PLAN and Valuation of Kimberley Mine. 1876.
and was not lessened by the fact that the heat of the sun was about 140. The division of the claims, however, became apparent to me and I could see how one was being worked, and another left without any present digging till the claim-owner’s convenience should be suited. But there is a regulation compelling a man to work if the standing of his “blue” should become either prejudicial or dangerous to his neighbours. There is one shaft,—that belonging to the firm I have mentioned; and one tramway has been cut down by another firm through the reef and circumjacent soil so as to make an inclined plane up and down to the mine.
On looking at the accompanying plan the reader will see that the ground was originally divided into 801 claims with some few double numbers to claims at the east end of the mine;—but in truth nearly half of those have never been of value, consisting entirely of reef, the diamondiferous matter, the extent of which has now been ascertained, not having travelled so far. There are in truth 408 existing claims. The plan, which shews the locality of each claim as divided whether of worth or of no worth, shews also the rate at which they are all valued for purposes of taxation. To ascertain the rated value the reader must take any one of the sums given in red figures and multiply it by the number of subdivisions in the compartment to which those figures are attached. For instance at the west end is the lowest figure,—£100, and as there are 37 marked claims in this compartment, the rated value of the compartment is £3,700. This is the poorest side of the mine and probably but few of the claims thus marked are worked at all. The richest side ofthe mine is towards the south, where in one compartment there are 12 claims each rated at £5,500, so that the whole compartment is supposed to be worth £66,000. The selling value is however much higher than that at which the claims are rated for the purpose of taxation.
But though there are but 408 claims there are subdivisions in regard to property very much more minute. There are shares held by individuals as small as one-sixteenth of a claim. The total property is in fact divided into 514 portions, the amount of which of course varies extremely. Every master miner pays 10s. a month to the Government for the privilege of working whether he own a claim or only a portion of a claim. In working this the number of men employed differs very much from time to time. When I was there the mine was very full, and there were probably almost 4,000 men in it and as many more employed above on the stuff. When the “blue” has come up and been deposited in the great wooden boxes at the top it is then lowered by its own weight into carts, and carried off to the “ground” of the proprietor. Every diamond digger is obliged to have a space of ground somewhere round the town,—as near his whim as he can get it,—to which his stuff is carted and then laid out to crumble and decompose. This may occupy weeks, but the time depends on what may be the fall of rain. If there be no rain, it must be watered,—at a very considerable expense. It is then brought to the washing, and is first put into a round puddling trough where it is broken up and converted into mud by stationary rakes which work upon the stuff as the trough goes round. Thestones of course fall to the bottom, and as diamonds are the heaviest of stones they fall with the others. The mud is examined and thrown away,—and then the stones are washed, and rewashed, and sifted, and examined. The greater number of diamonds are found during this operation;—but the large gems and those therefore of by far the greatest value are generally discovered while the stuff is being knocked about and put into the buckets in the mine.
It need hardly be said that in such an operation as I have described the greatest care is necessary to prevent stealing and that no care will prevent it. The Kafirs are the great thieves,—to such an extent of superexcellence that white superintendence is spoken of as being the only safeguard. The honesty of the white man may perhaps be indifferent, but such as it is it has to be used at every point to prevent, as far as it may be prevented, the systematized stealing in which the Kafirs take an individual and national pride. The Kafirs are not only most willing but most astute thieves, feeling a glory in their theft and thinking that every stone stolen from a white man is a duty done to their Chief and their tribe. I think it may be taken as certain that no Kafir would feel the slightest pang of conscience at stealing a diamond, or that any disgrace would be held to attach to him among other Kafirs for such a performance. They come to the Fields instructed by their Chiefs to steal diamonds and they obey the orders like loyal subjects. Many of the Kafir Chiefs are said to have large quantities of diamonds which have been brought to them by their men returning from the diggings;—but most of those which arestolen no doubt find their way into the hands of illicit dealers. I have been told that the thefts perpetrated by the Kafirs amount to 25 per cent. on the total amount found;—but this I do not believe.
The opportunities for stealing are of hourly occurrence and are of such a nature as to make prevention impossible. These men are sharpsighted as birds and know and see a diamond much quicker than a white man. They will pick up stones with their toes and secrete them even under the eyes of those who are watching them. I was told that a man will so hide a diamond in his mouth that no examination will force him to disclose it. They are punished when discovered with lashes and imprisonment,—in accordance with the law on the matter. No employer is now allowed to flog his man at his own pleasure. And the white men who buy diamonds from Kafirs are also punished when convicted, by fine and imprisonment for the simple offence of buying from a Kafir; but with flogging also if convicted of having instigated a Kafir to steal. Nevertheless a lucrative business of this nature is carried on, and the Kafirs know well where to dispose of their plunder though of course but for a small proportion of its value.
Ten shillings a week and their food were the regular wages here as elsewhere. This I found to be very fluctuating, but the money paid had rarely gone lower for any considerable number of men than the above-named rate. The lowest amount paid has been 7s. 6d. a week. Sometimes it had been as high as 20s. and even 30s. a week. A good deal of the work is supplied by contract, certain middlemen undertaking to provide men with all expenses paid at £1 a week. When mealies have become dear from drought,—there being no grass for oxen on the route,—no money can be made in this way. Such was the case when I was in Griqualand West. It is stated by Mr. Oats, an engineer, in his evidence given to the Committee on the Griqualand West Annexation Bill, in June 1877—that the annual amount of wages paid at Kimberley had varied from £600,000 to £1,600,000 a year. Nearly the whole of this had gone into the hands of the Kafirs.
Perhaps the most interesting sight at the mine is the escaping of the men from their labour at six o’clock. Then, at the sound of some welcomed gong, they begin to swarm up the sides close at each other’s heels apparently altogether indifferent as to whether there be a path or no. They come as flies come up a wall, only capering as flies never caper,—and shouting as they come. In endless strings, as ants follow each other, they move, passing along ways which seem to offer no hold to a human foot. Then it is that one can best observe their costume in which a jacket is never absent but of which a pair of trowsers rarely forms a portion. A soldier’s red jacket or a soldier’s blue jacket has more charms than any other vestment. They seem always to be good humoured, always well-behaved,—but then they are always thieves. And yet how grand a thing it is that so large a number of these men should have been brought in so short a space of time to the habit of receiving wages and to the capacity of bargaining as to the wages for which they will work. I shall not, however, think it so grand a thing if anyone addresses them as the free and independent electors of Kimberley before they have got trowsers to cover their nakedness.
I must add also that a visitor to Kimberley should if possible take an opportunity of looking down upon the mine by moonlight. It is a weird and wonderful sight, and may almost be called sublime in its peculiar strangeness.
Havingdescribed the diamond mines in the Kimberley district I must say a word about the town of Kimberley to which the mines have given birth. The total population as given by a census taken in 1877 was 13,590, shewing the town to be the second largest in South Africa. By joining to this Du Toit’s Pan and Bultfontein which are in fact suburbs of Kimberley we get a total urban population of about 18,000. Of these nearly 10,000 are coloured, and something over 8,000 are Europeans. Among the Europeans two-fifths are females, and of course there is the ordinary population of children—with the coloured people the females are about 1 to 7. Of the adult male population two-thirds are of coloured races,—Kafirs for the most part,—and one-third is European. At present both the one and the other are a shifting people;—but the Kafirs shift much the quickest. Each man remains generally only six or eight months on the Fields and then returns home to his tribe. This mode of life, however, is already somewhat on the decrease, and as the love of making money grows, and as tribal reverence for the Chieftains dies out, the men will learn to remain more constantly at their work. Unless thediamonds come to an end all together,—which one cannot but always feel to be possible,—the place will become a large town with a settled Kafir population which will fall gradually into civilized ways of life. There is no other place in South Africa where this has been done, or for many years can be done to the same extent. I mention this here because it seems to be so essentially necessary to remember that South Africa is a land not of white but of black men, and that the progress to be most desired is that which will quickest induce the Kafir to put off his savagery and live after the manner of his white brethren.
Throughout the whole country which the English and the Dutch between them have occupied as their own, the Kafirs are the superiors in numbers in much greater proportion than that stated above in reference to the town of Kimberley;—but these numbers are to be found, not in towns, but out in their own hitherto untouched districts, where they live altogether after their old ways, where the Kafirs of to-day are as were the Kafirs of fifty years ago. And even with those who have come under our dominion and who live to some degree intermixed with us, the greater proportion still follow their old customs of which idleness and dependence on the work of women for what is absolutely necessary to existence, may be said to be the most prominent. The work of civilizing as it has been carried out by simple philanthropy or by religion is terribly slow. One is tempted sometimes to say that nothing is done by religion and very little by philanthropy. But love of money works very fast. In Griqualand West, especially in the Diamond Fields, and above all at Kimberley,it is not only out in the wilds, by the river sides, on the veld, and in their own kraals, that the black men outnumber the white; but in the streets of the city also and in the work shops of the mine. And here they are brought together not by the spasmodic energy of missionaries or by the unalluring attraction of schools but by the certainty of earning wages. The seeker after diamonds is determined to have them because the making of his fortune depends upon them; and the Kafir himself is determined to come to Kimberley because he has learned the loveliness of 10s. a week paid regularly into his hand every Saturday night.
Who can doubt but that work is the great civilizer of the world,—work and the growing desire for those good things which work only will bring? If there be one who does he should come here to see how those dusky troops of labourers, who ten years since were living in the wildest state of unalloyed savagery, whose only occupation was the slaughter of each other in tribal wars, each of whom was the slave of his Chief, who were subject to the dominion of most brutalizing and cruel superstitions, have already put themselves on the path towards civilization. They are thieves no doubt;—that is they steal diamonds though not often other things. They are not Christians. They do not yet care much about breeches. They do not go to school. But they are orderly. They come to work at six in the morning and go away at six in the evening. They have an hour in the middle of the day, and know that they have to work during the other hours. They take their meals regularly and, what is the best of all, they are learning to spend their money instead of carrying it back to their Chiefs.
Civilization can not come at once. The coming I fear under any circumstances must be slow. But this is the quickest way towards it that has yet been found. The simple teaching of religion has never brought large numbers of Natives to live in European habits; but I have no doubt that European habits will bring about religion. The black man when he lives with the white man and works under the white man’s guidance will learn to believe really what the white man really believes himself. Surely we should not expect him to go faster. But the missionary has endeavoured to gratify his own soul by making here and there a model Christian before the pupil has been able to understand any of the purposes of Christianity. I have not myself seen the model Christian perfected; but when I have looked down into the Kimberley mine and seen three or four thousand of them at work,—although each of them would willingly have stolen a diamond if the occasion came,—I have felt that I was looking at three or four thousand growing Christians.
Because of this I regard Kimberley as one of the most interesting places on the face of the earth. I know no other spot on which the work of civilizing a Savage is being carried on with so signal a success. The Savages whom we have encountered in our great task of populating the world have for the most part eluded our grasp by perishing while we have been considering how we might best deal with them. Here, in South Africa, a healthy nation remains and assuresus by its prolific tendency that when protected from self-destruction by our fostering care it will spread and increase beneath our hands. But what was to be done with these people? Having found that they do not mean to die, by what means might we instruct them how to live? Teach them to sing hymns, and all will be well. That is one receipt. Turn them into slaves, and make them work. That is another receipt. Divide the land with them, and let them live after their own fashions;—only subject to some little control from us. That was a third. The hymns have done nothing. The slavery was of course impossible. And that division of land has been, perhaps not equally futile, but insufficient for the growing needs of the people;—insufficient also for our own needs. Though we abuse the Kafir we want his service, and we want more than our share of his land. But that which no effort of intelligence could produce has been brought about by circumstances. The Diamond Fields have been discovered and now there are ten thousand of these people receiving regular wages and quite capable of rushing to a magistrate for protection if they be paid a shilling short on Saturday night.
This the diamonds have done, and it is the great thing which they have done. We have fair reason to believe that other similar industries will arise. There are already copper mines at work in Namaqualand, on the western coast of South Africa, in which the Natives are employed, and lead mines in the Transvaal. There are gold fields in the Transvaal at which little is now being done, because the difficulties of working them are at present overwhelming. But as yearsroll quickly on these, too, will become hives of coloured labour, and in this way Kimberleys will arise in various parts of the continent.
I cannot say that Kimberley is in other respects an alluring town;—perhaps as little so as any town that I have ever visited. There are places to which men are attracted by the desire of gain which seem to be so repulsive that no gain can compensate the miseries incidental to such an habitation. I have seen more than one such place and have wondered that under any inducement men should submit themselves, their wives and children to such an existence. I remember well my impressions on reaching Charles Dickens’ Eden at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and my surprise that any human being should have pitched his tent in a place so unwholesome and so hideous. I have found Englishmen collected on the Musquito Coast, a wretched crew; and having been called on by untoward Fate and a cruel Government to remain a week at Suez have been driven to consider whether life would have been possible there for a month. During my sojourn at Kimberley, though I was the recipient of the kindest hospitality and met two or three whom I shall ever remember among the pleasant acquaintances of my life,—yet the place itself was distasteful to me in the extreme. When I was there the heat was very great, the thermometer registering 160 in the sun, and 97 in the shade. I was not absolutely ill, but I was so nearly ill that I was in fear the whole time. Perhaps having been in such personal discomfort, I am not a fair judge of the place. But an atmosphere composed ofdust and flies cannot be pleasant,—of dust so thick that the sufferer fears to remove it lest the raising of it may aggravate the evil, and of flies so numerous that one hardly dares to slaughter them by the ordinary means lest their dead bodies should be noisome. When a gust of wind would bring the dust in a cloud hiding everything, a cloud so thick that it would seem that the solid surface of the earth had risen diluted into the air, and when flies had rendered occupation altogether impossible, I would be told, when complaining, that I ought to be there, in December say, or February,—at some other time of the year than that then present,—if I really wanted to see what flies and dust could do. I sometimes thought that the people of Kimberley were proud of their flies and their dust.
And the meat was bad, the butter uneatable, vegetables a rarity,—supplied indeed at the table at which I sat but supplied at a great cost. Milk and potatoes were luxuries so costly that one sinned almost in using them. A man walking about with his pocket full of diamonds would not perhaps care for this; but even at Kimberley there are those who have fixed incomes,—an unfortunate Deputy Governor or the like,—to whom sugar at 2s. 6d. a pound and other equally necessary articles in the same proportion, must detract much from the honour and glory of the position. When I was there “transport,” no doubt, was unusually high. Indeed, as I arrived, there were muttered threats that “transport” would be discontinued altogether unless rain would come. For the understanding of this it must be known that almost everything consumed at Kimberleyhas to be carried up from the coast, five hundred miles, by ox-waggons, and that the oxen have to feed themselves on the grasses along the road. When there has been a period of drought there are no grasses, and when there are no grasses the oxen will die instead of making progress. Periods of drought are by no means uncommon in South Africa. When I was at Kimberley there had been a period of drought for many months. There had, indeed, been no rain to speak of for more than a year. As one consequence of this the grocers were charging 2s. 6d. a pound for brown sugar. Even the chance of such a state of things militates very much against the comfort of a residence.
I do not think that there is a tree to be seen within five miles of the town. When I was there I doubt whether there was a blade of grass within twenty miles, unless what might be found on the very marge of the low water of the Vaal river. Every thing was brown, as though the dusty dry uncovered ugly earth never knew the blessing of verdure. To ascertain that the roots of grass were remaining one had to search the ground. There is to be a park; and irrigation has been proposed so that the park may become green;—but the park had not as yet progressed beyond the customary brown. In all Kimberley and its surroundings there was nothing pretty to meet the eye;—except, indeed, women’s faces which were as bright there as elsewhere. It was a matter of infinite regret to me that faces so bright should be made to look out on a world so ugly.
The town is built of corrugated iron. My general readers will probably not have seen many edifices so constructed.But even in England corrugated iron churches have been erected, when the means necessary for stone buildings have been temporarily wanting; and I think I have seen the studios of photographers made of the same material. It is probably the most hideous that has yet come to man’s hands;—but it is the most portable and therefore in many localities the cheapest,—in some localities the only material possible. It is difficult to conceive the existence of a town in which every plank used has had to be dragged five hundred miles by oxen; but such has been the case at Kimberley. Nor can bricks be made which will stand the weather because bricks require to be burned and cannot well be burned without fuel. Fuel at Kimberley is so expensive a luxury that two thoughts have to be given to the boiling of a kettle. Sun-burned bricks are used and form the walls of which the corrugated iron is the inside casing; but sun-burned bricks will not stand the weather and can only be used when they are cased. Lath and plaster for ceilings there is little or none. The rooms are generally covered with canvas which can be easily carried. But a canvas ceiling does not remain long clean, or even rectilinear. The invincible dust settles upon it and bulges it, and the stain of the dust comes through it. Wooden floors are absolutely necessary for comfort and cleanliness; but at Kimberley it will cost £40 to floor a moderate room. The consequence is that even people who are doing well with their diamonds live in comfortless houses, always meaning to pack up and run after this year, or next year, or perhaps the year after next. But if they have done ill with their diamonds they remaintill they may do better; and if they have done well then there falls upon them the Auri sacra fames. When £30,000 have been so easily heaped together why not have £60,000;—and when £60,000 why not £100,000? And then why spend money largely in this state of trial, in a condition which is not intended to be prolonged,—but which is prolonged from year to year by the desire for more? Why try to enjoy life here, this wretched life, when so soon there is a life coming which is to be so infinitely better? Such is often the theory of the enthusiastic Christian,—not however often carried out to its logical conclusions. At such a place as Kimberley the theory becomes more lively; but the good time is postponed till the capacity for enjoying it is too probably lost.
The town of Kimberley is chiefly notable for a large square,—as large perhaps as Russell Square. One or two of the inhabitants asked me whether I was not impressed by the grandeur of its dimensions so as to feel that there was something of sublimity attached to it! “I thought it very ugly at first,” said one lady who had been brought out from England to make her residence among the diamonds;—“but I have looked at it now till I have to own its magnificence.” I could not but say that corrugated iron would never become magnificent in my eyes. In Kimberley there are two buildings with a storey above the ground, and one of these is in the square. This is its only magnificence. There is no pavement. The roadway is all dust and holes. There is a market place in the midst which certainly is not magnificent. Around are the corrugated iron shops of the ordinary dealersin provisions. An uglier place I do not know how to imagine. When I was called upon to admire it, I was lost in wonder; but acknowledged that it was well that necessity should produce such results.
I think that none of the diamond dealers live in the square. The various diamond shops to which I was taken were near the mine, or in the streets leading down from the mine to the square. These were little counting houses in which the dealers would sit, generally two together, loosely handling property worth many thousands of pounds. I was taken to them to see diamonds, and saw diamonds without stint. It seemed that one partner would buy while another would sort and pack. Parcel after parcel was opened for me with almost as little reserve as was exhibited when Lothair asked for pearls. Lothair was an expected purchaser; while the diamond dealer knew that nothing was to be made by me. I could not but think how easy it would be to put just one big one into my pocket. The dealers, probably, were careful that I did nothing of the kind. The stones were packed in paper parcels, each parcel containing perhaps from fifty to two hundred according to their size. Then four or five of these parcels would be fitted into a paper box,—which would again be enclosed in a paper envelope. Without other safeguard than this the parcels are registered and sent by post, to London, Paris, or Amsterdam as the case may be. By far the greater number go to London. The mails containing these diamonds then travel for six days and six nights on mail carts to Capetown,—for four-fifths of the way without any guard, and very frequently with no one on the mail cart except the black boy who drives it. The cart travels dayand night along desolate roads and is often many miles distant from the nearest habitation. Why the mails are not robbed I cannot tell. The diamond dealers say that the robber could not get away with his plunder, and would find no market for it were he to do so. They, however, secure themselves by some system of insurance. I cannot but think that the insurers, or underwriters, will some day find themselves subjected to a heavy loss. A great robbery might be effected by two persons, and the goods which would be so stolen are of all property the most portable. Thieves with a capital,—and thieves in these days do have capital,—might afford to wait, and diamonds in the rough can not be traced. I should have thought that property of such immense value would have paid for an armed escort. The gold in Australia, which is much less portable, is always accompanied by an escort.[9]
I was soon sick of looking at diamonds though the idea of holding ten or twenty thousand pounds lightly between my fingers did not quite lose its charm. I was however disgusted at the terms of reproach with which most of the diamonds were described by their owners. Many of them were “off colours,” stones of a yellowish hue and therefore of comparatively little value, or stones with a flaw, stones which would split in the cutting, stones which could not becut to any advantage. There were very many evil stones to one that was good, so that nature after all did not appear to have been as generous as she might have been. And these dealers when the stones are brought to them for purchase, have no certain standard of value by which to regulate their transactions with their customers. The man behind the counter will take the stones, one by one, examine them, weigh them, and then make his offer for the parcel. Dealing in horses is precarious work,—when there is often little to shew whether an animal be worth £50, or £100, or £150. But with diamonds it must be much more so. A dealer offers £500 when the buyer has perhaps expected £2,000! And yet the dealer is probably nearest to the mark. The diamonds at any rate are bought and sold, and are sent away by post at the rate of about £2,000,000 in the year. In 1876 the registered export of diamonds from Kimberley amounted in value to £1,414,590, and reached 773 pounds avoirdupois in weight. But it is computed that not above three quarters of what are sent from the place are recorded in the accounts that are kept. There is no law to make such record necessary. Any one who has become legally possessed of a diamond may legally take it or send it away as he pleases.
The diamond dealers whom I saw were the honest men, who keep their heads well above water, and live in the odour of diamond sanctity, dealing only with licensed diggers and loving the law. But there are diamond dealers who buy from the Kafirs,—or from intermediate rogues who instigate the Kafirs to steal. These are regarded as the curse of the place, and, as may be understood, their existenceis most injurious to the interests of all who traffic honestly in this article. The law is very severe on them, imprisoning them, and subjecting them to lashes if in any case it can be proved that a delinquent has instigated a Kafir to steal. One such dealer I saw in the Kimberley gaol, a good-looking young man who had to pass I think two years in durance among black thieves and white thieves because he had bought dishonestly. I pitied him because he was clean. But I ought to have pitied him the less because having been brought up to be clean he, nevertheless, had become a rogue.
Next to diamond dealing the selling of guns used to be the great trade in Kimberley, the purchasers being Kafirs who thus disposed of their surplus wages. But when I was there the trade seemed to have come to an end, the Kafirs, I trust, having found that they could do better with their money than buy guns,—which they seldom use with much precision when they have them. There was once a whole street devoted to this dealing in guns, but the gun shops had been converted to other purposes when I was there. Great complaint had been made against the Government of Griqualand West for permitting the unreserved sale of guns to the Kafirs, and attempts have been made by the two Republics—of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State—to stop the return of men when so armed. The guns were taken away from those who had not a pass, and such passes were rarely given. Now they may travel through the Transvaal with any number of guns, as the British authorities do not stop them. Why it has cometo pass that the purchases are no longer made I do not understand. Whether the trade should or should not have been stopped I am not prepared to say. We have not hesitated to prevent the possession of arms in Ireland when we have thought that the peace of the country might be endangered by them. I do not think that the peace of South Africa has been endangered by the guns which the Kafirs have owned, or that guns in the hands of Kafirs have been very fatal to us in the still existing disturbance. But yet the Kafirs are very numerous and the white men are comparatively but a handful! I would have a Kafir as free to shoot a buck as a white man. And yet I feel that the Kafir must be kept in subjection. The evil, if it be an evil, has now been done, for guns are very numerous among the Kafirs.
There can hardly be a doubt that Kimberley and the diamond fields have been of great service to the black men who obtain work. No doubt they are thieves,—as regards the diamonds,—but their thievery will gradually be got under by the usual processes. To argue against providing work for a Kafir because a Kafir may steal is the same as to say that housemaids should not be taught to write lest they should learn to forge. That argument has been used, but does not now require refutation. And there can be as little doubt that the finding of diamonds has in a commercial point of view been the salvation of South Africa. The Orange Free State, of which “The Fields” at first formed a part, and which is closely adjacent to them, has been so strengthened by the trade thus created as to be now capable of a successful and permanent existence,—a conditionof things which I think no observer of South African affairs would have considered to be possible had not Kimberley with its eighteen thousand much-consuming mouths been established on its border. As regards the Cape Colony generally, if quite the same thing need not be said, it must be acknowledged that its present comparative success is due almost entirely to the diamonds,—or rather to the commercial prosperity caused by the consumption in which diamond finders and their satellites have been enabled to indulge. The Custom duties of the Cape Colony in 1869, before the diamond industry existed, were less than £300,000.[10]In 1875 that sum had been very much more than doubled. And it must be remembered that this rapid increase did not come from any great increase of numbers. The diamond-digging brought in a few white men no doubt, but only a few in comparison with the increase in revenue. There are but 8,000 Europeans in the diamond fields altogether. Had they all been new comers this would have been no great increase to a population which now exceeds 700,000 persons. The sudden influx of national wealth has come from the capability for consumption created by the new industry.White men looking for diamonds can drink champagne. Black men looking for diamonds can buy clothes and guns and food. It is not the wealth found which directly enriches the nation, but the trade created by the finding. It was the same with the gold in Australia. Of the national benefit arising from the diamonds there can be no doubt. Whether they have been equally beneficial to those who have searched for them and found them may be a matter of question.
What fortunes have been made in this pursuit no one can tell. If they have been great I have not heard of them. There can be no doubt that many have ruined themselves by fruitless labours, and that others who have suddenly enriched themselves have been unable to bear their prosperity with equanimity. The effect of a valuable diamond upon a digger who had been working perhaps a month for nothing was in the early days almost maddening. Now, as with gold in Australia, the pursuit has settled itself down to a fixed industry. Companies have been formed. Individuals are not suddenly enriched by the sudden finding of a stone. Dividends are divided monthly and there is something approaching to a fixed rate of finding from this claim or from that, from this side of the mine or from the other. There is less of excitement and consequently less of evil. Men are no longer prone to the gambler’s condition of mind which induces an individual to think that he,—he specially,—will win in opposition to all established odds and chances, and prompts him to anticipate his winning by lavish expenditure,—to waste it when it does come by such puerilerecourses as shoeing a horse with gold or drinking champagne out of a bucket. The searching for gold and diamonds has always had this danger attached to it,—that the money when it has come has too frequently not been endeared to the finder by hard continuous work. It has been “easy come and easy gone.” This to some degree is still the case. There is at Kimberley much more of gambling, much more of champagne, much more of the rowdy exhilaration coming from sudden money, than at older towns of the same or much greater population, or of the same or much greater wealth. But the trade of Kimberley is now a settled industry and as such may be presumed to be beneficent to those who exercise it.
Nevertheless there is a stain sticking to the diamonds,—such a stain as sticks to gold, which tempts one to repeat the poet’s caution:—
Aurum irrepertum, et sio melius situmCum terra celat, spernere fortior,Quam cogere humanos in usus.
Aurum irrepertum, et sio melius situmCum terra celat, spernere fortior,Quam cogere humanos in usus.
Aurum irrepertum, et sio melius situmCum terra celat, spernere fortior,Quam cogere humanos in usus.
It would be untrue to say that he who works to ornament the world is necessarily less noble than the other workman who supplies it with what is simply useful. The designer of a room-paper ranks above the man who hangs it,—and the artist whose picture decorates the wall is much above the designer of the paper. Why therefore should not the man who finds diamonds be above the man who finds bread? And yet I feel sure that he is not. It is not only the thing procured but the manner of procuring it that makes or mars the nobility of the work. If there be an employment inwhich the labourer has actually to grovel in the earth it is this search for diamonds. There is much of it in gold-seeking, but in the search after diamonds it is all grovelling. Let the man rise as high as he may in the calling, be the head of the biggest firm at Kimberley, still he stands by and sees the grit turned,—still he picks out the diamonds from the other dirt with his own fingers, and carries his produce about with him in his own pocket. If a man be working a coal mine, though he be himself the hardest worked as well as the head workman in the business, he is removed from actual contact with the coal. But here, at Kimberley, sharp prying eyes are wanted, rather than an intelligence fitted for calculations, and patience in manipulating dirt than skill in managing men or figures.
And the feeling engendered,—the constant recollection that a diamond may always be found,—is carried so far that the mind never rests from business. The diamond-seeker cannot get out of his task and take himself calmly to his literature at 4P.M.or 5 or 6. This feeling runs through even to his wife and children, teaching them that dirt thrice turned may yet be turned a fourth time with some hope of profit. Consequently ladies, and children, do turn dirt instead of making pretty needle-work or wholesome mud pies. When I heard of so much a dozen being given to young bairns for the smallest specks of diamonds, specks which their young eyes might possibly discover, my heart was bitterly grieved. How shall a child shake off a stain which has been so early incurred? And when ladies have told me, as ladies did tell me,—pretty clever well-dressed women,—of hours so passed, of day after day spent in the turning of dust by their own fingers because there might still be diamonds among the dust, I thought that I could almost sooner have seen my own wife or my own girl with a broom at a street crossing.
There is not so much of this now as there was, and as years roll on,—if the diamonds still be to be found,—there will be less and less. If the diamonds still be there in twenty years’ time,—as to which I altogether decline to give my opinion,—a railway will have been carried on to Kimberley, and planks will have been carried up, and perhaps bricks from some more favoured locality, and possibly paving stones, so that the town shall be made to look less rowdy and less abominable. And pipes will be laid on from the Vaal river, and there will be water carts. And with the dust the flies will go into abeyance. And trees will have been planted. And fresh butter will be made. And there will be a library and men will have books. And houses will have become pleasant, so that a merchant may love to sit at home in his own verandah,—which he will then afford to have broad and cool and floored. And as the nice things come the nasty habits will sink. The ladies will live far away from the grit, and small diamonds will have become too common to make it worth the parents’ while to endanger their children’s eyes. Some mode of checking the Kafir thieves will perhaps have been found,—and the industry will have sunk into the usual grooves. Nothing, however, will tend so much to this as the lessening of the value of diamonds. The stone is at present so precious thata man’s mind cannot bear to think that one should escape him.
I should be doing injustice to Kimberley and to those who have managed Kimberley if I did not say that very great struggles have been made to provide it with those institutions which are peculiarly needed for the welfare of an assembled population. Churches are provided plentifully,—at one of which, at any rate, sermons are to be heard much in advance of those which I may call the sermon at sermon par. I could have wished however that the clergymen who preached them had not worn a green ribbon. And there are hospitals, which have caused infinite labour and are now successful;—especially one which is nearly self-supporting and is managed exquisitely by one of those ladies who go out into the world to do good wherever good may be done. I felt as I spoke to her that I was speaking to one of the sweet ones of the earth. To bind up a man’s wounds, or to search for diamonds among the dirt! There is a wide difference there certainly.
I could have wished that the prison had been better,—that is more prisonly,—with separate rooms for instance for those awaiting trial and those committed. But all this will be done within those twenty next coming years. And I know well how difficult it is to get money to set such things afloat in a young community.
Thehistory of the origin of the Orange Free State, as a certain district of South Africa is called, is one which when really written will not I think redound to the credit of England. This I say not intending to accuse any British statesman of injustice,—much less of dishonesty. In all that has been done by the Colonial office in reference to the territory in question the attempt to do right has from first to last been only too anxious and painstaking. But as is generally the case when over anxiety exists in lieu of assured conviction, the right course has not been plainly seen, and the wrong thing has been done and done, perhaps, in a wrong manner.
Our system of government by Cabinets is peculiarly open to such mistakes in reference to Colonial matters. At the Foreign office, as is well known, there is a prescribed course of things and whether Lord Granville be there or Lord Derby the advice given will probably be the same. At the Home office the same course is followed whether the gentleman there be a Liberal or a Conservative, and if one dispenser of the Queen’s prerogative be more prone than another to allow criminals to escape, the course of Government is notimpeded by his proclivities. But in looking back at the history of the Colonies during the last fifty years we see the idiosyncrasies of the individual ministers who have held the office of Secretary of State rather than a settled course of British action, and we are made to feel how suddenly the policy of one minister may be made to give way to the conscientious convictions of another. Hence there have come changes each of which may be evidence of dogged obstinacy in the mind of some much respected Statesman, but which seem to be proof of vacillation in the nation.
It would be thought that a colonizing nation like Great Britain,—now the only colonizing nation in existence,—should have a policy of colonization. The Americans of the United States have such a policy, though they do not colonize in our sense. They will not colonize at all beyond their own continent, so that all the citizens of their Republic may be brought into one homogeneous whole. The Spaniards and Dutch who have been great Colonists have a colonial policy,—which has ever consisted in getting what can be got for the mother country. Among ourselves, with all that we have done and all that we are doing, we do not yet know whether it is our intention to limit or to extend our colonial empire; we do not yet know whether we purpose to occupy other lands or to protect in their occupation those who now hold them; we do not yet know whether as a nation we wish our colonial dependants to remain always loyal to the British Crown or whether we desire to see them start for themselves as independent realms. All we do know is that with that general philanthropy and honestywithout which a British Cabinet cannot now exist we want to do good and to avoid doing evil. But when we look back, and, taking even three liberal Colonial Secretaries, see the difference of opinion on colonial matters of such men as Lord Glenelg, Lord Grey, and Lord Granville, we have to own that our colonial policy must vacillate.
Are we to extend or are we not to extend our colonial empire? That was a question on which some years ago it did seem that our Statesmen had come to a decision. The task we had taken upon us was thought to be already more than enough for our strength, and we would not stretch our hands any further. If it might be practicable to get rid of some of the least useful of our operations it would be well to do so. That dream of a settled purpose has, however, been very rudely broken. The dreamers have never been able to act upon it as a policy. It will not be necessary to do more than name the Fiji Islands,—not the last but one of the last of our costly acquirements,—to show how unable the Colonial office at home has been to say, “so far will we go but no farther.” Had the Colonial office recognised it as a policy that wherever Englishmen settle themselves in sufficient numbers to make a disturbance if they be not governed, then government must go after them, then the Fiji Islands might have been accepted as a necessity. But there is no such policy even yet;—though the annexation of the Transvaal will go far to convince men that such must be our practice.
It is because of our vacillation in South Africa,—vacillation which has come from the varying convictions of varyingMinisters and Governors,—that I say that the history of the Orange Free State will not be creditable to our discernment and statesmanship. Much heavier accusations have been brought against our Colonial office in reference to the same territory by Dutch, American, and by English censors. It has been said that we have been treacherous, tyrannical, and dishonest. To none of these charges do I think that the Colonial office is fairly subject; and though I cannot acquit every Governor of craft,—or perhaps of tyranny,—I think that there has on the whole been an anxious desire on the part of the emissaries from Downing Street to do their duty to their country. But there has been a want of settled purpose as to the nature and extent of the duties which fell upon England when she became mistress of the Dutch settlement at the Cape of Good Hope.
There are some who think that we might have confined ourselves to Table Mountain and Simon’s Bay, drawing a rampart across the isthmus which divides the Cape from the mainland,—so as to have kept only a station for the protection of our East India intercourse. But as the Dutch whom we took upon ourselves to govern had already gone far inland when we arrived, that would hardly have been possible, and a restriction so selfish would have been contrary to our instincts. Others would have limited our power at various boundaries,—especially towards the East, where were the Kafir tribes, an evident source of coming trouble, should we meddle with them. The Orange river as a northern boundary did seem to offer a well-defined geographical limit, which would still allow us enormous scope for agricultural and pastoral energy within its southern banks and give sufficient room for every immigrant of whatever nation, and for every Africander who wished to live under British rule, to find a home within its borders.
But, as has been told before, the Dutch fled away across the Orange river as soon as they began to feel the nature of British rule. Then arose the question, which we have never yet been quite able to answer. When they went was it our duty to go after them,—not to hinder them from going but to govern them whither they went? Certainly not; we said, when they went only in such numbers as to cause us no disturbance by their removal. But how was it to be when they threatened, without any consent of ours, to erect a separate nationality on our borders? They tried it first in Natal, threatening us not only with the rivalry of their own proposed Republic, but with the hostile support of Holland. This was not to be allowed and we sent 250 men, very insufficiently, to put down the New Republic. We did, however, put it down at last.
But the Dutch were determined to go out from us. Our ways were not their ways. I am now speaking of a period nearly half a century back and of the following quarter of a century. Our philanthropy disgusted them, and was to their minds absolutely illogical,—not to be reconciled to that custom of our nation of landing here and there and taking the land away from the natives. The custom to them was good enough and seemed to be clearly the intention of God Almighty. It was the purpose of Providence that white men should use the land which was only wastedwhile in the possession of black men;—and, no doubt, the purpose of Providence also that black men should be made to work. But that attempt to strike down the Native with the right hand and to salve the wound with the left was to the Dutchman simply hypocritical. “Catch the nigger and make him work.” That was the Dutchman’s idea. “Certainly;—if you can agree about wages and other such matters,” said the British Authorities. “Wages,—with this Savage; with this something more but very little more than a monkey! Feed him, and perhaps baptize him; but at any rate get work out of him,” said the Dutchman. Of course the Dutchman was disgusted. And then the slaves had been manumitted. I will not go into all that again; but I think it must be intelligible that the British philanthropical system of government was an hypocritical abomination to the Dutchman who knew very well that in spite of his philanthropy the Englishman still kept taking the land;—land upon land.
It was natural that the Dutchman should go across the Orange River, and natural too that the English governor should not quite know how to treat him when he had gone. But it would have been well if some certain policy of treatment could have been adopted. Many think that had we not interfered with him in Natal, had we never established what was called an Orange River Sovereignty subject to British rule, a Dutch-speaking nation would have been formed between our Cape Colony and the swarming native tribes, which would have been a protecting barrier for us and have ensured the security of our Colony. I myself donot agree with this. I think that a Dutch Republic if strong enough for this, stretching from the confluence of the Vaal and Orange rivers down to the shores of Natal would have been a neighbour more difficult to deal with than Kafir tribes. My opinion on such a subject goes for very little;—and there would at any rate have been a policy. Or, when we had after much hesitation forbidden the Dutch to form a Republic in Natal and had declared that country to be one among Her Majesty’s possessions, we might have clung to the South African theory which was then promulgated. In that case we should have recognized the necessity of treating those wandering warlike patriarchs as British subjects and have acknowledged to ourselves that whither they went thither we must go after them. This, too, would have been a policy. But this we have not done. At first we went after them. Then we abandoned them. And now that they are altogether out of our hands in the Free State we are hankering after them again. It is impossible not to see that the ideas as to Colonial extension entertained by the late Duke of Newcastle are altogether different from those held by Lord Carnarvon;—and that the Colonial office lacks traditions.
In some respects the history of the Orange Free State has been similar to that of the Transvaal. Its fate has been very different,—a difference which has resulted partly from the characters of the men employed, partly from their external circumstances in regard to the native tribes which have been near to them. Mr. Boshof and Mr. Brand have been very superior as Statesmen to Mr. Pretorius and Mr. Burgers, and the Basutos under Moshesh their Chief,—though they almost succeeded in destroying the Orange Republic,—were at last less dangerous, at any rate very much less numerous, than Cetywayo and the Zulus.
The Dutch when they first crossed the Orange River asked whether they might go, and were then told that the law offered no impediment. “I am not aware,” said Lieutenant Governor Stockenstrom in answer to a deputation which appealed to him on the subject, “of any law which prevents any of His Majesty’s subjects from leaving his dominions and settling in another country; and such a law, if it did exist, would be tyrannical and oppressive.” That was in 1835. It was in 1837 that the migration across the river really began, when many of the wanderers first found their way down to Natal. Some however settled directly across the Orange River, where however they soon fell into difficulties requiring government. While there was fighting with hostile tribes far north across the Vaal, and while Dingaan was endeavouring to exterminate the white men in Natal, the farmers across the Orange quarrelled in a milder way with the bastard Hottentots and Griquas whom they found there. But there were many troubles. When the Dutch declared themselves to be supreme,—in reference to the Natives rather than the British,—there came a British judge across the river, who happened then to be on circuit in the neighbourhood, and told them that they were all British subjects. But his assertion was very soon repudiated by the Governor, Sir George Napier,—for at that time the idea was prevalent at the Colonial office thatEngland’s hands should be stretched no further. This, however, did not stand long, and the next Governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland, found himself compelled by growing troubles to exercise authority across the rivers. He did not take possession of the country, but established a resident at the little town of Bloemfontein. The resident was to keep the peace between the Dutch and the various tribes;—but had no commission to govern the country. The British had found it impossible to allow the Dutch to drive the Natives from their land,—and equally impossible to allow the Natives to slaughter the Dutch. But yet we were very loth to declare the country British territory.
It was in 1848 that Sir Harry Smith, who was then in Natal, whither he had gone intending if possible to conciliate the Dutch would-be Republicans in that country, at last found himself compelled to claim for the mother country sovereignty over the region between the Orange and the Vaal rivers, and this proclamation he had to support by arms. Pretorius, who had become the leader of the Dutch in Natal, and who on account of personal slights to himself was peculiarly hostile to the English, came over the Drakenburg mountains, and put himself at the head of his countrymen between the rivers. He gathered together an army,—a commando, as it was then called in South African language,—and coming near to Bloemfontein ordered Major Warden, the British Resident, to move himself off into the Cape Colony south of the river with all that he had about him of soldiers and officials. This the Major did, and then Pretorius prepared himself to encounter with his Boers the offended majesty of Great Britain in arms. The reader will perhapsremember that the Dutch had done the same thing in Natal,—and had at first been successful.
Then, on 29th August, 1848, was fought the battle of Boom Plats half-way between the Orange River and Bloemfontein. Sir Harry Smith, the Governor, had come himself with six or seven hundred English soldiers and were joined by a small body of Griquas,—who were as a matter of course hostile to the Dutch. There were collected together about a thousand Dutch farmers all mounted. They were farmers, ready enough to fight, but not trained soldiers. More English were killed or wounded than Dutch. A dozen Dutchmen fell, and about four times that number of English. But the English beat the Dutch. This decided the fate of that territory for a short time,—and it became British under the name of the Orange River Sovereignty. Pretorius with his friends trekked away north, crossed the Vaal River, and there founded the Transvaal Republic,—as has been told elsewhere. A reward of £2,000 was offered for his apprehension;—an offer which might have been spared and which was happily made in vain.
Major Warden was reinstated as governing Resident, and the British power was supposed to be so well consolidated that many colonists who had hitherto remained contented on the south of the river now crossed it to occupy the lands which the followers of Pretorius had been compelled to desert. But the British were not very strong. The Basutos, a tribe of Natives who have now for some years lived in the odour of loyal sanctity and are supposed to be a pattern to all other Natives, harassed the Europeans continually. War had to be proclaimed against them. Basuto Land will befound in the map lying to the north of Kafraria, to the south east of the Orange Free State, south west of Natal, and north-east of the Cape Colony,—to which it is bound only by a narrow neck, and of which it now forms a part. How it became British shall be told hereafter;—but at the time of which I am now writing, about 1850, it was very Anti-British, and gave poor Major Warden and the Dutchmen who were living under his rule a great deal of trouble.
Then, in 1851, the Sovereignty was declared to be to all intents and purposes a separate Colony,—such as is the Transvaal at this moment. A Lieutenant Governor was appointed, who with the assistance of a council was empowered to make laws,—but with a proviso that such laws should not be binding upon Natives. To speak sooth British laws are not absolutely binding upon the Natives in any of the South African Colonies. In the Cape Colony or in Natal a Native may buy a wife,—or ten wives. There has always been the acknowledged impossibility of enforcing Africans to live at once after European habits. But here, in this new Colony which we had at last adopted, there was to be something peculiarly mild in our dealings with the black men. There was to be no interference with acts done within the limits of the jurisdiction of any native Chief. The Lieutenant Governor or “Resident was instructed to maintain the government of the native Chiefs over their people and lands in the utmost integrity.”[11]It is odd enough that from this territory, on which the British Governor or British Colonial Secretary of the day was so peculiarly anxious todefend the Natives from any touch of European tyranny, all the native tribes have been abolished, and here alone in South Africa the European master is fettered by no native difficulty;—is simply served by native servants. The native locations were to be peculiarly sacred;—but every Native has been scared away. The servants and workmen are foreigners who have come into the land in search of wages and food. The remarkable settlement at Thaba ’Ncho, of which I shall speak in a following chapter, is no contradiction to this statement, as the territory of the Baralongs of which Thaba ’Ncho is the capital is not a portion of the Orange Free State.
But with all our philanthropy we could not make things run smoothly in our new Colony. Moshesh and the Basutos would have grievances and would fight. The Governor of the Cape, who should have had no trouble with a little Colony which had a Governor of its own, and a Council, and instructions of a peculiarly philanthropic nature in regard to the Natives, was obliged to fight with these Basutos on behalf of the little Colony. This cost money,—of which the people in England heard the facts. It was really too much that after all that we had done we should be called upon to pay more money for an uncomfortable internal Province in South Africa which was not of the slightest use to us, which added no prestige to our name, and of which we had struggled hard to avoid the possession. There was nothing attractive about it. It was neither fertile nor pretty,—nor did it possess a precious metal of any kind as far as we knew. It was inhabited by Dutch who disliked us,—and by a mostungrateful horde of fighting Natives. Why,—why should we be compelled to go rushing up to the Equator, crossing river after river, in a simple endeavour to do good, when the very people whom we wanted to serve continually quarrelled with us,—and made us pay through the nose for all their quarrels?
It seems to have been forgotten then,—it seems often to have been forgotten,—that the good people and the peaceable people have to pay for the bad people and the quarrelsome people. There would appear to be a hardship in this;—but if any one will look into it he will see that after all the good people and the peaceable have much the best of it, and that the very money which they are called upon to pay in this way is not altogether badly invested. They obtain the blessing of security and the feeling, not injurious to their peace of mind, of having obtained that security by their own exertions.
But the idea of paying money and getting nothing for it does create irritation. At home in England the new Colony was not regarded with favour. In 1853 we had quite enough of fighting in hand without having to fight the Basutos in defence of the Dutch, or the Dutch in defence of the Basutos. The Colonial Secretary of that time was also War minister and may well have had his hands full. It was decided that the Orange Free State should be abandoned. We had claimed the Dutch as our subjects when they attempted to start for themselves in Natal, and had subjugated them by force of arms. Then we had repudiated them in the nearer region across the Orange. Then again we had claimed themand had again subjugated them by force of arms. Now we again repudiated them. In 1854 we executed, and forced them to accept, a convention by which we handed over the Government of the country to them,—to be carried on after their own fashion. But yet it was not to be carried on exactly as they pleased. There was to be no Slavery. They were to be an independent people, living under a Republic; but they were not to be allowed to force labour from the Natives. To see that this stipulation was carried out it would have been necessary for us to maintain magistrates all over the country;—or spies rather than magistrates, as such magistrates could have had no jurisdiction. The Republic, however, assented to a treaty containing this clause in regard to slavery.
In 1854 we got rid of our Orange River Sovereignty, Sir George Clerk having been sent over from England to make the transfer;—and we congratulated ourselves that we had now two independent Republics between us and the swarming hordes of the north. I cannot say how soon there came upon Downing Street a desire to resume the territory, but during the following troubles with the Basutos such a feeling must, one would say, have arisen. When the Diamond Fields were discovered it is manifest that the independence of the Orange Free State was very much in our way. When we were compelled by the run of circumstances to have dealings with native tribes which in 1854 seemed to us to be too remote from our borders to need thought, we must have regretted a certain clause in the convention by which,—we did not indeed bind ourselves to have no dealings with nativesnorth of the Vaal river, but in which we declared that we had no “wish or intention” to enter into such treaties. No doubt that clause was intended to imply only that we had at that time no hidden notion of interference with the doings of the proposed Republic by arrangements with its native neighbours,—no notion of which it was to be kept in the dark. To think the contrary would be to suppose that the occupants of the Colonial Office at home were ignorant of language and destitute of honesty. But there soon came troubles from the clause which must have caused many regrets in the bosoms of Secretaries and Under Secretaries. Now at any rate we are all sure that Downing Street must repent her liberality, and wish,—ah, so fruitlessly,—that Sir George Clerk had never been sent upon that expedition. With a Permissive South Africa Confederation Bill carried after infinite trouble, and an independent State in the middle of South Africa very little inclined to Confederation, the present holder of the Colonial seals[12]cannot admire much the peculiar virtue which in 1854 induced his predecessor to surrender the Orange territory to the Dutch in opposition to the wish of all the then inhabitants of the country.
For the surrender was not made to please the people of the country. Down in Natal the Dutch had wanted a Republic. Up in the Sovereignty, as it was then called, they also had wanted a Republic when old Pretorius was at their head. But since that time there had come troubles with the Basutos,—troubles which were by no means ended,—and the Dutch were now willing enough to put upwith dependence and British protection. The Dutch have been so cross-grained that the peculiar colonial virtue of the day has never been able to take their side. “We have come here only because you have undertaken to govern us and protect us,” said those of the Dutch who had followed and not preceded us across the Orange. And it was impossible to contradict them. I do not think that any body could now dispassionately inquire into the circumstances of South Africa without calling in question the wisdom of the Government at home in abandoning the control of the territory north of the Orange River.
But the Republic was established. For some years it had a most troubled life. Mr. Boshof was elected the first President and retained that office till 1859. He seems to have been a man of firmness and wisdom, but to have found his neighbours the Basutos to be almost too much for him. There was war with this tribe more or less during his whole time. There was a branch of the tribe of the Basutos living on a territory in the Free State,—a people whom I will describe more at length in a following chapter,—over whom and over whose property Moshesh the Chief of the Basutos claimed sovereignty; but it was impossible for the Free State to admit the claim as it could itself only exist by dictating boundaries and terms to the Baralongs,—which they were willing enough to receive as being a protection against their enemies the Basutos.
In 1860 Mr. Pretorius became President of the Free State,—the son of the man who had been the first President of the Transvaal,—and the man himself who wasPresident of the Transvaal before Mr. Burgers. But the difficulties were altogether beyond his power, and in 1863 he resigned. Then Mr. Brand was appointed, the gentleman who now holds the office and who will hold it probably, if he lives, for many years to come. His present condition, which is one of complete calm, is very much at variance with the early years of his Presidency. I should hardly interest my reader if I were to attempt to involve them in the details of this struggle. It was a matter of life and death to the young Republic in which national death seemed always to be more probable than national life. The State had no army and could depend only on the efforts of its burghers and volunteers,—men who were very good for a commando or a spasmodic struggle, men who were well used to sharp skirmishes in which they had to contend in the proportion of one to ten against their black enemies. But this war was maintained for four years, and the burghers and volunteers who were mostly married men could not long remain absent from home. And when a peace was made at the instance of the Governor of the Cape Colony and boundaries established to which Moshesh agreed, the sons of Moshesh broke out in another place, and everything was as bad as before. All the available means of the Free State were spent. Blue-backs as they were called were printed, and the bankers issued little scraps of paper,—“good-fors,” as they were called,—representing minute sums of money. Trade there was none and the farmers had to fight the Basutos instead of cultivating their land. At that time the condition of the Free State was very bad indeed. I think Imay say that its preservation was chiefly due to the firmness of Mr. Brand.
At length the Basutos were so crushed that they were driven to escape the wrath of their Dutch enemies by imploring the British to take them in as subjects. In March 1868 this was done,—by no means with the consent of the Free State which felt that it ought to dictate terms and to take whatever territory it might desire from its now conquered enemy and add such territory to its own. This was the more desirable as the land of the Basutos was peculiarly good and fit for cultivation,—whereas that of the Orange Free State was peculiarly bad, hardly admitting cultivation at all without the expensive process of irrigation. The English at last made a boundary line, to which the Free State submitted. By this a considerable portion of the old Basuto land was given up to them. This they have held ever since under the name of the Conquered Territory. Its capital is called Ladybrand, and its possession is the great pride of the Republic. In completing this story I must say that the Republic has been most unexpectedly able to redeem every inch of paper money which it created, and now, less than ten years after a war which quite exhausted and nearly destroyed it, the Orange Free State stands unburdened by a penny of public debt. This condition has no doubt come chiefly from its good luck. Diamonds were found, and the Diamond Fields had to be reached through the Free State. Provisions of all sorts were required at the Diamond Fields, and thus a market was created for everything that could be produced. There came a sudden influxof prosperity which enabled the people to bear taxation,—and in this way the blue-backs were redeemed.
There were other troubles after 1869;—but the little State has floated through them all. Its chief subsequent trouble has been the main cause of its prosperity. The diamonds were found and the Republic claimed the territory on which they were being collected. On that subject I have spoken in a previous chapter, and I need not again refer to the details of the disagreement between Great Britain and the Republic. But it may be as well to point out that had that quarrel ended otherwise than it did, the English of the Diamond Fields would certainly have annexed the Dutch of the Free State, instead of allowing the Dutch of the Free State to annex them;—and then England would have obtained all the country between the Orange and the Vaal instead of only that small but important portion of it in which the diamonds lie. To imagine that Kimberley with all its wealth would have allowed itself to be ruled by a Dutch Volksraad at the little town of Bloemfontein, is to suppose that the tail can permanently wag the dog, instead of the dog wagging the tail. Diamond diggers are by no means people of a kind to submit quietly to such a condition of things. It was bitter enough for the Volksraad to abandon the idea of making laws for so rich and strong a population,—bitter perhaps for Mr. Brand to abandon the idea of governing them. But there can now, I think, be no doubt that it was better for the Free State that Griqualand West and Kimberley should be separated from it,—especially as Mr. Brand was sent home to England byhis parliament,—where he probably acquired softer feelings than heretofore towards a nationality with which he had been so long contending, and where he was able to smooth everything by inducing the Secretary of State to pay £90,000 by way of compensation to his own Government. I should think that Mr. Brand looking back on his various contentions with the British, on the Basuto wars and the Griqualand boundary lines, must often congratulate himself on the way he has steered his little bark. There can be no doubt that his fellow citizens in the Republic are very proud of his success.