What I think of South Africa; its people and its politics ... With numerous ... portraits and map

Front matter

WHAT I THINK OF SOUTH AFRICA From a Photograph by Messrs. Elliott 6° Fry. WHAT I THINK OF SOUTH AFRICA; ITS PEOPLE AND ITS POLITICS BY STUART CUMBERLAND ■ : ■ «/v- AUTHOR OF THE QUEENS HIGHWAY, FROM OCEAN TO OCEAN, "a thought-reader's thoughts," etc. WITH NUMEROUS ORIGINAL PORTRAITS AND MAP LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, Ld. 1896 lAll rights reserved] Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Bungay. TO' 1. ». CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. WHICH IS INTRODUCTORY ... I II. WHAT I THINK OF CAPE TOWN ... ... 4 III. WHAT I THINK OF MR. CECIL RHODES ... 1 3 IV. WHAT I THINK OF THE KAROO ... ... 3 1 V. WHAT I THINK OF KIMBERLEY ... ... 39 VI. WHAT I THINK OF EARNIE BARNATO ... 65 VII. WHAT I THINK OF BLOEMFONTEIN ... 84 VIII. WHAT I THINK OF JOHANNESBURG ... 9 1 IX. WHAT I THINK OF DR. JAMESON ... 114 X. WHAT I THINK OF PRESIDENT KRUGER... 119 XI.

WHAT I THINK OF THE BOERS ... ... 1 36 XII. WHAT I THINK OF PRETORIA ... ... 152 XIII. WHAT I THINK OF DR. LEYDS ... ... 1 59 XIV. WHICH IS SUPPLEMENTARY ... ... 1 67 XV. WHAT I THINK OF NATAL ... ... 1 73 XVI. WHAT I THINK AS A " SHOWMAN " ... 189 XVII. WHAT I THINK GENERALLY ... ... 200 XVIII. WHAT I THINK OF THE SITUATION 2IO LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS STUART c. Cumberland Frontispiece MR. CECIL RHODES AT HOME To face page 18 MR. CECIL RHODES' HOUSE, GROOT SCHUUR „ 27 BARNIE BARNATO „ 65 DR. JAMESON „ 114 OOM PAUL AND TANTA SANNA AT HOME „ 119 PRESIDENT KRUGER „ 133 DR. LEYDS „ 159 MAP End

Chapter I Which Is Introductory

For many years South Africa was the Cinderella of the Colonies. Whilst her more favoured sisters — Canada and Australia — with the kind assistance of their all-obliging parent Britannia, cut a fine figure in the eyes of the world, and consequently had many suitors of all ranks, and of all nation alities, poor South Africa crouched in the ashes, neglected and unloved. Then a good fairy took pity on her, and showed her where the diamonds and gold, which all man kind coveted, lay hidden amongst the seemingly worthless sand and stones. From that moment her all-too-neglectful step-mother treated her with less indifference, and she, the once despised, eventually B found herself the object of considerable attention. From all parts of the world men came to woo her ; but there has never been any pretence in the woo ing.

One and all have courted her for her great wealth — for what they could get out of her. The successful suitors in the main part love and ride away with their pockets bursting with the wealth she has lavished upon them, whilst the unsuccessful ones return to upbraid her or remain to deride her. The Princes Charming, with real love in their hearts and " settling down " thoughts in their minds, have been few and far between. So South Africa, although no longer the poor despised Cinderella of yore, remains almost as much unloved as ever. And yet there is much to love in her, just as there is not a little to condemn. I, too, have been one of her suitors, and during the period in which I paid my visit last year, I had many opportunities of noting her virtues, and her faults. She has frequently expressed her opinion of me, and now comes my turn.

I shall speak of her just as I found her, in public and in private, just, in fact, as she struck me. I may be wrong in some of my conclusions, but she will know that I have honestly arrived at them. Wherever I am wrong, my observation, my intelligence— or my •■ INTRODUCTORY 3 liver — must be blamed, and not my intention. My intention is good, if everything else be at fault. I have in these pages no idea of going over the ground taken by those who have preceded me, or of anticipating those who may come after me. This is neither a history nor a guide-book, nor again is it a work dealing with adventure — it doesn't, in fact, contain even a lion story. It is simply a record of my own " thoughts," with here and there a bit of what I hope may be useful information thrown in. Some may be interested to know what I think of South Africa, whilst to others it may be a matter of complete indifference.

Some may agree with me and some disagree with me ; but, be that as it may, the fact remains that concerning all matters dealt with herein, I have at least said exactly what I think, without fear and without favour.

Chapter II What

I THINK OF CAPE TOWN One's first impression of Cape Town from the sea, on a dark winter's night, is not an altogether agree able one. It seems wrapped in gloom, and Table Mountain, dark and frowning, has not a particularly hospitable look about it. The breakwater, principally the work of convicts, looms out black against the raging waters, and were it not for the few lights on the heights beyond, one might well imagine one had anchored in front of a city of the dead. With the morning come many signs of life ; the harbour is alive with shipping, and there is considerable activity on the quay, but, beyond, the city itself lies wrapped in stillness. We landed in a rain-storm, with the icy winds chilling us to the bones. Luckily there was no delay at the Custom House, where the officials are most courteous and obliging, and the long drive up to our hotel — the Inter national — commenced.

It was not — and can never be in winter — a pleasant drive. The horses splashed heavily through the mud, and the wheels of the carriage bumped incessantly over various abomin ations left in the ruts. No one who has not visited Cape Town can imagine what the mud there is like ; it is as thick as old-fashioned pea-soup, with a blood-red tinge in it. It makes the horses look as if they had been wading in gore, whilst the glue like properties are the despair of those who try to brush your clothes after a good splashing. The weather, however, eventually cleared up, and then I had my first experience of the delightful possibilities of the South African climate ; and, in good weather, it is really delightful. It is in the wet season cold and damp, but in the summer there is always more or less a refreshing breeze.

In fact an "airier" place, outside of St. Johns, Newfound land, does not, I fancy, exist on the face of the globe. It has two nice winds — a sou'-wester and a sou'-easter. When either of them is in the full vigour of its unbridled passion it is a wind to be avoided. The sou'-wester is, I am inclined to think, the more boisterous of the two, and it takes a truly malicious delight in showing off its rude powers upon poor defenceless humans. An ordinary rough wind is quite content with taking off one's hat and bowling it a few yards in the dust or mud, but a Cape sou'-wester not only takes off your hat and sends it flying hundreds of yards down the road, but it almost takes your hair off at the same time. The man who can catch up with a hat, with a good Cape sou'-wester after it, must have the speed of a Deerfoot ; I have tried it myself and know what I am talking about.

But this is not all — by no means all — a Cape sou'-wester does and can do. It has a playful habit — at least I suppose it considers it playful — of wrenching off branches of trees at the very moment you are passing beneath them, and of whirling dust and small stones into your face with a force that both blinds and smothers you. No one, who can help it, goes out when a first-class sou'-wester has the running. It has a distinctly bad name, and one experience of it is quite enough to last an ordinary man for the rest of his days. It was my ill-luck to have more than this one experience, and I am grieved to say that on such occasions I frequently forgot my early Christian training. But life is not all rain-storms, dust-raising, and hat-snatching in Cape Town, nor do these winds always prevail there.

They simply have their seasons, and, like all things sent by Dame Nature, their uses; and, as I have already said, the climate on the whole is a perfectly charming one. The sky is as clear as that of Egypt, the sea as blue as that of the Mediterranean, and the scenery round about as attractive as any you will find in the mother country. No city in the wide world has more picturesque suburbs than Cape Town ; but of this later. The town itself has about it an air of incomplete ness ; there are fine buildings and poor, mixed up in a somewhat disturbing fashion, and much of that in the way of street buildings which will eventually be finest is still in course of erection. Yet Cape Town has somehow or other quite the air of a capital about it ; one sees it in its Government House, with the Tommies ever on guard, in its really fine Parliament buildings, and in the capitalish look of its inhabitants, as distinct from the never to-be-mistaken provincial look.

Capetonians dress well — about as well as people do in London — and just as Londoners are proud of being citizens of the largest city in the world, they, on their part, are equally proud of belonging to the capital of Cape Colony, and the oldest town in South Africa. With most travellers it is the custom to disparage Cape Town, to vote it dull and its inhabitants slow. It is, it is true, not quite so lively as Johannesburg, and the people are not so go-ahead as the Johan nesburgers ; but it has not the same incentive to activity as has the Transvaal's " golden city," where the people are not only newer, but composed of entirely different elements to those which make up the population of Cape Town. But Cape Town grows upon one, and eventually gives a traveller, who has seen much, the feeling that it would not be at all a bad place to settle down in.

How many Colonial towns give rise to a similar feeling ? The Capetonians are not so easy to know as, say, the Johannesburgers, but this comes of the greater age of Cape Town society, as compared with that of Johannesburg. For South Africa, society in Cape Town rests upon quite ancient foundations, and has consequently a good deal of the stiffness of age. Society there is very much in a family ring, and, unless you get inside the ring, you never know what Cape Town society is really like. The trail of the Dutchman is everywhere visible in Cape Town, and this accounts for some of its so-called slowness and its somewhat depressing straight-lacedness. The purely Dutch element is very old-fashioned in its habits, customs, and ways of thinking ; its people live very much as their ancestors lived, and they never bother their heads about new theories of the " house beautiful," or the new social problems which vex society at home.

They probably have never even heard of the æsthetic poet or the New Woman, which after all is no great misfortune. They are kindly and hospitable in a way, but it is a kindliness mixed with caution, and a hospitality tempered by reserve and not a little economy. If this old-fashioned reserve be a little chilling, and their narrowness of vision a trifle tiresome, yet there is much to admire in their solidity of character and tenacity of purpose. I have said that the trail of the Dutch is over all society in Cape Town ; but, as the years go by, the trail will grow fainter and fainter, and with, as in the end it must be, the absolute dominance of the Britisher, one will eventually have to search with a microscope to discover where the Dutch of the present comes in. The fusion of the races goes on apace, and the Dutch, who don't fuse, run the risk of being squeezed closer and closer to the wall, and, in the end, of dying out.

This particularly applies to Cape Town, and has, of course, no reference to the rural districts, where the Dutch element for many a year to come will run its slow, undiluted course. The population of Cape Town is very cosmo politan. There are the pure Dutch, the Dutch cum-Huguenot, the Dutch and British mixture, the pure British, the German, the Malays, and the Cape " boys." It would be almost impossible to tell what the Cape " boy " is made of. He has a little of everything and not much of anything. In the dim ages of the past he probably had a Hottentot ancestor ; then came a mixture with the Kaffir, to be later on dashed with the blood of the white man, finally mingling with that of the Malay. He belongs to what are called the dirty-coloured races. He is neither black, nor brown, nor even a fairly decent mud colour.

He looks dirty — and is dirty. He has no virtues to speak of, but many vices of which to complain. He hates work, but has a passionate fancy for the result of other men's labours. He calls himself a Christian, but is anything but a credit to Christianity. His moral character is bad,"and his physique insignificant. He may have his uses in the world, but they have, I fancy, yet to be discovered. Up till now he has been chiefly occupied in providing convict labour for the break water. The Malays, especially the women, are about the most industrious of the coloured portion of the Cape Town population. Most of the washing is done by the Malay women ; they make but indifferent washerwomen, but admirable thieves. No one knows better than a Malay washerwoman the difference between superfine and ordinary linen ; the latter invariably arrives home very much the worse for the washing, but the former more frequently than not remains with her.

The Malay washerwoman who returns a silk handker chief above the value of a shilling must, for some unaccountable reason, have made a sudden vow to steal no more, or, what is still more likely, have placed it in the bundle in error. The Malays love finery, and it not infrequently happens that one meets them at their Sunday outings decked out in some silken article which has been missing at the wash. The Malay has all the cunning of the heathen Chinee, and it is an old dodge of hers to alter the number of the articles on the washing list and go to the hotel and get payment for the articles returned, leaving it for you to discover, on going over the list, that the number has been altered, and that you are several things short. The Malay washerwoman may not do this with her regular customers, but she makes a business of it with the casuals, and, what is more, swears by all the gods in the universe that she only received the articles she condescends to return.

To those who visit Cape Town I say : Beware of the Malay washerwoman ; she is an irredeemably bad lot. I have suffered from her myself. Another person to beware of is the Malay cab driver ; he has about as much idea of driving as a sailor, and it would be well to insure your life before placing yourself in his hands. I have suffered from him, too. The way in which the dirty-coloured people jostle the white man on the pavements in Cape Town is simply disgusting. A black man is a black man, and a dirty-coloured man is a dirty coloured man, but I have never yet succeeded in looking upon him as a brother. I object to knocking against him, and I resent his knocking against me. He is not savoury, and too close a contact with him offends my olfactory nerves. Let those who, being imbued with the man-and-brother theory, like mixing up with dirty-coloured people please themselves ; it is purely a matter of taste.

They manage things in this direction much better in the Transvaal and in Natal, and I really fail to understand why Cape Town puts up with it. The principal things to see in Cape Town itself are the Houses of Parliament, which cost £220,000 to build ; the Museum ; the Dutch Reformed Church, which was commenced in 1699, but of which nothing of the original building except the clock-tower remains ; the Botanical Gardens and Government Avenue, which contains trees upwards of two hundred years old, and is an avenue of which many an English city would be proud. The chief attractions are not in the town, but outside of it. In driving through Woodstock, Rondebosch, Claremont, and Wynburg one could well imagine oneself to be in a picturesque portion of Europe : there is nothing about the surroundings to give the idea that one is really in South Africa.

The old Dutch settlers had something artistic in their natures ; they loved to plant tree* and lay out gardens, as well as build houses that were at once substantial and quaint. They brought with them an old-world touch, direct evidence of which is in the surroundings of Cape Town to this day. All about Wynburg one comes across bits of Holland, but it is the Holland of a couple of centuries ago. One of the most interesting specimens of Dutch architecture, of the days gone by, is the house at Constantia. It was originally the country residence of Governor Simon Van der Stel, who succeeded Governor Bax in 1678, and in its main features has been altered but slightly from the date of its erection over two hundred years ago. It was Van der Stel — a most energetic man — who made vine-culture a special study, and at Constantia the vine, which had been introduced into the colony as early as 1653, was extensively cultivated.

As Constantia, which produced the famous dessert wine of the same name, was the Government wine-farm of the past, so it is to-day, the Government having recently acquired it for that purpose. The art of making Constantia wine as of old has been lost, but experiments are being made with the object of improving its present quality. Van der Stel was a large slave-owner on his own account, and the cellars beneath the house where he used to keep his human chattels are still in existence ; nay more, they are occupied by much the same class of labour that did the work when he reigned supreme at the Cape — viz. by convicts. Thus does history repeat itself even with the subject blacks. Van der Stel was, for a Dutchman of his time, a man of luxurious habits ; this is instanced in the style in which he lived.

In the gardens, some distance from the house, he had a bath let into the earth, which was fed from a small stream ; there is the bath just as it was in his time, but there is no one to use it, and the stream is diverted for the purpose of irrigation. It must have been a diverting sight to have seen the venerable Governor disporting himself in his morning tub (which is as big as a modern London swimming-bath), with nothing but the blue sky above him. Bathing with him must have been a labour of love, for, apart from the distance he had to travel from his home to get to the bath, it must have been pretty cold work in the winter, and in summer the mosquitoes would, all out in the open plantation as the bath was, certainly have been somewhat troublesome. Van der Stel has gone to his fathers, but, after a couple of centuries, the good work he commenced remains to bear witness to the value of his labours.

There are the vineyards, the house he dwelt in, the outhouses he made the wine in — nothing has changed much since his time, except that there are new wine-presses and new vats, which modern improvements in the art of making and storing wine have necessitated. Of course the visitor must " do " Table Mountain, only care should be taken to do it when there is no sou'-easter blowing ; at such a time the ascent is rendered really perilous, for the clouds arise with startling rapidity, and for the novice to find his way, enveloped in mist, is absolutely impossible. In fine weather the ascent is well worth making, for the view of the sea and wooded land is un equalled anywhere in South Africa. It also goes without saying that the visitor who has time trains it to Simonstown and to the quaint old town of Stellenbosch.

Houts Bay should also be done, and the shorter drive round Lions Head is well worth the carriage hire. Altogether, the suburbs of Cape Town have many charms, and it is difficult to exhaust them. From Cape Town you can get to any part of South Africa. Below I give the chief towns, and the distance of each from Cape Town. The accompanying map will show you how to get at them. Population about Distance. Kimberley (Cape Colony) 28,000 647 miles. ,. „ ,,.„.. s by sea 428 ,, Port Elizabeth (Cape Colony) ... 23,000 j, .. „ East London (Cape Colony) 8,000 |bysea5S9 .. t by rail 900 , , King William's Town (Cape Colony) 7,000 879 ,, Bloemfontein (Orange Free State) ... 5,000 749 ,, Johannesburg (South African Republic) 40,000 1014 ,, Pretoria (South African Republic) ... 12,000 1040 ,, Durban (Natal) 8,000... by sea 812 ,, Pietermaritzburg (Natal) 17,000 872 ,, Vryburg (capital of Bechuanaland) ... 5,000 774 „ Fort Salisbury (Mashonaland) ... (vid Vryburg) 1694 ,, Buluwayo (Matabeleland) 2,000 (vid Vryburg) 1300 ,, C

Chapter III What

I THINK OF MR. CECIL RHODES It has been said of Mr. Rhodes that he, alone of present-day politicians, thinks in continents. This is very true. Some idea of it is gathered from his public utterances, but personal acquaintance with him brings it the more directly home to one. Compared with the Premier of Cape Colony,1 other Colonial statesmen are very local, and some of them exceedingly parochial. Much the same can be said of many who aim at statesmanship in this country. The greatness of Mr. Rhodes' ideas, whilst it disturbs the slow-going order of mankind 1 This chapter was in type long before the events which caused Mr. Rhodes to resign the Premiership of Cape Colony. These events have in no way affected the estimate I had formed of the man ; what I had written remains word for word as originally set up.

I am not one of those who think that Mr. Rhodes' political career is at an end ; on the con trary, I am inclined to believe with him that it is but beginning. 1 Mr. Cecil Rhodes at Home. and excites the anger of the " Little Englander," has a fascination for the majority of the British race. It has certainly fascinated me from the first, and a personal knowledge of the man has but added to that fascination. To know the real great ness of Mr. Rhodes' ideas, the full extent of their practicability, and the actual greatness of the man himself, one must hear his story from his own lips. I have sat at his feet, or more correctly speaking by his side, and listened, and profited. It goes without saying that in this chapter I shall make a goodly number of enemies, for with the " Little Cape Colonist," who has much in com mon with the " Little Englander " and the Boer of the professional politician type, to be an admirer of Mr. Rhodes and his policy is to become an object of virulent abuse.

I have already had considerable experience of it. But I do not write to please " Little Cape Colonists " and the un speakable Boer politician, and any dislike they may have for me will leave me absolutely calm. I shall speak of Mr. Rhodes as I know him, as I read him, and I have had ample opportunity of both knowing and reading him What most struck me about Mr. Rhodes at our first meeting was his shyness — it was so unexpected. I had, from the knowledge of his power of dominating men, of his masterful way of dealing with gigantic affairs, expected to find a man self possessed almost unto aggressiveness, but his quiet, shy, retiring manner took me quite by surprise. This, I understand, is always his way with new men with whom he is brought directly in contact ; he is seldom quite at home with a man until he knows him well.

But it does not take Mr. Rhodes long to know a man. He is a remarkably shrewd reader of character, and not a little of his success is due to this natural shrewdness. On the other hand, Mr. Rhodes is by no means an easy man to read ; that sphinx-like smile of his, when the knowing ones try to get at him, is most disconcert ing. He reads you, in fact, much more easily than you can read him, and this goes a long way to account for the absolute confidence he has in those placed in positions of trust about him, and for the few mistakes he makes in his estimate of those with whom he is connected in business or politics. He is a man quick in his likes and dislikes, but again and again has his analysis of this or that person's character, totally opposed though it frequently has been to the opinions formed by his intimate friends, turned out to be correct.

Expertence has taught those intimately associated with him to have absolute faith in his judgment. In the old Kimberley days he was, as a young man, remarkable for the way he influenced those with whom he was brought in contact; and the far sightedness which now distinguishes him was also remarked, although at that time he was set down as a dreamer of idle dreams. Mr. Rhodes, it is true, is a dreamer, but he dreams with his eyes wide open ; his thoughts seldom seem to be in the present, but invariably in the beyond. In the midst of an animated conversation his eyes will suddenly wander from yours and fix themselves upon space. In that moment what is he thinking of? Of his future plans? of a consolidated South Africa ? of Well, who can tell ? In addition to his mental restlessness, Mr. Rhodes has developed a certain physical restlessness, which, like that of Mr. Gladstone, is most marked when he is listening to the criticisms of his political opponents.

His impatience in the House under what he considers — and often justly so — irrelevant criticism must strike the most casual observer. His mental activity betrays itself in the nervous movements of his body ; and the desire to be up and doing, to give on the spur of the moment the lie direct, as it were, to those who oppose him, instead of waiting till the constitu tional opportunity offers itself, is, it is evident to every one, with the greatest difficulty kept under control. It is this general impatience of what he considers the carping opinions of others that has made men in the opposite political camp decry him as an autocrat. True it is that Mr. Rhodes is in a measure an autocrat, but his autocracy is tempered with statesmanlike wisdom. He knows what he wants, and he means to have it, opposition or no opposition ; and those who fail to see as far as he does, thinking his views alike arbitrary and premature, resent the grip of his iron hand, which seeks to mould them to his will before they have really grasped what the result of his policy may be.

Mr. Rhodes as a politician is rare in this age of universal trimming. There is nothing flabby about him ; there is no pandering to the mob, no truckling to this or that section, but all along he is guided by fixed principles, by the dominant idea that the policy he has determined upon is the correct one. At times, however, he puts on the silken glove but the better to conceal the hand of iron, and thus he draws towards him, and eventually uses them, those who otherwise might be opposed to him. In South Africa, especially in Cape Colony, the white population is divided, not equally by any means, into those who believe in Rhodes and those who don't. The greater por tion are Rhodeites ; they believe he can do no wrong, and that everything he takes in hand must come right in the end. On the other side, there are those who look upon Mr. Rhodes as a visionary, practical only where his self-aggrandisement is concerned.

This camp is mostly composed of those who have not followed Mr. Rhodes' forward policy, and who have not consequently pecuniarily benefited by it. In South Africa there is a class who only believe in a man and his policy when they can make something out of him or it. The curs snarl at the heels of the mastiff from very envy of his superior size, and the human mos quitoes buzz irritatingly around the man who has done something beyond his fellows from reasons very much akin to those which dictate the attitude of the curs. Mr. Cecil Rhodes, as a matter of course, has his full share of these human mosqui toes. There is nothing that ignorance or envy can suggest that is not suggested by them. In their opinion — and they do not hesitate at expressing their opinion with superfluous maliciousness — Mr. Rhodes is all for himself.