On the veldt in the seventies

Front matter

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Cornell University Library

Preface

I HAVE been requested from time to time (by friends who are interested in the -welfare of South Ajfrica) to give my views as to the condition of the country with which I have been connected for so many years.

It appears to me that I can best do this by first gathering together the impressions I received some five and twenty years ago, when my duties brought me into intimate acquaintance with the peoples and their varied interests ; and subsequently, if practicable, by following up with further accounts showing by our experience in the past how we may be enabled to avoid or surmount difficulties in the fiiture — difficulties which all, who know the country, can clearly see ahead of us.

The bulk of the volume which I now place before the public consists of extracts from my journals and letters to my wife and children ; and the difference of tone of thought and expression running through the volume is due, in a measure, to the various ages vi PREFACE

of those to whom the letters are addressed. This will account for childish anecdotes and scraps of natural history, interspersed about the book, which I have retained by desire of those who have read the manuscript.

CHARLES WARREN.

Ramsgate,

October 1902.

Contents

BOUNDARY LINE

CHAP. PAGE

I. Capetown . . 1

Chapter I

In the autumn of 1876 I was engineer, for Works, to the War Department small arms and gunpowder factories, and felt that I was fast drifting into civil life, while all my aspirations were in the direction of a life of military activity. At this time I was offered an appointment as engineer to harbour works in Australia, at ;^95o per annum, and was considering the pros and cons when I received a communication from the Colonial Ofl&ce asking whether it would be agreeable to me to undertake the duties of Special Commissioner in laying down the Boundary-line between Griqualand West and the Orange Free State for her Majesty's Government in conjunction with an expert from the Orange Free State.

Here was the very chance I wanted ; I felt that the work would exactly suit me, and closed with the offer. The Colonial Office was most considerate in every respect ; all my requests were attended to [C— 1814, July 1877] and on Oct. 13, 1876, I received instructions as to my course of procedure, which involved a triangulation, survey and beaconing off of a long slip of ground through which the boundary-line was to pass, from the Orange River near Hopetown on the south to the Vaal River near Fourteen Streams on the north, so arranged as to include the Diamond Fields in British territory. The subject of minor concessions of land was left entirely in my hands, Lord Carnarvon informing me that, while adhering to the general spirit of the agreement with the Orange Free State, I might consider myself at liberty, without sacrificing material points, to make such concessions in minor matters as I might consider fair and expedient, and as might seem necessary in order to prevent disagreement or controversy in the future ; and I was further informed that Lord Carnarvon attached quite as much importance to a settlement which in matters of detail would be final and satisfactory to both sides, as to the actual precision of the survey work. My communications with the Colonial Office ended with a kind letter from Lord Carnarvon's private Secretary (now Sir Montagu Ommaianey, Under Secretary of State) saying, " I cannot sufficiently congratulate the Colony on obtaining your services."

I received letters of introduction from my commanding officer (afterwards Col. Sir Peter Scratchley, K.O.M.G.) who said : " I intend to send a memo, about your services in the districts as a slight recognition of my debt to you for the steady, indefatigable way in which you have worked. As I say to Sir Henry Barkly, I could not wish to come across an abler officer or a better feUow." I also received many letters of introduction to people at the Cape, from my old friend Col. Anthony Durnford (kiUed at Isandlwana) ; he had just returned from the Cape after the Langalibalele episode, where he was seriously injured in the shoulder ; he ended his letter, " Good-bye, old feUow — if we never meet again — God bless you ! " [We never did meet again. He was one of the best of soldiers and truest of friends, and died the death of a hero, j

The following account of my life on the boundary-line is taken principally from my diary, and from my letters to my wife and children, and I may observe that the views I have expressed of the people, whites and natives, were my first impressions, which were modified somewhat as I remained longer in the country and understood them more fuUy.

My staff consisted of two non-commissioned officers E,.E. from the Ordnance Survey (Sergeant Kennedy and Corporal Randall).

We left England in the Union ss. Danube October 26, 1876, Our fellow passengers were not numerous but very amusing. The principal parties (who I came across subsequently) were two shikaris going lion hunting towards the Zambesi (Colonel Saltmarsh and Mr. Brooks) ; Messrs. Forges and Rube on business to the Diamond Fields ; Mr. and Mrs. Atwood of the biscuit-baking firm, Capetown ; two

Erasers, brothers, going to Basutoland ; a Natal farmer, wife and son; Mr, Alexander, engineer; many others, mostly ladies.

The most amusing certainly was M. Forges, he evidently knows the value of money though he has never known the want of it. He was the life of our party, and I saw a good deal of him. He is not naturally by any means a butt, but he often made himself our butt for our amusement, and acted most cleverly. On crossing the Line the Captain forbade Old Neptune to come on board, so in lieu we got up a charade, the word being given by Forges, half English, half French, Don Quichotte (Quixote) or donkey shot. Our engineer was turned into the " Don " (Don Juan) and made to make love to two or three ladies at one time ; the rehearsals were some of the most inexpressibly funny scenes imaginable ; after much coaching, at which many of us assisted, he became an adept. In the last scene M. Forges was Don Quixote and shot me, a donkey dressed up as a lion. I brought down the house by an impromptu as I lay dead : pointing at Forges in his grotesque costume — " Better a dead lion than a live donkey." M. Forges was the more amusing because there was so much ponderous dignity mixed up with it, and while putting us for ever on the grin he kept his own countenance severe. At the time of crossing the Line we had boisterous sports ; amongst others bear-basting, and I gladly allowed myself to be swung in a sling and beaten black and blue with knotted handkerchiefs for the sake of seeing the- magnificent Forges going through the same ordeal shortly afterwards, glaring at us and looking very like being out of temper yet ever keeping it under control.

We neared Capetown on November 20, anchoring at 4 P.M. As we approached land during the day, we were much impressed with the extraordinary effect of the mirage on the sea-coast. The whole of the barren sandy shore was transformed at midday into a beautifully cultivated coast with numerous lines of waterfalls running over into the sea. The deception was most perfect, but at times the waterfalls resolved themselves into stretches of low sand, and the rising ground behind disappeared. Table Mountain was most striking in appearance, but was looking parched and dry though the summer was barely commencing. But at sea the temperature was cold, and I was still wearing my overcoat when we entered the harbour, and a sudden change to sultry heat was experienced. This always does strike people from our isles very much, owing to the intensely cold water from the Antarctic Ocean washing the shores of South Africa.

The harbours and surrounding buildings present a very unfinished, unkempt appearance : the docks seem very small for large vessels, and the strong current sweeping across the entrance makes it difficult for ships to enter, as the stern may be swept against the jetty after the bow has entered ; we ourselves very narrowly escaped coming in contact with the wooden jetty. Capetown nestles picturesquely under the mountain side, but thie absence of trees is a great drawback, and the chaotic state of the foreshore detracts altogether from our proper appreciation of the grand view behind it. Hansom cabs abound in the streets, and the drivers, mostly Malays (Moslem), wear the Malay straw hat raised some inches above the head, supported on a circular band of metal which fits the head. The streets of Capetown are far too wide for the limited amount of labour that the municipality can afford to bestow on them, and the pavements or footpaths on either side are appropriated by the owners of the cream-coloured houses, and are used as Dutch stoeps ; that is to say, they have seats put across them, a custom very pleasant and even necessary for the occupants, but causing the white pedestrians who have to walk in the roadway to utter many things. Probably the reply would be that white people should ride and not walk like natives.

At the Custom House I had an amusing scene with the chief ofl&cer. I was taking a silver presentation plate through to Major Lanyon, which they insisted on opening though the invoice stated exactly its nature. I felt sure that they would spoil it with their rough hands, so I said I would rather kick it into the sea than have any more bother with it, and gave it a good kick. They gave in at once and said it could be of no value if I could kick it, and so I got it through without injury.

St. George's Hotel was stifling hot, but there were neither mosquito-nets nor mosquitoes in my room. I was much struck with the profusion of delicious fruit and vegetables of great variety which the hotel afforded.

November 21. — ^After calling on Captain Mills (afterwards Sir Charles MiHs, Agent-General for the Cape Colony) I paid my respects to Sir Henry Barkly, High Commissioner, who received me most cordially, and told me that the arrangements for the details of the boundary -line were left entirely to my discretion, but that if I ever wanted any assistance or advice he would be most hajipy to afford it. I then called on General Sir Arthur Conynghame, and on the following day visited the Astronomer-Royal, Mr, Stone, and the late Astronomer-Royal, Sir Thomas Maclear, relative to connecting the boundary-line survey with that of the Cape Colony Triangulation, and got valuable information from than on various points ; but on visiting the Surveyor- General, Mr. de Smit, I ascertained that the Cape Colony Triangulation did not go farther inland than 200 mUes, and that therefore no junction could be made.

Before leaving Capetown I dined with Sir Henry and Lady Barkly at Government House, and there met Admiral Sir William Hewett, the Flag 'Officer of the Cape of Good Hope Station [imder whom I subsequently served during the Egyptian War of 1882-3]. He was full of his recent visit to Natal, and spoke in most glowing terms df one he had met there — "a born soldier." It was on his road from Durban to Pietermaritzburg that he met him, an Englishman, driving a Cape-cai^t with six horses and giving directions to the Kafir labourers on the road. " The man was in plain clothes and doing civil duties, and I did not ascertain his name, but I recognised him as a born soldier : his method of dealing with his workmen was perfect ; they were drilled into order and hung on his words as though he were a superior being." This description interested me very much, and I said, " That must be Colonel Anthony Durnford, R.E." (subsequently killed at Isandlwana). Sir William replied : " I don't care who he is : he is a born soldier whoever he is." I was very much gratified to find that Durnford should be so readily recognised for his soldierlike qualities even when doing the civil duties of Surveyor-General of the Natal Colony.

Just before I left Capetown the verger of the Cathedral came over to tell me that one of the Sisters wished me to go over their Children's Home. I do not know them, but I had met one of them in the train and offered to take anything for them to Kimberley : they are not, however, of the same order as those at Kimberley.

I went over the Home. There are two kinds of dress used by the Sisters, black and grey : I think that the latter are novices. They have eighty-three children in the school and are much in want of funds ; there is also a refuge. There are no bedsteads, for want of funds, and the children sleep on the floor on mattresses. They are aU colours and seem to get on very well together : many are orphans. This organisation of Sisters must be very helpful to the bishop. I cannot think why we don't have something of the kind in Palestine ; it is very like the German system.

Chapter II

We arrived at Port Elizabeth (Algoa Bay) on Sunday morning, Nov. 26, 1876, after a forty hours' run in the Danube. We stopped at Mossel Bay to put down Sir John Coode, C.E., who is on a tour of inspection to the several harbours. He seems to have little hopes of doing any good there, but was desirous of going on to the Knysna, where there is a land-locked harbour, and at least fifteen feet of water on the bar. According to all accounts the •country about George and the Knysna is the most beautiful in the world ; splen did forests, flowers, •climate. You can ride through miles of red geranium, you can shoot elephants (if you have a permit), you water your horse every three miles at the running streams. This is to be the harbour of the future (according to current account) and it can be so easily defended. With all these advantages I liope Sir John Coode can push the matter, but his instructions appear to be only regarding Mossel Bay.

Algoa Bay is said to be most thriving port in South Africa, 14,000 whites and 3000 Kafirs, but from the sea it seems quite a small place with cleanlooking buildings ; the absence of trees is the most remarkable want. There is simply a wide open bay with a surf of great violence and beachcombers in strings on the shore holding hand and hand, stretching right into the surf and bringing goods and passengers on shore among them : a very turbulent proceeding at times but a necessary eviL They say that vessels cannot ride safely at anchor in a south-easterly gale and have to cut and run.

From the sea the plains above the town look like Clevedon in Somersetshire, but the coast-line isbarren and rocky and contrasts strangely with the brand-new houses ; everything looks so clearly cut in this bright climate.

We were able to land in boats and put up at the Phoenix Hotel where we got our coach tickets for Kimberley.

Hearing the church bells going, I had just time to change my clothes and make for a new plastered building of cruciform shape ; a very ugly church outside but the service conducted well, somewhat ornate. A good choir of six men and fourteen boys, and a decent organ. The minister had an excellent voice and led the whole service, including: the singing. The psalms and all responses were chanted. The boys sang well and rather loudly, but I should not have considered it diiferent to any service at home ; I should say that it was a good deal above our average. A good sermon on the Second Coming ; no communion. I cannot say what an effect it had, this first joining a service in church with our people grown up in a colony ; what a bond it is between us !

In the afternoon I came m for a tough job. It was very hot, but I felt restless staying indoors and walked through the town into a fine church and seeing a young man puffing away at the organ bellows and looking at the last gasp, I offered to lend a hand whUe he r^ested a bit ; after a time the music did not cease, and the organ blower did not come back, and I began to perspire very freely. I did not like to incommode the people by ceasing to blow, and gradually it dawned upon me that it could not be a church of England that I was in. Presently the people began to flock out, and they all seemed to scrutinise me as much as to say, "You are not one of us." However, I pegged away until the organist stopped, and then I took a look in and found it was a Roman Catholic Church, and bolted. [I never met that young man, the organ-blower, again, and I think he did not wish to meet me.]

In the afternoon I went with Forges and the Frasers to see the gardens of Port Elizabeth. What keeps striking me so much is the absence of trees, otherwise the general appearance of the country is like Cornwall. The houses all seem new and look well with balconies and verandahs. I never realised before that the ox is a majestic animal : I can understand now why he appears on the standards of the Children of Israel. The ox out here is a splendid beast, walking with a freedom of step that I have always ascribed only to the lion. As they draw the waggons through the street they look as though they were doing it of their own free wOl, for the love of the labour ; they look absolutely independent and free. Above the town at the height of about 200 feet from the sea is a level plateau with coarse grass. Here are an observatory, and a pyramidal monument to Elizabeth Donkin who died in India in 181 5, and a cemetery and then the town gardens. Oh, what a disappointment ! A pond of water and some trees and flowers in a most unkempt condition, quite melancholy to see. The trees are principally fir and blue gums, and the flowers are petunias and geraniums. There is wanting a little artistic skill, and a good deal of labour to make these gardens presentable.

The Malays, who are Moslems, are dressed in nice, bright, clean colours, and they inhabit their own quarter of the town ; I like the look of them. The Kafirs are scarecrows ; they wear our old clothes and very bad ones too, instead of their national costume (if they have one). What guys they aU look ! What a lot there is to be done in this country, and the dust is insufierable. Major Lanyon has telegraphed to ask me to stay with him at Kimberley.

Tuesday, Nov. 28. — We rose early and started by train for Sand flats, over an undulating bush country ; such a desolate scene. The veldt is quite dry, and the; scrub or bushes have lichens hanging down from them like beards, as though they had been immersed in a sea full of sea- weed and the water suddenly drained oif. A most melancholy sight. Then by coach to Grahamstown where we arrived in the evening.

The style of hotel accommodation up country o

> s

O would be amusing if it were not so singularly uncomfortable ; it is cheap enough. Bedrooms which have six to ten or more beds in them, and the washing to be done in the open air in the back yard; it reminds me of the Ventas of Spain, but not so amusing. I cannot express my sensation regarding the voyage up to Kimberley as anything else but dreary in the extreme as far as outside circumstances, though being a merry party we were very happy all together.

The very suUen look of the Kafirs disturbed me ; so different to natives I have met in other parts of the world. Everywhere else I have found the native looking upon the Englishman as his friend, but here the Kafir looks gloomily at us as his natural enemy ; there is no greeting, no " Good morning." How hateful all this is ! [At this time the discontent had begun which culminated in the great rising of 1877.] We passed through Cradock, Colesberg,, the Orange Free State, staying for the night at, wayside hotels, and reached Kimberley on December 4 early in the morning. What a dreary country we have gone over, uninteresting in the extreme for 400 mUes ! I did not think it possible that there could be 400 miles of such vacuity.

Imagine an uncultivated country with large plains and only small flat-topped mountains ; without cornfields, without trees, without terraces or vineyards ; without a single ruin or vestige of the past ; with absolutely no history of any kind reaching back a hundred years. A general scene of desolation, farmhouses (or inns) 15 to 30 miles apart, with nothing to eat in them save bread and butter milk, and meat — tough meat too. I wonder if I am becoming a pessimist.

The rains take place in summer so that wheat cannot thrive, and if rain by any chance does fall in the winter the long grass rots on the ground and the cattle starve ; moreover, the winter in the uplands is said to be severe in the extreme. Yet with all this I find the summer, in spite of its heat, extremely pleasant. This is the same latitude as Gibraltar, but the sun is not nearly so oppressive, and one feels so wonderfully well — all alive !

I have felt more cold than heat as yet, though it is midsummer, and I have often had to don my overcoat.

Yet here and there were objects of interest, the great white-ant heaps, and the holes made in them by the ant-bear with a long snout ; then two kinds of merckats which inhabit cities on the route, and also snake communities. The thorny mimosa is almost in blossom, and the wild jessamine just out. Yellow wild cats to be seen. They seem to milk the sheep in this country : they have only one lamb each and bear for six years. The stages average 1 6|- miles each, and our rate was 6|- miles an hour, going for about i6 hours a day, temperature 85° to 90° F. during the day and cool, even cold, at night ; the plateau of the Orange Free State is some four thousand feet above the sea.

As I approach Kimberley and the western boundary of the Orange Free State, where I am to spend so many months, I must confess I see nothing

OUANGE TO VAAL RIVERS 15

interesting or prepossessing in the appearance of the country — miles and miles of nearly dead level steppes, gently rising every few miles and culminating ^in flat-topped hills of iron-stone or trap, and falling again and rising up to another range of flat tops. The slopes so imperceptible that they can only be detected at long distances. Here and there •deep sluits or gullies in the shaly soil, running into the Riet and Modder rivers, which are merely bigger and larger gullies running through these nearly level plains : with only a dribble of water in them except in the heavy rains — ^then they are a fine sight, they say, roaring torrents sometimes overflowing the plain.

At th« junction of the Riet and Modder rivers we <3ame to a large store, half tent, half corrugated iron (Berry's), and after crossing the river we approached the Diamond Fields, whose galvanised iron roofs and walls shone brilliantly in the sunshine, a dazzling whiter

I am glad to be over the journey, for it had its inconveniences, though I enjoyed myself immensely. The food bad, the accommodation bad, our Boer hosts both insolent and grasping : they gave us the bare necessaries of life, charged us as though we were in first-class hotels, and treated us as intruders. Owing to the dryness of the air, the bread, said to have been baked in the morning, had to be parted with a hatchet in the evening, and the beef was too tough for mastication— had to be bolted.

We were highly amused with one of our fellow passengers from Grahamstown, a vivacious

Afrikander Englishman, who laid down the laws, put us all to rights and kept us amused. On getting ta one of the Boer inns he disappeared as a passenger and reappeared as the waiter of the inn under Boer supervision, and a very good one too, most civil and obliging, but no longer passing as the man of fortune and means on his way to shoot big game in the interior. I could see by his eye that he thought he had scored. [Some months after I passed this house and found this same waiter sitting on a stone, dull, abstracted, and dejected, I tried to rally him with no effect. Again I passed the inn and found he was gone, a victim to consumption.]

Dec. 4, 1876. — ^We arrived at Kimberley on the coach so early that there was no one from Government House to meet me, and being a stranger to Major Lanyon I put up at Mrs. Jardine's hotel to get a wash and breakfast. [Here I made the acquaintance of the kindest of landladies, and one of the best of women, Mrs. Jardine.J Her hotel was a novel building to me. An enormous eating-room with very small single bedrooms opening out all round, and in front the bar and sitting-room. Soon I was discovered by Major Lanyon (afterwards Sir Owen Lanyon). I was well wigged for not coming to him at once, and he treated me most hospitably, as his reputation is so to do.

Here I met my future colleague, Mr. Jos E, de Villiers, Government Surveyor, who had come over to meet me and carry me up to Bloemfontein to pay my respects to President Brand, of the Orange Free State.

ORANGE TO VAAL RIVERS IT

Dec. 5. — Jos. de VUliers took me in his Cape cart to his house at Boshof, over thirty-five miles ; here I made the acquaintance of his wife, and on the following morning we got up very early and drove straight through into Bloemfontein, the whole distance by Boshof from Kimberley being 120 miles.

Thursday, Dec. 7. — I have paid a visit to President Brand and was delighted with him. I suppose he would not be offended if I say that he seems to be thoroughly English. We shall get on first rate together I can see, he takes such reasonable views of everything. He was glad to find that I had authority to alter the line to a slight extent, as he said I should find great difficulties with some of the farmers, who were very wroth at being brought into British territory, and threatened to shoot those who laid down the line. The President seems to have some difficult people to deal with in the Volksraad, but he manages them so skilfully that they greatly respect him, though they do accuse him now and then of being too English. I think that they are rather proud of him.

Dec. 8. — All about here say that the Orange Free State and the Transvaal are to be the rich portions of South Africa. People here are making their fortunes in six to ten years. The proprietors of this hotel have in succession made two fortunes in ten years, and now a third is getting rich. Prices are at a frightful pitch ; five shillings for a bottle of Bass, one shilling for a slice of bread and butter and cup of tea. At Jacobsdaal I had two cups of tea, and they charged me sixpence each, but there are extortioners there, if anywhere. After all, however, it is not much more than we have to pay at a railway station at home, but the style and comfort are very different.

They all boast about the Transvaal, there is no end to their talk about it ; it is a real El Dorado or Tom Tidler's ground, where gold and silver and precious stones seem to be had for the asking. A good farm of 6000 acres can be bought for ;^I50 (what is the title?), the climate is delicious, with thunderstorms every few days in summer. I must confess that even here it is "good enough" : though we are near midsummer the weather is most agreeable, water in bath quite cold and a fresh breeze all day.

This town has more than doubled during the last ten years, and is very thriving. When the railway comes here it is to be the educational centre of South Africa. Already it must have made its mark in the minds of some, as a young Afrikander told me on board ship that, next to Paris, it was the most enlightened place on the face of the earth. I have reason, however, to conjecture that the young lady he is in love with was educated here, so no wonder he cracks up Bloemfontein.