The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). Frederick Whymper
is a prodigy. It is the new settler’s first work, even before erecting his house, to find a hollow space, and dam it up, so as to make a reservoir. He then proceeds to make the best sun-dried bricks he can, and to erect his cottage, usually of two, and rarely more than three, rooms. Not unfrequently, there is a garden, hardly worthy of the name, where a few potatoes and onions are raised. The farmers, more especially the Dutch, are “the heaviest and largest in the world.” At an early age their drowsy habits and copious feeding run them into flesh. “Three times a day the family gorges itself upon lumps of mutton, fried in the tallowy fat of the sheep’s tail, or else—their only change of diet—upon the tasteless fricadel—kneaded balls of meat and onions, likewise swimming in grease. Very few vegetables they have, and those are rarely used. Brown bread they make, but scarcely touch it. Fancy existing from birth to death upon mutton scraps, half boiled, half fried, in tallow! So doth the Boer. It is not eating, but devouring, with him. And fancy the existence! always alone with one’s father, mother, brothers, and sisters; of whom not one can do more than write his name, scarce one can read, not one has heard of any event in history, nor dreamed of such existing things as art or science, or poetry, or aught that pertains to civilisation.” An unpleasant picture, truly, and one to which there are many exceptions. It was doubtful whether Mr. Vasson could read. His farm was several thousand acres. The ancient law of Cape Colony gave the settler 3,000 morgen—something more than 6,000 acres. He was not obliged to take so much, but, whatever the size of his farm might be, it must be circular in shape; and as the circumference of a property could only touch the adjoining grants it follows that there were immense corners or tracts of land left waste between. Clever and ambitious farmers, in these later days, have been silently absorbing said corners into their estates, greatly increasing their size.
The Cape cannot be recommended to the notice of poor emigrants, but to capitalists it offers splendid inducements. Mr. Irons, in his work on the Cape and Natal settlements,120 cites several actual cases, showing the profits on capital invested in sheep-farming. In one case £1,250 realised, in about three years, £2,860, which includes the sale of the wool. A second statement gives the profits on an outlay of £2,225, after seven years. It amounts to over £8,000. Rents in the towns are low; beef and mutton do not exceed fourpence per pound, while bread, made largely from imported flour, is a shilling and upwards per four-pound loaf.
So many sailors have made for the Diamond-fields, since their discovery, from the Cape, Port Elizabeth, or Natal, and so many more will do the same, as any new deposit is found, that it will not be out of place here to give the facts concerning them. In 1871, when Mr. Boyle visited them, the ride up cost from £12 to £16, with additional expenses for meals, &c. Of course, a majority of the 50,000 men who have been congregated at times at the various fields could not and did not afford this; but it is a tramp of 750 miles from Cape Town, or 450 from Port Elizabeth or Natal. From the Cape, a railway, for about sixty miles, eases some of the distance. On the journey up, which reads very like Western experiences in America, two of three mules were twenty-six hours and a half in harness, and covered 110 miles! South Africa requires a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, one would think. Mr. Boyle also saw another way by which the colonist may become rapidly wealthy—in ostrich-farming. Broods, purchased for £5 to £9, in three years gain their full plumages, and yield in feathers £4 to £6 per annum. They become quite tame, are not delicate to rear, and are easily managed. And they also met the down coaches from the fields, on one of which a young fellow—almost a boy—had no less than 235 carats with him. At last they reached Pniel (“a camp”), a place which once held 5,000 workers and delvers, and in November, 1872, was reduced to a few hundred, like the deserted diggings in California and Australia. It had, however, yielded largely for a time.
The words, “Here be diamonds,” are to be found inscribed on an old mission-map of a part of the Colony, of the date of 1750, or thereabouts. In 1867, a trader up country, near Hope Town, saw the children of a Boer playing with some pebbles, picked up along the banks of the Orange River. An ostrich-hunter named O’Reilly was present, and the pair of them were struck with the appearance of one of the stones, and they tried it on glass, scratching the sash all over. A bargain was soon struck: O’Reilly was to take it to Cape Town; and there Sir P. E. Wodehouse soon gave him £500 for it. Then came an excitement, of course. In 1869, a Hottentot shepherd, named Swartzboy, brought to a country store a gem of 83½ carats. The shopman, in his master’s absence, did not like to risk the £200 worth of goods demanded. Swartzboy passed on to the farm of one Niekirk, where he asked, and eventually got, £400. Niekirk sold it for £12,000 the same day! Now, of course, the excitement became a fevered frenzy.
Supreme among the camps around Pniel reigned Mr. President Parker, a sailor who, leaving the sea, had turned trader. Mr. Parker, with his counsellors, were absolute in power, and, all in all, administered justice very fairly. Ducking in the river was the mildest punishment; the naval “cat” came next; while dragging through the river was the third grade; last of all came the “spread eagle,” in which the culprit was extended flat, hands and feet staked down, and so exposed to the angry sun.
In a short time, the yield from the various fields was not under £300,000 per month, and claims were sold at hundreds and thousands of pounds apiece. Then came a time of depression, when the dealers would not buy, or only at terribly low prices. Meantime, although meat was always cheap, everything else was very high. A cabbage, for example, often fetched 10s., a water-melon 15s., and onions and green figs a shilling apiece. Forage for horses was half-a-crown a bundle of four pounds. To-day they are little higher on the Fields than in other parts of the Colony.
That a number of diggers have made snug little piles, ranging from two or three to eight, ten, or more thousand pounds, is undeniable, but they were very exceptional cases, after all. The dealers in diamonds, though, often turned over immense sums very rapidly.
And now, before taking our leave of the African station, let us pay a flying visit to Natal, which colony has been steadily rising of late years, and which offers many advantages to the visitor and settler. The climate, in spite of the hot sirocco which sometimes blows over it, and the severe thunderstorms, is, all in all, superior to most of the African climates, inasmuch as the rainfall is as nearly as possible that of London, and it falls at the period when most wanted—at the time of greatest warmth and most active vegetation. The productions of Natal are even more varied than those of the Cape, while arrowroot, sugar, cotton, and Indian corn are staple articles. The great industries are cattle and sheep-rearing, and, as in all parts of South Africa, meat is excessively cheap, retailing at threepence or fourpence a pound.
Natal was discovered by Vasco da Gama, and received from him the name of Terra Natalis—“Land of the Nativity”—because of his arriving on Christmas Day. Until 1823 it was little known or visited. A settlement was then formed by a party of Englishmen, who were joined by a number of dissatisfied Dutchmen from the Cape. In 1838 the British Government took possession. There was a squabble, the colonists being somewhat defiant for a while, and some little fighting ensued. It was proposed by the settlers to proclaim the Republic of Natalia, but on the appearance of a strong British force, they subsided quietly, and Natal was placed under the control of the Governor of the Cape. In 1856, it was erected into a separate colony.
To moderate capitalists it offers many advantages. Land is granted on the easiest terms, usually four shillings per acre; and free grants are given, in proportion to a settler’s capital: £500 capital receives a land order for 200 acres. An arrowroot plantation and factory can be started for £500 or £600, and a coffee plantation for something over £1,000. Sugar-planting, &c., is much more expensive, and would require for plant, &c., £5,000, or more.
And now, on the way home from the African station, the good ship will pass close to, if indeed it does not touch at, the Island of St. Helena, a common place of refreshment for vessels sailing to the northward. Vessels coming southward rarely do so; sailing ships can hardly make the island. It lies some 1,200 miles from the African coasts, in mid-ocean. St. Helena has much the appearance, seen from a distance, of the summit of some great submarine mountain, its rugged and perpendicular cliffs rising from the shore to altitudes from 300 to 1,500 feet. In a few scattered places there are deep, precipitous ravines, opening to the sea, whose embouchures form difficult but still possible landing-places for the fishermen. In one of the largest of these,