During the course of the year 1886 certain events occurred which determined me upon visiting Europe, and possibly settling in America, but before deciding upon the exact date of my departure, I resolved to visit Barberton, the main town of the Kaap Valley Gold Fields, in the Transvaal, and learn for myself on the spot the truth or otherwise of the statements then being made about the Fields, and which were exciting such intense interest in the Cape Colony and Natal, and even were beginning to attract the attention of the European capitalists.

I left Kimberley with that object in view in August last, by the mail coach, which ran through as far as Marais’ Farm, a few hours beyond Middleburgh, a small town seventy miles from Pretoria, the capital of the state, and which may be remembered as a place of some importance during Sir Garnet Wolseley’s operations in the Sekukuni war. I trusted, though the mail-coach service ended there, that some favorable opportunity of getting on to Barberton, the chief mining town of the district, might present itself. The gold fields that I was especially desirous of visiting lie between the Godwaan plateau and the Makoujwa range of mountains, along the valley of the Kaap and Crocodile Rivers, about 240 miles east of Pretoria. The ground between Kimberley and Pretoria I had travelled over three years before and consequently was well acquainted with it. The country I found as naturally rich and as picturesque as on my former visit, but I could not detect any signs of progressive energy or life. Everybody seemed imbued with the same lethargy and lack of industry and enterprise. On my arrival at Pretoria, however, I found the town, or rather the bars of the European Hotel and the clubs, in a state of unnatural ferment, owing to the “boom” occasioned by the newly discovered gold deposit at Witwatersrand, a place some thirty-five miles distant.

The gold there, I was told, had been found in a well-cased conglomerate, and the yield per ton was reported to be something fabulous. As a natural result speculation of the wildest character was going on.

Before arriving at Potchefstroom, formerly the capital of the state, the coach passed Wonderfontein, a farm where we changed horses, and which now possesses a certain historical importance as being the main centre of the Boer deliberations during their late successful struggle for the independence of their country.

Here the driver of the coach was induced to wait an hour in order to give the passengers the opportunity of visiting a renowned cave in the vicinity.

A tedious drive all night had brought us at last, at ten o’clock in the morning, to Wonderfontein. During the last hour or so, when the rising sun with profuse splendor “tipped the hills with gold,” the scenery, which had been rather monotonous since daybreak, became lighted up by glimpses of the beautiful Mooi River, which we could see running like a thread of glittering silver at the foot of a high range of hills to join the Vaal River below Potchefstroom. Of a wonderful cave on this farm I had often heard, and long wished to see. Mr. V. Aswegen, a son-in-law of the late proprietor, very kindly consented to act as guide, and show us the subterranean wonders which he told us he had discovered seven years ago, when out hunting game, at the same time adding that the existence of the cave was but little known, not many visitors coming to the spot. On our arrival at the place pointed out to us by the guide (four miles from his house), which was surrounded by trees, we scrambled down a few feet into something like a pit twenty feet deep, and about thirty yards in diameter, having at one corner a little hole barely large enough to admit a man.

Through this we groped one at a time. We did not advance far before the pitchy darkness caused us to stop and light the candles and lamps with which each visitor had been provided. Then continuing our descent for twenty minutes at least, as it were into the bowels of the earth, we were suddenly ushered into a hall of dazzling whiteness, a scene of startling fairy-like beauty presenting itself which words fail me to describe. Passing on a few yards we found ourselves in a large amphitheatre, at least one hundred yards across, with a dome sixty feet in height, arching above. From this hung in profusion groups of glittering stalactites, like giant icicles, some being as much as thirty feet in length, others shorter, and all the color of driven snow, which, combined with the stalagmites growing as if out of the floor and in some cases meeting, produced an effect which was simply superb.

Stalactites are produced, I may state, by the percolation of water, holding some mineral matter in solution, through the rocky roofs of caverns; the evaporation of the water producing a deposit of the mineral matter, and gradually forming the long pendant cones. Large caves are found only in limestone regions, and chemistry shows that water holding lime in solution does so by virtue of the carbonic acid it contains, and will deposit the lime when the acid escapes.

Imagination here could revel at will, and play any freaks she chose. To the fancy were suggested vivid and varied scenes, while associations of all kinds—recollections of the past, and anticipations of the future—crowded on the spectator’s mind. In one corner the stalactites extended nearly to the ground, in circular pillars, and to the eye of fancy seemed like the carved confessionals in some continental cathedral, and it needed no great stretch of imagination to expect momentarily the appearance of the fair penitent and “holy friar.” A little further—still allowing fancy scope—there could be seen the pipes of a magnificent organ, extending to the dome, while, seemingly to prove that all was real, our guide ran his fingers over these vibrating pipes, bringing out a succession of tones both musical and clear. Looking on the other side of what I shall term this magnificent hall, the Roman Forum, with its eloquent speakers, and the noble orations they delivered in centuries gone by, were brought vividly to one’s memory by the very model of an ancient rostrum, standing ready for another Cicero again to mount and passionately declaim “Quosque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra.”

At the request of my companions I mounted this natural platform, when amid most enthusiastic plaudits from the friendly audience I spoke as felicitously as I could on the Transvaal and its resources, and dwelt upon the probable time, the countless ages, which had been consumed in the formation of the natural beauties we were viewing.

Before bidding farewell to this never-to-be-forgotten scene, we gathered together underneath the centre of the dome and sang “God save the Queen,” our guide, with the precision of a drummer, beating time on one of the pendant cones. I must not forget to mention that the echo which reverberated through this majestic hall reminded me most vividly of the Taj Mahal at Agra, and of the curious acoustic properties of that white marble mausoleum. But the distant notes of our driver’s bugle summoning us, we were suddenly reminded that we must again tempt the fortunes of “a cold, cold world,” and leave these mysterious caverns to the darkness of midnight and the silence of the grave.

After a day’s rest at Potchefstroom we went on to Pretoria (the seat of government since November, 1865), where we stayed the night, and started next morning for Marias’ Farm, sixty miles beyond Middleburg, where, as I have already told you. the mail service ceased. Here I and a fellow passenger were compelled to hire a special conveyance to take us on to the Duivel’s Kantoor, passing through the romantic Eland’s Valley and by the side of the Barret-Berlyn property. This village (the Kantoor), which is picturesquely situated at the very edge of the Drakensberg overlooking the Kaap Valley, was formerly the headquarters of the diggers for alluvial gold on the Godwaan plateau, and also the residence of the gold commissioner. I will refer to one of my letters for a description of the scene: “A short distance from the hotel where I am resting I have just seen one of the finest sights that has fallen to my lot to behold since I have been in South Africa. It is only a stone’s throw from the table where I am writing to the edge of the Drakensberg, but before the grand scene which I shall essay to describe to you bursts upon the view, the pathway twists and winds through such immense water-worn sandstone boulders, tossed as it were promiscuously around, and of every conceivable size and fantastic shape, that no wonder the illiterate and superstitious but God-fearing Boer imagined some supernatural power—the Devil himself, in fact—when in a capricious mood had taken a particular interest in the locality.

“You have not forgotten, I am sure, our trip to the Falls of the Tugela in 1870, where, in one unbroken sheet, we saw that river leap over the Drakensberg 1,800 feet. I can even now picture to myself the view from the top of the Berg, a spot where few save the prowling Bushmen, with their poisoned arrows, have ever been; and can well remember how I feasted my eyes on the vast expanse below, studded with the homesteads of enterprising British colonists. I have been, as you know, on Majuba’s heights, and have seen the rocks up which General Smith and his plucky band resolutely climbed on that eventful Sunday morning, performing one of the most heroic feats of modern times—and I have lingered for hours on Table Mountain, viewing the magnificent panorama of Capetown, with its docks and shipping, the picture framed on the one side by the green of its beautiful suburbs, and on the other by the blue of the mighty Ocean. But these all pale before the view of the Kaap Valley from the Duivel’s Kantoor.

“When I first reached the edge of the Berg, the Kaap Valley—2,000 feet below me, which I knew from report was some thirty miles in diameter and surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills—presented a weird and beautiful appearance, being entirely covered by a dense white mist, which seemed like some vast inland sea. At the same time the rising sun, topping the hills on the other side of the valley, added to the novelty of the scene by pouring its dissolving rays, through a clear and cloudless sky, on the misty surface which glittered like a mirror as it reflected back the golden sheen. By degrees, as the sun, rising higher in the heavens, became more powerful, the conical-shaped hills which dotted the valley began to pierce through the mist, and beautiful islands with their bays and inlets seemed traced as on a map before me. I could not leave the place—I seemed rooted to the spot; but after turning round for a few seconds a still greater surprise was in store, for during the brief period that my attention had been withdrawn, a change, as if by magic, had taken place. The ‘blanket’ or ‘table-cloth,’ as the mist is called, had suddenly disappeared, and the whole valley was exposed to view; only, however, hanging over the spruits and marking their courses, did it still remain.”

Ten or twelve years ago, I have been told, this valley was in many parts a complete swamp; it was, notwithstanding this however, a favorite resort in the winter for the Boers from the neighboring high lands who came to shoot the big game—the lions, tigers, buffaloes, and rhinoceri, with which it abounded; but my medical knowledge soon told me the reason why the Boers had formerly named this romantic valley “The Valley of the Shadow of Death,” for the stern reality forced itself upon me that the pestiferous breath of the rolling mist, that I had just so much admired, although beautiful and fair to view, was dangerous in the extreme, and would yet prove the “bed-rock” which full many an unlucky digger would be sure to “strike.”

To the northeast I had pointed out to me the conical-shaped Spitzkop, which, with the Devil’s Knuckles, Mauch Berg, 8,725 feet high, and Macdonald’s Berg, mark the Lydenberg Gold Fields, and straight across to the south and southeast I could see Barberton, Moodie’s Lower Camp, Pretorius Kop and the Tafelberg, while the Makoujwa range, which forms the boundary between the Transvaal and Swaziland, formed the background to the scene. I am told there is an oil painting of this beautiful valley in the South Kensington Museum, painted by a Dutch artist as long ago as 1790. All the way on our road to Barberton, at which place it took us at least eight hours to arrive, we found the valley through which we passed uninhabited; yet there were at almost every few yards, in the shape of piles of stones, heaped together for mealie-garden clearings, evidences that this valley had but one generation back been enormously populated. In the early part of the century Umselikatzi, the late chief of the Matabeli—himself a Zulu, in fact a cousin of Chaka—was sent out of Zululand by Chaka, Cetywayo’s uncle, when he swept through Swaziland, and depopulated this valley, and, as one writer says, “they slew and slew until their arms were tired of killing,” then establishing himself in Matabele Land, beyond the Limpopo, set himself up as an independent monarch. This accounts very clearly for the fact that, although other tribes and languages intervene between the Zulu country and Matabele Land, yet nearly pure Zulu is even now spoken by the Matabeli.

The Kaap Valley after this became a species of “No Man’s Land,” and the habitat simply of refugee Kafirs and broken-up tribes, who acknowledged themselves subjects of the Swazi king and paid him tribute. The Swazis, however, from time to time, sent commanders further north, and made raids on Sekukuni’s Kafirs, or Bapedi, who, although they were once or twice successful in repulsing the invaders, were at last conquered, when the Swazis became paramount as far north as the Steelpoort River. This strip of land extending from the Makoujwa range to the river above-mentioned, including of course the Kaap Valley, was ceded to her Majesty’s government by the Swazi king; who, however, now declares that he never gave it to the Boers, who obtained it from us on the retrocession, but to her Majesty.

On my arrival at Barberton, which is the rendezvous of all the prospectors in the neighborhood, I found it to consist of a mining town of about 2,000 inhabitants, nestling at the foot of the steep range of hills which serves to divide the Transvaal from Swaziland. This place, which but a few months before had been a village with but one or two houses, before I left was the centre of a large and increasing population. Some idea may be formed when I tell you that the government has allotted 3,000 building stands on which there are hotels, stores, churches of different denominations, either completed or in course of erection, two stock exchanges, a club, a theatre, two music halls, three newspaper offices, three banks, a market-house, as well as large government buildings, comprising courts of law, post and telegraph offices, and last, but not least, that necessity of existence known in this country as a “tronk,” but elsewhere a prison—in fact, if it were not for the absence of the railway-engine and electric wire, none of the requirements of civilization would be wanting.

Some idea of the sudden rise of Barberton may be gained when a comparison is made of its past and present postal requirements. In March, 1886, the revenue from the sale of postage stamps amounted only to £24, while more than £1,000 worth were sold in December of the same year. During the same month the revenue from other sources amounted to over £16,000, and taking this as a fair monthly average at the present time, the revenue from Barberton and the Kaap Gold Fields alone is considerably greater than that of the whole state some two or three years ago.

Naturally, among a population composed of men of various types and nationalities, a great diversity of character must be found, hard-working men, sober toilers, drunken sots, worthless loafers, men of strict integrity, and others without a grain of honesty in their composition, are to be met with daily. Sad to say, a good many of those sent up to the Kaap Gold Fields to prospect, supported by syndicates in the Colony or Natal, never searched for the precious metal save in the billiard room, though as a change, now and then, they took an enjoyable picnic on the veldt at the expense of the confiding contributors to their outing.

It is a matter much to be regretted that strong drink, with its accompanying vices and crimes, and the diseases that its excess induces, especially in hot countries, always follows the advent of the Anglo-Saxon. In and around this small community canteens and low grog-shops absolutely swarm, the number of licensed houses in the district being over 200—or one grog-shop for every ten of its population. The state places no limit on the issue of licenses, either wholesale or retail; at present, until Barberton be declared a township, when a retail liquor license will cost £50, the one can be obtained for £12, and the other for £15, per annum, and Sunday trade is not restricted.

Barberton and the surrounding locality, in my opinion, would be as healthy and have as low a death-rate as any place in South Africa, the climate being both pleasant and invigorating, if only the simplest sanitary precautions^[110] were adopted by the authorities, and the population generally were fairly abstemious.

I wish here to correct a most erroneous impression which seems to prevail through South Africa as to the danger of residence in Barberton during the summer months. The climate of Barberton is but little, if at all, more unhealthy than that of Kimberley, and I speak advisedly from professional experience gained in both places. The only real exception that can be taken against Barberton as compared with Kimberley is, that being some seven degrees nearer the equator, the heat is more intense, and consequently greater care has to be taken in avoiding its depressing influences than in the other locality named. Let me, therefore, beg of you to disabuse your minds of the belief that Barberton in summer-time is a hot-bed of malaria. I must confess that I started to Barberton with a certain amount of trepidation as to the possibility or probability of myself or my healthiest neighbors being stricken down without warning by an attack of fever, the picturing of whose virulency had led me to expect an active counterpart to the great plague of London. Other practitioners there have owned to similar preconceived notions, of which, like myself, they soon become disabused. As a matter of fact, nothing can be further from the truth. Malaria indisputably exists in the low-lying districts situated to the north of Barberton; but a residence in and about that district, when accompanied by reasonable precautions, is as safe for a healthy man, woman or child, as almost anywhere in South Africa.

The Transvaal government, urged on no doubt by the exaggerated reports of the unhealthiness of the town, has generously given £2,000 to assist in building a general hospital. Pending the completion of this building a neat little cottage hospital has been fitted up, a medical staff appointed, and, with two trained nurses from the Kimberley hospital, who have volunteered their services, the sick poor are now fairly comfortable. The reports circulated through South Africa concerning the insalubrity of the Fields are fearfully exaggerated, but they have already attracted a number of doctors, largely in excess of the requirements of the place.

It is amusing to note the mistakes of current journalism. For instance, in the last Christmas annual issued by the Natal Mercury appeared the following remarkable piece of information: “The Kantoor is regarded as the sanatorium of Barberton, and to it the inhabitants repair on the first symptoms of illness.” It is not necessary for me to tell you that the Kantoor is thirty-five miles distant from Barberton, and I should pity the poor patient who would have to “jog his bones over the stones” in order to seek renewed health in this so-called sanatorium.

But as far as the finding of gold is concerned, the wave of modern gold discovery in Southeast Africa has flowed in an entirely opposite direction from the course it might have been expected to take, commencing in the interior and proceeding by slow and measured steps in the direction of the coast.

I may here just remind you of the unsuccessful expedition sent out in 1650 from Lisbon, under Francesco Barreto, to explore the gold fields of these regions, and en passant may mention that the yearly yield of gold exported at a somewhat later date by the Portuguese was more than a million pounds sterling in value, or, according to one authority, £3,000,000. Yet these matters I will not enter into fully now, but review at once the result of the work done in recent years.

Before proceeding further I may recall a fact that many may have forgotten, viz.: that the Transvaal Republic, under President Pretorius, made it penal for any one (£500 fine) finding precious stones or metals on his farm to reveal such discovery to any one except the government, and it was not until during the more liberal régime of President Burgers that this absurd piece of senile legislation was rescinded or fell into abeyance.

But as I say, to come to modern times—Mr. H. Hartley, the celebrated elephant hunter and explorer, while shooting in the Matabele country in 1866, was led to suspect the existence of gold in that country, and so excited was he from what he saw, and also from the current stories afloat, that on the next trip which he took in the following year he brought with him a young German traveller, the late Carl Mauch, to aid him in discovering the truth or falsehood of these reports. Mauch wrote in the most glowing terms of what he saw, and of the wonderful richness of the quartz that he found, the result being that after the formation of various colonial companies Sir John Swinburne and Capt. Levert, representing the London and Limpopo Mining Co., came out from England in 1868, fully equipped, and proceeded to the Tati gold fields, of which district Capt. Levert had got a grant from Umzelegatzi. These fields, extending from northwest to southeast, a distance of forty miles long by fourteen broad, are in 21° 27′ S. Lat., and 27° 40′ E. Long. There are on the settlement itself, according to Alfred G. Lock, F.R.G.S., eleven mines (in fact nine different companies were formed) from which gold has been taken, and these are all situated, he says, on workings sixty to seventy feet deep, of the age of which some idea may be gathered from the fact that trees from 150 to 200 years old are now growing within these ancient shafts. The workings of the Tati gold fields were continued by Sir John Swinburne, and afterwards by August Griete, for about three years, when they were abandoned. One Australian miner, however, remained behind, working on what was named the New Zealand Reef, and his efforts were sufficiently successful to induce Mr. D. Francis of Kimberley, to apply to Benguela, the Matabele king, for Sir J. Swinburne’s concession, which he obtained, but up to the present time operations have been conducted without much success,

The discovery of other gold fields 350 miles to the northeast of the Tati followed in a few weeks that of these fields. In October, 1868, McNeil of D’Urban, with other members of the D’Urban Volunteer Artillery, of which corps he was then Lieutenant, left Natal, went first to the Tati, and then proceeded to what were termed the Northern gold fields, but on fever breaking out among the party, and several dying, the survivors thought it more prudent to return.

In 1871, five years after Hartley’s discoveries, Mr. E. Button, a well-known Natal colonist who in 1868 and 1869 had prospected the country northeast of Lydenburg, nearly as far as the water-shed of the Zambezi, found gold upon his farm Eersteling, in the district of Marabastad, which was a new departure in gold discovery farther to the south.

Proceeding to England, he formed a company, The Transvaal Gold Mining Co., with a capital of £50,000, and returned to the Transvaal with a mining engineer of experience, and also with powerful machinery. Although troubled with many difficulties, but principally with water in his main shaft, he worked away with varying success until the Boer war of 1881 put an entire stop to his efforts. The Boers, in their desperate need at the time, made a complete wreck of his machinery, being constrained, through want of ammunition, to cut up even the stamper-rods of the battery, to mould into cannon balls.

The next move in a southerly direction was the finding of gold by Mr. Lachlan and others, in September, 1873, on the Blyde (or Joyful) River, at Pilgrims’ Rest, at Mac Mac; close by, and at Spitzkop, a solitary hill twenty miles distant. These alluvial diggings supported from 5 to 800 diggers, and Pilgrims’ Rest became for a time a place of considerable importance, until the principal creek being nearly worked out, and many diggers in consequence leaving, the government virtually drove the remainder away by granting a concession to a company formed by Mr. David Benjamin. This concession gave power to the company to remove all diggers on payment of compensation, which was made to the amount of £55,000. It is a subject of regret, however, that the same want of success has followed this company as that which has hitherto attended the Lisbon and Berlyn, the company in connection with which the name of Baron Grant has so prominently figured.