Seven Legs Across the Seas Part 8

"Come, buyers! Come, buyers! Come, buyers!" the auctioneer cries when he has an a.s.signment to sell something in the marketplace. Every one is used to the call, and soon a group gathers around. "How much--how much--how much?" the auctioneer starts with his glib sale talk. The articles to be sold may be crates of oranges, bunches of bananas, a crate of chickens, geese, hares, wild fowl, pumpkins, tomatoes, turnips, cornmeal, oats, hay, a pig, cattle, buck (deer), wildebeeste (gnu)--anything edible for man and beast. Dozens of auctioneers are selling goods in the Johannesburg market at the same time.

"That fellow is one of the lost tribe of Israel we read about in the Bible," spoke a Britisher who had been a produce dealer on the Johannesburg market for twenty years. "When the Rand was opened to the world," he continued, "the lost tribe cropped up in the Transvaal and that fellow is one of them." The buyer was engaged in a controversy with the old dealer, the point at issue hinging on one chicken, the Israelite contending he had bought thirteen hens, and the dealer maintaining there were only twelve to be sold. Arguments are taking place all the time between buyer, seller and auctioneer.

Fifteen wildebeeste (gnu), with bent horns, and whiskers six inches long growing straight from their noses; blesbuck, bushbuck, springbuck by the dozens, lay on the ground in the market. Meat from these animals is sold as venison. Seeing these beasts of the plains stretched out in plain view, about which most people read but do not see, creates a far-off feeling--a feeling that, were the eyes shut to the brick and mortar walls close by, one would be in a wild, unblazed section of the world.

Hundreds of ox teams in the market ground worm their way through piles of bags, hay and transports, led by the natives with bare feet and bare head. A South African ox team numbers nine yoke--18 oxen. The transport, or wagon, is 18 feet long and strongly built. Seven feet of the rear is generally covered with canvas, and under the "tent" is the home of the Boer, and often his wife, as weeks must elapse from the time a start has been made for market until their return, as the farms, in a great many instances, are located long distances from large towns. Time saving is not a factor in a great many sections of the sub-continent. The oxen plod slowly along an unkept road, always preceded by a kafir, who guides the caravan by rhinoceros-hide strips attached to the horns of the leading team. After traveling about three hours, a stop ("outspan") is made for the cattle to feed, as gra.s.s grows bountifully on the veld. So, allowing time for "outspanning"

and "inspanning," 10 to 15 miles a day is generally the distance covered by a transport. "Salted" cattle are the only ones in demand for working purposes. "Salted," when used in speaking of oxen, signifies that cattle can run the gauntlet of many diseases that so often bare the veld of grazing stock. These are cattle that have been sick but survived the attack. "Unsalted" stock are in little demand, as they often get sick after starting from the farmer's home and die by the roadside.

One automobile to 15 persons is a high percentage in a city with about 100,000 white population, yet that indicates the wealth of the gold city on the high veld. There are over 800 automobiles and the same number of motorcycles in Johannesburg, and among these are the largest, most expensive and swiftest manufactured.

The term "The Rand" embraces the mining districts of the Reef, and "Wit.w.a.tersrand" is used when speaking of the districts located close to Johannesburg.

Sixty miles of smokestacks--from Krugersdorp to Springs--will suggest at once the magnitude of the great Gold Reef. Dynamite is blasting the gold-bearing ore for that distance 24 hours a day; black smoke is rolling out of high smokestacks from strong fires, under boilers in which steam is generated to furnish power to hoist the ore from thousands of feet underground to the stamp mills at the top; great dirt heaps--cyanide banks, as they are termed--circle about and wall in thrifty mining towns, that are not seen until a train stops at a railway station; monster stamp mills, whose crushing machinery resembles the roar of a sea beating on a rocky sh.o.r.e, are grinding the quartz into powdered dust--for nearly thirty years the Reef has been exploited, and is still giving up its precious ore. Hundreds of thousands of people are engaged in this gold mining industry; the eyes of the money people of the world are constantly watching the gold yield of the Rand.

In 1884 the output of the Transvaal gold mines was $55,000, and, save for a few years, during which the Boer war was being fought, the output increased until it has reached the enormous sum of $150,000,000 a year. The monthly output is from $12,000,000 to $15,000,000.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NATIVE HUTS AND KAFIR CORN (top); AFRICAN TRANSPORT (bottom).

SOUTH AFRICA.]

The stamps that crush the ore into powdered dust weigh from 1,800 to 2,000 pounds. Under the stamps are zinc-lined inclining tables, 10 feet long and 4 feet wide, covered with quicksilver. Water washes the thin dust over the tables, when the gold adheres to the quicksilver.

The dust from five stamps pa.s.ses over one table. When about an eighth of an inch of gold sediment has acc.u.mulated, the stamps cease working, and the residue is sc.r.a.ped off the zinc. The sc.r.a.pings look like thick black mud. The sediment then goes through a drying process. The dried chunks of gold "mud" are next put in a kettle, or retort, and melted.

Borax is tossed into the hot metal, which separates impurities from the gold, the precious metal remaining at the bottom of the kettle, the dross keeping to the top. More gold "mud" is put in the kettle, until there is enough to make a brick, or ingot. The gold metal is poured into a mold. Cooling in a few minutes, the red hot brick is dumped on the floor. The shape of an ingot is similar to a sponge cake, narrower at the bottom than at the top. The weight of an ingot is 1,000 ounces, its value about $20,000.

In early years the dirt that pa.s.sed over the quicksilver was considered of little value, and was washed away. The dirt is now treated by what is termed the cyanide process. Remaining in large cyanide tanks, any gold contained in the dirt is reduced to a liquid.

The liquid next goes to the extracting room, where it pa.s.ses through inclining tanks, 12 feet long by 6 feet wide, composed of five compartments. The floors of these tanks are covered with 8 inches of zinc shavings. The liquid slowly pa.s.ses from one compartment to another. Any gold contained in the chemical solution adheres to the zinc shavings. The shavings are then taken from the tank and put in a retort. At the same time sulphuric acid is placed in the retort, which causes the zinc to dissolve. The sediment in this instance is also like black mud. This is next put through a drying process, put in another retort, when the gold can be seen, poured into a mold, and dumped on a floor in ingot form. Some of the mine owners are very obliging to visitors who wish to look about the works. The mines range in depth from 2,000 to 4,000 feet.

Twenty thousand Europeans and 200,000 natives are employed in the Rand mines. Paul Kruger, nearly 30 years ago, fixed the wages of the white miner at $5 a day. Contract miners, however, earn as much as from $200 to $300 a month; but the average wage of the Rand miner is $160 a month. The natives' wage runs from 50 cents to a dollar a day and board. The hours worked are eight, three shifts comprising a day's force.

Compound is the term used for an enclosure in which native employes are kept. As many as 3,000 to 4,000 kafirs work in some of the mines.

From the mine they go to the compound, where a bunk is provided, a place to make a fire, and food is furnished. They are not allowed outside the enclosure at night, but on Sundays and holidays most of them are free. Tact has to be exercised when a.s.signing kafirs to their quarters and to working mates, as a hostile feeling exists between certain tribes. If members of unfriendly clans be not kept apart, fights and murders often occur.

Weasel-eyed, idle, easy living Europeans are found in considerable numbers in mining districts. Were the natives allowed their liberty in the evening, it would result in their complete demoralization, for the crafty gentry would succeed in getting bad whisky or vicious rum into the compounds, receiving a big price for the poison, in addition to offering inducements to the "boys" to pilfer nuggets or heavy-bearing gold quartz.

"Scarcity of help, scarcity of help," is the cry of mine owners in South Africa. Sharp compet.i.tion prevails between mining companies for "boys," and it is a scarcity of this cla.s.s of labor to which they allude. A European trader may have the confidence of natives in the district in which his store is located, and when help is wanted labor agents call on the merchant. When a trader induces natives to go to the mines, the firm to which they have been sent will pay him $15 for each "boy" as a bonus. If the company failed to pay the bonus, it would thereafter get very few "boys" from that trader's district. In thickly populated centers like Kaffraria a dealer may control as many as 1,000 natives. In such instances companies pay him an income of from $100 to $125 a month, in addition to the $15 a head, in order to keep in his good graces. If a "boy" should engage to work for the shorter term--six months--and rehire at the end of the term, the trader from whose district the kafir originally came would be sent an additional sum of $15. Where labor agents deal with native chiefs for mine "boys," the chief expects a "bonsella" of $2.50 for every "boy"

leaving his district to work in the mines. With bonuses, clothes, car fare and other incidentals, it costs the mine company from $25 to $30 to get a "boy" from the kraal to the works. Mine owners claim they pay out a quarter of a million dollars a year in bonuses for native help.

It is also claimed that the mining industry could not be conducted at a profit with all white labor.

Twenty-one thousand graves in Braamfontein Cemetery, a great many of these containing two corpses, strongly emphasizes the terrible toll of human life paid to King Gold in the Transvaal mines. This is but one European graveyard, as there are several smaller burying places in the Johannesburg district. Besides those in which only Dutch and English are buried, there are Jewish, Malay and Mohammedan graveyards scattered about the city. Braamfontein Cemetery is filled, and a new one is filling fast. This appalling mortality has taken place during the past 30 years.

Eighty-nine open graves--mound after mound in as regular order as are boards in a floor--is a gruesome setting that forces one to cast a sad glance at the clouds of black smoke pouring out of the hundreds of smokestacks on the great Gold Reef, and at the gray-colored cyanide banks that half encircle the city of Johannesburg. These unbroken rows of freshly dug graves were in the European section of Brixton graveyard, and at the other end of the large burying ground--the native section--eighty freshly dug graves presented a grim foreground.

"Bubonic plague?" the reader may ask. No, phthisis.

Eighty in a thousand of ordinary miners, and 140 in a thousand of workers using underground drilling machines, are affected with phthisis. As gold-bearing rock is being blasted all the time, miners inhale the fine dust during working hours. Respirators, a device covering the nose and mouth, having a sponge at the mouth, and two openings at the side covered with a fine wire screen to admit of air, are worn by some of the workers, but, as it proves c.u.mbersome, a great many miners discard that life-extending invention. Phthisis here signifies the drying up of the lungs. The dust inhaled settles in the cells of the lungs, with the appalling result mentioned.

Seven years is the average lifetime of the Rand miner. On the headstones in Braamfontein Cemetery, carved in granite, most of the ages are found to be in the twenties and thirties. Few stones observed bore ages of 40 years and over.

The average number of burials in Johannesburg is ten a day; Europeans average four and natives six. People not engaged in underground work, and not connected with the mines in any capacity, also become affected with phthisis. As on American prairies, the wind blows on the veld nearly all the time, and generally with considerable force; hence the air is full of dust from the powder-crushed cyanide banks.

Priest, preacher and missionary may be seen at cemetery gates all the time, more particularly in the afternoons.

"Will there be any more funerals today?" was asked of a native who had just filled in a grave.

"Yes, baas. Two wagons coming now," he answered, pointing to the road.

The natives are buried in a burlap sack, drawn tight and sewed, reducing the natural size of the body considerably. Two corpses rest on the bottom of a grave. Six inches of dirt cover these, when two more of the sacked bodies are lowered, making four in one grave.

The city of Johannesburg receive $7 for every kafir buried in Brixton graveyard--$28 for a grave containing the bodies of four natives. The owners of the mines at which the natives had worked must pay this burial charge. Deaths of natives are caused more by accidents in mines than from phthisis, as kafirs will not, as a rule, work more than six months in the year.

At the end of Brixton graveyard, where Europeans are buried, could be seen, from a distance, undertakers in long coats and high hats; hea.r.s.es, ornamented with white or black c.o.c.kades, drawn by horses of the same color; clergymen, their heads bowed and reading from books, with groups of veiled people huddled in small areas--putting people underground and the circ.u.mstances attending these ceremonies are of very frequent occurrence in Johannesburg.

The grave-diggers have no slack seasons; they are busy the year round, which accounted for so many open graves. As they were sure to be needed, it was better to be ahead of the demand than crowded with orders.

"Don't Expectorate!" is the cautionary sign confronting one at almost every turn in the Gold City. Where the "Don't Spit!" sign appears frequently one knows he has reached a place where lung trouble is prevalent.

Paved streets in some of the South African cities has not been considered so much of a munic.i.p.al duty as in other parts of the world.

The soil being hard, the rain, coming in showers, flows off as it does on paved streets. As the sun shines 365 days in the year on the high veld, the ground is dry in a short time after a shower has pa.s.sed.

Walking in the streets instead of on the walks is a local custom one quickly notices. In Johannesburg good, wide walks may be practically free of people though the street s.p.a.ce is occupied by pedestrians from curb to curb.

"Joburg" is the local term used almost exclusively by South Africans when speaking of Johannesburg. When one hears another say "Johannesburg" it is a pretty sure sign that he is a stranger in "Darkest Africa."

Living expenses are much higher in Johannesburg and other up-country cities than on the coast. House rent runs from $25 to $40 a month; meat was 18 cents to 30 cents a pound; street car fare is very high; in a general sense, expenses are 20 per cent. higher than in the coast cities. Boarding houses charge from $35 to $40 a month; hotel accommodation is expensive, too, the cheapest costing $3 a day; rooms cost $1.25 a day in all the hotels. Six cents is the least sum for any small article. A newspaper costs six cents (threepence), the bootblacks charge 12 cents for a shine, barbers 18 cents for shaving; it seemed as if one was handing out six cents at every few squares to a street-car conductor, so short are the "stages"--in fact, few things can be had for less than six cents.

Dutch, British and Jews comprise the majority of the population, Jews numbering one-third. Germans are also quite numerous. Americans, up to the time of the Boer War, held high positions with mining companies, but they have been thinned out since the country changed hands. Every country of the globe is represented in that cosmopolitan center.

On pay days "Joburg" is a lively place. The saloons seem to get the biggest part of miners' wages. They spend their money like lords. In no place are bars better patronized. A gla.s.s of beer costs 12 cents, and stronger drinks 24 cents. The barmaid, a woman engaged tending bars in public drinking places in British territories, is not seen behind the bar of saloons in cities and towns of the Transvaal, men being engaged at that work.

Years ago, when the game of baseball was played, which took place weekly and on holidays, crowds of people used to attend. Games are still played at weekly intervals, but only a few attend--sometimes not more than 100 persons. On the other hand, big crowds attend the English games--cricket and football.

"Closed on account of dust." "Open--Closed on account of dust." Such signs will be found secured to doors of most business houses. The wind blows so generally, and nearly always so strongly, that all doors must be kept closed, whether of business or dwelling. With unpaved streets, and the half-circle of great cyanide banks about the city, Johannesburg, as appearing to some visitors, is not a choice place of residence. The climate of the Rand possesses one virtue--there is no malarial fever. On the other hand, the lips swell, chafe and crack from the effects of both the wind and high alt.i.tude, this causing an irritating feeling. Laundries do a good business here. Collars are changed twice a day, as the soil, being red, and the almost constant high winds, with the dry nature of the country, keeps the dust flying about most of the time. One will not have lived in this city long before he will have eaten his allotted "peck of dirt."

In Ludlow Street Jail, New York, prisoners are kept who are not considered criminals--that cla.s.s of men who cannot pay their debts and who have not been adjudged insolvent. The city pays for their food. In Johannesburg, if a man is sent to jail for a debt, the creditor must pay the city 50 cents a day for the debtor's board. Precious few prisoners of this cla.s.s are found in the Johannesburg jail.

Newspapers of the Rand are fully up to the requirements of the city, four dailies being published, two morning and two evening. The morning papers issue Sunday editions, one of these including a colored magazine section. It has required constant fighting by the owners to maintain the Sunday editions, as it is an innovation in British territory. Opponents had injunctions issued against these publications, and in other ways the publishers were put to much inconvenience. This edition still appears on the street, however, but, by a court decree, dealers and newsboys are prohibited from soliciting sales. Printers earn good wages on the Rand, running from $30 to $55 weekly, with the working hours seven and eight. One finds here linotype machines, web presses, color presses, stereotyping--all the modern machinery in use in the North. South Africa is the one country where printers can do as well, and sometimes better, than in the United States.

Mechanics and miners are so well organized that they have a building of their own. They pull together on election day, and, as a result, a number of union labor men are sprinkled about the upper and lower Houses of Parliament. Eight hours is the maximum working day in South Africa among skilled mechanics and miners. Wages run from $4.50 to $6 a day.

In years gone by the Dutch suffered so much from the natives during their treks that they have a pretty good idea of how to manage them.

No blacks crowd Europeans off the walks in Johannesburg, for the black man is not allowed on them; he must walk in the street. This policy saves trouble for both black and white, for it prevents arguments and fights. He is not allowed to ride on street cars. In railroad compartments colored and half-castes are prohibited from intermingling with Europeans. "Reserved" is posted on the doors of certain compartments, in which one generally would find well-to-do colored pa.s.sengers.

The native is not allowed to live in towns and cities here. What are termed "locations" are built by the munic.i.p.ality, and in these places the natives are kept to themselves. The Boer plan is much better than the English, as, if the black man be given too much liberty, it generally proves injurious to him. Dutch authorities are very severe on men smuggling liquor to natives. Five hundred dollars is the fine, and in default of payment the smuggler must serve five years in jail.

Indians leaving Natal for the Transvaal generally come to grief. On arrival they are promptly taken into custody, and when 50 to 100 have been collected are put into box cars of a train headed for Portuguese territory, and soon find themselves in the hold of a ship sailing from Lourenzo Marques for India. Indians have spoiled the Province of Natal, so the Dutch are taking care that that race do not get the money that belongs to the white man in the Transvaal. Though Indians are British subjects, it makes no difference to the Dutch. Australia has barred them from that country, too.

An art gallery, a museum, a large public library, a good zoo, sports grounds, parks where music is furnished, theaters, schools, churches, hospitals--all the public accessories that make a city are found in Johannesburg; also most modern city fire-fighting appliances, an electric street car system, electric and gas plants, fully in keeping with those in cities of the same size located in the countries of the North.

"Necessity is the mother of invention," so, as there is practically no timber in South Africa, and brick buildings cost quite a sum of money to erect, homes had to be made of something else. Corrugated iron was the material that answered the purpose of brick, wood and stone. About all the timber required to erect one of these houses is for joists, scantlings, and doors. The sheets of corrugated iron are nailed to the joists and to the scantling at the roof. Sometimes there are plastered interiors, but a great many have no more protection than the sheet of iron. They are very hot in summer and very cold in winter. They pop and crack all the time from expansion and contraction. These houses are seldom more than one story high. "Wood and iron" buildings is what they are called.