Part 8 (2/2)

It must be borne in mind that in the early seventies the vast stretch of country below the e was practically an unknown land No uely rureat rivers the Crocodile and the Komati, the Olifant, the Letaba, and the lordly Limpopo, in whose depths Leviathan and Beheh its enchanted pastures, and that wild game of infinite variety and plentiful beyond the desire of the keenest hunter nightly slaked their thirst at these mysterious streams

And yet for more than half of the year that dream-like and translucent haze which spread like a pearl tinted veil over the romance-filled woodland tract, was a veritable shadow of death In the earlier daysor on adventure, pure and siht-heartedly down the steepthat it would have saved the fro cliffs

For from Nove the foothills, seeking hu these hting grip The feho ed to save their lives were doomed to months or even years of misery

This could only be learnt by bitter experience

In the autumn of 1873, five and thirty men descended to the Low Country; of these I think twenty seven died During the following year we took warning, and none, with the exception of the Alexandre party, attempted exploration before June Consequently there were not, so far as I remember, any fatalities; froh But the memory of other people's experience fades quickly; in 1875 soain undertook the trip too early Six started, one of these happened to be o down as far as the others, and so escaped The others were Thoardt, McKinnon, and myself I started on the 5th of April, at least two months too early, the others about the same time Of the five, the three first mentioned died where they took the infection

McKinnon and I et back; we reached Mac Mac on the sa by different paths Poor McKinnon, as of robust, powerful physique, died about a ht, had a comparatively mild attack, but I felt its effect for years Of the reat majority were of the lean kind It was, in fact, proverbial that the less flesh one had on one's bones, the better were the chances of recovery

One extremely sad case was that of a man named Gray, whom I kneell

He went doith fever at the poisonous Mattol Marsh, about thirty oa Bay, in 1873 His et supplies and hire bearers, leaving the sick man alone in a sot drunk and remained so whilst the money he had with hiht him of Gray assistance was sent, but it arrived too late; Gray was dead of thirst and starvation I found his grave the following year Sohs together, and had stuck it into the sand at the head What made Gray's case sadder, if possible, was the circu him at Lourenco Marques with the news that he had inherited a fortune

There can be no doubt that the heavythose who returned to camp ill with fever was due to the fact that no medical man was available that is, in the early days and that we knew nothing whatever of the principles of nursing One instance I recall illustrates this very forcibly A man had been ill with fever for upwards of two th the patient appeared to rally

One night he sat up in bed and announced that he had co asked what he would like to eat he begged for bread and sardines These were i coarse and brown He ate with avidity, and every one present felt the greatest satisfaction Within a few hours he was dead

One weird circumstance connected with these fatalities was this; in some instances the temperature of the bodies would rise after death and continue to rise for several hours This, I have been told, was due to the fever fer unchecked, and its products setting up strong chemical action It was hard, in these instances, to believe that death had actually taken place, so attempts at resuscitation used to be resorted to I was afterwards told by a medical man from Barberton that a similar phenomenon was noticed there in fever cases the terees Fahrenheit

Pilgriold had been discovered there, was an interesting and delightful place Those whose experience ofcamps is limited to ones in which the syndicate or the company holds sway, can forer is dominant I am prepared to maintain that life was healthier, saner, and on the whole rim's Rest in the early seventies than it is in any South African coe of loafers, idlers, and scoundrels, but these were kept in their proper place Public opinion was a very effective force; in eneral welfare of the community, opinion quickly translated itself into action when the occasion deuards knew perfectly well that if official justice occasionally halted, its unofficial equivalent was apt to be short, sharp, and decisive in its operation The prison was a bell-tent containing two sets of stocks Under ordinary circus secured However, occasionally, when an unusually large number of culprits were run in, they had to be content with only one wooden anklet apiece No color line was drawn, except, to a certain extent, in the matter of the application of the ”cat” Natives and colored ed for whatever offence they happened to be found guilty of Europeans were fined, with the alternative of imprisonment, except in the case of a serious offence such as tent-robbing, for instance For such a cri camp, where tents had very often to be left unprotected the white ot his five and twenty as aby a native

This was in the early days The culprit was shot on the spot and thron a disused shaft No questions on the subject were asked

I will illustrate what Ithat no color line was drawn I once had a hlander froht, but would turn up very early on Sundayhe did not appear While I was at breakfast a passing digger tolda policeaol was about four miles from where I lived I arrived there in due course There was no one to prevent , for the prisoners were secured so well in the heavy, iron-bound stocks that escape was an i on the ground between two similarly secured Kaffirs He was in a horrid condition, as, being a powerful man, it had been found necessary to stun him with a club before his arrest could be effected

It was a fortunate circumstance that I knew Major Macdonald, the Gold Co to a successful gaood temper He penciled an order for John's release After soh with a bad grace, for John had acted in a really outrageous manner to obey the order

All nationalities were represented alish South Africans predo population of Australian, New Zealand, and Californian miners poured in The ”field”

was a rich one The ”lead,” which zigzagged perplexingly down between the valley terraces, carried plenty of gold It was, of course, uneven, so much richer than others but I do not think that there was any portion of the lead which it did not pay to work But the lead and the bed of the creek in which the water actually ran zigzagged quite independently of each other That is to say, at the tiold was carried down and distributed by water along the botto although it followed the saeneral direction took in detail a course quite different froold seekers defaced its banks in the days I write of

Much enerally supposed I remember four very quiet, reticent men orked out three and a half rather shallow claims just in front of as known as the Middle Ca and it would have been a most serious breach of local etiquette tothey authorized the er of the bank to make public the fact that they had divided, on dissolution of the partnershi+p, gold to the value of 35,000 Many others also did well, but none to the sae nuggets were found I personally handled one which weighed 10 lb It was unearthed by the late John Barrington, afterwards of Knysna

The wild peaches which grew so plentifully in the vicinity of the Blyde River Valley were a Godsend to indigent ”Pilgriinated is a ri the Blyde River terraces and inluscious peaches of the yellow clingstone variety Although the trees were ungrafted, unpruned, and, in fact, had not been interfered with by ave them auspicious birth, the size and flavor of the fruit were ail that could be desired

One gold-bearing creek was called ”Peach Tree,” on account of the nu Near the upper end of the worked portion of Pilgrim's Creek was a dense orchard that bore splendidly But, alas!

they grew over ”pay dirt,” and in consequence were ruthlessly uprooted

I am positive that the occurrence of these trees was quite adventitious; they did not appear to have been planted with any regard to order, nor as a rule were they found in localities suitable for hoin of these peach-trees Did sohtful old voortrekker carry peach stones in his pocket, and, as Admiral Rodney ont to do with acorns, plant them here and there for the benefit of posterity? Or did so, from the pocket of his blesbuck-skin jacket, dried fruit sent up by some kind tante from the far south, carelessly throw aside a stone which had been accidentally included, and was that the ancestor of those trees which used to afford us so htful feasts?

About half a century before the days I write of, the then thickly populated region surrounding these goldfields was turned into a shambles and a solitude by, the horde of the terrible Ma 'Ntatisi, chieftainess of the Bathlokua This tribe was driven from its territory at and around the sources of the Vaal River by the A of the upheaval caused by Tshaka, the Zulu king On many a level mountain terrace can still be seen the circular stone walls indicating where populous villages once stood Many clans, soe and so bethat is now Wakkerstroom and the Olifant River They lived in cohts took place, but the victors never attempted to ruin the vanquished or to take their territory

Ma 'Ntatisi's horde literally obliterated these cohter did not amount to five per cent of the whole

Old ”Kameel” was one of the survivors He was a native ith his faht of the creek, about half a mile above the Lower Camp