Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer Part 8

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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sumed 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 h.o.r.n.y. 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 h.o.a.rded 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 impa.s.sable 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 pa.s.sed within less than fifty yards of my fire.

CHAPTER VII

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 Ma.s.sacres 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 Sat.u.r.day 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. a.s.sistance 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 circ.u.mstance 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 ill.u.s.trates 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 coa.r.s.e and brown. He ate with avidity, and every one present felt the greatest satisfaction. Within a few hours he was dead.

One weird circ.u.mstance 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 circ.u.mstances 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 Sat.u.r.day night, but would turn up very early on Sunday morning. One such morning he did not appear. While I was at breakfast a pa.s.sing digger told me that my mate was in gaol for a.s.saulting 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 circ.u.mstance 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 G.o.dsend 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 advent.i.tious; 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.