JOHANNESBURG OF TO-DAY
The palms and bamboos of Durban, the Zulu policemen and 'ricksha boys,
and the hospitable citizens have been left behind, and the little train
of English compartment cars, each with its destination "Johannesburg"
labelled conspicuously on its sides, is winding away through cane fields
and banana groves, past groups of open-eyed natives and solemn,
thin-faced Indian coolies.
Pretty little farmers' cottages in settings of palms, mimosas, and
tropical plants are dotted in the green valleys winding around the
innumerable small hills that look for all the world like so many
inverted moss-covered china cups. Lumbering transport wagons behind a
score of sleek oxen, wincing under the fire of the far-reaching rawhide
in the hands of a sparsely clad Zulu driver, are met and passed in a
twinkling. Neatly thatched huts with natives lazily lolling in the sun
become more frequent as the train rolls on toward the interior, and the
greenness of the landscape is changing into the brown of dead verdure,
for it is the dry season--the South African winter. The hills become
more frequent, and the little locomotive goes more slowly, while the
train twists and writhes along its path like a huge python.
Now it is on the hilltop from which the distant sea and its coast fringe
of green are visible on the one side, and nothing but treeless brown
mountain tops on the other. A minute later it plunges down the
hillside, along rocky precipices, over deep chasms, and then wearily
plods up the zigzag course of another hillside. For five hours or more
the monotony of miniature mountains continues, relieved by nothing more
interesting than the noise of the train and the hilarious laughter and
weird songs of a car load of Zulus bound for the gold fields. After
this comes an undulating plain and towns with far less interest in their
appearance than in their names. The traveller surfeited with Natal
scenery finds amusement and diversion in the conductor's call of Umbilo,
Umkomaas, Umgeni, Amanzimtoti, Isipingo, Mooi River, Zwartkop, or
Pietermaritzburg, but will not attempt to learn the proper pronunciation
of the names unless he has weeks at his command.
[Illustration: Zulu maidens shaking hands.]
Farther on in the journey an ostrich, escaped from a farm, stalks over
the plain, and, approaching to within several yards of the train, jogs
along for many miles, and perchance wheedles the engineer into impromptu
races. Hardly has the bird disappeared when on the wide veldt a herd of
buck galloping with their long heads down, or a large number of
wildebeest, plunging and jumping like animated hobby-horses, raise
clouds of dust as they dash away from the monster of iron and steam.
Shortly afterward the train passes a waterfall almost thrice as lofty as
Niagara, but located in the middle of the plain, into whose surface the
water has riven a deep and narrow chasm.
Since the balmy Indian Ocean has been left behind, the train has been
rising steadily, sometimes an inch in a mile but oftener a hundred feet,
and the air has grown cooler. The thousands of British soldiers at
Ladysmith are wearing heavy clothing; their horses, tethered in the open
air, are shivering, and far to the westward is the cause of it all--the
lofty, snow-covered peaks of the Dragon Mountain. Night comes on and
clothes the craggy mountains and broken valleys with varying shades of
sombreness. The moon outlines the snow far above, and with its rays
marks the lofty line where sky and mountain crest seem to join. Morning
light greets the train as it dashes down the mountain side, through the
passes that connect Natal with the Transvaal and out upon the withered
grass of the flat, uninteresting veldt of the Boer country.
The South African veldt in all its winter hideousness lies before you.
It stretches out in all directions--to the north and south, to the east
and west--and seems to have no boundaries. Its yellowish brownness eats
into the brain, and the eyes grow weary from the monotony of the scene.
Hour after hour the train bears onward in a straight line, but the
landscape remains the same. But for noises and motions of the cars you
would imagine that the train was stationary, so far as change of scenery
is concerned. Occasionally a colony of huge ant-heaps or a few buck or
deer may be passed, but for hours it is veldt, veldt, veldt! An entire
day's journey, unrelieved except toward the end by a few straggling
towns of Boer farmhouses or the sheet-iron cabins of prospectors, bring
it to Heidelberg, once the metropolis as well as the capital of the
republic, but now pining because the former distinguishing mark has been
yielded to its neighbour, Johannesburg.
As the shades of another night commence to fall, the veldt suddenly
assumes a new countenance. Lights begin to sparkle, buildings close
together appear, and scores of tall smokestacks tower against the
background of the sky. The presence of the smoke-stacks denote the
arrival at the Randt, and for twenty miles the train rushes along this
well-defined gold-yielding strip of land. Buildings, lights, stacks,
and people become more numerous as the train progresses into the city
limits of Johannesburg, and the traveller soon finds himself in the
middle of a crowd of enthusiastic welcoming and welcomed persons on the
platform of the station of the Nederlandsche Zuid-Afrikaansche
Spoorweg-Maatschappij, and in the Golden City.
The sudden change from the dreary lifelessness of the veldt to the
exciting crush and bustle of the station platform crowd is almost
bewildering, because it is so different from what is expected in
interior Africa. The station, a magnificent structure of stone and
iron, presents more animated scenes whenever trains arrive than the
Grand Central in New York or the Victoria in London, because every
passenger is invariably met at the train by all his friends and as many
of their friends as the station platform will accommodate. The crowd
which surges around this centre of the city's life is of a more
cosmopolitan character than that which can be found in any other city in
the world with the exceptions of Zanzibar and Port Said. Almost every
race is represented in the gathering, which is suggestive of a mass
meeting of the villagers of the Midway Plaisance at the Columbian
Exposition. In the crowd are stolid Anglo-Saxons shaking hands
effusively; enthusiastic Latins embracing each other; negroes rubbing
noses and cheeks; smiling Japanese; cold, stern Chinese; Cingalese,
Russians, Malays, and Egyptians--all in their national costumes, and all
welcoming friends in their native manner and language. Meandering
through the crowd are several keen-eyed Boer policemen, commonly called
"Zarps," politely directing the attention of innocent-looking newcomers
to placards bearing the inscription "Pas op Zakkenrollers," which is the
Boer warning of pickpockets.
After the traveller has forced a way through the crowd he is attacked by
a horde of cabmen who can teach tricks of the trade to the London and
New York night-hawks. Their equipages range from dilapidated broughams
to antique 'rickshas, but their charges are the same--"a quid," or five
dollars, either for a mile or a minute's ride. After the insults which
follow a refusal to enter one of their conveyances have subsided, the
agents of the hotels commence a vociferous campaign against the
newcomers, and very clever it is in its way. They are able to
distinguish a foreigner at one glance, and will change the name of the
hotel which they represent a score of times in as many seconds in order
to bag their quarry. For the patriotic American they have the New York
Hotel, the Denver House, the Hotel California, and many other hostelries
named after American cities. "Hey, Yank!" they will salute an American,
"Come up to the New York Hotel and patronize American enterprise." If
the traveller will accompany one of these agents he will find that all
the names apply to one hotel, which has an American name but is
conducted and patronized by a low class of foreigners. The victim of
misrepresentation will seek another hotel, and will be fortunate if he
finds comfortable quarters for less than ten dollars a day, or three
times the amount he would be called upon to pay at a far better hotel in
any American city of equal size. The privilege of fasting, or of
awakening in the morning with a layer of dust an eighth of an inch deep
on the counterpane and on the face may be ample return for the
extraordinary charges, but the stranger in the city is not apt to adopt
that view of the situation until he is acclimated.
The person who has spent several days in crossing the veldt and enters
Johannesburg by night has a strange revelation before him when he is
awakened the following morning. He has been led to believe that the city
is a motley collection of corrugated-iron hovels, hastily constructed
cabins, and cheap public buildings. Instead he finds a beautiful city,
with well-paved streets, magnificent buildings of stone and brick,
expensive public buildings, and scores of palatial residences. Many
American cities of the same size and many times older can not show as
costly buildings or as fine public works. Hotels of five and six
stories, and occupying, in several instances, almost entire blocks, are
numerous; of office buildings costing a quarter of a million dollars
each there are half a score; banks, shops, and newspapers have three-
and four-story buildings of brick and stone, while there are hundreds of
other buildings that would be creditable to any large city in America or
Europe. The Government Building in the centre of the city is a
five-story granite structure of no mean architectural beauty. In the
suburbs are many magnificent private residences of mine owners and
managers who, although not permanent residents of the city, have
invested large amounts of money, so that the short time they spend in
the country may be amid luxurious and comfortable surroundings.
One of the disagreeable features of living in Johannesburg is the dust
which is present everywhere during the dry season. It rises in great,
thick clouds on the surrounding veldt, and, obscuring the sun, wholly
envelops the city in semi-darkness. One minute the air is clear and
there is not a breath of wind; several minutes later a hurricane is
blowing and blankets of dust are falling. The dust clouds generally
rise west of the city, and almost totally eclipse the sun during their
progress over the plain. Sometimes the dust storms continue only a few
minutes, but very frequently the citizens are made uncomfortable by them
for days at a time. Whenever they arrive, the doors and windows of
buildings are tightly closed, business is practically at a standstill,
and every one is miserable. There is no escape from it. It penetrates
every building, however well protected, and it lodges in the food as
well as in the drink. Pedestrians on the street are unable to see ten
feet ahead, and are compelled to walk with head bowed and with
handkerchief over the mouth and nostrils. Umbrellas and parasols are
but slight protection against it. Only the miners, a thousand feet
below the surface, escape it. When the storm has subsided the entire
city is covered with a blanket of dust ranging in thickness from an inch
on the sidewalks to an eighth of an inch on the store counters,
furniture, and in pantries. It has never been computed how great a
quantity of the dust enters a man's lungs, but the feeling that it
engenders is one of colossal magnitude.
Second to the dust, the main characteristic of Johannesburg is the
inhabitants' great struggle for sudden wealth. It is doubtful whether
there is one person in the city whose ambition is less than to become
wealthy in five years at least, and then to return to his native
country. It is not a chase after affluence; it is a stampede in which
every soul in the city endeavours to be in the van. In the city and in
the mines there are hundreds of honourable ways of becoming rich, but
there are thousands of dishonourable ones; and the morals of a mining
city are not always on the highest plane. There are business men of the
strictest probity and honesty, and men whose word is as good as their
bond, but there are many more who will allow their conscience to lie
dormant so long as they remain in the country. With them the passion is
to secure money, and whether they secure it by overcharging a regular
customer, selling illicit gold, or gambling at the stock exchanges is a
matter of small moment. Tradesmen and shopkeepers will charge according
to the apparel of the patron, and will brazenly acknowledge doing so if
reminded by the one who has paid two prices for like articles the same
day. Hotels charge according to the quantity of luggage the traveller
carries, and boarding-houses compute your wealth before presenting their
bills. Street-car fares and postage stamps alone do not fluctuate in
value, but the wise man counts his change.
The experiences of an American with one large business house in the city
will serve as an example of the methods of some of those who are eager
to realize their ambitions. The American spent many weeks and much
patience and money in securing photographs throughout the country, and
took the plates to a large firm in Johannesburg for development and
printing. When he returned two weeks later he was informed that the
plates and prints had been delivered a week before, and neither prayers
nor threats secured a different answer. Justice in the courts is slow
and costly, and the American was obliged to leave the country without
his property. Shortly after his departure the firm of photographers
commenced selling a choice collection of new South African photographs
which, curiously, were of the same scenes and persons photographed by
the American.
Gambling may be more general in some other cities, but it can not be
more public. The more refined gamblers patronize the two stock
exchanges, and there are but few too poor to indulge in that form of
dissipation. Probably nine tenths of the inhabitants of the city travel
the stock-exchange bypath to wealth or poverty. Women and boys are as
much infected by the fever as mine owners and managers, and it would not
be slandering the citizens to say that one fourth of the conversation
heard on the streets refers to the rise and fall of stocks.
The popular gathering place in the city is the street in front of one of
the stock exchanges known as "The Chains." During the session of the
exchange the street is crowded with an excited throng of men, boys, and
even women, all flushed with the excitement of betting on the rise and
fall of mining stocks in the building. Clerks, office boys, and miners
spend the lunch hour at "The Chains," either to invest their wages or to
watch the market if their money is already invested. A fall in the
value of stocks is of far greater moment to them than war, famine, or
pestilence.
The passion for gambling is also satisfied by a giant lottery scheme
known as "Sweepstakes," which has the sanction of the Government.
Thousands of pounds are offered as prizes at the periodical drawings,
and no true Johannesburger ever fails to secure at least one ticket for
the drawing. When there are no sessions of the stock exchanges, no
sweepstakes, horse races, ball games, or other usual opportunities for
gambling, they will bet on the arrival of the Cape train, the length of
a sermon, or the number of lashes a negro criminal can endure before
fainting.
Drinking is a second diversion which occupies much of the time of the
average citizen, because of the great heat and the lack of amusement.
The liquor that is drunk in Johannesburg in one year would make a stream
of larger proportions and far more healthier contents than the Vaal
River in the dry season. It is a rare occurrence to see a man drink
water unless it is concealed in brandy, and at night it is even rarer
that one is seen who is not drinking. Cape Smoke, the name given to a
liquor made in Cape Colony, is credited with the ability to kill a man
before he has taken the glass from his lips, but the popular Uitlander
beverage, brandy and soda, is even more fatal in its effects. Pure
liquor is almost unobtainable, and death-dealing counterfeits from
Delagoa Bay are the substitutes. Twenty-five cents for a glass of beer
and fifty cents for brandy and soda are not deterrent prices where
ordinary mine workers receive ten dollars a day and mine managers fifty
thousand dollars a year.
Of social life there is little except such as is afforded by the clubs,
of which there are several of high standing. The majority of the men
left their families in their native countries on account of the severe
climate, and that fact, combined with the prevalent idea that the
weather is too torrid to do anything unnecessary, is responsible for
Johannesburg's lack of social amenity. There are occasional dances and
receptions, but they are participated in only by newcomers who have not
yet fallen under the spell of the South African sun. The Sunday night's
musical entertainments at the Wanderer's Club are practically the only
affairs to which the average Uitlander cares to go, because he can
clothe himself for comfort and be as dignified or as undignified as he
pleases.
The true Johannesburger is the most independent man in the world. When
he meets a native on the sidewalk he promptly kicks him into the street,
and if the action is resented, bullies a Boer policeman into arresting
the offender. The policeman may demur and call the Johannesburger a
"Verdomde rooinek," but he will make the arrest or receive a drubbing.
He may be arrested in turn, but he is ever willing and anxious to pay a
fine for the privilege of beating a "dumb Dutchman," as he calls him.
He pays little attention to the laws of the country, because he has not
had the patience to learn what they consist of, and he rests content in
knowing that his home government will rescue him through diplomatic
channels if he should run counter to the laws. He cares nothing
concerning the government of the city except as it interferes with or
assists his own private interests, but he will take advantage of every
opportunity to defy the authority of the administrators of the laws. He
despises the Boers, and continually and maliciously ridicules them on
the slightest pretexts. Specially true is this of those newspapers
which are the representatives of the Uitlander population. Venomous
editorials against the Boer Government and people appear almost daily,
and serve to widen the breach between the two classes of inhabitants.
The Boer newspapers for a long time ignored the assaults of the
Uitlander press, but recently they have commenced to retaliate, and the
editorial war is a bitter one. An extract from the Randt Post will show
the nature and depth of bitterness displayed by the two classes of
newspapers:
"Though Dr. Leyds may be right, and the Johannesburg population safe in
case of war, we advise that, at the first act of war on the English
side, the women and children, and well-disposed persons of this town, be
given twenty-four hours to leave, and then the whole place be shot down;
in the event, we repeat--which God forbid!--of war coming.
"If, indeed, there must be shooting, then it will be on account of
seditious words and deeds of Johannesburg agitators and the
co-shareholders in Cape Town and London, and the struggle will be
promoted for no other object than the possession of the gold. Well,
then, let such action be taken that the perpetrators of these turbulent
proceedings shall, if caught, be thrown into the deep shafts of their
mines, with the debris of the batteries for a costly shroud, and that
the whole of Johannesburg, with the exception of the Afrikander wards,
be converted into a gigantic rubbish heap to serve as a mighty tombstone
for the shot-down authors of a monstrous deed.
"If it be known that these valuable buildings and the lives of the
wire-pullers are the price of the mines, then people will take good heed
before the torch of war is set alight. Friendly talks and protests are
no use with England. Let force and rough violence be opposed to the
intrigues and plots of Old England, and only then will the Boer remain
master."
It is on Saturday nights that the bitterness of the Uitlander population
is most noticeable, since then the workers from the mines along the
Randt gather in the city and discuss their grievances, which then become
magnified with every additional glass of liquor. It is then that the
city streets and places of amusement and entertainment are crowded with
a throng that finds relaxation by abusing the Boers. The theatre
audiences laugh loudest at the coarsest jests made at the expense of the
Boers, and the bar-room crowds talk loudest when the Boers are the
subject of discussion. The abuse continues even when the not-too-sober
Uitlander, wheeled homeward at day-break by his faithful Zulu 'ricksha
boy, casts imprecations upon the Boer policeman who is guarding his
property.
Johannesburg is one of the most expensive places of residence in the
world. Situated in the interior of the continent, thousands of miles
distant from the sources of food and supplies, it is natural that
commodities should be high in price. Almost all food stuffs are carried
thither from America, Europe, and Australia, and consequently the
original cost is trebled by the addition of carriage and customs duties.
The most common articles of food are twice as costly as in America,
while such commodities as eggs, imported from Madeira, frequently are
scarce at a dollar a dozen. Butter from America is fifty cents a pound,
and fruits and vegetables from Cape Colony and Natal are equally high in
price and frequently unobtainable. Good board can not be obtained
anywhere for less than five dollars a day, while the best hotels and
clubs charge thrice that amount. Rentals are exceptionally high owing
to the extraordinary land values and the cost of erecting buildings. A
small, brick-lined, corrugated-iron cottage of four rooms, such as a
married mine-employee occupies, costs from fifty to seventy-five dollars
a month, while a two-story brick house in a respectable quarter of the
city rents for one hundred dollars a month.
Every object in the city is mutely expressive of a vast expenditure of
money. The idea that everything--the buildings, food, horses, clothing,
machinery, and all that is to be seen--has been carried across oceans
and continents unconsciously associates itself with the cost that it has
entailed. Four-story buildings that in New York or London would be
passed without remark cause mental speculation concerning their cost,
merely because it is so patent that every brick, nail, and board in them
has been conveyed thousands of miles from foreign shores. Electric
lights and street cars, so common in American towns, appear abnormal in
the city in the veldt, and instantly suggest an outlay of great amounts
of money even to the minds which are not accustomed to reducing
everything to dollars and pounds. Leaving the densely settled centre of
the city, where land is worth as much as choice plots on Broadway, and
wandering into the suburbs where the great mines are, the idea of cost
is more firmly implanted into the mind. The huge buildings, covering
acres of ground and thousands of tons of the most costly machinery, seem
to be of natural origin rather than of human handiwork. It is almost
beyond belief that men should be daring enough to convey hundreds of
steamer loads of lumber and machinery halfway around the world at
inestimable cost merely for the yellow metal that Nature has hidden so
far distant from the great centres of population.
The cosmopolitanism of the city is a feature which impresses itself most
indelibly upon the mind. In a half-day's stroll in the city
representatives of all the peoples of the earth, with the possible
exception of the American Indian, Eskimos, and South Sea islanders, will
be seen variously engaged in the struggle for gold. On the floors of the
stock exchanges are money barons or their agents, as energetic and sharp
as their prototypes of Wall and Throckmorton Streets. These are chiefly
British, French, and German. Outside, between "The Chains," are readily
discernible the distinguishing features of the Americans, Afrikanders,
Portuguese, Russians, Spaniards, and Italians. A few steps distant is
Commissioner Street, the principal thoroughfare, where the surging
throng is composed of so many different racial representatives that an
analysis of it is not an easy undertaking. He is considered an expert
who can name the native country of every man on the street, and if he
can distinguish between an American and a Canadian he is credited with
being a wise man.
In the throng is the tall, well-clothed Briton, with silk hat and frock
coat, closely followed by a sparsely clad Matabele, bearing his master's
account books or golf-sticks. Near them a Chinaman, in circular
red-topped hat and flowing silk robes, is having a heated argument in
broken English with an Irish hansom-driver. Crossing the street are two
stately Arabs, in turbans and white robes, jostling easy-going Indian
coolies with their canes. Bare-headed Cingalese, their long, shiny hair
tied in knots and fastened down with circular combs, noiselessly gliding
along, or stopping suddenly to trade Oriental jewelry for Christian's
money; Malays, Turks, Egyptians, Persians, and New-Zealanders, each with
his distinctive costume; Hottentots, Matabeles, Zulus, Mashonas,
Basutos, and the representatives of hundreds of the other native races
south of the Zambezi pass by in picturesque lack of bodily adornment.
It is an imposing array, too, for the majority of the throng is composed
of moderately wealthy persons, and even in the centre of Africa wealth
carries with it opportunities for display. John Chinaman will ride in a
'ricksha to his joss-house with as much conscious pride as the European
or American will sit in his brougham or automobile. Money is as easily
spent as made in Johannesburg, and it is a cosmopolitan habit to spend
it in a manner so that everybody will know it is being spent. To make a
display of some sort is necessary to the citizen's happiness. If he is
not of sufficient importance to have his name in the subsidized
newspapers daily he will seek notoriety by wearing a thousand pounds'
worth of diamonds on the street or making astonishing bets at the
race-track. In that little universe on the veldt every man tries to be
superior to his neighbour in some manner that may be patent to all the
city. When it is taken into consideration that almost all the
contestants were among the cleverest and shrewdest men in the countries
whence they came to Johannesburg, and not among the riffraff and
failures, then the intensity of the race for superiority can be
imagined.
Johannesburg might be named the City of Surprises. Its youthful
existence has been fraught with astonishing works. It was born in a
day, and one day's revolution almost ended its existence. It grew from
the desert veldt into a garden of gold. Its granite residences, brick
buildings, and iron and steel mills sprang from blades of grass and
sprigs of weeds. It has transformed the beggar into a millionaire, and
it has seen starving men in its streets. It harbours men from every
nation and climate, but it is a home for few. It is far from the centre
of the earth's civilization, but it has often attracted the whole
world's attention. It supports its children, but by them it is cursed.
Its god is in the earth upon which it rests, and its hope of future life
in that which it brings forth. And all this because a man upturned the
soil and called it gold.
THE END