Previous to this, in 1881, a long lull had taken place in gold discoveries in the Transvaal, owing to various causes, and among others to the war.

In consequence of rumors of gold having been found at Eland Hoet being in circulation, a number of men, including prospectors, diggers, and others, were attracted from Lydenburg and Pilgrims’ Rest to that district, and notwithstanding the fact that this swindle, as it was termed, was severely criticized in the public press, yet by this means the discovery of the Kaap gold fields was incidentally brought about.

Many of the diggers worked up the gullies, came on the Godwaan plateau, and ultimately the Kaapsche Hoop gold fields, still further south, with the Duivel’s Kantoor as its centre, became an established fact. With respect to the later gold discoveries in Swaziland I shall speak further on. The Duivel’s Kantoor, Devil’s Counting House, at which I have mentioned we rested a night, is now comparatively deserted, containing but half a dozen houses, and two canteens; but in June, 1882, before the Transvaal government, by granting a concession of most of the valuable mining land in the locality to a private company, drove the diggers away, this village was the prosperous business centre of at least 500 diggers, who were spread over the Godwaan plateau, an area of twenty-eight by fifteen miles.

After the concession, of which I have just spoken, was granted to the Barret-Berlyn Co., many of the diggers went down into the Kaap Valley and found alluvial gold at a spot afterwards named Jamestown, close to the Kaap River, in Lat. 25° 31′ S. and Long. 31° 26′ E., about sixteen miles from the present town of Barberton; and although nuggets up to 58 ozs. in weight were found by individual diggers, there still was no general or substantial success.

Jamestown, however, may take the credit to itself of being, as it has been styled, “the cradle of the country which was in future to populate our reefing districts.”

Some of the diggers becoming dissatisfied with their luck left the place, went in a southwest direction, and struck some very rich gold reefs, together with some insignificant alluvial diggings, on certain of the farms, thirteen in number, the property of Mr. G. P. Moodie, the Surveyor General of the Transvaal. The choice of the farms has since proved a very lucky stroke for Mr. Moodie, for although when he acquired them from the government he might possibly have looked forward, in the distant future, to a railway being constructed from Delagoa Bay to Pretoria, which would enhance their value, yet at the time he became their owner no one ever dreamt of the possibility of their being gold-bearing. This gentleman had made in 1870 and 1871 three official journeys from Pretoria to the coast, with the object of discovering the best line of road either for rail or wagon, and on his second journey he passed through this tract of country.

I may mention, in passing, that, touching the geology of the district, a late writer states that “the formation consists chiefly of argillaceous slates and schists, sandstones, and conglomerate, in some places disturbed by granite and traversed by quartz-reefs and igneous dykes. The reefs are for the most part vertical, and run almost due east and west, with a southerly inclination.”

But to return to the history of these gold fields, discovered on Mr. Moodie’s farms: In November, 1882, certain terms on which diggers were allowed to peg out claims on these properties were posted up at the Gold Commissioner’s office at the Kantoor by Mr. Moodie’s attorneys, and as a consequence many proceeded thither to prospect. Their reports being considered satisfactory, a general rush was made, for with the most crude and primitive appliances it soon became generally known that a comparatively large quantity of gold was being turned out. The number of diggers increased rapidly, spread out into three camps, and everything went on prosperously until towards the end of 1883, when Mr. Moodie disposed of his property to a Natal syndicate for £240,000. Before doing this he rescinded the terms which he had made with the diggers during the previous year, and the consequence was that great dissatisfaction was caused among them. The Natal directorate, evidently with the intention of squeezing out of the diggers all that they could get, and forgetting the possibility of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, immediately began to impose the most exorbitant taxes. They demanded £3 a month license money per claim, and a royalty of from 7½ to 4½ per cent. on all gold turned out. These changes, together with payments for wood, water, charcoal, grazing, and stand rents, soon was attended with the result that might have been foreseen—the diggers were led to prospect on the government farms adjoining, and situated to the northeast, on which in 1885 a public gold field was proclaimed.

In the winter of 1884, Messrs. Barber Bros., gentlemen well known in the Cape Colony, at the time joining business with pleasure, were shooting game in the Kaap Valley. In the month of August, they came to a stream known as the Umvoti Creek, about half a mile distant from the site of Barberton, a township which has since been named after them, when, on looking up the side of the steep ravine bordering it, they detected a quartz reef jutting out, which on examination showed visible gold. This, with the assistance of Mr. T. C. Rimer, who can well lay claim to be one of the pioneers of the Transvaal gold fields, they opened up, imported a ten-stamp battery (the first on the Kaap fields) and began, as soon as it was erected, to crush at once. From the moment their returns became known the death-knell of Moodie’s Co. was tolled, either as a paying investment, or as regards any further important increase in the prospecting or mining on their property, although the various sub-working companies, notwithstanding their being so heavily taxed, are in many instances doing fairly well. The diggers now made the rush to which I have above alluded, and left Moodie’s almost deserted, when the mountains and gorges, the rugged slopes and defiles along the Makoujwa range, became peopled by prospectors, attracted from all parts of South Africa, and many valuable properties were discovered; but it was not until “Bray’s Golden Quarry,” ten miles from Barberton, was found (May, 1885), that the South African world became awakened to the fact of the richness of the Transvaal as a gold-yielding country. This wonderful mine was, as the discoverer himself told me, accidentally found after five months prospecting on the Sheba range by Mr. Edwin Bray, whom I knew in 1871 as a pioneer diamond digger, and whose name will now forever stand associated with the development of this auriferous region. Although the company which he formed did not at the time possess its own machinery, and was for months compelled to send its quartz eight miles away over a rugged country to be crushed at an expense of at least one oz. of gold per ton, pending the completion of a tramway to the Queen’s River, yet it paid back in fifteen months 63½ per cent. of its capital in dividends; its £1 shares sold readily at £75 or over, and the return of its crushing averaged 7 oz. 3 dwts. per ton; and this, although from tests applied it had been proved that the refuse-tailings contained 4 oz. of gold per ton, lost through imperfect manipulation.

The sight of the quarry at once raised endless speculations in my mind as to the vastness of its wealth. To form even a remote idea was an impossibility. On the one hand I could look from the bottom of a deep, almost precipitous, ravine, where the reef could be measured 100 feet in thickness, and see towering between 400 and 500 feet above me the capping of the quartzite reef, lying at an angle of fifty degrees on the edge of the quarry proper, while on the other no limit to the extent of the reef hidden from view beneath my feet had yet been determined; neither had the length of the vein, although almost certain indications had been found that it extends nearly half a mile. I began to calculate what the return of this company will be with the 100 stamps about to be erected at daily work, until dreams of untold wealth came over me, from which I awoke to warmly congratulate my old friend on his marvellous success, which as one of the most active mineral prospectors in the Transvaal he so richly deserves. On my visit to Mr. Bray’s I noticed that the road to Sheba is dotted with canteens. Although the distance is only twelve miles, yet the inner man can be supported six or seven times before arrival at Eureka City, (within a stone’s throw of the Sheba Reef), and when there almost as many canteens as houses may be counted. Notwithstanding, however, the great amount of prospecting work which has been done, very few really payable gold reefs have been as yet struck. Speaking of prospectors’ work, I may state that on the day I left I counted in the Gold Co.’s office 513 registered blocks of amalgamated claims; but of these more anon. There can be no doubt that the precious metal exists in various degrees of richness in the quartz-veins that are to be seen all around the Kaap Valley, yet these have not been discovered in quantity rich enough to warrant the great influx of diggers and men of almost every trade or profession, or the absurd speculation in claims and shares which has taken place.

The public have been warned over and over again that these are no “poor man’s diggings,” but at a distance the very name of gold serves to call up the most enchanting visions, and forbids the difference between alluvial diggings and quartz mining being sufficiently weighed. There is such a thing in this world as living on a name; many a “worthless son of a worthy sire” has found out this secret, and the name of Edwin Bray and the stupendous wealth of his quarry has tended to enable company on company to be floated which never will pay a dividend between this and the day of their liquidation. To Natal men the credit is certainly due of first developing the fields. The object which they had in view in forming companies was to found dividend paying concerns, with small capitals only sufficiently large to provide adequate machinery to develop the property; whereas some, though of course not all, of the other speculators, who came in at a later period, formed large companies, took in any number of claims, whether proved gold-bearing or not, so long as they would swell, with an appearance of justification, the enormous capital of their prospectuses, got thousands of pounds promotion money, and, by means of a nicely managed ring, ran up the shares to a premium and then sold out.

As time goes on I feel certain that many things will have to be rectified, none more so than the pegging out of claims by power-of-attorney. If this absurd system be continued, there is nothing to prevent the four hundred millions who inhabit the Celestial empire, or even the Man in the Moon and his family—could communication be established with Earth’s satellite—holding claims to the direct detriment of those whose energy, determination, and self-sacrifice have prompted them to seek their fortunes in this new El Dorado.

The Transvaal, however, will in a very short time create further sensations. On the Sheba Hill veins of antimony (stibnite), worth in the commercial world £33 per ton, have been found; and at the Komati, baryta, used for bleaching and for the adulteration of white lead, has been discovered; while in the other parts of the district horn-silver, or chloride of silver, possessing 78 per cent. of the real metal, has been unearthed. This is not the same as Mackay’s celebrated mine in America, the Comstock, which is argentite, sulphite of silver, commonly termed black silver, containing as much as 85 per cent. of silver, though it is, as will be seen, immensely valuable. Then again, both the blue and green carbonates of copper, as well as native copper, can be found in abundance, and the wonderful Albert Mine, with similar ones, situated near Pretoria, of fahlerz tetrahedrite, or grey copper ore, running from 113 to 200 ozs. of silver to the ton, must not be forgotten. Again, large coal deposits have been found at Ermelo and Bronkhorst Spruit and also at Wynoor’s Poort, about 100 miles from Barberton, the last named being very little inferior to Welsh coal. Colonel Warren,^[111] formerly on Major-General George H. Thomas’s staff in the army of Tennessee, a practical geologist, also informed me he had discovered in the Transvaal, on his road up to the Barberton gold fields, petroleum shale which, he said, was almost a positive proof of the existence of petroleum, in what may prove to be highly payable quantities. These coal deposits will be of immense value when the different water-rights in the Kaap Valley are all taken up, as the necessary wood for feeding any large number of steam engines is not to be procured without great difficulty and serious expense.^[112]

Some idea of the madness of the speculation that has lately existed may be formed, if it be taken into consideration that the inflated selling price of the scrip of different companies floated merely, not worked, exceeded £5,000,000, while their subscribed value is under £2,000,000. This has produced what I may term an abnormal and unnatural state of things, not only at De Kaap, but in various other parts of South Africa. It is important to bear in mind (January, 1887) that there are at present only ninety-seven stamps at work (I include those on Moodie’s), yielding a profit of about £160,000 a year; and investors and speculators will do well to remember that it will be at least eighteen months before an appreciable difference in their number can be made. If we as business men compare this return with the outlay of money which is taking place, we can at once see the ruinous scale on which business is conducted. As I told you, there are 513 amalgamated blocks in the proclaimed government gold fields, paying each, on an average, £10 a month duty to government; this is £61,560 a year. Then must be added the cost of working; put this at a very low estimate, say £20 per block, there is £123,120 more. I will not reckon the expenditure of those prospectors who have not pegged out, but take next the share list of companies floated. These amount to say roughly £1,800,000, but their inflated value is at least £5,000,000. Now surely these investors expect some interest on their capital, and if a modest 5 per cent. only be allowed, although all mining speculations ought to return at least 20 per cent, (and you will agree with me, the greater part of this capital will pay no interest for two years), we have a further loss of £250,000 a year to the investing public, or a total of £434,680 at the present time.

I saw the mania which occurred some years ago on the Diamond Fields, but there, even, nothing so outrageously absurd and preposterous happened as in this gold share mania. I remember the time when central shares in the Kimberley Mine, which in the height of the mania barely reached 300 per cent, rise, and were, moreover, at the very time paying over 50 per cent. interest on their subscribed value, falling on the collapse occurring from £400 to £26 per share, and, although the property is one of the richest in the world, yet it has taken years for it to regain its status. How then about gold shares running up from £1 to £25 per share, or 2,500 per cent. advance, which are not working, have no machinery, and cannot pay a dividend, if not for years, at least for months.

The great question is, What is to be the future of these fields? I must say that, after careful investigation, I am not sanguine as to the Kaap Valley being able to carry any large population for a long time to come, and even then the population will be purely a working one, men toiling for regular wages, miners, engineers, and skilled artisans employed by companies. The average English laborer will be driven out of the fields by native labor, 1,500 natives being at present employed, and there will be no such thing as a poor man jumping into a fortune except by some extraordinary stroke of luck. I cannot too strongly impress on those who are without capital, that Barberton is no place for them, that is, unless they are prepared to be contented with wages no better, proportionately, than they can earn in any other part of the world. The skilled artisan or experienced miner may be fortunate enough to obtain a succession of highly profitable engagements, but that is very far from being a certainty. Although I would not altogether wish to discourage those who are willing “to scorn delights and live laborious days,” and who possess certain special qualifications in technical knowledge, from visiting Barberton, even although their store of money almost reaches the vanishing point, yet I would bid the vast majority of those without capital to pause and ask themselves whether it is not better to “bear those ills” they “have, than fly to others that” they “know not of.” Were this an alluvial gold field my advice would no doubt be different.

A man who, fifteen years ago, would have found the dry diamond diggings a possible Golconda, would now, I will not for a moment say starve, if he be sober, honest and industrious, but will have long to wait before he comes within measurable distance of the realization of his hopes, if he should ever do so. At Kimberley the day of the individual digger, unless he should be a man of enormous capital, is past and gone. There is a curious analogy between the two places; that which the increased expense of working, together with the amalgamation of claims, has done for the former, the working out of the known alluvial fields has done for the latter. In fact, I am reluctantly compelled to admit, that I know of no poor man’s diggings of any sort in South Africa.

That some good and extremely profitable reefs have been found, I do not for one moment wish to deny, but as I have just now said, these can be counted on the fingers of one hand. That gold is here and in large quantities is true, but it requires gold to get it, and there is such a thing as paying a guinea for a sovereign.

The place is now mainly, if not entirely, subsisting on imported capital, and that intangible entity known as hope. For capitalists, who are choosing to risk their money in testing the value of the reef properties, this is all very well. What I want to do, is to caution against disappointment those who think they are on the high road to fortune, when with hammer, pick, and tent they start off prospecting.

In concluding the subject of the gold fields I will only say that I am afraid that great disappointment must be the lot of the many—I mean the many who seek the fields comparatively penniless, trusting to receive some sudden, unearned favor from the blind goddess, rather than determining to force a smile from her by earnest, honest toil.^[113]

During my four months’ stay on these fields I pursued my profession and had many opportunities of seeing the country, being called on professional work in almost every direction, from Eureka City and the Sheba range to Moodie’s, and from the Kantoor to the Kami Klubane Beacon in Swaziland. And I also assisted in carrying out the hospital work, which was organized on a new footing while the larger government hospital was being built.