Pearls and diamonds are words that have a charm in themselves. Not only
do they represent exceedingly beautiful things, but the words themselves
are pretty. The diamond fields of South Africa, the "ninth wonder of
the world," lay within a few days' journey of us in the interior of the
country.
We left the Royal Hotel, with its attentive landlord and lady, one hot
morning late in December, and boarded the train that would take us up
into the country about three hundred miles, where the coach would
receive us and carry us on to Kimberley, the diamond fields. The
railroad was well constructed, and passed over mountains with steep
grades, through wild scenery, one thousand feet above the level of the
sea.
As we neared "Beaufort" the scenery began to change gradually, and
before night the view from the car windows presented a scorched
desert-like prairie, with not a particle of vegetation except parched
little bushes resembling the sage brush of our Western plains.
The horizon was bounded on all sides by ranges of forbidding mountains,
which feature is one marked characteristic of African scenery generally,
there being no spot, we believe, in the country where mountains are not
seen on every side. Our car was provided with a primitive contrivance
for sleeping, consisting of a kind of hammock which was stowed away
under the seat during the day and at night was adjusted into slots in
the wall of the car; drawing the blinds and shading the lamp at the top
of the car with its own little curtain, we laid ourselves down to sleep.
In the morning the same prospect met our view that we had bidden
good-night to the evening before, and the prospect continued the same
until we reached Beaufort. About nine o'clock we stopped at a
way-station for breakfast; then on again all day we journeyed through
the same deserted country, which is called the "Karoo." Nothing was
growing on it but the monotonous bush, and there was not a house in
sight; by midday our eyes ached from looking so long at the same
objects. We might have been crossing the Great Sahara Desert. At five
o'clock in the evening the train, which had kept up one tantalising
"dawdle" all day, began to slacken speed and blow the whistle, and we
almost hoped that we were about to have an accident or a break-down, or
anything, indeed, to break the dismal monotony. But the locomotive only
slackened its speed to a crawl and puffed up with great importance to a
low shed with the word "Booking Office" painted over the door. We found
we had arrived in Beaufort, which proved to be a pretty village with two
or three hotels.
From here our heavy baggage was sent on by ox-wagon, as sixty pounds is
allowed to each passenger on the coach, all over that amount costing
thirty-five cents a pound.
The next morning at five o'clock the coach which was to carry us to the
fields drew up to the door of the hotel. It proved to be one of the
original coaches which had been used to cross our American Continent,
and had been pushed by the iron horse from our Western prairies and
imported by the enterprising Cobb and Co, well known both there and in
Australia. It was found to be admirably adapted for the rough South
African roads.
Eight handsome horses were inspanned, and two Malay drivers, one to
handle the long whip, were seated on the box; our luggage was fastened
on behind with reins. When the fifteen passengers, including ourselves,
were seated, with a wild eldritch shriek from the driver, a yell from
his assistant and a crack of his whip, which sounded like a rifle shot,
the Kafir boy who held the leaders sprang aside, the eight horses leaped
forward into the air, then tore away, plunging to this side and then the
other, shaving the corner with the hind wheel which made the crazy old
coach lurch like a ship in a gale, and broke into a wild gallop, soon
leaving Beaufort West far behind.
For some time after leaving the town our way lay over a long level plain
reaching on all sides far into the distance; the curtains were soon
lowered to keep us from being stifled by the penetrating, choking,
powdery sand.
The horses had started off as if fully determined to make Kimberley
before nightfall, but had now settled down into a good swinging trot,
jolting us from side to side, one moment banging our heads against the
sides of the coach, the next throwing us violently against our
neighbours, until attempts to get into a comfortable position were given
up as hopeless. The journey up country was a gradual ascent, for the
interior of South Africa is a succession of elevated plateaus, rising
from the sea in terraces, marked by mountain chains, until the plateaus
culminate in the vast plains of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal,
which are some 6,000 feet above the sea. In climbing a steep hill the
male passengers were often unceremoniously ordered out of the vehicle by
the half-caste driver and compelled to walk to the summit.
Our experience of farmhouse meals, which were taken _en route_, was
anything but agreeable, but it taught the lesson never to travel through
such a country again, no matter how short the journey, without carrying
a hamper, even if it cost a shilling a pound for extra luggage.
At one of these resting-places where we changed horses, we paid one
dollar for a cup of coffee and a sour sandwich. At times there was
absolutely nothing to eat; then again a palatable dinner would be ready,
but on such dirty linen and served with gravy so full of flies that it
was impossible to eat it.
None of the other passengers seemed to have learned the lesson of
bringing hampers of food with them, although most of them had passed
over the same road many times. With all the discomforts of travelling
the people of Africa are great travellers, two or three hundred miles by
coach or cart being considered no great journey.
Very little life or attempt at cultivation was to be seen on the road
Occasionally we came across a herd of cattle grazing, and the sheep
seemed to have learned to eat stones, so little of anything else was
there for them to feed upon. The open country is universally designated
by the Dutch word "_Veldt_" translatable as "open field," which it is in
the best or the worst sense of the term.
At seven in the evening we arrived at a farmhouse, completely tired out
with the continual bumping and jolting we had been subjected to all day,
and felt strongly tempted to remain there for the next coach to pass
through, but finding we should have to remain a week, preferred to take
the jolting to remaining seven long, hot days in that spot. At daybreak
next morning the loud banging at the door, and the notes of the driver's
bugle outside, warned us that the coach was ready to start; it seemed
that five minutes had not elapsed since we fell asleep, we were so
tired.
Climbing sleepily into the coach and yawning in chorus with our
fellow-passengers, the driver shouted "right," the boys let go the heads
of the leaders, and off we went to the shrill notes of the driver's horn
in the still, cold, morning air. We slumbered uneasily for an hour
after our start, waking up with a painful start as some one's elbow
would insinuate itself into his neighbour's side, at any extra jolt of
the coach. We really did not care if we never reached Kimberley,
provided the coach would only stop for two or three hours to let us
finish our sleep. The sun came out and warmed up the flies that had
left us in the first half hours of our journey. These completed what
the jolting had commenced and everybody was soon wide awake. Late in
the day we stopped to change horses at a farmhouse, the owner of which
was a typical Dutch woman weighing three hundred pounds. She sat in her
chair from morning until night, everything she needed being brought to
her; her daughter assisted her from her chair to her bed, which was the
only exercise she had all day. She was not the sole representative of
her kind that we saw in the country.
The second night we were climbing into the upland region, where the
nights grew colder, requiring heavy, warm wraps, the stars shone like
fiery gems, and threw a white, weird light over the country, in which
not a sound could be heard but the rumble of our wheels and the cries of
our Jehus. Frank bore the journey as well as any of the rest of us, and
her condition of health spoke volumes for the climate.
The third night the coach rumbled quickly over a pine bridge spanning
the Orange River, the river being about half a mile wide at this point;
when once across we were in Griqua Land West, the land of diamonds!--but
still one hundred miles away from Kimberley.
One more day and night on the road through very heavy sand, and we
reached the Medder or Mud River, a considerable stream with very deep
and precipitous bank's, down and through which we rumbled with much
difficulty, giving the wielder of the "whip" plenty of work to get us
over. Toward the afternoon we began to see unmistakable signs of our
nearing a large settlement.
We passed some two hundred wagons with their long teams of labouring
oxen, while wayside stores became more plentiful and closer together.
At four o'clock we drove up to the Queen's Hotel, where we alighted,
tired and travel-stained, heartily glad to get to the end of our
journey.