SOUTH AFRIGA
TO-DAY
MTH AN ACCOUNT OF .MODERN RHODESIA
H. HAMILTON FYFE

\ for the fau,niiiS^ if a, Coliege. .m^ihis Colonyjl

Bought with the income
ofthe
John T. Norton Fund

SOUTH AFRICA
TO-DAY

SOUTH AmiCA
TO-DAY
WITH AN ACCOUNT OF
MODERN RHODESIA

BY

H. HAMILTON FYFE
AUTHOR OP "THE NEW SPIRIT IN EGYPT , ETC.

LONDON
EVELEIGH NASH
1911

Printed by
BALLANTYNE & COMPANY LTD
Tavistock Street Covent Garden
London

CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. Cape Town 9
II. South Africa at the Cross-roads 20
III. The Natives 34
IV. Across the Karroo 47
V. KiMBERLEY 57
VI. Diamonds 68
VII. Bloemfontein 79
VIII. General Hertzog's Bid for Power 92
IX. No English need apply 104
X. Agriculture HI
XI. Johannesburg 124
XII. Gold 185
XIII. Pretoria 146
XIV. Over the Drakensberg 152
XV. The Indianisation of Natal 160
XVI. Durban 171
XVII. Rhodes's Heritage 181
XVIII. KiMBERLEY TO BuLAWAYO 193
XIX. BuLAWAYO 203
XX. A Map 218
XXI. Salisbury 228
XXII. The Victoria Falls • 241
XXIII. Tropical Rhodesia 252
XXIV. The Duke of Connaught's Tour 264
Index 297 V

ILLUSTRATIONS
For the illustrations in this volume, the publisher is indebted to
the High Commissioner of South Africa (for those illustrating the
States ofthe Union), to the British South Africa Company (for those
illustrating Rhodesia), and to Mr. Dudley Kidd To face
page
Table Mountain from the Sea 10
Camp's Bay, near Cape Town 1 1
The House that Rhodes Built 32
An Avenue near Cape Town 33
A Kafir Kraal 44
Making Mealie Flour 45
An Ostrich Farm near Oudtshoorn 54
Vineyard and Orchard near Cape Town 55
In the Mountains near Cape Town 55
A Typical Market Square (East London) 84
" The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places " (Lindley) 85
Telegraph Poles for the Cape to Cairo Line 106
Natives Fording a River 107
The Woman with the Hoe 122
What the Driver Sees 123
Native Women on the Veld 142
A Dandy 143
Mr. Herbert Baker's Plans for the New Government
Offices, Pretoria , 150
His Majesty's Mails 151
A Settler's First Home (Rhodesia) 182
After Three Years 182 vii

ILLUSTRATIONS
Tofaoe page
Leading the Blind in a Zambesi Village 183
The First British Flag at Bulawayo 206
An Awkward " Drift " ; 207
Rhodesian Cattle 230
Taking Tobacco to the Railway from a Plantation
(Rhodesia) 231
Palms Mirrored in the Zambesi 242
The Smoke that Sounds (Victoria Falls) 243
The Native Band at Livingstone 258
The Raw Material 259
The Finished Product 259
Where the Water is Warm. The Indian Ocean near Cape
Town 268
Breaking up Land for Fruit (Cape Colony) 269
Selukwe (Rhodesia) 276
A Native Village on the Zambesi 277

VUl

CHAPTER 1
CAPE TOWN
From Southampton, 5978 miles; from Kimberley by train,
647 miles ; from Johannesburg, 956 miles. Population about
100,000; more than half white. Hotel: Mount Nelson
East and West have entered her gates and abide in her streets ;
Of old before her uprose like clouds the glories of fleets.
Bearing in for her bounty of water or field, for succour or rest,
At the Half-way House of the Traders between the East and
West.
She was the Gate of the Sea and the North for the pioneers.
Who struck through the heart of the ranges in half-forgotten
years,
She is the Mother City, fairer than any she bore,
Gowned in the blue of the sea and girt with the foam of the
shore.
Gleaming in gable and window, so she lies at her ease,
At the feet of the old grey father among her blossoming trees.
Tolling her bell for vespers, or calling that Eastern cry,
That the Faithful hear like a blessing out of the evening sky.
John Runcie
I HAD never thought of South Africa as a land of
beauty. Table Mountain, for examplersuggests flatness —
suggests the commonplace. I supposed it to be
an ordinary kind of flat-topped hill. 9

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
Then from the way men who had been through
the war talked about the veld, we received the
impression that it was monotonous, acrid, dull.
Yet I can bear witness that the veld is not half
so monotonous as the Canadian prairie or the
Russian steppes, not a quarter so arid as the alkali
plains of Arizona or the salt lands of Utah, not
nearly so duU as the landscape of large regions of
Central Europe.
There is a distinctive beauty of steppe and
of prairie even. There is a quiet charm about
the plains of Germany and France. I am not
merely saying that the typical landscape of South
Africa is not hideous, as if I should say it was
better than our own Black Country. I am com
paring it with landscapes which I have heard
enthusiasts rave over.
The first sight of Table Mountain from the sea
on a clear morning is something to remember aU
one's life — a moment of sheer ecstasy.
I had no idea what to expect when I ran up in
my dressing-gown about six o'clock. It was rather
shivery. The sun had just drawn a fiery finger
along the jagged line of rocky summits. The sea
was rippling in wavelets of a cold purple.
But I forgot about feeling chilled as soon as I saw
the mass of the mountain, with the attendant
Twelve Apostles to its right, faintly pencilled
through the sunrise mist. All were blue in deep
mysterious shadow; all were beautiful with that
10

CAPE TOWN
ecstatic beauty which floods the senses and leaves
you gasping, unable for some time to take it all in.
From the ocean you cannot see the town. That
lies sheltered in a deep fold. You see the Lion's
Head, which is one of the lower slopes of Table
Mountain ; and Signal Hill, which flashes home
news of your arrival ; and the pleasant seaside
suburbs which he along the rocky shore.
Here is a coast-line finer than the Riviera, with
a sea as blue, trees and flowers more luxuriant ;
little capes and bays of dehcious charm, a back
ground far grander, a climate during our winter
(which is their sumnier) that can be counted
upon for regular daily sunshine, and soft but not
hot nights : a climate which is warm, dry,
equable, and does not play tricks. Such a climate
we always hope to find on the Riviera, but seldom
until April do we find it !
Here is an ideal land of sunshine for our winter
butterflies. I look forward to the day when,
instead of mountaineering in Switzerland, young
Englishmen will go to the Rocky Mountains. Of
course, I mean the Canadian Rockies, which are
vastly more majestic and magnificent than the
American. And in that day I foresee a stream of
sun-seekers taking ship for the Cape Peninsula,
one of the most beautiful spots on earth.
The voyage is very seldom anything but smooth
and pleasurable all the way, and when it is
shortened to a fortnight instead of sixteen and a
11

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
half days it will double its attractions. Landing
for several hours at Madeira is a pleasant break.
You go up in a little train to a viUage on the
mountain-side high above Funchal. There you
breakfast in an hotel verandah overlooking the
slopes buried in semi-tropical vegetation, and the
brilliant gold-burnished sea.
From the tower of the church, a Uttle higher up,
you get an even better view, and you can more or
less reaUse what it feels like to survey a landscape
from an aeroplane, for the church stands out from
the hill and seems to project itself over gardens
and maize plots, even over the town and the
harbour. Then you sit in a sleigh and shde down
the mountain, held back from rushing violently
down this steep place into the sea by two villainous-
looking Portuguese. Through the narrow streets
of malodorous villages you career wildly, wonder
ing whether your wife wiU be able to find your
will. Round corners you whirl with vertiginous
sensations, bitterly regretting that you did not
take the train — or walk. But your Portuguese
villains are skilful, and you know that you are
really secure, especially if you let them stop at an
inn halfway and drink twopennyworth of wine for
which you pay two shillings. Then they call upon
their patron saints to bless and keep you, which,
since you arrive at the bottom safely, they pre
sumably do.
Back at the ship, after buying basket chairs, lace,
12

CAPE TOWN
filigree silver work, and comfortable soft leather
bedroom boots, like the boots of stage highwaymen
— all of local make — you watch more Portuguese
of villainous appearance diving into the clear water
after coppers and small silver coins. For a shilling
they will plunge from the Promenade Deck, forty
feet above the water, and swim underneath the
vessel. The deck meanwhile is crowded with sellers of
lace and curios until the bells rings, and the donkey-
engine rattles up the anchor, and the throb of
machinery begins again, not to stop night or day
for a fortnight until you are in Cape Town Docks.
If you are on deck early next morning you see
the Peak of Teneriffe, exquisite and reticent, like a
dream mountain, rising from sea-level and veihng
its lovely head in a pink fleecy cloud. Once again
at dawn you may catch a glimpse of far-off^ land,
but for the rest it is ocean, ocean all the way, a
perfect rest-cure.
The placid routine of shipboard life gains upon
one daily. Nothing to disturb your tranquillity of
mind, nothing to make you late for meals, no
decisions to be taken, save whether you will eat
chicken or lamb, and whether you will go in costume
to the fancy dress ball. It is the dream of the
Lotus-eaters realised. AU business cares fade away.
The concerns of shore-life are far-off, unsubstantial.
You seem to have lived with your travelling com
panions all your days. Some people even forget 13

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
whether they are married or not. I know one man
who is always considered an interesting bachelor
on board ship until his fourteen-stone wife meets
him at the quay side.
Reaching Cape Town you are brought back with
a sudden shock to the conditions of everyday
existence, intensified by finding yourself in a strange
place. The familiar and the unfamiliar are oddly
mixed. You see, of course, English names and
notices. You see the Union Jack ; it is when you
see it fluttering thousands of miles from home that
it thrills you most, and brings sharply to your mind
what the British Empire means.
You see people who look and dress and talk like
people in England. The telegraph boys are the
same. The policemen too, except that their helmets
are white; they have that godlike air of calm
authority which sits upon no other policemen in
the world.
But amid these familiar sights there are many
which are strange and curious. A black man with
the flat' nose and the enormous lips of the required
type seizes your hand luggage. Kaffir women,
their heads covered by the gaudiest of kerchiefs,
strike violent notes of colour. Slim Malay women
in tightly drawn draperies, their ankles tinkhng
with silver bangles, and their babies cooing on
their backs, turn their ghstening dark eyes upon
you. Here are olive-featured men in tarbushes;
14

CAPE TOWN
Chinamen with pigtails ; every shade of " mixed "
colour, for at the Cape half-castes are very
numerous ; and there is a full-blooded native in a
blanket and very little else, his hair frizzed out and
stuck full of bone skewers.
Soon you begin to hear Dutch talked. The
tramcars bear such destination boards as "Oran-
jezicht " and " Tamboer's Kloof." Sour-looking
predikants, Dutch Reformed Church clergymen,
stalk apart in the blackest of black clothes, all the
more noticeable here under the burning sun among
light suits and light dresses.
The chief street, Adderley Street, runs up from
the sea to the cathedral, a street of good shops and
large pubhc buildings. At the cathedral you pass
into a delightful shady avenue with the Houses of
Parliament and the garden of Government House
on one side of it, a botanical garden and a museum
on the other. This takes you very pleasantly a
good way up the hill to where the Mount Nelson
Hotel stands and the houses begin, running up the
steep slope of the mountain, each in its plot of
ground and all with glorious views across the bay
to the distant Drakenstein and Hottentot Holland
ranges. Quite European are the business and the " resi
dential " quarters of Cape Town, Jjut you need only
turn a little way off" the main street to find yourself
in narrow lanes where at dusk veiled women peer
from gloomy doorways and troops of dark-skinned 15

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
children play solemn Eastern games. Here the
half-caste cabmen shout in an uncouth dialect, as
they narrowly avoid colUsions or escape by a hair's-
breadth running down a turbaned Moslem or a
skinny Hindu.
The curse of Cape Town are the south-easters
which sweep violently through it, filling the air
with dust and the mouth with bad language.
Yet they keep it healthy ; they also keep it fairly
cool. And nothing can spoil one's constant joy in
the mountain that forms so magnificent a back
ground to the city. You see its rocky ramparts
blocking the end of every street, except when you
look down to the glittering sea. It changes every
hour, and every fresh aspect of it seems more lovely
than the last. Those who know it best like it best,
I fancy, with its " table-cloth " on. The clouds,
white and fleecy, come drifting over its summit and
drop down on the seaward side, producing the
table-cloth effect.
You could ramble over its slopes and spurs for a
year and never find out all its beauties. There are
deep clefts, filled with pines and birches, pink and
purple fiowering shrubs, wild orchids, heaths and
ferns, where the silvery tinkle of streams gives you
music as you mount, and deep pools invite you to
rest beside their clear waters and look out across the
Cape Flats to the far-away mountains, a magnifi
cent view. There are hiU-sides shining with silver
trees, in form like wild ohves, but with a brighter
16

CAPE TOWN
sheen. On the lower slopes there are wonderful
avenues of oaks and pines, and all over there are
woods of vast extent, full of wild flowers, not in
deed what we should call wild flowers, but lobelia,
gladiolus, arum lilies, here known as pig-lilies, all
countingifor no more than dandelions do with us.
High up on the mountain side is the Rhodes
Memorial, the statue by G. F. Watts, called
" Physical Energy," a young barbarian on a horse,
flanked by a Greek temple, approached by many
steps with bronze lions crouching on either hand.
Below stands Groote Schuui^ (the " Great Barn "),
the beautiful Dutch house which Cecil Rhodes
built and bequeathed to be the official residence of
the Prime Minister of United South Africa. With
its wide stoep (verandah) and formal garden, its
gabled fronts, its glow of sunny red-brick, blue
hydrangeas, hanging purple wisteria, and deep
magenta bougainvillaeas, it is almost too perfect.
It scarcely seems real.
Through Newlands Avenue, whose oaks have
stood for well over a century, the road leads to
Constantia, winds among vineyards, shows the
Muizenberg Mountain swimming in a mist of gold,
then mounts, crosses a nek which is like the Esterels,
only grander, and brings you down on the other
side to the sea-shore. Here are fine bays and
stretches of sand with scarcely a soul about. In
time there will be good hotels and villas after
the Riviera style, dotted along the coast. But
B 17

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
now the scarcely credible blues and greens of the
sea, the combes and ravines, the hill-sides running
up from the shore covered with blossom of every
brilliant hue have scarcely any one to enjoy them.
Sea Point is a pleasant little spot along this rocky
coast. Thence to Cape Town there are villas all
the Way. However hot the town may be, there is
always the coolness of the Atlantic here.
But the favourite seaside place for Cape Town
people is Muizenberg, which is washed by the
warm waters of the Indian Ocean on the other side
of the Peninsula. There is no air more fragrant,
more reviving ; no sea more pleasant to swim out
in, floating back on boards among the long rollers.
Here, cheek by jowl with Sir Abe Bailey's beautiful
Baker house, is the cottage to which Rhodes turned
when he felt he could not breathe elsewhere ;
where he died with that pathetic sense of " so little
done, so much to do." It is kept very much as it
was when they carried his body out to its burial-
place in the Matopo Hills, with many interesting
pictures on the walls and a delightful old man, full
of recollections, as guardian.
Away across the bay you can see Simonstown,
the naval station. You may do many things less
attractive than walk round there, as I did one
blazing Sunday afternoon, gathering prickly pears
by the way to slake my thirst, and trying to get the
prickles out of my fingers all the rest of the day !
And even now I have only hinted at the beauties
18

CAPE TOWN
of the Cape Peninsula. It is one of the most
delicious spots on the wide earth. To those who
come down to it from " up country " it is like
heaven. The town itself is still inclined to be sleepy and
backward, though it is beginning to have some fine
buildings, notably those of the South African
Mutual and the British South Africa Company,
the latter of granite, manly and solid in style. But
what does the town itself matter, seeing that
whichever way you go out of it (you can go either
by train, by motor, or in swift, comfortable electric
cars) you quickly find yourself in surroundings of
exquisite charm, sea and mountains combining
with the prodigal sun to steep your vision in loveli
ness at every turn.

19

CHAPTER II
SOUTH AFRICA AT THE CROSS-ROADS
The Dawn does not come twice to awaken a man.
Kaffir Proverb
It was on a day of hot cloudless sunshine that the
Duke of Connaught opened the first Parhament
of the Union of South Africa. There were many
people in England who beheved the outlook of
the new nation was as cloudless as the southern
sky on that brilliant November day. A great cry
had gone up at home that a miracle had happened,
that aU racial animosities had disappeared.
It was only natural that the Union of South
Africa should cause the unity of national feelings
and aspirations to be exaggerated. The contrast
between 1900, when war was sowing death and
sickness through the land, and 1910, which saw
the combatants sitting down together under one
flag to do their best for their common country,
was too striking not to be magnified into a miracle.
In these days we are so ready to believe in
wonderful changes of human nature. Many of us
are even persuaded that it is possible to put a
stop to war. It is so difficult for us to understand
20

AT THE CROSS-ROADS
that the character and temperament of mankind
cannot be transmogrified by eloquent speeches in
the course of a few short years. So amid all the
assurances that the terms " Dutch " and " British "
had no longer any meaning in South Africa I felt
doubtful, sceptical. And as soon as I got there
I found my suspicions justified.
No miracle has happened. The two races are,
in their thoughts, their aims, their ideals, still far
apart. That, if we look at the situation intelli
gently, was inevitable. They are two races, with
differing traditions, differing ambitions, differing
views of life. Political union can for a long time
to come do little to remove those differences.
Social union and intermarriage may be more
effective solvents, but these also work slowly.
Happily there is no rooted dislike between them.
There is no great gulf fixed to hinder their coming
together. In many ways they are curiously ahke :
both are easier to lead than to drive, both sus
picious of innovations ; both obstinate, both hos
pitable, both brave. And they both believe firmly
that the Almighty is on their side. There is every
reason to expect that a South African nation with
aspirations common to all its members will arise.
But it will not arise in one year, nor two; and
when it does arise it will not be either British or
Dutch. It will be South African.
It is foolish to abuse the Dutch for not being
enthusiastic about the British Empire. It is futile 21

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
to expect them to tear up immediately their fast-
rooted idea that, while we had the power (won by
force of arms) we kept them down, and that now
they have the power (won by their majority at
the polls) they have the right to use it against us.
At the same time, it is our duty to fight for our
ideal. We have much to win or lose. Cecil
Rhodes cabled, while the issue of the Raid still
hung in the balance : " To-day the crux is. Shall
we win ? And South Africa will belong to Eng
land." Once more the country is at the cross
roads. The " crux " now is, to use Rhodes's
phrase. Will the Dutch win ? Will their star
remain in the ascendant? If so, good-bye for
ever to the dream of South Africa as a prosperous,
progressive portion of the Empire. It will be a
little country, governed by small people, animated
by narrow views.
There are two Dutchmen in the Cabinet who
stand for a larger policy. They are General Botha
and Mr. Smuts. They see that South Africa can
become, if her people choose, a great country.
They are for improving agriculture, encouraging
new settlers, lending a hand to infant manufactures,
going ahead in every direction, with a firm trust
in the country's future. General Botha beHeves
that maize may bring almost as great prosperity
to the Union as wheat has done to the Dominion
of Canada. Mr. Smuts sees lines of advance in
many directions. I heard him make a stirring
22

AT THE CROSS-ROADS
speech on the possibilities which are latent in the
country's wealth of means for producing electrical
energy. " We have," he said, " in South Africa the means
of developing power in quite a unique degree. We
have, for instance, over large parts of the country,
coal much cheaper than in many parts of the world.
We could have coal sold here at 1*. per ton, which
we could use for the development of electrical
energy, yes, even 6d. a ton. It is clear that, when
we have such enormous resources at our door, it
is simply a question of the apphcation of science
in order to develop energy and power which would
revolutionise this country within the next twenty
or thirty years. I think very few of you here,
though you may have very highly developed
scientific imaginations" (he was addressing a
scientific society) "can foresee the developments
that are ahead in this young country of ours within
the next generation."
There is the right spirit — from our point of view.
But the Dutch are inclined to distrust " progress."
And Mr. Smuts's Defence Proposals for a citizen
army on the lines of Lord Kitchener's Australian
Universal Service Scheme, with yearly camps for
all men between eighteen and twenty-five, are not
nearly so pleasing to them as General Beyers's plan.
This latter was for a Burgher Force on the Com
mando system, " not to be used for the protection
of any other part of the Empire." Children to be
23

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
taught the use of arms and trained to discipline,
but " not by English instructors," Dutch to be the
language of command in the veld commandos and,
whenever required, in the town ones also.
Mr, Smuts's plan, however, is that which Lord
Methuen has advocated, and fortunately Lord
Methuen is very popular among the Dutch. He
has been described in the Union House of Com
mons as " almost a Boer himself" Mr. Smuts
himself is, I am bound to add, not very well
trusted in politics, and he has as yet no strong
following in the country. General Botha's fol
lowing, on the other hand, is too strong. It will
not allow him to exercise a will of his own. He
would have been glad to form a coalition Ministry
with " Dr. Jim " (now Sir Leander Starr Jameson)
as his second in command. That would have given
the Union a fine start and kept the fanatics in
check. But the Bond in Cape Colony, and Het
Volk in the Transvaal, and the Unie in the Orange
River Colony were too much for him. These three
very active organisations, working in the interests
of a Dutch South Africa, are the real rulers of the
country. In the towns their influence might soon
be undermined. But through the " field-cornets,"
a paid class of district officials, something between
magistrates and mayors, they keep a firm grip on
the back-velders, the farmers who do not come
into touch with modern conditions.
They are fine old fellows, these " long-hairs," as
24

AT THE CROSS-ROADS
they are called from their bushy beards. There is
a patriarchal air about them. They are prosperous,
though they have little enough comfort, as we
understand it, in their houses. They are almost
always hospitable and friendly. Personally I
consider ;that it is carrying hospitality even too
far to send a Kaffir to wake you at 8 a.m. with a
cup of coffee, as a sort of preliminary to rising at
five — with another cup. But that is by the way.
They are God-fearing and in some matters scrupu
lous ; in others, in business for example, or in their
dealings with their native " boys," they have no
scruples at all. Their wives and daughters suffer
from having too little to do. Everything is done
for them by the " boys." They sit on the stoep
and drink innumerable cups of coffee (poor, washy
stuff) and grow fat. Yet one can find many a
shrewd old woman among them, with strong
character and hvely brain.
The sons are beginning to feel the twentieth
century stirring their blood. They want to go to
the towns and be educated. They fancy them
selves as lawyers or doctors rather than farmers.
When they do stay on the farms, they are even
more antiquated than their sires. One evening a
traveller who had been about the world a httle
was smoking after supper ip a back-velder's
kitchen. The old man was asking him questions
— in English. They mostly can speak English.
If their visitors cannot or will not talk Dutch, 25

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
they do speak it. But say even " Good day " to
them in " Hollands," and not a word of anything
but the Taal will they utter.
" And what is the finest language in the world ? "
inquired old Yakoob. The traveller thought
Italian might claim that distinction. " Ah ! " said
Yakoob, " I hear it spoken once so long by Pretoria
already. Ya, dot vas zeer schoon " (very pretty).
But here the son of the house interposes. " Sis I
no," he cries, " that can't be true. If Italian were
the finest language, father, God would have written
the Bible in it, whereas we all know He wrote it in
Dutch." Naturally, in soil like this new ideas do not root
easily. Indeed, they do not get much chance. The
only ideas offered to the back-veld are the old,
bad ideas that the English are deceivers, that the
country must be kept Dutch, that progress is un-
pleasing to God. General Beyers, who nearly got
the Speakership of the Union Parliament, once
said : " Englishmen are all bad. Liberals are as
bad as Tories, They both break the Sabbath."
And the back-veld thoroughly agreed. They
chuckled, too, over this same General Beyers's
remark after the Union elections, that "Botha
had trusted the English too much. . . . The
steam-roller will have to be used a little more
now." That is the kind of sentiment they ap
preciate. " Steam-roller the English " was a most
popular cry.
26

AT THE CROSS-ROADS
Worse even than the political field- cornets are
the political predikants, the ministers of the
Dutch Reformed Church. In the principal church
of Pretoria, the Rev. H. S. Bosman, unofficial
Primate of the D.R. Communion, preaches open
raciahsm. Just after General Botha's defeat in
Pretoria he expounded Nehemiah to his flock.
Nehemiah, he said, was a good man who had
great difficulties placed in his way by strangers
and Outlanders who had gone to live in Jerusalem.
But he took a strong line with them. He would
not allow such people as Sanballat and Tobiah and
" other minor officials," who " grieved exceedingly
for that there was come a man to seek the welfare
of the children of Israel," to pretend to help in the
great work of rebuilding the wall. They must,
said the preacher, similarly rebuild Pretoria and
turn it into a strong fortress, and see that their
people were well looked after. When Nehemiah
sent people to Jerusalem from Judah and Benjamin,
he undoubtedly took care that opportunity was
given them to earn their bread !
As if this were not a clear enough plea for the
dismissal of British officials and the appointment
of Dutch to take their places, a correspondent of
the leading Dutch organ, the Volksstem (Voice of
the People), pointed out a few.days later that, in
the Transvaal, of 4607 officials only 737 were
Afrikanders. " I hope," he added, " that General
Botha will take this to heart." The motto of the 27

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
Dutch is : " To the victors the spoils." It may be
that there are British South Africans who in
private advocate the keeping down of the Dutch.
But they are afraid to utter such a sentiment in
public. They know that it would be repudiated
by all the decent and responsible men of their
blood. The Dutch, on the other hand, have no
hesitation in openly speaking of themselves as a
separate race. "We are a nation," said another
predikant, the Rev. H. van Brockhuizen, " with
our own taal, traditions and history. We must
now stand shoulder to shoulder and hand in hand
for the lights of OUR people. . . . May God
give OUR people strength to be unanimous."
Even at an enlightened place like Stellenbosch
a speaker at a Dutch banquet compared English
men to Bushmen, " because neither can be
trusted," and was cheered when he declared
dramatically " There is blood between us."
The same plea was raised by a certain General
Brits, who at a place called New Denmark, in
December 1910, exhorted a large gathering to
remember that " the English had murdered 22,000
of their women and children during the war."
Here is another purple passage from his ova
tion: " I earnestly appeal to parents to prevent their
children marrying any of the English race. They
must not let this colony become a bastard race the
same as the Cape Colony. If God had wanted us
28

AT THE CROSS-ROADS
to be one race he would not have made a distinc
tion between English and Dutch."
But of this kind of bad feeling left by the war,
there is, I think, very little. The antagonism
goes further back. There will never be another
war between white peoples in South Africa. The
native peril is much too dangerous for that, and
will become more so. In a way, therefore, this
Black problem is an advantage. It has hastened
the burying of the hatchet for the last time. But,
short of actual fighting, the struggle between the
races for domination may take very ugly shape.
Already there is a danger, caused by the language
question (which I shall explain later), of children
not learning properly any language at all. If the
back-veld policy succeeds, there will be very little
immigration into the Union. There will be a
limited franchise designed to " keep things as they
are." There will be no military force to share in
the defence of the Empire, but merely a system of
burgher defence on the old commando plan,
with Dutch leaders. In short, the country wiU
stagnate. Fortunately, there is in the Union Parliament
a strong Opposition, which will fight hard to
prevent that. Sir Starr Jameson, affectionately
known as " the Doctor " or " Dr.^ Jim," is a leader
of whom the Empire should be proud, and to
whom his Party are very warmly attached. His is
an exceedingly rare case. He remains in public 29

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
life against his inclination, because he feels that
there his duty lies. His health is not good. By
temperament he is a man of action rather than of
words. He has nothing whatever to gain from
politics. To any one who knows him the idea
that he seeks titles is grotesque. It is because
he holds a position which no other man could
amply fill that he makes himself a slave to the
Parliamentary machine. His friendship with General
Botha and the unselfish help he has given the
Nationalist leader prove his disinterested patriotism.
His aim is to assist his adopted country through
her troubles without a thought of any advantage
for himself
" The Doctor's " chief lieutenants in the Unionist
Party are an able band. Sir Percy Fitzpatrick,
whom every one calls " Fitz," is a capital debater,
with the ready tongue and persuasive accents of an
Irishman, though he was actually born in South
Africa. He takes in most matters a South African's
view, though he is, of course, a convinced
Imperialist. Mr. Lionel Phillips brings to the
practice of politics a keen, clear, diplomatic intel
lect, a close knowledge of all South Africa's
problems, a sincere anxiety (it is not too strong
a word to use) to see the country become a con
tented, strong and prosperous part of the Empire.
Sir George Farrar has identical aims, but pursues
them by a different path. He is a blunt speaker.
Force rather than finesse is his weapon. He is
30

AT THE CROSS-ROADS
untiringly industrious, and will patiently "get up"
a subject so as to master every detail of it, while
others are still wondering where to begin. Mr.
Walton is another prominent member of the
Opposition who does quiet useful work and
speaks well. Mr. Patrick Duncan is a watchful
critic of finance ; Mr. Drummond Chaplin an effec
tive, impetuous debater ; Mr. B. K. Long, editor
of South Africa's only monthly review. The State,
a clever young man of whom great things are
expected. Mr. Chris. Botha, a Dutch Unionist, is
young also and level-headed; he should quickly
make his way to the fronts
Of the Nationalists General Botha is a man
with elements of greatness in his character, but
without the tact and training required to carry
him comfortably through the troubles of managing
a difficult Party. He has so far got through them,
but it has frequently been pain and grief to him.
His health has suffered. There is little doubt he
would be happier on his farm, or as Minister for
Agriculture without any further responsibihties.
Mr. Smuts I have discussed already. He is the most
interesting figure in the Ministry because no one
quite understands him. Perhaps he does not yet
quite understand himself Mr. Sauer is an ordinary
type of politician, strong because he has the Bond
behind him, but without personal distinction.
Mr. Schreiner, on the other hand, has a personahty
of singular charm, but no strength. His mind is
31

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
too fine for politics. He sees too clearly his
opponent's side of the case to be successful in
leading men. To General Hertzog I shall direct
attention later on. For the rest the Nationalists,
with the exception of Mr. Merriman, are not inte
resting, and it is hard to say whether Mr. Merriman
is rightly to be called a Nationahst at all. He is
a politician who has never learnt, perhaps never
cared to learn, the political game. He has an
argumentative mind which impels him to take
the other side in a discussion just for mental
exercise. His friends cannot count upon him.
He is an eloquent speaker with noble ideals and
the widest possible range of topics. He is a
stickler for parliamentary forms and etiquette.
But at seventy he is a free-lance, without a
following. He has held high positions, but from
the highest he appears to be barred by the curse
of Reuben, " Unstable as water, thou shalt not
excel." There the Parties stand, then : the Unionists for
a United South Africa, the Nationahsts (so their
name seems to imply) representing their own
nation, the Dutch. What Dutch ascendancy
would mean, if the narrow view of the Back Veld
should prevail, I have explained already. That
is one of the two roads at the crossing of which
South Africa stands to-day. The other leads to
a destiny far different. Though the mines keep the
country in funds for the present, every effort
32

PS
5

AN .WKXUE NE.\)i C,\1'E lOWX

AT THE CROSS-ROADS
would be made to provide against the day when
they no longer do so. Settlers would be invited
and assisted. The country would be made as
quickly as possible self-feeding. The export of
maize, which Sir John Bennet Lawes called " the
grandest crop in the world," would rapidly increase.
It would do for the Union what wheat has done
for Canada. South Africa would become a great
country and South Africans a great nation. Is
this to be dream or reality ? That depends upon
which of the cross-roads South Africa decides to
take.

33

CHAPTER III
THE NATIVES
When you talk of democracy in this country you
are talking of an idle dream . . . We are an
aristocracy. We must not forget that of the
six millions of people in South Africa four and a
half millions belong to an alien race. — Mr.
Merriman, formerly Cape Premier, at the Union
Banquet, November 1910
There are more " problems " to the square mile in
South Africa than in any other country in the
world. Take its Colour Questions, for example.
There are three of them, distinct and separate, and
all puzzling, all dangerous. In Natal and the Trans
vaal, as we have seen already, cheap Asiatic labour
has caused, and is still causing, and will continue
to cause, a great deal of trouble. At the Cape the
increase among the "coloured people" is making
everybody who looks ahead wonder what the result
of giving them votes will be. These " coloured
people " are half-castes. The Dutch in early days
brought over natives of their East Indian Settle
ments. " Malays " they have always been called.
They are a light brown, almost white. But they
have intermarried with Kaffirs and Hottentots
34

THE NATIVES
(who are rather like Japanese or Eskimo), and thus
a curiously mixed race (including many with white
blood in them) now inhabits large quarters of
Cape Town.
Really it is like a city of the East. Take a car
from the Standard Bank Corner eastward to
Number Six district, and in a few minutes you are
among a population of Orientals. Thin-legged
men in turbans and cotton petticoats stalk with
dignity. Fat women with gaudy handkerchiefs
wrapped about their heads and slim-veiled women
whose black draperies are drawn tightly round
their willowy figures stand at the doors or shuffle
in and out of dirty little shops. Besides the
Malays, there are blue-frocked " Chinks " doing
laundry business, and Indians mostly engaged in
the grocery trade. Among other industries the
Malays have street fish-selling in their hands. All
over the town you can hear the melancholy note
of their horns, which they use as the muffin man in
London streets used to ring his beU. In European
clothes they cut no figure ; but most of them still
wear the gaily hued garments of the East, and
add a most attractive note to Cape Town's colour
scheme. They are Mahommedans and have their
mosques, from which the muezzin sounds the call
to prayer. A quiet, hard-working, inoffensive race,
the Malays.
The Kaffir half-castes with white ancestry are
called "Cape Boys." They are often highly in- 35

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
telligent. Up in Rhodesia I had one for a chauffeur,
and found him thoroughly competent in every way.
All the " coloured people " are pathetically anxious
to rank as whites and to rise in the social scale.
They are ambitious for their children to do well.
I went one morning to see a coloured girls' cookery
class in Cape Town. They were all well dressed,
mostly in clean white frocks. Their stockings were
neat and their boots and shoes good — an infallible
test. "These must be children of well-to-do
parents," I said. "Ask them," the mistress
suggested. One was a cabdriver's daughter,
another a small shopkeeper's, another a miner's,
and so on. Certainly you could not have told by
a cursory glance that some of them were not white.
"They are much cleaner than London children,"
the mistress told me. " I know both. At first
they are a little slower than white girls, but as soon
as they have mastered the first steps they pick up
what they are taught very quickly." That is the
nature of half-caste people everywhere, I fancy.
Yet the Cape does not much relish the idea of
treating them as equals. They have the vote,
however, and the right to sit in the Provincial
Council, though not in the Union Parliament.
One coloured member has already been elected to
the former, an able man who raised himself by
becoming a school teacher. Also a Malay doctor
is a prominent member of the Cape Town munici
pality. These are symptoms. But the " coloured
36

THE NATIVES
people problem" is nothing to the real "native
problem" which looms over South Africa, as it
looms over the United States, a storm-cloud,
threatening and dark.
In the Cape Peninsula the pure natives are not
very numerous. They live in a " location " a little
way out. A train-load of them leaves every day
after they have finished work at the docks, a curious
sight for the freshly landed visitor — every carriage
filled with black faces, many of them not far short
of beautiful so long as hats cover their fuzzy hair.
As soon as you go up-country natives lose all
novelty for you. In Cape Town you have seen
"boys" on Sunday evenings parading the streets
in white collars, bowler hats, shoes with large bows
in the American style, tweed knickerbockers,
flannel suits. Up-country they are as God made
them, except that they wrap a blanket round their
black bodies, or in the fields wear, perhaps, a pair
of cotton " shorts." As you go further north they
outnumber the white garrison more and more,
until in Rhodesia the proportion is over a hundred
to one.
In Northern Rhodesia there are only about a
thousand white people to over 700,000 blacks. Can
you realise it ? If you have lived all your life in
the British Isles I do not see how you can. You
cannot understand the feeling towards the mis
sionary who teaches the native that " aU men are
equal before God," or towards those who fancy they 37

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
can educate the black man into thinking like a
white man, which, of course, nobody can do.
Generally speaking, they are engaging creatures,
these soft-footed, cheery, songful, dance-loving
black folk. They are capital servants, for example.
They slip in and out of rooms so softly. They go
about their work with the absorption of children
playing a new game. But you never know what
ideas they are picking up.
At present, taking them in the lump, their minds
are quite undeveloped in our sense of the term. In
a mine near Johannesburg a "boy" who had just
arrived saw a fly-wheel, liked the look of it, put his
arm into it, and was seen no more, except in frag
ments. The other " boys " laughed 1 Even those
who have lived long among white people fail utterly
to grasp their standards of right and wrong.
A farm hand during the war was present at the
capture of some Boers. " What are we to do with
these chaps ? " said the officer in command, and
added jocosely, " Can't shoot 'em ; it 'ud make such
a noise." The native heard. A few minutes later
he offered in all seriousness to cut the prisoners'
throats at the rate of a "tickey" (threepenny
piece) each !
A Kimberley " boy " working in the diamond
mine had been converted to Christianity. One
day he stole a diamond. Just then an overseer
passed by. The native shook with terror. But the
overseer took no notice. That evening the " boy "
38

THE NATIVES
rushed up to the missionary. " Now I know there
is a God as you say, for He saved me from being
caught." " What are we going to do about the natives ? "
That is what every one asks in the Union and in
Rhodesia. Are they to be shut off" by themselves
in reserves ? No, because the country cannot do
without their labour. Are they to be taught to
work with their hands at technical trades ? No,
because that would bring them into competition
with the white man. Even up at Livingstone
there is objection to employing natives for skilled
work, such as electric light fitting. If the feeling
exists where there are so few whites, it can be
imagined how strong it is in the larger places where
white workmen are numerous. Certainly the native
does compete " unfairly " with the European ; his
needs are so much smaller. Yet it is equally certain
that if there were no outcry from the whites he
would be employed, because of his cheapness.
But there is an outcry.
At Johannesburg towards the end of 1910 (I
quote the report of a Rand newspaper) " delegates
from the trades associations, representing masters
and men, met in conference at the Trades Hall for
the purpose of considering the encroachment of the
coloured artisan in the Transvaal. •
" Mr. W. Brebner presided, and pointed out
that the encroachment of coloured men on the
sphere of white men's labour affected all classes 39

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
of the community. If things went on as they had
been coloured men were unquestionably going to
predominate, and then people who had invested
in large buildings and industries would be receiving
no return on their money. The Trades Council
was composed of delegates from various skilled
trades, and they were determined to uphold the
status of white men. The Master Builders' Asso
ciation had done all in their power, at great sacri
fice, to keep this a white man's country. The
great offenders were the people who came here
to make a bit as fast as they could, and had no
stake in the country. If they could have legis
lation making it impossible for any employer to
employ coloured labour under the price ruling for
white men, that might solve the difficulty.
" A resolution was moved : ' That, in the opinion
of the Conference, they ought to take steps to
impress on the proper authorities that there should
be legislation instituted at the earliest possible
moment, fixing a minimum wage for skilled trades
in South Africa.' This was duly seconded, and
heartily supported."
But what is the use of teaching natives trades,
if they are not allowed to practise them ? And
if you do not teach them trades, what can you
teach them ? Some kind of education they are
bound to get. This is ensured by our modern
view that education is a kind of magic dose to
which every one .has a right. To give them a
40

THE NATIVES
literary education would be ridiculous. That has
failed even at home. But what kind of education
can we give them which will not make them " pre
dominant"? That is a question to puzzle the
most competent brains.
At present they are treated like children. In
mental stature they are children. A proposal put
forward by a Liquor Commission in the Transvaal
to sanction the sale to natives of Kaffir beer, to
be consumed on the premises in Government
canteens, met with a stiff" opposition. The Johan
nesburg Chamber of Mines protested strongly
against a change in the law which at present
absolutely prohibits the sale of alcohol in any
form to the coloured races. In rural parts Kaffir
beer may be made and consumed, but not sold.
In towns and industrial areas even this is for
bidden, and the only exception to absolute pro
hibition is that employers of over fifty labourers
may supply them gratuitously with Kaffir beer
containing not more than 3 per cent, of alcohol.
The same Commission recommended that the
law should be altered so as to permit any hquor
except spirits being sold to coloured persons and
Asiatics. This was supposed to have been
"worked" by the Cape wine-growers. Bishop
Furse, of Pretoria, spoke plainly«about it. " I do
not forget," he said, " that there is a very strong
party in the Province of the Cape who are mate
rially interested in the wine industry. I do not 41

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
forget that that industry is not, and for a con
siderable time has not been, in a flourishing
condition ; nor do I forget that it was only in
1909 that the Government of the Cape introduced
a certain famous Bill, known as the Light Wines
Bill, ostensibly for the purpose of encouraging
temperance, more especially among the coloured
people. For my part, I am convinced that we
should resist tooth and nail any attempt to remove
the present total prohibition of intoxicating liquors
to the natives, at least of this part of the Union
of South Africa (the Transvaal), and I hope we
shall, for I am convinced that a definite effort
in this direction will be made ; an effort backed
by those who have a big material interest in the
extension of the sale of liquor to the native."
Mr. J. G. Hamilton, President of the Chamber
of Mines and a prominent citizen of Johannesburg,
took the same line. "To my mind, gentlemen,
it is inconceivable that the families of our Euro
pean mine employes, and the inhabitants of the
towns bordering on the mines, should be rendered
liable either now or at a later date to all the
possible evils attendant upon the sale of liquor
to natives and coloured persons, in order mainly
to afford a market for the product of wine and
brandy producers in and outside the Union of
South Africa."
Not only are the natives very properly treated as
children in this matter of strong drink (which has
42

THE NATIVES
such a frightful effect upon the tribesmen of East
Africa) ; they are not even allowed to be out after
nine o'clock in the evening unless they are pro
vided with a " pass " from their employer giving
them leave to be abroad for some specific purpose.
All who work in the Rand or the Kimberley mines
are obliged to live in compounds — a necessary
precaution. To none of these measures is there, at
present, any objection on the native's part. But in
time there will be. What then ?
Some people advocate Native Reserves — tracks
of country where the black folk will be compelled
to live, as the Red Indians in North America
were, until they have now almost died out. But
the natives would not die out in South Africa.
Basutoland is a Reserve: there they thrive and
multiply exceedingly. This, too, would mean
shutting down most of the mines. They could not
be made to earn dividends if they were worked by
white labour at five shillings a day. The native,
in fact, is needed for the unskilled work of the
country, and every one is ready to admit that he
must gradually be " elevated " to white level. But
no one knows how to manage this and still to keep
it a white man's country.
" What are we to do ? " From end to end of
Africa goes up this despairing' cry. It rings
through the world. It arouses uneasy echoes
wherever it is realised that the pressure of events
is before long going to bring all the white races up 43

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
against Asiatics and Africans in a struggle for
mastery. At present there is no " native policy."
The whites are simply training the blacks to sup
plant them. From time to time attempts are
made to " do something." Lately, for instance, it
was proposed to make marriages between white
persons and persons with any degree of colour
illegal. This roused the Archbishop of Cape
Town to declare that such unions " could not be
illegal in the sight of God," and therefore the
Church would, in any case, continue to celebrate
them. The man who is reckoned the chief authority on
natives in Cape Colony says there would be less
danger from them if their feudal system were
broken up. At present it is hard for them to
escape from their tribal laws. Give them freely
the option to come under white law if they prefer
it, and the tribal tie would soon cease to hold
them. But what if a stronger bond replaces it, the
bond of colour, uniting all the negroes in the
world ?
That there is any immediate " danger " no one
believes, so far as a concerted movement is con
cerned. The Basutos might give trouble, would
give trouble, if their land were interfered with.
But that is not seriously feared. There are, never
theless, various currents of disturbance flowing
beneath the surface. The Ethiopian Church,
founded in 1892 by a native Wesleyan, is actively
44

THE NATIVES
hammering " Africa for the Africans " into woolly
heads. Windy, rhetorical notions of nationality
and " freedom " are even in the wilderness upsetting
untrained minds. From the United States come
negro preachers to urge the union of the black
races in all parts of the world. Newspapers in
native languages are widely circulated, stirring up
strife between black and white people, urging that
it is time to drive the British into the sea (an echo
of Boer threats), and angrily asking why mixed
marriages should be condemned. And always
there has been in the hearts of the Governors of
South Africa the fear of " Exeter Hall."
Happily that fear exists no longer. I do not
mean that the Exeter Hall cant has vanished with
the building in which it used to be talked. I mean
that the Union Government is independent of the
Colonial Office, and therefore not under the control
of the ill-informed sentimentalists with Evangelical
views who used to terrorise Downing Street. Sir
George Grey, one of our greatest colonial adminis
trators, was recalled because he made a chief kneel
in token of submission, and, according to native
custom, placed a foot upon his neck. Sir Bartle
Frere, another proconsul of distinguished mind,
was also recalled because his native policy did
not please the " man and brother " band. As a
result of this dictation by Chadband we have the
Ethiopian Church.
The one advantage of this still very limited but 45

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
increasing unsettlement is that, as I have said in
an earlier chapter, it makes any further war
between the white races in South Africa an impos
sibility. They must keep a united front. In time
the same cause will stop wars between white
peoples everywhere. There will probably be one
other European war. But that will be the last,
and even that may possibly be staved off" until we
are awake to the unwisdom of fighting among
ourselves in the presence of dangers threatening
us all.

46

CHAPTER IV
ACROSS THE KARROO
O not by Earth's trim garden-lands may Africa be slighted,
Her roses are a thousand hills by the Dawn-rapture lighted !
Her violets are the purple plains
Where twilight reigns.
Soon to carnations changed, and after
'to marigolds who meet the Sun and laugh
In leagues of golden laughter ! A. Vine Hall
"Take your seats, please," cry the porters at
Cape Town Station. I expected them to say, " All
aboard," but you must not think to find South
Africa Americanised. It is staunchly English.
In some ways it is more English than England.
The leisurely type of country gentleman, which
is almost extinct at Home, may still be found in
the Cape Peninsula. In their spacious, comfortable
houses ; with their cultivated, never-hurried speech ;
with their love of horses and cricket and gardens ;
in their treatment of life as a wine to be sipped,
not tossed off" in rapid gulps, they are curiously
like their grandfathers. Even their cast of coun
tenance suggests the 'fifties. The Trestless spirit of
Europe and America has found no abiding place
here. 47

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
They set no exaggerated value upon time. They
have no desire either to " hustle " themselves, or
to make other people " get a move on." In the
hotels service is slow. There is not in Cape Town
one really good restaurant, according to the present
standard, nor a single tea-shop of the luxurious
kind now so common in cities. Delivery of letters
is slow. The very fact that a telephone call costs
sixpence and that telegrams are still a penny a word
is eloquent of their disinclination to use these time-
saving conveniences. After Canada, where there
is so much show of progress, the Cape Peninsula
seems backward. It is a little backward, too, or
it would not have let Port Elizabeth carry off" so
large a share of its up-country carrjdng trade. But
it knows how to enjoy itself in its own way. It
is home-loving, and it never grudges the time to
be hospitable. I know many more pushing places
where life is not nearly so pleasant.
" Take your seats, please," again. If we are in
earnest about going to Kimberley, we must get in.
On this first journey in South Africa I look with
critical, anxious eye at the compartment. It is a
thirty-hour journey. What is the travelling to be
like? The first glance is reassuring. There are no
Pullmans, as on the American continent: those
long open cars with seats facing one another on
either side of a passage. The South African trains
are like our corridor trains.
48

ACROSS THE KARROO
The corridors are at the side, with closed com
partments opening off", in which four beds can be
made up, two lower and two upper berths. But
the compartments are wide, airy and comfortable.
In the middle of each coach is a double compart
ment, quite a room. These are for families, a most
considerate plan. The restaurant cars are spacious
and well-managed. The food is simple but good,
and well-served, and in many of the trains there
are shower-baths. What this means only those
who have travelled for days at a time can appre
ciate. It means beginning the day fresh and rosy
instead of being half-washed, prickly, uncomfort
able. We are running now through a land of orchards
and vineyards. There is plenty of water here,
hurrying down in clear streams from the Hex
River Mountains, which block the view ahead of
us. There is a trade in dried fruit done at the
towns we pass, but not so big a trade as to supply
even the South Africans with all they consume.
Brandy and wine are made here too. It is a
charming country, and the prospects for an energeti<5
fruit-grower are excellent. When you eat apricots
or peaches at Christmas-time in London or Paris,
the chances are that they come from one of these
sunny Hex River farms.
We are climbing steadily upward. Evidently
we are going to get through the mountains, but
it does not yet appear how. There seems to be
D 49

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
no break in their solid barrier formation. But the
engineers wormed their way through ! Soon we
are in the heart of the range. Looking back you
could fancy an Alpine village lay below. The
dark trees, the white houses, the cultivated patches,
and the river sparkling through, aU help to make
the resemblance complete.
The mountains themselves, though, have a cha
racter all their own. All around lie grey monsters
of fantastic shape, not massive and gigantic, like
Alps, but lithe and sinewy, couching as if to spring.
Sheets of yellow flowers and pink-tipped shrubs
supply the colour, and , . . the sun does the rest.
The line squirms and wriggles up the side of a
deep cup, on the other side tower summits where
the snow still glistens in the spring heats. Ethereal-
ised, as I once saw them, by the shell- pink fingers
of Dawn, they seemed to guard the Gates of
Paradise. There will grow up among these Hex River
Mountains healthy little holiday resorts. Already
there are places which lay themselves out to
attract visitors. At Matjesfontein, near the top
of the Pass, a good deal has been done, including
the inevitable golf-links, for golf is becoming as
popular a game in South Africa as it is in England.
(They play a little in Scotland, too, I am told.)
After Matjesfontein the run down continues
rapidly, and the scenery changes. It becomes less
varied, more stony, flatter. The air has become
50

ACROSS THE KARROO
far keener, clearer, far more stimulating since we
left Cape Town. For now we are on the Karroo-
veld, the dry, barren plateau which runs east and
west across Africa. For a distance of 350 miles
we cross it as we go north. It is blazing hot in
the daytime, yet never oppressive ; it is between
two and three thousand feet above the sea.
South Africa is a series of steppes or plateaux.
That must be remembered. Otherwise the varieties
of climate are strangely puzzling. As you go
further north towards the Equator, you would
naturally expect the climate to become gradually
hotter. It actually becomes, on the contrary,
colder. The altitudes increase as you go on. In
Cape Town they hardly ever get a frost. In
Johannesburg, which is roughly a thousand miles
nearer to the Equator, the water in winter is often
frozen in bedroom jugs. Right under the Equator
there is a steppe where nights are bitterly cold,
because it is some 8000 feet high.
The Karroo is often denounced as dreary,
monotonous, featureless. If one had to live on it,
one might, I am free to admit, grow rather tired of
it. But we can certainly ^'pass over it several times
without losing pleasure in its beauty and interest.
All day you jog along through flat valleys
between low hills. The hills are ofrthe strangest
slopes. A few are conical, hke fool's-caps, just
what we imagined all mountains to be when we
were children. But nearly all appear to have had 51

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
their tops neatly sliced off". This is a peculiarity
of South African mountains. They are mostly
table-topped. If you believe that a race of giants
once inhabited the earth, you can imagine that
one of the tallest went through this country slash
ing off" all the pointed tops he saw.
Otherwise there is plenty of variety among the
slopes of the Karroo hills. There are bold bluffs
and spurs, broken ridges, jagged sky-lines. Now
and again the ranges which stand sentinel to the
railway line open out and you see the same land
scape stretching away into the blue distance where
the peaks of the Black Mountains, the Zwaarte-
bergen, quiver in the haze.
The patchy dark growth of Karroo bush makes
the nearer hills, light brown in colour, look like
huge currant cakes. There is no continuous vege
tation, the scrub grows in clumps on the light earth
covered with loose stones. You would say from
its appearance that an animal might as well try to
exist on this as on the smell of an oil rag. Its
appearance is deceptive. It provides feed for
millions of sheep and goats. At long intervals
you can see vast flocks of them browsing con
tentedly enough.
Wherever there is water this desert breaks out
into plenteous vegetation. Here and there are
patches of brilliant green, lucerne probably, or
maize. The farms are poor in building mostly.
The last thing a Dutch farmer cares about, as a
52

ACROSS THE KARROO
rule, is a good house. But they have trees around
them, and the precious water is led about in irriga
tion ditches, and there is an air of prosperity
comforting to notice.
Now and then there are ostriches parading by
the side of the line, walking two and two with
that ridiculous mincing gait of theirs, and looking
from side to side with brainless stare. Somehow
they remind one of a sunny morning in Bond Street.
The chief ostrich-farming district is round about
Oudtshoorn, lying between the Karroo and the sea,
without the railway anywhere near. The birds
used to run free on the veld picking up what they
could. Now they are more carefully looked after,
kept in enclosures, given lucerne or rape for feed,
paired selectively, and their eggs hatched in in
cubators. They are fierce creatures and those who
go about among them must be wary. The only
way to get hold of them is to pin their necks against
a wall with a forked stick ; then they are powerless.
It is only since 1865 that this feather industry,
which now brings in a yield of over two millions
a year, has grown up. In that year there were
only eighty tame ostriches in Cape Colony. Now
the export of feathers amounts to some 800,000 lb.
The process of plucking has been greatly improved.
It does not hurt the birds at all, if -properly carried
out, and by choosing the right moment the feathers
can be taken out in their best condition. The
result of the enormous increase in the number of
53

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
ostriches farmed is that prices have fluctuated a
good deal, although the demand has been well
kept up. Ostrich feathers are no longer a luxury
of adornment for the very few. " Every woman "
wears them now, and the hmit of the world's
desire for these graceful plumes is not yet in
sight, so experts say.
At Krom River there is a mixed farm reported
to be a source of great wealth. There are bales
and bales of wool waiting at the side of the line
for a freight train to take them away. Numbers
of water-wheels are to be seen here setting a good
example of irrigation, and bringing to the surface
the rich treasure of underground streams.
There are patches of other colours as well as
green : sheets of pink and purple. A flower like
sea-lavender lends a touch of dainty charm even
to the Karroo. These breaks in the sameness of
the landscape are not very frequent, though. For
hours, sometimes, you seem to pass nothing —
nothing but dust whirlwinds, dancing a lunatic
jig until they suddenly topple over, nothing but
the stony desert glowing under a brassy afternoon
sun. But then comes the welcome call of tea, and
then a delicious coolness of early evening, as the
shadows of the rocks stretch out on the yellow
shale and the rose-colour of the distant hills turns
first to purple, and later to a remote other-worldly
blue. There is a scent of mimosa in the darkening
54

AX (ISTEKH FAKjr NE.\B olDTSiKIOKX

VIXEVAKD AXL) OKCH.VHIl XEAK < .M'l-; IdWX

l\ THE .MdUXT-VIXS XEAK CVI'E T(1\VX

ACROSS THE KARROO
air. Its fragrant fluffy yellow hangs thick on the
thorn-bushes. At another farm close to the track
there is a group leaning over a gate to watch us
pass, a cheerful evening sight, with the tinkle of
running water for music, and a background of
creamy sky — rich yellowy cream, with a flush of
crimson low down where the sun fled.
No, the Karroo is not monotonous, unless you
find mountains monotonous. Without the sun it
would be appalling. But the play of shadow from
the clouds, the golden light, the exhilaration of
the champagne atmosphere, the changing shapes
and colours of the hills, all help the time to pass.
One can understand, though, the joy of the Boers
when they came to the end of the Karroo and saw
the green rolling veld with its promise of sweet
pasture for their beasts. To trek across the desert
seeking some fertile spot to settle in must have
been torture. It must have seemed to those un
learned farmers that the stony hateful drylands
would never cease. For a journey which takes
us twelve hours took them many weeks. No
wonder they compared the grassy plains beyond it
to the Israelites' Promised Land,
These plains do not, it is true, produce pre
cisely that impression upon people who have seen
more of the world than had the* founders of the
Transvaal and the Orange Free State. My chief
memory of De Aar, for instance, which lies in a
bushy, green country, is Dust. No one who has 53

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
not been in Africa can have any conception of
what Dust is. The African dust is so peculiarly
gritty and penetrating. It gets into your eyes,
your mouth, your teeth, your throat, your lungs.
You grind upon it when you eat. Your drinks
are all solutions of dust. At night when you take
your clothes off" you find it sticking to your skin.
I believe De Aar is the dustiest place in the world,
and I attribute this to the tremendous amount of
dust which was stored up when the British army
made its main base here during the early stages of
the war.
Many sad memories are met with all the way
from the Hex River Mountains to the Rhodesian
border. You see little groups of graves by the
line, with wooden crosses or upright slabs of slate
for headstones. The names of the places are
wonderfully familiar. You recollect how on a
dark December morning you read with sinking
heart of Magersfontein. You can see from the
train near M odder River a cross marking the spot
where the battle raged. . . .
But regret is waste of time. My business is
with the present and the future, not with the past.
We are nearly in Kimberley. Look at those
spidery pit-head erections. They are over the
mines. The wheels are going round, and the
trucks on an endless band are bringing out the
blue ground which contains the diamonds. That
is the process we are going to see.
56

CHAPTER V
KIMBERLEY
6i7 miles from Cape Town ; 4012 feet above sea-level. Popu
lation about 40,000. Hotel : Saualorium
Do you not see what feigned prices are set upon
little stones and rarities .'' — Bacon's Essay " Of
Riches "
The diamond town ! What luxury, what magnifi
cence it suggests ! You imagine all that goes
with diamonds — expensive restaurants, splendid
equipages (yes, '• equipages " is the word), costly
frocks, money spent recklessly on every form of
self-indulgence. Quite wrong. Kimberley is not
in the very least like that. It is a quiet, unpreten
tious little town, where sober, industrious men
work hard for their living, and home-loving wives
bring up families in a steady, unexciting way. My
recollections of it are pleasant. I recall wide, green
roads, good public buildings, one street of not
unduly tempting shops, young men and women in
white with tennis rackets, creeper- covered houses
with groups of white-frocked children playing in
the gardens or walking in the shady roads on their
way home from school. 57

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
On the verandahs there were ghmpses to be had
of their pretty mammas at afternoon tea-tables.
Clipped hedges give the road an English appear
ance. It might be a suburb of some English
provincial city but for the luxuriant trees and
flowering plants, the sunshine, and the warm air
straight off" the Kalahari Desert, You feel it at
midday hot upon your cheeks, yet it is so dry
that it is not exhausting. It even seems to brace
you up.
There are corners of Kimberley where the
original miners' shacks of wood and tin still stand.
The street leading to the Kimberley mine, " the
biggest hole in the world," as they call it, is where
many of the pioneers hved. The dirty httle houses
are now cheap stores. Natives in gaudy raiment
shuffle in and out of them. The big hole is now
merely a curiosity — the workings have been carried
far below — but it gives one an idea of the con
ditions under which mining was carried on in the
early days.
The soil in which the diamonds are found is a
blue clay. This forms in pipes or columns running
vertically to a very great depth. These pipes were
dug at, to begin with, in the most elementary style.
The big hole goes back to the days before elaborate
machinery came into use, when you took a pick
and tried your luck with your own muscles. The
pipes, too, were hit upon by hazard. Nearly all
were discovered accidently, A meerkat scratching
58

KIMBERLEY
in the ground (the httle creature is something like
a squirrel) showed where one of the richest lay.
The first " find " of all was made by a native who
had no idea of its value, and was used as a plaything
by a little Dutch child.
It was a hunter and trader named O'Reilly who
first realised what it was. He saw the little girl
playing with it. She had a number of stones, but
this was different from the rest. He asked her
father, a farmer, if he noticed anything peculiar
about it. " It is a veuerklip," he said carelessly ;
" a firestone." He tossed it back to his child.
" I have taken a fancy to it," O'Reilly told him.
" Will you sell it to me ? " The farmer was amused.
" The idea of selling a little stone like that," he
replied ; " you can have it." O'Reilly put it in his
pocket. " I have an idea about it," he said. " If
anything comes of it, you shall have half." The
farmer thought he was a little mad.
So did the people to whom he showed it. They
told him he was crazy to imagine he had a diamond.
Sir J. B. Robinson heard the story many times
from O'Reilly. On reaching Colesberg, where he
had formed his business connections, he showed the
stone to a firm of merchants. "Well," they
asked, " what of it ? " " Don't you see something
peculiar about it ? " said O'Reilly. The merchants
merely laughed and threw the stone on the table
amongst some papers. They then walked about
their store, talking over business matters, and 59

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
O'Reilly, on leaving, nearly forgot the stone. He
returned for it, however, and went to the hotel in
Colesberg. Here the same thing happened. He
showed the stone, but was ridiculed for his pains.
He then took up a tumbler, rubbed the stone
against it and said : " Listen to this. Don't you
hear how it's cutting the glass ? " and he pointed
out the mark, which was clearly visible " But,"
said one of the men present, taking a flint and
rubbing it against the glass in the same way as
O'Reilly had rubbed the stone, " don't you hear
that this makes the same sound, and there is the
mark, too ? " The difference, however, was this,
that whilst a diamond cuts, a flint merely scratches.
This news caused great excitement all over
South Africa, The stone was sent to Cape Town
and bought by the Governor for £500, Faithful
to his word, O'Reilly went back to the Dutch
farmer and handed him over £250, " Now we
must find some more," they both said. But the
only one they could discover was a small one,
not worth very much. The farmer remembered,
though, that he had seen a little bushman carrying
a stone of the same character in a bag round his
neck as a talisman. He searched for the bushman
everywhere, but without success.
At last one day the native came to him. He
had heard of the hue and cry. " Where is that
little bag you used to wear round your neck ? "
the farmer asked, breathless with anxiety. " Here,
60

KIMBERLEY
baas," said the little man. Yes, it was a diamond,
and a very big one. " I keep this," said the
Dutchman, "I give you plenty cattle, plenty
sheep." Now the native thought the farmer had
gone mad. He made the exchange gladly and
went off" a wealthy man, able to buy several wives,
and live without working any more himself for
the rest of his life.
That diamond, worn for years in the dirty little
bag next to the bushman's skin was bought at
once for £11,200. When it had been cut, its
value was seen to be far higher. It was named
the Star of South Africa and sold to Lady Dudley
for £30,000, Thus the native made as much as
he wanted to set him up for life. The farmer
went home with a fortune far in excess of his
simple needs. And the merchants who had the
stone cut cleared for themselves a further profit of
nearly £19,000,
The Vaal River diggings were the first to be
worked. These were actually discovered by Sir
J, B, Robinson. Trekking back to Cape Town
after a journey far up-country, he heard of the
diamond being sold for £11,200. Turning the
news over in his mind he remembered seeing in
the course of a dried-up river some stones which . . .
well, at all events he would go. back and have
another look at them.
So back he drove for days and came to the
drift (that is, the ford) which was his aim. He 61

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
filled his pockets and a large bag with " pebbles "
from the stony ground, then found a farmhouse
where he asked for a night's lodging. Hospitality
is a sacred virtue in all new countries. He was
given supper and a room. But he did not undress
and go to bed. He has told the story himself*
" As soon as I saw the lights out in the front
room I carefully arranged the bag of stones on the
floor of the room, so that I could find them with
my hand in the dark, I wiped a tumbler quite
dry, and extinguished the light. I was seized
with a great palpitation, and my excitement was
intense. I had arranged the most likely looking
pebbles, so that they could be tested first. Number
one was taken, a perfect octahedron, so I thought,
brilliant, glossy, and with perfect points. I began
to rub, first gently, and then briskly. No light
came. I rubbed the stone against the glass harder
and harder, with still the same result. 1 could
see no light. A feeling of wretchedness came
over me. All my mental anxiety and bitter sus
pense were then, after all, to end in nothing.
I sat still for some minutes, and then took the
next stone and tried it on the glass. No better.
It was a fraud, like the first. Stone after stone
was taken, and hour after hour was spent by me
that night in the rubbing process, but the result
was every time the same. No light, and nothing
* "South Africa," Special Union Issue, January 1910,
62

KIMBERLEY
could be seen, I threw myself despondently on the
bed. I lay thus for an hour, my mind brooding
bitterly over the disappointment I had experienced,
" After a time I thought of the few pebbles in
my pocket. I said to myself, ' They are like the
rest. However, one more effort. I will test them
also.' I got up again. There was no time to be
lost. Dayhght would soon return. I started to
work again. It was the seventh stone, an ill-
shapen thing, with rugged edges, not more than
eight carats, which gave me a start. There was
no light yet. I had only rubbed it twice on the
glass, but it produced a certain grating sound
which had come from no other stone. I lit the
candle, and looked at the stone. It was impossible
to believe it to be a diamond, being an irregularly
shaped stone, with coarse, sharp edges. I tried to
find a smooth surface to rub on the glass. It was
difficult to find one. I wiped it quite dry, and
put the flattish point against the glass, blew out
the light, and began to rub again. After rubbing
it a few times I suddenly saw a streak of light ;
it was there, and no mistake ! I rubbed and
rubbed again. The light was clear and distinct
I put the sharp edge to the glass and drew it
along, and I felt it was cutting deep into the
glass. I felt sure of the sound. I knew at once ;
instinct told me that it was a diamond. I could
control myself no longer. In a moment of frenzy
I shouted in a loud voice : ' I have found it.' 63

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
"I was still capering about the room when
I was brought to my senses by a knock at the
door, and a voice asking in Dutch, ' What is the
matter ? ' I calmed down instantly, and opened
the door. The patriarch of the family was stand
ing there in his nightcap. My presence of mind
did not forsake me. ' I have disturbed you
Mijnheer, excuse me,' I said, ' I have been dream
ing.' ' Yes,' he said, ' so it seems. You have
made a great noise, and you are wet with per
spiration. Have you had a nightmare ? ' ' It is
the biltong I had for supper last night,' I replied ;
' I have not been accustomed to such luxurious
food of late, and I fear I have taken too much
of it. But I feel better now, and if you will allow
me I will sleep a little while.' ' I hope you will,'
was the kind reply. ' Good-night,' I said. ' Good-
morning, you mean,' said Mijnheer, with ' a smile,
pointing to the front room, where the grey streaks
of morning light were beginning to make their
appearance." This was in 1869. At once the rush to the
diamond-diggings began. There was no railway
then, no town. All transport had to be done by
ox-waggons. To this day they are used still. I
saw one in the market-place. Covered carts with
fourteen or sixteen moist-eyed oxen harnessed to
them. While they halt, some of the animals lie
down. They are old campaigners ; they know it is
wise to rest whenever a chance offers. While I was
64

KIMBERLEY
looking at them, a smart motor-car came whizzing
round the corner. The old Kimberley and the new 1
When Cecil Rhodes arrived at the diamond-fields
water was being sold at threepence a bucket ; a
bath cost half-a'-crown, almost as much as the price
to-day in a fashionable London or Paris hotel.
Here it was that Rhodes made acquaintance with
Barney Barnato, and eventually formed the rich and
powerful De Beers Company which has controlled
the diamond output ever since. It watches the
markets most carefully, and adjusts the supply to
the demand, so that there may be no lowering of
prices, A Coronation Year in England means an
increase in the number of stones shipped. A financial
panic in New York is the signal for slowing-up.
The village of Kenilworth, which the Company
built for their white workers, is one of Kimberley's
sights. It used to be bare veld. Now you drive
through delightful woods. The houses are most
of them prettily built, and placed engagingly
among the trees. Each has its garden, and some
of them look into orchards, planted as an object-
lesson to show what can be done when the veld,
once thought only serviceable for the grazing of
hardy cattle, is fertilised with gold !
From Kenilworth starts one of the "siege
avenues," which were laid out to gwe employment
while the mines were closed. It has a very fine
pergola a mile and a quarter long, with vines grow
ing luxuriantly over it. Under these green arches,
e 65

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
which millionaires envy, the working-man of Kim
berley takes his family to walk on Sunday after
noons. The other siege avenues radiate from the
Siege Memorial. Shaded by lines of gum and
pepper-trees, they will some day be the principal
streets of the place. As yet they are still rather
bare and dry.
From the top of the memorial you can see the
country round, and you marvel how a town with no
natural defences, lying on flat ground, could with
stand a long siege. Nowhere are memories of
Rhodes more vivid than in Kimberley, for he was
just as closely associated with the plucky operations
which kept the Boers at bay as he was with the
diamond fields. His statue, in a place where no
one can miss seeing it, is one of the most character
istic, " He always turned to Kimberley," they tell
one proudly, " when he wanted sympathy or felt
he was misunderstood." Kimberley knew him.
Kimberley had never any doubts.
He always liked to talk about his early days there.
Once a man down on his luck, who had known him
well on the diggings, looked him up at Groote
Schuur, while he was Prime Minister of Cape
Colony. They had a long hearty crack over old
times, and the man went away with a cheque for
a thousand pounds in his pocket, a loan to help
him start afresh.
It was in those early days that Illicit Diamond
Buying (I.D.B.) had to be checked by the severe
66

KIMBERLEY
penalties which still exist. Three years in prison
is the punishment at Kimberley for dealing in
diamonds which are not sold under licence and
have not been through the De Beers office in the
regular way. The methods of stealing them were
both ingenious and revolting. One Kaffir in 1 895
Swallowed as many as £750 worth. Another cut
a hole in his leg and filled it with stones wrapped
in rag. A favourite trick was to send them away
in books, making a small hole in the centre of the
pages for the diamonds to repose in.
Every sort of trick was practised, and the losses
were very heavy, at one time as much as a million
pounds sterling a year. Now there is not much
I.D.B. It is too dangerous, I expected to find
shady-looking persons dogging my footsteps and
inquiring in hoarse voices if I wanted a few diamonds
cheap. Had I encountered any tradesmen of this
description, they would almost certainly have been
" traps," But Kimberley is so law-abiding, so re
spectable that even if the opportunity were offered,
you would not feel inclined to take any risks.
It seems to have forgotten alike its early,
feverish, adventurous days, and the hungry time
of siege, when shell-dodging was a necessary exer
cise. It grows very little, and probably wiU not
grow very much. It is comfortable 'and contented.
Diamond-finding has long ceased to be a gamble,
an excitement. The whole process is as regular
and mechanical as the making of boots. 67

CHAPTER VI
DIAMONDS
So long as men make love to women, the diamond
business is all right C. J. Rhodes
Before I went to Kimberley I imagined that
diamond-mining was adventurous, haphazard,
romantic. I figured to myself a groping-about in
rocky soil, a breaking-up of ground with picks, a
keen-eyed search among the fragments for the
stones of great price.
I thought it would be a great moment when a
diamond was found — a rare moment — an occasion
for going off" in a body to the nearest bar and
drinking the finder's health in champagne.
At the same time, the buying of diamonds in
shops appeared to me as an occurrence equally rare.
It was the kind of thing a man might do once in a
life-time. I supposed that a jeweller might sell a
diamond-ring once a week perhaps ; a tiara every
six months.
Since I was at Kimberley my ideas have been
violently reversed. I now understand that the
capture of diamonds is a mechanical process, or
rather, a series of processes, carried on in a grim,
68

DIAMONDS
whirring, rapid manner like the getting of coal, or,
as I said just now, like the manufacture of boots.
And, instead of the vision I had of men dropping
into jewellers' shops every now and then to buy
diamonds, I seem to see those shops full of people,
jostling one another, shoving their way to the
counters, clamouring to be served with diamonds.
" More diamonds," they cry, " we want lots more.
Turn them out quicker, quicker, quicker. We
can't and won't wait."
In the hot sun at the Du Toits Pan Mine on a
brilliant November morning there rang in my ears
that cry, the cry of men and women all over the
world starving for diamonds. It was to satisfy
their hunger for the shining gems that all this
machinery was turning, all these trucks running to
and fro so busily, all this clatter being made ; all
these people, black and white, going about the
business of the mine with set faces, rapid move
ments, an evident anxiety not to waste a second,
in case some unfortunate, "dying for diamonds,"
should perish before the pangs could be appeased.
It was the trucks that fascinated me, first of all.
They move apparently of their own will. No
means of propelling them can be seen. Steadily,
one after the other, they were running up a long
incline. " Blue ground," said my guide. " From
the floors."
Now the " floors " are big areas of veld where the
diamond holding soil is dumped as it comes up from 69

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
the pit. It is hard as well as " blue " (really the
colour is more like grey). It must be broken up
before it can be handled. So it stays out on the
veld for months, sometimes for a year, occasionally
more than a year, until the sun and the rain have
made it friable and sufficiently soft.
If you walk at night near the floors you will see
guards with shot-guns patrolling inside the barbed
wire fences. The De Beers bill for barbed wire is
a big one every year. There are hundreds of miles
of it showing its ugly teeth, ready to bite and tear
any thief. Not only the floors are protected by it.
There are hills of " tailings," soil which in the past
has been handled and cast aside, but which still
contains diamonds, since the combs with which
they used to go through the blue ground were not
so effective as those employed to-day. These hills
are surrounded by "entanglements" too. Some
day their soil will be combed out again.
Imagine yourself standing upon a rather rickety
erection at the top of the incline. The trucks are
coming up one after the other with that appearance
of absorption in their work which seems to say :
" Can't stop. Don't ask me. Must keep at it.
Think of all those poor shivering creatures with no
diamonds to wear." The noise is terrific. The
rather rickety erection trembles under you. Below
huge pans are going round and round. Water is
running in. Water is running out. Grim teeth
are crunching up the blue ground, grinding it, then
70

DIAMONDS
spitting it out for other smaller teeth to have their
turn. One way the gravel goes. That is where the
diamonds are. (Hurry, hurry !) Another way
the waste soil is carried off". Not a hand touches
it. This mass of chains and cog-wheels, this slave
of iron, does the whole work. It groans and
rattles. Its teeth chew with a horrible noise.
Every part of it is in motion. That is how the
blue ground is washed. For every hundred trucks
that come up the incline, only one truck goes
away. That one is full of diamond-bearing gravel.
The other 99 per cent, has been washed away.
Now follow the one truck with the load of
gravel. It runs over to another part of the mine-
yard, stops, tilts out its stuff, and runs off" with a
smug expression of conscious virtue to fetch some
more. The gravel is given no rest. It has been
tilted into a hopper. At once an endless band
snatches it up, whirls it aloft, grades its stones
into six sizes, sifts it. All done in the twinkling
of an eye. Now it is ready for the pulsator.
The pulsator is uncanny. Its work is to sort
out the heavy stones, among which the diamonds
are, from the light stones, which are just gravel.
It does it so cleverly. It seems so alive. The
guide shows you a trough, about |i couple of feet
wide, and five or six feet long, filled with stones
and water. The stones are moving, with a quick
jerky motion. Put your hand on them. The beat 71

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
of the pulse gives you a shiver down the spine.
It feels like some animal, some sick animal,
breathing in gasps.
Ugh I You take your hand out quickly. What
does it mean ? It means that by this pulsation
the heavy stones are helped to sink to the bottom,
where they fall through a grating ; while the light
stones are washed away at the end of the trough.
Now we are coming to the last process. A
hundred truck-loads of blue-ground have been
reduced to one truck-load of gravel. That one
truck-load has been further reduced by sifting
until only a fifth, less than a fifth, remains.
Among this heap of pebbly stones are the dia
monds. The moment has come for the final
selection. The harvest is almost won.
A long shining, slightly tilted, jerkily moving
slab with water and soil and small stones running
over it. At one end a spasmodic movement of
machinery letting all that is left of our hundred
truck-loads fall on to the slab. You see now what
makes the slab shine. It is grease. That slab is
a diamond trap.
The diamonds being heavier than the mere
pebbles stick to the grease. The mere pebbles
are washed away. A switch is turned. The
water stops. The gravel stops. Look at that
row of stones near the top of the slab. They are
dark, ghstening; not round, but shaped as if
delicate fingers had fiattened them a little, a
72

DIAMONDS
very little, on eight sides. The unpractised eye
would hardly have picked them out from the
other stones. But the grease knows the differ
ence. They are diamonds. There are riches
enough to make a man of small needs indepen
dent for the rest of his days.
After the first slab, a second, for the grease
sometimes lets small diamonds slip by. These
are held up on the second slab. And then, as
even the best-laid schemes gang aft agley, the
working of the grease-tables is constantly tested.
Outside in the sun Kaffir " boys " have turned out
a sack of the rejected stones and are going over
them carefully to see if by bad chance any dia
monds have escaped the grease.
Some of the " boys " are wearing suits marked
with the penal broad arrow. Has that the same
significance here as it has in England ? Yes, they
are convicts, hired out to the miners. There are
no trade-unions to cry out against prison labour.
They are not taking bread out of free men's
mouths. They have a far better life than they
would lead within the walls of a gaol, and the
community is saved the expense of their keep. A
capital common-sense plan.
But we have not yet seen the last of our dia
monds. Back into the shed. All, that was left
of the single truck-load has been dropped on to
the slabs. It only remains to gather up the
precious residue. " Who picks them up ? " I
73

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
inquire. "Nobody. We haven't time for that."
Of course not, with the knowledge that all those
jewellers' shops are full of people. Must not waste
a moment. What is the speediest way? Why,
to scrape up grease and diamonds and put them
together, a horrid sticky mass, into a pot.
Close by is a copper full of boiling water. Into
the water goes the pot. There it is made to turn
and turn and turn until all the grease has floated
away. Now there are left only the diamonds and
a few stones which are doubtful ; impostors, perhaps,
trying to palm themselves off" as precious gems.
What a theme for a sermon ! Cannot you hear
the preacher embroidering upon it ? " And oh, my
friends, how many there are among us who are
striving to pass themselves off" ..." and so on.
An old theme. Thackeray handled it from the
text that "all claret would be port if it could."
But the common stones are poor deceivers. They
are soon found out.
In a light office, an office full of windows, six
black men sit at a table, a table of white wood
without a stain or speck. Before each is a heap of
stones from the pot. With long knives they are
rapidly sorting out the false from the true. At the
head of the table sits a white man ; a man with
white hair and white moustache ; a man with a
weary vigilant face. It looks like a school scene, a
teacher taking a class.
Never for an instant must that weary vigilance
74

DIAMONDS
of his relax. His attention must be taut all the
time. Spite of the hghtness of the room, spite of
the whiteness of the table, those black men might
pluck up courage to flick a diamond into their
moist palms if they were not conscious of an eye
always upon them. A stoker has a hard life. A
lift-man on a tube railway must sometimes wonder
why he was born. But the stoker has hard use of
his body and limbs. The lift man has motion and
changing freights of passengers. That grim watch
man at the sorting-table is worse-off" than either.
To sit all day, day after day, just watching. 1
wonder he keeps sane.
In an inner office a tin of diamonds is casually
turned out for me to see. " Not a very good lot
these. Only about three thousand pounds' worth.
Go to the diamond office in town, at the big De
Beers building. They'll show you some beauties,
something worth looking at." But before I leave
the mine enclosure there is the native compound to
see. Through a locked gate, into a large yard with
rooms all round. Everything clean and tidy. In
the middle a covered bath-house. Shower-baths
and a pool, and tubs for washing clothes. In
constant use too, for most of these natives are of
far cleanher habits than the city poor at home.
Some wash their own clothes ; pthers pay the
men who prefer odd jobbing to regular work in the
mine. A shilling is the price for getting a pair of
trousers washed. It seems a good deal, but they 75

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
draw good wages and they spend their money freely.
Here is the store, a big tempting place where every
thing necessary to native comfort (except strong
drink) can be bought, A favourite luxury is
Worcester sauce, and they are as particular about
the flavour of their tea as any old maid in England.
Books, too, are on sale, mostly religious or highly
moral in tone, teaching them to bear patiently
whatever befalls them, looking to be rewarded in
the next world.
But I fancy you would say after visiting the
hospital (excellently well-equipped and looked after
by a most capable young doctor from " Bart's ") that
this kind of teaching is less needed by the native
than by the civilised white Christian. As we
become more complex, our nervous systems more
intricate, we are less and less inclined to be patient
and resigned to the buffets of fortune. We demand
happiness as a right. We have little of the calm
endurance of the fatahst. We kick against the
pricks. The Kaffir, on the contrary, has fatalism in his
blood. He is stolid under suffering. A little
wound with trifling smart, or sudden flow of blood,
will sometimes frighten him out of his self-posses
sion. But in the greater crises he is strangely
stoic, almost uninterested. The cases here are
mostly pneumonia, or surgical. Enteric is rare.
The native's stomach accommodates itself, like an
animal's, to almost any outrage. But his lungs are
76

DIAMONDS
sensitive ; the change from the mine to the upper
air is apt to afflect him.
The patients lie in their cots, quiet, apathetic,
watching us with a dull indifferent eye. They are
good patients in a way, but they do not help the
doctor by being determined to get well. They do
not seem to care much whether they live or die.
To commend resignation to such natures is to
preach to the converted. They need rather counsel
in the other sense.
Once more in the motor-car, we rattle and bump
over the road back to the town ; and after a very
pleasant lunch at the comfortable friendly club, I
present myself at the De Beers Company's diamond
office. One knocks at a closed door. A wicket
opens, that is to say a small shutter is drawn aside.
Part of a face peers through. I present my authori
sation. At once the door is opened. I am free
of the place now, so long as I obey the printed
prohibition on the walls, "Visitors must not
touch." I was inclined to think the uncut diamond a
more beautiful thing than the finished product.
The sparkling wonders to be seen here shake that
view. I still feel that the ordinary diamond in ring
or hair ornament or neck pendent is soulless, in
capable of stirring the imaginatiqji like pearl or
opal. But in that Kimberl ey office you see diamonds
extraordinary : diamonds of rare depth, of exquisite
colour, brown, yellow, almost pink; of a tender 77

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
translucency that has nothing in common with the
hard glitter of the publican's scarf-pin.
From here they go to the railway station and
there pass out of the company's hands. They are
cut in Holland or Hatton Garden, Why not in
South Africa? No one could tell me why. It
would be a profitable industry in a country which
needs industries. It ought to be encouraged.
Five million pounds' worth of diamonds were sold
by De Beers in 1909-10. The profit was about
half that. At the end of 1910 the market showed
signs of expanding. This year the lines of eager
buyers will be longer than ever, outside the jewellers'
shops in Bond Street, in the Rue de la Paix, in
Fifth Avenue, in the Graben of Vienna and the
Nevsky Prospect of St. Petersburg. Those trucks
must run faster, those teeth crunch harder, that
pulsator pant more quickly, those black men sort
out pebbles from diamonds with nimbler fingers
still.

78

CHAPTER VII
BLOEMFONTEIN
750 miles from Cape Town ; 103 from Kimberley ; 263 from
Johannesburg. 4518 feet above sea-level. Population about
35,000. Meaning of name in English : the spring among the
flowers. Hotel : Imperial.
I am sick for Kloof and Kopje,
I am wan for spruit and vlei.
And the loveliest scenes of England
Cannot charm the ache away.
O the sweet mimosa blossom
And the long mimosa thorn !
O the sounds that fill the night-time
In the land where I was born !
F. E. Walrond
The chief product of Bloemfontein is local pride.
Not an offensive pride, nor a pride without reason.
On the contrary. But still a pride that sometimes
makes it hard for the visitor not to smile.
" You will find our town a shining example in
such matters as sanitation, light, water, and road
management," I was told. " It is the healthiest
place in South Africa," was another boast ; " people
can't die here," " Have you seen our model
slaughter-house, our laundry, our sewage farm ? "
" Have you been to our municipal swimming 79

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
bath ? " " Ah," they sigh, " those jealousies which
prevented our being made the capital of the Union !
How deplorable ! Don't you consider this was the
ideal spot ? "
Certainly, so far as position goes, Bloemfontein
would have been a good capital. It is pretty well
in the centre of South Africa, A member of the
Union Parliament could have done business easily
in Johannesburg, and without great difficulty in
Cape Town, while he was attending sittings in
Bloemfontein. Parliament at Cape Town means
that the Transvaal members have to leave their
homes and their occupations for more than half the
year. Furthermore, Parliament at Cape Town with
Government offices at Pretoria means that a large
number of officials have to migrate a thousand
miles every year, with their families, their papers,
their staffs, so as to be at Cape Town while Parlia
ment sits. The expense and inconvenience are
equally great. It is hard to believe such an
arrangement can last.
It was agreed to as a compromise between the
different claims. Union would probably not have
been ratified without it. "If we can't agree as to
which place shall be the capital," said the makers
of Union, " we wiU have no capital. Honours
shall be divided." But in time, no doubt, this
compromise will be found tiresome. Bloemfontein
may have a chance yet,
80

BLOEMFONTEIN
By way of awarding it a consolation prize, it was
made the home of the Supreme Court of Appeal.
But even that Court " may " sit elsewhere. Of
course, it is the capital of the province. The
Provincial Council of the Orange Free State (the
old name restored in place of Orange River Colony)
sits there. The Administrator lives there. But it
" feels its position keenly." Both Bloemfontein
and Pietermaritzburg (which used to be the Parha-
mentary and official capital of Natal) have sad faces
when they reflect upon their loss of dignity, and of
material prosperity, too.
The first thing I noticed, as I walked up the hot
street which leads from Bloemfontein Railway
Station to the market-place was this printed
placard in a shop window :
Come in.
Door Closed
BECAUSE of Dust,
That told its own tale. However, there was no
dust then. It was a delicious morning, and although
it was only eight o'clock, the shops were all open,
and women already about shopping in cool white
frocks. So long as the air is clear of dust Bloem
fontein is very pleasant indeed. It lies flatly on
a plain, guarded by hills two or three hundred
feet high. The sun beats down upon the plain
certainly, but the wide streets are green and will be
shady when the trees have grown bigger, which
E 81

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
they do in this climate very quickly indeed. The
air is fresh, too. It has found nothing to contami
nate it as it blew across the clean veld. There are
songs of birds in the gardens ; sweet heavy scent of
languorous flowers. And if ever it is really too hot
in the town, there is always a breeze on the hills,
and a cooling view across a vast flatness of veld,
edged by dim slopes of distant mountains quivering
in the haze.
The town washes up around the bases of the
hills and in between them. One looks down upon
a vista of tin roofs, a few red, but mostly a dull
grey. Here and there a tiled house makes the
others uglier by contrast. The general use of
tiles, as in Eastern cities, would make an immense
difference in the direction of comeliness.
There you see a Rugby football ground. It
belongs to the Ramblers, who, like the Wanderers
in Johannesburg and the Pirates in Kimberley,
have a club and a public hall as well as playing-
fields, and fill a prominent place in the life of the
community. You can easily trace the course of
the river through the town. It is dry and brown
now, but in winter the water comes down with a
rush. That is why it is so strongly embanked
with granite, while six bridges of stone cross it at
two-hundred-yard intervals. In 1904 it broke
loose, drowning and destroying. But that cannot
happen again.
There are good public buildings in Bloemfontein ;
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BLOEMFONTEIN
a very pleasant club ; a comfortable hotel. Both
these are in the big market square, to which ox-
waggons come creaking up at night laden with
market produce. The houses have all an air of
modest prosperity about them. There is an
attractive little society composed mainly of British
officials, with a sprinkling of soldier-men from the
camp some four miles out. Out there, in much
the same direction (we are still on the hill), are
some fine blocks of buildings : these are Grey
University College and Grey College School,
foundations which have done excellent work.
In another direction there is a huddle of tin
dwellings, fenced around, evidently a settlement
apart. That is a Native Reservation. Here we
have got away from the half-castes altogether.
They are left behind in Cape Colony. From now
northwards there are only genuine full-blooded
natives. There is no thought of giving them a vote, as
it has been given to the " coloured people " at the
Cape. They are kept in necessary subjection.
No black person, for instance, is allowed in the
streets after nine o'clock at night without a " pass "
from an employer, giving permission to be abroad
for some specific purpose. This law is strictly
enforced. I happened to go to thg police-court
at Bloemfontein one morning with a friend who
told me that he had cleaned his own boots, cooked
his own breakfast, milked his own cows. His 83

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
" boy " had slipped out after the house was locked
up for the night and had not come back. He
heard the police had a large number of " boys "
and women in custody for being found in the
Native Reservation without passes. He was going
to see if his truant was among them.
The yard of the court was filled with culprits,
squatting quite cheerfully in the sun, " Sure
enough, there's my rascal," said my friend. " Well,
now we're here, we may as well go inside," It
was curiously like an English police-court. An
Irish Serjeant explained the charges, A glib
policeman gave evidence. A tired magistrate
murmured mechanically at intervals, " Ten shillings
or seven days."
There were many diff'ering types of natives.
Some handsome, intelligent, clearly descendants
of chiefs ; others low-browed, animal of feature,
dull-eyed. The women looked scared: did not
seem to understand what was happening. A few
of the men defended themselves through an obse
quious interpreter. Mostly they said nothing,
listened intently, and went out smiling. They
knew their masters would pay their fines, and be
glad to get them back. Half Bloemfontein that
morning had, I believe, had to wait upon itself
There must have been a great beer-drinking up at
the Reservation the night before.
In the Free State the natives are largely of
Basuto blood, Basutoland, which lies to the east
84

BLOEMFONTEIN
of the province, is outside the Union. It has a
special. Imperial Government of its own, like
Bechuanaland on the other side ; and the Basutos
are most anxious to remain under Imperial author
ity. I have a vivid memory of a blazing day in
Bloemfontein when the chiefs of the tribe laid
their hopes and fears before the Duke of Connaught.
It was a disappointment that they were all in
European dress. We had hoped to see them
wearing, with that magnificent dignity which all
natives in their native costume possess, their
blankets and feathers and cats' tails and bangles
and necklaces. Instead of that we saw what
might have been a gathering of cab washers or
dock labourers.
Their reach-me-down suits were ill-fitting. They
looked sloppy, squalid. Some wore riding-breeches
and old military tunics, some frock-coats, but most
were in shoddy tweeds. There was every variety
of hat, the opera hat, sombrero, bowler, silk and
straw. In only one respect uniformity prevailed :
all wore white collars.
The attitude of the chiefs was dignified and
impressive when the Duke entered. He was
greeted with shouts of barbaric welcome, for
which the signal was given by a chief who then
addressed his Royal Highness, The burden of
the speech, which was admirably interpreted by
a native, was the hope that the Imperial Govern
ment would not hand over Basutoland to the 85

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
Union authorities. The chiefs were afraid that
their rights to possess land and rule the natives
might be interfered with. Referring to King
George as " our father," and trusting to his being
a true son of King Edward, they implored the
Duke to ask his nephew to leave them alone.
The reply was admirable, both in matter and
delivery. First the Duke read a sentence slowly,
distinctly, dramatically, then followed a rapid,
musical fiow of language from the interpreter.
They must remember, the Duke said, that a
father had much trouble in settling the affairs of
his elder children. It was quite right of the
Basutos to tell him their difficulties, but they
must trust and obey their father, who would
remember what was said, and arrange matters so
as to conduce to the peace and advantage of the
whole family.
The old chiefs in the front row nodded their
heads in approval, but some 'of the younger ap
peared not well pleased with the result of the
interview. The Basutos used to be a warlike
people, and in their hilly country, mounted on
their famous ponies, they could still give a great
deal of trouble if they chose. There has been a
pretty large importation of arms and ammunition
into Basutoland. One scoundrel was caught gun-
running, and fined £250 ; there was a feehng that
death would have been the fit penalty for such a
monstrous off'ence. But many of the rifles sold
86

BLOEMFONTEIN
to the natives are of a very old pattern, and much
of the ammunition is useless, so it is said.
One of their reasons for being afraid of Union
Government is that they believe the Dutch would
ill-treat them. Certainly the Boers have given
natives cause to fear them. They decline altogether
to regard the black as a " man and brother." They
consider that God created him for their conveni
ence, to do the hard and menial work, to be beaten
whenever his master thinks fit. In the Free State
the Dutch farmers (nearly all the farmers are
Dutch) have lived especially remote from modern
ideas. Their view of life is mediasval. Still, even
they are beginning to enlarge their notions beyond
the limits of their farms.
Those who were sent across the sea, as prisoners
of war, to St. Helena, Ceylon or India, came back
changed men. They had never seen the ocean.
They had no conception that the world was so
vast. They had no conception either of what the
British Empire meant. One of them said to Lord
Selborne, when he was High Commissioner, " I
understood after my voyage why it was no
European Power came to our aid, as we made
so sure one would. It was because they could
not bring their soldiers across the sea. All the
ships I saw were flying the Union Jack.'
The Boers are constitutionally slack ; disinclined
to do hard, regular work. Their proverb, " To
morrow is also a day," puts their philosophy into 87

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
a pithy phrase. They have been accustomed to
let black men toil for them. They have few needs,
no ambitions. They believe literally in the Bible.
They are convinced that anything which they do
not want to do must be against the will of God.
Yet they are InteUigent, clever in certain ways,
wonderfully like the English farmers of sixty years
ago. They are hard to lead and they cannot be
driven. Once arouse their obstinacy and you might
as well batter with your knuckles at a brick wall.
Lord Selborne understood them. He met them
on their own ground. He was simple and friendly
and humorous. One day he was trying to persuade
a group of them to drill for water and irrigate.
They listened, smoking, saying nothing. Then one
old fellow took his pipe out and said : " My father
was a good man. He was a voortrekker.* He
lived here fifty years. He did not irrigate. What
was good enough for my father ought to be good
enough for me." A deep murmur of approval
followed. Lord Selborne said nothing. He went on
smoking his pipe. Presently he asked the old
man who had spoken if he would shoot him a
springbuck to take away with him for the camp
pot. " With pleasure." The farmer went into the
house and came back with a fine Mauser rifle.
Lord Selborne asked if he might look at it;
* One of the original founders of the Boer Republics
who " trekked forth " from Cape Colony,
88

BLOEMFONTEIN
examined it carefully ; as he handed it back, said, " I
suppose that belonged to your father before you,"
The Boers sniggered. The old man looked
surprised. "No, no," he said. "These were not
invented when my father was alive. I will show
you his gun." And he produced an old muzzle-
loading fowling-piece. " I am surprised you do
not use that," Lord Selborne told him, with a
smile, " I thought you said that what was good
enough for your father was good enough for you ! "
In that district irrigation went ahead.
Another instance of Lord Selborne's method.
He was urging a similar group of farmers to join
in concerted measures against locusts, instead of
sitting still and seeing their crops eaten away.
" Where do the locusts come from ? " they asked
solemnly. " God sends them. He sent them to
punish the Egyptians for their sins. He does the
same now."
Lord Selborne smoked on, made no reply.
In a few minutes he asked what the speaker's farm
was called.
" Leeuwfontein " (the Lions' spring).
" Ah, there used to be lions there then ? "
"When my father came here, many, many
lions." "What did he do?"
" He shot them."
"Shot them? But didn't he know that God
sent them ? " 89

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
This was a difficult thrust. But the Boer
parried it,
" God sent no lions to plague the Egyptians."
" No, but He sent one to kill the false prophet,
don't you remember? I am afraid your father
must have been a very wicked man."
This time there was no turning the blade aside.
The Boer acknowledged the hit.
Listening to these and other tales, we sat watch
ing the gorgeous colours of the sunset reflected in
a little pool fringed with trees, the only break we
could see in a vast sweep of grey-green veld. The
sun was going down in a real " glory." The word
is often used, but never have I seen it realised as in
South Africa. Evening after evening there you can
watch a miracle of changing beauty at the change
of lights.
The hills are smoky-blue, mysterious, poetical.
The sky above them is at first a marvel of crimson,
imperceptibly this fades to pink, and then to a warm
yellow. A little breeze springs up. Along the track
that runs away across the veld to the mountains,
labours an ox- waggon with ten span of noble beasts.
It is just at the end of the day's journey. Looking
at it you feel a sudden vivid understanding of life ;
a sympathy with all who welcome the hours of rest ;
a fresh conception of the contentment that is born
of existence in the open, on the wide-stretching,
rain-washed, sun-dried spaces of the world.
Now quick-coming Night has flung his cloak
90

BLOEMFONTEIN
over our cage. The bowl we call the sky is darkened
now save for a line of rose so exquisite that its
beauty is like a sharp stabbing sword, and even
while you look there is washed in above it a line
of pale yellow ; then a line of faint, tremulous blue.
For a few moments all three colours blend in a
nocturne of heavenly delight. Then they are gone.
The spectacle is over. Now for supper, and, after
that, sleep.

91

CHAPTER VIII
GENERAL HERTZOG'S BID FOR POWER
Mighty Lord of Nations,
We thy youngest born.
After toil and travail.
After feuds outworn,
Stand at last one people
Face the splendid morn.
Give us Faith, O Lord !
Great the task before us,
Ours to do and dare,
Lay the lines of progress,
'Stablish, build, prepare ;
For the sons who follow
Make our country fair.
Give us Strength, O Lord !
F. E. Walrond
The Free State Boers being as I have described
them, that province is naturally the stronghold of
the back-veld view. And it is here that the
Stay-as-we-are Party have found their leader in
General Hertzog, at the present time the most
prominent personality in South African politics.
He is the same type of politician as Mr. Lloyd
George in England and Mr. Bourassa in Quebec.
92

HERTZOG'S BID FOR POWER
They are all three apostles of the Small View,
They are Separatists rather than Unionists ; they
dwell upon points of difference more gladly than
on common features. All three are violent of
speech, unbalanced in judgment, but exceedingly
clever, and personally most agreeable.
Soon after I arrived in South Africa I was dining
with a friend at a hotel. At the other end of the
table was a little dark man — clever face, black
moustache, bright eyes behind large spectacles.
He was talking and laughing gaily. He was
keeping those around him interested and amused.
I wondered who he could be. " That ? " said the
women next me ; " why, General Hertzog . . .
such a nice little man. He scarcely ever goes out
anywhere in public, but at dinner parties he is the
greatest fun."
" Not the General Hertzog ? " I gasped. I had
pictured a stern, long-bearded, fiery-eyed fanatic,
puritanical, unbending, unsocial. Could this witty
diner-out be the man who was stirring up strife by
his violent, impractical efforts to pit South African
Dutch against English as the language of the new
Union. " Yes, the General Hertzog ; there's only
one," said my neighbour, and leaned forward to
catch what he was saying. 1 never was more sur
prised in my life. ,
In private life every one likes this firebrand
politician from the Orange Free State. In public
he is hotly denounced, unsparingly ridiculed, cruelly 98

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
caricatured. What is the secret of this dual per
sonality ? Can a fanatic be witty ? Can a humorist
really believe in such absurdities as teaching child
ren the same lesson first in English, then in Dutch ?
Let us go into this mystery of Hertzogism, probing
it to the core. ^ :jc H: 4: ^
Nothing arouses passion more quickly than a
language question. Nothing causes more bitter
ness, Wales, Ireland, Hungary, Poland, French-
speaking Canada, Dutch-speaking South Africa
. . . they all teach us the same lesson. Obviously
it is a disadvantage to speak a language which only
a few speak as against a language which is learnt
all over the world. Yet in this matter of speech
(as in most other matters) it is not utility but
sentiment that wins. Language is the strongest
symbol and bond of nationality. Take this away
and the people who speak it cease to be a separate
nation. They blend with some other nation.
They are absorbed.
It is perfectly natural, then, that the Dutch in
South Africa, still having nationality hot within
their hearts, should wish to save their " taal." It
is not a useful language, this dialect of Dutch,
Equipped with it alone, a man could use his tongue
nowhere but in South Africa ; and in many parts
even there he would find no one to use it with
him. In Holland, where he might expect to talk
freely, he would have great difficulty in under-
94

HERTZOG'S BID FOR POWER
standing those who speak the real Dutch language,
and in making them understand him.
There is no literature in the " taal ; " scarcely any
syntax even. It is incapable of delicate inflexions,
of fine shades. Yet it is very dear to the
Dutch, and that was a factor which had to be
taken into account when the Union was in the
making. No one capable of looking beyond his nose
imagines that the "taal" can last long — unless,
indeed, the pusillanimous back-veld policy of keep
ing South Africa Dutch and unimportant were
to prevail. You cannot have a great country
with a small language. Lord de Villiers is Dutch,
but he sees that, and he says plainly (to the great
annoyance of the language fanatics) " The fittest
will survive," In the meantime, however, it would
be folly to hasten the extinction of the unfit.
Nature must take its course. The Dutch must be
left to see for themselves that the "taal" is a
handicap, and that English, the world-language, is
the proper tongue for all members of the greatest
of world-States.
Without an "equality of language" clause the
Act of Union could never have been drawn up.
The disadvantages of a bilingual system were
clear enough to all who knew Canada. But there
was no choice. Dutch and English, therefore
were both declared to be " official languages of the
Union . . . and shall be treated on a footing of
95

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
equality, and possess and enjoy equal freedom,
rights, and privileges."
In any event this must have been a source of
trouble. Hardly had the Union Parliament met
before attention was called to discrepancies between
Dutch and English versions of a certain Bill.
General Hertzog treated the matter in his usual
airy way, but obviously it might lead to a very
awkward situation. How can the courts decide
what is the law if they have two different versions
of an Act before them ? There was great amuse
ment when the Duke of Connaught was described
in Dutch as " Knight of the Most Noble Order of
the Stocking-Band." It was ridiculous, of course,
to attempt to translate " Order of the Garter," but
that only gave cause for laughter. It is quite
possible that unskilful translators might blunder
into serious trouble.
Again, the Dutch of Parliament and of the
courts is High Dutch. When members address
the House they are not supposed to use the " taal."
But High Dutch, as I have said, is not the lan
guage of the Dutch people in South Africa. They
do not in most cases understand it. All who are in
public life, therefore, really need to know two kinds
of Dutch : that which is used for official purposes,
and the "taal," which is the common speech.
These difficulties, however, would have been
bearable. Had the bi-lingual clause in the Act
of Union been interpreted in good faith, and with
96

HERTZOG'S BID FOR POWER
common sense all would have been well. Un
fortunately there is a strong section of the Dutch
who hold that they, having won a small majority
in the Union Parliament, are entitled to " steam
roller the English," in General Beyer's illuminating
phrase. They want to see in action that detestable
political maxim " To the victors the spoils." This
section, which General Botha honourably declined
to obhge, has found its leader and fugleman in
General Hertzog.
The little lawyer from Bloemfontein has, as I
have suggested, much in common with the little
lawyer from Wales who has made himself the
leading figure in politics at home. Both are in
dividually charming ; both are limited in their
knowledge and their outlook. Both are in earnest
when they are excited. Both are apt in the heat
of oratory to say more than is prudent, even from
their own point of view. Neither of them would
go to the stake for their convictions. But in each
case they see that by eagerly advocating certain
principles, to which they are by temperament in
clined, they can win their way to power. General
Hertzog is ambitious. He has been a leading
figure in the Orange Free State. He wants to
be the leading figure in Union politics. He could
only achieve this by becoming the leader of the
Irreconcilables, who think Botha ijT " too English."
The Chief Irreconcilable, therefore, he has become.
If one did not see the object of it, his education
G 97

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
plan would seem idiotic. One can think of various
ways in which the two languages could be " treated
on a footing of equality" in schools. The most
obvious would be to let parents decide which
language their children should be taught in ; and
whether they should learn the other language or
not, the schools being staffed with Dutch and
English teachers accordingly. This obtains in the
Transvaal, and it is worth noting that 90 per cent.
of the parents, English as well as Dutch, ask for
both languages. But this does not suit the
Irreconcilables. There was not enough steam
roller about it. They, therefore, through General
Hertzog, laid it down that all children up to the
fourth standard must be actually taught in both
languages. I do not mean " learn both languages."
To that no objection would be raised. The Hert
zog scheme ordains that all lessons shall be given —
first in one language, then in the other. Thus, if
an hour be allowed for geography, half an hour
will be occupied by teaching the children in
English what capes and bays and peninsulas are.
Then the whole thing will be given over again
in Dutch.
The arguments against this plan and the re
joinders of its advocates have been thus clearly
summarised in The Round Talk, the valuable
quarterly review of Imperial affairs. The com
plainants say :
(1) That it is impossible to educate children
98

HERTZOG'S BID FOR POWER
efficiently through the medium of the two lan
guages simultaneously without serious waste of time,
and that an attempt to do so means that the rest
of the child's education is sacrificed to a knowledge
of both languages ;
(2) That it is contrary to the Act of Union that
parents should be compelled either to have their
children taught through the medium of the two
languages, or to lose the time during which in
struction is being given through one or other of
the two ;
(3) That it is unfair to teachers now in the
service that they should be compelled to qualify
themselves to give instruction through both
languages, and that as South Africa is not yet
supplied with sufficient bilingual teachers who are
otherwise qualified to teach, the Free State Acts are
bound to lead to the appointment of incompetent
teachers, with obvious results on the education of
the rising generation.
The advocates of the system reply (1) that it
can be carried out without any loss of time or
efficiency by teachers who are desirous of making
it a success, and that it is the only system under
which full effect is given to the principle of
equality between the two languages laid down by
the Act of Union ;
(2) That the State compels the parent to send
his child to school and prescribes what he shall be
taught, and, therefore, there is no special or
99

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
Unconstitutional compulsion about its prescribing
also in what language he shall be taught ;
(3) That South Africa is a bilingual country,
and, therefore, if teachers are to be really efficient
they must as soon as possible qualify themselves to
teach through the medium of both languages.
What are the actual results of the experiment ?
Firstly, half the school time is wasted. Secondly,
the children learn neither language properly
(teachers who know both thoroughly being very
few). But, thirdly, the system will enable the
English teachers to be got rid of and their places
to be taken by " OUR people," the Dutch. That
is what the irreconcilables are really aiming at.
No matter if the scheme leads, as it must lead, to
confusion in the children's minds, to confusion in
pronunciation, to confusion of idiom. No matter
that the Dutch children who leave school early
lose the little English they have so imperfectly
learnt, and are handicapped aU their hves. No
matter if the class of teacher changes for the worse.
The great thing is to " steam-roller the English,"
and that the scheme certainly would do.
I say " would do," because I do not beheve it
ever will. At present it is only in force in the
Orange Free State. General Hertzog has declared
he will fight for its extension all through the
Union, and that he would "set the veld ablaze
to carry his views." But force of protest compelled
the Government, in December 1910, to appoint a
100

HERTZOG'S BID FOR POWER
Commission to inquire into the whole subject, and
although the eight members were unable to agree,
yet the Majority Report signed by six of them
seems likely to be adopted. This recommends
that up to Standard IV each child shall be taught
in its home language, and after that according to
its parents' choice. General Hertzog signed the
Majority Report, but paradoxically explained that
he really agreed with General Beyers and Mr.
Fremantle, the fanatical "English Boer," who
refused to sign it ! There the matter for the
present stands.
Even in the Transvaal, where more moderate
counsels prevail, there is, according to the Director
of Education, "a real danger that the purity of
both languages may suffer from close juxtaposition
in schools and in the common life of the com
munity. This result is, I fear, unavoidable. Cape
University examiners have frequently called atten
tion to it, and one has only to spend an hour in
a school class-room or playground to have it un
pleasantly emphasised. There is need for a vigor
ous, continuous, and organised campaign against
this deterioration of diction."
Boys and girls talk a strange uncouth English,
mixed with Dutch words and Dutch idioms. This
dialect is reproduced faithfully and with very
amusing eff'ect in the plays of Mr. Stephen Black,
the dramatist of South African life. Nor can it
be wondered at. Mr. Chris Botha, himself a Boer 101

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
and a Free State member of the Union Parliament,
has declared that the average Dutch teacher is not
competent to teach in two languages,
Mr, Botha also hit upon another grave difficulty
when he said, " I am a South African by birth,
but I am under the difficulty of not knowing what
particular Dutch General Hertzog would teach,"
The schools, in fact, use High Dutch, But this
is not the language used in the Boer children's
homes. Their parents, who have always spoken
the taal, often do not understand High Dutch,
There is, therefore, in their minds a muddle of
three languages.
The results of bilingualism in schools are bad
enough in Canada, where there are only two lan
guages. Bishop Fallon of London (Ontario) re
ported in 1910 that in a district of Ontario where
there are a number of French Canadians and where
the two-language system obtains, " neither French
nor English is properly taught or decently spoken."
As a consequence many children are not sent to
school at all. The Bishop's report continued :
" During my present confirmation tour the
French-Canadian pastor of a French-Canadian
parish in Essex County said to me, in the presence
of witnesses : ' Half the boys whom you confirmed
this morning (they ranged from eleven to fifteen
years of age) can neither read nor write.'
"Another pastor made an equally appalling
statement to me regarding the iUiteracy of his
102

HERTZOG'S BID FOR POWER
children. Six of the eighteen French-Canadian
priests in active service in my diocese have ex
pressed to me their unqualified dissatisfaction
with the manner in which the children are being
educated in the so-called bilingual schools."
From the same causes foUow the same results.
What Bishop FaUon said of Ontario applies
equally to the Orange Free State. " On the one
side of the discussion are a certain number of
French-Canadians, led by noisy agitators ; on the
other side are also French-Canadians in no small
numbers, together with the rest of the population
of the Province of Ontario, without distinction of
creed or nationality. And let me hazard the pro
phecy that, when this second division awakes to
the gravity of the situation, it will make short
work of an alleged bilingual school system, which
teaches neither Enghsh nor French, encourages
incompetency, gives a prize to hypocrisy, and
breeds ignorance."
Short work will have to be made of Hertzogism
also or the results will be equaUy disastrous. Not
until this obstacle to Union is removed can the
creation of a South African nationality really
begin.

103

CHAPTER IX
NO ENGLISH NEED APPLY
In matters of Commerce
The fault of the Dutch
Is giving too little
And asking too much.
Popular Rhyme
The Dutch as a race have always been remarkable
for keeping their eyes on the main chance. The
South African Dutch have maintained this trait ;
have even developed it. Their desire to " steam
roller the English" is not mainly due to racial
jealousy. They want as many offices as possible for
" OUR people " ; and they fancy, many of them,
that with their own people in office there wiU be
more opportunities for them all. Against this spirit
the moderation of General Botha, the large views
of General Smuts^ struggle for the moment in vain.
In a magazine, De Goede Hoop ("The Good
Hope "), published at the Cape there appeared an
article openly advising the Premier to say less
about the Empire and the British flag. No doubt,
the writer suggested, General Botha was merely
protesting his loyalty to mislead the English. But
104

NO ENGLISH NEED APPLY
if he dwelt so much on South Africa's partnership
in the British Empire he might lead the Afrikander
to forget the loss of his independence, and that
would injure the national character of the Dutch.
In any other country to suggest that a statesman
was disloyally playing a double game of this kind
would be considered the worst insult. The Afri
kander thinks nothing of such charges. He takes
a curiously lenient view of deceit. He rather
admires it ... if it succeeds. Politicians, for
instance, make a habit of saying violent things to
the back-velders in far-away districts and of
denying them afterwards if by any chance they get
into the newspapers. It is therefore not at all
uncommon to be told that General Botha is simply
showing his " slimness " when he " pretends " to be
anxious for Imperial interests, and not merely
about those of the Dutch. Thus, while on the
British side there is a genuine desire for the bury
ing of all racial hatchets (for the reason, largely,
that they hinder the progress of the country), the
Dutch, for the most part, believe at present in
keeping up racialism as an advantage to them
selves. They do not care about the progress of
the country. They would rather see it small and
Dutch than British and great.
This parochial view will alter as soon as they
realise that it is to their advantage to push
their country ahead. Therefore it is of the
utmost Ihaperial importance that South Africa 105

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
shall have a series of prosperous years. If
there is continual development and increase of
wealth we shall hear very little of the "racial
issue." Even the back-velders will be brought,
by extensions of railways, into closer touch with
the world as it really is. As in Canada, all energies
will be devoted to making the earth yield her
increase. There will be no time, no inclination
for internal feuds.
But, for the moment, there is a spirit among
the Dutch which makes Englishmen inclined to
take a gloomy view. On our side the watchword
is " conciliate." " It would not be wise," Lord
Methuen wrote, "to emphasise events connected
with the war." Yet in Cape Town shop-windows
are exhibited cards lamenting the " Vierkleur," the
four-coloured flag of the Transvaal, in verses such
as these : No longer may our standard wave.
And flaunt its colours to the sky ;
'Tis buried with our heroes brave
Who on the field of glory lie.
For ever be their story told
As long as there are men at all.
Until the very heavens grow old
And earth shall totter to her faU.
No delicacy about " emphasising events connected
with the war " in that !
As I have shown in a previous chapter, the two-
106

NO ENGLISH NEED APPLY
language system set up by the Charter of Union
provided a useful means of getting rid of British
officials. "Equal rights and privileges" is inter
preted as meaning that all officials must speak both
languages. It was, it is true, laid down that no
public servant should have his services dispensed
with for want of knowledge of either English or
Dutch. But the ingenuity of General Hertzog
has found a way round that clause. It is quite
possible not to dismiss officials and yet to make
them feel that they are not wanted and had better
go. It is possible to close the paths leading to
promotion and to " freeze them out " in that way
also. Both these " shm " methods have been at
work in the Orange Free State. Here are some
of the results.
Mr. Hugh Gunn, the very able Director of
Orange Free State Education, has been worried
into resignation. Three inspectors of unquestioned
qualifications have been dismissed. It has been
made perfectly clear to the British teachers that
their room would be preferred to their company
and that in future " No English need apply." This
has been done in the following way. An Act was
passed to provide for the grading of teachers into
various classes. It looked harmless, even desirable.
But note how the grading process iias been carried
out. Ten years ago a woman who took her M.A.
degree at Dublin with honours and was placed
weU up in the History Tripos at Cambridge went 107

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
out to become vice-principal of a girls' coUege in
the Orange Free State. After nine years she was
appointed principal. To this lady the Council of
Examiners have awarded a provisional certificate
in the second class 1 Before she can get even a
professional second-class certificate she must
" show proficiency " in a string of subjects. The
first-class certificate is apparently out of her
reach altogether.
This is not an isolated case of insult. It is only
one of many. A man who has passed the highest
European examinations in the art of teaching,
has taught under the best inspectors in England,
and has in all twenty years of experience behind
him, is also " graded " into the second class. A
woman who has taught for sixteen years in London
and elsewhere, who holds University Extension
and South Kensington diplomas, and who is entitled
to train teachers, only gets a provisional certificate
in Class III I She is told she can qualify for a
professional certificate by "passing" in South
African history. No notice is taken of the fact
that a University Extension examiner in England
commended her for her knowledge of Imperial (of
course, including South African) development and
progress. Another woman with valuable experience
who went out three years ago to take charge of a
country school (upon which most favourable reports
have been made) is also put into the third class.
The meaning of this is clear. British teachers
108

NO ENGLISH NEED APPLY
are to be got rid of Defenders of this course say :
"We didn't want them. You would send them
out when you were on top. Now that we are on
top we send them back." The answer to such a
defence is that we were obliged to send out teachers
from England. There were not enough competent
Dutch to staffs the schools. Nor are there enough
now. Parents are complaining every day. For a
man who says " dey " for " they " to teach English
is ludicrous. Yet if teachers able to give lessons in
both languages are insisted upon, that will be the
case in nearly all schools. Nor is it only in schools
that British public servants' places are wanted for
Dutch candidates. Already it has been ordered
(by General Hertzog, who is Minister of Justice)
that summonses shall be issued in both languages.
Already the Minister who has charge of the post
offices has stated that " no man will be appointed
unless he is familiar with both languages. . . All
men in th^ post or telegraph service must be
bilingual. ' ' Already in many places tramway tickets
are being printed in both English and Dutch, a
quite unnecessary expense. It was even proposed
in the Pretoria Town Council that aU the municipal
officials must speak both tongues, and the deputy
mayor strongly supported it. In fact, the idea is
to close, as far as possible, both the Civil Service
and all public appointments against any but the
Dutch. Rightly is this denounced as a " monstrous
abuse of power." 109

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
It is simple to say " Why do not Enghshmen
learn Dutch ? " Languages do not come easily to
our race. It takes us a very long time to talk
fluently in a tongue not our own. And, in any
case, why should any one waste time in learning a
language like the Taal when it is not reaUy required ?
In the Transvaal the "retrenchments" that have
been made in the police and other services, English
men being dispensed with of course, are plausibly
excused on the ground of economy. No doubt
some of the salaries were too high. But no reason
able plea is, or can be, raised in defence of the
"South Africa for the Dutch" pohcy in other
directions. It is not necessary for all officials to speak both
languages. In all public offices there must be some
who do ; and, of course, to send a man who only
spoke English to take charge of a post office in a
Dutch district would be unpardonable. But that
has never been done. The only ground upon
which the " steam-rollering " process can be justified
is that of the maxim, so magnanimously disregarded
by us in South Africa, " To the victors the spoils."
Urn ^k *1* «tf ^r
There are very few people to whom magnanimity
appeals.

110

CHAPTER X
AGRICULTURE
Here in a large and sunlit land.
Where no wrong bites to the bone,
I will lay my hand in my neighbour's hand
And together we will atone
For the set folly and the red breach
And the black waste of it all,
Living and taking counsel of each
Over the cattle-kraal. Rudyard Kipling
As the number of mouths to be fed in the world
increases, so must the food-growers spread them
selves more widely over the earth's surface. Lands
which no one had dreamed of attempting to
cultivate are made to yield plentiful harvests. In
Canada the wheat area gets nearer and nearer the
North Pole ; the dry lands in Alberta are made
fertile by irrigation. In South Africa the pressure
of the world's needs is having the same effect.
Methods are being improved ; new ideas are taking
root ; lands which were looked upon as useless for
anything but giving cattle a bite oi- two of skinny
grass, are being successfully tilled and planted. If
South Africa takes the right cross-road, that which 111

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
leads to a place among the great nations, she will
be one of the agricultural wonders of the world.
« 9): sfs * 4:
Bloemfontein weather can be, and usuaUy is,
delightful. If it is too hot in the town, climb up the
kopje. You will feel a breeze gently fanning you,
and the wide prospect that opens out of grey-green
veld, bounded in the far distance by^hills shimmer
ing in the haze, will bring a sensation of spacious
freedom that is almost as good as being cool.
But Bloemfontein in a dust-storm is hateful,
and the morning I drove out to the Government
Experimental Farm at Grootvlei (pronounced
" flay ") the dust was blotting out the landscape
completely, and making it almost impossible to
keep one's eyes open. Yet even in a dust-storm
the sun is some comfort. It shone through the
clouds of grit as we motored over the veld. It
warmed me thoroughly, and one never feels really
miserable so long as one is not cold.
Mr. Palmer, the energetic Canadian who directs
Orange Free State agriculture, declared he was glad
ofthe dust. "It will show you," he said, "why people
laughed when Sir Hamilton Goold-Adams" (the
late Administrator) " determined to start the farm
here. It was just a large patch of veld. 'The
worst land in the State,' it was called. It could
be had for next to nothing, yet nobody would buy it.
It was thought of once as a site for a settlement of
lepers, but was pronounced even too desolate for
112

AGRICULTURE
them, ' Plant fruit trees in that wind-swept
desert,' said Sir Hamilton's critics, ' it's absurd,
sheer madness ! ' "
/that was only six years ago. Now there is a
vast orchard of well-grown prolific apricots and
plums. There are fields upon fields of experimental
crops, grown to show the farmers what can be done.
They can raise almost anything. Maize is splendid.
Wheat does well, and bearded wheat, a coarser
kind, does better. Oats and rye flourish. Potatoes,
mangolds of huge size, and lupin beans yield excel
lent results. Various grasses for cattle-feed are being
tried. Salt-bush (something like the Nevada sage
brush to look at) is grown for sheep. All on the
" worst land " in the State !
Of course these crops are not raised by the old
South African method of scratching the surface.
Dry farming means a lot of work — deep ploughing
and constant cultivation. The economical employ
ment of manure must be studied. Rotation of
crops must be skilfuUy planned. But the motto
of a Farmers' Congress held in 1910 was " The
destiny of South Africa lies on the dry lands."
These experimental farms, which exist in each
province are showing how all the difficulties of
dryness can be met.
Another most useful work they do is to help
farmers to breed better animals. !A.t Grootvlei
there are fine herds of South and North Devons,
one lot looking in perfect condition after a course
H 113

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
of picking up their feed on the veld. There are
also some wonderful sheep bought by Government
Agents in Australia. As much as 450 guineas
apiece has been given for Wanganella and Tasma-
nian rams. Fine animals they are, with their curly
horns, heavy "collars," row after row around their
necks and breasts, and amazingly thick, firm wool.
The wool industry has made very great strides
of late, and as good methods of gaining and
preparing fleece spread more widely, so will the
market enlarge itself and improve. A large number
of Bradford mills are now spinning South African
wool for worsted, and in the West Riding the
demand for " Cape tops " is constant and high.
This naturally encourages sheep-breeders to bestir
themselves. Already the example set by the
Government farms is being widely followed. In
the North-Eastern Free State (the most enhghtened
district) the buyers of the Agricultural Depart
ment have lately supplied to farmers six thousand
pounds' worth of Australian sheep for breeding.
While I was in the office one day an old fellow
with a patriarchal beard came in, mopping his
brown, wrinkly forehead. He wanted a ram.
" Never mind," he said, when he heard that there
wouldn't be time for the buying agent to receive
a letter before he left Australia. " Never mind,
send a cable. I can pay."
That old farmer, I heard, was typical of the
awakening Boer. He used to live in a neglected,
114

AGRICULTURE
untidy farm, with herds of cattle wandering free
on the veld. He was slack and lazy, uncomfort
able and poor. Now he buys expensive pedigree
stock, breeds carefully, sells at a good price. He
grows vegetables, he has planted an orchard. He
even raises strawberries, a fruit he had never tasted
in his life. He has a good home. He is alive to
what is going on in the world.
He and his like have learnt to value the
Agricultural Departments. When responsible
Government was granted to the Orange River
Colony the lawyers who managed to get hold of
the administration wanted to abolish this branch
of it. They knew nothing about farming. They
did not understand the useful work it was doing
with the small amount of money it spent.
Fortunately the farmers did understand, and
refused to let this act of " retrenchment " be
carried out. Now a Dutchman is in charge at
Grootvlei ; he is an active, able man, and man
ages it quite weU.
Among his assistants I came across a nice-looking
girl, unmistakably English, in a white blouse and
short skirt. This was the Chicken Expert. She
came from Swanley College in Kent, and she is
showing what can be done with poultry in South
Africa. If the wives and daughters of farmers
could be persuaded to take up this not very diffi
cult, but pleasantly profitable occupation, it would
be good both for the country and for themselves. 115

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
At present they have far too little to do. They
could also occupy themselves most usefully with
supervising dairies. This industry promises very
well in the Free State. In time every farmer will
either make butter or send his cream to a central
factory. I went to see the plant of one of the
dairy companies that have been started in recent
years. Butter is, of course, made by machinery
altogether. The appliances were up to date ; and
the whole place most businesslike and spotlessly
clean. A hint in the feeding direction has been
taken from the United States, where dairying was
revolutionised by the use of maize. The whole
plant is taken and put into a silo (at Grootvlei
they have a round one made of tin), where it is
pressed and turned into a nourishing and succulent
cattle diet.
Maize is a great crop in the Free State, and will
be, if the country goes ahead, a bringer of prosperity
before very long to the whole of South Africa.
Old Sir John Bennet Lawes caUed it the grandest
crop in the world, and said the chief regret of his
life had been that he would die without seeing the
vast fields of it in America. It is a fine food both
for beasts and for men. The Kaffirs live on it
almost entirely. Meahe pap or porridge I found
not at all unpalatable, with milk and sugar.
South America is the chief exporter of maize at
present, but South African maize is better than
that which comes from the Argentine. It is sun-
116

AGRICULTURE
dried, not kiln-dried ; and it gets no rain when it
is ripe. At present only a few hundred thousand pounds'
worth of mealies are exported from South Africa,
and it would probably pay the country better to
keep these and feed cattle or pigs with them, but
capital is required, so they have to be sold. General
Botha, however, looks confidently forward to a day
when the Union will be exporting millions upon
millions of bags of maize, besides having all it
requires for itself
" Maize and cattle, those are the chief lines for
the Transvaal," I was told by Dr. Macdonald, the
experienced Highlander who directs agriculture in
that province with Celtic enthusiasm. He is most
anxious to see smaller farms and closer cultivation.
The average size of a Transvaal farm is about
5000 acres (against averages of 143 in the United
States and 66 in Great Britain). Dr. Macdonald
would like to see the country cut up into farms of
160 acres. His idea would be to portion out such
a farm thus :
Maize or roots (turnips or swedes) 80 acres
Pasture 20 „
Lucerne 20 „
Orchard 20 „
Homestead (vegetables, &c,) 20 „
«
Lucerne does very well indeed on irrigated land,
yielding three or four, sometimes five, crops a year.
On dry land the Abyssinian " fet " grass is more 117

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
suitable ; this is a very good food for cattle.
Wheat is not likely to be grown on a large scale
in South Africa. In the Western Province of
Cape Colony it does well in the winter rains and
ripening summer sunshine. But over most of
South Africa the rains come in summer.
It is quite possible that South African cotton
may come into the market before very long. In the
Zoutpansberg and Rustenburg districts (Northern
Transvaal) there are 30,000 square miles with
an average fall of from fifty to sixty inches of
rain, where conditions are eminently favourable to
cotton. Here as much could be produced as the
whole of the Southern States raise (14,000,000
bales a year). Native labour is cheap here. The
blacks soon learn how to pick. Only capital is
wanted. It would reap a rich reward.
Here are some figures placed at my disposal by
the chief of the Cotton and Tobacco Division of
the Department of Agriculture. It costs, to grow
cotton, about £2 an acre. Each acre should yield
1000 lbs. of seed cotton, with at least 300 lbs. of
lint. At 5d. a pound, which is low, this would
fetch about £5, leaving a profit of £3 per acre.
South African cotton has over American cotton
the same advantage that was mentioned in the
case of maize. Planting and growing occur during
the rainy season ; picking when there is no rain.
Even now farming is a prosperous business for
those who go about it the right way. In one dis-
118

AGRICULTURE
trict I came across three Scottish farmers who in
seven years had bought their farms of some 3000
acres apiece ; had built substantial brick houses ;
were bringing up families in comfort, with a good
balance on the right side at the bank. Near
Vereeniging (where the Conference took place
which ended the war in 1902) the agent for a big
firm of agricultural implement makers is farming
6000 acres with great success. Two Australians
near Standerton have made as much as £1000 in
one year out of potatoes and lucerne. They have
3000 acres and a good market at Johannesburg,
not far away. A Canadian on the liner coming
home said there was far more money to be made
by farming in South Africa than in Canada.
There were fortunes to be won by supplying the
mining centres with meat.
But, as in Rhodesia, the man who thinks or
farming in the Union needs capital ; at least
£1000, and if possible £2000. A fruit-grower
might start with a little less, perhaps. With co
operation fruit farming offers the small man a
good chance. California exports fruit on a large
scale to Australia and New Zealand ; these coun
tries ought to be South Africa's markets. In the
matter of dried fruit South Africa does not even
yet supply herself. She imports it to the value of
well over £20,000 a year, and as large a quantity
of almonds and nuts. " Good heavens ! " exclaimed
Mr. Merriman, formerly Premier of Cape Colony, 119

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
in a recent speech, " why, this is a country where
in certain parts almonds and nuts grow like weeds.
We ought to be exporting instead of importing
them!" California's dried-fruit exports amount
altogether to three millions sterling a year.
"There is no earthly reason," Mr. Merriman
declared, "why we should not equal California.
We have got the climate, we have got the soil,
and we have got the sunshine, which is the thing
that matters most. We have all these natural
advantages ; all we want to do is to use them,"
The small amount of fresh fruit that South
Africa sends to the United Kingdom and the
Continent is only a beginning. She can grow as
fine apricots and peaches and plums as any country
in the world. Yet out of 29,000 cwt. of peaches
and apricots imported by the United Kingdom in
1908 she only sent us 1117 cwt. Her grapes are
famous. We in England import 600,000 cwt. of
grapes every year. She only contributes 10,000
cwt. to that total. Or take oranges, which are
delicious in South Africa. Five and a half million
hundredweight of oranges are annually poured into
England. From South Africa might come an
enormous quantity. She actually exports to Great
Britain only about 3000 cwt.
It is true that orange culture in Cape Colony
was ravaged some thirty-five years ago by a pest,
one of the many pests that she has had to contend
with. But now a determined effort can be made,
120

AGRICULTURE
if the Government chooses, to conquer them all.
What is needed is vigorous and above all united
action. Hitherto there has been no unity. It is
no use, in this or that part of the country alone,
making spasmodic efforts to induce regular cattle
dipping, or taking isolated measures here and there
for the destruction of locusts, when they can only
hop and not fly in devastating clouds, clearing off"
everything as they go. It is futile to expect to
get rid of East Coast fever by days of humiliation
and prayer, if the obvious means of fighting this
cattle-scourge are neglected.
Against diseases, against locusts, against jackals
and baboons, against drought, all must co-operate,
and the victory will be won. " There is no reason,"
said the President of the thirteenth Annual Cape
Agricultural Congress in 1910, " why this country
should not be as free from plagues as any in the
world, because it is naturally one of the healthiest
for animals and plants. The fault does not rest
with the country, but with the neglect and
ignorance of the people."
Neglect and ignorance have kept back the fruit
industry. Many growers are careless about gather
ing their crops. They gather them in the early
morning mist and let them mildew. They do not
think of cutting the nails of their, Kaffir boys who
do the picking. They will not use wool-lined
baskets, and their fruit is bruised. Even when the
grower puts his fruit on the train in good condition, 121

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
it has often been damaged by not being carried in
proper fruit trucks, or by being packed in such a
way that boxes arrive broken. However, methods
are improving every year, and the quantity of fruit
shipped has increased enormously. In 1905 only
23,832 boxes were despatched. In 1910 the figures
were 210,871.
This is nearly all expensive fruit, and it is
possible that not much further increase in that
direction is caUed for. More could be absorbed, no
doubt, but a larger supply would mean lower
prices, and the grower would be no better, possibly
worse, off". A huge export trade, however, is wait
ing to be developed in oranges, cheap grapes, apples,
and pine-apples, those delicious pine-apples which
have the most perfect flavour and the juiciest flesh
of aU. And fruit farming, to quote Mr. Merriman
again, " is just the industry we want for that closer
settlement everybody is talking about." It gives
" the smaU man " a chance.
Growing grapes for wine is an enterprise beyond
the smaU man ; but it is one that offers capital a
very fair sum for its money and wiU in time yield
a handsome profit. I first tasted South African
wine on board ship and dishked it. But drunk in
South Africa it is very pleasant and refreshing.
There used to be a good deal of sweet Cape wine
drunk in England, but the demand dropped away.
and now the export of wine from South Africa is
very smaU. There is no reason why it should not
122

THE WOMAN AVITH THK HUE

I'juit.o hi/ Dl:i>lev Kidd

^^ ii.VT TJIE J>i:i\i:i: skk;

I'hiiti' hii HuDLEY Kidd

AGRICULTURE
be revived, but for the moment effort is chiefly
centred on discovering the kind of grape from
which a really hght table- wine for local drinking
can be made. Here the Government can give help
if they choose. There is an official " viticulturist,"
a man of experience and ideas. There is a Govern
ment wine farm, too, a beautiful old Dutch
homestead at Groot Constantia near Cape Town,
nestling under glorious Table Mountain, and with
its vineyards running down towards the brilliant
sea. Neither the Dutch nor the English are wine-
drinking nations, and the French element in South
Africa is not very large, though it has modified in
curious ways the " national " character. Yet, if a
good cheap table-wine can be produced, there is little
doubt that it will be used. For a country which
grows grapes so easily not to become a wine-
drinking country would seem like despising a good
thing because it is too near home.
[Since this was written Mr. Palmer, Under-
Secretary for Agriculture in the Orange Free
State, has been dismissed after seven and a half
years' service. No reason was offered, the sole
ground for the action being, according to the
general opinion in the Orange Free State, that
Mr. Palmer was a Briton, not a Boer.]

123

CHAPTER XI
JOHANNESBURG
From Cape Town rid Kimberley 957 miles ; via Bloemfontein
1013 miles; fast train in thirty-six hours; ordinary train
forty-eight hours. From the port of Delagoa Bay (Lourenpo
Marques) in Portuguese territory 396 miles. From Durban
483 miles. 5764 ft. above sea-level. Population some 200,000,
of "vvhom about half are whites. Hotel : Carlton.
In the end, I doubt not, we shall achieve the
object of our Union, if we always try to remember
that the best thing a country produces is Men, and
that neither wealth nor intellect, but character
makes men. The Rt. Hon. J. X. Merriman
In Cape Town they speak of " Jew-hannesburg "
with an accent which suggests a dainty woman
fastidiously lifting her skirts as she passes a mud-
heap. " A mining-camp," they tell you. " Never
wUl be anything more. And then the people. . . . !"
When Lord de ViUiers, Cape Colony's Chief Justice,
spoke up for the Rand capital after a visit there,
he was laughed at and sneered at as " scouting for
Hoggenheimer. "
To hear the Cape people talk, you would think
Johannesburg was the wickedest city on earth,
leaving Budapest far behind, and making San
Francisco look like a Sunday-school treat. Yet
124

JOHANNESBURG
a Canadian I met there described it as the most
moral place he ever struck. Perhaps that was a
slight exaggeration, too. Of course, Johannesburg
retaliates. It calls Cape Town " Snoek-opolis," the
snoek (pronounced " snook ") being a fish caught
in Cape waters. Inhabitants of Cape Town, which
is also referred to as the " shank-end " (a glance
at the map will show why), are represented by
cartoonists with snoeks sticking out of their
pockets, and so on.
But while this is merely chaff", there is a harsh
note of bitterness in Cape Town's gibes. That is
due partly to jealousy, but partly also to resent
ment at the bad name which Johannesburg in its
early days earned for South Africa generally.
Those days are left behind now. But it is always
easier to acquire an evil reputation than to live it
down. Not so long ago a really charming woman
went to St. Moritz in the winter. She put herself
down on the hotel register as coming from
Johannesburg, where she lives. No one spoke to
her. She began to feel pretty badly about it. Then
a kind soul took pity and made friends. As soon
as she found out what a mistake had been made
aU was well. " But never put Johannesburg down
as your place of residence again," she said. " People
know what to expect from there ! ",
That is a widely spread notion stiU. I suppose
there was in years past justification for it — " Monte
Carlo superimposed upon Sodom and Gomorrah," 125

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
was the epigram of a prominent Cape politician in
1898. " The central sin spot of civilisation," another
pious Pharisee called it. " Houndsditch and the
Stock Exchange are not the sources from which the
redemption of South Africa is to be lookfed for,"
Sir WiUiam Butler wrote when he was Acting High
Commissioner. He forgot that the fairest flowers
and the sweetest fruits grow in earth made fertile
by muck. When in future centuries the beginnings
of the great South African nation are traced, it
will be shown that it owed its beginnings to the
discovery of gold.
But the Hoggenheimers, though they exist still
here and there, are prominent no longer. Men
who would take a high place in the affairs of any
part of the Empire have swept away the " gold-
bug" tradition. The Oxford accent has replaced
the Yiddish lisp. Johannesburg is no longer a
town of shacks, a place where men go only to make
money and depart. It is a fine city, with beautiful
suburbs, where in delightful houses pleasant, culti
vated people dwell. Marvellous has been the
development of the mines. The energy, the skill,
the genius with which the gold has been attacked
and captured, lend to this chapter in the history
of industrial progress an interest of romance. But
for the form of wealth which can be measured in
money men will always put forth their best powers.
It is because there are people in Johannesburg
who know the value of wealth (which is literally
126

JOHANNESBURG
" weU-being ") in other forms, and who aim at
making their city a place where they can be
pleased and proud to live — it is because these
people have not been content to let her remain a
" mining camp " that Johannesburg has won her
real distinction.
It is a great thing to turn out thirty million
pounds' worth of gold a year. But it is a great
thing also for almost the youngest city in the
Empire to possess a municipal collection of
pictures such as exist nowhere else. For some
£20,000 Sir Hugh Lane has filled a small gallery
with some of the finest examples of the Modern
School. Here are characteristic works by Rodin,
Monet, Mancini, Sargent, Wilson Steer, Orpen,
C. H. Shannon, John Lavery, Nicholson, Buxton
Knight, Mark Fisher, Frank Brangwyn, Charles
Conder, Augustus John. Such a selection reflects
real credit on a town, especiaUy on those who took
the lead in raising the money, Mrs. Lionel Phillips
foremost of all.
As you approach Johannesburg by train, the
mines are too much in evidence to let the view
be picturesque. A rolling downland, varied by
clumps of tall, dark trees, begins, more than
twenty miles away, to be polluted by chimneys.
The ground is scarred, soiled, sav^ed ; it shows
red gashes where Man has wounded it. Villages
of tin huts and native compounds surrounded by
corrugated iron walls, give a squalid air to the
127

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
scene. Above them rise the vast dumps of
powdered rock, white as snow mountains gleam
ing in the sun, flat-topped, smooth-sided, always
increasing in bulk, save where they are using it to
fill up disused workings, an excellent plan. After
the quiet charm of the down country beyond the
limits of the Rand, with its tree-sheltered farm
houses, making little islands of green in the light
veld ; its darker patches of cultivation, its groves
of weeping willows along stream beds, its groups
of cows at evenings by the pools — after the charm
of this settled, homely landscape, the approaches
to .lohannesburg have rather a depressing eff'ect.
But as soon as you run into the big, handsome
station, shortly to be enlarged into one even more
imposing ; as soon as you drive through the broad,
arcaded streets with their attractive shops, their
substantial public and office buildings, your cheer
fulness comes back. You feel at once you are in
a city — the first modern city in Africa if it were
not for the bare-legged black policemen carrying
their knobkerries (for black people only, I need
hardly say), and the rickshaw runners, with their
feathered heads and painted shins — not so night
marelike as the Durban " boys," who wear horns
on their heads, but still quite good " local colour."
I wonder how long they will last in competition
with the excellent taxicabs. If you are going
out to Parktown, though, and suffer at all from
nervousness, you had better hire one of the fast
128

JOHANNESBURG
two-horse Victorias. There are steep hills to go
up and down, and the motors take them at a
terrifying speed.
Parktown is "the most fashionable residential
quarter " of Johannesburg, to quote from the house
agents' bills. It is on the other side of the city
from the mines. Up the slopes and about the foot
of a high, rocky ridge houses peep out among
masses of firs, which spring from the scanty soil
with splendid energy, and stand out vividly along
the sky-line. From the ridge you look down upon
a wood. Twenty years ago it was not there. It
was planted as a speculation to supply timber to
the mines. Now it is one of the pleasantest
features of the place. And a very useful feature,
too, for it is said that these and other tree planta
tions round about Johannesburg have given the
district three inches more rain every year. As
we took our early morning rides through its leafy .
cloisters it was very hard to believe it could be of
such recent growth. But here everything grows
at a magical rate. The gardens are delicious, gay
with flowers, cool with green lawns, bordered by
tall, clipped hedges. Climbing roses smother
arches with their exquisite bloom. Yet many of
these gardens are only three to four years old !
The houses are of varying ages ; |he older ones
pretentious and ugly, the more recent built with a
rare charm by Herbert Baker, of whom it is not
too much to say that he is one of the three best
I 129

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
architects in the domestic style now living. He
was taken out by Mr, Rhodes, and he has done
South Africa an immense service by setting a high
standard in this matter of home-building, so impor
tant in a new land. If the Government buildings
at Pretoria approach the beauty and distinction
of Mr. Baker's drawings and plans, he will assuredly
be the leading architect of the Empire. Under his
hand Forest Hill, which is beyond Parktown, is
beginning to take on quite an Italian look. The
house which Mr. Baker has built for Mr, and Mrs.
Lionel Phillips is like a palazzo in the Apennines.
In many gardens there are pergolas on squared
stone pillars and groups of dark pines. Yet the
general effect is too solid and comfortable to be
anything but Enghsh. Above everything Herbert
Baker's houses are homes. They are meant to be
lived in as well as to be looked at ; I can gratefully
testify that they are equally satisfying without and
within. Beyond the Wood there is a wide prospect of
well-timbered country, dotted with white farm
houses which shelter beneath roUing hills. Blue
and faint in the distance are mountains, lending the
view just that touch of imagination which makes
it perfect. I cannot think of any suburb close to a
city which can be compared with this for beauty
and pleasantness. It is so harmonious, so unspoUt.
I met last winter a woman staying in one of the
loveliest old houses in England, who told me she
130

JOHANNESBURG
was longing for her home on the edge of the
Wood. Not only for the sunshine, but for the
spaciousness, the morning and evening coolness,
the crisp air, the invigorating cut-and-thrust of
conversation in a society where every one must
justify his existence by personal effort.
The climate, though good, is trying after a time.
In that respect Johannesburg is like Winnepeg.
Both cities make people feel energetic, but they
both tire them out, A change to softer, more
enervating air becomes necessary. From Winnepeg
you go to British Columbia ; from Johannesburg
to Natal. Durban in the winter months (May,
June, and July) is a most popular resort for
Johannesburgers. Even in December it is difficult
to book rooms for the next season, so great is the
demand. Winter in the Transvaal brings frosty
nights. A climate which makes a fire a pleasant
thing on most nights of the year scarcely sounds
like Africa at all. But then the Rand is nearly
six thousand feet above the sea.
It is its bracing air which has turned what was
bare veld twenty-five years ago into a city of which
the rateable value is now forty million pounds.
Every one who went to Johannesburg was filled
with energy and optimism. Now the old days of
reckless plunging are spoken of with sorrowful
shakings of the head. The gold industry has settled
down. It is solid business, not speculation. Gone
are the times when you could buy, say, Corona- 131

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
tions at £10 apiece and sell them a week later at
£100. There is still a good deal of gambling,
however ... in other ways. The lowest bridge
points any one cares to play for are ten shillings a
hundred. I saw a man one evening — not a
rich man either — lose £80 at poker without
worrying. There are constant race meetings, at
which betting is pretty high, though, curiously
enough, the newspapers are not allowed to publish
the odds. The white miners bet a great deal, and
gamble in shares, too. Many of them draw as
much as £50 a month, and they spend freely.
The most careful, as a rule, are the Cornish
miners. Still, even they are ready to " fork out "
handsomely upon occasions. A few years ago a
painter who runs an art school at Newly n, close to
Penzance, had a call from a young Cornishman,
who said he wanted to be taught to paint
St. Michael's Mount. " I will teach you to paint
anything," said the artist, and told him the terms.
" But that's too much, and I don't want to learn
to paint anything," the young man objected.
" Couldn't you teach me to paint St. Michael's
Mount and only charge me for that ? " At last it
came out that he was a miner from Johannesburg.
He knew that almost every home-loving Cornish
man on the Rand would give £5 at least for a
painting of St. Michael's Mount. It struck him
he could make a good deal of money in his spare
time by supplying them !
132

JOHANNESBURG
Life in Johannesburg has few special features to
distinguish it. The city reminded me a little of
Toronto in appearance. It is full of bustling life.
The newspapers, especially the Star, are wide
awake. The city has a lively Suffragette agitation
of its own ; a Christian Science Church, which cost
£5000 ; an Advanced Drama movement. SociaUy,
in business, and in politics they " make things hum "
in quite a transatlantic style. The famous Rand
Club, which has more millionaires among its
members than any other, was a little disappointing.
There were no gold plates or dishes, no diamond-
encrusted ink-stands.
One habit, strange to us, I did notice. It prevails
in Johannesburg, as it does throughout South Africa.
That is the middle-of-the- morning- tea habit. In
Cape Town the teashops are well filled at eleven
o'clock. In Johannesburg there is a recognised
break at about the same time. It used to be
whisky-and-soda which encouraged the worker to
persevere till lunch. Now it is more often tea —
another testimony to the changed spirit of the
place. This habit of a morning drink led a
prominent Transvaal official visiting London some
years ago to descend upon the Colonial Office a
little before noon and to invite the extremely
correct clerk who received him to ," come out and
have something." Correctness looked horrified and
coldly declined. When the prominent official
returned to South Africa he spoke of the Colonial 133

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
Office with extreme contempt, "Fellow I saw
wouldn't come out for a drink," he grumbled,
" and, will you believe it, he couldn't tell me which
was the best bar in Whitehall 1 "
To say that Johannesburg will only last "as
long as the gold lasts" is only another of Cape
Town's Mesopotamic mumblings. In any case,
the life of the gold is estimated at another seventy-
five years, to put it low. But, long before there
is any prospect of the reef being exhausted,
Johannesburg will have become a great industrial
centre. True, it has not the natural advantages
which a manufacturing city ought to possess. No
river. No port, though Delagoa Bay may some
day — must some day — be British, and that is not
very far off. But the lack of these advantages
need daunt nobody who sees what the ingenuity of
man has done for Johannesburg already. To walk
beneath the green aisles of a forest, where twenty
years ago was only the veld. To see grim, rocky
hillsides turned into smiling gardens and crowned
with homes as pleasant and as beautiful as any in
the world. To pace the busy streets of a stately
metropolis where recently the eye was offended by
the ugliness and squalor of huts fiung up for a
temporary population. After such changes nothing
is impossible. Johannesburg sends one away with
increased respect and admiration for one's fellow-
creatures' enterprise and pluck.

134

CHAPTER XII
GOLD
If you want honey,
You must have money,
So its money, money, money, everywhere.
Popular Song
" Put on old clothes," said my host in Johannes
burg when he heard I was going down a mine,
I put on my oldest. But the mine manager,
fatherly and rather fat, cocked his eye at me in
his cool office, and fished out blue overalls, trousers
and jacket in one piece. I wriggled into them,
buttoned the collar tight round my neck, wished
I could have my photograph taken for my friends
at home. I imagined myself saying casually, " Ah
yes, had that done when I was going down a gold
mine, on the Rand, you know." And the gentle
men of England who sit at home at ease would
look at it respectfully, while my aunts would think
admiringly what an adventurous dog I was.
Unfortunately I had taken no photographer with
me. "Here," said the fatherly manager, tossing
me a dirty old cap, as I stood before the glass.
" Put that on. Ready ? " We went across the
135

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
yard. Flat-topped hills of shining white earth rose
about us. Round tanks, like gasometers, towered
above us. All sorts of machinery filled the air
with all sorts of noises. " Steam no good," I heard
shouted in my ear. " Going to scrap it. Use
power instead." There is a vast electrical plant
in Johannesburg. Some day it hopes to draw its
energy from the Victoria Falls, nine hundred miles
away. But the engineers must first learn how to
lead the current without losing too much of it on
the way. Possibly some form of wireless — ^who
knows ?
We have arrived at the top of the pit-shaft.
The wheel is going round with that odd slow
motion peculiar to wheels which work cages in
mines of every kind. The cage is coming up.
Here it is. Ugh ! it is dripping wet. A drop falls
on my neck in spite of my tightly-buttoned coUar.
All aboard ? Ting-ting I Down we go into the
darkness until the cage stops with a jerk. We
step out into a large open space lit by arc lamps.
Kaffirs as naked as you can be without being quite
naked stand about, or push trucks along narrow
gauge rails, or stalk off along the low-pitched
" roads " shouldering iron bars. We take a road
ourselves, the mine-captain leading, a handsome
West-countryman, capable, friendly, a man accus
tomed to command. A good mine-captain gets
£50 a month, and earns every shilling of it. Some
have been miners. Some are trained engineers who
136

GOLD
find this pays them better than surveying. All are
picked men.
We paddle along wet paths. I begin to wish
the fatherly manager had lent me boots as well.
One of mine goes into a pool, splosh 1 Then I
hit my head against a pipe running across the roof,
which is low enough, even without the pipe, to
make us stoop as we walk. On and on, till move
ment becomes mechanical. I seem to have been
plodding in these dim passages all my hfe, looking
out for the electric lights and trying to avoid
pools, hitting my head with rhythmic regularity.
Every now and then there is an opening, and I
see a cutting slope away downwards into darkness.
That is where the gold-bearing reef has been
worked. After a while we come to one of these cuttings
where there are voices and lights. They are work
ing here. " No\v then,'' says the manager. The
mine-captain says nothing, but drops on his stomach
and begins to wriggle his way down the slope.
We must do the same. The roof of the cutting
is only about three feet from the ground. My
back and shoulders keep on hitting it, as I slither
among the damp clay and loose shale. It is
extremely uncomfortable. With the earth giving
way beneath your feet, and the solid rock above
squeezing down your head, it is like a nightmare.
The damp is artificial. Water is sprayed on to
the workings as a precaution against phthisis, the
137

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
disease which is caused by the inhaling of dust.
The other conditions are natural, but I like them
none the more for that. I have now ruined my
other boot by tearing it upon a jagged rock-sherd.
One of my hands is cut and bleeding. I am caked
in mire. However, here we are at last.
Each under an electric light, four "boys" are
driving shot-holes in the rock. They sit and work
their iron bars like brown automata. Hammer,
hammer, hammer I Some groan cheerfully, as
they hollow out the cavities for the dynamite
charges. One is talking wildly to himself.
Hammer, hammer, hammer, never ceasing ! When
there are enough holes ready, the working will be
cleared. The dynamite will be plugged in. An
explosion wiU shake down more of the reef. The
men with the trucks will clear it away. More
shot-holes will be made, and so the process is
repeated over and over again.
Another grovel over the sloping, sliding, loose
shale and we come to a mechanical drill. This
makes holes far more quickly, but the cost is greater.
Those hand-drillers hammer, hammer, hammering
their iron bars into the holes work for about £5 a
month. The mechanical drills are supposed to be
worked by white men, but, as a matter of con
venience, they often let their black assistants manage
them. Sometimes black men are even allowed to
put in the dynamite. It is no use declaring that
skiUed work must be left to whites if in practice
138

GOLD
blacks are permitted by the whites themselves to
do it.
Once more the passages. Somewhere a pump
beats with regular muffled thud. Somewhere there
are skips shooting up or rushing down making a
rattle and a roar that begin and stop with curious
suddermess. A little farther and we come upon the
steep incline, up and down which these skips are
working. About every thirty seconds they cross
just where we are standing, one fuU going up, one
empty coming down. Each disappears at once
into impenetrable gloom ; I feel like Dante in the
Inferno. The fatherly manager is my Virgil. A
piova maledetta efredda, a rain accurst and cold, is
falhng on me, as it feU in the Third Circle. What
a life the mine-captain must have led that he should
be condemned to spend eternity down here !
A sharp ping-g-g of an electric bell. An empty
skip stops before us. We pack in anyhow, feet
and faces mixed up together, but all cheery and
comfortable. Some infernal energy is applied to
us and we shoot up to where the cage is waiting.
Ouf ! here is the daylight, the sunhght again.
What a good place the upper world is ! Thank
Heaven I'm not a miner, black or white. I am
glad to have gone down a gold mine once, but for
any further visits my fee will be not less than
twenty pounds.
Follow now the business of getting the gold out
of the rock. As those sloping cuts are made into 189

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
the reef, the fragments drop downwards, to be carried
off" along the lower passage — the cut slopes, you
understand, from one " road " to another — and then
further dropped to the bottom of the mine. Hence
the skip whizzes them up the long incline. Then
they are shot up again to the pit brow and dropped
from a height into a shoot. This is one of the
noises we could hear in the yard. Inside the sorting-
room it is worse. Every few moments there is a
deafening rattling roar as if the world had split
asunder. I wonder if the Kaffir " boys " who
stand inside the big crescent-shaped wooden table,
picking out the pebbly ore which has gold in it,
ever lose their hearing — or their power of speech.
Happily for them, their nervous systems are not
highly developed.
The worthless stuff being thrown out, the good
rock travels on a moving band to a hopper where
a pair of powerful jaws are waiting to grind it to a
certain size. Until it is reduced to that size it
cannot drop through.
Next, the smaU pieces of rock, scrunched smaU
by those irresistible jaws go into a tube mUl, a
cylinder filled with other harder stones which grind
them yet again. The hard stones had at first to be
imported for the tube mills. Much money has
been saved by using a local product. Sand the
rock is now, and ready for the stamps, which do the
final crushing. There are over a thousand stamps
upon the Rand, and if you listen on a still night
140

GOLD
away over at Forest Hill or on the heights of
Parktown, you can hear their thump, thump, thump
quite plainly, as if the gnomes in the mountain
were thumping to be let out.
Now look out for gold. As the sand comes from
the stamps, it flows with water on to a pulsator-
table, a table covered with mercury, which throbs
and joggles about. To this " quicksilver," 50 per
cent, of the gold in the ore sticks. There it is,
glistening bright, the substance most sought after
in the world. It was in this first process of
sorting that thefts used to be practised on such
a vast scale. Hundreds of thousands of pounds'
worth used to be stolen and secretly disposed of
every year. There are robberies still, but on
nothing like the same scale. Six months' hard
labour is the penalty for buying the stolen stuff ;
the seller may get five years or more.
With the mercury on the table the gold forms
an " amalgam " ; they are then separated by fire.
The other 50 per cent, of gold is with the sand
that has passed over the table. That must go to
the cyanide vats which compel it to yield itself up.
In a quiet ground-floor room of another building
there are a number of small tanks. They look like
fish-hatchery tanks. The place strongly suggests
an aquarium, and the tanks appear Jo be filled with
seaweed. But that is not seaweed. That is tin
shavings. The hquid from the cyanide vats is
poured into these tanks, and the gold clings to the
141

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
tin, which is fished out, put into a crucible and
fired. Then presently you see a stream of gold
come pouring out into a mould. Before we leave,
the ingots have cooled down. " Would you care
for one ? " asks the fatherly manager. Have one
by all means . . . if you can carry it away."
As we walk back to the office I hear complaints
of too little labour. After the war the natives
would not work at all ; that meant imported
Chinese. Gradually they are being drawn to the
mines, but there are still too few. " You should
go and see the Native Labour Association Com
pound," advises the manager. So next day I
present myself there.
On a big open space innumerable black men are
sitting about, or lining up in a long queue to arrive
at a little window where their passes are being
stamped. These have only just come. Far away
up country the Association has agents living lonely
lives among native tribes, and making known the
conditions of service. They send down from
fourteen to fifteen hundred a month. The attrac
tion is the good pay. By nine months' work the
noble savage earns as much as he could scrape
together at home in nine years. He can buy cattle,
and with them provide the lobolo (purchase-money)
for several wives.
He makes the journey in company with a troop
of other recruits under the charge of a white man.
They are fed on the way, and are supplied with
142

N.VTrVE W^OMF.X OX THE VELD. JIOW CREEK THEY
AKE IN MOVEMKXT AXl) IN IMlSE!

I'lu'tn I'll Dudley Kidd

.\ ii.wnv

/'/("/" '/// llLl'LKV KlIJD

GOLD
flannel shirts and green jerseys. Below they wear
short petticoats or kilts. That is when they arrive.
Before they have been long on the Rand they begin
to fancy themselves in European clothes ; and they
go away, as a rule, resplendent in suits of tweed.
In the Compound they stay for a few weeks till
they have grown accustomed to the change of
climate and been passed by the doctor as fit for work.
The day I went there were as many as 3500 wait
ing to be drafted off to the mines, a very interesting
coUection. Many of them came from Portuguese
East Africa and had scarcely ever seen white people.
They did not seem to be at all impressed by us.
They watched out of their large unthinking eyes
and chattered among themselves, quite content to
sit doing nothing in the sun all day ; nice healthy
animals who in a short time will become unpleasant
inferior men.
It was amusing to see their varied costumes.
Many wore simply a blanket. The "bloods"
among them could be distinguished by their
tattooed faces, a great attraction to native ladies ;
by filed teeth ; and by their peculiar style of hair-
dressing — tight curls or rather sticks of hair all
over their heads. The Compound was a pleasant
place enough, roomy and well-kept, with a row of
trees down the middle. The sleeping-places were
clean and airy, too airy possibly for some of the
natives accustomed to sleep six in a hut with no
ventilation at aU. I saw their food being prepared 143

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
in a large tidy kitchen ; all materials of good quality ;
care taken to make the best use of them. Their
stew smelt excellent, and I tasted their " Kaffir
beer," a slightly fermented liquor made of maize,
which is food as weU as drink, nourishing but not
at first palatable. Yet many men have told me
that after a hard day on the veld, a draught of it is
a capital refreshment and pick-me-up.
In a yard which joined the Compound two or
three hundred recruits were being taught to use
drills (the iron bars I spoke of). Here was the
hammer, hammer, hammer of the mine multiplied
to infinity, and for the benefit of the visitor they
brought their iron bars down on to their hammering
blocks in unison, bringing at the same time rhjrth-
mical noises from their throats. These were the
young bears with aU their troubles before them
(though I am bound to say it takes a great deal to
trouble a Kaffir's mind). More entertaining stiU
were the time-expired "boys" who were going
home, and who trotted off to the railway station
with their queer little tin boxes and bundles and
blankets — full of belongings. One reminded me
of the White Knight. He had so many oddments
hung about his person for convenience of transport.
A tin box was opened to me. Its chief contents
were rolls of coloured flannelette and cotton, no
doubt presents for wives. There was also a cheese-
cutter, which the black man was taking home for
use as the head of a battle-axe. And in a corner
144

GOLD
was his little packet of money carefuUy tied up.
" Shall you come back to the mines ? " I asked him
through an interpreter. " Yes, yes," was the answer,
"come back next year." Life in the mine com
pounds has its attractions, and gradually a certain
number of natives are acquiring the habit of work.
It is upon this habit in the mass of people that
civilisation is of necessity based.

145

CHAPTER XIII
PRETORIA
Formerly capital of the South African (Transvaal) Republic ;
founded in 1855, named after Pretorius, fir«t President of the
Republic. From Johannesburg 46 miles ; from Cape Town
1003 miles ; 4474 ft. above sea-leveL Population about
38,000 Meintje's Kopje, Meintje's Kopje,
Do the purple daisies grow
On your rugged slopes in springtime
As they did in years ago ?
F. E. Walrond
The difference between Johannesburg and Pretoria
is the difference between a modern city and an
overgrown, old-fashioned vUlage. Pretoria has
some large buildings in the style which is labelled
" handsome." It has some very fair shops in its
one street. But the impression it leaves is that
of a straggling, sleepy, untidy little town. It will
be less untidy when the big Market Square is no
longer an unkempt waste. It will become more
compact as vacant " stands " (South African for
sites) are occupied. But unless by a miracle its
climate changes, it will continue, in summer at aU
events, to be sleepy. In a moist, warm atmosphere
sleepiness is the natural state of man.
146

PRETORIA
Pretoria is in a hollow among hills. It is a
dehghtfuUy green place. Luxuriant wUlows line
the sidewalks, bearing witness to the damp soil.
Flowers and fruits are grown with ease and
abundance. But it has to pay for this. Its air
is enervating. Activity is at a low ebb.
Up on the hUl outside the town (to the left of
the one street, as you journey towards the pretty
quarters, Sunnyside, Arcadia, and Bryntirion,
where " the best people " live) the new offices of
the Union Government will look across the valley,
and here one feels more fully awake. The winter,
too, brings crisper, clearer weather. But Pretoria
will have to struggle hard against its parochial
beginnings if it is to deserve the honour of being
South Africa's " administrative capital." It will
also have to cheapen its standard of living. Its
own prophets prophesy that. " So long as rents
and the necessaries of life cost in Pretoria nearly
double what they cost in Cape Town, so long the
tendency of every industry wiU be to drift towards
the coast. The tendency of every administration.
State or private, wiU be to concentrate on the spot
where the work can be done cheaply." I take that
from the Pretoria News.
That it is anxious to live up to its position is
made clear by the ambitious schemes for a new
post office, a new library, a new museum, and by
the general agreement that the Church Square has
been a disgrace too long. There are plans already 147

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
for its amendment. On this square the new post
office will stand. Already the Government build
ings and the Law Courts face one another here,
the former originally the meeting-place of President
Kruger 's Parliament. When they were built, some
of the people of Pretoria were very bitter against
the statue of Liberty which tops the central tower.
They were not sure whom it was meant for. Some
said Queen Victoria ; others the Virgin Mary. It
was eqally objected to by both schools and a
demand made for its removal. The statue had to
be explained.
Already there is building on a scale which for
Pretoria is most unusual. I saw in a shop- window
of the long dusty road which leads from the railway
station to Market Square a placard calling for
bricksetters (we should call them bricklayers) and
carpenters. White labour only is employed,
though there are many who think that this rule
will have to be relaxed, and rents brought down
by cheaper black labour being used. This is
strongly opposed, not only by the trade-unions,
but by many who have no axe to grind and
consider only the interest of the country. Here,
for example, is an opinion from the East Band
Express :
" Should Pretoria once embark on a cheap
coloured-labour policy it would affect ;the whole
of the Transvaal in the most disastrous manner.
It would be a thousand times better that the
148

PRETORIA
administrative capital and all the civil servants
should go to Cape Town than that the white
artisans and mechanics of this colony should be
forced to other lands. What is the good of cheap
houses if the country possesses no one to live in
them, and this would assuredly result if skilled work
became the preserve of the coloured man. On the
Rand cheap coloured skilled labour is becoming
increasingly prevalent, and to-day artisans' houses
in Boksburg North are being constructed by
coloured bricklayers. Could irony go further?
The small landlord cutting his own throat by
making it impossible for mechanics to live in the
houses he is erecting by refusing to give them
employment." To this the reply of an able thoughtful man was
worded thus : " In a very few months' time, say, at
the most in a year or two, the trade-unions of this
country will have to face the colour problem. They
will have the alternative of refusing the coloured
man admission to their unions, and facing the cut
throat competition which his lower standard of living
will enable him to set up, or taking him into their
unions and forcing him to demand for his labour
trade-union rates. But the coloured man will
not enter the trade-unions on those terms, because
he knows that, other things being equal, employers
of labour will employ white men instead of coloured.
The coloured man will also fear local and national
legislation against him. When the trade-unions 149

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
invite him to come in, therefore, he will demand
that they support his political aspirations as well as
his industrial, and so long as the coloured man is
able to work as well as the white, for less money,
he will command the situation, and no white labour
policy, or anti-colour laws, will prevent him
eventually doing the work."
Thus the colour difficulty bobs up at every
turn. The magnificent block of new government
offices — the designs, certainly, foreshadow mag
nificence, and beauty as weU — would for years
keep Pretoria's building trades busy, without any
other works in hand. It was a glorious day when
the Duke of Connaught declared the first stone
weU and truly laid ; the view from Meintje's Kop,
on the slope of which Herbert Baker's masterpiece
will arise, was inspiring. The town lay in the hollow,
dim in a golden haze. AU around were the hUl-tops.
If Mr. Baker's plans and drawings, which I have
studied, are realised, his noble pile will take a place
naturally"' among those green summits and not be
starved by Nature's architecture.
For there will be in it a freedom, a freshness, a
large harmonious simplicity akin to Nature herself
Terraces, colonnades, gardens, a sheet of water fed
by a stream gushing out of the hiU-side, an amphi
theatre of vast proportions (to serve possibly as a
public meeting-place), will lead the eye up the slope
to wnere the buildings stand, majestic yet graceful >*
150

a

,k.^^:-

MK. HKIil'.EUT BAKKKS I'LAXS FOK THE \KW
GONEUX.MIiXT OEl'ICES, riiETlU.'I.V

PRETORIA
and, still above them, will rise a Temple of Peace.
The Union Government have shown no pinching
anxiety to try and get a good thing cheap. The
contracts for the buildings alone reach a total of
£878,500. Not less than a miUion pounds will cover
the whole expense.
In a flowery peroration to a paper on the new
buildings read while I was in Cape Town before
a learned society, Mr. William Lucas spoke
raptuously of " the Kop of Meintjes ranking as a
southern shrine for pilgrims of art, and adding to
the theme of poet and painter." I thought he was
probably forcing the note a little. But when I saw
the designs and the site together I was infected
with a like enthusiasm. I do believe that Pretoria
wiU in days to come attract people who care for
the beauty and dignity of builder's skill, not quite
as the Acropolis draws us to Athens, but with the
same magnet in a lesser degree — the appeal of a
fine nature, stirred' by worthy emotions, expressing
itself through the first and greatest of the Arts.
Then Pretoria may become a capital, instead of
what it is at present, a pretty provincial town.

151

CHAPTER XIV
OVER THE DRAKENSBERG
As I have travelled in your country I have
seen the graves of British soldiers in many places,
and very often these were side by side with those
of Boers who had fought against them. Now
both lie together in peace. Let us who live,
live also in peace. Mr. Chamberlain at Lichten-
Iwrg, 1903
The journey from Johannesburg to Durban begins
with no hint of the horrors that are to come. You
pass through spreading suburbs ; by mine chimneys
and white mountains of refuse soil which has been
deprived of its gold ; by native reservations of tin
huts ; then on to the vast green veld. Away it
rolls, flat as a pancake, to the distant hiUs.
It is restful to sit in a pleasant saloon and watch
the featureless landscape. It is not dull; it is
soothing, although there is nothing to arouse
interest or curiosity except the aeroplane birds,
odd black creatures with long tails floating out
behind them which look like miniature Antoinettes.
They cannot fly much. They just skim for a
doxen or so of yards and then drop. Their manner
152

OVER THE DRAKENSBERG
of rising is a frenzied wriggle. If you have not
heard of them or seen them before, your first sight
of one is puzzling. You think you have seen a
giant tadpole, moving after the tadpole's wont.
Then you think there must be something the
matter with your eyes.
This unwieldy, cumbrous tail is a " courting
appendage," and only afflicts the male birds. I do
not pretend to understand it and I am still looking
for a bird specialist who can explain it to me.
I have even forgotten what the creatures are called.
" Aeroplane birds " is merely my name for them.
My own theory is that the males of this species are
female-haters. Of their own will they would
refuse to have anything to do with the annual
process of pairing and love-making. So they are
cursed every spring with these wretched tails
which make them so helpless that the lady birds
can catch them easily, I am not sure that a
more apt name for them would not be " John
Tanner birds," among those, at any rate, who
recollect " Man and Superman," and who know
their Bernard Shaw,
On the other hand the tail may be an orna
ment. The female birds may admire it. In either
case the poor males compel sympathy. It is really
fortunate for us men of to-day that women now
outnumber us, and that it is no longer we who
have to make ourselves attractive so as to secure
brides. It would interfere so much with our habits 153

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
and our business. Whereas the process of making
themselves attractive so as to secure husbands is
apparently not at all unpleasant to women ; indeed,
in most cases quite the reverse.
About two hours from Johannesburg comes
Heidelberg, a very pretty little town (as befits its
name), nestling in a bower of green under the
shelter of genial hills. Then, after another four
hours or so, there is Standerton in the midst of
wide grassy plains, on which cattle, sheep, and
horses graze with great content. The last station
in the Transvaal is Volksrust, growing quickly and
already beginning to look quite like a town. It lies
in a farming district of rich fertility : very good oats
are grown hereabouts. Just across the border,
only a few minutes' run, is Charlestown, the first
place in Natal, If you want to climb Majuba
Hill with its once bitter memories, now happily
wiped out for ever by the union of Briton and
Boer, you must get out here, A two hours' tramp
will bring you to the top, and it will be plain to
you how the British troops were caught on that
fatal February morning in 1881.
The train goes round Majuba after running
through the Laing's Nek tunnel, another name of
gloomy associations. All this country is fuU of
vague reminders of the war of 1881. Then down
hill to the coal country, of which the centre is
properly named Newcastle, a town that can boast,
like its namesake, of healthy and invigorating air.
154

OVER THE DRAKENSBERG
Now there are names that stir more vivid recollec
tions of another war, the most recent. Here is
Glencoe, only a few miles from Dundee, where the
first fighting in 1899 reddened British soil with
Dutch and British blood. Then in quick succession
Elandslaagte, Ladysmith (with Spion Kop only
eighteen miles' drive), Colenso, the Tugela River,
and Pieter's Hill, where the Boer force investing
Ladysmith was at last pierced and broken.
All this while the country has been changing.
Dim shapes of mountains are seen. Swift streams
leap and gurgle by the railway-side. Instead of
the flat veld we run through rocky gorges, panting
ever upwards to the Drakensberg summits. The
scenery becomes wild : a German would add, " and
romantic." We are among the famous mountains
of Natal. " Once seen never forgotten," they say.
That, I can ruefully bear witness, is as true a word
as ever was spoken. Up to the highest point,
nearly five thousand feet, all is well. You notice
that the line twists and turns unusually often ;
writhing in and out among small hills in a serpen
tine, sinuous way. Houses and trees appear first
on one side of the hne, then on the other, shifting
constantly. At night you see lights ahead, say,
on the right ! " Ah," you think, " coming to some
station." The lights disappear. '.'Surely not a
tunnel." They reappear, and this time mingled
with them you see the steam from the engine.
They were the lights of the fore-part of the train, 155

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
which is sometimes almost alongside the hinder
coaches, so narrow are the curves.
But up to the point where descent begins, all, as
I have said, is well. There is a good deal of jerky
movement, but one can bear it. As soon, how
ever, as the top of the pass has been reached and
the train plunges downhill, you begin to understand
why people never forget the mountains of Natal.
The violent curves and the steep gradients acting
together make the journey a horror, first of discom
fort, then of apprehension, finally of downright
nausea. The carriages swing and jolt and heave
with most queasy effect. It is like being in the
English Channel when wind meets tide and a
choppy sea results. You wedge yourself into
a corner of the carriage, but the moment your
muscles relax you are shaken and jerked and
battered again. Your head aches, your brow
moistens, your lips are dry; . . . The rest is
silence. Why does Natal put up with such a line ? The
country is often accused of slackness, and surely
they must be a slack folk who endure this
journey. They talk about it quite casually. " Oh,
yes ; women are almost always sick. A good many
men, too. Awful line, you know." Yet it remains.
The story goes that a railway contractor undertook
to make the line from the coast to the Transvaal
border at so much a mile, and that, being aUowed
to make his own survey, he naturally made it as
156

OVER THE DRAKENSBERG
lengthy as he could ! Here and there plans are
drawn for improving it in places. But it can never
be reformed more than indifferent well. It would
be a little better if the coaches had two buffers
each, one on either side, as in Europe, The South
African trains are provided with only one buffer in
the middle. The result of this is that they swing
about much more. The two-buffer system would
keep them a great deal steadier. Some day the
South African railways wiU have also to alter
their gauge. No great country can get along with
narrow-gauge railways, upon which thirty miles an
hour is a good speed and forty-five begins to be
dangerous. To appreciate the fine hiUy scenery of Natal
while one is trying to persuade oneself that one
does not feel sick is difficult. But I saw it again
as I came back, and that time I did not feel any
qualms at all. The highlands of Natal have a
dehghtful climate and can be cultivated to great
advantage. They are also beautiful with varied
charms. At this part of South Africa the steppes
or plateaux, which I have described in the chapter
on the Karroo, and which in Cape Colony are, each
of them, vast in extent, narrow down to terraces.
Thus in an hour or so from Durban, which is
subtropical, you can get into a cool, invigorating
atmosphere, as different as any atmosphere could
be from the warm, depressing dampness you left
behind. In winter, even on the coast, the con- 157

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
ditions are as nearly perfect as can be found in this
imperfect world. There is a rush to Durban from
Johannesburg, beginning in May and June. AU
the hotels are fuU. Rooms are booked eight or
nine months ahead. Possibly TrouviUe and Etretat
might smUe at the " gaiety " of Durban's season,
but it is the gayest thing of the kind in South
Africa. Between Durban and Pietermaritzburg (which
is a nice quiet little country town, with the usual
pleasant club and unexciting local life) there are
many woods of black wattle trees. Planting
wattles is a profitable industry. The bark is used
in the process of dressing leather, and the timber
wUl pay, too, in time. Great flocks of sheep are
another feature of the fine landscape. Wood and
coal are the chief exports of Natal ; and do not let
us forget that she provides a large quantity of coal
for the Navy as her contribution — a small one, but
an earnest of more to come in future — towards
Imperial Defence.
The province will be much more attractive to
settlers if an agitation which is going on now
succeeds in getting the huge undeveloped estates,
which hinder the country's progress, broken up and
divided into smaU plots for immediate sale. These
estates are being held up for a rise in the price of
land. Some of them belong to companies, ironi-
caUy caUed " colonisation " companies, in England.
Their idea of colonisation is to keep their land as it
158

OVER THE DRAKENSBERG
is until they can seU it at a good profit, or else to
let it in the meanwhile to Indians, who just scratch
a hving out of it. That sort of company is no good
either to Natal or to the Empire. Indeed, it does
harm. In the mountains above Durban there is an
estate of this kind — six thousand acres of it. It
lay idle, useless, until some one succeeded in buying
two hundred acres, which he cut up into plots,
building upon them country houses for Durban
people. The fertility of this soil is amazing.
Vegetables and flowers both grow very easily. One
man bought three shiUings' worth of sweet pea
seed, and cleared a profit of £27 in one summer by
seUing the flowers it produced. So there is no
doubt that, if small farms were advertised for sale
and settlers attracted, the prosperity of the province
could be vastly increased by making things grow in
greater quantity and far greater variety than they
grow now. Most of the cultivation at present is
done by Indians — but I think the Natal Indians
must have a chapter to themselves.

U9

CHAPTER XV
THE INDIANISATION OF NATAL
They are representative of a civilisation older
than our own, and the centuries of heredity
which this implies have evolved thoughts which
are not our thoughts, and ways which are not
our ways. Hence ... we have to choose
between exclusion and extinction of our own
type of civilisation. Sydney Morning Herald,
August 27, 1910
As you run down the steep winding-slopes of the
Drakensberg, you might think, as you look out of
the window, that you were in the East. There are
Indians working everywhere. Far more Indians
than natives. Scarcely any white people at all.
Two olive-skinned Madrassis squat beside a plough
in the sunshine. There is one humping along the
road, a chilly Parsee probably, with overcoat and
umbrella! See those slender women in bright-
coloured veils carrying loads upon their heads. It
is an English-looking country. RoUing downland,
potato fields, httle woods, rose hedges. But it
might be, you feel it ought to be, India.
The same impression is repeated when you get
to Durban. Just outside the station is the big
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INDIANISATION OF NATAL
square full of palms, waving gracefully against the
blue, and with gleaming white buildings around it.
There are Indians on the seats in the public
garden. Groups of dark Indian young men, in
spectacles and tarbush, chatter volubly as they
stroll about among the magnolias. Slim Indian
wives, with large lustrous eyes and silver anklets,
which tinkle as they walk, exquisite in their simple
tightly drawn draperies, are shepherding herds of
almost naked toddlers. You might be in Calcutta
or Madras. In the poorer parts of the town nearly
aU the names in shops are Indian. That is so in
Maritzburg too ; and wherever there is a store out
in the country the chances are three to one it will
be kept by an Indian trader. On the tea planta
tions the labour is mainly Indian. Many work on
farms, on sugar estates, in coal-mines, in the wattle
woods, where trees are grown for bark, a most
profitable industry.
Fifty years ago Natal wanted labour. Her
chmate, damp and hot all the summer, warm and
bright all the winter, was not unlike the climate of
India. She induced 1184 Indians to indenture
themselves as workers on the plantations. That
was the thin end ofthe wedge which is now causing
all the trouble. To invite Asiatics into a country
is very simple. To get them out &gain is a task
passing the wit of man — unless the period of service
is strictly limited, as it was in the case of the
Chinese miners on the Rand ; and unless the con-
L 161

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
tract contains a clause, after the Rand pattern,
enforcing the return of the indentured labourers
to the place whence they came. From that small
beginning with 1100 in 1860 the number of
Indians in Natal has now swelled to 130,000.
The whites in the province, remember, only amount
to some 90,000. They are largely outnumbered by
the Indians already.
Naturally the whites who employ labour find
this state of things very much to their taste. The
indentured coolie from India gets ten shillings a
month. " The tea and sugar plantations could not
go on without Asiatics," says Sir Liege Hulett,
the " father of the tea-planting industry in Natal."
Hulett 's teas, advertised^ so widely, would cease to
be grown — according to their grower. One can
understand his point of view, but it is also possible
to feel with the white people in Natal who are
sellers, not buyers, of labour, and who are up
against the perennial problem of cheap Asiatics.
For a long time the world of white people has felt
local twinges of this ailment, but has paid little
attention to them. Soon it is going to develop
into a serious complaint.
To the coolie labour the people of Natal do not so
much object. They do not want to do the hard work
of production. No white man in South Africa does.
He is accustomed to having it done for him by
natives or Indians. Besides the coolie is without
ambition, a patient bearer of his lot in that state of
162

INDIANISATION OF NATAL
life into which it has pleased God to call him. But
the Arabs, the Mahommedans, have pushful ways.
They want to get on. As traders they display a
positive genius for smaU shopkeeping. They can
live comfortably " on the smeU of an oil-rag." It
is they who are objected to — very much indeed.
Thirteen years ago, soon after Natal had been given
self-government, there was almost a revolution.
Two shiploads of Indians arrived at Durban. They
were brought by Arab speculators at ten shillings a
head, about the cheapest voyage on record. The
idea was that they should go about the country
seUing goods that were to be supplied to them.
But the population of Durban rose, as that of Cape
Town had risen many years earlier when it was
proposed to land transported convicts there. The
Government were overawed.
It was at this time that the licence system was
introduced. Nowadays to enter Natal as a free
man an Indian must be able to read and write some
European language. But this does not by any
means get rid of the difficulty. It is not the free
Indians who are the bugbear, but those who come
in under indentures and will not either return or
reindenture when their period of service is over.
The Government have tried taxing them heavily.
In addition to ordinary taxation every free Indian
has to pay £3 a year for a licence. This is an
attempt to make them go back to India, and it has
had some effect. But in good years wages rise; 16S

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
they can afford to pay their £3, and stop. Efforts
have also been made to get indentures drawn so
that they should not expire until the labourer had
left the country. But to that the Indian Govern
ment wiU not agree.
The position is this, then. Either Natal will
have to reconcile itself to a continual increase of
Indians, or else to do without any further supplies
of cheap labour from this source. The Indian
Government has now stopped any further recruit
ing of Indians for work in Natal. That happened
in January 1911, and it is significant that this
action was hailed by all classes in Natal, except the
class which employs Indians largely, with satisfac
tion. A few concessions would, no doubt, induce
the Indian Government to aUow emigration as
before, but those concessions would have to include
the right of the emigrant to remain in the country.
The alternative is for Natal to make its natives
work. There are a million of them, against the
90,000 whites and the 130,000 Indians. The tea
and sugar planters say they cannot be relied upon.
They are always wanting to go home to their kraals.
Steady, continuous work is something the Kaffir
does not yet understand. His idea is to work for
a time and then live on the money he has earned,
doing nothing until it is gone. Another plea put
in by the planters is that the Transvaal takes away
a large number of Natal's natives to work in the
gold-mines. But the number is only some 65,000
164

INDIANISATION OF NATAL
. . . out of a million ! The other provinces natu
rally say, " If we have to get along without Asiatic
cheap labour, so must you,"
The Transvaal, in particular, is very bitter
against Indians, and against Natal for passing them
on. They get across the border in spite of regula
tions, and they soon begin, with the perseverance
and endurance of their race, to make fortunes in a
small way. The Transvaal does not want them.
They have made this clear in a manner which
even to some Englishmen seems rather brutal.
Here is a British view of the action which
General Smuts and the late Government of the
Transvaal took. Their action has been called
" senseless," and the epithet was defended thus :
" We call the treatment referred to senseless,
because it serves no practical object. The passive
resisters are agreeable that we shall regulate Indian
or Asiatic immigration ; as to the importation of
indentured labour they desire its total prohibition.
All the concession they ask as to the numbers and
description of immigrants who may enter is that
not more than six professional men of their race —
doctors, lawyers, literati or clergy — may be allowed
ingress in any one year. On the intrinsic con
cession General Smuts has never made any diffi
culty, only he stipulates that the six-immigrants or
less must take up their residence under ticket-of-
leave conditions — that is to say, they must be
liable to deportation at any instant on the order of
165

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
a Government official and without the right of
appeal to the magistrate. And this spirit breathes
through the whole of his Government's policy in
regard to the British Indians,
" Not content with blocking Indian immigration,
they insist on excluding Indians under an Act
which brands the whole nation as 'undesirables,'
Our law-book insults under this appellation the
rajahs of the Indian States, the Indian members of
the Indian Legislative Council, the learned and
professional classes of India, the Indian soldiers
whose valour has extended and helps to maintain our
Empire, and such Indians as those stretcher-bearers
whose brave ministry to our troops in the war we
have commemorated by a monument on the highest
hiU overlooking Johannesburg, These classes of
Indians are branded by objectionable epithet quite
as much as the coolie and trading classes whom we
specially wish to exclude. As to these classes, the
passive resisters say : ' Exclude them if you wish,
but do it by Governor's regulations applicable to
undesirables of aU nationalities. Use the non-
insulting precaution which the rest of the Empire
finds adequate ; don't affix a stigma to a particular
race whose civilisation, in its different way, is the
equal of yours.'
" What the issue between the Government and
the passive resisters is cannot be too clearly stated.
Both sides agree to the restriction — the virtual
total prohibition — of future immigration, but the
166

INDIANISATION OF NATAL
Government wants the prohibition plus insult ; the
passive resisters will only submit to it minus insult.
They are martyrs who refuse to register under a
law which puts a stigma on their manhood and
their race."
These " passive resisters " are Indians, captained
by a clever and pertinacious Hindu gentleman
caUed Gandhi, who refuse to pay their taxes as a
protest against the treatment of their countrymen
whieh they consider unjust. They even go to
prison and suffer, in some cases, hardship and con
tumely, for their cause. Of course, they make
the most both of their own sufferings and of
the harshness with which Indians generally are
meeting in the Transvaal, A case of a boy refused
leave to remain with his parents in South Africa
was being actively used to work up sympathy
while I was in Johannesburg. It certainly seemed
to be a hard case. Mr. Gandhi gave this account
of it:
" The boy is the son of Mr. A. E. Chotabhai,
a prominent Indian merchant of Krugersdorp. His
name is inscribed upon his father's registration
certificate. On attaining the age of sixteen years,
he applied for registration on his own behalf under
the Act. He entered the colony as a minor with
his father and with the knowledge and consent of
the authorities, as he had a legal right to do under
the Immigrants Registration Act. His apphca
tion was rejected by the Registrar. He appealed to
167

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
the magistrate, who upheld the Registrar's decision,
and ordered his immediate removal from the pro
vince, which was suspended pending proceedings in
the Supreme Court. The matter went before
.Tustice Wessels in Chambers, who characterised
the action of the Government as ' inhuman,' but
decided that the Act did not provide for the regis
tration of such boys, and therefore dismissed the
application. The motion went on appeal before the
fuU bench, which by a majority upheld Justice
Wessels' decision."
Now that is, as I have admitted, a hard case.
But hard cases notoriously make bad law. In this
instance the mistake appears to have lain in
enforcing the law inopportunely. That the law
will be altered in favour of Indians I do not believe.
It may, it ought to, be administered less offensively.
But the Transvaal has quite made up its mind
about Indians, It will not have them coming in
any more beyond the permitted six a year.
It is easy for sentimental people at Home to
pump up indignation over such an attitude. It is
easy to declare rhetorically that Indians are our
fellow countrymen. It is not true, but the words
have a plausible sound. Indians are not, in any
sense, our fellow countrymen. They are not even
our feUow subjects. They are subject to us. Both
of us acknowledge the sovereignty of the British
Crown, but we are members of a free monarchy
and they are subject by right of sword.
168

INDIANISATION OF NATAL
No one can possibly speak with any right to be
heard on this topic unless they have hved among ,
Asiatics. The notion that all races ought to be
treated equally in all countries is born of empty
logic. Experience leads to a different conclusion.
What that conclusion is Australia has told us,
British Columbia has told us. South Africa has
told us.
" In a white man's country the black and brown
and yellow races ought only to be allowed to do
work that white people do not want to do. As
competitors they are not to be tolerated ; their
needs are smaller ; their standards are lower ; their
methods are meaner."
That is the Transvaal view ; it is the view of
almost all people who have lived in countries which
whites have shared with black or yellow or brown.
It is likely to be the view of the white races
generaUy as soon as they realise the danger they
are in from the pressure of the others.
As to enforcing it, that can only be done so long
as the whites keep up their unity, their power,
and their prestige. This, the Transvaal people are
resolved to do. They see that they must nip off
the danger-shoots in good time. Natal let them
grow too long. Now they have grown into
branches which are too big to b^ lopped away.
The Transvaal refuses to be "Indianised" after
the manner of Natal.
And although one may respect the Indian 169

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
Passive Resisters and even feel for them, no one
who knows the differences between white standards
of living and those of other races can doubt that
the Transvaal is right. I am not saying that
white standards are better. I draw no comparison.
The very fact that they are different justifies any
country which wants to remain a white man's
country in keeping Asiatics out of competition
with white men. For do not let us deceive our
selves. The Asiatic is bound to win.
Natal has found it out and wants to keep the
coolies in their places as labourers. The Transvaal
has found it out and wishes to have no Indians at all.
San Francisco has found it out. British Columbia
has found it out. When the white races realise
that they are fighting for their existence, they may
find it out too.

170

CHAPTER XVI
DURBAN
Named after Sir Benjamin d'Urban, a famous Governor.
1271 miles by rail from Cape Town, 823 by sea ; 483 from
Johannesburg. Population about 65,000, nearly half Euro
peans. Hotel : Marine
Were my heart as some men's are, thy errors
would not move me !
But thy faults I curious find, and speak because
I love thee.
DuEBAN is the Brighton of South Africa, with a
dash of Coney Island, a hint of Liverpool, a sniff of
Calcutta, and a seasoning of the Tropics thrown in.
Perhaps it would give a better idea of the place
to say there are several Durbans. There is
Pleasure-Resort Durban which you see on the
Ocean Beach at bathing-time, or in the evening
under the careful chaperonage of strong electric
light. There is Shipping Durban down at the
Point where the docks are. There is Business
Durban up in West Street. There is Indian
Durban in the Coolie Market on Covey Street by
the Mosque, where, if you hav£ not yet been to
India, you get the nearest thing to it. And
there is, for all who have eyes to see it with,
picturesque, cosmopolitan Durban; the Durban 171

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
of strange tongues and mixed races ; the Durban
of wonderful hothouse flowers blooming in the
moist, warm, conservatory air; the Durban of
rickshaws and grenadillas and magnolias ; subtle
and exotic in flavour, like some curious yet
delicate liqueur.
The Point will be a good place to start from in
our survey of the town. Stand looking out across
the Indian Ocean, which lies glittering and heaving
gently under brilliant morning sunshine. This is
the way the liners come in from Australia and
New Zealand ; from the Far East and India ; from
England, either by way of the Cape, or through
the Suez Canal and down the East Coast. From
the Cape the voyage takes four or five days, and
is often made uncomfortable by a heavy roll. It is
interesting, for it gives one a day ashore, both at
Port Elizabeth and at East London. But unless
you are a good sailor and indifferent to rolling,
it is hardly worth while. A voyage up the
East Coast, on the other hand, now that the
Union-Castle Line has begun to run regular
steamers in competition with the Germans, ought
to form part of every trip to South Africa. It
would be harder to plan an easier, more varied, or
more restful two months' tour than :
1. To Cape Town by sea.
2. From Cape Town to Kimberley, Johannes
burg, and Durban by train.
172

DURBAN
3. From Durban to England, touching at Dela
goa Bay, Beira, Zanzibar, Mozambique,
Mombasa, Aden, Suez, Port Said, Naples,
and Marseilles.
This would take you aU round Africa, show you
the principal towns of the Union, and aUow you,
if time were no object, to extend your travel not
only into Rhodesia, but also up the Uganda Rail
way, to see what Britain is doing in East Africa
as well.
If there were a direct coast-line of railway
between Durban and Cape Town, the journey
would only take some thirty hours. There will
be such a line before long. Already a good deal
of it is in existence. The scattered pieces need
connecting up, and the whole would then have to
be straightened out a little. But it is a work which
must be done soon, and the new Union Railway
Department are thinking about taking it energeti
cally in hand. At present the journey between
the chief towns of Cape Colony and Natal takes
three days. You have to go either through
Johannesburg or through Bloemfontein. The
second route is the shorter in distance, but
it takes, as a rule, longer to go that way.
Johannesburg is the centre for /ast services and
comfortable trains.
Here is a liner coming in now ; we are still at
the Point. The entrance to the harbour, a land- 173

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
locked lagoon, is narrow, but, once inside, the
anchorage is snug and safe, while the docks offer
every kind of convenience to every kind of ship.
They are under a progressive management, which
at this moment (1911) is constructing fifteen
hundred feet of new quays. Coaling is done by
the latest mechanical means. There are ranges of
sheds that will hold 100,000 tons of freight goods.
A floating and a huge graving dock offer every
facility for repairs. Dredging goes on constantly
to keep the anchorage deep. Durban is a port
thoroughly well equipped and increasing its
business all the time.
Turn now and walk by the side of the lagoon
which runs along one side of the town ; the lagoon
which is also called the Bay. Across on the other
shore the wooded hills are drowsing in the heat.
But there is almost always a little breeze from the
Ocean. Looking down from the fine Esplanade
you can see huge jelly-fish, shaped like open
umbrellas and exquisitely coloured, fioating in
the warm clear water. Big palm-trees wave their
arms to shade you. Faint tropical scents mingle
with the salt air. Yachts flash whitely as they
tack across the shining Bay.
It is scarcely the weather for walking. Take a
rickshaw, and let the big Zulu who draws it run
you along the whole length ofthe Esplanade. His
costume makes up in splendour for what it lacks
in quantity. His legs almost up to the thighs are
174

DURBAN
bare ; patterns in white are daubed on his black
skin. His torso is mostly bare, too, except for
strings of gaudy-coloured beads. But his head
dress is most elaborate. He wears a pair of horns,
and his hair is dressed with a |mass of feathers.
That is the regular attire for rickshaw-men. Just
as Paris coachmen wear shiny tall hats, and the
St. Petersburg isvostchiks flat " toppers " and a kind
of dressing-gown, padded out grotesquely and tied
round with a cord, so the natives who pull one
about in Durban and in Maritzburg have their
uniform dress, but with a little more room left for
the exercise of individual fancy.
The Esplanade is bordered by important build
ings, among them the Club and the principal hotel.
If you turn up the street which runs between these
you come in a few hundred yards to the big square,
a green pleasaunce of lawns and flower-beds and
luxuriant tropical trees. Here is the new Town
HaU, the pride of Durban, The inhabitants forget,
while they gaze in admiration at its massive white
ness, topped by a great dome of good design, that
it cost them close on £800,000, Next door is the
old Town HaU, now the post office. For a
population not exceeding 30,000 white people,
with about as many natives and Asiatics, this
town has the finest public buildings in the world.
In its domestic architecture Durban is less dis
tinguished. Board an electric tramcar at the
Town Hall and ride through the streets where the
175

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
well-to-do whites live, mostly on the Berea, a range
of hills behind the town with glorious views over
the harbour and the ocean far out to sea. The
note that the villas strike is the note of comfort
rather than the note of taste. After the Herbert
Baker houses in the charming suburbs of the Rand
they seem commonplace.
Fortunately one can see little of the actual
houses. They are swathed in richly flowering
creepers ; they are bowered in gardens of luscious
profusion. Blossoms of every briUiant hue delight
the eye. Ferns in damp corners grow with a vivid
greenery and to a size unimaginable at Home,
Every house of any size has its tennis-court. The
life of Durban is a life of prosperous ease. There
are few very rich people, but the average of well-
being is high. You can imagine yourself setthng
down here to enjoy life on a moderate income, and
soon forgetting that you ever wanted anything
beyond material satisfactions to make your pleasure
in existence complete.
The Scotch are in force more or less aU over
South Africa, but most of all in Durban, They
have made it, and made Natal, Somehow the
Natal Scotsman, with aU his estimable qualities,
his thrift, his business energy, his perseverance, his
public spirit, is not an inspiring figure. His mind
is severely practical. Natal has had a good deal
of trouble with its natives, who do not seem to
find the Scotsman sympathetic. "We can only
176

DURBAN
make the black fellows respect us by the sjambok
(whip)," the Boer is apt to say ; and the Scotsman
is apt to agree with him.
The native has had a harder time in Natal than
elsewhere. You hear of them being struck at for
not saluting or not getting out of the way. You
hear of magistrates treating them more severely
than they treat white offenders. For example, a
native and a white man were charged with the
same offence — moving cattle without a permit.
The one was merely cautioned; the other fined.
A prison overseer was dismissed not long ago for
striking a black prisoner for a slight fault, not a
fault of insubordination. These are incidents to
be considered for what they are worth. I do not
mean to suggest that they are common. But they
do occur more often in Natal than elsewhere.
There is a class of business known in Natal as
Native Labour Agencies, I have explained in an
earlier chapter how there is an association in
Johannesburg, supported by the big mining houses,
which recruits " boys " for the mines ; the work
which it does is fair and humane : its recruits are
weU treated. But there are agencies which aim
at working as much out of the natives as they can.
There is an old Scotsman in Natal who is reputed
to make £20,000 a year by sending " boys " up to
the Transvaal. Not only is he paid by the mines
to which they are sent : he also makes his profit
out of the poor black, who is given a sovereign
M 177

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
to go up to the Rand with, and has to pay back
from £3 to £5 in instalments, which are deducted
from his wages by an agent who receives them on
his behalf
Naturally the relations between black and white
have been sometimes strained in Natal. The whites
are not sure enough of their position. They re
member angrily such words as those spoken by
Mr. Justice Beaumont, judge of the Supreme
Court, before a Royal Commission : " I think that
Natal will never be a white man's country." Thus,
when they are moved to strike, they strike wildly
and viciously. Of course Mr. Justice Beaumont
was wrong. Natal is going to be a white man's
country, if white men are offered reasonable at
tractions in the way of land. But the old fear and
doubt still rankle. There was fighting with the
natives in 1906, and it left a stain upon Natal's
character. Volunteers from the Transvaal went
home sickened at the slaughter. I have heard
them speak of it with indignation.
There are many, too, who contend that the
Zulus rose in 1906 because they thought the
authorities were not dealing squarely with them.
Against individual whites who practised " slim "
methods they felt some natural indignation: as,
for example, the " clever " trader who, when mealies
went up to a pound a bag just before the war,
hurried out and bought all he could from the
natives at ten shillings a bag before they heard of
178

DURBAN
the rise. Such mean advantage taken of their
ignorance made the Zulus distrustful. When they
found, or thought they found, that the Govern
ment was trying to impose upon them as well,
they grew desperate. It was a bad business, which
could probably have been avoided by kindly ex
planations and common sense. One can only hope
it wUl never be repeated, though " negrophilists "
did prophesy to me another native rising within
five years. But there is very httle likehhood of
that : none at all if the natives are treated with
common justice and consideration.
Now, imagine yourself back at the Point. We
have seen the esplanade and lagoon. We have
admired the Town Hall and its delightful green
square. We have been among the villas on the
Berea, and we have come back through the wide
business and shopping streets. We take a car from
the Town Hall in an easterly direction and a few
minutes' quick travelling brings us to the Ocean
Beach. The big powerful rollers, so quiet in their
strength, are breaking on the sand. To battle
among them you need to be a strong swimmer.
But there is a bathing enclosure, cleverly con
trived. Here there is no risk either of being
battered by the breakers or of being eaten by a
shark. After your bathe you can sun yourself on
the lawns which come down close to the sea, or you
can indulge yourself in a switchback railway ride, 179

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
a turn on roller skates, or a shake-up in one of
those uncomfortable pastimes, the wiggle-waggle,
or the joggle-joggle, or the slither-slother, which
appear to have been invented in order to give
young women opportunities to clasp young men
round the neck in public without losing their
self-respect. It is characteristic of Durban, so industrious, so
pious itself, that it should provide abundantly the
distractions craved for by its frivolous guests. It
has a keen eye for the main chance.

180

CHAPTER XVII
RHODES'S HERITAGE
Living he was the Land, and dead
His soul shall be her soul. Rudyard Kipling
I HAPPENED to be outside a big London railway
station about nine o'clock one morning soon after
I returned from Africa. The stream of young
men coming to their work, thousands of them, all
with pale faces, dressed in the same ugly clothes
and hats, depressed me. They looked so grey and
hopeless and uninterested.
They would go to their offices and sit on their
stools all day. At night they would go home a
little greyer, a httle less interested. Every day
they would go through the same routine, until one
morning they would look into their glasses and see
that they were old, old before their time. Old
without having lived. Old without having seen
the great free open spaces of the world. Old after
wasting their youth, like rabbits in a dark stuffy
cage. My thoughts went back to the young men I had
seen in Rhodesia only a few weeks before. Instead 181

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
of gloom they had blue sky and glorious sunshine
over their heads. Instead of ugly black clothes
with hard knobby little " bowlers," they wore a
natural costume, a shirt and a pair of trousers and
a large shady felt hat. They had big shoulders
and deep chests, bronzed faces and cheery laughing
eyes. They were on good terms with the world
and nature, because they were foUowing the natural
occupation of man — making things grow.
Now here is a curious situation. Rhodesia wants
men. London has too many of them. There,
they would have plenty of room. Here, they get
in one another's way. I am always hearing com
plaints of the lowness of wages in England. " My
boy," said a mother to me recently, " has been in
the same office for twelve years, and only gets
30.y. a week." Why is that ?
The boy, as she called him — he is thirty, as a
matter of fact — is a good clerk, honest, careful,
hardworking. But there are hundreds of thousands
like him. The firm which employs him could fiU
his place without the slightest difficulty at any
moment. Plenty of clerks would be found to do
his work for even less money. That is why clerks'
pay is low. It is a hard-and-fast rule that wherever
there are ten jobs and nine people, wages will
be high. Ten people and nine jobs make them
low. The growth of a country's population depends
upon the poverty or wealth of that country. Poor
182

.\ SETTLER'S FIRST HOJIIO

[RHOUKSI.V]

AFTER THREE VEARS

[liHOUKSIA]

RHODES'S HERITAGE
countries, like Scotland, are sparsely populated.
Rich countries, like Belgium, are well-filled.
England in the " forties " and " fifties," up to
the "eighties" even, was manufacturing for the
world. Her wealth multiplied exceedingly. Her
population increased accordingly. She was able
to find work for more and more every year. She
thought she would always be in that position.
Now she sees that she made a mistake. Rival
manufacturing nations have sprung up and become
keen competitors. We have now more people than
we can find work for. That is why there are
always unemployed in England. Yes, always —
not only when they are marching in procession,
holding demonstrations ; not only when there are
debates about them in Parliament, but all the
time. Yet all this whUe there are vast regions of the
Empire where they have not enough people.
Canada for many years to come will have room
and to spare. Australia is asking for settlers at
last. Rhodesia, above all, offers great opportunities
to those who can command a little capital and
would rather have an open-air, healthy, useful life
in a new country than a monotonous parasitical
existence, haunted by the fear of falling out of work.
Most people know that Rhodesia is a country
which lies to the north of the Union of South
Africa. But very few indeed realise how big it is
or how fine a climate it has. Put the British Isles, 183

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales together ;
Rhodesia is a good deal bigger than the whole lot.
Travel from London to Inverness and back, then
there and back again, Rhodesia has as much rail
way hne as you wiU have travelled over, more than
two thousand miles. Not bad for a country which
was entirely in the hands of savages until twenty-
one years ago.
When the history of the nineteenth century is
finally written by some future Gibbon, describing
perhaps the rise and fall of the British Empire, one
of the famous names in its roll of honour will be
that of Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes was one of those
men born with unusual power in them whose
restless energy spurs them on to make great
changes in the world. Such a man was Julius
Caesar. Such a man was Napoleon. Such a man
was Bismarck. What their power, what their rest
lessness are due to, no one knows. They are bred
usually of a commonplace, steady-going stock. As
a rule they owe little or nothing to their education.
There is some kink in their brains, or some excess
of energy in their blood, which spurs them on to
efforts that the normal man never dreams of. And
generally they feel the voice early in life. Even
while he was still at Oxford Rhodes was thinking
hard about the British Empire,
If only we had more young men to-day thinking
about their country as well as about the latest
musical comedy or next Saturday's football match !
184

RHODES'S HERITAGE
Most people have no conception of what the
Empire means. To Rhodes it was a splendid
reality, a noble heritage, a great instrument for
tidying-up and making use of the waste places of
the earth. That is what it should be to all of us.
It was the proudest boast of the ancient world to
be able to say : " I am a citizen of Rome." It
should be equally our pride to say : " I am a
British subject."
Think what it means. It means : " I belong to
the race which has subdued and civilised more than
half the world. My kinsmen own the whole of the
North American Continent. My flag flies over
Austraha and large parts of Africa. My king is
Emperor of 300 miUions of people in India.
Wherever I travel I find the British name
respected, the word of a Briton freely taken, the
English language making its way."
That was how Rhodes felt, and his great desire
was to do something for the Empire which had
done so much for him. He went out to South
Africa because his lungs were weak, and he
chanced upon Kimberley just at the time when
diamonds had begun to be found in large quan
tities there. He set to work to make money. He
saw he needed money for his Imperial schemes.
He wanted power ; and he wanted, money, because
to a certain extent money is power. Money is no
use without ideas behind it, without a steady wiU
behind it, without a man behind it. 185

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
But money in the hands of Cecil Rhodes, who
cared nothing for it himself, whose own personal
wants were few and simple, who only needed it
for what it could do — in his hands money became
power. Among other things it helped him to add
this vast territory of Rhodesia to the British
Empire, It enabled him to fit out the expedition
which hoisted the Union Jack at Salisbury in 1890,
From that date the Imperial history of Rhodesia
begins. Only 1890 ! Only twenty-one years ago I Never
was a country more rapidly developed. In twenty-
one years two thousand miles of railway. In
twenty-one years a settled government. In
twenty-one years fine townships, with banks,
public buildings, clubs, hotels. This could not
have been but for the money that Rhodes made.
There was something else needed besides money,
however. That something was a man on the spot.
Rhodes could not be that man ; he had work in
Cape Colony. Everything depended upon his
finding the right man. He found him in Dr.
L. S. Jameson, now Sir L. S, Jameson, a baronet
of the United Kingdom, better known in South
Africa as " The Doctor " or " Dr, Jim."
He was a doctor at Kimberley when Rhodes
was making his fortune. They were friends and
shared a house. Jameson became an enthusiast
for Rhodes's scheme. When Rhodes asked him if
he would go to the Matabele King, Lobengula,
186

RHODES'S HERITAGE
and try to secure a " concession " for a company
to work the country, he threw up his practice
(worth, so it is said, £10,000 a year), and started
within twelve hours.
He secured the concession by curing Lobengula
of gout. The British South African Company
was formed, with a Royal Charter permitting them
to administer the territory "conceded." Then
Jameson led a small column of five hundred men
into the country ; managed to avoid any fighting,
although the Matabele were decidedly hostile ; and
planted the British flag where Salisbury now
stands. But that is not the whole of Rhodesia's debt to
" The Doctor." He took over the office of Ad
ministrator and organised the government upon a
firm basis. When the Matabele rose, in anger at
being prevented from harrying a weaker race, the
Mashonas, as they had been accustomed to do.
Dr. Jameson raised a force of a thousand settlers
and crushed the revolt. After this achievement
he was one of the most famous men in the Empire.
He came to London and lectured on Rhodesia,
the Prince of Wales presiding. He had made
himself an enduring place in history.
Then came the Jameson Raid, and for the
moment aU his fame crumbled .away. For a
time his abUity found no outlet. Then he went
into politics at the Cape, and, starting afresh, made
a second career which led liim to the Premiership 187

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
of Cape Colony. He was thus unable to play any
further direct part in the development ofthe country
he loved. But he never ceased to give counsel and
guidance to those who had taken up his work there.
The Chartered Company which has governed it
so ably and with so much enterprise was infected
with his and with Rhodes's enthusiasm. For many
years they were sneered at. " As soon as they
stopped spoon-feeding it," people said, " the country
would coUapse. There were no minerals. It was
no good for farming. It was no good at aU."
Now the sneerers are silenced. Many mining
engineers think that there is as much gold in
Rhodesia as on the Rand, which turns out thirty
miUion pounds' worth a year. Cattle breeders say
it has a great future as a stock-raising country.
Experts in dairy-farming have declared that it can
produce the finest cheese and butter in the world.
All kinds of crops are flourishing. It has turned
the corner. Every year its value to the Empire
becomes more certain.
No wonder Cecil Rhodes is looked up to all over
South Africa almost as a god. His tomb in the
lonely Matoppo HiUs is a place of pilgrimage.
On a rocky summit lies a plain slab with his name
upon it. Away as far as the eye can reach stretch
the irregular granite hUls, in a formation like a
heavy sea frozen suddenly into stone. In between
the huge billows of rock lie quiet green valleys, hke
troughs of the giant waves.
188

RHODES'S HERITAGE
Sometimes it is all sunny and peaceful, all blue
and gold. But more impressive stiU are the hours
when dark rain-clouds hang low and threatening.
From their gloomy depths flash vivid distant light
nings. Deep roUs of thunder reverberate with
muffled roar from peak to peak. Moved by the weird
beauty and the solemn associations of this world's
view, you feel, " Here is the fitting spot for a
hero's tomb." You can imagine Rhodes's spirit
brooding still amid the turmoil of Nature, the roar
of Heaven's artillery, over the land he won from
savagery to add it to the dominions of the British
Crown. In Buluwayo, in Cape Town, in Kimberley,
there are statues of Rhodes. High up on the side
of Table Mountain there is a memorial to him, the
"Physical Energy" statue by G. F. Watts, R,A.
In every club you go into you find either a portrait
era bust of him. All who worked with him or
for him speak with affection^and admiration of his
great ideals, his power of thought, his driving
force, his simphcity of character, his kindness, his
generosity. Well, he has left us this goodly heritage, called
after him, Rhodesia. Its future depends upon
whether we appreciate it or not. That it wUl be
filled up some day is beyond aU quastion. As the
number of people in the world increases, the
area from which they draw their food supplies
must be enlarged also. That is why the fertUe 189

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
prairies of Canada have been cultivated, which
twenty-five years ago were laughed at as waste
lands. Mr. Labouchere said in Truth that if the
Canadian Pacific Railway were ever finished it
would run through a country " about as forbidding
as any on the face of the earth ! " Now that railway
company is the greatest corporation in the world,
and two other railways have been laid from West
to East to carry off the golden grain which ripens
on those sun-steeped fields where, it was said,
nothing could ever by any possibUity be made to
grow. In twenty-five years from now, Rhodesia, like
Canada, will be sending out food for the world in
vast quantities. The question is whether the people
who breed its cattle and raise its crops shall be
British or not.
The actual tending of the beasts and the actual
tUling of the soil wiU be done, to a very great
extent, by the natives. That is what makes
Rhodesia different from Canada, In Canada any
man with a strong back and a good appetite for
work can make a living as a labourer. But in
Rhodesia the labourers are black. White people
are wanted to manage and direct rather than to
dig and plough themselves, though on many small
farms the owner does a great deal of actual sowing
and gathering, while he must be frequently among
his cattle to see that they are doing well.
190

RHODES'S HERITAGE
A man can go to Canada with nothing in the
way of capital. To settle with good prospect of
success in Rhodesia he needs from £1000 to £1500.
That sounds discouraging in many ears, no doubt.
But what do we find ? Many fathers or mothers
could well spare as much as £1500 to start their sons
in life. That mother I mentioned who complained
about her boy only getting thirty shillings a week —
she has a capital of several thousands. But fathers
and mothers are not alive to the conditions of the
age. Many sons, too, are unadventurous, apathetic.
That is the fault largely of our dreary half-hearted
methods of education. Boys are not made to reahse
that they can make their lives what they will.
Their imaginations are not fired by the thought
of beginning their careers in a new country. They
are not taught to hate the reek and din of cities,
to despise the drudgery of office-stools. They
drift from school to work only half awake.
When one does hear of a young man going
out into the world to carve his future, choosing
a distant part of the Empire, feeling confident that
a good heart and a good pair of hands wiU carry
him through, one feels proud of being his country
man. If there were more boys with that bold
spirit we should hear less about the decadence of
the British race. ^
To all parents and to all sons I would say:
" Form the habit of thinking big. When you are
wondering, and when you hear other people won- 191

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
dering ' what to do with our boys,' do not think of
your country merely as these foggy, rainy httle
islands in the North Sea. Think of Canada, 3000
miles from end to end. Think of Australia. Think
of New Zealand. Think of South Africa. Think
of Rhodesia." In aU these there is a career open
to energy and determination, a career in which a
man may be his own master, may have a free hfe
in the sunshine, reap the full fruit of his endeavours,
and may grow old without anxiety, seeing his
children around him, healthy, happy and strong.
One of our most urgent needs to-day is an
education which will fit our young men and
women to go out and take advantage of their
opportunities. What kind of product do our ele
mentary schools turn out ? Not the kind that
would be of much use in a new country. They do
not like the idea of life away from the hghts and
the flashy attractions of a town. They are afraid
it would be dull.
We ought to have farm-schools where children
could be brought up to love the country, and to
make themselves useful on the land. Then they
vp^ould be glad to go out and people these vast
regions which offer them homes and a good hving
and a grand open-air life. They would shrink
from crowded, dirty, noisy cities.
Then education would be fulfilling its chief object
... to make good citizens , , , citizens whose lives
and labours would help to keep their country great.
192

CHAPTER XVIII
KIMBERLEY TO BULAWAYO
What siren has taught you to call us
Where wind-swept lands sigh for the rains ?
Who gave you the lures to enthral us,
O drought-stricken plains .''
Ah, but the clear light of dawning !
Ah, but the freedom it spelt !
The limitless width of life's morning,
The call of the veld ! Mary Byron
The railway line from Cape Town to Rhodesia
runs up to Kimberley (that stage has been described
already), then keeps just outside the Transvaal
border for some 250 miles. Plunging through the
Bechuanaland Protectorate it enters the British
South African Company's Territory near the
Matoppo Hills, among which hes the grave of Cecil
Rhodes. North of Kimberley the bush-veld begins. In
places the bush is merely low scrub, but it includes
a good sprinkling of fair-sized trees. AU of it is
spiky and harsh, yet in the mass and seen from a
distance it is green and pleasant to look upon.
There is a delicious almondy scent in the warm air.
The sun is bringing out the perfume of the
N 193

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
mimosa-thorn blossom, balls of fragrant gold. The
mimosa we get in England seems, after this, like a
poor imitation.
Sometimes the bush clears off to the horizon
and leaves stretches of green undulating country,
with clumps of trees dotted about, and herds of
long-horned cattle or lean sheep grazing upon it.
A good part of British Bechuanaland is rather like
the Harz Mountains or the Black Forest, attractive
wooded hills, looking as if they had been lately
planted with a variety of trees ; small tempting
valleys which look as if they needed only tickling
to make them laugh with plenteous crops. But
the soU is arid and poor, judging from the thin and
thorny trees, although it yields an excellent sweet
grass for animals. As a pastoral country it does
very well.
The Bechuanas are a peaceable tribe. In the
Protectorate, which is further north than British
Bechuanaland, they are ruled without difficulty by
an Imperial Commissioner with assistants, young
men from the Universities who are very keen about
their interesting work. These natives, like the
Basutos, are nervous about being handed over to
the Union Government. They understand being
ruled by their father, the King of England, the
grandson of Queen Victoria who received so kindly
Khama, the chief of one of their tribes, and often
sent them messages telling how she thought about
their welfare.
194

KIMBERLEY TO BULAWAYO
When the Duke of Connaught stopped at
Gaberones during his tour in order to receive
loyal addresses from the Bechuanas, they implored
him to ask his nephew. King George, to leave them
as they were. They must have been in earnest
about this, for they kept on repeating it one after
another until we almost ran mad with boredom and
prickly heat. It was a scorching day even at half-
past nine when we arrived. The Commissioner,
looking very hot and uncomfortable in full dress,
was waiting to receive the party. His gold-braided
coat and cocked hat were rather a grotesque contrast
to the cool khaki uniforms of the Duke and suite.
In a long line of Cape carts drawn by mules we
drove to the spot, a little distance from the station,
where the native chiefs were mustered, with small
trains of foUoAvers. There would have been more,
but more could not have found enough water to
support life. The principal chiefs were waiting in
a small stuffy tent, mopping their brown woolly
heads. We all crowded into it. The atmosphere
at once became unspeakable. However, the flow
of musical speech, something like Italian, had a
soothing effect, so between sleeping and waking
we lived through it.
When at last the reading of addresses ceased, the
Duke, using the same fatherly tout as he did in
addressing the Basutos, told them they must under
stand that the King would only do what was best
for all his subjects, and would not order them to
195

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
join the Union until he was confident that it was
to their advantage.
The hoped-for picturesqueness of the proceedings
was again spoilt by all wearing shabby European
clothes instead of the dignified native costume.
The only one striking figure was Gaberone, after
whom the place is called, an old man of eighty-five,
with a deeply-wrinkled face and a charming smile.
All the others shook the Duke's hand in an awkward,
constrained manner, Gaberone bent over with a
natural grace, and took the Duke's hand between
both of his own, and held it for a moment, as if
giving a blessing.
While the others were offering as gifts beauti
ful lion and leopard karosses (that is, rugs of
skins), the old man was busily undoing a package,
very carefully tied up, which he had with him. He
only succeeded in extracting two walking-sticks,
after all the other presents had been accepted.
The Duke saw the poor old fellow standing up and
holding out the sticks with a trembling hand and
a wistful expression. This quickly changed to a
radiant pleasure when the Duke took them, telling
the interpreter to inquire what was the wood, and
whether the sticks were made by himself, and then
to say how much touched and grateful he was. It
was a pretty little incident. I shall not forget
dear old Chief Gaberone with that beautiful smile.
Before Gaberones is passed, however, there is
Mafeking to be seen. There really is not much
196

KIMBERLEY TO BULAWAYO
to see. It is a thriving little town, and that is
all one can say about it. Siege memories and the
apotheosis of Baden-Powell lead one to expect
something more striking than the reality. But
Fame scatters her medals with a careless hand.
Famous people are often insignificant to look at
and dull to talk with. Famous places sometimes
play us the same trick.
Ramathlabama, just beyond Mafeking, I shall
recollect, both because its name trips so pleasantly
upon the tongue and because an amusing episode
occurred there as the Duke of Connaught's train
passed through. An officious policeman, fearing
that the sight of natives wearing only blankets
might shock the Duchess and Princess, had ordered
them all to keep in their huts. In the opening of
every hut, therefore (it could hardly be called a
doorway) we saw bunches of woolly heads and
eager black faces peering out. The Royal ladies,
who have travelled and hunted so much in wildest
Africa, were vastly amused.
A few miles further north is Lobatsi, where the
line which is to shorten the journey from Johannes
burg to Rhodesia will come out. Only thirty-two
miles of raUway are needed, but they will have to
pass through mountainous country to Zeerust ; that
is already connected with the Rand. At present a
traveller from Johannesburg to Buluwayo or the
Falls has to join the north-bound train at Kimberley.
That is twelve hours from Johannesburg by the
197

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
quickest service. Then from Kimberley to Lobatsi
is another twelve. From Johannesburg to Lobatsi
by way of Zeerust would only be a six or seven
hours' journey, so the saving would be of the best
part of eighteen hours.
Still, I am bound to say that in Africa one does
not strain to save time as we do in Europe and
America. The distances are so great and the trains
so slow — or, rather, the slowness of the trains
makes the distances seem so great — that eighteen
hours more or less is hardly worth thinking about.
The sunshine disposes one to take things as they
come. Worry and a warm, yet bracing air are
antagonists, and the air wins.
It is because South Africans do not worry that
they appear to us to be slack. The Boers are
certainly inclined to be lazy, but so would any race
be which had natives to do all the hard work, and
a climate that makes it easy to exist with very
little exertion of the mind. Britons grow lazy,
too, and if they have married Dutch wives, they
are apt to become Dutch in sentiment and habit
very quickly indeed. I recall one Englishman who
had been in the Army and fought in the war. He
settled in the country, married into a Dutch family,
through their influence obtained an office under
Government, and is now in his sympathies entirely
Dutch. Over there in the mountains of the Northern
Transvaal, eastward from Gaberones, there is an old
198

KIMBERLEY TO BULAWAYO
farmer called McGregor. He arrived sixty years
ago from somewhere near Glasgow. He was
a shepherd. Soon by tending skilfully the sheep
of others he gained a flock of his own. He
married a Dutch woman, and now if you go into
his farm you would take him for a Boer. His wife
cannot speak English. Dutch is the language of
the home, though I believe he is glad to talk
" braid Scots " when a visitor turns up who can
understand it.
One evening three visitors to whom the tongue
of Burns is dear did turn up at the fine old Dutch
farmhouse where he lives. Could they stay the
night? Certainly, certainly. And have some
supper ? That was not so sure. However, while
they sat and smoked with the old man, who showed
them a weekly Glasgow newspaper which he still
reads, the old woman got busy in the kitchen.
Before long she produced an omelette made with
two dozen eggs ; meat balls, which were excellent,
and steaming coffee, which was a welcome change ;
it is usually drunk half-cold. Before the visitors
went to bed McGregor had told his life history,
and given a rough inventory of his possessions.
He had 200,000 acres, he said. He had sheep,
cattle, hundreds of horses and mules. He had
meahe fields and orange groves, and did weU with
the produce of both. He had a store, and he took
in boarders. AU his sons and daughters with the
other white people about the place had gone off
199

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
to a Bioscope performance ten miles away. His
daughters were well-educated, and would like to
get married. But he set his face against that.
He wanted them to serve in the store, to sort the
wool, and so forth. A selfish old patriarch I
Next morning he thought he had put his acreage
too high. He really had only 44,000 acres ! (The
measure of land in South Africa is a " morgen,"
a little more than two acres, but for convenience
I reckon in our English way.) But I heard after
wards that he reaUy owns more than 200,000 acres,
and is worth half a miUion of money. He cannot
have made it by hotel-keeping, for he only charged
twelve shiUings for the suppers, beds, and break
fasts of the three !
All this digression arose out of my remark about
the slowness of railway travel. In course of time,
when the gauge is broadened, journeys will, of
course, be quickened up. But it will never be
possible for us to travel very long distances at a
rapid speed with any comfort. It is true you can
go from New York to Chicago (which is just about
the same distance as from Cape Town to Johan
nesburg — roughly, a thousand miles) in eighteen
hours, while the fastest train between the South
African cities can only do it in thirty-six hours,
just double the time. But the wear and tear of
sixty mUes an hour upon the nerves teUs on aU
except the strongest, even though it is only for a
night and half a day.
200

KIMBERLEY TO BULAWAYO
To travel at that pace for a longer time would
be exhausting. The eye-strain is painful, the sense
of effort burdensome. Jogging along northward,
on the way to Rhodesia, stopping at little stations
to take water, both for the engine and for the use
of passengers, you travel restfuUy enough, and why
be in a hurry ? As the Boer proverb teaches, there
is always another day to-morrow.
Crossmg the edge of the Kalahari Desert is hot
and dusty, it is true. Everything in your com
partment is coated with grit. You doze and dream
uneasily
Of ice and glass that tinkle,
Pellucid, silver-shrill ;
Peaches without a wrinkle ;
Cherries and snow, at will
From china bowls that fill
The senses with a sweet
Incuriousness of heat ;
A melon's dripping sherds ;
Cream-clothed strawberries ;
Dusk dairies set with curds —
To live, I think of these !
But this torment is not for long. The sun drops,
and the shadows come out from their hiding-places,
and a delicious freshness is fanned into the world
by the wings of Night. Perhaps, after a specta
cular sunset, colours more marvellous than ever
painter could come near to copying, the moon wUl
shine, showing the great empty spaces of bush or
bare hills more clearly even than the noonday sun.
201

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
Or else there are dark masses of cloud, strangely
solid and distuict, riven incessantly by jagged
quivers of lightning.
At sunset it seemed as if a gate of Heaven were
opened, and the glory shining through, an unearthly
glory of vivid yellow light. Then there was a
powdery crimson after-glow, with the final rays of
the hidden sun slanting half across the sky. Now
there is a truly South African storm lighting up
the darkness with the most amazing flashes of vivid
violet brilliance, not every few minutes, but every
few seconds. So closely they follow, now in one
place now in another, that they are only just not
continuous. If you hold a book or paper ready,
you can read by these throbbing flashes in the veil
of Night. The display fascinates. You watch it
enraptured. Then suddenly there follow furious
gusts of wind. The tempest is off the chain now.
The rain thuds furiously on the roof. AU the
better : to-morrow's dawn will be a clean- washed,
exquisite cool harmony of opal. As you get into
bed, you shiver luxuriously. How splendid to feel
even a little chilly once more !

202

CHAPTER XIX
BULAWAYO
1362 miles from Cape Town ; 715 miles from Kimberley.
4469 feet above sea-level. Name means in Matabele lan
guage, The Place of Slaughter. Hotel : Grand
For the last three centuries the great phenome
non of mankind has been the growth of the
English-speaking people ; and their spread over
the world's waste spaces. Theodore Roosevelt
Everybody can understand the appeal of an
ancient city like Athens, Cairo, or Damascus.
Here Pericles walked ; here was civilisation while
Britons ran naked in the woods ; there the East,
gorgeous in colour and romance, flowered before
the West was yet in bud. It needs small imagi
nation to realise in some degree their interest and
charm. But to be thrilled by a new settlement, a fresh
centre of man's activities, a village that may some
day grow into a city as great as those of old — this
is only given to the imaginative, to those whose
minds can wander, freed from ta-day's trammels,
picturing the days that are to be. For this reason
it is the new countries which appeal to intellects
that are easily kindled. The other kind of intel- 208

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
lect, that which strikes only on the accustomed
box, sees in a new country simply the rawness, the
squalor ; and pines for the sheltered existence of
older communities where, for those who have money
in the bank, all that is ugly and discordant can be
kept out of sight.
The tin-can hillocks, the litter of hastily-erected
homes ; the roads ankle-deep in dust, and some
times knee-deep in mud ; the concentration of
energy upon practical things ; the judging of a
man, not by whether he can talk about Henry
James and Debussy, not by the amount of gold his
father left him, not by his clothes or his friends in
high places, but by what he can do : aU this to
the over-cultivated, who are always also the un
imaginative, is abhorrent. They cannot see beyond
it. They cannot understand what it means.
To see a country or a city in the making : does
not that really hold more of healthy interest than
to watch one decay ? Our faces should be turned
towards the Future, not screwed round dismally
to catch the last glimpses, often quite illusory, of
a confused medley of Pasts. In Rome, in Greece,
in Spain, it is the contrast between what was once
and what is now that fills the nostrils with the
odour of death. In Rhodesia one feels the stimulus
of vivid life, the charm of springtime, the flushed
delight of youth in freedom and sunshine. One
learns to say " Yes " to Nature, instead of meeting
her at every turn with a petulant or a horrified " No."
204

BULAWAYO
Salisbury was the first settlement in Rhodesia,
and Salisbury is the capital. But Bulawayo is
more of a town, and Salisbury will have a stiff"
chase even to catch up with it. To begin with,
Bulawayo is and must remain an important place
so far as railways are concerned. From it two
lines branch off", one north-eastward to Salisbury
and the rapidly-developing district near the frontier
of Portuguese East Africa ; the other to the Falls,
to Livingstone, to the Congo State, and at some
future date to . . . Cairo ! The coal from Wankies,
the copper from Katanga, a large portion of the
gold from'the north-east, all pass through Bulawayo,
not to mention the produce of the land, the mealies,
oranges and lemons, the tobacco, the cattle and
sheep. Some day Rhodesia wiU, in the natural course
of probabilities, have a port on the East Coast. At
present she uses Beira a good deal. There will
also be before very long a line connecting North
western Rhodesia with Lobito Bay, a port in
Portuguese West Africa, which will become an
important place of shipment. But Bulawayo will
still be the principal railway centre, the southern
gateway of the country, busy with factories and
"shops." The first vivid impression I repeived there was
one of warmth. The station is a sun-trap. On
the platform there is always a blinding glare. The
whole place slopes to the south a little, so it ought 205

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
not to be so very hot; a south aspect in South
Africa having the same character as a north aspect
with us. But it is undeniably warm in summer.
The punkah in the Club dining-room told me what
to expect ; the covers on milk-jugs and sugar-
basins spoke with businesshke eloquence of that
hot- weather nuisance, the common fly.
But it is seldom an exhausting heat ; only when
thunderstorms are about. The air is fresh, keen,
brilliant, with a healthy breeze, and in the winter
(May to September) a coldish southerly wind. The
climate partly accounts for the cheerful, hopeful
nature of the Bulawayo people. They are as good
as a tonic or a tumbler of champagne. And with
all their certainty of progress, aU their pride in
their adopted country, they are still so magnifi
cently British. Britons with a difference ; Britons
without that apologetic, politely listless, under-
vitalised air which has become the stamp of the
educated Englishman at home.
The Briton overseas regains his keenness. The
Rhodesian is keen beyond the measure of the
Canadian ; yet withal no boaster, no " hot-air
merchant," but a modest, gentle mannered, charming
person, with his enthusiasm well under control.
You feel that, if you put him suddenly down in
Piccadilly, he would stroll along to his club. You
are sure that in the hunting-field or among the
partridges he would give a good account of himself
As he talks, you reflect that the voice of the well-
206

^.

.\X .\WKAVARIi 'IiRrFI"' iliIJY liED (IF .V RIVKRi

1'Ik'U' hji UuiiLEV Kidd

BULAWAYO
bred Englishman cannot be bettered the world
over. It calls up such pleasant visions of country
homes, ivied rectories, historic playing-fields and
class-rooms, streets of ancient, beautiful colleges
dreaming in their gardens and quads.
Some of the men you meet in Rhodesia have
been in the Army, most have been at public schools,
many at Oxford or Cambridge. One I came across,
very happy on his farm, had been a schoolmaster,
an " usher," as he scornfuUy called it, in a private
school, preparatory for Eton. Another had read law
at Cambridge and got himself called to the Bar, only
to find that there were about twenty-five barristers
to every brief that solicitors had to distribute. A
third had been a clerk in a stockbroker's office, one
of those sleek-headed, nice-looking boys you see in
the purlieus round about the Bank, walking about
with no hats on and their hands deep in their
elegant trousers-pockets. It is hard to get him to
talk of those days. He hates to think of them.
" Come out to our farm," he said, as he got on
his horse outside the Bulawayo Club, " and I'll tell
you all about our plans for getting rich, and going
home for the Coronation. But don't talk about
Throgmorton Avenue. The very thought of it
makes me feel sick."
The Club is at the centre of the tywn, which, for
the main part, consists of two very wide streets,
forming a cross. They were made wide so that a
sixteen span of oxen could turn in them. Already 207

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
the trees planted in 1894, gum trees of rapid
growth, make a welcome shade, and vacant lots
(or "stands," as they are caUed in Rhodesia) are
becoming scarce. The streets, therefore, begin to
have an impressive appearance, though their width
tends to dwarf the buUder's attempt to make banks
and blocks of offices look dignified ; and when you
look along from a little distance at the fine Rhodes
statue, placed where the ways cross, and at the
other tall memorial to the Shangani heroes, with
its Gatling gun atop, they both seem curiously
insignificant. The best way to build towns in hot
countries would be to foUow the Italian plan of
narrow streets (as in Florence) or arcades (as in
Padua) to give shelter from the sun. There are
some arcades in Bulawayo, but anything like town-
planning is made difficult by blocks of land being
bought and held by speculators while buildings
grow up all around.
The buildings, however, if not beautiful, are
substantial and imposing. There are some good
stores, and I found a capital book shop. The
theatre, the public library, the new museum (now
being built), the drill-hall, and the schools, all do
credit to the place, especially the schools. I went
over them all, and never have I seen pleasanter
class-rooms or better equipment of every kind.
Children have every chance in Rhodesia to grow
up with well-trained minds as well as with strong,
well-nourished little bodies. The British South
208

BULAWAYO
Africa Company have spent with a free hand to
give them that.
All these institutions, quite as good as one would
find in a European town many times the size of
Bulawayo, strike the visitor with astonishment
when he reflects that the town has only been in
existence seventeen years. Up to then it was the
Matabele "place of slaughter." Drive out to the
charming Government House, built after the old
Dutch farm style on a hill three miles away from
the Rhodes statue, and you will find yourself on
the site of Lobengula's kraal. Only one tree is left
now to hnk up the old rule of blood and whimsical
tyranny with the new rule of peace, order, and
goodwill. Beneath that tree Lobengula used to sit in
judgment. Whenever he suspected a chief of
growing restless, or coveted the cattle of a wealthy
subject, he would send for him. Sometimes the
poor wretch was felled at once by a blow with
a " knobkerry " delivered from ; behind as he
walked with themessenger to the king's kraal. Some
times a more formal procedure was used. " Witch
doctors" were hired to "smell out" the doomed
victim, and to accuse him of black magic. The
end was always the same, death.
Inconvenient female relatives or.wives who had
lost their charm were strangled. A hiU over
against the town of Bulawayo would have blood
running down its slopes when there had been a
o 209

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
great capture of prisoners in war, or an unusually
heavy assize to try under Lobengula's tree. Yet
the Matabele seldom even murmured. Whatever
the king did was right. These are the noble
savages with whom gold-spectacled, Jaeger-clad
" Radicals " sympathised so unctuously when they
resisted the effort of the Chartered Company to
put an end to their system of superstition and
gore, A " Radical " began by being one who went to
the root of every matter he discussed. That was
a long time ago. Now he is content with surface
aspects as they appear to his short-sighted, senti
mental gaze.
Long before the Matabele, a branch of the Zulu
race, occupied this part of Africa, there were
inhabitants of a higher stamp. That is proved by
the Zimbabwe ruins and also by the Khami ruins
near Bulawayo. Zimbabwe is hard to get at.
Train to Gwelo takes the best part of a day, then
there is another short train journey to Selukwe ;
after that ninety-seven miles' trek in a horse-cart.
Khami is nothing like so interesting, but it has
the advantage of being more easily reached. I
motored out one day before breakfast, starting
about six in the delicious freshness of an exquisite
morning after a night of rain.
The country we drove through on a fairly decent
road began by being pastoral with a good deal of
cultivation. Then it grew wilder. Kopjes like
210

BULAWAYO
heaps of stone piled up by Titans' hands waved
their feathery trees above us. Whoever built the
forts and dweUings, of which walls and passages
still remain, chose a delightful spot for their settle
ment. Some attribute them to a negroid people
which had learnt civilised arts. Some suggest that
Arabs trading in " black ivory " and other wares
from the East Coast must have had their depot
here. More may be known for certain when there
is further digging.
Within reach of Bulawayo, too, is Dhlo-dhlo,
whither the Mombo ruins have attracted many
archaeologists. When Mr. James Bryce was
there in 1895 nothing had been discovered to lead
him to accept the theory that the buildings here
were in the nature of a religious temple. But
Dr. Schlichter has since declared them to have
had a threefold purpose, sun-worship, gold pro
duction, and defence. AU the natives know is
that the ghosts of chiefs (Mombos) haunt the
ruins ; for that reason it is difficult to get them to
go near after dark.
Whoever the mysterious people were who
worked the gold and worshipped the sun here,
and at Zimbabwe and Khami and other places
where ruins tell of civilised occupation, they left
no enduring traditions. The natives, being only
one remove from the non-human animals, have no
folklore, no legends of the past. The Phoenician
hypothesis has been weakened. It was fascinating 211

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
to think that these might be the workings of the
mines which supplied Solomon with the gold for
the Temple at Jerusalem. It was ingenious to
connect these early inhabitants of Rhodesia with
the people who shipped ivory, apes, and peacocks
for the Queen of Sheba to present to the great
King. The sculpture on the left hand of the Terrace
Temple of Deir-el-Bahari near Luxor in Egypt
gives a vivid picture of an expedition returning in
ships from the Land of Punt, evidently somewhere
down the East Coast of Africa. To seek to identify
Punt with Rhodesia was irresistible. But the
attempt has failed. Far more likely does it seem
to be that the ruins mark the sites of Arab settle
ments. It is known that this ingenious race brought
gold from the interior. Traces of ancient irrigation
have been found : the Arabs were famous for their
skill in this art. Underground dweUings have been
unearthed, in which it is supposed they kept their
slaves. But it is all supposition and theory. How
little we know of history beyond our own national
back gardens ! So far as earlier days are concerned,
Africa still remains Darkest Africa, and probably
always wiU.
To the Matoppo Hills and the tomb of Rhodes
is a longer drive than to the Khami ruins, fuller of
interest and charm. Leaving the town by a road
bordered by small houses standing in orange groves
and gardens prolific of fruit and vegetables, as weU
212

BULAWAYO
as gay with flowers, you pass at first through a
wooded region, furrowed by deep streams. These
are crossed at " drifts " or fords. Down you slide,
with locked wheels, into the river-bed, a steep drop,
then struggle up the other side. After a while the
country opens out. Fields of grain are passed,
orchards, vegetable gardens. We are nearing the
big Matoppo Dam.
The word " dam," by the way, is applied in South
Africa not merely to the actual obstruction which
holds back the water, but to the reservoir of water
held back. Thus you hear talk of boating and
fishing " on the dam."
It cost a great deal to make, but it was made as
an object-lesson, and it has taught Rhodesia what
irrigation can do. From the hotel above the dam
there is a view of rich country, yielding famous
crops. Then as you drive on towards the hills,
the way lies through a vast nursery for the raising
of all kinds of trees. Both are parts of Rhodes'
legacy to his country. There are also four square
miles of wild animal Reserve near here, just on
the edge of the Matoppos.
This way it was that the long funeral procession
came which carried the body to its resting-
place. No picture of the tomb can give any idea
of it, for it is the view which lends the spot its
majesty and stamps it for ever on the mind.
The actual plateau of rock with its huge round
stones would be in itself nothing to remember. 213

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
But of the view and of the stirrings of spirit
experienced at that lonely grave I have spoken
already. Close by is Mr. Tweed's beautiful memorial of
Major Alan Wilson and the men who died with
him at the Shangani in December 1893. It was
Rhodes's intention that this spot should serve as
the burial-place for those who had deserved well of
their country. But one could better appreciate
this memorial if it stood somewhere else. That
commanding plateau should have been left to
Rhodes alone.
There were thirty-eight of these heroes. They
were pursuing Lobengula, and were cut off from
the main force by a strong impi of tried Matabele
warriors. The odds were at least a hundred to one.
Yet for a time the British troopers held their own.
The blacks charged again and again, and every
charge was beaten off. Then they tried stalking
tactics. They took what cover they could and used
the rifies supplied to them by English firms com
posed of men who, if there be a burning Hell, will
assuredly have front seats around the hottest fire.
It was clear that the thirty-eight must die. They
soon had no more cartridges. There were too few
of them left for a last charge. How true it is that
the end came to them singing I do not know. This
is an account given of the end by a South African
writer * : * " South Africa," January 1910.
214

BULAWAYO
" The last shot was fired. The rifles in their
hands were useless as toys. Their foes crowded
round them in demoniacal glee. Some breathed a
prayer. Some murmured thenamedearesttothem.
AU bade silent farewell to earth, and the things
they loved. Then, with one accord they sprang to
their feet. Casting from them their empty rifles,
they joined hand in hand, and faced defiant their
front and rear. For a moment they stood silent,
awaiting the looming word of command to pass
to another and mystic sphere. Then there arose,
amid the yet lingering din of battle, sounds as of
singing. Soft and doubtful at first, they gradually
strengthened out into sonorous strains. The
Zulus paused. Assegais, balanced for casting,
feU from their poise, as spellbound they caught
the strange refrains. These solitudes had known
no such sounds before. They were the notes and
words of our National Anthem : ' God Save the
Queen,' in clear rhythmic chords, soared upwards
from these shambles of death- doomed heroes.
Loud and measured as the psean whose chant
records, with martial rolls, a victory won, it
dominated the whole blood-stained scene. Its
power was felt by the savage hordes around.
Forced from their lips by the gallant mien of
those about to die, they saluted. The old order
was reversed. It was not : ' Those about to die
salute thee, Caesar ! ' Those about to kill saluted.
Cries of ' Bayete' fluttered the leaves, as an
215

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
aspen trembles, and vibrated through the ground
like the pulsing of an earthquake. Spears were
uplifted high to import that each man there was
a great warrior and mighty chief Having paid
this spontaneous and unwonted homage, the
victorious hordes stood sUently listening, while
tuneful throats filled the air with harmony and
sanctified the scene with the solemn chords of
the hymn.
" Then as ' Our Gracious Queen ' passed away
skywards in rolling reverberations, and the last
notes of the funeral ode died upon their lips, the
spell broke. The inevitable reaction swiftly
transformed the mien of the encircling hosts.
From spellbound, almost reverent, auditors they
became fierce, untamed savages, lusting for
blood. The wild yells of the indodas split the
air with furious clamour. War-cries, more frantic
and clangorous than before, thundered from the
red throats and foaming mouths of the dusky
mob. Assegais rattled on their hard hide shields
with clattering discord. If the doomed men
were still singing, the sounds were lost in Satanic
uproar. Each bedizened brave vied to be first
in the slaughter. The ranks closed in with a
furious rush. Stabbing spears flashed in the
sullen sun, and descending with the steely
shimmer of lightning, plunged with sickening
hiss into quivering bodies. Crushed beneath the
weight of the slaughterous host, with the last
216

BULAWAYO
whisper of ' Queen ' still lingering on their lips,
their course was run.
" And so, with hand joined to hand, they went
to their rest ; and with their face to the sky their
mutilated bodies lay tangled in the gruesome
carnage. Truly a fitting release for such a loyal
band ; to depart together as they fought, and
none to stay behind and evade the common fate."
In any case it is known that they made a gaUant
stand, and they merit a noble memorial. But it
should not have been placed here.

217

CHAPTER XX
A MAP
There is more valuable material waiting to be
developed in Rhodesia than in any other part of
the British Empire. . . . E-hodesia can produce
the finest cheese and butter in the world. Prin
cipal of the Durham County Dairy School, after
a Rhodesian tour
Maps are always entertaining, but I saw a map
on the wall of an office in Bulawayo which inter
ested me beyond any map I had ever seen. It
opened a window upon the future. It showed me
what Rhodesia will some day be.
It was unfortunate for Rhodesia that it became
very early in its history a counter in the Party
game. Because the Liberals distrusted Rhodes
after the Raid, they disliked the idea of Rhodesia.
Because the shares of the British South Africa
Company did not crown speculators' hopes by
rising rapidly in value, a discontented rumour
got about that Rhodesia was worthless. That
prejudice persists stiU to this day.
I have even heard grumblers say, when forced
to admit that the country had rich possibUities :
218

A MAP
"But look how slowly it has gone ahead." Of
all the strange views of Imperial affairs taken by
arm-chair critics in London clubs, that is, I think,
the strangest and the most absurd. To any one
who has seen new countries in the growth, the
development of Rhodesia has been marvellously
rapid. Possibly Mr. Rhodes was himself to blame
for some part of the arm-chair critics' disappoint
ment. He saw ahead so clearly and so far that
he sometimes spoke as if Rhodesia would begin
to pay handsomely at once.
That is one objection to the development of
territories by chartered companies. Their share
holders are inchned to be impatient for dividends.
Their progress is apt to be judged by the test of
yearly profit. But against that objection there
are many advantages to be set off, in cases, at all
events, where the business of chartered companies
is as ably and patriotically directed as that of the
British South Africa Company has always been.
There is no doubt in my mind that, if Rhodesia
had been administered as a Crown Colony, its
development would have been very much slower ;
in fact, it would scarcely have begun.
For while, on the one hand, the directors of the
British South Africa Company have resisted the
desire of hungry speculators that the country
should be milked as quickly as possible without
regard to the future, they have, on the other
hand, pushed forward the work of development 219

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
in all directions in a manner which Government
officials, controlled by the Colonial Office, would
have had neither the funds nor the energy to
adopt. It thrills me always, as I walk down London
Wall, to look up at the fine building of the
Chartered Company, and to think that from here,
this noisy, grimy centre of a rushing great city,
those vast sunny regions in Africa are being
governed. In 1914 the Charter which gives the
British South Africa Company control over
Rhodesia will lapse, but in all probability it will
be renewed for another term. At the same time
the country, the southern part of it at any rate,
will very likely be given greater powers of self-
government. At present each division of Rhodesia
is governed by an Administrator with an Execu
tive Council of not less than four members ; and
a Legislative Council, of whom seven are elected
and seven nominated by the Company, Both
Salisbury and Bulawayo, by the way, elect their
own municipalities ; and there is gradually growing
up a feeling that the people ought before long to
have the semblance of fuller control over the
management of the affairs of the whole country.
To that the Company will, no doubt, agree.
Every year now the public at home wiU become
more and more familiar with Rhodesian prospects
and progress. From the way it is usually talked
about at present one would suppose that it appeared
220

A MAP
on the map as a vast, unoccupied, unexplored
country with dots here and there jto represent
farms or mines, and a few small groups of dots to
show where towns are. Nor does travelling through
Rhodesia correct this impression to any great ex
tent. You see little but bush. Sometimes the
prospect opens out. You can catch sight of a
farmhouse and grazing cattle amid pleasant rolling
country. Or you stop at a httle station where
there are groups of miners in shirts and trousers
and " double terais," big felt hats, one within the
other, to keep off the blazing sun. From the
further left-hand brace-button hangs invariably
a bag of loose, dry tobacco. Not until you adopt
this habit and can let flies crawl over your face
without taking any notice of them are you
considered properly acclimatised.
Close to the line at these mining centres the
tops of shafts with winding-gear and tall chimneys
stand out against the hot blue of the sky. You
ask what mines they are, and are supplied with
names vaguely familiar from the financial column
of your daily paper. Then you go on, and it is
a long time before another little mining centre
crops up. The impression you get is of a country
where attempts at colonisation are few and far
between — and, like most railway^arriage-window
impressions, it is wrong. That map in Bulawayo
showed me how wrong. The map was on a large
scale. It took up the whole of one wall of a
221

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
decent-sized room. And it was covered, or it
seemed at first glance to be covered, with little
red and blue and black and green and pink
squares. When I came to look into it I found there was
a good deal as yet uncovered. But there were
nevertheless quite enough patches to make the
whole map seem warm with human interest. For
obviously they had something to do with settlers.
The pink were the most numerous. "What are
those?" I inquired. "Those are farms." "But
surely there aren't as many farms as that actually
taken up ? " " Each of those pink patches repre
sents an occupied farm," said my friend Captain
Jesser-Coope firmly. " And the others ? " " The
black patches are the native reserves, where no land
is at present available for white men. They take
up a quarter of the country. The blue are lands
bought by land companies, either to be worked or
as a speculation. The red mark Liebig's property.
Ever heard of Liebig's Extract of Beef? Before
long, when you drink that after influenza, you'll
probably be drinking a Rhodesian product. To
the south and east of Bulawayo Liebig's have
bought over a million acres for cattle. Now see the
green patches. As this is to be mainly a cattle
country, provision had to be made for helping
breeders when they drive their stock. So about
every ten miles (that is, a day's drive) there are
big blocks of common land, six thousand acres
222

A MAP
each, where the driven cattle can be halted and
grazed. The green patches are those blocks."
Yes, there is no doubt about it. Southern
Rhodesia is fUling up. What is hoped of the gold
mines may come true. The country may turn out
to be as rich in mineral wealth as the Transvaal.
But, whether that happens or not, it is well on
its way to become a rich and well-populated land
by reason of the prosperity which lies, ready to be
tapped, in its sunshine and its soil.
First, it will feed millions of cattle. Secondly,
it will be the home of the greatest cheese and
butter industry in the world. Now they import
dairy produce to the amount of £30,000 odd a
year. There is a market, therefore, almost at the
dairy-farmer's door. The native demand for cheese
is very large and on the increase. Soon they will
be exporting to England and (with a preference)
driving Danish butter and American cheese out of
English homes. Thirdly, Rhodesia will grow rich
by raising tobacco. There are hundreds of thou
sands of acres on which this valuable crop can be
planted with every prospect of success. The soil
needs fertilising, but the fertiliser is not expensive.
Rain falls both in sufficient quantity and at the
right time. Already there is an output estimated
this year at 250,000 lb. In Salisjjury I went to
the Government tobacco factory, saw the bales
arrive from the plantations, watched the black
feUows sorting out and "grading" the leaves, 223

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
sniffed into the rooms where the stuff is hung up
before being pressed and tied in bales for market.
Pipe tobacco and cigarettes they make ; no cigars.
It smokes well. I tried it many times.
Now, suppose a young man goes out to take up
a farm of a thousand acres. For this he needs, if
possible, £1000. He might just manage with
£750, but it would be a struggle. Imagine him
arriving, having paid, as a settler, a reduced railway
fare to Bulawayo. He goes to the estates office
(where I saw the map), and it is suggested to him
that he might like to learn a little about Rhodesian
farming before he takes up his land. There are
several Government farms. Perhaps he goes to
one of these, getting his board and lodging free as
soon as he has learnt to make himself useful ; or
perhaps he goes to some private farmer. When
he feels that he would like to begin for himself he
has to choose between a farm on a settlement —
that is, as one of a community of farmers — and
an isolated situation. He has to buy two, three,
or four span of oxen for ploughing, a span being
sometimes sixteen, sometimes fourteen, sometimes
twelve. He has to start with a small herd for
breeding. He sows some ground with mealies
(maize) and from twenty to forty acres with
tobacco. He builds a barn for drying the tobacco-
leaf at a cost of about £120. Then, with industry
and reasonable luck, he will do well.
At first he lives in a wattle-and-daub hut : it is
224

A MAP
built of blue gum-wood and mud and it has a
thatched roof. For a ceiling a piece of linen is
stretched across. This catches the insects which
drop from the roof and also the dust which is
caused by their incessant boring. Another similar
hut serves for his bedroom, and there are two or
three more for his " boys." He lives mainly on
tinned food, with tea at every meal and in between
as well. Milk he gets at first — not very clean
milk — from a native viUage, or else he keeps a
goat. If there are mines near he can dispose well
of his mealies and in time supply them with meat.
Gradually he raises a host of vegetables. He plants
an orange grove and lemon trees (citrous fruits
do very well indeed in Rhodesia and will soon be
exported in large quantities). He starts a dairy.
He builds a brick house. He goes home to fetch
a wife out. Now he lives in very different style,
comfortably and pleasantly, working hard, but
seeing the reward of his labour and thanking God
every day that he did not remain in the old
overcrowded country, where he would have passed
his life looking through dingy windows at a dingy
City, perched on an office-stool.
" This is an ideal ' second son's ' country," some
one at Salisbury said to me ; and many second
sons of good families have gone ouf there. There
is a public-school atmosphere. Perhaps if they
were Americans, full of steam and hustle, things
might move more quickly. But it would not be
p 225

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
such a pleasant place. England sends Rhodesia
of her best. Oxford or Cambridge men are sought
for to take service with the Government. They
may not be so pushful or at first so businesslike as
men with a commercial training might be. But
they have the larger outlook, the wider range.
With the natives, too, who know the difference
at once between one who " is quite " and one who
" isn't quite," they have the advantage. Rhodesia
is never likely to have an indiscriminate flood of
humanity poured into it, after the fashion of
American and Canadian immigration. It needs
settlers with a httle money. The Chartered Com
pany have done as much as can reasonably be
expected. There is already almost a mile of rail
way to every white adult in the country, and two
thousand miles of light lines are planned to carry
farm produce. Each district will have a centre
where a cheese factory will be built ; to that the
farmers will send in their butter. But to take
moneyless people out and set them up is beyond
the Company's means.
The Argentine Republic did that, and filled up
at the rate of a quarter of a million settlers a year ;
and the Government was repaid by instalments
almost all the money it had advanced. Rhodesia,
I repeat, does not want to be settled in that way.
Still, it would be a fine thing if some millionaire,
anxious to dispose of his money usefully, would do
something of the kind on a smaller scale. There
226

A MAP
are numbers of young men, just the kind Rhodesia
requires, who have not got a thousand pounds, or
even their passage-money. The Duke of West
minster took a fine, imaginative step when he set
up his colony in the Orange Free State. That
example wants foUowing. Rhodesia is filling up ;
that is beyond question. Round about Maran-
deUa's, west of Salisbury, there were six years ago
three farmers ; now they number nearly a hundred.
Rusapi, a neighbouring district, is a keen com
petitor. In Lomagundi farms are being taken up
almost as quickly as they are surveyed. But it
is equaUy beyond question that it would benefit
Rhodesia to get a steadier, more abundant flow of
men and women of British blood. She cannot
with advantage enter the Union of South Africa
untU she does so on her own terms, with a weight
of population behind her. Yet efforts will certainly
be made to induce her to join before long. The
more quickly she can attract settlers, then, the
better. She off'ers a glorious climate, a magnificent
country, prospects of success in many different
enterprises, for, besides those which I have men
tioned, wheat can be grown and other cereals ; in
certain parts cotton, coffee, and rice do well,
ostriches and sheep can be bred as well as cattle.
The history of Rhodesia in the next half-century
will be that of Canada over again. So that map
in Bulawayo suggests. 227

CHAPTER XXI
SALISBURY
Capital of Southern Rhodesia. Founded in 1890. 1663 miles
from Cape Town ; 301 miles from Bulawayo ; 374 miles from
the port of Beira in Portuguese territory. White population
about 2000
The time cannot be far remote when the British
Empire must, if it remain united, exercise a
controUing authority in the world. To that
trust our .sons are born. Lord Rosebery
North-west of Bulawayo, on the way to Salisbury,
the country is open and attractive, a rolling grass
country, Avooded here and there, a country which
to English people has a homely look. The air is
fresh and tonic. Farms are seen at pretty frequent
intervals, the homesteads peeping over hill shoulders
or standing, belted with trees, by the side of a
hurrying stream.
Both the Shangani and the Selukwe Rivers are
crossed before the train runs into Gwelo, which
first reveals itself as a row of tin stores and boarding-
houses fronting the station across a strip of common,
very much like the beginnings of a Canadian oi
American town. But that is not really Gwelo at
all. Take the pretty road which runs between
228

SALISBURY
neat little houses hung with creeper, and you
come to a well laid-out township, with school and
hbrary, hospital. Stock Exchange, and three or
four churches. This is the supply town for a
number of mines, the Selukwe and Sebakwe groups,
which lie fairly near. With its thickly wooded
sheltering hill at the back and its brisk, invigorating
climate, it leaves a memory pleasant to recall.
I remember very well a moonrise at Gwelo.
The silver disc shone with marvellous clearness as
it mounted up, while daylight lingered, above a
pink glow. Below the pink the sky was limpid
blue ; against this the dark hiU-tops stood out
black and wonderful. A few minutes later the
western sky was all reds and yellows, like an October
sunset in England, while eastward the lamp of the
moon hung brilliant in the already darkened sky.
Here it is a peaceful, prairielike landscape.
Further on it becomes more thickly wooded. Now
the trees are no longer stunted, prickly, but tall
and spreading. A splendid country this, with rich
grasses and luxuriant shrubs, a country of wide
prospects which cries out for settlers. Water
cannot be far below the surface, for the trees
do not lack moisture even before the rains come.
The cultivated patches are fat and fertile, yielding
plenteous crops. •
Just the region for settlers, for between Gwelo
and Gadzema stretches the gold belt. Mining
towns have sprung up and are growing. Globe 229

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
and Phoenix is the most populous, but Hartley
runs it close, and Gatooma is girding up its loins.
These are the older Rhodesian mines, which are on
a firm basis, and therefore not so interesting to the
speculator as the newer properties farther north
(though still in Southern Rhodesia). The value of
gold taken out in that territory during 1910 was
£2,568,198, rather less than during 1909, because
(1) labour was scarce, and (2) many of the mines
near Sahsbury are being " developed " by big com
panies, and while that process is going on they do
not turn out gold.
In the first eight years of Rhodesia, 1890 to
1898, the value of gold mined was only £83,000.
That was the period during which people sheered
and said the country would never be any good.
Since then the yearly figures have been :

£

£

1899

205,690

1905

1,449,985

1900

308,249

1906

1,985,099

1901

610,389

1907

2,178,886

1902

687,096

1908

2,526,007

1903

827,729

1909

2,623,709

1904

969,343

1910

2,568,198

It is upon the groups of mines near Selukwe
and Salisbury that the eyes of those who believe
Rhodesia to be as rich as the Rand are mostly
fixed. (The Rand produces £30,000,000 worth a
year.) Among these there has been, and there still
is in many regions, a chance for the small capitalist
230

'I',\KI\(; '1'(IK.\(C'(1 Til IIIF R,\IL\\',\^ FI!(I:M .\ I'l, AN'r.V'l' II IX

[riiiidfsia:

SALISBURY
who is content to work a small plant. Here is a
case to iUustrate what I mean. Three carpenters
near Selukwe fancied a claim which had been
abandoned. They pegged it out. They bought
and fixed a second-hand stamp for crushing the
ore (I described the process in chapter xii). They
brought the water they required for crushing across
a sluit in a clumsy kind of home-made aqueduct.
They lived in a tent on tinned pork and beans,
and they took out gold to the value of several
thousands a year. Then they thought they would
like to go home. Two are Swedes and one Nor
wegian. I wish I could claim them as feUow-
countrymen. So they looked about for a buyer,
and the last I heard was that a syndicate had an
option on the property for £51,000.
In another district a prospector sold a " find," a
claim where he had struck gold-bearing ore, for
£100. The two men who bought it have taken out
in six years a quarter of a railhon pounds' worth of
gold, and recently turned the mine into a company,
receiving for their interest in it £300,000. That
particular mine may still be valuable, though
shrewd observers permit themselves to wonder why
the owners sold it. But over-capitalisation is a
danger to be watched. In 1905 there was a boom ;
the inflation was kept up too Jong, the bubble
burst ; there was a dismal reaction. There is a
risk of that happening again. When one hears of
a property being bought for £100,000, and being 231

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
floated, after £30,000 had been spent on it, with a
capital of £500,000, one fears the worst. How
ever, that flotation did not succeed. Too many
dishonest companies have succeeded, however, in
deluding the foolish investor and giving Rhodesia
a bad financial name.
From Sahsbury I motored out one day to a
group of mines about twenty-five miles away.
Motoring across the veld is a strange pastime. The
passengers do not exactly sit in the car. They
spend most of their time in the air. What puzzled
me was why we always fell back into our seats.
You feel like a ball which is being used for cup-
and-ball by a very expert player. I have voyaged
in an airship and weathered a pretty stiff wind. 1
have flown in an aeroplane. But for a mode of
traveUing which keeps " the bright face of danger "
in full view all the time, commend me to motoring
in Rhodesia.
As soon as you get beyond the suburbs, there is
nothing which you could call a " road." Every now
and then even the track vanishes, and you plough
through deep sand or cannon off" rocky boulders.
Then you find the spoor of other cars, and soon
you are tearing along a narrow path with not a
spare yard on either hand; or whizzing down a
breakneck hill where you feel sure no brake on earth
would act if for any reason you wanted to ease up.
Fortunately you do not want. That the motor
has speeded up the advance of Rhodesia is beyond
232

SALISBURY
doubt. With a moderately good car a man can do
as much in one day as he could with mules in seven.
So a little discomfort, a little risk (more apparent
than real) are amply rewarded.
It was magnificent country we drove through :
rich glens among wooded hills, dotted with farm
steads ; views opening out of fine granite ranges
in the far distance. We stopped in a flat valley at
the Jesuit mission named Chishawasha, and were
most kindly entertained by some of the fathers.
These industrious priests have shown what this
country may become if it is intelligently cultivated.
They raise their own crops, they eat the fruit of
their flourishing orchards, they drink wine from
their own vineyard. And they assured me that
they made their lands pay. An amazing and most
encouraging sight is this green abundance in the
midst of bare veld. But it does not stand by any
means alone. Round about Salisbury is grand
farming country. Mr. Newton, the Government
Treasurer, has a flourishing tobacco plantation and
stock-breeding establishment about twenty miles
out. Borrowdale is a famous farm not so far off" —
famous both for its lessons in agriculture and for
the charming hospitality dispensed there by Mrs.
Dobbin (" Gertrude Page "), whose picturesque
novels have helped to make Rhodesia known to
people at home. Developed farms within ten miles
of the town cannot be bought for less than £4000,
and run up to as much as £10,000. 233

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
The Chishawasha fathers teach the natives to
work, but do not press the civilising process too
hard. The Roman Catholic missions, by the way,
seem the only ones which understand how to keep
the native in his place. The more evangelical they
are, the farther do they carry the "man and brother"
idea, and when the black man is once convinced that
he is the white man's equal, he becomes either a
dangerous nuisance or a canting pietist.
They appeared to be perfectly happy in their
labours, these clever Jesuits, some of them scholars
of the front rank. I never understood the sig
nificance of that phrase, " the peace of God which
passeth all understanding" until I grew famihar
with the steady glance and calm, peaceful faces of
regulars and nuns. Their secret is, in truth, beyond
our understanding. We can only guess at their
Vision Splendid, and maybe envy them their
Certainty Divine.
We came upon the Enterprise group of mines
suddenly, turning a corner round a rocky shoulder
and having the gear of pit-heads in view. From a
little eminence we climbed we could see twelve
mines, several of them familiar from the Stock
Exchange quotations. And there were others
hidden in the folds and hollows of the hills. Most
of them were being "developed," that is, a big
company had bought them from smaU men and was
testing, experimenting, and installing new plant.
An engineer took us round, showed us the tidy
234

SALISBURY
native compound, had some gold " panned " for us,
and gave us tea, made and served by a solemn black
butler about twelve years old, in his wattle-and-
daub hut. Panning is the process of sieving the
gold-bearing earth with water until the bright
grains show through and enable the stuff" to be
valued. The natives are well looked after. The
Government — that is, the Chartered Company —
sees to that; keeps inspectors going round to
enforce regulations. There were married quarters
here, which is not common. On eighteenpence a
day, the black miner's wage, a couple of wives
can be supported in luxury it seems.
Scarcity of native labour, however, still heavily
handicaps Rhodesian mining, and tobacco planting,
too. A tax has been put upon the black fellows,
and they go to work just long enough to earn it.
But as many can earn £3 a month, they do not
work long. A sensible proposal to engage them
only for periods of six months has some chance of
being adopted; that would improve the situation
a little. The mines would gladly employ white
miners if they could afford it (and if white men
would engage in such deadly monotonous toil).
But that is out of the question. In Salisbury a
white bricklayer gets 27s. 6d. a day, and is already
demanding 30s. ; a plasterer draws £8 a week and
wants £9. White drillers in the mines would
expect at least eight times as much as the black
ones. At that rate the richest properties would 235

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
pay away all their gold in wages ; the others would
have to shut down.
Driving back we saw many little tin plates in
the grass marking prospectors' claims. We saw
trenches, too, dug by the adventurers who come
and smell out the precious soil. Not often do they
share in the riches which it eventually yields up.
Prospecting is not a business, but an art. It is
loved and practised for its own sake. The " finds "
that might make the adventurer rich, if he handled
them as a business man would, are sold for a few
pounds. Then the prospector moves on and plies
his lonely calling still further from the busy haunts
of men. They are a silent race, with eyes that seem
to look beyond the small concerns of ordinary life.
A few years ago on a train running to Cape
Town a man sat in his shirt at table in the dining-
car. The conductor asked him politely to put his
coat on ; reminded him of the presence of ladies.
The man said he was very sorry, but he had not
got a coat. He had not worn such a thing for
seventeen years. That was the true prospector
type. Habits have changed a little : civihsation
makes a more insistent claim. But the men who
go on ahead to tell the smart mining engineers
and the big financial houses where to find more
gold are stUl, and always will be, apart from other
men. They live very close to Nature. They have
something of her shy charm clinging about them,
something of her simplicity, and she teaches them
236

SALISBURY
something of her magic so that they may find what
they go forth to seek.
Before we got back to Salisbury we passed the
"outspan" or common which lies a little way
outside the town, open to all trekkers for pastur
age and a night's halt. Coming to it we noticed
several " Outspanners will be prosecuted " boards.
Such things remind one that, spite of railways and
newspapers and skating-rinks and picture theatres
(both these forms of amusement abound), Africa is
stUl a healthily primitive land where a great number
of people, when they have occasion to travel, simply
hitch their mules or oxen to their waggon and start
off across country, sleeping under the stars and
pasturing their animals as they go. That is the
call which takes men — and women, too — back to
Africa again and again. The meal at sundown,
the gossip over the camp-fire, the last sleepy glance
at the blue immensity of space powdered by dia
monds : then the awaking in the clear sweet air,
the start at sunrise after fragrant coffee, the fresh
ness and the vastness and the fitness — how can we
endure the fetid squalor of a city, letting its weari
some turmoil deafen us to the Call of the Veld ?
After the veld, even Salisbury seems at first
sight rather sordid, untidy. The buildings and
houses look as if they had beeij shaken out of a
pepper-castor. But that is only because the plan
on which the town is laid out remains as yet
incomplete. A " street " may consist of one house, 237

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
or of two houses and a shop with gaps of fifty
yards or so between them. It is a place of big
ideas ; it is thinking ahead. But already the
vacant stands are being quickly let. In one
month alone (September 1910) plans were passed
for twenty new buildings, which were to cost
£10,840. In the main street, Manica Road they
caU it, there are some capital shops which supply
all ordinary needs at surprisingly moderate prices.
There are also many offices. Nearly aU the
buildings are of one storey. Many of them are
tin structures ; most are brick and tin. But more
imposing blocks are springing up; one which
contains both offices and chambers would not be
out of place in any large town.
In the centre a marsh, which used to divide
Salisbury into two parts, has been filled up. The
fine avenue made larger has been named Kingsway,
and will do credit to its sponsor in a very little
while. This business part of the place has a busthng,
prosperous air. Every one seems to have business
worth attending to, and to be devoting his whole
energy to it. There are no loafers. Nearly every
one goes about his business on a bicycle. The wide
sunny roads are full of them, in spite of the red
dust. I shall never forget the hundreds of machines
leaning against the fence of the polo ground on the
day of the gymkhana in honour of the Duke and
Duchess of Connaught. Nobody should go to
Rhodesia without a bicycle. They can be used
238

SALISBURY
even in the bush. There may be no roads through
it, but there are always Kaffir paths, along which
the natives walk in single file (a habit they keej
up even on ordinary roads with amusing effect).
These are hard enough to cycle on, and one can
ride fairly quickly, so long as one looks out for the
stumps of trees which occasionally stand on the
path. But, though the town is busy and interesting, it
is the outskirts of Salisbury which leave the deeper
impression. I think of cool verandahs, dim even in
the glare of noon. I think of gardens gay with
bougainvUlseas and purple clematis; green with
leaves and shady trees ; sweet-scented ; and promis
ing rich crops of peaches, plums, and pears from their
orchard closes. The houses are so embowered that
they can scarcely be seen from the broad roads,
along which you may see a motor- van pass, deliver
ing parcels from the stores 1 It is a charming
society that these villa-dwellers compose — official
mainly, but not in our sense of the word. The
Rhodesian official is like the English in culture, in
his pleasant quiet manners ; but more like the
Canadian or American in his cheery desire to help
rather than hinder, his enthusiasm for his country,
his certainty that it wiU go ahead.
There is naturally a racecourse^and in the town
I saw the offices of several " Turf accountants,"
those pests of decent sport. But it is for the racing,
not for betting, that most people go. There is a
239

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
pack of foxhounds which hunts the jackal on
the encircling hills. The biggest of these hills is
The Kopje, whose wooded summit dominates the
town and whose shady paths are much in favour
for early-morning rides. I was shaken out of
delicious sleep at half-past four o'clock one morning
to go to a " meet." At five sharp the master in
pink trotted off, and a field of about twenty followed
him. There was very little scent that day ; it was
too hot, too late in the year. But they do get
good runs in the proper season.
Behind the polo ground is the Games Club with
anumber of tennis-courts — earth, of course ; croquet
lawns ; bowling aUeys ; a golf-links ; and a com
fortable clubhouse, I thought it pathetic that I
was shown here a patch of " English grass " with
clover in it, religiously watered, and watched over
like the vestals' flame. Yet the very Rhodesians
who sigh as they pass that little grass patch spend
their time in England longing for the sunshine and
the spaciousness of their adoptive home. What if
the black-and-white crows do pilfer the golf-balls ?
What if there is red dust ? What though you may
tread on a cobra or a black momba in your garden
and die within the hour ? The climate and the
exhilaration and the free vivid life far more than
compensate for the drawbacks. And every year
the drawbacks grow fewer : snakes are exterminated ;
roads are made firm. Whereas the advantages
remain the same,
240

CHAPTER XXII
THE VICTORIA FALLS
The Leeambije ! Nobody knows
Whence it comes and whither it goes.
Old native canoe-song about the
Zambesi (also called Leeambije)
Some day there wiU be a railway from Salisbury
across to the Victoria Falls. (Salisbury, the Falls,
and Bulawayo are the points of an almost equi
lateral triangle,) But at present Bulawayo is the
connecting-link between the other two ; instead of
350 miles you have to travel nearly 600, You
must go along two sides of the triangle instead
of one.
As you journey north-west from Bulawayo the
scenery soon begins to look more tropical. Of
course, all Rhodesia lies within the Tropics, but
there are many regions so high that no one would
guess it. On the Zambesi the latitude " talks."
Long before the Zambesi is reached even, the
red-leaved fever trees, the wild* orange trees,
the brilhant butterflies, the strange insects, and
the heavy atmosphere all help to tell you that you
have left the temperate clime of Southern Rhodesia.
Q 241

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
Running across the edge of the Kalahari Desert,
you are lucky if you have a rain-storm. Rain is
most uncertain here. When it does come, it is as
likely as not to wash a bit of the line away. But
even if it did that, you would escape the dust and
the sweltering heat of the sun beating down upon
the dead flat of the sandy waste. After rain there
is plenty of grass and plenty of bush. This desert
is not like a North African desert. The prevaUing
colour is not brown but green, and you have the
song of birds.
Big game is often seen on or near the line after
the Kalahari has been crossed. At one station
they show the skull and bones of an elephant which
held up a train for five hours. The evening I
went up several giraffes had been seen on the
metals near this station. We kept a sharp look
out for them, but saw no trace. It was regular
elephant-bush country, covered with big, thick
trees; we might even have started a lion. But
there was no game to be seen at all. We could
only watch the blue-wooded distance, and think
how like it was to the stretch of Surrey which is
viewed from Hindhead, As we drew nearer to
the Zambesi Valley the leafage became even more
luxuriant. Some trees wore still their winter suits
of brown, but most were arrayed in a vivid
feathery green.
About half-way from Bulawayo to the Falls
comes Wankies where there is an output of
242

¦I'lIK "SMdKE TIIA']' SdL'XDS

[VICTdRIA F.U.T.S]

THE VICTORIA FALLS
500 tons of coal a day. There are 500 "boys "
employed in the mines, and a population of some
seventy whites. It is a bad place for fever, but
that wUl be remedied when the mosquito has been
banished. StiU, I doubt whether Wankies will
ever beUe its name so far as to be a pleasant place
to live. It must be content (like, shall we say,
Wigan?) with its prosperity. Two trains laden
with coal leave it every day. The coal is used by
the railway engines instead of Welsh, and fetches
13s. 6d. a ton, unless it has already come down to
12s. 6d.
Long before the Falls are reached every one is on
the platforms at the ends of the coaches looking
out for the first signs of the " Smoke that Sounds."
That was the native name for this world's wonder.
The Arabs called it more imaginatively, " the end
of the world." When a great river suddenly pours
over a four-hundred-feet-deep precipice and dis
appears in a four-hundred-feet- deep gorge, it might
weU be faUing over the edge of the earth into the
immensity of unoccupied space.
These were the only names the Falls had until
Dr. Livingstone came upon them in 1855, He
was the first white man who had ever seen them.
Only fifty-five years ago I Now tourists with
special cheap tickets go to see them in comfortable
trains with sleeping-berths and restaurant-cars. A
weU-appointed hotel receives them at their journey's
end. Yet so weU are the Falls guarded that there 243

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
are no unpleasant frippery associations to jar one's
sense of fitness. Niagara is made partly a show,
partly an industrial machine. The Victoria Falls
have been left a marvel of Nature.
" There," cries some one who has been to the
Falls before, " see those three columns of spray."
Sure enough, the sun is glistening on three tall
clouds of vaporous water in particles. By this
time the train is winding along the edge of the
Zambesi Valley, and we look down into a vast cup
of green. Far away below that greenery flows the
river in its deep canyon, of which now and then
we can see the banks four hundred feet high.
Once we catch a glimpse of a shining sheet of
water. The white smoke-like pillar appears and
disappears according to the strength of the puff's
of wind. Now we are on the bridge over the
gorge. There are the Falls right opposite — part
of them, at any rate. We have arrived.
From the bridge we look down and see far
below a racing stream penned in a narrow channel.
Looking ahead we almost face the Falls. In the
winter there is so vast a volume of water that little
can be seen but clouds of spray. In summer the
view is really more perfect, for it aUows the
spectator to appreciate the exquisite beauty of
the scene. One's first impression is of its quite
untropical character. Only in the Palm Grove,
through which a steep path leads down to the
Boiling Pot of water struggling to escape by the
244

THE VICTORIA FALLS
narrow channel, and in the Rain Forest, which lies
opposite the Falls some little way to the left of the
bridge, and which is always wet with showers of
spray, does one realise how near one is to the
Equator. The green tops of the forest which
show all around might be in Europe. There are
no garish or violent effects, as there usuaUy are
in a tropical landscape. All is quiet in tone,
harmonious, charming. From the Palm Grove —
but before it is described in any detail, I must try
to give some idea of the general plan.
The Zambesi at this point is nearly a mile wide,
a quiet, pleasant river, with low banks which in
places might be the banks of the Thames. It flows
gently, peacefully, with a tragic unconsciousness
of the destiny that lies in wait for it. Gliding
past wooded islets, it finds itself suddenly among
smooth rounded rocks. StiU it moves onward
among these, stately to the last. Then, of a
sudden, the precipice yawns before it — a precipice
extending along the whole of its width, a chasm
four hundred feet deep. The river plunges over
the edge. Instantly its waters become a faUing
mass of foam.
As soon as it reaches the bottom of the chasm,
the foam becomes water once more. But it is no
longer the quiet, peaceful stream it was above.
It struggles madly to free itself. It rages and
surges to find a way out. There is only one
way. All the water which falls over that mile of
245

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
precipice must pass through the narrow channel
which leads out of the chasm about a third of a
mile from the right-hand end. It is over this
channel or gorge that the railway bridge passes.
The sides of the gorge are the same height as the
chasm itself, four hundred feet. It zigzags away
to the south, and at the bottom rushes the river,
now savage and strenuous, fighting for its life
between the rocky waUs, swirhng with terrific force
and sweeping everything before it.
Many images occur to the imagination, stimu
lated by this astonishing freak of Nature. The
most apt, I think, is that which compares the river
to a man leading an affluent, easy, untroubled life,
who is suddenly by harsh circumstances compeUed
to fling himself into the arena of fierce competi
tion and to struggle for his very existence. His
character is entirely changed. He loses his gentle
manners. He jostles and elbows and pushes. Only
by violent energy and brute force can he make his
way. How the chasm and the gorge were formed —
huge cracks in the earth-crust — it is very hard even
to guess. It looks as if some Titan's children had
been playing here in the world's youth, and had
made them with their spades, as chUdren to-day
make castles and moats and rivers on the sea-shore.
The roar and crash of the falling water are
tremendous, even when the river is at its summer
level. Naturally one tries to compare it with
246

THE VICTORIA FALLS
Niagara. But there is really no comparison to be
made. Each is magnificent in its different way.
In size the Victoria Falls are far greater. Niagara
is only half as wide and not nearly half as high-
The exact figures are : HEIGHT WIDTH
Victoria Falls 420 ft. One mile
Niagara 158 ft. Half a mile
Visitors to the Victoria FaUs in the dry season are
often annoyed at not finding what they imagined
they would find. Mr. Lemieux, the Canadian Post
master-general, for instance, was at first inchned
to be disappointed. I met him just after he had
arrived, and he was surprised at there being "so little
water " ; he had expected an immense mass, as at
Niagara. But before he left he was fuU of enthu
siasm for the beauty and variety of the Victoria
Falls. Niagara one can see in an afternoon and go
away wilhngly by the evening train. I have never
known any one who had visited the Victoria Falls
not regret, however long he had stayed, that he
was not able to stay longer. A week is the shortest
time that should be aUowed for them ; and that
week should be one in which the moon is at the
full. For marvellous as the Falls are in stinshine,
they are even more wonderful by moonlight.
For my own part I would ra1;^er see them when
there is not the full volume of water coming over.
The veils of dropping foam which make the chasm
fairy-like in summer are infinitely more beautiful 247

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
than the thunderous solid cascade of the fuller
season. The latter is merely large, the former are
lovely. In winter there is little variety. In sum
mer you can walk to a hundred different points of
vantage and get a fresh view from each. To decide
which is the finest when all are so fine is impossible.
But the most perfectly complete feature of the
spectacle is the Devil's Cararact, a torrent of
terrific swiftness which rushes down a sloping bed
at the extreme left of the Falls (looking at them
from the opposite bank).
Almost all along this opposite bank you can walk
or clamber, now lying down to peer over, now
watching the rainbow effects of sun and spray,
steeping your vision in the different aspects of the
Falls until your mind positively aches with the
grandeur. For rest and refreshment you have then
to concentrate attention upon some one little point
of beauty, after which you can make another effort
to appreciate the marvel as a whole.
Looking along the chasm from the left end, near
the Devil's Cataract, you get glorious kaleidoscopic
effects of changing colour. The space between
the towering cliffs of rock is filled with fine spray.
At one moment the clouds of moisture are white,
the next blue, the next yellow, as the wind blows
them about and as sun and shade influence them
by turns. Now the breeze, for an instant, clears
all the clouds away. You have tantalising glimpses
of falling water, white and exquisite, like rockets
248

THE VICTORIA FALLS
shooting downwards into the abyss. But the
instant is over already, and the spray bursts forth
again, like steam from some giant's cauldron, or
fumes from the very mouth of Hell.
Then cross over to Cataract Island, which lies
on the edge of the precipice with the Devil's
Cataract swirling round it. Now you see the
back of the chasm where you have been standing
and walking. Its red earth and green turf remind
you of Devonshire. A little lower down, where
no sun falls, there is a sudden transition to Dante !
Huge gloomy rocks and changing shapes of mist
recaU scenes in the Inferno. You shiver and turn
away, eager for the sunshine again. You are still
a little chilly perhaps from your wetting in the
Rain Forest, The best costume for this experience
is pyjamas with a mackintosh over them. Parties
from the hotel go through the forest in this airy
kit before breakfast and before they have dressed
for the day. If you go in ordinary clothes you
must have a waterproof coat and an umbrella or
you soon get wet through. Naturally there is
deliciously green and luxuriant vegetation in a
wood where it is always raining, or, to be accu
rate, where the spray from the Falls is always
faUing. Great ferns stretch out their fronds across
the pathway, mosses grow "wdth unimaginable
vigour, big coloured fungi lend a touch of dream
like unreality to the scene.
If you are fortunate enough to be the guest of
249

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
the Administrator of North- Western Rhodesia,
whose residence is at the town of Livingstone
seven miles away, you will, when you have visited
Cataract Island, be paddled away up river above
the Falls by vigorous natives in comfortable canoes
of the Canadian pattern. The natives wear a
kind of Jack-Tar uniform of white with broad
blue sailor coUar and sailor hat. Very smart
and trim they look. Perhaps you will land at a
boat-house whence a driving road and a private
line of railway run to Livingstone. Or you may
go stiU farther up the broad stream, whose banks
are now palm-fringed, to an island where picnics
are a popular form of excursion for the Livingstone
people. They take their chance of being inter
rupted at tea or lunch by the appearance of a
hippopotamus. These beasts abound in the Zam
besi. It is nothing out of the common to see
their heads bobbing in the water. In the summer
of 1910 a boat was upset by one, and a man and
a woman were drowned.
For the entertainment and instruction of the
Duke and Duchess of Connaught a party of
natives gave a realistic performance (which we
watched from this picnic-island) showing how they
hunt and spear the hippo. A bale of straw repre
sented the dreaded river-horse. In three dug-out
canoes, which looked as if they must turn over,
but were most skilfully handled by the crew of
paddlers, the hunters crouched, holding their long
250

THE VICTORIA FALLS
spears in readiness to fling. Entering into the
spirit of the drama with childlike intensity, they
drew gradually nearer to their prey. As soon as
they came within range, they hurled their spears
with aU the force of their brown quivering
frames. The hippo was done for. Now it only
remained to tow his body home, which they did
with songs of triumph, accompanied by the tom
tom and a very primitive piano, played with little
hammers by a Barotse Leonard Borwick, who
squatted on his haunches in the stern.
There are many crocodiles in the Zambesi also.
On the very day I arrived a native boy from a
riverside viUage was seized by one, as he bent to
fUl a crock with water, and almost pulled under.
He was saved just in time by some fellow-villagers,
but in the tug-of-war he suffered severely and lay
in the Livingstone Hospital (a marvel of cool
airiness and orderly equipment) for I know not
how long.

251

CHAPTER XXIII
TROPICAL RHODESIA
When another morning breaks
And the whispering veld awakes.
And I rise to take the burden of the day ;
While all silently I ride
With my comrades by my side,
I can hear the well-known voices far away.
It's in England that they are,
And it's England that's so far.
Oh, so many, many weary miles away ;
I can hear them call to me,
" Come, oh come across the sea,"
I can hear them calling, calling night and day.
M. E. Greville
It was the evening of a hot day in Northern
Rhodesia. For hours the train had been plough
ing along through a sandy country, well wooded
and growing a coarse grass, but interminably the
same. Just about sundown we had a welcome
stop, " Twenty minutes for water." We got out
and stretched our weary frames, snuffing up the
clean, fresh evening air.
Close by the line was a native village. The
inhabitants had turned out in force. The young
252

TROPICAL RHODESIA
bloods swaggered around. One wore a costume
which can only be described as bathing-drawers ;
that was all. But he carried a walking-stick with
quite a Bond Street grace. They were Matabele,
whose usual costume is a short cotton kilt with a
low-necked vest, or perhaps an old European jacket.
Up and down the train went an old blind man,
led by a naked boy, rattling a shell for alms.
Though the skirts of civilisation brushed so closely
past them four times a week (two up trains and
two down), these natives were little removed from
the primitive state in which they have lived for
thousands of years. Their dwellings are bee-hive-
shaped huts, in which they curl themselves up and
sleep on the ground. Their possessions are a few
pots, a store of meahes (maize), possibly a few roUs
of gaudUy printed cahco. Their women cultivate
a little patch of soil. They hve sparingly on
" mealie pap," a kind of porridge ; a few infrequent
vegetables ; and meat occasionally when hunting
is good. They miss the fighting of the times
before the Chartered Company came, when they
harried the hapless Mashonas, slitting the throats
of hundreds of these gentler creatures and carrying
their young women away. Yes, that they think
of wistfully. But otherwise they are contented.
The sun warms them. They take no thought for
the morrow. They are easy in their minds.
Next day we were in Livingstone, the little
town built in a forest clearing near the Victoria 253

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
Falls. Here we could see the first doubtful steps
which the native is being made to take towards
civilisation. Up there in North-western and
North-eastern Rhodesia, where the whites are a
few hundred against the natives' hundreds of
thousands, the black problem can be studied in
its very early stage. One's first feeling is of
amazement at what white teaching has done.
Outside Government House, during dinner on
the verandah, a band was playing popular tunes.
All the members of that band are natives, taught
by ear. Two years ago most of them were running
wild in the bush. To hear them play " I love a
lassie " you would suppose J;hey had been at it all
their lives. They are the band of the Barotse
Native Police, whose bugles ring out pleasantly
through the steamy early-morning atmosphere and
the velvety tropical darkness. On parade they are
a joy to behold. In loose khaki knickerbockers
and tunics, topped by tarbushes of the same, they
go through their drUl with vibrant energy. When
they mark time their bare black knees reach almost
to their chins. They salute smartly. They obey
their Enghsh words of command with instan
taneous precision. A number of them can use
the heliograph ; take off" a message correctly with
out knowing a word of the language.
Wherever we are training black troops, we are
making a good job of it, and giving natives an
education which is well suited to their state of
254

TROPICAL RHODESIA
mind. But this is not all that Livingstone does.
There are native typists and telegraphists who get
thirty shillings a week. There are skiUed black
electricians. There are post-runners, in tunics and
" shorts " of red, who carry letters to the furthest
outposts of the white race with the same punctual
regularity as the mail train from the Cape. I
know men far away in the wilds whose letters are
carried by these red runners, and who reckon with
confidence, scarcely ever misplaced, upon getting
them at the same time every week. If the post
is late, they complain, just as if their letters were
delivered from round the corner instead of from a
place hundreds of miles away. Once lions " treed "
his Majesty's mails for Fort Jameson (which is
fifteen days north of Livingstone). The grass was
set on fire to scare the beasts away, but they were
hungry and kept up the chase. The bags had to
be dropped. Some were burnt. Upon others the
lions tried their teeth before they went disappointed
away. In a country where hons eat your letters,
elephants hold up trains, and giraffes carry away
telegraph wires, a regular service of communication
has been a little difficult to keep up.
Then, of course, there are the native servants in
Livingstone. Throughout Rhodesia " boys " do
everything. They are butlern, valets, cooks,
housemaids, parlourmaids. My particular "boy"
was called Pungolani. He wore a white garment
exactly like " the old-fashioned night-gown," with 255

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
a clergyman's collar and a little round cap. As he
moved about my room on his bare feet he was
noiseless. I found it rather creepy. Other things
were creepy in my room though, including a black
animal seven inches long, which I found crawling
about on a very large number of legs one morning
just before I had my bath. It was harmless, I
found out afterwards, but it made me careful not
to put a foot to the ground without a shoe on it.
These native servants live in their employers'
gardens, like the "compound" system in India.
It was odd, after I had pleased a number of
residents one evening by saying I thought Living
stone was very British, to walk across the garden
to my quarters and pass a group of natives, almost
naked, squatting round a fire with a pot on it just
as if they were in the village where the train stopped
on the evening of that hot day,
Livingstone is from one point of view the most
interesting town in Rhodesia, It is an exotic,
Bulawayo and Salisbury seem natural, Livingstone
seems forced. It has most of those condiments
which lend a subtle flavour to civilised existence —
electric light, for instance, the telephone, an ice
factory, a soda-water plant. There is an exceedingly
pleasant club, an admirably equipped hospital,
a cathedral on the stocks. There are roads of good
brick houses, with wide, shady verandahs and
plenty of ground about them. In each house you
know there are dainty rooms looking like England ;
256

TROPICAL RHODESIA
solid comfort, books and pictures to give evidence
of well-cultivated minds. At dinner, when the
lamps discreetly conceal so much ; when the glass
and silver glitter on the polished table with its lace
mats ; when the talk of women in pretty frocks
and of men in dinner-jackets is about theatre-going
in London, fishing in Scotland, hunting in Leicester
shire, shopping in Paris — you suddenly recoUect
with a start where you are — in a community of
three hundred white people among a population
of three hundred thousand blacks.
It is only the visitor who can ever forget it.
Those who live there have it impressed upon them
every moment of the day. For example, I just
now mentioned that a cathedral is being built at
Livingstone, an Anglican cathedral to which King
George has subscribed. When I was there a
" native question " had arisen over this even. The
Bishop of Northern Rhodesia, Dr. Hine, is really
more interested in the black people than the white.
He walks about all over the country, unarmed
and with only black " boys " to " carry " for him.
He speaks many languages, and always gets on
exceedingly well with the natives. His mind is a
storehouse of fascinating information about them.
He contends that the cathedral must be for both
races. The committee which has collected the
building fund takes the view that, as the natives
have a church of their own, the cathedral should
only be used by white people. They base their
R 257

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
objection to the other course on "hygiene and
policy." The Bishop did not propose that both
should worship together, but only that the cathedral
should be sometimes open for native services. The
committee contended that even this would be both
unpleasant and unwise. Unwise, because it is
dangerous to let the natives imagine they are " as
good as the white people." If they once got that
idea firmly into their heads, the white people would
soon be driven out.
So difficult did this disagreement become that
the Bishop refused to consecrate the cathedral
unless he was advised to do so by the Archbishop
either of Canterbury or Cape Town. In that event
he would obey the monition, but would afterwards
pack up his traps and go. People in England hear
of an Anglican cathedral being buUt, and think of
its being filled every Sunday by the same sort of
worshippers as they are themselves, all in their best
clothes. The idea of any one — most of all a bishop
— proposing to fill it with woolly-heads in blankets
fills them with dismay.
The same contrast between appearance and reality
is presented by the very landscape of the place.
As the train approaches Livingstone it might be
running through Richmond Park. An Old Etonian
compared the Parade Ground to the famous
playing-fields by the side of the Thames. From
the high part of the town there are glorious views
which suggest memories of the New Forest. Yet
258

M^^f ^

ll*

'/.

f

THK RAW JIATKRIAL

TIIK FINISIIFIl I'lldlll rr

TROPICAL RHODESIA
the hand of Africa is heavy upon you. You
cannot cast it off". You know that those boundless
stretches of forest, which your eye follows as far as
the horizon, are not friendly, warm with human
associations. There is a cruel hardness in the glare
of sunshine, a threatening, exasperating discomfort
in the gathering of clouds before rain. Dawn is
not cool and pearly. Evening brings no freshness.
After sundown it is more instead of less oppressive,
for the breeze drops and the baked earth gives off
a sweltering heat. Winter does bring relief at
nights, but in summer it is a bad climate for
whites. " The future of Northern Rhodesia depends on
quinine," a witty Irish doctor told me. Every
evening before dinner the Livingstone people take
their five grains or more, and when you have
wakened up half a dozen times through the night
to hear the mosquito " wind his small but suUen
horn," you are glad to join them.
Malaria is happUy being met and fought with
outright ; in time it will disappear from Living
stone, as it has disappeared from Khartum. In
other ways, too, the conditions of those who exile
themselves in Northern Rhodesia are improving
every year. The railway is now extended beyond
the Congo Border. Long journteys for women in
" machillas " (carrying hammocks) or in carts are
not so frequent as they were. When we think of
the pioneers of Empire we have visions of men, 259

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
axe in hand, clearing the forest, or ploughing the
prairie, or digging the prospector's trench. Few
of us think of the women pioneers, the wives who
follow their husbands into the great silence of the
wilderness, the sisters who go out to make homes
for brothers at the back of beyond. Gently
nurtured, with no experience of roughing it, these
are the Colonists who bear the full brunt of hard
ship in a " new country. " The journeys in Northern
Rhodesia used to be terribly hard upon them.
There was a river voyage in abominable httle
steamboats. I know of a man whose lips sweUed
so that his appearance was completely changed.
I know a woman whose two-year-old baby ate
nothing for several days on this dreadful trip, but
cried incessantly for water, of which there was a
limited supply.
It is not many years either since awful stories of
massacre filtered up from the south, ffiling every
woman's heart with shuddering terror. Happily,
the relations between whites and blacks are excellent
now aU over Rhodesia. In the north the manage
ment of native questions is very skilful and wise.
The Belgians in the Congo State watch it with
despairing admiration. Not long ago it was decided,
as a move in the warfare against sleeping sickness,
to shift some villages (where 14,000 people lived)
several mUes back from the bank of the river which
divides British and Belgian territory. The British
authorities asked the Belgians if they would take
260

TROPICAL RHODESIA
precautions against any of the natives getting
across the river. They promised, but they
laughed at the idea of carrying such an operation
through. To their great surprise, it was done with
complete success. The Belgians have difficulty
already in getting labour. Probably when the
copper region about Katanga is developed it will
depend almost entirely upon Rhodesia for food.
In nothing is the difference between the two
administrations — between the two nationalities,
indeed — more strikingly displayed than in their
medical services.
The Belgians have chiefly Italian, Spanish, or
Portuguese doctors ; their own are too comfortable
at home. Very few of these doctors can help in
the fight with sleeping sickness. Very few of them
are skilled in microscopic work, which is essential.
In Rhodesia, on the other hand, the medical staff
is everywhere fully adequate, and in many places
includes brilliant men. There is one in Living
stone who spends six months each year walking
thousands of miles by himself (with "boys," of
course, as carriers) to organise the campaign against
tropical diseases.
What will be the future of this vast spread of
territory ? Southern Rhodesia is a white man's
country, a land where splendid harvests await
settlers with a little money and a lot of pluck.
But Northern Rhodesia — will that ever be the
same, or will it be a planter's, miner's country, 261

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
where whites direct and natives do the work ? The
difficulty at present is to induce the latter to bestir
themselves. The Barotses are a proud, independent
race. They have an interesting civilisation of their
own, based largely upon their keen sense of dramatic
effect. For example, their Chief Justice> when he
had tried a man, used not to deliver sentence in set
form. If he considered the prisoner guilty, he
would thoughtfuUy take snuff", and the convict was
hurried away. When the Chief Justice decided to
let the accused man off, he rose, stretched himself,
and walked out of court, lightly touching him on
the shoulder as he left. Then the prisoner went
free. Lewanika, the Barotse chief, has been in Eng
land. When I asked him through an interpreter
what had struck him most, he thought for a few
moments and replied, " Everything." There is an
amusing story told about his visit to Queen
Victoria. He had been told by people of the
class called in Africa " negrophilists " that he ought
not to prostrate himself. He therefore entered
her Majesty's presence on his feet. She looked at
him and said nothing, but just made a little
imperious motion with one hand. Instantly he
dropped down on all fours. His respect for her
after that was enormous. Lewanika's official
uniform, designed by Mr. William Whiteley, is
a dazzling confection of gold lace. The poor old
man looks most uncomfortable in it, A grey suit
262

TROPICAL RHODESIA
made in the style which fashion-plates describe as
" D.B. frock " suits him better, and he wears a
grey top-hat with a rakish air. But he looks his
best, of course, in native dress.
He has a sister who weighs twenty-four stone
and sends regularly to Paris for her hats, which,
I am told, she usually wears back foremost. An
official sent her not long ago an elaborate gown
from the Rue de la Paix. He heard nothing from
her, so he asked if she liked it. " I thank you,"
she answered, " but not much," He made further
inquiry and discovered that the dress was not con
sidered lucky. It was red, and once a native in
a red blanket had been struck by lightning. The
colour had been feared ever since !
Though it spoils the picturesqueness of the
natives, their fancy for European clothes is a good
thing. It gives them a desire for money and
induces them to go to work. If we are to do'
anything with Rhodesia we must get them to
work somehow. All the better if they wiU do it
of their own free will.

263

CHAPTER XXIV
THE DUKE OF CONNAUGHT'S TOUR
. . . the Crown which is not only the symbol,
but the real bond of unity in the greatest Empire
the world has ever seen. The Hon. Rodolphe
Lemieux, Canadian Postmaster-General
When it was decided, after the death of King
Edward, that the Duke of Connaught should go
to South Africa for the opening of the first Union
Parliament, there was some feeling of disappoint
ment. Very little was known of King Edward's
only surviving brother, except as a soldier. He
was, so to speak, an uncertain quantity. But from
the day of his landing at Cape Town the feeling
of disappointment was changed to one of delight.
Everywhere he went he turned what might have
been a mere formal series of receptions and cere
monies into a triumphal progress.
It was certain, of course, that he would leave
behind impressions of amiability. It was certain
that he would discharge with dignity and tact the
duties of his high commission. But to say that
he had done these things, and to say no more,
would be to give an utterly misleading account
264

DUKE OF CONNAUGHT'S TOUR
of his travels. Everywhere, from first to last, he
won all hearts by his unaffected, kindly bearing,
by his obviously keen interest in all that he saw
and heard, by his frank, charming manner in
private, by the admirably sincere and manly note
which sounded in aU his public speeches.
The fact is the Duke of Connaught surprised
South Africa. I think the accounts of his progress
must have a little surprised England as well. It
was a great opportunity, the first of the kind
which has been offered to him, and he took
advantage of it to the full. Even his official
appearances would by themselves have created an
exceptionaUy pleasant impression. " He is always
so human," was the comment of an observer well
versed in royal functions. " He looks as if he
really liked laying foundation-stones." Nothing,
certainly, could be more foreign to the Duke than
that air of bored detachment which often sits
upon public men who have much less excuse than
royalties for being weary of ceremonial. He
followed all proceedings, however tedious and
protracted, with attentive eye and ear. Receiving
addresses is a deadly business. He had to listen
to dozens of them everywhere he went. Never
for a moment did he treat them as mere formalities.
He heard them and replied to .them with an
unfailing air of interest. Before reaching Durban,
after a very shaky journey through the mountains,
he was obliged to take two draughts of medicine 265

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
in succession to relieve a splitting sick headache.
Yet he went through the address-presentation
ceremony with his usual gracious charm. No one
guessed that he was not feehng perfectly weU.
One very hot morning in a small tent, half-
filled with perspiring dusky headmen, a native
interpreter read out an interminable sequence of
addresses from Bechuana chiefs. AU said the
same things in the same language. It was clear
that " some one had blundered." Every one else
either looked furious or relieved the pangs of ennui
by cavernous yawns. The Duke alone sat upright,
with a look of kindly attention on his face, listen
ing to each string of formal sentences as if it
contained matter of the most absorbing moment.
The Duke's own utterances were excellent both
in substance and in form. Never content with
saying merely what was expected of him, he
contributed many an arresting phrase, many a
suggestive idea to the common stock of South
African thought. His dehvery, too, lent an added
attraction to his speeches. He spoke always very
distinctly. His pleasant voice won over his hearers
from the start. He could give lessons in elocution
to a great many of those who pass for orators in
parhaments. At times his dramatic emphasis was
thriUing in its effect.
But, after aU, it was not by his demeanour in
pubhc that he captured the hearts of the South
African nation and of the people in Rhodesia.
266

DUKE OF CONNAUGHT'S TOUR
It was not as a prince that they loved him, but
as a man. However graciously he had comported
himself at functions, there would have been no
gatherings of farmers and miners at wayside stops.
There would have been no crowds at stations
where we halted only a few minutes (in some
cases did not halt at all). There would be no
feeling of personal affection left behind. It was
because they heard how he got out of his saloon
at every opportunity and walked up and down,
talking to any one who happened to be there, that
men drove ten, twenty, forty miles to get a sight
of and perhaps a word with him. It was because
the fame of his kindly simphcity ran before him
that whole towns flocked to the railway platforms,
and that the open receptions which he held were
so studiously attended. It was due to his cheery
interest in everything and everybody, to the
natural courtesy and friendliness of his manner,
which at once put all at ease, to the genial
humour which never failed him, that he owed
his boundless popularity and the deep regret with
which South Africans let him go.
The tour was so full of varied incidents, so rich
in human interest (which does not always go with
royal functions), that I propose to give some short
extracts from my diary of our travels. They will
help to make both South Africa and the Duke of
Connaught better understood. I begin with the
day of his arrival in the Balmoral Castle, the
267

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
splendid vessel placed at his disposal by the Union-
Castle Company and commissioned as a man-of-war
under the command of Commodore Wemyss, R.N.
Cape T own, October 31,1910. Nothing occurred
to-day to mar the brilliance of the spectacle or the
enthusiasm of the welcome. A dense sea-fog
seemed likely to cause delay, but the Balmoral
Castle arrived to time about nine o'clock, and by
the time the royal party landed the sun shone
warmly in a sky of blue flecked with clouds, which
were welcomed because they kept the air fairly cool.
The Duke and Duchess were both pleased and
touched by the warmth of the welcoming cheers.
As they drove through the crowded, decorated
streets every element of the city's strangely varied
population joined in greeting them. Passing the
railway station, the Duchess called the Duke's
attention to portraits of Cecil Rhodes and Kruger
displayed side by side. British and Dutch forgot
for the moment the racial discords which are still
sometimes a source of bitterness.
Hindus in turbans or fezes, Mohammedans and
Malay women in graceful native dress, Hottentots,
Kafirs, Chinese, Greeks, and Portuguese — aU con
tributed to the interest and picturesqueness of the
throng which lined the route many deep.
November 1. Cape Town is reveUing in the un
accustomed gaiety and movement caused by the
268

DUKE OF CONNAUGHT'S TOUR
visit of the Duke and Duchess and the approaching
opening of Parhament.
All who obtain invitations rush from one function
to another from morning till night. The streets
resound with the frequent clatter of cavalry escorts
and are brightened with the gorgeous uniforms of
staff officers.
This afternoon there took place an imposing
muster of the local forces, including the fine
regiment of the Cape Town Highlanders, who
were reviewed by the Duke of Connaught with the
Regular troops stationed here.
There was a very large and very pleasant luncheon
party of eight hundred guests at the Government
Wine Farm of Constantia, some distance out of Cape
Town. The royal party motored through beautiful
woods and stately avenues in the glory of early
summer foliage, and were full of admiration for the
charming old Dutch farmhouse, from which the
vineyards slope gently to the sea. They were also
struck by the fine bouquet of the Cape wines and
the exceUent quality of the local liqueur brandy.
Cape Town, November 4. Nothing but the
presence of King George himself could have added
any further element of dignity or picturesque
splendour to the ceremony performed to-day of
the opening of the first Parliament of the South
African Union.
No better representative of the Sovereign than 269

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
the Duke of Connaught could have been chosen,
no form of proceedings could have more fittingly
expressed the spirit and character of the new South
African nation. Never have Cape Town streets
been so crowded by visitors from all parts of the
country, and never has grey old Table Mountain
looked down upon so glittering a scene of imperial
pageantry. From an early hour the streets were lined with
soldiers, and the Navy was represented by a guard
of honour of bluejackets on the steps of the
Assembly House. The weather was perfect — hot
sun and cool air.
When the Duke drove by a circuitous route
from Government House to the Parliament Build
ings the cheering was hearty and continuous. The
royal carriage from England, with footmen behind
and outriders, and the royal arms emblazoned very
large, was greatly admired.
Inside the Assembly House there was a decorous
bustle for two hours before noon, the time fixed for
the ceremony. The galleries were almost entirely
filled with ladies in dainty summer frocks, who
overflowed on to the floor of the House. Here
the ladies occupied chairs, squeezing honourable
members against the waUs and for once vindicating
the claims of their sex to share Parliament with
men. They certainly lent charm and colour to the
scene, which was also brightened by the scarlet
uniforms, the crimson gowns of the mayors of the
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DUKE OF CONNAUGHT'S TOUR
chief towns of the four provinces, the purple robes
of the bishops, and the gold-laced coats of the
Privy Councillors.
The Chamber is both convenient and pleasant.
In appearance and form it resembles the House of
Commons, but each member is provided with a
seat and desk of his own. It is well lighted from
a glass roof panelled with finely coloured, though
unfortunately named. South African stinkwood.
The upper part is all in white, producing a dehght
ful effect of coolness even on the hottest day.
As the members took their seats it was impossible
not to marvel afresh at the miracle of conciliation
which has turned the bitter enemies of ten years
ago into feUow-citizens and friends. Here were
many who, only that short space of time ago, were
doing their utmost on the field of battle to destroy
each other, now working together full of ardour for
their common country and loyal to one Sovereign
and one flag.
As we watched the House fill, Mr. James Cald
well, the late deputy-Speaker to the House of
Commons, remarked to me upon the truly repre
sentative character of the membership. The House
is not composed of professional politicians or
doctrinaires. Nearly all the members are business
men, farmers and stock-raisers — solid, capable
workers trained in the various activities upon which
the prosperity of the country depends.
Just after twelve o'clock a burst of cheering and 271

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
the firing of a salute by a warship in the bay
announced the Duke's arrival, A sudden silence
fell, contrasting strangely with the cheerful buzz of
conversation before. Slowly and solemnly entered
the procession. Of the gorgeous uniforms, not the
least was Lord Gladstone's new costume, with
immense sUver epaulettes and the breast covered
with heavy silver cord.
Not tUl the Duke entered was the somewhat
funereal tension for a moment relaxed. His kindly
smile and gracious nods to the members who were
known to him made every one feel cheerful again.
It was noticed that both the Duchess and Princess
Patricia wore ostrich feathers in their hats. Princess
Patricia's smile wins every heart, while the Duchess's
unaffected and friendly interest in everything has
created a delightful impression.
When the Duke had taken his position in front
of the throne, with the Governor-General and Lady
Gladstone — a shm, girlish figure — on his right and
the Duchess and Princess Patricia on his left, there
was a minute's wait before the band played " God
Save the King ! "
The Duke clearly felt the greatness of the occasion.
No finer or more soldierly figure could be imagined.
He wears a field-marshal's uniform to perfection,
yet the hand which took out and adjusted his eye
glasses perceptibly shook. As soon as the National
Anthem was played he said in a voice which start-
lingly recaUed King Edward's at the annual opening
272

DUKE OF CONNAUGHT'S TOUR
of Parliament at Westminster, " Be seated, gentle
men." Then he seated himself and, wearing his
plumed head-dress, read very distinctly and with
admirable expression the gracious message from
King George.
As he spoke of the death " of my illustrious
brother" his voice quivered, but he rapidly re
gained command of it, and went on to declare the
Sovereign's regret at being unable to attend the
historic ceremony. Upon the phrase "for the
present" he seemed to lay special significance.
High hopes are awakened of a visit from King
George and Queen Mary some day to their South
African dominion. At the reference to the King's
acquaintance with the over-sea States of the Empire
there was a murmur of ready assent. The sentences
in which the war was mentioned were welcomed
as in perfect taste. The speech, in fact, made the
best impression possible, and it is the universal
opinion that neither the matter nor the manner of
its delivery could have been bettered. It was only
the sense of the decorum due to the occasion which
prevented applause, loud and long, from breaking
out at the end of the speech.
But after the King's telegram had been read by
the Duke, feeling could no longer be restrained,
and the whole assemblage gave vent to its gratitude
and enthusiasm in a deep-throated cheer.
The telegram was in these words :
" Although it has been ordained that I should not
s 273

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
be with you on this great occasion, my thoughts
and prayers are to-day for South Africa and for
her lasting Union. I earnestly trust that for the
sake of the people as a whole your great country
may, by God's blessing and under wise guidance
and statesmanship, progress from year to year, ever
increasing in wisdom, happiness, and prosperity."
A speech by Lord Gladstone ended the short
and simple but deeply impressive ceremony. The
procession filed out and drove away in the sunshine
among shouting crowds.
In the evening there was a party in the illumi
nated gardens of Government House and fireworks
for the masses on the sea-shore. So the great day
which had seen South Africa's first Parliament
opened came to an appropriately festal end.
Cape Town, November 7. The Duke of Con
naught, before leaving Cape Town for Bloemfontein
to-night, expressed his great pleasure at his recep
tion at Cape Town.
Every one agrees that the city has risen to the
occasion with remarkable public spirit and devoted
loyalty. Nothing like the decorations and illumi
nations had ever been seen in South Africa
before. The royal visit has been a delightful crescendo
of enthusiasm. The Duke leaves behind him the
pleasantest possible memories of kindness and
geniality.274

DUKE OF CONNAUGHT'S TOUR
Krom River, Cape Colony, November 8.
The Duke's tour has already assumed the character
of a triumphal progress.
At every tiny station in the vast expanse of the
brown, stony Karoo there has been a gathering of
farmers, many of whom have driven twenty or
thirty miles in waggons drawn by twelve or fourteen
mules or oxen. British and Dutch are equally
eager to see the royal party. The Duke sends all
away proud, pleased, and brimming over with
loyalty, by chatting and showing interest in affairs,
shaking hands all round, and finally waving a
fareweU from the window as the train moves out.
The natives are in a great state of excitement,
and chant wild songs of welcome.
At Beaufort West, the biggest place as yet,
there was a crowd on the platform. The Cadet
Corps was inspected by the Duke, and " God Save
the King " sung with tremendous fervour.
The Duke was up at sunrise to show the
Princess the grandeur and wild beauty of the Hex
River Mountains as the first gleams bathed the
peaks in an exquisite pink glow.
Bloemfontein, November 9. Bloemfontein's
welcome to the Royal party has been very hearty
and elaborate. All the shops are .shut and the
streets are all fluttering with flags. The review
this morning was a fine spectacle on the plain out
side the city. There was a garden party this after- 275

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
noon. Almost all the inhabitants were invited.
The Royal party are leaving now, at six o'clock, for
the Victoria Falls. They are tired, but are very
pleased with the enthusiasm of the reception and
the success of the programme.
Mahalapye, Bechuanaland, November 11.
The interest in the Duke of Connaught's tour is
quite as great in the tiny places we are now
passing in Bechuanaland as at the larger centres.
This afternoon there was a pretty incident at a
place called Artesia. Here there is a school for
the children of railway servants living along the
line. As soon as the train stopped the school
mistress fluttered up and asked for permission for
the children to offer a bunch of flowers to the
Duchess. Her Royal Highness instantly caUed
the Princess and walked to the spot where the
little boys and girls were paraded.
Smilingly they accepted the flowers, talked to
the children and the mistress, and shook aU the
small hands. Then the Princess whispered to her
mother, and the Duchess nodding assent, she
invited the children to go to the royal saloon and
have some cake. Large pieces were handed round
by the royal ladies, and the children departed fuU
of delight at their kindly reception.
This morning at several stopping-places small
knots of Rhodesian farmers assembled, hoping to
catch sight of the royal party. They were surprised
276

DUKE OF CONNAUGHT'S TOUR
and charmed when the Duke strolled up, and with
a cherry "Good-morning, gentlemen," began
chatting in the friendhest way about the country
and its prospects.
Livingstone, November 12. When the train
stopped at 9.30 this morning on the bridge over
the marvellous gorge, with the Zambesi flowing
hundreds of feet below, exclamations of amazement
and delight at the first sight of the Falls burst from
aU lips. There was not nearly so much water as in
winter, but this is in one way an advantage, since
the absence of the dense clouds of spray enables
the beauty and stupendous grandeur of the Falls to
be fuUy appreciated.
The party were conducted by the Administrator,
Mr. WaUace, to the best points of view. The
Duke, in spite of slight lameness, due to an injured
knee, climbed up and down the steep cliff" paths
with enthusiastic energy. The Duchess and Prin
cess Patricia were equally active.
Finally we embarked in a flotiUa of canoes, which
were paddled swiftly and skilfully by natives across
the rapid stream above the FaUs. We looked
down from Livingstone Island on the seething,
steaming cauldron of waters, whose force is so
immense, and will some day supply* all the power
needed within a radius of four hundred miles, and
possibly the Rand mines, even more distant. At
this point the spray was like a driving rain, but the
277

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
royal ladies were undaunted, and pressed forward
as near the edge as possible, so as not to miss
anything of the world's most impressive and
magnificent spectacle.
The arrival at Livingstone, a few miles north
of the Falls, in time for lunch, was marked by
the heartiness of the welcome from the three
hundred white inhabitants holding this outpost of
civilisation among black and stUl primitive tribes.
In a stirring speech the Duke addressed them
as pioneers of Empire, and encouraged them to
persevere in their splendid work.
In the course of the afternoon his Royal Highness
walked and drove all over the town, and expressed
surprise and admiration at the three years' growth.
The party visited the hospital, where all three talked
with the patients, and took a great interest in the
excellent equipment. The Duke recognised a
sergeant of the local police as a man who served
with him at Aldershot, and commended him for
the brave conduct which caused his injuries. His
Royal Highness also had a long chat with an old
Dutchman who fought on the Boer side at Majuba.
" I have come," said his Royal Highness, " on
an errand of peace. We must forget our old
quarrels." Livingstone, November 13. This morning
service was held on the verandah of Government
House, the new Cathedral not being ready. This
278

DUKE OF CONNAUGHT'S TOUR
afternoon there was a launch trip with a tea-picnic
on the river, and a sham hippopotamus fight.
Several canoe-loads of chocolate-coloured hunters,
with their heads decorated with gaudy tufts of
feathers, and wearing little else, showed intense
eagerness in stalking and spearing the straw hippo,
and there were barbaric songs of joy, accompanied
by tom-toms, as they towed the corpse home. This
greatly amused the Royal party.
Livingstone, November 14. Rain at night
cooled the air for the parade of the fine body of
native mihtary police at nine o'clock this morning.
The Duke congratulated the officers on the men's
smartness and steadiness, and the evident enjoyment
with which they drilled. The exercises proved an
instructive contrast. The men had a very soldierly
appearance in their neat uniforms, when compared
with a number of natives composing the body
guard of Lewanika, the Barotse chief. It is
marvellous how a few months of British training
transforms naked savages into excellent soldiers,
who are neat in appearance, self-respecting, warmly
attached to their officers, and proud of their
regiment. When the royal salute was given on
the Duke's arrival, the National Anthem blared
out, and the Royal Standard was broken at the
flag-staff, it was impossible not to feel a deep thriU
of patriotic emotion at the great work Britain is
doing here. 279

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
That it is being done, thanks to the Native
Commissioners with the full co-operation of the
native rulers, was emphasised this afternoon by the
striking interview between the Duke of Connaught
and King Lewanika, whose chieftainship is acknow
ledged by a hundred and twenty thousand Barotses.
At four o'clock a procession of five hundred
warriors escorted the old chief to Government
House. The native drums and other instruments
made a tremendous din, which increased when the
Duke appeared on the verandah. There were yells
and roars of welcome, and the whole body dropped
on their knees in the road and clapped their hands,
the Barotse form of salutation. Lewanika did not
make obeisance. He was in a uniform covered
with gold lace, with a large curved sword and gold
spurs, both of which he found very embarrassing.
He was allowed to approach reverentially, and
shake the Duke by the hand, but his son and
Prime Minister knelt and clapped his hands,
according to custom.
An interchange of complimentary speeches and
presents foUowed, the latter including a blue
monkey in a cage.
The chief departed amid clouds of dust and
renewed uproar. He has killed many bullocks,
and will hold a great feast to celebrate the honour
done him.
He told me afterwards that he was deeply
touched by the Duke's fatherly kindness, and
280

DUKE OF CONNAUGHT'S TOUR
would keep a vivid recollection of the courtesy
of King George when he visited London.
The Royal party are immensely popular with
everybody. In spite of the heat they visited the
golf and rifle clubs this morning, and late in the
afternoon gave a general invitation to the white
people to a tea-party and the planting of a com
memoration tree in the public gardens.
November 15. Just after dinner this evening
(on the journey from Livingstone to Salisbury via
Bulawayo) a glare was seen in the sky, and voices
singing in a stentorian volume were heard. In a
few minutes the train stopped at Wankies Colliery,
a township in the midst of the limitless veld, with
an output of 500 tons of coal per day.
A huge bonfire blazed on the hill close to the
line, and the royal salute was fired. The white
population (about seventy) crowded round the
saloon of the Duke, who immediately appeared,
and thanked them for coming. He asked about
the health of the place, and chatted of the pros
pects of the mines and the country generally
for ten minutes. Meanwhile five hundred native
colhers continued to sing " God Save the King "
unceasingly, and when the train pulled out they
cheered in genuine British fashion. •
The Duke's ready response to, and frank pleasure
in such demonstrations of loyalty is doing a great
deal to rivet the ties of Imperial sentiment. 281

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
By emphasising the common aUegiance of all
Britons to the throne and flag, he brings home
to these pioneers of civilisation the pride and
responsibility attaching to British citizenship, and
makes better citizens of them. The spirit in which
the Duke regards his mission is illustrated by his
request that as many officials as possible should be
invited to lunch and dinner at the Government
House, Livingstone, instead of merely a few heads
of the Administration, as arranged before arrival.
This course adds considerably to the fatigue of an
unusually toilsome tour, but the Duke never
permits himself to appear tired, and leaves every
where the impression that he is keenly interested
in everything affecting the country and the Empire,
and glad to meet all helping on the development
of the Imperial idea.
Salisbury, November 17. Salisbury has spared
neither trouble nor money to mark its delight at
the first visit of any member of the Royal Family
to the capital of Southern Rhodesia. A new
Government House has been built for the occa
sion, the builders working day and night for weeks
past, the finishing touches being put on only
yesterday, just in time.
In the pleasant gardens surrounding the house
a reception was held this afternoon, when the
Duke and Duchess filled large numbers of loyal
hearts with joy by shaking hands with aU the guests.
282

DUKE OF CONNAUGHT'S TOUR
The other events of the day were of the usual
character, and included the presentation of addresses
and a Volunteer review ; but all went off with
remarkable spirit.
Salisbury is going ahead at a great pace, and is
anxious to profit by the opportunity of showing
what an energetic and advanced community it is.
The local paper, in an article of welcome, says :
" We believe Rhodesia is destined to become one
of the most important parts of King George's
dominions." This is the general feeling of Rhodesians. Their
optimism is like that of the Canadians, and doubt
less equally well grounded. It is only twenty
years since Rhodes's pioneer column camped here.
There was nothing then but bush. The progress
in the short time that has elapsed is marveUous.
Mining experts report most favourably on the
gold deposits, agriculture is steadily advancing,
and Salisbury itself is a triumph of the British
genius for colonisation. licading citizens assure
me that the Royal visit will have an excellent
effect. Salisbury, November 19. To-day's doings began
early with a meet of the Salisbury hounds at five
o'clock. There was a good field .sharp to time in
the exquisite freshness of a Rhodesia morning.
The hounds, of genuine English breed, were in
the pink of condition. Several of the Duke's 283

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
suite were out, but the Royalties, in view of the
heavy day, were obliged to forego the sport.
The most interesting event of the morning was
a visit to the Government tobacco factory. This
bids fair to be a great Rhodesian industry. The
present year's crop is calculated at half a miUion
pounds. The industry has now passed the experi
mental stage, and is certain to increase rapidly.
The Duke saw how the leaves were unpacked,
steamed, graded, tied up into bundles, and pressed
into bales, and asked a number of questions about
the methods of cultivation and treatment, also
about the possibilities of the market in England.
He expressed great pleasure at the favourable
reception of Rhodesian pipe and cigarette tobaccos
in the Mother Country, and at the prospect of a
large consumption in a few years' time.
In the afternoon the Royal party drove out in
motors to see the fine view over the rolling park
like landscape stretching away to the mountain
ranges, and later the party spent an hour at a
gymkhana on the polo ground. Although the
Duchess and Princess were tired they would not
disappoint the people, and their thoughtfulness
was recognised and appreciated.
They had a great ovation when they drove away.
After dinner they motored the mile and a half
from Government House to the Town HaU
between living lamp-posts : natives carrying torches
lined each side of the road. The eff'ect of the
284

DUKE OF CONNAUGHT'S TOUR
flickering light on the statuesque figures and black
faces of the torchbearers was very striking. After
wards all joined and marched past, the procession
dancing and waving torches and chanting weird
war songs.
Bulawayo, November 21. A picturesque feature
of the Duke of Connaught's arrival here this
morning was a large array of natives lining the
road from the station. As the party passed they
raised loud cries of wild welcome and threw them
selves in the dust, writhing and beating their hands
together— their own particular method of saluta
tion to the " great white chief."
Later there was a procession of Matabele warriors,
whose heads were decorated with huge pink ostrich
feathers. They were naked except for their leopard
skins. All shuffled along with rhythmic jumps
and contortions, shaking their assegais and chanting
a deep-throated, monotonous song.
The first thing which the Duke saw when he
arrived at the charming Government House, which
is reached by a three-mile drive, most of the way
along a beautiful avenue of fir-trees, was the tree
under which Lobengula, the Matabele chief, sat
when he pronounced his bloodthirsty decrees. It
is almost incredible that so much has been done
towards civilisation in twenty years,*
Bulawayo, November 22. The weather, which
has so far been unusually fine for this time of the
285

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
year, has broken, but fortunately held up until after
the visit to that marveUously beautiful spot in the
Matopo HUls where Rhodes was laid to rest.
Brilliant sunshine prevailed in the early morning,
when the Royal party inspected several of the
schools. They were greatly struck by the large
airy buildings and the strong, healthy appearance
of the children, the best testimony to the climate.
The Chartered Company have made large school
grants, and are determined that the education here
will be the best obtainable. The carpenter's shop
was speciaUy commended by the Duke, who was
also keenly interested in the chemical laboratory.
When the time came to leave the Boys' School
the Duke had to be hunted for, and was found
watching an experiment being made by two small
boys. A little before noon seven motors set off under
a cool, grey sky for the Matopos, twenty-five mUes
distant. The road passes the dam or reservoir
made to irrigate the Rhodes Farms. Nothing but
water is needed to raise splendid crops here. It
was most instructive and encouraging to come
across acres and acres of rich cultivated soU amidst
the bush.
After lunch at the hotel close to the dam, we
drove on through the fine park, dedicated by
Rhodes to the use of the people, until we reached
the foot of the great granite kopje, named World's
View. Here rickshaws awaited the ladies, but the
286

DUKE OF CONNAUGHT'S TOUR
Duke, with the other men climbed the steep, rocky
path to the tomb.
At the sight of the slab covering the grave,
guarded by a ring of immense boulders, the Duke
took off his hat, and the example was followed by
all. The Duke stood for some minutes in silent
meditation, and then turned away to enjoy the
magnificent prospect. The whole party was deeply
affected by the weird beauty and the solemn asso
ciations of the spot.
Pretoria, November 26. The Duchess and
Princess Patricia have been suffering from the heat
and the fatigue of the journey. Fortunately, the
Duchess is better and was able to take part in the
ceremonies to-day. The Princess is still feeling
the strain of the constant railway travelhng and
the continuous round of engagements whenever we
stop. As a matter of fact, most of the members
of the party are a little affected by the stupendous
distances covered in so short a time and in such
heat, and by the kaleidoscopic variety of the fresh
scenes and interests presented in rapid succession
to our gaze.
Luckily this morning was cool and grey. Other
wise the gathering on the exposed hillside
overlooking Pretoria, where the Duke laid the
foundation-stone of the Union Government build
ings, would have felt the heat terribly. It would
be difficult to imagine a finer site for the new 287

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
Government offices. Mr. Herbert Baker, who has
introduced a new era in South African domestic
architecture, is now offered a wonderful chance to
prove that his genius is capable of working on a
larger scale.
In order to avoid hurting Boer susceptibilities,
two foundation-stones were laid, one inscribed in
English and the other in Dutch. Prayers were
also off'ered in both languages.
The Duke made a special impression on the
hearts of the Dutch by listening after dinner to a
long cantata, with Dutch words, celebrating the
Union. Johannesburg, November 28. The Gold Reef
City has transformed itself for the Royal visit into
a town of green vistas, gleaming arches, and stately
colonnades. Very effective use has been made of
five truck-loads of greenstuff" and flowers ordered
from Cape Town to decorate the station.
The Market Square has been turned into a classic
forum pillared and garlanded, and gay as befits the
" triumph " off'ered the Royal Prince whose popu
larity has been increasing all through South Africa,
and whose welcome to Johannesburg will be the
culminating point in an ever-memorable tour.
The railway station, when our train puUed in,
appeared like some gorgeous vision of the East.
Nothing could be seen but hangings brilliant in
colour, relieved by masses of dark green fir and
288

DUKE OF CONNAUGHT'S TOUR
pine. Outside all the streets glowed and fluttered
with strings of flags woven in all directions.
As the Royal party drove off" to Sunnyside, the
former residence of Lord Milner, the hooters of aU
the mines within earshot made an unearthly din.
The evening air was fiUed with whistling, screech
ing, and booming for nearly ten minutes. The
crowds were the largest and most enthusiastic yet,
Johannesburg, November 29. An immense
crowd, estimated at sixteen thousand people,
watched the Duke of Connaught lay the founda
tion-stone of the new Town HaU this morning.
The Market Square was literaUy packed.
A charming feature of the proceedings was a
stand containing three thousand school-children,
who sang at intervals in remarkably good time and
tune. The whole day was occupied with one function
after another, and the Royal party heard the National
Anthem played between breakfast and bedtime
twenty-seven times.
A most interesting engagement was the dedica
tion to the public of the fine coUection of modern
pictures that will eventuaUy be housed in a muni
cipal gallery which Mr. Edwin Lutyens is to design
in co-operation with Mr. Baker. TJje Duke paid a
deserved tribute of praise to Mrs. Lionel PhiUips,
who conceived the idea, and Sir Hugh Lane, who
gave valuable help in getting together a very
T 289

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
remarkable and representative collection. No
gallery, public or private, ever began with more
pure gold and less dross.
This evening, whilst driving to the reception at
the Carlton Hotel, the Duke had an opportunity
to admire the illuminations, which he declared were
exceedingly pretty and tasteful. Johannesburg has
certainly succeeded in its ambition to equal Cape
Town's " splendid extravagance," and in enthusiasm
has gone far beyond.
Johannesburg, November 30. One of the most
picturesque and charming incidents of the Royal
tour took place at noon in the heart of a delightful
wood, where Johannesburg people enjoy their
morning canters. Here it has been decided to place
the memorial to the men ofthe Rand regiments
killed in the war. It is far better to recall the
sacrifice of their lives for King and country under
green aisles and in the spacious quiet of a forest
glade than by a great monument in the city streets,
where it would soon become too familiar to stir
memories or arouse emotion.
After the review of the Transvaal Volunteers,
who won hearty commendation for their smart
appearance and work, the Royal party drove in
two landaus drawn by gun-teams through Park-
tovsTi and along a new road made through the wood
for this occasion. The ceremony was mainly in the
nature of a rehgious service of dedication and
290

DUKE OF CONNAUGHT'S TOUR
praise. The keynote was thankfulness for the
eventual fruits of the laying down of their lives,
that is to say, for the Union of South Africa,
Every one present was impressed and moved by
the sincerity and simplicity of the proceedings,
which were heightened by the natural beauty of
the scene.
FareweU cheers as their Royal Highnesses drove
to the station in good time for the three o'clock
start were given by large crowds all along the
route. When the train steamed out it was found
that both sides of the line and the bridges were
thronged. At Heidelberg some hundreds of people, almost
all Dutch, gathered on the platform. There was
not much demonstration on the arrival, but after
the Duke had engaged the Mayor, a fine old Boer
with long beard, and other leading inhabitants in
animated conversation, he was cheered again and
again. Durban, December 2. Durban is looking quite
at its best on this day of sunshine, tempered with a
cool breeze. The decorations show no sign of
damage done to them by a violent storm a few days
ago. At the end of such a tour as this it would
require some very striking efiFecJ to stir us to
enthusiasm, but we can honestly say that Durban's
effort fully meets the occasion, if it is not startlingly
original. 291

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
The last stage of the journey from Maritzburg to
Durban was painful, owing to the excessive swaying
and lurching caused by the steep gradients and
violent curves. The party, therefore, are not sorry
to bid farewell to the Royal train, which has been
their home just on four weeks. Every one has
enjoyed the trip immensely, and is grateful to the
railway management for making it so comfortable ;
but every one is relieved that the strain of incessant
travelling and perpetual ceremonies is at an end.
Human nature could not have borne the fatigue
and nerve stress of such a journey much longer.
The Royal party are glad to get back to the
comfortable quarters on the Balmoral Castle.
At the ToviTi Hall, replying to addresses, the
Duke of Connaught spoke very earnestly and with
evident emotion of the loyalty shown throughout
the tour, and the pleasure the journey had given
him. To-night there wiU be a dinner party on the
Balmoral Castle, at which all of us who have
travelled together so pleasantly meet for the last
time. To-morrow the Mayor gives a luncheon, from
which the Royal party will drive straight to the
ship, and sail without further delay.
Durban, December 3. The Balmoral Castle
sailed for Home at half-past four this afternoon,
an enormous crowd watching her leave the quay.
292

DUKE OF CONNAUGHT'S TOUR
Up to the last moment the tour was an immense
success. The Duke has left behind him everywhere
the pleasantest memories.
Although every member of the party has
thoroughly enjoyed our fascinating trip, it is
impossible to disguise the fact that all were
beginning to feel the strain of such continual
traveUing and such a perpetual round of functions.
During less than four weeks the party has covered
4543 miles by rail, and slept for twelve nights
in the train. Since the Duke arrived at the end
of October, he has received 149 addresses, made
thirty-eight speeches, held sixteen formal receptions
and ten reviews, laid eight foundation-stones, and
planted five trees.
WhUe the Duke rests on the homeward voyage
he can contemplate with satisfaction the results of
his toil. The Union is far stronger than before
his visit. Loyalty to the Royal House and pride
in belonging to the Empire have been stimulated
in a very striking degree. All, from the highest to
the lowest, are fuU of admiration and gratitude for
the unfailing interest, kindness, and consideration
of the Duke and Duchess. The newspapers unite
in a chorus of praise and of regret that the visit is
over. Never has a royal progress been a more
triumphant success.
Of course he owed much to the Duchess and
his daughter, and to the exceedingly pleasant and
competent staff he took out •with. him. Everywhere 293

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY
we went Major Lowther and Captain Bulkeley, Lord
Hamilton of Dalzell, and Captain Grant left behind
troops of friends. Nothing was left undone that
could gratify people of all classes or make arrange
ments work smoothly, as they always did. Sir
Francis Hopwood naturally was of the greatest
value with his wide experience of Imperial
affairs and that tact in dealing with oversea
Britons which marks him out as the ideal man
to fill the new office of Under-Secretary for the
Dominions as soon as it is created. Commodore
Wemyss played his part as Naval aide-de-camp
with a delightful heartiness. Captain Scott
Worthington, the clever Canadian Army doctor,
not only physicked the party with magical success,
but made a fine figure at functions. Miss Pelly,
though handicapped by a bad accident which made
her lame, was a model to all Ladies-in- Waiting of
discretion and charm.
Yet, after aU, though a first-class staff can do
much, it cannot do everything. All might have
gone off" like clockwork and still the impression
left behind might have been cold and dull. It
is the Duke himself who has made it utterly
impossible to look back upon the tour without a
thrill of enthusiasm. Take one point alone by way
of illustration. After Mr. Roosevelt (whose method
would perhaps be found too demonstrative by a
British community), the Duke is undoubtedly the
best hand-shaker in the world. Sometimes he
294

DUKE OF CONNAUGHT'S TOUR
would stand for the best part of an hour greeting
people in this way, and every single man or woman
so privileged went away feeling that he or she was
the one person the Duke had been really anxious
to meet. To those who are unacquainted with
human nature this may seem a small thing. But
the amount of loyalty generated by such means is
incalculable. More than ever, after the Duke's tour, is it clear
that the Empire would benefit enormously if the
Sovereign could be represented in each of the
Dominions by a member of the Royal Family.
It is scarcely to be expected that all princes of
the blood einployed in this way would meet with
the same success as the Duke of Connaught. But
there would rapidly spring up traditions which
would ensure to goodwill and sense of duty not
only the reward of personal affection, but great
advantage to the Empire.

295

INDEX

Agriculture, chaps, x, xx
Bailey, Sir Abe, 18
Baker, Mr. Herbert, 18, 129,
150, 288, 289
Barotses, 262, 280
Basutos, 44, 84
Beaumont, Mr. Justice, 178
Bechuanaland, British, 193, 266
Beira, 205
Beyers, General, 23, 26, 97, 101
Black, Mr. Stephen, 101
Bloemfontein, chap, vii, 112,
275
Bosman, Rev. H. S., 27
Botha, General, 22 et seq., 117
Botha, Mr. Chris, 31, 101
Bourassa, Mr., 92
British S.A. Company, 219, 226
Brits, General, 28
Bryce, Mr. James, 211
Bulawayo, 203, 241
Bulkeley, Capt. T. R., 294
Butler, Sir William, 126
Caldwell, Mr. James, 271
Canterbury, Archbishop of, 258
Capetown, 9-19
Capetown, Archbishop of, 44,
258
Chamberlain, Mr., 152
Chaplin, Mr. Drummond, 31
Charlestown, 154
Chishawasha, 233

Chotabhai, Mr., l67
Connaught, Duke of
opening of Uliion Parlia
ment, 20 ; and Basuto chiefs,
85 ; lays foundation-stone of
new Government buildings,
150 ; and Bechuana chiefs,
195, 266; natives confined
to huts, 197 ; on the Zam
besi, 250 ; Diary of his tour,
268-292
Cornishman on the Rand, 132
Cotton, 118
Dairy-farming in Orange River
Colony, 116; in Rhodesia,
188, 223
De Aar, 55
De Beers, chap, vi
Delagoa Bay, 134
De Villiers, Lord, 95, 124
Dhlo-dhlo, 211
Diamonds, 5S et seq., chap, vi
Dobbin, Mrs. (Gertrude Page),
233
Drakensberg, 155
Dudley, Lady, 6I
Duncan, Mr. Patrick, 31
Durban, 131, chap, xvi
Du Toits Pan Mine, 69
Education difficulty, 97, 107
Enterprise mines, 234
Ethiopian Church, 44
U 297

SOUTH AFRICA TO-DAY

Fallon, Bishop, 102
Farrar, Sir George, 30
Fitzpatrick, Sir Percy, 30
Fort Jameson, 255
Fremantle, Mr. 101
Frere, Sir Bartle, 45
Fruit-farming, 119
Furse, Bishop, 41
Gaberones, 195
Gandhi, Mr., l67
George, Mr. Lloyd, 92
Gladstone, Lord, 272
Gold, 127, chap, xii, 230
Goold-Adams, Sir H., 112
Grant, Capt., 294
Grey College and School, 83
Grey, Sir George, 45
Groote Schuur, 17
Grootvlei, 112
Gunn, Mr. Hugh, 107
Gwelo, 228
Hamilton of Dalzell, Lord,
294
Hamilton, Mr. J. G., 42
Heidelberg, 154, 291
Hertzog, General, 32, 92
Hex River Mountains, 49, 275
Hine, Bishop, 257
Hopwood, Sir F., 294
Hulett, Sir Liege, 1 62
Indians in Natal, l60 et seq. ;
in the Transvaal, l65
Jameson, Sir L. S., 24, 29, 186
Jesser-Coope, Capt,, 222
Johannesburg, chap, xi
Kalahari Desert, 58, 201, 242
Katanga, 205, 261
Khami Ruins, 210
298

Kimberley, chap, v
Krom River, 54, 275
Labouchere, Mr., 190
Laing's Nek, 154
Lane, Sir Hugh, 127, 289
Language question, 94, 109
Lawes, Sir J. B., 33, ll6
Lemieux, Hon. R., 247, 264
Lewanika, 262, 280
Liebig's, 222
Livingstone, Dr., 243
Livingstone, town of, 250, 253,
278
Lobatsi, 197
Lobengula, 186, 209, 214, 285
Lobito Bay, 205
Long, Mr. B. K., 31
Lowther, Major, 294
Lucas, Mr. William, 151
Lutyens, Mr. Edwin, 289
Macdonald, Dr., 117
Madeira, 12
Mafeking, 196
Magersfontein, 56
Maize, ll6
Majuba Hill, 154
Malays in Cape Peninsula, 34
Matoppo Hills, 188, 193, 212,
286
Merriman, Mr., 32, 34, 119, 124
Methuen, Lord, 24, 106
Modder River, 56
Natives, chap, iii ; fatalism
of, 76 ; " Pass " system, 84
in gold mines, 1 42 ; compe
tition with whites, 148
treatment in Natal, 177
religious difficulty, 257
Newcastle, 154
Niagara, 244, 247

INDEX

Ontario, bilingualism in, 102
O'Reilly, 59
Ostriches, 53
Oudtshoorn, 53
Page, Gertrude, 233
Palmer, Mr., 112
Pelly, Miss, 294
Phillips, Lionel, 30, 130
Phillips, Mr. Lionel, 3 27, 130,
289
Pietermaritzburg, 81, 158
Pretoria, chap, xiii
Railways, 48, 1 73
Ramathlabama, 197
Rhodes, Cecil, 17, 22, 65, 68,
130
Rhodesia, opportunities in,
183; filling up, 222 ; " second
son's country," 225 ; mining
in, 230
Robinson, Sir J. B., 59, 6 1
Round Table, The, 98
Salisbury, 205, 228, 282
Sauer, Mr., 31
Schlichter, Dr., 211
Schreiner, Mr., 31
Selborne, Lord, 87-90
Shangani, heroes of, 208, 214

Simonstown, 18
Smuts, General, 22, 31, 104,
165
Standerton, 154
State, The, 31
Tobacco, 118, 223, 284
Toronto compared with Jo
hannesburg, 133
Tweed, Mr., 214
Van Brockhuizen, Rev. H,,
28
Victoria Falls, 241, 277-8
Volksrust, 154
Volkestem, the, 27
Walton, Mr., 31
Wankies, 205, 242, 281
Wemyss, Commodore, 29*
Wessels, Justice, l68
Westminster, Duke of, 227
Wilson, Major Alan, 214
Wine, South African, 122
Worthington, Captain Scott,
294
Zambesi, 241, 245
Zeerust, 197
Zimbabwe, 210
Zulus, rising in 1906, 178

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