VISIT TO THE KAAP GOLD FIELDS.—CAVES AT WONDERFONTEIN.—THE DUIVEL’S
KANTOOR—“THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH.”—BARBERTON AND ITS
DEVELOPMENT.—COURSE OF GOLD DISCOVERIES.
During the course of the year 1886 certain events occurred which
determined me upon visiting Europe, and possibly settling in America,
but before deciding upon the exact date of my departure, I resolved to
visit Barberton, the main town of the Kaap Valley Gold Fields, in the
Transvaal, and learn for myself on the spot the truth or otherwise of
the statements then being made about the Fields, and which were exciting
such intense interest in the Cape Colony and Natal, and even were
beginning to attract the attention of the European capitalists.
I left Kimberley with that object in view in August last, by the mail
coach, which ran through as far as Marais’ Farm, a few hours beyond
Middleburgh, a small town seventy miles from Pretoria, the capital of
the state, and which may be remembered as a place of some importance
during Sir Garnet Wolseley’s operations in the Sekukuni war. I trusted,
though the mail-coach service ended there, that some favorable
opportunity of getting on to Barberton, the chief mining town of the
district, might present itself. The gold fields that I was especially
desirous of visiting lie between the Godwaan plateau and the Makoujwa
range of mountains, along the valley of the Kaap and Crocodile Rivers,
about 240 miles east of Pretoria. The ground between Kimberley and
Pretoria I had travelled over three years before and consequently was
well acquainted with it. The country I found as naturally rich and as
picturesque as on my former visit, but I could not detect any signs of
progressive energy or life. Everybody seemed imbued with the same
lethargy and lack of industry and enterprise. On my arrival at Pretoria,
however, I found the town, or rather the bars of the European Hotel and
the clubs, in a state of unnatural ferment, owing to the “boom”
occasioned by the newly discovered gold deposit at Witwatersrand, a
place some thirty-five miles distant.
The gold there, I was told, had been found in a well-cased conglomerate,
and the yield per ton was reported to be something fabulous. As a
natural result speculation of the wildest character was going on.
Before arriving at Potchefstroom, formerly the capital of the state, the
coach passed Wonderfontein, a farm where we changed horses, and which
now possesses a certain historical importance as being the main centre
of the Boer deliberations during their late successful struggle for the
independence of their country.
Here the driver of the coach was induced to wait an hour in order to
give the passengers the opportunity of visiting a renowned cave in the
vicinity.
A tedious drive all night had brought us at last, at ten o’clock in the
morning, to Wonderfontein. During the last hour or so, when the rising
sun with profuse splendor “tipped the hills with gold,” the scenery,
which had been rather monotonous since daybreak, became lighted up by
glimpses of the beautiful Mooi River, which we could see running like a
thread of glittering silver at the foot of a high range of hills to join
the Vaal River below Potchefstroom. Of a wonderful cave on this farm I
had often heard, and long wished to see. Mr. V. Aswegen, a son-in-law of
the late proprietor, very kindly consented to act as guide, and show us
the subterranean wonders which he told us he had discovered seven years
ago, when out hunting game, at the same time adding that the existence
of the cave was but little known, not many visitors coming to the spot.
On our arrival at the place pointed out to us by the guide (four miles
from his house), which was surrounded by trees, we scrambled down a few
feet into something like a pit twenty feet deep, and about thirty yards
in diameter, having at one corner a little hole barely large enough to
admit a man.
[Illustration:
CAVE AT WONDERFONTEIN.
]
Through this we groped one at a time. We did not advance far before the
pitchy darkness caused us to stop and light the candles and lamps with
which each visitor had been provided. Then continuing our descent for
twenty minutes at least, as it were into the bowels of the earth, we
were suddenly ushered into a hall of dazzling whiteness, a scene of
startling fairy-like beauty presenting itself which words fail me to
describe. Passing on a few yards we found ourselves in a large
amphitheatre, at least one hundred yards across, with a dome sixty feet
in height, arching above. From this hung in profusion groups of
glittering stalactites, like giant icicles, some being as much as thirty
feet in length, others shorter, and all the color of driven snow, which,
combined with the stalagmites growing as if out of the floor and in some
cases meeting, produced an effect which was simply superb.
Stalactites are produced, I may state, by the percolation of water,
holding some mineral matter in solution, through the rocky roofs of
caverns; the evaporation of the water producing a deposit of the mineral
matter, and gradually forming the long pendant cones. Large caves are
found only in limestone regions, and chemistry shows that water holding
lime in solution does so by virtue of the carbonic acid it contains, and
will deposit the lime when the acid escapes.
Imagination here could revel at will, and play any freaks she chose. To
the fancy were suggested vivid and varied scenes, while associations of
all kinds—recollections of the past, and anticipations of the
future—crowded on the spectator’s mind. In one corner the stalactites
extended nearly to the ground, in circular pillars, and to the eye of
fancy seemed like the carved confessionals in some continental
cathedral, and it needed no great stretch of imagination to expect
momentarily the appearance of the fair penitent and “holy friar.” A
little further—still allowing fancy scope—there could be seen the pipes
of a magnificent organ, extending to the dome, while, seemingly to prove
that all was real, our guide ran his fingers over these vibrating pipes,
bringing out a succession of tones both musical and clear. Looking on
the other side of what I shall term this magnificent hall, the Roman
Forum, with its eloquent speakers, and the noble orations they delivered
in centuries gone by, were brought vividly to one’s memory by the very
model of an ancient rostrum, standing ready for another Cicero again to
mount and passionately declaim “Quosque tandem abutere, Catilina,
patientia nostra.”
At the request of my companions I mounted this natural platform, when
amid most enthusiastic plaudits from the friendly audience I spoke as
felicitously as I could on the Transvaal and its resources, and dwelt
upon the probable time, the countless ages, which had been consumed in
the formation of the natural beauties we were viewing.
Before bidding farewell to this never-to-be-forgotten scene, we gathered
together underneath the centre of the dome and sang “God save the
Queen,” our guide, with the precision of a drummer, beating time on one
of the pendant cones. I must not forget to mention that the echo which
reverberated through this majestic hall reminded me most vividly of the
Taj Mahal at Agra, and of the curious acoustic properties of that white
marble mausoleum. But the distant notes of our driver’s bugle summoning
us, we were suddenly reminded that we must again tempt the fortunes of
“a cold, cold world,” and leave these mysterious caverns to the darkness
of midnight and the silence of the grave.
After a day’s rest at Potchefstroom we went on to Pretoria (the seat of
government since November, 1865), where we stayed the night, and started
next morning for Marias’ Farm, sixty miles beyond Middleburg, where, as
I have already told you. the mail service ceased. Here I and a fellow
passenger were compelled to hire a special conveyance to take us on to
the Duivel’s Kantoor, passing through the romantic Eland’s Valley and by
the side of the Barret-Berlyn property. This village (the Kantoor),
which is picturesquely situated at the very edge of the Drakensberg
overlooking the Kaap Valley, was formerly the headquarters of the
diggers for alluvial gold on the Godwaan plateau, and also the residence
of the gold commissioner. I will refer to one of my letters for a
description of the scene: “A short distance from the hotel where I am
resting I have just seen one of the finest sights that has fallen to my
lot to behold since I have been in South Africa. It is only a stone’s
throw from the table where I am writing to the edge of the Drakensberg,
but before the grand scene which I shall essay to describe to you bursts
upon the view, the pathway twists and winds through such immense
water-worn sandstone boulders, tossed as it were promiscuously around,
and of every conceivable size and fantastic shape, that no wonder the
illiterate and superstitious but God-fearing Boer imagined some
supernatural power—the Devil himself, in fact—when in a capricious mood
had taken a particular interest in the locality.
“You have not forgotten, I am sure, our trip to the Falls of the Tugela
in 1870, where, in one unbroken sheet, we saw that river leap over the
Drakensberg 1,800 feet. I can even now picture to myself the view from
the top of the Berg, a spot where few save the prowling Bushmen, with
their poisoned arrows, have ever been; and can well remember how I
feasted my eyes on the vast expanse below, studded with the homesteads
of enterprising British colonists. I have been, as you know, on Majuba’s
heights, and have seen the rocks up which General Smith and his plucky
band resolutely climbed on that eventful Sunday morning, performing one
of the most heroic feats of modern times—and I have lingered for hours
on Table Mountain, viewing the magnificent panorama of Capetown, with
its docks and shipping, the picture framed on the one side by the green
of its beautiful suburbs, and on the other by the blue of the mighty
Ocean. But these all pale before the view of the Kaap Valley from the
Duivel’s Kantoor.
“When I first reached the edge of the Berg, the Kaap Valley—2,000 feet
below me, which I knew from report was some thirty miles in diameter and
surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills—presented a weird and beautiful
appearance, being entirely covered by a dense white mist, which seemed
like some vast inland sea. At the same time the rising sun, topping the
hills on the other side of the valley, added to the novelty of the scene
by pouring its dissolving rays, through a clear and cloudless sky, on
the misty surface which glittered like a mirror as it reflected back the
golden sheen. By degrees, as the sun, rising higher in the heavens,
became more powerful, the conical-shaped hills which dotted the valley
began to pierce through the mist, and beautiful islands with their bays
and inlets seemed traced as on a map before me. I could not leave the
place—I seemed rooted to the spot; but after turning round for a few
seconds a still greater surprise was in store, for during the brief
period that my attention had been withdrawn, a change, as if by magic,
had taken place. The ‘blanket’ or ‘table-cloth,’ as the mist is called,
had suddenly disappeared, and the whole valley was exposed to view;
only, however, hanging over the spruits and marking their courses, did
it still remain.”
Ten or twelve years ago, I have been told, this valley was in many parts
a complete swamp; it was, notwithstanding this however, a favorite
resort in the winter for the Boers from the neighboring high lands who
came to shoot the big game—the lions, tigers, buffaloes, and rhinoceri,
with which it abounded; but my medical knowledge soon told me the reason
why the Boers had formerly named this romantic valley “The Valley of the
Shadow of Death,” for the stern reality forced itself upon me that the
pestiferous breath of the rolling mist, that I had just so much admired,
although beautiful and fair to view, was dangerous in the extreme, and
would yet prove the “bed-rock” which full many an unlucky digger would
be sure to “strike.”
[Illustration:
BARBERTON, TRANSVAAL.
]
To the northeast I had pointed out to me the conical-shaped Spitzkop,
which, with the Devil’s Knuckles, Mauch Berg, 8,725 feet high, and
Macdonald’s Berg, mark the Lydenberg Gold Fields, and straight across to
the south and southeast I could see Barberton, Moodie’s Lower Camp,
Pretorius Kop and the Tafelberg, while the Makoujwa range, which forms
the boundary between the Transvaal and Swaziland, formed the background
to the scene. I am told there is an oil painting of this beautiful
valley in the South Kensington Museum, painted by a Dutch artist as long
ago as 1790. All the way on our road to Barberton, at which place it
took us at least eight hours to arrive, we found the valley through
which we passed uninhabited; yet there were at almost every few yards,
in the shape of piles of stones, heaped together for mealie-garden
clearings, evidences that this valley had but one generation back been
enormously populated. In the early part of the century Umselikatzi, the
late chief of the Matabeli—himself a Zulu, in fact a cousin of Chaka—was
sent out of Zululand by Chaka, Cetywayo’s uncle, when he swept through
Swaziland, and depopulated this valley, and, as one writer says, “they
slew and slew until their arms were tired of killing,” then establishing
himself in Matabele Land, beyond the Limpopo, set himself up as an
independent monarch. This accounts very clearly for the fact that,
although other tribes and languages intervene between the Zulu country
and Matabele Land, yet nearly pure Zulu is even now spoken by the
Matabeli.
The Kaap Valley after this became a species of “No Man’s Land,” and the
habitat simply of refugee Kafirs and broken-up tribes, who acknowledged
themselves subjects of the Swazi king and paid him tribute. The Swazis,
however, from time to time, sent commanders further north, and made
raids on Sekukuni’s Kafirs, or Bapedi, who, although they were once or
twice successful in repulsing the invaders, were at last conquered, when
the Swazis became paramount as far north as the Steelpoort River. This
strip of land extending from the Makoujwa range to the river
above-mentioned, including of course the Kaap Valley, was ceded to her
Majesty’s government by the Swazi king; who, however, now declares that
he never gave it to the Boers, who obtained it from us on the
retrocession, but to her Majesty.
On my arrival at Barberton, which is the rendezvous of all the
prospectors in the neighborhood, I found it to consist of a mining town
of about 2,000 inhabitants, nestling at the foot of the steep range of
hills which serves to divide the Transvaal from Swaziland. This place,
which but a few months before had been a village with but one or two
houses, before I left was the centre of a large and increasing
population. Some idea may be formed when I tell you that the government
has allotted 3,000 building stands on which there are hotels, stores,
churches of different denominations, either completed or in course of
erection, two stock exchanges, a club, a theatre, two music halls, three
newspaper offices, three banks, a market-house, as well as large
government buildings, comprising courts of law, post and telegraph
offices, and last, but not least, that necessity of existence known in
this country as a “tronk,” but elsewhere a prison—in fact, if it were
not for the absence of the railway-engine and electric wire, none of the
requirements of civilization would be wanting.
Some idea of the sudden rise of Barberton may be gained when a
comparison is made of its past and present postal requirements. In
March, 1886, the revenue from the sale of postage stamps amounted only
to £24, while more than £1,000 worth were sold in December of the same
year. During the same month the revenue from other sources amounted to
over £16,000, and taking this as a fair monthly average at the present
time, the revenue from Barberton and the Kaap Gold Fields alone is
considerably greater than that of the whole state some two or three
years ago.
Naturally, among a population composed of men of various types and
nationalities, a great diversity of character must be found,
hard-working men, sober toilers, drunken sots, worthless loafers, men of
strict integrity, and others without a grain of honesty in their
composition, are to be met with daily. Sad to say, a good many of those
sent up to the Kaap Gold Fields to prospect, supported by syndicates in
the Colony or Natal, never searched for the precious metal save in the
billiard room, though as a change, now and then, they took an enjoyable
picnic on the veldt at the expense of the confiding contributors to
their outing.
It is a matter much to be regretted that strong drink, with its
accompanying vices and crimes, and the diseases that its excess induces,
especially in hot countries, always follows the advent of the
Anglo-Saxon. In and around this small community canteens and low
grog-shops absolutely swarm, the number of licensed houses in the
district being over 200—or one grog-shop for every ten of its
population. The state places no limit on the issue of licenses, either
wholesale or retail; at present, until Barberton be declared a township,
when a retail liquor license will cost £50, the one can be obtained for
£12, and the other for £15, per annum, and Sunday trade is not
restricted.
Barberton and the surrounding locality, in my opinion, would be as
healthy and have as low a death-rate as any place in South Africa, the
climate being both pleasant and invigorating, if only the simplest
sanitary precautions[110] were adopted by the authorities, and the
population generally were fairly abstemious.
I wish here to correct a most erroneous impression which seems to
prevail through South Africa as to the danger of residence in Barberton
during the summer months. The climate of Barberton is but little, if at
all, more unhealthy than that of Kimberley, and I speak advisedly from
professional experience gained in both places. The only real exception
that can be taken against Barberton as compared with Kimberley is, that
being some seven degrees nearer the equator, the heat is more intense,
and consequently greater care has to be taken in avoiding its depressing
influences than in the other locality named. Let me, therefore, beg of
you to disabuse your minds of the belief that Barberton in summer-time
is a hot-bed of malaria. I must confess that I started to Barberton with
a certain amount of trepidation as to the possibility or probability of
myself or my healthiest neighbors being stricken down without warning by
an attack of fever, the picturing of whose virulency had led me to
expect an active counterpart to the great plague of London. Other
practitioners there have owned to similar preconceived notions, of
which, like myself, they soon become disabused. As a matter of fact,
nothing can be further from the truth. Malaria indisputably exists in
the low-lying districts situated to the north of Barberton; but a
residence in and about that district, when accompanied by reasonable
precautions, is as safe for a healthy man, woman or child, as almost
anywhere in South Africa.
The Transvaal government, urged on no doubt by the exaggerated reports
of the unhealthiness of the town, has generously given £2,000 to assist
in building a general hospital. Pending the completion of this building
a neat little cottage hospital has been fitted up, a medical staff
appointed, and, with two trained nurses from the Kimberley hospital, who
have volunteered their services, the sick poor are now fairly
comfortable. The reports circulated through South Africa concerning the
insalubrity of the Fields are fearfully exaggerated, but they have
already attracted a number of doctors, largely in excess of the
requirements of the place.
It is amusing to note the mistakes of current journalism. For instance,
in the last Christmas annual issued by the _Natal Mercury_ appeared the
following remarkable piece of information: “The Kantoor is regarded as
the sanatorium of Barberton, and to it the inhabitants repair on the
first symptoms of illness.” It is not necessary for me to tell you that
the Kantoor is thirty-five miles distant from Barberton, and I should
pity the poor patient who would have to “jog his bones over the stones”
in order to seek renewed health in this so-called sanatorium.
But as far as the finding of gold is concerned, the wave of modern gold
discovery in Southeast Africa has flowed in an entirely opposite
direction from the course it might have been expected to take,
commencing in the interior and proceeding by slow and measured steps in
the direction of the coast.
[Illustration:
BARBERTON.—FIRST GAOL AND HOSPITAL.
]
I may here just remind you of the unsuccessful expedition sent out in
1650 from Lisbon, under Francesco Barreto, to explore the gold fields of
these regions, and _en passant_ may mention that the yearly yield of
gold exported at a somewhat later date by the Portuguese was more than a
million pounds sterling in value, or, according to one authority,
£3,000,000. Yet these matters I will not enter into fully now, but
review at once the result of the work done in recent years.
Before proceeding further I may recall a fact that many may have
forgotten, _viz._: that the Transvaal Republic, under President
Pretorius, made it penal for any one (£500 fine) finding precious stones
or metals on his farm to reveal such discovery to any one except the
government, and it was not until during the more liberal _régime_ of
President Burgers that this absurd piece of senile legislation was
rescinded or fell into abeyance.
But as I say, to come to modern times—Mr. H. Hartley, the celebrated
elephant hunter and explorer, while shooting in the Matabele country in
1866, was led to suspect the existence of gold in that country, and so
excited was he from what he saw, and also from the current stories
afloat, that on the next trip which he took in the following year he
brought with him a young German traveller, the late Carl Mauch, to aid
him in discovering the truth or falsehood of these reports. Mauch wrote
in the most glowing terms of what he saw, and of the wonderful richness
of the quartz that he found, the result being that after the formation
of various colonial companies Sir John Swinburne and Capt. Levert,
representing the London and Limpopo Mining Co., came out from England in
1868, fully equipped, and proceeded to the Tati gold fields, of which
district Capt. Levert had got a grant from Umzelegatzi. These fields,
extending from northwest to southeast, a distance of forty miles long by
fourteen broad, are in 21° 27′ S. Lat., and 27° 40′ E. Long. There are
on the settlement itself, according to Alfred G. Lock, F.R.G.S., eleven
mines (in fact nine different companies were formed) from which gold has
been taken, and these are all situated, he says, on workings sixty to
seventy feet deep, of the age of which some idea may be gathered from
the fact that trees from 150 to 200 years old are now growing within
these ancient shafts. The workings of the Tati gold fields were
continued by Sir John Swinburne, and afterwards by August Griete, for
about three years, when they were abandoned. One Australian miner,
however, remained behind, working on what was named the New Zealand
Reef, and his efforts were sufficiently successful to induce Mr. D.
Francis of Kimberley, to apply to Benguela, the Matabele king, for Sir
J. Swinburne’s concession, which he obtained, but up to the present time
operations have been conducted without much success,
The discovery of other gold fields 350 miles to the northeast of the
Tati followed in a few weeks that of these fields. In October, 1868,
McNeil of D’Urban, with other members of the D’Urban Volunteer
Artillery, of which corps he was then Lieutenant, left Natal, went first
to the Tati, and then proceeded to what were termed the Northern gold
fields, but on fever breaking out among the party, and several dying,
the survivors thought it more prudent to return.
In 1871, five years after Hartley’s discoveries, Mr. E. Button, a
well-known Natal colonist who in 1868 and 1869 had prospected the
country northeast of Lydenburg, nearly as far as the water-shed of the
Zambezi, found gold upon his farm Eersteling, in the district of
Marabastad, which was a new departure in gold discovery farther to the
south.
Proceeding to England, he formed a company, The Transvaal Gold Mining
Co., with a capital of £50,000, and returned to the Transvaal with a
mining engineer of experience, and also with powerful machinery.
Although troubled with many difficulties, but principally with water in
his main shaft, he worked away with varying success until the Boer war
of 1881 put an entire stop to his efforts. The Boers, in their desperate
need at the time, made a complete wreck of his machinery, being
constrained, through want of ammunition, to cut up even the stamper-rods
of the battery, to mould into cannon balls.
The next move in a southerly direction was the finding of gold by Mr.
Lachlan and others, in September, 1873, on the Blyde (or Joyful) River,
at Pilgrims’ Rest, at Mac Mac; close by, and at Spitzkop, a solitary
hill twenty miles distant. These alluvial diggings supported from 5 to
800 diggers, and Pilgrims’ Rest became for a time a place of
considerable importance, until the principal creek being nearly worked
out, and many diggers in consequence leaving, the government virtually
drove the remainder away by granting a concession to a company formed by
Mr. David Benjamin. This concession gave power to the company to remove
all diggers on payment of compensation, which was made to the amount of
£55,000. It is a subject of regret, however, that the same want of
success has followed this company as that which has hitherto attended
the Lisbon and Berlyn, the company in connection with which the name of
Baron Grant has so prominently figured.
[Illustration]