The gun, it appears, was conveyed to Lourenco Marques in a small French barque, Herbert Rhodes accompanying it. At night it was lowered into a boat, which was rowed up the Maputa River to a specified landing-place. Sekukuni had sent an induna bearing the pint of diamonds and accompanied by a number of carriers, with directions to keep to the valley of the Olifant River as far as the Lebomba Range, and then to skirt the eastern slope of that range to the Komati River. Here they were to await a message telling of the arrival of the gun.
Herbert Rhodes was not alone a first-rate boxer, but was unduly fond of giving practical illustration of his skill. On board the barque he quarreled with another man and gave the latter a severe thrashing. This man nursed revengeful feelings. Having found out about the forwarding of the gun, he managed to slip ashore early on the following morning and give information to the authorities. The Portuguese commander at once made preparations to send a company of soldiers for the purpose of apprehending the gun-runners. In the meantime a man at Lourenco Marques who was in Herbert Rhodes's confidence dispatched a swift runner ahead to warn Rhodes of his danger. This runner arrived some considerable time before the soldiers, so Rhodes had ample time in which to make preparations.
The way he dealt with the difficulty was simple and ought to have been effective. He tied a rope to the gun and a piece of twine to the rope. Then he flung rope and gun into the river, fastened the end of the twine to a floating fragment of wood, lit a cigarette, and sat down to await developments. In due time the Portuguese force arrived. The officer in charge was accompanied by an interpreter. Rhodes and his companions were at once arrested. The former protested hotly, and inquired in indignant terms as to the reason for such an outrage. When informed of the charge against him he affected the greatest astonishment, and challenged the officer to institute a search. This was done at once, and thoroughly; needless to say, nothing of an incriminating nature was found.
The officer now changed his tone, becoming very apologetic. He probably knew by experience that for a blunder such as this evidently, was, he, rather than his superior, would have to bear the brunt. But Rhodes was implacable; the world, he said, would ring with the outrage. As soon as the British Government learned of the disgraceful manner in which one of its subjects had been treated, a man-of-war would be sent round from Simon's Town to knock the Portuguese shanties about the Portuguese ears, &c. The officer, now thoroughly frightened, became more and more abject. However, Rhodes determined to get full change out of him before climbing from his high horse. But he delayed too long; he failed to make use of the loophole of escape that Fortune showed him.
Rhodes forgot three things, namely, that the Maputa is a tidal river, that several hours had elapsed since the gun had been heaved overboard, and that the tide was falling. One of the soldiers, in strolling about, noticed something unusual just beneath the surface of the water. To this he called the attention of a noncommissioned officer. The latter investigated further, and the gun was hauled out. Rhodes now tumbled incontinently from his high horse and the officer at once mounted it. The search party marched back in triumph to Lourenco Marques, escorting Rhodes and his companions as prisoners. The companions were placed at once on board their ship.
Herbert Rhodes, now in sorry case, was incarcerated in the fortress. This, in the seventies, was a horrible place in which to be confined. The cells were small, dark, and verminous; the flagged passages full of man-traps in the form of unexpected steps. I do not know what part of the building the prisoner was confined in, but if his cell were anything like the one from which, in 1874, I helped to carry the dead body of my poor friend Pat Foote, he was not to be envied. However, the durance apparently did not last long. The captive probably made himself disagreeable a thing he could do most effectively. He was, perhaps, found to be an embarrassment. Possibly that potent solver of difficulties, palm-oil, may have greased the bolts of his dungeon so effectively that they slipped back some dark, convenient night. At all events he got away after a comparatively short imprisonment. Nothing has been recorded as to what became of the pint of diamonds.
Herbert Rhodes came to a terrible end. A few years after the event just related, he was living in a hut on the shores of Lake Nyassa. One night, accompanied by a friend, he returned from a journey. Desiring refreshment he found none available except some Johanna rum in an unopened keg. This liquor is extremely strong and highly inflammable. Rhodes knocked in the bung; some of the spirit spurted out and became ignited.
The keg burst and the contents wrapped the unhappy man in a sheet of flame. After this had with difficulty been quenched, a messenger was dispatched to Blantyre, some forty miles away, to call for medical aid. I believe it was Dr. Jane Waterston, now of Cape Town, who came to the sufferer's assistance. But he died in great agony shortly after her arrival.
Big gambling—Von Schlichmann—Norman Garstin—The painter of St. Michael's Mount—Start for the gold fields—"I am going to be hanged" Plentifulness of game—Snakes in an anthill—Nazareth—Game in the High Veld—Narrow escape from frost-bite—A shooting match—Lydenburg—Painful tramping—"Artful Joe"—Penalty for suicide—Pilgrim's Rest—Experiences of "a new chum"—Tent-making—Explorations—The Great Plateau—Prospect of the Low Country—Elands.
I was told the following tale on good authority. Three men held a claim jointly in the "New Rush" mine. They worked it for about six months, and found a considerable number of diamonds. The weather grew hot and the camp unhealthy; many were dying of fever. Duststorms raged, and the flies became almost intolerable. All three wanted to get away; they longed for the coast and the cool sea-breezes. One of the partners proposed that two of them should go away on a visit and the third stay behind to keep the claim going, the question as to who should stay being settled by lot. Another proposed, as an amendment, that they should toss "odd man out" who was to own the claim; then each could please himself. No sooner said than done. Three coins spun into the air, and two third portions of a claim, worth even then about 2,000, were lost and won within the space of ten seconds.
As might be imagined, gambling was very rife. I well remember one night looking on, awe-struck at the magnitude of the stakes, at a game of loo. The play took place at an eating-house called "The Gridiron," the proprietor of which was an ex-cavalry man named Richardson. The building was of the usual eating-house type; it had a wooden frame covered with canvas. At right angles to a central passage were tables with benches at each side, the tables being cut off from each other by partitions.
At the game in question there were four players: Richardson (the proprietor), H. B. Webb (a noted diamond dealer), his partner Joe Posno, and the celebrated Ikey Sonnenberg. Some idea of the magnitude of the stakes may be formed when it is stated that at one time 1,700 was in the pool.
A man I knew fairly well was Von Schlichmann. He had been secretary to Count Arnim when that unfortunate nobleman was German Ambassador to France. When Arnim fell, the possibilities of the diplomatic career, for which his secretary had been intended, were destroyed. Von Schlichmann was a man of extraordinary strength, and was remarkably handsome in both face and figure. His curled yellow hair was thick, long, and silky in texture. One of his favorite ways of showing his strength was to get four men to grasp handfuls of his locks, each with one hand, as firmly as they could. He would then sway his head round with a jerk, and the four would fall, sprawling, in different directions.
I think it was in 1875 that Von Schlichmann went north and entered the military service of the Transvaal. It was, I know, when preparations were being made to attack Sekukuni. I was one of those enrolled in the expedition that escorted the arms and ammunition for that campaign from Delagoa Bay to Pretoria in the latter part of 1874. So far as my memory serves me, Von Schlichmann arrived early in the following year. But he was killed in one of the attacks on Sekukuni's stronghold. When leading his men a bullet pierced his lungs. He lay exposed on the flat rock on which he fell, waving his sword and encouraging his men to advance to the attack, until blood choked his utterance. One of my best friends, a man named Macaulay, was shot on the same occasion. He received a bullet in the brain from which he, unfortunately, did not die until after several hours of great agony. Macaulay was noted at Pilgrim's Rest as the first in the locality who used dynamite in mining operations.
But I have allowed myself to run ahead too fast, so must hark back toKimberley, as "New Rush" had now come to be called.
One of my most intimate friends was Norman Garstin, a man whom to know was to love. Once he nearly frightened me to death. He had a habit of sleeping with his eyes wide open, but of this I was quite unaware. Returning home late one night I struck a match and saw him lying on his back, his eyes fixed and glassy. I seized him by the shoulders and, much to his disgust, dragged him into a sitting posture. Garstin was an accomplished draughtsman. His caricatures, which were never ill-natured, and his black and white "parables" brought him wide popularity in the days when we foregathered.
The Cape Times was started by Garstin in conjunction with the late Mr. F. Y. St. Leger. I forget exactly when this happened, but I think it was in the late seventies. After he had severed his connection with the Cape Times, Garstin went to Europe, where he studied serious art for several years. I was his guest at Newlyn, Penzance, in 1899; at the time of my visit he was patriarch of the well-known artist colony there. Garstin's pictures, although they have never been "boomed," and have consequently not reached public favor, are thought very highly of by other artists. To record that they have been hung in the Royal Academy is like saying of an author's books that they have been on sale in a railway bookstall. Two very beautiful examples of his work which I specially recall are "The Scarlet Letter" and "The Lost Piece of Silver."
Garstin told me a very significant tale. He kept an art school at Newlyn. One day an intelligent young Cornish miner came and asked to be received as a pupil; he at once paid a quarter's fees in advance. Then he informed Garstin that he wanted to learn to paint pictures of St. Michael's Mount. Garstin, finding that his pupil was ignorant of the very rudiments of painting, endeavored to explain that some preliminary training was necessary; but the young man would not argue the point. St. Michael's Mount, and nothing else, was to be the subject; all he wanted Garstin to do was to show him how to begin, and afterwards give him an occasional direction.
Canvas, easel, brushes, and paints were all purchased according to a list which Garstin supplied him with. He wanted, he said, everything of the best. A pupil is a pupil, especially when he pays in advance, and when pictures are not as saleable as they should be, so Garstin did all he could to further this particular pupil's desire. The latter was very apt; after a comparatively short time he was able to turn out some daubs, the meaning of which could be more or less recognized.
When he had outraged St. Michael's Mount from one side, Garstin's pupil attacked it from another. St. Michael's Mount at early morning, at high noon, at dewy eve, and at all intermediate hours; St. Michael's Mount in spring, in summer, in autumn, and in winter; St. Michael's Mount lapped by a calm sea, or smitten by spuming waves. He made uncanny progress. Before the second quarter was at an end this remarkable pupil had produced several presentments of the celebrated Cornish excrescence, which were not much worse than average lodging-house oleographs, and were quite as suggestive of their subject as is Turner's celebrated masterpiece. When the quarter came to an end, the pupil announced that he considered he had now learnt enough. Accordingly he left.
Shortly afterwards Garstin was astonished to hear that his former pupil had set up a studio on his own account at St. Ives, a few miles away. It was quite true. Here he sat all day long, painting pictures of St. Michael's Mount in assorted sizes. I forget how many pictures he finished each week, but the output was large. This is the explanation; Johannesburg at the time contained many Cornishmen; to the average Cornishman St. Michael's Mount is what Mecca is to the Moslem. Garstin's shrewd disciple had his daubs framed and sent to the Rand. Here they were all absorbed, fetching prices which left an average profit of 5 each. And all this time Garstin's own beautiful creations were wanting purchasers.
In 1873 rich alluvial gold was reported to have been struck in the Lydenburg district, which was then the extreme limit which civilization had reached in the north-eastern Transvaal. I decided to go and try my fortune at the scene of the discovery. While passing through Pretoria I met a man in the street whose face I thought I knew. He advanced towards me with outstretched hand. Yes, it was Cooper the man during whose wedding festivities the big circus-tent had been blown down. He greeted me with great effusion, a circumstance I thought remarkable, as I had not known him well. The day was warm, so I suggested that we should have a drink together. He agreed with alacrity, so we adjourned to the nearest bar.
"Well, Cooper," said I, "how are you getting on here?"
At once his face fell.
"Very badly indeed," he replied, and heaved a sigh.
"Why, what is the matter?"
"Well, the fact is, I am going to be hanged."
I thought he was joking, but it was not so; he was actually under sentence of death. He had gone on the spree and started painting Pretoria red some months previously. When a constable attempted to arrest him, he drew a revolver and shot the unfortunate officer fatally. In due course he was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged by the neck until dead.
"But, Cooper," I queried, "why don't they hang you?"
"Well," he replied, "they don't like hanging white men up here, and just now President Burgers is laying out a rose-garden. I understand that kind of thing, so I go down every day and attend to the work. I was just taking a stroll when I met you."
"Look here, Cooper," I said with emphasis, "if I were you I would clear out without delay. The State Attorney may change his mind; some new man may take on the job a man with strict ideas. Clear out while you can."
"Oh, I don't think there's any danger," replied Cooper, but he looked uneasy.
"Was it a white man or a black man that you shot?"
"It was a white man, right enough."
"Then clear out while there is still time," said I.
Some months afterwards I met a Pretoria man named Brodrick at Pilgrim's Rest. I inquired about Cooper. What Brodrick told me proved the soundness of my advice. The Executive Council had suddenly awakened to a sense of its duty, and decided to allow the law to take its course. Fortunately Brodrick and some others got wind of this, so they managed to get the culprit out of gaol. Mounted on one horse and leading another, Cooper rode for his life westward towards Bechuanaland, pursued by the Transvaal police. However, he escaped. I have never heard of him since.
Game was plentiful at certain places along the road. I remember a locality called "Leeuw Dooms" where blesbuck, wildebeeste, and quagga were in almost incredible abundance. As far as the eye could reach the veld was dappled with herds of these and other animals. So far as I can remember, this place was about three days' wagon journey beyond Pretoria.
Before reaching Pretoria we outspanned near the winkel of a man named Jacobi, a former resident of Cradock. This was within a few miles of where Johannesburg stands today. I remember Jacobi telling me that a nugget of gold had been found in the drift of a river close to his house. Here I had an adventure.
I took my rifle and strolled down the riverbank after some reedbuck, which I had been told were to be found there. I wounded a buck; it hobbled away with difficulty. I ran after it, but the grass was long, and I had a difficulty in keeping the animal in sight. In my course stood an ant-hill about four feet high. Endeavoring to get within view of the buck, I sprang to the top of the ant-hill, but it was hollow, and the crust collapsed under me. I looked down and found that several snakes were crawling and writhing about my feet. I had some difficulty in getting out, for as soon as I got foothold on the edge it broke under my weight. The weather was cold, and the snakes had taken refuge in the cavity.
I reached the town of Nazareth (now called Middelburg ) early one morning. The houses numbered, I should say, from thirty to forty, and stood somewhat wide apart from each other. In making my way to a shop which stood about in the middle of the township, and which had a very high stoep, I noticed that the streets were full of game spoors. I spoke of this to the storekeeper.
"Oh, yes," he replied, "the game comes in here every night. Look there."
I glanced in the direction indicated. Just beyond the outskirts of the town were herds of wildebeeste, blesbuck, and quagga grazing quietly about, like so many herds of cattle. But they were not so tame as they looked, as I found later in the day, when I went towards them with my rifle.
In passing through the High Veld, as the country to the north-east of Nazareth was called, I first saw the spoor of a lion. I left the wagon, which had been obliged to make a very wide detour for the purpose of avoiding swampy ground, and was making straight across country towards a point close to which I knew the road passed. On my left was a very large leegte, a shallow, nearly level valley. For miles of its course this was filled with swamp, out of which tall reeds grew.
Game was very abundant. I shot several blesbuck and wildebeeste, I am sorry to say, for the gratification of mere lust of slaughter, as I could not possibly carry away the meat. In passing over a graveled ridge I noticed a dried drop of blood. I looked more closely and found the tracks of some large animal. This I followed, in the direction of the reeds, until I reached some sandy ground. Then I saw that the track was undoubtedly that of a lion. The animal had evidently killed during the previous night and carried the meat to its lair among the reeds. But this was a mere guess; I did not pursue my investigations.
Next day I left the wagon long before daylight, and started for another tramp this time along a course I had mapped out the previous afternoon. It was bitterly and unseasonably cold. There was no wind, but the hoar-frost lay almost as thick as if a fairly heavy shower of snow had fallen. I was wearing veldschoens, but had no socks. As I trampled through the grass the frost spicules from the tussocks I brushed against filled the spaces between the leather and my feet.
I began to suffer excruciating pain. I thought day would never break. My feet felt as though they did not belong to me. Soon they ceased to be painful, but the pain-area had traveled up my legs. Having heard of frost-bite and its serious effects, I became much alarmed.
Day broke at length. There was so far no game in sight. I thought of kindling a fire, but could find no fuel. Just ahead a low, narrow dyke crossed my course. I crept to this on my hands and knees, and peered through the stones. Yes, there stood a small herd of blesbuck; they were not more than eighty yards away. With great difficulty, for the light was still bad and I was shaking like an aspen, I got my bead on the largest buck. I fired; the animal sprang into the air and rolled over. I hobbled forward to where the creature lay. It was stone dead; shot through the heart. I pulled the carcass up to a convenient stone, cut it open with my hunting knife and thrust my feet into its interior. During the ensuing half-hour I think I suffered more intense physical agony than I have ever endured in the same period of time. My feet must have been very nearly frost-bitten, and the process of circulation being restored was exquisitely painful. I verily believe that my life was saved through the accident of those blesbucks being behind the dyke and close enough for me to be able to kill one. The sun was high in the heavens before I was able to resume my journey.
One day I came across an encampment of Boer hunters. Tired of killing game, they were indulging in the diversion of a shooting-match. I was cordially welcomed, and invited to join in the competition. The farmers had brought their families with them; some dozen or so wagons had been outspanned together, and several tents had been pitched.
Girls, some of them very pretty, dispensed coffee in kommetjes to the competitors. The competition was arranged on very peculiar lines. The targets were circular, and could not have measured more than about five inches in diameter. The range was a hundred paces. Each competitor lay on a feather-bed, which was covered with a kaross, and rested his rifle on a pile of pillows. The price of a lootje that is to say, the fee for entry was sixpence, and each could take as many lootjes as he liked. The number of shots fired in each case was five, and these were fired in succession. The prizes were sheep, sacks of meal, and small casks of vinegar.
In spite of the smallness of the target there were but few misses. Shots were judged to a hair's-breadth, and the judging was perfectly fair. Strangely enough I managed to win a sack of meal and a barrel of vinegar. As these were of no use to me, I exchanged them for fifteen shillings and a hundred Westley Richards cartridges. My shooting caused me to find favor in the eyes of these farmers; I was cordially invited to remain and hunt with them for as long as I liked. I might have done worse than accept; the life they were leading was a lordly one. However, I had to bid them a regretful farewell. Then I tramped on after the wagon.
The people with whom I was traveling did not go beyond Lydenburg, so from there I had to tramp to Pilgrim's Rest, my destination, a distance of about forty miles. I tied my worldly possessions into a "swag" a process in which I was skillfully assisted by an old miner, with whom I casually foregathered. Then I set forth with three companions, likewise casual acquaintances. We all belonged to that despised class known as "new chums" that is, men who were without practical experience in the art of goldmining.
We started early in the afternoon. Our pilgrimage was a painful one; my swag was heavy, and the straps galled my unaccustomed shoulders. After walking about fifteen miles we camped in a small grove of trees. Here we shivered through an apparently interminable night around an inadequate fire. None of us were experienced bushmen, and we had neglected to gather sufficient fuel. The wind was cold, and I had not then acquired that toughness of fiber and insensibility to extremes of heat and cold which long wanderings and many hardships afterwards gave me.
Two only of my companions are worth recalling. One was an ex-larrikin from Melbourne, who went by the name of "Artful Joe"; his real name I never learnt. Joe had been the victim of a horrible accident in the Kimberley mine about a year previously. He had fallen from one of the "roads" sixty feet sheer on to a sorting table at the bottom of the claim. Both his legs had been broken in several places. I was not present when the accident occurred, but I witnessed the tedious and terrible process of hoisting the injured man out of the pit and conveying him to the hospital. With the exception of a slight lameness, and of being more or less bandy-legged, Joe had not suffered much permanent injury.
He sang many comic songs to cheer us up during that night of dolor, filling the intervals between the ditties with anathemas against his South African luck and realistic stories of his Australian experiences. He had lived, he told us, for several years by earning pennies in the Melbourne streets. Outside the sculleries of the large hotels, or where banquets had been held, barrels of 'feast fragments used to be set. In these barrels the street-public were allowed to "dab" with a fork, at the rate of a penny a time, for discarded fragments of food. Occasionally a rich reward would fall to the enterprising "dabber." Joe's most dazzling stroke of luck happened once when he dabbed out a whole fowl (feaoul, he called it). This must have been rendered possible through some extraordinary lapse of culinary carefulness. The description was so appetizing that I am sure the wraith of that long-digested bird hovered over our meager banquet.
The second pilgrim was a Jew named L.
He was extremely short of stature, but wore the biggest boots I have ever seen; literally, they covered him to the waist. L, never having previously roughed it, was the greatest sufferer; his misery was so great that he wept bitterly, refusing to be comforted. He sickened us through his utter want of grit. When, towards morning, he slept, I took his boots and hid them behind a bush some distance away. His lamentations on missing them were long and loud.
The third of my companions was a mere tramp, sodden with drink a man utterly without significance, except as an example of what to avoid.
Some months afterwards, at Pilgrim's Rest, L attempted to commit suicide by hanging himself. He was cut down before life was extinct, and on recovery was prosecuted for felo-de-se. At the time Major Macdonald, the Gold Commissioner, happened to be away, his place being temporarily filled by Mr. Mansfield, the postmaster. The terms used by the latter in sentencing L caused great amusement.
They were as follows:
"As you have been guilty of an attempt only, I will fine you 5, but if you had succeeded I should have felt bound to pass a much more severe sentence."
"Artful Joe" and I were the only two members of the party who were fit to travel next day, so after leaving the others the largest share of our joint stock of provisions (meal and tea), and restoring the boots to their disconsolate owner, we went on. We abandoned the road and traveled by a footpath across country in the compass direction of our objective. It was in the middle of a calm, sunny afternoon that we reached the eastern edge of the mountain plateau overlooking the Blyde River Valley. The prospect was a magnificent one. North and south the great mountain ranges rolled away, seemingly to infinity. Before us, winding down through the range on the opposite side of the valley, lay Pilgrim's Creek, the goal of our long endeavor.
Between two and three miles from where the creek flowed into the Blyde River lay the little township. Among the farther sinuosities of the valley were groups of tents. With the eye of imagination we could almost detect the nuggets gleaming at the bottom of the stream. We had not yet learnt the gold-diggers' variant of a well-known proverb: "Nothing is gold that glitters."
We scrambled down the steep mountain-side, between patches of forest and over reefs of quartz. The latter had a special interest for us; we were now in the land of gold and who could tell where the clues of Fortune were not to be picked up? That afternoon the world was full of glorious possibilities.
We waded across the Blyde River drift and ascended the slope towards the town, which nestled behind a stony rise. Soon, with light hearts and lighter pockets (mine contained but seven shillings), we trudged up the one and only street. Here and there stood a digger, or a storekeeper, glancing with amused contempt at the raw "new chums." I happened to be wearing a pair of new moleskin breeches that were several sizes too wide for me. These were the occasion of a good deal of derisive comment. One man sang out to a friend across the street
"Say, Jim, them looks like town-made legs and country made trousers, eh?"
Joe's limp, also, was the subject of ribaldry. On the whole we must have been a strange looking pair. Feeling rather small under the scrutiny (not bethinking us that within a very few months we would be putting on similar airs of superiority towards weary tramps arriving under like conditions) we were glad when we had passed through the township. We strolled up the winding valley, admiring the landscape and wondering how we were going to set about earning a living. The scenery was enchanting, but scenery by itself is not a satisfying diet.
On our course up the creek we passed numbers of parties at work. Owing to the rugged nature of the Pilgrim's Valley, the pathway zigzagged a great deal. Some acquaintances of mine were said to be working among the terraces high up far beyond the Middle Camp and their tent was my objective. Once we heard a cheery hail from the bed of the creek, and saw a man waving a tin pannikin at us. This meant an invitation to tea, which we gladly accepted. The claim was worked by a couple of Australians; they were on a fair lead, so they told us. They gave us a supply of tobacco, and told us to call round again as soon as we "got stony," and they would see what they could do for us. This evidence of sympathy gave me, at least, a feeling of confidence which I badly needed.
We reached the Middle Camp; as we passed Tom Craddock's bar a stalwart, bearded, and more or less inebriated digger came out with vociferous welcome and insisted on our going in and drinking at his expense. In the bar was a man I knew; seeing him had the effect of making me feel more or less at home. We sat and rested for a few moments; then I got hold of the idea that we were expected to stand return treat to our host and his friends. In this I was, as it happened, quite mistaken. Joe had no money whatever, so I had to pay. My capital was now reduced to two shillings.
The man I met in the bar, whom I knew, told me that the friends I was seeking had, a few days previously, moved down creek. We had passed their camp without knowing it, a couple of miles back. Joe and I were now dog-tired, so decided to go back to a warm nook we had noticed in a kloof on the way up, and spend the night there. We reached this spot just as night was falling, and "dossed" down. Fuel was plentiful, so we made a lordly fire. We worked up our remaining meal into dampers and cooked them in the ashes. We found there was enough tea left for two brews; one of these we prepared at once. Then we filled our pipes with some of the kind Australians' seasonable gift, and sat puffing in a condition of mind that approached contentment.
It had been tacitly assumed that Joe and I were to be mates, although nothing definite had been said on the subject. We conversed for a while after supper; then silence fell upon us. I spoke several times to Joe, but he did not answer. Just as I was wrapping myself in my blanket for the night, Joe turned abruptly to me and said:
"Look here, I ain't your sort; you'll get a better mate. We'll shake hands in the morning and say goodbye."
When I awoke in the grey dawn Joe had already risen, lit the fire, packed his swag, and brewed our last pinch of tea in the billy. We drank to each other's good fortune in silence. Then, after a hand-press, Joe humped his swag and strode away, leaving me with moistened eyes. I felt I had lost my only friend. I have foregathered with much worse men than "Artful Joe."
Early that day I found my friends, some men I had known at Kimberley. They agreed to allow me to work with them for my keep, my services then not being worth more. I knew nothing whatever about gold-mining, and, not having performed any manual labor for some time, my hands were soft. Every new chum had to undergo the purgatorial experience of having his palms blistered and re-blistered until continued contact with the handles of pick and shovel made them horny. However, I soon matriculated at the sluice-box, and was able to do a fair day's work. Then, as my friends could not afford to pay wages they were, for the time, off the "lead," I sought another employer. Work was easily found. The uniform rate of wages for Europeans was an ounce of gold per week, the value thereof being about 3 12s. 6d.
With my first earnings I bought some double width unbleached calico and a palm and needle. By means of these I made myself a small tent. The cost of the material was about seventeen shillings, and the work was easily finished in the course of four or five evenings. I had not been living in this tent for more than ten days when a man, who was about to start on a prospecting trip, bought it over my head for 1pound 15s. I must have made, and sold at a profit, quite a dozen tents during my stay at Pilgrim's Rest. In fact I soon got to be known as "that chap who always has a tent to sell." When a purchaser came along I would deliver the tent at once, and move my few belongings to the dwelling of some friend or another who happened to have room to spare.
I lived very sparingly indeed; two shillings per diem paid for my food and tobacco. I hoarded every penny like a miser. I longed to prospect, to explore; but before attempting this it was necessary to have a few pounds in hand. On Sundays it was my habit to walk to the top of the "Divide," the backbone of the mountain range. On one side of it lay Pilgrim's Rest, on the other "Mac Mac," another mining camp so called on account of most of the diggers there in the first instance having been Scotsmen. From this lofty coign I could occasionally get far and faint glimpses of the mysterious "Low Country," which was just visible (in clear weather) over the intervening precipice-edged plateau which lay beyond the Mac Mac and Waterfall Creeks.
Sixty miles away to the north-east, but clearly visible in the rarefied mountain air, towered the mighty gates through which the Olifant River roared down to meet the Letaba. On their left the great ranges rolled away to the infinite north-west. What direction first to explore in? That was a difficult question to decide, seeing that the field for adventure was equally enticing in every direction.
Beyond the deep valley in which Mac Mac nestled arose gradually a great, shelving tract. In rough outline it resembled a plateau, but the explorer found it to be much broken up and intersected by ravines, some of which were impassable for miles of their length. This plateau was very extensive; in fact, it stretched indefinitely to the north-east, the only break in that direction being the distant gates of the Oliphant. But on the south-east it ended in an enormous precipice, occasionally several thousand feet in sheer height.
The view from the edge of this precipice was marvelous. From the lower margin of the mighty wall the broken hills, covered with virgin forest, fell away with lessening steepness to the plains. These, also, were covered with trees; here, however, the woodland had a different character, for there was little or no undergrowth. The plains stretched away, to an immense distance. It was in this tract, far below the gazer on the cliff-edge, that romance dwelt in the tents of enchantment. Over it roamed the buffalo, the koodoo, and the giraffe. In the dark hour just before dawn the dew-laden boughs shrouding it trembled to the thunder-tones of the lion as he roared over his kill. Above all, its thickets of mystery had hardly been trodden by the foot of civilized man.
Even on the plateau itself large game was occasionally to be found. Some lion, more enterprising than his fellows, would lead his mate and her brood up one of the dizzy clefts in the precipice to prey on the cattle which, in seasons of drought, the Lydenburg farmers occasionally sent here for the sake of the rich pasturage.
One morning, when brewing a billy of tea in a small rocky basin, I heard the sound of trampling. Looking round I saw nine elands descending the side of the depression and making straight for me. They came to within about eighty yards and then stood. The leader was an immense bull by far the largest I have ever seen. All looked as sleek and fat as stall-fed cattle. My only weapon was an old Colt revolver. How I cursed my bad luck in not having a rifle. After gazing at me for a few seconds the elands galloped on, changing their course slightly to the right. They passed within less than fifty yards of my fire.
Extended rambles—View from the mountain top—An unknown land—The deadly fever—Gray's fate—Lack of nursing—Temperature rises after death Pilgrim's Rest in early days—The prison—The stocks—No color line—John Cameron in trouble—The creek "lead"—Plenty of gold—Wild peaches Massacres of natives in old days—Kameel—His expressions—Life on the creek—Major Macdonald—The parson—Boulders—Bad accidents—A quaint signboard—"Reefing Charlie".
As the days lengthened out I began to extend the scope of my weekly rambles. Instead of starting on Sunday I would do so on Saturday afternoon, as soon as work in the claim had ceased. Four hours stiff walking would take me over the Divide, and almost across the plateau beyond the Mac Mac River. At some suitable spot I would camp for the night. Next morning's dawn would find me on my way to the edge of the beetling cliff. However, sunrise was rarely a striking spectacle from there, for the reason that usually and more especially in the morning the Low Country was shrouded in haze. It was later, when the sun had climbed high and the haze had somewhat dissipated, that the prospect grew most enthralling. But haze, although its density varied considerably from time to time, was rarely absent from the regions lying eastward.
This almost continuous barrier to very distant vision used to annoy me considerably, for my eyes strove greedily to gather up details of the most remote tracts within their range. Once, on an unusually clear day, I caught sight of the Lebomba about eighty miles away. The very name of this then mysterious region used to thrill me with romance. How I longed to explore its heights which, after all, turned out not to be so very high and to plunge into its seaward hollows. How I girded at the vapor that almost continually shrouded it. But I am now inclined to believe that the glamour which made the prospect seen from the cliff-edge so rich, was largely due to the diaphanous impediment to complete vision. This, by hiding or allowing only a bare hint of the details, gave full play to the imagination.
It must be borne in mind that in the early seventies the vast stretch of country below the mountain range was practically an unknown land. No map of it existed; its geography was but vaguely rumored of. We knew that great rivers the Crocodile and the Komati, the Olifant, the Letaba, and the lordly Limpopo, in whose depths Leviathan and Behemoth wallowed flowed through its enchanted pastures, and that wild game of infinite variety and plentiful beyond the desire of the keenest hunter nightly slaked their thirst at these mysterious streams.
And yet for more than half of the year that dream-like and translucent haze which spread like a pearl tinted veil over the romance-filled woodland tract, was a veritable shadow of death. In the earlier days men bent on sport, on prospecting or on adventure, pure and simple, climbed light-heartedly down the steep mountain stairs at all times and seasons little reckoning that it would have saved them much needless misery if they had, instead, leaped headlong from the towering cliffs. For from November to May, fever stalked abroad over the plains and among the foothills, seeking human prey, and hardly any who ventured during these months into the dominion of the fever king escaped his blighting grip. The few who managed to save their lives were doomed to months or even years of misery.
This could only be learnt by bitter experience.
In the autumn of 1873, five and thirty men descended to the Low Country; of these I think twenty seven died. During the following year we took warning, and none, with the exception of the Alexandre party, attempted exploration before June. Consequently there were not, so far as I remember, any fatalities; from June to October the Low Country was healthy enough. But the memory of other people's experience fades quickly; in 1875 some of us again undertook the trip too early. Six started, one of these happened to be my "mate," who did not go down as far as the others, and so escaped. The others were Thomas Shires, Meek, Schwiegardt, McKinnon, and myself. I started on the 5th of April, at least two months too early, the others about the same time. Of the five, the three first mentioned died where they took the infection. McKinnon and I managed to get back; we reached Mac Mac on the same day, as it happened, traveling by different paths. Poor McKinnon, who was of robust, powerful physique, died about a month afterwards. I, whose build was extremely light, had a comparatively mild attack, but I felt its effect for years. Of the men who recovered, the great majority were of the lean kind. It was, in fact, proverbial that the less flesh one had on one's bones, the better were the chances of recovery.
One extremely sad case was that of a man named Gray, whom I knew well. He went down with fever at the poisonous Mattol Marsh, about thirty miles from Delagoa Bay, in 1873. His mate went on to Lourenco Marques to get supplies and hire bearers, leaving the sick man alone in a small tent, with a limited supply of food and water. The mate got drunk and remained so whilst the money he had with him lasted, a period of about ten days. Then first he bethought him of Gray. Assistance was sent, but it arrived too late; Gray was dead of thirst and starvation. I found his grave the following year. Some pitiful Christian had made a rough cross by tying two boughs together, and had stuck it into the sand at the head. What made Gray's case sadder, if possible, was the circumstance that letters were even then awaiting him at Lourenco Marques with the news that he had inherited a fortune.
There can be no doubt that the heavy mortality among those who returned to camp ill with fever was due to the fact that no medical man was available that is, in the early days and that we knew nothing whatever of the principles of nursing. One instance I recall illustrates this very forcibly. A man had been ill with fever for upwards of two months. The case was a bad one, but at length the patient appeared to rally. One night he sat up in bed and announced that he had completely recovered and was extremely hungry. On being asked what he would like to eat he begged for bread and sardines. These were immediately provided, the bread being coarse and brown. He ate with avidity, and every one present felt the greatest satisfaction. Within a few hours he was dead.
One weird circumstance connected with these fatalities was this; in some instances the temperature of the bodies would rise after death and continue to rise for several hours. This, I have been told, was due to the fever ferment in the blood and tissues developing unchecked, and its products setting up strong chemical action. It was hard, in these instances, to believe that death had actually taken place, so attempts at resuscitation used to be resorted to. I was afterwards told by a medical man from Barberton that a similar phenomenon was noticed there in fever cases the temperature sometimes rising after death to 110 degrees Fahrenheit.
Pilgrim's Rest, during the first few years after gold had been discovered there, was an interesting and delightful place. Those whose experience of mining camps is limited to ones in which the syndicate or the company holds sway, can form no idea of the life of a community where the individual digger is dominant. I am prepared to maintain that life was healthier, saner, and on the whole more generally satisfactory at Pilgrim's Rest in the early seventies than it is in any South African community today. There was, of course, the inevitable percentage of loafers, idlers, and scoundrels, but these were kept in their proper place. Public opinion was a very effective force; in matters affecting the general welfare of the community, opinion quickly translated itself into action when the occasion demanded it. Thus the blackguards knew perfectly well that if official justice occasionally halted, its unofficial equivalent was apt to be short, sharp, and decisive in its operation. The prison was a bell-tent containing two sets of stocks. Under ordinary circumstances a prisoner was accommodated by having both his legs secured. However, occasionally, when an unusually large number of culprits were run in, they had to be content with only one wooden anklet apiece. No color line was drawn, except, to a certain extent, in the matter of the application of the "cat." Natives and colored men were flogged for whatever offence they happened to be found guilty of. Europeans were fined, with the alternative of imprisonment, except in the case of a serious offence such as tent-robbing, for instance. For such a crime, an almost unpardonable one in a scattered r mining camp, where tents had very often to be left unprotected the white man got his five and twenty as a matter of course. I only knew of one case of tent-robbing by a native. This was in the early days. The culprit was shot on the spot and thrown down a disused shaft. No questions on the subject were asked.
I will illustrate what I mean by saying that no color line was drawn. I once had a mate, John Cameron, a Highlander from Skye. John usually became inebriated on Saturday night, but would turn up very early on Sunday morning. One such morning he did not appear. While I was at breakfast a passing digger told me that my mate was in gaol for assaulting a policeman.
I started off to see what could be done. The gaol was about four miles from where I lived. I arrived there in due course. There was no one to prevent my entering, for the prisoners were secured so well in the heavy, iron-bound stocks that escape was an impossibility. I found poor John secured by one foot and lying on the ground between two similarly secured Kaffirs. He was in a horrid condition, as, being a powerful man, it had been found necessary to stun him with a club before his arrest could be effected.
It was a fortunate circumstance that I knew Major Macdonald, the Gold Commissioner, fairly well, and that he was owing to a successful game of poker the previous night in an unusually good temper. He penciled an order for John's release. After some difficulty I found the gaoler and got him although with a bad grace, for John had acted in a really outrageous manner to obey the order.
All nationalities were represented among the diggers, but English South Africans predominated. Soon, however, an increasing population of Australian, New Zealand, and Californian miners poured in. The "field" was a rich one. The "lead," which zigzagged perplexingly down between the valley terraces, carried plenty of gold. It was, of course, uneven, some parts of it being much richer than others but I do not think that there was any portion of the lead which it did not pay to work. But the lead and the bed of the creek in which the water actually ran zigzagged quite independently of each other. That is to say, at the time when the gold was carried down and distributed by water along the bottom of the valley countless ages ago, the stream then flowing although it followed the same general direction took in detail a course quite different from the one it followed when the busy gold seekers defaced its banks in the days I write of.
Much more gold was found than is generally supposed. I remember four very quiet, reticent men who worked out three and a half rather shallow claims just in front of what was known as the Middle Camp. They never spoke of what they were finding and it would have been a most serious breach of local etiquette to make any inquiry upon such a subject but upon leaving they authorized the manager of the bank to make public the fact that they had divided, on dissolution of the partnership, gold to the value of 35,000. Many others also did well, but none to the same extent as the partnership referred to. Some very large nuggets were found. I personally handled one which weighed 10 lb. It was unearthed by the late John Barrington, afterwards of Knysna.
The wild peaches which grew so plentifully in the vicinity of the Blyde River Valley were a godsend to indigent "Pilgrims." How the trees originated is a mystery. But there they were, on the "flats" of Pilgrim's Creek, along the Blyde River terraces and in many of the surrounding Valleys, groves of trees bearing luscious peaches of the yellow clingstone variety. Although the trees were ungrafted, unpruned, and, in fact, had not been interfered with by meddling man since the germination of the stones that gave them auspicious birth, the size and flavor of the fruit were ail that could be desired.
One gold-bearing creek was called "Peach Tree," on account of the number of trees there growing. Near the upper end of the worked portion of Pilgrim's Creek was a dense orchard that bore splendidly. But, alas! they grew over "pay dirt," and in consequence were ruthlessly uprooted. I am positive that the occurrence of these trees was quite adventitious; they did not appear to have been planted with any regard to order, nor as a rule were they found in localities suitable for homesteads.
I have often speculated as to the origin of these peach-trees. Did some thoughtful old voortrekker carry peach stones in his pocket, and, as Admiral Rodney was wont to do with acorns, plant them here and there for the benefit of posterity? Or did some small boy voortrekker, munching, from the pocket of his blesbuck-skin jacket, dried fruit sent up by some kind tante from the far south, carelessly throw aside a stone which had been accidentally included, and was that the ancestor of those trees which used to afford us so many delightful feasts?
About half a century before the days I write of, the then thickly populated region surrounding these goldfields was turned into a shambles and a solitude by, the horde of the terrible Ma 'Ntatisi, chieftainess of the Bathlokua. This tribe was driven from its territory at and around the sources of the Vaal River by the Amahlubi, at the beginning of the upheaval caused by Tshaka, the Zulu king. On many a level mountain terrace can still be seen the circular stone walls indicating where populous villages once stood. Many clans, some large and some small, had inhabited the fertile valleys of the Drakensberg between what is now Wakkerstroom and the Olifant River. They lived in comparative peace with one another. Occasional tribal fights took place, but the victors never attempted to ruin the vanquished or to take their territory.
Ma 'Ntatisi's horde literally obliterated these communities. Probably the number of people who escaped the slaughter did not amount to five per cent of the whole.
Old "Kameel" was one of the survivors. He was a native who, with his family and a few goats, lived at a kraal on a ledge to the right of the creek, about half a mile above the Lower Camp.
Kameel showed me the cave, overlooking the Blyde River Valley, in which he and his mother had hidden themselves while spear and firebrand were erasing his tribe from the face of the surrounding country. This cave could only be entered by climbing up the trunk of a white ironwood-tree and stepping on to a ledge from one of its branches. Other fugitives, Kameel told me, sought the hiding-place during the night, but his mother, fearing that their tracks would be followed, escaped with her children to another refuge during the darkness. It was fortunate that they did this, for the spoilers found the tracks leading to the cavern and massacred every soul it contained. Probably today it still conceals the gruesome pile of bones principally of women and children which I saw in it in 1874.
Kameel was a character in his way. He had spent his life a law unto himself and his family on the little ledge where the kraal he inhabited stood. Being, in spite of his years, a strong active man and a skilled hunter, Kameel was in great demand among those who, like myself, endeavored to combine sport with prospecting on their trips. He accompanied me on several of the longer expeditions which I undertook.
Through listening to the conversation of his employers, whose language was apt to be "painful and frequent and free" on slight provocation, Kameel had picked up some stock expressions which were very amusing. I cannot, unfortunately, bowdlerize the best of these without spoiling them, so I will endeavor to give a few examples of the less forceful. If, for instance, Kameel wanted to indicate size, importance, force, or greatness as an attribute of anything whatever from a flash of lightning to a hippopotamus or an attack of fever he would say "Helovabigwaan," using that term as an adjective. To express disapproval or disgust, he would exclaim "Toodamaach," and shake his head emphatically. The first time I heard the latter expression was when, after a long, painful, and really clever stalk against a heavy wind, I missed a splendid koodoo bull at a distance of about ten yards. The miss was due to a bad cartridge fired from an unspeakable rifle, but Kameel held it to be my fault and despised me accordingly.
It was a quaint little cosmos, this community of gold seekers in one form or another whose tents made white the broken slopes of the winding Pilgrim's Valley. We were exceedingly unconventional in most respects, but the essential decencies of life were observed among us as well as they were in any other community of which I have been a member. As time went on many of the diggers brought their families to the creek. I can remember several pretty girls whose dwellings were so many shrines for respectful worship. A disrespectful word towards a woman would have entailed serious consequences to the user. One lady, a Miss Russell, worked a claim very successfully. She eventually married the owner of the claim adjoining hers, a Mr. Cameron. He, if memory does not play me false, represented Pilgrim's Rest in the Transvaal Volksraad. There were no franchise troubles in those days.
As memory dwells on this period, the people with whom I foregathered become very real and very human. I suppose that, in the natural order of things, most of my fellow-pilgrims have reached the end of their pilgrimage. Those mighty limbs and strong thews which held crowbar and pick to be mere playthings, are dust; those feet which scaled, untired, the highest and steepest ranges are at rest for ever. Yet my recollection of these people is as clear as though it were yesterday, and not five and thirty years ago when I saw them last.
The head of the community was the Gold Commissioner, Major Macdonald. He was at once fountain of justice, dispenser of such patronage as existed, and collector of taxes. "Mac" was an American, and had fought in the War of Secession on the Confederate side. He was not an ideal administrator, but his hands were clean, and he would always do one a good turn if it lay in his power. A tall, thin man with a stooping figure, a goatee beard and iron-grey ringlets showing under the brim of his slouch hat, Major Macdonald's appearance exactly suggested the conventional Yankee of the period of Sam Slick. He played a good game of poker, and was never, so far as I know, seen without a cigar in his mouth. I believe he died a few years since at Uitenhage, where he held the railway cartage contract.
There were several ministers of religion on the creek, but it is nevertheless to be feared that we were a rather irreligious lot. All old Pilgrims will remember the Rev. G B, whose church stood in the lower left-hand corner of the Market Square. Mr. B belonged to the Church of England, and was, for those comparatively unenlightened days, an advanced ritualist. He furnished his church with those symbols which used to fill all good Protestants with horror, but to which they have recently become more or less accustomed. In the matter of vestments and altar observances he flew absolutely in the face of the Court of Arches.
Mr. B was a gentleman and a good fellow, but was sadly weak in the matter of drink. This weakness was a source of general amusement, in fact, it rather tended to increase the parson's popularity with the diggers. Whenever he went up the creek on pastoral visitation bent, every one would be on the qui uive, and as he returned men would lie in wait for him with proffers of alcoholic refreshment. By the time he reached home Mr. B would be more or less intoxicated, and several of the perpetrators of this sorry conspiracy would assist him to bed.
However, I must try and avoid the tendency to set down a mere catalogue of abnormal human specimens; I had rather ramble with the reader through the now shadowy thickets of a vivid and virile past, following a payable memory "lead," and examining such nuggets of interesting experience as we may pick up on the way. For the period I write of has passed, leaving scarcely a recognizable sign. The individual digger, the hardy, hearty, independent man who took toll of the riches of the earth by the might of his own arm and for his own proper benefit without intermediary has gone for ever, and the soulless corporation, the boomster, and the politician have taken his place. I, for one, think that South Africa is poorer for the change.
Pilgrim's Creek was not what is known as "a poor man's diggings." Here and there, especially on the terraces or beds of wash lying above the water flow, lay a few claims which were comparatively easy to work. But most of the alluvium in and about the bed of the creek ran deep, often from ten to twenty feet. The most serious difficulties were presented by the boulders, which were thickly distributed through the wash. It would, indeed, be more correct to say that the wash was sparsely distributed between the boulders.
Any stone which could not be lifted out by two men without tackle came within the definition of a boulder. Thirty, or even forty, tons was no very unusual weight for these blocks of smooth, water worn quartzite. Every one, no matter how large, had to be shifted, the reason being that whatever gold there was lay on the bedrock, and thus beneath all the wash. The bedrock was granite, but was so decomposed and friable that one could dig it out like so much cheese.
One way of getting rid of a mammoth boulder was by excavating a pit in the bedrock, sending the stuff dug out away through the sluice-box, and then rolling the monster into the excavation. But this was always dangerous work; the pit had to be sunk close to the boulder one wanted to bury, and the latter was apt to break down the soft edge and roll in, smashing the workers into jelly. Some terrible accidents of this kind took place.
The lack of a surgeon occasioned the loss of many a good life and limb, for accidents were frequent. There was an unqualified practitioner in the Lower Camp. His signboard, mounted on a pole outside his tent, bore the legend: "Surgeon, Barber, and Tentmaker."
Despite his quaint advertisement, which carried a suggestion of the Middle Ages, A was no quack. He was, I think, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, and had undergone a certain amount of medical training. He saved many a life, perhaps mine included, for he pulled me through my bout of fever. But several of his serious operations went wrong. This may have been due to lack of proper appliances, and to our rough but by no means ready methods of nursing. I remember the case of a friend of mine whose leg got horribly crushed at Waterfall Creek and had to be amputated. Mortification set in and he died.
One of my mates was the celebrated Charlie Durnan. "Reefing Charlie" was the name he was usually known by. He was a most active and occasionally a successful prospector. It was he, I fancy, who years afterwards discovered the Pigg's Peak Mine in Swaziland. Charlie's weakness was drink. He and I ate the mealie-meal porridge of poverty among the Blyde River terraces for a couple of months. During this time we never earned enough to pay for the salt which seasoned our insipid repasts.
Work on "the Reef"—Shaft-sinking in a swamp—Wolff and McGrath—A case of snake-bite—Tunneling—Humping green timber—John Mulcahy—His Gargantuan breakfast—His peculiar habits—His end—The rush to "the Reef" Cunningham's lead—My bad luck—Peter and his appetite—"Mr. William Bogis" Fabayne, the cave-dweller—A bellicose bridegroom—Knox and his revolver practice—A senseless toast and its sequel—A terrible accident Alick Dempster and the Police News.
In 1874 a certain corporation, I think it was called "The Gold Fields Exploration Company," had an office at Pilgrim's Rest. Edward Simpson, formerly of Port Elizabeth, was the manager. Simpson died at Pretoria about fifteen years ago. He was a good friend to me, but was, unwittingly, the occasion of my failing to make a very rich "strike." The company was carrying on prospecting operations in the vicinity of a high saddle on one of the subsidiary ranges north of the Mac Mac Divide. I was engaged at the usual remuneration of an ounce of gold per week, and instructed to join two men, Wolff and McGrath, who were already on the spot.
The scene of our work was called "The Reef." [Years afterwards known as the Jubilee Mine.] No reef had been discovered there, but it was believed that one existed. The saddle was steep and narrow, especially on the northern side, where the rocky gully that scored its flank fell into a more or less swampy basin. Our first work was the sinking of a shaft in this swamp. Several nuggets had been found in the interstices of the bedrock in the gully, so it was believed that the basin contained a rich deposit.
One nugget which I found was the most beautiful thing of the kind I have ever seen. It was shaped like a curved ostrich feather, and was as bright as though it had just been turned out of a jeweler's shop. Simpson had this nugget mounted as a brooch for the lady to whom he was engaged to be married.
The sinking of the shaft was both difficult and dangerous. We struck water at about six feet, and then had to make frames from green timber cut in the vicinity and sink them, backed by slabs, as we took the shaft down. The water flow was very strong, so we had to bale continuously, night and day, for we dared not let it rise. We worked in four-hour shifts, with relays of native laborers. After sinking sixty feet, and nearly losing our lives in trying to save the shaft from buckling, the water drove us out and the work had to be abandoned. I still believe that there is gold, and plenty of it, at the bottom of that swamp.
Wolff was a Dane of gigantic thews. He had been a sailor. McGrath was an Australian gold-digger. One night the latter stepped barefoot out of the tent and was bitten on the instep by a snake. He collapsed almost immediately. We sent a runner down to the Lower Camp, which was nearly six miles away, for assistance. There was no qualified medical practitioner to be had; however, an amateur came up and treated the patient with strychnine. We had, in the meantime, scarified the injured part and applied ligatures above it. McGrath escaped with his life, but the greater portion of his instep rotted away, and he became a physical wreck. For a tune he completely lost the use of the muscles of his eyelids; for months he had to use his hands when he wanted to open or shut his eyes.
After abandoning the shaft, Wolff and I were instructed to drive a tunnel into the hillside on the southern fall of the saddle. We took this work under contract, at so much per foot. The driving involved the use of props and slabs; these had to be cut and trimmed in a forest situated more than a mile away, beyond a deep valley on the northern face.
South African timber is notoriously close-grained and heavy; consequently the humping of those green balks through the valley and over the saddle to the tunnel was almost the heaviest and most painful work I have ever perspired under. Felling the trees and dressing the timber was child's play compared to it.
One day while engaged in felling I had an adventure with a mamba. Wolff and I were working in a steep sided gully which contained small, isolated patches of timber; he was felling a tree about fifty yards above me. It crashed down, its crown striking a patch of scrub. Out of this a large mamba glided and came down the gully, straight for me. I could not climb out, so I made myself as small as possible against the gully-side. The snake passed within a few feet of me, but made no attempt to attack.
Snakes and leopards were very plentiful about our camp. A large python dwelt in a krantz within less than a hundred yards of our tent. The creature was often seen, but it always escaped when we ran over with our guns on receiving a report that it was sunning itself. The trees were covered with the claw marks of leopards.
Before very long a few diggers came and prospected in the vicinity of the saddle for surface gold. Among them was one of the strangest characters I have ever met. His name was John Mulcahy. Originally from my own county, Tipperary, he had gone to California in the early days of the "placer" mines. He and Bret Harte had been mates. Mulcahy had prospected far and wide among the Rocky Mountains, and had even crossed the Yukon River on one of his trips.
Solitary in his habits and possessed of a most violent temper, Mulcahy was usually disliked by those with whom he came in contact. But he attracted me very strongly. Aged, I should say, about forty five yellow-bearded, exceedingly handsome, strong, and tall there was, nevertheless, a suggestion of something sinister about him. To me he unbent considerably when we were alone.
Once in a burst of confidence Mulcahy told me that he had left California to escape the attentions of a certain widow, the proprietress of a saloon, who had fallen in love with him. He related how she had pursued him to a remote camp, burst into his tent one morning and, before he could resist, thrown her arms around his neck, and given him a kiss "you might have wathered a mule at."
Mulcahy and I first met at the Rotunda Creek Rush, and when that abode of "wild cat" collapsed, we arranged to take a prospecting trip towards the Olifant River. We made a start, but after a week were driven back by some of the worst weather I have ever experienced. The climax came when we were caught one afternoon on a high mountain plateau by a succession of violent hailstorms. We crept under the lee of a rock for shelter, but our fire was smashed out over and over again by hurtling masses of ice, so we shivered in darkness through what seemed to be an interminable night.
As the weather remained unsettled, we decided to return to camp and there refit. Besides, we badly needed recuperation after the more than ordinary hardships we had undergone. We arrived at the Lower Camp one morning at about nine o'clock, more than half-starved. I shall never forget my wolfish sensations as we flung down our swags at Stopforth and Bowman's eating-house and called for breakfast. I then enjoyed the heartiest meal of my life, after which I sat back pulling at my pipe and noting with astonishment the amount of food which Mulcahy consumed.
I thought he would never stop; plateful followed plateful in an apparently endless endeavor to sate the insatiable. However, all things must come to an end; so, eventually, did Mulcahy's Gargantuan meal. As he paid the prescribed fee of two shillings, I thought Stopforth looked pensive.
After resting for some ten days, and the weather having in the meantime cleared, we made another start. We had decided to commence our journey after a good meal, so struck our tent early one morning at the Upper Creek, and tramped down to the Lower Camp, once more to bestow the doubtful favor of our custom upon Stopforth and Bowman.
We put down our swags at the door and entered. It was barely eight o'clock, so no other customers had arrived. The eating-house was a large marquee tent, with rough tables and benches on either side of a passage down the middle. At the end of this passage a square piece had been cut out of the canvas, and it was through the resulting aperture that plates were passed to and from the kitchen. Bowman it was who presided over the cooking while Stopforth did the waiting.
We took our seats at one of the tables and called for breakfast. Stopforth stood for a few seconds and regarded Mulcahy with a somber eye. Then he strolled slowly down the passage and called through the aperture:
"Bill."
"Hullo?"
"Breakfast for ten; here's this son of a back."
My partner was enormously pleased at this compliment to his prowess; for months afterwards he used to chuckle at the remembrance of it.
After Mulcahy moved up to "The Reef" he kept more than ever to himself, discouraging advances even from me. This, we afterwards found, was due to his having struck rich gold from the very first, and to his desire to keep the circumstance from being known. He worked his cradle at a small spring about a hundred and fifty yards away. To this spring he had scarped a footpath along the mountain side, and over this footpath he harrowed his stuff. He seemed seldom or never to sleep. It was his custom to knock off work comparatively early in the afternoon. Until about nine o'clock he would stroll about. Then he would recommence work, and we would often hear the barrow going all night long. Most of the daytime he spent cradling at the spring.
Occasionally, in the evening, this strange being would come and stand near our tent. Wolff, who hated him, strongly objected to this; he thought the man came to listen to our conversation. My theory, which I fully believe to have been the right one, was that the lonely creature sometimes felt an irresistible longing for human companionship.
The belief currently held regarding Mulcahy was to the effect that he had been a noted "road agent" that is to say, a highway robber in California. One incident, of which I was a witness, might be taken to indicate that at least he had something very heavy on his conscience.
One evening Wolff and I were watching the approach of a very violent thunderstorm. Just as it broke, and while we were in the act of fastening the tent-door, Mulcahy appeared and, to my surprise, asked if he might come in. Wolff gave no answer, but I replied in the affirmative. Mulcahy entered, and the three of us sat down, Wolff and I on one bunk and the visitor on the other. The table was between the bunks.
Our tent had what is known as a "fly"; that is to say, a second roof pitched about six inches above the ordinary one. The rain came down in torrents and the wind blew with great violence. The inner roof remained dry, except where the outer one flapped against it. This contact happened just over where Mulcahy was sitting, and occasioned a wet mark resembling, in rough outline, the head, shoulders, and outstretched arms of a human being. The mark was fully visible to Wolff and me, but could not be seen by Mulcahy, although the canvas on which it appeared sloped immediately over him.
Wolff, who was a big, heavy man, very slow of speech, said in his halting, broken English
"Mulcahy, dere is de ghost of dat last man you shot in California."
Mulcahy turned, shot a glance back towards where Wolff's eyes were directed, and fell forward on the table. When he lifted his face it was drawn and the color of ashes; his eyes were full of horror. It was a terribly dramatic scene.
Shortly after this Mulcahy took a partner, a man named Friese. They found a great deal of gold.
The last time I saw Mulcahy was in 1876, at East London. I was then working on a surf boat, and in passing under the stern of a steamer, the anchor of which was being weighed, I noticed a yellow bearded man leaning over the rail. His face was not turned towards me; nevertheless, I felt I could hardly be mistaken as to his identity. I called out his name; he turned, and I saw that it was Mulcahy, right enough. He recognized me at once, and apparently was delighted to see me. We conversed for a short while, but my boat was soon worked away on the warp, out of earshot. I afterwards heard that Mulcahy had taken several thousand pounds sterling with him to Cape Town, and that there he purchased a liquor-shop in a low quarter of the city. Shortly afterwards he died insane.