Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer

CHAPTER IV

Trip to the Transkei--Tiyo Soga and his family--Trip to the seaside--The Fynns--Wild dogs--Start as a sheep farmer--My camp burnt out--First commercial adventure--Chief Sandile--Discovery of diamonds--Start for Golconda--Traveling companions--Manslaughter narrowly escaped--Old De Beers--Life at the Diamond Fields--Scarcity of water--First case of diamond stealing--I nearly discover Kimberley Mine--The rush to Colesberg Kopje--My first diamond--Its loss and my humiliation--Kimberley claims dear at 10--Camp-life in early days--I. D. B.--Canteen burning.

CHAPTER V

My claim a disappointment--Good results attained elsewhere--A surprised Boer--"Kopje wallopers"--Thunderstorms--A shocking spectacle--"Old Moore" and his love affair--The morning market--Attack of enteric--I go to King William's Town to recruit Toby once more--A venture in onions--Return to Kimberley--The West End mess--The Rhodes brothers--Norman Garstin--H. C. Seppings Wright--"Schipka" Campbell--Cecil John Rhodes--A game of euchre The church bell--Raw natives--Alum diamonds--Herbert Rhodes and the cannon His terrible end.

CHAPTER VI. Big Gambling--Von Schlichmann--Norman Garstin--the Painter of St.

Big gambling--Von Schlichmann--Norman Garstin--The painter of St. Michael's Mount--Start for the gold fields--"I am going to be hanged" Plentifulness of game--Snakes in an anthill--Nazareth--Game in the High Veld--Narrow escape from frost-bite--A shooting match--Lydenburg--Painful tramping--"Artful Joe"--Penalty for suicide--Pilgrim's Rest--Experiences of "a new chum"--Tent-making--Explorations--The Great Plateau--Prospect of the Low Country--Elands.

CHAPTER VII

Extended rambles--View from the mountain top--An unknown land--The deadly fever--Gray's fate--Lack of nursing--Temperature rises after death Pilgrim's Rest in early days--The prison--The stocks--No color line--John Cameron in trouble--The creek "lead"--Plenty of gold--Wild peaches Massacres of natives in old days--Kameel--His expressions--Life on the creek--Major Macdonald--The parson--Boulders--Bad accidents--A quaint signboard--"Reefing Charlie".

CHAPTER VIII

Work on "the Reef"--Shaft-sinking in a swamp--Wolff and McGrath--A case of snake-bite--Tunneling--Humping green timber--John Mulcahy--His Gargantuan breakfast--His peculiar habits--His end--The rush to "the Reef" Cunningham's lead--My bad luck--Peter and his appetite--"Mr. William Bogis" Fabayne, the cave-dweller--A bellicose bridegroom--Knox and his revolver practice--A senseless toast and its sequel--A terrible accident Alick Dempster and the Police News.

CHAPTER IX

Expedition to Delagoa Bay--A rencontre at Constantinople--Morisot and the lion--Game in the Low Country--The Barber encampment--Lion's attack by daylight--Lions in the donga--The lion's voice--Ways of the lion--The lion an eater of carrion--Tyrer and the buffalo--Veld fires--A piece of bad luck--The Low Country rivers--Snakes--Hyenas--Louren Marques--Funeral of Pat Foote--Discovery of gold near Blyde River--Anticipated affluence Disappointment

CHAPTER X

Prospectors start for Swaziland--Rumors as to their fate--MacLean and I decide to follow them--Precautions against lions--The Crocodile River--The Boer and the pessimist--Game and honey--Crocodiles--Difficulties in crossing the river--MacLean nearly drowned in the rapids--I go on alone First sight of De Kaap--A labyrinth of dongas--I reach Swaziland--Baboons On the trail of the prospectors--The mystery solved--'Ntshindeen's Kraal Swazi hospitality--How I became celebrated--A popular show--Repairing guns Character of the Swazis--Contempt for money and love of salt--Prospecting My welcome outstayed--A dangerous crisis--Return to the Crocodile River The rhinoceros--Our bearers decamp--We abandon our goods--Attacked by fever--Terror of partridges--Arrival at Mac Mac.

CHAPTER XI

Weakness after fever--I engage in commerce--Bats--The commandeered cat--My commercial ineptitude--Tom Simpson surprises--Wolff--Close of my commercial career--Saulez--His thrashing of the bullies--Gardiner holds up the bank--Nicknames--Conferring a patent of nobility--"Old Nelly"--"A poor man's lead"--"Charlie Brown's Gully"--Swindled by my partner--My discovery on the mountain--A lonely time--Waiting for rain--Disappointment and despair--Abandonment of my work--Departure--Once more a tramp.

CHAPTER XII

On the road--Heavy rain--Mosquitoes--Natal--Thunderstorms--A terrible night Maritzburg--My cash runs out--A halcyon day--Hospitality--D'Urban--Failure to get work--The Fighting Blacksmith and the eccentric old gentleman Narrow escape of the latter--East London--Experiences in a surfboat--A Perilous venture--I enter the Civil Service--Further reminiscences deferred--Au revoir.

L'ENVOI

INDEX.

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR . . . . Frontispiece

SPRINGFIELD

THE LAKE, SPRINGFIELD

PORT ELIZABETH IN THE SIXTIES

PORT ELIZABETH IN 1912

4 THE OLD OX-WAGON

KIMBERLEY IN 1873 (LOOKING SOUTH)

PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN

KIMBERLEY MINE IN 1873

KIMBERLEY MINE IN 1912

CHURCH STREET, PRETORIA, IN 1873

THE LOWER CAMP, PILGRIM'S REST

THE CHEEK, PILGRIM'S REST

PILGRIM'S REST IN 1897

SITE OF CAMP ON CROCODILE RIVER IN 1875

FALLS OF THE UMGENI, NATAL

The views of Kimberley are published by the kind permission of the De Beers Company, who courteously supplied them.

REMINISCENCES OF A SOUTH AFRICAN PIONEER

Foreword--My father's family--"Old Body"--Dualla--A cruel experiment--"Old Body"--and the goose--Cook and kitchen-maid--Scull and monkey--My mother's family--Abbey view--The Bock of Cashel--Captain Meagher and early chess Sir Dominic Corrigan--"Old Mary" and the sugar--Naval ambitions--Harper Twelvetree and the burial agency

I was born on the 29th of October, 1855; at least I have been told so, but the register of my baptism cannot be traced. This circumstance placed me in a somewhat awkward position a few years since, when proof of my age was urgently required. The place of my birth is a house in Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin then the home of my maternal uncle-by-marriage, Richard Scott. Evil days have since fallen upon that part of Ireland's metropolis; the locality is now inhabited by a class of people to whom we should in this country apply the term "poor whites." When I recently visited the spot I found that the house had, like most of those in the vicinity, been divided into tenements. The upper portion of what had once been a frosted-glass partition was still in the hall, and on this my uncle's crest was visible. The premises were in a filthy condition, and the inhabitants looked more than ordinarily villainous. On the steps a red-faced crone sat pulling at a clay pipe, and a reek of stale porter came through the hall doorway.

My father's family, I am told, have been located in the County Tipperary for many generations. I believe they made a great deal of money as contractors to the army of King William in the campaign of which the Battle of the Boyne was the decisive event, but the greater part of this they dissipated about a century ago in lawsuits. I have heard that the costs in one case they lost amounted to over 100,000. The little I know of the family, has been told me by dear old Sir William Butler, with whom I became very intimate when he was in South Africa. He always said we were related that we were "Irish cousins" but we never were quite able to define what the relationship was. Sir William and Ray, father had been great friends in the old days.

I have been told by, a relative that the many, Scullys who are scattered over the south of Ireland fall into two categories the round-headed and the long-headed; that the former are, as a rule, fairly well off, but that the latter are usually poor. I regret to say that I belong to the long-headed branch.

My paternal grandfather was a soldier, and my father was brought up by Rodolph Scully, of Dualla. "Old Rody," who kept a pack of harriers which my father hunted, was a well-known character in South Tipperary. He departed this life when I was about six years old yet I seem to remember him very clearly. A small, wiry, dapper man with a clean-shaven red face, a cold, light-blue eye and fiercely beetling brows, he occasionally filled my early childhood with terror. He usually wore knee-breeches, buckled shoes, a frieze coat, and a white choker. He had a most furious temper, and was consequently dreaded by his relations and his domestics. I remember once seeing him administer a terrible thrashing with a hunting-crop to a stable-boy for some trivial fault.

My recollections of Dualla are very, faint; such fragmentary, ones as survive are almost solely connected with its kennels and stables. There was, I know, a turret at one end of the house. I believe the original idea was to build a castle, but on account of scarcity of funds the construction was continued on less ambitious architectural lines. An unpleasant story used to be told in connection with this turret, which was of considerable height. Old Rody, one night when in his cups, made a bet that a goat, thrown from the top, would land uninjured on its feet. The cruel experiment was tried. It may be some satisfaction to know that Old Rody had to pay the bet, but it would be more if we knew that he had been made to follow the poor animal. Once my people were on a visit to Dualla. Old Rody, who was much addicted to the pleasures of the table, was especially fond of roast goose. This, to satisfy him, had to be done to a particular turn. On the occasion in question the bird was brought to table slightly overdone, so Old Rody told the butler to retire and send up the cook. No sooner had the butler left the room than Old Rody picked up the goose by, its shanks and took his stand behind the door. A dreadful silence reigned; the guests were as though stiffened into stone. The cook, a stout, red-faced woman, entered the room in evident trepidation, wiping her face with her apron. As she passed her master, he lifted the goose and hit her over the head with it as hard as he could. The bird smashed to pieces, and the woman, covered with gravy and seasoning, fled back, wailing, to the kitchen.

On another occasion a neighbor, whose name happened to be Cook, came to spend the day at Dualla. He brought with him his two children, a boy and a girl, of whom he was inordinately proud. Old Rody and Cook were sitting on the terrace, drinking punch; the children were playing on the lawn.

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