Part 8 (1/2)
We scrambled down the steep mountain-side, between patches of forest and over reefs of quartz. The latter had a special interest for us; we were now in the land of gold and who could tell where the clues of Fortune were not to be picked up? That afternoon the world was full of glorious possibilities.
We waded across the Blyde River drift and ascended the slope towards the town, which nestled behind a stony rise. Soon, with light hearts and lighter pockets (mine contained but seven s.h.i.+llings), we trudged up the one and only street. Here and there stood a digger, or a storekeeper, glancing with amused contempt at the raw ”new chums.” I happened to be wearing a pair of new moleskin breeches that were several sizes too wide for me. These were the occasion of a good deal of derisive comment. One man sang out to a friend across the street
”Say, Jim, them looks like town-made legs and country made trousers, eh?”
Joe's limp, also, was the subject of ribaldry. On the whole we must have been a strange looking pair. Feeling rather small under the scrutiny (not bethinking us that within a very few months we would be putting on similar airs of superiority towards weary tramps arriving under like conditions) we were glad when we had pa.s.sed through the towns.h.i.+p. We strolled up the winding valley, admiring the landscape and wondering how we were going to set about earning a living. The scenery was enchanting, but scenery by itself is not a satisfying diet.
On our course up the creek we pa.s.sed numbers of parties at work. Owing to the rugged nature of the Pilgrim's Valley, the pathway zigzagged a great deal. Some acquaintances of mine were said to be working among the terraces high up far beyond the Middle Camp and their tent was my objective. Once we heard a cheery hail from the bed of the creek, and saw a man waving a tin pannikin at us. This meant an invitation to tea, which we gladly accepted. The claim was worked by a couple of Australians; they were on a fair lead, so they told us. They gave us a supply of tobacco, and told us to call round again as soon as we ”got stony,” and they would see what they could do for us. This evidence of sympathy gave me, at least, a feeling of confidence which I badly needed.
We reached the Middle Camp; as we pa.s.sed Tom Craddock's bar a stalwart, bearded, and more or less inebriated digger came out with vociferous welcome and insisted on our going in and drinking at his expense. In the bar was a man I knew; seeing him had the effect of making me feel more or less at home. We sat and rested for a few moments; then I got hold of the idea that we were expected to stand return treat to our host and his friends. In this I was, as it happened, quite mistaken.
Joe had no money whatever, so I had to pay. My capital was now reduced to two s.h.i.+llings.
The man I met in the bar, whom I knew, told me that the friends I was seeking had, a few days previously, moved down creek. We had pa.s.sed their camp without knowing it, a couple of miles back. Joe and I were now dog-tired, so decided to go back to a warm nook we had noticed in a kloof on the way up, and spend the night there. We reached this spot just as night was falling, and ”dossed” down. Fuel was plentiful, so we made a lordly fire. We worked up our remaining meal into dampers and cooked them in the ashes. We found there was enough tea left for two brews; one of these we prepared at once. Then we filled our pipes with some of the kind Australians' seasonable gift, and sat puffing in a condition of mind that approached contentment.
It had been tacitly a.s.sumed that Joe and I were to be mates, although nothing definite had been said on the subject. We conversed for a while after supper; then silence fell upon us. I spoke several times to Joe, but he did not answer. Just as I was wrapping myself in my blanket for the night, Joe turned abruptly to me and said:
”Look here, I ain't your sort; you'll get a better mate. We'll shake hands in the morning and say goodbye.”
When I awoke in the grey dawn Joe had already risen, lit the fire, packed his swag, and brewed our last pinch of tea in the billy.
We drank to each other's good fortune in silence. Then, after a hand-press, Joe humped his swag and strode away, leaving me with moistened eyes. I felt I had lost my only friend. I have foregathered with much worse men than ”Artful Joe.”
Early that day I found my friends, some men I had known at Kimberley.
They agreed to allow me to work with them for my keep, my services then not being worth more. I knew nothing whatever about gold-mining, and, not having performed any manual labor for some time, my hands were soft. Every new chum had to undergo the purgatorial experience of having his palms blistered and re-blistered until continued contact with the handles of pick and shovel made them h.o.r.n.y. However, I soon matriculated at the sluice-box, and was able to do a fair day's work.
Then, as my friends could not afford to pay wages they were, for the time, off the ”lead,” I sought another employer. Work was easily found.
The uniform rate of wages for Europeans was an ounce of gold per week, the value thereof being about 3 12s. 6d.
With my first earnings I bought some double width unbleached calico and a palm and needle. By means of these I made myself a small tent. The cost of the material was about seventeen s.h.i.+llings, and the work was easily finished in the course of four or five evenings. I had not been living in this tent for more than ten days when a man, who was about to start on a prospecting trip, bought it over my head for 1pound 15s. I must have made, and sold at a profit, quite a dozen tents during my stay at Pilgrim's Rest. In fact I soon got to be known as ”that chap who always has a tent to sell.” When a purchaser came along I would deliver the tent at once, and move my few belongings to the dwelling of some friend or another who happened to have room to spare.
I lived very sparingly indeed; two s.h.i.+llings per diem paid for my food and tobacco. I h.o.a.rded every penny like a miser. I longed to prospect, to explore; but before attempting this it was necessary to have a few pounds in hand. On Sundays it was my habit to walk to the top of the ”Divide,” the backbone of the mountain range. On one side of it lay Pilgrim's Rest, on the other ”Mac Mac,” another mining camp so called on account of most of the diggers there in the first instance having been Scotsmen. From this lofty coign I could occasionally get far and faint glimpses of the mysterious ”Low Country,” which was just visible (in clear weather) over the intervening precipice-edged plateau which lay beyond the Mac Mac and Waterfall Creeks.
Sixty miles away to the north-east, but clearly visible in the rarefied mountain air, towered the mighty gates through which the Olifant River roared down to meet the Letaba. On their left the great ranges rolled away to the infinite north-west. What direction first to explore in?
That was a difficult question to decide, seeing that the field for adventure was equally enticing in every direction.
Beyond the deep valley in which Mac Mac nestled arose gradually a great, shelving tract. In rough outline it resembled a plateau, but the explorer found it to be much broken up and intersected by ravines, some of which were impa.s.sable for miles of their length. This plateau was very extensive; in fact, it stretched indefinitely to the north-east, the only break in that direction being the distant gates of the Oliphant. But on the south-east it ended in an enormous precipice, occasionally several thousand feet in sheer height.
The view from the edge of this precipice was marvelous. From the lower margin of the mighty wall the broken hills, covered with virgin forest, fell away with lessening steepness to the plains. These, also, were covered with trees; here, however, the woodland had a different character, for there was little or no undergrowth. The plains stretched away, to an immense distance. It was in this tract, far below the gazer on the cliff-edge, that romance dwelt in the tents of enchantment. Over it roamed the buffalo, the koodoo, and the giraffe. In the dark hour just before dawn the dew-laden boughs shrouding it trembled to the thunder-tones of the lion as he roared over his kill. Above all, its thickets of mystery had hardly been trodden by the foot of civilized man.
Even on the plateau itself large game was occasionally to be found.
Some lion, more enterprising than his fellows, would lead his mate and her brood up one of the dizzy clefts in the precipice to prey on the cattle which, in seasons of drought, the Lydenburg farmers occasionally sent here for the sake of the rich pasturage.
One morning, when brewing a billy of tea in a small rocky basin, I heard the sound of trampling. Looking round I saw nine elands descending the side of the depression and making straight for me. They came to within about eighty yards and then stood. The leader was an immense bull by far the largest I have ever seen. All looked as sleek and fat as stall-fed cattle. My only weapon was an old Colt revolver.
How I cursed my bad luck in not having a rifle. After gazing at me for a few seconds the elands galloped on, changing their course slightly to the right. They pa.s.sed within less than fifty yards of my fire.
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 Ma.s.sacres of natives in old days--Kameel--His expressions--Life on the creek--Major Macdonald--The parson--Boulders--Bad accidents--A quaint signboard--”Reefing Charlie”.
As the days lengthened out I began to extend the scope of my weekly rambles. Instead of starting on Sunday I would do so on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, as soon as work in the claim had ceased. Four hours stiff walking would take me over the Divide, and almost across the plateau beyond the Mac Mac River. At some suitable spot I would camp for the night. Next morning's dawn would find me on my way to the edge of the beetling cliff. However, sunrise was rarely a striking spectacle from there, for the reason that usually and more especially in the morning the Low Country was shrouded in haze. It was later, when the sun had climbed high and the haze had somewhat dissipated, that the prospect grew most enthralling. But haze, although its density varied considerably from time to time, was rarely absent from the regions lying eastward.
This almost continuous barrier to very distant vision used to annoy me considerably, for my eyes strove greedily to gather up details of the most remote tracts within their range. Once, on an unusually clear day, I caught sight of the Lebomba about eighty miles away. The very name of this then mysterious region used to thrill me with romance. How I longed to explore its heights which, after all, turned out not to be so very high and to plunge into its seaward hollows. How I girded at the vapor that almost continually shrouded it. But I am now inclined to believe that the glamour which made the prospect seen from the cliff-edge so rich, was largely due to the diaphanous impediment to complete vision. This, by hiding or allowing only a bare hint of the details, gave full play to the imagination.