all
sizes, from the heavy dragoon down to the light infantry, there was no
fear of a sentry sleeping on his post. Every second night my company
was ordered to occupy the interior of the convent during the night; each
volunteer was assigned his particular post in the various compartments
and passages, placing a sentry at different points, the rest to sleep--
if the fleas would let them--fully armed, ready at a moment's notice to
defend our position. My post was generally at the entrance-passage to
the priests' quarters, which had been vacated by them, and on the bare
stone floor I spread my waterproof sheet to get a little sleep; but the
fleas, not one but millions, came down upon me in every quarter--poor
things, they missed the nuns and the priests, for they were ravenous.
Finding I should be sucked dry in a very short time, I took my rifle and
sixty rounds of ball cartridge, made for the entrance, and passed the
night on the door-sill, in about as happy a state of mind as a poor
devil could be who had been marching up and down all day between the
convent and the garrison. For fourteen days, from the 19th of December,
1880, to the 2nd of January, 1881, I had to put up with this sort of
work, until I suffered so much from the excessive fatigue and want of
sleep that I obtained three days' leave of absence, as I felt unequal to
the work and required rest; but at the expiration of that time I became
dangerously ill from the overstrain on my system, and got a medical
certificate which relieved me of any further military duty in Number 4
Company, and from that date to the end of the rebellion I lived in my
waggon.
At the commencement of December, when we expected the Boers would make
an attack on the town, all the males in the four wards of the city
volunteered to protect the women and children in each ward, and as my
waggon was outspanned in Number 4, I joined with the rest; but when the
news came into Pretoria that the Boers, to the number of 1000, had been
in ambush at Bronkhurst spruit for two days, waiting for the advance of
a portion of the 94th Regiment from Lydenburg, which had been murdered
by the Boers, a council was held, and on the 20th of December martial
law was proclaimed, and all those who had formed themselves into
volunteers to protect women and children were marched up to the barracks
as regular volunteers. My waggon was drawn up to camp, and placed under
the charge of the authorities during my soldiering.
The history of this rebellion has been so ably and graphically described
by others, it will be useless for me to go more into the subject. I can
merely state the first news of the British surrender that reached camp,
of the war being concluded, and the retrocession of the Transvaal to the
Boers, arrived on the 28th of March, 1881.
The principal portion of the Transvaal, north of Pretoria in the
Zoutpansberg and Waterberg districts, is called the bush veldt, where
most of the farmers living on the high veldt, between Potchefstroom and
Pretoria, trek at the close of the autumn with all their family and
stock, and remain the winter, where the cattle and sheep find warm
shelter in the thorn forests; and return to their farms when the spring
grass is sufficiently high for the stock to feed. The Boers make this
trek a kind of picnic, and it is the only kind of life they enjoy.
This high land is also called Witwater rand; the elevation above
sea-level is 5800 feet. Extensive seams of coal have been discovered
about forty miles to the east-south-east of Pretoria. Roads in every
direction traverse the country. The distances from Pretoria to the
following places are: to the west, Rustenberg, 40 miles; north to
Marabastadt, 160 miles; east to Middleberg, 100 miles; and to Lydenburg,
165 miles; south to Heidelburg, 55 miles; Standerton, 120 miles; and
Newcastle, 190 miles; south-west to Potchefstroom, 110 miles; and to
Kimberley diamond-fields, 334 miles. Middleberg is a small village on
the road from Pretoria to Lydenburg, and the gold-field is in this
district; a cobalt-mine has been discovered. Lydenburg is situated in
the open country, on a branch of the Spekboom river. The country round
is very hilly, some of them attain a height of 8000 feet above
sea-level. The average height of the gold-diggings is 4200 feet.
The detachment of the 94th that was murdered at Bronkhurst spruit, for
some months held possession of a small fort here, before they marched
for Pretoria South of this town, some seventy miles, is a district
called New Scotland, on the eastern boundary of the republic, which was
in 1864 brought under the notice of a Mr. McCorkindale for the purpose
of forming a Scotch colony, but it fell to the ground. Klip Staple,
already described, and the source of the Vaal river, spring from this
locality. Wakkerstroom and Utrick have also been mentioned in the first
chapter. The only portion requiring explanation in the district of
Derby and Lunenburg, with its little colony of Germans who suffered
great losses during the Zulu war.
Heidelburg is pleasantly situated on the south side of the watershed,
containing many well-built houses. It was during the rebellion the
headquarters of the rebels, and from which Captain Elliot was released
and shot by the Boers when crossing the Vaal river. The road from
Pretoria to Natal passes through this town, and also Standerton, another
small town on the Vaal, and on to Newcastle. Standerton was also held
by the British troops during the rebellion.
To the west of Heidelburg, seventy miles, is the town of Potchefstroom,
the first town laid out by the Boers in taking possession of the
country, situated on the Moi river; nearly half of the inhabitants were
English, Germans, French, and other nationalities. It is 4007 feet
above sea-level; there are some interesting limestone caves on the
river, in which are imbedded many bones. The town is well laid out with
fine fruit-gardens. Tobacco is extensively cultivated in the vicinity
and all over the republic, and is well known for its fine quality.
Thirty miles to the west is Klerksdarp, on Schoon spruit, and to the
north-west of Potchefstroom, seventy miles, is Lichtenburg, a village
erected in 1868. There is also between these two the village of
Hartebeestfontein. Potchefstroom from Kimberley is 224 miles.
Following the Vaal down west is Bloomhof, a poor miserable village, and
on towards Kimberley is Christiana, another poor and desolate place;
they have been the rallying-points for the freebooters to attack the
Bechuana chief. The whole of this division of the Transvaal is open and
uninteresting.
Between Christiana and Lichtenburg is a farm called Gestop, situated in
a very pretty valley, close to a picturesque hill. On the northern
slope are some ancient carvings of animals on the rocks, which are
composed of a close-grained kind of freestone; several of them are on
rocks at the base of the bill, others half-way up, made no doubt by the
people who made the others, the workmanship being similar. Up the
valley by the side of the bill was, when I used to visit it, a favourite
resort for the muscovy duck, and where I have frequently gone to shoot
them, but they are most difficult to get near. The only way of getting
a shot at them was to hide in the long reeds that grew on the banks of
the stream and wait for them to fly over, which they did regularly about
four o'clock in the afternoon, where they remained the night, and away
in the morning to some other favourite locality. A few hundred yards
from the farm-house is a stone or rather a kind of slate quarry. The
stone is of a light colour, very soft; it can be sawn into any shape
required, and is much used for grave-stones; slabs of any size and
thickness can be obtained; it can also be used for mantelpieces, and any
other kind of work. The hills and veldt on the farm have many valuable
herbs, and two kinds of wild tea, equal in flavour to that from China,--
in fact, I prefer it to the imported teas, and it is a splendid tonic.
The country round is more diversified with hill and dale, and thickly
wooded with the mimosa and other trees and bush. Mr. Van Zyl, who
occupied the farm when I knew it, sold it some time after, and treked
with his family and all his belongings out of the Transvaal to be free
from the Boer Government, and went into the interior hunting, where the
Namaquas robbed him of all his property, waggons, and everything, and
shot him and his son.
A few miles to the north of Gestop are the famous salt-pans, and
Barber's pan, of which a description has been given, and a few miles to
the south-east is Reid vlei, a pretty piece of water, a great resort of
wild-fowl in those days long past. It is a wonder now to see a single
duck; it is pretty nearly the same with the game. At that time they
could be counted by the thousand, now it takes a long ride to meet with
a few. I have had troop after troop pass in front of my oxen as I have
been treking along the road, by the thousand, and not ten miles from
this farm; and, as I camped out in the afternoon on the plains to remain
the night, have been much interested in watching the old gnu-bull
standing alone doing sentry duty, keeping guard over the cows and young
ones when feeding a few hundred yards from him. He would always select
an elevated piece of ground to have a good view round, and every few
minutes he would change his position to all quarters of the compass, and
the first sign of danger give several barks as warning to the others,
and then, with a quick switch of his tail, head down, gallop off to his
friends and remove them further away from any enemy that may be
approaching.
In all these open flats there are always to be found large dried-up
pans, all of them brack, which is very suggestive of sea-water. It is
not only the pans but the entire soil that is brack, from one end of
South Africa to the other, some parts more than others. It is only in
small pools, or at fountains, where fresh water can be obtained. To one
large dry pan, half a mile in diameter, and fifty feet deep, with very
nice sloping sides, I gave the name of Chalcedony pan, from the immense
quantity that covered the ground, not only round the pan but for miles
in every direction; and on all these high flats, every variety of agate,
flint, cornelian, and other kinds of every colour and form, as also
splendid specimens of petrified woods, and in the stone hills, large
shells, but empty of the snails, many of them beautifully marked, also
small fresh-water shells of various sizes, and I have spent many
pleasant days prospecting for some of these specimens.
Near Christiana, on the Vaal river, are two extensive dry brack-pans,
the largest is two miles round. On the south side the ground forms a
small hill with bush and trees upon it; this is between Christiana and
Bloomhof, where there are several salt-pans a few miles to the north of
that town, where a large quantity of salt is procured annually of good
quality. The salt can only be obtained on certain occasions, which is
very peculiar, showing there must be a vast quantity of salt below the
pans' beds.
These salt-pans are quite dry and free from water for some four or five
months a year, when there is no salt to be seen, and it is not until the
rainy season is over, and the water that has collected in the pans
during that time (some two feet deep) has in the course of a few months
evaporated, that the salt appears to have been drawn from the deposit
below to the surface by the action of the water upon it, and a thick
deposit is left, which is collected by the proprietor, and sold at
various prices. I have paid for a sack containing 200 lbs. 3 shillings
and sometimes 5 shillings, according to the supply and demand. Some
salt-pans do not give a sufficient deposit to pay the cost of
collecting. There is a great sale for it throughout the country; but
table-salt is supplied from England, as there has been no means of
cleaning the native salt from the impurities it contains. The Boers and
natives use it. Some of these salt-pans will yield in the season nearly
1000 nuids of 200 lbs. each, and yet there appears to be no diminution
in the supply, showing there must be extensive deposits beneath the pan
beds. And so impregnated are some portions of these extensive grass
plains that the grass that grows upon them is called the sour veldt, and
other parts, where the surface-soil has been washed down from a higher
level and deposited on the flats, is called the sweet veldt. The sour
veldt is easily distinguishable by the white coating on the ground,
which the oxen lick when they want salt.
I always kept my oxen in good condition by giving them salt, once or
twice a week, from a supply kept in the waggon for them, and it is a
great preventative also against that common sickness the lungsick, which
is very fatal to oxen all through South Africa. There are several salt
and brack-pans in the northern division of the republic, but the most
numerous and the largest are to the south of New Scotland. Lake Cressie
is the most extensive, in shape something like a horse-shoe, and nearly
twenty miles round, lying in an open grass country with few bushes. The
water in it is permanent, and cannot be very brackish, as a hippopotamus
has been known to live in it since it was first discovered. The road
from Lydenburg to Wakkerstroom passes on the east side of the head of
Lake Cressie, where there is a store, and a more desolate-looking
country to pass through is rarely to be found.
But Barber's pan is the most picturesque of all I have visited; this
also forms a kind of horse-shoe in shape. The outer banks are high on
the west, with bush and trees; the inner side is much lower, and thick
bush, and was always a favourite place for outspanning, and remaining a
few days for duck-shooting--and also the black and white geese, being a
secluded spot, seldom visited by the white or black man. Game as well
as birds could always be obtained, and plenty of wolves also. In
circumference it must be some fifteen miles. A few miles to the
north-east is another extensive pan, long but narrow. They both hold
water all the year round, as they are deep.
At Wolverfontein, where Mr. John Dunn has a pleasant farm situated near
the eye of the Moi river, upon which Potchefstroom is built, I visited
the limestone cave, which Mr. Dunn pointed out to me. This cave passes
underground for several hundred yards, and terminates at an underground
river, which flows to the north-east in a great stream, and is supposed
to come out at the eye of the Moi river, three miles away. Close to the
cave, in the high lime formation of a light-brown colour, the rock is
composed of one-half bones, teeth, entire jaws with the teeth in them,
belonging to some large animal, mixed with quartz rock. It is a strange
fact to find quartz so intimately mixed up with this limestone and
bones. I collected several fine specimens of bone imbedded in this
quartz and limestone mixture. One of the specimens of part of a jaw I
measured _in situ_. The bone, in which the teeth were perfect, measured
twelve inches, perfectly straight, sharply pointed at both ends, and one
and a quarter inch in the broadest part; the shape being exactly like a
canoe or some of the fast river-skiffs. A single row of eight teeth
down the middle, two of the centre ones being the largest, nearly an
inch square; the other three on each side were smaller, until the two
end ones measured a third of an inch square; they may have belonged to a
ruminant animal. The peculiar form of the bone the teeth were fixed in
I thought singular. I procured four similar specimens, two of the same
size, and two smaller, with several other pieces of rock, half
limestone, half quartz, in which are many perfect specimens of teeth and
bone.
Over this interesting deposit there is a large wood with limestones
cropping up above the soil. Upon one of them I saw several loose
egg-shaped stones, and others perfectly round, the size of a sparrow's
egg, lying on the ground close to the rock. On stopping to pick them up
I found the stone full of them, some half buried, others only holding by
a small part of the ball fixed to the rock. Thinking it a very
interesting specimen I went to my waggon for a hammer, and secured one
of the projecting parts of the rock that had some of these balls
imbedded in it, and a dozen of the loose balls, which have been
carefully preserved to be examined by a geologist when time will permit,
to ascertain if this singular formation is limestone or not, as every
portion of this limestone formation is black except where the bones are
found, and there it is of a light-brown colour. It is also found in all
the dark rocks in the same locality. Extensive tracts of country in
South Central Africa have similar rocks containing crystallised
globules, which when broken are hollow, which leads me to suppose this
rock is not a limestone formation. Dr. Lyle, the geologist, at
Pretoria, examined the rock with bones in it, and pronounced it a kind
of lava impregnated with lime from the bones.
In the neighbourhood of Lydenburg, to the north, are many extensive
caves, some extending for nearly a mile underground, that have been
formed by the small stream of water that flows through most of them,
with beautiful stalactite hanging from their roofs and sides. A short
distance to the west of these were the strongholds of the chiefs Secoeme
and Mampoer. These mountains are completely riddled with caves, and are
places of great strength, and surrounded by many Kaffir kraals, under
several petty chiefs. The most noted are Magali, Manpartella,
Secocoene, Matebe, Maselaroon (Queen), Mapok, Mamalube, Umsoet, Moripi,
Umlindola, Majaje (Queen), Maffafare, Mayaya, and others, numbering many
thousands in all. During the Secocoene war, in 1878, I was through that
country, travelling up from Pretoria with a detachment of the 80th
Regiment, and visited the magnet heights, a range of hills composed
entirely of loadstone of highly magnetic power. It is about forty miles
to the north-west of Lydenburg.
The area of the present Lydenburg gold-fields may be included within a
radius of 100 miles from that town, and contains some of the most
magnificent scenery in Africa. Within it are the hot springs, six in
number. They are situated among rocks, and close to them is one cold
spring; they are becoming known as having very healing properties. The
Komati river passing between beautiful mountains is most picturesque,
and on the north the Waterfall river and other streams have lovely
scenery, with the lofty mountains forming the background. A most
charming effect is produced when the clouds are passing along their
sides below their summits. It is a pity that a land so lovely and so
rich in valuable minerals is not in better hands, where a firm
Government would be able to properly develop the country. There are at
present a few thousand people living near the various diggings, but many
say they are not succeeding. Large sums of money have been expended in
machinery, but few companies pay.
Before leaving the Transvaal I wish to call attention again to the white
Bushmen, described in the early part of this work, which I omitted, viz.
that they are only found in the mountain ranges on the west of the
Drakensberg, and in that mountain. They have never been found in the
lowlands or in any other part of Africa, and are distinct in form; that
is, so remarkably thin, and their legs being more like sticks, without
any appearance of a calf, pot-bellied to an enormous extent, with their
spine curving in like a bow, and few exceed four feet in height; their
colour is yellow white, quite as much so as Europeans brought up in a
tropical country. This leads me to conclude they are a separate and
distinct race, unless they are part of a tribe that live in Equatorial
Africa, called the Akka or Tikku-Tikki race, under the king Munsa, the
pigmy race described by Herodotus; but these appear to be of a much
darker colour. When travellers state the age of any of these peculiar
people it cannot be relied on, for I do not believe there is a black man
in Africa who knows his own age. I have seen some exhibited whose age
is stated to be twenty; this is mere guess, for it is impossible to
tell, when they have no notion themselves whether they are five or
fifty.